God is Every Where.-HUGH HUTTON.
OH! show me where is He,
The high and holy One,
To whom thou bend'st the knee,
And pray'st, "Thy will be done?"
I hear thy voice of praise,
And lo! no form is near;
Thine eyes I see thee raise,
But where doth God appear?
Oh! teach me who is God, and where his glories shine,
That I may kneel and pray, and call thy Father mine.
Gaze on that arch above-
The glittering vault admire!
Who taught those orbs to move?
Who lit their ceaseless fire?
Who guides the moon to run
In silence through the skies?
Who bids that dawning sun
In strength and beauty rise?
There view immensity!-behold, my God is there
moon, the stars, his majesty declare!
See, where the mountains rise;
Where thundering torrents foam;
Where, veil'd in lowering skies,
The eagle makes his home!
Where savage nature dwells
My God is present too-
Through all her wildest dells
His footsteps I pursue.
He rear'd those giant cliffs-supplies that dashing stream-
Provides the daily food, which stills the wild bird's scream.
Look on that world of waves,
Where finny nations glide;
Within whose deep, dark caves,
The ocean-monsters hide!
His power is sovereign there,
To raise to quell the storm;
The depths his bounty share,
Where sport the scaly swarm:
Tempests and calms obey the same almighty voice, Which rules the earth and skies, and bids the world rejoice.
Nor eye nor thought can soar
Where moves not he in might ;-
He swells the thunder's roar,
He spreads the wings of night.
Oh! praise the works divine!
Bow down thy soul in prayer!
Nor ask for other sign,
That God is every where
The viewless Spirit he-immortal, holy, bless'd—
Oh! worship him in faith, and find eternal rest!
The Destruction of Sennacherib.-BYRON.
THE Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen;
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,
That host, on the morrow, lay wither'd and strown.
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed on the face of the foe, as he pass'd;
And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still.
And there lay the steed, with his nostril all wide,
But through it there roll'd not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.
And there lay the rider, distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.
And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail;
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted, like snow, in the glance of the Lord.
Hymn before Sun-rise, in the Vale of Chamouny.-COLE
HAST thou a charm to stay the morning star
In his steep course?so long he seems to pause
On thy bald, awful front, O sovereign Blanc !
The Arvé 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 chrystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity.
O dread and silent mount! I gazed upon thee,
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,
Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in
I worshipped 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 thoughtYea, 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, swelled vast to heaven!
Awake, my soul! Not only passive praise
Thou owest; not alone these swelling tears,
Mute thanks, and silent ecstasy. Awake,
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!
Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn.
Thou, first and chief, sole sovereign of the vale !
Oh! 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 filled thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?
And you, ye five wild torrents, fiercely glad!
Who called you forth from night and utter death,
From dark and icy caverns called you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,,
Forever shattered, and the same forever!!
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 stopped 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 living flowers, that skirt the eternal frost!
Ye wild goats, sporting round the eagle's nest!
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm!
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!
Ye signs and wonders of the elements !
Utter forth "God!" and fill the hills with praise!
Thou, too, hoar mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks, Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene, Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breastThou, too, again, stupendous mountain! thou That, as I raise my head, awhile bowed low In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused 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.
Byron and his Poetry.-T. B. MACAULAY.
NEVER had any writer so vast a command of the whole eloquence of scorn, misanthropy, and despair. That Marah was never dry. No art could sweeten, no draughts could exhaust, its perennial waters of bitterness. Never was there such variety in monotony as that of Byron. From maniac laughter to piercing lamentation, there was not a single note of human anguish of which he was not master. Year after year, and month after month, he continued to repeat, that to be wretched is the destiny of all; that to be eminently wretched is the destiny of the eminent; that all the desires by which we are cursed lead alike to misery; if they are not gratified, to the misery of disappointment;
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