The Poetical Works of Robert Montgomery :: :: University of Virginia Library

From everlasting was The Christ of God
Veil'd in the purpose of His love divine.
But, God hath no historian; archives none
His past eternity to us presents:
For, who the motions of His voiceless Will
Can number? Saint and seraph here, alike
Are baffled, and the dread I Am adore
With that religion silent prayer begets,
When mind created on Jehovah dwells.
Enough for man this truth august to know,
Redemption was no after-thought, by sin
Awaken'd from thy depths, celestial Love!
When first Humanity the fiend obey'd:
For, in the councils of almighty grace
Thy Priesthood, oh, Incarnate! was design'd
Before creation out of nothing sprang.
But when, at length, the hour predestined came,
Eternity a form of Time assumed,
And from His throne of perfect glory stoop'd
The Second in the Godhead, and Himself
In mortal limbs and lineaments array'd;
Then did Emmanuel, on this blighted earth
Of sin and suff'ring, body forth such grace
As made our orb a wonder-scene of worlds,
By there achieving what the God Triune
Determined, when His master-work was plann'd,—
The vast Atonement blood divine unveils!

Who can express Thee, O Thou great Profound
Of glory, where all miracles in one converge,
And God Himself in concentration shines
For ever? Thee The Father only knows,
And truly fathoms. Thee the Spirit crowns
Sole Prince of Earth, and Paragon of Heaven
In Whom the counsels of salvation reach
Their glorious summit. Thee bright Angels bend
Around, and ever, with enchanted gaze,
Centre and strain their intellectual eyes
Full on Thy wonders,—dazzled, awed, and dim
With Thine excess of all-exceeding love!
Thus, how shall erring man, begirt and bound
With mental darkness, to the heights of grace
Incarnate, like one clear and cloudless view?—
For in the secrets of Thy Cross we find
A principle, where God alone on God
Is acting,—where the Heart almighty beats
With mercy, and the pangs of Calv'ry prove
His attributes, in full pulsation met.

Expression dies before a theme like this,
Completely master'd; but, the heart of Faith
Breaks into language with outbursting love,
And, taught by scripture, thus presumes to cry,
“Thou art, O Christ! our intellectual Sun
Throned in the firmament of deathless mind;
The radiant Centre of almighty love,
The mystic Vine of everlasting life,
While the dread Trinity in Thee is hymn'd
By saints and angels, with commingled praise.”

And, all we have, and are, or hope to be,
Hangs on Messiah, as the holy source;
Who shades with mercy that consuming fire,
Which else creation would at once have smit
To ashes, when the curse for sin was due.
But in the Cross, and by the Cross perused,
How featured with significance sublime
And beautiful, this breathing World becomes!
Creation, by the plastic charm of faith
Transmuted, like a boundless temple stands,
Where all is eloquent of Christ The Lord.
Lo! the broad earth a solemn area seems,
And the arch'd sky a bended ceiling grows
Whose lamps are planets, in their burning shrines;
Wonder is priestess; and the mingled choir,
The organ-music roll'd from waves and winds,—
While, deep with worship, swells th' unconscious voice
Of Nature, when her blent hosannas rise
To bless the Architect and Source of all.

And say, what merit must The Blood express,
That guilt from God in vindication hides?
Oft in the night, when musing thought awakes,
And well remembers all the world has been;
How Sin hath never yet a sabbath kept,
From the first pulse in man's apostate mind
To the last throb in Treason's bosom now,—
Well may the heart, with big emotion charged,
Empty itself in adoration's tears:

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And mind devout, with awed amazement, think
How infinite must Calv'ry's pleadings be
Which soften judgment, and sustain a world!

Thus, every mercy our creation holds,
Born of His merit, bears Emmanuel's name;
And through His rent and riven side descends,
Reaches all hearts, and radiates all homes
With christian brightness. Hence, in Jesu's Cross
We glory; all our creed round That revolves:
For there, to heights of unimagined grace
God's Covenant the wond'ring mind attracts
And welcomes, till the o'erwrought heart succumbs
In mute religion at their mystic base.
And therefore, while in nature God we greet,
And in the wrappings of this outer-world
His garments witness, that from sense infold
A Splendour Infinite, a felt Unseen,—
Yet not o'er these the heart's most epic strain
Lift we of lauding rapture. Though the sun
Burn like a mystery of living beams,
Filling our eyes with reverential light
To watch him; though the moon's poetic brow
Be lovely, arch'd with most celestial grace,
And yonder meek and melancholy stars
Thrill like the pathos of eternity
Our pensive bosom,—not in these we boast,
Though beautiful: nor in the sacred Deep
Who chants his lone and everlasting hymn
Of waters, like the psalmody of waves
In worship; nor in all the wondrous things
Which Nature in her realm of varied life
Concenters, can the God-taught spirit trace
Matter for largest triumph.—Nor can Mind
Such rev'rence claim, as that dread hour demands
When burst thy heart, Emmanuel! into blood
For sin, and back the forfeit-heaven regain'd.

CHRISTIANITY

Thus, “God forbid!” a rapt Apostle cries,
In aught we glory, but the Cross sublime;
Which, planted in this wilderness of worlds,
Hath bloom'd with second paradise to man.
And think, (unless the terror of that thought
Palsy thy mind, or stop the mental pulse
From beating,) think what Man and Earth had been,
If never from Emmanuel's veins had roll'd
The tide of Merit, our atonement drew!
What but a curse, a prison, and a pang
Had reason, life, and apprehension proved?
Amid the howlings of the Law unkept
Encompass'd ever, like incarnate hells
Men would have lived, have wept, blasphemed, and died!
Then, why not, Priests of sentiment and song,
Yourselves baptized, baptize your pages too?
Oh! let the Cross your admiration deck
With solemn beauty, when o'er nature's types,
Her hues and scenes, poetic fervours rise;
For, all creation is with Christ inspired.—
And ye, who through the world of mind delight
In thought to wander, lo! The Christ is there;
Reason is but a ray from Him derived,
That sparkles only with the light He makes.—
Monarchs who rule! remember, lawless will,
But for His pangs, would rank and order crush;
And ye, who legislate for church, or crown,
From the deep science of Salvation draw
Canons of truth, by creed almighty sign'd;
For there, both law and love together form
A perfect Archetype, in Whom they blend.
Or ye, who in domestic bower enjoy
Heaven's fairest miniature, a virtuous home,—
'Tis from the homeless Man of Grief ye draw
Your sweets of gladness, when the hearth-sides glow.
And Christian! what art thou, but Christ in man,
By creed and conduct, character and life
Envolved, and still envolving? Thou in Him,
And He in thee,—thy life but echoes His;
Thy foremost graces are refracted gleams
Directly from His perfect glory cast.
But, all thou art can faith alone depict:
Experience only is description here,
And that, internal:—since the life of truth
Is learn'd by feeling, and by love acquired:
Mere language only is a dead pretence,
Aping the life which love alone can reach,
Or e'er embody. But, if thus the life
Of faith imperfect, far beyond the soar
Of speech, to altitudes of secret awe
Itself exalteth, who, by climbing words
The Lord of Being in His life of faith
Presumes to follow? There all language ends,
As tenses in eternity are lost!
Be this enough for sinful man to know,
In Christ the sum and substance of all truths
Are met, and manifest; in Him, full-orb'd
Religion ev'ry saving virtue finds:
For, there alone the heart of God unveils
Its vast expression: in the Face Divine
Of Him, the arch-Elect, before all worlds
In secresy of Love divine embraced,
In Christ, the counterpart of Godhead, shines
That moral radiance which Himself repeats
By humanised reflection. There alone,
The fallen Spirit, with an eye unfilm'd
By grace, from sin and sensual darkness freed,

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Pardon and peace in God for man can find.
All other media which inventive Pride
Presumes to fashion, are but barren dreams:
Man's deity is only dust refined,
Himself re-cast in some ethereal mould,
A finite into infinite enlarged,
And this dilation for a God mistook!
But Thou, Emmanuel! art the Way we come,
The Truth we know, the endless Life secured,
The all in all of God to us reveal'd,
And us to Him restored.—Creation's book
Lies blotted o'er with sin's perplexing stain,
And no erasure can Thy name detect,
In full divinity of sound and sense
Conspicuous, or complete. And, what can Law,
That dreadful paraphrase of Justice, speak
To lawless Guilt, but condemnation dire?
And, how can Reason in her light resolve
That problem, deep as God, and dark as guilt,
How sin is punish'd and the sinner spared,
When falls the sabre of celestial Wrath,
And in one flash both heaven and hell illumes?
Or say, can conscience, whose rebuking voice
In jealous echoes of the jealous God
Is ever sounding through the soul within,
Can this alarmist, to the shrinking gaze
Of guilt, the trembler, mercy's plan unfold?
Ah! no: in Christ alone we Godhead find;
In Christ alone His character evolves;
On Calv'ry's hill God's attributes were throned,
And reach'd a climax when their Lord expired.

MYSTERY OF SUFFERING.

Throughout the universe of God there reigns
A ruling harmony of love and law;
And thus all worlds, by secret link allied,
Together one melodious system make,
Wherein each orb a fated portion fills
In due relation to the boundless whole.
But here, let Reason stand, where Mary stood,—
Under The Cross; nor catechise the work
The filial Word completed, when in flesh
He suffer'd; and His suffering Body taught
How God on time eternity reflects,
And in the mirror of the church's life
Doth glass the features of a sovereign Will,
Secret, and not to faculties create
In flesh, or spirit, e'er to be reduced.
But still, we rest not; and our reason longs
Madly to question what no finite mind
On earth can answer, when our musing eye
Roves o'er the moral waste the church hath been,
And dares to criticise what God hath done
Or Christ permitted, in this world of ours!
For what, but good and evil, strangely mix'd,
Seems the dark mystery of the church's doom?
Here saint and sinner, grace and nature blend;
Angels and Fiends for blood-earn'd souls combine;
All passions, principles, and powers remote,
(From the high daring of celestial hearts
To the low horrors of consummate guilt,)
All strive with each, and each with all conflicts.
And, who can wind his labyrinthine way
Through shades of providence, like these, profound?
We see in part; but when perfection dawns,
Both part and whole shall then Thy name uplift
Almighty! then, the choir of chanting Worlds
Around salvation, one stupendous tide
Of deepening rapture shall for ever roll,
And God His own great Vindication be.

But here, we lisp the alphabet of grace
Alone, and scarcely that at times pronounce.
Infants of time, we yet have much to learn,
And more to suffer, ere we find resolved
The paradox of wrong the church endures.
If to each pang some purpose we could link,
Patience might sing, where now vexation sighs
For wisdom; but the Vision tarries yet!
Between God's purpose and our pang there lies
An Infinite, where baffled Reason, blind
With gazing, would in vain some landmark see.
But grief, when sanctified, is God to man
Himself imparting, for some end conceal'd
Deep in the core of his eternal plans.
Here may we rest; beyond we cannot rise;
Or, on the infinite Unknown we dash
The mind to madness, and our faith to fears.
Perchance, our World to higher Being proves
A Platform, where the truths of heaven enact
Their natures, and to angels wisdom show.
Or, hearts on earth are moral schools to heaven,
And pangs below are preachers to the skies,
While glory shines around each sainted tear
Which faith, or feeling, in our warfare sheds.

Perfect through suff'ring!—such Emmanuel was;
And can the members of that mystic Head
Refuse to echo what their Master felt?
A suff'ring Image must the church become
If with her archetypal Lord complete
Her oneness prove; and what in pangs the Head
Endured, each member must on earth repeat
By thrilling counterpart in truth, and tone,
Of all He suffer'd. Nor in heaven forgot,
Though there unfelt, Messiah's woes remain;
Still through His splendour point the piercing nails;
There in His glory yet the gash is seen;

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E'en on His throne, a sacramental Lamb
Types to eternity the Manhood slain!—
And, like her Bridegroom, must the Bride elect
From suff'ring deep to endless glory climb.

We see by part, but suffer in the whole;
There lies the myst'ry! there our flesh complains,
Hurt feeling staggers, and the heart recoils.
Meanwhile, in vain would Souls their doom avoid,
Or mould, or master: each, in turn, must weep,
Writhe on some rack, or drink the cup of woe
Down to the dregs, if such their God present.
All have their pangs, their penalties, and pains,
Some thorn to fester in the spirit-life,
Or, fret the mind to feebleness, or fear
Unholy. But, the Comforter abides!
And while to sense the church an orphan seems,
The Father pities, and His children find
A secret pasture in the promise left,
Though all look herbless to the eye of men
Carnal, or clouded. Nor will more be felt
Than Wisdom, for some destined rank above
Apportions; cross and crown related are;
The one is suffer'd, as the other shaped,
Responsively. And as the artist's hand
Plastic with genius, to some picture gives
Line after line, and touch on touch repeats,
Till colours image what his mind contains
Of beauty,—so, in faith, experience feels
Pang after pang, till God at length transcribes
That viewless copy of celestial life
His purpose imaged, ere our souls were born.
Or even, as the skill'd refiner bends
O'er his fused metal, in the furnace laid,
And heaps new fire, till back its molten face
His own returneth, by reflection bright,—
So in the flame of hot affliction, man
By Heaven in myst'ry is a while retain'd;
Till, purged of dross, and purified from sin,
At last the metal of the heart is clear,
And back on Deity by love reflects
The radiant image which His glory casts.

WISDOM COMES FROM WOE.

We learn by suff'ring, while by faith we live,
And graces brighten as our griefs expand:
But, where indeed, between the woe endured
And height of glory in a heaven to come
Of being, is the true connection found,—
Baffles our reason, in this cloud of flesh
Now to unfold. Yet this, at least, we learn,
The Head of manhood was a suff'ring Head,
And all His members, by their mystic pangs
But echo back what Thy pure bosom felt,
Eternal Archetype of life and faith,
Whom all things emblem! Here alone, there dawn
Truths which illumine what might else appear
Darkness infernal, deep, and black, and dense
To suffocation. Here, some aims profound,
Whose roots are in eternity's result,
Arrest the tear, and calm to chasten'd awe
Secret rebellions of the soul within.
The good shall suffer; yet, if goodness be
To nature fall'n, but the noble part
Of trial, when by sin-consuming grace
Pure love is deepen'd,—not for this repine
The brave adorers of The Crucified!
They glory rather in the racking fires;
The more of grief, the more of God they have,
And do (what seraphim have never done)
Suffer for Christ!—man's pure distinction this!
His high prerogative, His peerless crown
Appointed. Devils for themselves endure,
And angels, quick as sunbeams, glide and go
At His command, and own Him Liege, and Lord;
But Virtue, by the church's heart reveal'd,
Mounts to a range sublimer, and excels
Beyond the burning Watchers round His throne:
For, she can suffer; and by suff'ring learn
Lessons transcending what the angels teach.

And more than this th' afflicted church evolves.
From Abel's cry, to Luther's convent-groan,
Self was our ruin; into that, direct
From God, creation's first apostate fell;
And out of that, alone can Flesh arise,
By will surrender'd, crucified, and slain,
And by the sovereignties of Will Supreme
Master'd, and moulded. Thus, the saints are train'd
From strength to strength, by educating woes,
To loathe that vampire of creation—Sin!
With hate celestial, and on God to live;
While in that Book, whose promises, like stars,
Rule in the night, a radiant charm they have,
O'er all the dim perplexities of doom
Beaming mild comfort, through the blackest woe
Which palls the christian, or a church portends.

GRIEF AND GLORY.

Glory to grief! when thus for God endured;
'Tis but the pang a Saviour's bosom felt,
Re-echoed, and by peerless faith prolong'd.
The Man of Sorrows forms no men of smiles;
Our hearts must bathe in His baptismal fire,
Or ne'er be whiten'd; Cross and Crown were His:

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We grant it; but, in order each He took;
The first He suffer'd, ere the last He wore.
And as the Bridegroom, must the Bride be form'd,—
Repeat His Cross, and then reflect His Crown;
That Like on earth, in heaven alike may prove,
In grief below, in glory, one above!
So, in eternal consciousness to come,
Salvation will be sympathy entire
'Tween Head and Members—unity august!
When Christ in each will Self from all absorb.

Meanwhile, to us, Eternal Spirit! grant
The wisdom meek, which lives on truth divine,
However veil'd; a waiting mind impart;
And in our weakness show our strength to dwell.
Like as of old, a pensive Learner sat
Low at His feet, and listened to her Lord,
Absorb'd and self-renouncing, be our soul
Before the Cross in docile rev'rence bent.
For Thou, O Christ! amid the fires hast been;
And o'er the flames, which on Thy church advanced,
The promise, “with you, till the end of time,”
Breathed like the spell of some almighty breeze,
And cool'd them into impotence, or calm.—
No! never hath the murd'rous hoof of Hell
Trampled the heart from out the church of heaven;
Within her, life, when all seem'd lifeless, glow'd;
Within her, grace, when all seem'd graceless, dwelt;
Within her, truth, when all seem'd truthless, reign'd;
While, ever and anon, amid the gloom
Which Priest, or Tyrant, or the Devil made,
Star after star in radiant grandeur rose
To shame the midnight of the soul away.
But, chief o'er all the galaxy of lights
To stud the firmament of christian fame,
Shone Luther forth,—that miracle of men!
A gospel-hero, who with faith sublime
Fulmined the lightnings of God's flaming Word
Full on the towers of Superstition's home,
Till lo! they crumbled; and his with'ring flash
Yet sears the ruin with victorious play.

But thou, who o'er the church a thoughtful mind
Haply in moods of mournful awe hast bent,
Revere the fact, whose deep foundations lie
Far in the Infinite, beyond the wings
Of faith, though plumed with apostolic strength,
To follow:—Christ hath God with man conjoin'd
By union so unutterably close,
Divine, unfathom'd, and for ever firm,
That sun shall wither, all the stars wax pale,
Mountains depart, the heavens to air dissolve,
And the dread universe itself shall die,
But, this Conjunction shall unweaken'd stand
When Time is dead, and Nature drops extinct
Into her grave eternal. Boundless truth!
Which out of Deity all other dwarfs
To less than littleness, beyond compare.
All unions type it; all connections preach;
Nature, and art, and pure affection's ties
Are fill'd with emblems, shadowy, dim, and faint,
Th' exceeding glory of this bond to tell:
Wherein, by unity of mystic power,
Christ and His Church are into One transform'd
Colossal Person, Spirit, Life, and Frame,
And Fellowship, and Feeling. Let that Church
Suffer a pang—the Saviour feels it too!
Touch but a Member, and you thrill the Head
With shock electric, on his Throne perceived;
And therefore, Tyrants! when ye wound a hair
Of God's anointed, up to heaven your wrong
Ascendeth, and the heart of Jesus strikes!
Rays in the sun are not so brightly close,
Trees to their root are not so firmly knit,
And streams to fountains not so close allied,
Body with breath, and both with soul combined
Together, as the Church and Christ cohere.
Hence Earth, nor Heaven, nor Hell that fights with each,
The Bridegroom from his sainted Bride can tear.
Thy Maker is thy Husband, Church elect!
And rich eternity thy radiant dower.
And thus, we lift the shout, and song of faith
Victorious: for the Oneness is so true
Between the members and their living Head,
In vain creation may be tax'd for types
Or teaching shadows, to portray its power,
Since mere analogy in light is lost;
Upward, and heavenward illustration mounts,
Till, near the throned Almighty, overawed,
Faith cannot soar, but folds her duteous wing,
Backward recoils, and trembles into prayer.

HUMAN NEED, AND DIVINE SUPPLY.

E'en like an instrument, whose chorded depth
Enwraps the unheard music, but awaits
A master-touch of some awaking hand
To make it vibrate, did the high-strung world
Of truth and feeling for impulsive souls
In solemn hush abide, beneath whose sway
The moral harmonies of ransom'd mind
In mingling swell of holiness, and love,
Once more should waken.—Luther was that soul

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Predestined! he, by grace divinely arm'd,
From the foul grave of papal sin and gloom
The buried Gospel came to disinter.
And let us laurel his intrepid brow
Who faced alone (by all save Heaven unarm'd)
That priestly Giantess of pamper'd sin,
Whose throne was blasphemy by pride upheld;
That brazen Arbitress, whose sceptre robb'd
The King almighty of the soul's domain,
Even papal Rome! who still her wine-cup drugs
With damning charms, and deadly spells; and dares
Within the heart's pantheon yet to shrine
Dark falsehoods, which redeeming truth bemock,
The soul profane, and parody our God.

Eternal hallelujahs rise! and ring
That Grace around, which call'd the champion forth,
And with heaven's panoply his spirit clad
For combat. With the energies of hell
To grapple, with incarnate fiends to fight,
Behold him summon'd! On that lifted brow
Heroic calm indomitably smiles;
And in that lion heart each pulse which beats
Throbs like an echo to the cheer of heaven.
Behold him! grateful Mem'ry, come and gaze;
See Luther, from eternity decreed,
Rise in the majesty of moral force
From superstition's grave to heave the world,
And bid it look upon the Cross, and live.

And oh! what marvels did that Mind achieve,
Which in itself a Reformation was.
For cent'ries, deep the night of falsehood reign'd,
Mildew'd the Soul, and manacled her powers
With fett'ring darkness; cloister'd Learning pined
In cell monastic; Science grew extinct;
The Bible moulder'd in scholastic rust;
That Fountain, from the Saviour's wounded side
For sin once ope'd, by sealing lies was shut;
And, 'stead of His bright garb which Mercy wove
Of perfect righteousness, by Jesu wrought,
Spangled with graces, rich as God's own smiles,
The filthy rags of ineffectual works
Clad the cold skeleton of naked souls:
While on his throne of sacerdotal lies,
The arch impostor, Satan's rival, sat
Self-deified, and ripen'd earth for hell.
Then, Luther rose; and Liberty and Light
The soul unbarr'd, and let salvation in.
Hark! the dead Scriptures, into life recall'd,
Harangue the conscience; lo, the Gospel lives;
Swift from the Cross infernal darkness flies:
Martyrs and Saints, like baffled mock'ries sink
To nothing, by victorious truth dispersed;
O'er fancied merit free redemption reigns;
And in the temple of a soul illumed
No venal priesthood, with parade of lies,
And sacraments of sin, can enter now:
There, Christ Himself by triple office rules,
King, Priest, and Prophet, on the Spirit's throne.

THE SOLITARY MONK.

The solitary Monk, who shook the World
From pagan slumber, when the gospel-trump
Thunder'd its challenge from his dauntless lip
In peals of truth, round hierarchal Rome,
Till mitred Pomp, and cowl'd Imposture quail'd,
And each false priesthood, like a fiend unmask'd
And stripp'd of light fictitiously assumed,
By some detecting Angel, shrunk dismay'd
And shiver'd, in thy vast exposure seen,—
Thee would I image, thou colossal Mind!
For what, though sad humanity's broad taint
Of weakness, here and there thy soul diseased;
Or, harshly quick, or, too severely loud
Some intonations of thy spirit rose;
Yet, in the greatness of thy glorious work
Right nobly art thou, like a second Paul,
Apparent, graced with apostolic zeal;
Waving that banner, on whose blood-stain'd fold
Thy name, Emmanuel! at each ruffling blast
Of conflict, beams with awful brightness forth.

Thee would I vision, and on Mem'ry's glass
Some traces of thy many-colour'd life
In lines of holy miniature reflect.
For in thy destiny our God we find
Himself expounding, by the truth unveil'd.
Upon thy mind, as some prophetic map,
Almighty love mysteriously engraved
An outline wondrous of the work decreed;
Thy moral Self a Reformation seems;
And in each phasis which thy soul presents,
An imaged counterpart of all we trace
Hereafter, in the world's vast scene evolv'd.
And therefore, Hero of a hundred fights
Celestial! morning star of Jesus! rise,
Rise in full radiance; through the cloud of time
Dart the rich beam of evangelic day,
And cause the Church's heart to glow with thee.

But yet, how low, to Reason's carnal eye
Which measures all things by the scale of sense,
The means appointed for the end pursued!
How strangely small those intermitting ways

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By which, to great results, God's wisdom moves!
Yet, once a manger did th' Almighty hold,
When first Messiah's human life-pulse beat
For our behoof. And were not they, who hurl'd
Philosophy from off her Babel-throne
To speechless ruin, and our rescued souls
To the rich fountain of celestial Blood
Directed,—were not they, the peerless Twelve,
Whose words like arrows pierced the heart of Hell
With fire and fearlessness, the low and weak,
Of man unlearn'd, but learn'd in much of God?
E'en so, from out a shepherd's mountain-hut
Far in the wilds of Alpine bleakness hid,
The Swiss apostle ran his high career;
And he, who, with the sun-like mind compared
That Luther in his flaming boldness show'd,
Soft as the moon in mellow radiance seem'd,
The mild Melancthon!—from a clanging home,
A martial workshop, dates his lowly birth.
And Thou! the Reformation's mental spring,
The Bible's loved redeemer from the cell
Where monkish falsehood barr'd its glory in,
Not from the loins which heraldry admires
Didst thou proceed; of poor, but pious blood
Wert thou; a simple miner call'd thee son.

PROLOGUE AND PREPARATION.

When God to matter gave the fiat,—Be!
E'en like an echo, heaven and earth arose,
The instant product of creative Will,
And Will alone. But when His hand divine
The great Idea, 'fore all ages form'd
Concerning Manhood, would in shape express,
Lo! in The Godhead consultation moves,
The Persons think, the Attributes confer,
And, “Let us make him!” is the awful Speech
Which symbols out to human sense, how vast
And wond'rous was the master-piece of heaven,
Who imaged forth the Trinity, when Man
Rose on the scene, as lord and light of all.

Thus Reason, here, may with Religion cry,
“Oh, what a Fabric eloquently deck'd
With strength and grace, our regal nature is!”
A mental structure, for whose living walls
Eternity and Truth foundations were.
E'en such is Man, when fully bodied forth
By daring energies of mental worth,
And virtue. Hence, when heroes pure and high
Rounded and finish'd into full-orb'd grace,
On earth at length are destined to alight,
E'en like some new apocalypse from heaven,
Truthful and deep, and most divinely touch'd
In faculty of heart, and mind, they show
In each high lineament the stamp of God.

And such was he, who burst the jail of thought,
Shaking each fetter from the dungeon'd soul
Of ages; and to 'nighted Faith restored
That creed almighty which the Cross enacts.
But e'en as Luther was through grace confirm'd,
And shaped in secret, by the truth applied
In the lone temple of his God-taught mind,
By man untutor'd,—so, the creedless world
A Hand eternal and an eye unseen
By gradual prelude did prepare, and guide;
That when the true Regenerator came,
A platform might await him; and his Work
Fit audience find, to welcome its advance.

And means there were, successive, stern and slow,
By which, as organs, Providence achieved
Each consummation that His will forecast.
Time after time, some lone Elijah lifts
His wail august for Liberty, and Man;
Truth had a voice; though much unseen remain'd,
Like pearls of beauty in a shell conceal'd.
Soon Dante's hell of poetry began
Full on the Pope to flame a fierce revenge,
For virtue: Petrarch call'd on kings to rise:
Then Genius, with her tongue of many tones,
Learning, and Art, and philosophic Scorn,
At once inspired, their banded forces hurl'd
On the huge vice the Vatican uprear'd.
And, long ere this, the great Arabian Lie
Had rippled into life the stagnant pool
Of priesthood:—foul and faithless at the core,
It yet the unity of God preserved;
And by the scoff of its sarcastic light,
Lurid, and keen upon the monkish cowl
Reflected,—good and gracious work achieved.
Remedial truth all falsehood underlies;
And thus Mahommed's arch imposture did,
Beyond intent, in this high prologue act
A part momentous. Next, from Alpine-homes
The exiled Gospel sent its mountain-cry,
All Europe thrilling. Then, the Schoolmen rose,
And, wiser than their conscious wisdom knew,
Embalm'd each verity their words o'erlaid
In secret amber,—safe from popish tact.
And thus, (so wonderful the links that bind
Thought into thought, along the chain of time!)
From Lombard's heaven-awaken'd breast was thrown
A burning ember of immortal truth
Pure into Wickliffe's; thence, to noble Huss

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It glow'd along to Jerome's kindred mind,
And he to Luther did that spark convey:
And so that Bible-spark illumines now
The hearts of England with its holy life
And lustre, though seven hundred years have roll'd
Their tide of darkness o'er the Schoolman's head,
Where first 'twas kindled by a ray from heaven.

Here are the signs, predictive as profound,
That all betoken, with precursive truth,
Some Advent mighty, which an empire's heart
Shall welcome. These are like a Baptist-voice
The earth haranguing, with its glorious swell.
But when that crisis of the world arrives,
How doth a Hand almighty o'er the scene
Move unbeheld, and write the coming doom!
See Reuchlin, by his classic lore inspired,
Utter aloud to God's dead language, “live!”
And hark! the Bible, like a Hebrew seer,
Again may preach and prophesy to man:
While e'en Erasmus, cold and cautious thing!
(A craven neuter in the cause of Christ)
Whose head was light, but in whose heart no love
Was kindled, rose beyond himself at times,
With blasting irony to sear and singe
The monk-born vices: thus, that orphan'd youth
To God his genius and his love inscribed,
And voiced the Bible with a Latin tongue.

Nor dare we to progressive mind alone
The conflux strange of tendencies, and truths
Refer, which just before the battle-voice
Of the brave monk around the Popedom hurl'd
Its dreadless challenge, into force arrived,
And action. Mark, at once, a mental blaze
Beyond all precedent, by Heaven illumed.
And first, that fearful Thing which rules the fate
Of battle, thund'ring over field, or deck,
With havoc wing'd on its resistless roar,
Is now compounded; next the Magnet comes,
With true polarity, that ever points,
Like sterling principle, to where it tends;
And marks old ocean, like a map with lines
Of knowledge, till the wave-toss'd pilgrims roam
And coast all seas, all countries, and all climes,
Far as free commerce wafts them. Nor, the least
In rank, nor last in the resulting power
Thy fall, Byzantium! Though the Turkish flag
Moved in fierce triumph o'er thy crumbled walls,
Yet did the Orient with a gush of mind
Burst from its mounds, and through the arid West
Pour the rich blood of intellectual life
And learning. Next, an unimagined World
For ages cover'd with Atlantic gloom,
Secret of waters by stern ocean kept
Inviolable, at length, her silence breaks,
And lo, America on Europe smiled,
Shaking the heart of nations with delight!

Marvel on marvel!—each with vaster range,
Or new excitement, thus to Man appeal'd;
Heighten'd the tone of morals and of mind
Awaken'd, roused the soul from monkish sleep,
And thrill'd the student in Platonic bower
Or cloister'd umbrage, with electric throes
Of more than rapture:—for the social frame,
From east to west, did vibrate with o'erwrought
Emotion. Seem'd it then, as if the Earth
Again were heaving with prophetic throbs,
Sent to precede her soon descending Lord.
So fast did providence itself expand,
Nature evolve, and kindled genius rise
And forward into fields of glory rush.

Yet, in this prologue of adjusted means
Heaven-moulded, chief and prime of arts immense,
See, Printing rise, a universe of powers!
That bids the Past become perpetual Now,
Gives reason sway, imagination shape,
To time a soul, to thought a substance lends,
And with ubiquity, almost divine,
For living permanence and local power
Each ray of soul immortally endows.

MIGHT OF THE PRESS.

Thou great Embalmer of departed mind!
Thou dread Magician! by whose mental charm,
A mournful, pale, and solitary man
Who pines unheeded, or who thinks unknown,
Long after dust and darkness hide his grave,
Himself can multiply, with magic force
Beyond the reach of language to explore,
And the wide commonwealth of minds may rule
With sway imperial! Who can image Thee,
Whether to heaven uplifting mind and man,
Or hell-ward both seducing, like a fiend?
Boundless in each thine unremember'd sway!
Thine was a voice, whose resurrection-blast
Peal'd through the catacombs where buried Soul
For cent'ries lay, and lo! with living might
The Fathers burst their sepulchres, and breathed;
Dead Intellect from classic tombs came forth

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Quicken'd, and into active substance changed
By thy vast potency: and then, was felt
The pith of thought, the marrow of the mind
Itself transfusing, like a second life
The old absorbing, as with heat divine.
And since that moment, have not Books become
Our silent prophets, intellectual kings,
Anointed hierarchs of human thought
To vice, or virtue? Are they not like shrines
For truth? cathedrals, where the chasten'd heart
Can worship, or in tranquil hours retreat
To meet the Spirit of the olden time?
Since there, the drama of the world abides
Yet in full play, immortally perform'd.
Still ride the fleets o'er Actium's foughten waves
Before us; patriots fight, and tyrants fall;
Sparta and Corinth, and the famous Isles
Which fought for freedom, till their blood ran o'er
With brave contention, there convene, and clash
Their forces; still the Roman eagle flies
In full-wing'd triumph o'er the subject world;
Cæsar and Pompey yet the earth alarm,
Or, drag their chariot with the captive East;
Battles are raging; Kingdoms lost or won;
Yea, all the genius of gone time is there
In Books articulate, whose breath is mind.

And, was not Godhead in a work like this,
When the World took a most enormous stride
Forward at once, to freedom, life, and law?
Priesteraft and Falsehood (that terrific pair,
Who murder'd Truth, and made the church become
A dungeon, where imprison'd Thought expired,)
Trembled, as if that dooming blow was struck
Which fell'd them into nothingness, or names
For ever: God indeed was now at work,
Though Man, the organ, was alone reveal'd.

BOOKS AND THE BIBLE.

But, why are Books such half-almighty Things,
Making, or marring, whatsoe'er they touch,
With force internal? Whence their wond'rous spell?
Bethink thee, reader! and the answer comes.
The universe itself was once a Thought,
A thought Divine, in depths creative hid;
And so, whate'er this mortal scene invests
Of human action, is but plastic thought
Itself revealing, in some forms without
Apparent. What is half these eyes behold
Of boundless, beautiful, sublime, or vast,
But thought embodied into outer shape,
Or, answ'ring symbol? Arches, cities, domes
And temples, fleets and armies, trades and towns,
Yea, all the might and moral of mankind
To this significance at length arrives,
And backward into thought may be resolved
By fair reduction. Now, if Books be thought
By printing clothed, and palpably endow'd
For its vocation, whether art, or lore,
Poetic vision, or prosaic truth,
Kingdoms immense, or individual Souls
The aim of its predestined mission be,—
Forth to its work that printed Thought proceeds;
And who shall track it, as it rounds the world?
Who can imagine, when 'tis once abroad,
(However humble was its natal home)
The Work it dares, the wonder it achieves?
Black as a Fiend, or like some Angel bright
That Thought in action, may itself approve;
For printing, like an omnipresence, gives
Its power expansion; far and wide it moves,
Reaches all hearts, a host of minds affects,
And executes what none, save God, controls!
Oh, 'tis enough to harrow breath and blood
With chilling horror, thus to feel, and know,
That when some Thinker, who debauch'd his soul
And put damnation into print for fame,
Is cited to the last and long accompt,
His thought is living! like a demon, still
Haunting the world of passion with its power,
Or poison; breathing a perpetual curse,
And dropping hemlock into sensual hearts
Which love the venom which a lie instils;
And thus, for ever! not perchance to cease,
Till Thought and Thinker shall together stand,
Cursed by their victims, at the bar of God!

So great are Books: and what the Bible, then,
By printing voiced, and through all regions sent
To speak the errand of celestial Love!
Here was the Prologue, in consummate form
Develop'd; here the Prelude looks divine:
That God in words, descending into Man,
And there achieving all its creed affirms
Of goodness, that the Bible thus should have
An Organ ready for its godlike mouth,
Here is the Wisdom which on high o'errules,
Making all hist'ry but her echo'd will!

But now, the world is waiting: prescient Hearts
In mute expectance, big with wonder beat,

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Predicting what these powers commingled mean,
Or, Who from out the heaven of truth shall come
Mankind to marshal, in this pregnant hour?
Shall Prince, or Potentate, or armèd Force
Girt by the squadrons which the world arrays,
March in the van of Liberty, and Light?
“E'en by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts!”
Again that motto to Almighty ways
Becomes embodied, and to life transform'd:
For lo! the Reformation's human spring,
Unknown, unseen, in cloister'd shade retired,
Is framed and fashion'd by the Hand Eterne:
Here, from the depths of convent-gloom, He calls
The Man He loves, the instrument He wields,
And moulds him for the mighty Work decreed.
But Him, who now a beacon o'er mankind
Flames in the lustre of his far renown,
The Spirit summons from no royal scene,
From throne, nor palace, nor ancestral hall;
But chooses, in the wisdom of free will,
A fameless Monk, of poverty and prayer,
And leaves the palace for a miner's home.

GOD'S HEROES.

The Kings of mind, who govern from their graves,
Our thoughts their subjects, and our hearts their homes
Perennial, when they first in light emerge,
Like new expounders of almighty Will,
Forth from the secresy of truth unveil'd
Glad tidings bring they, of a Glory meant
Yet to awaken, and the world invest.
Their utt'rance, large; their meditation, lone;
By passion for the Infinite o'erpower'd,
They dart their glances into Things to come;
Intense, beyond the teachings of the soul
To reach, or satisfy. But, how received,
These new Avatars, sent on missions high,
To herald forth eternity in truth
For all who love them? Are loud welcomes rung?
Greetings of head, and jubilees of heart
Do these salute them with applausive joy?
Alas! too holy the vocation far
Of Truth's high Priests, when first behind the veil
Of outward things themselves presume to pass,
And bid us follow, with responsive track
Through the rent shroud their faith had first undrawn.
Time is their justice. When their tombs are rear'd,
Then, Wonder dares to consecrate their deeds;
Will call them, primates in the church of man,
Great Nature's own episcopate they form,
And rule, like metropolitans of mind.

But, mark the conflict when their voice emerged!
Struggles within, and all without them, rose.
Their great Impression was the God unseen,
But felt, an Infinite through finite glimpsed;
Yet, how they falter'd! of themselves afraid,
When Thoughts in vain articulation sought;
Or giant Apprehensions, dim and deep,
Scarce ventured forth in intellectual shape
And bodied meaning! Oft, expression fail'd
In form to realise what feeling grasp'd:
Language was only a prismatic mean
But half refracting, with imperfect ray,
The truth essential, which they purely saw
Single, and one, within the soul contain'd.
But when the mind could stammer forth its tones,
Profound, original, and preaching high
On God, and Nature, Science, Man, and Soul,
No music breathed they to the world's dull ear.
But, harshly strange, and dissonant they seem'd,
With fruitless paradox, for sense unfit
And reason dang'rous! Such the first salute
Prophetic genius from the world obtains:
And such have earth's regenerators met,
From God-called Moses, to the German monk.

But if to Morals and to Man they bring
Authentic tidings from the Throne of Truth,
Divine, yet most disturbing, scowl and scorn,
Affronting coldness, and condemning fears
Assail them ever, with a shameful wrong,
From all who love the ancient, but the new
Abhor, like treason! Thus the world, self-blind,
Hath greeted oft how many a regal Soul
That rules her now, with legislative awe!
Wisdom itself seems heresy to fools;
And freedom is but license to the slaves
Who love the fetters, which their languors fit.
Their light is darkness, and their being death,
And rotting silence all the soul admires,
Admits, or sanctions, in that dormant calm
By cent'ries gather'd o'er imprison'd mind.
E'en like a temple, where the owls retreat,
And the bats lodge within long-moulder'd shrines,
Ope but a window, let a sun-burst in,
And what a screaming anarchy awakes
Where falls the light, or sounding footstep comes!
So, in the temple of deserted Man

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Where sin for ages unmolested breeds,
Or lying Errors long repose enjoy,
If but a day-beam of immortal truth
The gloom dissever; or, a living Thought,
Divine as heaven, original from God,
Down from the skies should suddenly alight,
And walk his spirit with a kingly tread
Majestic, what a host of wild alarms
The priests of Dulness round the stranger raise,
And call it mad, the dead in mind to wake!

MARTYRDOM.

Here is the doom of Hero, Bard, or King:
The cross of hatred first their hearts endure,
And then, the crown of homage on their heads
Dying, or dead, at last cold Justice puts!
Their crown we witness,—has their cross been weigh'd?
We boast their triumphs,—have we told their tears?
We laud their greatness,—have we felt their gloom,
Their lonesome watchings, and their weepings long,
The fret, the fever, and those wasting pangs
Year after year, which wore the heart of Youth
To sickness, ere the laurell'd moment came
When truth and triumph paid high Merit's due?
Result the many only dare to prize;
But still, the process solemn, stern, and strange,
Through stormful agonies, and griefs, and glooms,
By which a Hero to his great result
Attaineth, why should this no homage win?
Luther was great at threat'ning Worms, we grant;
But, greater still in solitude, and tears,
When first he grappled with his fiery heart
And, in the prison of a papal creed,
Panted, and pray'd for evangelic day.

Heroes are martyrs, if their minds be pure
And highly-temper'd; for, the Truth is strange
To men who only by their bodies live,
And to the pageantries and powers of Sense
External yield their sympathies alone;
Or, never down Themselves presume to gaze
With eye reflective: so, when prophets rise,
And utter oracles from deeps of Life
Hidden, and heavenly, from the Flesh remote,
To them they sound like necromantic tones;
Eye, ear, and taste, compose their All in All;
And though around, within, above them moves
And lives, an energising Power Supreme,
Whose vesture is that Visible they love,
They give no credence save to flesh, and form.
Yet, what is genius, but a mouth for God
To speak Himself to Nature, and to Man,
And from the visible and vain of sense
Attract us unto mysteries divine,
But viewless, by external semblance hid?
There, Faith's reality alone is found!
Since all expression which the Outward bears,
Is but a token of God's inner-truth
And purpose. Thus, beneath a veiling shroud
The Infinite an awful Presence robes,
His thought embodies, or reflects its power.

IMPERFECT AT THE BEST.

Yet, what is life, but imperfection's breath,
And human Being, but incarnate fault
E'en at the best, howe'er by grace refined?
Moses was anger'd; David's honour fell;
Paul felt a thorn, and Peter proved untrue.
Genius hath faults, and Luther's none o'erveil.
A brave restorer of departed truth,
No hollow semblance, and no heartless shade
Came he on earth to manifest, or preach.
Manful, but rugged, to the centre bold,
His heart beat fiercely; and his blood ran fire
When Right divine, or some disastrous Wrong
Challenged his faith, or forced his feeling out
In action; then, the soul's tornado raged,
And shook the spirit to its moral roots!
Stormful, and strong, and gusty in his moods,
Oft the black whirlwind from some ireful cloud
Roused his rent bosom with disturbing rush,
And hurl'd propriety from off its throne
Amazed, and master'd. His was battle-life;
Great-hearted being! with a lion plunge
Full on the foe, with all his living fire
Leapt his free soul, magnanimous as firm,
And,—no surrender! for the Truth must fight,
And Faith prove conflict, if she stand sincere.

Spirits may be, like flowers from heaven that fall,
Deck'd with fine beauty, clad with mental bloom
Most delicate, but soon earth's tainted soil
Bedims them; trodden in the dust they lie,
Forgotten, faded, or defeatured things,
Ere yet they open'd their immortal buds
Of virtue, or their perfect fragrance gave.
Not such was Luther's: like some burly oak
Whose boughs wave battle with the tearing winds
And bend, but never break,—his fighting heart
Contended with all mutinies, which came
From prince, or pope, from circumstance, or creed,
And wrestled with them; or, with Samson force
Subdued them, or himself with glorious fall

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Laid prostrate! Sinful oft, his moody ire
Betray'd him; unadvisèd words he spake;
And sometimes, when the fervid heart grew wild,
Scatter'd both friend and foe with burning force
And tameless fury! Like a soul on fire,
The gentle wonder'd, and the wise condemn'd
To see him thus by evil lightnings rent
And harrow'd: but, how soon the tempest died!
When the broad sunshine of forgiving love
Blazed o'er his spirit, like a summer-noon
Settled and bright. Not always hot and harsh
Did nature find him; playful moods had he;
For oft that smiting earnestness of tone
Which scorn'd the false, and cleaved all fiction through,
Priestly or papal, with a forcing might
That flash'd with fierceness, like a sword's descent,
Melted away; and, like an infant lull'd,
Pathetic Luther all the poet-life
Of purest feeling testified, and taught.
Witness, ye tears! that dropt o'er Tetzel's bed
When reft and dying; and o'er thine which fell,
Beloved, and lost, and beauteous Madaline!
Oft in the granite of a soil unhewn
Full many a flower in secret freshness smiles;
And many a stream, where all looks arid blank,
Lurks in the Horeb of some heart, unknown.
E'en such was Luther, with his rocky front
And jagged features, to the foe display'd:
But sweet affections, sanctified, and soft
As ever water'd human breast with love,
Gush'd into force when Feeling's reign began.

LUTHER, AND THE AGE.

Luther had faults, but can a feeble age
When forms heroic, such as olden life
Admired and moulded, are to faith and fact
No more; when little-hearted Truths prevail;
When Mammon chiefly is the standard used,
And God's own world, where angel-wings yet play
In secret motion o'er the homes of men,
Is made an engine, whose mechanic force
A mill can work, or manufacture sway,
The mighty prowess and majestic heart
Of Luther read, with comprehending love?
Belief hath vanish'd in the vast Unseen;
And earth ungodded, to presiding laws
Is given over with a heartless lie,
Till scarce their unbelief some dare believe!—
But Luther's was a lofty soul, which felt
Beyond the body, life's true secret lay;
While faith in Goodness, God, and Truth reveal'd,
Subdued his being with o'ermastering spell.
And thus, by quick intensity o'ersway'd,
He often stumbled, where the colder stand
Securely guarded, in their frost enshrined.

