University of Virginia Library

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
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.