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349

THE SEVENTH DAY. The Rest of God.

351

ARGUMENT.

Creation finished. In no creature can God find rest, but only in Himself. On the creation of Man God rests in Christ “the express Image of His Person;” alone the Supreme Good. The Sabbath or rest of God, wherein He still works both in things of Creation and of Redemption. Man also can find no rest in the creature, but only in God. This Sabbath is the rest of the soul in Christ in this His Kingdom; not in cessation from labour but in “faith working by love:” as the rest of God who still continues to sustain all that He has made: repose of mind amidst the world, not in things of the world. The number Seven speaks of pardon. Sabbatic rest of the Christian opposed to servile fear of the Jew. The sacred Seven becomes by Ten indefinitely progressive; as expressing a further rest which ever remaineth for the people of God. Works of the six days seen by the creatures; the Sabbath of God discernible by man only. Has no evening. Six a perfect number, prolific, and of the world. Seven made up of four and three implies the world of four quarters united to the Divine Three.

Christ resting in the grave on the great Sabbath. The intermediate state: the Paradise of God: withdrawal and cessation from the miseries of this life. Sleep an image of that rest. “To sleep in Christ.” “To be with God.” Night also and stars. How thin the veil between us and that state. Dreams, and recollections renewed in them. The fall of Jericho on the Seventh day. That rest precedes the great morning, when them which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. Invocation to all creatures to praise God.

353

MORNING.

I

'Tis finishèd; for God hath made the light;
And hung the aerial firmament on high,
Traversed with clouds; set ocean fair to sight;
Carpeted earth with green embroidery;
Given the great sun and moon to range the sky,
And trembling fires aloof their watch to keep;
And living shafts that through the waters fly;
Set birds to sing around, and soar, and sweep,
And on the stable ground creatures that walk or creep.
354

II

But not in light, or arching firmament
Traversed with clouds; nor ocean fair to sight,
Round the green earth with living bow half-bent;
Nor in the sun or moon on throne of night,
Nor constellations in aerial flight,
Nor in the breathing objects set around,
The living wonders of Creative Might,
In naught of these the rest of God is found;
God His own Image made and with a Sabbath crown'd.

III

For in Himself alone, and in the Word
Whereby He all things made and call'd them good,
In the Incarnate Son, Creation's Lord,
God can alone find rest; by Him endued
All sanctified and bless'd creation stood;—
The Brightness of His Glory, and alone
The Image of His Person; in whose Blood
Wash'd as with light lay all beneath the throne,
By Him all things were made, were made for Him alone.
355

IV

In naught but Good supreme can God find rest,
Which is Himself; from the Sabbatic skies
He goeth forth Himself to manifest
In works of love, life-giving charities;
For all self-motion central rest implies.
Thus man in God alone can find repose,—
That rest abroad in wandering sympathies
He in the creature seeks but never knows,
Till he return to God from whence his being rose.

V

For all the things that move in earth and sky
Are anchor'd on some stay, and stable pole;
Some hidden ground of rest doth in them lie;
As God hath His own rest Who moves the whole.
Thus to that rest Divine returns the soul,
Undress'd of its mortality and change;
While all around the elements unrol
The forms of motion and mutation strange,
The whirlwind—earthquake—storm—or nature's order'd range.
356

VI

He rests not day nor night, but Sabbath keeps
By resting in His ceaseless charities;
His ear is ever ope, His eye ne'er sleeps;
Each flying moment His calm energies
Touch every spring which hid in nature lies;
Life at His ordering lives; Fire owns His sway;
Seas move at His command; and through the skies
Winds know His beck; and clouds in their array
Hang listening for His voice, and waiting to obey.

VII

Thus God His Sabbath keeps, yet works in love;
With tides, winds, seasons—earth, and air, and seas,—
With cares mankind doth exercise and prove;
Hence exile, widowhood, want, and disease,
Bereavement, suits of law, with all the pleas
Which end in sorrow, and of ills the chief
The wounded soul which its own shadow flees;
Or friends which fail and fall; that we in grief
May seek our promised rest, may find in Christ relief.
357

VIII

The soul its Sabbath keeps on Christ's own breast,
Which labouring labours not, nor sorrow knows,
But labouring in Him in His love hath rest,
And resting in His love in that repose
Feeds on the events of life, and fuller grows,
Transmuted by that love and sanctified.
As when the Breath of Heaven serenely blows,
The sail full-bosom'd cleaves the ocean tide,
And when it seems at rest doth then most swiftly glide.

