Nor boast our genius; talents bright
E'en dunces will despise,
If in your western beams is missed
A genius for the skies.
Your taste, too, fails: what most excels,
True taste must relish most;
And what, to rival palms above,
Can proudest laurels boast ?
Sound heads salvation's helmet* seek;
Resplendent are its rays:t
Let that suffice; it needs no plume
Of sublunary praise.
May this enable couched Voltaire
To see that—all is right,
His eye, by flash of wit struck blind,
Restoring to its sight.
If so, all's well: who much have erred,
That much have been forgiven;
I speak with joy, with joy he'll hear,
“ Voltaires are now in heaven.”

| Than to correct one erring thought
In my small world within.
A world that shall survive the fall
Of all his wonders here;
Survive, when suns ten thousand drop,
And leave a darkened sphere.
Yon matter gross, how bright it shines!
For time how great his care!
Sure spirit and eternity
Far richer glories share.
Let those our hearts impress, on those

Our contemplation dwell;
On those my thoughts how justly thrown,
By what I now shall tell!

When backward with attentive mind
Life's labyrinth I trace,
I find him far myself beyond
Propitious to my peace :

Through all the crooked paths I trod
My folly he pursued;
My heart astray, to quick return
Importunately wooed.
Due Resignation home to press
On my capricious will,
How many rescues did I meet
Beneath the mask of ill !

How many foes in ambush laid Beneath my soul's desire ! The deepest penitents are made By what we most admire.

life;

Nay, such philanthropy divine,
So boundless in degree,
Its marvellous of love extends
(Stoop most profound!) to me.
Let others cruel stars arraign,
Or dwell on their distress;
But let my page, for mercies poured,
A grateful heart express.
Walking, the present God was seen,
Of old, in Eden fair;
The God as present, by plain steps
Of providential care,
I behold passing through my
His awful voice I hear;
And conscious of my nakedness,
Would hide myself for fear:
But where the trees, or where the clouds,
Can cover from his sight?
Naked the centre to that eye
To which the sun is night.
As yonder glittering lamps on high
Through night illumined roll;
May thoughts of him by whom they shine
Chase darkness from my soul !
My soul, which reads his hand as clear
In my minute affairs,
As in his ample manuscript
Of sun, and moon,
And knows him not more bent aright
To wield that vast machine,

Have I not sometimes, (real good
So little mortals know!)
Mounting the summit of my wish,
Profoundly plunged in wo?
I rarely planned, but cause I found
My plan's defeat to bless :
Oft I lamented an event,
It turned to my success.
By sharpened appetite to give
To good intense delight,
Through dark and deep perplexities

He led me to the right.
And is not this the gloomy path
Which you are treading now?
The path most gloomy leads to light,
When our proud passions bow.
When labouring under fancied ill,
My spirits to sustain,
He kindly cured with sovereign draughts
Of unimagined pain.

Pained Sense from Fancy's tyranny
Alone can set us free:
A thousand miseries we feel,
Till sank in misery.
Cloyed with a glut of all we wish,
Our wish we relish less :
Success, a sort of suicide,
Is ruined by success.
Sometimes, he led me near to death,
And, pointing to the grave,
Bid Terror whisper kind advice,
And taught the tomb to save.
To raise my thoughts beyond where worlds
As spangles o'er us shine,
One day he gave, and bid the next
My soul's delight resign.
We to ourselves, but through the means
Of mirrors are unknown;
In this my fate can you descry
No features of your own?
And if you can, let that excuse
These self recording lines;
A record modesty forbids,
Or to small bound confines.

In grief why deep ingulfed ? you see
You suffer nothing rare;
Uncommon grief for common fate;
That Wisdom can not hear.

Of self-perusal, science rare ! Few know the mighty gain; Learned prelates, self-unread, may read Their Bibles o'er in vain. Self-knowledge, which from heaven itself (So sages tell us) came, What is it but a daughter fair Of my maternal theme? Unlettered and untraveled men An oracle might find, Would they consult their own contents, The Delphos of the mind. Enter your bosom; there you'll find A revolution new, A revolution personal, Which none can read but you.

