When joy no longer soothes or cheers,
And ev'n the hope that threw

A moment's sparkle o'er our tears,
Is dimm'd and vanish'd too!

Oh who would bear life's stormy doom,
Did not thy wing of love

Come brightly wafting through the gloom,
One Peace-branch from above!

Then sorrow, touch'd by thee, grows bright
With more than rapture's ray;
As darkness shows us worlds of light
We never saw by day.

A HEBREW MELODY.

SOUND the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea! Jehovah has triumph'd—his people are free. Sing, for the pride of the tyrant is broken,

His chariots and horsemen, all splendid and brave,

How vain was their boasting!The Lord hath but spoken,

And chariots and horsemen are sunk in the wave. Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea; Jehovah has triumph'd,-his people are free! Praise to the Conqueror, praise to the Lord, His word was our arrow, his breath was our

sword!

Who shall return to tell Egypt the story

Of those she sent forth in the hour of her pride? For the Lord hath look'd out from his pillar of

glory,

And all her brave thousands are dash'd in the

tide.

Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea! Jehovah has triumph'd—his people are free!

COLERIDGE.

HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI.

HAST thou a charm to stay the Morning-Star
In his steep course? So long he seems to pause
On thy bald awful head, O sovran BLANC !
The Arve and Arveiron at thy base

Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form!
Risest from forth thy silent Sea of Pines,
How silently! Around thee and above
Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black,
An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it,
As with a wedge! But when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity!

O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee,
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,
Did'st vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer
I worshipp'd the Invisible alone.

Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody,
So sweet we know not we are listening to it,
Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my
Thought,

Yea, with my Life and Life's own secret Joy :
Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfused,

Into the mighty Vision passing-there,

As in her natural form, swell'd vast to Heaven!

Awake, my soul! not only passive praise Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears, Mute thanks and secret ecstacy! Awake, Voice of sweet song! Awake, my Heart, awake! Green Vales and icy Cliffs, all join my Hymn.

Thou first and chief, sole Sovran of the Vale! O struggling with the Darkness all the night, And visited all night by troops of stars,

Or when they climb the sky or when they sink: Companion of the Morning-Star at Dawn, Thyself Earth's ROSY STAR, and of the dawn Co-herald! wake, O wake, and utter praise! Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth? Who fill'd thy countenance with rosy light! Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?

And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad! Who call'd you forth from night and utter death, From dark and icy caverns call'd you forth, Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks For ever shattered and the same for ever?

Who gave you your invulnerable life,

Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,
Unceasing thunder and eternal foam ?

And who commanded (and the silence came),
Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?

Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow Adown enormous ravines slope amain— Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty Voice,

And stopp'd at once amid their maddest plunge! Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!

Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living

flowers

Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?-
God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations
Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!
God! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome
voice!

Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like

sounds!

And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!

Ye livery flowers that skirt th' eternal frost! Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest! Ye eagles, play-mates of the mountain-storm! Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds ! Ye signs and wonders of the element !

Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!

Once more, hoar mount! with thy sky-pointing
peaks,

Oft from whose feet the Avalanche, unheard,
Shoots downward, glittering thro' the pure serene,
Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast-
Thou too again, stupendous mountain! thou,
That as I raise my head, awhile bow'd low
In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow-travelling with dim eyes suffus'd with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud,
To rise before me-Rise, O ever rise,

Rise like a cloud of incense, from the earth!
Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven,
Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.

THE VIRGIN'S CRADLE-HYMN.

SLEEP, sweet babe! my cares beguiling:
Mother sits beside thee smiling:

Sleep, my darling, tenderly !
If thou sleep not, mother mourneth,
Singing as her wheel she turneth :
Come, soft slumber, balmily!

THE CHAPEL OF WILLIAM TELL.

MARK this holy chapel well!

The Birth-place, this, of WILLIAM TELL,

Here, where stands God's altar dread,

Stood his parents' marriage-bed.

Here first, an infant to her breast,

Him his loving mother prest;

And kiss'd the babe, and bless'd the day,
And pray'd as mothers use to pray.

"Vouchsafe him health, O God! and give The child thy servant still to live !" But God hath destined to do more

Through him, than through an armed power.