ON THE HUMAN HEART. Mary Alcock (née Cumberland) Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. T86344 Alcock [née Cumberland], Mary, 1741?–1798. Poems, &c. &c. by the Late Mrs. Mary Alcock [poems only]. London Printed for C. Dilly, Poultry 1799 pp. 31-32. vii,[25],183,[1]p.

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ON THE HUMAN HEART . Say , for you know , ye secret springs Which guide the human heart , Whence comes it that such trivial things Give mine so keen a smart ? Mine , which hath known such real woes , Such real ills hath borne ; If having stood such weighty blows , Why by a touch o'erthrown ? Thus have I seen the sturdy oak , Which hardly deigns to bow When the storm rages , by the stroke Of the sharp axe laid low . The bark , which winds and waves had brav'd On many a hostile coast , At length from foreign dangers sav'd , In it's own port is lost . If from a friend a word I hear , Or meet a look unkind , Why from mine eye descends the tear , And why this tortur'd mind ? And why will those we love thus give These small , tho' deadly , stings ? How fain would I no grief receive But what from Nature springs ! Those sorrows may I learn to bear , And humbly kiss the rod , Thro' faith and hope cast off despair , And give my soul to God .