ON THE HUMAN HEART.

Say, for you know, ye secret springs
 Which guide the human heart,
 Whence comes it that such trivial things
 Give mine so keen a smart? 

Mine, which hath known such real woes,
 Such real ills hath borne;
 If having stood such weighty blows,
 Why by a touch o'erthrown? 

Thus have I seen the sturdy oak,
 Which hardly deigns to bow
 When the storm rages, by the stroke
 Of the sharp axe laid low. 

The bark, which winds and waves had brav'd
 On many a hostile coast,
 At length from foreign dangers sav'd,
 In it's own port is lost. 

If from a friend a word I hear,
 Or meet a look unkind,
 Why from mine eye descends the tear,
 And why this tortur'd mind? 

And why will those we love thus give
 These small, tho' deadly, stings? 
How fain would I no grief receive
 But what from Nature springs! 

Those sorrows may I learn to bear,
 And humbly kiss the rod,
 Thro' faith and hope cast off despair,
 And give my soul to God.