But to Mount Zion we are come, The city of the living God, Jerusalem, our heavenly home, The courts by angel-legions trod, Where meet, in everlasting love, The church of the first-born above:
To God, the Judge of quick and dead, The perfect spirits of the just, Jesus, our great new-covenant Head, The blood of sprinkling,-from the dust, That better things than Abel's cries, And pleads a Saviour's sacrifice.
Oh, hearken to the healing voice,
That speaks from heaven in tones so mild ! To-day are life and death our choice; To-day, through mercy reconciled, Our all to God we yet may give; Now, let us hear His voice and live.
DEATH EASY IN PROSPECT OF HEAVEN.
THERE is a land of pure delight, Where saints immortal reign, Infinite day excludes the night, And pleasures banish pain.
There everlasting spring abides, And never-withering flowers: Death, like a narrow sea, divides This heavenly land from ours.
Sweet fields, beyond the swelling flood, Stand dress'd in living green : So to the Jews old Canaan stood, While Jordan rolled between.
But timorous mortals start and shrink To cross this narrow sea,
And linger, shivering, on the brink, And fear to launch away.
Oh, could we make our doubts remove, These gloomy doubts that rise, And see the Canaan that we love, With unbeclouded eyes:
Could we but climb where Moses stood, And view the landscape o'er,
Not Jordan's stream, nor death's cold flood, Should fright us from the shore !
A MAN of rank, and of capacious soul, Who riches had and fame, beyond desire, An heir of flattery, to titles born, And reputation, and luxurious life. Yet, not content with ancestorial name, Or to be known because his fathers were; He, on this height hereditary, stood, And gazing higher, purposed in his heart To take another step. Above him seemed, Alone, the mount of song, the lofty seat Of canonized bards; and thitherward, By nature taught, and inward melody, In prime of youth, he bent his eagle eye. No cost was spared. What books he wished he read ; What sage to hear, he heard; what scenes to see, He saw. And first, in rambling school-boy days, Britannia's mountain-walks, and heath-girt lakes, And story-telling glens, and founts, and brooks, And maids, as dew-drops pure and fair, his soul With grandeur filled, and melody and love. Then travel came, and took him where he wished. He cities saw, and courts, and princely pomp; And mused alone on ancient mountain brows: And mused on battle-fields, where valour fought In other days; and mused on ruins gray
With years; and drank from old and fabulous wells; And plucked the vine that first-born prophets plucked; And mused on famous tombs, and on the wave
Of Ocean mused, and on the desert waste. The heavens and earth of every country saw. Where'er the old inspiring Genii dwelt,
Aught that could rouse, expand, refine the soul, Thither he went, and meditated there.
He touched his harp, and nations heard, entranced, As some vast river of unfailing source,
Rapid, exhaustless, deep, his numbers flowed, And oped new fountains in the human heart. Where Fancy halted, weary in her flight, In other men, his, fresh as morning, rose,
And soared untrodden heights, and seemed at home Where angels bashful looked. Others, though great, Beneath their argument seemed struggling whiles: He, from above descending, stooped to touch The loftiest thought; and proudly stooped, as though It scarce deserved his verse. With Nature's self, He seemed an old acquaintance, free to jest At will with all her glorious majesty. He laid his hand upon "the Ocean's mane," And played familiar with his hoary locks. Stood on the Alps, stood on the Apennines, And with the thunder talked, as friend to friend; And wove his garland of the lightning's wing, In sportive twist, the lightning's fiery wing, Which, as the footsteps of the dreadful God, Marching upon the storm in vengeance, seemed; Then turned, and with the grasshopper, who sung His evening song beneath his feet, conversed. Suns, moons, and stars, and clouds, his sisters were; Rocks, mountains, meteors, seas, and winds and storms, His brothers, younger brothers, whom he scarce As equals deemed. All passions of all men, The wild and tame, the gentle and severe; All thoughts, all maxims, sacred and profane; All creeds, all seasons, time, eternity; All that was hated, and all that was dear; All that was hoped, all that was feared, by man, He tossed about, as tempest-withered leaves, Then, smiling, looked upon the wreck he made. With terror now he froze the cowering blood, And now dissolved the heart in tenderness; Yet would not tremble, would not weep himself; But back into his soul retired, alone, Dark, sullen, proud, gazing contemptuously On hearts and passions prostrate at his feet. So Ocean, from the plains his waves had late To desolation swept, retired in pride,
Exulting in the glory of his might,
And seemed to mock the glory he had wrought.
Great man! the nations gazed, and wondered much, And praised; and many called his evil good, Wits wrote in favour of his wickedness; And kings to do him honour took delight. Thus, full of titles, flattery, honour, fame, Beyond desire, beyond ambition, full,
He died. He died of what?-of wretchedness. Drank every cup of Joy, heard every trump
Of fame, drank early, deeply drank, drank draughts,
That common millions might have quenched; then died
Of thirst, because there was no more to drink.
His goddess, Nature, wooed, embraced, enjoyed,
Fell from his arms abhorred; his passions died; Died all but dreary solitary pride;
And all his sympathies in being, died. As some ill-guided bark, well-built and tall, Which angry tides cast out on desert shore, And then retiring, left it there to rot
And moulder in the winds and rains of heaven; So he, cut from the sympathies of life,
And cast ashore from Pleasure's boisterous surge, A wandering, weary, lorn, and wretched thing, Scorched, and desolate, and blasted soul,- A gloomy wilderness of dying thought,- Repined, and groaned, and withered from the earth. His groanings filled the land his numbers filled; And yet he seemed ashamed to groan. Poor man!
Ashamed to ask, and yet he needed help.
Proof this, beyond all lingering of doubt, That not with natural or mental wealth, Was God delighted, or his peace secured; That not in natural or mental wealth
Was human happiness or grandeur found. Attempt how monstrous, and how surely vain! With things of earthly sort, with aught but God, With aught but moral excellence, truth, and love, To satisfy and fill the immortal soul. Attempt, vain inconceivably! attempt, To satisfy the Ocean with a drop, To marry Immortality to Death,
And with the unsubstantial Shade of Time, To fill the embrace of all Eternity!
How fine has the day been, how bright was the sun, How lovely and joyful the course that he run, Though he rose in a mist when his race he begun, And there follow'd some droppings of rain! But now the fair traveller's come to the west, His rays are all gold, and his beauties are best; He paints the sky gay as he sinks to his rest, And foretels a bright rising again.
Just such is the Christian; his course he begins, Like the sun in a mist, when he mourns for his sins And melts into tears; then he breaks out and shines, And travels his heavenly way :
But when he comes nearer to finish his race, Like a fine setting sun, he looks richer in grace, And gives a sure hope, at the end of his days, Of rising in brighter array.
O BLEST is he whose arms infold A consort virtuous as fair! Her price is far above the gold
That worldly spirits love to share. On her, as on a beauteous isle, Amid life's dark and stormy sea, In all his trouble, all his toil, He rests with deep security.
Even in the night-watch dark and lone, The distaff fills her busy hand; Her husband in the gates is known Among the elders of the land; Her household all delight to share The food and raiment she bestows,- Even she with all a parent's care Regards their weakness and their woes. Her pitying hand supplies the poor, The widowed one, the orphan child, Like birds assembled round her door, When sweeps the winter tempest wild.
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