Unhappy change! when nature's meaner springs
Fir'd to impetuous ferments, break all order;
When little restless atoms rise and reign
Tyrants in fovereign uproar, and impose
Ideas on the mind; confus'd ideas
Of non-existents and impossibles,

Who can describe them? Fragments of old dreams,
Borrow'd from midnight, torn from fairy fields
And fairy skies, and regions of the dead,
Abrupt, ill-forted. O'tis all confufion!
If I but clofe my eyes, ftrange images

foul

In thousand forms and thousand colours rise,
Stars, rainbows, moons, green dragons, bears, and ghosts,
An endless medley rufh upon the stage,
And dance and riot wild in reason's court
Above controul. I'm in a raging ftorm,
Where feas and skies are blended, while my
Like fome light worthless chip of floating cork
Is toft from wave to wave: Now overwhelm'd
With breaking flood, I drown, and seem to lose
All being: Now high-mounted on the ridge
Of a tall foaming furge, I'm all at once
Caught up into the ftorm, and ride the wind,
The whistling wind, unmanageable steed,
And feeble rider! hurried many a league
Over the rifing hills of roring brine,

Thro' airy wilds unknown, with dreadful speed
And infinite surprize; till some few minutes
Have spent the blast, and then perhaps I drop
Near to the peaceful coaft; fome friendly billow
Lodges me on the beach, and I find reft:
Short reft I find; for the next rolling wave
Snatches me back again; then ebbing far
Sets me a drift, and I'm born off to fea,
Helpless amidst the blufter of the winds,
Beyond the ken of shore.

Ah, when will these tumultous scenes be gone?
When shall this weary fpirit, toft with tempefts,
Harrafs'd and broken, reach the port of reft,
And hold it firm? When fhall this wayward flesh
With all th' irregular springs of vital movement

Un

Ungovernable, return to facred order,
And pay their duties to the ruling mind?

Peace of CONSCIENCE, and Prayer for HEALTH.

YET

ET, gracious God, amidst these ftorms of nature,
Thine eyes behold a sweet and facred calm
Reign thro' the realms of confcience: All within
Lyes peaceful, all compos'd. 'Tis wond'rous grace
Keeps off thy terrors from this humble bofom,
Tho ftain'd with fins and follies, yet ferene
In penitential peace and chearful hope,
Sprinkled and guarded with atoning blood.
Thy vital fmiles amidst this defolation
Like heavenly fun-beams hid behind the clouds,
Break out in happy moments, with bright radiance
Cleaving the gloom; the fair celeftial light
Softens and gilds the horrors of the storm,
And richest cordials to the heart conveys,
O glorious folace of immense distress,
A confcience and a God! a friend at home,
And better friend on high! this is my rock
Of firm fupport, my shield of fure defence
Against infernal arrows. Rife, my foul,
Put on thy courage: here's the living spring
Of joys divinely fweet and ever new,
A peaceful confcience and a fmiling heaven.
My God, permit a creeping worm to say,
Thy Spirit knows I love thee. Worthless wretch,
To dare to love a God! but grace requires,
And grace accepts. Thou feeft my labouring foul :
Weak as my zeal is, yet my zeal is true;
It bears the trying furnace. Love divine
Conftrains me; I am thine. Incarnate love
Has feiz'd and holds me in almighty arms :
Here's my falvation, my eternal hope,
Amidst the wreck of worlds and dying nature,
I am the Lord's and he for ever mine.

O thou all powerful word, at whose first call
Nature arofe; this earth, thefe fhining heavens,
These stars in all their ranks came forth, and faid,
We are thy fervants: did'st thou not create
X

My

My frame, my breath, my being, and beftow
A mind immortal on thy feeble creature

Who faints before thy face? Did not thy pity
Drefs thee in flesh to die, that I might live,
And with thy blood redeem this captive foul
From guilt and death? O thrice adored name,
My king, my faviour, my Emmanuel, fay,
Have not thy eyelids mark'd my painful toil,
The wild confufions of my fhatter'd powers,
And broken fluttering thoughts? Haft thou not seen
Each restless atom that with vexing influence
Works thro' the mass of man? each noxious juice,
Each ferment that infects the vital humours,
That heaves the veins with huge difquietude,
And fpreads the tumult wide? do they not lye
Beneath thy view, and all within thy reach?
Yes, all at thy command, and must obey

Thy fovereign touch: thy touch is health and life,
And harmony to nature's jarring strings.

