SACRED SONGS. THOU ART, O GOD. (AIR-Unknown.) "The day is thine, the night also is thine: thou hast prepared the light Thou hast, set all the borders of the earth: thou hast made summer and winter."-Psalm lxxiv. 16, 17. and the sun. THOU art, O God, the life and light Are but reflections caught from Thee. When day, with farewell beam, delays Through golden vistas into heaven- When night, with wings of starry gloom, When youthful spring around us breathes, THE BIRD LET LOOSE. (Air-BEETHOVEN.) THE bird let loose in eastern skies,* Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, nor flies But high she shoots through air and light, Where nothing earthly bounds her flight, So grant me, God, from every care FALLEN IS THY THRONE. FALLEN is thy throne, O Israel ! That fire from heaven which led thee, Lord! thou didst love Jerusalem- Her power Thy glory's throne,+ Thy long-loved olive-tree; § *The carrier-pigeon, it is well-known, flies at an elevated pitch, in order to surmount every obstacle between her and the place to which she is destined. "I have left mine heritage; I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hands of her enemies."-Jer. xii. 7. "Do not disgrace the throne of thy glory."-Jer. xiv. 21. "The Lord called thy name a green olive-tree; fair and of goodly fruit," &c. -Jer. xi. 16. And Salem's shrines were lighted Then sunk the star of Solyma- WHO IS THE MAID? (Air-BEETHOVEN.) WHO is the Maid my spirit seeks, Through cold reproof and slander's blight? Is hers an eye of this world's light? Or if at times a light be there, I chose her not, my soul's elect, From those who seek their Maker's shrine In gems and garlands proudly deck'd, "For he shall be like the heath in the desert."-Jer. xvii. 6. "Take away her battlements; for they are not the Lord's."-Jer. v. 10. "Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; for they shall bury in Tophet till there be no place."—Jer. vii. 32. § These lines were suggested by a passage in St Jerome's reply to some calumnious remarks that had been circulated respecting his intimacy with the matron Paula. |