Shall creatures of a meaner frame

In vain we ask : for all around Pay all their dues to thee;

Stands silence through the heavenly ground: Creatures, that never knew thy name,

There's not a glorious mind above That never lov'd like me?

Has half the strength, or half the love, Great God, create my soul anew,

But, o unutterable grace! Conform my heart to thine;

Th’ Eternal Son takes Adam's place: Melt down my will, and let it flow,

Down to our world the Saviour flies, And take the mould divine.

Stretches his naked arms, and dies, Seize my whole frame into thy hand;

Justice was pleas'd to bruise the God, Here all my powers I bring :

And pay its wrongs with heavenly blood; Manage the wheels by thy command,

What unknown racks and pangs he bore ! And govern every spring.

Then rose: The law could ask no more, Then sball my feet no more depart,

Amazing work! Look down, ye skies, Nor wandering senses rove;

Wonder and gaze with all your eyes; Devotion shall be all my heart,

Ye heavenly thrones, stoop from above, And all my passions love.

And bow to this mysterious love. Then not the Sun shall more than I

See, how they bend! see, how they look! His Maker's law perform,

Long they had read th' eternal book, Nor travel swifter though the sky,

And studied dark decrees in vain:
Nor with a zeal so warm.

The cross and Calvary makes them plain.
Now they are struck with deep amaze,
Each with his wings conceals his face;

Now clap their sounding plumes, and cry, GOD SUPREME AND SELF-SUFFICIENT.

“ The wisdom of a Deity !"

Low they adore th’ Incarnate Son, What is our God, or what his name,

And sing the glories be hath won; Nor men can learn, nor angels teach:

Sing how he broke our iron chains, He dwells conceal'd in radiant flame,

How deep he sunk, how high he reigns. Where neither eyes nor thoughts can reach.

Triumph and reign, victorious Lord, The spacious worlds of heavenly light,

By all thy flaming hosts ador'd: Compar'd with him, how short they fall!

And say, dear Conqueror, say, how long They are too dark, and he too bright.

Ere we shall rise to join their song. Nothing are they, and God is All.

Lo, from afar the promis'd day He spoke the wondrous word, and lo

Shines with a well-distinguish'd ray; Creation rose at his command:

But my wing’d passion hardly bears Whilwinds and seas their limits know,

These lengths of slow delaying years. Bound in the hollow of his hand.

Send down a chariot from above, There rests the Earth, there roll the spheres,

With fiery wheels, and pav'd with love; There Nature leans, and feels her prop :

Raise me beyond th' ethereal blue,
But his own self-sufficience bears

To sing and love as angels do.
The weight of his own glories up.
The tide of creatures ebbs and flows,
Measuring their changes by the Moon :
No ebh his sea of glory knows,

LOOKING UPWARD.
His age is one eternal Moon.
Then fly, my song, an endless round,

The heavens invite mine eye,
The lofty tune let Michael raise;
All Nature dwell upon the sound,

The stars salute me round;
But we can ne'er fulfil the praise.

Father, I blush, I mourn to lie

Thus grovelling on the ground.
My warmer spirits move,

And make attempts to fly;

I wish aloud for wings of love
JESUS THE ONLY SAVIOUR.

To raise me swift and high.
Adam, our father and our head,

Beyond those crystal vaults, Transgress'd; and justice doom'd us dead:

And all their sparkling balls; The fiery law speaks all despair,

They're but the porches to thy courts, There's no reprieve nor pardon there.

And paintings on thy walls. Call a bright council in the skies;

Vain world, farewell to you; “ Seraphs, the mighty and the wise,

Heaven is my native air: Say, what expedient can you give ?

I bid my friends a short adieu, That sin be damn'd, and sinners live?

Impatient to be there. " Speak, are you strong to bear the load,

I feel my powers releas'd The weighty vengeance of a God?

From their old fleshy clod; Which of you loves our wretched race,

Fair guardian, bear me up in haste, Or dares to venture in our place ?”

And set me near my God.

