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

“Prophecy is of prodigious extent.—It commenced from the fall of man, and reaches to the consummation of all things.—The declared purpose for which the Messiah, prefigured by so long a train of prophecy, came into the world, corresponds with all the rest of the representation,—it was to deliver a world from ruin, to abolish sin and death, to purify and immortalise human nature. We have no words to denote greater ideas than these; the mind of man cannot elevate itself to nobler conceptions.”—Hurd.

ANALYSIS OF BOOK I.

Apostrophe to the Divine Spirit—Creation, the Off-spring of Almighty Love—Sketch of Man's primal state and fall—The fathomless Mystery of Evil— The Curse, and its attendant awfulness—Necessity of Atonement.—The Majesty of Christ's Redemption —He is the Soul and Centre of all Revelation and Rites—Was present at the delivery of the Law from Sinai—Picture of the Camp of Israel in the Wilderness—The Gloom of Death as it must have appeared to our first Parents—Their Retrospections—Birth of Eve's first Child, and her triumphant Exclamation —Abraham—Isaac—The offering of the latter, a type of that Heavenly Sacrifice hereafter to be offered up for the whole World—Beauty and Simplicity of the Patriarchal State—Balak—Prophecy— Grandeur of the Prophetical Character—The Announcement of Messiah, a leading Characteristic of the Sacred Predictions—Job, the Doctrine derived from his Sufferings—His sublime expression of Faith in a Redeemer—David, his magnificentc haracter as a Poet and Prophet—Prophecies relative to Christ—Isaiah, his Style, and Predictions—Ezekiel, Daniel, and Malachi—Each considered as Prophetical Announcers of Christ and His Kingdom—Reflections on the Saviour, as they may arise to a contemplative Mind in Solitude—The Glory and Felicity of Spirits who worship, love, and obey Him.

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Of Man's redemption by almighty Blood,
When God incarnate on the earth became
Apparent, and in bleeding glory died,
I sing: O Thou! for Whom the worlds were made,
Instruct me in this high attempt, and theme
August of all-surpassing Love divine;
That with no daring eye or step profane
The Muse may wander where the Saviour trod:
If e'er at morning, noon, or solemn night,
Thy shadow on my soul hath been, or prayer
Or praise before Thy hymnéd Throne prevail'd,
Priest of the Universe! my song inspire.

Ere Matter out of nothingness arose,
Or, Time his destined march of years began,
Himself was All! the unapparent God:
But, Life the symbol of His Love appeared;
He will'd a universe, and lo, it was!

With Nature in her young excess of bloom
Array'd, and with a living sense of joy
Abroad upon the verdant face of things,
How exquisite must earth's primeval state
Have been, how tinted with the hues of heaven!
And when amid it, from unbreathing dust
A living Shape of godlike beauty rose,
Alas! that e'er on such transcendent scene
A shade of guilt could fall! that clouds advanced
In wrath and darkness o'er offending Earth,
No longer bright with angel-steps, but sad
And stricken, trembling at her God!

When Man as monarch of the globe was placed
Where lavish Eden waved and smiled, erect
He stood; but to his Maker homage due
By test of one supreme command was tried.
“Of every tree which in the garden grows
All freely eat, save that, wherein of Good
And Evil the forbidden knowledge lies;
Whereof the day thou eatest,—thou shalt die!”
A Tempter came, the interdicted Fruit
Man dared to eat, and from his high estate
Of sinless glory into darkness fell!

In this black hour when evil Doom prevails,
Shall finite teach the Infinite his ways
Or shape the path Omnipotence shall tread?
Shall man, in dreams of wild presumption, dare
His Maker criticise, or blindly call
Our fate unjust? Shall fancy, in her flight
Insane, beyond the Empyréan soar,
The God unthrone, His attributes affect,
And fashion worlds to prove his wisdom wrong?
Let Nature hope; and while her blessings thrive,
To secret Heaven resign the dark unknown!

A deathless soul, as imaging its God,
In preciousness the jewell'd earth transcends;
And when 'twas darken'd, vast Creation felt
Its value, since the righteous Curse which came
On ruin'd manhood, thrill'd all nature through,
And round the world its dread vibration ran!
Cited for judgment, then the Creature saw
The Face Almighty robed in frowning ire
Bent o'er him; and with sinking brow and frame
While reel'd the ground whereon the trembler trod,
Heard the dread fiat, which all time confirms,—
“Dust since thou wert, to dust return and die!”

