But silence reign'd o'er mount and plain,
Deep, solemn, and profound,
The busy dwellers ne'er again,
Would on that earth be found,
To mar the scene with sin and pain,
And spread contagion round.
Lo! from the horizon's verge up-sprung,
The bow of every hue,
And o'er reviving earth was flung
The arch of promise true ;
A covenant of mercy, hung
For ever to our view.
E'er since that hour, the heavenly bow, When summer showers are still,
High o'er rejoicing earth below,
Proclaims the Almighty's will:-
:-
That day and night, and cold and heat,
Shall stated rounds fulfil.
River! whose ancient waves through many a clime
Have wandered, since the earliest dawn of time,
And ever in their murmurs deep complain,
Of empires past, that ne'er may be again
Tell how thy breast reflected once to view,
The glorious light that blissful Eden knew.
Oh! vain would fancy's widest reach explore
The lovely bowers once cluster'd by thy shore;
Ne'er may'st thou tell how radiant once, and
fair,
The sinless form of Seraphs' beauty there!
When voices not of earth did through each glade,
Tell of the Angel guests that there have stray'd;
But sin brought sorrow, and that peerless dawn,
Of pristine beauty, was from earth withdrawn.
Then did the "mighty hunter" by thy stream,
Bid proud Assyria's lofty temples gleam.
Long ages pass'd, and still thy way, beside
Old Babylon, did in calm current glide,
Till Cyrus came, and bade thy waves invade,
The Kingly sanctuary's deepest shade:-
Unfurl'd his conquering banners by thy shore,
And the vast city fell for ever more.
Tell ancient river of the plaintive song,
That echoed once thy willowy banks along:-
When captive Judah but essay'd in vain,
To wake of Sion's hymns one mournful strain ;
But in the stranger's land, could only dream,
Of all their own Jerusalem had been :-
And their wild harps, swept by the passing gale
Awoke alone the exile's plaintive tale!
Now venerable tide, thy lonely way,
Is ever where long buried empires lay,
Where "reeds are whispering" to the deserts lone, How lofty once arose their idol's throne.
Another voice, in tone prophetic tells,
And on the stream of time its echo swells,
That hastening onwards, comes the promis'd time,
When Judah's race, from every distant clime,
Will to their own beloved East return,
No more to be oppress'd, no more to mourn!
But how return? before that day appears,
Seen through the vista'd light of coming years,
Before Messiah's throne the Jew will fall-
On Him alone, their suppliant lips shall call-
One long-rejected name, their joy prolong,
And widely gathered tribes repeat the song.
When their long night of error shall be past,
And to their Saviour God, they bend at last!
And old Euphrates witness once again,
The blooming wilderness, and peopled plain;
One name alone, will then through earth be known,
And long deserted lands, with blessing crown.
"And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it."-GENESIS XXviii. 12.,
ALL softly fades the long, long summer's day,
And twilight gathers round the wanderer's way.
Weary and sad, the lonely man complains
To the pale stars that gleam o'er Eastern plains :-
From native scenes afar, by Jordan's shore,
His staff and scrip alone, the exile bore.
Sleep on the pilgrim's weary eye-lids fell,
As the day closed around a grassy dell;
Where the sweet woods met in a solemn shade,
And glitt❜ring star-light through the branches play'd.
But while in "honey dews" of slumber bound-
A stone his pillow, on the verdant ground,—
Came heavenly visions to his dreaming sight,
Cheering the silent watches of the night.
Behold! from earth to heaven, a ladder rose,
And high above, the purple skies unclose,
While streaming downwards from that distant height,
The opening gleam'd "intolerable light!"
And from their glorious home descending there,
Came troops of radiant Angels "bright and fair."
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