But if ye should hold your peace, Deem not that the song would cease— Angels round His glory-throne, Stars, His guiding hand that own, Flowers, that grow beneath our feet, Stones in earth’s dark womb that rest, High and low in choir shall meet, Ere His Name shall be unblest. Lord, by every minstrel tongue Be Thy praise so duly sung, That Thine angels’ harps may ne’er Fail to find fit echoing here: We the while, of meaner birth, Who in that divinest spell Dare not hope to join on earth, Give us grace to listen well. But should thankless silence seal Lips that might half Heaven reveal, Should bards in idol-hymns profane The sacred soul-enthralling strain, (As in this bad world below Noblest things find vilest using,) Then, Thy power and mercy show, In vile things noble breath infusing; Then waken into sound divine The very pavement of Thy shrine, Till we, like Heaven’s star-sprinkled floor, Faintly give back what we adore: Childlike though the voices be, And untunable the parts, Thou wilt own the minstrelsy If it flow from childlike hearts. Monday before Easter. Doubtless Thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not. _Isaiah_ lxiii. 16. “FATHER to me thou art and mother dear, And brother too, kind husband of my heart”— So speaks Andromache in boding fear, Ere from her last embrace her hero part— So evermore, by Faith’s undying glow, We own the Crucified in weal or woe. Strange to our ears the church-bells of our home, This fragrance of our old paternal fields May be forgotten; and the time may come When the babe’s kiss no sense of pleasure yields E’en to the doting mother: but Thine own Thou never canst forget, nor leave alone. There are who sigh that no fond heart is theirs, None loves them best—O vain and selfish sigh! Out of the bosom of His love He spares— The Father spares the Son, for thee to die: For thee He died—for thee He lives again: O’er thee He watches in His boundless reign. Thou art as much His care, as if beside Nor man nor angel lived in Heaven or earth: Thus sunbeams pour alike their glorious tide To light up worlds, or wake an insect’s mirth: They shine and shine with unexhausted store— Thou art thy Saviour’s darling—seek no more. On thee and thine, thy warfare and thine end, E’en in His hour of agony He thought, When, ere the final pang His soul should rend, The ransomed spirits one by one were brought To His mind’s eye—two silent nights and days In calmness for His far-seen hour He stays.