In figure emblematical expressed.
Before it Virtue stands, and smiling sees,
Well pleased, in her reflected soul no spot.
The sons of heaven, archangel, seraph, saint,
There daily read their own essential worth ;
And, as they read, take place among the just;
Or high, or low, each as his value seems.
There each his certain interest learns, his true
Capacity; and going thence, pursues,
Unerringly, through all the tracts of thought,
As God ordains, best ends by wisest means.

ROBERT POLLOK.

Adoration.
ALL nature, hear the sacred song!

Attend, O earth, the solemn strain!
Ye whirlwinds wild that sweep along,

Ye darkening storms of beating rain, Umbrageous glooms, and forests drear,

And solitary deserts, hear! Be still, ye winds, whilst to the Maker's praise The creature of his power aspires his voice to

raise !

O, may the solemn-breathing sound

Like incense rise before the throne, Where he, whose glory knows no bound,

Great Cause of all things, dwells alone! 'Tis he I sing, whose powerful hand Balanced the skies, outspread the land :

Who spoke,—from ocean's stores sweet waters

came, And burst resplendent forth the heaven-aspiring

flame.

Rise,

then, my

One general song of praise arise

To him whose goodness ceaseless flows;
Who dwells enthroned beyond the skies,

And life and breath on all bestows !
Great Source of intellect, his ear
Benign receives our vows sincere :

active
powers, your

task fulfil, And give to him your praise, responsive to my

will!
Partaker of that living stream

Of light, that pours an endless blaze,
O, let thy strong reflected beam,

My understanding, speak his praise !
My soul, in stedfast love secure,

Praise him whose word is ever sure: To him, sole just, my sense of right incline: Join, every prostrate limb; my ardent spirit

join! Let all of good this bosom fires,

To him, sole good, give praises due: Let all the truth himself inspires

Unite to sing him only true: To him my every thought ascend,

To him my hopes, my wishes, bend : From earth’s wide bounds let louder hymns arise, And his own word convey the pious sacrifice !

In ardent adoration joined,

Obedient to thy holy will, Let all my faculties combined,

Thy just desires, O God, fulfil! From thee derived, Eternal King,

To thee, our noblest powers we bring : 0, may thy hand direct our wandering way! O, bid thy light arise, and chase the clouds away!

Eternal Spirit, whose command

Light, life, and being gave to all, 0, hear the creature of thy hand,

Man, constant on thy goodness call ! By fire, by water, air and earth,

That soul to thee that owes its birth,By these, he supplicates thy blest repose : Absent from thee, no rest his wandering spirit knows.

LORENZO DE MEDICI, Trans. by ROSCOE.

Acquaint thyself with God. ACQUAINT thyself with God, if thou wouldst

taste His works. Admitted once to his embrace, Thou shalt perceive that thou wast blind before; Thine eye shall be instructed; and thine heart, Made pure, shall relish, with divine delight Till then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought. Brutes graze the mountain-top, with faces prone,

And
eyes
intent

upon the scanty herb
It yields them; or, recumbent on its brow,
Ruminate heedless of the scene outspread
Beneath, beyond, and stretching far away
From inland regions to the distant main.
Man views it, and admires; but rests content
With what he views. The landscape has his praise,
But not its Author. Unconcerned who formed
The paradise he sees, he finds it such,
And, such well-pleased to find it, asks no more.
Not so the mind that has been touched from

heaven, And in the school of sacred wisdom taught To read his wonders, in whose thought the world, Fair as it is, existed ere it was. Not for its own sake merely, but for his Much more, who fashioned it, he gives it praise; Praise, that from earth resulting, as it ought, To earth's acknowledged Sovereign, finds at once Its only just proprietor in him. The soul that sees him or receives sublimed New faculties, or learns at least t' employ More worthily the powers she owned before, Discerns in all things what, with stupid gaze Of ignorance, till then she overlooked ; A ray of heavenly light gilding all forms A Terrestrial, in the vast and the minute; The unambiguous footsteps of the God, Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing, And wheels his throne upon the rolling worlds. Much conversant with heaven, she often holds With those fair ministers of light to man,

That fill the skies nightly with silent pomp, Sweet conference. Inquires what strains were

they With which heaven rang, when every star in haste To gratulate the new-created earth, Sent forth a voice, and all the sons of God Shouted for joy. “Tell me, ye shining hosts

. That navigate a sea that knows no storms, Beneath a vault unsullied with a cloud, If from your elevation, whence ye view Distinctly scenes invisible to man, And systems of whose birth no tidings yet Have reached this nether world, ye spy a race Favoured as ours, transgressors from the womb, And hasting to a grave, yet doomed to rise, And to possess a brighter heaven than yours? As one who, long detained on foreign shores, Pants to return, and when he sees afar His country's weather-bleached and battered

rocks From the green wave emerging, darts an eye Radiant with joy towards the happy land; So I, with animated hopes behold, And many an aching wish, your beamy fires, That show like beacons in the blue abyss, Ordained to guide th’ embodied spirit home From toilsome life to never-ending rest. Love kindles as I gaze. I feel desires That give assurance of their own success, And that, infused from heaven, must thither tend.”

WILLIAM COWPER.