INNOCENT'S DAY. O weep not o'er thy children's tomb, The bud is cropt by martyrdom, The flower in heaven shall blow. Firstlings of faith, the murderer's knife Though feeble were their days and few, Baptized in blood and pain, He knows them, whom they never knew, And they shall live again. Then weep not o'er thy children's tomb, O Rachel, weep not so: The bud is cropt by martyrdom, The flower in heaven shall blow. SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS; OR CIRCUMCISION. LORD of mercy and of might, Jesus, hear and save. Who, when sin's tremendous doom Didst not scorn the Virgin's womb, Mighty monarch, Saviour mild, Jesus, hear and save. Throned above celestial things, Who shalt yet return from high, EPIPHANY. BRIGHTEST and best of the sons of the morning, Cold on his cradle the dew drops are shining, Say, shall we yield him,in costly devotion, Vainly we offer each ampler oblation; Dearer to God are the prayers of the poor. Brightest and best of the sons of the morning, Star of the East, the horizon adorning, FIRST SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY. LUKE II. ABASHED be all the boast of age, Be hoary learning dumb, O Wisdom, whose unfading power To frame, in nature's earliest hour, Yet didst not Thou disdain awhile To bless thy mother with a smile, But, in thy Father's own abode, So may our youth adore thy name, FIRST SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY. By cool Siloam's shady rill How sweet the lily grows, How sweet the breath beneath the hill Of Sharon's dewy rose. Lo, such the child whose early feet By cool Siloam's shady rill The lily must decay; The rose that blooms beneath the hill Must shortly fade away. And soon, too soon, the wintry hour Of man's maturer age, Will shake the soul with sorrow's power, O Thou, whose infant feet were found Whose years, with changeless virtue crowned Dependent on thy bounteous breath, In childhood, manhood, age and death, |