HOLY WEEK, APRIL, 1860.
O FAIREST mansion of a Father's love,Harmonious! hospitable! with thine armsOutspread to all, thy fountains ever full,And, fair as heaven, thy misty, sky-like domeHung like the firmament with circling sweepAbove the constellated golden lampsThat burn forever round the holy tomb.Most meet art thou to be the Father's house,The house of prayer for nations. Come the timeWhen thou shalt be so! when a liberty,Wide as thine arms, high as thy lofty dome,Shall be proclaimed, by thy loud singing choirs,Like voice of many waters! Then the LordShall come into his temple, and make pureThe sons of Levi; then, as once of old,The blind shall see, the lame leap as an hart,And to the poor the Gospel shall be preached,And Easter's silver-sounding trumpets tell,"The Lord is risen indeed," to die no more.Hasten it in its time. Amen! Amen!
NOT of the earth that music! all things fade;Vanish the pictured walls! and, one by one,The starry candles silently expire!And now, O Jesus! round that silent crossA moment's pause, a hush as of the grave.Now rises slow a silver mist of sound,And all the heavens break out in drops of grief;A rain of sobbing sweetness, swelling, dying,Voice into voice inweaving with sweet throbs,And fluttering pulses of impassioned moan,—Veiled voices, in whose wailing there is awe,And mysteries of love and agony,A yearning anguish of celestial souls,A shiver as of wings trembling the air,As if God's shining doves, his spotless birds,Wailed with a nightingale's heart-break of grief,In this their starless night, when for our sinsTheir sun, their life, their love, hangs darkly there,Like a slain lamb, bleeding his life away!
cross and palm leaves
————————Cambridge: Electrotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co.