Pale in the gloom of that departed Cloud,
Whose shadow, like a lightning-track had scathed
The bowers of Paradise, when Adam stood
With eyes aghast, and view'd the forfeit-world
Wither around him, while his fancy heard
The Curse still rolling on the awe-struck wind,
The dimness and the agony of doubt
How terribly his fallen soul endured!
For what forbade, but in the hour he sinn'd,
By one annihilating word consumed
That earth should perish in the pangs of hell?
Oh! ye, who in the choir of Cherubim
Divinely shaped, upon your sapphire-thrones
Which in the palace of Jehovah blaze,
One anthem of seraphic bliss prolong,
My lyre attune, triumphantly to sing,
Who sun-like dawn'd upon the gloom of death,
Justice and mercy in His cross combined,
And roll'd away God's thunders from the world!

But say, hath ever hymn by Angel sung,
Hath thought divined, or human voice express'd
This miracle of miracles profound,
A world redeem'd, and Christ redemption's Lord?
I've seen the Sun, creation's paramount,
Rise o'er the waves and lead the march of Day;
Alone have mused, when tempest roof'd the heavens
With blackness, and the quiring Ocean heard,
When choral billows, as with conscious swell,
Chanted loud anthems in the hush of night;
The dark sublimity of deepest storms
Hath girdled, and the glories of the sky

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O'erwhelm'd me: in humbleness and awe
Before the majesty of human Worth
I've bow'd, and felt how lovely Virtue is;
But poor and powerless, dim and undefined,
The adoration born of scenes or hours
Below, to that which o'er the spirit comes,
When silent, Lord! it thinks alone of Thee.

In Christ all Revelation lives. His voice
With man in Eden dread communion held,
To teach him morning-vow, or evening-prayer,
Or sacrifice divine: the shadowy Type,
The mystic Law, and sacramental Powers,
To Him relate: and when thy desert rang
O Sinai! with the battle-hymns of old,
While Judah's banners in victorious play
Flouted the vassal wind, the Lord o'erhung
The travell'd wilderness; a signal-Cloud
By day and night His awful guidance led:
And Horeb heard Him; when, in lightning veil'd,
Her giant form beneath His thunder bow'd,
As high o'er all the dreadful trumpet clang'd
With heaven-toned music, till the Desert shook.

That Wilderness! oh, when hath mind conceived
Magnificence beyond a midnight there,
When Israel paused, and o'er her tented host
The moonlight lay? On yonder palmy mount,
Lo, sleeping myriads in the dewy hush
Of night repose: around, in squared array,
The camps are set; and in the midst, apart,
That curtain'd Shrine where mystically dwells
Jehovah's presence: through the soundless air
A cloudy pillar, robed in burning light,
Appears; concentered as one mighty heart
A million lie, in mutest slumber bound,
Or, panting like the Ocean when a dream
Of storm awakes her. Heaven and Earth are still:
In radiant loveliness the Stars pursue
Their pilgrimage, while moonlight's wizard hand
Throws beauty, like a spectre-light, on all.
At Judah's tent the lion-banner stands
Upfolded, and the pacing sentinels,—
What awe pervades them, when the dusky groves,
The rocks Titanian, by the moonshine made
Unearthly, or yon mountains vast, they view!
But soon as morning bids the sky exult,
As earth from nothing, so that countless host
From slumber and from silence will awake
To mighty being: while the forest-birds
Rush into song, the matin-breezes play,
And streamlets flash where roving sunbeams fall.
Like clouds in lustre, banners will unroll,
The trumpet shout, the warlike tramp resound,
And hymns of valour from the marching Tribes
Ascend, to gratulate the risen Morn.

