From whom the last dismay
Was not to pass away!
Aid us, O God!

Tremblers beside the grave,
We call on thee to save,
Father, divine!

Hear, hear our suppliant breath,
Keep us, in life and death,
Thine, only thine!

THE

PRAYER IN THE WILDERNESS.

SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF CORREGIO'S.

In the deep wilderness unseen she pray'd,
The daughter of Jerusalem; alone,

With all the still small whispers of the night,
And with the searching glances of the stars,
And with her God, alone:-she lifted up

Her sweet, sad voice, and, trembling o'er her head,
The dark leaves thrill'd with prayer-the tearful

prayer

Of woman's quenchless, yet repentant love.

Father of Spirits, hear!

Look on the inmost heart to thee reveal'd,
Look on the fountain of the burning tear,
Before thy sight in solitude unseal'd!

Hear, Father! hear, and aid!

If I have loved too well, if I have shed,
In my vain fondness, o'er a mortal head,

Gifts, on thy shrine, my God! more fitly laid.

If I have sought to live

But in one light, and made a human eye
The lonely star of mine idolatry,

Thou that art Love! oh, pity and forgive!

Chasten'd and school'd at last,

No more, no more my struggling spirit burns,
But fix'd on thee, from that wild worship turns-
What have I said?-the deep dream is not past!

Yet hear!-if still I love,

Oh! still too fondly-if, for ever seen,

An earthly image comes, my heart between,
And thy calm glory, Father! throned above!

If still a voice is near,

(E'en while I strive these wanderings to control,) An earthly voice, disquieting my soul With its deep music, too intensely dear.

O Father draw to thee

My lost affections back!—the dreaming eyes

Clear from their mist-sustain the heart that dies, Give the worn soul once more its pinions free!

I must love on, O God!

This bosom must love on! but let thy breath Touch and make pure the flame that knows no death, Bearing it up to Heaven!-Love's own abode !

Ages and ages past, the wilderness,

With its dark cedars, and the thrilling night,
With her clear stars, and the mysterious winds,
That waft all sound, were conscious of those prayers.
How many such hath woman's bursting heart
Since then, in silence and in darkness breathed,
Like the dim night-flower's odour, up to God?

HYMN OF THE VAUDOIS MOUNTAINEERS IN TIMES OF PERSECUTION.

"Thanks be to God for the mountains!"

Howitt's Book of the Seasons.

FOR the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers' God!

Thou hast made thy children mighty,
By the touch of the mountain sod.
Thou hast fix'd our ark of refuge,
Where the spoiler's foot ne'er trod;
For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers' God!

We are watchers of a beacon
Whose light must never die;
We are guardians of an altar
'Midst the silence of the sky:
The rocks yield founts of courage,
Struck forth as by thy rod;

For the strength of the hills we bless thee,

Our God, our fathers' God!

For the dark resounding caverns,
Where thy still, small voice is heard;
For the strong pines of the forests,

That by thy breath are stirr'd;
For the storms, on whose free pinions
Thy spirit walks abroad;

For the strength of the hills we bless thee, Our God, our fathers' God!

The royal eagle darteth

On his quarry from the heights,
And the stag that knows no master,
Seeks there his wild delights;
But we, for thy communion,

Have sought the mountain sod;

For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers' God!

The banner of the chieftain,
Far, far below us waves;
The war-horse of the spearman
Cannot reach our lofty caves:
Thy dark clouds wrap the threshold
Of freedom's last abode;

For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers' God!

For the shadow of thy presence,

Round our camp of rock outspread;

For the stern defiles of battle,
Bearing record of our dead;

For the snows and for the torrents,
For the free heart's burial sod;

For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers' God!

VOL. VII.

17

PRISONERS' EVENING SERVICE.

A SCENE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.'

From their spheres

The stars of human glory are cast down;
Perish the roses and the flowers of kings,

Princes and emperors, and the crown and palms
Of all the mighty, wither'd and consumed!
Nor is power given to lowliest innocence
Long to protect her own.

Wordsworth.

SCENE-Prison of the Luxembourg, in Paris, during the Reign of Terror.

D'AUBIGNE, an aged Royalist—BLANCHE, his
Daughter, a young girl.

Blanche. What was our doom, my father?—In thine arms

I lay unconsciously through that dread hour.
Tell me the sentence !-Could our judges look,
Without relenting, on thy silvery hair?

Was there not mercy, father?— Will they not
Restore us to our home.

D'Aubigné.

They send us home.

Yes, my poor child!

The last days of two prisoners in the Luxembourg, Sillery and La Source, so affectingly described by Helen Maria Williams, in her Letters from France, gave rise to this little scene. These two victims had composed a simple hymn, which they every night sung together in a low and restrained voice.