Page:Beauties of Burn's poems.pdf/8

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How his first followers and servants sped;
 The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:
How he, who love in Patmos baniched,
 Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand!
And heard great Bab'lon's doom prouounced by
    Heaven's command!

Then kneeling down to Heav'n's eternal King,
 The saint, the father, and the husband, prayse
Hope springs exulting on triumphant wing^[1],
 That thus they all shall meet in future days
There ever bask in uncreated rays,
 No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,
 In such society, yet still more dear,
While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere.

Compar'd with this, how poor Religion's pride,
 In all the pomp of method and of art,
When men display to congregations wide,
 Devotion's every grace, except the heart!
The Power, incens'd, the pageant will desert,
 The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole:
But, hap'ly, in some cottage, far apart,
 May hear, well-pleas'd, the language of the soul,
And in His Book of Life the inmates poor enrol.

Then homeward all take off their several way:
 The youngling Cottagers retire to rest;
The parent-pair their secret homage pay,
 And proffer up to Heav'n the warm request,
That He, who stills the raven's clam'rous nest,
 And decks the lily fair in flowery pride,

1. Pope's Windsor-Forest.