Original, serious, and religious poetry :: :: University of Virginia Library

What shall I say, O shall I call it joy,
Thou day of days! when harmony within
In midst of tumult, quieted alloy,
And bade new prospects suddenly begin?
When sorrow banished, faded thought of sin
And love made happy other souls than mine;
When parish bells resounding with their din,
Bade busy feeling wake the poet's line
In wildest strain of thought, of care, of love,
Of pleasure, pain on earth, and happiness above.

What shall I say? O how describe my heart,
That heart is tranquil, but it has been sad;
It felt for others bitterly the smart,
And others felt it probably as bad.

O life is awfully yet nobly clad,
When virtue rises, and resolves to try,
That daring venture which the bravest had
To conquer evil with its remedy.
When noble thoughts the poet's bosom swell,
What words of giant magnitude his heart can tell.

'Tis midnight; lonely seated by his fire,
His thoughts are bending o'er the sleeping throng,
The day is past; God bless each son and sire,
Each happy mortal as he moves along;
Peace, peace, pure peace, attend upon my song,
And bless the sleeping; let them rise above
The thoughts of evil, bless them old and young,
O bless mankind thou purest God of Love!
Sleep on ye mortals sleep ye, happy be;
Arise to-morrow cheerful, be ye ever free.

The day is past; O have I thought of love,
Celestial goodness in the birth of Son?

I have Great God, below, around, above,
My body, soul, and spirit thereupon,
Have rested mediative; all is gone;—
Time, time itself, will prove my firmest plan,
And years to come develope what alone
My full imagination only can;
But here to night resolve I morrow's sun,
Shall see that work of years, that work of love begun.

My dearest friends! my father, brothers, kin,
I've wished ye all a happy Christmas Day!
All others too, ere sleepless rest begin,
I wish the same! and solemnly I pray,
My enemies converted happy may
From this day forward, cherish in their soul;
The purest precept of affections sway,
And feel in future heavenly controul;
I ask no more, no soul can tell me why,
I write this line of feeling; neither then shall I.

There moves a something round my thoughtful brain,
My heart is swelled to feeling by a sigh;
Ten thousand visions of my work remain;
And will not, will not as I wish them fly;
This, that, and those, and these and others try
To get embodied, ere a word is said,
O pass ye, pass ye; visions pass ye by,
Sleep will ye come, I hasten to my bed.
Again ye mortals let the poet write,
Dear Christians bless ye! God protect ye all! good night.