PRAYER, WRITTEN IN A SEASON OF PESTILENCE. AUGUST, 1820. O THOU Unseen Almighty God! And thou wilt never bid" depart"— When our frail offerings rise, For thou hast said, "the broken heart, Is my own sacrifice." With earnest tears we intercede, For thy paternal care, And self-abased do humbly plead In penitential prayer. Our city weeps in lowly dust, And mourns the hand Divine; But while thou rid'st in frowning mien, And hold'st the balance true; O God! while the dread Scourge is seen, Let Pity triumph too. Though justice is thy diadem, And wrath is thine alone, Yet Mercy shines the brightest gem, Around the eternal throne. VESPERS. How awful is the note of praise, While, slowly wafting vesper lays, When they devotion's impulse feel, With trembling hope, the sisters kneel, Richly the murmuring cadence flows, The impulse given; With cheerful swell, with solemn close, Sweet is the requiem for the dead'Tis Music's sigh! At such an hour, while o'er the bed We bend, where rests the peaceful head, TO THE SUN. EFFULGENT Orb! Parent of day Of old art thou; from night's long sleep The Almighty claimed thee from the deep, Thou saw'st, when journeying on thy car, And thou wast present, when the star Thy new-born beam on Paradise Thou saw'st him, conscious walk abroad, Thou saw'st his offspring, weaned from God, Deeds of destruction, dark, and deepDread page!-it has been thine to scan; Thou hast beheld, when heaven could weep The madness, perfidy, of Man. His mandate has withheld thy course, His crime has withered up thy source, When thou, like day's divinity, While vaunted empires wax, and wane, |