2 Hark! how the feathered warblers sing!
'T is Nature's cheerful voice;
Soft music hails the lovely spring,
And woods and fields rejoice.
3 Earth and her thousand voices give
Their thousand notes of praise;
And all, that by his mercy live,
To God their offering raise.
4 O God of nature and of grace,
Thy heavenly gifts impart ;
Then shall my meditation trace
Spring, blooming in my heart.
5 Inspired to praise, I then shall join
Glad Nature's cheerful song,
And love and gratitude divine
Attune my joyful tongue.
1 THE leaves around me falling
Are preaching of decay;
The hollow winds are calling,
"Come, pilgrim, come away"
The day, in night declining,
Says I must too decline;
The year its bloom resigning,
Its lot foreshadows mine.
2 The light my path surrounding,
The loves to which I cling,
The hopes within me bounding,
The joys that round me wing,-
All, all, like stars at even,
Just gleam and shoot away,
Pass on before to heaven,
And chide at my delay.
3 The friends gone there before me
Are calling from on high,
And happy angels o'er me
Tempt sweetly to the sky:
"Why wait," they say, "and wither,
'Mid scenes of death and sin?
O rise to glory, hither,
And find true life begin."
1 SEE the leaves around us falling,
Dry and withered to the ground,
Thus to thoughtless mortals calling,
In a sad and solemn sound:
2 "Sons of Adam, (once in Eden,
Where, like us, he blighted fell,)
Hear the lesson we are reading;
Mark the awful truth we tell.
3 "Youth, on length of days presuming,
Who the paths of pleasure tread;
View us, late in beauty blooming,
Numbered now among the dead.
4"What though yet no losses grieve you, Gay with health and many a grace; Let not cloudless skies deceive you : Summer gives to autumn place.
5" Yearly in our course returning,
Messengers of shortest stay,
Thus we preach this truth concerning,
Heaven and earth shall pass away."
6 On the tree of life eternal,
O let all our hopes be laid;
This alone, for ever vernal,
Bears a leaf that shall not fade.
Imitation of Thomson's Hymn on the Seasons.
1 LORD of the worlds below!
On earth thy glories shine;
The changing seasons show
Thy skill and power divine.
In all we see
A God appears;
The rolling years
Are full of thee.
2 Forth in the flowery spring
We see thy beauty move;
The birds on branches sing
Thy tenderness and love;
Wide flush the hills; Devotion's calm
Our bosom fills.
Then come, in robes of light,
The summer's flaming days;
The sun, thine image bright,
Thy majesty displays;
But still our souls
In thee rejoice.
4 In autumn, a rich feast
Thy common bounty gives
To man, and bird, and beast,
And everything that lives.
Thy liberal care,
And harvest moon,
Our lips declare.
5 In winter, awful thou!
With storms around thee cast;
The leafless forests bow
Beneath thy northern blast.
While tempests lower, We homage bring,
1 GREAT God, we sing that mighty hand,
By which supported still we stand:
The opening year thy mercy shows;
That mercy crowns it, till it close.
2 By day, by night, at home, abroad,
Still are we guarded by our God,
By his incessant bounty fed,
By his unerring counsel led.
3 With grateful hearts the past we own;
The future, all to us unknown,
We to thy guardian care commit,
And peaceful leave before thy feet.
4 In scenes exalted or depressed,
Thou art our joy, and thou our rest;
Thy goodness all our hopes shall raise,
Adored through all our changing days.
5 When death shall interrupt these songs,
And seal in silence mortal tongues,
Our helper, God, in whom we trust,
In better worlds our souls shall boast.
1 OUR Father! through the coming year We know not what shall be,
But we would leave without a fear
Its ordering to thee.
may be we shall toil in vain
For what the world holds fair,
And all its good we thought to gain
Deceive, and prove but care.
3 It may be it shall darkly blend
Our love with anxious fears,
And snatch away the valued friend,
The tried of many years.
4 It may be it shall bring us days
And nights of lingering pain,
And bid us take our farewell gaze
Of these loved haunts of men.
5 But calmly, Lord, on thee we rest;
No fears our trust shall move;
Thou knowest what for each is best,
And thou art perfect love.
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