The Christian's View Of Pleasure Poem by Maria Frances Cecilia Cowper

THE hardest task the Christian heart can know,
Is to relinquish all it loves below.
Where creature comforts, tender ties, conspire
To rule the soul, and quench the sacred fire,
And earth's delusive splendours brightest shine,
How dimly gleams the spark of love divine!
Veil'd are the glories of redeeming grace,
The Saviour's love to man's degenerate race,
When souls immers'd in vanity and noise
Seclude the prospect of Heaven's brightest joys.
Say ye, whose hearts with sacred ardour glow,
What solid pleasures from religion flow;
Say, for ye only can, what raptures rise
From the exalted Theme of earth and skies,
Whom angels sing, experienc'd saints explore,
And shall in blest eternity adore.
Eternity! O sweet, tremendous sound!
Hell's deep abyss re-echoes it around:
Who would not wish life's toil and trouble done;
To see this blest eternity begun;
Where angels tune their golden harps, and sing
Immortal praises to th' immortal King?
Heaven's widest confines catch the melting song;
And to new worlds the welcome theme prolong:
Ecstatic ardours in each bosom glow,
And purest bliss, which only angels know.
Who would not wish life's toil and trouble done,
To see this blest eternity begun?