Stars are of mighty use: the night
Is dark and long ;
The road foul, and where one goes right
Six may go wrong.
One twinkling ray
Shot o'er some cloud
May cleave much way
And guide a crowd.
God's saints are shining lights: who stays
Here long, must passe
O'er dark hills, swift streames, and steep ways
As smooth as glasse:
But these all night
Like candles, shed
Theire beams, and light
Us into bed.
They are indeed our pillar-fires,
Seen as we go:
They are that Citie's shining spires
We travel to.
A sword-like gleame
Kept man for sin
First out; this beame
Will guide him in.
WHAT would this man? Now upward will he soar, And little less than angel, would be more :
Now looking downwards, just as grieved appears To want the strength of bulls, the fear of bears.
Made for his use all creatures if he call,
Say what their use, had he the pow'rs of all?
Nature to these, without profusion, kind,
The proper organs, proper pow'rs assign'd;
Each seeming want compensated of course,
Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force;
All in exact proportion to their state;
Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.
Each heart, each insect, happy in its own,
Is Heaven unkind to Man, and Man alone?
Shall he alone, whom rational we call,
Be pleas'd with nothing, if not bless'd with all?
The bliss of Man (could Pride that blessing find)
Is not to act or think beyond mankind;
No pow'rs of body or of soul to share,
But what his nature and his state can bear.
Why has not Man a microscopic eye?
For this plain reason, Man is not a fly.
Say what the use, were finer optics giv'n,
T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,
To smart and agonise at ev'ry pore?
Or quick effluvia darting thro' the brain,
Die of a rose in aromatic pain?
If nature thunder'd in his op'ning ears,
And stunned him with the music of the spheres,
How would he wish that Heav'n had left him still
The whisp'ring zephyr and the purling rill?
Who finds not Providence all good and wise,
Alike in what it gives and what denies ?
Cease then, nor ORDER imperfection name ;
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.
Know thy own point: this kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee.
Submit. In this or any other sphere,
Secure to be as bless'd as thou canst bear;
Safe in the hand of one disposing Pow'r,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not see;
All Discord, Harmony not understood;
All partial Evil, universal Good:
And spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite,
One truth is clear, WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT.
THERE'S a fancy some lean to and others hateThat, when this life is ended begins
New work for the soul in another state,
Where it strives and gets weary, loses and wins : Where the strong and the weak, this world's congeries,
Repeat in large what they practised in small,
Through life after life in unlimited series;
Only the scale's to be changed, that's all.
Yet I hardly know. When a soul has seen
By the means of Evil that Good is best,
And, through earth and its noise, what is heaven's
When our faith in the same has stood the testWhy, the child grown man, you burn the rod, The uses of labour are surely done ; There remaineth a rest for the people of God: And I have had troubles enough, for one.
THE Poets, in their elegies and songs
Lamenting the departed, call the groves,
They call upon the hills and streams to mourn,
And senseless rocks; nor idly; for they speak,
In these their invocations, with a voice
Obedient to the strong creative power
Of human passion. Sympathies there are
More tranquil, yet perhaps of kindred birth,
That steal upon the meditative mind,
And grow with thought. Beside yon spring I stood,
And eyed its waters till we seemed to feel
One sadness, they and I. For them a bond
Of brotherhood is broken time has been
When, every day, the touch of human hand
Dislodged the natural sleep that binds them up
In mortal stillness; and they ministered
To human comfort. Stooping down to drink,
Upon the slimy foot-stone I espied
The useless fragment of a wooden bowl,
Green with the moss of years, and subject only
To the soft handling of the elements !
There let the relic lie-fond thought-vain words!
Forgive them ;-never-never did my steps
Approach this door but she who dwelt within
A daughter's welcome gave me, and I loved her
As my own child. O Sir! the good die first,
And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust
Burn to the socket.
WORDSWORTH, The Excursion.
BE strong to hope, O heart!
Though day is bright,
The stars can only shine
In the dark night.
Be strong, O heart!
Look to the Light.
Be strong to bear, O heart!
Nothing is vain ;
Strive not, though life is care,
And God sends pain.
Heaven is above, and there
Rest will remain.
Be strong to love, O heart! Love knows not wrong; Didst thou love creatures even, Life were not long.
Didst thou love God in heaven
Thou wouldst be strong.
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