There will you clearly read revealed In your enlightened thought,

By mercies manifold, through life, To fresh remembrance brought, A mighty Being! and in him A complicated friend, A father, brother, spouse; no dread Of death, divorce, or end. Who such a matchless friend embrace, And lodge him in their heart, Full well, from agonies exempt, With other friends may part. As when o'erloaded branches bear Large clusters big with wine, We scarce regret one falling leaf From the luxuriant vine. My short advice to you may sound Obscure, or somewhat odd, Though 'tis the best that man can give, “E'en be content with God." Through love he gave you the deceased; Through greater took him hence: This reason fully could evince, Though murmured at by Sense. This friend far past the kindest kind, Is past the greatest great ; His greatness let me touch in points Not foreign to your state. His eye, this instant, reads your heart, A truth less obvious hear, This instant its most secret thoughts Are sounding in his ear. Dispute you this? O stand in awe, And cease your surrow; know, That tear, now trickling down, he saw Ten thousand years ago;

When streams flow backward to their source,
And humbled fames descend,
And mountains winged shall fly aloft,
Then human sorrows end:

But hurnan prudence, too, must cease
When sorrows domineer,
When fortitude has lost its fire,
And freezes into fear.
The pang most poignant of my life
Now heightens my delight;
I see a fair creation rise
From Chaos and old Night.
From what seemed horror and despair,
The richest harvest rose,
And gave me in the nod divine,
An absolute repose.
Of all the blunders of mankind,
More gross, or frequent, none,
Than in their grief and joy misplaced
Eternally are shown.
But whither points all this parade ?
It says, that near you lies
A book, perhaps, yet unperused,
Which you should greatly prize.

And twice ten thousand hence, if you Your temper reconcile To Reason's bound, will he behold Your prudence with a smile; A smile which through eternity Diffuses so bright rays, The dimmest deifies e'en guilt, If guilt at last obeys. Your guilt (for guilt it is to mourn, When such a Sovereign reigns) Your guilt diminish, peace pursue; How glorious peace in pains ! Here, then, your sorrows cease, if not, Think how unhappy they Who guilt increase by streaming tears, Which guilt should wash away. Of tears that gush profuse restrain; Whence burst the dismal sighs ? They from the throbbing breast of one (Strange truth !) most happy rise. Not angels (hear it, and exult !) Enjoy a larger share Than is indulged to you, and yours, Of God's impartial care. Anxious for each, as if on each His care for all was thrown; For all his care as absolute As all had been but one. And is he then so near ? so kind ? How little then, and great, That riddle, man! O let me gaze At wonders in his fate!

For what's the sun's meridian blaze
To the most feeble ray
Which glimmers in the distant dawn
Of uncreated day?
'Tis not the poet's rapture feigned
Swells here, the vain to please :
The mind most sober kindles most
At truths sublime as these.
They warm e'en me. I dare not say
Divine ambition strove
Not to bless only, but confound,
Nay fright us, with its love;
And yet so frightful what, or kind,
As that the rending rock,
The darkened sun, and rising dead,
So formidably spoke ?
And are we darker than the sun ?
Than rocks more hard and blind ?
We are;-if not to such a God

a
In agonies resigned.
Yea, e'en in agonies forbear
To doubt almighty love;
Whate'er endears eternity,
Is mercy from above.

What most imbitters time, tha most
Eternity endears;
And thus by plunging in distress,
Exalts us to the spheres :
Joy's fountain-head! where bliss o'er bliss,
O'er wonders wonders rise,
And an Omnipotence prepares

Its banquet for the wise; Ambrosial banquet! rich in wines Nectareous to the soul! What transports sparkle from the stream, As angels fill the howl! Fountain profuse of every bliss ! Good-will immense prevails : Man's line can't fathom its profound; An angel's plummet fails. Thy love and might, by what they know Who judge, nor dream of more; They ask a drop, how deep the sea ? One sand, how wide the shore ? Of thy exuberant good-will, Offended Deity! The thousandth part who comprehends, A deity is He.

