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The Poetical Works of Robert Montgomery

Collected and Revised by the Author

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PERFECT PEACE.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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PERFECT PEACE.

“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee.”—Isa. xxvi. 3.

Humility doth mark
The child of heaven within salvation's ark:
Through all his hallow'd ways
He harps the hymn of ever-deep'ning praise,
For mercies which surpass
The power of numbers to recount, or class;—
Yet, sins as sumless claim a constant tear,
That God, by prayer invoked, may hush all guilty fear!
But humble though the hearts
Of God's own children, this their creed imparts,—
A boldness to believe
That Christ is near them, when His chosen grieve:
Though each an atom seem
Lost in vast glories which around Him stream,
Each individual heart and lonely mind
In Christ a Brother clasps, and bears its doom resign'd.
No mere Abstractions dead,
By science out of arid reason bred,
And call'd creation's laws,
Which Sense adoreth as presiding Cause,—
A faith divine can own;
But o'er all life perceives the Saviour's throne:
A God tripersonal believers love,
And in Emmanuel's name seek all they find above.
Though moral earthquakes shock
The Systems round us, till they reel and rock;
While mad Opinion rules,
And Satan out of pride begets dark schools
Of sentiment, or sin,
Which scorn without, and stifle Truth within.—
A more than halcyon in his bosom reigns,
Who hath a Heart in heaven which echoes all his pains.
Unstable is weak earth;
And nothing which in space, or time, has birth,
A resting-place can give
To Souls who on this tearful world must live;
Since wayward passions will
Haunt the vex'd world, and never leave it still;—
The gnawing fever of some inward pain
Is all unchristian hearts from their false life obtain.
But, there is peace divine,
A calm unrippled, which, O God! is Thine;
A rest of saintly thought
From out the deeps of heaven by mercy brought;
It droppeth like a dew
The Hermon of the heart distilling through,
And, 'mid the restless change time undergoes,
That peace remains unmarr'd, above convulsive woes.
Salvation rears the walls
Of that truth-keeping race whom Jesu calls;
Under His shielding arms
The burden'd mind escapes from sinful harms;
And while transgressors roam
Abroad unrestful, and the same at home,
No dread concussion in the realms of Time
Can rob believing souls of this their calm sublime.
Descend then, Prince of Peace!
And with thy Spirit bring worn minds release;
When skies and seas depart
Serene eternity of truth Thou art,

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Lord of celestial life!
Beyond our sorrows, and above our strife;—
Yet so benignant, that Thine eye can see
Each pulse of loving prayer which throbs the heart to Thee.