He is thy gracious friend,
And (oh, my soul awake!)
Did in pure love descend,
To die here for thy sake.
If thou canst get but thither,
There grows the flower of peace,
The rose that cannot wither,
Thy fortress and thy ease.
Leave, then, thy foolish ranges;
For none can thee secure,
But one, who never changes--
Thy God, thy Life, thy Cure."
Or in that kindred ode, full of "intimations of immortality received in
childhood," entitled, "The Retreat:"
"Happy those early days, when I
Shin'd in my angel infancy!
Before I understood this place,
Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy aught
But a white, celestial thought;
When yet I had not walkt above
A mile or two from my first love,
And looking back, at that short space,
Could see a glimpse of his bright face;
When on some gilded cloud or flower
My gazing soul would dwell an hour,
And in those weaker glories spy
Some shadows of eternity;
Before I taught my tongue to wound
My conscience with a sinful sound,
Or had the black art to dispense
A sev'ral sin to ev'ry sense,
But felt through all this fleshly dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness.
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