 | Songs of Religion and Life |  |
28
Ode to Christian Love.
Bards sing of love, and songsters of the woodThrill with strong love the leafy solitude,
When Spring walks forth in power;
Harsh natures melt; the cold and flinty glow;
And close-locked hearts expand in flowery show,
When passion's fervid hour
Usurps them. But not passion's subtlest flame,
That stirs the gentle bard's nice-tempered frame,
Nor mated warbler's lay,
That rolls in luscious streams through leafy wood,
Nor that soft thrill which melts each harshest mood,
Can match thy queenly sway,
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Dost stir the breast; no fitful wild desire
Tosses the soul serene,
Where thy calm ardour glows; but, like the ray
Of that great Light, which rules the constant day,
With life-diffusing sheen,
So thou, bright-seated on the central throne
Of holy hearts dost shine. Thus thou wert known
To faithful men of yore;
Thee Moses knew, when, through the desert track,
He led the unstable stiff-necked army back
From Egypt's servile shore,
To their ancestral hills. The preacher Paul
Owned thy intensest sway, when to the call
Of God he oped his ear,
And strong by thee, like feeble withes, he snapt
The bonds of custom, and, in transport rapt,
Saw heavenly visions clear.
Then o'er the Earth with wingèd tread he flew,
And East and West his burning message knew;
The dull barbarian's home
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His word with quick regeneration smote
The tainted heart of Rome,
And subtle Greece with her light-vagrant eye
Screens from reproof her fair idolatry,
Unweeded fancy's flower
Vainly. No more glib Athens may dispute,
And Corinth's tinkling harlotry is mute,
When Paul, with earnest power,
Proclaims the cross.—O Thou inspiring God,
Whose shaping virtue doth inform the clod,
With warm life teeming ever;
With some pure spark of thine all-conquering love
Touch Thou my heart, that all my ways may prove
Thy strength, which faileth never!
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