To fly the good I would pursue,
Or do the thing I would not do;
Still He who felt temptation's power,
Will guard me in that dangerous hour.
If wounded love my bosom swell,
Despised by those I prized too well;
He shall His pitying aid bestow,
Who felt on earth severer woe:
At once betrayed, denied, or fled,
By those who shared his daily bread.
When vexing thoughts within me rise,
And, sore dismayed, my spirit dies;
Yet, He, who once vouchsafed to bear
The sickening anguish of despair,
Shall sweetly soothe, shall gently dry,
The throbbing heart, the streaming eye.
When mourning o'er some stone I bend,
Which covers all that was a friend,
And from His voice, His hand, His smile,
Divides me for a little while;
Thou, Saviour, mark'st the tears I shed,
For thou didst weep o'er Lazarus dead.
And oh! when I have safely past
Through every conflict but the last;
Still, still unchanging, watch beside
My painful bed,-for Thou hast died;
Then point to realms of cloudless day,
And wipe the latest tear away.
God, Good beyond Compare!
PRAISED the earth, in beauty seen,
With garlands gay of various green;
I praised the sea, whose ample field
Shone glorious as a silver shield;
And earth and ocean seemed to say,
"Our beauties are but for a day."
I praised the sun, whose chariot rolled
On wheels of amber and of gold;
I praised the moon, whose softer eye
Gleamed sweetly through the summer-sky;
And moon and sun in answer said,
"Our days of light are numbered."
O God, O good beyond compare!
If thus thy meaner works are fair;
If thus thy bounties gild the span
Of ruined earth and sinful man;
How glorious must the mansion be
Where thy redeemed shall dwell with Thee!
Omnipresence of God.
ONCE more I dare to rouse the sounding string,
The Poet of my God.-Awake, my glory,
Awake, my lute and harp-myself shall wake,
Soon as the stately night-exploring bird,
In lively lay, sings welcome to the dawn.
List ye! how nature, with ten thousand tongues,
Begins the grand thanksgiving. Hail, all hail,
Ye tenants of the forest and the field!
My fellow-subjects of th' Eternal King,
I gladly join your matins, and with you
Confess his presence, and report his praise.
O Thou, who or the lambkin or the dove,
When offered by the lowly, meek, and poor,
Prefer'st to pride's whole hecatomb, accept
This mean essay, nor from thy treasure-house
Of glory immense the orphan's mite exclude.
What, though th' Almighty's regal throne be
raised
High o'er your azure heaven's exalted dome,
By mortal eye unkenned—where east, nor west,
Nor south, nor blustering north, has breath to
Albeit He there with angels and with saints
Holds conference, and to his radiant host,
E'en face to face, stands visibly confest;
Yet know that nor in presence or in power
Shines He less perfect here; 'tis man's dim eye
That makes the obscurity.
He is the same,
Alike in all his universe the same;
Whether the mind along the spangled sky Measures her pathless walk, studious to view The works of vaster fabric, where the planets, Weave their harmonious rounds, their march directing
Still faithful, still inconstant to the sun; Or where the comet, through space infinite, (Though whirling worlds oppose in globes of fire)
Darts like a javelin to his distant goal;
Or where in heaven above, the heaven of heavens,
Burn brighter suns, and goodlier planets roll,
With satellites more glorious,-Thou art there.
Or whether on the ocean's boisterous rock,
Thou ride triumphant, and with outstretched arm
Curb the wild winds and discipline the billows,
The suppliant sailor finds Thee there, his chief,
His only help. When Thou rebuk'st the storm
It ceases; and the vessel gently glides
Along the glassy level of the calm.
Oh! could I search the bosom of the sea,
Down the great depth descending; there thy
works
Would also speak thy residence, and there
Would I, thy servant, like the still profound,
Astonished into silence, muse thy praise.
Behold! behold th' unplanted garden round
Of vegetable coral! sea-flowers gay,
And shrubs of amber, from the pearl-paved bottom
Rise richly varied, where the finny race,
In blithe security, their gambols play;
While high above their heads Leviathan,
The terror and the glory of the main,
His pastime takes, with transport proud to see
The ocean's vast dominion all his own.
Hence through the genial bowels of the earth,
Easy may fancy pass; till at thy mines,
Gani or Raolconda, she arrive,
And from the adamant's imperial blaze
Form weak ideas of her Maker's glory.
Next to Pegu or Ceylon let me rove,
Where the rich ruby (deemed by sages old
Of sovereign virtue) sparkles e'en like Sirius,
And blushes into flames. Thence will I go
To undermine the treasure-fertile womb
Of the huge Pyrenean, to detect
The agate, and the deep intrenched gem
Of kindred jasper; nature in them both
Delights to play the mimic on herself;
And in their veins she oft portrays the forms
Of leaning hills, of trees erect, and streams
Now stealing softly o'er, now thundering down
In desperate cascade, with flowers and beasts,
And all the living landscape of the vale:
In vain thy pencil, Claudio, or Poussin,
Or thine, immortal Guido, would essay
Such skill to imitate; it is the hand
Of God Himself, for God Himself is there.
Hence with the ascending springs let me advance,
Through beds of magnets, minerals, and spar;
Up to the mountain's summit, there t' indulge
The ambition of the comprehensive eye,
That dares to call the horizon all her own.
Behold the forest and the expansive verdure
Of yonder level lawn, whose smooth shorn sod
No object interrupts; unless the oak
His lordly head uprears, and branching arms
Extends. Behold, in regal solitude
And pastoral magnificence he stands,
So simple and so great, the underwood,
Of meaner rank, an awful distance keep.
Yet Thou art there, yet God Himself is there,
Even on the bush, (though not as when to Moses
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