My God, I love, and I adore; But souls that love would know Thee more. Wilt Thou for ever hide, and stand Behind the labours of Thy hand? Thy hand unseen sustains the poles On which this huge creation rolls: The starry arch proclaims Thy power, Thy pencil glows in every flower; In thousand shapes and colours rise Thy painted wonders to our eyes; While beasts and birds, with labouring throats, Teach us a God in thousand notes, The meanest pin in Nature’s frame Marks out some letter of Thy name. Where sense can reach, or fancy rove, From hill to hill, from field to grove, Across the waves, around the sky, There’s not a spot, or deep or high, Where the Creator has not trod, And left the footstep of a God. And in the same strain, with what strength and majesty he sweeps every chord of Nature in his sublime version of the 148th Psalm: Loud hallelujahs to the Lord. The strong nervousness of his expression, the passionate personification (always the mark of a great poet) with which his verses abound, sometimes, but more especially in his lyrics, give the appearance of inflation to his expressions. But when attempting to describe adequate themes, they only fitly represent the subject, as in the following fine description of the glory of God in the clouds: Thy hand, how wide it spreads the sky! How glorious to behold! Tinged with a blue of heavenly dye, And starred with sparkling gold. There Thou canst bid the globes of light Their endless circles run; Where the pale planet rules the night, And day obeys the sun. The noisy winds stand ready there Thy orders to obey; With sounding wings they sweep the air, To make Thy chariot way. There like a trumpet loud and strong, Thy thunder shakes our coast; While the red lightnings wave along, The banners of Thy host. On the thin air, without a prop, Hang fruitful showers around; At Thy command they sink, and drop Their fatness to the ground. Strong exception has been taken to Watts’ verse, on the score of its frequent, almost passionate, expression of Divine love; in this he frequently writes like Madame Guyon, or like some of those old monastic spirits who passed their days in cloisters; and Watts’ life was almost as cloisteral as that of a monk. Unlike his amiable friend, Philip Doddridge, he was never diverted from any of the solemn pursuits of his life by the claims of human passion or affection, although there are not wanting verses which, perhaps, show that he had not been altogether insensible to female charms: Virgins, who roll your artful eyes, And shoot delicious danger thence; Swiftly the lovely lightning flies, And melts our reason down to sense.