HAIL to the timely welcome of an inn
Hail to the room where home and cheer begin :
Where all the frost-bound feelings melt away,
And soul-warm sympathies begin to play,
While Independence shows her manly mien,
And sterling traits of human life are seen :
The crackling blaze that dyes the chimney red,
The gracious substance on the table spread,
The glowing wine-cup and the fat ale's foam,—
Partake them all, and deem thyself at home.
As round the festive board our travellers sit,
With appetites far sharper than their wit;
What busy knives and forks-what meats abound!
What hissing corks, and tinkling glasses sound!
Some fiercely rapid sheathe the gleaming blade,
In joints that seem for hungry pilgrims made;
Some by the glitt'ring hearthside sit and gaze;
And bathe their features in its welcome blaze;
Nor still the host, who waddles here and there,
Like a live barrel, come to take the air!
CELESTIAL MUSIC DESCRIBED BY SATAN.
in music dwells :-if they, [world Now doom'd awhile to walk this heaven-roof'd
Christ is joined, and matched with the deity of the Son of God. Not that his manhood was before without the possession of the same power, but because the full use thereof was suspended till that humility, which had been before as a veil to hide and conceal majesty, were laid aside.-Hooker's Eccles. Pol. vol. ii. p. 225.
Might hear the melodies that I have heard,
When Heaven, complexion'd by Almightiness,
In glory,-sounded with the choral hymn
Of Princedoms high, and Dominations grand,
Of thousand Saints, of thousand Cherubim,
And Angel numbers who outmillion'd far
Bright worlds, that in the blue and waveless deep
Of night, innumerable hang,--if men
Might hear it, 'twould absorb their souls away!
Yet such I heard: oh! what a sea of sound
Went billowing with ecstatical delight
Through fathomless immensity, when hosts
Divine, their Holy, Holy, Holy, sung,
While loud Hosannahs to the living God [glow!
Commingled, making Heaven more heavenly
That hour is gone, that strain is hush'd, to me;
For, listen, Angels, how the hellchoirs hymn!
CONVERTED INDIAN.
IN fiery lands, where roving Ganga reigns
Eternal pilgrim of a thousand plains!
The tawny Indian, when the day is done,
And basking waters redden in the sun,
While shadow'd branches in their boundless play
Of leafy wantonness, the earth array,—
Behold him seated, with his babes around!
To fathom myst'ries where a God is found!
The book is oped, a wondrous page began,
Where heav'n is offer'd to forgiven man;
Lo! as he reads, what awe-like wonder steals
On all he fancies, and on all he feels!
Till o'er his mind, by mute devotion wrought,
The gleaming twilight of celestial thought
Begins, and heaven-eyed Faith beholds above
A God of glory, and a Lord of love!
"Thou dread Unknown! Thou unimagin'd Whole The vast Supreme, and universal Soul,
Oft in the whirlwind have I shaped Thy form,
Or throned in thunder heard Thee sway the storm!
And when the ocean's heaving vastness grew
Black with Thy curse,—my spirit darken'd too!
But when the world beneath a sun-gaze smiled,
And not a frown the sleeping air defiled,
Then I have loved Thee, Thou parental One,
Thy wrath a tempest, and thy smile a sun!
But if there be, as heaven-breathed words relate,
A seraph-home in some hereafter state,
Almighty Pow'r! thy dark-soul'd Indian see,
And grant the mercy that has bled for me!"
CAUSE OF THE FALL OF EMPIRES
DESCRIBED BY SATAN.
MIGHT vanish'd ages be renew'd, and built
Again the empires which have been,
From that huge one the haughty Ninus rear'd,
And great Cambyses crush'd, to Rome, and Greece,
The paragons of empire, what a scene
Would Time reveal!-Who bow'd them into gloom
They feared me not; but, from the primal stone
That mark'd the birthday of their city-queens,
I mingled with them, and beheld them rise;
From dim obscurity my minions watch'd
Their growth to greatness, and imperial sway That overshadow'd the far isles.-The sea Beneath them, like a suppliant crouch'd; the wind Sang Vict'ry! where th' exulting banners waved ; And Hist❜ry wreath'd her laurels at the sound. But now, uplifted to a fearful height,
They courted vilely-enervating arts,
Unthroned the Virtues, let the Passions loose, And pour'd corruption through their wide domain : Then came an hour of vengeance! then the wrath Of Desolation!-the decree of Heaven.
DEVOTEDNESS OF PURE AFFECTION.
AND when disease's poison'd breath
Hath tainted life with hues of death;
When time has dimm'd that starry gaze
Whose magic thrill'd our younger days,—
There is a love whose light remains
To warm the heart, when passion wanes :
For beauty born within the mind
Admits no mean decay ;
The earth may shrink, the sun grow blind,
Ere that dissolve away!
Then let them boast, base epicures!
Whom naught but sense to love allures;
To them may coarse derision give
No hearts but where like passions live,
While dungeon'd in a sensual grave,
Their spirit rots, and dies a slave!
DIVINE PERFECTION OF CHRIST.
OH! who shall paint Him?-let the sweetest tone
That ever trembled on the harps of Heaven,
Be discord; let the chanting seraphim,
Whose anthem is eternity, be dumb;
For praise and wonder, adoration,—all
Melt into muteness, ere they soar to Thee,
Thou sole Perfection!-Theme of countless worlds!
WOULDST thou in meekest adoration bend,
Or mount the heavens, and with bright myriads swell
The chorus of eternity?—does Grief
Around thee blacken in her stormy ire,
Or sad dejection on thy eyelids weigh?
The royal minstrel hath a mood for thee,
And in his heart an echo of thine own!
But when the frame of this majestic world
The mind o'erawes,-then, who like him appeals
To clouds and whirlwinds, with the thunder talks,
Partakes the tempest, and of ocean learns
Such mimicry sublime, that Fancy hears
The billows heaving in his roll of song!—
But Nature in her gentleness, alike
From David woos a sympathy divine.
The lull of night, the language of the stars,
And all that beautiful, serene, or blest
Is deem'd, his harp melodiously inspires.
Bard of the Spirit! thine heroic song,
Whose hallelujahs in Engeddi's cave,
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