Through David's city I am led;
Here all around are sleeping:
A light directs to yon poor shed,
There lonely watch is keeping:
I enter;—ah! what glories shine!
Is this Immanuel's earthly shrine,
Messiah's infant temple?
This Stranger meek and lowly,
As saints and seraphs bow before
The throne of God thrice holy;
Faith through the veil of flesh can see
The face of Thy Divinity,
My Lord, my God, my Saviour!
HARK! while I sing, our village clock
The hour of eight, good sirs, has struck.
Eight souls alone from death were kept
When God the earth with deluge swept.
Unless the Lord to guard us deign,
Man wakes and watches all in vain.
Lord! through thine all-prevailing might,
Do thou vouchsafe us a good night!
Hark! while I sing, our village clock
The hour of nine, good sirs, has struck.
Nine lepers cleansed returned not.
Be not thy blessings, man, forgot.
Unless the Lord to guard us deign,
Man wakes and watches all in vain.
Lord! through thine all-prevailing might,
Do thou vouchsafe us a good night
Hark! while I sing, our village clock
The hour of ten, good sirs, has struck.
Ten precepts show God's holy will.
Oh, may we prove obedient still!
Unless the Lord to guard us deign,
Man wakes and watches all in vain.
Lord! through thine all-prevailing might,
Do thou vouchsafe us a good night!
Hark! while I sing, our village clock
The hour of twelve, good sirs, has struck.
Twelve is of time the boundary.
Man, think upon eternity!
Unless the Lord to guard us deign,
Man wakes and watches all in vain.
Lord! through thine all-prevailing might,
Do thou vouchsafe us a good night!
Hark! while I sing, our village clock
The hour of one, good sirs, has struck.
One God alone reigns over all :
Nought can without His will befall.
Unless the Lord to guard us deign,
Man wakes and watches all in vain.
Lord! through thine all-prevailing might,
Do thou vouchsafe us a good night!
Hark! while I sing, our village clock
The hour of four, good sirs, has struck.
Four seasons crown the farmer's care.
Thy heart with equal toil prepare.
Up, up, awake! nor slumber on;
The morn approaches, night is gone!
Thank God, who by His strength and might,
Has watch'd and kept us through this night.
THE Frenchman, first in literary fame,
With spirit, genius, eloquence, supplied,
Lived long, wrote much, laughed heartily, and died ;
The Scripture was his jest-book, whence he drew
Bon mots, to gall the Christian and the Jew;
An infidel in health, but what when sick?
Oh-then a text would touch him to the quick:
View him at Paris in his last career,
Surrounding throngs the demigod revere;
Exalted on his pedestal of pride,
And fumed with frankincense on every side,
He begs their flattery with his latest breath,
And smothered in't at last, is prais'd to death.
Yon cottager, who weaves at her own door
Pillow and bobbins, all her little store;
Content though mean, and cheerful if not gay,
Shuffling her threads about the live-long day,
Just earns a scanty pittance, and at night
Lies down secure, her heart and pocket light;
She, for her humble sphere by nature fit,
Has little understanding and no wit,
Receives no praise, but, though her lot be such,
(Toilsome and indigent) she renders much,
Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true—
A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew—
And in that charter reads with sparkling eyes
Her title to a treasure in the skies.
O happy peasant! O unhappy bard!
His the mere tinsel, her's the rich reward:
He, praised, perhaps, for ages yet to come;
She, never heard of half a mile from home
He, lost in errors his vain heart prefers;
She, safe in the simplicity of her's.
BEHOLD this ruin! 'twas a skull,
Once of ethereal spirit full;-
This narrow cell was life's retreat;
This space was thought's mysterious seat.
What beauteous pictures filled this spot!
What dreams of pleasure long forgot!
Nor love, nor joy, nor hope, nor fear,
Has left one trace or record here.
Beneath this mouldering canopy,
Once shone the bright and lovely eye;
But start not at the empty cell;
If on the Cross it loved to dwell;
If with no lawless fire it gleamed,
But with contrition's tear-drop beamed,
That eye shall shine for ever bright,
When suns and stars have lost their light.
Here, in this silent cavern, hung,
The ready, swift, and tuneful tongue;
If of redeeming love it spoke,
Confessing Jesus' easy yoke,
If with persuasive mildness bold,
Condemning sin, of grace it told;
That tuneful tongue in realms above,
Shall sing Messiah's reign of love.
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