 | The British Months |  |
Augmented heat of the sun. Fine July weather. Legend of St. Swithun. Lamentable effect of spiritual ignorance and tyranny
As yet the year is in its pride:
And if the sun at morning tide
His orient face less promptly show,
And o'er his setting radiance throw
At day's decline an earlier shade;
If more and more the twilight fade;
And that white lucid circle fail
To skirt the horizon, and with veil
Of thicker shade and more profound
Dark midnight spread her mantle round:
Yet nought from his meridian tower
Of keen and penetrating power,
Though less and less his orb exalt
Its noonstead in the azure vault,
Does the bright sun as yet resign,
Or with less fervid radiance shine.
But rather, as the summer days
Then beam most hotly, when his rays
Declining through the etherial space,
Erewhile inflam'd, on earth's warm face
With force accumulated beat:
So with access of annual heat
Receding from his loftiest post
His beams their strongest fervour boast,
And past the glow of earlier June
Is bright July's maturer noon.
And if the sun at morning tide
His orient face less promptly show,
And o'er his setting radiance throw
At day's decline an earlier shade;
If more and more the twilight fade;
And that white lucid circle fail
To skirt the horizon, and with veil
Of thicker shade and more profound
Dark midnight spread her mantle round:
Yet nought from his meridian tower
Of keen and penetrating power,
Though less and less his orb exalt
Its noonstead in the azure vault,
Does the bright sun as yet resign,
Or with less fervid radiance shine.
But rather, as the summer days
Then beam most hotly, when his rays
260
Erewhile inflam'd, on earth's warm face
With force accumulated beat:
So with access of annual heat
Receding from his loftiest post
His beams their strongest fervour boast,
And past the glow of earlier June
Is bright July's maturer noon.
What month asserts a warmer sky,
More clear, more bright, than bright July;
When the blue heav'n, which wont to lower
With many a dense, solstitial shower,
Has chas'd the curtain'd clouds away,
And summer suns resume their sway?
Unless perhaps the man of God,
Who deem'd the church than churchyard sod
To hold his lifeless frame less meet;
And, when to that forbidden seat
His flock with over-zealous love
Essay'd the buried corpse to move,
With six long weeks of torrent rain
Proclaim'd the rash endeavour vain,
And graced his tomb with many a sign
Miraculous of pow'r divine:—
Unless Saint Swithun interfere;
And, when the month in due career
Has all but reach'd the midmost day,
Tenacious of transmissive sway,
For full twice twenty days and more
Discharge the clouds' collected store!
More clear, more bright, than bright July;
When the blue heav'n, which wont to lower
With many a dense, solstitial shower,
Has chas'd the curtain'd clouds away,
And summer suns resume their sway?
Unless perhaps the man of God,
Who deem'd the church than churchyard sod
To hold his lifeless frame less meet;
And, when to that forbidden seat
His flock with over-zealous love
Essay'd the buried corpse to move,
With six long weeks of torrent rain
Proclaim'd the rash endeavour vain,
And graced his tomb with many a sign
Miraculous of pow'r divine:—
Unless Saint Swithun interfere;
And, when the month in due career
Has all but reach'd the midmost day,
Tenacious of transmissive sway,
For full twice twenty days and more
Discharge the clouds' collected store!
Such tales our darkling fathers knew
In error's days, and held them true!
Such tales, the dregs of error old,
There are who now in credence hold;
Such tales and worse: of selfish wile
Begot on ignorance, to beguile
Man's reason, and divert the scope
Of holy faith and ardent hope!
Alas for them, to whom is given
Eyesight and light by gracious heaven;
Forbid meanwhile by men aright
To use their eyesight or their light!
Alas for them still more, who bind,
What God would loose, the human mind;
Who nor themselves nor others free
From bonds, though charged with freedom's key;
And, heedless of His will, retain
The Christian in a heathen chain!
In error's days, and held them true!
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There are who now in credence hold;
Such tales and worse: of selfish wile
Begot on ignorance, to beguile
Man's reason, and divert the scope
Of holy faith and ardent hope!
Alas for them, to whom is given
Eyesight and light by gracious heaven;
Forbid meanwhile by men aright
To use their eyesight or their light!
Alas for them still more, who bind,
What God would loose, the human mind;
Who nor themselves nor others free
From bonds, though charged with freedom's key;
And, heedless of His will, retain
The Christian in a heathen chain!
| The British Months | |