IX

In all the countless creatures spread around,
Above, beneath, before us, and behind,
The ceaseless marvels of His hand abound,
Living expressions of the Eternal Mind,
Of Wisdom, Power, and Love; to each assign'd
Home, medicine, food, His faithful care attest;
Naught are they all but as in them we find
The indications of a Father's breast,
Where man his weary head may lay, and be at rest.
358

X

But rest is not for man, unless again
The image of his God shall be restored,
For which he in the creature seeks in vain;
It is not in the sun, the stars afford
No vision of their Maker and their Lord;
Man in his soul must seek, e'en there must be
The mirror which reflects the Incarnate Word,
The Light invisible, serene and free,
The partner or the shade of His eternity.

XI

Within its orbit lives, within it dies
Each creature we behold; but upward spring
Man's thoughts by nature seeking other skies,
As birds by nature rise upon the wing.
Though Heaven itself as from an unclean thing,
Like some fair flower from shade of coming night,
Shuts up itself from our imagining;
While, like a wandering exile in its sight
Man ever vainly seeks, yet cannot bear the light.
359

XII

Sevenfold—sabbatic number—pardon's reign;
Sevenfold forgiveness once made Peter bold,
Proportion'd to the sevenfold crime of Cain;
But infinite the number, seventy-fold,
That seventy-fold which Lamech spake of old,
Is that Sabbatic grace by which we live,
The fountain of forgiveness which untold
Exuberant dwells in Christ,—love to forgive,—
For boundless is the grace with boundless ills to strive.

XIII

Therefore the Christian's labours and his toils
Are but Sabbatic rest, for servile fear
In duty is Judaic work that soils
The sabbath of our calling, seen to wear
But week-day disapparel, worldly gear;
While faith that works by love, love that reprieves,
In working rests on Christ; thus given to bear
Accepted fruit, the Tree of healing leaves,
Dropping celestial balm for every soul that grieves.
360

XIV

Sabbatic rest and service, more of rest
As more of love prevails; and service less,
Or less of servitude as more impress'd
All actions with that love which maketh free;
That yoke which is our perfect liberty.
Yet this our Sabbath blessed and divine
But shadow is of that which is to be;
As was of old that promised Palestine,
So this our Sabbath rest is but a passing sign.

XV

Still onward and yet onward, Sabbath yet
Arises out of Sabbath, Sabbath days
Then Sabbath years, then onward time is set
To Sabbath Jubilees of rest and praise,
And Sabbath of a thousand years; we gaze
And see on outskirts of this world outworn
A Sabbath hid beyond the solar rays,
Which God hath hallow'd on the silent bourne,
The blessed sleep of those that wait the eternal morn.
361

XVI

Canaan's Sabbatic land, while it remain'd
Did but disclose the better Palestine
Of this our rest in Jesus, this attain'd
Yearns onward for a Sabbath more divine;
As men their graduated glass incline
To catch some far-off landscape, and bring near;—
Tube within tube unto the distant line
They lengthen, till the sun-lit scene appear,
Distinct upon the sight, and growing large and clear.

XVII

And inward, and far inward, that sweet rest
Within the inmost temple hidden lies,
The rest which is in God; the aching breast
Shrine within shrine strives onward, as it dies
To sin and self, till on His Breast it lies
With all its sorrows. O sad thoughts of mine,
Pursuing with wing'd feet and clamorous cries
The haunted—hunted soul! but in that shrine
Safe from pursuit and noise is silence, sweet, divine.
362

XVIII

After our works which shall in God be done,
And God declareth good, we too shall rest
The rest of God, which hath no setting sun,
Where by no sense of weariness oppress'd
They always see His face, rest on His breast;
For God who is our Sabbath knows no night,
And were we with unwearied wings possess'd,
And could attend the sun throughout his flight,
We ne'er should evening know, but ever dwell in light.

