Page:The poetical works of William Cowper (IA poeticalworksof00cowp).pdf/160

76 Judge his own ways, and sigh for a return, Bewildered once, must he bewail his loss For ever and for ever? No—the Cross! There and there only (though the deist rave, And atheist, if earth bear so base a slave), There, and there only, is the power to save; There no delusive hope invites despair, No mockery meets you, no deception there: The spells and charms that blinded you before, All vanish there, and fascinate no more. I am no preacher, let this hint suffice, The Cross once seen is death to every vice: Else He that hung there suffered all His pain, Bled, groaned and agonized, and died, in vain.

on the dubious waves of error tossed, His ship half foundered and his compass lost, Sees, far as human optics may command, A sleeping fog, and fancies it dry land: Spreads all his canvass, every sinew plies; Pants for it, aims at it, enters it, and dies. Then farewell all self-satisfying schemes, His well-built systems, philosophic dreams, Deceitful views of future bliss, farewell! He reads his sentence at the flames of Hell. Hard lot of man! to toil for the reward Of virtue, and yet lose it!—Wherefore hard? He that would win the race, must guide his horse Obedient to the customs of the course; Else, though unequalled to the goal he flies, A meaner than himself shall gain the prize. Grace leads the right way,—if you choose the wrong, Take it and perish, but restrain your tongue; Charge not, with light sufficient and left free, Your wilful suicide on God's decree. Oh how unlike the complex works of man, Heavens easy, artless, unencumbered plan! No meretricious graces to beguile, No clustering ornaments to clog the pile; From ostentation as from weakness free, It stands like the cærulean arch we see, Majestic in its own simplicity. Inscribed above the portal, from afar Conspicuous as the brightness of a star, Legible only by the light they give,