The Baptistery, or the way of eternal life :: :: University of Virginia Library

Ye of that glorious train that walk on high,
Each in the radiance of her glowing sheen,
High pursuivants that tend upon your Queen,
Strangers of earth, and children of the sky,
Where do ye haste, and one by one pass by;—
While clouds of earth beneath your feet are seen,
And as ye walk betray your heavenly mien?
Daughters of light, may I to you draw nigh?
Stay, stay, till love your beauteous forms hath scann'd;
What are your names? from what unearthly land,
Come ye to sight? and tell me, is it given
For child of earth to join your glorious band?
Forth as ye rise th' enshrouding mists are driven,
And open, as ye pass, your march to Heaven.

308

II

Chief of the beauteous band, there come to view
Three Sisters, which above their fellows shine,
Towering in grace and majesty divine:
In order first, in lineament, and hue,
Faith, to her Royal standard ever true,
Leading on high their bright and order'd line,
And raising with firm hand her Master's sign,—
Around her thrown a stole of heavenly blue,
The Cross her sceptre, and her robe the sky.
Hope too is there with Heaven-communing face,
Fair Hope, her silver anchor fix'd on high:—
And saffron-rob'd descending Charity,
With little children in her lov'd embrace,
Leaning from Heaven with Heaven-inviting grace.

III

Then one intent doth in a mirror gaze,
Herself to scan, the first-born child of love,
O'er whom for ever broods th' eternal Dove,
Humility. Next in the sun-bright blaze
Free-handed Bounty; where her footstep strays
Spring verdant hues around, and flowers that move
Their thankful heads; her treasure is above;
And therefore doth she shrink from earthly praise,
Friend of the poor. The next no form of earth;—
The palm adorns her hand, the crown her brow;
She hides the stamp of her Angelic birth,
And men on earth her beauty cannot know;
But unto her 'tis given her God to see,
Making earth Heaven, Seraphic Chastity.

309

IV

Then, waited on by musings pure and good,
She, who to Daniel deathless bloom hath given,
Fair in kings' courts, and fair in courts of Heaven,
Bright Abstinence, who feeds on angels' food.
Next Christ-like Meekness, with her holy rood,
And ever pointing to the Crucified,
With milk-white lamb that follows by her side.
Last, in that sky-descended sisterhood,
With whip, and spur, and glass that wanes apace,
Bidding thee seize at once the hour of grace,
Comes, onward urging, duteous Diligence:
For hurrying fast among the things of sense,
That beauteous troop, on wings of Night and Day,
Shall pass into the clouds for aye away.

V

Daughters of Heaven, in language all your own
Ye seem in silent attitude to preach;
And stand beyond our billows on the beach!
Fair as Heaven's doors, which, made of varied stone,
Yet mingling form one glory all their own;
Sisters of glorious birth, though varied each,
Each lovely, yet your mien, and form, and speech,
Mark all one family, all blend in one,
Their hues combining in one light divine.
Thus in my musings all together shine,
In one harmonious whole, and ever seem
Passing from form to form, as in a dream
Till all is lost in one, in beauty seen,
Centred in light, one Heaven-descended Queen.

310

VI

As in that ancient, venerable pile ,
Of tombs and shrines, bosom'd in the ravine,
Far from the world by sea and mountain seen,
Where, as 'tis said, at dead of night erewhile
There are perceiv'd through dim and shadowy aisle
Aërial motions as of forms unseen,
And sounds of sweetest music heard between:
Dear fancies, which th' o'erflowing heart beguile!
E'en so by you the air is stilly trod,
Bearing some happy soul to be with God,
'Mid mortal relics sad and shrines Divine;
And while my eyes and hands to you incline,
Ye seem to pass into ethereal strains,
Or one calm Form, beck'ning to Heaven, remains.

VII

Faith, Hope, or Love, whate'er thine earthly name,
Coming from place of thy transcendent birth
To fit for Heaven the denizens of earth,
Whatever shape thou wearest, still the same;—
The aspiration of one lofty aim,
Stilling the noise of passion and of mirth,
Set on her heritage of endless worth,
And her immortal birth-right bent to claim;—
Art thou the handmaid, Heaven-transforming power,
Or thou thyself the Bride, so rich thy dower?
Thou hauntest me like some night-wandering dream,—

311

Dreams are more near to Heaven than waking theme:
May I unblam'd clothe thee with mortal form,
All animate with life, with beauty warm?

VIII

Like that celestial Beatrice that led
Florence's bard through bowers of Paradise,
Opening, like rosy petals, all the skies:
E'en thus the tranquil effluence o'er thee shed
Lighteth me on, the living 'mong the dead,
The heavenly 'mid the earthly, gives me eyes
Of glad philosophy, which Heaven descries
In things below, of thee in all doth read,
Bearing thine image pictur'd in the heart,
In all beholds thine eyes and hears thee speak.
Thus, though to tell of thee language is weak,
Yet all things to my spirit find a tongue,
Events and sights all range and take their part,
Syllabling words which unto love belong.

IX

To what shall I compare the varying bloom
That lights thy face, while my fond thoughts pursue?
Like the majestic sea which comes to view,
Closing the valley of my mountain home,
A living mirror which the Heavens illume,
For ever beauteous and for ever new,
And ever changing its ethereal hue,
While passing gleams light up the purple gloom.

