Poems and Extracts/Lines

by Christopher Smart

For works with similar titles, see Lines.

Lines

 

Written, whilst confined in a Madhouse, with a Key on the Wainscot (the rest of them are lost) by C. Smart.

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He sung of God, the mighty source
Of all things, the stupendous force
On which all things depend:
From whose right arm, beneath whose eyes.
All period, power, and enterprize,
Commence, and reign, and end.

The world,—the clus'tring spheres,—he made,
The glorious light, the soothing shade,
Dale, champaign, grove and hill
The multitudinous abyss10
Where secrecy remains in bliss!
And wisdom hides her skill.

Tell them I AM, Jehovah said
To Moses, while Earth heard with dread;
And smitten to the heart
At once above, beneath, around.
All nature without voice or sound
Replied, O Lord, THOU ART.

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