“Luther had faults!” but, oh, ye little Minds
Less in your faith, and lesser still in deeds
Which make the hero, or the man unfold
In full-soul'd daring, while the outer-life
You ponder, have ye pierced the core within?
A fool can censure where a prophet weeps,
When life is only by its faults and falls
Review'd: but underneath, what noble tears,
What pangs remorseful, penitence, and prayer,
What struggles mute, what passionate regrets!
Deep in the bosom—there begins a fight!
And there the battle-scene 'tween Flesh and Faith
Unfolds its grandeur. All without appears
The moral echo of that inward din,
A mere reflection of internal strife
In fitful shadows thrown on human eyes.
Yet, these are chiefly what adjudging sense
Accredits; character from these is drawn;
And so with Luther: bold as blazing fact,
The failings of his outer-life advance
To catch the censure of prosaic eyes,
And hearts which never with emotion sway'd
Themselves, or others. But, the secret fight
Internal, when his wild and wasted soul
Struggled, and strove, contending with the Fiends
Of darkness, baffled oft, and bleeding faint,
And yet, right up ward, through eclipsing gloom,
Through storm and danger, and internal wrong,
From famish'd boyhood e'en to fearless man
Advancing, with a most unconquer'd will
To God and virtue,—who hath laurell'd this
Or wreath'd the record with a just renown?
But, true biography in heaven is writ,
And every heart-beat throbs a record there.

'Tis therefore, by successive falls they rise
Step after step, through stormy grief and gloom,
These Benefactors to the boundless mind,
Patrons of soul, and true philanthropists.
Hail to their glory! Let the sceptic rave;
There's something godlike in the truly great;
They find the lever Archimedes sought,
And fix its fulcrum in the soul of Man
And nobly lift him to our destined skies.
Like parts and portions of the primal True,
Like apparitions from a purer World,
Like human echoes of great Nature's heart,

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Whose beat is holy,—fresh from God they come,
And summon man to virtue; or, expound
Our vast relations with the Infinite.
Their words breathe might; oracular and strong,
Direct from deep Reality they roll
Like inspirations: or, with soul array'd,
Their meanings fall with fulminating burst
Full on the battlements of ancient Crime,
And crush them!—thus, their mental tones
Are sleepless echoes to the ears of Mind
For ever; time with them is all attuned.

Yet, though these Spirits bear th' almighty stamp,
And challenge far beyond what earth bestows
Of homage, yet the world is all unwont
Voices from out the solemn deeps of Thought,
Divine as theirs, to rev'rence, or regard.
And Luther, like his fellow-heirs in fame,
A great minority, a glorious One
A while stood forth, unaided and uncheer'd.
But here is greatness,—when by truth possess'd,
Earth, Sense, and Time, alone to face and feel.
And where, save in the armoury of heaven,
Found the brave monk a weapon for his fight?
And that was Faith! in God, in Good, and Truth,
In Beauty, Wisdom, and celestial Worth,
Heaven-rooted Morals, in the deathless Mind,
But chief, in Duty!—dread and awful Thing!
Which o'er relations from Th' Eternal drawn,
Reaches on high, to where God's throne is rear'd,
And downward to Perdition's wailing hell
Extendeth.—That which holds our being fast,
And binds together with uniting band
All facts, and feelings, faculties, desires,
All that we suffer, fancy, dream, or do
From life's first pulse of reason to the last,
This power and principle of Duty makes;
To finite deed gives infinite result,
Calls the dead Past to resurrection-life,
Harangues the guilty, and that hour predicts
When mem'ry into one concenter'd whole
Gone life shall grasp, and startled Conscience hear
How the last trumpet can our thoughts restore.

OMNIPOTENCE OF FAITH.

Faith was the weapon! by it Luther fought,
Conquer'd himself, and then, the world subdued.
And what is That, but God by man applied
Above all reason, sense, and earth, and sin,
In things heroic, heavenly, or sublime?
From Abel's worship, e'en to Samuel's word
Faith was a magic which all wonders did;
Whether the pausing sun its cry obey'd
Or, the Moon hearken'd to its holy spell,
Or, Red Sea parted, by its kingly voice
Cloven, and balanced like a billowy wall
On either side, for heaven's anointed Host,
Scatheless the fire, or mute the lion's mouth
Became,—whatever in the kingdoms three
Of nature, providence, or grace, was done,
Faith was the doer, at whose potent cry
Empires and thrones, and alien armies fell,
Weakness grew strength, the mortal, half divine!

And what, without it, seems this fallen world
But Pandemonium, with a purer name?
Clothed in hell-fire, come any Shape of sin,
Take any form, satanic Guile! but this,
The Infidel!—the fellest blight which falls.
No foul elixir of a fiendish lie
So baneful as the cup, which Unbelief
Drains to the bottom with delirious joy.
Oh! 'tis a wasteful, with'ring, black disease
That to the vitals of all virtuous thought
And wisdom, sends a paralysing shock;
The very life-blood of all goodness dies
Before it; like a heart-fiend, lo! it rules;
All forms of excellence and feeling die,
The Beautiful departs, the Brave expires;
Hope hath no heaven, and fear no hell to face:
All high relations are at once relax'd
With God, and duty; self and passion rage
In the hot furnace of a seething heart
Resistless; men are now but fiends, with flesh
Apparell'd; lust becomes a brutal flame,
And all those moral harmonies, which make
Nature a noble, Man a godlike thing,
Have perish'd! Life is then a form of death;
The heart's insolvent; mind a bankrupt too;
Jehovah in eclipse Himself retires,
Till thus, all ghastliness the earth appears,
Orphan'd of God,—a suicidal world!

Here was thy rock, thy fortress, and thy rest,
A faith intense, beyond mutation firm,
Whose solid basis was th' eternal Heart
Open in scripture, by the Spirit read,
But in the life of Jesus heard to beat
With pulse almighty, in its love for man.
Here was thy spell, thy secret, and thy sway,
Thy lock of strength, unsever'd and unshorn.
Luther! in this thine earthly comment lies.
Here is the key, which all thy soul unlocks,
And lets mute Wonder, with exploring gaze
Each hidden region of thy spirit view.
Faith to thy being sun and shield supplied,
Summon'd the soul, and nerved the noble heart
With zeal untamed, to burn, or bleed, or die,
But tremble never!—Thine was spirit-life,
Whose solemn breathings were from scripture drawn,

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And adoration; while, both heart and head
Motives and movements from the world to come
Divinely influenced with inspiring force,
Or sanction. Thus, thy mission was complete,
Thy virtue safe, and thy vocation seal'd.
Whether we mark thee, when that rugged face
Beam'd in bold triumph o'er the flaming Bull;
Or on thy forehead, where intrepid thought
Throned its high meaning in the hall of Worms,
Admiring Hist'ry fix her spell-bound gaze;
Or grateful Fancy, by the gospel led,
Bend o'er thy Bible, when some midnight-lamp
Lighted each feature, as the truths divine
Rose into life, by thy translating touch
Restored, or brighten'd,—still, in all we find
Faith was the secret power, whose shaping charm
Moulded the man, when most he grew sublime.

And, whatsoe'er our rank, degree, or lot,
Giant or dwarf in morals, or in mind,
'Tis faith alone true character can build.
Not as we learn, but as we live, we are;
And as we live, with things divinely pure,
These in their depths, we rightly understand.
Since faith is rooted in eternal life;
And all fair promise in the tree of man
Blossoms from thence, or dies a mocking show
Fruitless, and fragile. Give us faith, O God!
Faith in Thyself, and that will Thee impart;
Chaste will life be, and calm its closing hours,
To them who have Thee, all their hearts and souls
Possessing ever, and by them possess'd.
In Thee, and by Thee,—thus they live, and love,
They think, they suffer, what they act, achieve!
In all things, heaven and holiness abound;
Minutest objects Thine hand-writing prove,
And Life becomes one grateful hymn to Thee.
So, when that trump, whose archangelic peal
Shall sound the tocsin of creation's doom,
Thunders its challenge, Faith shall then arise
And, firm as Jesus on The Judgment throne,
Look on thy face, Eternity! and smile.

THE CHILD PROPHESIES THE MAN.

The hand of Jesus on thy heart, O child!
In love was laid; He watch'd its hidden play,
And heard it throbbing with unspoken prayer.
Thou fair inheritor of mortal flesh,
Typing the kingdom of the unattain'd!
Prophet! with mighty revelations mute;
Thou priest! with sacrifice of soul to come;
Thou king! whose monarchy young feeling rules,
Meanings around thee, full of heaven declare
'Tis like religion, when we look on thee.

A deep heart thrilling with the Unavow'd,
A spirit dark'ning with the Undescribed,
And his whole being rock'd, and urged, or rent
With big emotions, beautiful and strong,
On Mansfield plains, behold, that destined Boy,
All that is great in earth, or sky, adore.
Earnest he is, and most intensely true;
Free-hearted, bold, with open forehead graced,
Rude as the wave that roughens in the wind
Resistless; gifted with a fervid soul,
Mirror'd by eyes, where mental radiance beams,
And yet, withal, by sadness mildly touch'd
At being's centre; meditative, lone,
And quiet often, as the placid cloud
Cradled at twilight in the lulling west.

The vernal freshness of life's dewy morn
Bedecks his nature, like a magic bloom,
And mantles all things. Now, with dreadless play
Opens the heart at feeling's lightest touch;
Time hath not barr'd it with those jealous bolts
By Prudence framed, which bid the stranger wait,
And knock for years, before he enters in
To find a welcome. All is bold, and free,
Unguarded; giving forth a quick response
To each appliance from the passing scene;
Promptly as flowers to breezes yield their scent,
Or boughs their music to the playing winds
That bend them: such is youth's excited frame,
And such, though brief the guiding annals be,
Was Luther's. Genius is a glorious one;
And all her children like impression bear
Of their high parent. This, in after-life,
Back on dim boyhood darts explaining gleams,
And proves the child then prophesied the man.
Luther in germ, may now in heart be seen;
For, what is manhood, but the child drawn out,
By mere expansion of that moral seed
Which buds and blossoms into perfect man,
Whose ripen'd germ is character full-blown?
And now, fair Beauty, Grandeur, Form, and Grace,
Yea, all the felt significance of life
Inner, and deep, begin their blended reign;
And so inspire him, that material earth
Turns one vast mirror to envisage mind.
And with what boundless, sateless, unsubdued
Young appetite, his spirit thus partakes,
At each fine inlet, all this God-made world
Before him, like an inspiration spread!
E'en as a sail to catch the coming breeze,
So boyhood opens its expectant breast,
Panting for beauty, at each conscious pore.
And hence, in all things youth's poetic faith

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Beauty perceives; or, by perception makes
The beautiful, a virgin heart admires.
Thus, flowers are fancies by the Earth produced;
The clouds, emotions of the Tempest born,
The arch of heaven, how eloquently high!
A bright archangel of the burning east
The Sun ariseth, on his wings of light
How watch'd, and welcomed! Then, comes Night august,
A dread magician! with her sybil-stars
Attended; and the twilight Sea is made
Creation's poet, with his billowry lyre
Rolling for ever an unconscious chant,
Or broken swell of oceanic hymns.
Blood, heart, and brain, the beautiful inhale;
Matter and mind a very duel fight
By sweet contention, in some high-wrought mood
Of young entrancement! Forms without, appeal,
And thoughts within, like answ'ring music, play;
Till life itself a lovely poem seems
Tender, but touch'd with most impassion'd tones.
So rapt is youth, and fervidly entranced
When genius fills it with her hallow'd fire,
And all the open Secret of the world
Round a lone heart its earthless magic brings.

Such the boy, Luther; simple, rough, and rude,
A thoughtful earnestness his brow enthrones
Beyond all shrinking. His the cloudless heart;
And men may read it with a ready glance.
Like glass transparent, do his actions show
That hidden wheel-work which the heart involves.

GENIUS, SOLITUDE, AND SYMPATHY.

Genius was thine, thou heaven-commission'd Boy!
But surely, Sorrow was thy guerdon too;
Since ne'er doth greatness in a bosom lodge,
But Sadness thither, like a shade, attends,
Its true companion. In this faded world
Our graves and tears are almost equal, now;
And, e'en at best, light-hearted youth must bear
A burden voiceless, and the pang unbreathed
Of many a dark and undevelop'd mood.
The earth is exile; and for Home we pine
How often! when high visitations come
From whence we know not, and the mind o'erwhelm.
As if some Angel by the flesh immured
Our Spirit were, within whose conscious powers
The sounds and splendours of ethereal life,
In dim remembrance, were at times renew'd.—
And did not he, whose pure vocation was
The Infinite with finite things to join,
Wrestle with thoughts, his yearning boyhood strove
In vain to answer? Felt he oft no thirst,
Like a young Tantalus, by mocking bliss
Encompass'd, melting from the parchèd mind?
And did not Dreams, and Solitude, and Night
Profoundly move him, till prophetic thoughts
Imaged the future? Rapt in speechless awe,
Ponder'd he not on that behind the Veil,
When round him, like a belting zone which binds
All time, all scene, all circumstance, all change,
Divine Eternity in shadow came?

We know not this; but, e'en as eagles soar
And sky-ward through the rending storm-cloud mount
With plumes unbaffled, Luther's wingèd soul
Against the blast of Circumstance did beat,
And struggle upward to a destined sphere.
From want and woe his educated will
The glory of its resolution caught;
E'en from the cradle, tears his teachers made,
And suff'ring, hard as adamant, engraved
Lessons which left throughout all time their trace
Instructive. Thus, amid the true and stern,
And keen realities of testing life,
The Boy was rounded into full-orb'd Man
And fitted for his function. Thus, a Soul
Predestined, for its prophet-work was train'd,
And grew heroic: till at length, the world
In full apocalypse of all its powers
Emerging shall behold it act, and speak.
And like the hammer of a christian Thor
Down on the Curse of christendom and man
Descend, with most annihilating crash,
His tones of thunder and his truths of life!

But, in those powers auxiliar, which expand
The young Reformer, feeling play'd its part;
And that, perchance, beyond all others, pure.
His was a mother, from whose heart of love
Sacred and deep, with fine devotion full,
As from a shrine, his lisping boyhood took
Counsels of grace, oracular and fond.
And who can say, how much that Luther show'd
In his high work of majesty and mind,
Which grateful Empires with their homage crown,
Sprang from a look, a warning, or a word,
A mother wielded, when she taught him God?
And ever thus, from love maternal spring
Feelings and powers, which o'er progressive life

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Reign with a subtile, secret, holy spell:
And deeds, and darings which have moved the world
A cent'ry forward, from a mother's lip
Caught the first glow whence inspiration came.

Yet, bleak the lot his boyish prime endured!
And sad, indeed, and merciless as dark
The shades of circumstance around him fell;
While yet, no precious dawn of grace appear'd
His soul to lighten through domestic gloom.
But, on his cheek a blanching terror came
When He was named, within Whose wreathing arms
Of mercy, once, a folded infant smiled!
Foodless, and friendless, oft the fainting boy
Far from his home, with none, save God, his guide,
In Magdeburgh from house to house was doom'd
A meal to beg; and thus, by Heaven was school'd
To hard experience, when Hereafter came.
“Bread for the love of God!” hark! Luther chants
From door to door, through Eisenach's winding street,
Mix'd with a group, as wan and worn as he
Of students poor. But lo! as once he lay
Beneath the umbrage of a cottage-tree,
Alone and pensive, while the leaf-shades fell
Like soft expressions on his speaking face
Of suff'ring, sad and sweet the hymn he sung;
The very echo of his soul was there,
And, like the fragments of a broken heart,
His shatter'd feelings trembled into song.
But not in vain that plaintive scholar mourn'd;
For on the ear of Ursula they sunk,
Those tones of truth, like tears upon some heart
O'erburden'd, dropt from Friendship's genial eye.
Never again shall that pale youth despond
In Famine's grasp, through days of pining gloom!
At once, both heart and home their shelter ope,
And, like the Shunammite, her all she shares
With him, the homeless boy of sorrow, now.

Blessings be on thee! Cotta's lowly bride,
And praise immortal, for the feeling hand
Which dealt thy substance; and the angel-voice
That, rich as dew-fall on a summer eve
Descending, when the fev'rish earth-sod pines,
Besoothed the world's great benefactor, then!
For here, by want unchill'd, by care unworn,
Bosom'd in calm domestic, Luther builds
By soft degrees, his mental being up.
Science, and Art, and Lore, that lovely trine!
Around him throng, and with their blended smiles
The budding energies of mind attract
Forth into blossoms of expanding force,
And freshness; e'en as sunshine tempts
The hue of flowers, and harmonies of spring
To full expression. Home of halcyon ease!
When the loud roar of his hereafter-life
Deafen'd the heart, how oft did Luther love
That sabbath-haven of the soul to haunt
With mem'ry's eye: and once again recal
The bliss of tranquil being, when the noise
Of man's great world with no disturbing sound
The soul distracted: like the far-off waves
To one who, pensive at his window, dreams,
When twilight o'er the palpitating breast
Of Ocean melts in rosy calm away,—
The soften'd echoes of a distant world
But served to make the hush of home more dear.

And Music, too, her poetry of sound
Evoked: for oft, when Evening's pallid veil
Curtain'd the clouds with beauty; or, the Moon
A mild entrancement from her beam inspired,
Did Luther hymn the golden hours to rest
With deep-toned chants, and melodies divine;
Where voice and lute each other's echo seem'd,
So richly one their combination grew.—
When years had flown, and Europe's grateful hand
Round Luther's name a wreath of glory twined,
And at his feet the heart of Empires bow'd
Admiring, Cotta's home, still unforgot,
Was outlined in his mindful heart of love
Serene as ever; while his voice proclaim'd,
By gallantry and grace at once inspired,
There's nothing sweeter than a woman's soul
When Truth divine erects her temple there!

UNIVERSITY.

“Who prays the most, will study best;” so spake,
In noble answer to official pride,
A young Reformer, when th' unfolding gates
Of Erfurth from his asking eye retired,
As pale he stood, her letter'd walls beside
Intreating entrance there. And now, commenced
The waking myst'ries of his mind within!
Around him, more and more, dread shadows fell,
Which seem'd reflected from Almighty frowns;
While conscience, that pale miniature of God!
In outlines faint, the Holiness Supreme

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Began to image. Morning, noon, and night,
With soul intense, and heart of upward gaze,
How oft did Luther on the wings of hope
Rise out of earth, heaven's tearless home depict,
And on Christ's bosom pillow all his cares!
'Twas then, while sensitive at ev'ry pore,
His soul lay open to the pregnant beams
Of truth eternal, from the heavens derived,
That Mercy-seat of everlasting mind,
The Bible!—first on Luther's spirit breathed.
Yet, little thought he, when the dust-worn shelves
Were traced, some intellectual food to find,
How God in language to the conscience speaks
When faith in scripture hears the Spirit there.
And scarce could Seraph wave his wings of light
With ecstasy of more celestial glow,
Than did the student, with his raptured eyes
To heaven upraised, the heart's rich anthem peal
Of thankful wonder, for this costly boon!
That moment was the Reformation's seed;
That Volume, then, the universe outweigh'd
In mental preciousness and moral power!
For in its pages slept those living germs
Of principle, from out whose depth have sprung
The faith, and freedom of a christian world.

FALLEN NATURE IN RELIGIOUS FORMS.

Say, how can man be justified by God?
Challenged eternity would echo, “how,”
But from The Cross responding grace replies
To this high question: faith in Christ is life,
And love, and righteousness, completely fit
To each vast claim of violated Law.
Thus, conscience finds no compromise involved;
Nor Mercy from the hand of Justice grasps
The sceptre, and her awful head uncrowns;
But there, all Attributes divinely blend
In one rich centre of consummate light,
And God, with most benignant glory, smiles
His goodness forth, o'er ransom'd souls and worlds.

But he, pale thinker! in portentous gloom
Robed by the rags of papal righteousness,
Was shiv'ring yet: around his spirit coil'd
The clankless fetters of condemning law;
And upward, when his heart to gaze presumed
A moment, soon it shrunk, appall'd and dim,
From God's dread eye-glance, flaming with the curse!
Dark wrestler with the pangs of sin untold,
Silence and solitude his haunt became,
Transforming nature, till the soul was typed
In all he witness'd, of the bleak and wild.
Down lonely vales, and paths of soundless gloom,
He loved to meditate, and learn'd to mourn;
But, chief the night-blast, with its hollow yell
Rung from the Tempest's riven heart of sound,
Becharm'd him, when beneath the wat'ry moon
Late roaming. Still, the crisis came at last!—
'Twas summer; and with crimson eye of fire
Full o'er the pine-tree boughs the west'ring Orb
Sunk flaming; like a furnace glow'd the air
In breezeless trance, while not a bird-wing moved;
And forest-leaves, as by some fixing spell
Enchanted, like the lids of slumber, hung
Subdued, and motionless: so deep the hush,
Your very heart-pulse strange and loud appear'd;
When, lo! the blacken'd cope of heaven divides,
And flashes; re-divides, and with one fold
Of sheeted flame the firmament involves.
Hark! peal on peal redoubling, and return'd
With raging echo, till heaven's arches ring
And vibrate; then, in one convulsive burst
The clouds are clash'd to thunder, and descends
Down at his feet, in supernat'ral roar,
A death-bolt!—Harmless as the rain-drop fell
The blasting ruin; Luther, in the shade
Of that great Hand, Whose hollow hides the church
From storming earth and hell, was all secure,
Though death glared round him. What a scene was there!
In kneeling agony, with eyes of awe
To Heaven upturn'd, as if the judgment-pomp
And equipage of heaven's almighty King
Emerged apparent, Luther throbb'd, and pray'd;
And vow'd his after-life to God alone,
If safely rescued from the whelming storm.
So sank a great Apostle, when the blaze
Bright as That form of Glory whence it fell,
Abash'd him into blindness, and he heard
The mournful thunder of Messiah's lip
Rebuke him, till his conscience rock'd and reel'd.

But now, all faithful to his word, sincere
In darkness, to the blinding creed he loved,
Hark! on their hinges grind the massive gates
Of St. Augustine's cold and cloister'd pile,
And in the clang of those reclosing doors,
The knell of Luther's freedom! Darkly bound
By dread theology's remorseless chains
Of monkish falsehood, in the deep of night,
Fresh from the haunt of social youth he comes
Self-exiled, and sincere, in convent-gloom
Amid the graves of unproductive mind,

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Where dead religion putrified to fear
And fear to superstition,—there to lift
His soul to God, and fashion it for heaven!
Yet, mark in this eternal Wisdom's plan.
A dungeon'd martyr, on whose haggard limbs
The rust-worn chain its branding trace hath delved,
When free again beneath the skies to walk,
Inhaling liberty from each loved breeze
Which carols round him, chief o'er all can tell
How priceless to the heart pure freedom is!
And thus did Luther, by whose dreadless hand
Of truth, base fetters from the mind were fell'd,
As captive, first by dark experience learn
How deep that dungeon of the spirit was,
Where Roman witchcraft plunged, and plagued mankind!
Yes, he, the champion of Jehovah's cause,
Whose bold harangues, like Alpine thunder-peals
Hereafter shook the Vatican to shame,
Himself once crouch'd, in martyrdom of zeal,
Beneath the lashes of a monk's stern lip
In silence; wound the clock, and swept the floor,
And begg'd, a charter'd mendicant, from house
To house, the bread of blushless charity!

But, found he there the holiness he sought?
Did peace divine in purity descend
Down on his conscience, like the calming Dove?
Ah! no; in vain the convent's round of rites,
The fastings dull, the macerations dire,
The penance long, the midnight-watchings pale,
All the mean clock work of monastic life,
Wheel within wheel, by superstition turn'd!
From righteous acts no righteous nature flows;
First form the nature, then the acts arise
Spontaneous, free, by fertile love produced,
Not pleading merit, but proclaiming Christ
Within, by transcript of His life without.
For, how in Self can man salvation find,
When self is sin, connat'ral and corrupt?
But, like that Bible, which his sateless eyes
Read oft and oft, with most devouring gaze
Of faith and feeling, Luther wore the chain
Which round the soul rank Superstition binds.
Yet, oft the heavings of his spirit rose
In dark reflection, to his pale-worn face!
While e'en the whisper of that still small Voice
Which cowards all, but christians maketh none,
Beneath the roof of his o'erarching cell
Raged into moral thunder, when stern thoughts
Of God in judgment, tore with tort'ring might
And mystery, the troubled mind within!
Thus, like a spectre, through the cloisters moved
With fruitless sigh, and ineffectual groan,
Day after day, all spirit-crush'd, and worn,
The helpless Luther, till the Cross appear'd:
From holy love then true repentance sprang;
And faith, like Mary, at the feet of Christ
Attending, hung upon His lips, and lived.

REVIVAL.

Celestial love! no self-created sound
In the cold depth of man's corrupted heart,
But rather, a responsive echo, waked
By Love supernal, art Thou, when sincere.
By God's to man, man's love to God begins;
And christianity is Christ received,
The soul possessing, and Himself possess'd.
Then thaws the heart, however iced and dead,
In tears which glow with gratitude divine.
So Luther felt, when Love's almighty voice
Becalm'd him; round the Cross he ever read
The page of heaven, and in that Fountain wash'd
His soul to whiteness, which for sin unclosed
In streaming mercy from our wounded Lord.
Light, peace, and order round his being throng'd
In rich communion; prayer and praise arose,
Like native incense from the soul renew'd;
And holiness, man's paradise regain'd,
No effort now, but second nature seem'd,—
Not labour done, but life itself enjoy'd.
Yet, who can tell, as stern-eyed Law retired
And the mild Gospel o'er his conscience breathed
Like Jesus, when He sigh'd the breath of peace,
How on his heart the Bible's image grew,
Till, like a throbbing counterpart, it beat
In living echo to the truth it loved!
While doctrines now, which once with scowling front
Black as the shades which over Sinai hung,
Appall'd him, soft as Christ's own pity, smiled.
No more the penance vile, with venal aim
To bribe Eternal Justice, was achieved:
In Christ her all-in-all stern Conscience found
And, sprinkled with His blood, her claim withdrew
For ever: penal Law its lightning veil'd;
And when from sickness, pale and purified
The convert of the Cross in health arose,
He clung to Jesus with a clasping soul
Devoted, lifted high o'er legal fears,
And from His wounds saw earth's atonement flow.

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PREACHER AND PULPIT.

“Go! stand the living and the dead between,
Take the rich censer of Messiah's grace
And stop the Plague.” Such looks the Office high
To him appointed, who the tidings glad
Proclaims of Liberty to souls condemn'd
In the black dungeon of the Curse to writhe,
And weep for ever. Well may dread, sublime
As holy, soften'd o'er with human shades
Of feeling, round some youthful Herald steal,
When first the embassy of Pardon rolls
In strains of heart from his excited lip,
Which vibrates, like a chord by music thrill'd,
Master'd by young emotion. What a theme!
God in our Flesh, to save that Flesh, array'd,
The Infinite within the finite lodged,
The form Almighty in a frame all weak,
The dread Creator on the Cross unveil'd
In bleeding glory!—Heaven, and Earth, and Hell,
Eternity and Time, and Sin and Grace,
The choral anthems of the blood-bought Church
Circling the Lamb with coronation-joy;
Or, wild Perdition's cry, in lurid flames
Stretch'd on a rack of self-tormenting ire,—
These are the elements combined to throw
Around a Preacher that commanding spell
Of awe, which makes the earthen Vessel bend,
To think it treasures such a peerless trust!

And, who can dare himself sufficient deem
For work so fearful, where seraphic Minds
May travail in the greatness of their strength,
And yet, not scale its altitude divine?
Oh, Thou! Whose office 'tis the Word to bless
And quicken, till it breathes a living grace,
Thee may we ever prove in presence nigh
As Great Inspirer; Whose anointing power
Alone can tune the “sounding brass” to Heaven's
True note, and bid some “tinkling cymbal” do
In mortal accent, an immortal work!
Whether beneath yon bow'd cathedral roof
Of vastness, while the organ's billowy peals
Roll like a sea of melody and might
Down the dim nave, and long-retreating aisles,
Thy Word is preach'd; or in some Saxon fane,
Where rude simplicities, of ancient mould,
Linger in stone's most exquisite decay;
Wherever on the tide of human breath
Floats a rich argosy of Gospel-truth,
As Christ appointed, may dependence be
The preacher's motto, and the preacher's mode;
Dependence meek on that concurring Grace
Of Him, the Bible's Author, by Whose light
Alone our sermons live, and souls are saved.

FIRST SERMON.

So felt the young Reformer, when he rose
Within thy square, high-fated Wittemberg!
Where the grey walls of St. Augustine's fane
Crumble in low decrepitude, and dust;
And from his pulpit, piled with simple planks,
Blew that loud trumpet of Salvation's truth,
Whose echoes yet the heart of empires stir.
Eye, cheek, and brow, with eloquence array'd
As though pure spirit would incarnate be,
Or mind intense would burn its dazzling way
And be apparent,—like a Saxon Paul
Flaming with truth, the fearless Herald pour'd
Himself in language o'er the list'ning throng
Around him! With a mental torrent ran
The rich discourse; and on that flood of mind
Nearer and nearer to the Lamb's white Throne
The soul was wafted, while for Christ he spake,
And hid himself behind the Cross he raised.

A more than Hercules, to cleanse a church
Where priestly falsehood stabled all its guilt
Through cent'ries dark of domineering crime,
So seem'd he then; and in that sermon gave
A noble prelude of the trumpet-blast
Predestined from his daring lip to roll
Hereafter, when from lethargy and lies
He roused the Autocrat of Romish priests
In cruelty, and curses, till there came
An avalanche of everlasting truths
Down on the Popedom, in those thund'rous words
Which crush'd it, like th' apocalyptic Stone
Hurl'd by God's angel through the blood-red sea.

METROPOLIS OF ANTICHRIST.

To shameless Rome, the capital of sin,
When Crime in canonised pretension smiled,
And Pride and Lust pontifically reign'd,
At length, great Luther comes. The glare of skies
O'er which the mercy of no soothing cloud
Had floated, vainly tried his toil-worn frame;
For still, o'er Alpine crags, by torrents wild,
And hoar ravines, within whose rocky depths
Yell'd the loud streams their everlasting cry,
The Monk of Wittemberg, with eager step
And soul expectant, sought the seven-hill'd Queen
Of cities; till, behold! in glimm'ring haze
Her turrets, towers, and giant temple-spires
At length emerge: and low upon the ground,
In kneeling homage, falls her duteous son,

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To breathe his blessing o'er maternal Rome,
Mother, and Mistress of the churches all!
But when her pillar'd streets of pomp he trod,
And on those ruins, eloquent and vast
Around him in sublime confusion piled,
Gazed with devotion,—what a gushing sense
Of ancient glory through his being swept!
The past in tow'ring resurrection rose
Bright from the tomb of ages; while the air
Which Peter breathed, and Paul himself inhaled,
Play'd round his temples, like a breeze from heaven
New-wafted! Rome and rapture were combined;
And Luther, in one lofty dream of soul
Enchanted stood, and drank the glorious scene;
As if Religion from the very stones
Was preaching where Apostles once had trod,
And over which the martyr's flame of death
Gleam'd in dread radiance, like a glory now.

But, soon the bandage of imposture fell!
And then, e'en like the Arch-fiend's mystic pomp
Summon'd before Emmanuel's heaven-bright gaze,
So fleetly vanish'd into viewless air
Thy pageantries, thou Babylon of guilt,
And scarlet Lady with the costly blood
Of God's elected, drunken and bedew'd!
Since, then reveal'd in all thy hideous truth,
He found thee but a leprous church of lies
By ages putrified, in papal form.

Oh, grace divine, and wonderful as deep,
That Rome and Luther should confronted be!
And there, in Superstition's heart, one text
Almighty, like a thunderbolt of truth
Down from the throne of Revelation cast,
Should raise him, while he crouch'd in dismal faith,
Deluded! Thus, the Champion for his cause
Was train'd; and thus from Rome herself he drew
Weapons of might, whereby her powers would fall.
Hence, swift recoiling from his task abhorr'd,
Uprose the brave Reformer! free and firm
For ever: “By his faith the just shall live!”—
Thus came a Text from Inspiration's lip:
Religion, then, and Luther's mind arose
Erect; upon the rock of faith alone
Together did they face the frowning Hell,
And bid our spirit in the Lord stand free!

INDULGENCES.

“Lo! at yon gate,” the Mercuries of sin
Are crying, “Stands the awful Grace of God!”
And, in one moment, like a moral wave
Heaves far and wide the town's excited heart;
Council, and nuns, and priests, and monks advance,
And motley crowds, from ev'ry lane and street
Are rushing, while the festive town-clock peals
A loud hosannah from its lofty spires,
And tapers flash, and greeting cymbals sound,
To meet the great Procession. See! they come,
In robes how costly! There, in cushion'd pomp
The Bull of grace, whereby the Godhead's hands
Are bound, and His dread thunders must awake
Or sleep, as priestly conjuration bids!
For now, before a wooden cross uprear'd
Bedeck'd with Leo's blazonry of pride,
The loud-voiced Tetzel takes his stand profane:
Prime vender he! beneath whose venal lip
Heaven's attributes, as in a mart exposed,
Are purchased by Indulgence; Christ is sold
In pardons! Sin itself, before conceived,
Or acted, by the Pope's almighty Bull,
Shall not be damning: whatsoe'er Desire
May dream hereafter, through its charm absolved,
Shall be forgiven!—“Down this cross there flows
A grace like that the Saviour's bleeding side
Dispersed; but hark! from deeps of ghastly woe
Where yelling Spirits clang their chains of fire,
Tormented parents, friends, and children, lift
Their tongues uncool'd, and cry for needed alms
To bring them from that red Abyss of wrath,
Where scorch their souls in purgatorial flames!
Let but your money, with its golden clink,
Yon chest descend, and, lo! at once escaped,
Those dungeon'd Spirits, wing'd by papal grace,
Full into heaven's bright welcome flee!”

So cried that dread impostor; and the souls
Of myriads, by anointed lies seduced,
Imperill'd; Christ himself, in blacker shame
Than once the Cross of Calvary o'erhung,
Was openly to mocking Hell exposed;
Eternity a mart of sin became,
Or, papal auction, where that grace was sold
For filthy lucre, which the costly Blood
Which warm'd Emmanuel's veins, alone procured;
And 'gainst the purity of Heaven's high throne
The breath of human blasphemy arose
From Pope, and priesthood. Seal'd the Bible, then!
And sure, if ever down a Seraph's cheek

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Roll'd the rich tear immortal feeling sheds,
It trickled now, when thus religion dared
In words divine God's heart of gracious love
To libel; Christ's own pangs for venal lies
To barter, till the Truth of heaven betray'd,
In priestly suffocation sank, and died.

But, there is mercy in thy myst'ry lodged,
Eternal! Out of darkness cometh light
By Thee evoked; and, while the anarch sin
To mortal judgment, in its clouded gaze,
O'er time and circumstance sole monarch looks
Ascendant, all the waves of human will
In lawless riot though they toss and plunge,
Within the circle of Thy will supreme
Alone are heaving; if they rise, or fall,
'Tis only as Thy secret law ordains.

REFORMATION.

Pale with devotion, wrestling long and lone
With God in prayer, behold! the lion heart
Of Luther beats with supernat'ral pulse,
And throbs for Deity, and great design.
Stung to his very soul with piercing shame
Beneath a lie to see heaven's truth expire,
And trampled Scripture gasping in the dust
Of low venality, and priestly lies,
Upon the door of Wittemberg's dark pile
He fasten'd then, with hand divinely firm,
Ninety and five of those all-fearless truths
Which shook the Popedom, and the World redeem'd
From charms infernal, to the Cross alone.
Faith, hope, and love, upon the Rock of souls
Were founded; Grace in gospel-freedom rose,
From Schools and sophistry at length escaped;
And from the fountain of Emmanuel's Blood
Both peace and pardon in conjunction flow'd,
Free, full, and glorious from the heart of God,—
Giver and gift in amnesty combined!
And yet, what eye save His, before Whose beam
Time, place, and all contingencies retire
As though they were not, in this daring act
Of Luther, heard the Reformation's pulse
Of Life and liberty begin to beat?
Or who, among the crowd that rush'd to read
In tumult wild, upon the church's gate,
Those Words, which dash'd Indulgences to air,
The silent thunder of their strength foretold
Upon thine eve, All-Hallows? Monk and priest
And Pope, and hoary-headed Falsehood, then,
Were death-struck: in those few fine truths
The germs of unexpanded glory slept,
As in the acorn future navies float.
And when at night a lonely cell was sought,
Could the brave Monk his deed of pregnant might
Have measured? In the greatness of the act,
Oh, was he conscious of th' Almighty, there?

JUSTIFYING GRACE.

One truth divine, from deeps of scripture drawn,
And by one heart with burning zeal espoused,
Then, bodied forth in majesty of life,
What miracles that single truth achieves
Which rock an empire, or a world restore!
And hence, when pale in his monastic gloom,
Alone, and pensive, groping after God
Through clouds of error, black with Romish guile,
At length the tortured monk, with tears of praise,
Consummate pardon in the Cross alone
Discover'd, then, a peerless Truth was found
From whence instructed Empires learn to live.
And in that hall, where stood the fearless man
Bulwark'd with principle, beyond all powers
By earth created, or by hell contrived,
He grasp'd a truth which Heaven's eternal creed
Hath canonised, and by the Cross explain'd,—
That Grace is God by God alone applied:
On this, Religion all her fabric rears,
That else, is baseless, as the yielding air.

Hence flow those energies through man and mind,
Which mould our being great, or make it good.
Here, by the pardon of perfective grace,
The anguish'd memory can alone subdue
That dread Gehenna, which our guilt inflames
Oft in remembrance; and, from thence derived,
Pure emanations spring, and feelings act
Which feed with moral life the social frame
Of men, and nations; for the heart is free,
And guarded Conscience on the bosom's throne
Reigns in the sanctity which Christ inspires.

'Tis thus, where dreadless martyrs often fail'd,
And ancient heroes their protesting voice
Lifted in vain, to vindicate The Truth
From all aggression, Luther's prowess smote
The Roman Beast to ruin, nigh to death,—
And that, with principle! 'Twas here he fought,
He grappled with the foe of God, and man.
Swift through the night of man's imprison'd soul

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He pour'd the beam of evangelic day;
And where Authority, in mitred sway,
Fetter'd weak conscience with infernal chains,
He throned The Gospel, in the light of Grace
At once the law, and liberty of souls.
But, had he only on a mob of “saints”
Shot his keen arrows of sarcastic truth,
Or, laid the monk's Augéan darkness bare,
In form regen'rate, but with life corrupt,
The Reformation then had toil'd, and died.
But, glory be to Him whose Name we bear!
'Twas grace in principle which Luther taught:
Here is the lever which the world uplifts,—
“A Saviour just, for man unjust hath died!”
Here is a Truth, whose trumpet-voice might preach
The Pope's religion into airy nought;
A truth, which is at once the text of texts,
Making all scripture music to our souls.
The Bible read, is God Himself perused
In pages letter'd with almighty love,
When thus proclaiming what the conscience craves:
While the rich fountain of Emmanuel's Blood
Not barricaded round with priestly walls,
Nor blent with superstition's blackening tide
Of “merits,” now its healing flood of grace
Full on the heart in one vast current pours!

He ended, thus, where ancient Minds began;
'Gainst outward vice those murder'd Saints appeal'd,
And perish'd: but for Principle Divine,
Bravely alone the monk of Erfurt fought.
He struck the root,—and then, the branches fell;
He purged the fountain,—then, the stream roll'd pure;
The deep foundation down to hell he shook,
And then—the Roman superstition reel'd:
From centre to circumf'rence, did the soul
Of Luther reason out its lonely way;
Till, lo! at length, by Gospel-light reveal'd,
He saw impostures, in successive types
Each after each more canker'd, and corrupt;
And in the Pope that Antichrist discern'd
Whom Daniel vision'd, and St. John unveils.

GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MAN.

I.—Supremacy.

“Son of the living God! The Christ Thou art!”
So spake, by more than mortal wisdom led,
The bold Apostle, when, through flesh and blood
Divinity within the Form august
Of Jesus, shrined in mortal clay, he saw:
And on the “rock” of this confession, high
In Godhead rear'd, and deep in Manhood based,
Emmanuel built His everlasting Church.
But how hath Sin, from out the promise made
To Peter, in apostleship sublime,
But not supreme, beyond his fellows rank'd,
The Keys of power, the Kingdom, and the Laws
Which bind or loose, as papal nods decree,
Derived!—and thus on earth enthroned
A vile dominion, measureless, and vast
As Guile could plan, or cheering Hell applaud.
Admire we then, let gratitude adore
The Power divine, which hurl'd the Popedom down
From that cursed height of blasphemy and crime,
To which, through ages of gigantic skill
By fell gradation, it at length arose;—
Reigning aloft, stern Arbitress of kings
And thrones; dispensing sceptres with a smile,
Or else dissolving Kingdoms by a frown!
For Peter's shadow, and the Roman name
O'er power and policy together ruled:
Then, the high Past a holy magic breathed;
And the rich lustre of a world's regard
Made Rome the palace of Mankind appear,
The true Metropolis of priestly hearts,
A Temple, with apostleship instinct,
The stones all sacred, and Her dust inspired!
Thus magnified, and with mysterious charms
Endow'd, behold, a miracle of pride
Erect! Supremacy, thy Pope survey,
A Breath of sin on Deity's great throne!
Oh, never in the luxury of lies
Hath Self more wanton'd; never in this world
Hath Adulation's most besotted dream
A foul pretence so hideously assumed,
As then, around some ruffian Pope began;
For, palsied Reason to his sceptre bow'd,
And Blasphemy baptised a monster, “God;”
Disgust, be mute! and horror, speechless stand!
'Tis not in language, though each word be fire,
Or, fang'd with truth's most execrating force,
A Pope to paint, when deified by sin.
All right above, beyond all law secured,
In errorless perfection shrined aloft;
Of Peter's royalties sole heir, and king;
Of churches, Judge; of christendom the Lord;
And, such an oracle!—that when his lips
Shall condescend some great response to give,
Virtue is vice, and vice may virtue be,
Or, each be neither, if his nod decide!
Since Truth and Nature are at once transform'd
By him, the world's embodied Fiat, now.
E'en more than this!—to heights of sin beyond
These climbing blasphemies of folly scaled,

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And from the temple of Jehovah took
The crown, and from the Hand Eternal robb'd
The sceptre, till from Godhead's self there seem'd
To pass all glory; and, in pontific shape,
A mock almighty was the Pope adored!

II.—Mystery.

Above, beneath, around, where'er we move
Or live, an atmosphere of myst'ry floats;
For ever baffling with its gloom unpierced
The pride of reason's analytic gaze.
E'en like that Pillar, which, of cloud and fire
Contemper'd, to the pilgrim-church bestow'd
A guidance solemn, through untrodden wilds,
So human knowledge, in this world forlorn
By shade and light alternately prevails,
Too dark for pride, too vivid for despair.
And thus, accordant with our state corrupt,
From truth to truth, the educated soul
Through shades of awe is humbled yet advanced;
While noble ignorance, that knows itself,
Kneels in the shadow of a Mercy-seat
And prays the heart to piety, and love.

Yes! all is myst'ry: from that blaze immense
In which pavilion'd dwells the Vast Unseen,
Down to the insect of minutest frame,
Science is mock'd. Within retreating depths
The Cause uncaused, above all causes throned,
Who can describe? Yet, what religion owns,
Plain reason grants,—that He is perfect One
Pervading all things with His presence whole;
Unfelt, unform'd, unheard and undefined,
All Eye, all Ear, all Spirit, and all Power,
His center, Light, and his circumf'rence, Love:
Yet, what reveals Him, Who all else reveals,—
The Unexplain'd, who yet explaineth all?
What sun to systems, God to truth appears;
But still, apart, impenetrably shrined
In secresy of light, for ever veil'd.

Then turn to nature, eloquently touch'd
With living beauty; and in sight and sound
Teeming with all which holy Truth admires:
There, though a shadow of the primal Curse
Dims the soft radiance of a virgin-world,
Traces of Eden, tracks of angel-feet
Still haunt creation with a hallowing charm:
But myst'ry, still, o'er nature's Secret broods,
Beyond philosophy's most daring ken
To master; lock'd in mute reserve it lies.
Since, what is Essence, how formation acts,
Or life and law reciprocally play,—
Can reason here mount explanation's throne?
Nature herself is thine embodied Will
Almighty! There, at last, the mind has gain'd
An ultimatum which unteaches pride;
While Genius, like a second childhood, stands,
And, rapt in wonder, to Religion turns.

And, does not Providence our life invest
With one horizon of perpetual cloud?
But while to man, his planless life appears
A problem made of paradox, and gloom,
Darkness itself may Deity enshrine
When acting mercy, in deep wisdom, there.

But now, within, profound Logician! gaze;
Down thy deep hell of consciousness descend,
Who o'er Jehovah thus presum'st to wave
The treason-banner of rebellious thought.
Thou, to thyself embodied myst'ry art;
And why? Because unfathomably bad,
And thus, by grace unfathomably heal'd!
“Deceitful, vain, and desperately vile
All things above, the heart of man is found;
And who can know it?—I, the Lord alone!”
Thus chants a prophet; and we seem to hear
Round all the regions of created soul
Ring his dread challenge; mute alike remain
Seraph and Angel, and the star-bright Host
Who, nearest to the fountain-source of Mind,
'Mid radiance intellectual, shine and sing:—
To each and all unsearchable abides,
The heart of Nature in the human breast.

Then, turn to grace,—the Trinity express'd
In threefold glory, yet divinely One.
There, all is myst'ry, hung with moral gloom.
Flight after flight, in vain proud Reason takes,
And seeks and soars, and soars, and seeks again,
And more confounded by the search becomes:
Till, all exhausted, like the arkless dove
Back to the shelter of a simple truth
The soul retreats, and learns by faith to live,
And love the more, the less it understands
Of the Great Secret which salvation hides,—
The how, and why, in all of Godhead, there.

And Him, the Paramount of living grace,
The Truth Incarnate, how can words reveal?
Or who by comprehension yearns to grasp
Emmanuel's Person, in our flesh array'd?—
True greatness is to know how small we are,
Who learn divinity by loving God,
And as we love, alone can understand.

III.—Mystery of Iniquity.

