Admonition

                              I.
Ah, how soon are purest feelings lost
     When by pride or passion breathed upon!
Frailer than the tracery of frost
     On the window where looks in the sun!

Angels will not linger in the heart
     Where a thought of evil dares to dwell;
Goodness seeketh aye its counterpart; 
     Heaven was never married unto hell!

Seeks thy soul to hold communion high 
     With the spirits of a world divine?
Upward let it look with single eye, 
     And the blessed intercourse is thine.

Sternly banish every wrong desire,
     Every thought that is not pure repress,
And with purpose rising high and higher, 
     Struggle after perfect holiness!

Vainly shall the once-besetting sin
     Strive to turn thee from thine upward way; 
Victory o'er the tempter shalt thou win,
     By thy faith prevailing: watch and pray!

Every conflict with opposing wrong, 
     Every effort for the true and right,
Nerves thy soul anew, and makes it strong 
     Still to struggle in the moral fight.

Doubt not of thy triumph! Lo! a power
     Guides and guards thee through the thickest strife,
And shall crown thee in thy victor-hour 
     With the garlands of eternal life!

                              II.
Stormy passions, with a pen of steel,
     Write their record on the human heart;
Grows the tracery fires of sin anneal, 
     Deep and deeper as the years depart.

Perish hopes that holy made its youth;
     Fades the promise of its golden prime; 
Meek affections, sympathies and ruth,
     Sweepeth over all the tide of crime.

Downward presseth evermore the soul 
     That is wedded to its hideous sin;
Downward madly to the dreadful goal 
     Spirits hating purity must win.

In the path that leadeth from the light, 
     Every footfall soundeth like a knell!
Darklier o'er the spirit gathers night, 
     Blackest horrors thick around it dwell!

Lost the brightness of its earlier day, 
     All its longings for the holy lost;
Like a wreck whose helm is torn away, 
     On the waves of error see it tossed!

Hapless spirit! heedless of its birth, 
     Mad to drink the bitter cup of woes,
Dark hath been thy pilgrimage on earth, 
     Darker still that pilgrimage shall close !

Ye who linger on forbidden ground, 
     Dreadful is your recompense, and sure!
For the blessedness of peace is found 
     Only by the holy and the pure!