XIX

There is a world wherein Christ is the Sun,
And as we live, see, hear, and look around,
In these low worlds where we our courses run,
Discerning form and colour, sight and sound,
Through windows of this flesh;—those that are found
Worthy of that pure world shall see aright
With other senses and their fulness crown'd,
In that true Sun reveal'd to other sight,
Mingling with their own souls His thought-transcending light.
363

XX

As hidden 'neath the sable garb of night
These beauteous worlds with their variety
Of scene, and face, and hue that please the sight,
Unseen, unnoted, undistinguish'd lie,
Till in the coming dawn the shadows fly,
And lift the veil. So when our Sun shall rise
The hidden form of man's Divinity
Shall clothe itself in colours of the skies,
His Image live again as night within us dies.

XXI

From that good will wherein she now doth wait
Something of meek expectancy shall rise,
Trimming her lamp beside the eternal gate;—
The soul shall put on boundless sympathies
Like God Himself, and living charities,
From things created with enlarging ken
Feeding on truth, which growing life supplies,
The City of God's sabbath amongst men,
The City named of Peace,—all shall be sabbath then.
364

XXII

The six days' works the bird and beast behold,
Of sky and sun and stars and sea and land;
But in His works thus vast and manifold
Man may discern his God, read His command,
And in His wonders know a Father's hand;
By them may on a ladder upward climb
From step to step—on the six days—and stand
On threshold of the seventh day, rest sublime,
Which knows no eventide, beyond the reach of time.

XXIII

Such Sabbath is the kingdom from above,
Which is below among the things of sight,
The type of that obedience and calm love
Which is in Heaven, where work and rest unite,
Itself its own reward and true delight,—
Whate'er it be—by senses undiscern'd—
Where labour hath no need of changeful night,
As fire consumed not that on which it burn'd,
As earth which seems at rest although most swiftly turn'd.
365

XXIV

Peaceful and sweet as the calm face of night
With all its stars to cheer our wanderings given,
So spiritually calm, unearthly bright,
Far from care's reach. And like those planets seven
That keep their watches in our nether Heaven,
So they that from their centre now decline,
In wanderings to and fro, at random driven,
Shall in their motions find the rest Divine,
As round their central Sun they in their orbits shine.

XXV

“Enoch the seventh from Adam” found that rest,
And saw the dawn of the eternal Sun
Coming with Saints ten thousand manifest.
When on the circling Ten that Seven hath run
It bringeth home from mystic Babylon.
When the Seventh Trumpet soundeth Time is done,
The angel standing on the earth and sea
Proclaims the coming in of the great Jubilee.
366

XXVI

Thus upon number's hidden harmonies
Creation's self as on melodious chime
Arises: in the perfect Six there lies
Division and production through all time,
The world within itself complete—sublime;—
One thereto added makes the golden Seven;—
Of days the hallowed fulness and the prime,
The mystic Week, the Earth combined with Heaven;—
Speaks the predestin'd whole, the seal of sins forgiven;—

XXVII

The lucid ring, which is eternity,
For ever placed on finger of the Bride;
The circling orb wherein no end can be;—
The one great Day which hath no even-tide;
The House on pillars seven which shall abide,
Where Wisdom hath prepared her Bread and Wine;
The rest of God to works of men allied;
The day which hath a seven-fold sun Divine;
The stone with seven Eyes which therein ever shine.
367

XXVIII

The veil was on his face when Moses spake
Of this the hallow'd sabbath; from his face
Yet here and there the hornèd radiance brake;
For Israel earth-ward groan'd, so slow to trace
Beneath that servile yoke the day of Grace;
Kept ward, and jubilee, heard trumpet call,
Held seven-day feast within the sacred place,
Hew'd boughs and dwelt beneath the verdant hall,
Yet sighing kept the while the mystic festival.

XXIX

The rest of God wherein our four-fold earth
Shall be united to the Holy Three,
And all return to Him that gave them birth,
Seven is the crowning of the mystery;
When time which rises from eternity,
The stream whereon men toil their six-days' thrall
Again is swallowed in that boundless sea,
“The peace of God;” whate'er survives the fall,
Shall pass into that Rest, and God be All in All.
368

EVENING.

