By day along th' astonished lands
The cloudy Pillar glided slow,
By night Arabia's crimson'd sands
Returned the fiery Column's glow.

And O, when gathers o'er our path
In shade and storm the frequent night
Be Thou, long suffering, slow to wrath,
A burning and a shining Light!

The "Hymn of Rebecca" has been set to music though never in common use as a hymn. Old "Truro", by Dr. Charles Burney (1726-1814) is a grand Scotch psalm harmony for the words, though one of the Unitarian hymnals borrows Zeuner's sonorous choral, the "Missionary Chant." Both sound the lyric of the Jewess in good Christian music.

"WE SAT DOWN AND WEPT BY THE WATERS."

The 137th Psalm has been for centuries a favorite with poets and poetical translators, and its pathos appealed to Lord Byron when engaged in writing his Hebrew Melodies.

Byron was born in London, 1788, and died at Missolonghi, Western Greece, 1824.

We sat down and wept by the waters

Of Babel, and thought of the day
When the foe, in the hue of his slaughters,
Made Salem's high places his prey,

And ye, Oh her desolate daughters,

Were scattered all weeping away.

-Written April, 1814. It was the fashion then for musical societies to call on the popular poets for contributions, and tunes were composed for them, though these have practically passed into oblivion. Byron's ringing ballad (from II Kings 19:35)—

Th' Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold,

-has been so much a favorite for recitation and declamation that the loss of its tune is never thought of.

Another poetic rendering of the "Captivity Psalm" is worthy of notice among the lay hymns not unworthy to supplement clerical sermons. It was written by the Hon. Joel Barlow in 1799, and published in a pioneer psalm-book at Northampton, Mass. It is neither a translation nor properly a hymn but a poem built upon the words of the Jewish lament, and really reproducing something of its plaintive beauty. Two stanzas of it are as follows:

Along the banks where Babel's current flows

Our captive bands in deep despondence strayed,
While Zion's fall in deep remembrance rose,

Her friends, her children mingled with the dead.
The tuneless harps that once with joy we strung
When praise employed, or mirth inspired the lay,
In mournful silence on the willows hung,

And growing grief prolonged the tedious day.

Like Pope, this American poet loved onomatope and imitative verse, and the last line is a word

picture of home-sick weariness. This "psalm was the best piece of work in Mr. Barlow's series of attempted improvements upon Isaac Wattswhich on the whole were not very successful. The sweet cantabile of Mason's "Melton" gave "Along the banks" quite an extended lease of life, though it has now ceased to be sung.

Joel Barlow was a versatile gentleman, serving his country and generation in almost every useful capacity, from chaplain in the continental army to foreign ambassador. He was born in Redding, Ct., 1755, and died near Cracow, Poland, Dec. 1812.

"AS DOWN IN THE SUNLESS."

Thomas Moore, the poet of glees and lovemadrigals, had sober thoughts in the intervals of his gaiety, and employed his genius in writing religious and even devout poems, which have been spiritually helpful in many phases of Christian experience. Among them was this and the four following hymns, with thirty-four others, each of which he carefully labelled with the name of a music composer, though the particular tune is left indefinite. "The still prayer of devotion" here answers, in rhyme and reality, the simile of the sea-flower in the unseen deep, and the mariner's compass represents the constancy of a believer.

As, still to the star of its worship, though clouded,
The needle points faithfully o'er the dim sea,
So, dark as I roam in this wintry world shrouded,
The hope of my spirit turns trembling to Thee.

It is sung in Plymouth Hymnal to Barnby's "St. Botolph."

"THE TURF SHALL BE MY FRAGRANT SHRINE"

Is, in part, still preserved in hymn collections, and sung to the noble tune of "Louvan," Virgil Taylor's piece. The last stanza is especially reminiscent of the music.

There's nothing bright above, below,

From flowers that bloom to stars that glow;
But in its light my soul can see

Some feature of Thy deity.

Is associated in the Baptist Praise Book with Woodbury's "Siloam."

"THE BIRD LET LOOSE IN EASTERN SKIES"

Has been sung in Mason's "Coventry," and the Plymouth Hymnal assigns it to "Spohr❞—a namesake tune of Louis Spohr, while the Unitarian Hymn and Tune Book unites to it a beautiful tripletime melody from Mozart, and bearing his name.

"THOU ART, O GOD, THE LIFE AND LIGHT."

This is the best of the Irish poet's sacred songsalways excepting, "Come, Ye Disconsolate." It is said to have been originally set to a secular melody composed by the wife of Hon. Richard Brinsley

Sheridan. It is joined to the tune of "Brighton" in the Unitarian books, and William Monk's "Matthias" voices the words for the Plymouth Hymnal. The verses have the true lyrical glow, and make a real song of praise as well a composition of more than ordinary literary beauty.

Thou art, O God, the life and light
Of all this wondrous world we see;
Its glow by day, its smile by night
Are but reflections caught from Thee.
Where'er we turn Thy glories shine,

And all things fair and bright are Thine.

When night with wings of starry gloom
O'ershadows all the earth, and skies
Like some dark, beauteous bird, whose plume
Is sparkling with unnumbered eyes,
That sacred gloom, those fires divine,
So grand, so countless, Lord, are Thine.

When youthful spring around us breathes,
Thy Spirit warms her fragrant sigh,
And every flower the summer wreathes
Is born beneath that kindling eye.
Where'er we turn Thy glories shine,
And all things fair and bright are Thine.

"MOURNFULLY, TENDERLY, BEAR ON THE DEAD.”

A tender funeral ballad by Henry S. Washburn, composed in 1846 and entitled "The Burial of Mrs. Judson." It is rare now in sheet-music form but the American Vocalist, to be found in the stores