Though Mercy, when a malediction fell
On Life and Matter from the lips of God,
That Woman's seed should bruise the Serpent's head
Predicted, still, in ghastly vision came
The shadows of thy then unenter'd world
O Death! but time hath half thy gloom unveil'd.
Though yet invisible, no more thy realm
A desert seems where nothing human dwells:
By ages peopled, 'tis the haunt of Dreams
Forsaking earth, to roam and muse awhile
With Shapes of being, who did once imbibe
The vital breath. There, ancient Seers exist,
Whose words were mightier than thunder-tones
When Nature trembles; there, the Good abide,
The glorious, gifted, and immortal are.
And who of death would all oblivious be
When friends are tomb'd, and parents smile no more?
To loved eternity where they repose
The orphan wanders in parental dreams
How often, and the widow calls it, Home!

Yet 'twas not thus, when new-created Earth
From chaos rose, with deepest verdure clad:
Flower, fruit, and tree, in primal beauty waved;
No tint of death, no touch of sad decay
Then marr'd the freshness of the lovely scene.
Hence, the dread fiat, “Perish! dust thou art,
And unto dust shalt thou again return,”
To Adam sounded like Creation's knell!

Upon the wide and voiceless world, alone
The guilty wanderers, whom fair Eden once
Embower'd, in fond remembrance often mourn'd
The bloom of Paradise, and pure estate
For ever lost. The Morning rose, and light
Around them in its warm luxuriance fell;
But ah! it could not through the spirit beam
As once, when Day and Heaven together rose,
While harping angels on the breezes sang:
And Evening, with her tenderness of shade
O'ercame them, like a cloud of solemn grief;
For then, of Paradise and dewy calm
They thought, as there they watch'd the vesper-hues
In beautiful consumption fade and die,
All innocently blest. Thus pass'd the day

458

In wo; and dreams of sworded Cherubim
Glared on their slumber! still, their God was near;
And when the pangs which only mothers feel
Dejected Eve endured, and lo! a child
Was born, th' unclouded spring of hope began.
And who can fathom that deep hour of love
When first an infant on its mother smiled,
And in the bright enchantment of that bliss
Her babe she clasp'd, and to Jehovah cried,
“The promised Seed! Almighty! now 'tis born!”

Thus dimly on the world's primeval state
Messiah dawn'd; till God himself declared
To sainted Abram, as the countless orbs
Of midnight glitter'd over Hebron's plain,
That like yon stars a glorious race should rise
Unnumber'd, till the earth's Deliverer came,
And crown'd all nations blest. Then, Isaac rose,
The child of promise, the Redeemer's type
On the stern altar by his parent laid!
The son, the only son, whom Abram loved
Yet did not spare, when Heaven commanded, “Slay!”

Ere the rich morning on the mountains flung
A robe of beauty; in that vestal hour
When birds are darting from the dewy ground,
And nature, soft as sleeping life, begins
To waken, and the spell of day to wear,
Unseen the patriarch and his cherish'd boy
Uprose, the sacrificial wood prepared,
And thus, companion'd by his household-youths,
They onward journey'd with the laden ass.
Through piny glens, and green acacia-vales
The pilgrims wound their undulating way.
Oft as he went, upon his child beloved
The Sire of nations look'd, and inly pray'd;
And felt the father in his bosom rise,
As bound and bloody, on the altar stretch'd
He vision'd him!—the long-hoped, destined son
Who fond and dutiful had ever been,
And guiltless of a parent's tear. But, faith
Triumphant in the power of mercy proved.
Twice had the Sun around the pilgrims drawn
His evening-veil, when o'er a distant mount,
Upon Moriah's steep and rocky clime
A Vision of the Lord reposed, and shone,—
A cloudy signal, shaped for Abram's eye
Alone to see, and there his altar raise.
The patriarch bow'd; and o'er the mountain-path
Both child and parent took their solemn way,
But each was silent, for they thought of Heaven.
Thus on they went, till at the mount ordain'd
Arriving, with enamour'd gaze they saw
Green heights, and forest-crested hills afar,
And willow'd plains; and drank the balmy air,
And cool'd their foreheads in the breeze, which play'd
Like the soft tremor of an angel-wing;
So hush'd the hour, the spot so calm, that God
Himself seem'd waiting there to welcome man!
Then Isaac, as the stony altar-pile
Beneath the shadow of a mountain-tree
Was reared, and sacramental fire prepared,
In words of unsuspecting sweetness cried,
“My father!”—Abram answer'd, “Here, my son!”
“The wood and fire behold! but where the lamb
Of sacrifice, to crown yon flaming pyre?”
Then heaved his bosom with the love of years
Departed; and a tear paternal rose
As gazed he fondly on that only child,
And far away a childless mother saw
Whose heart had echoed every infant-cry!
But soon the strife, and soon the tear was o'er:
To Heaven he look'd, and thus to Isaac spake:
“My son! in thee a sacrifice the Lord
Hath found, and—thou to God art dedicate!”
He answer'd not; but meekly knelt him down
And on the altar lay, a willing Lamb.
But God descended; and the hand uplift
In glorious faith to sacrifice a child,
Was holden, while angelic tones proclaim'd
“O Abram! spare thy son! thine only spare,
And let him live, for thou art faithful found.”
With thrilling wonder and ecstatic awe
Up look'd the Patriarch, and behold! a ram
Beside him, in a woody thicket caught:
And while it bled, again the Voice sublime
Repeated, like the sound of golden waves,
“In blessing I will bless thee; and thy seed
The sand of ocean shall outnumber far,
And from it spring the Glory of the World!”

