Learn the mystery of progreffion duly;
Do not call each glorious change decay; But know we only hold our treasures truly, When it seems as if they paffed away.
Nor dare to blame God's gifts for incompleteness;
In that want their beauty lies; they roll
Towards some infinite depth of love and sweetness,
Bearing onward man's reluctant soul.
WRITTEN AFTER HEARING SOME BEAUTIFUL SINGING IN A CONVENTCHURCH AT ROME.
WEET voices! seldom mortal ear
Strains of such potency might hear;
My soul that liftened, seemed quite gone,
Dissolved in sweetness, and anon
I was borne upward, till I trod
Among the hierarchy of God.
And when they ceased, as time must bring
An end to every sweetest thing,
With what reluctancy came back
My spirits to their wonted track,
And how I loathed the common life
The daily and recurring ftrife
With petty fins, the lowly road,
And being's ordinary load '
Why, after such a solemn mood,
Should any meaner thought intrude?
Why will not heaven hereafter give,
That we for evermore may live
Thus at our spirit's topmost bent?
So asked I in my discontent.
But give me, Lord, a wiser heart;
These seasons come, and they depart-
These seasons, and those higher still,
When we are given to have our fill
Of strength, and life, and joy with thee,
And brightness of thy face to see!
They come, or we could never guess
Of heaven's sublimer bleffedness
[s;
They come, to be our ftrength and cheer
In other times, in doubt or fear,
Or fhould our solitary way
Lie through the desert many a day.
They go-they leave us blank and dead,
That we may learn, when they are fled,
We are but vapors which have won
A moment's brightnefs from the sun,
And which it may at pleasure fill
With splendor, or unclothe at will.
Well for us they do not abide,
Or we should lose ourselves in pride,
And be as angels
but as they
Who on the battlements of day
Walked, gazing on their power and might,
Till they grew giddy in their height.
Then welcome every nobler time,
When out of reach of earth's dull chime
'Tis ours to drink with purgéd ears
The mufic of the solemn spheres,
Or in the desert to have fight
Of those enchanted cities bright,
Which sensual eye can never see:
Thrice welcome may such seasons be ;
But welcome too the common way,
The lowly duties of the day,
And all which makes and keeps us low,
Which teaches us ourselves to know,
That we who do our lineage high
Draw from beyond the starry sky,
Are yet upon the other fide-
To earth and to its duft allied.
HEN I can truft my all with God,
In trial's fearful hour,
Bow all refigned beneath his rod,
And blefs his sparing power; A joy springs up amid distress, A fountain in the wilderness.
Oh! to be brought to Jesus' feet,
Though sorrows fix me there,
Is ftill a privilege; and sweet
The energies of prayer,
Though fighs and tears its language be,
If Chrift be nigh, and smile on me.
An earthly mind, a faithlefs heart,
He sees with pitying eye;
He will not let his grace depart ;
But, kind severity!
He takes a hoftage of our love
To draw the parent's heart above.
There ftands our child before the Lord,
In royal vesture drest;
A victor ere he drew the sword,
Ere he had toiled at reft.
No doubts this bleffed faith bedim:
We know that Jesus died for him.
Oh bleffed be the hand that gave;
Still bleffed when it takes.
Bleffed be He who smites to save,
Who heals the heart he breaks.
Perfect and true are all his ways,
Whom Heaven adores, and Death obeys.
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