Wouldst thou a Poet be?

And would thy dull heart fain Borrow of Israel's minstrelsy

One high enraptur'd strain?

Come here thy soul to tune,

Here set thy feeble chant, Here, if at all beneath the moon,

Is holy David's haunt.

Art thou a child of tears,

Cradled in care and woe?
And seems it hard, thy vernal years

Few vernal joys can shew ?

And fall the sounds of mirth

Sad on thy lonely heart, From all the hopes and charms of earth

Untimely call’d to part ?

Look here, and hold thy peace :

The Giver of all good Even from the womb takes no release

From suffering, tears, and blood.

If thou wouldst reap in love,

First sow in holy fear :
So life a winter's morn may prove

To a bright endless year.

SECOND SUNDAY AFTER

CHRISTMAS.

When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. Isaiah xli, 17.

AND wilt Thou hear the fever'd heart

To Thee in silence cry?
And as th' inconstant wildfires dart

Out of the restless eye,
Wilt Thou forgive the wayward thought,
By kindly woes yet half untaught
A Saviour's right, so dearly bought,

That Hope should never die ?

Thou wilt: for many a languid prayer

Has reach'd Thee from the wild, Since the lorn mother, wandering there,

Cast down her fainting child', Then stole apart to weep and die, Nor knew an angel form was nigh To shew soft waters gushing by

And dewy shadows mild.

Thou wilt-for Thou art Israel's God,

And thine unwearied arm Is ready yet with Moses' rod,

The hidden rill to charm Out of the dry unfathom’d deep Of sands, that lie in lifeless sleep, Save when the scorching whirlwinds heap

Their waves in rude alarm.

Those moments of wild wrath are thine

Thine too the drearier hour When o'er th' horizon's silent line

Fond hopeless fancies cower,

P Hagar. See Gen. xxi. 15.

And on the traveller's listless

way Rises and sets th' unchanging day, No cloud in heaven to slake its ray,

On earth no sheltering bower.

Thou wilt be there, and not forsake,

To turn the bitter pool Into a bright and breezy lake,

The throbbing brow to cool : Till left awhile with Thee alone The wilful heart be fain to own That He, by whom our bright hours shone,

Our darkness best may rule.

The scent of water far

away Upon the breeze is flung: The desert pelican to-day

Securely leaves her young, Reproving thankless man, who fears To journey on a few lone years, Where on the sand thy step appears,

Thy crown in sight is hung.

Thou, who didst sit on Jacob's well

The weary hour of noon",
The languid pulses Thou canst tell,

The nerveless spirit tune.
Thou from whose cross in anguish burst
The cry that own'd thy dying thirst",
To thee we turn, our last and first,

Our Sun and soothing Moon.

From darkness, here, and dreariness

We ask not full repose, Only be Thou at hand, to bless

Our trial hour of woes. Is not the pilgrim's toil o'erpaid, By the clear rill and palmy, shade? And see we not, up Earth's dark glade,

The gate of Heaven unclose ?