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 M. 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 sev❜nfold 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 command,

And leave his single voice to whisper to my heart,

Retire, my soul, within thyself retire,
Away from sense and every outward show:
Now let my thoughts to loftier themes aspire,
My knowledge now on wheels of fire

May mount and spread above, surveying all below.

The Lord grows lavish of his heavenly light, And pours whole floods on such a mind as this: Fled from the eyes, she gains a piercing sight, She dives into the infinite,

And sees unutterable things in that unknown abyss.

TRUE WISDOM.

PRONOUNCE him blest, my muse, whom wisdom guides

In her own path to her own heavenly seat; Through all the storms his soul securely glides, Nor can the tempests, nor the tides,

That rise and roar around, supplant his steady feet.

Earth, you may let your golden arrows fly, And seek, in vain, a passage to his breast. Spread all your painted toys to court his eye, He smiles, and sees them vainly try To lure his soul aside from her eternal rest.

Our headstrong lusts, like a young fiery horse,
Start, and flee raging in a violent course;
He tames and breaks them, manages and rides
them,

Checks their career, and turns and guides
them,

And bids his reason bridle their licentious force.

Lord of himself, he rules his wildest thoughts, And boldly acts what calmly he design'd, While he looks down and pities human faults; Nor can he think, nor can he find,

A plague like reigning passions, and a subject mind.

But oh! 'tis mighty toil to reach this height, To vanquish self is a laborious art;

What manly courage to sustain the fight,

To bear the noble pain, and part

With those dear charming tempters rooted in the heart!

"Tis hard to stand when all the passions move, Hard to awake the eye that passion blinds To rend and tear out this unhappy love,

That clings so close about our minds, And where the enchanted soul so sweet a poison finds.

Hard; but it may be done. Come, heavenly fire,
Come to my breast, and with one powerful ray