All recklessly they rush to hear Favour found and saving grace; Rescued from the doom that hurled To chaos back a sinful world.- Every noble trait effaced, To rapine, lust, and murder given, The heart of erring man is closed Tremble, Earth! the awful doom Of daylight up the wood and stream, Or the rich and ripened corn What arrests their frantic course? Lips are quivering-cheeks are pale— Eyes with bursting terror gaze Clouds in quick succession rise; Darkness spreads o'er all the skies; And a lurid twilight gloom Closes o'er earth's living tomb! Nature's pulse has ceased to play Lo! the fearful pause is past The awful tempest bursts at last! With a deluge flood the plain; The rocks are rent, the mountains reel, Hark! that loud, tremendous roar! Hollow murmurs fill the air, Shrieks of woe and fearful cries, Dire confusion, frantic grief, Like a tempest heaves the crowd, While in accents fierce and loud, With pallid lips and curdled blood, Each trembling cries, "THE FLOOD! THE FLOOD!" STANZAS. BY THE REV. HENRY THOMPSON, M. A. I. BENEATH thy lorn palm by the thunderbolt riven, Weep, Daughter of Judah! thy sorrows alone; Thy sons to each wind of the firmament driven, Thine altars profaned, and thy ramparts o'erthrown. II. Weep, desolate Queen! if that tear may remove The bloodstain that darkens thy stormwithered brow Pale symbol of hearts that in bitterness rove, As darkling, as cold, as deserted as thou. III. Hope's fabrics are bright as thine innermost shrine : The tempest hath swept-the Shechinah hath past; And Love, from a region resplendent as thine, Is driven to the stranger, the wild, and the blast. Fallen spouse IV. of the Highest! Heaven's consort dethroned! Go, read thy dark tale to each wanderer bereaved; His sin thy rejection-a Saviour disowned : Thy hope his salvation-a Saviour received. V. Turn, Husband of Israel! O turn, and renew Thine Image divine from earth's contact impure; O wean our weak hearts from all love but the true! O rein our wild hopes from all joy but the sure! VI. The severed, the dead, to thy love we entrust, May breathe on the incense that floats to thy throne ; VII. If earth have some hopes which not heaven will condemn, Some ties which aspire the High Presence to see; The friends past to glory-O raise us to them! The friends left in sorrow -O guide them to Thee! Rectory, Wrington. August 6, 1830. |