How yonder ample azure field With radiant worlds is sown! How tubes astonish us with those More deep in ether thrown!

His fate, who yesterday did crawl
A worm from darkness deep,
And shall, with brother worms, beneath
A turf, to-morrow sleep.
How mean! and yet if well obeyed
His mighty master's call,
The whole creation for mean man
Is deemed a boon too small:
Too small the whole creation deemed
For emmets in the dust!
Account amazing! yet most true;
My song is bold, yet just.
Man born for infinite, in whom
No period can destroy
The power, in exquisite extremes
To suffer, or enjoy.
Give him earth's empire (if no more)
He's beggared and undone!
Imprisoned in unbounded space!
Benighted by the sun!

And those beyond of brighter worlds Why not a million more? In lieu of answer, let us all Fall prostrate and adore. Since thou art infinite in power, Nor thy indulgence less; Since man, quite impotent and blind, Oft drops into distress; Say, what is Resignation ? 'Tis Man's weakness understood; And Wisdom grasping, with a hand Far stronger, every good. Let rash repiners stand appalled, In thee who dare not trust; Whose abject souls, like demons dark, Are murm’ring in the dust. For man to murmur or repine At what by thee is done, No less absurd than to complain, Of darkness in the sun.

a

Who would not, with a heart at ease,
Bright eye, unclouded brow,
Wisdom and Goodness at the helm,
The roughest ocean plough?
What though I'm swallowed in the deep!
Though mountains o'er me roar!
Jehovah reigns! As Jonah safe
I'm landed, and adore.
Thy will is welcome, let it wear
Its most tremendous form:
Roar, Waves! rage, Winds! I know that thou
Canst save me by a storm.
From thee immortal spirits born,
To thee their fountain flow,
If wise, as curled around to theirs
Meand’ring streams below.
Not less compelled by Reason's call,
To thee our souls aspire,
Than to thy skies, by Nature's law
High mounts material fire:
To thee aspiring they exult:
I feel my spirits rise,
I feel myself thy son, and pant
For patrimonial skies.
Since ardent thirst of future good,
And generous sense of past,
To thee man's prudence strongly ties,
And binds affection fast.
Since great thy love, and great our want,
And men the wisest blind,
And bliss our aim, pronounce us all
Distracted or resigned.

Resigned through duty, interest, shame;
Deep shame! dare I complain,
When (wondrous truth!) in heaven itself
Joy owed its birth to pain?

And pain for me! for me was drained
Gall's overflowing bowl;
And shall one drop, to murmur bold
Provoke my guilty soul?

If pardoned this, what cause, what crime,
Can indignation raise ?
The sun was lighted up to shine,
And man was born to praise:
And when to praise thee man shall cease,
Or sun to strike the view;
A cloud dishonours both, but man's
The blacker of the two.
For, oh! ingratitude how black!
With most profound amaze
At love, which man, beloved, o'erlooks,
Astonished angels gaze.
Praise cheers and warms, like generous wine;
Praise, more divine than prayer:
Prayer points our ready path to heaven;
Praise is already there.
Let plausive Resignation rise,
And banish all complaint;
All virtues thronging into one,
It finishes the saint;
Makes the man blest as man can be;
Life's labours renders light;
Darts beans through Fate's incumbent gloom,
And lights our sun by night.
'Tis Nature's brightest ornament,
The richest gift of Grace,
Rival of angels, and supreme
Proprietor of peace:
Nay, peace beyond no small degree
Of rapture 'twill impart;
Know, Madam!" when your heart's in heaven,
" All heaven is in your heart."
But who to heaven their hearts can raise?
Denied divine support,
All virtue dies ; support divine
The wise with ardour court:
When prayer partakes the seraph's fire,
'Tis mounted on his wing,
Bursts through heaven's crystal gates, and gains

Sure audience of its King.
The labouring soul from sore distress
That blessed expedient frees;
I see you far advanced in peace;
I see you on your knees.