Rain passes, washing the face of the mountain.
Clouds come, the mountain's in a dream.
Clouds and rain come and go as they please.
Only the mountain, forever green, remains.
Sweet Dove! the softest, steadiest plume,
In all the sunbright sky,
Brightening in ever-changeful bloom
As breezes change on high; -
Sweet Leaf! the pledge of peace and mirth,
"Long sought, and lately won,"
Blessed increase of reviving Earth,
When first it felt the Sun; -
Sweet Rainbow! pride of summer days,
High set at Heaven's command,
Though into drear and dusky haze
Thou melt on either hand; -
Dear tokens of a pardoning God,
We hail ye, one and all,
There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams
hurry too rapidly down to the sea,
and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops
makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion,
turning to waterfalls under our very eyes.
--For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains,
aren't waterfalls yet,
in a quick age or so, as ages go here,
they probably will be.
But if the streams and clouds keep travelling, travelling,
the mountains look like the hulls of capsized ships,
v.1,10ff
C. M.
Christ's first and second coming.
Sing to the Lord, ye distant lands,
Ye tribes of every tongue;
His new-discovered grace demands
A new and nobler song.
Say to the nations, Jesus reigns,
God's own almighty Son;
His power the sinking world sustains,
And grace surrounds his throne.
Let heav'n proclaim the joyful day,
Joy through the earth be seen;
Let cities shine in bright array,
And fields in cheerful green.
Let an unusual joy surprise
v.12ff
L. M.
The church is the garden of God.
Lord, 'tis a pleasant thing to stand
In gardens planted by thine hand;
Let me within thy courts be seen,
Like a young cedar, fresh and green.
There grow thy saints in faith and love,
Blest with thine influence from above;
Not Lebanon with all its trees
Yields such a comely sight as these.
The plants of grace shall ever live;
(Nature decays, but grace must thrive
Time, that doth all things else impair,
The blessings of the spring; or, God gives rain.
A Psalm for the husbandman.
Good is the Lord, the heav'nly King,
Who makes the earth his care;
Visits the pastures ev'ry spring,
And bids the grass appear.
The clouds, like rivers raised on high,
Pour out at thy command
Their wat'ry blessings from the sky,
To cheer the thirsty land.
The softened ridges of the field
Permit the corn to spring;
The valleys rich provision yield,
And the poor lab'rers sing.
v.5-13
L. M.
Divine providence in air, earth, and sea.
The God of our salvation hears
The groans of Zion mixed with tears;
Yet when he comes with kind designs,
Through all the way his terror shines.
On him the race of man depends,
Far as the earth's remotest ends,
Where the Creator's name is known
By nature's feeble light alone.
Sailors, that travel o'er the flood,
Address their frighted souls to God,
When tempests rage and billows roar
At dreadful distance from the shore.
v.23-87
C. M.
The way and end of the righteous and the wicked.
My God, the steps of pious men
Are ordered by thy will;
Though they should fall, they rise again,
Thy hand supports them still.
The Lord delights to see their ways,
Their virtue he approves;
He'll ne'er deprive them of his grace,
Nor leave the men he loves.
The heav'nly heritage is theirs,
Their portion and their home;
He feeds them now, and makes them heirs
Of blessings long to come.
The blessings of the liberal man.
That man is blest who stands in awe
Of God, and loves his sacred law:
His seed on earth shall be renowned;
His house the seat of wealth shall be,
An inexhausted treasury,
And with successive honors crowned.
His lib'ral favors he extends,
To some he gives, to others lends;
A gen'rous pity fills his mind:
Yet what his charity impairs,
He saves by prudence in affairs
And thus he's just to all mankind.
His hands, while they his alms bestowed,
Colonies planted; or, Nations blessed and punished.
A Psalm for New England.
When God, provoked with daring crimes,
Scourges the madness of the times,
He turns their fields to barren sand,
And dries the rivers from the land.
His word can raise the springs again,
And make the withered mountains green;
Send showery blessings from the skies,
And harvests in the desert rise.
[Where nothing dwelt but beasts of prey,
Or men as fierce and wild as they,
He bids th' oppressed and poor repair,
