heavens! 
  In Nature’s stamp of unassisted grace
  Each limb is moulded; simple as the mind
  The vest they wear; and not a hand but works,
  Or tills the ground with honourable toil: 
  By youth revered, their sons around them grow
  And flourish; monarch of his past’ral tribe,
  A patriarch’s throne is each devoted heart! 
  And when he slumbers on the tented plain
  Beneath the vigil stars, a living wall
  Is round him, in the might of love’s defence: 
  For he is worthy—­sacrifice and song
  By him are ruled; and oft at shut of flowers,
  When queenly virgins in the sunset go
  To carry water from the crystal wells,
  In beautiful content,—­beneath a tree
  Whose shadows hung o’er many a hallow’d sire,
  He sits; recording how creation rose
  From nothing, of the Word almighty born;
  How Man had fallen, and where Eden boughs
  Had waved their beauty on the breeze of morn;
  Or, how the angels still at twilight love
  To visit earth with errands from the sky.

ISAIAH.

  Terrific bard! and mighty—­in thy strain
  A torrent of inspiring passion sounds—­
  Whether for cities by the Almighty cursed,
  Thy wail arose—­or, on enormous crimes
  That darken’d heav’n with supernat’ral gloom,
  Thy flash of indignation fell, alike
  The feelings quiver when thy voice awakes!—­
  Borne in the whirlwind of a dreadful song,
  The spirit travels round the destin’d globe,
  While shadows, cast from solemn years to come,
  Fall round us, and we feel a God is nigh!

  But when a gladness from thy music flows,
  Creation brightens!—­glory paints the sky,
  The Sun hath got an everlasting smile,
  And Earth in temper’d for immortal spring—­
  The lion smoothes his ruffled mane, the lamb
  And wolf together feed, and by the den
  Of serpents, see! the rosy infant play.

THE SAVIOUR.

  As o’er the grandeur of unclouded heaven
  Our vision travels with a free delight,
  As though the boundless and the pure were made
  For speculation—­so the tow’ring mind,
  By inward oracle inspired and taught,
  The lofty and the excellent in mind adores. 
  Then, Saviour! what a paragon art Thou
  Of all that Wisdom in her hope creates—­
  A model for the universe—­Though God
  Be round us, by the shadow of His might
  For aye reflected, and with plastic hand
  Prints on the earth the character of things—­
  Yet He Himself,—­how awfully retired
  Depth within depth, unutterably deep! 
  His glory brighter than the brightest thought
  Can picture, holier than our holiest awe
  Can worship,—­imaged only in I AM! 
  But Thou—­apparell’d in a robe of true
  Mortality; meek sharer of our low
  Estate, in all except compliant sin;
  To Thee a comprehending worship pays
  Perennial sacrifice of life and soul,