405

34. SIMPLE TRUST.

TILL, still, without ceasing,

I feel it increasing,

This fervour of holy desire;
And often exclaim,

Let me die in the flame
Of a love that can never expire !

Had I words to explain

What she must sustain Who dies to the world and its ways;

How joy and affright,

Distress and delight, Alternately chequer her days.

Thou, sweetly severe !

I would make thee appear,
In all thou art pleased to award,

Not more in the sweet,

Than the bitter I meet,
My tender and merciful Lord.

This faith, in the dark

Pursuing its mark, Through many sharp trials of Love;

Is the sorrowful waste

That is to be pass'd In the

35. THE NECESSITY OF SELF-ABASE

MENT.

OURCE of love, my brighter fun,
Thou alone my comfort art;

See, my race is almost run;
Hast thou left this trembling heart?
In my youth thy charming eyes
Drew me from the

ways

of men ; Then I drank unmingled joys; Frown of thine faw never then.

Spouse of Christ was then my name;
And devoted all to thee,
Strangely jealous, I became
Jealous of this Self in me.

Thee to love, and none beside,
Was my darling, sole employ;
While alternately I died,
Now of grief, and now of joy.
Through the dark and silent night
On thy radiant smiles I dwelt;
And to see the dawning light
Was the keenest pain I felt.
Thou my gracious teacher wert;
And thine

so close applied,
While it watch'd thy pupil's heart,
Seem'd to look at none beside.

Conscious of no evil drift,
This, I cried, is Love indeed
'Tis the Giver, not the Gift,
Whence the joys I feel proceed.

.
But soon humbled, and laid low,
Stript of all thou hast conferr’d,
Nothing left but sin and woe,
I perceived how I had err'd.

Oh, the vain conceit of man,
Dreaming of a good his own,
Arrogating all he can,
Though the Lord is good alone!
He the
graces

thou hast wrought Makes subservient to his pride ; Ignorant, that one such thought Passes all his sin beside.

Such his folly—proved, at last,
By the loss of that repose
Self-complacence cannot taste,
Only Love Divine bestows.
'Tis by this reproof severe,
And by this reproof alone,
His defects at last appear,
Man is to himself made known.

Learn, all Earth! that feeble man,
Sprung from this terrestrial clod,
Nothing is, and nothing can;
Life and power are all in God.

36. LOVE INCREASED BY SUFFERING.

LOVE the Lord,” is still the strain

This heart delights to sing;

But I reply-Your thoughts are vain,
Perhaps 'tis no such thing.
Before the power of Love Divine

Creation fades away ;
Till only God is seen to shine

In all that we survey.

In gulfs of awful night we find

The God of our desires ;
'Tis there he stamps the yielding mind,

And doubles all its fires.

Flames of encircling love invest,

And pierce it sweetly through;
'Tis filld with sacred joy, yet press'd

With sacred forrow too.

Ah Love! my heart is in the right

Amidst a thousand woes,
To thee, its ever new delight,

And all its peace it owes.

Fresh causes of distress occur

Where'er I look or move;
The comforts I to all prefer

Are folitude and love.

His grace

grace in

409 Nor exile I nor prison fear;

Love makes my courage great ; I find a Saviour every where,

every

state. Nor castle walls, nor dungeons deep,

Exclude his quickening beams; There I can sit, and fing, and weep,

And dwell on heavenly themes.
There sorrow, for his fake, is found

A joy beyond compare;
There no presumptuous thoughts abound,

No pride can enter there.
A Saviour doubles all my joys,

And sweetens all my pains,
His strength in my defence employs,

Confoles me and sustains.

a

I fear no ill, resent no wrong,

Nor feel a passion move,
When malice whets her slanderous tongue;

Such patience is in love.

37. SCENES FAVOURABLE TO MEDI

TATION.

BILDS horrid and dark with o'ershadow

ing trees,

Rocks that ivy and briers infold, Scenes nature with dread and astonishment sees,

But I with a pleasure untold.