And thus, at length, analogy conducts
Our hearts to Thee, the consummation dire
Of myst'ries all by Antichrist sustain'd!
Around it more than twice six hundred years
Have travail'd, in the pride of priestly art;
And now, a very prodigy of mind

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Depraved, of truth corrupt, and power abused,
It moulds, and masters all whom it beguiles.
Compact, complete, symmetrically form'd
To fit all hearts, whate'er the sensual frame,
Or oscillate to each exacting move,
Mental or moral, varied life presents,—
This myst'ry plays the Proteus with mankind.
From character it draws responsive tones;
From all condition wins a pleased support;
In circumstance, the very crisis wields,
And of weak conscience takes advantage vile:
Virtue and vice alike its charm obey;
And, forging chains that with no clanking fall
The ear arrest, or rouse the dormant soul,
The heart it manacles with fettering guile,
And binds it down, deluded to the last.

“A myst'ry” was this antichristian spell
In wisdom by prophetic Paul foretold;
Nor aught which infidels have dared, or done
The Lord of souls to crucify again,
Like this imposture hath mankind seduced.
There, falsehood in its open vileness reign'd;
Conspicuous, mark'd, and branded as the bad,
The heart may shun it, and securely keep
Both principle and purity awake.
But here, false Darkness, with a face of Light
Deceptively upon its victim smiles;
And, by the aspect of an angel's love,
Ruins the spirit with a demon's guile.
Here lies the danger, lurks the full deceit,—
Pretension, high as heaven's meridian truth,
Performance, low as hell's absorbing lie!
Religion thus, with suicidal hand
Herself destroys; and into death transmutes
A living zeal, which, else, for God and souls
Like inspiration might the world employ:—
Dilates a precept, or a truth contracts,
Can mould a doctrine, or a creed erect;
And round salvation such a dimness cast
That Christ is hidden, and the Church alone
In sacramental mist at length adored.

But yet, how stern, how lofty, how refined,
Thy vast professions, Romanistic creed!
Not Purity itself, is pure as Thou
In strictness, and severity of aim.
From the mix'd world, monastically free,
Our spirit thou would'st fain entice; and cast
Its powers in moulds of superhuman faith;
And thus, from foul entanglements of flesh
The mind deliver, till, to earthless heights
Of dazzling purity at length arrived,
That consummation of the church is reach'd,—
Meekness and martyrdom, in one combined!

The Devil is the parodist of God;
And priestly colours are the paint employ'd
To tinge his counterfeits of Truth divine
With holy semblance; and that flaming zeal
For saintliness, apostate Rome affects,
For Him has wrought satanically well.
Pollution's self on Purity's clear throne
In veil'd enchantment thus hath ruled, and reign'd,
Deceiving others, and itself deceived.
The Roman myst'ry is a mask of lies,
While yet thy countenance, celestial Truth!
It borrows; Mercy is the mild pretence,
Justice her theme, and love for God the law,
And zeal for Christ the Church's ardent soul
That makes Her all that miracle she is!—
Satan himself can thus religious seem,
And poison Virtue with her very smile.

Gospel and Grace in this dread system die,
And Love and Light to cruel darkness turn,
Shade upon shade, impenetrably deep,
Investing Godhead with a vile array
Of terrors, forged by sacerdotal guile,
And summon'd forth as guilt, or gain demands.
Where is The Father, in that fiction dread,
That ghastly Something, for a God believed,
Which Popery to the harrow'd Mind presents?
Or, when the ague of a guilty heart
Rages in secret, what paternal voice
From God in Christ subdues it into tears?
Then, not direct through Son and Spirit looks
A soul repentant, from the pleading eye
Of faith, on God reveal'd; but damning frowns,
Blacker than Sinai's legal night of death
To daunt the sinner, are at once evoked,
Hiding the cross with intercepting gloom:
Infinite Cruelty thus God becomes;
His throne all blackness, and His heart begirt
With stern-eyed Saints, who awe the spirit down
Till first their mediatorship is moved,
And God, persuaded by their prayer, relents!
As if by impulse an Almighty moved,
Nor in Himself His own great motive was.

IV.—Sacramental God.

But, see the climax of corrupted truth,
An Incarnation, parodied by priests!
Robed for a melodrame of mutter'd spells
Lo, where the sacerdotal Juggler stands,
Beneath whose touch the sacramental Host
To Body, Blood, Divinity, and Soul
Itself transforms, created into Christ!
Emmanuel there, consummate and complete,
Again must bleed, in Calvary revived!
Oh, horrible, and heartless mock of all
Of God in glory, or of man in grace,
That He, whose Person is the Sum and Soul

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Of what in time Eternity shall act
High o'er the senses, or mere reason's grasp,—
Is now in sacramental bread contain'd
While the blest wafer turns embodied God.

And Thou, O Spirit! who alone canst rule
The hearts where pantheistic darkness reigns,
Or carnal gods, by dreaming passion shaped,
Debauch the conscience till its light goes out,

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With what an aping Liturgy of lies
Hath Romish parody presumed to mock
The might, and glory of Thy work august!
And dared, for living waters freshly drawn
From the deep fountains of eternity
And truth, Herself to substitute, and lift
Her canons vile to revelation's throne.

When thus the life-blood of religion's drain'd
By this fell vampire, what for man is left
But the mere carcass of a ritual show,
A mindless worship, meaningless as false,
Where man is God, and God to man transform'd?

Thou dread Almighty! may we dare repeat
With deep-toned echo, that mysterious Cry
Apocalyptic martyrs lift above,
And chant, “How long shall Grace Eternal be
By juggling Rome dishonour'd, and traduced?
How long shall falsehood wear the saintly dress
Of truth celestial, while the Cross is veil'd,
And He, whose merit is creation's shield,
The church's light, and providence's law,
High o'er His Throne, behold anointed dust
And sainted villains, canonised and cowl'd,
Ascend beyond Him, in their plea for grace!”
'Tis thus, the laurels from the brow of Christ
Are taken, and around the head enwreathed
Of Antichrist, for twice six hundred years,—
That aping monster, who travesties God
And in the glory of his darkness seems
A mimic Satan, on Messiah's throne!

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V.—Moral Root.

But, whence this power, which paralyses men
To dull machines, for priestly hands to work,
That from the Cross all crucifixion takes,
And shuts the fountain in Emmanuel's side,
Whence gush'd atonement for the World's great sin,
Till Christ with closèd wounds remains,
Shorn of those beams, which round His ransom play,
And form a Merit fit for man to plead,
Ample as Justice, Law, and God require?
Whence the dread magic, which so mocks the world,
Soothing pale conscience with Iscariot's kiss?
Look in thy heart! there, reader! there it lies.
As fits the die within the forming mould
So false religion for thy heart is framed.

Thy fountains, Nature! are the fatal spring
Whence Popery all her canker'd life-blood drains,
And drains for ever—for they ever flow!
A moral cast from our corrupted soul
Designing Rome hath taken; and contrived
A feign'd religion, that, with fitting art,
Infernally for each expression finds
Some flatt'ring counterpart, or creed, or charm.
'Tis Man's religion from the root of sin,

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By passion foster'd, and by pride increased,
Deep-grounded, in the under-soil intense
Where guilty nature feels the goading pang,
As conscience prompts, or keen compunction wakes.
Hence, creeds are moulded; hence, all gods are made;
While reason, bribed to superstition, bows,
As sin and penance take relieving turns;
Till man himself his own atonement dreams,
And draws salvation out of sighs, and tears.

And thus, not Mind, whate'er its lofty range
Along the pathless Infinite of thought,
A shielding bulwark round the man can raise,
Safely to keep one Romish error out.
For oft, religion is but God disguised;
And when its nature from the name is torn
Mere sounds and shades for sense and substance act;
And cheated man a human mock adores.
But God is love, by his Own love inspired,
As seen the sun, by His own ray reveal'd.

Then, vain those pæans which we loudly ring,
As though the great millennium of the mind
Were coming; or, a mental noon began,
Too searching for the Man of Sin to face.
Philosophy the sting of Death renews
And back the vict'ry to the grave restores.
Whatever prospect soaring mind attain
No good it masters, till in God it rest,
Where peace and pardon, law and love combine,
And Christ and conscience can together dwell.
And why? because some creed embrace we must;
From heaven or hell religion must be drawn.
For deep within, prognostications lurk
Of tongueless dread; and boding terrors strike
Their hidden chill; and throbs immortal stir,
Like pulses of eternity, our souls;
While moods are felt, when flames of wrath to come
Prelude damnation, such as Guilt foretells,
Till the grave opens through the banquet's glare
And time's last thunders their rehearsal ring.
Though sin confront it, yet will Conscience speak,
Till sear'd, and branded into senseless nought.
Shrined in the centre of our being, dwells
That voiceless Umpire, on his moral throne
Erect, and pure; whose archetype is God,
In the stern radiance of severest law
Reflected there, for legislative might.
Here, Right and Wrong their true award receive;
And Past and Present for acquittal stand,
Or, condemnation from the bar receive;
Here Man, the ruin, in his ashes keeps
Some righteous embers, which a priest can rake,
Or quench, or quicken, as the crisis needs.

When darkly flatter'd, and when deeply read,
Our hearts become but platforms, where a Priest
Can play the drama of his Church, at will,
And shift the scenes with most consummate guile.
Some charm which echoes our exacting taste,
Some lust respondent to the varied will,
Some lie, to oscillate with pleasing sway
And skill'd vibration, as the mood requires,
Some gulling fiend to take angelic form,
And o'er the pathway which to hell conducts
Weave a rich carpet of seductive woof,—
Let these be organised, or well applied,
And man's religion in their magic proves
How wondrously such adaptation works!
Garb'd in a shroud of theologic guise
Behold the Arch-fiend, with undreaded power
His priesthood guiding; and, with ritual spells
To sooth or sadden, flatter, charm or chain
All which in Man of dust or devil acts,
Gild moral ruin with redemption's smile!
Thus, like a puppet, many-wired and weak,
Our handled nature to each sacred pull
Of Popery moves, with most responsive play.

Art thou a Student, from the pristine wells
Of learning, pleased and proud with classic thirst
To drink rich draughts of undiluted Mind?
Or, is thine ear by intellectual taste
To harmonies of ancient thought attuned?
See! the hoar'd Fathers in their hallow'd shrines,
And pale Philosophy, in pensive state,
Ready to bathe thee in some mental calm,
And soothe thy terrors with ascetic trance.
Or, (to the chariot of the senses chain'd)
Do glare and grandeur, and attractive sheens,
And Pomps, and Festivals, and painted Lies
With false and fatal eloquence, appeal
To the base passion of thine earthly will?
Lo! the drunk Sense with reasonless delight
May find a Ball-room spiritually gay,
A ritual opera, by Rome arranged,
Where the blood dances, where emotion reels
While soft damnation, musical and sweet,
Charms faith to feeling, and each feeling, blind!

VI.—Religious Instinct.

But, most to that religiously-depraved
Self-righteous dream of ever-prompting Pride,—
From earth to heaven to win or work its way,
Adapting Popery, with mimetic art

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Her necromance of ritual pomp applies.
A finite Self to infinite transform'd,
Some Trentine god by moral fiction shaped,
Is all that Passion's creed impure desires;
And lo! in Rome the heart's vile canons meet
Their very echo! grace and sin conjoin'd,
An outward form for inner-life prepared,
A dead religion where no God remains,—
Here is thy Charm, thou sorceress of souls!
Self-gain'd salvation forms thy secret force:
Hence liturgies, to please corruption plann'd;
Hence creeds, to flatter hope, or bribe a fear,
And all the pantomime of bows, and beads.
Thus perfect in pure falsity, Thou seem'st
By the Great Liar of the world inspired,
To set the Adam of the sensual mind
In motion; feeling, so that nothing's felt,
And working, so that nothing's truly wrought
As Law proclaims, or holy love demands.
Yet, nature, pleased with self-atonement, dares
Blindly to merit what mere Grace bestows,
And parts with all things, sin alone except!

And thus, machines, by blind devotion turn'd
For rites external, Rome's deluded slaves
Become; automatons for priestly guile,
Moving, or motionless, as that inspires;
For, each false yearning of self-righteous will
In Popery some pleasing vent can find.
Devout fanatics, passionately wed
To forms, where sense o'er spirit domineers,
May there a sanctimonious refuge gain,
From seeming prayer, to suit a prayerless heart,
Down to the beads dull Superstition counts.
Rome loves the Crucifix, but hates the Cross!
And thus, whatever gull'd Emotion longs
Upon her shrine of selfishness to lay,
Her human gospel cunningly applies;
Cheating the soul with skeletons of truth.
No taste, but here a subtle pleasure finds;
No sentiment, but what some echo meets;
Nor fancy, which no fellowship can find.
There, Painting, with its poetry of hues,
And Music, with its poetry of sound,
And temples, with their poetry of stone,
All, all compose a theologic cheat
That charms the spirit from its saviour-God.

VII.—Sorcery.

But thou! Imagination's martyr'd fool,
Whose faith is fancy, in religion's dress,
Whose shining virtues are but gilded vice
Seen by the Bible's heart-exploring beam,
For thee the cup of Antichrist is drugg'd
With rapt intoxication's master-spells!
Anthems, which seem to roll from Angel-harps,
And silver chants, that Seraphim might sing;
Paintings, where Beauty's virgin grace
Divinely-mortal, exquisitely smiles;
And sights superb, processions' vast array,
Or cloisters pale, where Pensiveness may roam,
Or perfumed incense, with its spiral clouds
Floating to heaven, before the vested priests,
Whose robes with sacramental meaning wave;
All these, with Churches, where religion stamps
The very stones with symbolising force,
And painted windows, by their colours, preach
Sermons which strike imagination dumb,
Or, melt it in soft martyrdom of sighs,—
Here is the weaving of those spells which bind
Millions to darkness, in the chains of Rome!
Whose mock religion The Almighty veils,
And each fine essence out of saving truth
Evaporates, in Forms which stifle faith,
And from the heart its vital heaven exclude:
For, what is holiness but heaven below?
Or heaven itself, but holiness above?

But, in some crisis of mysterious gloom
When frowns almighty round the heart of guilt
Darker than death-shades, dismal as profound,
Hover and hang, the buried past revives
Till dead Hours quicken in their secret graves,
The Infinite a voicely fear becomes,
And all of God to all in man appeals
For vengeance! Horeb is on fire again,
In thunder preaching its horrific curse.
Now, seems a Sinai in the soul of man!
Erected there by that instinctive law
Which Nature's creed must canonize, and own:
And oft, beneath its altitudes of gloom
Pale terrors, and alarm'd compunctions fall,
By strong enforcement, at its awful base;
Till the bow'd spirit trembles into tears,
While thunder-peals of God-proclaiming truth
Preach to our guilt th' uncompromising Law
Which conscience echoes with responsive groan.
Then doubts, which make a Golgotha of mind,
Madden the sinner with a fest'ring sway:
The wind was sown,—the whirlwind hence is reap'd;
The seed was darkness—and the fruit is death!
And where, now pleasure's silken trance is o'er
And fear'd eternity with curses rings,
Shall the torn spirit some true refuge find?
Oh, fell imposture! priestly Fiction comes;
And all its juggl'ry of cheating lies,
Indulgence vain, and penances most vile
Which keep the sinner from the saving Cross,
Again renews; the soul with opium drugs;
Infernal laud'num blinded Conscience drinks,
Till thus, from terror into torpor soothed,
Her sunken witness in stagnation dies;
And the torn Heart, by self-atonement heal'd,
Back to its smiles of sinful peace returns

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To drink from pleasure draughts of death once more,
Like a mad infant to its mother's breast,
Though pale, and poison'd by some murd'rous hand.

Here is thy venom, here thy spring of strength,
Thou master-spell of Satan's master-piece!
With all the finish of a fiend contrived
To soothe the conscience, when a rack begins;
To keep the penance and a priest in play;
To hold the sinner, but let loose the sin,
And by Confession to absorb the Cross.
Thus, papal lies to nature's roots descend;
They fix, they fasten in the moral soil
Their foul adjustment. Man is papal born,
And false religion must be papal too;
And his exacting nature nicely fit
In heart, in conscience, and uncertain will.
For sin, when loved, for punishment, when fear'd,
Consummate Rome hath thus for both prepared
A recipé, that 'tween the two can act:
A sop for Conscience—when it pleads with dread,
And sin for Passion—when that dread is o'er:
And thus, beneath the burning eye of Heaven,
No parody of truth like this, deceives;
No spell, by genius of satanic might
Forged in the secrecy of mystic lies,
No miracle of dread imposture, works
Perdition with so masterly success
As when God's will, travestied and transform'd,
To Man becomes religion; and from heaven
Beguiles him, while it seems to guide him There.

INSPIRATION OF THE IDEAL.

'Tween two eternities each hour is born
Of present Being; in the midst, our mind,
(Through some deep sense of undevelop'd power,
Haunted for ever by the Unattain'd)
Fevers, and frets with intellectual thirst
For more of Perfect, Beautiful, or Pure,
For more of Truth, in majesty and might
Than ever rises on the reaching sense,
Or, seems embodied in the shape of Things.
The Infinite we love, and half adore;
Our heaven of feeling seeks a heaven of fact,—
An outward Image, whose responsive mould
May body forth Imagination's dream.
And hence, enthroned in some ethereal calm,
Conceptive Genius from creation draws
Types of vast truth, and symbols of the soul,
To aid Perception, when its shaping power
Would vision out a universe of Love,
And Ideality in life reveal.

But if, beyond what Nature's world supplies
A yearning soul for moral beauty thirsts,
Creative Thought, by combination frames
From all which heroes of the heart have felt,
Or martyrs of the sleepless mind portray'd,
Or dreamt in prison-gloom, or palace-smiles,
A model of true consummated Man!
And, noble is such discontent of soul
Which leads to Virtue's elevating path;
The mind unprisons; or, from chaining Sense,
That coarsely to the common life of things
Would bind us down in drudgery and death,
To freedom and infinitude allures
The man within. And hence, all dreamings high
And holy; hence, imagination's flight;
And aspirations, fetterless and pure.
For, in this orbit of mysterious Life
The central immortality is Man;
And, greater far than all the greatness seen
One viewless Thought of his observing Mind!
Since what the apprehending sense beholds
Forms but a veil, through which are dimly view'd
Deep intimations of diviner Things,
And preludes faint of far profounder Truth
And Beauty, yet by God to be unveil'd.
'Tis thus, the poetry of heart begins,
The painter's longing, and the sculptor's love,
Which purify from sensual dross and guile
Our inner-life, with sacramental force;
Hence, Homer drew; and solemn Milton drank
The inspirations of a deathless song.
In beautiful transcendencies of thought
From earthly matter into heavenly forms
They soar'd, for ever; and, by shaping dreams,
Imaged a life above the life they felt
And breathed the immortality they sung.
'Tis thus, by passion for the Infinite,
And glorious longings for some Perfect Good,
The heart's millennium, in all ages, acts:
Hence Liberty her laurell'd hero frames,
Martyr, and saint, and sage their stamp receive,
Religion half her purity obtains,
And the bright paradise of Morals blooms.

Thus Luther, in his lone and lofty zeal
Impetuous, bold, and ardent as sublime,
With feelings vivid like the soul they fired,
Who led the exodus of man and mind
From the vile Egypt of enslaving Rome
To Canaan's borders, in the world of truth,—
E'en like a prophet, o'er predestined scenes
Above the cold, the actual, and the coarse
Mounted aloft; and sleeplessly pursued

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Through tears and torture, outrage, grief, and wrong,
Through storm and cloud, convulsion and contempt,
That great Exemplar which his mind conceived.
Beauty and Brightness their ideal thrones
Erected in him; while their magic spell
Temper'd his heart for each ethereal type.
And so, by Pre-conception's purest charm
Master'd and moulded, his frail being grew;
He lived the Poetry which others thought;
And from that hour when friendly capture threw
A shroud of safety round his perill'd head
Where the lone castle of Altenstein frown'd,
To that famed crisis, when from cell and chain
Heaven's cloister'd Principles came forth to breathe,
Pale from the prison of a thousand years,
His passion for the Perfect and the Pure
Nerved him for wonders! Like that mystic Voice,
Which often to the soul of seers reveal'd
Visions of Godhead, vocal and distinct,
Heaven-ward, for plans archangels might have cheer'd,
Pure Inspiration seem'd to guide him on.
Gigantic efforts, flush'd with sacred zeal,
And high endeavours, honourably vast,
Ardours intense, with flames of moral ire,
A mental freedom, or that tameless force
Which grappled ever with imagined Fiends,—
All were expressions of one master-wish;
The indications of a Soul, inspired
To be the great Apostle of mankind
In deeds of glory, for a cause divine.
The sigh of Nature with herself to blend
And bind, in one fond brotherhood of faith,
The feelings and the family of Man;
A New Jerusalem on earth to hail;
A Church redeem'd to apostolic mould;
A reigning Jesus, a rejoicing World,—
To such bright centres of consummate hope
Did Luther, with ideal passion, tend;
These made the goal to which he onward press'd,
The lofty mark, at which his virtue aim'd;
And from the level of a monk's low range
Lifted on high his ever-loving heart,
And bade him, in a sunless age, to shine
A moral saviour o'er eclipsed mankind.

MAMMON AND MATERIALISM.

Oh, for a Luther to inspire us now!
Th' awaking magic of some mind God-taught
To charm the sensual from the Nation's soul;
Our passions dark, our appetites of dust
To brighten, or to banish; till the love
Of whatsoe'er is lefty, and divine,
Of whatsoe'er is glorious, and august,
The throne of public Taste may re-ascend,
Give life to Genius, and a law to thought,
And for the Beautiful true homage gain.
Woe to the Land! whose days are evil now:
Venality in vulgar glory reigns;
Profit and Loss intense inspirers are;
The Arts are pining in neglected gloom,
Sculpture is dead, and Poetry in tears;
And Science mostly for the palate reigns!
Utility, a social god becomes,
And Britain but as Dives, longs to live
In pomp and purple, and in sumptuous joy.
The universe for comfort seems arranged;
The world,—a warehouse for convenience plann'd!
And that Creation, which to faith appears
An outer-court to God's more secret shrine,
Is made a temple, where the Senses may
Adore the Useful, with vile worship now.

Alas! for England when her god is gold,
And nought believed but what coarse passions love;
When all of spirit, found in tasteful lore,
In effort noble, or sublime in aim,
A mock becomes, till principle expires,
And base Expediency's polluted breath
Falls, like a mildew, over minds and men.
Romance is faded; sentiment extinct;
All the fine chivalries of ancient Faith
Are laugh'd away, as meaningless, or vain:
While Dulness prospers in her leaden smiles,
And mediocrity, with damping weight,
Each nobler faculty and sacred power
Darkens, at last, to intellectual death,
And leaves to Manhood little but a name.

Oh, for a spirit of reviving truth,
A resurrection from the grave of Mind!
That soon the harmonies of olden thought,
Like buried music, from the past may rise
In solemn cadence, and our souls becalm.
Let Finite in the Infinite be merged;
Let Fancy dream, Imagination dare,
And Effort triumph in heroic forms
Till Art and Genius glorify the world,
And Science from her dreams of sensual bliss
Turn to the Soul, and there, with rev'rent gaze,
Deep within deep those springs of Nature trace,
Where most the unapparent Spirit works,
And awful Conscience from her secret throne
Each lawless movement of the soul condemns;
Or like an Oracle is ever found
Approving virtue, and proclaiming heaven.

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COVENANT OF HEARTS.

Bound in the links of that ethereal Chain
Which upward, from the insect's tiny pulse
On earth that throbs, to yonder wheeling orbs
Enormous, its unbroken coil extends,
Are all things by the Hand almighty held.
And thus, what chance to vulgar sense appears,
Is veil'd causation, and confirm'd decree.
Nature herself, through each organic change
And form, or function, is but Will supreme,
In might, or beauty, marching to result
Predestined. Not an atom is consumed;
No leaf can vibrate, not a billow laugh,
Nor wild breeze flutter on its fairy wing,
But God o'errules it, with control as nice
As that which belts the planets with a zone
Of harmony, and binds the stars with law.
And though mere chaos, to an eye immersed
In sensual darkness, Life's perturbèd scene
Must ever be, not thus to them who scan
The world's confusion by celestial light
From scripture beaming, does mysterious time
Appear. For then, disorder is but plan
Divinely-working, by arranged degrees
Upward and onward into truth evolved
Through the long maze of labyrinthine wills,
Or human actions. Kings, and slaves, and priests;
Erected monarchies, or crumbled thrones;
The shout of warriors, or an infant's wail;
In life, in faith, in conduct, or in creed
Whate'er be witness'd, God behind the scene
From His high watch-tower of incessant sway
Governs, and guides the blended Whole of man.
Never the Eye omniscient drops its lid,
Or slumbers: whether Virtue's godlike brow
Be laurell'd, and the Church's heart exult;
Or dark temptation, like a Demon come,
Harness the soul, and lash Desire along
To ruin,—in that change, no change exists.
For in the freedom of the foulest will
Venting itself in vanity, or vice;
Or in the soarings of a strong-wing'd faith
That heavenward mounts, and leaves low earth behind,
Around them moves One all-inclusive Will
Which, leaving man responsible and free,
For God retains supremacy and law.

And none, whose souls, by sacred fear made wise,
The lesson of their weakness well have learn'd;
Or rightly weigh'd, how much from ties of love
And charms of social power the moral frame
Impression gathers,—dare to Chance ascribe
A covenant of Hearts, when struck between
Two in the faith, accordant and conjoin'd.
Pure Love our moral gravitation makes;
At once the motion, and the rest of man:
But when, and where, and how electric chains
Are closely fasten'd into Friendship's heart,
Should make us ponder; since for bane, or bliss,
Over man's conscious destiny they cast
A character Eternity will not efface!
Since Love is plastic; and by secret charm
Shapes to resemblance with its moral self
Our yielded bosom; and the yearning heart
Thus takes the likeness of each thing it loves,—
E'en as some insect from the herb derives
A hue responsive to the food it eats.
Hence, only virtue forms a solid base
Rooted, and grounded in the heart of truth,
Where friendship's high and holy structure stands
Bedeck'd, and order'd, by approving Heaven.
Two Finites can no lasting friendship make;
Between them both an Infinite must stand,
And He is God! Without Him, all is mock;
The paint and pageant of a soul's outside
By fancy colour'd, or by feeling tinged;
But, wanting holiness, that All it needs
Which crowns a friendship with undying charm.
Fair Amity! when thus, indeed, the fruit
Of sacred principle, by love inspired,
Thy bloom is fragrant of yon world of bliss
Ethereal, and with fadeless beauty rife.
And such, when Luther and Melancthon's heart
In oneness holy blended their deep powers,
Wert thou; a friendship from the Cross which sprang
In the green fulness of their common faith.
And, in the archives of the past, how few
The feelings, that more lovingly have twined
A wreath of nature round the brow of grace,
Than those, which from the young and verdant breast
Of their twin Manhood, did together rise!

DISTINCT BUT UNDIVIDED.

Distinct in tone, yet undivided, both
Their hearts in melody combined, and met.
But if in nature poesy would find
Their fancied echo, hark! the torrent's fall
In liquid thunder foaming loud and fierce,
From crag to crag precipitous, and bold,—
And there, is Luther; while, along the banks
Tree-shaded, list, yon low and quiet stream,
And mark! the mild Melancthon. Each to each
A grace of contrast, and the charm which glows
Round minds which vary while the hearts embrace,

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Imparted: both in one vast work converged;
And oh! what hours of evangelic peace,
What hymns of soul, what praises blent with prayers,
What feelings high amid the haunted woods
Of Wittemberg, were oft by each enjoy'd!
And in the lassitude of lofty cares
When, crush'd beneath his adamantine wrongs,
The soul of Luther lay in bleeding gloom,
How the calm sunshine of Melancthon's face
Around him shed some heart-restoring smile!
But o'er Thy page, Eternal Wisdom! most
Did their high friendship in communion blend;
As truth on truth, from out the classic grave
Of language, where dead meanings were entomb'd,
Started to life in Luther's noble tongue
Till Fatherland its own free bible hail'd,
And God in German to his country spake.
Thus, day by day, that Book of Heaven became
A sabbath-port from earth's tempestuous cares,
Which raged and roll'd around them: scene and time
And circumstance, those mast'ring three in one
That make, or mar the All mere worldlings dream,
To them were shadows, which the radiant Word
Dazzled to nought, as clouds in sunbeams die.
The monarch's palace, or the monk's low cell,
Or chamber dim, from out whose frescoed walls
In massy framework look'd the pictured Dead
Who live in hues immortal,—'twas alike
To men, who on this world, were in the next,
By faith or feeling ever wafted there.

Then, what are base alliances, miscall'd
By friendship's name, but artificial modes,
Or satires on the sacredness and sense
Of this high virtue?—mere enamell'd lies!
Too often are they but a painted show
Of pleased Hypocrisy, whose silken ties
Are light as gossamer, before the storm
Severe affliction round our lot may bring.
Convenience; lucre; folly, pride, or gain;
A ride, a dinner, or a small request;
Or sad communion in the common sin
By passion cherish'd—there, mock friendships reach
A zenith, and their noblest zeal expires.
But when, alas! unbodied, and unveil'd
Of earth's false trappings, in the world of souls
These gay companions of a feast and song
Meet in stern truth, unmantled to the core,
Hideously naked, to the very heart
Discover'd,—how each mask of Self will drop!
And many a cheek, by radiant kindness clothed,
Blacken with hate, with horror, or revenge
Infernal: friendship now is ruin found;
And soft-mouth'd men, who seem'd, in time, so dear,
Will each to each satanical appear
And loathe, like fiends, their lost eternity!

But, cast your friendship into chaster mould;
Let genius, learning, or congenial taste,
Or fellowship like what the Muses love,
Refined as Lælius felt, or Scipio found;
Or, let Parnassus sing how poets loved,
Whose lives and verses did together run
And softly blend, like interwoven streams,
E'en at the best, such earth-born magic dies
Soon as dark shadows of the grave begin
To pall the Present, and its passing joys.
Then, all their sweetness and their strength depart!
Bred from the world, they, with the world, recede;
Friendship and flesh, together in one tomb
They perish; for, each lack'd that saving life
Which makes immortal what we cherish here.

CHRISTIAN FRIENDSHIP.

But there is friendship pure as angels love;
Which trust, and truth, and tenderness create
When two fond Hearts with sacred force embrace,
By union deep, unworldly, and divine.
Then friendship, like a school for mind becomes,
Where act to habit may itself mature;
And Self, denied in little things, advance
To show denial, which a world may bless
And all the Churches with due plaudit hail.
Here, faith with friendship can indeed concur;
Beyond mere temper, and accordant tones;
While reign those Principles whose charm outwears
Sickness and sorrow, death, or cold neglect,
With all the jarring dissonance which tries
The force of feeling, in its wisest hour.
But, whence are these, save from th' Almighty drawn,
And, like Himself, unchangeably sublime!
Here is a friendship, perfect, calm, sincere,
Above mutation, as beyond decay;
A friendship, Lord! whose archetype is Thine;
For, when on earth, Thy mortal life assumed
Manhood, with each consummate trait adorn'd;
And human Feeling may exult to view
Laid on thy breast the much beloved St. John!

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Oh! for a Friendship which outlives the sun,
To last, when time hath faded, and when Flesh
With all its burden, is a baseless dream.
It drops a balsam in the wounded breast,
Soothes the torn mind, and soul-dejection heals;
'Tis heart to sympathy and hand to love,
Can charm the wisest, or the feeblest worth
Uphold, and makes the poorest rich indeed.

Man forms the foe, but God alone the friend,
If friend he is, with truthful love endow'd,
And graced with those prerogatives of mind
Religion sanctions. Then, what kindred bliss,
What sweet affinities of thought and taste!
The Janus-temple of a jealous heart
That shuts, or opens, as the door demands,
Is here unwitness'd; all is frank display
Which scorns pretence, and scatters each disguise
By sun-clear verity, whose shining force
Copes with all clouds of accident, or change,
And ever beams on Friendship's cordial brow.
Here is an amity our noblest wants
Delight to welcome, as their true supply:
With active force the intellect it feeds,
The heart enlarges into loftier swell
And, in the counterplay it gives and asks,
Finds equal pleasure, when the echo sounds
Sincere and manly. But affliction most
The high-born friendship of heroic minds
Illustrates: then the sacrifice of Self
Devoted, prompt, impassion'd as sincere,
By sorrow, substance, or by costly life,
How godlike is it! how resembling Him
The soul's Philanthropist, creation's Friend
The world enriching, by Himself made poor!
Friendship like this, the seal of God confirms,
Who cast our nature into social mould
And bade it seek for brotherly response,
Or bosom-counterparts in bliss, or woe:
And thus, whate'er his rank, or high renown,
Man needs an echo, whose responsive charm
Doubles himself, by feeling's prompt reply;
To rich enjoyment adds a height'ning zest
Untold; and when misfortune's east-wind blows
Or cutting blasts of cold ingratitude
Sweep the lorn bosom, by the world betray'd,
Softer than dews from Hermon's sainted height
The tones of Friendship, dropt in feeling's ear
For comfort! Mine be thus some heaven-made friend,
And I will clasp him, with the heart's embrace
For ever! Morning with its radiant blush;
Noon with its glory; Twilight with its trance;
Or balmy Night, with all the stars awake
In beauty walking o'er their midnight-round,
How are they each, when friendship's echoing heart
Throbs near our own, with added charm endow'd!
Yea, all those homilies of love and might
Appealing Nature to the pensive reads
Down winding lanes, or paths of vernal bloom,
Or rustic haunt where rambling Boyhood loves
To stray, and linger,—how some tasteful friend
Can, with ourselves, interpret all their tones
In strains of poetry and inward peace,
When souls are mingled, and Creation greets
The hearts who love her. Nor does faith deny
That, e'en in heaven ethereal friendships bring
Their calm addition to celestial joy:
For Truth is social, in the highest orb
Of her dominion! God Himself is not alone,
But in deep light, Tripersonally throned,
In plural Godhead His perfection holds.

UNION IN THE CROSS.

So Martin Luther and Melancthon felt.
For them, religion was no lifeless creed,
But living virtue: faith and friendship blent
Their pureness, and together nobly grew
In the rich soil of their congenial breasts.
And when we learn what this rare friendship did,
How gratefully will Faith her God adore,
Who so ordain'd, by councils plann'd above,
That Men like these, in place and time should meet,
Blend their brave hearts, and with united hands
The fabric of the Reformation build
In rising glory! Each that structure claim'd:
And as some builder first in mind conceives
The mansion, which external Art reveals,
And models only from a type within,
So, from His pattern of eternal thought,
The Architect supreme His will expressed
In that vast work the Reformation rear'd:
And not a stone to form that fabric rose,
Nor human workman there his building hand
Devoted, but from God directly came
Some guiding impulse. Glory, then, to Him!
Who thus in hallow'd unity combined
Two hearts distinct, as those twin Leaders bore
That ransom'd Israel from Egyptian chains.
Their's was a friendship, more than Nature forms,
Fancy begets, or genial tastes preserve:
The one, like thunder! arm'd by daring soul
Breathing defiance with a lion-voice;
Tempestuous often in that mental storm

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Which heaved his temper by o'erflowing wrath,
With rage unbounded: but the other, mild
And chasten'd, passionless and curb'd;
A halcyon man of holiness and zeal
Whose heart was quiet in its deepest hour.
Or, Nature's imag'ry may thus depict
Their true distinction, in her world of types;
Intensely burning, like a tropic noon,
In one the character of heart appears:
The other, like a placid twilight-scene
Bathed in serenity of softest dews,
With stars down looking on the lovely whole.

But yet, through many a shock unmoved they went,
And stood united, when all else dissolved
Around them. 'Twas The Cross, and that alone,
Which so cemented with abounding grace
Two Hearts, that else were utterly unlike.
Here was a centre; round this changeless point
Of God for glory, and of truth for Man,
They met, they mingled, with harmonious love
In concord perfect: but in tones of taste
Agreed to differ with delightful ease.
Contrast with them, like two magnetic poles,
Their hearts attracted, and by secret love
Each into each with soft concernment drew
The closer; union their distinctness proved.
But more than this, may grateful wonder see;
For each to God's mysterious cause supplied
Some fitting element, or power defined,
Which, wanting, would have left His work unsafe,
Or tott'ring. Thus, Melancthon's classic toils
And tasteful culture nourish'd growing minds
In progress; while, from Luther's boundless zeal
There went a spirit of sublime attack
That shook the Popedom, like a thunder-blast,
Making it tremble down to falsehood's depths
Of darkness. Thus, two Hands distinct they were,
Each for his task appointed, and prepared,
And both by Wisdom wielded from on high.

FRIENDS IN HEAVEN.

Their work is done, their deathless toil complete;
And they are gather'd to that spirit-realm
Where all things tend, as to their final home,
Which are in time and consciousness reveal'd.
But is that friendship, incorrupt and bright,
Effulging from the radiant fount of Love
Celestial, is it in yon heaven absorb'd,
There swallow'd, in some Infinite of bliss
Which now enfolds them? Are those ties of heart,
Broken on earth, no more in heaven renew'd?
If here below our fondest cravings prove
Affections make the vowels of the mind,
And, like a consonant, when left alone,
Man without love seems unpronounced and mute,
Will yearning Manhood in the skies be lone?
Alas! if nothing save what Earth inspires
By us be worshipp'd; then, as time concludes,
And from eternity rise spectral Woes,
And shapeless Horrors worse than guilt forebodes
Hover in view, like flashes in the dark
Our earth-born friendships will at once go out
In blackness; better had they never been!

But when two Hearts, heroic, brave, and pure
Like Luther's and Melancthon's, nobly throb
Through years of trial with responsive beat
Unfalt'ring, can we think the upper-World
Where men redeem'd the nearest circle form
Of radiant worshippers, who round The Lamb
Hymn golden numbers from their lyres of light
For ever, can we think, that Souls like these,
Will ever there in single glory chant
That song, united which on earth they sung?
No! from a heartless creed, for pagans fit,
Our aspirations, dreams, and wingèd hopes
At once recoil, unsocial heaven reject,
And prove it pagan. If below the bonds
Of sacred amity, by grace refined,
'Mid the dark waste of sin-degraded hours
And all th' exacting selfishness which tires
The bosom, yet themselves inviolate keep,
How will such bonds, from imperfection freed,
Gather new strength, and nobler charms enjoy
In that blest Meeting-place of Minds above!
Then shall each excellence, whose winning form
Though varied, held the heart's accorded throne
So firmly, shine with far intenser ray
Than earth experienced. Thus, ascending Thought
May cleave the firmament on wings of faith,
Outsoar the stars, beyond the planets rise
And leave creation far our flight behind,
And there, within the heaven of heavens, behold
Immortal Friends in one immortal home.
From the same Fount of never-failing bliss
Their blending spirits drink responsive joy
Unspeakable: and there in God embower'd,
What once made prayer, is now with praise enjoy'd;

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The past of earth in heaven a present forms
And gives eternal Consciousness a theme
For wonder, worship, and augmenting love.

SUBLIME OF HISTORY.

Nothing is little in this world of ours,
Because, whate'er the dim-eyed sceptic dream,
In nothing rarely can we act alone.
Built like that fabled roof, whose finest parts
Each into each by interwoven skill
So exquisitely play, with poised effect,
That touch but one, and lo! the fabric all
Shakes into movement with recoiling shock,—
So is our world by its Great Builder plann'd.
Thus, the first glance which God's forbidden tree
Drew from the eye of earth's frail Mother, forms
With our last sin a fatal union now!

No fact is isolate, no feeling lone;
Entangled are we by perpetual lines
Of moral net-work, infinite and fine,
With magic influence all around us drawn,
Which makes our conduct endless,—by the thrill
And tone of feeling that it often strikes
On the deep chord of ages, yet to come.
Nothing is little, where a moral lurks:
The last vibration of The Saviour's lip,
Expiring, more of deity involved
Than all the gorgeous universe contains.
Though mean the wood, which then Messiah bore
In bleeding glory, while the planted Cross
Lifted Him up a sacrifice for sin,
That sacramental Type a focus form'd
Where the vast councils of Eternal Love
Concenter'd all their wisdom and their wealth
In action!—though a point in space, The Tree,
From out it, as a salient centre, spring
The hopes immortal of our world redeem'd.
Not might of scene, not magnitude of space,
Nor aught of majesty which Sense admires
Or Time can value by his vulgar hours,
To truth a character, or creed a strength
Can give: for Principle a glory hath
Beyond the limits of defining man;
Enthroned in sempiternal light, it reigns
The Alpha and The Omega of all
In love stupendous, or in law severe.

Thus round that moment, when the Saxon monk,
Bold as some rock which breasts the main alone,
Lifted his brow, and faced his gather'd foes,
What centuries of undevelop'd truth
And change, were secretly encounter'd, then!
To eye of sense, mere Spectacle it look'd
Of men and minds; or, where a rebel stood
Undaunted: but, Another Form there was!
Sightless amid the loud conclave, Who watch'd
Each word that breathed, and master'd all which moved
And thought, but was Himself unseen, unheard,
And unimagined: lo! The Lord was there
Supreme Director of that scene august,
Where Luther triumph'd, and the Bible rear'd
Its signal far above all thrones of earth,
Untorn, untarnish'd, and untouch'd by man,
The badge of faith and banner of our souls
To be, beyond the rage of Earth, or Hell
To baffle, or resist! And we, who gaze
Back from the heights of purer worship now
On that gone period, when th' imperial host
Fierce in the hall of unforgotten Worms
Mutter'd, and raged round Luther's dauntless form,
May well that crisis of the World admire!
And think, how from the crystal walls of heaven
Spirits were gazing; or on balanced wing
Hung o'er the chamber where the host convened,
Viewless; and watch'd each mental shade which cross'd
Thy features, while They drank with blissful ear
Each tone majestic, thine unconquer'd mind
By truth inspired, from scripture then awoke
To perish never,—noble-hearted Monk
Of Wittemberg! Nor let the mocker doubt,
His yes, or no, the wheel of ages turn'd,
And balanced Europe on a single breath;
Since what he felt, the World is feeling still
In heart eternized; Luther is alive
By influence; and each living word of truth
In Worms that sounded an immortal note,
Intones our Churches with some cadence now.

Oh! 'twas a scene, where hist'ry grows sublime
And unsurpass'd; save when the fetter'd Paul
Lifted his eyes of light and brow of truth
Before Agrippa, till that prince of lust,
Under the sway of his resistless voice
And bold denouncement, quiver'd, like a tree
Shook by the night-blast. From the hills of Rome
The Vatican in vain its thunders roll'd;
And thy huge palace, dark-wall'd Pleissenburg!
Witness'd the brave defender, when he fell'd
Those Anakims of intellectual might,
The proud Goliaths of theology.
But, now, at length, the very Man of Sin,

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And crown'd blasphemer who travesties Christ,
Himself upon his Throne of lies shall start
And shiver! “Pile for pile shall kindle now,
Bull, Law, and Canons, and Clementines, all,
Shall in one sacrifice of flame expire!”
So spake the monk undaunted; and the blaze
Redden'd, and rose beside yon eastern gate
Of Wittemberg, above that papal mass
Of fictions mould'ring, and impostures vile;
While by a shout, which should for ever ring
The heart of Europe with responsive tones,
Applauding thousands that bright witness hail'd
Whose keen reflection scorches Popedom, now.

But, there He stands! in superhuman calm
Concenter'd, and sublime. Around Him pomp
And blaze imperial; haughty eyes, and words
Whose tones breathe tyranny, in vain attempt
The heaven-born quiet of his soul to move.
Crown'd with the grace of everlasting truth
A more than monarch among Kings he stood:
And while without, an ever-deep'ning mass
Of murm'ring thousands, on the windows watch'd
The torchlight gleaming through the crimson'd glass
Of that throng'd Hall, where Truth on trial was,
Seldom on earth did ever sun go down,
Or evening mantle o'er a grander scene.
There Priests, and Barons, Counts and Dukes were met,
Landgraves and Margraves, Earls, Electors, Knights,
And Charles the Splendid, in the glowing pride
Of princely youth, with Empires at his feet;
And there—the miner's son, to match them all!
With black robe belted round his manly waist
Before that bar august he stood serene;
By self-dominion reining down his soul.
Melancthon wept; and Spalatinus gazed
With breathless wonder on that wondrous Man!
While mute and motionless, a grim array
Of priests and monks, in combination dire,
On Luther fasten'd their most blood-hound gaze
Of bigotry; but not one rippling thought disturb'd
The calm of heaven on his commanding face!
Meek but majestic, simple and sublime
In aspect, thus he braved the wrath of Rome
With brow unshrinking; and with eyes that burn'd
As if the spirit in each glance were sheath'd:
And then, with voice which seem'd a soul in sound
Made audible, he pled th' Almighty's cause
In words almighty as the cause he pled,
The Bible's! God's religion, not the Priest's
By craft invented and for Lucre preach'd,
For This, life limb and liberty he vow'd
To sacrifice; though earth and hell might rage,
Not Pope, nor Canon, Council nor Decree
Would shake him! From the throne of that resolve
By fiend, nor angel would his heart be hurl'd;
Truth and his Conscience would together fight,
The world 'gainst them—and they against the world!
And then, with eyes which flash'd celestial fire,
Full in the face of that assembly breath'd
The fearless Monk those ever-famous words,
“God help me! Here I stand alone; Amen!”

MORAL RESULTS.

And let all ages that “Amen” repeat,
For it is worthy. Angels might the word
Have welcomed, and th' Eternal arches rung
An echo, as it roll'd from Luther's lip
Solemn and deep, and with celestial might
Impassion'd, since the Truth was then uplift,
The Cross defended, and the Bible crown'd
With vict'ry, when alone the monk of God
Rallied his spirit into high resolve;
And 'gainst the pope, the devil, and The world,
Terror and time, and man's ingratitude,
Fearless like Stephen, when that martyr stood,
Firm as The Rock on which his faith was built.

But not for this, will Persecution's fang
Be blunted. Hark! beneath that vaulted roof
Of Worms' cathedral, rise the chanted hymns
Round the high Altar, while pale incense-clouds
Float their soft fragrance through the aisles immense
Of yon grey temple. There, at Charles's feet,
Haughty, and with imperious rancour stung,
Vile Alexander, on his knee, presents
An Edict, dooming Faith and Luther's soul
Together, under ban and blast to be
Unceasing! “since the Monk was fiendish man,
And all of heresies by heart conceived,
By Satan loved, or damning falsehood dreamt,
Hath Hell epitomised in him, at last!”