CHRIST DYING, RISING, AND REIGNING. While the hoarse thunder, like a bloody trumpet,

How the poor sailors stand amaz'd and tremble ! He dies! the heavenly lover dies !

Roars a loud onset to the gaping waters

Quick to devour them. The tidings strike a doleful sound

Such shall the noise be, and the wild disorder, On my poor heart-strings: deep he lies Io the cold caverns of the ground.

(If things eternal may be like these earthly)

Such the dire terrour when the great Archangel Come, saints, and drop a tear or two

Shakes the creation; On the dear bosom of your God: He shed a thousand drops for you,

Tears the strong pillars of the vault of Heaven, A thousand drops of richer blood.

Breaks up old marble, the repose of princes; Here's love and grief beyond degree,

See the graves open, and the bones arising,

Flames all around them. The Lord of Glory dies for men ! But lo, what sudden joys I see!

Hark, the shrill outeries of the guilty wretches ! Jesus the dead revives again.

Lively bright horrour, and amazing anguish, [lies

Stare through their eye-lids, while the living worm The rising God forsakes the tomb,

Gnawing within them. Up to his father's court he fies; Cherubic legions guard him home,

Thoughts, like old vultures, prey upon their heartAnd shout him welcome to the skies.

strings,

And the smart tinges, when the eye beholds the Break off your tears, ye saints, and tell

Lofty Judge frowning, and a flood of vengeance How high our Great Deliverer reigns;

Rolling afore him. Sing how he spoil'd the hosts of Hell,

Hopeless immortals ! how they scream and shiver, And led the monster Death in chains.

While devils push them to the pit wide yawning Say, "Lire for ever, wondrous King !

Hideous and gloomy to receive them headlong, Born to redeem, and strong to save !"

Down to the centre !
Then ask the monster, Where's his sting?
And where's thy victory, boasting Grave?

Stop here, my fancy : (all away, ye horrid
Doleful ideas!) come, arise to Jesus,

How he sits God-like! and the saints around him
THE GOD OF THUNDER.

Thron’d, yet adoring !

O may I sit there when he comes triumphant, OTAE immense, th' amazing height,

Dooming the nations ! then ascend to glory, The boundless grandeur of our God,

While our Hosannas all along the passage Who treads the worlds beneath his feet,

Shout the Redeemer. And sways the nations with his nod! He speaks ; and lo, all Nature shakes, Heaven's everlasting pillars bow; He rends the clouds with hideous cracks,

THE SONG OF ANGELS ABOVE. And shoots his fiery arrows through.

Earth has detain'd me prisoner long, Well, let the nations start and fly

And I'm groun weary now; At the blue lightning's horrid glare,

My heart, my hand, my ear, my tongue, Atheists and emperors shrink and die,

There's nothing here for you. When flame and noise torment the air.

Tird in my thoughts, I stretch me down, Let noise and fame confound the skies,

And upward glance mine eyes ; And drown the spacious realms below;

Upward, my Father, to thy throne, Yet will we sing the Thunderer's praise,

And to my native skies. And send our loud Hosannas through,

There the dear Man, my Saviour, sits, Celestial King, thy blazing power

The God, how bright he shines ! Kindles our hearts to fanning joys ;

And scatters infinite delights We shout to hear thy thunders roar,

On all the happy minds. And echo to our Father's voice.

Seraphs with elevated strains Thus shall the God our Saviour come,

Circle the throne around, And lightnings round his chariot play:

And move and charm the starry plains Ye lightnings, fiy to make him room ;

With an immortal sound. Ye glorious storms, prepare his way

Jesus the Lord their harps employs,

Jesus my love they sing ;

Jesus, the name of both our joys
THE DAY OF JUDGMENT,

Sounds sweet from every string.
Hark, how beyond the narrow bounds

Of time and space they run,
Attempted in English Sapphic.

And speak in most majestic sounds

The Godhead of the Son! Wezx the fierce North-wind with his airy forces

How on the Father's breast he lay, Rears up the Baltic to a foaming fury;

The darling of his soul,
And the red lightning with a storm of hail comes

Infinite years before the day
Rushing amain down,

Or heavens began to roll.

