Lessons of a God's inspiring
Neither time nor place impedes;
From our wishing and desiring
Our unhappiness proceeds.
NIGHT! how I love thy silent shades,
My spirits they compose;
The bliss of heaven my soul nervades,
In spite of all my woes.
While sleep instils her poppy dews
In every slumbering eye,
I watch, to meditate and muse,
In blest tranquillity.
And when I feel a God immense
Familiarly impart,
With every proof he can dispense,
His favour to my heart;
My native meanness I lament,
Though most divinely filled
With all the ineffable content
That Deity can yield.
His purpose and his course he keeps;
Treads all my reasonings down;
Commands me out of nature's deeps,
And hides me in his own.
When in the dust, its proper place,
Our pride of heart we lay,
Tis then a deluge of his grace
Bears all our sins away.
Thou whom I serve, and whose I am,
Whose influence from on high
Refines, and still refines my flame,
And makes my fetters fly;
How wretched is the creature's state
Who thwarts thy gracious power;
Crushed under sin's enormous weight,
Increasing every hour!
The night, when passed entire with thee,
How luminous and clear!
Then sleep has no delights for me,
Lest thou shouldst disappear.
My Saviour! occupy me still
In this secure recess;
Let Reason slumber if she will,
My joy shall not be less:
Let Reason slumber out the night;
But if thou deign to make
My soul the abode of Truth and Light,
Ah, keep my heart awake!
THE JOY OF THE CROSS.
LONG plunged in sorrow, I resign
My soul to that dear hand of thine,
Without reserve or fear;
That hand shall wipe my streaming eyes,
Or into smiles of glad surprise
Transform the falling tear.
My sole possession is thy love;
In earth beneath, or heaven above,
I have no other store;
And though with fervent suit I pray,
And importune thee night and day,
I ask thee nothing more.
My rapid hours pursue the course
Prescribed them by love's sweetest force;
And I thy sovereign will,
Without a wish to escape my doom,
Though still a sufferer from the womb,
And doomed to suffer still.
By thy command, where'er I stray,
Sorrow attends me all my way,
A never failing friend;
And if my sufferings may augment
Thy praise, behold me well content,—
Let Sorrow still attend!
It costs me no regret, that she,
Who followed Christ, should follow me;
And though, where'er she goes,
Thorns spring spontaneous at her feet,
I love her, and extract a sweet
From all my bitter woes.
Adieu! ye vain delights of earth;
Insipid sports, and childish mirth,
I taste no sweets in you;
Unknown delights are in the Cross,
All joy beside to me is dross;
And Jesus thought so too.
The Cross! Oh ravishment and bliss,-How grateful even its anguish is,
Its bitterness how sweet!
There every sense, and all the mind,
In all her faculties refined,
Tastes happiness complete.
Souls once enabled to disdain
Base sublunary joys, maintain
Their dignity secure;
The fever of desire is passed,
And love has all its genuine taste,
Is delicate and pure.
Self-love no grace in sorrow sees,
Consults her own peculiar ease;
'Tis all the bliss she knows :
But nobler aims true Love employ;
In self-denial is her joy,
In suffering her repose.
Sorrow and love go side by side ;
Nor height nor depth can e'er divide
Their heaven-appointed bands;
Those dear associates still are one,
Nor till the race of life is run,
Disjoin their wedded hands.
Jesus, avenger of our fall,
Thou faithful lover, above all
The Cross has ever born!
O tell me,-life is in thy voice,-
How much afflictions were thy choice,
And sloth and ease thy scorn!
Thy choice and mine shall be the same,
Inspirer of that holy flame
Which must for ever blaze!
To take the Cross and follow thee,
Where love and duty lead, shall be
My portion and my praise.
JOY IN MARTYRDOM.
SWEET tenants of this grove,
Who sing, without design,
A song of artless love,
In unison with mine:
These echoing shades return
Full many a note of ours,
That wise ones cannot learn,
With all their boasted powers.
O Thou! whose sacred charms
These hearts so seldom love,
Although thy beauty warms
And blesses all above;
How slow are human things
To choose their happiest lot!
All-glorious King of kings,
Say why we love thee not?
This heart, that cannot rest,
Shall thine for ever prove;
Though bleeding and distressed,
Yet joyful in thy love:
'Tis happy, though it breaks
Beneath thy chastening hand;
And speechless,-yet it speaks
What thou canst understand.
SIMPLE TRUST.
STILL, still, without ceasing,
I feel it increasing,
This fervour of holy desire;
And often exclaim,
Let me die in the flame
Of a love that can never expire!
Had I words to explain
What she must sustain
Who dies to the world and its ways;
How joy and affright,
Distress and delight,
Alternately chequer her days.
Thou, sweetly severe !
I would make thee appear,
In all thou art pleased to award,
Not more in the sweet
Than the bitter I meet,
My tender and merciful Lord.
This Faith, in the dark
Pursuing its mark
Through many sharp trials of Love,
Is the sorrowful waste
That is to be passed
In the way to the Canaan above.
THE NECESSITY OF SELF-ABASEMENT.
SOURCE of love, my brighter sun,
Thou alone my comfort art;
See, my race is almost run;
Hast thou left this trembling heart?
In my youth thy charming eyes
Drew me from the ways of men ;
Then I drank unmingled joys;
Frown of thine saw never then.
Spouse of Christ was then my name ;
And devoted all to thee,
Strangely jealous, I became
Jealous of this Self in me.
Thee to love, and none beside,
Was my darling, sole employ ; While alternately I died,
Now of grief, and now of joy.
Through the dark and silent night
On thy radiant smiles I dwelt;
And to see the dawning light
Was the keenest pain I felt.
Thou my gracious teacher wert;
And thine eye, so close applied, While it watched thy pupil's heart, Seemed to look at none beside. Conscious of no evil drift,
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 conferred,
Nothing left but sin and woe,
I perceived how I had erred.
Oh, the vain conceit of man,
Dreaming of a good his own,
Arrogating all he can,
Though the Lord is good alone!
He the graces thou hast wrought
Makes subservient to his pride;
Ignorant, that one such thought
Passes all his sin beside.
Such his folly,-proved, at last,
By the loss of that repose
Self-complacence cannot taste,
Only Love Divine bestows.
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