But next, on Jacob, in symbolic dream
The Incarnation dawn'd, as lone and sad,
His couch the earth, his canopy the skies,
The exiled patriarch from wild Esau fled.
When night had deepen'd, homeless, pale, and worn,
The wanderer, pillow'd on a stone-built couch,
For slumber stretch'd him on the dreary plain.
Companionless he was, 'mid forests dark
With midnight-umbrage, torn by wolfish winds,
And echoed by the frequent lion-roar
Howl'd from the hills; but God he ever felt;
And round his heart parental blessings twined,
Till sleep came o'er him, like a smile from Heaven.
Rude was the couch, but oh! his angel-dream

459

To witness, Saints would now a ruder share!
He dreamt; and lo! a Ladder, based on earth,
And buried in the sky, before him rose;
Adown it Shapes of awful beauty stole,
While others clad with archangelic beams
Did solemnly from step to step ascend:
Above, a formless Apparition shone,
Ineffable! from Whom a voice divine
In accent richer than the full-toned sea,
Proclaim'd, “Thy father's God! and thine, behold!
Wide o'er the world thy destined seed will spread,
And, numberless, empeople lands and isles,
Till One arise, and make all kingdoms blest.”
“How dreadful! 'tis the gate of heaven!” he cried:
'Mid solemn breathings of melodious air
Aloft then moved the hierarchal Pomp;
And ere the lark to hymn the Day began
The exile rose, a rocky pillar raised,
Shed o'er its top the consecrating oil,
And in the hush of morning hied away.

“From Judah's hand the sceptre shall not fall,
Till Shiloh come; to Him shall Empires bow!”
So spake a patriarch from his couch of death;
And thus, through all the realm of holy Writ,
Messiah is the Morning Star of Hope
Who beams for ever on the soul of truth.

But, ere deep Prophecy its organ-strain
Its full magnificence of tone begin,
A vision of that unforgotten prime
The patriarchal age, when Earth was young,
Awhile, oh! let it linger. On the soul
It breaketh, like a lovely burst of spring
On gazing captives, when the open skies
Again are floating over Freedom's head.
Though sin had wither'd with a charnel-breath
Creation's morning-bloom, there still remain'd
Elysian hues of that angelic scene
When the Sun gloried o'er a sinless world,
And with each ray produced a flower. From dells
Untrodden, hark! the breezy carol comes
Upwafted, with the chant of radiant birds;
While meadows, bathed in greenest light, and woods
Gigantic, towering from the skiey hills,
And odorous trees in prodigal array,
With all the elements divinely calm,
Our fancy pictures on the infant globe.
And ah, how godlike, with imperial brow
Benignly grave, yon patriarchal Forms
Tread the free earth, and eye the naked heavens!
In nature's stamp of unassisted grace
Each limb is moulded; simple as the mind
The vest they wear; and not a hand but works,
Or, tills the ground with honourable toil.
By youth revered, their sons around them grow
And flourish; monarch of his pastoral tribe,
A Patriarch's throne is each devoted heart;
And when he slumbers on the tented plain
Beneath the vigil-stars, a living wall
Is round him, in the might of love's defence.
And he is worthy: sacrifice and song
By him are ruled; and oft at shut of flowers
When queenly virgins in the sunset go
Water to carry from the crystal wells,
In beautiful content, beneath a tree
Whose shadows hung o'er many a hallow'd sire,
He sits; recording how Creation rose
From nothing, of the Word almighty born;
How man had fallen, and where Eden-boughs
Had waved their beauty on the breeze of morn;
Or, how the Angels still at twilight love
To visit Earth with errands from the Sky.

