Poetry > Course of time

THE COURSE OF TIME.
Easy to be entreated, gracious, mild j
And, with all patience and affection, taught,
Rebuked, persuaded, solaced, counselled, warned,
In fervent style and manner. Needy, poor,
And dying men, like music, heard his feet
Approach their beds ; and guilty wretches took
New hope, and in his prayers wept and smiled,
And blessed him, as they died forgiven; and all
Saw in his face contentment, in his life,
The path to glory and perpetual joy?
Deep learned in the philosophy of heaven,
He searched the causes out of good and ill,
Profoundly calculating their effects
Far past the bounds of time; and balancing,
In the arithmetic of future things,
The loss and profit of the soul to all
Eternity. A skilful workman he
In God’s great moral vineyard, what to prune
With cautious hand he knew, what to uproot;
What were mere weeds, and what celestial plants
Which had unfading vigour in them, knew;
Nor knew alone, but watched them night and day,
And reared and nourished them, till fit to be
Transplanted to the Paradise above.
Oh ! who can speak his praise ! great, humble man
He in the current of destruction stood,
And warned the sinner of his woe; led on
Immanuel’s armies in the evil day;
And, with the everlasting arms embraced