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Sin is with man at morning break,

And through the live-long day Deafens the ear that fain would wake To Nature's simple lay.

But when eve's silent foot-fall steals
Along the eastern sky,

And one by one to earth reveals
Those purer fires on high,

When one by one each human sound
Dies on the awful ear,

Then Nature's voice no more is drown'd,
She speaks and we must hear.

Then

pours

she on the Christian heart

That warning still and deep,

At which high spirits of old would start Even from their Pagan sleep,

Just guessing, through their murky blind, Few, faint, and baffling sight,

Streaks of a brighter heaven behind,

A cloudless depth of light.

Such thoughts, the wreck of Paradise,

Through many a dreary age,

Upbore whate'er of good and wise

Yet lived in bard or sage:

They mark'd what agonizing throes
Shook the great mother's womb;

But Reason's spells might not disclose
The gracious birth to come;

Nor could th' enchantress Hope forecast

God's secret love and

power;

The travail pangs of Earth must last

Till her appointed hour;

The hour that saw from opening heaven
Redeeming glory stream,

Beyond the summer hues of even,
Beyond the mid-day beam.

Thenceforth, to eyes of high desire,
The meanest things below,

As with a seraph's robe of fire

Invested, burn and glow :

The rod of heaven has touch'd them all,

The word from heaven is spoken ; "Rise, shine, and sing, thou captive thrall; "Are not thy fetters broken?

"The God who hallow'd thee and blest,

66

Pronouncing thee all good

“Hath He not all thy wrongs redrest, "And all thy bliss renew'd?

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Why mourn'st thou still as one bereft, "Now that th' eternal Son

"His blessed home in heaven hath left "To make thee all his own?"

Thou mourn'st because Sin lingers still
In Christ's new heaven and earth;
Because our rebel works and will

Stain our immortal birth:

Because, as Love and Prayer grow cold,
The Saviour hides his face,

And worldlings blot the temple's gold
With uses vile and base.

Hence all thy groans and travail pains,

Hence, till thy God return,

In wisdom's ear thy blithest strains,
Oh Nature, seem to mourn.

FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

And Simon answering said unto Him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless, at thy word I will let down the net: and when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes, and their net brake. St. Luke v. 5.

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THE livelong night we've toiled in vain,

"But at thy gracious word

"I will let down the net again :—
"Do thou thy will, O Lord!"

So spake the weary fisher, spent
With bootless darkling toil,

Yet on his Master's bidding bent
For love and not for spoil.

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So day by day and week by week,

In sad and weary thought,

They muse, whom God hath set to seek
The souls his Christ hath bought.

For not upon a tranquil lake

Our pleasant task we ply,

Where all along our glistening wake
The softest moonbeams lie;

Where rippling wave and dashing oar
Our midnight chant attend,
Or whispering palm-leaves from the shore
With midnight silence blend.

Sweet thoughts of peace, ye may not last :
Too soon some ruder sound

Calls us from where ye soar so fast
Back to our earthly round.

For wildest storms our ocean sweep:
No anchor but the Cross

Might hold and oft the thankless deep
Turns all our toil to loss.

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