The Christian Year | Page 6

unfold;?Let not my heart within me burn,?Except in all I Thee discern.
When the soft dews of kindly sleep?My wearied eyelids gently steep,?Be my last thought, how sweet to rest?For ever on my Saviour's breast.
Abide with me from morn till eve,?For without Thee I cannot live:?Abide with me when night is nigh,?For without Thee I dare not die.
Thou Framer of the light and dark,?Steer through the tempest Thine own ark:?Amid the howling wintry sea?We are in port if we have Thee.
The Rulers of this Christian land,?'Twixt Thee and us ordained to stand, -?Guide Thou their course, O Lord, aright,?Let all do all as in Thy sight.
Oh! by Thine own sad burthen, borne?So meekly up the hill of scorn,?Teach Thou Thy Priests their daily cross?To bear as Thine, nor count it loss!
If some poor wandering child of Thine?Have spurned to-day the voice divine,?Now, Lord, the gracious work begin;?Let him no more lie down in sin.
Watch by the sick: enrich the poor?With blessings from Thy boundless store:?Be every mourner's sleep to-night,?Like infants' slumbers, pure and light.
Come near and bless us when we wake,?Ere through the world our way we take;?Till in the ocean of Thy love?We lose ourselves, in Heaven above.
ADVENT SUNDAY
Now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our?salvation nearer than when we believed.--Romans xiii 11.
Awake--again the Gospel-trump is blown -?From year to year it swells with louder tone,
From year to year the signs of wrath?Are gathering round the Judge's path,?Strange words fulfilled, and mighty works achieved,?And truth in all the world both hated and believed.
Awake! why linger in the gorgeous town,?Sworn liegemen of the Cross and thorny crown?
Up from your beds of sloth for shame,?Speed to the eastern mount like flame,?Nor wonder, should ye find your King in tears,?E'en with the loud Hosanna ringing in His ears.
Alas! no need to rouse them: long ago?They are gone forth to swell Messiah's show:
With glittering robes and garlands sweet?They strew the ground beneath His feet:?All but your hearts are there--O doomed to prove?The arrows winged in Heaven for Faith that will not love!
Meanwhile He passes through th' adoring crowd,?Calm as the march of some majestic cloud,
That o'er wild scenes of ocean-war?Holds its still course in Heaven afar:?E'en so, heart-searching Lord, as years roll on,?Thou keepest silent watch from Thy triumphal throne:
E'en so, the world is thronging round to gaze?On the dread vision of the latter days,
Constrained to own Thee, but in heart?Prepared to take Barabbas' part:?"Hosanna" now, to-morrow "Crucify,"?The changeful burden still of their rude lawless cry.
Yet in that throng of selfish hearts untrue?Thy sad eye rests upon Thy faithful few,
Children and childlike souls are there,?Blind Bartimeus' humble prayer,?And Lazarus wakened from his four days' sleep,?Enduring life again, that Passover to keep.
And fast beside the olive-bordered way?Stands the blessed home where Jesus deigned to stay,
The peaceful home, to Zeal sincere?And heavenly Contemplation dear,?Where Martha loved to wait with reverence meet,?And wiser Mary lingered at Thy sacred feet.
Still through decaying ages as they glide,?Thou lov'st Thy chosen remnant to divide;
Sprinkled along the waste of years?Full many a soft green isle appears:?Pause where we may upon the desert road,?Some shelter is in sight, some sacred safe abode.
When withering blasts of error swept the sky,?And Love's last flower seemed fain to droop and die,
How sweet, how lone the ray benign?On sheltered nooks of Palestine!?Then to his early home did Love repair,?And cheered his sickening heart with his own native air.
Years roll away: again the tide of crime?Has swept Thy footsteps from the favoured clime
Where shall the holy Cross find rest??On a crowned monarch's mailed breast:?Like some bright angel o'er the darkling scene,?Through court and camp he holds his heavenward course serene.
A fouler vision yet; an age of light,?Light without love, glares on the aching sight:
Oh, who can tell how calm and sweet,?Meek Walton, shows thy green retreat,?When wearied with the tale thy times disclose,?The eye first finds thee out in thy secure repose?
Thus bad and good their several warnings give?Of His approach, whom none may see and live:
Faith's ear, with awful still delight,?Counts them like minute-bells at night.?Keeping the heart awake till dawn of morn,?While to her funeral pile this aged world is borne.
But what are Heaven's alarms to hearts that cower?In wilful slumber, deepening every hour,
That draw their curtains closer round,?The nearer swells the trumpet's sound??Lord, ere our trembling lamps sink down and die,?Touch us with chastening hand, and make us feel Thee nigh.
SECOND SUNDAY IN ADVENT
And when these things begin to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth night. St. Luke xxi. 28.
Not till the freezing blast is still,?Till freely leaps the sparkling rill,?And gales sweep soft from summer skies,?As o'er a sleeping infant's eyes?A mother's kiss; ere calls like these,?No sunny gleam awakes the trees,?Nor dare the tender flowerets show?Their bosoms to th'