The tall cliff challenges the storm
That lowers upon the vale below,
Where shaded fountains send their streams,
With joyous music in their flow.

God of the dark and heavy deep!
The waves lie sleeping on the sands,
Till the fierce trumpet of the storm

Hath summon'd up their thund'ring bands;
Then the white sails are dashed like foam,
Or hurry, trembling, o'er the seas,
Till, calmed by thee, the sinking gale
Serenely breathes, Depart in peace!

God of the forest's solemn shade!
The grandeur of the lonely tree,
That wrestles singly with the gale,
Lifts up admiring eyes to thee;
But more majestic far they stand,

When, side by side, their ranks they form, To wave on high their plumes of green, And fight their battles with the storm.

God of the light and viewless air!
Where summer breezes sweetly flow,
Or, gathering in their angry might,

The fierce and wintry tempests blow;

All-from the evening's plaintive sigh,
That hardly lifts the drooping flower,
To the wild whirlwind's midnight cry,
Breathe forth the language of thy power.

God of the fair and open sky!

How gloriously above us springs The tented dome, of heavenly blue, Suspended on the rainbow's rings! Each brilliant star, that sparkles through, Each gilded cloud, that wanders free In evening's purple radiance, gives The beauty of its praise to thee.

God of the rolling orbs above!

Thy name is written clearly bright
In the warm day's unvarying blaze,
Or evening's golden shower of light:
For every fire that fronts the sun,

And every spark that walks alone
Around the utmost verge of heaven,
Were kindled at thy burning throne.

God of the world! the hour must come, And nature's self to dust return;

Her crumbling altars must decay;

Her incense fires shall cease to burn;

But still her grand and lovely scenes
Have made man's fervent praises flow;
For hearts grow holier as they trace

Thy glories in the world below.

N

Hymn of the City.

OT in the solitude

W. B. Peabody.

Alone, may man commune with Heaven,

cr see,

Only in savage wood

And sunny vale, the present Deity;
Or only hear His voice

Where the winds whisper and the waves rejoice.

E'en here do I behold

Thy steps, Almighty!—here, amidst the crowd
Through the great city rolled,

With everlasting murmur, deep and loud—
Choking the ways that wind

'Mongst the proud piles, the work of human kind.

Thy golden sunshine comes

From the round heaven, and on their dwellings lies, And lights their inner homes!

For them thou fill'st with air the unbounded skies, And givest them the stores

Of ocean, and the harvests of its shores.

Thy spirit is around,

Quickening the restless mass that sweeps along ;

And this eternal sound

Voices and footfalls of the numberless throng-
Like the resounding sea,

Or like the rainy tempest, speaks of thee.

And when the hours of rest

Come, like a calm upon the mid-sea brine,
Hushing its billowy breast,

The quiet of that moment, too, is thine;
It breathes of Him who keeps

'The vast and helpless city while it sleeps.

W. C. Bryant.

Morning Hymn.

ET there be light!" The Eternal spoke,

And from the abyss where darkness rode

The earliest dawn of nature broke,

And light around creation flowed.
The glad earth smiled to see the day-
The first-born day-come blushing in;
The young day smiled to shed its ray
Upon a world untouched by sin.

"Let there be light!" O'er heaven and earth, The God who first the day-beam poured, Uttered again His fiat forth,

And shed the Gospel's light abroad,
And, like the dawn, its cheering rays
On rich and poor were meant to fall,
Inspiring their Redeemer's praise,
In lowly cot and lordly hall.

Then come, when, in the Orient, first
Flushes the signal-light for prayer ;

Come with the earliest beams that burst

From God's bright throne of glory there.
Come kneel to Him who through the night
Hath watched above thy sleeping soul,
To Him whose mercies, like His light,
Are shed abroad from pole to pole.

Hoffman.

Hymn and Prayer.

NFINITE Spirit! who art round us

ever,

In whom we move, as motes in sum

mer sky,

May neither life nor death the sweet bond sever, Which joins us to our unseen Friend on high.