So Gabriel, at his King's command,
From yon celestial hill,

Walks downward to our worthless land;
His soul points upward still.

He glides along my mortal things
Without a thought of love,
Fulfils his task, and spreads his wings
To reach the realms above.

MEDITATION IN A GROVE.

SWEET muse, descend, and bless the shade,
And bless the evening grove;
Business, and noise, and day are fled,
And every care, but love.

But hence, ye wanton young and fair;
Mine is a purer flame;
No Phyllis shall infect the air

With her unhallow'd name.

Jesus has all my powers possest,

My hopes, my fears, my joys;
He, the dear Sovereign of my breast,
Shall still command my voice.

Some of the fairest choirs above

Shall flock around my song,
With joy to hear the name they love
Sound from a mortal tongue.

His charms shall make my numbers flow,
And hold the falling floods,
While silence sits on every bough,
And bends the listening woods.

I'll carve our passion on the bark,
And every wounded tree

Shall drop and bear some mystic mark

That Jesus died for me.

The swains shall wonder, when they read,
Inscrib'd on all the grove,

That Heaven itself came down, and bled,

To win a mortal's love.

THE FAIREST AND THE ONLY BELOVED.

HONOUR to that diviner ray
That first allur'd my eyes away
From every mortal fair;

All the gay things that held my sight
Seem but the twinkling sparks of night,
And, languishing in doubtful light,
Die at the morning star.

Whatever makes the Godhead great,
And fit to be ador'd,

Whatever makes the creature sweet,
And worthy of my passion, meet

A thousand graces ever rise,

And bloom upon his face;

A thousand arrows from his eyes

Shoot through my heart, with dear surprise, And guard around the place.

All nature's art shall never cure
The heavenly pains I found,
And 'tis beyond all beauty's power
To make another wound.

Earthly beauties grow and fade;
Nature heals the wound she made;
But charms so much divine
Hold a long empire of the heart;
What heaven has join'd shall never part,
And Jesus must be mine.

In vain the envious shades of night,
Or flatteries of the day,

Would veil his image from my sight,

Or tempt my soul away :
Jesus is all my waking theme,

His lovely form meets every dream,
And knows not to depart;

The passion reigns

Through all my veins,

And floating round the crimson stream, Still finds him at my heart.

Dwell there, for ever dwell, my love;
Here I confine my sense;

Nor dare my wildest wishes rove
Nor stir a thought from thence.
Amidst thy glories and thy grace
Let all my remnant-minutes pass;
Grant, thou Everlasting Fair,
Grant my soul a mansion there:
My soul aspires to see thy face
Though life should for the vision pay;
So rivers run to meet the sea,

And lose their nature in the embrace.

Thou art my ocean, thou my God;
In thee the passions of the mind
With joys and freedom unconfin'd
Exult, and spread their powers abroad.
Not all the glittering things on high
Can make my heaven, if thou remove;
I shall be tir'd, and long to die;
Life is a pain without thy love:

Who could ever bear to be

Curst with immortality,

Among the stars, but far from thee?

MUTUAL LOVE STRONGER THAN

DEATH.

NOT the rich world of minds above
Can pay the mighty debt of love

I owe to Christ my God;

With pangs which none but he could feel,
He brought my guilty soul from hell;
Not the first seraph's tongue can tell
The value of his blood.

Kindly he seiz'd me in his arms,

From the false world's pernicious charms,

With force divinely sweet;

Had I ten thousand lives my own,

At his demand,

With cheerful hand,

I'd pay the vital treasure down

Ir. hourly tributes at his feet.