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As o'er the sun the clouds were thrown,
Or whirlwinds wild began to move,
Sweeping across the changeful scene

The foliage of the forest green :—
For now the omens of dismay

O'er heaven and earth, in proud array,
Began, mid light and lurid gloom,

To speak prophetic of the doom

That soon should come, with power sublime,

And wash away the guilt of Time.

The voice of elemental war

Spoke forth a language undefined,

As round the wilderness afar

It rose upon the rising wind,

And mutter'd still, as rolling on,
Its tidings in a hollow tone,

Or fill'd with accents wild and high

The valleys of creation lone

And concave of the bending sky.

Then, borne on wings of anxious flight, Through paths of changeful shade and light, The fowls of heaven, from realms remote, With speed of pinion swift as thought, Onward in thousands hurrying came,

Alike the wilder and the tame,

As if destruction, near behind,

Pursued them wildly on the wind,
And caused them urge their utmost power

To save them in the evil hour :

Then reeling in a restless crowd
Above the valley of the Ark,

Their cries discordant waken'd loud,

And densely, as the thunder-cloud,

The day as night they render'd dark, Save when, their changing wings between, Uncertain hues of light were seen

Trembling on vale and mountain top,

Like glimmerings by the moonbeam cast,

When winds among the woods are up,

And boughs are bending in the blast.

These came not only :-beasts that stray
Far through the desert's trackless way,

By forest dense, or mountain hoar,

And never had, since first began

The strife of nature, sought before

The scenes that bore the trace of man,
From den and cavern sallied forth,

And sped them o'er the darken'd earth,
In sullen plight still crowding on,

Impell'd by some mysterious law
Proclaim'd from out th' eternal throne,
And understood by them alone,

To bid them from their haunts withdraw,

And seek a home, to be bestow'd

Upon them by the man of God;

While he, in all the council skill'd

Of Him whose power could thus provide,

Still working as Jehovah will'd,

Took in the pairs of every tribe,

That yet a remnant might remain
To fill the earth with life again.

Yet ere he enter'd to the home

That should him shield in evil time,
Amid the wonders of the gloom

He turn'd to heaven in mood sublime;

And lifting up his voice on high

To Him who dwells beyond the sky,

With earnest tone and sacred air,

Thus offer'd

up

his spirit's prayer:

A SONG OF NOAH.

THOU-thou who of life art the guardian and giver, Whose power can uphold when no arm can deliver, Shalt still be our stay, through the faith that we cherish,

In the day when the hopes of the godless shall perish.

Oh, how should it be, that the voice of thy warning Should vanish from man like a dream of the morning;

While the beasts of the desert before thee assemble, And mutely adore, when the solitudes tremble?

The sons of mankind, in their madness unholy, Have follow'd, regardless, the paths of their folly; In all, but in deeds of destruction, unstable,

Since the hour that earth blush'd with the life-blood of Abel.

They heard not thy voice when its accents were milder, And fear'd not its power when its warnings grew

wilder;

Nor now hath thy spirit in penitence found them, Though the omens of death and dismay are around them.

Even now to our spirits a sign hath been given, That speaks of the will and the wisdom of Heaven; But though thy dread thunders a language have utter'd,

That gathers the tribes o'er the wilderness scatter'd,

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