Now resting from your jealous care
For sinners, such as Eden cannot know,
Ye pour for us your mingled prayer,
No anxious fear to damp Affection’s glow,
Love draws a cloud
From you to shroud
Rebellion’s mystery here below.

And since we see, and not afar,
The twilight of the great and dreadful day,
Why linger, till Elijah’s car
Stoop from the clouds?  Why sheep ye?  Rise and pray,
Ye heralds sealed
In camp or field
Your Saviour’s banner to display.

Where is the lore the Baptist taught,
The soul unswerving and the fearless tongue? 
The much-enduring wisdom, sought
By lonely prayer the haunted rocks among? 
Who counts it gain
His light should wane,
So the whole world to Jesus throng?

Thou Spirit, who the Church didst lend
Her eagle wings, to shelter in the wild,
We pray Thee, ere the Judge descend,
With flames like these, all bright and undefiled,
Her watch-fires light,
To guide aright
Our weary souls by earth beguiled.

So glorious let thy Pastors shine,
That by their speaking lives the world may learn
First filial duty, then divine,
That sons to parents, all to Thee may turn;
And ready prove
In fires of love,
At sight of Thee, for aye to burn.

ST. PETER’S DAY

When Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping.  Acts xii. 26.

Thou thrice denied, yet thrice beloved,
   Watch by Thine own forgiven friend;
In sharpest perils faithful proved,
   Let his soul love Thee to the end.

The prayer is heard—­else why so deep
   His slumber on the eve of death? 
And wherefore smiles he in his sleep
   As one who drew celestial breath?

He loves and is beloved again —
   Can his soul choose but be at rest? 
Sorrow hath fled away, and Pain
   Dares not invade the guarded nest.

He dearly loves, and not alone: 
   For his winged thoughts are soaring high
Where never yet frail heart was known
   To breathe its vain Affection’s sigh.

He loves and weeps—­but more than tears
   Have sealed Thy welcome and his love —
One look lives in him, and endears
   Crosses and wrongs where’er he rove: 

That gracious chiding look, Thy call
   To win him to himself and Thee,
Sweetening the sorrow of his fall
   Which else were rued too bitterly.

E’en through the veil of sheep it shines,
   The memory of that kindly glance; —
The Angel watching by, divines
   And spares awhile his blissful trance.

Or haply to his native lake
   His vision wafts him back, to talk
With Jesus, ere His flight He take,
   As in that solemn evening walk,

When to the bosom of His friend,
   The Shepherd, He whose name is Good. 
Did His dear lambs and sheep commend,
   Both bought and nourished with His blood: