THE

COURSE OF TIME.

BOOK V.

PRAISE God, ye servants of the Lord! praise God, Ye angels strong! praise God, ye sons of men! Praise him who made, and who redeemed your

souls;

Who gave you hope, reflection, reason,

Minds that can pierce eternity remote,

will;

And live at once on future, present, past;
Can speculate on systems yet to make,
And back recoil on ancient days of Time.

Of Time, soon past; soon lost among the shades

Of buried years. Not so the actions done

In Time, the deeds of reasonable men ;
As if engraven with pen of iron grain,

And laid in flinty rock, they stand unchanged,
Written on the various pages of the past:
If good, in rosy characters of love;

If bad, in letters of vindictive fire.

God may forgive, but cannot blot them out. Systems begin, and end; eternity

Rolls on his endless years; and men absolved

By mercy from the consequence, forget

The evil deed; and God imputes it not:

But neither systems ending, nor begun ;
Eternity that rolls his endless years;

Nor men absolved, and sanctified, and washed
By mercy from the consequence; nor yet
Forgetfulness; nor God imputing not,

Can wash the guilty deed once done, from out

The faithful annals of the past; who reads,

And many read, there find it, as it was,
And is, and shall for ever be-a dark,

Unnatural and loathly moral spot.

The span of Time was short indeed;

and now

Three-fourths were past, the last begun, and on
Careering to its close, which soon we sing :
But first our promise we redeem, to tell
The joys of Time-her joys of native growth;
And briefly must, what longer tale deserves.

Wake, dear remembrances! wake, childhood

days!

Loves, friendships, wake! and wake thou morn,

and even!

Sun! with thy orient locks; night, moon, and stars! And thou, celestial bow! and all ye woods, And hills, and vales; first trode in dawning life! And hours of holy musing, wake! wake, earth! And smiling to remembrance, come; and bring,

For thou canst bring, meet argument for song

Of heavenly harp; meet hearing for the ear
Of heavenly auditor, exalted high.

God gave much peace on earth, much holy joy: Oped fountains of perennial spring, whence flowed

Abundant happiness to all who wished

To drink: not perfect bliss; that dwells with us,
Beneath the eyelids of the Eternal One,
And sits at his right hand alone: but such,
As well deserved the name-abundant joy.
Pleasures, on which the memory of saints
Of highest glory, still delights to dwell.

It was, we own, subject of much debate, And worthy men stood on opposing sides, Whether the cup of mortal life had more Of sour or sweet. Vain question this, when asked In general terms, and worthy to be left

Unsolved. If most was sour-the drinker, not

The cup, we blame.

means

Each in himself the

Possessed to turn the bitter sweet, the sweet

To bitter: hence from out the self-same fount,
One nectar drank, another draughts of gall.
Hence from the self-same quarter of the sky,
One saw ten thousand angels look, and smile;
Another saw as many demons frown.

One discord heard, where harmony inclined
Another's ear. The sweet was in the taste;
The beauty in the eye; and in the ear
The melody; and in the man--for God
Necessity of sinning laid on none-

To form the taste, to purify the eye,

And tune the ear, that all he tasted, saw,

Or heard, might be harmonious, sweet, and

fair.

Who would, might groan: who would, might

sing for joy.