[Page 130]

TO Mr. A. S. and Mr. T. H.

STRICT RELIGION Exceeding Rare.

I.
1 I'ME born aloft and leave the Croud,
2 I sail upon a Morning-Cloud
3 Skirted with dawning Gold:
4 Mine Eyes beneath the opening Day
5 Command the Globe with wide survey,
6 Where Ants in busie Millions play
7 And tug and heave the Mould.
II.
8 "Are These the things, my Passion cry'd,
9 " That we call Men? Are These ally'd
10 "To the fair Worlds of Light?
[Page 131]
11 " They have ras'd out their Maker's Name
12 "Grav'n on their Minds with pointed Flame
13 " In Strokes Divinely bright.
III.
14 "Wretches, they hate their Native Skies:
15 " If an Ethereal Thought arise
16 "Or Spark of Vertue shine,
17 " With cruel Force they damp its Plumes,
18 "Choke the Young Fire with sensual Fumes,
19 " And Chain their Souls to Sin.
IV.
20 "Lo, how they throng with panting Breath
21 " The broad descending Road
22 "That leads unerring down to Death,
23 " Nor miss the Dark Abode.
24 Thus while I drop a Tear or two
25 On the wild Herd, a Noble Few
26 Dare to stray upward, and pursue
27 Th' unbeaten Way to God.
[Page 132]
V.
28 I meet their Spirits mounting high,
29 SHALLET I saw, and HUNT was there,
30 They break thro' loads of Pondrous Care,
31 With Morning Incense up they Fly
32 Perfuming all the Air.
33 Charm'd with the Pleasure of the Sight
34 My Soul adores and Sings:
35 "Blest be the Power that aids their Flight,
36 " That streaks their Path with heavenly Light,
37 "And gives them Zeal for Wings.

Text

  • TEI/XML [chunk] (XML - 76K / ZIP - 8.5K) / ECPA schema (RNC - 357K / ZIP - 73K)
  • Plain text [excluding paratexts] (TXT - 1.4K / ZIP - 1.0K)

Facsimile (Source Edition)

(Page images digitized from a copy in the Princeton Theological Seminary Library.)

Images

PDF

All Images (PDF - 1.1M)

About this text

Title (in Source Edition): TO Mr. A. S. and Mr. T. H.
Author: Isaac Watts
Themes:
Genres: address; ode

Text view / Document view

Source edition

Watts, Isaac, 1674-1748. Horæ lyricæ: Poems, chiefly of the lyric kind. In two books. ... By I. Watts. London: Printed by S. and D. Bridge, for John Lawrence at the Sign of the Angel in the Poultrey. MDCCVI., 1706, pp. 130-132. [20],267,[1]p.; 8⁰. (ESTC T82397; OTA K067329.000) (Page images digitized from a copy in the Princeton Theological Seminary Library.)

Editorial principles

The text has been typographically modernized, but without any silent modernization of spelling, capitalization, or punctuation. The source of the text is given and all editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. Based on the electronic text originally produced by the TCP project, this ECPA text has been edited to conform to the recommendations found in Level 5 of the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries version 4.0.0.

Other works by Isaac Watts