Now drops the curtain on the Drama's view;
Strangely and suddenly the scene's o'erveil'd
By myst'ry; human actors are withdrawn:
Inaudibly, along a darken'd stage
Of wonders, moves the lone Almighty now,
Himself evolving what His love decrees
Inscrutable, by boasting man unshared.
And e'en like Philip to Azotus rapt,

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Sightless, or lost, shall Luther for a while
Appear; and safe in castled shade retire,
That God alone may God's true champion be;
Nor finite agency presume to claim
For effort mortal, what the Hand Divine
Shall consummate, in secresy unveil'd.
Yes! Man shall vanish, that the Cause may rest
Ark'd in the wisdom of Jehovah's will,
Shelter'd and safe. But he, the hope of all,
Far in the forest of Thuringa hid,
E'en in that hour when most the dazzled scene
Had hail'd him Hero of all prayer and praise,
At once is banish'd! There shall Luther find
A teaching solitude, where Faith may learn
Meekly to suffer, and with flesh contend;
Or, with some Angel of mysterious gloom
Sternly to wrestle, till the break of day,
The morning-twilight of a better mood
Dawn on his mind, in radiant peace again.
Down his own spirit he shall learn to gaze
Through many a pangful grief, and sorrowing prayer;
And, like his Lord, that mystic Ladder climb,
Whose steps are suff'rings, but whose top in heaven
Through glory reaches! Chasten'd thus, and calm'd,
The Monk may gather up his soul for God
And learn that faith he taught the world to love.

SYMPATHIES OF NATURE.

Thy beauty, Nature, hath a chorded spell
Responsively for tones of feeling tuned,
In moments deep of myst'ry and of mind.
How often when the human world looks harsh
And loveless; when no eye reflects the ray
Of sorrow, beaming mildly from our own;
When, darkly girdled by a zone of thought,
Apart, and voiceless in our souls we move,
Thy scenes of calm, thy solitudes profound,
Like mute interpretations, seem to wear
An outward mirror of the mood we feel!
Then silence to the soul of thought appeals
With more than language; thy maternal hush
Upon the heart's strange fever falls, like dew.
Sublime in thy sublimities we grow,
And lose the littleness of earth and man
Amid the vastness of those speaking Forms
Of grace, and Grandeurs which Thy throne surround.
Soon may the mind, by such entrancement, soar,
And from the vileness of this vexing world
A while set free, imbibe a nobler life,
Holding dim converse with all shapes and hues
Which body forth the Beautiful and Bright
Within, or image forth the mood we feel.
How eloquent the everlasting Hills
Will oft appear! proclaiming with their peaks
Majestic, Him whose fiat bade them stand
Like monuments to Ages long no more:
Or haply, in the heart's deep-thoughted hours
Musing beside an immemorial Sea
On some poetic shore, while wave on wave
In hollow thunder lisps th' Almighty Name,
How strangely does electric nature thrill
Through forms of matter on the feeling mind!
As though the elements, by love inspired,
Interpret what our mental dream enjoys.

And did not He, a beauteous symbol trace
Between the gladness of his free-born soul
And Nature's jubilee of sun and breeze,
Heaven-guarded Luther! on his homeward track
From that proud Diet, where a miner's son
O'erawed the princes in their Hall of pride,
And sent the arrows of resistless truth
From God's own quiver through the heart of Rome?
The crystal radiance of a vernal noon
Around him deepen'd; hark! from forest-boughs
Amid whose branches play'd the truant breeze,
A quiring populace of birds resound
Their tuneful joy; or, jubilant with life,
Hymn wild hosannahs in Creation's ear;
And, high o'er all, th' imperial Lord of day
Eyes, like a parent, the rejoicing earth
Beneath him basking, in a sleep of smiles.
'Twas thus, the countenance of Nature gave
A beaming welcome, bright to Luther's heart.
All elements his counterpart assumed;
Meadow and tree intelligently wore
An aspect, touch'd with some respondent hue
To all within him. In that mood intense,
His rapture was religion, while the mind

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Revell'd in radiance, like a lark which sings
In sunshine, or a bee that hums in bloom.

His joy was God experienced; and himself
In heart, was living scripture, for the glow
And gladness felt, were letters turn'd to life,
In calm almighty through the bosom breathed.
Hence his free soul by cheering grace inspired,
Rose like a sail before the gallant wind;

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Though papal Bloodhounds for his spirit yell'd,
A peace beyond disturbing fiends to mar,
His conscience bosom'd: while the tempest raged,
The swelling purpose of his mind, unmoved,
Daunted each danger; as the perill'd bark
Bounds into harbour through a battling sea
And in calm sunshine dries its dripping sail.

ASSOCIATIONS.

Thus, safe is he, against whose life abhorr'd
The dooming blast of Rome's relentless ire
By fell edict was thunder'd; till at eve,
As dew-drops thicken on Thuringa's boughs,
And bird and breeze, on folded wing retired,
Sit brooding, back to Eis'nach's boyish scene
The Monk is wending. But as near he comes,
His brave heart, softer than a willow bends
Beneath the magic of remember'd days!
For now, that local air again he breathes
Where once, a foodless child of woe, he fought
With iron hardship, and with cruel want,
Bathing the crust reluctant Mercy gave
With drops of anguish, from his harrow'd soul
So often wrung. And now, in dreaming calm,
His true heart echoes what reviving hours
Are back restoring to all scenes, and spots,
What once they took of character or tone,
Of stern, or mild, of melanch'ly or strange;
And so, most gently doth the man subside
Down to the boy. For e'en as infant smiles
Transmute the aged, till their features old
With infantile expression learn to gleam
In softest answer, may experienced mind,
Touch'd by the spirit of life's early scene,
Reply serenely to the haunting charm
Of vernal fancies; or, of vanish'd hours
Which waken round us, when maturer life
Down the green windings of gone youth descends.
Hence, all the poetry of peaceful thought
(For men live poems in their purest hours,
But write them, when the heart-song overflows)
Made holy, lulls him into inward prayer.
Oh, had they seen him in his softer mood
Unmantled what a loving heart was there!
Guileless, as that which throbb'd on Jesu's breast
Those cowl'd automatons of monkish cells
Whose frequent worship was but ritual wires
In heartless, mindless, unimpassion'd play
The man evolving, Luther then had taught
By the fond gushes of this feeling hour,
That true religion was a manful love,
A Godward motion of believing soul
Panting for heaven, but yet with earth at peace,
And not ashamed Life's ruling spell to own.

RETROSPECT.

Thus might we, like the travell'd monk, proceed,
And backward to the home of childhood wend,
How much of elemental heart and mind
Would then return, to whence of old it came,
Helping to fashion the unfolding Man!
For character is combination drawn
From time and scene, from circumstance and spot.
The brooks which prattled in gay Boyhood's ears,
Or on whose wavelets sail'd our tiny boat;
The haunted tree; the path we loved to wind,
The cowslipp'd valley or the hawthorn-bloom;
A widow's cottage, or some thatch'd abode
Where dwelt the vet'ran of our native vale,
Who smoothed our head, or tapp'd our rosy cheeks
With ancient humour,—all, with shaping charm
Secret but sure, that Being help to build
Which Manhood in its moral structure shows.
For, there is nothing which we feel, or see,
Admire, or welcome, but a forming power
From thence proceeds, and moulds the plastic mind.
Sunrise and sea, and solemn-vested night
When mute creation God's cathedral turns
For Nature's worship; with all social things,
The hand you grasp, the hearts your own selects,
The sigh re-echo'd, or the teardrop shed
Responsive,—none wield unavailing sway;
But secretly some inward tone impart,
Hereafter in your complex manhood felt
Or found. And, like as our sepulchral dust
Howe'er transmuted by organic change,
Under the blast of Death's awaking trump
Back to the Person, by attractive law
Shall rally, and a perfect body form,
So, may the structure of our moral frame,
Completely, from such causes manifold,
The after-finish of its Form educe.

But now, from scenes where childhood's dark-wing'd years
Had bleakly wafted his unfriended life
Through many a storm, to Mora's rustic wild,
Onward behold the dauntless trav'ller speed.
In that calm village, where a lowly sire
Drew the first breath, his genial soul partakes
The deep o'erflowings of affection's tide,
Tranquil as tender: placed amid kind hearts
Which beat fond echoes to his faithful own,
What peace he finds! what purified repose!
Not his the bosom cold, or shut, or stern;
Nor mock philanthropy, which makes a World
Its giant fav'rite, while domestic chords

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Are unallow'd to vibrate through the breast,
And distant love proves mere neglect at home!
Fresh on his soul the dews of feeling lay,
Lovely and bright, as youth's unwither'd prime
Had witness'd; in the man remain'd the boy:
And they who wonder'd, when the hall of Worms
Erect and moveless saw the Hero stand,
Might here have seen him with a graceful stoop
Bend to the lowly; and with winning smile
Attractive, clasp the humblest child who came,
And all his glory into shade recall.
Simplicity alone was greatness here;
And, in the hush of this ancestral vale,
High on the wings of meditative bliss,
In psalms, and melodies of hymning joy
Mounted his heart beyond the rising gloom
Beneath him, o'er his earthly future spread.
Like some gay bird, which oft at golden noon
Soaring and singing, to the gates of Light
Wings its loved way in ecstasy and song,
Yet soon as earth's low atmosphere it tries
Drops the glad plume, and songless grows again.

FRIENDLY CAPTURE.

But this calm Eden of domestic hours
Is brief, as blest. Again, his forward course
Through the green twilight of Thuringa's woods
Behold the man of God in peace renew,
Under the balmy flush of May inspired;
Till lo! at length old Glisbach's hoary fane
Glooms on the air; and, girt with feudal walls,
Altenstein glimmers from its castled height
Serene, but stern. But see! in golden calm
The Day is gliding down the gorgeous west,
Where the red Sun his farewell-pomp arrays;
While round about him, as for royal sheen,
Banners of crimson lustre wave, and wind,
Till the far clouds, with sympathetic hues
As in the blush of radiant sleep they lie,
Mirror bright meanings, from his burning face
Reflected. Soon the forest-boughs begin,
In the tranced quiet of a sunset-hour
To hush their waving; then, the languid breeze
Drops its gay motion; and the insect-hum
Low in the grass delights a pensive ear;
While the glad wings of home-returning birds
Flap on the air, with audible advance,
Which bids you track them to their pine-built nest
With eye pursuant. But, amid this peace
Of nature, deep as if with conscious depth,
Hark! tramp on tramp! with ringing hoofs that rend
The air before them, while the riven trees
Tremble, as if a sudden whirlwind tore
Their tangled umbrage, horse and horsemen arm'd
Plunge into view, in panoply complete,
And mask'd: then, swift and silent, ere a thought
Can think protection, Luther, from his steed
Dismounted, by some mailèd horseman grasp'd
And cloak'd, and on a charger rudely thrown,
At once is captured, as by Magic chain'd!
And in a second, hark, the sounding hoofs
Ring the deep forest with their hollow clang;
Then onward through its beechen wilds and woods
Plunge the mask'd riders, with a trackless speed;
And, Luther! where is now thy destined home?
Who can forecast what God, or man, intends?
Or, tell what dungeon, stake, or crushing wrong
Awaits thee, when a day of brightest hope
Ends in the shadow of so strange eclipse!

But Night hath deepen'd; and her shrouding veil
Garments the woods, which now with blacker gloom
The mountain-heights of lone Thuringa fringe;
And yet the Horsemen, with a voiceless flight
Hurry their captive through untrodden paths
Till the Moon rises, and her silv'ring gleam
Pale on the fortress of the Wartburg sleeps,
Which yonder dim and melancholy stands,
Calm as the clear cold heavens which o'er it spread
Their arch of silence. There the Horsemen pause,
Wearied and worn; and, list! the bugle sounds
A waking challenge in the warder's ear;
Drawn are the bolts, and down the drawbridge falls;
On iron hinges, ponderous and slow,
Opens a gateway to the midnight-Troop;
And mask'd and mail'd, around thee in yon court,
High-wall'd and barricaded, there they stand,
For, Luther, lo! thy Patmos greets thee now.

NIGHT IN THE WARTBURG.

Deep trance of Night! a mystic power is thine,
Which sanctifies creation with a charm
Beyond what day-beams in their brightest glow
Can emanate, whatever scene they gild.
But oh! if ever into heart of man

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The Midnight like a mute religion sent
Her spirit, surely, when the captured monk
Down the dim chambers of the Wartburg paced,
Thy genius, then, in solemn glory reign'd!
There, by his window-turret, lofty, bleak
And lone, unharm'd in holy peace he mused,
The past revolved, and o'er his future pray'd.
But moments rise in this unfathom'd life
Of ours, beyond revealing prose, or rhyme
E'er to unveil; so charged with secret might,
They into voiceless sentiment transform
Our being; like a cloud, we seem to float
In formless dreams, with visionary shapes
Confounded; till at length, calm'd nature feels
By truth replenish'd, and distinctive thoughts
Melt from the heart, pathetic, soft, profound,
Like tears of pity in a good man's eye.
Then, all we have been, are, or hope to be,
Blends in wild softness; and the soul o'er-sway'd
Throbs with the spirit of unbreathèd prayer.

All that we have been, yes! the night restores:
Form after Form we loved, or knew, or fear'd,
Moves o'er the platform of a summon'd past;
While dead eyes open, and familiar smiles
Fall on our hearts; or household-voices ring,
Till the soul echoes with remember'd tones
Sweeter than music, in its tranced excess.
And all we are, oh! Night can this expound;
And self to self beyond all preachers show
In truthful plainness, making conscience start,
As sin on sin, which cov'ring daylight hides,
From the dim back-ground of our Being comes
To awe conception. Then, the future's doom!
Oh, how the spirit of a midnight-hush
To That, significance and shape imparts,
As depths of possibility untold
Open beneath Imagination's eye,
Fearful, and fathomless, and full of God!
'Tis then we soar ourselves beyond, and reach
The skirts and shadows of a higher State
Yet to be master'd. Or, may Thought presume
Thus to imagine, that as embryo life
Hath latent inlets ere the breath begins,
And dormant senses undeveloped powers,
So may our Spirit in the flesh perceive,
Faintly and feebly, some prelusive state,
Or, preconceptions of Hereafter feel
Which antedate a nobler life to come?

And did not Luther, at this dreaming hour,
His great heart yield to more than words depict?
Bathed in the ether of divinest calm
As there he mused, and from yon window'd tower
Greeted the heavens, with planets jewell'd bright?
A holy calm adown the harrow'd depths
Of his vex'd bosom, solemnly was breathed;
While feelings, tinged with supernat'ral awe,
But tender, round him cast their mingled spell.
Like starry gleams, in evanescent play,
Glances of truth upon his spirit dart
But vanish, ere perceiving sense could grasp
A bright suggestion for the soul to read.
Worldless the hour, but how intense the scene!
For never, since in Roman prison clank'd
The fetter'd Paul his honourable chain,
And haply, through his grated window watch'd
The arch of midnight, hath a finer Soul
Look'd o'er yon sky, than that which gazeth now!
Mute as a cloud, the time-worn Castle stands
Of Wartburg, through the glassy moonlight rear'd
In outline black, colossal and abrupt;
Beneath him, wrapt in motionless array,
Thuringa's forest spreads a gloomy wild
Soundless; and so becalm'd in dewy sleep
That e'en the leaflet, when some quiv'ring air
Throbs for a moment, like a lip in dreams
It vibrates, but no vocal murmur makes.
Creation, hush'd in her most holy trance,
Sinks on the soul like one vast sentiment;
From the high moon and melancholy stars
Around her, to the stirless grass beneath,
How mute is nature! how intensely fill'd
With life, with meaning, and with sentient awe!
As if the Earth were conscious that her God
Commanded silence, and she felt it rise
Deeper and deeper, from Creation's heart,
And all things binding with religious spell.

But now, the glory of this moonlit-scene
Melts through his being, till each spirit-chord
Thrills to the magic, with responsive tone.
Lo! the large tear-drop on his eyelid hangs
And quivers, like a half-unspoken prayer
Which on the balance of expression moves.
For God, and Truth, and Luther, now commune;
And Midnight hearkens, as the monk adores
The Christ Eternal, in His glory sphered
High o'er yon heavens, beyond conception raised,
And yet by soaring adoration reach'd
Which climbs that region where His radiance dwells,
And thrills the Saviour on His very throne!

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PATMOS.

Sublime of privilege! to be alone,
And hold communion with celestial Grace
In the hush'd temple of a hallow'd mind,
Where thought is worship, and Religion wants
No liturgy, save what the heart inspires.
In pensive solitude our God unveils
Those charms almighty, which a sordid love
Of this vex'd world is all too vain to prize;
Then truth ascends our being's mental throne,
To rule and regulate the life within;
While round us shades of man's Hereafter steal
Till awful conscience, with prophetic eye,
Rehearses what the Judgment-Day will be
To men, and angels. Now, from sense withdrawn,
The pious Soul at length presumes to gaze
Down her own deeps, and there a grandeur finds,
A depth in depth unfathomably retired,
Of consciousness, which makes her more sublime
Than all the gorgeousness of glitt'ring worlds.
A single mind the universe outweighs;
A thought than worlds is more stupendous far;
And yon proud stars, which populate the sky
In dazzling multitudes, are less divine
Than the pale forehead of some pensive man
Beneath them watching, from whose lifted gaze
Outshines divinity; whene'er he thinks!

And this we learn, because in this we live,
When from the perill'd life of passion freed
Within ourselves we dare at last descend:
There, truths unvoiced may thoughtful hearts perceive,
And dread predictions, by no language shaped,
Thrill through our conscience with majestic force
And hint the Being men are doom'd to know.

But, solitude a softer mood enjoys;
The past revives; the tombs of time unlocks,
And in the heart's sad resurrection calls
The dead to life, the dear to love, again!
For when this halcyon o'er the spirit broods,
The chain of life, electrically touch'd,
Link after link unwinds, and leads us back
From manhood, with its false and fretting cares,
To childhood, basking in maternal smiles.
Soothed into softness, now the stern can weep;
And shamed ambition from itself recoils
To think how basely, on the World's false shrine
The hopes and aims, which heaven alone can meet,
Our life hath squander'd, with a fruitless zeal.
Ye dreams of Virtue! oft in vice exhaled;
Ye hopes of Greatness! oft in ruin sunk;
Ye full-wing'd Energies! which cleaved your flight
High o'er the vault of young Ambition's heaven,
Reality, the stubborn, and the true,
To airy nought, hath frown'd ye all away!

Still, may we profitably mourn; and muse,
When Memory o'er tombs of buried time
Bends her pale brow, and placidly recals
The spring-like radiance of exulting youth.
For what, though blasting disappointment sear'd
The buds of promise on our tree of Hope,
And few have actualized the heart's fond dreams,
Yet, contrast is our teacher: and we know
The truth, by trial only as we live;
And man who sins, by suff'ring must be saved,
While God, through disappointment, makes him wise.

Then hush'd for aye, let all rebellions be:
But welcome, Solitude, however drear,
And come, Reflection! with thy charms august,
And Mem'ry! oft our deeper yearnings wake;
Be to the husband, all the wife appear'd
In the chaste beauty of her spousal morn;
Be to the orphan, what the mother was
When by her knee he knelt, a dimpled boy
Lisping his little prayer; or, on her breast
Pillow'd his head, as if the world were peace:
Act all within, that life without has been,
And from the grave, where dead and dear ones lie,
People our homes with forms true hearts revere!

SPIRITUAL LONELINESS.

And not unlike, in moods of thought intense
To this, was that experience, which the soul
Of Luther gather'd, while for ten lone months
By friendly capture in his Patmos hid.
Here did he muse; and watch, or weep, or pray,
Enter himself, and down the mind's abyss
Take many a deep and undescribèd gaze;
Till forms of terror, phantoms of despair,
And dread emotions, meaningless, or vast,
Throng'd into power, and haunted him like hell!

Meet was the spot for high-wrought feeling's hour.
Within were chambers, long, and large, and roof'd

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With fretted stone-work, dimly worn by years,
Where the glad sunbeam caught a pensive tinge
Paler than twilight; and the tread of feet
Fell like a sound, which ought not there to be:
While from their ancient walls the stern-brow'd Dead
Look'd on the living, as with sad rebuke,
Or solemn warning. From a window-niche
The eye might witness hills of forest-wood
In green confusion, stretching far away
Into wild distance; while to Fancy's ear
The pleasing anthem of perpetual birds
Made the huge Forest with their concert thrill.
And here, in myst'ry and in mournfulness,
Shrined in the solitude of his own soul
How much of Deity might Luther learn!
Ascending oft the mountain-peaks of mind,
The Alps of thought, far up the Godhead ranged,
To talk with his Eternity to come.

How like a poem must his life have read,
Where fiction's self by fact had been surpass'd,
When now, by retrospection's quiet gaze
Unroll'd and re-perused! To boyhood's prime
And young experience, when the miner's cot
Roof'd his sad hours of struggle and of sin,
Down the strange past, through all his soul endured,
Dark conscience felt, or prescient fancy dream'd,
Remembrance flew; and now, in castled pomp
Behold him exiled! far from Rome's dread eye
Which glared with hunger for his mangled form.
And well might he, when thus the past renew'd,
The present acted, and the future brought
Prophetic influence into vivid play,
Seem by intensity transform'd, and fired,
Till Unrealities around him throng'd,
And Phantoms, which derision loves to mock,
Fever'd his life with supernat'ral force
Till Matter's self a form of Mind assumed,
And feeling suffer'd all which fancy shaped.

REACTION.

From vast excitement, to the voiceless depths
Of this weird solitude at once transposed,
Who wonders, that reaction like a curse
Besieged him? or, with arid weight o'erhung
The beatings of his brave and free-born heart?
Till, in such blank and barren waste of things,
He sank, and melted into mindless tears;
Or sigh'd, as if the very soul was worn
And weaken'd down to senselessness, and woe.
Oh! there came moments, when a fiendish gloom
A lurid darkness not of earth begot
Enwrapt him, like a shrouding agony;—
A stifled pain, a suffocating pang,
A grief benumbing with torpedo-touch
All the warm currents of his healthful blood,
Till life itself one long compunction grew!
Thus did he suffer: while the brain o'erboil'd
With madness, and his soul was set on fire;
And then, rebukes from some sarcastic Fiend
Would ring around him with disdainful tone,
To mock the little, and to make it less,
Which He and Truth together did, and dared,
When back recoil'd from their combined assault
Popedom and Pope, with all their banded powers!
Nor let the bond-slave of the senses ask,
Why Luther, tempted in such gloom, believed
That ghastly mockers, bodiless and black,
On soundless wing and immaterial tread
Inaudibly around him came; and cursed
And grinn'd, in all the ghastliness of hell,
To shake his spirit from that throne of trust,—
The Word almighty! Yes, when rolling storms
Yell'd in loud rage; or night-wing'd tempests burst,
And howl'd along the wind-rock'd battlements
Of Wartburg, oft did spectral Forms appear
Shading the room with imag'ry of life
And motion; mutt'ring Fiends his couch besieged,
Till Luther shudder'd out his soul in prayer!
But e'en by day, when black depression came
And, like the nightmare of the mind, o'erhung
All faith and reason, in one fell attack,
No flaming death his Flesh could so appal
As this dark anguish did the blood o'erpower;
The pang, without the peace, of death was there!

TOIL AND THOUGHT.

But, like an eagle from his chain unloosed
Darting aloft to his blue home of skies
And sunshine, soon his panting soul escaped
From this dread bondage into purer life.
He pray'd, and open'd Heaven itself by prayer!
Attracting downward some responsive grace,
Or balm, which heal'd him like the hand of God.
Or haply music, as the lyre of old
Tuned into magic by the sweeping touch
Of David, when he charm'd the fiend from Saul,
Besoothed the spirit; till o'er all his frame
A lulling softness exquisitely crept,
And soul was cradled in the charm of sound.

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His exile, now, no barren rock became
Where thought must wither into wintry blight;
But rather, grew a bower of mental peace,
An isle of calm amid the sea of life,
A Patmos, where the harbour'd soul retired
From earth's loud shock, to feel the hush of heaven.
Soon, like a giant from his sleep refresh'd,
Up rose the great Reformer! and awoke
The drooping thousands, whose dejected hearts
Pined for one accent of his cheering lips.
But, how he wrought, and with what noble bursts
And outbreaks high of eloquence, and truth,
He pour'd his spirit over man, and mind,
Omniscience only can on high explain;
For, souls like Luther's multiply and make
More change within, and character without,
Than mere chronology to men unfolds.
Down to the roots of conscience dived his words
With daring energy, and drew to light
Those hidden workings, and that dark unrest
Which haunt our being: or, on guilt and gloom
The thunderbolt of just rebuke he hurl'd,
And through the provinces of mind career'd
On bold excursion's theologic wing,
And wafted light, where'er his wisdom came.

But, in thy castle, Wartburg! chief o'er all
The monuments which mind up-builded there,
Let gratéful Rev'rence long that work admire,
O'er which a Seraph's wings might shake with joy,
By Luther, with colossal power achieved.
There, was the Word Almighty, from the grave
Of buried language, into breathing life
Summon'd, in sainted glory to arise,
And speak to souls, what souls could understand!
Oh! to have seen him, in that toil august,
Lifting to heaven his meditative eyes
Radiant with wonder, as the words of Truth
Eternal gave their hoary secrets up,
While God's own language into Luther's pass'd
With prompt transition; till, behold, the Voice
Of Jesus out of classic fetters came
And, like its Author, to the poor man preach'd.
Noble, beyond nobility to match,
Hero of heaven! was thine achievement here.
To free the Bible, was thy God to throne
Firm on the conscience of adoring man;
And hence, by this supremacy divine
To limit tyrants, should they dare profane
That seat of awe, where none but Godhead rules.

But, intervals there came of lovely calm,
Mild as the languish of a summer-even
Around the poet, by some dream entranced,
When Nature, like a conscious Meaning, acts,
And through cold matter preaches grace to mind.
Then, student of the Spirit! walk with fear
The halls of nature; nor, with pagan eye,
The meanest of Her solitudes and shrines
Inspect thou: ministries of mind are there,
And more than mere philosophy forebodes
Fills the fine atom which a step destroys.
Angels and Spirits may unseen preside,
And nature's beauty be a Seraph's work;
Behind the Veil which meets our sensual view
Myriads of Powers may ply their noiseless hands,
And each live function of this breathing Earth,
Serve but to type a Ministry unknown.

And not ungenial to that high-toned mood
When feeling soars, and poetry is born,
In sun and silence Luther wander'd forth;
Perusing earth, or reading air and sky
As one great manuscript, where God had penn'd
Some letter'd outlines of His secret Name.
For, though creation felt the curse's fang,
And beauty from the beautiful hath fled,
And glory from the glorious,—still, the wreck
Is haunted with magnificence and might,
Making the universe a Temple seem,
Whose priestess is the God-revealing Soul
Of man, and worships Him in earth and sky,
Or in the stars, whose bright pulsations throb
Like thrills of glory trembling through the skies.

And, deep the hour, delicious was the calm
When Luther, in some dream, would oft accost
The speaking loveliness of fruits and flowers
Around him scatter'd, o'er the castled hill.
To him they were with more than beauty touch'd,
And seem'd like orphans of dead Paradise
Which smiled upon him, with a mournful grace.
Thus, hues and harmonies of Eden throng'd,
In sweetest union, round his loneliness,
While faith, by rapt imagination raised,
In prayer for those millennial glories pined,
Which God hath promised, and His poets sung,
When spousal Earth her bridegroom-Lord shall greet
Returning, on Creation's throne to reign,
Till every atom of this world redeem'd
Blooms in His breath, and sparkles by His smile.

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But, Nature hath her sad and silent moods,
Her solemn counterparts to serious man.
And oft at sunset, when pale Autumn sigh'd
Like a lone Spirit, wailing through the woods
Of Wartburg, Luther mourn'd 'mid falling leaves,
And flowers dejected, till the dew-fall 'gan
To glisten round him; and his boding mind
Took from the season types of man within.
And thus, at midnight, when the Moon commenced
The inspiration of her pallid beam
O'er plain and mountain, from his harrow'd sleep
The exile rose; and, through the window-grate
Of his high turret, o'er yon dew-white fields
And cold earth, slumb'ring in the glassy air,
Gazed mournfully, through many a sleepless hour;
Or wander'd o'er the skies in prayer and praise,
Till to his dream-wrapt eye those heavens appeared
A scripture bright, whose oracles are stars
Of promise, beaming with prophetic truth,
And high intelligence for holy man.

DARKNESS IN THE HOUR OF LIGHT.

The saints of thoughts, the seraphim of mind,
The sole archangels of our sinful world
Who make, or magnify the page they fill
With moral prowess, what colossal pangs
Were theirs! and what fierce martyrdom they faced,
In bringing forth those Promethéan fires
Which lighten Centuries with their living ray!
But, never yet hath Truth had monuments,
Whose sculptured immortalities of praise
Could half reveal, what lion Hearts have braved
In the great agony of being great!
For what, though history weave its laureate-words
Around some trophy of consummate toil;
Or chant the glory of those giant thoughts
Which grasp'd all ages, with redeeming force;
Result is praised, but not the process told,
Nor the deep racking of those downcast-hours
When darkness, like a fiendish nightmare, sat
Heavy upon them; till the gasping soul
Grew effortless, as if by doubt struck dumb;
While truths, which once like inspiration nerved
The heart for battle, e'en to blood and flame,
Melt into nought, by spiritless eclipse.
And, when have earth's high Benefactors felt
That martyrdom, beyond all fires to make?
Not when the clash and combat fiercely rang
Around them, and the World its weapons drew
To daunt their progress, or dispel their aims:
For then, that eagle of unstooping mind,
Young Energy! could lift itself for flight,
And mounted bravely through the blackest cloud,
Cleaving all tempest with unbaffled wing.
Danger and death were talismanic sounds,
Which from the heart drew forth a secret fire.
Effort was theirs; and mastery sublime
O'er scene and circumstance their faith evinced,
Till lo! the perill'd cause in safety smiles,
And History for its coronation waits.

But in the gladness, and the glow immense,
When hope's millennium seems at last to bloom;
When the calm jubilee of conscience rings,
And Principle its heaven-toned pæan chants
For peaceful triumph, then, while good men pray,
And great ones, in a hush of wonder, pause;
If, in such hour of golden promise, all
Fades into formless vanity, or vice,
And fell Reverse a sudden ruin frown,—
Alas! the Heroes of the heart are left
Unpraised, unsoothed, unlaurell'd, and unsung,
The rack of racks alone to face, and feel,
When virtue's cause a suicide becomes
And stabs itself to impotence, and shame!

But, such the crisis, that with sudden might
And sweeping darkness round tried Luther's soul
Came, in the very noon of noble hopes,
When the bright future cloudlessly began
To open, and in peace and prayer to reign.
Height after height victoriously was scaled
Of priestly bulwarks, and papistic lies;
The Bible, into living freedom loosed,
From cot to palace circulated truth;
The majesties of buried mind began,
Clothed in the radiance of regen'rate power,
The grave-clothes of the monk to throw away:
While, chief o'er all, that Mammon of the priest,
The aping Mass, where bleeding Love is mock'd,
Was banish'd; and Emmanuel's truth began
As Lord of conscience, from all hearts to hurl
That crown'd Melchisedek, whom Rome anoints
Both head and front of Christendom to be.

When lo, at once the anarchy of change!
And Luther, palsied as by dread alarm,
Around him hears fanatic Madness yell,
And the hot Até of excited hearts

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Through flame and fury to rebellion sweep.
And now, the Pang! the concentrated pang,
Which dire, and dark, expressionless and deep,
Heaved in no sigh, and by no tear pourtray'd,
Sank on his soul with adamantine crush.
For all seem'd ruin, and revulsion here:
While leagued Rebellion, with its brazen throat,
Its blasting eye-glance, and its bloody mien,
And mingled yells for murder raging loud,
From the black forest of Thuringa rush'd;
While He Himself an incarnation seem'd
In principle of all perversion did,
That Madness loved, or Murder long'd to do!
The People cursed him,—for he cursed their cause,
And call'd rebellion but the child of hell.
The Princes cursed him,—for the yoke of Rome
His arm had broken from the nation's mind.
Bereft, in solitude of soul apart,
A ruin among ruins, thus he stood
With heart all bleeding, and with spirit bare,
One living agony of gloom, and tears.
And well might Luther, like his Master, feel
Desertion, in that night of nights profound!
For Heaven's own cause fanatically lay
Trampled, and torn beneath a hoof of lies,
When Munzer, and his host by hell inflamed,
Shouted “The Spirit!” and to blood blasphemed
Both God and Bible, with insanest breath.
Each to himself a Holy Ghost became,
And all his madness to th' Almighty gave!
And He, who was on earth the living Type
Of holy Order, and consummate Law,
Both first of Subjects and the first of Kings,
Upon the banners of Rebellion found
His Cross a symbol of destruction made!
E'en common feeling from the roots was torn;
Till all affections, motherly and mild,
Which form sweet nature's consecrated spring,
Nile of the heart! whose undiscover'd source
Deep in the bosom of the Godhead lies,—
Were parch'd to nothing in that burning waste;
When heroes mad, for demigods mistook,
Mangled their thousands, by a hellish creed,
And christen'd Murder with the name of Christ!

“But fear thou not!” a Voice within him cries;
“Forward! for I am with thee, man of God!
On to the rescue of My truth! and fight
With weapons all resistless, as divine!”
And forward went He; with a burst of zeal
Faith from her cloud of black dejection breaks,
And Luther is himself, in soul, again!
While hope, that rainbow of the weeping mind,
The Iris out of tears by passion wove,
Smiles through the sunshine of prophetic calm,
And his heart palpitates with silent prayer.

MENTAL RESURRECTION.

True liberty, O God! Thy Spirit makes;
For, the vast doctrine of redeeming Love
Holds in itself the majesties of man.
Freedom and faith our twin inspirers are,
The healthful source from which pure greatness springs:
All fine immunities of sense, and soul,
All deeper actings of divinest thought,
All morals, motives, aims, and bold designs,
And aspirations for the Good unseen
In man's free conscience find their perfect root.
For liberty within, forms light without,
And grace the spirit of salvation is.
Whate'er of polity just freedom lauds,
Whate'er of life domestic love reveres,
Whate'er of mind heroic wisdom haunts,
Or, in the temple of essential Truth,
All which our adorations prove divine,
From grace, in principle, directly flow.

The Reformation thus the Mind redeem'd;
The swathing bands which superstition cast
Round the chain'd spirit, were at once dissolved;
And, lo! a mental resurrection smiled:
A golden dawn of intellectual day
Already round the clear horizon glow'd,
And faintly shined on Europe's rising heart.
See Luther, and Melancthon, all inflamed
Ardent as eagles, in their sunward flight,
From truth to truth victoriously advance!
Instead of Masses, mark the Holy Feast,
The mystic Supper of Incarnate Love
Dispensed with beauty, primitive and plain.
The Visible its hallow'd claim advanced,
And Ideality a form assumed;
While the young Church her pristine features wore.
Thus, rites external, for external sense,
And truths internal, for internal soul,
By fitness due the wants of nature met;
Since, mere Abstractions angels may perceive,
But men embodied must by Forms be led,
And rites are reasons, when by God approved.

Still, not o'er temple-rites alone was breathed
That order Principle from Scripture draws;
But through the heart, by reformation clear'd
From papal mist, the common mind was touch'd,

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And the pure founts of intellect unseal'd
From lofty plans see Education stoop
To ply the humblest with appropriate skill;
While cloister'd Learning, from her cells escaped,
Comes to the peasant-home, the people's heart;
Till mind is no monopoly for priests,
And classic Thought in sacerdotal rust
No more lies with'ring; but, at Luther's word,
Walks through the world of feeling, and of faith;
And ye, the symbols of our inner sense,
Types of the Beautiful we cannot reach;
Ye adumbrations of diviner Grace
Than ever seen, when most Invention lifts
Her glad Eureka! round enraptured souls,
Ye Arts! which make imagination's heaven,
By shape, or hue, or melody reveal'd,
Soon from the sacred Reformation caught
A new intensity of noblest power.
For Music rose, seraphical, and pure,
And revell'd in a paradise of sound,
To hymn the Prince of glory, and of peace.
And Painting, from Apostles imaged forth
Forms of fair virtue, in sublimest mould:
While Piety and Painting blent their powers,
Taking a cast from Beauty's very soul
In lines of love, and lineaments of heaven.
And She, the charmer of celestial moods,
High Poetry, the heart's young Priestess, came,
And on the altar of melodious hours
Laid the soft incense of devoutest song.

IDEAL RAPTURES.

And hence, amid the harmony of things,
A while, as on the brink of heaven restored,
Rejoiced the grateful Luther. Who can tell,
The Promised Land of hope's perpetual dream
How greenly-bright before him, then, it smiled!
The passion and the principle of song,
With full intensity his being fired:
'Twas thus, the poetry of peace and joy
Each fine pulsation of his nature thrill'd;
And all without, from life internal, took
Some answ'ring tone of sympathetic love.
Through walks, and woods of Wittemberg he roam'd;
Or gave his spirit to the mountain-breeze;
And in the carol of rejoicing streams,
The leafy warble of the forest-boughs,
Or lyric echoes of the laughing wave,
In sound, or scene, and all which nature show'd,
A charm responsive to himself he found.
Nature and man in fine accordance met:
Their smiles and tones reciprocally play'd;
Her forms of matter to his shaping mind
Embodied meaning; and a moral grace
From all Her symmetries appear'd to flow.
Now was the halcyon of the heart; awhile
Bosom'd in peace, the bright-soul'd Monk was blest.
The past was praise, for all that vict'ry won;
The present prayer, for all which Mercy gives;
And o'er the future his prophetic heart
Glow'd with entrancement, as Isaiah did,
When his lyre trembled with exulting tones
Millennial over crown'd Messiah's reign:
Till oft, in rapt Imagination's dream,
Amid the universe of happy worlds
This earth appear'd creation's loved St. John,—
Safe on the bosom of redemption's Lord
Reclining there in glory, and in rest.

And, like th' apostle of a church reform'd,
Who has not, in the harmony and heaven
Of some high mood of meditative calm,
As opes the flower its scented breast of bloom
To welcome there each beautifying ray,—
Yielded his spirit with expanding joy
To Nature, in her eloquence of scene,
As if to consciousness he then appeal'd?
Till all creation grew personified,
And the touch'd earth, to fancy's tender dream,
His living counterpart of joy became.

As by some harp, when exquisitely strung,
A vulgar breeze to music's voice is turn'd
When o'er its chords the airy tremor floats,
In subtile magic, so, to mind intense,
The coarse realities of sense and time
Change, as they touch the intellectual powers,
To meanings beautiful, and mental types.
The prose of earth to poetry of heaven
Is thus transform'd, for faith's perusal, there;
And oh, ye scenes, ye splendours, and rich sounds,
Like inspirations, lo! at once ye act:
All sacramental charms of earth, and air,
All signs and symbols of redeeming grace
Steal into view, with eloquent surprise!
Till the pure eye of sainted Thought conceives
The dust to overflow with teeming spells,
While all things, into sacredness refined,
Make parables which prove redemption's plan.

Thrice happy they, who thus, by heav'n empower'd,
Can find a gospel in the flowers, and leaves!
Creation's book then fancy's bible forms;
And faith poetic, by the Spirit led,
All nature calls a comment on the Cross.
In this let holy Love our teacher be!

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A love perpetual,—for in that supreme,
The sabbath's God Himself no sabbath keeps.
And then, what great proprietors we are!
E'en on His throne the Uncreate is ours
By covenant, from everlasting made;
And under it entire creation works
All good and glory for the church redeem'd.

Many have much, yet all desire a more;
But less than infinite, to man is nought:
The more must be almighty, or 'tis none!
But who hath Christ, has God by God bestow'd,
And vast Eternity becomes his friend.
Then still, thou Sun! Emmanuel's image be,
And like a shadow of His glory burn;
Thou Moon! His mystic bride on earth, reflect;
Planets! that with prophetic radiance gleam;
Thou paragon of elemental powers,
Myst'ry of waters, never-slumbering Sea!
Impassion'd Orator! with lip sublime,
Whose waves are arguments which prove a God;
Ye Woods! that with tempestuous anthems ring;
Ye Winds! whose allelujahs tongue the storm
With music's deep magnificence of tone;
Ye Mountain-altars! which from earth to heaven
Serenely lift your consecrated steps,
While the soft grandeur of the silent hills
Sinks on the heart like music low, and sad,—
Long in your magic each, and all, abide,
Some teaching mystery of Christ to show:
That hence, in all things, with an eye of praise
And heart of prayer, true Faith may ever find
By nature, as by grace, her God express'd;
And in the temple of creation greet
Perpetual glories which His Name enshrine.

AFFECTIONS MADE FREE.

If ever, since the pulse of feeling play'd
In the quick breast of God-created man,
Companionless, in isolation pure,
The full revealings of his nature might
Themselves in moral harmony have shown,
'Twas when the young creation heard him crown'd
Her living monarch; while the lyric stars
Chanted a birth-day ode, and angels lined
The silver battlements of Heaven above,
To see a masterpiece of human mould
In sinless purity from dust evoked,
And stamp'd with features from the Hand of God.
Then was the hour, if ever such might dawn,
When echoless a mortal heart might throb
And still be happy, in itself complete,
By woman's smile unwelcomed, and unwed.
But, not when paradise within made peace,
And paradise without, responsive joy,
Was human loneliness by Heaven approved:
“It was not good that man should be alone,”
And so, a female counterpart was framed
In oneness sacramentally profound,
From his own being moulded, and educed;
And Woman thus to Adam's bower was brought;
There the first marriage by almighty hands
In stainless Eden was perform'd, and seal'd;
And the first miracle Messiah work'd
To Wedlock gave the glory of its power:
Hence, life monastic came from man alone;
But life domestic is from God derived.

But she, the Murd'ress of emotions pure,
The vile Creatress of mistaken good,
Both law and love in nature contravened;
And dared, with hand of sacrilegious force,
From the young Bosom, where soft feeling dwells,
Expunge all instinct, and the soul uproot,
To plant, and place it in a coarser soil
Blighted and bare, with chills unmanly cursed.
But Nature proved an unmonastic Thing!
And when in light, the monk of God arose
To stay the famine of the soul for truth,
The heart was hung'ring for its food of love.
Pining, and pent, in passionless remorse
It wither'd, by a torturing fetter bound
To vow itself to suicidal gloom.
Yet, few had fester'd in o'er-righteous chains:
Though canons frown'd, and convent-law decreed
Death to each heart, by female hearts enticed!
And thus, in self-revenge, the blood o'erboil'd
In fires of feeling; ruffian passion raged;
And homes, which might have been like heavens of bliss,
Had holy Wedlock lit the vestal flame,
Grew hells impure, unmentionably vile,
Where powers of darkness turn'd to priests of lust
And Satan saw himself in Rome secure.

But he, who brought the buried Scripture forth
From tombs of silence, and monastic death,
The bright Restorer of domestic bliss
At length with dreadless vigour dares to be.
Affections are the food of hearts which feel:
For such pined Luther; and in Ketha met,
Fresh in her maidenhood of life and love,
That feeling sympathy fond nature sought.

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For what, though all around grew black and drear,
And the wild echoes of the peasant-war
Rang loud in Europe's ear; while reek'd the blood
Of thousands, on Thuringa's hoof-worn plain:
Yet did the Word about him cast a shield,
While o'er him hung the canopy of heaven.
The God of marriage was the God of man;
Here, on this rock, the thunder-blasts of Rome
Sank powerless, as the lisp of summer-winds!
Better by far, that flesh and blood should quail,
Or, all creation be annull'd in gloom,
Than One majestic truth of God be harm'd!
In heresy our God Himself we lose;
And the big universe a bubble seems,
Weigh'd in the balance of a single word
Dropt from the lips of His almighty Love!
But that was with him, sealing woman's love
As heavenly-bright, and by the Saviour blest:
And therefore, not by this a Cause sublime
Was perill'd; nor the Reformation's ark
In danger, when the monk of Wittemberg
Rose, in the freedom of a fervid soul,
To rive the fetters of monastic vows
Asunder, from his heaven-instructed mind;
And, lifting his pure conscience in the light
Of scripture, up to majesty and truth,
Look'd on the world, a husband not ashamed!

And round that scene, where his devoted heart
The wedded Luther to his Ketha gave,
Eternal Wisdom cast approving smiles,
And heaven its hymeneal blessings shed.
For then was Private Life from priestly lust
Deliver'd; peace conjugal back restored,
And wedlock in its sainted charm enshrined;
While Rome another and a ruder shock
Experienced, from the soul of Luther sent;
For now, affections, nerved with sudden life,
Together with deep principle combined;
Till both concenter'd, back to Nature gave
A creed which conscience could avow, and act,—
To guide the faith, to guard emotion pure,
And brighten homes with honourable love
Where prison'd Feeling, passionless and pale,
Languish'd alone; or, lewd Corruption came
To look the Angel, with a demon's heart!

And thus, within the haven of a home
Luther, at length, his care-toss'd spirit found
Anchor'd in peace, and matrimonial joy
Secure. And where do Love's fond annals tell
A home of heart, more exquisite than his?
The once cowl'd Monk, who trod the cloisters dim,
And made his melancholy footsteps ring
With cadence long and lone, was now become
A glowing husband, and a gladden'd sire.
And, lovely was it, when his mind, unrobed
Of all its panoply of public state,
Reposed in sunshine, and, at home retired,
Sparkled and play'd around his infant boy;
Or else, in laughing sweetness echo'd back
The tones of glee, and truths of gay delight
Which Ketha from her glowing spirit sent;
Or smiled approval, when his portrait rose
Under the magic of embroid'ring Art
Featured, and form'd. And so, when sombre night
Mantled his dwelling with sabbatic peace,
Seldom have Angels, as they waft their flight
From home to home, on voiceless errands wing'd,
A fairer landscape of domestic love
And life beheld, than Martin Luther made
Around him, with his wife and infant smile.
Nor haply, upon heaven's memorial page
The meek hosannahs of more thankful minds
Have they recorded, than the chants they heard,
When sang the great restorer of the Truth
Hymns of the heart around his household-shrine.

