To see those heavenly harpers young,
Light up the sacred fires;
To see their nimble fingers run
Along the golden wires;
Would make a man forget his grief,
His conflicts here below,
And give a mother’s soul relief,
With languishings to go!
Would make us all forsake our sin,
And Jesus Christ adore,
And bring the resolution in,
To grieve our God no more.
Would make us to His house resort,
To weep, and watch, and pray,
Until we gain that blissful port
Where tears are wiped away.
ON THE FIRST TEXT HEARD SPIRITUALLY.
(“My heart is fixed.”—Psalm lvii. 7.)
By grace divine I sing, “My heart is fix’d!”
(Fix’d on the corner stone in Zion laid:)
He spoke, I wept, and heard the blessed text,
And all my wavering, wandering thoughts were stay’d.
He to me spoke, as with an angel’s voice,
And all my fears at once like lightning fled!
O how my troubled soul did then rejoice!
I was as one new risen from the dead!
Thrice happy bard who wrote such words as these,
So applicable to a case like mine;
Such music surely never reach’d my ears,
Nor words did ever with such lustre shine!