Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. 1829.
By Evening HymnLevi Frisbie (17841822)
M
To God, thy kind preserver, raise,
Whose hand this day hath guarded, fed
And thousand blessings round me shed.
In thought or feeling, deed or word;
And if in aught thy law I ’ve kept,
My feeble efforts Lord accept.
Let no vain thought disturb my breast;
Shed o’er my soul religion’s power,
Serenely solemn as the hour.
Their watch to shield me while I sleep,
Till the fresh morn shall round me break,
Then with new vigor may I wake.
Of thy short course has roll’d away;
Ah think how soon in deepening shade
Thy day of life itself shall fade.
Lock every sense in dread repose,
And lay me ’mid the awful gloom
And solemn silence of the tomb.
Oh may my soul repose in thee,
Till the glad morn in heaven shall rise,
Then wake to triumph in the skies.