* * * * *

What's plague and prison? Loss of friends?
War, dearth, and death that all things ends?
Mere bugbears for the childish mind;
Pure panic terrors of the blind.

Collect thy soul unto one sphere
Of light, and 'bove the earth it rear;
Those wild scattered thoughts that erst
Lay loosely in the world dispersed,
Call in:--thy spirit thus knit in one
Fair lucid orb, those fears be gone
Like vain impostures of the night,
That fly before the morning bright.
Then with pure eyes thou shalt behold
How the first goodness doth infold
All things in loving tender arms;
That deeméd mischiefs are no harms,
But sovereign salves and skilful cures
Of greater woes the world endures;
That man's stout soul may win a state
Far raised above the reach of fate.

Then wilt thou say, _God rules the world_,
Though mountain over mountain hurled
Be pitched amid the foaming main
Which busy winds to wrath constrain;