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I feel my heart within me die;

When sudden to mine ear

A voice descending from on high
Reproved my erring fear.

"What though the swelling surge thou see,

Impatient to devour,

Rest, mortal, rest, on God's decree,

And thankful own his power.

"Know when He bade the deep appear,
Thus far,' the Almighty said,

Thus far, nor farther, rage, and here
Let thy proud waves be stayed.""

I heard, and lo! at once controlled,
The waves in wild retreat

Back on themselves reluctant rolled,
And murmuring left my feet,

Deeps to assembling deeps in vain
Once more the signal gave;

The shores the rushing weight sustain,
And check th' usurping wave.

Convinced in nature's volume wise,
The imaged truth I read,
And sudden from my waking eyes
The instructive vision fled.

Then why thus heavy, O my soul!
Say, why distrustful still;
Thy thoughts with vain impatience roll
O'er scenes of future ill?

Let faith suppress each rising fear,
Each anxious doubt exclude;

Thy Maker's will has placed thee here,
A Maker wise and good.

He to thy every trial knows,
Its just restraint to give,
Attentive to behold thy woes,
And faithful to relieve.

Then why thus heavy, O my soul!

Say, why distrustful still,

Thy thoughts with vain impatience roll
O'er scenes of future ill?

Though griefs unnumbered throng thee round,
Still in thy God confide,

Whose finger marks the seas their bound,
And curbs the headlong tide.

CHRISTOPHER SMART.

CHRISTOPHER SMART was born at Shipbourne, in Kent, in 1722. He acquired the rudiments of education at a school at Maidstone, and was afterwards sent to Cambridge. In 1743 he was admitted to the degree of B. A.; was elected Fellow of Pembroke Hall in 1745, and took the degree of M.A. in 1747. Shortly after he removed to London, where he became acquainted with the most celebrated men of his day. He was unhappily subject to temporary alienations of mind, which were at last attended with paroxysms so violent that he was obliged to be placed under restraint, and in this state he died in 1771.

Smart was a poet of no ordinary standard. He swept his harp with the hand of a master; and if he erred, it was only from his too daring attempts. His Miscellanies are the most attractive of his productions, and have greater merit than any of his larger pieces.

ETERNITY OF THE SUPREME BEING.

HAIL, wondrous Being! who, in power supreme,
Exists from everlasting; whose great name
Deep in the human heart, and every atom
The air, the earth, the azure main, contains,

In undeciphered characters is wrote-
Incomprehensible! oh, what can words,

The weak interpreters of mortal thoughts,

Or, what can thoughts (though wild of wing they rove,
Through the vast concave of th' ethereal round)?
If to the heaven of heavens they wing their way,
Adventurous, like the birds of night, they're lost,
And deluged in the flood of dazzling day.
May then the youthful uninspired bard
Presume to hymn th' Eternal? May he soar
Where seraph and where cherubim on high
Resound th' unceasing plaudits, and with them
In the grand chorus mix his feeble voice?
He may, if Thou, who from the witless babe
Ordainest honour, glory, strength, and praise,
Uplift th' unpinioned muse, and deign'st to assist,
Great Poet of the Universe! his song.
Before this earthly planet wound her course
Round light's perennial fountain; before Light
Herself 'gan shine, and at th' expiring word
Shot to existence in a blaze of day;
Before "the morning stars together sang,"
And hailed the Architect of countless worlds;
Thou art-all glorious, all beneficent,

All wisdom, and omnipotence Thou art.

But is the era of creation fixed,

At when these worlds began? could aught retard
Goodness that knows no bounds from blessing ever,
Or keep the immense Artificer in sloth?
Avaunt the dust-directed, crawling thought,
That puissance immeasurably vast,
And bounty inconceivable, could rest
Content, exhausted with one week of action!
No; in th' exertion of thy righteous power,
Ten thousand times more active than the sun,
Thou reigned, and with a mighty hand composed
Systems innumerable! matchless all-

All stamped with thine uncounterfeited seal.

But yet, (if still to more stupendous heights
The muse, unblamed, her aching sense may strain,)
Perhaps wrapt up in contemplation deep,
The best of beings on the noblest theme
Might ruminate at leisure, scope immense,
Th' Eternal power and Godhead to explore,
And with itself th' omniscient mind replete.
This were enough to fill the boundless all!
This were a sabbath worthy the Supreme!
Perhaps enthroned amidst a choicer few
Of spirits inferior, He might greatly plan
The two prime pillars of the universe,
Creation and redemption-and awhile
Pause with the grand presentiments of glory.
Perhaps but all's conjecture here below,
All ignorance and self-plumed vanity.
O Thou, whose ways to wonder at's distrust,
Whom to describe's presumption (all we can
And all we may), be glorified, be praised.

A day shall come when all this earth shall perish, Nor leave behind e'en chaos; it shall come

When all the armies of the elements

Shall war against themselves, and mutual rage,

To make perdition triumph; it shall come

When the capacious atmosphere above
Shall in sulphureous thunders groan and die,
And vanish into void; the earth beneath
Shall sever to the centre, and devour

The enormous blaze of the destructive flames.

Ye rocks that mock the raving of the floods,
And proudly frown upon the impatient deep,
Where is your grandeur now? Ye foaming waves,
That all along the immense Atlantic roar,

In vain ye swell; will a few drops suffice

To quench the unextinguishable fire?

Ye mountains, on whose cloud-crowned tops the cedars

Are lessened into shrubs, magnific piles,

That prop the painted chambers of the heavens,

And fix the earth continual; Athos, where?
Where, Teneriffe's, thy stateliness to-day?
What, Etna, are thy flames to these? no more
Than the poor glow-worm to the golden sun.

Nor shall the verdant valleys then remain
Safe in their meek submission; they the debt
Of nature and of justice too must pay.
Yet I must weep for you, ye rivals fair,
Arno and Andalusia; but for thee,

More largely, and with filial tears must weep,
O Albion! O my country! thou must join,
In vain dissevered from the rest, must join
The terrors of the inevitable ruin.

Nor thou, illustrious monarch of the day;
Nor thou, fair queen of night; nor you, ye stars,
Though million leagues, and million still, remote,
Shall yet survive that day: ye must submit,
Sharers, not bright spectators of the scene.
But though the earth shall to the centre perish,
Nor leave behind e'en chaos; though the air,
With all the elements, must pass away,
Vain as an idiot's dream; though the huge rocks
That brandish the tall cedars on their tops,
With humbler vales, must to perdition yield;
Though the gilt sun, and silver-tressed moon,
With all her bright retinue, must be lost;
Yet Thou, Great Father of the world, survivest,
Eternal as Thou wert: yet still survives,

The soul of man immortal, perfect now,
And candidate for unexpiring joys.

He comes! He comes! the awful trump I hear:

The flaming sword's intolerable blaze

I see! He comes, th' archangel from above.
"Arise, ye tenants of the silent grave,
Awake, ye incorruptible, arise;

From east to west, from the Antarctic pole
To regions Hyperborean, all ye sons,
Ye sons of Adam, and ye heirs of heaven-

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