"My Saviour loves me!" Yet again he sighed,
And upward gazed with eye beatified; -
That look with him unto the grave was borne !
Oh, could we smile into the next world too!
Why not? O bounteous Nature, bounteous Grace,
If Death be dread, 'tis we who make it so,
Straying alike from God and Nature's face.
Two lovely roads lead to our common rest
Forgiveness, Innocence- and both are best '
"Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein." St. Luke, xviii. 17.
THE sting of death doth neither fright the worm
That spins itself in peace a silken tomb,
Nor the forgiven child. Death is life's womb.
O'er life, o'er death, alike we spread the storm,
By straying from our being's simple form.
Bright are our natural faculties in bloom
Of childhood; free from terror and from gloom
Is our life's year when in its tender germ.
The little child hath never doubt of God!
Ay, even the ploughman is more near to Heaven
Who feels our nature's want to be forgiven
(As childlike more) than he who with a load
Of sin and learning, Pride's rebellious son,
Hating old age and death, unto the grave toils on!
"In returning and rest shall ye be saved." Isaiah, xxx. 15.
YES! There are hearts that, when I am no more,
Will love my verse!
It to their hearts will creep
Like music they have longed for, still and deep,
Loosing those chains that brain and bosom o'er
Are wove by Terrors haunting death's dread shore,
And Doubts that ask why here we toil and weep,
Scarce knowing why we came into this sleep
Called Life. A spirit from my strain will pour,
Whispering, that God is good and Nature kind,
And that our struggles make our agony:
And that to rest beneath the steadfast eye
Of God, and sit in holy stillness shrined,
Turns all things into calm reality,
And taketh all the burthen from the mind.
"The law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good." Romans, vii. 12.
WHAT are the laws of God? Our being they,
The true expression of our health and joy.
No arbitrary phrases they employ ;
No prohibitions fertile to betray.
'Tis true that, if transgressed, they bring alway
A penalty; but pleasure's broken toy
Yields wisdom wrought from sorrow and annoy,
Warning us back to nature's happy way;
And pain is not so much a punishment,
As a great lesson we must learn or die!
Thou hast no tortures in thy treasury,
O God, but medicines kind and prevalent
To soothe or heal, when we ungenerous
Have sinned against ourselves and Thee in us.
"Now is the accepted time." 2 Corinthians, vi. 2.
PRESS on our foreheads Thy salvation-seal
Now, now, O dear Redeemer of the world!
Lest, when Thy glorious standard be unfurled,
In Thy great day, we should but anguish feel
And shame; lest light should all our sins reveal
To all creation; and, by anguish whirled,
We from Thy glorious presence should be hurled
To lower grades of being! With glad zeal,
Oh, let us now ourselves by Thee restore;
Accept Thy covenant and Thy marriage dress,
Lest deep ingratitude should sink us more
Even than our sins, to sorrows measureless !
Which shall we do be human or divine?
Stand by our merits, or accept of Thine?
"It doth not yet appear what we shall be." First Epistle of St. John, iii. 2.
We cannot know, indeed, how much were lost By present negligence; but this we know, That in our exit from this world of woe,
It is the next step that concerns us most!
The dream of torture and the wailing ghost
Are nothing; but to fall ourselves below,
To be more exiled from our God than now,
Were horrible! Oh, what a fearful coast
It were to land on, peopled by dark souls;
Many, yet lonely, by communion worse,
Stranded upon creation's outcast shoals,
The dregs and refuse of the universe!
Whose pain were to behold, both near and far,
God as he is, ourselves too as we are!
"With destruction from the presence of the Lord." 2 Thessalonians, i. 9.
SAY, dost thou know what one sad moment were, That were of God deprivéd utterly?
Hast thou been sick in spirit, bound, yet free,
To let thy fancies riot in despair?
Hast thou so breathed an unsubstantial air,
As, like a ghastly dream, the world to see,
To lose the sense of great reality;
Unto the land of madness to repair,
Keeping thy consciousness? Then hence divine,
What were whole cycles of such banishment;
And think each moment worse than idly spent,
That does not draw thee nearer to the shrine
Whence only pleasure flows, where dwelleth He
Who only makes Life, Love, Reality!
"Thy mercy is greater than the heavens." Psalm cvili. 4
O GREATER than the heavens Thy mercy is,
God, for it doth include the universe!
There is with Thee no anger and no curse!
Nor was
even then when man first did amiss!
Even then Thy love and truth did meet and kiss.
Thy boundless love no boon imperfect gave,
Nor did create till it decreed to save,
And wrap existence in eternal bliss!
But we, who take a portion for the whole
Of Thy great plan; who, in our narrow range,
Scarce our conceptions bring to the next change
Of being; how shall we Thy scheme unroll,
Which goes through cycles, working endlessly
Back from sin's dreary nothing unto Thee!
"All things work together for good to them that love God." Romans, viii. 28.
Оn, what a load of struggle and distress
Falls off before the Cross! The feverish care;
The wish that we were other than we are;
The sick regrets; the yearnings numberless;
The thought," this might have been," so apt to press
On the reluctant soul; even past despair,
Past sin itself, - - all all is turned to fair
Ay, to a scheme of ordered happiness,
So soon as we love God, or rather know
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