AN ODE.

a

36

And now they sink the lofty tone,
And gentler notes they play,

FIRE, AIR, EARTH, AND SEA, PRAISE YE And bring th’ Eternal Godhead down

THE LORD. 'To dwell in humble clay.

Earth, thou great footstool of our God O sacred beauties of the Man !

Who reigns on high; thou fruitful source (The God resides within)

Of all our raiment, life and food; His flesh all pure, without a stain,

Our house, our parent, and our nurse; His soul without a sin.

Mighty stage of mortal scenes, Then, how he look'd, and how he smild,

Drest with strong and gay machines, What wondrous things he said !

Hung with golden lamps around Sweet cherubs, stay, dwell here a while,

(And flowery carpets spread the ground); And tell what Jesus did.

Thou bulky globe, prodigious mass,

That hangs unpillar'd in an empty space! At his command the blind awake,

While thy unwieldy weight rests on the feeble air, And feel the gladsome rays;

Bless that Almighty Word that fix'd and holds thee He bids the dumb attempt to speak,

there. They try their tongues in praise.

Fire, thou swift herald of his face,

Whose glorious rage, at his command, He shed a thousand blessings round

Levels a palace with the sand,
Where-e'er he turn'd his eye;

Blending the lofty spires in ruin with the base:
He spoke, and at the sovereign sound
The hellish legions fly.

Ye heavenly flames, that singe the air,

Artillery of a jealous God, Thus while with unambitious strife

Bright arrows that his sounding quivers bear Th' ethereal minstrels rove

To scatter deaths abroad; Through all the labours of his life,

Lightnings, adore the sovereign arm that Aings And wonders of his love,

His vengeance, and your fires, upon the heads of

kings. In the full choir a broken string

Thou vital element, the Air, Groans with a strange surprise ;

Whose boundless magazines of breath The rest in silence mourn their King,

Our fainting flame of life repair, [Death : That bleeds, and loves, and dies.

And save the bubble man from the cold arms of Seraph and saint, with drooping wings,

And ye, whose vital moisture yields Cease their harmonious breath;

Life's purple stream a fresh supply, No blooming trees, nor bubbling springs,

Sweet Waters, wandering through the flowery fields, While Jesus sleeps in death.

Or dropping from the sky;

Confess the Power whose all-sufficient name Then all at once to living strains

Nor needs your aid to build, or to support our frame. They summon every chord,

Now the rude Air, with noisy force, Break up the tomb, and burst his chains,

Beats up and swells the angry Sea, And show their rising Lord.

They join to make our lives a prey,

And sweep the sailors' hopes away, Around the flaming army throngs

Vain hopes, to reach their kindred on the shores ! To guard him to the skies,

Lo, the wild seas and surging waves With loud Hosannahs on their tongues,

Gape hideous in a thousand graves: And triumph in their eyes.

Be still, ye floods, and know your bounds of sand, In awful state the conquering God

Ye storms, adore your Master's hand : Ascends his shining throne,

The winds are in his fist, the waves at his com

mand. While tuneful angels sound abroad The victories he has won.

From the eternal emptiness

His fruitful word by secret springs
Now let me rise, and join their song,

Drew the whole harmony of things
And be an angel too;

That form this noble universe:
My heart, my hand, my ear, my tongue,

Old Nothing knew his powerful hand,
Here's joyful work for you.

Scarce had he spoke his full command, (call,

Fire, Air, and Earth, and Sea, heard the creating I would begin the music here,

And leap'd from empty nothing to this beauteous all : And so my soul should rise :

And still they dance, and still obey O for some heavenly notes to bear

The orders they receiv'd the great creation-day. My spirit to the skies! There ye that love my Savionr sit;

There I would fain have place,
Among your thrones, or at your feet,

THE FAREWELL,
So I might see his face.
I am confin'd to Earth no more,

Dead be my heart to all below,

To mortal joys and mortal cares;
But mount in haste above,

To sensual Lliss that charins us so
To bless the God that I adore,
And sing the Man I love.