I

'Tis finishèd and Christ rests in the grave,—
The Sabbath of all Sabbaths there to keep,
Hid in the darkness of the rocky cave
After His work of sorrow;—there to sleep
The rest of God; in that mysterious deep
Which henceforth for the saints of God remains,
Sabbatic land seen from mount Pisgah's steep,
True Paradise, where wash'd from sinful stains
In Eden's sacred stream they rest from all their pains.
369

II

That Paradise wherein no fearful hare
Flees the pursuing dog; no keen-eyed kite
O'er innocent sweet bird hangs in 'mid air;
Where no fair-dappled snake his guilty flight
Hides amid flowers and verdant boughs, whose sight
Startles man's heart with instantaneous chill;—
Wherein no sultry sun, no moon at night
Harms their soft sleep; but every thought and will
Finds rest in God alone—rest on His holy Hill.

III

Hid in the rocky cave with Christ at rest:
No noise of this bad world with all its harms
Shall reach them more, on Christ's own bosom blest;
No wars, nor rumour'd wars, nor aught that charms
In the tumultuous stir and sound to arms;
No noise of politics, nor the mad roar
Of popular seditions and alarms;
No doubts and no misgivings reach them more,
Or break their quiet rest upon that silent shore.
370

IV

The buying and the selling, and the sound
Of bridals, and the plantings, and the war,
The marriageable arts with spousal crown'd,
That ring within the ears, the senses jar,—
The movements and the wranglings from afar,
Which some shall make to smile, and some to weep;—
These all—like twinklings of a distant star,
Or murmuring sounds far off upon the deep,
Shall soothe and deepen more that peaceful-vision'd sleep:—

V

That sleep to which no evil Dream draws near
Muffled in ghostly mantle, to upbraid,
Or to allure with sin; no step of Fear
Approaches or stands by with silent shade;
No fire, nor murderous hand, nor call for aid
Can break that tranquil rest, or wake again;
That slumber hath no surfeit heavy made,
Or the distemper'd fumes of fever'd brain;
For thus to sleep in Christ is to be free from pain.
371

VI

O antepasts e'en now of that repose,
Each blissful interchange, serene release
From hopes deferr'd, from fears and toilsome throes!
To be in haven after wintry seas;—
Lodged in a wilderness to be at ease
From noise of falling kingdoms and their fray;—
In the sick night when pains relenting cease
Upon the quiet bed in peace to pray,
And hear the early bird that antedates the day!

VII

After a long—long journey worn and spent
To be at last housed in a tranquil home,
And hear without the roaring element!
To be no more a traveller to the tomb,—
To bear no more the Cross, the Church's doom
Oh, to be freed from liberty, so rife
With its own chains, with its own inner gloom,
The tyranny of freedom and the strife,
The iron of the soul that eats into the life!
372

VIII

Yet not such sleep as here on the soul lies,
Dropping the wearied lid and drooping wing,
So with her fleshly mate to sympathize;
But rest from thoughts which the rude senses bring,
The plenitude of life, the second spring;
When the soul veil'd within that Paradise
Opens to God, and hears the Angels sing,
With a new heart and other ears and eyes,
Receiving God with all awakened sympathies.

IX

For if that slumber is with Christ to be
There is a wakeful sense, pardon's sweet seal,
A consciousness brought near to Deity;
When the soul's strength that pardon doth anneal,
And something of His Presence there reveal,
As cannot be before the parting breath;
It is “to be with God,” it is to feel
The Everlasting Arms stretch'd forth beneath,
Emerging in that land beyond the vale of death.
373

X

When Death shall on this world his shadow turn
The soul shall then herself behold aright,
And face to face her image shall discern.
This glassy window now brings to our sight
Green scenes of peopled day and sunny light,
And all the landscape broad and manifold;
When darkness sits behind it and black night,
Naught there but our reflection we behold,
Which seems on us to look serenely stern and cold.

XI

For when the flesh in the grave's solitude
Sleeps, in that wakening of the bodiless mind,
As with another sense, new powers endued,
The soul her very self shall feel and find,
To which her former self shall seem but blind;
For she in God shall see, Who bearing hence,
As bandages of sense themselves unwind,
He who made eyes and ears and feeling sense,
Himself shall give to know in His Omnipotence.
374

XII

What is this sun-bright world with all its show,
Whose sights and sounds have so our senses bound?
'Tis but descending to a pit below,
But hiding for a moment under ground,
When, lo, the solemn stars will come around,
Nor aught of this bright world upon us break;
So as it enters death's dark cave profound
To things of Heaven the hidden soul shall wake;
So wondrous vast the change that one short hour shall make.

