Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

POEMS AND HYMNS.

RELIGIOUS DISCOURSE.

To speak for God, to sound religion's praise,
Of sacred passions the wise warmth to raise :
T'infuse the contrite wish to conquest nigh,
And point the steps mysterious as they lie;
To seize the wretch in full career of lust,
And sooth the silent sorrows of the just:
Who would not bless for this the gift of speech,
And in that tongue's beneficence be rich?

But who must talk? Not the mere modern sage, Who suits the softened gospel to the age: Who ne'er to raise degenerate practice strives, But brings the precept down to Christian lives. Not he, who maxims from cold reading took, And never saw himself but through a book: Not he, who hasty in the morn of grace, Soon sinks extinguished as a comet's blaze: Not he, who strains in scripture-phrase t' abound, Deaf to the sense, who stuns us with the sound: But he, who silence loves, and never dealt In the false commerce of a truth unfelt.

Guilty you speak, if subtle from within Blows on your words the self-admiring sin: If unresolved to choose the better part, Your forward tongue belies your languid heart: But then speak safely, when your peaceful mind Above self-seeking blest, on God reclined, Feels him at once suggest unlaboured sense. And ope a sluice of sweet benevolence. Some high behests of heaven you then fulfil, Sprung from his light your words, and issuing by his will.

Nor yet expect so mystically long, Till certain inspiration loose your tongue: Express the precept runs, "Do good to all:" Nor adds, "Whene'er you find an inward call." 'Tis God commands: no farther motive seek, Speak or without, or with reluctance speak: To love's habitual sense by acts aspire, And kindle, till you catch the gospel-fire.

Discoveries immature of truth decline, Nor prostitute the gospel-pearl to swine. Beware, too rashly how you speak the whole, The vileness, or the treasures of your soul. If spurned by some, where weak on earth you lie, If judged a cheat or dreamer, where you fly; Here the sublimer strain, th' exerted air Forego; you're at the bar, not in the chair.

To the pert reasoner if you speak at all, Speak what within his cognizance may fall:

Expose not truths divine to reason's rack,
Give him his own beloved ideas back,

Your notions till they look like his dilute;
Blind he must be-but safe him from dispute !
But when we're turned of reason's noontide glare,
And things begin to show us what they are,
More free to such your true conceptions tell;
Yet graft them on the arts where they excel.
If sprightly sentiments detain their taste;
If paths of various learning they have traced;
If their cool judgment longs, yet fears to fix:
Fire, erudition, hesitation mix.

you

All rules are dead; 'tis from the heart draw The living lustre, and unerring law.

A state of thinking in your manner show,
Nor fiercely soaring, nor supinely low:
Others their lightness and each inward fault
Quench in the stillness of your deeper thought.
Let all your gestures fixed attention draw,
And wide around infuse infectious awe;
Present with God by recollection seem,
Yet present, by your cheerfulness, with them.

Without elation Christian glories paint, Nor by fond amorous phrase assume the saint. Greet not frail men with compliments untrue; With smiles to peace confirmed and conquests due, There are who watch t' adore the dawn of grace, Aud pamper the young proselyte with praise: Kind, humble souls! They with a right good-will Admire his progress-till he stands stock stil.

Speak but to thirsty minds of things divine, Who strong for thought, are free in yours to join. The busy from his channel parts with pain, The languid loathes an elevated strain: With these you aim but at good-natured chat, Where all except the love, is low and flat.

Not one address will different tempers fit, The grave and gay, the heavy and the wit. Wits will sift you; and most conviction find Where least 'tis urged, and seems the least designed. Slow minds are merely passive; and forget Truths not inculcated: to these repeat, Avow your counsel, nor abstain from heat,

Some gentle souls to gay indifference true, Nor hope, nor fear, nor think the more for you: Let love turn babbler here, and caution sleep, Blush not for shallow speech, nor muse for deep; These to your humour, not your sense attend, 'Tis not the advice that sways them, but the friend.

Others have large recesses in their breast: With pensive process all they hear digest; Here well-weighed words with wary foresight sow, For all you say will sink, and every seed will grow.

At first acquaintance press each truth severe,
Stir the whole odium of your character:
Let harshest doctrines all your words engross,
And nature bleeding on the daily cross.

Then to yourself th' ascetic rule enjoin,
To others stoop, surprisingly benign;

Pitying, if from themselves with pain they part,
If stubborn nature long holds out the heart.
Their outworks now are gained; forbear to press:
The more you urge them, you prevail the less;
Let speech lay by its roughness to oblige,
Your speaking life will carry on the siege :
By your example struck, to God they strive
To live, no longer to themselves alive.

To positive adepts insidious yield,

T ensure the conquest, seem to quit the field: Large in your grants; be their opinion shown: Approve, amend and wind it to your own. Couch in your hints, if more resigned they hear, Both what they will be soon, and what they are: Pleasing these words now to the conscious breast, Th' anticipating voice hereafter blest.

In souls just waked the paths of light to choose, Convictions keen, and zeal of prayer infuse. Let them love rules; till freed from passion's reign, Till blameless moral rectitude they gain.

But lest reformed from each extremer ill,
They should but civilize old nature still,
The loftier charms and energy display
Of virtue modell'd by the Godhead's ray;
The lineaments divine, Perfection's plan,
And all the grandeur of the heavenly Man.

« ÎnapoiContinuă »