LUTHER MARRIED.

A monk was married! how the priesthood raved!
But God was with him; and His word approved
A deed that shook all Popedom to its base,
The convents oped, the Vatican alarm'd,
And push'd the world by matrimonial law
A century forward into fearless paths
Of light, of liberty, and spousal love.
And Scripture canonised the act: but, powers
In nature also with approval smiled;
For imaged wedlock, in the vital bonds,
The unions pure, the harmonies profound,
The loving sense and sympathy of things,—
His fancy by poetic vision saw.

And let the hard utilitarian smile,
Building religion on a sensual base.
A Faith there is, which, like to Luther's, loves
The adumbrations of a deeper life
Beyond the sense, in Matter's self to trace.
Christ and His Church,—for these the world was framed;
And thus to souls, with sight divine endow'd
The Spirit's Kingdom on this earth to see,
Creation glows with poetry for Christ,
Through forms of matter unto faith reveal'd.
All pangs, all pleasures, faculties, and powers,
The hearts of God's elected race can find,
Or feel, or suffer, may from Nature draw

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Tones of respect, and touches of regard,
Or something which resembles sympathy.

Nor let the worshipper of venal gods
Pronounce this pure Imagination's dream;
Since, haply, thus the myst'ry may unwind,
And what the poet sings a saint admire.—
When this fair World to conscious being rose
With beauty, and with vernal radiance clad,
Why were her forms, her symmetries, and scenes
Touch'd by a spell which can the mind pourtray,
And by such true analogies reveal
An image dim, but exquisite and deep,
Of much the moral universe combines?
Such forms of nature with the facts of grace,
Why do they so responsively apply,
That each with each in harmony coheres?
Or in that region, where the feelings dwell,
Why does our spirit from the sounds and scenes
Of Nature, catch a mute intelligence,
As if with consciousness of man and mind
The speaking magic of her aspect smiled?
The festive jubilee of summer-winds;
Or soothing descant of a far-off sea;
The storm's loud wail; the ocean's sullen roar,
Noon with its sun, and midnight with the stars,
The Spring, with her sweet family of flowers,
Or, widow'd Autumn, with consumptive leaves,
And pale-faced Winter in a frozen vest,
Why do they all intelligibly bring
Hints to the heart, and harmonies for mind?
Is this reply, which all Creation gives
To human feeling, but the fancy's mock?
Or, is not earth a parable divine?
And poets, when their inward eyes discern
Meanings that flow from matter into mind,
Priests of creation, may they not be call'd?
For Thou, O Christ! art universal King:
By Thee, and for Thee, were not all things made?
So, when the Spirit on the mass new-born
Of nature brooded, then, with mystic Seal,
All matter for Thy Glory was impress'd
With types peculiar, with expressive laws,
Thy church to show, Thy symbols to expound,
And thus preach gospel to our very sense;
Till Nature act the orator for Grace,
And all creation one gigantic type
For Christ and Christianity becomes.

And such the creed Imagination holds,
When the vast glories of this earth appear
But shadows from the Saviour's beauty cast.
And seldom hath poetic Sense replied
To Loveliness, with more impassion'd glow
Than Luther's, when ideal moments reign'd,
And his full heart, with purified excess
Of sympathy for life's unbounded range,
O'erflow'd all nature in one gush of love!
Yet, moods of preternatural calm there came,
With might of thought, and majesty of dreams
And a deep awe beyond all words to voice,
Under the mute and melancholy heavens
As oft he worshipp'd, in his window-shade
At starry moonlight. Then, th' unpillar'd vault,
By viewless Energy for aye upheld,
Harangued him like a holy Sign, which spake
How like that arch of glory God sustains
The Church elect, by bleeding merit won.
Or when the moon through some black cloud emerged
In radiant victory from a brief eclipse,
To him a symbol of refulgent grace
It seem'd, of how the Reformation's cause
From the cold darkness of imperial frowns,
At length, would glide to glory and to peace.

POWER OF PRAYER.

Yet, not from nature, solitude, or night,
Nor wedded life, with all its household-sweets,
The sober quiet or the sterling joy,
His force to grapple with infernal Arms,
Wisdom to guard or prudence to restrain
The lawless plunges of impassion'd will,—
The brave Reformer drew: below the skies
No charm was found which could have moulded him:
From One high Source both cause, and courage sprang.
And that, divine!—from spirit-breathing prayer
Hour after hour communing with His God.

He loved the Bible; and he lived it, too;
Till each bright promise to experience turn'd
By faith transmuted, or by love enjoy'd.
The source of Luther was a strength of Prayer
Frequent, and full, and fervidly inspired,
As oft the castled gloom of Coburg heard.
Though loud the Reformation-battle grew
And empires as with moral earthquake heaved,
Throned was his spirit in Elysian calm!
But, where man wonders, faith can all explain.
'Twas God within, made Luther great without;
Whether, against that triple-crown'd Pretence,
The mitred Antichrist of Rome, he hurl'd
His thunders; or, on sacerdotal crimes

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Pour'd the just vengeance of his free-born words,
Prayer was his panoply; the shield and strength
That arm'd him for the fight, and kept him there.
With this, the World, the Arch-fiend and the Flesh
Combined, he nobly fought, and bravely fell'd.
And we inherit what his prayers procured:
For, light in conscience, liberty in creed,
And the pure freedom of our British faith,
How much to blessings drawn by Luther's voice
From the high sanctuary of heaven, they owe!
Yea, half the glory living Empires boast
Springs from that mercy which the monk procured,
When Godhead listen'd to a Luther's prayer!

And round a privilege august as this
Less than inspired no language can entwine
The wreath, how due! of evangelic praise.
Prayer from eternity true riches gains
To make the poverty of time less poor;
Heaven down to earth, and earth to heaven it brings,
While Love with Deity by faith confers:
And mark! through nature, providence, and grace
What miracles hath mighty prayer achieved!
The kingly Elements their thrones have left
To bow before it, and obey, though vast,
Its high dominion: Flood, and Sea, and Fire
Have soften'd their severity of force,
Suspended by it; Sun and Moon have paused
In wonder, on their cars of wheeling flame,
As if arrested by th' Almighty's touch;
And the wild brute, which not a world could bend,
Meek as a lamb, before a Saint has crouch'd
Harmless and mute, when it beheld him pray!
Heroes in heart, in principle, or power,
Hath prayer alone with high perfection crown'd:
While saints, and martyrs, and the men of old,
Giants in grace, who grappled with the Fiend
Or threw him bravely in the spirit's fight,
By valiant prayer their elevation reach'd:
And earth's Emmanuel, in His day of flesh
Outwatch'd the midnight with His mountain-prayer;
And from the deep abyss of Godhead drew
His faith intense, his fortitude divine:
And all, who love the cause eternal, must
Like their pure Master, fight the world with prayer,
And strike for God, by God himself inspired!

DOMESTIC LIFE, AND WEDDED LOVE.

From out the Bosom of paternal bliss
When came the Second of th' almighty Three,
And God, in human image bodied forth,
Alighted on man's world of sin and death
As Prince of peace, and Purchaser of life,
How lived, how spake, this Archetype of all?
E'en like his Person, did His life appear,
Divinely human, with coequal grace:
In Godhead,—never sunk the God beneath;
In Manhood,—never raised the man above;
To each extreme symmetrical and true,
Believer! there, thine own Emmanuel hail.

How awful was He! when the cloud of flesh
Gleam'd with the lustre of indwelling God.
Thy steadfastness, vast Nature! from the sleep
Of twice two thousand years, by Him was moved;
For all those laws, by Science so revered,
Their changeless glory to His changing will
Yielded, like vassals by their king o'erawed.
He look'd—Creation by his glance was thrill'd;
He spake—the Elements each word obey'd;
Earth, Sea, and Air their royal sceptres threw
Down at His feet, and fell before their Lord;
While shrinking, as with conscious dread commoved,
Back from his word the rushing Storm recoil'd,
Soothed its mad roar, and like an infant smiled
Itself to sunshine and soft peace again.
Blindness, at His command, the sun beheld;
And Deafness heard Him when the fiat came;
Disease was Health; and Lameness felt her Limbs
With miracles of energy to move,
While the dead body from the bier uprose
Beneath the resurrection of His word!

And, awful was He! when the curse was borne:
While His bow'd Head was crimson'd o'er with blood,
Then shook the Earth, and shudder'd as the groan
Of Christ appall'd her! while a deep eclipse
Dropt like an eyelid o'er the flaming Sun,
Dreading to gaze on God incarnadined!
But, in that syncopé of mortal hopes,
That pause tremendous in our human fate
When sepulchred Messiah, cold and pale,
Seal'd in the rock a dead Redeemer lay,
While Nature seem'd as if with stern revenge
To triumph o'er Her pallid victor there,—
How awful was He when His grave-clothes stirr'd!

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When the rock trembled with an earthquake-pant,
Till the stone, radiant with angelic touch,
Roll'd from His sepulchre; and, rising up
In perfect majesty of might, behold
The Saviour gather'd to a God again,
Martyr at once, and Master of the tomb!

But, gentle was He! with all grace of man
Completely, as with charms of Godhead crown'd;
For He who came, by Love eterne inspired,
From heights celestial, with a pitying stoop
The low horizon of our world to meet,
Not in the costume of corporeal flesh
Alone was found; but, Fellowship with man
The life of Jesus bodied forth, and breathed;
The accent of created love He caught;
The sunshine of created joy He shared;
The sorrow of terrestrial sighs He heaved;
And with the tenderness of mortal tears
Moisten'd his eyelids, when a sister wept.
His form was human, and His feelings, too!
Thus, Manhood there in archetype may see
Each moral beauty which a life presents
When holy; where affections crowd the scene,
And heart and home a mingled Eden make,
While virtue follows where the Saviour went
Through haunts of love, and bowers of social bloom.

And thus religion, like her Master, glides
With touching glory, or with tender grace
O'er duteous walks of Life's diurnal round.
For, while on wing celestial faith can waft
Up to the Throne a meditative soul,
Down to the actual with a graceful love,
Where plain Humanity in humble guise
The man develops, can Religion stoop,
And o'er it cast her consecrating smile.
So, from the gaze of public life retired
'Mong shades domestic, where Affection blooms,
And feeling all its happy foliage sheds,
A Hero now, whom death nor dungeon awed,
Serene and simple as a peasant lives.
No lofty, loveless, and disdainful looks
Around him here, severest judgment finds.
But, frank and free, with apostolic mien,
And full-toned manhood in its perfect type,—
A husband in the great Reformer hail,
Like Martin Luther and like nothing more!
No stern pretension, borne with saintly pomp,
Mere actor made him. In the walks of home
Lord of himself, His individual mind
Free from the fetters of o'ermastering fame
He kept: his life was freedom to the last,
Stamp'd in the mould simplicity admires.
The Man was never in his Name absorb'd,
Chain'd like a captive to his own renown.
Framed in the homeliness of cottage-worth,
A racy humour, and a rough disdain
For mock supremacies for mean effect,
For little greatness and for large pretence,
Were his: and he who held all Rome at bay
And bulwark'd nations by his brave appeals,
Looks he less lofty, to those hearts which love
The sterling and the true, when playful seen
In the mild sunshine of a married state?
There, could he sparkle round the social board,
As romp'd the infant on his rocking knee;
While the glad mother, sat with glowing face
And sunn'd her feelings in the father's smile.

Yes! beautiful, behind the scenes to gaze,
And there no mock attempt, whose aping pride
Would play the Hero in ascetic gloom,
To witness; but that solid worth of sense,
And healthful sanctity, whose fervid power
The christian fulness of o'erflowing heart
Betoken. Lofty in his bosom beat
The pulse of principle, and great design:
But not alone, or frowningly aloof,
A frigid, stern and adamantine Thing
Whose life in passionless contempt retires
From warm reality's most welcome hour,—
Not thus, the avenger of the Bible lived.
In faith a hero, but in heart a man,
With him the simple and the great combined,
And both together made a blended charm
Beyond the drama of affected life
To feel, though play'd with Art's consummate guile.

COMMUNION WITH NATURE.

And Nature, through her world of types appears
Simplicity in grandeur thus to teach.
Expressive mountains! from whose massive forms
The dread Almighty speaks Himself to man
By eloquence, which hearing mind translates,
How often, underneath their shade august,
Or in the hollows of some green descent,
The tiny flowers in tenderness and bloom
Wave their young beauty! or, infantile plants
Bow to the breeze their unresisting heads,
While the faint lisp of dropping leaves returns
A murmur'd echo to the rippling stream
Which runs beside them, with loquacious play.
And thus, methinks, beneath that mental shade
The tow'ring giants of the mind produce,
Simplicity in loving calm delights
To watch the flowerets of affection bloom;
And see those lilies in the heart arise

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Which make the garden of our spirit green,
Breathing mild fragrance o'er affection's world.

And hence, admire we with revering gaze
True Greatness, when it lays all thunder by,
Till the soft childhood of the heart returns;
And solemn wisdom, sparkling into wit,
Can gild the heights of intellect with smiles.
But chief from music came the master-spell
Which Luther, like a spirit's echo loved!
To him it seem'd a charm divinely framed,
An earthless magic, out of mystery born,
And so with heaven instinct, that Satan fled
When Harmony her spells began to breathe,
Or sank o'er passion, like a healing dew
Pure from the fount of freshness in the skies.

'Twas thus the poetry of private life
Around him, with an unresisted reign,
Gather'd and glow'd. But oh! ye quiet fields,
Where, lost in sunshine, sang the soaring birds
In wing'd delight and ever-warbling song,
How would he listen to your choral joy,
Till the gay summer of his spirit smiled
With loving answer to the scene it loved!
And often, when some fever hot and harsh
From human outrage, wither'd him with pangs
Of weary anguish till the spirit wept,
Didst thou, meek Nature! with maternal smile
Look through his soul and laugh the cloud away.
To him thy shrines, thy solitudes profound,
Thy hues and shades, and harmonies perceived
Brought more than feeling to his heart of faith.
And so, the very flowers seem silent hymns,
And, by their aspect of persuasive bloom,
Remind him oft of Eden long no more;
Or, bid him muse on what the world may be
When second paradise again shall dawn:
Since all which fell by Adam's guilty fall
From outward glory into penal gloom,
And all of kingship which the soul enjoy'd
When man, as Monarch of creation, ruled
And, as anointed Priest of paradise, became
The mouth of Nature and her mute delights,—
To pristine splendour shall once more arise,
Till crownless Manhood wear a crown again;
Or earth redeem'd, Messiah's palace be,
And shine, as round His central throne it rolls,
The loved metropolis of sumless worlds.

PARADISE RESTORED.

And who, amid some holy trance of thought
On destined man, as prophet, priest, and king,
Hath never vision'd how his primal soul
In the bright mould of innocence was stamp'd,
When lord and master of this living world
The Ancestor of human kind was crown'd?
Who hath not ponder'd, or profoundly sigh'd
In the deep hush of some diviner mood,
O'er the dead glories of that regal scene
When all Creation, by his lip baptised,
Look'd in his face as King on nature's throne?
For what is Science, but a shadow cast
From the pure substance of primeval Mind?
A reflex dim, indefinite and deep,
Of light departed in the gloom of sin?
Or, what is Justice, but our priesthood felt,
The moral echo of supreme desire
That God and conscience may in one combine?
Or, what this appetite for boundless sway,
This hunger of the heart to rule, and reign,
But sense of kingship in our soul alive,
A royal longing for a vanish'd crown?

By law of mild association led
From nature's step-stones, to ethereal heights
Of Things that shall be, thus the heart ascends.
A mute theology all nature makes:
The very ground no vain religion breathes,
Where thorn and thistle, blent with fruit and flower,
Both cross and curse by intimation teach.
And, when from feeling unto faith we mount,
What fine accordance doth Redemption show
Between the ruin and the rise of man!
For, in thy Person and thy Spirit, Lord,
A re-production of those Trinal Powers,
Or threefold state of majesty entire
When priesthood, prophecy, and kingship crown'd
The Man consummate, Faith's adoring eye
In dim rehearsal, or in dawning grace
May witness. Hence our Being, at the best,
Is but an embryo of the life to be.
Philosophy a mere precursor looks;
All high attainments but its preludes are;
And science but presentiment appears
Of Power which manhood, when redemption brings
The primal glories of our birthright back,
In full millennium shall at length enjoy.

Behold a Centre! for our yearnings form'd,
That oneness, where all aspirations blend
When o'er the ruin of ourselves we roam;
And not from nature up to nature's God,
But down from nature's God, look nature through.
'Tis here, the meaning of their mystic strife
Passion and Principle alone explain.
The hell we merit, or the heaven we make,

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The poet's Eden and the painter's dream,
With whatsoe'er creative Genius cites
By shaping vision from her scenic world;
Together, with all temples and all shrines
A ritual heart instinctively erects,
These, by their secret unison of aim,
In blind concurrence to one Centre tend,—
E'en to regain what Sin's vast forfeit took
From earth of beauty or from man of bliss.

And what an Eden to prophetic mind
Predestined Earth by sight and sound unveils!
Oh, wise, beyond the learning of all books,
And learn'd, beyond the learning of The Schools,
And rich, beyond creation's gold to give,
The man, who thus by deep communion binds
His heart with Nature's, in maternal bonds.
A great proprietor of glories he!
Monarch of inward happiness at home,
And with the Universe a sharer deep
In all the march and movement of a life
Without embodied, or within inspired.

And what though Age, with shaded brow and cheek,
Or eye made solemn by a sense of death,
No longer, in the wild and wildering glow
Of new-born passion, looks on nature's scene
As once impassion'd Boyhood loved to do,
Gay as the sunbeam gambolling at his side,
Or headlong as the breeze that round him play'd,—
Still, not the less, may life's autumnal dreams
Be touch'd with beauty; and, not seldom, find
Meanings which melt, and mysteries that thrill
The musing heart which Nature's lover owns.
Through earth, and ocean, sky, and breathing air,
The ever-ancient and the ever-young
Creation, by persuasive charm, appeals
To youth and age, when genially inspired;
And by her moveless laws a symbol gives
To fleeting life, of permanence and power;
Till haply, in the hush of higher moods,
We mount aloft on meditation's wing
To Him, the Changeless! in Whose present thought
Both past and present make perpetual now;
While all the ages of unreckon'd time
Are but the pulses of Eternity
Around Him throbbing, on his dateless Throne.

CATECHISM.

Far as Imagination's wing can roam
Or free conception take its daring flight,
We love to image an Almighty power
Unfolding boundlessness of life, and love
For ever. Throned in secrecies of awe,
Unfathomably within Himself retired,
We vision worlds, as creatures of His will
Around Him summon'd: but the stooping grace
Of Love creative, when it moulds a flower,
Or makes an insect happy, thrills the heart
Like tearful music, and attunes within
Anthems of silent wonder. While the great
In Godhead magnifies adoring mind,
In His minuteness how we greet His name!
Since in the circle of an atom's range
Dwell the same Attributes which made and move
A universe, with all its breathing worlds!
If God, in great things, be supremely great,
To feeling, looks He greater still, in small:
For, when the Worker and His work appear
To human sense in harmony combined,
Religion, then, is reason at its height:
And our imagined Infinite is graced
With attributes, where just proportion reigns.
But, when some particle, or pulse, infolds
A Mind which makes eternity its home,
And through the chambers of immensity
Moves to and fro, creatively divine,
Then, dazzled reason into faith absorb'd,
Worships the Mystery; and with wonder glows
To watch the working of our God complete,
In all things center'd—no where circumscribed!
Yes, while He wheels ten thousand worlds along,
In the same instant, lo! He stoops to count
The tiny populace a sunbeam holds,
Time the quick beating of an insect's heart,
Or close the eyelids of a babe for rest:
As if nought else eternal Thought embraced
Each atom feels the concentrated God;
While our protection, by its grandeur, proves
All mercies waft th' Almighty on their wings!

And thus, if bold Analogy may dare
The human with divine to parallel,
With touching grace a moral sight appeals
To saintly Virtue, in the heart enshrined,
When he, who storm'd with supernatural force
Round the vile Popedom, till its pillars shook,
Sank to the level of a simple child,
And won frail childhood to the creed he framed.
The son of thunder, soften'd to a breeze,
Behold him shroud the lightning of his soul
In shading meekness; while the hand which hurl'd
The false Decretals to devouring fire,
Plies o'er some little book, or teaching page
Where infancy may learn the name to lisp
Of Jesus; or its budding mind unfold
In faith and freshness, to the call of heaven.

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His was the heart that glow'd with all the grace
Which pure compassion for the spirit breathes.
One living soul, from sin and hell redeem'd,
He weigh'd it in the balance of that Blood
Whose every drop with Deity was priced!
And thus, behold him, with paternal smile,
And graceful stoop of his gigantic mind
Bow to the task, a creed for youth condense,
In language artless as the lisping mouth
Of Childhood could pronounce, or read, or pray.
While reason's light through fancy's prism falls
In lines of error on the proud man's view,
Luther himself a child with children knew,
That Cross beneath, where nature must again
Be born. He felt, to know he nothing knew,
Was knowledge, passing what the world calls wise:
And so, if mysteries, like the mountains, cast
A shadow deep'ning as their truths advance
Nearer and nearer to the kindred heaven,
He left them, in the glory of their gloom,
Untouch'd by reason with its carnal gaze.

And like him, may we learn to pause, and pray;
Nor argue down the glory we deny.
If Grace hath spoken, 'tis for Guilt to hear
And learn by rev'rence more than mind can reach:
Since God unshrouded, would be God no more;
Remove the mystery, and the Almighty's gone!

HUMILITY WITHOUT FAITH.

There is religion in the reign of night,
When earth entranced, and heaven ethereal grows,
And planets orb'd with palpitating beams,
In radiant eloquence to man reveal
Their sacred beauty; while the loving Stars
Unseal their eyelids, and with vestal gaze
This world salute, till our attracted souls
Responsively their looks of love return.
'Tis then the energies of mind escape
From sordid fetters, and, like eagles, sweep
The dazzling firmament of Thought divine,
Sparkling with truths unnumber'd as unnamed;
Till, earthward dropping on exhausted plume,
Like the awed Psalmist of the night, they feel
A soft religion from the sky descend,
A charm'd humility, which preaches thus:—
“Say, what is Man, when paragon'd with Worlds?
How mean a speck, how miserably small.
Minute, beyond minuteness to pourtray,
The orbit where he walks, and weeps, and dies!
And He, the Architect, Whose fiat call'd
And will'd this universe of worlds abroad,
Where is the Temple that can hold His praise,
Or mind created, which can worship Him
From whose dread glory not one ray would melt,
Were all this bright magnificence to fade?
For if deep Ocean, with her sumless waves,
Not less in majesty of water rolls
If haply some expiring billow sink;
Or forest huge, whose patriarchal trees
Their wild luxuriance to the winds present,
Not less o'erawes us, though some leaflet die,
Then would no countless throng of worlds, though dead,
Or stricken by some everlasting blight,
One shade on His supernal glory cast
Who makes and unmakes, moulds, and masters all,
But in Himself consummate God abides!”

And may not thus our lesson'd being lie
Low at the footstool of this felt Immense,
To learn humility from all it finds?
A contrast wise, comparison profound,
Nocturnal splendours may they not inspire?
When from the fever of his day-worn life
At length escaping, pensive and alone,
Oft may some Mystic of the heart delight
To soothe excitement, in that sainted calm
Breathed from thy presence, oh, ambrosial Night
Of solitude, serenity, and stars!
Thine is the hour for poetry, and prayer;
Searchings how deep, and soarings how divine
Are then experienced! Time and earth depart;
The shadows of exterior life recede
Like cloud-mist from a morning vale uproll'd;
And on the Infinite we seem to gaze.
'Tis thus, beneath the overawing heavens
Man sinks to nothing; and his world becomes
An atom, twinkling in eternity,
And Life,—the scintillation of a soul
Radiant, but restless with its tiny gleam,
That sparkles into suff'ring, and expires!

But here, Perversion, by its with'ring breath,
Would blast humility with chills of doubt,
And Christ from his created world expel
By logic, from our littleness educed
And call'd transcendant: “Can this puny ball
Of Nature, this revolving speck of earth,
Seen like a glow-worm 'mid the gorgeous blaze
Of suns, and systems, be a proper world
For Deity in Flesh to seek, or save?”

And yet, this argument, so base and blind,
Philosophy and faith alike o'erthrow

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With swift prostration. Sceptic! pause awhile,
Nor dream that thus from orphan'd earth recedes
Redemption, since in nature's volume lies
The principle of thy profound rebuke.
Bend to the dust a microscopic gaze,
There God in atoms, e'en as God in worlds,
Witness! and worship with believing awe.
To Him no magnitude as great appears,
And no minuteness, as the small can be;
Gradations all in Godhead are absorb'd
And vanish; languor cannot Him relax,
Nor low, nor lofty, vast nor various, bring
Distraction o'er Him. Hence, we rev'rence God
When the frail wonders of an insect-wing
Or radiant orbits of revolving worlds,
The traces of consummate mind reveal.
Jehovah, while vast Heaven His word upholds,
And life and matter, motion, space and time
Form but the channel where His will evolves,
Can note and number all whom earth contains!
Observe the monad in minutest play,
Robe the soft leaf, the choral winds attune,
Direct a sunbeam to its shining toil,
Or guard frail infancy on tott'ring feet
From death or danger; or, at balmy night,
The silken eyelids of young Sleep bedew
With slumber, watching o'er unconscious breath!

Thus may Philosophy and Faith sincere
Their creed unite; and when on high we view
Yon great epiphany of glorious worlds,
And echo back with thought's devoutest tone
The starry hymns by Fancy heard to roll,
We sink not, by immensity appall'd;
But in the sacred glory of our creed
Can call our Lord, the Master of it all!

Moreover, God-reflecting Mind is ours
Though faint, and feeble; nor can Truth deny,
A single thought more deity involves
Than all the beauty of yon blazing orbs,
If mind be absent. Therefore, while we own
The sad Palmyra of our ruin'd state,
And what a Tadmor in the desert-soul
Humanity on this soil'd earth presents,
Yet hither, from the heavens all heavens above
Descended, by paternal Glory sent,
Divine Emmanuel! Here His feet have trod;
Around His awful head our sun hath shined;
This air His breath of purity inspired,
And here the music of His lips was pour'd
In speech, and doctrine; miracles illumed
His mission; and each element confess'd
The bleeding glory of that Saviour's wounds
Whose heart for sin on Calvary bled and broke!
And thus, not all unfelt, nor all unknown
This orb minute, by God in flesh redeem'd,
In time or in eternity can be.
Rather may reason, when by faith enlarged,
The charter'd empress of all worlds pronounce
An earth so ransom'd, with such Blood restored;
And in the form of God incarnate see
How human Flesh outsoars the Angels far,
And mounts, in Jesus, an almighty throne.

ANGELIC CONTEST.

Hence, wisdom does not back with doubt recoil,
By reason's name made reasonlessly proud,
When told that Man a mystic platform proves
Where clashing angels, for contested souls,
With, or against, the dread Creator fight.
Here, Attributes eterne their cause have staked;
Here, Character divine itself unfolds;
And from it men and angels wisdom learn,
While all untouch'd by accident, or change,
Divinely perfect as their nature is,—
How love and Law in harmony prevail.

Thus from the Bible heaven-taught lore perceives
The true position to our earth assign'd.
For, though embedded in a brilliant mass
Of worlds on worlds beyond all number vast,
Like some mean province, where ephem'ral dust
Shaped into men to nothing hourly dies,
It hardly glimmers,—thinking Angels see
In pardon'd myriads of immortal souls
Glories which render heaven more glorious still!
Since for their adoration Christ reveal'd
A new Apocalypse of God to man.
Thus they who once unwither'd Eden walk'd
With man, a human paradise to share,
Now when the banner of a Fiend has waved
Defiance, yet on our dismantled earth
Of sin and treason cast a yearning gaze;
And watch, and wonder, worship and admire
Unfolded secrets of forgiving Love
Developed here. And when some lurid gleams
Lighted, perchance, the features of the lost
Archangel, with a hope that ruin'd Man
With God unreconciled must ever be,
And all His attributes to crisis brought,
How did their wings ecstatically wave,

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And loud their endless gratulations sweep
The arches of eternity with praise,
God's masterpiece of perfect Grace to hail!
While he, the Anarch of temptation, sank,
To plot in darkness for his own despair.

Thus Fiends against, but Angels for, our souls
Are now contending: on the Cross sublime
Their fix'd and fascinated eyes they bend,
Which glisten o'er its glories; while they cry,
“Depth within depth, O God! how deep art Thou,
Ark'd in Thyself, unvision'd and unshared!”
The councils of divinity they scan
Nor fathom; yet such vast revealings flow
From our Emmanuel, that this world becomes
A focus, where redeeming Wisdom brought
The fulness infinite of Love to bear,
And taught the Seraphim a song, how new!

FALLEN ANGELS.

Yet while angelic bosoms heave with love,
And Watchers bright from heavenly mansions glide
Down to this earth, the prodigal of worlds,
And with the elder love of sinless Truth
Bend o'er our doom, with ever-breathing care
Of pure compassion, are we not beset
By fatal opposites? by fiendish Hosts
Curtain'd in secrecy of hate and hell?
Shapeless, and sightless, round all hearts and hours
Inaudibly they steal: in joy, or gloom,
Present alike to poison or pollute
Man's being. Sin their fascination forms,
And hell in man, for their lost heaven atones:
So deep the horrors of infernal hate!

And what experience have the fiendish band
Who haunt creation with their spells accursed,
From human mind and misery derived,
As, age on age, to murder souls they watch,
And dog them to the very gates of heaven!
Six thousand years of study and of sin
Have deeply, through the labyrinthine heart
Instructed Satan how to wend his way,
Unfelt, unfear'd, deceiving as he goes.

Him Luther imaged, with an awe-struck mind
As God of this world, howsoe'er disguised,
In moments shaded with satanic gloom
And hours of harrowing darkness, when the blood
Ran wildly, aud his heated brain was worn
By fev'rish over-task. And, is the Fiend
A power impersonal, by shapeless awe
Summon'd around us, when the soul is weak?
Not thus did Luther into names abstract
Reduce the Devil; but a Person own
The Archfiend, such as fearless Paul unveil'd,
And, like his pattern, made high reason bow
Before the majesties of truth inspired,
Believing firmly what his Bible spake.
As fact to thought, or law to will is framed,
So scripture to his faith a reason was:
And he who shrunk not from Satanic foes
Mitred, or sceptred, but by zeal inflamed,
High o'er the heavens could wing his dreadless flight
To scorch the angels with a scathing curse,
If other than the gospel-truth they preach'd!—
To fight the devil God's own armour took.
Mail'd with the Spirit's panoply of prayer
Thus was he taught with ghastly fiends to fight,
Weapon'd by grace to lead infernal war.

And was he feeble, while his faith was strong?
Or rather, from his creed heroic might
Derived he not? Simplicity was strength,
In that deep mystery, whose unfathom'd glooms
And paths untrod defy adventurous mind.
Here, God is reason to Himself alone;
To us, mere revelation, and no more,
He deigns to be. Still, o'er forbidden ways
By Him foreclosed, its undisturbéd flight
The pride of Reason in her pagan dreams
Presumes to wing; but drops abash'd, at length,
Down to th' horizon whence conceit arose.
Oh! for a heart as docile, and as deep
In things divine, as that Immortal show'd,
Whose genius round the sun, and mystic stars,
And through the cycles of immensity
The march and movement of eternal Laws
Interpreted; and track'd each orbèd maze,
And, like a Priest o'er planetary worlds
Presiding, taught us how the spheres revolve.
And yet that Solomon in starry lore
Unrivall'd, whose pervading spirit read
Creation's secrets, with untroubled eye,
The Light anatomised to separate hues
By clear dissection, and with steady hand
Felt the tide-heavings of great Ocean's heart
Throbbing for ever with a billowy pulse,—
Sat like a pupil down to Nature's page;
And from her canons all that creed educed
Which makes him seem an oracle of mind
Devout: who, like th' apocalyptic saint
Of Patmos, hath for earthly science shown,
What he for heavenly,—God behind the veil!

And let the worshippers of bright result
Forget not, thus impassion'd Luther won

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The bloodless laurels his brave memory wears,—
E'en by adherence to substantial Faith.
Simple as Newton, who could soar and pray,
Building philosophy on fact alone,
Luther in faith could Luther's self renounce,
And, like the scholar of the Holy Ghost,
Learn hallow'd science from the lips of God.

And, deep the knowledge which his spirit drew
From Heaven's own page, of devils and of men.
A stern arena, where a sightless crowd
Of Fiends and Angels in dread conflict ranged;
Or battle-scene, where strangely-awful Powers
Muster and mingle, and their arms unsheath
For good or evil,—did our world become
To him, who saw it in eternal light.
For, just as when some Empire's outraged heart
Big with emotion, swells with surging zeal,
If but a subject by his slaughter'd life
For Her be fallen, and around his grave
Pours the rich life-blood of Her dearest sons,—
So is our earth, though dismal and depraved,
And darkly mean with vaster worlds compared,
A centre where the Chivalries of heaven
Marshal their forces, and with fiends engage.
The terror of their arms, eye cannot see;
The rushing of their plumes, we do not hear,
Nor view the motions of their mystic flight;
But yet, the contest is for countless Souls,
While for the royalties of heaven they strike!
And who, save those who fetter with the bonds
Of clay all faculties of finer scope,
In some rapt hour when mind is half unearth'd
Like Luther's, have not felt the fight unseen,
And through each dim transparency of sense
Vision'd a battle, which the soul surrounds?

GOD OF THIS WORLD.

So felt the man, whom Superstition fear'd,
And Satan ever with a savage watch
Haunted, and down to his own hell desired
By dark temptation of the soul, to bring.
And hence to him, thus tempted, tried, and torn,
No mere abstraction, impotent as vain;
No vile creation of monastic gloom
The arch-Fiend was; nor, to his hell confined:
But here, on earth, in dark unrest employ'd,
And round the axis of infernal guile
Revolving ceaselessly his cruel plans,
Luther beheld him; such as God asserts,
By will, and intellect, and power endow'd,
In living personality array'd
Of being actual; Lord of souls undone,
Maker of death, and monarch of despair;
Who would the universe to cinders blast,
Undo redemption, all our mercies blight,
And hear a jubilee in Earth's last groan!

And must we, to some lacerating dream
Such agonies as rent th' undreading heart
Of Luther, in our sceptic age refer?
Was it with Phantoms of a brain diseased,
Or Actions, out of gloomy thought evoked
Fanatical and false, that saints of old
Contended? Or, by dismal clouds o'erveil'd,
Did Prophets only with the air contend?
Were brave Apostles, when their spirits bled,
By Satans of the mind alone convulsed?
Or, did the God-man, in His day of flesh
Tempted like men, no thrilling combat face,
But simply, by internal vision tried,
Fight with black Nothing in the form of fiend?
Let dread Gethsemane to this reply!
There, while the bloody sweat from Christ was wrung,
As round Him, in His human weakness, rush'd
With eyes which hunger'd on his pangs to feed
And wings that flutter'd with a fiendish joy,
The Hosts of darkness,—let the sceptic ask
If that be air, which made Emmanuel shake!

They mock the Devil who obey him most:
But hearts made simple by a power divine,
Believe the combat, and partake it too.
The Friend of sinners was the Foe of sin,
And therefore, saints with Satan must contend
As did their Captain for His cross and crown.
Such was the creed our Saxon hero held.
Yes! that brave Spirit, who in public stood
And calmly watch'd the papal furnace heat,
Prepared to battle with its sevenfold fires,—
Prostrate and pale, with agonising tears
Bound in the blackness of temptation's night
Behold him, like a reed of sorrow, now!
And they, whose wisdom faith and fear produce,
Touch'd by no common awe, will come to view
A martyrdom, beyond what fire inflicts
In the torn depths of Luther's tortured breast
When Satan fell'd him; and the shades of Hell
Frown'd on his heart their horrible dismay!

Oh! there seemed moments when th' Almighty frown'd,
When Sinai over Calvary hung its cloud
Till legal thunders struck the Gospel dumb,
And Jesu vanish'd into viewless air!

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Then, pardon'd sin unpardon'd aspect took;
While conscience like a scowling demon lour'd
Full on the past: and e'en the Bible lost
Its music; till the melody of truth
Turn'd to strange discord, where no tones of grace
Or God were found! Then, fiend on fiend began
Between the Saviour and his soul to rush,
In raging darkness; while at times he shook
In fancy o'er the flaming deep of Hell,
And hover'd, as by grasping demons held.

But he, who bled beneath satanic blows,
Hereafter kiss'd the rod his heart endured
And found it gilded with a Father's smile.
For need there was, of educating woes
To pierce him to the centre, till he pray'd,
And the great Luther grew a little child
Safe in the hands of his almighty Sire.
Since much of darkness in his light remain'd;
And much terrene with his celestial mix'd;
And much of Adam with his faith there blent,—
Oh, what but Wisdom, in divinest force,
Knew how to build a perill'd Luther up?
Hence, not a pang his inner being tore
Which was not needed, and by Heaven o'er-ruled
To tame that temper, whose volcanic fires
So often rent him with outbursting rage.
Luther was great, and God would keep him so,
By proving in Himself all greatness lay,
And there alone the Reformation stood.

LIFE A SPIRITUAL CONFLICT.

Reader! the combat rages darkly still
Around thee; though an unrent cloud of flesh
Shut from thy soul their movement and their march,
And the dread soldiery by Hell array'd,
Yet, in the midst of Satan's host art thou
Contending: were thy veiling flesh withdrawn,
Full on thy spirit what a battle-field
Where all the Chivalries of heaven contend,
And the dread Sympathies of darkness fight
For souls immortal—would at once outflame!
But not with garments roll'd in blood, or death;
And not with weapons which our eyes perceive;
But sightless, these unbodied Hosts engage;
And therefore, Satan is the sense's mock,
The sneer of science and the scorn of fools.
But thy revealings, Faith! are ever true
And most tremendous, when the most denied.
A Devil doubted ends in God disown'd,—
Till the first glance a disembodied Mind
Takes of the truth behind the veil disclosed,
Looks on the Fiend, who made himself a lie
To rock the sinner into damning rest.

Reader! believe, the combat rages still;
No pause, and no parenthesis of love
Or pity for our world the Fiend allows.
Darkness his throne, destruction his delight,
Ruin and ravage his dominion make,
And earthquakes seem the echoes of His tramp.
But chief to battle with the sainted host,
Fighting beneath the banner of their King
Crimson'd with blood, and blazon'd by his cross
Redemptive, does the Prince of Hell advance.
Thus Luther felt: and thus shall ever feel,
And like him in the spirit's fight, contend
E'en to the gasp and agony of faith,—
The heirs of Light and heroes of our God.

“The Serpent's head the woman's seed Shall bruise!”
So spake the Lip almighty; and to man
Revolted then the Incarnation preach'd
In promise, which by grasp prophetic spann'd
Ages of conflict in the church to come;
Till time's worn clock his closing hour shall strike,
And this phantasmal scene where Satan fights,
This whited sepulchre of sin and woe,
This prison-house where dungeon'd nature pines,—
A thousand years of hallow'd rest shall have
In one long sabbath of millennial peace!
But not till hurl'd by thunder-blasts divine
Down to his pit, in chaining darkness bound,
The mystic “Dragon” will from earth withdraw:
But fiercely to the last, a fight maintain
Implacable, against all truth array'd.
So from the first imperial Rome he fired
With Pagan fury; when that flame was quench'd
By blood of martyrs, lo! an Arian creed
Flooded the church with desolating tides;
And when they ceased, Platonic visions came
And round the Cross a dazzling falsehood wreathed;
Till papistry in full-blown horror rose,—
The last perfection of satanic guile.

Perpetual motion of a will depraved
He was, and is, and shall for ever be
As Prince of darkness, from his throne of death

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Dispensing ruin. Who his sway can meet,
Or stretch the word to where his sceptre waves
O'er time, and scene, and universal man!
For every wheat, he sows a rival tare
In the vast field where faith and virtue thrive:
Each ward of sin and selfishness he knows,
And so, for each some fitting key he finds
Wherewith to enter, and the heart possess.
And let the mockers of the World unseen
The solemn findings of experienced hearts
In this believe,—that like the Saxon monk's,
A life of faith is one long battle now,
Beyond the passion of excited words
To utter, when the heat of conflict comes!
As conscience preaches, so temptation tries
By Him directed: hence, no mood is safe,
No scenes are shelter'd, and no hours secure
From art Infernal. Ask some thoughtful Mind
How often, when th' inflated world hath shrunk
With all its forms, its follies and its fears
Down to a shade, before the solid truths
And substance of eternity believed,
How often then, when resolution winds
Our being up, by tension most sublime,
To heaven's pursuit and love's majestic toils,
Back to the low and little we are lured!
Fever'd as ever, and with fretting pangs
And noisome cares inexorably mean
Again involved: as if this earth were home,
And immortality below the skies!

No height in grace, no depth in guilt forbids
Our dread assaulter. Attributes divine
How oft he covers with deforming shade,
Darkens for dread, or deepens for despair,
Or softens down to sin's presuming dream
Till God a Sentiment almighty grows,
For weak indulgence! Then, the Law he wields,
Fangs its dread curse with everlasting fire,
And on the gibbet of tormenting doubt
Racks frighten'd conscience in perpetual gloom.
For though in health, when light the blood appears
And all looks bland which in Jehovah dwells,
Sin like a trifle of the past becomes,
Or vacant nothing, with a sounding name;
Yet when the dampness of the tomb bechills
Our nature; when fierce retribution frowns
Black on the spirit, from the bar of God,
Then sin, which once a moral pigmy seem'd
But scarce apparent, like a giant swells
Upward to heaven, and with some horrid shade
Beclouds The Infinite, on Whom it falls.

And more than this, the arch-Deceiver dares!
For He eternity in time contracts
And time to false eternity dilates,
When cheated fancy to his wand replies;
And not one grace The Spirit's hand bestows,
For which no counterpart in passion finds
This dreadful Parodist of God to man!
But, chief that Book, where inspirations breathe
And God in language human guilt accosts,
He yearns to silence, contradict, or change.

Still, praise to God! His heroes do not fight
In this fell combat, by their faith alone.
The Lord The Spirit leads them to the field:
And none can perish, o'er whose shielded heads
Waves His pure banner of protecting grace.
Safely through Him they grapple with the Foe
By brave endurance, till the field be won;
When Angels, with a battle-shout of praise,
Welcome to glory those heroic saints
Who cut their way unwounded to the skies!
And thus, what girded Luther for his fight
Doth each bold Gideon in the cause of heaven
Apparel now,—an armour spirit-proof,
Burnish'd and bright like that our “Captain” wore
When He and Satan for creation fought.

OMNIPRESENCE OF THE SPIRIT.

Omniscient Teacher of regen'rate mind!
Vicar of Christ! who art to men redeem'd
Soul of their souls, and Light of light within,
Vast in Thy sway but viewless in Thy strength,
Thou o'er the chaos of the earth new-born
Didst move, and print it with Thy plastic seal
And inspiration. Beauty hence began,
Order, and shape and symmetry arose;
For Thou of all the Consummator art,
In the green earth, or garnish'd heaven display'd:
Since Nature is Thine organ, and is moved
By secret impulse from Thyself inspired.
Her laws, her lineaments, and loveliness
Are but expressions of Thy shaping will,
The outward index to Thine inward Hand
Creative: beauty is Thy vest Terrene,
Grandeur and grace Thine intimations are,
And second causes form but stepping-stones
By which Thou marchest to Thy works, and ways.

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And o'er those waters of our human world,
The ruder chaos of revolted hearts
Still art Thou brooding, with Thy halcyon calm.
For never, since pollution's blight commenced,
And man apostate to his Maker turn'd,
Hath sigh, or tear, or penitential groan
To heaven ascended and God's welcome sought,
But from Thy grace, pure Spirit! it proceeds.

Then, are we lonely in the war of life
Terrestrial? Strengthless, are we doom'd to strive
With foes of darkness and with fiends of death,
Who round the heart, and in the heart, contend?
Perish the thought! The grace which Luther felt,
Soldier of faith! is prompt to succour thee;
Here is the haven for tempestuous woes
And trials; port of sabbath peace to souls
When the loud billows of temptation rise,
And the heart trembles at their sullen roar.

Oh, for a language, out of sunbeams made,
In syllables of light Thy power to praise,
Helper, and Healer of the heart alone!
Sustainer truly of the sinking mind,
Sole Paraclete to all, for sin who weep!
Descend, and with the dewfall of Thy grace
Our world refresh, a wither'd Church revive,
And the hot fever of man's thirsting heart
With healing balm of blessedness, allay!
Without Thee, creeds become a barren sound,
The Truth is charmless, and the Bible mute
To conscience, though to mental power it speak;
While all in morals, or in motive, gives
But heathen polish with a purer name.

And, where that shrine, the palace, or a throne
From whence Thy secrets and Thy splendours flow!
Where shall our hearts those inspirations seek
Which make all Christians echoes of their Lord?
Wherever man and mind, and scene and space
May act or mingle, there, O Spirit! Thou
With solemn fellowship the soul canst meet.
What, though the herald-stars no longer glide
To light the Magi; though no mystic Bush
Burn with divinity in speaking fire;
And by no miracle made bare, or bright,
An Arm Eternal from the heaven is waved;
Though shut the Vision, and the Witness seal'd,
Nor Voice, nor Thunder out of glory rolls
This earth to waken,—still, Thy love abides;
And the hush'd presence of the Holy One
No bounds can limit, and no laws may bind
From Hearts who seek Him, in their tempted hour.
In cities loud, amid the hum of men
He walketh; or in loved and lonely haunts
Shaded and secret, where Reflection hies;
On mountain-heights, by musing poets traced,
In vales withdrawn, by melancholy shores
Lash'd by the billows in eternal beat,
In each and all God's whisper may be heard,
And still small Voice through listening conscience steal.
Thus, heaven with starry eloquence inspired;
Earth with her scenes of grandeur, or of grace;
Home's gentle magic, infant's guileless laugh
And mother's glowing smile, a charm may prove
Or channel, where His unction can descend
Through soft illapses to our spirit's depths.

