The Sanctuary :: :: University of Virginia Library

Inspired by Angels seems the hallow'd air
Of christian Temples, in some hour of prayer,
When bow'd adorers, meek and lowly,
With litanies, heart-deep as holy,
And plaintive accents of melodious love,
Mingle their Altar-chants with martyr-cries above.

But, when pure tears, in penitential flow,
Gush from the heart for sin-avenging woe,
Angelic watchers hover nigh
And listen to each low-breath'd sigh,
Grieved when we sink, or gladden'd when we soar,
And love those Spirits most, who most their God adore.

Thus, not alone, pale Mother, art Thou, now,
Lifting to heaven thy supplicating brow,—
That He, Whose everlasting Throne
O'erawes the water-floods alone,
His olive-bearing Dove may gently send,
To signify, stern wrath may in soft mercy end.

Almighty! when Thy whelming torrents fall,
Palsied with guilt, our craven minds recall
That unrepeated judgment-hour
When shrieking Earth beheld Thy power,—
The drowning Carcase of a deluged world,
Sunk in sepulchral waves, by justice o'er it hurl'd!

But still, Thy Sacramental Bow could shine
And symbolise thy grace by hues divine,

Lord of the Sea! Whose Ark did save
Elect ones from the billow's grave,—
Types of true souls hereafter, who should be
Kept in Thy Holy church, baptismally by Thee.

And therefore, let Thy lurid clouds withdraw;
Green make the soil, as that which Noah saw
When from his Ark the Patriarch went,
And, 'neath the sun-clad firmament,
In dripping brightness from departed rain
Watch'd the deliver'd Earth in verdure bloom again.

All weather bears Thy Will's resistless form,
Typed in the calm, or tokened by the storm;
But, in the mild and mellow spring
Love hears a Promise murmuring,
In mystic echoes, which can never cloy,—
Sure as yon rainbow smiles, no Deluge shall destroy

“The earth; but, summer, heat and harvest, shall
My Name and Nature unto faith recall:”—
So be it, Lord! and thus, from Thee
Both in Thy wrath, and clemency,
Our conscience, lesson'd by Almighty lore,
Creation in the Cross shall study, more and more.

Since, what is Nature, but a realm divine,
Where, in dread secresy, as in a shrine,
Father, and Son, and Spirit are
In everything, and everywhere,
Life, Law and Energy, —a Trinitarian soul
Creatively at work, to harmonise the Whole.

And, blest the Church, with more than Science fraught,
Who all her Children has sublimely taught,
What carnal tongues mere “nature” call,
Interprets God, the ruling All,
Since not a pulse, or principle of life,
With hidden Deity that is not sway'd, and rife.

And if that Lord, Who cloth'd a field-born flower
With more than glory, in its regal hour,
Shall sanctify each pensive look
We cast upon Creation's book,—
Then, fruit and verdure, rain and sunshine, may
Whisper through Nature's walks,—“Here, let us muse, and pray.”

Chrysost. vol. ii. par. ii. p. 530.

Rev. vi. 9, 10.

“The Lord sitteth upon the flood.” —Ps. xxix. 10.

Gen. viii. 21.

Rev. iii. 20, 21.

Gen. ix. 13.

See Ambrose in Comber. Rev. vol. ii. p. 316.

August. Epist. iv. 169.