But like a river that its course renews,
Again my song to its high Theme returns.
When Balak, frighted by the banner'd hosts
Of Israel, camping on unbounded plains,
For Balaam sent, upon his trancèd eye
Prophetic visions from th' Almighty fell.

There, when the monarch on the mountain stood,
Seven altars, oxen, and seven rams prepared,
And sacrifice of mystic numbers paid,—
The Seer his oracle of light unroll'd.
He look'd, and lo! along that river'd vale
Where Arnon glitter'd, shone the myriad tents
Of Judah, whitening in the lustrous air,
Like clouds which congregate on summer-sky
In ranks of infinite and fresh array:
Then, all the chords of Heaven's predictive lyre
Quiver'd, with more than melody intoned,
And superhuman Poetry began!
His curse was buried in the bliss foretold;
While glory, blessing, and mysterious joy
The tents of Jacob from the prophet drew:
Till Ecstacy this higher strain attuned
In—“I shall see Him, but not now! a Star
From Jacob, and from Israel shall arise
A Sceptre, in whose shadow will depart
Thy race and region, O deserted king!”

Thus Prophecy to man from heaven was breathed
A miracle beyond all utterance deep,
Immeasurably vast; outmarching Time,
Subduing Space, and with colossal might
Erecting Thrones; or crushing city-walls
With curses, like the winds when desert-born,
Terrific, loud, with desolation wing'd!

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And they, elected to be Mouths for God,
Dread Oracles! whose dooming words have blanch'd
The cheek of Empires in their godless pride
And palsied high-domed Capitals with fear,
August and lonely, sad, yet all sublime
They lived, in sackcloth robed, in deserts housed
Or mountain cavern; fated, and apart
From blinding shadows of terrestrial sway,
They dwelt, communing with almighty Thought.
The gloom, the glory, and the Vision came,
The Future rendered voiceless secrets up,
And then, like phantoms, from eternity,
Dim Ages rose, and answered to their Spell!

And he, whose sorrow was sublimely borne,
Whose grief was glory, for it made the soul
A witness how the Everlasting thinks,—
Behold him! on the ashy ground reclined.
Seven days and nights have o'er his throbbing head
Departed, still, in mutest wo he bows
With three beside him. Oft when darkness rose,
A groan sank dreary on the midnight-air;
But, soon his agony again retired
Back to the gulph of unlamenting gloom!
Nor lip, nor limb his inward strife reveals;
Despair in stone was not more dumb than he!
Prometheus, chain'd on Scythia's burning rock,
When lightning, tempest, and Tartarean ire
With thund'ring earthquake round his martyr'd frame
The tragedy of Nature's wreck begun,
In full sublimity of godlike wo
Was less exalted than the silent Job.

And, what a lesson of undying truth
The torture of the Scene supplies! Array'd
In whirlwind, did the vocal God declare
Secrets of glory, or mysterious depths
Of Essence Infinite to man unshroud?
No! sea and mountain, thunder-storm and cloud,
The glorious miracles of life and form
Which float the waters, or the earth command,
These are but types of Trinitarian power,
Yet, who the mystery of their being knows?
Lost in the march of God's material ways,
If Reason wander, how could thought abstract
His moral Kingdom perfectly conceive?
To question deeply what we darkly know,
Our boding fancies in their raven flight
Cross and re-cross a universe of gloom,
And yet, in this appall'd conviction ends,—
That God is good, and infinite, and wise,
But Man a daring antichrist, who dreams
Himself the measure of Eternal Mind!

