Console, instruct, encourage, sooth, assist ;
Read, pray, and sing a new song to the Lord ;
Make tears of joy down grief-worn furrows flow.

O Health ! thou sun of life, without whose beam The fairest scenes of nature seem involved In darkness, shine upon my dreary path Once more ; or, with thy faintest dawn, give hope, That I may yet enjoy thy vital ray! Though transient be the hope, 'twill be most sweet, Like midnight music, stealing on the ear, Then gliding past, and dying slow away. Music! thou soothing power, thy charm is proved Most vividly when clouds o'ercast the soul ;So light its loveliest effect displays In lowering skies, when through the murky rack A slanting sunbeam shoots, and instant limns The etherial curve of seven harmonious dyes, Eliciting a splendour from the gloom : O Music! still vouchsafe to tranquillize This breast perturbed ; thy voice, though mourn

ful, sooths; And mournful aye are thy most beauteous lays, Like fall of blossoms from the orchard boughs, The autumn of the spring. Enchanting power ! Who, by the airy spell, canst whirl the mind Far from the busy haunts of men, to vales Where TWEED or YARROW flows; or, spurning

time, Recall red FLODDEN field ; or suddenly Transport, with altered strain, the deafened ear To LINDEX's plain!—But what the pastoral lay, The melting dirge, the battle's trumpet-peal, Compared to notes with sacred numbers linked

In union, solemn, grand! O then the spirit,
Upborne on pinions of celestial sound,
Soars to the throne of God, and ravished hears
Ten thousand times ten thousand voices rise
In halleluiahs, -voices, that erewhile
Were feebly tuned perhaps to low-breathed hymns
Of solace in the chambers of the poor,-
The Sabbath worship of the friendless sick.

Blest be the female votaries, whose days No Sabbath of their pious labours prove, Whose lives are consecrated to the toil Of ministering around the uncurtained couch Of pain and poverty! Blest be the hands, The lovely hands, (for beauty, youth, and grace, Are oft concealed by Pity's closest veil), That mix the cup medicinal, that bind The wounds, which ruthless warfare and disease Have to the loathsome lazar-house consigned.

Fierce Superstition of the mitred king! Almost I could forget thy torch and stake, When I this blessed sisterhood survey, Compassion's priestesses, disciples true Of Him, whose touch was health, whose single word Electrified with life the palsied arm,Of him who said, Take up thy bed and walk,Of him who cried to Lazarus, Come forth.

And he who cried to Lazarus, Come forth,
Will, when the Sabbath of the tomb is past,
Call forth the dead, and re-unite the dust
(Transformed and purified) to angel souls.
Ecstatic hope ! belief ! conviction firm !

How grateful 'tis to recollect the time
When hope arose to faith! Faintly at first,
The heavenly voice is heard ! then, by degrees,
Its music sounds perpetual in the heart.
Thus he, who all the gloomy winter long
Has dwelt in city crowds, wandering afield
Betimes on Sabbath morn, ere yet the spring
Unfold the daisy's bud, delighted hears
The first lark's note, faint yet, and short the song,
Checked by the chill ungenial northern breeze ;
But, as the sun ascends, another springs,
And still another soars on loftier wing,
Till all o'erhead, the joyous choir unseen,
Poized welkin high, harmonious fills the air,
As if it were a link 'tween earth and heaven.

SABBATH WALKS.

A SPRING SABBATH WALK.

Most earnest was his voice ! most mild his look,
As with raised hands he blessed his parting flock.
He is a faithful pastor of the poor ;-
He thinks not of himself; his Master's words,
Feed, feed my sheep, * are ever at his heart,
The cross of Christ is aye before his eyes.
O, how I love, with melted soul, to leave
The house of prayer, and wander in the fields
Alone ! What though the opening spring be chill!
Although the lark, checked in his airy path,
Eke out his song, perched on the fallow clod,
That still o'ertops the blade! Although no branch
Have spread its foliage, save the willow-wand,
That dips its pale leaves in the swollen stream !

What tho' the clouds oft lower! Their threats but

end In sunny showers, that scarcely fill the folds Of moss-couched violet, or interrupt The merle’s dulcet pipe,-melodious bird ! He, hid behind the milk-white sloe-thorn spray, (Whose early flowers anticipate the leaf,) Welcomes the time of buds, the infant year.

Sweet is the sunny nook, to which my steps Have brought me, hardly conscious where I roamed, Unheeding where,—so lovely all around, The works of God, arrayed in vernal smile.

Oft at this season, musing, I prolong My devious range, till, sunk from view, the sun Emblaze, with upward-slanting ray, the breast And wing unquivering of the wheeling lark, Descending, vocal, from her latest flight; While, disregardful of yon lonely star,The harbinger of chill night's glittering host,Sweet Redbreast, Scotia's Philomela, chants, In desultory strains, his evening hymn.

A SUMMER SABBATH WALK.

DELIGHTFUL is this loneliness! it calms
My heart : pleasant the cool beneath these elms,
That throw across the stream a moveless shade.
Here nature in her midnoon whisper speaks :
How peaceful every sound !--the ringdove's
plaint,