But in Christ's temple, there Thy palace is,
Spirit of grace! from Whom our glories come;
Where symbols, signs, and sacramental powers,
Anthems august and hallelujahs deep
Attend Thee, and Thy ministries attest.
And Thine, too, is that living Word which breathes
Of truth celestial, when by prayer perused,
The Bible! there we hail Thee on Thy Throne,
The Urim and the Thummim of Thy power.

Reader! thyself a God is reading now
While thus this question of all questions peals,
Art thou, like Luther, by The Spirit led,
Or, art thou by some hidden Fiend seduced?
Whoe'er thou art, this truth take home, and think!
Two Spirits only for thy soul contend,
The Good, and Bad; but now, alone is Grace
Imparted; soon thy final sands will fall,
And thou in moral nakedness shalt be
To Devil, or to Deity, assign'd
Through endless ages! Oh, that truth immense.
This mortal immortality shall wear!
The pulse of Mind can never cease to play,
But throbs with immortality begun,
Eternal from eternity decreed!
Above the angels, or below the fiends,
To rise in glory or in shame descend
Makind are destined, by resistless doom.
A soul may perish, but it cannot die:
Immortal essence, 'tis from Godhead drawn,
And, like that Source, unquenchable endures.
But thou, calm Spirit of celestial truth!
Thee may we supplicate our soul to save,
And so renew it, till, resembling Thee,
Our heaven commences ere the earth depart.

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PAPAL ROME.

Three hundred years of beatific life
Unbodied, Luther's living soul hath breathed,
Since the last thunder-bolt of truth he hurl'd
With hand, how fearless! at the heart of Rome.
There, in that world where ransom'd minds repose,
Where priests, and prophets, and the kings of faith
Are gather'd into glory, and await
A pealing life-blast which shall rouse the dead,
The monk of Wittemberg his Master sees
And worships, waiting for his destined crown.
But, hath the world from sacerdotal chains
Itself unfetter'd? Is our faith the free
And pure, and prompted by the Spirit's love
And guidance, soul and spring of saving truth,
Light of all churches, and the Bible's Lord?
Alas! we slumber; and a carnal rest
Calmly around us lets the chain of Rome
Wind its dark coil, with most consummate ease
And falsehood. Bloated with our self-esteem,
And panoplied with intellectual might,
At ease in Zion are we; while a Foe
Remorseless, dragon-eyed, and unappeased,
Wakeful as ever, watches for the prey
Apostate weakness for Her fang prepares.

We want a Luther, with a dreadless voice
To front our modern antichrist, and face
The Vatican, with all its veil'd array
Of marshall'd doctrines or of muster'd lies.
So might we bare the heart of blushless Rome,
And rouse brave England's execrating voice
Till back the priesthood to her dens recoil'd;
While pope, and pop'ry, with a palsy smit,
And scared by scripture, would for ever shrink
In coward gloom to convents, and to cells,
Hooted by nature, and by freemen hurl'd
At once from virtue's and from reason's throne.

Oh! that our protest were as brave and pure,
As saints and martyrs sent, in olden time,
From their deep hearts against the Man of Sin.
Oh, that in light from flames where Ridley died,
Or Cranmer suffer'd his immortal death,
The Church of England would her hist'ry read,
And ponder as she read, with eye of prayer;
Till in that light her lethargy awoke
And rising, like a giant from his sleep
Enchanted, back the Romish chain would fall
Dissever'd, from her limbs of glory dash'd
In horror! Then, again that trumpet-cry,
That battle-voice magnanimously bold,
The tocsin of a nation's truthful mind
By heaven excited, would once more be heard
Like moral thunder round the seven-hill'd Seat
Of Antichrist, in peals of dauntless power,—
No peace with Rome, till Rome make peace with God!

But that bold spirit, which in martyrs burn'd
For truth and freedom, and our British name
Laurell'd with ever-blooming praises, sleeps
In dormancy most fatal. Thus the Beast
Apocalyptic, once again his head
Of treason, and his horn of vengeance lifts,
To smite the Nations, and our Church eclipse
With papal midnight. Yet, his outward mien
Is stern no longer; smooth'd by modern hands
To gentleness, his ruffled hairs relax;
No savag'ry his watching eye reveals,
And all his claws of cruelty are cut;
But still, the Beast is changeless! for his heart
Unsoften'd, throbs with blackest hate within
Deadly, and dire as in the days of blood.
Full well the Mother of deception suits
Her face, her features, and exterior form
Chameleon, as the atmosphere requires.
And now, when learning, science and the Mind
From dismal orthodoxy's Bulls of death,
And blasts of excommunicating ire
Shrink with disgust, sly Rome the hint receives!
Till, like the echo of all wants and wills,
Behold her! with the freeman talking free;
With tyrants, she at once can tyrant act;
And for idolaters gives idol-forms
In saint, or Virgin! Whatsoe'er the creed
Political, she finds appropriate tones
And flatters each with some obliging key.
Thus for opinion, passion, low desires,
All tempers, dreams, imaginations, thoughts,
All moods, and morals,—whatsoe'er the man
In learning, commerce, or in life be found,
For each and all can Romanistic craft
A seeming counterpart affect, or frame;
But, deep at centre, antichristian still!
So works the Myst'ry, and the world is won,
And aspect changed for principle reform'd
Is now mistaken. Hence, for time prepared,
Rome meets all pressure from without enforced,
By powers elastically prompt within;
Responsive always to each varied call
From creeds perverse, or crisis which demands
Her weapon'd skill, her wisdom and her guile.

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“And, why hath God, the merciful and great,
Rome's vile burlesque of christian truth allow'd?”
Perchance that Contrast may the earth instruct:
And hence, when man and world have both been taught
Their impotence; when Art, and Lore, and Skill
Their powers have tried, all moral engines used
To lift our nature from the gulf of sin,
And tried in vain; when Reason thus hath learn'd
No remedy from mortal wisdom comes
The plaguing leprosy of sin to heal,
And hearts apostate all their vileness know,
Descending Thunders from the Lord Himself
On Rome will burst, and ruin bury all!

Hence from the first, eternal war prevails
Against “The Woman,” and her seed elect;
And each high plan supernal Wisdom chose
Satan hath mimick'd with his aping guile,
Or art stupendous. But the master-piece,
The dread hyperbolé of daring skill,
That great conception where his glory shines
With blasting lustre, is the Roman mock!
There, falschood in the garb of truth is found;
There, darkness in a dress of light appears;
And all the many-chamber'd mind can hold
Of lies which lull, or sophistries that please,
Is met, and answer'd by some prompt reply.
No! not a tone which Character can sound,
Without an echo from some chord of lies
Play'd by the master-hand of popish Art!
Till, that which blood and havoc could not do,
When heathen Rome, or Arian butchers tried
The Church to mangle and her creed to mar,
This arch defection in canonic guise
By Him erected, hath for cent'ries done!
No partial error, out of reason framed,
Nor falsehood, from licentious will begot,
Hath Satan, in the Man of Sin, achieved;
But one great bondage for essential Mind!—
A ritual net-work, where the soul is caught,
And co-extensive with its ev'ry power.
Thus, all of tendencies, or truths which rise
By man or time develop'd into sway,
These, by a process of absorbing guile,
Rome with herself in soft alliance blends;
Can with her cause incorporate, and mix,
And thus transmute them out of social forms
To fine activities, whose friendly sway
Is won, and wielded for her own at last.

A CHURCH BY INVERSION.

But, whence the model for this curse immense,
This boundless magic of a baseless creed
For ages, like an incubus of hell
O'er human spirit brooding? Whence the power
Bewitching, far beyond destruction's range?
Why, 'tis a counterpart; a church reversed,
A mock of Satan by a man inform'd,
A mimic Show of what in very life
And lustre, form and glory, should the Church
As ground and pillar of the truth, have been.
For, had she constant to her First Love proved,
Binding on earth what God in heaven has bound,
And witness'd boldly for her absent King
A true confession, then would hostile Earth
And Falsehood from her hallow'd mien have shrunk
Self-blasted! and this o'erawed world beheld
The Saviour's Body arm'd with regal powers,
Mitred, and crown'd, in majesty supreme
Anointed Priestess of all grace to man.

But Satan copies, where he cannot change;
And thus a parody in Popes contrived
The Lord forestalling. Hence, the Fiend has framed
A pageant hollow, where his plot can hide
And act Himself beneath the Saviour's name.
For more than haughty Rome assumes to be,
By Heaven empower'd in privilege and grace
Imperial, would the gospel Church have been,
If holiness with apostolic charm
Her shrines, her altars, and memorial rites,
Her ministers, and members, all had crown'd.

And here, (as ever) from the Plan Divine
The lost Archangel hath, with fiendish craft,
Directive elements of wisdom drawn.
His model was Judaic: thence he stole
Those adaptations for the sensuous mind
He view'd there, organised in typic forms;
Myst'ries and rites, or ceremonial laws,
And ritual pomps where Priesthood looks sublime,
He found prevailing: these he studied well,
Then caught the genius of the mighty whole,
And made a copy for the papal Church
Which pope and priest, levitically blind,
Transcribed for ages, and is using now.
Thus, the dead carcass of Mosaic forms
By God deserted when Emmanuel died,
Satan himself hath repossess'd, and fill'd
Or quicken'd. Here, the Roman witchcraft see!
While man travesties what Messiah did,
And writes “unfinish'd!” o'er His perfect Cross.

Nor can our Age, though clad with self-conceit,
And helmeted with intellectual powers,

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Produce the David whose predestined hand,
With sling of scripture, and with stone of truth
Well-aimed, her brazen forehead might indent,
Blasting her glory, with a righteous blow.
And, where the signs, the symptoms of Her fall?
Whence come the weapons Christian arms can wield,
Wherewith the triple Crown to pluck, and dash
Her high pretensions into baseless dust?
Alas! our locks of strength are almost shorn;
Distracted counsels, or divided aims
Impede fair union; and that mystic Robe
Which all unrent in perfect glory hung
While on His cross the dying Saviour bled,
Is torn to tatters, underneath His throne,
By hands and hearts schismatical, and wild!
Is this an attitude for deeds sublime?
With Masters many, while our Lord is One,
Our cold negations can no Church evince
In act embodying what our creed affirms
Of Union vast, and visible, and true.
How can we thus, with uncompacted force,
And mere abstractions, depthless, dim, or faint,
Battle with Rome, or keep her priests at bay?

Alas! expediency our Moloch was,
And at Her feet our ancient glories fell
Dishonour'd. Mute that mighty Protest, now,
By martyrs thunder'd like a voice from Heaven,
“Come out from her, my people! quickly come:”
Since base concession legalised her guile,
And lo! the Land, whose soil with sainted blood
Is hallow'd, where burnt Hooper's ashes sleep,
And lived the lion-hearted men, whose tongues
Shook the roused Empire with their shout for God,
For faith, and freedom! there, the Papal “Beast”
Is lodged, and in his den of lies secure!

Yet, to and fro, behold! the many “run”
And knowledge, as by Seers foretold, increase.
Still, what though ocean, air, and matter seem
A university for Mind become,
Where Sense can study, Science take degrees,
And Comfort all her sensual dreams enjoy,
Is this protection from the spells of Rome?
Oh! not in culture where no sacred germs
Are planted; not by knowledge, where no peace,
No pardon and no purity abound
For conscience, not by these are empires great,
A people glorious, or their welfare sure.

VICTORY OF FAITH.

Knowledge brings power; but Faith beyond it works,
And out of heaven that promised aid procures
Of mercy, whence alone true wisdom springs;
Till, through the heart's regenerated depths
The mind it reach, and make that holy, too.
To catalogue Creation's works; the tides
To balance; all the stars peruse; or scan
The secrecies unveiling Science loves,
This may enlarge, but not ennoble, Man,
If man be measured by his noblest scale,
By will, by conscience, and by perfect love,
Love that is heavenly and by God begun;—
For so philosophy divine asserts:
We find the lovely, and that thing we love;
But what God loves He thereby lovely makes.

In these alone pre-eminently live
Those elements which make our being great.
But Things to master, abstract names to know,
Their use, their natures, and their powers to wield,
May serve the Body, not the Soul refine
Or chasten. Thus, in vain would mental Power
Self-deified, the world's redemption try.

And how can mind, at best, a bulwark frame
To fence corruption from the inner soul?
In central likeness all men meet, at last;
For there is conscience in the vilest left,
With immortality, in each presumed;
And this stern Guardian on his throne of truth
Wakens at times, to vindicate the Law,
And preaches on eternity and doom
Sermons, which sound like arguments from God,
Prophetic, deep, and terribly divine!
And then religion, forced, or felt, or feign'd,
The heart's convulsion and its craven guilt
Alike demand: and where can earth produce
A Creed so organised with subtle craft,
To soothe the guilty, but retain the guilt,
As the mock creed of pharisaic Rome?
And though at times, pure Reason may rebel,
Shock'd into anguish by imposture's lie,
Reason is bribed, and understanding bought
When Lust is flatter'd, or the conscience freed
From harrowing guilt, from darkness and despair.

THE MAGIC CITY.

And thus, no energies from culture drawn,
No arguments, by mental skill applied,

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The Man of Sin can weaken, or o'erwhelm:
Rome laughs at these, and she has laugh'd before!
And ev'ry realm progressive science haunts
Pre-occupies, or masters at her will.
Hence, what a paradox of wondrous crime,
What miracle of permanence and power
To men and angels, must Her hist'ry be!
For though a slaughter-house for souls she made
The Church for ages, still, without a blush
She lifts Her forehead in the light of Heaven:
And though full often have the pent-up fires
Of wrath around her, fierce with ruin flamed;
And Power hath tried, and Policy assail'd
Her bulwarks; battles and rebellions leagued,
Tyrants and victors have besieged her walls
And daring Intellect opposed Her well
And wisely; Truth and Science both have hurl'd
The thunderbolts of their denouncing ban,
While righteous scorn her hidden cheats unveil'd;
And from the bosom of the soul hath burst,
Time after time, Humanity's appeal
Charged with the wrongs of ages, to condemn
The blackest outrage which can e'er abase
Morals and mind, and all which Man should be—
The mystic Harlot, on her seven-hill'd throne
In pomp and theocratic pride array'd,
Reigns like a Priestess of the spirit still
O'er crouching millions, in their souls struck blind!

And find we not a symbol in the fate
Of Rome the city, how the Romish creed
All time would master, where the Cæsars ruled
In blood, or baseness? Babylon hath sunk
Beneath the blast prophetic, and become
A den of ruin; Nineveh is nought;
The Persian perish'd in his pride of arms;
Assyria's dead, and Macedon no more;
The daughter-islands of the ancient Deep
Once free and faithful, in their noon of fame,
With Tyre and Sidon, and the classic isles
Of Greece and glory, are but sunken things;
And Palestine, th' Almighty's home, remains
E'en like a mother for her children dead,
Wasted, and weeping in mysterious woe;
But Rome is mighty in her magic still,
Like man's eternity by stone express'd
Behold Her! fated for a future doom,
When Deeds by prophets sung, shall there achieve
A destined ruin. Well may pilgrims trace
In wonder, how august She yet remains!
With fountains, baths, and famous aqueducts,
Arches, and catacombs, and hoary shrines;
While all the genius of dead Ages haunts
Her soil with shadows, and her scene with spells
That speak, though silent. Past and Present meet
In high communion, and historic dreams
Her tombs unlock, till colonnaded streets
Move with stern Heroes, whose creative minds
Yet bow the world with intellectual sway,
Reigning like monarchs on each mental throne,
Tyrants at once and teachers of the soul.

THE MAN OF SIN.

And as the City, so the creed endures
Deathless in might, immortally depraved.
Her aspect alters—when her power is weak;
Her plans are soften'd—when her foes are strong;
Her practice gentle—when the Age requires;
But Rome, in principle, is Roman still
The changeless ever! for her creed is one;
And that is, to absorb the blinded world,
And on herself a faith almighty found
As truth infallible, or God divine!

And what a miracle of matchless force
She wielded, when the craven soul had sunk
Down to that level, which her creed demands!
Like to some vision of unearthly gloom
Shaped in the midnight of a dreaming brain,
By horror featured, doth Her sway emerge
From the gone ages, when the Gothic mind
Bow'd at her footstool, as the throne of God!
Two Worlds she claim'd; o'er both presumed to cast
The priestly shadows of Her sceptred power,
Moulding eternity, and mast'ring time!
Till in the glory of Satanic crime
Her mitred autocrat almighty grew
And challenged worship, such as God demands!
Heaven's attributes in libell'd form a Man
Did thus array: and when his frown grew black,
It shaded all things with submissive awe
And silence! On his lip creation hung;
The elements from him their course derived,
And plague, and pestilence, his law obey'd:
His names were natures! and those natures all
Ambition wanted, or his will decreed.
But when his excommunicating arm
Was lifted, Heaven that ireful threat revered!
And Hell, with all its agonies and glooms,
The motion watch'd: but when indeed it fell,

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Empires turn'd pale, and palsied Kings recoil'd,
And sackeloth'd Nations trembled into tears!

Yet had this tyrant but the body cursed,
Made Cities mournful, or a province poor,
Or, tax'd the Passions for an income base,
Mankind were left some virtue, still, to save;
But Nature, in her sacred ark of strength
Where man is man when all besides decays,
The Pope, by impious sacrilege, profaned.
And dreader far than famine, fire, or sword,
Dungeons, and deaths, or all which martyr'd Flesh
Can suffer, is what outraged Conscience feels
When, like a moral suicide, the Man
Himself must abdicate, the will destroy,
And not a Person, but a Thing become!
Then rots the mind in servitude, and shame;
The faculty august of reason fades,
And blinded Nature grows a base machine
By craft inspired, to work a despot's will.

HOPE AND HARP OF PROPHECY.

But, sheathed for ever is th' avenging Sword
Of Godhead? Will it ne'er on Roman crimes
And cruelty with flashing ire descend,
Cleaving her bulwarks to their very base?
Oh, dare we think, that all the mangled host
On Alpine mountains hunted, spiked, or slain
By thousands, or by Marian hell-hounds torn
To bleeding fragments, have in vain their voice
Heroic peal'd along the heaven of heavens,
Startling the angels on their golden thrones
When the last anguish of their dying lips
Came up before them? Fruitless have they lived,
Or preach'd, or felt, or suffer'd, who of old
Gave to the world the glory of their death
By wheel, or gibbet, rack, or fiery stake
In vaulted cells of subterranean gloom
By death-lamps lighted, where the lurid beam
Faintly along some victim's quiv'ring flesh
Glimmer'd, and lit his harrow'd features up?
Far otherwise may thoughtful bosoms feel,
When grateful Hist'ry to their shrines of Death
Resorts, where deathless Inspirations glow.
The living dead ones are they! and their words
Ring round the heart like tones which never die.
Beyond their sermons, preach their sorrows, still!
Their anguish is our glory; for we feel,
Who died for principle, for God yet lives
To perish never! Where they bled, or burn'd,
Corded, or chain'd, or rent by racking fires,
Devils were taught how Man's enduring strength
Can suffer, when by prompting grace inspired.
And therefore, Martyrs! of Britannia's church,
That ancient plant of apostolic growth,
We laud, and love ye with no cold delight,
Who bled for conscience, and to Britain left
A creed untouch'd, like Cranmer's heart, entire!
E'en from your tombs an eloquence proceeds
Which champions Ages to repeat your worth:
And never from our venerating hearts
The deeds ye dared, the majesty ye show'd
In the dread anguish of a godlike hour,
Shall die! All time your holy debtor is:
And long as in our Church's veins endures
The precious life-blood of protesting truth,
Never can England from her mindful soul
Cancel the debt, her glories owe to you!
Your pangs have her inheritance become,
A wealth bestowing more than gold creates.
Ye gave the Bible! which your tortures won;
And shame terrific on our head alight,
If what the blood of martyrdom bequeath'd
In black ingratitude we basely yield.
Ye gave the Bible! and that priceless Book
Our blessings all in germ at once bestow'd.
For, what is Science in her purest flights,
With all those blending harmonies which rise
From social nature, but the man evolved?
But, both the moral and the mental roots
Of human nature, with transmuting sway
The scriptures reach; and thus with latent force
And vigour these the heart of Britain cleansed,
Making her land the paradise of isles.

Then, not in vain, though Rome be blushless still,
And round her creed a Trentine darkness casts
Cruel as ever, have the martyr'd hosts
And hecatombs of peerless saints, who bled
For truth, to God against their murd'ress cried.
Beneath the Altar rise their mystic wails
And enter, not unfelt, the ear of Heaven:
Since ev'ry drop their costly veins effused,
With every pang their burning limbs endured,
Have bright memorial in the Lamb'sown Book,
And shall be answer'd, when avenging Time
Brings the dread hour by Prophecy decreed.
Then shall The Lord in robe of fire descend,
And with the breathing of His mouth shall smite,
And with the brightness of His coming blast,
And into cinders by His curse consume
Earth's second Babel, antichristian Rome!

248

Meanwhile, presuming man would fain achieve
What scripture to The dread Eternal gives
In plan and purpose, for His crowning work.
Thus, all are prophets to themselves, at least,
And preach perfection possible below.
But can corruption to itself be cure?
If man be ruin, and rebuilt he rise,
'Tis not by rubbish from himself produced,
But by a means transcendant, as divine.
The creed within forms character without,
And God alone can educate the will;
But, will makes man, in all essential powers,
And therefore must he, by regen'rate grace
Beyond himself through heavenly love ascend,
Or still be changeless, in his moral core.
Thus, to the last, a leper will remain:
The skin may whiten, but the blood is black,
And burns in secret like a plague-spot, still.

ROME SHALL FALL.

And yet, 'tis written with a pen of light
That Rome shall wither, and this Earth rejoice
In the rich beauty of her bridal robes
Apparell'd; and beneath her reigning Lord
Keep the long Sabbath of a thousand years.
And hence, millennial is the heart of man,
As if 'twere haunted by some primal grace
Of vanish'd Eden, when the Earth was young,
Sinless, and bright, without one scalding tear
To wet her eyelids, or the cheek to stain.
Creation groans for her sabbatic peace;
And echoing mind, in every age of thought,
Repeats the longing. This the poet's lyre
Hath warbled, in prophetic strains of song,
Caught from the harp of Scripture; and the creed
Of Aspirations, as they rise, and reach
Their zenith, with this inward faith accords,
That Earth shall bloom with paradise regain'd,
And be unweeded of her thorny woes
And thistles; and our Age itself is big
With expectation of some golden dawn,
Or peaceful glories. But alas! for earth,
If no millennium save what science brings,
Await her! if those moral truths sublime,
That reach the Everlastingness of man's
Dread future, have no room for reigning here:
For, sooner may the hand of Science think
To bale the ocean from its boundless depths,
Than drain corruption from the soul of man!

'Tis here the worshippers of Mind, seduced
By science, in their dreams half pagan grow,
Politely bow apostles to the door,
Or gently hint the Bible may be wrong!
For carnal Knowledge to herself is true
And constant ever!—back from God recoils
Behind the tree, to eat forbidden fruit,
Lurking, like A dam, in a guilty shade.
But oh! Thou Spirit of celestial life
And wisdom, teach them first Thyself to know,
And, knowing Thee, themselves to feel, and find
That man unchristian is embodied sin;
And though embellish'd, and by art subdued,
But veil'd corruptions all his virtues form
Till faith can touch them with a spell divine.

But there are prophets, who for Rome predict
A downfall, not by arms of earthly might,
Nor yet by reason, though its powers expand.
Far humbler they: in things divine as deep,
Jehovah is their reason; and they bow
With faith compliant at that mental Shrine
Where Deity, in human words, unfolds
The future, and Himself to love expounds.
And thus convinced, and by the Spirit taught
That man with man can never right be made,
Till right with Godhead will and worship be,
Our true advancement by preventive grace
Alone they augur. Well their natures know,
That as the sun with his bright rays is view'd
The living God with His own love we love.

Hence in the organ-voice of Prophecy
And chanted hymns by rapt Isaiah pour'd,
They catch the music of Messiah's reign
That in them warbles! But a wail there is,
Or ever thus the gladden'd Earth shall lift
Her choral triumphs, yet from man to rise:
From seers august, from Enoch's olden time
To him of Patmos, all their voice unite
In diapáson terribly distinct;
Denouncing woes, beyond what Time hath seen
Or this world suffer'd, ere apostate Rome
Be ruin'd, or millennial splendours reign.
And though, by ardency of hope inspired,
The distant future in fond dreams we scan,
Enraptured, and those sun-gilt peaks admire,
Deck'd by the radiance of a blissful dawn;
Just as the mountains of our world appear
In the blue distance, lined in lofty range
And harmonised by one unbroken swell,
With no dark gulf beneath them,—so may Hope
Too often on the heights prophetic gaze,
And merge, and melt them in soft unity;
Though black the gloom, and dreadful the abyss
Of wrath and judgment that between them frowns.

A bridge of ages in prophetic time
Our Dispensation is, by heaven decreed:

249

Inclusively between those seers 'tis rank'd
Who first Emmanuel in His veiling flesh
Predicted, stricken, cursed and crucified
For our acquittal; then,—the Christ enthroned
Crown'd with the royalties of reigning pomp
Millennial. Thus an intervening gulph
The second Advent from the Church divides.

And stern analogy this view confirms,
When teaching ages of th' historic Past
Instruct the Present, not for heaven to hope,
But rather, that our Gentile sun will sink
A bloody occident in wrath and gloom!

And what a warning, would our ears attend,
Nor deaf as adders from the charming voice
Avert them, do the unforgotten scenes
Where Churches, once which miracles endow'd,
Apostles water'd, and the Spirit's grace
Divinely freshen'd with celestial dews,
Preach to the haughty Age we honour now!
Where have they gone, those Daughters of the sea,
Smyrna and Sardis, and the Sisters five
Whose “Angels” oft the loved disciple taught?
And by the shores, where oriental waves
Chime their lone music to the Afric blast,
How perish'd all Tertullian's page unfolds
When Carthage made his apostolic crown,
And martyr'd Cyprian into glory died!
While Hippo, where sublime Augustine mused,
Hath melted down to miserable nought!

These give dread warning, if we wisely make
The Past a preacher to our Present be.
But, sick at heart, and in the head unsound,
And sleek, and satisfied with all we do,
The mountain of our majesty appears
Immoveable! our age, Augustan call'd,
Our arts advanced, our science most complete,
Our wealth enormous, and our wisdom vast,
On land victorious and by sea the same,
While on our Empire sinks no travell'd sun!—
Bloated with privilege, we thus predict
Perpetual glory for the worshipp'd Isle,
Above destruction, and beyond decay.

SEVENTH VIAL SOUNDED.

A Church elected, not a world renew'd,
Here is the Centre for united aims;
And faithful round it, touch'd by solemn awe
Meekly and firmly may we watch; and wait
Th' unfolding Drama of that hour decreed
For vengeance, when the scarlet “Beast” shall fall;
When He, in whom all types of terror blend
And blacken into one colossal Form,
The dread Fulfiller of prophetic woes
And wailings, shall at last Himself reveal!
The sin of ages into one condensed
Shall thus be acted; then the Church endure
That Fiend in flesh, of whom all Scripute shows
Faint Antichrists, who cast their shades before
The coming substance of infernal Might
By Daniel vision'd, and by David sung
In song terrific. Then, a Day of blood,
Of burning deaths, of blackness and despair,
All Creeds shall test, all living Churches try,
Purging the faithful, till their dross they lose,
And purified from out the flames arise
In radiant beauty, and by love bedeck'd
With bridal vesture to receive their Lord.

And signs abound, and symptoms which escape
All but the souls who see with Scripture's eye,
That dooming hour by prophecy unveil'd,
When Gentile churches shall dissolve, and end
Amid the crash of Kingdoms. Far and wide,
From Thames to Tiber throng the shadows thick
Of terrors, which predict those Latter Times
Ripe for the harvest of almighty wrath,
When God for glory reaps His vengeance due.
Look where he may, a watching Saint discerns
No sackcloth'd Empire on its knees at prayer;
No Kingdom bow'd in penitence, or tears;
But all is headstrong, haughty, and unchanged
As ever. Vainly have revolving Years
Dread sermons preach'd on anarchy and crime
To banded nations, or benighted men:
And though Earth rocks, and Nature's foot-steps reel,
Full on the buckler of Jehovah's wrath
The Age is rushing, 'gainst His bosses dread
To dash its forehead, and endure the death
Of Treason. Soon, perchance, may come
A dark catastrophe, which closeth all
That fearful Drama, which this fallen world
Is now enacting on the stage of Sin.
The ancient Dotard of the triple Crown
Is yet a mocker, and the Bible hoots
Madly as ever; while absorbing Rome
Beneath the banner of her witchcraft draws
All warring opposites in creeds which rise,
To swell her potency and aid her charms.
Discord, and crime, and brutal passions rage;
And Lust, and Rapine, in delirium steep'd,

250

Weaken all truths, and let their lies abroad
In lawless havoc over hearts and homes.

And thus there rally, from the regions where
Disturbing elements of mind can mix,
All Powers and Principles, to final war.
And by such phalanx, which a Fiend might lead
To battle, when the world is well prepared,
And leaven'd to the core with lying spells;
When Faith, the bond of all cementing bliss
'Tween man and man, Her social life withdraws;
And no religion to the Throne eterne
Binds with a golden chain this earth below,
Then may that Hour, by Luther's prescient eye
Foreshadow'd, and by tragic Seers foretold,
Come to a head, and Antichrist be scorch'd
To cinders, by the thunder-blast of God!
The Vials six have all been emptied now;
The Trumpets six their peals of woe have blown,
And of the Seals apocalyptic, six
Their fated truths unfolded and fulfill'd:
But when that Vial, for the seventh decreed,
Its curse shall empty; when the closing Trump
Hurtles its thunder through the mystic heaven,
Then may this world an Incarnation see
Infernal: such as never, from the deeps
Of utter Darkness hath permissive God
Allow'd upon our palsied earth to stand.

But whatsoe'er this shape of Hell appears,
As Wicked, Wilful, or the Lawless one,
Myst'ry in flesh, or Man with fiend combined,
Papist, or Heathen, Jew, or Pagan he,
If not in name, by nature he shall prove
Son of Perdition; who himself shall dare
To magnify beyond all worshipp'd gods,
Or Saint, or Angel, on his temple-throne;
And rob the Infinite of glory due
By lying wonders. Come whate'er He may
In form, or fashion, faith in this exults,
That in the wine-press of almighty wrath
Trampled and torn, beneath avenging Christ
The final Antichrist is doom'd to fall!
For when awhile, on Satan's seven-hill'd seat
The nameless Anarch hath his wine-cup drugg'd,
And crush'd his compeers, till beneath his flag
All Shapes of evil shall themselves enlist,
Dilated, darken'd, and by deep excess
Made terrible, beyond what terrors dream;
When thus, fell Antichrist himself proclaims
A new almighty on creation's throne!
Then shall that Fight, whose dismal pomp arrays
Full many a Vision with prophetic awe
And many a promise with its glory fills,
And many a verse with battle-music storms,
Be hasten'd. Lo! the bright Avenger comes
In panoply of dreadful glory sheathed,
And blasting; till the disenchanted Earth
Again shall smile, and with responsive joy
Partake millennium in the Church's peace.

ANTICHRIST.

Yet, who can gaze, with spirit unappall'd,
On the vast outlines of this coming Doom
When all, which now in prophecy looks dead,
Leaps into life and acts the part sublime!
And this great Battle of Almighty God
By visions pictured, lyric poets sung,
And with whose muffled roar the Bible rings,—
Who can presume its awfulness to paint?
Then the Last Head of desolated Rome
Under his banner, with his Kingdoms ten,
And rebel Nations rallied at his cry,
Shall, front to front, the God eternal meet
For battle; and beneath the blast Divine
Down the deep hell of darkness and dismay
Descend for ever to his doom accursed!

Dungeon'd in fetters, for a thousand years
There shall He writhe; and in the racking curse
Of judgment holy, shut and seal'd by wrath
Resistless, magnify the Son of God,
By this endurance of avenging doom.
But yon bright Angels, who did faithful stand
When He, the primest of their Splendours once,
Fell in proud treason, by confirming grace
In heaven to worship and on earth to wait
Are destined; and their golden harps shall ring
In unison with choral saints, who now
Circle The Lamb triumphant and enthroned.

MILLENNIAL VISIONS.

As some pale Bard from fever-dreams awakes,
Haunted by shades and shadows undefined
Yet fearful, making dark imagination shrink,
Once more to look upon a heaven of stars
Through the high lattice beaming, and to bathe
His wearied temples in the fresh-wing'd air
Exulting,—so from these stupendous glooms
And themes of awe, where Reason stands abash'd,
Back to the brightness and the bloom of earth
We hasten. Here, what living glories throng,
Prophetic numbers might indeed rehearse;
And vision scenes o'er which the harping Seers
Enchanted roll'd their richest strains of song;
And in some lulling dream of Latter Days
For this world destined, feel what Luther felt,
On Pisgah-heights of prophecy enrapt
As oft he mused, and hail'd millennial times.

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But, now, expressionless the heart recoils!—
Under a weight of glory melt all words
To muteness, when that imaged Kingdom comes
On earth to be, what thus the Bible types,
And tells of Purity's celestial reign.
Then shall Redemption's perfect work respond,
And reach to all which revelation sings
In forms of Matter, or in facts of Mind,—
Yet to evolve. Creation's groan shall cease;
And life, and sense, and earth, and air, and sky
The vast enthronement of their Lord reveal,
By the felt magic of His reign inspired
And hallow'd. Glory in the sun will beam
With sevenfold brilliance; and the placid Moon
Glide through the mazes of her moving stars
With lustre deeper than rapt David saw
By midnight harping: not a fruit, or flower
Which bares its beauty to the prying breeze,
That will not in th' o'erflowing love and light
Of Earth's millennial consummation share.

And when Christ reigns, far more than Adam saw
The Earth shall witness in this bridal hour.
But oh! if Matter thus resplendent be,
Who can pourtray inaugurated Mind?
For if e'en now the Church our world instructs,
Though in her weakness,—when with Christ she reigns
Entire creation from That Church may learn
Perfect instruction, in the things profound
Of God. And as her Lord gradations knew,
And to the heights of His predestined rank
Ascended, so may God's elect advance
By faint reflections of His threefold sway,
As Prophets, Priests, and Kings of other worlds
And systems; and this inorganic earth
A palace of material splendours prove,
Where Beauty visible its throne shall set,
And o'er all worlds our own as model shine.

Thus, on the footing of God's Word inspired
Our hope we plant, and there this promise find,
That throned Emmanuel with avenging ire
Proud Antichrist shall blast, and then consume.
The Jew shall yet his bright Jerus'lem see,
And draw salvation from the Sides he pierced
When Christ on Calv'ry bore the bitter Cross;
While hymning Gentiles their hosannahs join
The Lamb around; and resurrection-saints
Call'd from the dust to greet their living Lord,
A thousand years of coronation-bliss
With Christ in glory shall on earth partake.
Till when at length, on sin, and Satan's host
And earth rebellious, final Judgment sets
That Seal tremendous, which for ever shuts
The perish'd in their prison-house of Woe
And wrath unutter'd, earth and heaven shall reach
A beauty endless, in baptismal fires
Recast, and shine with more celestial bloom
Than Sense can dream or Inspiration tells.

Hence all creation will Messiah bring
To full perfection, in its brightest form;
And back restore it to the heart of God
From whence it wander'd. There, his kingdom ends,
And Mediation down its sceptre lays
When nought between us and the Godhead comes.
Then face to face adoring man will view
The infinite; nor means, nor modes be used,
Nor sacraments, nor teaching symbols cast
'Tween God and soul their intervening shade.
In Deity the Church will be enshrined,
His Attributes her perfect temple prove,
Till God in mind the mind of God beget,
And life eternal be Himself enjoy'd.

TIME AND ETERNITY.

Between the living and the dead our life
Throbs like a brief vibration; and how soon
This pendulum of anxious being stops!
E'en in a moment, by some touch or tone
Arrested, lo, the life of sense concludes,
And we are launch'd beyond the tracking eye
To follow; by the Infinite absorb'd,
And in the secret of Eternity!

And yet, as though Reality were here
Alone authentic, how the hollow show
Of things, which eye, or ear, can apprehend
O'ercomes, and with monopolizing charm
Our cheated mind attracts, and blunts the edge
Of fine perception, for the spirit-world
To come! And oh, how rarely hoping Youth
Turns to the future a prophetic gaze,
Beyond this earth of shadows! Tomb on tomb
O'er life's descending pathway throws a shade;
And many a heart-ache to some fever'd brain
Must pay sad homage, ere the mocks of time
Be scatter'd, and our nobler dreams of soul
Their reign commence, and teach the gay to think.

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Then, throbs the immortality of thought
Within us! then, adown the gulf unknown
Of Life's hereafter prescient fancy looks,
By faith made holy; while we learn to feel
That body forms the prison-house of soul,
And, out of it the dead indeed are free!

And such are round us, in ethereal hours
When earth recedes, and through the rents of Time
Beyond the Visible we dare to gaze,
And gather wisdom from a world unseen,
Though not unshadow'd by foreboding mind.
Thus may all clouds of Sadducéan tinge
Dissolve, and placidly our dreams recall,
And the loved features of our dead, recast!
By lonely shores, by melancholy seas,
At moonlight's trance, or sunset's dreamy close,
Down vaulted aisles or churchyard's cypress-gloom
Slow-pacing; or, beneath pictorial forms
By Art's eternity of hues preserved,
How oft we ponder o'er some face beloved!
Till, by that resurrection which the heart
Rehearseth, we can bid their cherish'd tones
To wake, and hear their wonted footsteps glide.

But, deep the truth omniscient Scripture tells
And sanctions,—not one pulse of conscious Mind
The Will Divine hath ever caused to play
In human being, hath a single rest
Experienced, since the primal throb began!
The spirit-people of God's world Unseen,
Millions on millions though their number be,
Are conscious, more than when by flesh encased,
And clogg'd in action. Not a soul's extinct!
Still A dam thinks; still Alexander feels;
Cæsar hath being; Cleopatra lives;
And those crown'd butchers, whom the world calls brave,
Are feeling more than when they battles fought:
Yes, all who have been, great, or good, or vile,
Patriarchs, prophets, intellectual kings,
Heroes, or warriors, and those laurell'd priests
Of truth, the poets of Eternity,
All are a living, though a sightless, race;
Each in himself a hell, or heaven, become!
For Mind is everlasting; and the Man
Is there in essence, when contingents die.
Thus may the Dead a more than sermon preach
To awe the living, and this truth impress,
That as we die, for ever we endure!
The same in principle the heart abides:
Since Morals in their root continue one
And changeless, though the Soul hath taken wing.

Hence two Worlds claim us, by a sleepless law;
But one moves round us, palpably instinct
With life and passion; and, alas! absorbs
In the wild vortex of its vain delight,
What to the other, though unseen, we owe
Of faith and conscience. Thus, for time we live
As well as in it; thus, our hearts deny
The Infinite that waits behind the Veil;
And when the living from our gaze retire
We talk as though they lived not, and were quite
From Being parted, as to sight no more!
Yet this is madness in the garb of sense;
The blinding mock of necromantic dreams,
Dilating time into eternity
And which eternity to time contract.
For faith and reason in this truth conjoin,
The dead are living, but their life unheard,
Unfelt, unknown, beyond ideal thought
To image, seldom can that man inspire
Who walks by sense, and worships but the same.

PARADISE OF THE DEAD.

Yet, thought has moments, when deep souls exclaim
“Where are the Dead? the Minds who once look'd forth
In light from eyes, in language from kind lips,
And by the daring of immortal deeds
Breathed on our own, like inspirations? Where
Where dwell the Spirits, who once felt, and fear'd,
Who dream'd, desired, or acted, like ourselves?
Where have they fled? In blank absorption, lost?
Merged in the Infinite, engulf'd, or gone?
Melted to nothingness? Is this their doom?”
Oh! wait awhile: for e'en as wintry earth
By the green outburst of some glorious spring
Secrets of heavenly power in Nature's breast
Developes, so may this material Scene
With hidden radiance of celestial life
Be clad hereafter; since the reign of Saints
Shall yet be witness'd, ruling over all
Conspicuous, with a glory undescribed.
The shell of Matter shall at once remove,
Like a strange dream the Visible depart,
And lo! at once the “quick” on earth will stand
By angels circled, and by saints enthrong'd,
And in the midst incarnate God appear!

Meanwhile, the Bodiless in secret live
Till all be rife, for this predestined form
Of sudden, swift, and strange Apocalypse.
Holy of Holies! in thy shrine august

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High o'er all heavens, ethereal, and unreach'd
By man's conception, dwell the Dead redeem'd.
There, the saved myriads of the seal'd First-born
Present with Christ, from Him perchance acquire
Truths which on earth Experience did not gain.
Patriarchs, who dimly on the distant Christ
Gazed in a promise, now with clearness look
On Him they long'd to worship. Prophets, too,
The meaning and the majesty of strains
Mysterious, can by perfect thought expound;
Types are resolved; and shadowy rites unveil'd;
The mystic Lamb, on typing altars laid,
And Gospel, by Aaronic priesthood taught,
Their great Original doth here unfold
And proves Himself sole archetype of all.
While they, who died in dimness or dismay,
Haunted by fears, and harrow'd to the last
By many a tremor, in restoring beams
Of comfort, look upon their Lord, and live.
And there, is Concord! those conflicting notes
Of human dissonance, which now destroy
The solemn harmony of sainted minds,
These can the Lord by melodizing grace
Attune to oneness, till all souls agree.
Hence, may that World where parted Spirits meet,
A school of saintship for the Church elect
Be found: there, The Lord His priesthood act,
And God's magnificence of truth unveil;
Or, more and more the merit of His Blood
Teach the bright Spirits, who around Him throng.
And thrill they not, from Christ Himself to learn
His wounds, how deep! His mercy, how divine!
Till round that Saviour rapt hosannahs rise,
And in the minstrelsy of heaven we hear
“Worthy the Lamb! for He was slain for us,”
Through the deep ages of eternity
Swell like a torrent of melodious praise.

FAREWELL.

And to this world, around whose vision'd scene
Our thoughts have trembled, Luther's wearied soul
Advances; soon will that tried heart repose
In peace, beyond the loudest blast of time
To ruffle. Twice some thirty years have delved
Deep on his open brow their wrinkling trace;
And often hath he died in thought, and pray'd
At home with Jesu in yon heavenly clime
To have his welcome! Hopes, beyond man's world
To wither, far above the earth have borne
His spirit; in the balance of the truth
Its visions and its vanities he weigh'd,
And found them wanting! Warn'd by heaven, he waits
A kind dismissal to his last long home.
For there, how many have before him fled,
And seem to hail him from their thrones of grace
Celestial! 'Tis not, that proud murmurs rise
From out his noble spirit; but the hue
Of Life's pale sunset, whose foreboding charm
O'ershades the present with prophetic gloom.
Youth with the living loves gay converse bright;
Age with the dead can high communion hold,
Nor calls it mournful, when the graves unclose
Their treasures, or departed friendships rise;
While votive Mem'ry drops the tear intense
By Feeling gather'd in some aged eye!

And such, perchance, within the pensive gaze
Of Luther glisten'd, when in hoary eld
That home he enters, where a foodless boy
Through Eisleben from house to house he sang
For bread! and dropt unseen the bitter tear
Which moisten'd it, when cast from churlish hands.
There, at his window, on the wintry heavens
Bleak with the blast, and white with flaking snow,
Dejectedly a thoughtful gaze he fix'd,
While heaved his spirit with a swell of prayer
By man unheard, but audible in heaven,
Where thought is utt'rance. On his frame o'erbow'd
Chill age was falling; and both languid nerves,
And feeble sense, a boding symptom gave
How soon with him the silver cord would loose,
And bowl be broken at the fountain-head!
But not for this repined he: for the Church
He sorrow'd; and her doom with tearful eye,
Foretold, as witness'd in the war of Creeds
Around him raging. Thus, an autumn-tinge
Sadden'd his future with prophetic shades
Of woe and weakness; till, at times, he long'd
Like Simeon, now in solemn peace to part,
And on the bosom of his Lord expire.
His work is done; his warfare is complete;
And from eternity there seem'd to sound

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A bugle-note, that summon'd his retreat
Home to the heaven salvation's Captain won.

And what a world of undeveloped thoughts
That moment of mysterious calm contain'd!
As in the centre of all boyish dreams
And hours departed, there he mused, and pray'd;
Or the long windings of his wondrous life
Haply with tears retraced, with sighs renew'd,
And God in shade and sunshine equal saw,
Guardian, and Guide, and Glory of his days
Perpetual! Like a fated life had been
The vast experience of his varied course,
From lowly nothing to that Alpine height
Of fame and influence, where his manhood climb'd,
And age was resting: scarce had patriarch's dream
Or prophet's vision more of strange and stern
And awful, in the things of God beheld
Or suffer'd, than the Saxon monk endured,
From faithful Enoch down to fearless Paul!
For, when had God His imprimatur put
With brighter proof, than on the boundless Work
Which now o'er kings and kingdoms, Man and Mind,
Breathed of brave Luther, wheresoe'er it came?
Sinful, indeed, before That Eye he felt,
In Whose bright ray the heavens unclean appear;
But faithful to his Lord, and creed, and cause,
Mercy had kept him; and to Him he gave
The crowning merit of the mighty Whole.

'Twas thus a charm of retrospective peace
Besoothed him, when he felt no dread reproach
From craft, or compromise, o'erwhelm'd him now.
Firm had he lived, and faithful would he die,
In life unblemish'd and in death the same!

