NEARER TO THEE.

Then with my waking thoughts,

Bright with thy praise, Out of my stony griefs

Bethel I'll raise;

So by my woes to be

Nearer, my God, to thee-
Nearer to thee!

Or if on joyful wing,
Cleaving the sky,

Sun, moon, and stars forgot,

Upward I fly;

Still all my song shall be

Nearer, my God, to thee

Nearer to thee!

27

Sonnet.

FROM THE ITALIAN OF PETRARCH.

I LIVE lamenting my departed years,
Spent in the vain love of an earthly thing;
No flight essaying, though my soaring wing
Had borne me on perchance to lofty spheres.
O Thou who seest my misery and my tears,
Invisible, eternal, Heavenly King,

Help for this soul, feeble and wandering,
Support her weakness and allay her fears.

So that if I have lived in storm and strife, Shelter'd in peaceful haven I may rest; And my last hour, O be Thou near to aid, On Thee, thou knowest, my only hope is staid.

R

THE HEBREW MOURNER.

31

The Hebrew Mourner.

Psalm cii, 1-16.

WHY, trembling and sad, dost thou stand there and mourn,

Son of Israel, the days that can never return? And why do those tear-drops of misery fall On the moldering ruin, the perishing wall?

Was yon city, in robes of the heathen now clad, Once the flourishing Zion where Judah was glad? And those walls, that disjointed and scatter'd now lie,

Were they once vow'd to Heaven and hallow'd on high?

Yet why dost thou mourn? O, to gladness awaken!

Though Jehovah this city of God has forsaken,
He preserves for his people a city more fair,
Which a ruthless invader no longer shall share.

No longer the tear for your city shall flow;
No longer thy bosom the sad sigh bestow;
But night shall be follow'd by glorious day,
And sorrow and sighing shall vanish away.