Swift o'er the marble brow
The cold dews gather; oh! what hand shall guide
The trembling spirit on its passage now
To regions yet untried?
Raise the dark veil hung o'er that mystic land,
And light the wanderer's path from time's receding sand?
The starless night of thought
Was lit at Mercy's shrine with purest ray,
And heavenly truth so long, so vainly sought,
Shone forth in its mid-day;
As angels tuned their harps to higher strains,
And rose the star of peace o'er Bethlehem's hallowed plains.
Then the Incarnate came,
Veiling his God-head in the human form;
Not with the clarion's voice, the trump of fame,
The earthquake and the storm:
He came—the living God, creation's King!
Humble, despised, unknown—joy, 'peace on earth' to bring!
Oh' fearful was the hour
When Vengeance poured on his devoted head
The wrath of ages, and stern Death had power
His fiery shafts to shed;
The sun his radiance veiled in midnight gloom,
And woke to life and light the tenants of the tomb.
Mysterious Three in One!
My spirit bows, by matchless love o'erwrought;
Thyself all-knowing yet by all unknown,
Beyond the height of thought!
Justice and Mercy in thy works combine,
As o'er the raging flood the glittering rain-bows shine.
Thou watchest o'er the birth
Of every flower that springs to bloom and die,
The sparrow falls not to the breast of earth
Unnoticed by thine eye;
And suns and systems at thy glance have passed.
As withered leaves are swept before the wintry blast.
And when the voice of Time
Shall chant the death-dirge o'er Earth's ruined fanes;
When the archangel's voice in tones sublime
Shall echo o'er her plains;
Unchanged, unchanging, Thou shalt rise o'er all,
While Nature's face shall rest beneath Oblivion's pall.
[MIND OR INSTINCT.]
AN INQUIRY CONCERNING THE MANIFESTATION OF MIND BY THE LOWER ORDERS OF ANIMALS.
'In some are found
Such teachable and apprehensive parts,
That man's attainments in his own concerns,
Matched with th'expertness of the brutes in their's,
Are ofttimes vanquished and thrown far behind.'