CHAMBER OF DEATH.

And if the chamber where the humblest yield
The burden of their being up to God,
Down to the roots of tenderness awakes
Affection's nature; if the feeblest Saint
Who hovers on the precipice of time,
When beetling o'er Infinity below
Takes to himself some attributes, which speak
Of awe and grandeur, can we gather round
The bed of glory where a Luther dies,
Nor feel an inspiration? Can we mark
That eagle-spirit, from its chain unbound,
In light and liberty o'er this dim world
Escaping, nor a solemn thrill partake
Speechless, but how expressive! There he lies!
Pale in the swoon of swift-approaching death:
But mind is yet majestic; and his eyes
From the dark lustre of their burning depths
Yet flash with meaning, and the soul express
Conscious, and clear as ever; while the lips
Move with that verse, which on Messiah's once
Quiver'd in peace, when David's words of faith
Wing'd His worn spirit to the Breast of God.

Deeper and deeper now the shades of death
Around him close, while drop the fainting lids
O'er his sunk eyeballs; thickly heave and fall
Those panting breath-gasps, while the ear of Love
Drinks with delight some shatter'd tones, or sighs
Of Bible-promise, or those falter'd notes
Of Faith, which tell the spirit-life within.
The strife is mortal, but the strength divine
That meets it! Death all stingless, and the Law
All dreadless,—neither can from Luther's heart
Hurl the high confidence a christian seats
There on its throne of evangelie truth.
Around him friends, and mourners, each with sob
Half-stifled, and with tears which hang unshed
On the still'd eyelids of revering love,
Are group'd; while bands of waiting Angels watch
That mighty Spirit into glory pass!
Cold is the damp which dews his whit'ning brow,
And pains convulse him with continuous rack;
But underneath that palpitating flesh
Calm lies the soul! in peace celestial bathed,
Though clay and spirit sunder. Hark! again
The last weak cry of ling'ring nature lifts
A dying homage to the Truth Divine,
And then, on yonder kneeling forms and friends
Before him, falls one faint and farewell gaze,
And,—all is over! while his features fix
Their pale expression into placid trance.
No sigh is heard; nor groan, nor shudder comes;
But wordless, and with hands devoutly lock'd,
And mute as monumental Prayer, he lies,
A dead Immortal deep in glory now!

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How hush'd, how holy, how intensely rapt
As though the blood would listen as it flow'd,
Till the brain rocks, and check'd emotion reels,
That moment is, when first mysterious Death
In full development his form unshrouds,
Solemn and stern! And there, yon reft ones bend
Moveless, and pale, like shapes of sculptured Woe
O'er breathless Luther: each, by curb of thought,
The big sensation from outbursting cry
Restraining; not a tone of anguish breaks
The silence; speechless on his brow they gaze;
So still, that breath most audibly intrudes;
And each can hear the living heart-beats play
O'er his beneath them, pulseless, and at peace.

Behind our veiling drapery of Sense
Baffled we are from darting forth one glance
Of mental knowledge; or the heart, methinks,
Might dream, when Luther's disembodied Soul
Pass'd from the flesh to join the spirit-throng,
The inner-world some vast impression felt;
While the high Dead, by heaven-born instinct moved,
Rose from their thrones, to give him welcome due
When first He enter'd their elysian scene.

Tears are the litany of weeping hearts
When heroes vanish to their native heaven;
And let them consecrate an hour like this,
For there th' Elijah of the Gospel lies!
And rarely to the spirit-clime hath fled
From this low earth, a loftier soul than he,
The lion-hearted Luther! Never more
That princely mind with gen'rous pang shall bleed:
He sleeps in Jesus, but he wakes to God
Chanting in heaven the song on earth he sung,
“Worthy the Lamb! for he was slain for me!”
The race is o'er; the goal immortal reach'd;
Servant of Light, and vassal of its Lord,
Him hath the Master with the host above
United, call'd, rewarded, and resumed
Back to the Bosom whence his graces flow'd.

And let the pope and priest their victor scorn,
Each fault reveal, each imperfection scan,
And by some fell anatomy of hate
His life dissect, with satire's keenest edge;
But still may Luther with his mighty heart
Defy their malice, though it breathe of hell.
If soul majestic, and a dauntless mien;
If faith colossal, o'er all fiends and frowns
Erect; if energy, which never slack'd,
With all that galaxy of graces bright
Which stud the firmament of christian mind,
If these be noble, with a zeal conjoin'd
Which made his life one liturgy of love,
Then may the Saxon from his death-couch send
A dreadless answer that refutes all foes,
Who dwarf his merit or his creed revile
With falsehood. Far beyond them soars the Soul
They slander; from his tomb there still comes forth
A challenge, which rebukes them by its power;
And the brave monk who made the Popedom rock
Champions a World to show his equal yet!

“DEAD, YET SPEAKETH.”

Luther is dead! and like the Church's knell
Sounds the sad tale in Europe's startled ear:
Princes are thrill'd with consternation's throe,
And trembles now the Reformation's ark!
But, turn we most to see Melancthon's tear
Sacred as ever dropp'd from friendship's eye.
Nations alone the great Reformer knew,
But he the Man had loved, and mourn'd him thus
As David over Jonathan bemoan'd,
Passing the grief of woman! 'Twas th' eclipse
Of earth's best sunshine, when his Luther died:
For years had tried them with severest test,
And at each close, more fervidly in faith
Had left them: therefore, what but soothing Heaven
The dismal tumult of his harrow'd mind
Can hush, and soften into sacred calm?
Theirs was a friendship, which no earthly soil
Can generate; from heavenly seed it sprang,
And bloom'd unwither'd, 'mid the blight and blast
Of cold earth's changes. Each to each a grace
Imparted, which, apart, they did not wield.
Their light was varied but their love was one;
And the mild discord of commingled souls
In friendship made the harmony more sweet:
While o'er the failings of their mutual hearts
A garment of sweet charity was thrown,

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To hide them. Thus, harsh Luther in some mood
Tempestuous, when a lawless rage ran high,
From mild Melancthon forced no bitter tone;
For soon that tempest of a moment sank
To loving silence; forth the rainbow smiled!
And rich good humour cast its rosy gleam
O'er the brief gloom a frowning word begot.
And thus 'twill ever be, when hearts are true
As tender: frankly bold, and freely plain,
'Tis not in nature when by Christ endow'd,
A smile forgiving from a fault confest
To hide, since love is here our holy creed:
And kindness forms a talismanic key,
Opening the heart well-lock'd to all beside.

Luther is dead, and lone Melancthon weeps;
And, reader! hast thou no responsive tear
With his to mingle? Is thy gone career
Tombless? And over no departed friend
Heaves the green turf? Or is thy present hung
With no sad cypress for a perish'd joy,

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Or faded dear ones, into dust relapsed?
Alas! the heart's Necroplis is filled
With many a tomb by Mem'ry's votive hand:
And, where is he, that prodigy of joy
In age partaking all his childhood had
Of household-blessing, or parental bliss?
Oh! long ere wintry years the head have hoar'd,

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Or thoughts their furrows in the forehead plough'd
Eternity with time at least divides
Our friendships. Heaven has oft the better half
Of hopes which brighten'd, or of hearts that blest
Our Life's fair morning! Soon the world grows strange;
And bleak and barren do our pathways grow
As more and more they wind us to the grave.
And well, if friendship only be the loss
We suffer; oft, our noblest feelings die;
The heart is bankrupt, though the head be rich,
While all those young simplicities of soul

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Which lay on character's expanding buds
Like drops of morning, in their freshness bright,
Exhale, and leave an autumn-waste behind.

Not such were thine, Melancthon! Round thy grief
A radiant hope of sweet re-union there,
In that high world of fearlessness and truth

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Where all of heavenly which on earth we lose
Again shall greet us, and a glory wear
Perfect and bright, beyond our purest mind
Below to witness. There, shall friend with friend
And babe with mother, son with sire, renew
In blest revival, unforgotten love.
Partings below will soon to meetings turn,
And serve, as foils, to set their gladness off
Hereafter, when the soul's embraces blend.
And there are moments, mystical as deep,
When time anticipates eternity,
Making the Easter of our mem'ry bright
Rise on the heart, with resurrection-bloom.
Bodied and bodiless can thus converge
Whene'er to worship at The Throne we bow,
Or sigh, or speak some lonely prayer of love.
Soothed by soft dreams of well-remember'd times,
There round that Centre of our common Lord
The dear and dead ones of the heart revive;
Inhale together a surpassing peace,
And bathe their spirits in one blended joy
Supernal: friendships thus in soul remain,
When tombs have swallow'd all the senses clasp'd.
So can the living with the dead commune,
And rob the grave of half its vict'ry here,
While love in Christ by sainted hearts is proved
On earth the brightest, as in heaven the best.

JESUITS AND JESUITISM.

I.—MIND IS POWER.

Mind is the centre of our human power
And action: 'tis that throne of secret law
Where, like a monarch, reigns the regal Will
Supreme in orbit. As this living world
Of varied substance, through its moulded forms
And functions, hath each primal source of change
Not in the region of created strength,
But rather from the will Almighty takes
Each plastic motion, so that time-bound scene
Where man's embodied agencies unveil
His vice, or virtue, good or evil acts,
Not from brute matter, but from conscious mind
Derives mutation, destinies, and deeds.

II.—SENSUAL DOUBT.

Yet, blind in soul, with sensual chains begirt,
The fettered victims of the senses five
In Matter place reality, alone!
Effect remote, contingent and involved,
Their view confounds, and is for cause mistook:
As though the mind a passive myst'ry were

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By words created, not in things contained.
But 'tis not thus! All motion, power, and change,
Materially in heaven, or earth, or air
Unfolded, seen, or heard, or felt, or scann'd,
Up to the Mind Eternal must be traced
As their last Root, and secret Law alone.

III.—WHENCE CONDUCT SPRINGS.

Thus Mind, not Matter, is that seat and spring
Whence nature, providence and grace evolve
Their vital actions, on our sense impinged
With frequent pressure. Thus in Science, too,
Where through the medium of material acts
Wonder on wonder to her Priests unfolds
Amazing products, and mechanic force
Unbounded, high o'er all a Power presides
In secret; graced with philosophic name,
Men call it law, but what is law but mind
In ruling action? 'Tis the Will Divine
That, self-enforced, invisible as God,
And shapeless as eternity to thought,
Masters all Nature, moulds her myriad forms
Of growth, or grandeur, and the world empowers.
And hence, what Wisdom learns when most her grasp
Into the oneness of a glorious whole
Hath organised all forms, and facts of Life
Material, is to know her ign'rance more.
For, laws in Nature are our modes of thought,
Our vast conceptions of the unreveal'd
In matter, on whose aid all Science rests
And reasons: but no explanation climbs
That altitude where Law in essence dwells.
What God to faith, that Principle to sense
Becomes,—unseen, but actual, vast and true,
And yet, from sense how infinitely hid
In depths unfathomed! like the modes of grace,
Those methods deep, whereby The Spirit wields
His inward spells o'er all the central life of Man.

IV.—REAL AND UNREAL.

Thus, matter is the instrument of mind,
And mind, as monarch, over matter reigns
With secret magic: thoughts are throneless kings,
Yet, thrones must wither, when their potent sway
Becomes imperial! Then, the slaves of sense
Unlearn the lesson brutal science taught
Mere flesh to credit,—that the True
Is what we witness, handle, taste, or hear;
While Unreality to that belongs
Which faith hath canonised, as law and life
Supreme, by reason loved, and conscience own'd.
But this, how baseless! Power to mind pertains:
Reality within the realm of thought
Abides; and (what from sense is far remote)
Those lone Abstractions, which a lofty Soul
Visions before it, ponders o'er and proves,
Are oft the Factors whence our work-day life
Derives expansion, and more blest is made.
And not more truly can some Bard adapt
Poetic language to melodious thought,
Than to the process of those laws mind-born
Within us sanction'd, God this outer-world
Hath framed, and fashioned. Thus, the most abstract
Creator, who from sensuous earth retires,
While from her watch-towers Speculation eyes
In stillness what ideal problems prove,
Is no fanatic: for, resulting products show
That what pure Thought conceived, creation-laws
Hereafter realise; and hence attest
How facts in mind to forms of matter fit
Their truth, and justify what Thought foretold.

V.—THE INNER WORLD.

The Student, thinking in his mental bower,
Pale, and apart from all our blinded World
Calls useful, what a mock such man beseems
To Mammon's host, or Belial's pamper'd slave!
His world is secret, soundless as the soul
Which doth create it; one of perfect mind.
There, Truths in transcendental glory reign
Harmonious, which are yet by words uncloth'd.
Weeks, months, and years, that Devotee of thought
Works like an Angel, with a perfect will
To his pure toil surrender'd. Time and scene
Affect him not; gain and pleasure pass
His heart unheeded; passionately wed
To some high Problem, life unliving seems
From that divorced: 'tis health, and food to him!
Thus the whole man, in body, soul, and strength
A sacrifice to this achievement made,
Now to the world-wise half a maniac grows!
Or dreaming martyr, whom the moon affects
With visions mad, or theories befool'd.
But Genius is a prophet, priestess, queen;
To speak, to sacrifice, and reign
Her glory is, while inspiration bears
Her being up; and so, the world she braves:
And in those solemn agonies of thought
When brain o'crtask'd becomes a thinking fire,

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And flames the blood with fever, still endures
That strong resolve, which makes a Will sublime!
And lo, at length the goal of mind is won,
The problem work'd, the grand result obtain'd;
And deep abstractions, such as Newton seized,
Kepler embraced, or Galileo scann'd
Alone, prophetic Science thus can bring
Down from the heights where speculation soar'd,
To grounds material,—to that homely soil
Where life and commerce, man and income blend,
Or struggle. Now, some calculus is got,
A truth unveil'd, or principle applied
Which moves the World for more than centuries on!
And they, that scornful host of sceptic hearts
Who mock'd the thinker, while creative thought
Was all internal, when 'tis robed with fact,
And 'mid the homes and haunts of life appears
Embodied,—let them now that Lie abjure
Which makes unthinking sense the Lord of soul!
For mind, not matter, is the king of men,
That salient centre whence our human world
All change, and crisis, law and movement takes.

VI.—HISTORY IN MAN.

Coil'd in the secret folds of some vast Mind,
Working unwitness'd, save by God's own eye
Which views a thought as we survey the sun,
The moral Life of ages lies uproll'd.
History unread hath there a virtual root
And fountain: in that comprehensive Soul
Empires, and thrones, and revolutions lie
In principle! there, carnage, crowns and creeds,
Battle and peace, commotions, strife, and change,
Lurk seminally hid, for future sway
Or active function. But, the shallow pause
Oft at the outposts, where material Force
Comes into play, or palpably unfolds
Realities, to earth and space and time
Apparent; yet the secret motive-spring,
The life, the law, the impulse, and the power
Which vivifies what men for History read,
Is viewless thought, a state of will unscann'd.
For years conceal'd, in mental depths contain'd,
Some brooding impulse of the Spirit works,
And thence, as from a pregnant germ, proceed
Gigantic changes which a world upheave
To glory, or in guilt and ruin plunge
Its greatness. History is but man unroll'd,
And man himself, but what the will prefers,
By mental action, or in moral force
Determined. For awhile, 'tis secret all!
Unheard, unknown, the boundless Project forms
And ripens; through ideal worlds of thought
The lone enthusiast, day by day, pursues
His great conception, then departs, and dies.
But, having to some genial few his plan
Discover'd, soon the speculation swells
And strengthens; till, at length, by living force
Develop'd, forth from out the mind's recess
That viewless Energy moves self-revealed
In shape historic; clothes itself with forms
Material; into contact bravely comes
With men and empires; human Life confronts
In all its faculties and myriad spheres
Of influence, such as reach the vital power
Of Nations, creeds, and churches, oft recast;
And now,—the flurried World recoils, and fears!
A sudden palsy over kingdoms falls
Mysterious; truths and principles are touch'd
In essence; baffled Reason looks aghast:
Amid the turbulence and shock of things,
Chaos seems come! And mark! how blinded Sense
Amid the crash of churches, thrones, and states
Around it crumbled, learns at last to see
That by a single Thought, this giant-world
Is moved, as though a moral earthquake shook
Both Past and Present, from their thrones of sway
For ever! Yes, some vast conception lives,
Which once was mind impalpable, and hid.
Results material are but Thoughts array'd
With formal being,—Soul and Will become
Embodied, and for creed and conscience made
Apparent, by the deeds they dare, or do;
But still in essence what they ever were,
As seeds and germs within creative mind
Maturing, where the soul of History dwells.

VII.—LOYOLA.

But, did we crave a specimen, and type
Embodied, how a single Mind can move
Backward or forward, churches, thrones, and creeds,
And on the motion of one mighty will
History depends, when earth and hell are sway'd,
Turn we to him, in whom combine and meet
Passion and principle, which make a Soul
Though single, like omnipotence to act
On men and empires. Turn we unto thee,
Ignatius! with that rich Castilian blood

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Rolling within thy veins its noble tide
Ancestral, dreaming, daring, all on fire
With mad devotion, from whose wondrous spell
The glories of the Reformation's power
Receded. Never to a Cause was chain'd
A devotee, more passionately raised
To heights enrapt of superhuman zeal
Than was that flaming heart, when first it felt
How Law, and Gospel, Heaven, and Earth and Hell,
Sin, grace and time, eternity and truth,
In one abysmal thought, The Church of Rome,
Might be absorbed! And thus, to thee, that church
A Christ impersonal on earth became
A dread abstraction, thine almighty all!

VIII.—BATTLE-SCENE.

Beside the radiant Arga's rolling stream
Rise Pampeluna's walls; around them group
Hills of expressive grandeur, huge and high,
Cleaving the crystal air of old Navarre
With pendant summits, while a wooded vale
Of soft extent beneath their umbrage smiles.
'Twas here, enflamed by chivalrous romance
For deeds and darings, such as storied Gaul
In Amadis for ever laurels, stood
Fronting the beach, amid the clanging shock,
And brunt and carnage of a siege prolong'd,
The bold Ignatius! Ne'er hath poet's god,
Or dream-shaped hero, show'd more daring mien
And desperate valour; fighting in the rush
And roaring tumult of a blood-stain'd host
Firm to the last, this lion of Navarre
Contended, till beneath a gory heap,
Shouting the war-song, fell his wounded form
O'erwhelm'd by numbers:—Pampeluna sank;
Then, Gaul's proud banners o'er the towers high waved,
And red with carnage streets and temples ran.

IX.—RELIGIOUS IDEALISM.

The castled walls of his ancestral sires
Shelter'd the Hero; thus, with nerves o'er-strung
Fever'd by pain, emaciate, worn, and rack'd
Through bone and sinew, on his couch he lay
In long confinement: but the soul unchill'd
Burn'd in his being, with a martyr's fire
Heroical and strong; and here the captive fed
With vision, and with reverie sublime
Caught from the legends of the sainted host,
His heated nature,—till a sacred knight
Sworn to the Cross and to the Virgin vow'd,
Ignatius grew! and then, Romance began,
Blent with disease, to madden and inspire
His soul with more than passion, and “The Cross”
Wielded a spell o'er his ignited heart
Transcending human valour. Hence by faith
Etherialised, from fields where Glory wins
Laurels of earth, to scenes where Heaven rewards
Her heroes of celestial temper, turns he now:
And lo! in battle for the church of God,
Founded on Peter, like a war-machine
Against all heretics whom earth and hell
Concentres, yearns Ignatius soon to fight!
Here was a chivalry, whose new-born spell
Beat like a pulse of preternatural force
Fiercely within him! Visions, vast and bright,
Surpassing all apocalyptic Seers beheld,
Daniel conceived, or Chebar's prophet view'd,
Hover'd and hung around him, night and day
With their entrancing glories! Blood and brain
Were fever'd; with such gorgeous fancies thrill'd.
The very poetry of madness seem'd
To shake stern Reason from her throne,
And conscience to its roots. Then, fast and prayer,
Penance, and vigils of enormous length,
Blent with erratic dreams, together work
E'en to pale death this champion of the church
Devoted;—him to Mary ever vow'd,
Mother of God, and Queen of grace-born Souls!

X.—A DEVOTEE.

While thus impassion'd, Salem's heaven-loved soil
Before him glimmers; to that Land of dreams,
Christ's home on earth, by His incarnate Life
Eternalised, the new crusader hies.
Alone, in all the flush of flame-eyed zeal,
Sandalled by rope, with staff and calabash,
Unarm'd, the wounded Pilgrim drags his way
Till old Manreza's gates, at length, unclose
Before him. Here, again before the throne
Of worshipp'd Mary, fast and penance prove
His knighthood, while he hangs his weapons up
Before the imaged Virgin, and his flesh
Devotes to torment in the monkish cell
Of Dominic, that patron of all pangs
Ascetic, which redeem the will to God
Through shirts of pain, and thongs for bloody scourge!
Never did Penance such a hero boast,
As now was witness'd! Round his wasted loins
Clank'd iron fetters; while some thrice a-day

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Fell on his frame the blood-absorbing lash:
With bitter ashes was some barren crust
Commingled; prayer, not sleep, the night
Engaged; and on the stair of his damp cell
A kneeling trance of seven-hour length unbroke
He often kept, and starved his body down
Till foodless life look'd death itself begun!
Loathsome his garb, beyond what beggars wear;
While underneath his gaberdine there lay
Thorns, which might pierce with laceration slow
The flesh abhorr'd! But still, the deadly work
Of martyrdom in horrid climax fail'd!
For now to cavern'd darkness lo! he flies
A serried anchorite; there fasting, keeps
His awful vigils, till the pallid gleam
Which through some crevice of the rocky cave
Glimmer'd, on his ghastly features play'd
As though it trembled on such face of death
To glisten! But the peace divine he sought,
Was far as ever from his gasping soul.
Then came the conflict! the convulsion dread
Which, like a living earthquake, heaved and rock'd
The moral ground-work of the man within
Till mind was shatter'd, and the will no more!
Voices, which seem'd from out Damnation's gulph
To issue, yell'd around his inward ear;
While visions, black as fiendish Magic forms,
Floated within him, till he gasp'd and groan'd,
Throbbing, as though the arch-fiend wrestled oft
With his spent anguish! In that hour of hell
When madness, guilt, impiety and dread
Raged in the depths of his convulsèd soul,
Dread Suicide beheld him on the brink
Of lost eternity, about to dash
His headlong spirit down the pit of death:
When, lo! The Virgin, veil'd with robes of light,
Floats in the air, before his eyes entranced
Clasping her infant-God: and, thus recall'd
From murder, straight with bare and bleeding feet
To Salem must that wild ascetic come,
Beggar'd, but not subdued, a Grave to seek,
The Sepulchre most holy of The Lord!
But ere he went, our Lady, to reward
Her dreadless champion, back the heavens unroll'd
Above him; more than Paul unbodied saw
Ignatius witness'd,—what no words reveal!
The Trinity to him unclosed its shades
Of awful Wonder, whose mysterious depths
To sight were open'd! Ages next, retired;
And how Creation at God's bidding rose
From nothing, and the motive whence it came,
His awed imagination then beheld!
And more than this the rapt enthusiast seem'd
To image: an apocalypse of soul
Did to his thought that spell of spells unwind,—
How bread and wine are in the Host transform'd,
And changed to Christ, when priested lips command
A sacramental Incarnation there
God to enshrine, and Calvary repeat!

XI.—MISSION.

By vision strengthen'd, and by faith sublimed
To that fierce boldness which all Earth defies,
And time, or torture, to absorb or tame,
Nerved like a martyr, with his crown in view,
Ignatius onward to the tomb of Christ
Fearless of Saracens, advanceth near.
When, Lo! again, a visionary Christ
Hovers on high, above the blest sepulchral stone
Featured with glory; calls him to convert
The Orient, and His word of burning truth
Thrills through the soul of this heroic man
Like magic, out of Heaven's own music breathed.
And now, the work is done; the dreamer ends!
The cavern'd eremite no more exists
Fever'd by fancies dark: all visions die,
While calm Reality his heart ascends
To reign in wisdom, and the world o'erawe.
The giant from imagination's sleep
Awaketh, what a wond'rous race to run!
Yes, from the cloud-land, where confusion form'd
Ideas, like a mental chaos wild,
Down to the cold the actual and the stern
Descends the dreamer, and is Man again!
Before the sepulchre of Christ is born
That future Jesuit, who the earth rechain'd
To Roman falsehood; glorified the Pope
Like God, and push'd the Reformation back
For centuries, as some fallen Angel might
Reverse by giant craft the Good abhorr'd.
Nor ended he, till over ruin'd minds
And reeling empires, through his master-spell,
A vile theocracy of priesthood rose
As if by miracle! where myriads bow'd
Under his sceptre, like single Will
By God struck prostrate through resistless law.

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XII.—THE VOW.

The wings unfold of some three hundred years,
And lo! a vested group of gather'd priests
In mute procession, from beneath the towers
Of Notre Dame there winds its solemn way
On to the capital, which now reposed,
Under the stealing brightness of the dawn
Quiet, in square and street. But, hark! at times
Peels in high cadence with a chanted swell
Their orisons, as o'er the fame-crown'd heights
Of Martre, to that sacred Crypt they move,
Where France believes her first Apostle gain'd
His crown eternal of celestial praise.
Mark, in the front, with war-like mien, and gait
Most kingly, He who leads yon priestly band!
His countenance seems in itself a Church
And Council,—grave, profound, august,
Delved with the lines which deep reflection brings
Upon the brow of Thinkers. From those eyes
That blaze with intellectual fire, there dart
Imperial rays, beneath a godlike front
Which Painting loves to study. None could view
That martial figure, and a King of mind
Imagine not; for, look and step and air
Betray'd his mission. He was born to rule,
And in the world's great heart a crisis form
Of glory, or disaster. Such appear'd
That incarnation of religious guile
Ignatius was, on more than empire bent,
As on to St. Denys' memorial fane
Of martyrdom, he leads his band elect.
And now, when o'er yon sacrificial Bread
The necromantic words of priesthood work
That spell almighty, making God to be!
Are duly mutter'd, hark, the direful Vow!—
A vow, which, had encircling nations been
Around them gather'd, might have palsied kings
And kingdoms! 'Twas an Oath sublime, and stern;
From each of that sworn brotherhood it rose
Significant, and low, and deep as dread,
Rising from man on earth to God in heaven,—
In witness, they in life in limb and thought,
In soul and body, reason, conscience, will,
Prostrate before the Pope, would ever crouch
Slaves of his will, in whom a Christ on earth
Is worshipp'd, as the source of churches all!

XIII.—THE SYSTEM.

Such was the Man! and now, the System view
Reigning victorious, realising all
Its founder imaged, while He watch'd and wept
In cell, or cave, on Tabor's rocky height,
And grew a priest-god, by whose sceptre awed,
Nations and kingdoms, churches, creeds, and states,
All tribes and peoples, passive things became.
Ere twenty years had vanish'd, what a world
Ignatius wielded! more than Pompey dreamt,
Cæsar acquired, or Alexander's heart
Encompass'd, ere he died the Jesuit ruled.
Luther and he were two embodied Types
Of that great Problem, which the earth convulsed
With doubt and danger,—how in one to blend
The rights divine of individual souls
By God created, and by Christ redeem'd,
With that consentient law of common-life
Incorporate, which a perfect Church demands.
Luther for souls, as single, lived and died
In battle; but Ignatius for the Church
Contended, striving to engulph the Man
As unit, in that Body of the whole
Communion, where each separate life expires.

XIV.—PRIESTLY TRIUMPH.

Behold his triumph! In the convent veil'd
By solitude austere, from men remote
Like regal Grandeur, forth his genius sent
A world-wide power, which Empires still obey!
Europe, and Asia, and the far Brazils,
With India's giant realms,—his sceptre touch'd
Them, each and all! Thus, colleges and schools
Rise at his wand, to regulate the homes
And hearts of myriads: cabinets are moved;
Kingdoms admonish'd: councils awed and sway'd:
Battles commenced or sudden peace restored
And strengthen'd,—all betray the master-soul
Of this fam'd Leader. On his royal lip
Law absolute depended; at his word
Obedience rose, and where it will'd, there went
His banded zealots,—brave and lion-hearts
Burning for martyrdom, through East and West

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And North and South, the faith of Christ to plant;
Making the desert with the rose of truth
To blossom, and the wilds of sin to bloom
With those rich graces which his Church admires!
Nor did the magic of his subtle power
Pause at conversion; since, to Him applied
Monarchs for help, while queens for civic aid
Besought Him: thus, by law divine he seem'd
Lord absolute o'er thrones and kings to reign,
Whose crown was genius, and his sceptre, mind.

XV.—SERPENTINE WISDOM.

Behold a system deeper than the thoughts
Of ancient Despots, in their dreams of power,
Fathom'd or framed, which now the world o'ertook.
Luther and Calvin, when Ignatius rose,
Had like a storm-blast heaved the mind and heart
Of Empires; mental life and action spread
With speed miraculous; monkish night dispersed,
Like cowering demons by the gaze of Christ
Daunted, and dazzled. Novelty awoke;
The fountains of the spirit's deep were barr'd
Or broken up; creation was abroad
And active; while in science, creed and art
Inventive genius with irruptive force
Burst into sway:—and now, behold! the plan
Both wise and wondrous, by the Jesuits work'd.
Not to reverse by effort mad they tried
The onward rush of European life;
But through the prowess of exceeding mind
Master'd its move, and led the mighty van
Church-ward to Rome, while yet they seem'd to act
And mingle with it! To suspend, or chain
The giant impulse, had their skill surpass'd
However subtle: so the lead they took,
Absorb'd, embodied, gather'd in the whole,
And guided that which else had govern'd them!

XVI.—SPIRITUAL AGGRESSION.

Thus they resolved a problem, dread and deep;
How with pure faith philosophy can blend,
Reason and science with religion act
Their mental freedom. This they strove to show
When Church and College, as two symbols, rose
Together, and their union thus involved.
Here is the secret of that Jesuit-work,
Which won an awful triumph. Mark it well
Student of man! for History hath no page
More to arrest a Thinker, and his thoughts.
To battle with the Reformation-power
Forth to their work those weapon'd Jesuits came,
And ne'er did such Machines of mental war
And conflict, fight with their unearthly skill!
Aggressively, with Nation Creed and Church
They grappled; Science and mechanic Art,
Language and Commerce, Poetry and Lore,
How did they master each, and model all,
Or shape them down to their dread purpose fit!
Man and his motives, mind and heart they probed
And scann'd, they search'd, anatomised, and knew
Where to begin, progress, and how to pause
In each career they ventured. Thus empowered,
These champions of the Roman church became
Resistless, by their secrecy of strength
In action; back the Reformation quail'd
Before them! city after city bow'd
True Liberties beneath their wizard laws;
Princes and people, by such craft inspired,
Barter'd the conscience, till Germanic minds
Which Luther ransom'd, into bondage sank
Abased as ever! Rome again prevail'd;
Darken'd the soul, and dungeon'd half the world
Of free-born Europe in her creed and chains!

XVII.—UBIQUITY OF GUILE.

It looks romance, but solemn archives show
What miracles were by the Jesuits work'd
O'er man and mind, when first their princes waged
Heroic warfare for the Pontiff's throne.
Never was education so profound
As their adapting genius, form'd, and plann'd,
And carried out. But while such home-born minds
Were foster'd, far and wide their missions spread
From China's wall to Paraguay the wild,
Or, where by Ganga's Stream the black Hindoo
Waited for truth to set his spirit free.
Nor paused they here!—in palaces and courts,
In cabinets and councils were they hid

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And harbour'd; metamorphosed to all shapes,
Ignatius seem'd self-multiplied, and ruled
By their dark subtleties o'er plots and plans
Tremendous, bloody, dismal, deep, and dire
As Rome conceived, or policy preferr'd.
Thus do we find, at infamous Versailles,
The poison'd words of persecuting Hate
Into the ears of Royalty distill'd
With potency infernal, while true Hearts
In Britain's court were basely undermined
Or master'd; everywhere they move,
And everything they touch, pervade and thrill;
All places reach; all powers affect, or change:
No person safe, no principle secure!
From cot to court, from king to subject down,
Their zeal can like an omnipresence act.
Equal for them, to whom the Pope is God,
All powers of State; all governments the same!
Each to his Church is creature, slave, or tool;
Crime is not criminal, when She commands
The deed enormous! treason noble looks,
And murder from the decalogue departs
No more forbidden, should the Church require
A splendid victim for her crown and cause!
“A Jesuit!” well might childish dread conceive
That Name far more than mortal nature clothed!
Satanic wisdom seem'd almost surpass'd
By them who bore it; guile and darkness there
Concenter'd all which intellectual Fiends,
On earth embodied, might for falsehood wield
Were Pandemonium in the mind to reign.

XVIII.—MECHANISM FOR SOULS.

But if the ground-work of that guile intense
And spell, whereby the man unsoul'd becomes
Enslaved to priesthood, we desire to search,
A Book behold, by right “mysterious” call'd;
For here, mechanics for the Mind exist
Which, when by crafty discipline applied
And studied, render man a living corpse
In spirit,—an automaton for Priests
To mechanise, until The Church appears
A thinking substitute, a faith-machine,
And swathes the Will with swaddling bands which bind
Men to obedience, passive, base, and blind
As absolute! And now, de-natured man
Sinks from a Person, and a Thing becomes,
Depress'd and dwarf'd, a mass of featured clay
Whence mental faculty and moral force
Have been absorb'd! Yet, libel not that God
From whom Humanity her birth derives,
When thus impersonal, by calling such
A “Man!” Spontaneous will and thoughts are dead,
Or, sunk and swallow'd in the church of priests;
Conscience expires; the mind can think no more;
A soulless thing, an accident, or show,
A mere Negation for a man mistook
Is all that such mechanics for the mind
Can boast of; but their ruling charm succeeds!
The Formula of hideous falsehood works;
Conversion by mechanical result
In thirty days is certain, ere one moon
Can vanish! Let the “Exercise” be used
Completely; let each posture, gait, and groan
Be duly balanced: let the dismal curse
Of silence, solitude, and darken'd rooms
Be wreak'd, together with an imaged Hell
Shaped from imagination's horrid depths
Of blackness, where the howling Fiends are heard,—
Such let the neophyte of Priests enact,
And lo, conversion! passive as a stick
Wielded by aged pilgrims when they walk,
Or helpless as a shrouded corpse, when moved
By living creatures,—view the Convert now!

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XIX.—PERSONALITY DESTROYED.

What God created thus a Priest destroys,—
Man with a Soul! for now, that Soul reduced
By such absorption, in the Church resolves
Its nature: 'tis no more a choosing Power
Or Person; stifled reason hath expired
In self-renouncement; what is left, the Shape,
But not the Substance, of a man remains.
'Tis but an Organ, made of sigh, and sob, and speech!
Now on bare knees: then, prostrate in the cell
Of anguish; now, for ritual drama garb'd
And spangled; then, engaged in mumbling rounds
Of words, where sense through repetition dies,
Or the tired breath monotonously tones
Ave Marias! till the lip-work dire
Achieves its penance. What a boast is here!
When thus a mechanising Priest can make
Persons turn Things, and Things like corpses lie
Passive and powerless: such the Jesuit seeks
To govern, and despotic Rome demands.

XX.—OBEDIENCE.

Monster of systems is the Jesuit-school!
Police and treason, accusations dire
As dismal, each on each a dragon-watch
Keeping incessant, so that counter-spies
Thus exercised, a bosom-hell create.
Suspicion lowrs on ev'ry guarded brow
Of this dark Band, whose jealous eyes are keen,
Prompt to denounce each alter'd shade of mind
Assumed disloyal. Thus, the living pulse
Of pure Emotion is by terror chill'd
Or death-struck; social life exhales,
And all enacted, is obedience now
Under the yoke of thy cadaverous Rule,
Ignatius! Fiends o'er such a scheme exult;
But Angels, could they our dejection know,
Might shudder, veil their eyes, and weep for Souls!

CONFESSION AND CONFESSIONAL.

XXI.—PRIEST IN OFFICE.

Rome for the spirit a gymnasium proves:
Her Priests are posture-masters for the soul
Deluded, who can twist and turn the mind
And morals, just as Superstition shapes
Her ritual, or Effect on man requires.
Seek we a proof for this satanic aim
Of sacrilege on souls? Behold it, there!
The wooden screen of yon confession-shrine
Behind whose shelter lurks a probing Priest,
Contains it. 'Twere enough to blot the sun
At noon-tide blaze, to horrify the blood,
Or make Humanity to blush and burn
With shame eternal, might plain Truth disclose
All which Confessional has heard, or done,
Or vilely dared within the bosom's depth.—
Laid on the rack of Rome's lascivious tongue
The mental victim of confession sobs
Tones which are torture, while the fiendish words
Pierce their exploring way with foul success
Or skill'd advantage, till the Heart is won
And all the sacredness of soul expires.

XXII.—DEATH OF PURITY.

How the crush'd modesties of Woman bleed
Under the hoof of man's inhuman speech
Down-trampled! Mark that serpent-priest,
Holding his ear, lasciviously inspired
With loathsome appetite for all that should
Be wordless, and in blushing silence sleep,—
Feed on confession with his vampire-taste;
While maid and mother, wife, and sister wring
Their secrets into language, till their souls
Are agonised at every modest pore
Of feeling; wrench'd, as though infernal screws
Tortured their silence to convulsive speech.
Each gasping word seems like an oral pang
Breathed into utterance, with a growing shame
Which burns, and blisters, almost frenzies mind
And reason. Hell itself might cry, enough!
When a foul priesthood thus satanic grows.
E'en as from flesh an Inquisition tore
The limbs asunder, till each artery writhed,
And gush'd the life-stream from the corded veins
In drops of anguish, so Confession tears

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The spirit into torment, on a rack of words
When some strain'd Heart is by the priest outstretch'd.
Oh! how it quivers, till the soul half swoons
With dread; and as the hideous work proceeds,
Well may wring'd conscience tremble, start, and groan!

XXIII.—INWARD MARTYRDOM.

Nature hath no monopolist like man
Unprincipled, to conscientious brute
Transform'd by juggleries of Jesuit-guile.
Through Her foul science for confessing hearts,
Crafty as hell, and cruel as the grave,
A very Sodom for the souls hath Rome
Created; and, with criminal excess
All crime exceeding, hath on Nature laid
An incubus of everlasting wrong.
True personality in mind inheres,
Lives in our thought, and when that thought is gained
The moral Person to the priest belongs
Who holds it. Thus, Confession drains and draws
The secret life-blood of a Spirit out
By science; melts it with persuasive skill
Into the mind of some mechanic priest,
Who to his own assimilates the same
By progress gradual, stealthy, sly and deep.
Thus, mind confess'd is through the mouth transferr'd
Into the Priesthood, which in turn reacts
With fearful magic on that mental wreck,—
Some whisp'ring martyr at his feet, unsoul'd!

XXIV.—WOMAN AND HER DESTROYER.

The shaping genius of a priestly tongue
When so applied, can secretly impress
On the soft wax of Woman's yielded mind
Each vile impression, which a Jesuit loves
Or sanctions. What a rav'ning lust of power
Inhuman, must that papal Church corrode,
Who God would rival, by discerning soul,
And analyse its living essence down
To system! Well may Superstition, mad
As impious, dream the pausing Angels stand
Respectful, when such priest-gods pass or speak:
For, what they cannot, priested tyrants do,—
Master the will, and mechanise a soul!

XXV.—MORAL IMMOLATION.

But ah! with all his power, let Pity weep
For such a Being, by confession train'd.
Fell must the heart, and foul his conscience, be
By such a process! Enervate as vile
His faculties become, who, day by day,
And hour by hour, in study, thought, or scene,
Woman and Hell before him must evoke
For question, and for trial! Not for worlds
With all their glory, ought man to command
So foul a scrutiny, which scans and sees
What yon confessor by a loathsome skill
Must probe, and punish. Hark! 'mid choking sobs
And big slow tears, that with a burning trace
Scald the fair cheeks they moisten; or, with sighs
Heavy as deep, by agony intoned,
The Bride, the Mother, or a Sister kneels
Before her priest-god. Heart, and home, and love,
Secrets of thought and starts of young Desire,
Each throb of Passion, throe of feeling wild
By warm emotion in the blood or brain
Excited,—all must sternly be exposed
In language, by describing speech unveil'd!
Ay, word by word, before that priestly Ear
Be all paraded! When that fiendish work is done,
An immolation of the soul complete
Begins; for, moral suicide is wrought,
And all we reverence in wife or maid
By purity of sex, exists no more.
The Woman dies when modesty is dead;
Her heart is corpse-like, and the Priesthood reigns
Most absolute, a soul within a soul
Transplanted, ruling there with master-spell
For ever: He in her becomes an all!

XXVI.—EXISTING JESUITISM.

Such are the Jesuits, that banded Crew
Whom guile has disciplined, and genius arm'd.
With secresy of power environ'd safe
They war incessant on the souls of men:
Malignant, dark, and merciless as deep
In all their plans, their principles and aims
Mysterious; Egypt's plagues in them appear
Eternalised, by Rome's tremendous charms!
Twice twenty times, although by prince or Pope
Disbanded, such a mischief-power resides
In their black Institutes, while friend and foe

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Repulse them, when some crisis rocks the church
They show their treason in most damning shape
Embodied; and, religiously depraved
As ever, still their plotting Host endures!
No crowns are safe, no kingdoms rest secure
From these marauders; through all Lands they steal,
And nothing touch but what they blast, or blight.
Ubiquities of guile! from whom no spot
Or scene, or time, or principle, or truth
Or creed, or constitution can escape.
Now, at the helpless populace they strike
In secret, grinding down the People's heart
To dust; and now, a King they serve, like God!
All creeds, all changes, and all climes alike
They vanquish: so that Rome can reign,
Earth hell and heaven in their enchantment grow
But names of sounding emptiness, to fear!

The Babylonian Lady of the hills
Who martyrs more hath made, and numbers less
Than churches all, is their celestial Queen
Whose cause they worship, and whose crown appears
Jewell'd by Jesuits as the brightest gems.
And, when the archives of a soul are read
Under the light of Judgment, 'twill be found
That home of heresy, the Devil's heart,
Prompted by which schismatic Angels fell,
Since time began, no hateful brood hath nursed
Of human serpents, more intensely fit
Infernal poison through seduced mankind
To circulate, than this dread crew have been!

XXVII.—ENGLAND'S PROTEST.

Now therefore, Church of Britain's ancient growth
And grandeur, from the Jesuit guard thy creed!
That anti-trinity of scheming hell,
The Beast, the Dragon, and the Prophet,—rise
Around thee; lo! the final conflict draws
Nearer and nearer to that bloody close
Where crime and havoe, heresies and wars
Clash in the fray, and worse than chaos comes,
Till palsied Earth shall palpitate with dread
And downward ruin! Free-born Isle of saints
Heroical, whose dust hath been sublimed
By martyrs! peerless Home of loyal hearts
And high-breathed virtues, God on Thee devolves
A vast prerogative, to utter, No!
When priested blasphemy this lie propounds,—
That Rome's Melchisedec is God's ordain'd
Vicar on earth for Christ in heaven to rule.

Sublime negation! let it never end
My country; far as pulse of man can beat
Utter it forth, unsilenced and unshamed.
Rooted in scripture, let thy Creed remain;
Protesting, therefore catholic and true,
And catholic, because protesting found.

MORAL RETROSPECT.

Nature alone, is universal want;
Yet how to fill it, Man can never find
Till Heaven instruct him. Sin a gap hath made,
Which all the glory that below the skies
Our dreams may image, or some vast desire
Adumbrate, cannot now conceal, or close.
The happy are the holy; none besides!
But, God in man plants holiness complete:
Life from The Spirit, by His Word inbreathed,
Like to a soul within a soul must reign
Or, at the best, Humanity corrupts;
Her lights are cold, her attributes eclipsed,
And all her high prerogatives a cheat.

Still, man himself a moral Crœsus thinks,
And by his power perfected being longs
To frame, or fashion. Hence the World has tried
The hunger of his heart with food to feed,
Drawn from the depths of that presumed supply
By Self created: but the effort fails;
And Time recorded yet repeats the tale
Of mutual wants, by mutual pride befool'd
With false supplies, which took the name of Good,
But never reach'd its nature: till at length
Giants in faith, by God himself equipp'd,
Rise into action and the earth redeem!
And these, like moral incarnations prove
Of all that sighing Ages had invoked,
Or Truth predicted as the master-mould
In which to cast our virtues. What was once
An aimless yearning, or a blind desire
Haunting the heart with perturbation wild,
Is now personified by Form express
And open: Want hath now a Priest obtain'd
Whose genius gives each high abstraction voice,
And bodies forth by energy sublime
Sorrows which pleading Centuries long deplored.

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And such was Luther, when the clock of Time
Sounded the hour for his decreed approach.
He was the Mouthpiece of oppress'd mankind,
A great Interpreter of tongueless wants
And pains, which lack'd an intellectual Power
Their own profundity to tell, or prove.
Yet, Preludes dawn'd which oft a change foretold
And Heralds of divine relief began
More perfect morals and a purer creed
To sanction, from the deeps of Scripture drawn,
Ere the lone monk from out his convent pour'd
Those thunder-peals of theologic truth,
Which startled Leo from a sensual trance
And shook the Vatican with such a force,
Its chambers vibrate with th' impulsive blow,
They gave them! though three hundred years
Have swept their wings o'er Martin Luther's grave.
There was a ripple in the mental tide
Awaken'd; streams of holier thought began
Heavenward and onward through the heart to roll,
Till lo! at length, a master-Mind proceeds
Forth from the secrecies of convent-life,
In whom the Spirit of the age can find
Its true Embodiment, by grace inspired
The mind to utter and its motion wield.

