O DAY most calm, most bright, The fruit of this, the next world's bud,
The endorsement of supreme delight,
Writ by a Friend, and with his blood;
The couch of Time; Care's balm and bay;
The week were dark, but for thy light;
Thy torch doth show the way.
The other days and thou
Make up one man, whose face thou art,
Knocking at heaven with thy brow;
The working days are the back part,
The burden of the week lies there,
Making the whole to stoop and bow
Till thy release appear.
Man had straightforward gone
To.endless death; but thou dost pull
And turn us round to look on One Whom, if we were not very dull,
We could not choose but look on still,
Since there is no place so alone
The which he doth not fill.
Sundays the pillars are
On which heaven's palace arched lies;
The other days fill up the spare
And hollow room with vanities.
They are the fruitful beds and borders
In God's rich garden; that is bare
Which parts their ranks and orders.
The Sundays of man's life, Threaded together on Time's string, Make bracelets to adorn the wife
Of the eternal, glorious King.
On Sunday heaven's gate stands ope;
Blessings are plentiful and rife,
More plentiful than hope.
Thou art a day of mirth; And where the week-days trail on ground, Thy flight is higher, as thy birth. O let me take thee at the bound,
Leaping with thee from seven to seven,
Till that we both, being toss'd from earth, Fly hand in hand to heaven!
Nor seldom, clad in radiant vest,
Deceitfully goes forth the morn;
Not seldom evening in the west
Sinks smilingly forsworn.
The smoothest seas will sometimes prove,
To the confiding bark, untrue;
And, if she trust the stars above,
They can be treacherous too.
The umbrageous oak, in pomp outspread,
Full oft, when storms the welkin rend,
Draws lightning down upon the head
It promised to defend.
But thou art true, incarnate Lord!
Who didst vouchsafe for man to die;
Thy smile is sure, thy plighted word
No change can falsify!
I bent before thy gracious throne,
And ask'd for peace with suppliant knee ; And peace was given,-nor peace alone, But faith, and hope, and ecstacy,
BLIND to ourselves,-to others not less blind,
Who slowly learn to understand mankind.
Sanguine and ardent, indisposed to hold
The cautious maxims that our fathers told,
We place new objects in the fairest light,
And offer gen'rous friendship at first sight.
Expect (though not the first-rate mental powers)
A mind, at least, in unison with ours;
Free from those meaner faults, that most conspire
To damp our love, if not put out its fire.
Cold o'er the heart the slight expression steals,
That first some trait of character reveals;
Some fault, perhaps, less prominent alone,
But causing painful friction with our own.
Long is the harsh, reluctant thought supprest,
We drive the cold suspicion from our breast;
But when confirm'd, our gen'rous love condemn,
Turn off disgusted with the world and them,
Resolve no more at Friendship's fane to serve,
And call her names she does not quite deserve.
But this is rash-Experience would confess
That friendship's very frailties chill us less
(Sincere and well-intention'd all the while)
Than the world's complaisant and polish'd smile.
With other chattels, nameless in my verse,
Friends must be held "for better or for worse;"
And that alone true friendship we shall call,
Which undertakes to love us, faults and all;
And she who guides this humble line could
prove,
There is, there is, such candid, gen'rous love;
And, from the life, her faithful hand could pain
Glowing exceptions to her own complaint.
AUTHOR OF "THE SCOTTISH MARTYR," &c.
ABSTRACTED and alone sat Saul the king,
The mighty king of warlike Israel;
Dark shadows o'er his spirit went and came,
And fearful thoughts of dread futurity.
His lofty eye scowl'd indignation round,
And furious passion wrinkled up his brow;
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