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O how I love thy holy word,
Thy gracious covenant, O Lord!
It guides me in the peaceful way;
I think upon it all the day.


What are the mines of shining wealth,...

Hear, Lord, the song of praise and prayer
In heaven thy dwelling-place,
From infants made the public care,
And taught to seek thy face.


Thanks for thy word and for thy day,...

I ransack'd for a theme of song,
Much ancient chronicle, and long;
I read of bright embattled fields,
Of trophied helmets, spears, and shields,
Of chiefs, whose single arm could boast...

Say, ye apostate and profane,
Wretches, who blush not to disdain
Allegiance to your God,'
Did e'er your idly wasted love
Of virtue for her sake remove
And lift you from the crowd?

...

Reader! behold a monument
That asks no sigh or tear,
Though it perpetuate the event
Of a great burial here.
June 1790. Anno 1791.

Another Leonora[1] once inspir'd
Tasso, with fatal love to frenzy fir'd,
But how much happier, liv'd he now, were he,
Pierced with whatever pangs for love of Thee!...

Sir, when I flew to seize the bird
In spite of your command,
A louder voice than yours I heard,
And harder to withstand.


You cried'Forbear!'but in my breast
A mightier cried'Proceed!'...

She came'she is gone'we have met'
And meet perhaps never again;
The sun of that moment is set,
And seems to have risen in vain.
Catharina has fled like a dream
(So vanishes pleasure, alas!)'...

Believe it or not, as you choose,
The doctrine is certainly true,
That the future is known to the muse,
And poets are oracles too.
I did but express a desire
To see Catharina at home,...

To be remember'd thus is fame,
And in the first degree;
And did the few, like her, the same,
The press might rest for me.


So Homer, in the mem'ry stored
Of many a Grecian belle,...

Time, never wand'ring from his annual round,
Bids Zephyr breathe the Spring, and thaw the ground;
Bleak Winter flies, new verdure clothes the plain,
And earth assumes her transient youth again....

These are not dewdrops, these are tears,
And tears by Sally shed
For absent Robin, who she fears,
With too much cause, is dead.


One morn he came not to her hand
As he was wont to come,...

Hear, Lord, the song of praise and prayer,
In heaven thy dwelling-place,
From infants, made the public care,
And taught to seek thy face!


Thanks for thy Word, and for thy day,...

Says the pipe to the snuff-box, I can't understand
What the ladies and gentlemen see in your face,
That you are in fashion all over the land,
And I am so much fallen into disgrace.

...

Holy Lord God! I love thy truth,
Nor dare thy least commandment slight;
Yet pierced by sin, the serpent's tooth,
I mourn the anguish of the bite.


But, though the poison lurks within,...

This cabin, Mary, in my sight appears,
Built as it has been in our waning years,
A rest afforded to our weary feet,
Preliminary to'the last retreat.

Here, free from riot's hated noise,
Be mine, ye calmer, purer joys,
A book or friend bestows;
Far from the storms that shake the great,
Contentment's gale shall fan my seat,
And sweeten my repose.

Other stones the era tell
When some feeble mortal fell;
I stand here to date the birth
Of these hardy sons of earth.
Which shall longest brave the sky,...

Jesus, whose blood so freely stream'd,
To satisfy the law's demand;
By thee from guilt and wrath redeem'd,
Before the Father's face I stand.


To reconcile offending man,...

As birds their infant brood protect,[1]
And spread their wings to shelter them,
Thus saith the Lord to his elect,
'So will I guard Jerusalem.'


And what then is Jerusalem,...