Breathes her grateful chant, to chide

Our too tardy sympathies.

Little babes and angels bright—

They muse, be sure, and wonder, day and night,

How th' all-holy Hand should give,

The sinner's hand in thanklessness receive.

We see it and we hear,

But wonder not; for why? we feel it all too near.

Not in vain, when feasts are spread,

To the youngest at the board

Call we to incline the head,

And pronounce the solemn word.

Not in vain they clasp and raise

The soft, pure fingers in unconscious praise,-
Taught, perchance, by pictured wall

How little ones before the Lord may fall,

How to His loved caress

Reach out the restless arm, and near and nearer press.

Children in their joyous ranks,

As you pace the village street, Fill the air with smiles and thanks

If but once one babe you greet.

Never weary, never dim,

From thrones seraphic mounts th' eternal hymn.

Babes and angels grudge no praise:

But elder souls, to whom His saving ways

Are open, fearless take

Their portion, hear the Grace, and no meek answer make.

Save our blessings, Master, save

From the blight of thankless eye: Teach us for all joys to crave

Benediction pure and high,

Own them given, endure them gone,

Shrink from their hardening touch, yet prize them won:

Prize them as rich odours, meet

For love to lavish on His sacred feet:

Prize them as sparkles bright

Of heavenly dew, from yon o'erflowing well of light.

Thou hast left the joyous feast,
And the mirth and wine have ceast
And now we set thee down before
The jealously unclosing door;
That the favour'd youth admits,
Where the veiled virgin sits
In the bliss of maiden fear,
Waiting our soft tread to hear,
And the music's brisker din,
At the bridegroom's entering in ;
Entering in a welcome guest
To the chamber of his rest.

CHORUS OF MAIDENS.

Now the jocund song is thine,
Bride of David's kingly line;
How thy dove-like bosom trembleth,
And thy shrouded eye resembleth
Violets, when the dews of eve
A moist and tremulous glitter leave
On the bashful sealèd lid!

Close within the bride-veil hid,
Motionless thou sitt'st and mute;
Save that at the soft salute
Of each entering maiden friend,
Thou dost rise and softly bend.

Hark! a brisker, merrier glee!
The door unfolds, 't is he! 'tis he!

Thus we lift our lamps to meet him,
Thus we touch our lutes to greet him.
Thou shalt give a fonder meeting,

Thou shalt give a tenderer greeting.

THE COMING OF THE JUDGE.

EVEN thus, amid thy pride and luxury,

O Earth! shall that last coming burst on thee,
That secret coming of the SON OF MAN:
When all the cherub-throning clouds shall shine,
Irradiate with his bright advancing sign:

When that Great Husbandman shall wave his fan,
Sweeping, like chaff, thy wealth and pomp away,
Still, to the noontide of that nightless day,

Shalt thou thy wonted dissolute course maintain.
Along the busy mart and crowded street,
The buyer and the seller still shall meet,

And marriage-feasts begin their jocund strain.
Still to the pouring out the CUP OF WOE;
Till Earth, a drunkard, reeling to and fro,
And mountains molten by his burning feet,

And Heaven his presence own, all red with furnace heat.