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النشر الإلكتروني

What conscience dictates to be done,

Or

Or warns me not to do,

This, teach me more than hell to shun, That, more than heav'n pursue.

What blessings thy free bounty gives, Let me not cast away;

For GOD is paid when man receives, T' enjoy is to obey.

Yet not, to earth's contracted span
Thy goodness let me bound,
Or think thee Lord alone of man,
When thousand worlds are round.

Let not this weak unknowing hand
Presume thy bolts to throw,
And deal damnation round the land,
On each I judge thy foe.

If I am right, thy grace impart,
Still in the right to stay:

If I am wrong, O teach my heart
To find that better way!

Save me alike from foolish pride,
Or impious discontent,

At aught thy wisdom has deny'd,
Or aught thy goodness lent.

Teach me to feel another's woe,
To hide the faults I see;
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.

Mean though I am, not wholly so,
Since quicken'd by thy breath;
O lead me wheresoe'er I go,
Through this day's life or death.

This day, be bread and peace my

All else beneath the sun,

lot:

Thou know'st if best bestow'd or not,

And let thy will be done.

To thee, whose temple is all space,

Whose altar, earth, sea, skies!

One chorus let all being raise!
All nature's incense rise!

THE

INFINITE.

WATTS.

SOME seraph, lend your heav'nly tongue,

Or harp of golden string, That I may raise a lofty song

To our Eternal King.

Thy names, how infinite they be!
Great Everlasting One!
Boundless Thy might and majesty,
And unconfin'd Thy throne.

Thy glories shine of wondrous size,
And wondrous large Thy grace;
Immortal day breaks from Thine eyes,
And Gabriel veils his face.

Thine essence is a vast abyss,

Which angels cannot sound,

An ocean of infinities

Where all our thoughts are drown'd.

D

The myst'ries of creation lie
Beneath enlighten'd minds;
Thoughts can ascend above the sky,
And fly before the winds.

Reason may grasp the massy hills,
And stretch from pole to pole,
But half Thy name our spirit fills,
And overloads our soul.

In vain our haughty reason swells,
For nothing's found in Thee
But boundless inconceivables,
And vast eternity.

THE

DAY OF JUDGMENT.

AN ODE.

WE

WATTS.

HEN the fierce north wind with his airy forces

Rears up the Baltic to a foaming fury,

And the red lightning with a storm of hail comes

Rushing amain down,

How the poor sailors stand amaz'd and tremble! While the hoarse thunder, like a bloody trumpet, Roars a loud onset to the gaping waters,

Quick to devour them.

Such shall the noise be, and the wild disorder,
(If things eternal may be like these earthly)
Such the dire terror, when the great archangel
Shakes the creation;

Tears the strong pillars of the vault of heaven,
Breaks up old marble, the repose of princes;
See the graves open, and the bones arising,

Flames all around 'em.

Hark the shrill outcry of the guilty wretches!
Lively bright horror and amazing anguish

Stare thro' their eye-lids, while the living worm lies
Gnawing within them.

Thoughts, like old vultures, prey upon their heart

strings,

And the smart twinges, when their eye beholds the Lofty Judge frowning, and a flood of vengeance

Rolling afore him.

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