The Memory Of Burns

How sweetly come the holy psalms From saints and martyrs down, The waving of triumphal palms Above the thorny crown The choral praise, the chanted prayers From harps by angels strung, The hunted Cameron's mountain airs, The hymns that Luther sung! Yet, jarring not the heavenly notes, The sounds of earth are heard, As through the open minster floats The song of breeze and bird Not less the wonder of the sky That daisies bloom below; The brook sings on, though loud and high The cloudy organs blow! And, if the tender ear be jarred That, haply, hears by turns The saintly harp of Olney's bard, The pastoral pipe of Burns, No discord mars His perfect plan Who gave them both a tongue; For he who sings the love of man The love of God hath sung! To-day be every fault forgiven Of him in whom we joy We take, with thanks, the gold of Heaven And leave the earth's alloy. Be ours his music as of spring, His sweetness as of flowers, The songs the bard himself might sing In holier ears than ours. Sweet airs of love and home, the hum Of household melodies, Come singing, as the robins come To sing in door-yard trees. And, heart to heart, two nations lean, No rival wreaths to twine, But blending in eternal green The holly and the pine!