A man on earth devoted to the skies;
Like ships on seas, while in, above the world.
With aspect mild, and elevated eye,
Behold him seated on a mount serene,
Above the fogs of sense, and passion's storm;
All the black cares and tumults of this life,
Like harmless thunders, breaking at his feet,
Excite his pity, not impair his peace.
Earth's genuine sons, the sceptred and the slave,
A mingled mob! a wandering herd! he sees,
Bewilder'd in the vale: or all unlike!
His full reverse in all! What higher praise?
What stronger demonstration of the right?
The present all their care; the future his.
When public welfare calls, or private want,
They give to fame; his bounty he conceals;
Their virtues varnish nature, his exalt;
Mankind's esteem they court, and he his own;
Theirs the wild chase of false felicities,
His the composed possession of the true.
Alike throughout is his consistent peace,
All of one colour, and an even thread;
While party-colour'd shreds of happiness,
With hideous gaps between, patch up for them
A madman's robe; each puff of fortune blows
The tatters by, and shows their nakedness.
He sees with other eyes than theirs: where they Behold a sun, he spies a Deity;
What makes them only smile, makes him adore;
Where they see mountains, he but atoms sees;
An empire, in his balance, weighs a grain.
They things terrestrial worship, as divine;
His hopes immortal blow them by, as dust
That dims his sight, and shortens his survey,
Which longs, in infinite, to lose all bound.
Titles and honours (if they prove his fate)
He lays aside to find his dignity;
No dignity they find in aught besides.
They triumph in externals (which conceal
Man's real glory,) proud of an eclipse.
Himself too much he prizes to be proud,
And nothing thinks so great in man as man.
Too dear he holds his interest to neglect
Another's welfare, or his right invade;
Their interest, like a lion, lives on prey.
They kindle at the shadow of a wrong:
Wrong he sustains with temper, looks on heaven,
Nor stoops to think his injurer his foe;
Nought but what wounds his virtue wounds his peace
A cover'd heart their character defends;
A cover'd heart denies him half his praise.
With nakedness his innocence agrees;
While their broad foliage testifies their fall.
Their no-joys end, where his full feast begins :
His joys create, theirs murder, future bliss.
To triumph in existence, his alone;
And his alone triumphantly to think
His true existence is not yet begun.
His glorious course was, yesterday, complete;
Death, then, was welcome; yet life still is sweet.
LORENZO! Such the glories of the world!
What is the world itself? Thy world-a grave.
Where is the dust that has not been alive?
The spade, the plough, disturb our ancestors:
From human mould we reap our daily bread.
The globe around earth's hollow surface shakes,
And is the ceiling of her sleeping sons.
O'er devastation we blind revels keep;
Whole bury'd towns support the dancer's heel.
The moist of human frame the sun exhales;
Winds scatter through the mighty void the dry;
Earth repossesses part of what she gave,
And the freed spirit mounts on wings of fire;
Each element partakes our scatter'd spoils;
As nature, wide, our ruins spread: man's death
Inhabits all things, but the thought of man.
Nor man alone; his breathing bust expires,
His tomb is mortal; empires die: where, now,
The Roman? Greek? They stalk, an empty name!
Yet few regard them in this useful light;
Though half our learning is their epitaph.
When down thy vale, unlock'd by midnight thought,
That loves to wander in thy sunless realms,
O Death! I stretch my view: what visions rise!
What triumphs! toils imperial! arts divine!
In wither'd laurels glide before my sight!
What lengths of far-fam'd ages, billow'd high
With human agitation, roll along
In unsubstantial images of air!
The melancholy ghosts of dead renown,
Whispering faint echoes of the world's applause,
With penitential aspect as they pass,
All point at earth, and hiss at human pride,
The wisdom of the wise, and prancings of the great.
Author of Gospel Sonnets, Sermons, and Theological Essays.
Faith and Frames compared.
FAITH has for its foundation broad-
A stable rock on which I stand,
The truth and faithfulness of God,
All other grounds are sinking sand.
My frames and feelings ebb and flow:
And when my faith depends on them,
It fleets and staggers to and fro,
And dies amidst the dying frame.
Could I believe what God has spoke,
Rely on his unchanging love,
And cease to grasp at fleeting smoke,
No changes would my mountain move.
When divine smiles in sight appear,
And I enjoy the heavenly gale;
When wind and tide and all is fair,
I dream my faith shall never fail :-
But ah! by sudden turns I see
My lying heart's fallacious guilt,
And that my faith, not firm in me,
On sinking sand was partly built.
So much my faith's affiance seems
Its life from fading joys to bring,
That when I lose the dying streams,
I cannot trust the living spring.
When drops of comfort quickly dry'd,
And sensible enjoyments fail:
When cheering apples are deny'd,
Then doubts instead of faith prevail.
But why, though fruit be snatch'd from me,
Should I distrust the glorious Root;
And still affront the standing Tree,
By trusting more to falling fruit?
The frame of Nature shall decay,
Time-changes break her rusty chains;
Yea, heaven and earth shall pass away;
But faith's foundation firm remains.
Heaven's promises so fix'dly stand,
Engraved with an immortal pen,
In great Immanuel's mighty hand,
All hell's attempts to raze are vain.
Did faith with none but truth advise,
My steady soul would move no more,
Than stable hills when tempests rise,
Or solid rocks when billows roar.
But when my faith the counsel hears
Of present sense and reason blind,
My wavering spirit then appears
A feather toss'd with every wind.
I would, when dying comforts fly,
As much as when they present were,
Upon thy living joy rely:
Help, Lord, for here I daily err.
Father of Samuel, John, and Charles Wesley. He was the Author of "The Life of Christ, an Heroic Poem in ten Books," and some small pieces.
TABOR, the place to prove his mission true,
Where heaven and earth must have an interview
That upper Mount, as Sinai long before,
The upper world's whole weight descending bore;
Lovely it look'd, like some divine abode,
All beauteous as the Paradise of God.
To this blest Mount did our blest Lord ascend,
Three witnesses must thither Him attend,
Two destined martyrs, and the third his friend.
Scarce had the cheerful harbinger of day
Clapp'd his bright wings, and warn'd the shades away,
Ere our still-watchful Saviour, who denies
The Sun, his shade, before Himself to rise,
Had conquer'd Tabor's hoary top; and there
Yet higher mounts in ardent hymns and prayer.
No earthly thought, no sublunary thing
Could clog his towering soul's seraphic wing;
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