Halloween, a Romaunt; with Lays Meditative and Devotional

  LAMENT OF THE VIRGINS.

  And it was a custom in Israel, that the

  daughters of Israel went yearly to lament

  the daughter of Jephtha, the Gileadite,

  four days in a year.    Judges, xi. 40.

              1.

Oh, of dance and song the pride,

  Jephtha’s daughter, young and fair,

Never now the wreath of bride,

  Ne’er the bridal veil shall wear!

Ne’er with cymbals light advancing,

  Shall she greet her true love home,

Never in the valleys dancing,

  Bound like Ocean’s purest foam.

Never shall she whisper—never,

  Vows that bind the Hebrew maid;

Hers from all the world to sever,

  Hers the hermit cell and shade.

              2.

Oh, of song and dance the pride,

  Jephtha’s daughter, young and fair;

She should be a hero’s bride,

  She a hero son should bear.

But her fortune is another,

  She shall ne’er love’s worship know;

Ne’er a babe shall call her mother,

  Nestled on her breast of snow;

She hath gone from spring and fountain;

  She hath vanished from the rills;

Lone she wanders on the mountain,

  And her home is on the hills.

              3.

Oh, of dance and song the pride,

  Jephtha’s daughter, young and fair,

In the mount she must abide,

  And her virgin vestments wear.

There her foot that bounded lightly,

  Faint with maiden step shall go;

And her dance that was so sprightly,

  To a pensive gliding grow.

She shall bend ’mid caverns praying,

  Like a flower that trembles there,

While anear the wild fox baying,

  Breaks alone the silent air.

              4.

Oh, of song and dance the pride,

  Jephtha’s daughter, young and fair;

Angels with her shall abide,

  Angels smile upon her prayer.

Angels there shall be her lovers,

  In such love as angels use;

While each wing that o’er her hovers,

  Sheds around celestial dews;

Angels there, that cheer her sighing,

  Shall her loneliness beguile,

And the wings that shade her dying,

  Waft her to the happy isle.

              5.

Oh, of dance and song the pride,

  Jephtha’s daughter, young and fair;

Weep for her that doth abide

  On the lonely mountain there.

Many flowers like her have perished

  E’er their scented buds could ope;

But no flower was e’er so cherished,

  Ne’er like her a hero’s hope.

Many maids have gone to slaughter,

  But they ne’er so lovely were:

Weep, oh weep for Jephtha’s daughter,

  Weep ye lovely, weep for her.

      THE LAST PLAGUE OF EGYPT.

                   1.

Deep night o’er thy waters, thou dark-rolling Nile,

And the Hebrew sleeps trembling, his lord with a smile,

For a voice comes in dreams to the children of God:

But the proud have no whisper that Death is abroad!

                   2.

So, nestled in rocks, when the whirlwind is nigh,

They hear its far coming—the birds of the sky!

While trees it must shiver in leaf and in form,

Are hush as the stillness that heralds the storm.

                   3.

And the Memphian, at midnight, lay smiling and pleased,

His sin all unshriven, his God unappeas’d,

Till o’er his dark slumbers chill shadows were curl’d,

And the soul of the dreamer was far from the world.

                   4.

And he lay in the coils of the death-spirit, mute,

With a seal on his lips, like the blast in the fruit:

And he seem’d as when hoar-frost hath stiffen’d the flower;

’Twas the blight of the Lord, ’twas the touch of his power.

                   5.

But still was the starlight—while, shrouded and hid,

Death brooded o’er palace, and cold pyramid;

No voice on the midnight; no larum of wrath;

No sound of the whirlwind—but only its path.

                   6.

And a cry was in Egypt, when rose the red morn,

For a thousand pale mothers bewail’d their first born;

And Memnon’s sweet music that greeted the Sun,

Was lost in the moan of a nation undone.

                   7.

And shriek’d the young wife o’er the child of her pain,

That never should breathe on her bosom again;

And breasts that were warm with their nursling before,

But heaved, in their grief, for the boy that she bore.

