Poem by Thomas Blacklock

An Hymn to Divine Love. In Imitation of Spenser

No more of lower flames, whose pleasing rage
With sighs and soft complaints I weakly fed;
At whose unworthy shrine, my budding age,
And willing muse, their first devotion paid.
Fly, nurse of madness, to eternal shade:
Far from my soul abjur'd and banish'd fly,
And yield to nobler fires, that lift the soul more high.

O Love! coeval with thy parent God,
To thee I kneel, thy present aid implore;
At whose celestial voice and pow'rful nod,
Old Discord fled, and Chaos ceas'd to roar,
Light smil'd, and Order rose, unseen before,
But in the plan of the eternal Mind,
When God design'd the work, and lov'd the work design'd.

Thou fill'd'st the waste of ocean, earth, and air,
With multitudes that swim, or walk, or fly:
From Leviathan all confess thy care,
To those too subtile for the nicest eye:
For each a sphere was circumscrib'd by thee,
To bless, and to be bless'd, its only end;
To which with speedy course, they all unerring tend.

Conscious of thee, with nobler pow'rs endu'd,
Next man, thy darling, into being rose,
Immortal, form'd for high beatitude,
Which neither end nor interruption knows,
Till evil couch'd in fraud began our woes.
Then to thy aid was boundless wisdom join'd;
And for apostate man redemption was design'd.

By thee, his glories vail'd in mortal shroud,
God's darling offspring left his seat on high;
And heav'n and earth, amaz'd and trembling, view'd
Their wounded sov'reign groan, and bleed, and die.
By thee, in triumph to his native sky,
On angels wings, the victor God aspir'd,
Relenting justice smil'd, and frowning wrath retir'd.

To thee, munific ever-flaming Love!
One endless hymn united nature sings.
To thee, the bright inhabitants above
Tune the glad voice, and sweep the warbling strings.
From pole to pole, on ever-waving wings,
Winds waft thy praise, by rolling planets tun'd;
Aid then, O Love! my voice to emulate the sound.

It comes! it comes! I feel internal day;
Transfusive warmth tho' all my bosom glows;
My soul expanding gives the torrent way;
Thro' all my veins it kindles as it flows.
Thus, ravish'd from the scene of night and woes,
Oh! snatch me, bear me, to thy happy reign;
There teach my tongue thy praise in more exalting strain.

1. Song. Inscribed to a Friend. In imitation of Shenstone
2. A Pastoral Song
3. A Letter from Thomas Blacklock to the Author, Respecting Burns
4. An Epitaph, on a Favourite Lap-Dog
5. On Punch

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