REPENTANCE.

Confess yourself to Heaven; Repent what’s past; avoid what is to come; And do not spread the compost on the weeds To make them ranker. Shakspere.

Try what repentance can: what can it not? Yet what can it, when one cannot repent? O, wretched state! O, bosom black as death! O, limed soul, that struggling to be free, Art more engaged! Shakspere.

Chide sinners as the father doth his child, And keep them in the awe of loving fear; Make sin most hateful, but in words be mild, That humble patience may the better hear; And wounded conscience may receive relief, When true repentance pleads the sinner’s grief. Yet flatter not the foul delight of sin, But make it loathsome in the eye of love, And seek the heart with holy thoughts to win Unto the best way to the soul’s behove: So teach, so live, that both in word and deed The world may joy thy heavenly rules to read. Heal the infect of sin with oil of grace, And wash the soul with true contrition’s tears; And when confession shows her heavy case, Deliver faith from all infernal fears, That when high justice threatens sin with death, Mercy again may give Repentance breath. Nicolas Breton.

At the round world’s imagined corners blow Your trumpets, angels; and arise, arise, From death you numberless infinities Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go, All whom the flood did, and fire shall o’erthrow, All whom war, death, age, agues, tyrannies, Despair, law, chance hath slain; and you whose eyes Shall behold God and never taste death’s woe. But let them sleep, Lord, and men mourn a space; For if above all these my sins abound, ’Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace, When we are there; here, on this lowly ground Teach me how to repent; for that’s as good As if Thou hadst sealed my pardon with Thy blood. John Donne.

Heaven may forgive a crime to penitence, For Heaven can judge if penitence is true. Dryden.

While music flows around, Perfumes, and oils, and wine, and wanton hours; Amid the roses, fierce repentance rears Her snaky crest: a quick returning pang Shoots through the conscious heart. Thomson.

I will to-morrow, that I will, I will be sure to do it; To-morrow comes, to-morrow goes, And still thou art to do it. Thus still repentance is deferred, From one day to another: Until the day of death is come And judgment is the other. Drexelius.

Go, let me weep! there’s bliss in tears, When he who sheds them inly feels Some lingering strain of early years Effaced by every drop that steals. The fruitless showers of worldly woe Fall dark to earth and never rise; While tears that from repentance flow, In bright exhalement reach the skies. Leave me to sigh o’er hours that flew More idly then the summer’s wind; And while they pass’d a fragrance threw, But left no trace of sweets behind. The warmest sigh that pleasure heaves Is faint, is cold to those that swell The heart, where pure repentance grieves O’er hours of pleasure loved too well. Moore.

He who seeks Repentance for the past, Should woo the angel virtue for the future. Sir E. B. Lytton.

Divine Repentance, in thy sacred tear Alone is wisdom for the erring heart, That infancy of soul, that stainless hour When all the chaos of our spirit sleeps In passionless repose,—how oft it woos Our feelings back to purity and Heaven! Alas! that in our solitude we soar To perfect goodness, but in life descend To dust again!—our aspirations quenched; And all that purer moments wisely taught, Denied, degraded, or forgot!—Thus glide Our years along, in melancholy dreams Of what they dare, and what they cannot be! R. Montgomery.

Repentance clothes in grass and flowers The grave in which the past is laid. John Sterling.

O blest Repentance, in thy weeping eye Swim the pure beams of embryo-ecstacy. And Faith, and Hope, and Love, and Joy, prepare To still thy heart, and wipe thy bitter tear! To thee alone the privilege is given, By earthly woe, to kindle joy in Heaven, For God Himself descends to soothe the heart That weeps o’er sin, and struggles to depart; And deeper transport swells the bliss above, As seraphs sing the triumphs of His love. J. K. Mitchell.