Give me then morning's wings: I'll fling me where The desert waste ne'er claims His eye or care. Vain hope! If He were absent, conscience then Would act the God, and scare me back to men. Well then the ocean: She my head shall hide, And quench his bolts in her o'ersheltering tide. Fool! the dark waves cleave wide at His command; And, lo, He walks them as He walks the land. What say the rocks? Stern marble, ope thy breast, And lock me in to monumental rest. Vain, vain! His voice the rocks have often heard; Nay, worlds dissolve before His lightest word. Be death then mine! At least the grave, or hell, Will yield some sullen nook where I may dwell. No: the last trump shall burst the bars of death; And God's stern presence felt makes hell beneath. Where then to flee? how shun His arm, His Where find what earth, and heaven, and hell deny ? How pass beyond His infinite patrol, Who fills, pervades, informs the mighty whole? O where to flee? There is but one retreat- The Saviour calls: "Come, trembler, to My breast; "Beneath My cross thou may'st securely rest: "Washed in My blood, thy guilt will all remove ; "And wrath eternal grow Eternal Love." THE leaves around me falling Come, pilgrim, come away!" The day, in night declining, Says, I must too decline : The year its life resigning Its lot foreshadows mine. The light my path surrounding, The joys that round me wing All, all, like stars at even, Just gleam, and shoot away; Pass on before to heaven, And chide at my delay. The friends gone there before me Are calling me from high, And joyous angels o'er me Tempt sweetly to the sky. "Why wait," they say, " and wither "'Mid scenes of death and sin? "O rise to glory hither, "And find true life begin! I hear the invitation, And fain would rise and come- A sinner, to salvation; An exile, to his home: |