When shall my midnight fighs and morning groans
Rife thro' the heights of heaven, and reach thy ear
Propitious? See, my fpirits feeble powers
Exhal'd and breathing upward to thy throne,
Like early incenfe climbing thro' the sky
From the warm altar. When shall grace and peace
Defcend with bleffings, like an evening fhower
On the parch'd defart, and renew my bloom?
Or must thy creature breath his foul away
In fruitleis groans, and die?

Come, bleft phyfician, come attend the moan
Of a poor fuffering wretch, a plaintive worm,
Crufh'd in the duft and helpless. O defcend,
Array'd in power and love, and bid me rise.
Incarnate goodness, send thy influence down
To those low regions of mortality,

Where thou haft dwelt, and clad in fleshly weeds
Learnt fympathetic forrows; fend and heal
My long and fore diftrefs. Ten thoufand praises
Attend thee: David's harp is ready ftrung
For the Meffiah's † name: a winged flight

OF

+At this time an imitation of David's pfalms in Christian lan guage was not half done: as faft as I recover'd ftrength after this Jong illness, I apply'd myself by degrees to finish it.

Of fongs harmonious, and new honours wait
The steps of moving mercy.

C%

Encouraged to hope for HEALTH in May.
December 1712.

YOnfin'd to fit in filence, here I waste
The golden hours of youth. If once I ftir,
And reach at active life, what fudden tremors
Shake my whole frame, and all the poor machine
Lyes fluttering? what ftrange wild convulfive force
O'erpowers at once the members and the will ?
Here am I bound in chains, a useless load
Of breathing clay, a burden to the feat
That bears these limbs, a borderer on the grave.
Poor ftate of worthless being! while the lamp
Of glimmering life burns languifhing and dim,
The flame juft hovering o'er the dying fnuff
With doubtful alternations, half disjoin'd,
And ready to expire with every blaft.

Yet my fond friends would fpeak a word of hope: Love would forbid despair: "Look out, they cry, "Beyond these glooming damps, while winter hangs "Heavy on nature, and congeals her powers: "Look chearful forward to the vital influence "Of the returning fpring;" I rouze my thoughts At friendship's facred voice, I fend my foul To diftant expectation, and fupport The painful interval with poor amusements. My watch, the folitary kind companion Of my imprisonment, my faithful watch Hangs by; and with a short repeated found Beats like the pulse of time, and numbers off My woes, a long fucceffion; while the finger Slow moving, points out the flow-moving minutes; The flower hand, the hours. O thou dear engine, Thou little brass accomptant of my life,

Would but the mighty wheels of heaven and nature
Once imitate thy movements, how my hand
Should drive thy dented pinions round their centres
With more than tenfold flight, and whirl away
These clouded wintry funs, these tedious moons,

X.2

Thefe

Thefe midnights; every ftar fhould speed its race,
And the flow bears precipitate their way

Around the frozen Pole: then promis'd health
That rides with rofy cheek and blooming grace
On a May fun-beam fhould attend me here
Before to-morrow sheds its evening dew.
Ah foolish ravings of a fruitlefs with
And spirit too impatient! know'st thou not,
My foul, the power that made thee? he alone
Who form'd the spheres, rolls them in deftin'd rounds
Unchangeable. Adore, and truft, and fear him:
He is the Lord of life. Addrefs his throne,
And wait before his foot, with awful hope
Submiffive; at his touch diftemper flies:
His eye-lids fend beams of immortal youth
Thro' heav'n's bright regions. His all-powerful word
Can create health, and bid the blessing come
Amid the wintry froft, when nature feems
Congeal'd in death; or with a fovereign frown
(Tho' nature blooms all round) he can forbid
The bleffing in the fpring, and chain thee down
To pains, and maladies, and grievous bondage
Thro' all the circling feasons.

The wearifome Weeks of SICKNESS. 1712, or 1713.

TH

HUS pafs my days away. The chearful fun Rolls round and gilds the world with lightsome Alas, in vain to me; cut off alike

[beams,

From the blefs'd labours, and the joys of life;
While my fad minutes in their tiresome train
Serve but to number out my heavy forrows.
By night I count the clock; perhaps eleven,
Or twelve, or one; then with a wifhful figh
Call on the ling'ring hours, come two, come five;
When will the day-light come? make hafte, ye morn
Ye evening shadows hafte: wear out thefe days,
These tedious rounds of fickness, and conclude
The weary week for ever

Then the fweet day of sacred rest returns,

Sweet day of reft, devote to God and heaven, d heavenly business, purposes divine,

[ings,

Angelic