“And is there in God’s world so drear a place

Where the loud bitter cry is rais’d in vain?

Where tears of penance come too late for grace,

As on th’ uprooted flower the genial rain?”

’Tis even so: the sovereign Lord of souls

Stores in the dungeon of His boundless realm

Each bolt that o’er the sinner vainly rolls,

With gather’d wrath the reprobate to whelm.

Will the storm hear the sailor’s piteous cry,⁴⁴⁴⁴Compare Bp. Butler’s Analogy, p. 54-64, ed. 1736.

Taught so mistrust, too late, the tempting wave,

When all around he sees but sea and sky,

A God in anger, a self-chosen grave?

Or will the thorns, that strew intemperance’ bed,

Turn with a wish to down? will late remorse

Recall the shaft the murderer’s hand has sped,

Or from the guiltless bosom turn its course?

Then may the unbodied soul in safety fleet

Through the dark curtains of the world above,

Fresh from the stain of crime; nor fear to meet

The God whom here she would not learn to love;

Then is there hope for such as die unblest,

That angel wings may waft them to the shore,

Nor need th’ unready virgin strike her breast,

Nor wait desponding round the bridegroom’s door.

But where is then the stay of contrite hearts?

Of old they lean’d on Thy eternal word,

But with the sinner’s fear their hope departs,

Fast link’d as Thy great Name to Thee, O Lord:

That Name, by which Thy faithful oath is past,

That we should endless be, for joy or woe: —

And if the treasures of Thy wrath could waste,

Thy lovers must their promis’d Heaven forego.

But ask of elder days, earth’s vernal hour,

When in familiar talk God’s voice was heard,

When at the Patriarch’s call the fiery shower

Propitious o’er the turf-built shrine appear’d.

Watch by our father Isaac’s pastoral door —

The birthright sold, the blessing lost and won;

Tell, Heaven has wrath that can relent no more;

The Grave, dark deeds that cannot be undone.

We barter life for pottage; sell true bliss

For wealth or power, for pleasure or renown;

Thus, Esau-like, our Father’s blessing miss,

Then wash with fruitless tears our faded crown.

Our faded crown, despis’d and flung aside,

Shall on some brother’s brow immortal bloom;

No partial hand the blessing may misguide,

No flattering fancy change our Monarch’s doom:

His righteous doom, that meek true-hearted Love

The everlasting birthright should receive,

The softest dews drop on her from above,⁴⁵⁴⁵Genesis xxvii. 27, 28.

The richest green her mountain garland weave:

Her brethren, mightiest, wisest, eldest-born,

Bow to her sway, and move at her behest;

Isaac’s fond blessing may not fall on scorn,

Nor Balaam’s curse on Love, which God hath blest.