When Nature, in her awful doubt, creates
Mystery and madness for the heart and brain,
From all which life endures, let mortals feel
That man, the infant of eternity,
By wo is nursed, and strengthen'd for the skies;
And a brave soul, though Earth and Hell combine
To scatter tempest round its blighted way,
Beholds a God in all things but despair!
In hours of sadness, when Oppression rules,
And each pale sunburst of unwonted joy
Breaks o'er the spirit, like derisive beams
Of summer playing round a wintry realm,
Let Grief remember how the patriarch cried
With voice that travell'd o'er the sea of Time,
“Oh! that the graven rock my words imprest,
And iron stamp'd them with eternal truth!
For though in dust my body be dissolved,
That my Redemer liveth, and shall stand
When time is ended, on this mortal earth,
I surely know: on Him mine eye shall gaze,
And in my flesh shall I The Lord behold!”

God's Incarnation is the focal truth
Where prophecy's converging beams unite.
And Thou! the shepherd-king, of Jesse born,
Of Heaven beloved, similitude express
Of Christ, the Lord of everlasting worlds,
Whether on Zion hill thy holy strain
Be harped, or by the brook of Kedron hymn'd;
Or nightly warbled, when unnumber'd orbs
To thee their origin divine declared,—
Thy words are breathings by the soul attuned;
For aye thou seem'st a Singer from above
Who chants the glory of remember'd skies.

Wouldst thou in meekest adoration bend,
Or mount the heavens, and with bright myriads swell
The chorus of eternity? Does Grief
Around thee blacken in her stormy ire,
Or sad dejection on thy eyelids weigh?
The royal minstrel hath a mood for thee
And in his heart deep echoes for thine own!
But when the frame of this majestic World
The mind o'erawes, then! who like him appeals
To clouds and whirlwinds, with the Thunder talks,
Partakes the tempest, and of Ocean learns
Such mimicry sublime, that Fancy hears
In God's own orchestra of waves and winds
The billows, echoed by his heaven-strung lyre.
But Nature in her gentleness, alike
From David woos a sympathy divine.
The lull of night, the language of the stars,

461

And all that beautiful, serene, or blest
Is deemed, his harp melodiously inspires.

Bard of the Spirit! thine heroic song,
Whose hallelujahs in Engeddi's cave,
Or forest glens, and palmy grove, prevail'd
O'er every pang his exiled bosom felt,—
Attunes Religion's universal voice.
Canadian forests, or the parchèd wilds
Of Afric, ocean-rocks, and cavern-gloom,
Wherever Man to God in prayer ascends,
Thy melodies the yearning heart relieve.
And oh! what blessings have thy hymns evoked
From Heaven's vast treasury of light and love
Since first they sounded on a shepherd's lyre!
For they are all Imagination dreams
Angelic lips might warble:—on the Cross
Of Calvary, ere the Son of Man dismiss'd
His martyr'd spirit, thine was His farewell!

But chief o'er all in David's glorious strain,
The homage wafted to that destined Throne
Whereon would reign a universal King
From him descended:—in his darksome wo
The Martyr and the Maker of our world
Was symbolised, beneath a veiling gloom.
And when exalted, his far-reaching eye
By heaven unscaled, in emblematic light
Foreshadowed Him, the Triumpher o'er death,
And Victor of the grave. Thus, vision-blest,
The prophet-minstrel all divinely sung;
Thus rose from mortal to immortal themes,
Above his nature tower'd, and hail'd on high
Christ from eternity by God decreed
The earth to ransom and mankind restore.

And how he imageth the Lord of souls
Before us, when he mounteth on the wings
Of rapture, soaring through the heaven of heavens!
“From Zion shall He wither in His wrath
Rebellious kings! to me hath He declared,
My Son thou art! this day Jehovah hath
Begotten Thee; the heathen are Thine own,
And vanquish'd worlds beneath Thy sceptre bow!”

But when the starry hush and pomp of night
O'erawed him, and the moon her Maker's hand
Confess'd, the spirit of prophetic Truth
Again was vocal: thus the minstrel sang:
“When I consider how the balanced heavens
Almightiness in moving pomp reveal,
Lord! what is man? yet Him hast thou encrown'd;
Upon the deep his vast dominion walks,
And subject earth beneath his sceptre bows.

“Ever before me lives the Lord of Hosts!
His hand o'ershades me, and my heart exults:
And soaring hope, by inspiration plumed,
Wings o'er the sepulchre its flight,—for there
A Soul shall triumph; and thy Holy One
No dark corruption of the dead shall stain!”

