Classic Poem

O, FOR a time of quiet thought,
Upon this birthday morn!
When I behold what long I've sought,—
The room where I was born.

And is it true, and can it be,
That at no distant day,
In this same room which now I see,
A newborn babe I lay?

And here, mysterious soul of mine,
Did thy young life begin,
Cast breathless by decree divine
Into a world of sin?

Mortality's immortal dawn!
O truth sublimely strange!
The more revolv'd, the more withdrawn
Beyond my reason's range!

Thou, Lord, alone, who didst create,
Canst tell, and none but Thee,
The marvels of my present state,
Of what I yet shall be.

I see the wall, whose surface gay
Of flower-inwoven maze,
Greeted so oft at peep of day
My gentle mother's gaze.

I see the lattice, whence the light
First smote my quivering eye,
And flooding o'er me came the sight
Of earth and azure sky.

When, frighted at the world so new,
Wailing I hid my head;
And to my mother's bosom drew,
And there was comforted.

O, mix'd vicissitudes of life!
O, maze of many a scene,
Through which since then, in peace or strife,
My being's course has been!

Thoughts incommunicably strange
Contract my aching brow,
As, musing on from change to change,
I trace my life till now.

Jesu, all praise! Alas, in ways
Of darkness I have trod!
Yet still at least my early days
Were sanctified to God;

When at thy font of life divine
Thine arms encircled me,
By nature born a child of sin,
By grace new born to Thee.

Since then I've sinn'd, since then I've stray'd,
Till all but lost I seem;
Yet still to Thee be glory paid,
Who solely canst redeem!