Shun not the crowded alley; prompt descend Into the half-sunk cell, darksome and damp; Nor seem impatient to be gone: Inquire, Console, instruct, encourage, soothe, assist; Read, pray, and sing a new song to the Lord; Make tears of joy down grief-worn furrows flow.
O Health! thou sun of life, without whose beam The fairest scenes of nature seem involved In darkness, shine upon my dreary path
Once more; or, with thy faintest dawn, give hope, That I may yet enjoy thy vital ray !
Though transient be the hope, 'twill be most sweet, Like midnight music, stealing on the ear, Then gliding past, and dying slow away.
Music thou soothing power, thy charm is proved Most vividly when clouds o'ercast the soul; So light its loveliest effect displays
In lowering skies, when through the murky rack A slanting sun-beam shoots, and instant limns The ethereal curve of seven harmonious dyes, Eliciting a splendour from the gloom :
O Music! still vouchsafe to tranquillize
This breast perturb'd; thy voice, though mournful, soothes: And mournful aye are thy most beauteous lays, Like fall of blossoms from the orchard boughs,—— The autumn of the spring. Enchanting power! Who, by thy airy spell, canst whirl the mind Far from the busy haunts of men, to vales Where Tweed or Yarrow flows; or, spurning time Recal red Flodden field; or suddenly
Transport, with alter'd strain, the deafen'd ear To Linden's plain !-But what the pastoral lay, The melting dirge, the battle's trumpet-peal, Compared to notes, with sacred numbers link'd In union, solemn, grand! O then the spirit,
Upborne on pinions of celestial sound,
Soars to the throne of God, and ravish'd hears Ten thousand times ten thousand voices rise In hallelujahs:-voices, that erewhile
Were feebly tuned perhaps to low-breathed hymns Of solace in the chambers of the poor,— The Sabbath worship of the friendless sick. Bless'd be the female votaries, whose days No sabbath of their pious labours prove, Whose lives are consecrated to the toil Of ministering around the uncurtain'd couch Of pain and poverty! Bless'd be the hands, The lovely hands, (for beauty, youth, and grace, Are oft conceal'd by Pity's closest veil,)
That mix the cup medicinal, that bind The wounds which ruthless warfare and disease Have to the loathsome lazar-house consign'd. Fierce Superstition of the mitred king! Almost I could forget thy torch and stake, When I this blessed sisterhood survey,— Compassion's priestesses, disciples true
Of Him whose touch was health, whose single word Electrified with life the palsied arm,—
Of Him who said, "Take up thy bed and walk,"- Of Him who cried to Lazarus, "Come forth."
And He who cried to Lazarus, "Come forth," Will, when the Sabbath of the tomb is past, Call forth the dead, and re-unite the dust (Transform'd and purified) to angel souls. Ecstatic hope! belief! conviction firm! How grateful 'tis to recollect the time When hope arose to faith! Faintly at first The heavenly voice is heard; then, by degrees, Its music sounds perpetual in the heart. Thus he, who all the gloomy winter long
Has dwelt in city crowds, wandering a-field Betimes on Sabbath morn, ere yet the spring Unfold the daisy's bud, delighted hears
The first lark's note, faint yet, and short the song, Check'd by the chill ungenial northern breeze; But, as the sun ascends, another springs, And still another soars on loftier wing, Till all o'erhead, the joyous choir unseen, Poised welkin high, harmonious fills the air, As if it were a link 'tween earth and heaven.
O! in the west fast fades the lingering light, And day's last vestige takes its silent flight. No more is heard the woodman's measured stroke Which with the dawn, from yonder dingle broke; No more hoarse clamouring o'er the uplifted head, The crows assembling, seek their wind-rock'd bed;
Still'd is the village hum-the woodland sounds Have ceased to echo o'er the dewy grounds, And general silence reigns, save when below, The murmuring Trent is scarcely heard to flow; And save when, swung by 'nighted rustic late, Oft, on its hinge, rebounds the jarring gate; Or when the sheep-bell, in the distant vale, Breathes its wild music on the downy gale.
Now, when the rustic wears the social smile, Released from day and its attendant toil, And draws his household round their evening fire, And tells the oft-told tales that never tire; Or where the town's blue turrets dimly rise, And manufacture taints the ambient skies, The pale mechanic leaves the labouring loom, The air-pent hold, the pestilential room, And rushes out, impatient to begin The stated course of customary sin; Now, now my solitary way I bend
Where solemn groves in awful state impend, And cliffs, that boldly rise above the plain, Bespeak, bless'd CLIFTON! thy sublime domain. Here, lonely wandering o'er the sylvan bower, I come to pass the meditative hour;
To bid awhile the strife of passion cease, And woo the calms of solitude and peace. And oh! thou sacred Power, who rear'st on high Thy leafy throne where waving poplars sigh! Genius of woodland shades! whose mild control Steals with resistless witchery to the soul, Come with thy wonted ardour, and inspire My glowing bosom with thy hallow'd fire. And thou too, Fancy, from thy starry sphere, Where to the hymning orbs thou lend'st thine ear,
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