Phil.1:21.
POOR senseless world! How base is every aim
That girds thy loins, and animates thy zeal!
How do thy votaries toil to earn a name
Written in dust of earth, and call it fame;
How many seek in pleasure's giddy reel,
Groveling in swinish mire of basest kind,
What they call joy; while others, more refined,
In graver walks of science seek for bliss,
Or in pursuit of mammon, labor spend;-
Poor is their gain, were there no world but this!
But oh, their madness, since they all must die,
And naked-stript of all-enter eternity!
Not as a cynic does my eye survey
The world's vain idols, or with scornful leer,
As if I better were myself than they,-
Proud self, my idol, if not gods of clay;
But with a humbled heart and grief sincere,
For in their blindness I can see my own:
For I once worshipped gods of wood and stone,
When in the folly of my native bent,
The Fount of living waters I forsook;
O sin, deserving endless punishment!
From the great Whore her golden cup I took,
Whose doom is written in God's righteous book.
Alas! when all my ways the Lord denied,
I still presumptuous bore His holy name;
Called Him my Master, while in daring pride
I loved the sins for which He groaned and died;
E'en midst the heathen this my crimson-shame!
Oh, when I ponder all my guilty ways,
I weep with sorrow, and rejoice with praise,
While at His precious feet I lowly bend.
This now my one desire, myself to give,
Without reserve, to that Almighty Friend,
Whose love gives all, and kindly will receive
My heart's desire, henceforth for Him to live.