TO COWPER

Sweet are thy strains, celestial1 Bard2； And oft, in childhood's years, I've read them o'er and o'er again, With floods of silent tears.

The language of my inmost heart I traced in every line； MY sins, MY sorrows, hopes, and fears, Were there-and only mine.

All for myself the sigh would swell3, The tear of anguish4 start； I little knew what wilder woe5 Had filled the Poet's heart.

I did not know the nights of gloom, The days of misery6； The long, long years of dark despair, That crushed and tortured thee.

But they are gone； from earth at length Thy gentle soul is pass'd, And in the bosom7 of its God Has found its home at last.

It must be so, if God is love, And answers fervent8 prayer； Then surely thou shalt dwell on high, And I may meet thee there.

Is He the source of every good, The spring of purity？ Then in thine hours of deepest woe, Thy God was still with thee.

How else, when every hope was fled, Couldst thou so fondly cling To holy things and help men？ And how so sweetly sing,

Of things that God alone could teach？ And whence that purity, That hatred9 of all sinful ways That gentle charity？

Are THESE the symptoms of a heart Of heavenly grace bereft For ever banished10 from its God, To Satan's fury left？

Yet, should thy darkest fears be true, If Heaven be so severe, That such a soul as thine is lost, Oh！ how shall I appear？