2 Here holy thoughts a light have shed
From many a radiant face,
And prayers of tender hope have spread
A perfume through the place.
3 And anxious hearts have pondered here
The mystery of life,
And prayed the Eternal Spirit clear
Their doubts and aid their strife.
4 From humble tenements around
Came up the pensive train,
And in the church a blessing found,
Which filled their homes again.
5 They live with God, their homes are dust;
But here their children pray,
And, in this fleeting lifetime, trust
To find the narrow way.
1 GREAT God! let all our tuneful powers
Awake and sing thy mighty name;
Thy hand rolls on our circling hours,
The hand from which our being came.
2 Seasons and moons, revolving round
In beauteous order, speak thy praise;
And years, with smiling mercy crowned,
To thee successive honors raise.
3 Each changing season on our souls
Its sweetest, kindest influence sheds;
And every period, as it rolls,
Showers countless blessings on our heads.
4 Our lives, our health, our friends, we owe
All to thy vast, unbounded love;
Ten thousand precious gifts below,
And hope of nobler joys above.
1 THE winter is over and gone,
The thrush whistles sweet on the spray,
The turtle breathes forth her soft moan,
The lark mounts and warbles away.
2 Shall every creature around
Their voices in concert unite,
And I, the most favored, be found
In praising to take less delight?
3 Awake, then, my harp, and my lute!
Sweet organs, your notes softly swell!
No longer my lips shall be mute,
The Saviour's high praises to tell.
4 His love in my heart shed abroad,
My graces shall bloom as the spring;
This temple, his Spirit's abode;
My joy as my duty to sing.
1 WHEN verdure clothes the fertile vale,
And blossoms deck the spray,
And fragrance breathes in every gale,
How sweet the vernal day!
2 Hark! how the feathered warblers sing!
'Tis Nature's cheerful voice;
Soft music hails the lovely spring,
And woods and fields rejoice.
3 Earth and her thousand voices give
Their thousand notes of praise;
And all, that by his mercy live,
To God their offering raise.
4 O God of nature and of grace,
Thy heavenly gifts impart;
Then shall my meditation trace
Spring, blooming in my heart.
• Inspired to praise, I then shall join
Glad Nature's cheerful song,
And love and gratitude divine
Attune my joyful tongue.
THE leaves around me falling
Are preaching of decay;
The hollow winds are calling,
"Come, pilgrim, come away
The day, in night declining,
Says I must too decline;
The year its bloom resigning,
Its lot foreshadows mine.
2 The light my path surrounding,
The loves to which I cling,
The hopes within me bounding,
The joys that round me wing, —
All, all, like stars at even,
Just gleam and shoot away,
Pass on before to heaven,
And chide at my delay.
3 The friends gone there before me
Are calling from on high,
And happy angels o'er me
Tempt sweetly to the sky:
"Why wait," they say, "and wither,
'Mid scenes of death and sin?
O rise to glory, hither,
And find true life begin."
1 SEE the leaves around us falling,
Dry and withered to the ground,
Thus to thoughtless mortals calling,
In a sad and solemn sound:
2 "Sons of Adam, (once in Eden,
Where, like us, he blighted fell,)
Hear the lesson we are reading;
Mark the awful truth we tell.
3 Youth, on length of days presuming,
Who the paths of pleasure tread;
View us, late in beauty blooming,
Numbered now among the dead.
4 "What though yet no losses grieve you, Gay with health and many a grace; Let not cloudless skies deceive you : Summer gives to autumn place.
5" Yearly in our course returning,
Messengers of shortest stay,
Thus we preach this truth concerning,
Heaven and earth shall pass away."
6 On the tree of life eternal,
O let all our hopes be laid;
This alone, for ever vernal,
Bears a leaf that shall not fade.
Imitation of Thomson's Hymn on the Seasons.
LORD of the worlds below!
On earth thy glories shine;
The changing seasons show
Thy skill and power divine.
In all we see
A God appears;
The rolling years
Are full of thee.
2 Forth in the flowery spring
We see thy beauty move;
The birds on branches sing
Thy tenderness and love;
Wide flush the hills; Devotion's calm
Our bosom fills.
Then come, in robes of light,
The summer's flaming days;
The sun, thine image bright,
Thy majesty displays;
But still our souls
In thee rejoice.
In autumn, a rich feast
Thy common bounty gives
|