PRELUDES

I

The Comparison

Where she succeeds with cloudless brow,
In common and in holy course,
He fails, in spite of prayer and vow
And agonies of faith and force:
Or, if his suit with Heaven prevails
To righteous life, his virtuous deeds
Lack beauty, virtue's badge; she fails
More graciously than he succeeds.
Her spirit, compact of gentleness,

No strength of Nature can suffice
To serve the Lord aright:
And what she has, she misapplies,
For want of clearer light.

How long beneath the law I lay
In bondage and distress!
I toil'd the precept to obey,
But toil'd without success.

Then to abstain from outward sin
Was more than I could do;
Now, if I feel its pow'r within,
I feel I hate it too.

Then all my servile works were done
A righteousness to raise;
Now, freely chosen in the Son,
I freely choose his ways.

What shall I do, was then the word,

Lord , my soul with pleasure springs,
When J ESUS ' name I hear;
And when God the Spirit brings
The word of promise near:
Beauties too, in holiness,
Still delighted I perceive;
Nor have words that can express
The joys thy precepts give.

Cloth'd in sanctity and grace,
How sweet it is to see
Those who love thee as they pass,
Or when they wait on thee:
Pleasant too, to sit and tell
What we owe to love divine;
Till our grateful bosoms swell,
And eyes begin to shine.

Those the comforts I possess,

TO those who know the Lord I speak,
Is my beloved near?
The bridegroom of my soul I seek,
Oh! when will he appear!

Tho' once a man of grief and shame,
Yet now he fills a throne;
And bears the greatest, sweetest name,
That earth or heav'n have known.

Grace flies before, and love attends
His steps where'er he goes;
Tho' none can see him but his friends,
And they were once his foes.

He speaks — obedient to his call
Our warm affections move;
Did he but shine alike on all,
Then all alike would love.

HARK , my soul! it is the Lord ;
'Tis thy Saviour, hear his word;
J ESUS speaks, and speaks to thee;
" Say, poor sinner, lov'st thou me?

I deliver'd thee when bound,
And, when wounded, heal'd thy wound;
Sought thee wand'ring, set thee right,
Turn'd thy darkness into light.

Can a woman's tender care
Cease, towards the child she bare?
Yes, she may forgetful be,
Yet will I remember thee.

Mine is an unchanging love,
Higher than the heights above;
Deeper than the depths beneath,
Free and faithful, strong as death.

XXIII

Here by the windy docks I stand alone,
But yet companioned. There the vessel goes,
And there my friend goes with it; but the wake
That melts and ebbs between that friend and me
Love's earnest is of Life's all-purposeful
And all-triumphant sailing, when the ships
Of Wisdom loose their fretful chains and swing
Forever from the crumbled wharves of Time.

XXII

F OREBODINGS are the fiends of Recreance;
The master of the moment, the clean seer
Of ages, too securely scans what is,
Ever to be appalled at what is not;
He sees beyond the groaning borough lines
Of Hell, God's highways gleaming, and he knows
That Love's complete communion is the end
Of anguish to the liberated man.

" Pocahontas' body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw in November or a pawpaw in May — did she wonder? does she remember — in the dust — in the cool tombs? "

Carl S ANDBURG .

Carmen Eroticum.

Deare Lovelace, I am now about to prove
I cannot write a verse, but can write Love.
On such a subject as thy Booke, I cou'd
Write Books much greater, but not half fo good.
But as the humble tenant that does bring
A chicke or egges for's offering,
Is tane into the buttry, and does fox
Equall with him that gave a stalled oxe:
So, (since the heart of ev'ry cheerfull giver
Makes pounds no more accepted then a stiver,)
Though som thy prayse in rich stiles sing, I may
In stiver stile write Love as well as they.

[3]

They that love not—are they not as blind camels that behold no
  star in the Desert & must die in it?
  Yea, the coldness of a loveless heart is the coldness of death.