“How beauteous Thou, above the sons of men!
Upon Thy lips what loveliness diffused!
Array Thee in thy glory! gird Thy sword
Upon thy thigh; majestically ride!
Hark! Earth is quaking; her foundations rock,
Thine arrows thicken; terrible Thy sway!
For ever and for ever is Thy Throne,
And righteously Thy boundless sceptre rules,
And over all Thy God anoints Thee great.

“Through dateless ages are Thy years unroll'd;
The earth was founded, and the heavens were arch'd
By Thee; Creation felt Thy forming hand;
But while they perish, Thou shalt aye endure:
When, like a vesture, they are changed and gone
Still, Thou art One, Eternal and the True!”

And thus did Zion's royal minstrel chant,
And through the cloud of unaccomplish'd time
His glance direct, to that transcendent reign
Of Mercy, when the veil would be uproll'd
And brightly dawn th' Incarnate Sun of Worlds.

Next in the train of these immortal Seers
Another of the heaven-directed hail;
Who, like the clarion that shall rouse the dead,
Might quicken dust,—such life his song inspires!
Amid a temple, bright as Syrian noon,
Upon a Throne unutterably high
O'er which the six-wing'd Seraphim appear'd,
The Lord was seated; and the awful cry
Of “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord!”
Melodious came from each seraphic lip:
And in that Vision, as a centre stood
Appall'd Isaiah, seeing, hearing all.

Terrific Bard, and mighty! in thy strain
The passion and the poetry of truth
And deep-toned storms of inspiration roll,
Whether for cities by th' Almighty cursed
Thy wail arose; or, on enormous crimes
Which darken'd heaven with supernatural gloom,
Thy flash of indignation fell, alike
The feelings quiver when thy Voice awakes!
Borne in the whirlwind of a dreadful song
Our spirit travels round the destined globe,

462

While shadows, cast from solemn years to come,
Fall round us, and we feel a God is nigh!

But when a gladness from thy music flows,
Creation brightens; glory decks the sky,
The Sun is mantled with millennial smiles
And green earth temper'd for immortal spring:
The lion smoothes his ruffled mane, the lamb!—
And wolf together feed, and by the den
Of serpents, see the rosy infant play!

There is a Day, the darkness of whose scene
In visitings of dread might well subdue
The world's false brightness, foreordained to come,
When the huge fabric of this stately Globe
Shall bow with terror in the storm of doom.
Then, in that hour of chaos, while the earth
And heaven shall fade like elemental dreams,
High on some rocky eminence enthroned
Methinks Isaiah might his voice awake
In bursts of wo magnificently wild,—
The last that lingers round a dying World!

But, Prince of Prophets! in thy page eterne,
How visibly the Son of God appears!
“Behold, a Virgin shall conceive, and bear
A son; Immanuel shall his name be call'd.”
Again;—“For unto us a Child is born,
To us a Son is given; and his name
Is, Wonderful, the Everlasting Prince
Of Peace! the Counsellor, and mighty God!

“A Voice comes wafted through the Wilderness!
Prepare the way, and be the Desert smooth:
Arise, ye valleys! and ye mountains, sink
Before Him! for the Lord Jehovah comes!

“Despised, rejected, and a Man with grief
Acquainted, surely He our woes hath borne,
And in His bosom all our sorrows ta'en!
Our chastisement is on Him: we are heal'd,
But He is wounded! and on Him alone
The Lord hath laid th' iniquity of all!”

Nor, when captivity by Chebar mourn'd,
And Israel wore the Babylonian chain
Beside the willow-shaded streams, was dumb
The Voice prophetic: but where Belus rose
In her stupendous prodigy of towers,
Ezekiel pour'd his passionate lament;
Or shaped for time the Destinies he saw
From heaven prefigured:—what colossal shades
As though reflected from the scenes immense
Around him, crowd upon his fated world!
But high o'er all the visionary Pomp
To us the Cedar of the Gospel rears
Its allegoric boughs, beneath whose shade
Birds of all clime, and wing, and beauty dwell.

So Daniel, when his midnight-trance began
On the dim bosom of that mystic Sea
Whose waters quiver'd in the tempest-grasp,
Beheld him, coming with the clouds of heaven,—
The Son of Man; then, throned in flaming pomp
With myriads of Angelic Forms begirt,
Perpetual empire to the Son was given
O'er land and language, kingdom, sea, and isle.

