Part I.

T HAT Pow'r of pow'rs, who Israel protects,
The pure of heart eternally affects.
Yet I began to stagger in my faith,
My feet almost had swerved from His path,
When I the fool beheld with envious eyes,
Saw prosp'rous vice to wealth and honour rise.
Their thread of life is close and firmly spun,
Whom feeble age and pale diseases shun.
They, while we suffer, surfeit in content,
As if alone exempt from punishment.
Pride hangs like precious chains about their necks,
And violence in robes of purple decks.
Their swoll'n eyes shine with uncontroll'd excess,
Who more than what their hearts can wish possess,
Ev'n glory in their foul impiety,
And speak like thunder from the troubled sky.
Dire blasphemies against high Heav'n they cast,
The suff'ring earth their pride and slander blast.
The good not seldom through their scandal stray,
And, press'd with miseries, in passion say:
O how can we the Lord All-seeing call,
Or think He cares what unto men befall,
When lo! the wicked with success are crown'd,
And in the pleasures of this world abound?
I to no end have purg'd my heart of stain,
In innocence have cleans'd my hands in vain,
That thus with daily punishments am worn,
And still chastised with the rising morn.

Part II.

If I gave words unto such thoughts as these,
I should th' assemblies of Thy saints displease;
For then what were it to be just or good?
My soul this secret never understood,
Till I into Thy sanctuary came,
And there beheld their honour end in shame.
Thou hast on slipp'ry heights their greatness plac'd,
Down headlong from their noon of glory cast.
How are they unto desolation brought,
Consumed in the moment of a thought!
Such as a pleasant dream when sleep forsakes
Our flatter'd sense; so, when Thy wrath awakes,
Thou in Thy dreadful fury shalt destroy
Their empty and imaginary joy.
These former thoughts did my weak soul molest,
So ignorant, so vain, so like a beast.
Yet I by Thy Divine supportance stand,
Thou held'st me up by Thy Almighty Hand.
Thou by Thy counsel shalt direct my ways,
And after to eternal glory raise.
For whom have I but Thee in heav'n above?
Or what on earth can my affections move?
My thoughts and flesh are frail; yet, Lord, Thou art
My portion, and the vigour of my heart.
Who Thee abandon shall to death descend,
And they whose knees to cursed idols bend.
I as my duty will to God repair,
On Him rely and His great acts declare.