                   8.

And the bride shrunk aghast, like the death-stricken dove,

When she woke in the cold frozen clasp of her love:

And a groan for the noble, the lovely outpour’d,

A wail for the battle they waged with the Lord.

                   9.

And they seem’d like the willows, that, left on the steep,

Are bent o’er the wreck of the forest to weep,

Or lilies that dripping, and drooping of form,

Shed tears o’er the broken, the spoil of the storm.

                   10.

Ye join not the wailing, ye dwellers of Zan!

Hath the death-angel spared ye, that smote as he ran?

Oh, the blood-sprinkled lintel hath stayed his proud reign,

And watched at your threshhold the Lamb that was slain.

  HYMN TO THE REDEEMER.

             1.

When o’er Judea’s vales and hills,

Or by her olive-shaded rills,

Thy weary footsteps went of old,

Or walked the lulling waters bold,

How beauteous were the marks divine,

That in thy meekness used to shine,

That lit thy lonely pathway, trod

In wondrous love, O Lamb of God!

             2.

Oh! who like thee, so calm, so bright,

Thou Holy child, Thou Light of Light,

Oh! who like thee, did ever go

So patient, through a world of wo,

Oh! who like thee, so humbly bore

The scorn, the scoffs of men before,

So meek, so lovely—yet so high,

So glorious in humility!

             3.

The morning saw thee, like the day,

Forth on thy light-bestowing way;

And evening in her holy hues,

Shed down her sweet baptismal dews,

Where bending angels stoop’d to see,

The lisping infant clasp thy knee,

And smile, as in a father’s eye,

Upon thy mild Divinity!

             4.

The hours when princes sought their rest

Beheld thee, still, no chamber’s guest;

But when the chilly night hung round,

And man from thee, sweet slumber found,

Thy wearied footsteps sought, alone,

The mountain to thy sorrows known,

And darkness heard thy patient prayer,

Or hid thee, in the prowler’s lair.

             5.

And all thy life’s unchanging years,

A man of sorrows, and of tears,

The cross, where all our sins were laid,

Upon thy bending shoulders weigh’d;

And death, that sets the pris’ner free,

Was pang, and scoff, and scorn to thee;

Yet love through all thy torture glow’d,

And mercy with thy life-blood flow’d.

             6.

O wondrous Lord! my soul would be

Still more and more conform’d to thee,

Would lose the pride, the taint of sin,

That burns these fever’d veins within,

And learn of Thee, the lowly One,

And like thee, all my journey run,

Above the world, and all its mirth,

Yet weeping still with weeping earth.

             7.

Oh! in thy light, be mine to go,

Illuming all my way of wo;

And give me ever, on the road,

To trace thy footsteps, O my God!

My passions lull, my spirit calm,

And make this lion-heart a lamb;

And give me, all my life, to be

A sacrifice to love and thee!

           STANZAS.

When I awake up after Thy likeness I shall be satisfied.

               1.

But who can tell what joys shall make

  The peace, the bliss, the love of Heaven!

Lord in thy likeness let me wake

  And rise in all thy light, forgiven!

Else darker than this dreary earth,

  Our long undying years shall be,

And who shall bear his second birth

  To worse than Time—Eternity!

               2.

Lord, in thy likeness let me wake,

  So shall my soul be satisfied,

When from the mouldering tomb I break,

  And see in clouds, the Lamb that died;

As roamed the dove the deluge dark,

  My spirit roams Life’s troubled sea,

But thou shalt be the wanderer’s ark,

  That knows no rest, till home with Thee.

           STANZAS.

They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.

               1.

Years cannot make their strength decay

  Who lean upon the Lord,

Nor age fling shadows o’er the way

  That’s lighted by his word:

Their path doth bright and brighter shine

  Till perfect in the skies;

And life’s soft eve is no decline,

  For heavenward still they rise.

               2.