312

Thus through the night, in wakeful thought or dream,
While I behold thy beauteous countenance,
Expression varies still each speaking glance;
And when thy smile breaks forth, like some bright gleam,
I seem to hear thy voice, O music sweet,
And sit a holy pilgrim at thy feet.

X

Bless'd be the day when first on thee I gaz'd,
For it hath op'd new worlds of happy thought,
When upon thee I muse, and musing fraught,
Tend on thy presence, when thy lustre blaz'd,
And full on me thy pensive eyes were rais'd,
For those sweet nets that have my spirit caught,
Have purified my soul, and nearer brought
Him Who alone without all blame is prais'd,
Him Who hath made thee, and Who keepeth thee,
And watcheth o'er thee, unto Him I pray;
And when aught dark my sinking fancy shrouds,
Thou seemest some good Angel, from the clouds
Beck'ning me on to where is no decay,
But the good bloom with immortality.

XI

Since first mine eyes beheld thy matchless grace,
And unimagin'd beauty, passing far
All thy report, and like a lovely star
Seen through a cloud, through that majestic face,
And air and speech and action, from its place

313

Look'd out a gracious spirit;—it doth haunt
My days and nights, till in a dreamy want
Cold wax my studious tasks, and wane apace
All the delights of common air and sky,
Dim grows the eye of Heaven; but I from thence
Will learn to muse of things beyond our sense,
More fair than all beheld by mortal eye,
Till from the thoughts of thee there shall go forth
A spirit fairer than the sky and earth.

XII

For if we will forsake our own design,
And hopes that as we grasp them fade away,
Thou, Lord, wilt be to us, in this our day,
Sister and friend and brother; if we pine
Let it be farther in Thy blissful shrine
To enter, and so entering in to pray,
Led on and on by the calm guiding ray
Sent forth from Thine own majesty Divine.
And if Thou wilt vouchsafe one pitying glance,
It shall not leave us, but its gracious light
Shall gladden the dull face of day and night,
Delights of earth and sky shall make more bright,
And all my studious tasks shall more enhance,
Which are but to behold Thy countenance.

XIII

O sweetness e'en of anxious thoughts, that leave
All their lov'd hopes within a parent's breast,
Watching that store like some fond bird her nest;—
Like some fond bird, wont all things to retrieve,

314

And bear unto her home, to joy, to grieve,
To pour in song her overflowing breast,
To flit from tree to tree, and cry distress'd,
If snakes prowl near at noon or beasts at eve,—
To watch, to stay, and far abroad to roam,
Yet know no rest till she to that return.
Sweet bird, thine heart is ever at thine home;
Thine heart and home are where thy treasure lies;
Man may of thee a holy lesson learn,
His heart, his home, his treasure in the skies.

XIV

Prayer is omnipotence descending, when
We pray through Him who died upon the Tree,
Pray through His merits and His agony:
The prayer of them who pray as dying men,
Who pray as they who ne'er can pray again,—
Such power is mighty to bring down the sky
With all that bright and glorious company;
Which made thus sensible to mortal ken,
Are but the spiritual deeds that go before,
Or follow after to the Judgment door.
Prayer hath the power to draw them from their sphere,
And bring them unto us in spirit near.
Oh, if those bright ones come on earth to dwell,
It is the golden age which poets tell!

XV

It is in Prayer, as at celestial springs,
Those Virtues live, and breathe ethereal air:
Prayer brings on all around Angelic care;—

315

Prayer o'er each scene Love's radiant halo flings;—
Prayer spreads o'er all we love protecting wings,
Makes all events a cloud-surmounting stair:—
Prayer eye-enlightening, soul-transforming Prayer,
Hallows the Church, o'er Parents spreads, and Kings,
Bears and is borne to Heaven. The Monarch's calls
Shall round his people plant unearthly walls;
The mother's prayer, in the calm midnight hour,
Brings on her child the moon-light's silver shower;
And, at the altar kneeling, Christ's own poor
For worldly gifts true riches can restore.

XVI

Thus earthly enemies are Heavenly friends,
While Persecution wings to Prayer supplies,
And Love on wings of Prayer doth seek the skies,
E'en like an Angel which to Heaven ascends.
And while the world to Hell's dark portal tends,
And ways of death in slumber seal their eyes,
Prayer may arrest their course which downward lies,
E'en like an Angel which from Heaven descends.
Yea, haply on their calm and peaceful bed
Our prayers may reach and may refresh the dead,
Like airs of Heaven amid their bowers of rest,—
Like gales from far replete with tender sighs,
Which wake again their earthly sympathies,
And wreathe new cords that bind us with the blest.

316

XVII

Then, calm Devotion, make me to be thine;
Array me all around with burnish'd arms,
Be in my hand a spear 'gainst worldly harms,
And on th' illumin'd head a Cross divine;
Clothe me all o'er with wings; together twine
One cord of varied graces, such as may
Lead me through this dark valley of decay,
And bear me onward to the hidden shrine.
Make me chaste, meek, bounteous and abstinent,
Humble and diligent,—that onward bent
I may attain to that prevailing might,
Which prays to live, and lives to pray aright.
Such are those Graces which do walk above,
But varied forms of Faith that works by love.

St. David's Cathedral, see page 246.