PRAYER,

WRITTEN IN A SEASON OF PESTILENCE.

AUGUST, 1820.

O THOU Unseen Almighty God!
That rul'st in power alone,
Afflicted by thy righteous rod,
We bow before the throne.

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;
Yet would she own thy dealings just,
For judgment, Lord! is thine.

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,
And mingling choir,

While, slowly wafting vesper lays,
Mortals the glad oblation raise
To David's lyre.

When they devotion's impulse feel,
How calm the hour!

With trembling hope, the sisters kneel,
While Music, thought from earth doth steal
With holy power.

Richly the murmuring cadence flows,

The impulse given;

With cheerful swell, with solemn close,
Draws us away from earthly woes,
To dream of heaven.

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,
Who would not wish to die?

TO THE SUN.

EFFULGENT Orb! Parent of day
Emblem of the Eternal Mind,
Thou hold'st thy calm, majestic way,
In grandeur of thy own, enshrined.

Of old art thou; from night's long sleep
Chaos awakening, saw thy birth;

The Almighty claimed thee from the deep,
The life of renovated earth.

Thou saw'st, when journeying on thy car,
The animated tribes appear;

And thou wast present, when the star
Of morning chanted from his sphere.

Thy new-born beam on Paradise
Quivered with bright, rejoicing ray,
When the I AM in council wise,
Gave Man the undivided sway.

Thou saw'st him, conscious walk abroad,
In innocence, in beauty free;

Thou saw'st his offspring, weaned from God,
Render the matin vow to thee.

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,
To sentinel the battle-plain;

His crime has withered up thy source,
When He who lent thy fires was slain.

When thou, like day's divinity,
Climb'st the empyrean vault alone,-
We worship, while we view in thee,
The chastened splendours of the throne.

While vaunted empires wax, and wane,
O Sun! and nations rise and die;
Thou, undiminished, hold'st thy reign,
The gorgeous monarch of the sky.