When winter’s might hath rent the oak,

  Or summer blights its shoot,

The streams of God can heal the stroke

  And sprout its deathless root:

And souls that have the fountain quaffed

  Of Christ’s world-healing side,

Arise immortal from the draught,

  And live through Him that died.

     BUT THOU OH LORD.

    My Father, thou art the guide of my youth.

               1.

But Thou, oh Lord, shalt be my guide

  Through all my dreary way,

And down the vale of death beside

  Thy staff shall be my stay.

To thee alone I’ll lift mine eye

  When snares have made me fall;

To Thee, when low in grief I lie,

  From lowest deeps I’ll call.

               2.

And oh, on Thee in every hour

  Of sunshine or of shade,

The soul that feels thy varied power,

  Shall call for varied aid;

So shalt thou lead me in the light

  That round thy saints is cast,

O’er Jordan’s flood, to Zion’s height,

  And home to Heaven at last.

          VERSES.

       He shall sit as a refiner.

               1.

As o’er the flame that proves his gold,

  The artist bends with careful mind,

Till mirror’d there, he may behold

  His features in the ore refined;

               2.

So oft doth God his children prove,

  When burns the fierce refining flame,

Till glows the image of his love,

  And in the heart, he reads his name.

      STILL AS OUR DAY.

     As thy days so shall thy strength be.

               1.

Still as our days our strength shall be,

While still; good Lord, we trust in Thee;

While on Thy promise we depend,

Our Saviour, brother, father, friend,

Our great High Priest, to whom were known

Temptations, troubles, like our own,

Who can be touched with mortal care,

For Thou didst all our sorrows bear.

               2.

Oh Lamb of God, the world on Thee,

Hath laid her deep infirmity;

And in the cross that weighed Thee down,

The bitter scourge, the thorny crown,

Thou all her griefs, and all her fears,

Didst bear through all thine earthly years,

The guiltless, for the guilty one,

For man, the Everlasting Son.

               3.

Oh Saviour mine, how great the love,

That brought thee from thy throne above!

That love, what seraph’s lyre can tell,

That wondrous love, unspeakable!

So infinite, so all divine,

Unlike all other love but thine,

Like none but Jesu, none but Thee

Thou bleeding Lamb of Calvary!

               4.

Give me, Thou glorious Lamb of God,

Daily to walk, where Thou hast trod,

And in adoring rapture grow,

As in thy lowly steps I go.

Give me to ponder, more and more,

Thy word’s, and thy example’s lore,

That walking here, my God with Thee,

Still as my days my strength may be.

  THERE’S NOT A CLOUD.

  Heaviness may endure for a night.

             1.

There’s not a cloud that floats below

  Can quench the Star of Day,

And vain the vapors earth can throw

  To reach the heavenly ray;

And fast before the orient flame

  The mists of morning flee;

And so our Father is the same,

  Though dark our souls may be.

             2.

And He will clear the deepest night

  That clouds his children’s sky,

And bid the dullest tear be bright,

  That dims the doubting eye.

On storms where yet the lightnings gleam

  His rainbows often play,

And brighter is the moonlight’s beam

  As tempest breaks away.

  OH WALK WITH GOD.

   And Enoch walked with God.

            1.

Oh walk with God, and thou shalt find

  How he can charm thy way,

And lead thee with a quiet mind

  Into his perfect day.

His love shall cheer thee, like the dew

  That bathes the drooping flower,

That love is every morning new,

  Nor fails at evening’s hour.

            2.

Oh walk with God, and thou with smiles

  Shalt tread the way of tears,

His mercy every ill beguiles,

  And softens all our fears.

No fire shall harm thee, if alas

  Through fires He bid thee go;

Through waters, when thy footsteps pass,

  They shall not overflow.

            3.

Oh walk with God, while thou on earth,

  With pilgrim steps must fare,

Content, to leave the world its mirth,

  And claim no dwelling there.

A stranger, thou must seek a home,

  Beyond the fearful tide,

And if to Canaan thou would’st come,

  Oh who but God can guide!

            4.