Be dark, my eyes, and deaf, my ears.

a

Here I renounce my carnal taste

Those guardian drops my soul secure, Of the fair fruit that sinners prize :

And wash away my sin; Their Paradise shall never waste

Eternal Justice frowns no more, One thought of mine, but to despise.

And conscience smiles within. All earthly joys are over-weigh'd

I bless that wondrous purple stream With mountains of vexatious care ;

That whitens every stain; And where's the sweet that is not laid

Yet is my soul but half redeem'd, A bait to some destructive snare?

If Sin the tyrant reign. Be gone for ever, mortal things !

Lord, blast his empire with thy breath! Thou mighty mole-hill, Earth, farewell !

That cursed throne must fall : Angels aspire on lofty wings,

Ye flattering plagues, that work my death, And leave the globe for ants to dwell.

Fly, for I hate you all.
Come, Heaven, and fill my vast desires,
My soul pursues the sovereign good :
She was all made of heavenly fires,
Nor can she live on meaner food.

SOVEREIGNTY AND GRACL.

GOD ONLY KNOWN TO HIMSELF.

STAND, and adore ! how glorious He
That dwells in bright eternity !
We gaze, and we confound our sight
Plung'd in th' abyss of dazzling light.
Thou sacred One, Almighty Three,
Great Everlasting Mystery,
What lofty numbers shall we frame
Equal to thy tremendous name?
Seraphs, the nearest to the throne,
Begin, and speak the Great Unknown:
Attempt the song, wind up your strings,
To notes untried and boundless things :
You, whose capacious powers survey
Largely beyond our eyes of clay:
Yet what a narrow portion too
Is seen, or known, or thought, by you !
How flat your highest praises fall
Below th’immense Original !
Weak creatures we, that strive in vain
To reach an uncreated strain !
Great God, forgive our feeble lays,
Sound out thine own eternal praise ;
A song so vast, a theme so high,
Calls for the voice that tun'd the sky.

The Lord! how fearful is his name !

How wide is his command !
Nature, with all her moving frame,

Rests on his mighty hand.
Immortal glory forms his throne,

And light his awful robe;
While with a smile, or with a frown,

He manages the globe.
A word of his almighty breath

Can swell or sink the seas;
Build the vast empires of the Earth,

Or break them as he please.
Adoring angels round him fall

In all their shining forms,
His sovereign eye looks through them all,

And pities mortal worms.
His bowels, to our worthless race,

In sweet compassion move;
He clothes his looks with softest grace,

And takes his title, Love.
Now let the Lord for ever reign,

And sway us as he will;
Sick, or in health, in ease, or pain,

We are his favourites still.
No more shall peevish passion rise,

The tongue no more complain ;
'Tis sovereign love that lends our joys,

And love resumes again.

PARDON AND SANCTIFICATION.

My crimes awake, and hideous fear

Distracts my restless mind;
Guilt meets my eyes with horrid glare,

And Hell pursues behind.
Almighty Vengeance frowns on high,

And flames array the throne ;
While thunder murmurs round the sky,

Impatient to be gone.
Where shall I hide this noxious head?

Can rocks or mountains save ?
Or shall I wrap me in the shade

Of midnight and the grave ?
Is there no shelter from the eye

Of a revenging God?
Jesus, to thy dear wounds I fly;

Bedew me with thy blood,

THE LAW AND GOSPEL.
Curst be the man, for ever curst,
That doth one wilful sin commit;
Death and damnation for the first,
Without relief and infinite."
Thus Sinai roars; and round the Earth
Thunder, and fire, and vengeance flings;
But, Jesus, thy dear gasping breath,
And Calvary, say gentler things:
“ Pardon, and grace, and boundless love,
Streaming along a Saviour's blood,
And life, and joys, and crowns above,
Dear-purchas'd by a bleeding God.”
Hark, how he prays (the charming sound
Dwells on his dying lips) “ Forgive !"
And every groan, and gaping wound,
Cries, “ Father, let the rebels live."

