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,
Sorrow attends me all my way,

A never-failing friend;

And if my sufferings may augment
Thy praise, behold me well content,-
Let sorrow still attend!

It costs me no regret, that she
Who followed Christ should follow me;
And though, where'er she goes,
Thorns spring spontaneous at her feet,
I love her, and extract a sweet
From all my bitter woes.

Adieu, ye vain delights of earth!
Insipid sports, and childish mirth,
I taste no sweets in you;
Unknown delights are in the Cross,
All joy beside to me is dross;
And Jesus thought so too.

The Cross! oh, ravishment and bliss,—
How grateful even its anguish is,

Its bitterness how sweet!
There every sense, and all the mind
In all her faculties refined,

Tastes happiness complete.

Souls once enabled to disdain
Base sublunary joys, maintain
Their dignity secure ;
The fever of desire is past,

And love has all its genuine taste,
Is delicate and pure.

Self-love no grace in sorrow sees,
Consults her own peculiar ease;
'Tis all the bliss she knows :
But nobler aims true love employ;
In self-denial is her joy,

In suffering her repose.

Sorrow and love go side by side:
Nor height nor depth can e'er divide
Their heaven-appointed bands;
Those dear associates still are one,
Nor till the race of life is run
Disjoin their wedded hands.

Jesus, avenger of our fall,
Thou faithful lover above all
The Cross has ever borne !
Oh tell me,-life is in thy voice,—
How much afflictions were thy choice,
And sloth and ease thy scorn!

Thy choice and mine shall be the same, Inspirer of that holy flame

Which must for ever blaze!

To take the Cross and follow thee
Where love and duty lead shall be
My portion and my praise.

JOY IN MARTYRDOM

SWEET tenants of this grove
Who sing, without design,

A song of artless love

In unison with mine:
These echoing shades return
Full many a note of ours
That wise ones cannot learn
With all their boasted powers.

O Thou! whose sacred charms
These hearts so seldom love,
Although thy beauty warms
And blesses all above;
How slow are human things
To choose their happiest lot!
All-glorious King of kings,

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
Beneath thy chastening hand;
And speechless,-yet it speaks
What thou canst understand.

SIMPLE TRUST

STILL, Still, without ceasing
I feel it increasing,
This fervour of holy desire;
And often exclaim,

Let me die in the flame
Of a love that can never expire!

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,
In all thou art pleased to award,

Not more in the sweet

Than the bitter I meet
My tender and merciful Lord.

This faith, in the dark
Pursuing its mark

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,

Thou alone my comfort art;

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:
And devoted all to thee
Strangely jealous I became,
Jealous of this self in me.

Thee to love, and none beside,
Was my darling, sole employ;
While alternately I died

Now of grief, and now of joy.

Through the dark and silent night
On thy radiant smiles I dwelt ;
And to see the dawning light
Was the keenest pain I felt.

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, Stript of all thou hadst conferred, Nothing left but sin and woe,

I perceived how I had erred.

Oh the vain conceit of man,
Dreaming of a good his own,
Arrogating all he can,

Though the Lord is good alone!

He the graces thou hast wrought
Makes subservient to his pride;
Ignorant that one such thought
Passes all his sin beside.

Such is folly-proved, at last,
By the loss of that repose
Self-complacence cannot taste,
Only Love Divine bestows.

'Tis by this reproof severe,

And by this reproof alone,
His defects at last appear,

Man is to himself made known.

Learn, all earth! that feeble man,
Sprung from this terrestrial clod,
Nothing is, and nothing can;

Life and power are all in God.

LOVE INCREASED BY SUFFERING

"I LOVE the Lord" is still the strain
This heart delights to sing;
But I reply," Your thoughts are vain,
"Perhaps 'tis no such thing."

Before the power of Love Divine
Creation fades away;

Till only God is seen to shine
In all that we survey.

In gulfs of awful night we find

The God of our desires;

'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-
Amidst a thousand woes,

To thee its ever new delight
And all its peace it owes.

Fresh causes of distress occur
Where'er I look or move;
The comforts I to all prefer
Are solitude and love.

Nor exile I nor prison fear;

Love makes my courage great;

I find a Saviour everywhere,
His grace in every state.