My rapid hours pursue the course Prescribed them by love's sweetest force, And I thy sovereign will; Without a wish to escape my doom, Though still a sufferer from the womb, And doomed to suffer still. By thy command, where'er I stray, A never-failing friend; And if my sufferings may augment It costs me no regret, that she Adieu, ye vain delights of earth! The Cross! oh, ravishment and bliss,- Its bitterness how sweet! Souls once enabled to disdain Self-love no grace in sorrow sees, In suffering her repose. Sorrow and love go side by side: Nor height nor depth can e'er divide Jesus, avenger of our fall, Thy choice and mine shall be the same, Which must for ever blaze! To take the Cross and follow thee JOY IN MARTYRDOM SWEET tenants of this grove A song of artless love In unison with mine: O Thou! whose sacred charms Say why we love thee not? This heart that cannot rest Shall thine for ever prove; Though bleeding and distressed, Yet joyful in thy love: 'Tis happy, though it breaks SIMPLE TRUST STILL, Still, without ceasing Let me die in the flame 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, Not more in the sweet Than the bitter I meet This faith, in the dark Through many sharp trials of love, Is the sorrowful waste That is to be passed In the way to the Canaan above. THE NECESSITY OF SELF-ABASEMENT SOURCE of Love, my brighter Sun, 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 saw never then. Spouse of Christ was then my name: Thee to love, and none beside, Now of grief, and now of joy. Through the dark and silent night Thou my gracious teacher wert; And thine eye, so close applied, While it watched thy pupil's heart, Seemed 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, Oh the vain conceit of man, Though the Lord is good alone! He the graces thou hast wrought Such is folly-proved, at last, 'Tis by this reproof severe, And by this reproof alone, Man is to himself made known. Learn, all earth! that feeble man, Life and power are all in God. LOVE INCREASED BY SUFFERING "I LOVE the Lord" is still the strain Before the power of Love Divine Till only God is seen to shine In gulfs of awful night we find 'Tis there he stamps the yielding mind And doubles all its fires. Flames of encircling love invest And pierce it sweetly through; 'Tis filled with sacred joy, yet pressed With sacred sorrow too. Ah Love! my heart is in the right- To thee its ever new delight Fresh causes of distress occur Nor exile I nor prison fear; Love makes my courage great; I find a Saviour everywhere, His grace in every state. |