Sweet is the cross, above all sweets,
To souls enamoured with thy smiles; The keenest woe life ever meets,
Love strips of all its terrors, and beguiles. "Tis just that God should not be dear Where self engrosses all the thought, And groans and murmurs make it clear, Whatever else is loved, the Lord is not. The love of Thee flows just as much As that of ebbing self subsides; Our hearts, their scantiness is such, Bear not the conflict of two rival tides.
Both cannot govern in one soul:
Then let self-love be dispossess'd; The love of God deserves the whole,
And will not dwell with so despised a guest.
REPOSE IN GOD.
BEST! far a left behind,
OLEST! who, far from all mankind,
Hears from heaven a gentle strain
Whispering love, and loves again.
Blest! who free from self-esteem,
Dives into the Great Supreme,
All desire besides discards,
Joys inferior none regards.
Blest! who in Thy bosom seeks
Rest that nothing earthly breaks,
Dead to self and worldly things,
Lost in Thee, Thou King of kings!
Ye that know my secret fire,
Softly speak and soon retire:
Favour my divine repose,
Spare the sleep a God bestows.
GLORY TO GOD ALONE.
H loved! but not enough-though dearer far
Than self and its most loved enjoyments are ;
None duly love Thee, but who, nobly free
From sensual objects, finds his all in Thee.
Glory to God! thou stranger here below,
Whom man nor knows, nor feels a wish to know;
Our faith and reason are both shock'd to find
Man in the post of honour-Thee behind.
Reason exclaims-"Let every creature fall,
Ashamed, abased, before the Lord of all;
And Faith, o'erwhelm'd with such a dazzling blaze,
Feebly describes the beauty she surveys.
Yet man, dim-sighted man, and rash as blind,
Deaf to the dictates of his better mind,
In frantic competition dares the skies,
And claims precedence of the Only Wise.
Oh lost in vanity, till once self-known!
Nothing is great, or good, but God alone;
When thou shalt stand before His awful face,
Then, at the last, thy pride shall know His place.
Glory, Almighty, First, and without end!
When wilt Thou melt the mountains and descend!
When wilt Thou shoot abroad Thy conquering rays,
And teach these atoms Thou hast made, Thy praise?
Thy glory is the sweetest heaven I feel;
And if I seek it with too fierce a zeal,
Thy love, triumphant o'er a selfish will,
Taught me the passion, and inspires it still.
My reason, all my faculties, unite,
To make Thy glory their supreme delight;
Forbid it, fountain of my brightest days,
That I should rob Thee, and usurp Thy praise!
My soul rest happy in thy low estate,
Nor hope, nor wish, to be esteem'd or great;
To take the impression of a will divine,
Be that thy glory, and those riches thine.
Confess Him righteous in his just decrees,
Love what He loves, and let His pleasures please;
Die daily; from the touch of sin recede;
Then thou hast crowned Him, and He reigns indeed.
Translations from Virgil.
OVID. TRIST. LIB. V. ELEG. XII.
YOU bid me write t'amuse the tedious hours,
And save from with'ring my poetic pow'rs.
Hard is the task, my friend, for verse should flow
From the free mind, not fettered down by woe;
Restless amidst unceasing tempests tost,
Whoe'er has cause for sorrow, I have most.
Would you bid Priam laugh, his sons all slain,
Or childless Niobe from tears refrain,
Join the gay dance, and lead the festive train?
Does grief or study most befit the mind,
To this remote, this barb'rous nook confin'd?
Could you impart to my unshaken breast
The fortitude by Socrates possess'd
Soon would it sink beneath such woes as mine,
For what is human strength to wrath divine?
Wise as he was, and heaven pronounced him so,
My suff rings would have laid that wisdom low.
Could I forget my country, thee and all,
And even th' offence to which I owe my fall,
Yet fear alone would freeze the poet's vein,
While hostile troops swarm o'er the dreary plain.
Add that the fatal rust of long disuse
Unfits me for the service of the Muse.
Thistles and weeds are all we can expect
From the best soil impov'rish'd by neglect;
Unexercis'd and to his stall confined,
The fleetest racer would be left behind;
The best built bark that cleaves the wat'ry way,
Laid useless by, would moulder and decay-
No hope remains that time shall me restore,
Mean as I was, to what I was before.
Think how a series of desponding cares
Benumbs the genius and its force impairs.
How oft, as now, on this devoted sheet,
My verse constrain'd to move with measur'd feet,
Reluctant and laborious limps along,
And proves itself a wretched exile's song.
What is it tunes the most melodious lays ?
'Tis emulation and the thirst of praise,
A noble thirst, and not unknown to me,
While smoothly wafted on a calmer sea.
But can a wretch like Ovid pant for fame?
No, rather let the world forget my name.
Is it because that world approv'd my strain,
You prompt me to the same pursuit again?
No, let the Nine th' ungrateful truth excuse,
I charge my hopeless ruin on the Muse,
And, like Perillus, meet my just desert,
The victim of my own pernicious art.
Fool that I was to be so warn'd in vain,
And shipwreck'd once to tempt the deep again.
Ill fares the bard in this unletter'd land,
None to consult and none to understand.
The purest verse has no admirers here,
Their own rude language only suits their ear.
Rude as it is, at length familiar grown,
I learn it, and almost unlearn my own-
Yet to say truth, ev'n here the Muse disdains
Confinement, and attempts her former strains,
But finds the strong desire is not the pow'r,
And what her taste condemns, the flames devour.
A part, perhaps, like this, escapes the doom,
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