How could we e'en contend to lay
Our limbs upon that bed!
We ask thine envoy to convey
Our spirits in his stead.

Our souls are rising on the wing,

To venture in his place;

For when grim Death has lost his sting, He has an angel's face.

Jesus, then purge my crimes away; 'Tis guilt creates my fears,

'Tis guilt gives death its fierce array, And all the arms it bears.

Oh! if my threatening sins were gone, And Death had lost his sting,

I could invite the angel on,

And chide his lazy wing.

Away these interposing days,
And let the lovers meet;
The angel has a cold embrace,
But kind, and soft, and sweet.

I'd leap at once my seventy years,
I'd rush into his arms,

And lose my breath, and all my cares,

Amidst those heavenly charms.

Joyful I'd lay this body down,

And leave the lifeless clay, Without a sigh, without a groan, And stretch and soar away.

SINCERE PRAISE.

ALMIGHTY Maker, God,

How wondrous is thy name; Thy glories how diffus'd abroad Through the creation's frame !

Nature in every dress

Her humble homage pays,

And finds a thousand ways to express

Thine undissembled praise.

In native white and red

The rose and lily stand,

And, free from pride, their beauties spread,

To show thy skilful hand.

The lark mounts up the sky,

With unambitious song,

And bears her Maker's praise on high,

Upon her artless tongue.

My soul would rise and sing

To her Creator too,

Fain would my tongue adore my King,

And pay the worship due.

But pride, that busy sin,

Spoils all that I perform;

Curs'd pride, that creeps securely in,

And swells a haughty worm.

Thy glories I abate,

Or praise thee with design; Some of the favours I forget, Or think the merit mine.

The very songs I frame
Are faithless to thy cause,
And steal the honours of thy name
To build their own applause.

Create my soul anew,

Else all my worship's vain;

This wretched heart will ne'er be true,

Until 'tis form'd again.

Descend, celestial fire,

And seize me from above; Melt me in flames of pure desire, A sacrifice to love.

Let joy and worship spend
The remnant of my days,
And to my God, my soul, ascend,
In sweet perfumes of praise.

TRUE LEARNING.

PARTLY IMITATED FROM A FRENCH SONNET OF MR. POIRET.

HAPPY the feet that shining Truth has led
With her own hand to tread the path she please,
To see her native lustre round her spread,

Without a veil, without a shade,

All beauty, and all light, as in herself she is.

Our senses cheat us with the pressing crowds
Of painted shapes they thrust upon the mind:
The truth they show lies wrapt in sevenfold shrouds,
Our senses cast a thousand clouds

On unenlighten'd souls, and leave them doubly blind.

I hate the dust that fierce disputers raise,
And lose the mind in a wild maze of thought;
What empty triflings, and what subtile ways
To fence and guard by rule and rote!

Our God will never charge us that we knew them not.

Touch, heavenly Word, O touch these curious

souls;

Since I have heard but one soft hint from thee, From all the vain opinions of the schools

(That pageantry of knowing fools)

I feel my powers releas'd, and stand divinely free.

"Twas this almighty Word that all things made, He grasps whole nature in his single hand; All the eternal truths in him are laid,

The ground of all things, and their head, The circle where they move, and centre where they stand.

Without his aid, I have no sure defence

From troops of errors that besiege me round;
But he that rests his reason and his sense

Fast here, and never wanders hence,
Unmovable he dwells upon unshaken ground.

Infinite Truth, the life of my desires,
Come from the sky, and join thyself to me;
I'm tir'd with hearing, and this reading tires;
But never tir'd of telling thee,

'Tis thy fair face alone my spirit burns to see.

Speak to my soul, alone; no other hand
Shall mark my path out with delusive art:
All nature silent in his presence stand,

Creatures be dumb at his commană,

And leave his single voice to whisper to my heart!