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17. THE ACQUIESCENCE OF PURE

LOVE.

OVE! if thy destined facrifice am I,
Come, flay thy victim, and prepare thy

fires:

Plunged in thy depths of mercy, let me die
The death which every foul that lives defires!

I watch my hours, and fee them fleet away;
The time is long that I have languish'd here;
Yet all my thoughts thy purposes obey,
With no reluctance, cheerful and fincere.

To me 'tis equal, whether Love ordain
My life or death, appoint me pain or ease ;
My foul perceives no real ill in pain;
In ease or health no real good she fees.

One Good the covets, and that Good alone,
To choose thy will, from selfish bias free;
And to prefer a cottage to a throne,
And grief to comfort, if it pleases thee.

That we should bear the cross is thy command,
Die to the world, and live to self no more;
Suffer, unmoved, beneath the rudeft hand,
As pleased when shipwreck'd as when safe on
shore.

18. REPOSE IN GOD.

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LEST! who, far from all mankind,
This world's fhadows left behind,

Hears from Heaven a gentle ftrain
Whispering Love, and loves again.

Bleft! who, free from felf-esteem,
Dives into the great Supreme,
All defire befide difcards,
Joys inferior none regards.

Bleft! who in thy bofom feeks
Reft that nothing earthly breaks,
Dead to self and worldly things,
Loft in thee, thou King of kings!

Ye that know my fecret fire,
Softly fpeak and foon retire;
Favour my divine repose,

Spare the fleep a God bestows.

19.

GLORY TO GOD ALONE.

H loved! but not enough-tho' dearer far
Than felf and its most loved enjoyments

are;

None duly loves thee, but who, nobly free
From fenfual objects, finds his all in Thee.

Glory of 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 poft of honour-Thee behind.

Reafon exclaims-" Let every creature fall,
Ashamed, abased, before the Lord of all;
And Faith, o'erwhelm'd with fuch a dazzling blaze,
Feebly describes the beauty fhe furveys.

Yet man, dim-fighted man, and rafh as blind,
Deaf to the dictates of his better mind,
In frantic competition dares the skies,
And claims precedence of the only wife.
Oh loft in vanity, till once felf-known;
Nothing is great, or good, but God alone;
When thou shalt ftand before his awful face,
Then, at the last, thy pride shall know His place.

Glorious, Almighty, First, and without end!
When wilt thou melt the mountains and descend?
When wilt thou fhoot abroad thy conquering rays,
And teach these atoms, thou haft made, thy praise?

Thy Glory is the sweetest heaven I feel;
And, if I feek it with too fierce a zeal,
Thy Love, triumphant o'er a selfish will,
Taught me the paffion, and infpires it ftill.

My reason, all my faculties, unite,

To make thy Glory their fupreme delight;
Forbid it, fountain of my brightest days,
That I should rob thee, and ufurp thy praise!

My foul! reft happy in thy low estate,
Nor hope, nor wish, to be esteem'd or great;
To take the impreffion of a will divine,
Be that thy glory, and thofe riches thine.

Confefs Him righteous in his juft decrees,
Love what he loves, and let his pleasure please;
Die daily; from the touch of fin recede;

Then thou hast crown'd him, and he reigns indeed.

20. SELF-LOVE AND TRUTH INCOMPATIBLE.

ROM thorny wilds a monster came,
That fill'd my foul with fear and shame ;
The birds, forgetful of their mirth,
Droop'd at the fight, and fell to earth;
When thus a fage address'd mine ear,
Himfelf unconfcious of a fear.

"Whence all this terror and furprise,
Distracted looks, and ftreaming eyes?
Far from the world and its affairs,
The joy it boasts, the pain it shares,
Surrender, without guile or art,
To God, an undivided heart;
The favage form, fo fear'd before,

Shall scare your trembling foul no more;
For loathsome as the fight may be,
'Tis but the Love of felf you fee.

Fix all your love on God alone,

Choose but His will, and hate your own:

No fear shall in your path be found,
The dreary waste shall bloom around,
And
you, through all
your happy days,
Shall bless his name, and fing his praise."

Oh lovely folitude, how sweet

The filence of this calm retreat!

Here Truth, the fair whom I pursue,
Gives all her beauty to my view;
The fimple, unadorn'd difplay
Charms every pain and fear away.
O Truth, whom millions proudly flight;
O Truth, my treasure and delight;
Accept this tribute to thy name,

And this poor heart from which it came!

21. THE LOVE OF GOD, THE END OF LIFE.

INCE life in forrow must be spent,
So be it-I am well content,

And meekly wait my last remove,
Seeking only growth in love.

No blifs I feek, but to fulfill
In life, in death, thy lovely will;
No fuccours in my woes I want,
Save what Thou art pleased to grant.

Our days are number'd, let us spare
Our anxious hearts a needlefs care:
"Tis thine to number out our days;
Ours to give them to thy praise.

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