Poetry > Course of time

BOOK SECOND.
33
The sea of life, and gain the coast of bliss
Securely ; only star which rose on Time,
And on its dark and troubled billows still,
As generation, drifting swiftly by,
Succeeded generation, threw a ray
Of heaven’s own light, and to the hills of God,
The eternal hills, pointed the sinner’s eye.
By prophets, seers, and priests, and sacred bards,
Evangelists, apostles, men inspired,
And by the Holy Ghost anointed, set
Apart, and consecrated to declare
To Earth the counsels of the Eternal One—
This Book, this holiest, this sublimest Book,
Was sent. Heaven’s will, Heaven’s code of laws
entire
To man, this Book contained ; defined the bounds
Of vice and virtue, and of life and death ;
And what was shadow, what was substance taught.
Much it revealed, important all; the least
Worth more than what else seemed of highest worth.
But this of plainest, most essential truth :
That God is one, eternal, holy, just,
Omnipotent, omniscient, infinite ;
Most wise, most good, most merciful and true ;
In all perfection most unchangeable :
That man, that every man of every clime
And hue, of every age and every rank,
Was bad, by nature and by practice bad;
In understanding blind, in will perverse,
In heart corrupt; in every thought and word,
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