That He, whose eyes of flame look through the whole,
May see His image perfect in the soul?
Not with an evanescent glimpse alone,
As in that mirror the refiner’s face,
But, stampt with heaven’s broad signet, there be shown
Immanuel’s features, full of truth and grace—
And round that seal of love this motto be,
‘Not for a moment, but eternity!’
Thomas Kelly (1769-1854), who was in Ireland what Williams of Pantycelyn was in Wales, wrote nearly 800 hymns, the vast majority of which belong to the same class as the masses of the forgotten hymns of pious Dissenting pastors in the eighteenth century. They are often redeemed from absolute dullness only by his love for curious rhymes, e.g. ‘hers is’ and ‘mercies.’ He illustrates abundantly how easy it is to have rhyme and rhythm without a suggestion of poetry, as in this verse—
Spread abroad the joyful sound,