Into the half-sunk cell, darksome and damp;
Nor seem impatient to be gone: inquire,
Console, instruct, encourage, soothe, assist;
Read, pray, and sing a new song to the Lord;
Make tears of joy down grief-worn furrows flow.

O HEALTH! thou sun of life, without whose beam

The fairest scenes of nature seem involv'd

In darkness, shine upon my dreary path
Once more; or, with thy faintest dawn, give hope
That I may yet enjoy thy vital ray :

Though transient be the hope, 'twill be most sweet,
Like midnight music, stealing on the ear,

Then gliding past, and dying slow away.
Music! thou soothing power, thy charm is prov'd
Most vividly when clouds o'ercast the soul,-

So light displays its loveliest effect

In low'ring skies, when thro' the murky rack
A slanting sunbeam shoots, and instant limns
Th' ethereal curve of seven harmonious dyes,
Eliciting a splendour from the gloom :
O Music! still vouchsafe to tranquillize

This breast perturb'd; thy voice, tho' mournful, soothes;

And mournful ay are thy most beauteous lays,
Like fall of blossoms from the orchard boughs,→→
The autumn of the spring: Enchanting power!
Who, by thy airy spell, can'st whirl the mind
Far from the busy haunts of men to vales

Where TWEED or YARROW flows; or, spurning

time,

Recal red FLODDEN field; or suddenly

Transport, with alter'd strain, the deafen'd ear
TO LINDEN'S plain !—But what the past'ral lay,
The melting dirge, the battle's trumpet-peal,
Compar❜d to notes with sacred numbers link'd
In union, solemn, grand! O then the spirit,
Upborne on pinions of celestial sound,

Soars to the throne of God, and ravish'd hears
Ten thousand times ten thousand voices rise
In slow explosion,-voices that erewhile
Were feebly tun'd perhaps to low-breath'd hymns
Of solace in the chambers of the poor,

The Sabbath worship of the friendless sick.

BLEST be the female votaries, whose day No Sabbath of their pious labours prove, Whose lives are consecrated to the toil

Of minist❜ring around th' uncurtain'd couch
Of pain and poverty: blest be the hands,
The lovely hands, (for beauty, youth, and grace,
Are oft conceal'd by Pity's closest veil,)

That mix the cup medicinal, that bind

The wounds which ruthless warfare and disease Have to the loathsome lazar-house consign'd.

FIERCE Superstition of the mitred king! Almost I could forget thy torch and stake, When I this blessed sisterhood survey,Compassion's priestesses, disciples true

Of him whose touch was health, whose single word

Electrified with life the palsied arm,—

Of him who said, Take up thy bed, and walkOf him who cried to Lazarus, Come forth.

AND he who cried to Lazarus, Come forth, Will, when the Sabbath of the tomb is past, Call forth the dead, and re-unite the dust (Transform'd and purified) to angel souls. Extatic hope! belief! conviction firm! How grateful 'tis to recollect the time When hope arose to faith! Faintly at first The heavenly voice is heard: then by degrees Its music sounds perpetual in the heart. Thus he, who all the gloomy winter long Has dwelt in city-crowds, wand'ring a field Betimes on Sabbath morn, ere yet the spring Unfold the daisy's bud, delighted hears

The first lark's note, faint yet, and short the song, Check'd by the chill ungenial northern breeze ; But, as the sun ascends, another springs,