A bold remark, but which if well applied,
Would humble many a towering poet's pride.
Perhaps the man was in a sportive fit,
And had no other play-place for his wit;
Perhaps, enchanted with the love of fame,
He sought the jewel in his neighbour's shame;
Perhaps whatever end he might pursue,
The cause of virtue could not be his view.
At every stroke wit flashes in our eyes;
The turns are quick, the polished points surprise,
But shine with cruel and tremendous charms,
That while they please possess us with alarms:
So have I seen, (and hastened to the sight
On all the wings of holiday delight)
Where stands that monument of ancient power,
Named with emphatic dignity, the tower,
Guns, halberts, swords, and pistols, great and small, In starry forms disposed upon the wall;
We wonder, as we gazing stand below,
That brass and steel should make so fine a show; But though we praise the exact designer's skill, Account them implements of mischief still.
No works shall find acceptance in that day, When all disguises shall be rent away, That square not truly with the scripture plan, Nor spring from love to God, or love to man. As he ordains things sordid in their birth To be resolved into their parent earth; And, though the soul shall seek superior orbs, Whate'er this world produces, it absorbs; So self starts nothing, but what tends apace Home to the goal, where it began the race. Such as our motive is our aim must be, If this be servile, that can ne'er be free: If self employ us, whatsoever is wrought, We glorify that self, not him we ought; Such virtues had need prove their own reward, The judge of all men owes them no regard. True charity, a plant divinely nursed,
Fed by the love from which it rose at first, Thrives against hope and in the rudest scene, Storms but enliven its unfading green; Exuberant is the shadow it supplies,
Its fruits on earth, its growth above the skies.
To look at him, who formed us and redeemed,
So glorious now, though once so disesteemed,
To see a God stretch forth his human hand,
To uphold the boundless scenes of his command;
To recollect that in a form like our's,
He bruised beneath his feet the infernal powers,
Captivity led captive, rose to claim
The wreath he won so dearly in our name;
That throned above all height he condescends
To call the few that trust in him his friends;
That in the heaven of heavens, that space he deems'
Too scanty for the exertion of his beams,
And shines, as if impatient to bestow
Life and a kingdom upon worms below;
That sight imparts a never-dying flame,
Though feeble in degree, in kind the same.
Like him the soul thus kindled from above
Spreads wide her arms of universal love;
And still enlarged as she receives the grace,
Includes creation in her close embrace.
Behold a Christian!—and without the fires
The founder of that name alone inspires,
Though all accomplishment, all knowledge meet, To make the shining prodigy complete,
Whoever boasts that name-behold a cheat! Were love, in these the world's last doting years, As frequent as the want of it appears,
The churches warmed, they would no longer
Such frozen figures, stiff as they are cold;
Relenting forms would lose their power, or cease;
And even the dipped and sprinkled live in peace:
Each heart would quit its prison in the breast,
And flow in free communion with the rest.
The statesman, skilled in projects dark and deep,
Might burn his useless Machiavel, and sleep;
His budget often filled, yet always poor,
Might swing at ease behind his study door,
No longer prey upon our annual rents,
Or scare the nation with its big contents:
Disbanded legions freely might depart,
And slaying man would cease to be an art.
No learned disputants would take the field,
Sure not to conquer, and sure not to yield;
Both sides deceived, if rightly understood,
Pelting each other for the public good.
Did charity prevail, the press would prove
A vehicle of virtue, truth, and love;
And I might spare myself the pains to show
What few can learn, and all suppose they know.
Thus have I sought to grace a serious lay
With many a wild indeed but flowery spray,
In hopes to gain, what else I must have lost,
The attention pleasure has so much engrossed.
But if unhappily deceived I dream,
And prove too weak for so divine a theme,
Let Charity forgive me a mistake
That zeal, not vanity, has chanced to make,
|