XIII

E'en now beneath the night's ambrosial star,
When we with slumberous veils lie mantled o'er,
Distinctions of the world are set afar;
The peasant and the prince, the proud and poor
To undiscerning blank doth night restore,—
As in the cradle and the grave they lie,—
Beside of nothingness the silent door
Rescued to nature's own equality,
From which through wakeful day they strive in vain to fly.
375

XIV

And what is death,—but that, severely kind,
From fettering weeds unmindful of his cries
The tender mother doth the child unbind,
And lays him in the bed till morn arise?
Yea, haply more, that her soft lullabies
May mingle with his dreams, and with sweet lays
Steal through the cell of hidden memories,
In vision bring around past sinless days,
Allay each troubled thought, and tune the soul to praise.

XV

Fair are the hues of the departing year,
Upon the fading leaf which autumn lays,
Making its going hence to be more dear:
And fair are hues of the departing days,
Which evening on the western sky displays;
Fair because hope lies under that decay,
Where hope is not no beauty's hand arrays;
This is the charm in things that pass away,
That into shades they melt which speak a better day.
376

XVI

And what is Night, whose soft and dewy veil
Returns so oft, with covering so sublime,
So awful yet so beautiful? what tale
Is writ on her deep brow, in every clime
Which carries back the heart to Eden's prime,
And lifts to Heaven with dread serener trust?
Image it is of intervening time,
When men have laid their bodies in the dust,
Before that one great morn, the rising of the Just.

XVII

Therefore is Night to solemn musing dear,
And named of contemplation by the wise,
Mantling the busy world from eye and ear
To lift the curtain from the hidden skies,
And there reveal around unnumber'd eyes.
What is it, but the ether-vaulted room
Which hangs about that mystic Paradise,
When man descends into the door of gloom
Which opens mighty worlds that are beyond the tomb;—
377

XVIII

Spiritual eyes that fill the dread Serene,
So far off, yet so nigh, whose hidden state
Dwells with us and so near, the world unseen;—
Like night and day which on our being wait,
So intertwine and interpenetrate;—
For where are they our fellow pilgrims dear,
But in that night which lies behind the gate,
Night fraught to us with many a dewy tear,—
About, around, and oh, we cannot tell how near!

XIX

More have we there than we have left behind,
Parents, it may be, brothers once so gay,
Whose memories now are on the autumnal wind
With all the scenes of infancy, and they
Who with us shared our fleeting yesterday,
No hope or love or sorrow left untold,
Companions and partakers of our way;
They too with whom we hourly converse hold,
And read their treasured thoughts the wise and good of old.
378

XX

Where are they now? O hidden blest repose!
So thin the veil by your retirement worn,
We too may be with you ere evening's close,
If meet to join those stars which night adorn.
Whether they sleep beyond the Western bourne,
Or on the precincts of our being lie,
They are th'outgoings of the eternal Morn,
Which shall be borne on wings of Deity,
Like clouds that burn with gold kindling the Eastern sky.

XXI

With her—and after her works done of yore
Follow the soul, and enter in that rest;
From fragments old and wrecks of memory's store
She moulds unto herself a downy nest,
Where Contemplation broods, there soothed and blest
With notes prelusive of the bridal strain
Heard afar off, and upon Jesus' breast
Awakening! Winter past, and gone the rain,
Oh, never, never more, never to come again!
379

XXII

For in that rest which to the good is given
Their works do follow them, with them abide,
Sweet companies in that the nether Heaven,
Nor with the earthly vesture cast aside.
Thus dreams—sleep's shadowy creations—hide
The 'fore and after, and their mysteries
To bodily strange presence seem allied,
Long-vanish'd scenes, far distant climes arise,
And long-forgotten things stand out before our eyes.

