Then why my heart sunk down so low?
Why do my eyes dissolve and flow,
And hopeless nature mourn?
Review, my soul, those pleasing days,
Read his unalterable grace
Through the displeasure of his face,
And wait a kind return.
A father's love may raise a frown
To chide the child, or prove the son,
But love will ne'er destroy :
The hour of darkness is but short;
Faith be thy life, and patience thy support; The morning brings the joy.
WHEN shall thy lovely face be seen?
When shall our eyes behold our God?
What lengths of distance lie between,
And hills of guilt, a heavy load!
Our months are ages of delay,
And slowly every minute wears:
Fly, winged Time, and roll away
These tedious rounds of sluggish years.
Ye heavenly gates, loose all your chains,
Let the eternal pillars bow;
Blest Saviour, cleave the starry plains,
And make the crystal mountains flow.
Hark, how thy saints unite their cries,
And pray and wait the general doom;
Come, thou, the soul of all our joys,
Thou, the desire of nations, come.
Put thy bright robes of triumph on,
And bless our eyes, and bless our ears,
Thou absent Love, thou dear Unknown,
Thou Fairest of ten thousand Fairs.
Our heart-strings groan with deep complaint,
Our flesh lies panting, Lord, for thee,
And every limb, and every joint,
Stretches for immortality.
Our spirits shake their eager wings,
And burn to meet thy flying throne;
We rise away from mortal things
To attend thy shining chariot down.
Now let our cheerful eyes survey
The blazing earth and melting hills,
And smile to see the lightnings play,
And flash along before thy wheels.
O for a shout of violent joys
To join the trumpet's thundering sound!
The angel-herald shakes the skies,
Awakes the graves, and tears the ground.
Ye slumbering saints, a heavenly host
Stands waiting at your gaping tombs;
Let every sacred sleeping dust
Leap into life, for Jesus comes.
Jesus, the God of might and love,
New moulds our limbs of cumbrous clay;
Quick as seraphic flames we move,
Active, and young, and fair as they.
Our airy feet, with unknown flight,
Swift as the motions of desire,
Run up the hills of heavenly light,
And leave the weltering world in fire.
BEWAILING MY OWN INCONSTANCY.
I LOVE the Lord; but, ah! how far
My thoughts from the dear object are!
This wanton heart, how wide it roves!
And fancy meets a thousand loves.
If my soul burn to see my God,
I tread the courts of his abode,
But troops of rivals throng the place,
And tempt me oft before his face.
Would I enjoy my Lord alone,
I bid my passions all be gone;
All but my love; and charge my will
To bar the door and guard it still.
But cares, or trifles, make, or find,
Still new avenues to the mind,
Till I with grief and wonder see
Huge crowds betwixt the Lord and me.
Oft I am told the Muse will prove
A friend to piety and love;
Straight I begin some sacred song,
And take my Saviour on my tongue.
Strangely I lose his lovely face,
To hold the empty sounds in chase;
At best the chimes divide my heart,
And the Muse shares the larger part.
False confidant! and falser breast!
Fickle, and fond of every guest:
Each airy image, as it flies,
Here finds admittance through my eyes.
This foolish heart can leave her God,
And shadows tempt her thoughts abroad:
How shall I fix this wandering mind,
Or throw my fetters on the wind?
Look gently down, almighty Grace,
Prison me round in thine embrace;
Pity the soul that would be thine,
And let thy power my love confine.
Say, when shall that bright moment be
That I shall live alone for thee,
My heart no foreign lords adore,
And the wild Muse prove false no more?
HAPPY the hours, the golden days,
When I could call my Jesus mine,
And sit and view his smiling face,
And melt in pleasures all divine.
Near to my heart, within my arms
He lay, till sin defil'd my breast,
Till broken vows, and earthly charms,
Tir'd and provok'd my heavenly guest.
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