And we, who now the Reformation scan
Mellow'd by time, and by experience tried,
No random impulse, no erratic move
Aimless and blind, in that achievement hail;
But rather a momentum, pure and deep,
From Deity Himself directly sent
To Nature, that her inmost heart might wake.
Reason and Man were agencies alone;
They acted nought but instrumental parts:
One Great Director did o'er all preside,
But yet, invisible; behind the veil
Of mortal drapery, His guiding hand
Arrested, moved, and modified the work
With sacred watch incessant. Hence the Cause
So often grew mysterious, and appear'd
Curtain'd by gloom infernal, which bemock'd
A timid gazer; but the high result
Proved far beyond what Romish annals feign,—
Mere anarchy from man's revolted mind
Heady and proud, by lawless will inspired.
Nor was it but the negative excess
Of haughty Reason, with disdainful ire
All ritual forms time-hallow'd and revered,
Trampling to dust: for then, the Work had died
E'en in its birth, as imposition blind
As baseless; founded in no faith, or law,
And tinged with nothing but sectarian hues
Petty, and partial. No, The Truth was there!
And from that centre, like a scriptural heart,
Recover'd Grace with throbs of doctrine sent
A gospel life-blood through the generous Whole.
And thus, th' Almighty did Himself inspire
The Reformation: all unheard, unseen
And unimagined, in the midst He moved,
While Luther was the mental Hand, which made
The outward Index of His secret will.
And what makes history, but that Will evolved,
In fact embodied, or in form contain'd!
When thus perused, the page historic glows
With life intelligent, and force divine:
But when apart from heaven's presumed Decree
The glooms or glories of this world we scan,
Our creed must be confusion: then the Church
Matter and mind alone can thus display
To faith, or feeling. History's life is God:
All second causes are the First disguised,
And great results, though Man sole master seem,
Produce mere echoes which His will repeat.

And oh, how thrilling! touch'd with solemn awe,
Or, pregnant with philosophy how deep,
Are Time's events, when, thus divinely read!
Here is the harmony of Things obtain'd,
When from the Cross pure explanations flow,
And one vast Principle itself reveals
That binds with concord, and embraces all,
Which else, looks chaos in the whirl of life.
Yea, such the homage to some Power believed
Empires and nation in His hand to hide,
That pagan Instinct canonised the creed
Ere God in gospel to the earth came down
His heart revealing. Never yet hath man
A wisdom high, or greatness holy sought,
But claim'd he kindred with celestial Law
And by Divinity himself explain'd.
Thus Truth in time shall magnify the Cross,
Until the hearts of God-revering men
Echo on earth, the chant by angels sung
In glory,—“King of Kings! and Lord of Lords!
In Thee and for Thee, do all things consist
In souls, or systems, by the world contain'd.

272

BRITISH CHURCH.

Vine of the Church! whose mystic branches are
The Host elect of sanctified and seal'd
Immortals, long as Christ is own'd supreme,
Our light is safe, our liberty secure.
But when to human from divine we turn
With homage baseless, and to mortal Breath
A blind Religion blinder incense pays,
Our brightest health is but consumption's bloom.
Faithful, or faithless to her Lord, as Head
And true Bestower of all living grace,
E'en thus, as our beleaguer'd Church hath stood,
Sublime in gifts or sunken into shame
The Bride of Jesus hath on earth display'd
Her face, and features. To a threefold spring
Religion must for sacramental life
Betake her: and that triple source all time
Illustrates,—Man, or God, or mortal Priest;
As is each Master, so her fate hath been.
But when the priest his sacerdotal chains,
Forged from the links of apostolic truth
Perverted, round about pale Conscience wove;
When Man, unsceptred of his kingly mind,
A mere automaton for ritual springs
To pull or play, as guile or gain inspired
Their priestly Mover; when to such
The Esaus of the soul their birthright gave
Of faith, and freedom in salvation's gift,
Religion proved the Jailer of mankind,
And bound their spirit in a rotting gloom
Of pagan error. But when God appears
Again refulgent on his Throne of grace,
Revival wakens! and the Truth reform'd
By monk or martyr, is but Christ unveil'd;
Prophet, and Priest, and King of souls redeem'd
The Church adores him. Then, Her powers expand,
Her Symbols preach, her Sacraments revive;
And in the glory of Her greatness seen
As Ground and Pillar of the truth She stands.
Angels admire, and friends cannot withdraw
One ray of beauty from Her righteous crown!
For thus, Ambassadress from heaven to earth,
Glad tidings brings she on her mitred brow,
And gives the full-toned Gospel: then erect
In high pre-eminence o'er heart and head
She holds the Saviour, crucified and crown'd.
Sinner and sin to each her creed presents
Befitting argument, for God and man.
There, one is pardon'd—Mercy be adored!
The other, punish'd,—Justice own the doom!
Thus, in twin glory, Love and Law complete
Their vast expression; hence alike, can Law
The dreadful sanctions of its verdict teach,
While Love o'er all celestial radiance pours,
And pardoning Mercy in meridian shines.

And art Thou not thus venerably graced,
Founded in Christ, and by apostles form'd,
Glory of England! oh, my mother-Church
Hoary with time but all untouch'd in creed?
Firm to thy Master, with as fond a grasp
Of faith, as Luther in his free-born mind
Clung to Emmanuel, doth thy soul remain.
But yet, around thee scowls a fierce array
Of foes and falsehoods, mustering each their powers,
And all prepared, their hallelujahs wild
Or wanton o'er thy fallen towers to lift
Triumphantly. And well may thoughtful Hearts
Heave with foreboding swell, and heavy fears,
To mark how mad Opinion doth infect
Thy children; how thine apostolic claims
And love maternal are regarded now
By creedless Vanity, or careless Vice.
For time there was, when peerless Hooker wrote,
And deep-soul'd Bacon taught the world to think,
When Thou wert paramount, Thy cause sublime!
And in thy life, all polity and powers
The Throne securing, or in law enshrined,
With all Estates our balanced realm contains,
In Thee supreme, a master-virtue own'd
And honour'd. Church and State could then co-work
Like soul and body, in one breathing form
Distinct, but undivided; each with rule
Essential to the Kingdom's healthful frame;
Yet both in unity august and good
Together, under Christ their living Head,
A hallow'd Commonwealth of powers possess'd.

But now, in evil times, sectarian Will
Would split The Body, and to sects reduce
Our sainted Mother of th' imperial Isles,
Which have for ages from Her bosom drank
Those truths immortal life and conscience need.
But never may th' indignities of Hearts
Self-blinded, or the autocratic pride
Of reason, by no hallowing faith subdued,
One lock of glory from Her reverend head
Succeed in tearing! Love and Awe and Truth
Her doctrines preach with apostolic force;
Her creed is Unity, her Head is Christ,

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Her Forms primeval as her Creed divine,
And Catholic the crowning name she wears,

MATERIALISM AND ITS CREED.

And signs portend still more disastrous gloom,
Frowning destruction over faith and forms
That, once intact, by sanctity begirt,
O'erawed betrayal. For a fitful heave,
A restless panting for the Unattain'd
And Undescribed, both church and world reveal.
Knowledge alone, from Faith's protective law
Divorced, would now sole educatrix be;
While the dread Universe itself is tax'd
For sensual income, through its living range.
Down from yon palace, where the sun-King reigns,
Throng'd by his court of seasons, to the dust
Existence crumbles on her daily rounds,—
All is for Profit! money makes the man,
And man the money. Gold is England's God,
While brute sensation forms the people's Lord;
And men are mechanised to flesh-machines
For grinding incomes out of earth and stones;
Till glorious Nature, once by genius loved
As one vast Temple where creation-rites
Are acted, is a common work-shop now
Polluted and depraved. Thus by sense deceived,
Our Cains in creed, those deicides in mind,
Abhor Religion with a quenchless hate,
Scouting the future as the mock of fears,
A poet's fiction, or a priest-born lie
Venal, as groundless! Thus, can men conceive
Income may do, what creeds have never done;
Till conscience is at length by lust betray'd,
And man,—a moral ruin! base and blind,
Anarchic passion, and bereft despair.
Myriads are such, whom sensual knowledge cheats,
And depthless minds with most satanic guile
Seduce, and govern. But, amid this whirl
Of things, when all by ancient Worth admired
And call'd immortal, waxes dim, and pale;
When law is weak, and legislation blind;
When guess-work dares all principle decry,
And time-hoar'd Verities, by heaven approved
As props and pillars of a nation's weal,
Uprooted lie, by violation's grasp,
And earth-born Self our second bible grows,—
Lo! in the midst of this disastrous change
The Church of England, like a bastion fronts
The warring elements which round Her rise!
Secure, unbroken, unalarm'd, and calm;
And haply, if ordaining Heaven decree,
The Spirit's organ for restoring life
To Virtues dead, and Morals half extinct.

SOURCE AND RELIEF OF UNREST.

If language can articulate the Truth,
What is the spring, the primal and profound,
Of all commotion, strange, or deep, or strong?
What is it, but the hunger of our hearts,
A moral famine of the foodless mind
For Good? or, thirst beyond all worlds to soothe,
And all the cisterns of created joy
To quench? But, in God's Infinite of truth,
There may the intellect its rest attain!
And in God's Infinite of love, the Will
Responsive adequacy alone can find.
Yet save in Christ, creation's true Relief,
Where can unresting hearts repose enjoy?
For here, all aspirations may their echo meet,
Center in calm, and reach consummate bliss.
But if that Christ in England's Church be found,
In pulpit, sacrament and prayer enshrined
(Her Priesthood faithful, and its Power express'd
With order'd grace and discipline revered)
Then, in the hands of her o'erwatching Lord,
Yet may she bring to European hearts
And spirit, that supply of nurt'ring truth
They need, but cannot name. And signs exist
Which stamp her, with significant effect,
Teacher of nations, fated yet to draw
The future round her, as a central ark,
Where Light and Liberty and Law secrete
Their saving essence, to conserve the world.
For in her still, with all their force inspired
Live the vast truths protesting Luther voiced
Like battle-tones, before the ear of kings!
And what, if thus by fav'ring heaven endow'd,
The high deposit of the Faith she guard
Unweaken'd? Trial then may glory prove,
Safety and splendour may her conflicts crown;
And what to our prophetic sense appears
A Future charged with paralysing woe,—
A true arena where our Church may stand
Fighting the battles of primeval faith,
May be, and grateful Empires call her blest!

And lo! e'en now, prelusive shadows throng
Round perill'd nations; signs which preach with power
The sermons deep of providence to man.
See Population, with enormous swell,
Increase a thousand ere the sun decline,
Day after day; while Space and Time depart
Before the miracles by modern speed
Enacted! Elements our vassals make;
And, like a war-steed harness'd and controll'd,
Ruled by proud Science, mark the subject Deep

274

Commerce to all Her thousand ports convey,
Rapid as winds can waft, or waters roll!
Empires with empires thus new contact form,
Powers with fresh powers, and minds with minds embrace,
For vice, or virtue; all in fusion meet
And mingle,—ready to ignite, and blaze
Heavenward or hellward, as the truth prevails,
Or falters: while around this huge ferment,
See Legislation to the lowest brink
Of sad Humanity her code direct;
And Wisdom brood with speculation deep
O'er plans and prospects, where the mind may grow
And learn to build a moral Being up.

These form the portents, which a change predict,
Or solemn crisis; while the dormant East
(That home of apathy and ancient pride)
Wakes from Her torpor, with mysterious life
And motion. What shall then the issue be,
When the World labours with some big event
Radiant with bliss, or dark with dreadful crime?
To God we leave it! this may truth pronounce;
That hell is forming where His grace breathes not;
And let but once thy spark, Rebellion! fall
Down on the mass of unconverted minds
By treason moulded, or by anarchs led
To lawless triumph,—and the World must bear
Suff'rings untold, and horribly intense
Beyond what Hist'ry hath for thought portray'd.
Then Earth a pandemonium would present
Raging with lust, or reeking with revenge,
Till by her blood incarnadined, the World
Would be as godless as the Fiend requires!

ASPIRATIONS.

Yet this, in mercy, may our God forbid!
Nor leave the world a dungeon of despair,
But bid the Church, by gracious heaven revived,
Her apostolic rank in word and deed
Resume, and dignify; and thus uplift
Her mitred forehead, and Her saintly mien
Untarnish'd, unattainted, safe alike
From popish rancour, or schismatic rent.
For in her shrine eternal morals dwell,
And through her sacraments and creeds there flow
Streams of pure life, from fontal Grace derived.
But could the Mammons of our day succeed,
Unchurch the Nation, prayer and praise destroy,
Silence the Pulpit, and all means of grace
Baffle, or blight, soon would Hell on earth
A more than rival in debasement hail!
For soul itself in sin would putrify,
Or wither down to senselessness and shame;
While Manhood, which the eye of faith declares
A true shechinah for indwelling God,
A mere contingency of breath and brain
Becomes,—a paradox in flesh array'd,
A baseless nothing, though baptised a man!

But in thy heart, heroic England! long
May Luther's voice, and Luther's spirit, live
Unsilenced and unshamed. Thou peerless Home
Of liberty and laws, of arts and arms,
Of learning, love, and eloquence divine,
Where Shakspeare dreamt, and sightless Milton soar'd,
Where heroes bled, and martyrs for the truth
Have died the burning death, without a groan,—
Land of the beautiful, the brave, the free!
Never, oh never! round thy yielded soul
May damning popery its rust-worn chain
Of darkness rivet; in the might of heaven
Awake, and back to Rome's vile dungeon hurl
Her shackles base of slavery abhorr'd!
Without the Bible, Britain's life-blood chills
And curdles; in that book, and by that book
Almighty, freedom can alone be kept
From age to age, in unison with heaven.
Without it, life is but a ling'ring death,
A false existence which begets decay,
Or fevers only into restless life
Whose blood is madness, and whose breath despair.
For not Philosophy, with Attic grace
Bedeck'd, and dazzling; nor can Science deep,
Sounding with searchful eye the vast abyss
Of things created; nor politic Weal
Transcending all which earthly patriot dreams
Of pure, and perfect, this vast empire guard:
And though our banners on the four winds waft
Defiance in the face of boundless foes,
Our swords flash vict'ry, and proud Commerce vie
With more than Tyre, upon her throne of waves
Once free and famous, till our country prove
The banking-center of all climes and creeds,—
Reft of her Bible, not a drop remains
Of holy life-blood in the Nation's heart!

275

APOSTROPHÉ TO ENGLAND.

Land of the Lord! my own maternal Isle!
Still in the noontide of celestial love
Basking, beneath the cross of Christ adored,
How bounds the heart with patriotic throb
Devoted, till each pulse a prayer becomes,
When oft upon thy sea-dash'd cliff we stand,
While ships by thousands haunt thy favour'd shores,
And in their bosom half the world discharge
Of riches and of splendour! God is thine,
My country! faithful unto death be thou;
For He has made and magnified thy strength,
E'en like a second Palestine, to prove
The Ark of Scripture, where a creedless world
The truth may find which makes her spirit free!
Thy bulwark is the Bible, in the heart
Of Britain, like a second heart enshrined
For inspiration, purity and power:
And while upon thine ocean-throne erect,
Scepter'd by prowess, Earth reveres thy reign,
O'er public virtue as in private life
May Scripture be sole paramount and test,
The source and standard of majestic faith,
Where morals form, and whence our motives flow.
And thus, brave Empire! if thy Church beloved
Firm to the truths a second Paul restored,
Tenaciously through blood and fire remain,
Then, long as guardian-waves begird
Thy shores, or sunbeams o'er thy cornfields play,
And thy large soul with liberty exults
And brightens, will the Church uninjured stand,
Saintly and solemn, by the wise revered,
By greatness honour'd, as by goodness blest.
And never may the touching sabbath-bells
No echo in thy children's heart awake;
When pealing softly with a pensive chime
Or deep-toned cadence o'er thy hills and dales,
Cities, and towns, and hamlets far away,—
They bid us feel what Luther's victory won,
Giving to myriads God's own Day of rest
Pure as the dawn my page shall vision now.

SABBATH MORN.

And see! from out the radiant east, which blooms
As if with blossoms of carnation'd light,
The rose of Morning blushes into hues
Of purpling splendour, till the arch of heaven
Serenely mantled with one glow immense
Of opal lustre, tells that Day is born,
And that, a sabbath: sacred be the morn!
To all who welcome with accorded rites
Its high mementoes and its claims august.
And oh, how numb'd by earth's torpedo-sway
Their souls who will not, in the saintly prime
Of this rapt morning, feel how God hath framed
The world without intelligibly true
By living concord to the world within.
Now, matter seems a paraphrase on mind:
We pour our spirit into sounds and scenes,
Greeting creation, like an echo'd Self
In forms repeated, for poetic eyes,
Or hearts of high-strain'd purity, to hail.

And now, from secret depths of faith within
Rise thoughts, which in their trepid beauty hang
Faintly and freshly on the virgin soul,
By words unechoed. Sacramental hour,
Hail to thy glories! from the Lord they come,
And all they image but His name reflect:
The very sunbeams their own sabbath keep,
So hush'd and holy is the bright-hair'd Morn,
While balm and beauty through creation's breast
Are now prevailing! Nature's holy type
To sabbath-keeping hearts it thus presents,
Who early at the grave of Jesu watch
Like Mary, to behold their rising Lord.
We call it fancy, but it rules like fact
O'er yielded spirits with seductive power,—
Nature herself sabbatical becomes
And greets that Day, which to the other six
Imparts a pure and consecrating spell.

But, mark the heavens! whose inspirations melt
Through the deep eye which loves to drink their hues
Like draughts of glory, till our flooded gaze
O'erflows with radiance, and grows dim with light.
The larks sing matins; while the humbler birds
Send hallelujahs to the King of morn,
Tiny and broken, but replete with praise;
Who now, uprising from a throne of clouds,
Bares his red forehead to the greeting World.
The viewless finger of the fairy wind
Wanders about, and with a dimpling touch
Ripples a stream; or tunes the air to song,
Till like an anthem by the breezes hymn'd
Fancy admires it: but for this,—all earth
Seems cover'd o'er with meditation's calm,

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Solemn as in some hoary minster dwells;
And if the trees emotional were not
By air-breaths flutter'd; or the lisping talk
Of flowers, wind-ruffled; or the mellow tones
Of gliding waters in their graceful flow
Broke the blest calm,—'twere all a perfect trance
In sweetest emblem of this hallow'd morn.

But if from rustic solitude we look
To where, through parted hills old Ocean heaves
His breast of waters in the mantling sun,
Thou hast no sabbath, ever-rolling Sea!
Restless with glory: yet methinks, thy waves
Throb like the pulses of a heart enrapt,
When high emotions quiver into praise.

THE TEMPLE OPENED.

But, day advances: hark! from tower and spire
Pointing the soul, like principles, to heaven
And happiness, the many-voicèd bells
Peal their high summons, which invite the world
To meet her Maker, in His temple shrined
Waiting due worship. Oh! ethereal Day
Beyond the grossness of the belial-sense
Rightly to value, what a blighted scene,
Yea, what a prison-vault of petty cares,
Polluted dreams, and soul-degrading joys
Would earth, if sabbathless, at once become!
For since like angels, men should feel and act
By God approved, if glory such desire,
How priceless is the sabbath! when we hail
The soul of six days in the seventh divine.

To let th' eternal o'er the temp'ral cast
A shading awe, which bids this world away;
Low earth to heaven by aspiration's wing
To lift; by symbols and by signs to charm
Cold nature, and imagination feed
With rites which nourish for ennobling growth
Our being; then, by combination due
Of epochs high, traditions pure, and faith
Unblemish'd, from a gospel-fountain drawn,—
Here is the function which a Sabbath fills.
With these conjoin appliances devout
Of praise, confession, penitence, and prayer,
Bathing the conscience in the crimson Blood
Of Christ, and who can such a day blaspheme,
Thus propertied with those divinest powers
That to the secret roots of all which makes
A people holy, or an empire wise,
Send a live influence from Religion's heart?

'Tis chiefly through such institute sublime
Sanction'd by God, and by Himself first kept,
The soul's position in the truth appears
E'en as it is before omniscient Heaven.
Now are we taught by rites, and facts reveal'd,
Or by appeals, whose virtue is Thy pang,
Emmanuel! through a hidden grace applied,
A truth which humbles, yet with holy might
The heart attempers till it loves the law
Celestial; e'en this truth, the base of all
In moral code or creed religious found,—
That God made man, but man himself unmade;
And now is fallen from supernal heights
Of being, into cursed and carnal depths
Apostate, helpless, hopeless, and impure,
And, having nothing but a guilt,—his own!
Oh Verity! beyond our solving minds
To master, but by all things sign'd and seal'd;
Since nature providence and grace combine
Their witness, and authenticate the Fall:
Explaining much, itself is unexplain'd;
Remains a myst'ry, but all myst'ries lights
With radiance, pure as reason's eye approves.
Deny it,—what a libel on the Love
Almighty, does this blasted Earth become!
So much of grandeur in our grief abides,
So much of glory in our gloom appears,
And in the soil of each corrupted soul
So oft the foot-prints of departed God
Leave shining impress of their primal track,
That, if not fallen, but in form of mind
Man in his perfect God-created mould
Be yet apparent,—what a satire, then,
On Power Creative seems our anarch state!
Or rather, by such contradiction judged,
Incarnate angels, base and yet sublime,
Would men be christen'd, if no beam from heaven
Lighten'd the gloom of this chaotic world.

And therefore, glory to this Day benign!
For now, eternity and time will meet,
The heavenly on the earthly state shall dawn,
And Man, who in the mass and multitude
Of work-day powers, and worldly movements, makes
Too often but an item unobserved,
Here in the Temple, where a church becomes
A shrine of morals to regen'rate hearts,
Himself shall realise as full-orb'd Man!
Single and one, within him hiding depths
Of solemn, vast, and individual life
Beyond all utt'rance! life which few discern
Or ponder, yet beyond all speech august,
Since there alone our secresy of strength
And power of unpartaken being dwell.
For what is Action, but the spirit's garb,
The form and pressure of a Life unseen?

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And that, more awful than the outer-sense
Can shape, or recognise by teaching words.
But life exterior, with its painted shows,
And all its multiplex array of scenes
By conduct acted or experience tried,
Is like the ripple marked on ocean's face,—
Hiding an unregarded deep below
And tempting gazers to discern no more.

Then, lift your heads, ye Everlasting Doors!
And be ye open, O Eternal Gates!
That in the chariot of descending grace
Borne by His Spirit down to hearts which pray,
The King of Glory with His train of truths
Begirt, may come, and find due welcome there.
England! be grateful; for a scene that fills
The soul with thoughts, whose dialect is tears,
Around us opens with expansive range.
Uncounted steeples now to heaven uplift
Their chimes, and swell the wafting air with tones
Which rise and fall, like undulating waves
In volumed cadence heaved upon the shore:
And touching are they!—for the tombs of Time
Open amid them, as they peal, or pause;
While buried hopes, and forms, and feelings dead
Quicken beneath their resurrection-tones
Mysterious. But far more than gazing sense
On earth can witness, will those gather'd souls
Who meet for worship with commingled awe,
The God Incarnate,—to the Angels bright
This morn discover, when the piercing truth
Enters their spirit with irradiant power,
And bares the bosom of the soul to light!
For hearts to them, are like transparent hives,
Whose hidden workings are conspicuous made
And watch'd for ever. Yes, the sabbath gives
Wisdom to Angels, while they bend to see
How nature struggles, as the Spirit acts,
Revives our graces, or a sin rebukes;
Or, drags the guilty to that secret bar,
That stern tribunal where dread conscience reigns,
And self by self is summon'd!—'Tis a day
When such bright Angels watch the soul redeem'd
Who love to think, where infidels would sneer,
And learn divinity by reading man.

DAY OF THE LORD.

But, though some emanated charms exist
Born of the sabbath, which no eye discerns
Profoundly as consummate Angels can,
Haunting our temples with their wings unheard
And eyes unwitness'd,—yet, enough remains
To prove a magic clothes this holy morn
Beyond all others, beautiful and deep.
And now, methinks that potency begins,
Open the heavens, and drop their sacred dews
Distilling balm, and blessedness, and love.
Whether to yon cathedral, with its form
August, and massive elegance of towers
Serenely rising in the radiant air,
Your fancy wander, and awhile enjoy
The wave-like rollings of the organ peals
Bursting, and booming down the archèd aisles
And hollow naves, while choir, and chanted rites,
And vested priesthood in their pure array,
With awful loveliness the scene inspire:
Or rather, if to some arcadian haunt
Where rustic manners in ancestral stamp
Are yet embalm'd, you turn the roving eye
To view the patriarchs of some village-plain
Throng to their minster, with its gothic porch
And ivied windows, 'mid encircling yews
Embosom'd dimly,—yet, in each alike
How much of all the Reformation won
For peace and purity, devotion finds!

E'en where yon palaces of Commerce lift
Their dusky, dim, and many-window'd piles,
'Mid roar of capitals, or cities vast,
How does the day, on which Messiah rose,
Check the loud wheels, and hush the grating jars
And vexing hum of avarice and gain,
That care-worn artizans, with pallid cheeks,
And all the wasted family of Toil,
Each with his little one, awhile may feel
That Men are more than rational machines
For shaping matter, or absorbing food!
And on this day, by Heaven's ordaining law
Rank'd in the rubric of perpetual Grace,
Their sacred brotherhood in God enjoy.
There, as they group beneath the Bible's wing,
And through the centralising love of Christ
The level glory of our nature reach
Together, who can tell what sweet content,
What calm submission to their clouded lot,
And wasting sorrows which their toil-worn lives
Experience ever,—from such moment flows!
Here all are equal by the bond of flesh,
The ties of nature, and in guilt, with God:
Here, crowns, and coronets, and sceptres drop
To nothing; king and subject share alike:
And in thy royalties, redeeming Love!
A prince may falter, where a peasant lifts
His plea; while in the poor man's eye may shine

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A tear of rapture, kingdoms could not raise,
Nor all which earth's diameter contains
Purchase the peace a sainted conscience hath.

Glory! to think that on this morn mankind
Bow at the footstool of their Common Sire
In co-equality of dust, and sin,
To plead for mercy at Salvation's fount.
Ye mighty Hunters in the fields of truth,
Titans of thought! ye giants of renown!
Colossal wonders in the world of mind,
Who with the shadow of a soul immense
Cover creation! though your genius charm
Th' eternal Public of posterity,
Your names are nothing in the balance, now!
Bend the stiff mind, and bow that stubborn heart,
And in the pleadings of your helpless guilt
Go, take your station with yon cottage-girl,
Or, chant a verse with yonder hymning child,
And happy are ye! if like them, ye feel
True wisdom is our ignorance to know.
There, cast your anchors in the cloven Rock
Of Ages! for, behind the Veil it towers
Deep as eternity, and high as God.
Abhorr'd be therefore a satanic wish,—
That e'er by riot, lust, or lawless gain,
Or by some logic false as fiends inspire,
Our sabbaths in due sanctity should fail
Or falter. On two worlds, at once, they touch,
The Lights of this, the Landmarks of the next;
And reft of such, all anarchies commence
To madden: nor can praise itself o'erprize
The order'd notions of a sabbath-day,
When thou, maternal Church! whose head is hoar'd
With ages, but whose heart, like Jesu's, beats
With love for spirits,—art a blessing proved
By forms, by functions, and by ritual chants,
And sacraments of soul-exalting grace.
Thine is a work, beyond seraphic lyres
To celebrate; for now, by Thee allured,
The infant, with its lisping tongue may speak
More truths than prescient Socrates could tell,
Or Plato in his most unearthly dream
Embody. Yes, the Church is Reason's friend!
For, what is Reason but th' informing Word
By grace imparted? and as He begins
Our nature's law to regulate and rule,
So all the circles of our secret life
Concentrical with perfect reason act.
And though alike the humble and the high
In sermons, sacraments, and symbols meet
Depths of divinity they cannot wade,
And meanings never master'd, yet by such
Our mental energies are boldly train'd
With truths to wrestle, as the patriarch did
With God's own Angel, nor to let them go
Without a blessing. But the creed which aims
Both man and faith in horizontal lines
To level, proves a flatt'ring lie, that draws
A force from reason, which it feigns to give;
Like fawning ivy round some oak entwined
Eating the heart its verdure seems to brace.

Again then, be our lauding chants uplift
To Him most holy, to the sabbath's God!
Who when the Planets sang their lays of light
While young Earth from her liquid cradle rose
Rejoicing, from His Throne of love decreed
A sabbath endless, modell'd from his Own,—
A rest whose archetype Himself enjoy'd.
Long may our Church, with her organic powers
And rites ministrant, this pure Day revere:
For sabbaths make the morals of our land;
And by their litanies of sacred love,
By pulpit, priest, and all that past'ral sway
Which makes the meanest village in our land
Some moral hues of soft refinement take,
They form thermometers, whereby to mete
Our true advancement in the noblest weal:
Since, public virtue, monarchy, and law,
And Church with State together are espoused
By league of principle, and power of love.
Hence, if our sabbaths be from sway dethroned
The music of the Commonwealth is gone!
Soon into atoms will dissolve and drop
That Fabric eloquent, whose walls are mind,
And founded deep in immemorial laws
And liberties,—the Constitution falls!
Then guard them well, ye Senators and Priests,
For they are priceless; and to us preserve
All which in heart and home, in Temple, or in State
Is pure of worship, or of lore profound.
And he who robs them of their rightful sway
By pen, or speech, example, creed, or life,
On Heaven itself a sacrilege presumes;
Man's awful being to the center shocks
And plucks the apple from a Nation's eye!

EVENTIDE.

Now ere we part, let meditation look
Once more on nature. Lo! the day is done;
And like the radiance of a lovely dream
Poetic slumber visions, softly melts,
And sweetly mellows into parting hues
The hour of sunset. From the ruby west
A flashing glory o'er the firmament
Deepens along, and over earth reflects

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Beauty, which touches flower, and field, and fruit,
And yellow corn-fields sloping o'er the vale,
With charms more exquisite than garish noon
Inspires. And if on yonder height we stand,
Beneath us what a British Arcady
In lustre qualified with coming shade
Is then unveil'd, by sunny calm serened!
There as we pause, around our temples throng
The fresh-wing'd airs, from waving branches sent;
The breeze makes music; while the cadence low
Of distant sheep-bell dyingly comes on,
Or sinks delightfully on Feeling's ear.
Here Nature thrones enchantment: far-off hills
Crown'd with a coronet of glitt'ring trees,
Paler and paler, to the west retire
'Mid wood and coppice, lane, and hedges green,
With sun-bright cots, and farms of mossy roof;
While here and there some rustic temple shews
That gothic beauty, whose mysterious power
Acts on the eye like poetry in stone
Embodied. These in blent expression woo
The gazer; mix'd with many a fairy gleam
From rivers flashing, as the sun-ray tips
Their current, cheering it with gay surprise.
But now, a mellow shade of mantling hue
Advances; villages and towns retire
Like pictured visions, save where yonder tower
In its tall symmetry with golden tinge
Retains the sunbeam; and as home you wend,
Hark! on the ear of balmy Evening comes
The faint far chime of some cathedral-bell,
Whose pensive cadence to the fancy sounds
A curfew for Creation's sabbath rest.

That hallow'd rest is deep'ning: daylight ebbs;
But yet, or ever sinks yon Priest of light,
Around Him like a burning shrine the heavens
Gather and glow, and with their beams infold
His dying pomp; while colours rich, and deep,
And dazzling, woven from th' Almighty's loom
Of nature, all the occident inlay.
Brighter and brighter His dilated orb
Is now becoming; till, at length, He sinks
In soft decline magnificently calm
Beneath th' horizon, leaving all above
Tinged with his radiance; as true saints derive
From God's own heroes, when their dying beds
In farewell glory give the christian out,—
Flashes of meaning which the face o'erspread
With lustre, and the gazer's cheek impress
With light, whose source is immortality.

Vistas of thought, and avenues of mind
Where Truth may roam in philosophic shade,
Or Fancy by her shaping dreams begirt,
Image beyond what pict'ring words describe,
Open before us; while this pensive lull
And balmy prelude to the twilight's reign
Come o'er the heart, till with sabbatic love
Nature and mind responsively confer.
Oh, how the sacredness of silence steals
O'er all things! just as if a spirit-glide,
Inaudible but felt, through earth and air
Were passing. Mute and motionless, the trees
Stand in the gloom like sentinels entranced;
Not e'en an insect through the stirless air
At times is waking: boughs and birds repose;
While the dark shadows of yon distant hills
Arrest the eye, portentous and profound,
As if with speaking vastness: but the flowers
Breathe double fragrance, now the heated air
Is cooling; and a thousand secret plants
Which in the sun-warm noon their scents retain
Inviolate, a rich aroma yield;
Like hearts whose finer sympathies are shut
When fortune brightens, but when sorrow's night
Blackens around you, let their sweetness forth:
Or, as those promises the Spirit's love
To faith applies, which seldom while the sun
Of joy shines golden, make their treasures known,
But in our glooms, how gloriously they breathe
Their buried meanings into living force
And comfort!—But more hush'd and holy still,
Grows the dim landscape round the muser's tread
Who walks it, till he dreams his very step
Profane intrusion on the soundless air.
And now methinks, Miltonic eyes would view
Angelic Watchers of our mystic world
Patrolling earth, with immaterial garb
And tread unseen; or by their Lord employ'd
The wheels of nature to redress; or guide
The comings-on of Night, who soon begins
To spread Her mantle o'er the sleeping world.

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Now rules the hour, when dormant Conscience wakes
If rack'd, or guilty; when Religion looks
On truths unwitness'd on the garish day,
While awed Imagination lives, and feels
Th' unborn poetry of speechless mind
Within her quicken'd: loud the heart-throbs beat;
And in this syncopé of nature's voice
What mute theology a moment wields
O'er the strain'd fancy! now indeed, we prove
That worded speech to manhood appertains,
But silence the Almighty's language is;
And faith can hear it, by Himself entoned
With inspirations from eternity.

MOONLIT SCENE.

But that is o'er; and from the shrouding awe
That girds thee, with a gentle force awake.
E'en such a night, as now prepares to reign,
The captive Luther from his watch-tower loved
To witness, when by inward prayer becalm'd,
He roll'd his eye-glance round the vaulted heavens
Studded with stars, like Scripture gemm'd with truths;
And gave his spirit to the charm of night
With all a poet's rapture! Such begins
O'er the lull'd twilight to assert its reign
Of trancèd loveliness, and stellar noon.
Lo! one by one, with timid gleam, and slow,
Star after star comes trembling into life
And lustre; radiant, mild, and mournful oft
Like the half-tears in Childhood's pensive eye,
Faintly they shine; while planets, rich and round,
Like burning jewels dug from mines of light
Flash on the forehead of the mellow'd sky
Most brilliantly; or, cluster'd into groups,
The rest commingle their associate beams
Dazzling the concave. Still, the earth obscured
Lies dimly veil'd, with umbrage unrelieved,
Waiting the lamp which lights her beauties up.
And, yonder comes it! lo, her placid brow
O'er the dusk air yon queenly Moon uplifts;
And e'en as music, solemn, deep and slow,
Through the dark chambers of dejected mind
Where all is shapeless, oft to order cites
Thought after thought, successive and serene,
So her wan lustre, as it mildly steals
O'er the mute landscape, tree, and bough, and bank,
Each out of dimness and disorder draws
To shape and aspect; till the dew-drops gleam
Like Nature's diamonds on her night-garb thrown,
In countless sparkles: all the stars grow pale,
Like mortal graces near th' excessive blaze
Of Thine, Emmanuel! save th' undazzled brows
Of those large planets, eloquent with beams
Unrivall'd. What a witching spell the moon
O'er all things by her fairy radiance flings!
Like faith, arising in some nighted heart
And touching nature with redemption's light
Celestial. Wheresoe'er his roving eye
Darts a pleased glance, lo! hill, and brook and hedge,
Rivers and streams, and meadowy range far-off,
Cities and towers, and tall cathedral-spires,
And village-churchyards with their grassy tombs
Attract the gazer; till his glance is charm'd
With loveliness, beyond the moving lip
To mention. But above, how beautiful!
There, solemnly the climbing moon ascends,
And each thin cloud within her silver reach
She clothes with splendour; like a mortal pang
By hope regen'rate into radiant peace
Transmuted. But in this access divine
Of Nature's sabbath, solitude and night,
How like the fortunes of the Saviour's Bride
The Moon's high progress through the heaven appears!
Varied, and full, now crescent and complete,
Shaded, or dim, and then with radiance clad,
So hath the Church along time's clouded scene
Flourish'd, or faded, shined, or suffer'd gloom,
But yet doth travel through her fated round
Upward to glory! Or, may deeper eyes discern
In yon pale symbol of mysterious sky,
The moon-like radiance of imperfect man
By grace made holy, but how changeful too!
E'en to the last by shades of sin o'erhung
And hidden: while th' imperial Lord of day,
By His prerogative of light portrays
That sun-clear righteousness of state complete,
Which all the justified of God arrays
With faultless glory, fair as Jesus wore.

NATURE AND THE CROSS.

But that deep Name, beyond all nature loud,
Peals like the trumpet of Eternity
Through secret chambers of responsive faith,

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Making them echo with the voice of Christ!
Nature was forfeit, when the first man fell
By sin; and whatsoe'er in nature lives,
In reason, morals, or in mind enacts
Dominion, from His vast atonement flows.
Creation once her own Creator saw
In Flesh embodied, when for sin He died!
And now from Him this hour of beauty takes
All that cloud, or star-encircled moon
Is lovely. Here indeed, material sights
Touch'd by the Cross, with sacred meaning glow,
Turning creation to a creed of forms
Significant and glorious. What a truth!
Through Him this orb of sentient being came
From nothing cited; by His ceaseless hand
The wheels of nature, and the wings of time
Circle their way, or waft their soundless flight;
While all those properties those creatures have
Are but the actings of atoning Love
By virtue present. Here is faith heaven-born!
When all the motions which in Nature rule,
Her laws, and lights, her harmonies and hues,
From the faint insect to the flaming sun
Apparent, preach the Saviour's kingly hand,
And to the senses mirror forth His heart
For ever. What the sinful Adam lost,
The Sinless by eternal heirship gain'd;
The curse unsting'd, then took th' attainder off
And back redeem'd th' inheritance of Man.

Oh, tell me not, poetic harps can sing,
That science loves, and sentiment perceives,
And calm philosophy, with musing eye
Beneath the stars enraptured,—all which heaven
And earth of God and goodness testify;
'Tis only when by David's key unlock'd,
The Secrets and the Splendours of the world
Unfold their magic, and by grace reveal'd,
Electrify the soul of answ'ring love.
The merest elegance which Pagan mind
Imparted, upward to creative Power
And goodness, dimly groped its erring way:
But when the Christian His incarnate God
Owns to be Head of all creation is,
All life becomes one vast religion;
And faith and feeling in communion move
Divorceless ever. Then, at once, all laws
And movements, like cathedral-rites appear
By nature's liturgy of Love perform'd
In the vast temple of the universe,
Shrining Emmanuel: then, the Whole applies
To Him the watching, weeping, dying, Lord,
The source of nature and salvation too,
The priceless merit of Whose Blood preserves
The heavens in motion and our earth alive.

So may we learn, at this nocturnal hour,
Morning, or noon, whatever time we walk
The halls of Nature with a holy tread,
All bright and beautiful, all vast and fair,
In Him to love, Who, when creation sinn'd
And crime on earth began like hell to reign,
Personified eternity in time,
And clothed th' Infinite with human Flesh
For our remission!

HUSH OF NIGHT.

But the night is come;
The Moon, with her pale hierarchy girt
Of stars, is gliding to the ocean's brim,
And listen! for the chime of far-off bells
O'er a dead Sabbath tolls their dying tone:
And now, the Day is buried; to thy tomb
Eternity! with all its hopes and fears,
Gather'd and gone. But oh, how thrill'd
The chords mysterious of our secret frame!
As if the stirrings of a life unborn,
Latent but lovely, this rapt hour inspired,
The Dead seem gazing on our hearts again!
Illapses deep, irradiations pure
Glide through our spirit from a source unknown;
Until, by awful loveliness subdued,
Above, the pilgrim lifts his eye of prayer
Expressive: youth, and home, and long-fled days
With soft revival touch him into tears
Unshed; and while yon arch of midnight rings
With the soft echoes of those sunken chimes
Around him, many a thoughtful sigh is heaved
O'er visions gone; and things that once becharm'd
His dazzled fancy, pale and cold appear,—
Weeds of the past on Mem'ry's lonely shore!

And now, amid thy hush, most holy Night!
Here let us stand beneath yon hanging cliff,
Closing our song beside the placid sea
Which now lies breezeless. Who that thus beholds
Her bosom, by the braiding moonlight deck'd,
And heaving only to attraction's orb,
As pant young hearts beneath the eye they love,
Could ere imagine, everlasting Sea!
Thy billows, like the roar of human wrongs,
Clamour on high and cleave the heavens with sound

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So often! Such thy halcyon slumber now,
The stars are mirror'd on thy glassy wave,
With beam unbroken; while the feet which press
The pebbled margin of yon moonlit-wave,
Rudely and loudly on the hush intrude
Their faintest motion.

Here, then, be farewell
To this blent strain of meditative truth,
E'en by thy bulwark, O Britannic Isle!
Whom Ocean ramparts with her wall of waves.
Now in the trance of this untroubled night
While all seems holy, our adoring hearts
To that supernal Power of truth we lift,
Who guardeth Empires, and Who guideth thee,
My country! with a most peculiar love:
That once as out of Zion peal'd the trump
Of ancient Gospel, hence the battle-voice
Of Truth should never cease to challenge Rome;
But waken echoes, bold as Luther's cheer
Might welcome, deep as lofty Cranmer loved,
Or Ridley o'er his pangs of fire prolong'd.

FINAL APOSTROPHÉ.

Mysterious Spirit of the ceaseless mind!
Heart of the Church, as Christ the only Head;
Soul of our souls! in supernat'ral light
Unbounded, deathless and transforming Grace,
And Love, and Wisdom, Thee I now invoke;
And to Thyself presume to consecrate
Pages, that whatsoe'er of hallow'd power
They have, from Thee alone their truth receive
And virtue. Oh! thou Sempiternal Life,
Breathe o'er this effort, and with force array
Whate'er is feeble; and by heavenly touch
And tone their meaning so affect and fill,
That onward to the inner-mind of man,
Or central being, where high Conscience holds
Her seat august, and faith's dominion acts,
What truths they carry may be safely borne
Beyond the heartless, and above the vain
To warp or weaken. Here, beneath the arch
Of midnight, solemn, deep, intensely calm,
Thy Presence would I realise, and lift
Mine awe-struck nature to the heights unseen
Of Essence Uncreate, where Thou art Third
In Godhead, as the Fountain-Sire is first,
Second, the Filial Word, and All supreme
As One co-equal, co-eternal Three.

Descend pure Spirit! light and life and love
Without Thee, are not: poetry is Thine;
Reason and science, and majestic arts,
The heaven-born virtues, intellectual powers,
And all pre-eminence in grace or gift
Are but as glances from Thy glory cast,
And caught by mind. But, who Thy sway can tell?
For at the first, the Heavens and all their host,
Moon, star, and planets, from Thy hand derived
Their radiance, from Thy wisdom learn'd their paths.
And Earth is thine: Her elemental laws,
Her motions, harmonies, and living hues
Are but the efflux of Thy fontal powers;
While Man himself, that miracle of forms!
Into his mould was copied from Thy cast
Ethereal; and the whole of truths inspired,
Prophetic utterance, or miraculous deed,
Which was, or is, or shall be, are but rays
Sent from Thine Essence to created mind.

Without Thee, more than night Egyptian reigns;
Duty sublime would stern distraction be,
Commanding what our impotence alarms,—
To love the Holy, which our hearts abhor
By nature! But Thy promised aid attends,
Arches our being like the roof of heaven
Where'er we wander, and to Will perverse
Such power imparteth, that the precept takes
Thy presence with it, in each task assign'd.

Thou teachest God; and man himself abides
By thought unfathom'd, till Thy light reveal
The two eternities of coming truth
Within him folded, like a double germ
Soon to expand, in heaven or hell complete.
And hence, our Nature grows an awful thing:
We thrill eternity in touching Man;
Since from the deeps of his immortal soul
Outlooks The everlasting, whence he came!

Unerring Judge! to Whose omniscient gaze
All the seal'd fountains of shut motive lie
Unseal'd and open, richly deign to bless
Both church and state, our monarchy and crown;
Teaching the highest, that of Thee bereft
Reason itself irrational becomes,
And virtues vices, with a better name
And brighter seeming: while by Thee becalm'd,
The rudest chaos of corrupted hearts
At once is soften'd, till in love and awe
Embodied harmony the Man appears,
Lives in Thy life, and thus by grace becomes
A radiant Likeness of the Lord he loves.

283

And now, O Spirit! at the noon of night,
Under the shade of these expressive skies,
While all around the hush of heaven prevails,
Thee I invoke, a christian song to bless;
From Whom apart, 'tis vanity and voice,
Or mere vexation into language thrown:
But when Thy sanction hath the poet crown'd,
His harp-strings quiver with a breath divine
And all its tones with heaven-born music ring.
They in my soul of aspirations dwell
For truths beyond Philosophy to preach,
Or master; if one thought this perill'd mind
Inspire, where Thou, O God of grace, art seen,
Prevenient Spirit! 'tis from Thee derived.
And oh, if Life, with all its loneliness,
The glow of youth hath still in heart retain'd;
If the stern waste, the fever, and the fret
Of buried pangs beyond the world to know,
From boyhood in its bleakness, e'en till now,
Have not untuned me, but a tone have left
In concord with the beautiful and bright;
If nature thrill me, with as keen a joy
As in the poetry of pensive youth
It ever did; if such for bliss remain,
Blent with far deeper things, by suff'ring taught
And faith transmuted for the life within,
As onward through a bleak and heartless world
My pathway windeth to the waiting tomb,
Spirit of Glory! take my gratitude
And sanctify the closing strain I sing.
Bear with my soul; Thy blessing o'er it breathe
And all who love the Master whom I serve.
Emmanuel! peace within thy Church abide;
Till faith shall in sublime fruition end,
All symbols cease, all sacraments retire,
Our earthly sabbaths into heavenly rise
For men and angels, and the host redeem'd
In the one Temple of pure Godhead keep
The sabbath endless of almighty love.