Then I drank unmingled joys; Frown of thine saw never then. Spouse of Christ was then my name; Thee to love, and none beside, Now of grief, and now of joy. This, I cried, is love indeed!'Tis the Giver, not the gift, Whence the joys I feel proceed. But soon humbled, and laid low, Stript of all thou hast conferr'd, Nothing left but sin and woe, I perceived how I had err'd. Oh the vain conceit of man, Dreaming of a good his own, Arrogating all he can, Though the Lord is good alone! Such his folly,-proved, at last, 'Tis by this reproof severe, And by this reproof alone, His defects at last appear, Man is to himself made known. Learn, all earth! that feeble man, Sprung from this terrestrial clod, Nothing is, and nothing can; Life and power are all in God. LOVE INCREASED BY SUFFERING. "I LOVE the Lord," is still the strain Before the power of Love Divine Till only God is seen to shine In all that we survey. In gulfs of awful night we find The God of our desires; 'Tis there he stamps the yielding mind, And doubles all its fires. Flames of encircling love invest, And pierce it sweetly through; Ah Love! my heart is in the right- To thee, its ever new delight, Nor castle walls, nor dungeons deep, There no presumptuous thoughts abound, And sweetens all my pains, I fear no ill, resent no wrong, Nor feel a passion move, When malice whets her slanderous tongue; SCENES FAVOURABLE TO MEDITATION. WILDS horrid and dark with o'ershadowing trees, Rocks that ivy and briers infold, Scenes nature with dread and astonishment sees, Though awfully silent, and shaggy, and rude, I am sick of thy splendour, O fountain of day, To you I securely and boldly disclose The dear anguish of which I complain. Here, sweetly forgetting and wholly forgot By the world and its turbulent throng, The birds and the streams lend me many a note That aids meditation and song. Here, wandering in scenes that are sacred to night, And often the sun has spent much of his light While a mantle of darkness envelopes the sphere, To me the dark hours are all equally dear, Though little is found in this dreary abode My spirit is soothed by the presence of God, Ye desolate scenes, to your solitude led, And scarce know the source of the tears that I shed, There's nothing I seem to have skill to discern; I live, yet I seem to myself to be dead; I am nourish'd without knowing how I am fed, Oh Love! who in darkness art pleased to abide, That these contrarieties only reside In the soul that is chosen of thee. Ah send me not back to the race of mankind, Perversely by folly beguiled; For where, in the crowds I have left, shall I find Here let me, though fix'd in a desert, be free; Though lost to the world, if in union with Thee, INDEX TO THE TASK. "ACQUAINT thyself with God," v. 779. Action, i. 367. Address to domestic happiness, iii. Address to the Saviour, vi. 855. Address to the Creator, v. 849, 893. Air and exercise, i. 589. Alcove, i. 278. Alert and active, i. 396. America lost, ii. 263. Amusements, i. 463. Ancient philosophy, ii. 500. Angler, iii. 313. Animals enjoying life, vi. 325. 610. Antiquity, self-taught rites, vi. 231. 481. Appetites, v. 630. Aristæus, v. 135. Ausonia, ii. 214; iii. 582. Babel, v. 193. Bacon (sculptor), i. 702. Balaam, vi. 467. Bastile, v. 383. Battered fortunes, iii. 824. Beauty and old age, iii. 601. Books, iii. 392; iv. 158; vi. 87, 98. Brown ("Capability "), iii. 766. Cæsar's laurels, vi. 939. Calenture, i. 447. Champions of England, v. 511. Church fares ill, vi 888. Cities, i. 128, 689; iii. 729. Civilized life, i. 596, 679; iv. 659. Clerical coxcomb, ii. 445. 589. Country, who love it, iii. 320. Cowper, account of himself, iii. 108; Cruelty to animals, vi. 381, 594. Death unrepealable, v. 610. |