XXIII

For sleep below with nightly interchange
Given here our frail weak nature to repair,
That other world in which our spirits range,
Though blended with our ill and mix'd with care,
I deem the shadow of that mansion fair
Which is in Christ,—that slumber of the blest,
Softly embalming with ambrosial air,
Ere that the soul with her own body dress'd
Shall come forth with fresh life, new senses manifest.
380

XXIV

Yea, what are dreams? And for what purpose sent?
Why come and go they, like the viewless wind,
Or glimpses of some Angel visitant?
While yew or myrtle leaves their temples bind.
Strange intimations in our nights enshrined
That in that sleep in Christ, which lies so near,
In some mysterious form the conscious mind
Is full awaken'd in another sphere
To consciousness of God, and sees in vision clear.

XXV

When feverish fumes of sickness passing by
The strong man have brought down, and clear'd the brain,
From hiding-places old, where stored they lie,
Remembrances of childhood rise again,
As from the folds of some oblivious strain,
With an unearthly freshness in their bloom,
The home—the village scene—the distant plain—
The rude plank bridge—the brook,—far off they loom,—
Scenes loved in infancy and faces fill the room.
381

XXVI

Within the soul as in a hollow cave
Echo the murmurs of the world without,
The peopled strife, the tumult, and the wave,
But these are moulded by her own deep thought,
And through the avenues of sense are fraught
With her own feeling; images she views
Which in the mirror of the soul have caught
Their meanings, and imbibe her inward hues,
But oft 'tis of herself the shadow she pursues.

XXVII

And as the concave hills make audible
Sounds which therein unseen reverberate,
Shaping their utterance; in the soul's dark cell
Thus thoughts oft find a voice articulate
Which from material objects love or hate
Make sensible; until the soul oft rings
Aloud with them, and of her inner state
Insensate grows—and heedless—hears not things
Of God, and His within continual whisperings.
382

XXVIII

But when this throbbing pulse shall cease to beat
The still small Voice, which speaks Omnipotence,
Shall then be heard in being's inmost seat;—
Broke loose from bonds of this tumultuous sense,
And quickened all to new intelligence
The soul shall know, borne everlastingly
Above the reach of our rude elements,
And on the two-fold wing of charity
Shall spread herself abroad, and rest upon the sky.

XXIX

The higher life the lower still retains,
The plantal the material, nor in vain,
The sensitive the plantal,—silver chain—
The intellect the sensitive; again
Upon the intellect's aerial wain
Spiritual life ascends; and thus above
E'en lower faculties may yet remain,
When faith itself is lost in endless love,
On which to the third Heavens the soul itself shall move.
383

XXX

As when a lamp is by a sudden wind
Extinguish'd, or hath wasted quite away,
'Tis darkness for a moment, till we find
The moon herself hath lent her outward ray,
And emulates again the silver day:
She gently lets her snowy fleece to fall
On tortuous windings of the travell'd way,
Making night beautiful, on ruin'd wall
Seeming to sit alone or old deserted hall.

XXXI

Thus haply that sweet light of Paradise,
Compared with blaze of glory infinite
Which with the Resurrection shall arise,
Is but as this the feebler lamp of night,
To those full splendors of the morning bright,—
When to itself again as Time returns
It brings the first—last day, the Day of Light,
Wherein the soul the Sun of suns discerns,
And ever unconsumed in His own glory burns.
384

XXXII

For from six days created there arose
The Sabbath uncreate, that seventh-day Morn,
Which no creation hath, no evening's close,
Save that Eighth Day's return, when Light was born
Before the sun;—like that white vesture worn
By the eternal Bride; when from the gloom
Emerging, He Who erst at night's dim bourne
In silence rose from Sabbath of the tomb,
Before His Coming sends the dreadful trump of doom.

XXXIII

The Sabbath at whose evening shall be light,
When round this worldly amphitheatre
The paths shall open to the infinite;
Through all the skies around in vision clear
The golden forms of angels shall appear:
One moment—in the twinkling of an eye—
Within us, and around us, every where
As God shall speak the word, the light shall be,
The hallowed Sabbath light of immortality.
385

XXXIV

When the seven Priestly Trumpets full shall sound
Their warnings of repentance—seven long calls,
And Jericho shall fall unto the ground;
When o'er the Universe's flaming walls,
As world on world in burning ruin falls,
Shall enter the triumphant Jubilee,
Where Sabbath dwells in everlasting halls;
When death shall be no more,—when Earth and Seas
And Sun and Moon and Stars shall from their places flee.
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