THE path of sorrow, and that path alone,
Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown;
No traveller ever reached that blest abode,
Who found not thorns and briars in his road.
The world may dance along the flowery plain,
Cheered as they go by many a sprightly strain;
Where Nature has her mossy velvet spread,
With unshod feet they yet securely tread;
Admonished, scorn the caution and the friend,
Bent all on pleasure, heedless of its end:
But He, who knew what human hearts would prove,
How slow to learn the dictates of his love,
That, hard by nature and of stubborn will,
A life of ease would make them harder still,
In pity to the souls His grace designed
To rescue from the ruins of mankind,
Called for a cloud to darken all their years,
And said, "Go, spend them in the vale of tears!"
O balmy gales of soul-reviving air!
O salutary streams, that murmur there!
These, flowing from the fount of grace above,
Those, breathed from lips of everlasting love.
The flinty soil indeed their feet annoys;
Chill blasts of trouble nip their springing joys;
An envious world will interpose its frown,
To mar delights superior to its own;
And many a pang, experienced still within,
Reminds them of their hated inmate, Sin:
But ills of every shape and every name,
Transformed to blessings, miss their cruel aim;
And every moment's calm that soothes the breast,
Is given in earnest of eternal rest.
Ah, be not sad, although thy lot be cast
Far from the flock, and in a boundless waste!
No shepherds' tents within thy view appear,
But the chief shepherd even there is near;
Thy tender sorrows and thy plaintive strain
Flow in a foreign land, but not in vain ;
Thy tears all issue from a source divine,
And every drop bespeaks a Saviour thine ;-
So once in Gideon's fleece the dews were found,
And drought on all the drooping herbs around.
HE THAT IS CALLED IS THE LORD'S FREE MAN."
HE is the freeman whom the truth makes free,
And all are slaves beside: There's not a chain,
That hellish foes, confederate for his harm,
Can wind around him, but he casts it off
With as much ease as Samson his green withes.
He looks abroad into the varied field
Of nature, and though poor, perhaps, compared
With those whose mansions glitter in his sight,
Calls the delightful scenery all his own.
His are the mountains, and the valleys his,
And the resplendent rivers. His t'enjoy
With a propriety that none can feel,
But who, with filial confidence inspired,
Can lift to heav'n an unpresumptuous eye,
And smiling say-" My Father made them all!"
Are they not his by a peculiar right,
And by an emphasis of interest his,
Whose eye they fill with tears of holy joy,
Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mind
With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love,
That planned, and built, and still upholds, a world?
"TO BE WITH CHRIST;-WHICH IS FAR BETTER!"
"O MOST delightful hour by man
Experienced here below,
The hour that terminates his span,
His folly and his woe!
"Worlds should not bribe me back to tread
Again life's dreary waste,
To see again my day o'erspread
With all the gloomy past.
My home henceforth is in the skies,
Earth, seas, and sun, adieu!
All heaven unfolded to my eyes,
I have no sight for you."
So spake Aspasio, firm possess'd
Of faith's supporting rod;
Then breathed his soul into its rest,
The bosom of his God.
BLINDED in youth by Satan's arts,
The world to our unpractised hearts
A flattering prospect shows:
Our fancy forms a thousand schemes
Of gay delights, and golden dreams,
And undisturbed repose.
So in the dreary desert's waste,
By magic power produced in haste,
(As ancient fables say,)
Castles, and groves, and music sweet,
The senses of the traveller meet,
And stop him in his way :
But while he listens with surprise, The charm dissolves, the vision dies, 'Twas but enchanted ground;
Thus if the Lord our spirit touch,
The world, which promised us so much, A wilderness is found.
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