Songs 10

¹In streets, and op’nings of the gates,

where pours the busy crowd,

Thus heav’nly Wisdom lifts her voice,

and cries to men aloud:

²How long, ye scorners of the truth,

scornful will ye remain?

How long shall fools their folly love,

and hear my words in vain?

³O turn, at last, at my reproof!

and, in that happy hour,

His bless’d effusions on your heart

my Spirit down shall pour.

⁴But since so long, with earnest voice

to you in vain I call,

Since all my counsels and reproofs

thus ineffectual fall;

⁵The time will come, when humbled low,

in Sorrow’s evil day,

Your voice by anguish shall be taught,

but taught too late, to pray.

⁶When, like the whirlwind, o’er the deep

comes Desolation’s blast;

Pray’rs then extorted shall be vain,

the hour of mercy past.

⁷The choice you made has fix’d your doom;

for this is Heav’n’s decree,

That with the fruits of what he sow’d

the sinner fill’d shall be.