Where's now the object of thy fears;

Needless sighs and fruitless tears?

They be all gone like idle dream

Suggested from the body's steam.

O Cave of horror black as pitch!

Dark den of Spectres that bewitch

The weaken'd phansy, sore affright

With the grim shades of grisly Night.

What's Plague and Prison? Loss of friends?

War, Dearth, and Death that all things ends?

Mere bug-bears for the childish mind:

Pure panic terrors of the blind.

Collect thy soul into one sphere

Of light, and 'bove the earth it rear:

Those wild scatter'd thoughts that erst

Lay loosely in the World disperst

Call in: Thy spirit thus knit in one

Fair lucid orb; those fears be gone

Like vain impostures of the Night

That fly before the Morning bright.

Then with pure eyes thou shalt behold

How the first Goodness doth infold

All things in loving tender arms:

That deeméd mischiefs are no harms,

But sovereign salves, and skilful cures

Of greater woes the world endures;

That Man's stout soul may win a state

Far raised above the reach of Fate.

Then wilt thou say, GOD rules the World,

Though mountain over mountain hurl'd

Be pitch'd amid the foaming main,

Which busy winds to wrath constrain.

His fall doth make the billows start

And backward skip from every part,

Quite sunk; then o'er his senseless side

The waves in triumph proudly ride.

Though inward tempests fiercely rock

The tottering Earth, that with the shock

High spires and heavy rocks fall down

With their own weight drove into ground;

Though pitchy blasts from Hell up-borne

Stop the outgoings of the Morn,

And Nature play her fiery games

In this forced Night, with fulgurant [168] flames,

Baring by fits for more affright

The pale dead visages, ghastly sight

Of men astonish'd at the stoure [169]

Of Heaven's great rage, the rattling showers

Of hail, the hoarse bellowing of thunder,

Their own loud shrieks made mad with wonder:

All this confusion cannot move

The purgéd mind, freed from the love

Of commerce with her body dear,

Cell of sad thoughts, sole spring of fear.

Whate'er I feel or hear or see

Threats but these parts that mortal be.

Nought can the honest heart dismay

Unless the love of living clay,

And long acquaintance with the light

Of this Out-world, and what to sight

Those too officious beams discover

Of forms that round about us hover.

Power, Wisdom, Goodness sure did frame

This Universe, and still guide the same.

But thoughts from passions sprung, deceive

Vain mortals. No man can contrive

A better course than what's been run

Since the first circuit of the Sun.

He that beholds all from on high

Knows better what to do than I.

I'm not mine own: should I repine

If He dispose of what's not mine?

Purge but thy soul of blind self-will,

Thou straight shalt see GOD doth no ill.

The world He fills with the bright rays

Of His free goodness. He displays

Himself throughout. Like common air

That spirit of life through all doth fare,

Suck'd in by them as vital breath

That willingly embrace not death.

But those that with that living Law

Be unacquainted, cares do gnaw;

Mistrust of GOD's good providence

Doth daily vex their wearied sense.

[168] fulgurant, lightning

[169] stoure, tumult