And thus, wherever bright prediction beams,
The glories of the Incarnation dawn.
At last, with healing on his wings, arose
The Sun of Righteousness, to him who cried,
“Before the splendour of that dreadful day
A Herald of the Lord, Elijah comes,
To turn thy heart, O guilty world! to me,
Or thou shalt wither in My blast of ire!”

So Prophecy, with time begun, with time
Shall end; and when in some empyreal Sphere
The mind expands with far sublimer reach
Than prescient faith, or fancy can extend,
In proud fulfilment Prophecy will reign.
For, having grasp'd the glory of the world
Redeem'd, and taught us how Millennium smiles,
Beyond the Universe of sense it wings
An awful flight, and in mysterious depths
Of Being unexplored, for man foredooms,
A state unspeakably divine and pure,—
Eternity, O God! and shared with Thee.

Almighty Priest! Thou angel-worshipp'd Lord
In secrecies of uncreated Light
Though now enthron'd, Thy sympathies retain
Their human oneness with Thy People still;
And, for the Church, thy Mystic Body call'd,
Plead and prevail with eloquence divine.
As oft in chamber dim, or lonesome walk
By leafy twilight arch'd, the Mind foreviews
Its own eternity, and dreams Thy Form
To life again,—how wonderful, apart,
By time unsoil'd, by accident, or sin
Immaculate as Love and Law required
Thy Being riseth in irradiant truth,
Before us, purer than the light of light,
Of all Transcendencies the sum and soul!
And when did Earth Thine attribute display,—
One vast Benevolence, which girt a world
Of hearts by catholic embrace of love?
All time and truth, all empires and all powers

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That were, or would be, in the march of fate,
By Thee were compass'd for Redemption's plan!

When o'er the grandeur of unclouded heaven
Our vision travels with a free delight,
As though the boundless and the pure were made
For speculation, so the towering mind
By inward oracle inspired and taught,
The Lofty and the Excellent in mind reveres;
And thus, the Incarnation of divinest love,
God's perfect Image, humanised for Man,
As Finite loved, as Infinite adored,
Messiah is; and hence to faith presents
A Model for the Universe.—Though God
Be round us, by the shadow of His might
For aye reflected; and with plastic Hand
Prints on the earth the character of Things;
Yet He Himself,—how awfully retired
Depth within depth, unutterably deep!
His Glory brighter than the brightest thought
Can image, holier than our holiest awe
Can worship—utter'd only in, I AM!

But Thou! apparell'd in a robe of true
Mortality; meek Sharer of our low
Estate, in all except compliant sin,
To Thee can sacrificial Awe devote
A living holocaust of sense and soul
By love enkindled. Thou hast lived and breathed;
Our wants and woes partaken; all that charms
Regenerate hearts to Thine unspotted truth
May plead for sanction; Virtue but reflects
Thine image; Wisdom is a voice attuned
To consonance with Thine; and all which yields
To Thought a pureness, or to Life a peace,
From Thee descends; whose spirit-ruling sway,
Invisible as thought, around us brings
A balm almighty for Affliction's hour.
Once felt, in all the fulness of Thy grace
The mystic essence of our moral life
To form,—and heaven by holiness begins!
Which purifies the base, the dark illumes,
And binds our being with that holy spell
Whereby each function, faculty, and thought
Surrenders meekly to the central Guide
Of hope and action, by a God empower'd.

Until the eyelids of the Dead unclose
Though Christ has vanish'd into viewless light,
High o'er the world, beyond heroic state,
To reach or rival, is Man's inner-life
Securely founded on the Rock of faith!
All the wide glories which the eye commands,
Or air and ocean, earth and heaven supply,
Of Him report, whose potency begat
Them all. The ground is hallow'd, for 'twas trod
By Him; all Earth is radiant with a sense
Ethereal, born of His remember'd sway:
Nor pang, nor trial, torture, grief, nor care
Communion high and mystic interchange
With Him destroys; in solitude alike,
As in the roaring capital, a Saint
Embodies into human Form again
That living Saviour, Whom the Past perceived
And worshipp'd, angels gloried to announce,
And Whose perfections so harmonious are
That o'er them God's eternal sabbath smiles.