Go, you that rest upon the law,

“ How weak's the prison where I dwell! And toil, and seek salvation there;

Flesh but a tottering wall, Look to the flames that Moses saw,

The breaches cheerfully foretel, And shrink, and tremble, and despair.

The house must shortly fall. But I'll retire beneath the cross :

“No more, my friends, shall I complain, Saviour, at thy dear feet I lie;

Though all my heart-strings ache; And the keen sword that justice draws,

Welcome disease, and every pain
Flaming and red, shall pass me by.

That makes the cottage shake.
“Now let the tempest blow all round,

Now swell the surges high,
SEEKING A DIVINE CALM IN A RESTLESS And beat this house of bondage down,
WORLD.

To let the stranger fly.

“ I have a mansion built above O mens, quæ stabili fata regis vice, &c.

By the Eternal Hand;
Casimire, Book III. Od. xxiji. And should the Earth's old basis move,
Errernal Mind, who rul'st the fates

My heavenly house must stand.
Of dying realms and rising states

“ Yes ; for 'tis there my Saviour reigns, With one unchang'd decree ;

(I long to see the God) While we admire thy vast affairs,

And his immortal strength sustains Say, can our little trifling cares

The courts that cost him blood.” Afford a smile to thee?

Hark, from on high my Saviour calls : Thou scatterest honours, crowns, and gold ;

“I come, my Lord, my Love :" We fly to seize, and fight to hold

Devotion breaks the prison-walls,
The bubbles and the oar;

And speeds my last remove.
So emmets struggle for a grain ;
So boys their petty wars maintain

For shells upon the shore.
Here a vain man his sceptre breaks,
The next a broken sceptre takes,

LAUNCHING INTO ETERNITY.
And warriors vin and lose ; .
This rolling world will never stand,

It was a brave attempt ! adventurous he, Plunder'd and snatch'd from hand to hand, Who in the first ship broke the unknown sea; As power decays or grows.

And, leaving his dear native shores behind, Earth's but an atom : greedy swords

Trusted his life to the licentious wind. Carve it among a thousand lords,

I see the surging brine : the tempest raves : And yet they can't agree:

He on a pine-plank rides across the waves, Let greedy swords still fight and slay,

Exulting on the edge of thousand gaping graves : I can be poor ; but, Lord, I pray

He steers the winged boat, and shifts the sails, To sit and smile with thee,

Conquers the food, and manages the gales.

Such is the soul that leaves this mortal land

Fearless when the great Master gives command. HAPPY FRAILTY.

Death is the storm : she smiles to hear it roar, How meanly dwells th' immortal mind! And bids the tempest waft her from the shore : How vile these bodies are !

Then with a skilful helm she sweeps the seas, Why was a clod of eartb design'd

And manages the raging storm with ease; T'inclose a heavenly star?

(Her faith can govern Death) she spreads her wings

Wide to the wind, and as she sails she sings, “ Weak cottage where our souls reside! This flesh a tottering wall ;

And loses by degrees the sight of mortal things.

As the shores lessen, so her joys arise, With frightful breaches gaping wide

The waves roll gentler, and the tempest dies; The building bends to fall.

Now vast eternity fills all her sight, 4 All round it storms of trouble blow,

She floats on the broad deep with infinite delight, And waves of sorrow roll;

The seas for ever calm, the skies for ever bright. Cold waves and winter storms beat through,

And pain the tenant-soul. " Alas! how frail our state !” said I;

And thus went mourning on, Till sudden from the cleaving sky

A PROSPECT OF THE RESURRECTION. A gleam of glory shone. My soul ali felt the glory come,

How long shall Death the tyrant reign And breath'd her native air;

And triumph o'er the just, Then she remember'd Heaven her home,

While the rich blood of martyrs slain And she a prisoner here.

Lies mingled with the dust? “Straight she began to change her key,

When shall the tedious night be gone? And, joyful in her pains,

When will our Lord appear? She sung the frailty of her clay

Our fond desires would pray him down, In pleasurable strains.

Our love embrace him here,