ly make
An unobtrusive tender of your hearts,
Abhorring violence! who halt indeed;
But, for the blessing, wrestle not with Heaven!
Think you my song too turbulent? too warm?
Are passions, then, the Pagans of the soul?
Reason alone baptized? alone ordain'd 630
To touch things sacred? Oh for warmer still! 631
Guilt chills my zeal, and age benumbs my powers;
Oh for an humbler heart, and prouder song!
Thou, my much-injured theme! with that soft eye,
Which melted o'er doom'd Salem, deign to look
Compassion to the coldness of my breast;
And pardon to the winter in my strain.
O ye cold-hearted, frozen, formalists!
On such a theme, 'tis impious to be calm;
Passion is reason, transport temper, here. 640
Shall Heaven, which gave us ardour, and has shown
Her own for man so strongly, not disdain
What smooth emollients in theology,
Recumbent virtue's downy doctors preach,
That prose of piety, a lukewarm praise?
Rise odours sweet from incense uninflamed?
Devotion, when lukewarm, is undevout;
But when it glows, its heat is struck to heaven;
To human hearts her golden harps are strung;
High heaven's orchestra chants amen to man. 650
Hear I, or dream I hear, their distant strain,
Sweet to the soul, and tasting strong of heaven,
Soft-wafted on celestial pity's plume,
Through the vast spaces of the universe,
To cheer me in this melancholy gloom?
Oh, when will death (now stingless), like a friend,
Admit me of their choir? Oh, when will death
This mouldering, old, partition-wall throw down?
Give beings, one in nature, one abode?
O Death divine! that givest us to the skies! 660
Great future! glorious patron of the past,
And present! when shall I thy shrine adore?
From nature's continent, immensely wide,
Immensely bless'd, this little isle of life,
This dark, incarcerating colony, 665
Divides us. Happy day! that breaks our chain;
That manumits;[15] that calls from exile home;
That leads to nature's great metropolis,
And re-admits us, through the guardian hand
Of elder brothers, to our Father's throne;
Who hears our Advocate, and, through his wounds
Beholding man, allows that tender name. 672
'Tis this makes Christian triumph a command:
'Tis this make