LORD.
The Lord shall reign for ever and ever.—Exodus, xv. 18.
Hear, O Lord, and have mercy upon me: Lord, be thou my helper.—Psalm xxx. 10.
By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.—Psalm xxxiii. 6.
Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at his holy hill, for the Lord our God is holy.—Psalm xcix. 9.
And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of many thunderings, saying. Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.—Revelation, xix. 6.
Thou art of all created things
O Lord, the essence and the cause,
The source and centre of all bliss;
What are those veils of woven light,
Where sun and moon and stars unite,
The purple morn, the sprangled night,
But curtains which Thy mercy draws
Between the heavenly world and this?
The terrors of the sea and land,
When all the elements conspire,
The earth and water, storm and fire,
Are but the shadows of Thy hand;
The lightning’s flash, the howling storm,
The dread volcano’s awful blaze,
Proclaim Thy glory and Thy praise!
Beneath the sunny summer showers
Thy love assumes a milder form
And writes its angel name in flowers;
The wind that flies with winged feet
Around the grassy gladdened earth,
Seems but commissioned to repeat
In echo’s accents—silvery sweet—
That Thou, O Lord, didst give it birth.
There is a tongue in every flame,
There is a tongue in every wave,
To these the bounteous Godhead gave
These organs but to praise His name!
O mighty Lord of boundless space
Here canst Thou be both sought and found.
Thy presence and Thy power I trace;
With faith my guide and my defence,
I burn to serve in love and fear;
If as a slave, oh! leave me here,
If not, O Lord, remove me hence!
M’ Carthy, from the Spanish of Calderon.
The Lord of all, Himself through all diffused,
Sustains, and is the life of all that lives.
Nature is but a name for an effect,
Whose cause is God. He feeds the secret fire
By which the mighty process is maintained;
Who sleeps not, is not weary; in whose sight
Slow circling ages are as transient days;
Whose work is without labour; whose designs
No flaw deforms, no difficulty thwarts;
And whose beneficence no charge exhausts.
Him blind antiquity profaned, not served,
With self-taught rites, and under various names,
Female and Male Pomona, Pales, Pan,
And Flora, and Vertumnus; peopling earth
With tutelary goddesses and gods
That were not; and commending as they would
To each some province, garden, field, or grove.
But all are under one. One Spirit, His
Who wore the platted thorns with bleeding brows,
Rules universal nature. Not a flower
But shows some touch in freckle, streak, or stain,
Of His unrivalled pencil. He inspires
Their balmy odours, and imparts their hues,
And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes,
In grains as countless as the sea-side sands,
The forms with which He sprinkles all the earth.
Cowper.
The Lord will come! the earth shall quake,
The hills their fixed seat forsake;
And, with’ring, from the vault of night
The stars withdraw their feeble light.
The Lord will come! but not the same
As once in lowly form He came,
A silent Lamb to slaughter led,
The bruis’d, the suff’ring, and the dead.
The Lord will come! a dreadful form,
With wreath of flame, and robe of storm,
On cherub wings, and wings of wind,
Anointed Judge of human-kind!
Go, tyrants! to the rocks complain!
Go, seek the mountain’s cleft in vain!
But faith, victorious o’er the tomb,
Shall sing for joy, the Lord is come!
Heber.
Great Former of this various frame,
Our souls adore thine awful name;
And bow and tremble while they praise
The Ancient of eternal days.
Thou Lord, with unsurprised survey,
Saw’st nature rising yesterday;
And, as to-morrow, shall thine eye,
See earth and stars in ruin lie.
Doddridge.
In the dark winter of affliction’s hour,
When summer friends and pleasures haste away,
And the wrecked heart perceives how frail each power
It made a refuge, and believed a stay;
When man, all wild and weak is seen to be—
There’s none like Thee, O Lord! there’s none like Thee!
Thou in adversity canst be a sun;
Thou hast a healing balm, a sheltering tower,
The peace, the truth, the life, the love of One,
Nor wound, nor grief, nor storm can overpower
Gifts of a King; gifts, frequent and yet free,—
There’s none like Thee, O Lord! none, none like Thee!
Miss Jewsbury.
Attired with majesty, the Lord doth reign,
And girt with strength. The world immovably
Is stablished, and His throne shall aye remain!
Thou art for ever! The floods have lifted high,
O Lord! the floods have lifted high their voice,
The floods lift up their billows mightily—
The Lord on high is mightier than the noise
Of many waters, stronger than the seas—
Thy word is sure—Let all the earth rejoice!
J. A. Heraud.