Faith, Spirituality and Religion

Say first, of God above or man below, What can we reason but from what we know?

Vital spark of heav’nly flame! Quit, oh quit, this mortal frame: Trembling, hoping, ling’ring, flying, Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!

By night an atheist half believes a God.

A God all mercy is a God unjust.

Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry, In order to their stations leap, And Music’s power obey. From harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began: From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in Man.

O gracious God! how far have we Profaned thy heavenly gift of poesy!

Since heaven’s eternal year is thine.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, The bed be blest that I lie on. Four angels to my bed, Four angels round my head, 1 One to watch, and one to pray, And two to bear my soul away.

All is best, though we oft doubt, What the unsearchable dispose Of highest Wisdom brings about.

Just are the ways of God, And justifiable to men; Unless there be who think not God at all.

Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou liv’st Live well; how long or short permit to Heaven.

The planets in their stations list’ning stood, While the bright pomp ascended jubilant. Open, ye everlasting gates, they sung, Open, ye heavens, your living doors; let in The great Creator from his work return’d Magnificent, his six days’ work, a world.

Among the faithless, faithful only he.

Hear all ye Angels, progeny of light, Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers.

What if earth Be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein Each to other like, more than on earth is thought?

Freely we serve, Because we freely love, as in our will To love or not; in this we stand or fall.

Him first, him last, him midst, and without end.

These are thy glorious works, Parent of good.

Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep.

Hail, holy light! offspring of heav’n firstborn. 5

What in me is dark Illumine, what is low raise and support; That to the height of this great argument I may assert eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men.

Who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed, And post o’er land and ocean without rest; They also serve who only stand and wait.

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter’d saints, whose bones Lie scatter’d on the Alpine mountains cold; Ev’n them who kept thy truth so pure of old When all our fathers worshipp’d stocks and stones Forget not.

Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?