XXXIII.

SONG OF THE ANGELS.

AIL! Hail! Hail!

Welcome to your realm of beauty!
Welcome to your bleft abode !
Thus, with mingled love and duty,
We, the elder fons of God,

Join our voices to falute ye,

Pour our echoing strains abroad;

Now let triumph ride the gale, Peace and joy and praise prevail ! It is finished! Hail! All-hail!

Finished is the fix-days' wonder,

Since Jehovah's voice of might,
From the fecret place of thunder,
Spake the word, and there was light.
We have watched the glad returning
Of the day-star to the earth,
From the chamber of the Morning
Marching like a bridegroom forth.

We have watched the grand progreffion
Of the changes, as they paffed
Through each beautiful fucceffion,
Ye the lovelieft! ye the last!
'Tis the Sabbath of Creation!
upon His throne doth reft;
And His fmile of approbation,
All His perfect work hath bleft.

God

Of the mighty lyre of Nature
Harmonized is every chord ;
And the least and loftieft creature
Breathes thanksgiving to the Lord.
Ye, in whom the beauty liveth,

We have longed and watched to view,
Praise with us the God who giveth
You to us and us to you.

For

ye,-for ye

have a foul like ours;

It heaves in your bofom, it beams thro' your eye; Baptized in the feelings, endowed with the powers, That burn through the depth of eternity. And happy are we, unto whom 'tis given,

To tend you as guardians, and cheer you as friends, Happy to speed from our homes in Heaven, And carry the bleffings your Father fends.

We will encamp you around by night,
Your holy reft to keep;

Like the hills that watch in fhadowy night
and deep,

Round the lake fo pure

Which dreaming of diftant worlds of light,
Lies locked in their arms asleep.

And as that still lake awakes and rejoices,
When Zephyr his play-mates hath found;
That dance to shore with their liquid voices,
Telling their joy around;

So ye fhall awake at our gentle call,

From your pillow of fern and heather; And we'll fing to the God and Father of all, Our Matin praise together.

When past the freshness of the dawning,
And spent the fpirits of the breeze;
When fiery noon comes down, embrowning
The flippery turf beneath the trees;
Our wings fhall interweave an awning,
Of cooler fhade than these.

And when the fapphire gates of even
Open to realms beyond;

When Earth to the embrace of Heaven,
Doth glowingly respond;

When sweet and flumbrous melodies

O'er land and water creep,

As Nature fits, with half-fhut eyes,
Singing herself to fleep.

Ye fhall catch the gleam of our golden hair,

In the wake of the finking fun

;

And we'll wander on earth, or hover in air,
With our robes of glory on.

And those whofe miffion with daylight closes,
As homeward they hie them fast,

Shall leave you a chaplet of Heaven's own roses, On the mountain they touched the last.

Yet not to the animal taste alone

Is our office of love confined;
We will minister pleasures of loftier tone,
To the fubtler fenfe of mind.

In the beauty that wooes the eye around,
In the mufic that haunts the ear,
Ye fhall feel a prefence more profound,
Than aught that ye fee and hear.

A voice from the ocean's world of wonder,
From the mountain's creft elate,

From the rushing wind, from the rolling thunder,
Announces "GOD IS GREAT."
Where in the foreft's lonely place,

The fountain dwells fecure ;.
With fmiles upon its dimpled face,
It tells us "GOD IS PURE."

The humblest flower, the tiniest creature,
That creeps, or swims, or flies,
Joins with the mightier forms of nature
To atteft that "GOD IS WISE."
The bleffing with the sunshine given,
Wakes joy in field and grove;

Heaven speaks to earth, and earth to Heaven
Makes anfwer "GOD IS LOVE."

Thus borrowing from material things
A token and a tone,

We'll teach of love, whofe fecret springs

God fees and God alone.

And would ye know what deeds are done
In other worlds afar?

And call down teachers many a one,
From planet and from star?

Delightful tafk, to fingle out

Some twinkling point of light

From all the diamonds wreathed about

The coronal of night;

And draw you of its scenery
A landscape grand and ftrange,
And trace through all its history
The wondrous path of change!

Yet there be vast and dim dominions,
Ocean without a fhore,
Which not the boldest angel-pinions
Have ventured to explore;
And there be mysteries fathomlefs,
Wrought in a realm of fire,
Whereat the Cherubim may guess,
But have not dared enquire.

One thing we know, that ages back, Before your earth was made, There rose a cloud, fo denfely black It caft e'en Heaven in fhade.

That darkness past, and light on high
Again ferenely fhone;

But when we looked along the sky,
Ten thousand stars were gone!

Again the angel-watch was fet
The eternal gates before;
But many a face we there had met,

We met again no more.

God o'er their fate a veil has spread, Nor further may we win;

Save of its cause a rumour dread,

That fighed the name of fin.