Brightest and best of the sons of the morning!
Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid.
_Epiphany_. BISHOP R. HEBER.
He was the Word, that spake it;
He took the bread and brake it;
And what that Word did make it,
I do believe and take it.
_Divine Poems: On the Sacrament_. DR. J. DONNE.
And so the Word had breath, and wrought
With human hands the creed of creeds
In loveliness of perfect deeds,
More strong than all poetic thought.
_In Memoriam, XXXVI_. A. TENNYSON.
Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallowed and so gracious is the time,
_Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
In those holy fields,
Over whose acres walked those blessèd feet
Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed,
For our advantage, on the bitter cross.
_Henry IV., Pt. I. Act i. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
Lovely was the death
Of Him whose life was Love! Holy with power,
He on the thought-benighted Skeptic beamed
Manifest Godhead.
_Religious Musings_. S.T. COLERIDGE.
But chiefly Thou
Whom soft-eyed Pity once led down from Heaven
To bleed for man, to teach him how to live,
And, oh! still harder lesson! how to die.
_Death_. B. PORTEUS.
One there is above all others,
Well deserves the name of Friend!
His is love beyond a brother's,
Costly, free, and knows no end:
They who once his kindness prove,
Find it everlasting love!
_A Friend that Sticketh Closer than a Brother_. J. NEWTON.
'Tis done, the great transaction's done;
I am my Lord's, and he is mine;
He drew me, and I followed on,
Charmed to confess the voice divine.
Now rest, my long-divided heart!
Fixed on this blissful centre, rest;
Oh, who with earth would grudge to part,
When called with angels to be blest?
_Happy Day_. P. DODDRIDGE.
Our Friend, our Brother, and our Lord,
What may thy service be?--
Nor name, nor town, nor ritual word,
But simply following thee.
We bring no ghastly holocaust,
We pile no graven stone;
He serves thee best who loveth most
His brothers and thy own.
_Our Master_. J.G. WHITTIER.