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THANKSGIVING.

HEN firft in ancient time, from Jubal's tongue

The tuneful anthem fill'd the morning air, To facred hymnings and elyfian song His mufic-breathing shell the minstrel woke. Devotion breathed aloud from every chord :The voice of praise was heard in every tone, And prayer, and thanks to Him the eternal one, To Him, that with bright inspiration touch'd The high and gifted lyre of heavenly fong, And warm'd the foul with new vitality. A ftirring energy through Nature breathed:The voice of adoration from her broke, Swelling aloud in every breeze, and heard Long in the fullen waterfall,-what time Soft Spring or hoary Autumn threw on earth

Its bloom or blighting,—when the Summer smiled,

2

Thanksgiving.

Or Winter o'er the year's fepulchre mourn'd.
The Deity was there!—a nameless spirit

Moved in the breafts of men to do Him homage;
And when the morning smiled, or evening pale
Hung weeping o'er the melancholy urn,

They came beneath the broad o'erarching trees, And in their tremulous fhadow worfhipp'd oft, Where pale the vine clung round their fimple altars, And gray mofs mantling hung. Above was heard The melody of winds, breathed out as the green

trees

Bow'd to their quivering touch in living beauty,
And birds fang forth their cheerful hymns. Below,
The bright and widely wandering rivulet
Struggled and gush'd amongst the tangled roots
That choked its reedy fountain—and dark rocks
Worn fmooth by the conftant current. Even there
The listless wave, that stole with mellow voice
Where reeds grew rank on the rufhy-fringed brink,
And the green fedge bent to the wandering wind,

Thanksgiving.

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Sang with a cheerful song of sweet tranquillity.
Men felt the heavenly influence—and it stole
Like balm into their hearts, till all was peace;
And even the air they breathed—the light they faw—-
Became religion,-for the ethereal spirit
That to soft mufic wakes the chords of feeling,
And mellows everything to beauty—moved
With cheering energy within their breasts,
And made all holy there-for all was love.
The morning stars, that sweetly fang together—
The moon, that hung at night in the mid-sky—
Dayspring—and eventide—and all the fair
And beautiful forms of Nature, had a voice
Of eloquent worship. Ocean with its tides
Swelling and deep, where low the infant ftorm
Hung on his dun, dark cloud, and heavily beat
The pulses of the fea,-fent forth a voice
Of awful adoration to the spirit

That, wrapt in darkness, moved upon its face.
And when the bow of evening arch'd the east,

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Thanksgiving.

Or, in the moonlight pale, the curling wave
Kiff'd with a sweet embrace the fea-worn beach,
And foft the song of winds came o'er the waters,
The mingled melody of wind and wave
Touch'd like a heavenly anthem on the ear;
For it arose a tuneful hymn of worship.

And have our hearts grown cold? Are there on earth

No pure reflections caught from heavenly light?—
Have our mute lips no hymn-our fouls no fong?-
Let him that in the fummer day of youth
Keeps pure the holy fount of youthful feeling,—
And him that in the nightfall of his years
Lies down in his laft fleep, and shuts in peace
His dim pale eyes on life's fhort wayfaring,
Praise Him that rules the destiny of man.

Sunday Evening, October, 1824.

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