Songs, Ballads, and Other Poems by the late Thomas Haynes Bayly; Edited by his Widow. With A Memoir of the Author. In Two Volumes |
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 | Songs, Ballads, and Other Poems |  |
THE FIRST CREATED MORTAL.
I
The first created mortalIn Eden's beauteous garden stood;
He raised his eyes,
To the cloudless skies,
And then around;
And nought he found
That did not prove
How boundless his Creator's love.
To him the earth was paradise,
Without a grief, without a vice.
By one so pure, no care was known,
And all things that he looked upon
Were beautiful and good.
II
Can earth have been his Eden?Can man have been so pure, so blest?
Oh marvel not
At his alter'd lot.
But probe within
The secret sin,
And then thou'lt see
The source of all his misery.
Yet earth might still seem paradise,
Could man forsake the path of vice;
Content, awhile, to linger here,
Though panting for a brighter sphere,
The Christian's place of rest.
| Songs, Ballads, and Other Poems | |