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FAITH BY VIRTUE.

WHAT then remains? - To seek

Those helps, for his occasions ever near,

Who lacks not will to use them :

Vows, renewed

On the first motion of a holy thought;

Vigils of contemplation; praise; and prayer,
A stream, which from the fountain of the heart
Issuing, however feebly, nowhere flows
Without access of unexpected strength.
But, above all, the victory is most sure
For him, who, seeking faith by virtue, strives
To yield entire submission to the law

Of Conscience; Conscience reverenced and obeyed
As God's most intimate Presence in the soul

And his most perfect Image in the world.

Endeavor thus to live; these rules regard;

These helps solicit; and a steadfast seat
Shall then be yours among the happy few
Who dwell on earth, yet breathe empyreal air,
Sons of the morning. For your nobler part,
Ere disencumbered of her mortal chains,
Doubt shall be quelled and trouble chased away;
With only such degree of sadness left
As may support longings of pure desire!
And strengthen Love, rejoicing secretly
In the sublime attractions of the Grave.

THE RESPONSES OF EXTERNAL NATURE.

I HAVE seen

A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract
Of inland ground, applying to his ear
The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell;
To which, in silence hushed, his very soul
Listened intensely; and his countenance soon
Brightened with joy; for murmurings from within
Were heard, sonorous cadences! whereby
To his belief, the monitor expressed
Mysterious union with its native sea.
E'en such a shell the universe itself

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Is to the ear of Faith; and there are times,
I doubt not, when to you it doth impart
Authentic tidings of invisible things;
Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power;
And central peace, subsisting at the heart
Of endless agitation. Here you stand,
Adore and worship, when you know it not;
Pious beyond the intention of your thought;
Devout above the meaning of your will!

MAN NEVER IRRECLAIMABLE.

'Tis Nature's law

That none, the meanest of created things,
Of forms created the most vile and brute,

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The dullest or most noxious, should exist

Divorced from good, a spirit and pulse of good,

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A life and soul, to every mode of being
Inseparably linked. Then be assured

That least of all can aught, that ever owned
The heaven-regarding eye and front sublime
Which man is born to, sink, howe'er depressed,

So low as to be scorned without a sin;

Without offence to God cast out of view

Like the dry remnant of a garden flower
Whose seeds are shed, or as an implement
Worn out and worthless.

THE MORAL LAW.

ALL true glory rests,

All praise of safety, and all happiness,

Upon the moral law. Egyptian Thebes,

Tyre by the margin of the sounding waves,

Palmyra central in the desert, fell!

And the arts died by which they had been raised.
Call Archimedes from his buried tomb

Upon the plain of vanished Syracuse,
And feelingly this age shall make report
How insecure, how baseless in itself,
Is that philosophy, whose sway is framed
For mere material instruments : how weak

Those arts, and high inventions, if unpropped
By virtue.

ODE TO DUTY.

STERN daughter of the voice of God!
O Duty! if that name thou love,
Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring, and reprove;
Thou, who art victory and law

When empty terrors overawe,

From vain temptations dost set free,

And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity!

There are who ask not if thine eye

Be on them; who, in love and truth,
Where no misgiving is, rely

Upon the genial sense of youth:

Glad hearts! without reproach or blot;

Who do thy work and know it not:

Long may the kindly impulse last!

But thou, if they should totter, teach them to stand

fast!

Serene will be our days and bright,

And happy will our nature be,

When love is an unerring light,
And joy its own security.

And they a blissful course may hold,

Even now, who, not unwisely bold,

Live in the spirit of this creed;

Yet find that other strength, according to their need.

I, loving freedom, and untried,
No sport of every random gust,
Yet being to myself a guide,

Too blindly have reposed my trust:
And oft, when in my heart was heard
Thy timely mandate, I deferred

The task, in smoother walks to stray;

But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may.

Through no disturbance of my soul,

Or strong compunction in me wrought,
I supplicate for thy control;

But in the quietness of thought:
Me this unchartered freedom tires;
I feel the weight of chance desires;
My hopes no more must change their name,
I long for a repose that ever is the same.

Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace;
Nor know we anything so fair

As is the smile upon thy face;

Flowers laugh before thee on their beds;
And Fragrance in thy footing treads;

Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;

And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh

and strong.

To humbler functions, awful Power!

I call thee; I myself commend

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