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？