Of stable pleasures on the tossing wave!
Eternal sunshine in the storms of life!
How richly were my noon-tide trances hung
With gorgeous tapestries of pictured joys!
Joy behind joy! in endless perspective!
Till at Death's toll, whose restless iron tongue
Calls daily for his millions at a meal,
Starting, I woke, and found myself undone!
Where now my frenzy's pompous furniture,
The cobwebbed cottage, with its ragged wall
Of mouldering mud, is royalty to me!
The spider's most attenuated thread
Is cord, is cable, to man's tender tie
On earthly bliss; it breaks at every breeze.
O ye blest scenes of permanent delight!
Full above measure! lasting beyond bound!
A perpetuity of bliss is bliss.
THE POWER OF GOD INFINITE.
CAN man conceive beyond what God can do?
Nothing, but quite impossible, is hard;
He summons into being, with like ease,
A whole creation, and a single grain.
Speaks He the word? a thousand worlds are born!-
A thousand worlds! there's space for millions more;
And in what space can. His great fiat fail?
Still seems my thought enormous? Think again;-
Experience self shall aid thy lame belief;
Glasses (that revelation to the sight!),
Have they not led us deep in the disclose
Of fine-spun nature, exquisitely small;
And, though demonstrated, still ill conceived?
If, then, on the reverse, the mind would mount
In magnitude, what mind can mount too far,
To keep the balance, and creation poize?
Stupendous Architect! thou, thou art all!
My soul flies up and down in thoughts of thee,
And finds herself but at the centre still!
"I AM," thy Name! existence! all thy own!
REGULARITY OF THE HEAVENLY BODIES.
NOR think thou seest a wild disorder here;
Through this illustrious chaos, to the sight,
Arrangement neat, and chastest order, reign.
The path prescribed, inviolably kept,
Upbraids the lawless sallies of mankind:
Worlds, ever thwarting, never interfere;
They rove for ever, without error rove:
Confusion unconfused! nor less admire
This tumult untumultuous: all on wing,
In motion all! yet what profound repose!
What fervid action! yet no noise! as awed
To silence by the presence of their Lord;
Or hushed, by His command, in love to man,
And bid let fall soft beams on human rest,
Restless themselves. On yon cerulean plain,
In exultation to their God and thine,
They dance, they sing eternal jubilee,
Eternal celebration of His praise:
But, since their song arrives not at our ear,
Their dance perplexed exhibits to the sight
Fair hieroglyphic of his peerless power;
Mark, how, the labyrinthian turns they take,
The circles intricate, and mystic maze,
Weave the grand cipher of Omnipotence!
OMNIPRESENCE OF GOD.
Он, may I breathe no longer than I breathe
My soul in praise to Him who gave my soul,
And all her infinite of prospect fair,
Cut through the shades of hell, great love! by Thee!
Where shall that praise begin, which ne'er should end?
Where'er I turn, what claim on all applause!
How is night's sable mantle laboured o'er,
How richly wrought, with attributes divine!
What wisdom shines! what love! this midnight pomp,
This gorgeous arch, with golden worlds inlaid,
Built with divine ambition, nought to thee:
For others this profusion: thou apart,
Above, beyond! Oh, tell me, mighty mind,
Where art thou? Shall I dive into the deep?
Call to the sun, or ask the roaring winds,
For their Creator? Shall I question loud
The thunder, if in that the Almighty dwells?
Or holds He furious storms in straitened reins,
And bids fierce whirlwinds wheel His rapid car?
What mean these questions? trembling I retract;
My prostrate soul adores the present God;
Praise I a distant Deity? He tunes
My voice (if tuned), the nerve, that writes, sustains;
Wrapt in His being, I resound His praise:
But though past all diffused, without a shore,
His essence: local is His throne (as meet),
To gather the disperst, to fix a point,
A central point, collective of his sons,
Since finite every nature, but His own.
The nameless He, whose nod is nature's birth,
And nature's shield, the shadow of His hand;
Her dissolution, His suspended smile;
The Great First last! pavilioned high He sits
In darkness, from excessive splendour born;
His glory, to created glory, bright
As that, to central horrors; He looks down
On all that soars; and spans immensity.
WHEN my breast labours with oppressive care,
And o'er my cheek descends the falling tear;
While all my warring passions are at strife,
Oh, let me listen to the words of life!
Raptures deep felt His doctrine did impart,
And thus He raised from earth the drooping heart:
Think not, when all your scanty stores afford
Is spread at once upon the sparing board;
Think not, when worn the homely robe appears,
While on the roof the howling tempest bears;
What farther shall this feeble life sustain,
And what shall clothe these shivering limbs again.
Say, does not life its nourishment exceed?
And the fair body its investing weed?
Behold! and look away your low despair—
See the light tenants of the barren air;
To them nor stores nor granaries belong,
Nought but the woodland and the pleasing song;
Yet your kind Heavenly Father bends His eye
On the least wing that flits along the sky.
To Him they sing when spring renews the plain,
To Him they cry in winter's pinching rain;
Nor is their music nor their plaint in vain;
He hears the gay and the distressful call,
And with unsparing bounty fills them all.
Observe the rising lily's snowy grace,
Observe the various vegetable race;
They neither toil nor spin, but careless grow,
Yet see how warm they blush! how bright they glow!
What regal vestments can with them compare?
What king so shining? or what queen so fair?
If ceaseless thus the fowls of heaven He feeds,
If o'er the fields such lucid robes He spreads,
Will He not care for you, ye faithless, say?
Is He unwise? or are ye less than they?
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