Yet gave me, in this dark Estate, To fee the Good from Ill; What Confcience dictates to be done, This, teach me more than Hell to fhun, What Bleffings thy free Bounty gives, Let me not caft away; For God is paid when Man receives, Yet not to Earth's contracted Span COMMENTARY. confidence full of Hope and Immortality. To give all this the greater weight, the Poet chofe for his model the LORD's PRAYER, which, of all others, beft deferves the title prefixed to his Paraphrafe. If I am right, thy grace impart, If I am wrong, oh teach my heart Save me alike from foolish Pride, At aught thy wisdom has deny'd, Teach me to feel another's Woe, Mean tho' I am, not wholly fo Since quicken'd by thy Breath; Oh lead me wherefoe'er I go, Thro' this day's Life or Death. NOTES. If I am right, thy grace impart, As the imparting of grace, on the Christian system, is a stronger exertion of the Divine Power than the natural illumination of the heart, one would expect that right and wrong should change places; more aid being required to refere men to right, than to keep them in it. But as it was the Poet's purpofe to infinuate that Revelation was the right, nothing could better exprefs his purpose, than making the right fecured by the guards of grace. 8 This day, be Bread and Peace my Lot: All elfe beneath the Sun, Thou know'ft if beft beftow'd or not, To thee, whofe Temple is all Space, One Chorus let all Being raise ! The Dying Christian to his SOUL. V" O DE*. I. ITAL fpark of heav'nly flame! Quit, oh quit this mortal frame: Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying; Oh the pain, the blifs of dying! Cease, fond Nature, cease thy ftrife, And let me languish into life. II. Hark! they whisper; Angels say, Sifter Spirit, come away. What is this absorbs me quite? Steals my fenfes, fhuts my fight, Drowns my spirits, draws my breath? Tell me, my Soul, can this be Death? NOTES. * This ode was written in imitation of the famous fonnet of Hadrian to his departing foul; but as much fuperior to his original, in fenfe and fublimity, as the Chriftian Religion is to the Pagan. |