University of Virginia Library

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
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!