Faith leads to joys beyond the sky

Representative Text

I. Faith leads to joys beyond the sky;
Why then is this weak mind
Afraid to raise a chearful eye
To more than sense can find?

II. Sense can but furnish scenes of woe,
In this low vale of tears;
No groves of heav'nly pleasure grow,
No paradise appears.

III. Ah! why should this mistaken mind
Still rove with restless pain?
Delight on earth expect to find,
Yet still expect in vain?

IV. Faith, rising upward, points her view
To regions in the skies;
There lovelier scenes than Eden knew,
In bright perspective rise.

V. Oh! If this heav'n-born grace were mine,
Would not my spirit soar,
Transported gaze on joys divine,
And cleave to earth no more?

VI. If in my heart true faith appears,
How weak the sacred ray!
Feebly aspiring, prest with fears,
Almost it dies away.

VII. O thou, from whose almighty breath
It first began to rise,
Purge off these mists, these dregs of earth,
And bid it reach the skies.

VIII. Let this weak, erring mind no more,
On earth bewilder'd rove,
But with celestial ardour soar
To endless joys above.

Source: Poems on Subjects Chiefly Devotional, Vol. 1 #70

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Author: Anne Steele

Anne Steele was the daughter of Particular Baptist preacher and timber merchant William Steele. She spent her entire life in Broughton, Hampshire, near the southern coast of England, and devoted much of her time to writing. Some accounts of her life portray her as a lonely, melancholy invalid, but a revival of research in the last decade indicates that she had been more active and social than what was previously thought. She was theologically conversant with Dissenting ministers and "found herself at the centre of a literary circle that included family members from various generations, as well as local literati." She chose a life of singleness to focus on her craft. Before Christmas in 1742, she declined a marriage proposal from contemporar… Go to person page >

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