SACRED SONGS.

TO THE REV. THOMAS PARKINSON, D. D. ARCHDEACON OF LEICESTER, CHANCELLOR OF CHESTER, AND RECTOR OF KEGWORTH,

This Number of “Sacred Songs" is Inscribed,

By his Obliged and Faithful Friend,

Sloperton Cottage, Devizes,

May 22, 1824.

No. I.

THOMAS MOORE.

THOU ART, OH GOD!

Air.- Unknown.*

"The day is thine; the night also is thine: thou hast prepared the light and the sun.

"Thou hast set all the borders of the earth; thou hast made summer and winter.”—Psalm lxxiv. 16, 17.

I.

THOU art, oh God! the life and light
Of all this wondrous world we see;
Its glow by day, its smile by night,
Are but reflections caught from thee.
Where'er we turn thy glories shine,
And all things fair and bright are Thine!

II.

When Day, with farewell beam, delays
Among the opening clouds of Even,

* I have heard that this air is by the late Mrs. Sheridan. It is sung to the beautiful old words, "I do confess thour't smooth and fair."

And we can almost think we gaze

Through golden vistas into heavenThose hues, that make the sun's decline So soft, so radiant, Lord! are Thine.

III.

When Night, with wings of starry gloom,
O'ershadows all the earth and skies,
Like some dark, beauteous bird, whose plume
Is sparkling with unnumbered eyes—
That sacred gloom, those fires divine,
So grand, so countless, Lord! are Thine.
IV.

When youthful Spring around us breathes,
Thy Spirit warms her fragrant sigh;
And every flower the Summer wreathes
Is born beneath that kindling eye.
Where'er we turn, thy glories shine,
And all things fair and bright are Thine!

And false the light on Glory's plume,

As fading hues of Even;

And Love, and Hope, and Beauty's bloom,

Are blossoms gather'd for the tomb,

There's nothing bright but heaven!
III.

Poor wanderers of a stormy day,
From wave to wave we're driven,
And Fancy's flash, and Reason's ray,
Serve but to light the troubled way—
There's nothing calm but heaven!
T

FALLEN IS THY THRONE.

AIR.-Martini.

I.

FALLEN is thy throne, oh Israel!
Silence is o'er thy plains;
Thy dwellings all lie desolate,

Thy children weep in chains.
Where are the dews that fed thee
On Etham's barren shore ?
That fire from heaven which led thee,
Now lights thy path no more.

II.

Lord!. thou didst love Jerusalem-
Once she was all thy own;
Her love thy fairest heritage,
Her power thy glory's throne t
Till evil came, and blighted

Thy long-loved olive-tree ;-
And Salem's shrines were lighted
For other Gods than Thee!

III.

Then sunk the star of Solyma

Then pass'd her glory's day,
Like heath that, in the wilderness,§
The wild wind whirls away.
Silent and waste her bowers,
Where once the mighty trod,

And sunk those guilty towers,
While Baal reign'd as God!

IV.

"Go," said the Lord-"Ye conquerors!
Steep in her blood your swords,

"I have left mine heritage; I have given the dearlybeloved of my soul into the hands of her enemies."―Jeremiah xii. 7.

+ "Do not disgrace the throne of thy glory."-Jer. xiv. 21. "The Lord called thy name a green olive-tree; fair and of goodly fruit," etc.-Jer. xi. 16,

"For he shall be like the heath in the desert."-Jer. xvři. 6.

And rase to earth her battlements,**
For they are not the Lord's!
Till Zion's mournful daughter
O'er kindred bones shall tread,
And Hinnom's vale of slaughter +

Shall hide but half her dead!"

WHO IS THE MAID?-ST. JEROME'S LOVE.
AIR. -Beethoven.

I.

WHO is the maid my spirit seeks,

Through cold reproof and slander's blight?
Has she Love's roses on her cheeks?
Is her's an eye of this world's light?
No,-wan and sunk with midnight prayer
Are the pale looks of her I love;
Or if, at times, a light be there,
Its beam is kindled from above.

II.

I chose not her, my soul's elect,

From those who seek their Maker's shrine
In gems and garlands proudly deck'd,
As if themselves were things divine!
No-Heaven but faintly warms the breast
That beats beneath a broider'd veil;
And she who comes in glittering vest
To mourn her frailty, still is frail.

III.

Not so the faded form I prize

And love, because its bloom is gone;

"Take away her battlements; for they are not the Lord's." -Jer. v. 10.

"Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; for they shall bury in Tophet till there be no place."-Jer. vii. 32.

"These lines were suggested by a passage in St. Jerome's reply to some calumnious remarks that had been circulated upon his intimacy with the matron Paula :-" "Numquid me vestes serica, nitentes gemmæ, picta facies, aut auri rapuit ambitio? Nulla fuit alia Romæ matronarum, quæ meam possit edomare mentem, nisi lugens atque jejunans, fletu pene cæcata."-Epist: "Si tibi putem."

The glory in those sainted eyes
Is all the grace her brow puts on.
And ne'er was Beauty's dawn so bright,
So touching as that form's decay,
Which, like the altar's trembling light,
In holy lustre wastes away!

THE BIRD, LET LOOSE.
AIR.-Beethoven.

I.

THE bird, let loose in eastern skies,*
When hastening fondly home,
Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, nor flies
Where idle warblers roam,

But high she shoots through air and light,
Above all low delay,

Where nothing earthly bounds her flight,
Nor shadow dims her way.

II.

So grant me, God! from every care
And stain of passion free,
Aloft, through Virtue's purer air,
To hold my course to Thee!
No sin to cloud-no lure to stay
My Soul, as home she springs ;—
Thy sunshine on her joyful way,
Thy freedom in her wings!

OH! THOU WHO DRY'ST THE MOURNER'S TEAR. AIR.-Haydn.

"He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds."-Psalm cxlvii. 3.

I.

OH! Thou who dry'st the mourner's tear,

How dark this world would be,

The carrier-pigeon, it is well known, flies at an elevated pitch, in order to surmount every obstacle between her and the place to which she is destined.