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, Of Conscience; Conscience reverenced and obeyed And his most perfect Image in the world. Endeavor thus to live; these rules regard; These helps solicit; and a steadfast seat THE RESPONSES OF EXTERNAL NATURE. I HAVE seen A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract Is to the ear of Faith; and there are times, MAN NEVER IRRECLAIMABLE. 'Tis Nature's law That none, the meanest of created things, The dullest or most noxious, should exist Divorced from good, a spirit and pulse of good, A life and soul, to every mode of being That least of all can aught, that ever owned 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 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. Upon the plain of vanished Syracuse, Those arts, and high inventions, if unpropped ODE TO DUTY. STERN daughter of the voice of God! 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, 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 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, Too blindly have reposed my trust: 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, But in the quietness of thought: Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear As is the smile upon thy face; Flowers laugh before thee on their beds; 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 6 |