Oh walk with God, and thou shalt go

  Down death’s dark vale in light,

And find thy faithful walk below

  Hath reached to Zion’s height!

Oh walk with God, if thou would’st see

  Thy pathway thither tend:

And lingering though thy journey be,

  ’Tis heaven and home at end!

 THE LAND OF BEULAH.

            1.

Oh native clime where’er afar

  Thy promised glories shine,

Thou city of the Holy One,

  Of Jesu’s friends and mine;

For thee my exile soul doth pant,

  And from this far abode,

Would stretch the pinions of a dove,

  And mount to meet its God.

            2.

Oh there the weary wing shall rest

  That cannot rest below,

And there its earth-stained plumage bathe,

  Where living waters flow;

There shall the lips life’s fountain quaff,

  That parch in deserts here,

And there these eyes the Lord behold,

  And know no more a tear.

            3.

Oh, happy home, oh native seat,

  Thou only home for me,

Thou city where my portion is,

  Where my true kindred be;

What joy within my bosom thrills,

  That I shall soon be there,

Though last and least, yet one with them,

  That crowns of glory wear!

  HYMN IN HOLY WEEK.

             1.

Who is this, with garments gory,

  Triumphing from Bozrah’s way;

This, that weareth robes of glory,

  Bright, with more than vict’ry’s ray;

Who is this unwearied comer,

  From his journey’s sultry length,

Travelling through Idume’s summer,

  In the greatness of his strength!

             2.

Wherefore red in thine apparel,

  Like the conquerors of Earth,

And arrayed like those who carol

  O’er the reeking vineyard’s mirth;

Who art thou, the valleys seeking,

  Where our peaceful harvests wave!

I—in righteous anger speaking,

  I—the mighty One to save.

             3.

I, that of the raging heathen

  Trod the wine-press all alone,

Now in victor-garlands wreathen,

  Coming to redeem my own:

I am He with sprinkled raiment

  Glorious for my vengeance hour,

Ransoming with priceless payment,

  And delivering with power.

             4.

Hail, all hail thou Lord of Glory!

  Thee our Father, thee we own!

Abram heard not of our story,

  Israel ne’er our name hath known;

But, Redeemer, thou hast sought us,

  Thou hast heard thy children’s wail,

Thou with thy dear blood, hast bought us,

  Hail, thou mighty Victor, hail!

          HYMN.

        American Missions.

             1.

Lord, when thou didst come from Heaven,

  Edom sought thee, from afar,

With her gold and incense given,

  By the leading of a star;

Westward then, from Eden guiding,

  Was the light of Bethlehem shed;

Like the pillar’d blaze abiding

  O’er the wandering Hebrew’s head.

             2.

Westward still, the world alluring,

  Hath the risen Day-Star beamed,

And, the sinking soul assuring,

  O’er the world’s wide ocean streamed.

Westward still, the midnight breaking,

  Westward still, its light be poured!

Heathen thy possession making,

  Utmost lands thy dwelling, Lord!

             3.

Westward, where from giant fountains,

  Oregon comes down in flood,

Westward to Missouri’s mountains,

  Or to wild Iowa’s wood:

Where the broad Arkansas goeth,

  Winding o’er savannahs wide;

Where, beyond old Huron, floweth

  Many a strong eternal tide.

             4.

Westward, where the wavy prairie

  Dark as slumbering ocean lies,

Let thy starlight, Son of Mary,

  O’er the shadow’d billows rise!

There, be heard ye herald voices

  Till the Lord his glory shows,

And the lonely place rejoices,

  With the bloom of Sharon’s rose.

             5.

Where the wilderness is lying,

  And the trees of ages nod,

Westward, in the desert crying,

  Make a highway for our God:

Westward—till the Church be kneeling

  In the forest aisles so dim,

And the wildwood’s arches pealing,

  With the people’s holy hymn!

             6.

