396 MISCELLANEOUS THOUGHTS. Of a poor suffering wretch, a plaintive worm, Crush'd in the dust and helpless. O descend, Array'd in power and love, and bid me rise. Incarnate goodness, send thy influence down To these low regions of mortality Where thou hast dwelt, and clad in fleshly weeds, Learnt sympathetic sorrows ; send and heal My long and sore distress. Ten thousand praises Attend thee : David's harp is ready strung For the Messiah's* name: A winged flight Of songs harmonious, and new honours wait The steps of moving mercy. Encouraged to hope for Health in May. December 1712. CON FIND to sit in silence, here I waste The golden hours of youth. If once I stir, And reach at active life, what sudden tremors Shake my whole frame, and all the poor machine Lies fluttering? What strange wild convulsive force O'erpowers at once the members and the will ; Here am I bound in chains, a useless load Of breathing clay, a burden to the seat That bears these limbs, a borderer on the grave. Poor state of worthless being! While the lamp Of glimmering life burns languishing and dim, The flame just hovering o'er the dying snuff With doubtful alternations, half dislom'd, And ready to expire with every blast. Yet my fond friends would speak a word of hope ; Love would forbid despair: " Look out, they cry " Beyond these glooming damps, while winter hangs " Heavy on nature, and congeals her powers : " Look cheerful forward to the vital influence " Of the returning spring ?" I rouse my thoughts At friendship's sacred voice, 1 send my. soul To distant expectation, and support The painful interval with poor amusements. My watch, the solitary kind companion Of my imprisonment, my faithful watch Hangs by ; and with a short repeated sound Beats like the pulse of time, and numbers off My woes, a long succession; while the finger Slow- moving, points out the slow-movingminutes ; The slower hand, the hours. O thou dear engine, Thou little brass accomptant of my life Would but the mighty wheels of heaven and nature, Once imitate thy movements; howmy hand Should drive thy dented pinions round their centre With more than ten -fold flight, and whirl away These clouded wintry suns, these tedious moons, These midnights ; every star should speed its race And the slow bears precipitate their way s At this time my imitation of David's Psalms in Christian language was not half done: As fast as I recovered strength after this long illness, I applied myself by degrees to finish it.
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