God of the thunder! from whose cloudy seat
The fiery winds of desolation flow;
Father of vengeance! that with purple feet,
Like a full wine-press tread'st the world below.
The embattled armies wait thy sign to slay,
Nor springs the beast of havoc on his prey,
Nor withering famine walks his blasted way,
Till Thou the guilty land hast sealed for woe.
God of the rainbow! at whose gracious sign
The billows of the proud their rage suppress:
Father of mercies! at one word of thine

An Eden blooms in the waste wilderness!
And fountains sparkle in the arid sands,
And timbrels ring in maidens' glancing hands,
And marble cities crown the laughing lands,
And pillared temples rise thy name to bless.
O'er Judah's land thy thunders broke-oh, Lord!
The chariots rattled o'er her sunken gate,
Her sons were wasted by the Assyrian sword,
Even her foes wept to see her fallen state;
And heaps her ivory palaces became,
Her princes wore the captive's garb of shame,
Her temple sank amid the smouldering flame,
For Thou didst ride the tempest cloud of fate.

O'er Judah's land thy rainbow, Lord, shall beam,
And the sad city lift her crownless head;

And songs shall wake, and dancing footsteps gleam,
Where broods o'er fallen streets the silence of the dead.
The sun shall shine on Salem's gilded towers,
On Carmel's side our maidens cull the flowers,
To deck, at blushing eve, their bridal bowers,
And angel feet the glittering Sion tread.

Thy vengeance gave us to the stranger's hand,
And Abraham's children were led forth for slaves;
With fettered steps we left our pleasant land,
Envying our fathers in their peaceful graves.
The stranger's bread with bitter tears we steep,
And when our weary eyes should sink to sleep,

'Neath the mute midnight we steal forth to weep, Where the pale willows shade Euphrates' waves. The born in sorrow shall bring forth in joy;

Thy mercy, Lord, shall lead thy children home; He that went forth a tender yearling boy,

Yet, ere he die, to Salem's streets shall come. And Canaan's vines for us their fruits shall bear, And Hermon's bees their honied stores prepare, And we shall kneel again in thankful prayer,

Where, o'er the cherub-seated God, full blazed the irradiate dome.

THE Reverend John Moultrie, the son of a country. clergyman, was born about 1804. He was educated at Eton, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained a scholarship in 1822. He graduated as B.A. in 1823, and took his master's degree three years later. In 1825 he was ordained deacon by the Bishop of Lincoln, priest by the Bishop of Ely, and presented to the rectory of Rugby by the Earl of Craven. Mr. Moultrie published in 1837, "My Brother's Grave, and other Poems;" "Lays of the English Church," in 1843; and "Altars, Hearths, and Graves," in 1854. His prose works include a "Memoir and Poetical Remains of W. S. Walker" (1852); "Sermons preached at Rugby" (1852); and besides these he has published an illustrated edition of "Gray's Poetical Works," with notes and some stanzas prefixed, which in his collected poems, published in 1854, are presented

under the title of "Musæ Etonenses." The loss of a cherished son seems to have originated the best of what he calls the "florets of a second spring," a piece entitled "My Three Sons," remarkable for the ease and simplicity with which effective and beautiful results of a tender and pathetic kind are attained. In the "Easter Dirge for the Dying," a touching and original thought is happily worked out.

MY THREE SONS.

I have a son, a little son, a boy just five years old, With eyes of thoughtful earnestness, and mind of gentle mould.

They tell me that unusual grace in all his ways appears, That my child is grave and wise of heart beyond his childish years.

I cannot say how this may be, I know his face is fair, And yet his chiefest comeliness is his sweet and serious

air:

I know his heart is kind and fond, I know he loveth me, But loveth yet his mother more with grateful fervency: But that which others most admire is the thought which fills his mind,

The food for grave inquiring speech he everywhere doth find.

Strange questions doth he ask of me when we together

walk;

He scarcely thinks as children think, or talks as children talk.

Nor cares he much for childish sports, dotes not on bat or ball,

But looks on manhood's ways and works, and aptly mimicks all.

His little heart is busy still, and oftentimes perplext With thoughts about this world of ours, and thoughts about the next,

He kneels at his dear mother's knee, she teacheth him to pray,

And strange, and sweet, and solemn then are the words which he will say.

Oh, should my gentle child be spared to manhood's years, like me,

A holier and a wiser man I trust that he will be:

And when I look into his eyes, and stroke his thoughtful brow,

I dare not think what I should feel, were I to lose him

now.

I have a son, a second son, a simple child of three;
I'll not declare how bright and fair his little features be,
How silver sweet those tones of his when he prattles on
my knee :

I do not think his light blue eye is, like his brother's, keen,

Nor his brow so full of childish thought as his hath ever

been;

But his little heart's a fountain pure of kind and tender feeling,

And his every look's a gleam of light, rich depths of love revealing.

When he walks with me the country folk, who pass us in the street,

Will shout for joy, and bless my boy, he looks so mild and sweet.

A playfellow is he to all, and yet, with cheerful tone, Will sing his little song of love, when left to sport alone.

His presence is like sunshine sent to gladden home and hearth,

To comfort us in all our griefs, and sweeten all our mirth.

Should he grow up to riper years, God grant his heart may prove,

As sweet a home for heavenly grace as now for earthly

love:

And if, beside his grave, the tears our aching eyes must dim,

God comfort us for all the love which we shall lose in

him.

I have a son, a third sweet son; his age I cannot tell, For they reckon not by years and months where he is gone to dwell.

To us, for fourteen anxious months, his infant smiles

were given,

And then he bade farewell to earth, and went to live in

heaven.

I cannot tell what form his is, what looks he weareth now,

Nor guess how bright a glory crowns his shining seraph brow.

The thoughts that fill his sinless soul, the bliss which he doth feel,

Are numbered with the secret things which God will not reveal.

But I know (for God hath told me this) that he is now at rest,

Where other blessed infants be, on their Saviour's loving breast.

I know his spirit feels no more this weary load of flesh, But his sleep is blessed with endless dreams of joy for ever fresh.

I know the angels fold him close beneath their glittering wings,

And soothe him with a song that breathes of heaven's divinest things.

I know that we shall meet our babe (his mother dear and I),

Where God for aye shall wipe away all tears from every

eye.

Whate'er befalls his brethren twain, his bliss can never

cease;

Their lot may here be grief and fear, but his is certain

peace.

It may be that the tempter's wiles their souls from bliss

may sever,

But if our own poor faith fail not, he must be ours for

ever.

When we think of what our darling is, and what we still

must be,

When we muse on that world's perfect bliss, and this world's misery,—

When we groan beneath this world of sin, and feel this grief and pain,

Oh! we'd rather lose our other two, than have him here again.