Westward, still, oh Lord, in glory

  Be thy bannered cross unfurled,

Till from vale to mountain hoary,

  Rolls the anthem round the world;

Reign, oh reign o’er every nation,

  Reign, Redeemer, Father, King,

And with songs of thy salvation,

  Let the wide creation ring!

     MARINER’S HYMN.

       Looking unto Jesus.

              1.

Star of the Soul, my Saviour’s cross,

  No cloud thy glorious light can hide;

Thou shin’st unshaken, while I toss

  In darkest night, o’er billows wide;

I look to thee, I look to thee,

  Whatever gulfs would overwhelm,

And thine unclouded presence see,

  Above the storm, and o’er the helm.

              2.

Star of the Soul, my Saviour’s cross,

  That from the deep baptismal wave,

I saw arise, when all at loss

  Repentance found naught else to save:

Oh seen by faith at such an hour,

  My only hope, my only guide,

Star of the Soul, how blest the Power,

  That set thee o’er life’s raging tide.

              3.

Star of the Soul, in storms of fear

  That in my heart their tumult keep,

Oh cross of Christ, thou still art near,

  In mercy beaming o’er the deep;

Though sin its bitter waters toss,

  Unbrightened by a hope beside,

Star of the Soul, my Saviour’s cross,

  No cloud thy glorious light can hide.

      LITTLE HYMN.

    For the child of a dear friend.

             1.

When the evergreens hung round,

And the Christmas bells did sound,

Saviour, then they told of thee,

Thou wast once a child like me:

Hear me then, my Saviour mild,

Hear, and love a little child.

             2.

Since for me thou camest to die,

I, like thee to live, will try;

Thou for me didst poor become,

And a manger was thine home:

Oh for all thou didst endure,

Help me Lord, to love the poor.

             3.

Smiling on the Virgin’s knee,

Brightly went the day with thee;

Peace and love were round thee shed,

And God’s angels watched thy bed;

So may I improve the light,

So be guarded safe by night.

             4.

Help me too, like thee to grow

Dear to God, and man below!

And from childhood’s guileless heart,

Saviour, let me never part,

Since like children, all must be,

Who, at last, would live with thee!

    THY GLORY, LORD.

       Exod. xxxiii. 18.

             1.

Thy glory, Lord, o’er all the earth,

  Like morning’s light doth shine,

Where mountain’s heave their giant birth,

  Where rolls that sea of thine;

That glorious sea, that mirrors thee

  More wonderful and vast,

Whose throne was reared, eternally

  In clouds and darkness cast.

             2.

Thy glory, Lord, though thou art great,

  Is not thy power alone,

Though seraphs in thy service wait,

  And burn before thy throne;

Thy glory, Lord, is not the sword

  Of vengeance on thy thigh;

Nor thunders that await thy word,

  To rend the shrivelled sky.

             3.

Thy glory, Lord, is not the light

  That crowns thine awful head,

Nor e’en the amber lustre bright

  Around thy presence shed:

For there the hymn, of cherubim,

  And lyres that flame above,

Proclaims it, to thy glory dim,

  The glory of thy love!

   HYMN FOR THE DEAD.

  Help, Lord, for the godly man ceaseth.

       1. SOLO.

So, from the earth, the godly go!

  Help, Lord, the faithful fail!

Ah, who are left to thee below,

Ah, what to soothe our sorrow’s flow,

Save the bright hope that calms our wo,

  As, o’er the dead, we wail!

       2. TRIO.

’Tis o’er the early dead we weep;

But peaceful is their hallow’d sleep;

And, Saviour, when thy light they see,

When from the dust they rise to thee,

How glorious shall their waking be!

       3. CHORUS.

Blest leader of the bright array,

  That yet shall break their cerements dread,

And change their cold corrupted clay,

  To rise, undying, from the dead;

Be thou our helper, and our stay,

When comes creation’s final day,

When roll the parching skies away,

  And loud the archangel trumpets ring!

That such our triumph-song may be,

As rapt, we rise to life and thee,

Oh grave where is thy victory,

  Where, Spoiler, is thy sting!