[EVENING HYMN.]
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Father! by Thy love and power, Comes again the evening hour; Light hath vanish'd, labors cease, Weary creatures rest, in peace. Those, whose genial dews distil On the lowliest weed that grows Father! guard our couch from ill, Lull thy creatures to repose. We to Thee ourselves resign, Let our latest thoughts be Thine. Saviour! to thy Father bear This our feeble evening prayer; Thou hast seen how oft to-day We, like sheep, have gone astray; Worldly thoughts and thoughts of pride, Wishes to Thy cross untrue, Secret faults and undescried Meet Thy spirit-piercing view. Blessed Saviour! yet, through Thee, Pray that these may pardon'd be. Holy Spirit! Breath of Balm! Breathe on us in evening's calm. Yet awhile before we sleep, We with Thee will vigils keep. Lead us on our sins to muse, Give us truest penitence, Then the love of God infuse, Kindling humblest confidence. Melt our spirits, mould our will, Soften, strengthen, comfort, still. Blessed Trinity! be near Through the hours of darkness drear. When the help of man is far Ye more clearly present are. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! Watch o'er our defenceless heads, Let your angels' guardian host Keep all evil from our beds, Till the flood of morning rays Wake as to a song of praise.[1] |
[CHAPTER VIII.]
Mr. Arlington is a gem of the first water. He reveals every day some new trait of interest or agreeableness. I saw immediately that he was a man of fine taste; I have since learned to respect him as a man of enlarged intellect and earnest feeling; and now I am just beginning to discover that he is master of all those agrémens which constitute the charm of general society, and that he might become the "glass of fashion," if he had not a mind elevated too far above such a petty ambition. This last observation has been called forth by mere trifles, yet trifles so prettily shown, with such ease and grace, as to justify the conclusion. He is apt at illustration and application, and has a fine memory, stored brimfull of entertaining anecdotes, snatches of poetry, and those thousand nothings which tell for so much in society, and which it is so pleasant to find combined with much else that is valuable. A few evenings since, he kept Annie and me in the library, with his agreeable chat, till so late an hour, that Col. Donaldson, who is the least bit of a martinet in his own family, gave some very intelligible hints to us the next morning, at breakfast, on the value of early hours. With a readiness and grace which I never saw surpassed, Mr. Arlington turned to us with the exquisite apology of the poet for a like fault,
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"I stay'd too late; forgive the crime; Unheeded flew the hours. Unnoted falls the foot of time, Which only treads on flowers." |
This evening again, as he placed a candle-screen before Annie, who, having a headache, found the light oppressive, he said with a graceful mixture of play and earnest, impossible to describe,
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"Ah, lady! if that taper's blaze Requires a screen to blunt its rays, What screen, not form'd by art divine, Shall shield us from those orbs of thine? "But oh! let nothing intervene Our hearts and those bright suns between; 'Tis bliss, like the bewilder'd fly To flutter round, though sure to die." |
As the others were engaged in very earnest conversation at the time, and I was reading, he probably expected to be heard only by her to whom he addressed himself; but a little romance, such as that of Annie and Mr. Arlington, acted before me, interests me far more than any book, and I brought a bright blush to Annie's cheek and a conscious smile to his lip, by asking, "Where did you find those very apposite lines? I do not remember to have seen them."
"Probably not, as they have never been published. They were addressed by Anthony Bleecker, of New-York, to a belle of his day, and the lady for whose sake, it is whispered, he lived and died a bachelor."