Time’s waters will not ebb, nor stay; Power cannot change them, but Love may; What cannot be, Love counts it done. Deep in the heart, her searching view Can read where Faith is fixed and true, Through shades of setting life can see Heaven’s work begun. O Thou, who keep’st the Key of Love, Open Thy fount, eternal Dove, And overflow this heart of mine, Enlarging as it fills with Thee, Till in one blaze of charity Care and remorse are lost, like motes in light divine; Till as each moment wafts us higher, By every gush of pure desire, And high-breathed hope of joys above, By every secret sigh we heave, Whole years of folly we outlive, In His unerring sight, who measures Life by Love. The Circumcision of Christ. In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands. _Coloss._ ii. 11. THE year begins with Thee, And Thou beginn’st with woe, To let the world of sinners see That blood for sin must flow. Thine infant cries, O Lord, Thy tears upon the breast, Are not enough—the legal sword Must do its stern behest. Like sacrificial wine Poured on a victim’s head Are those few precious drops of Thine, Now first to offering led. They are the pledge and seal Of Christ’s unswerving faith Given to His Sire, our souls to heal, Although it cost His death. They to His Church of old, To each true Jewish heart, In Gospel graces manifold Communion blest impart. Now of Thy love we deem As of an ocean vast, Mounting in tides against the stream Of ages gone and past. Both theirs and ours Thou art, As we and they are Thine; Kings, Prophets, Patriarchs—all have part Along the sacred line. By blood and water too God’s mark is set on Thee, That in Thee every faithful view Both covenants might see. O bond of union, dear And strong as is Thy grace! Saints, parted by a thousand year, May thus in heart embrace. Is there a mourner true, Who fallen on faithless days, Sighs for the heart-consoling view Of those Heaven deigned to praise? In spirit may’st thou meet With faithful Abraham here, Whom soon in Eden thou shalt greet A nursing Father dear. Would’st thou a poet be? And would thy dull heart fain Borrow of Israel’s minstrelsy One high enraptured strain? Come here thy soul to tune, Here set thy feeble chant, Here, if at all beneath the moon, Is holy David’s haunt. Art thou a child of tears, Cradled in care and woe? And seems it hard, thy vernal years Few vernal joys can show? And fall the sounds of mirth Sad on thy lonely heart, From all the hopes and charms of earth Untimely called to part?