 | Stones from The Quarry |  |
THE BIBLE.
Light of the World, and tower of strength to Man!
Sole refuge in a howling Wilderness,
Whence Man flees from Despair; and, with blind guess,
Nature flings up her mole-casts without plan!
Thyself built on a rock, from thee we scan
The End and the Beginning, and possess
A clue to the dark Labyrinth, where less
Would not suffice than thy all-reaching span
Of boundless view! Two thousand years enshrine
Thy hallowed walls, mellowed and rich with Time,
And mantled with associations fine,
While hearts of Men around thee cling and climb.
Thy fall would strew the Earth; and, crushed, in thine,
Man fall to lowest depths from heights sublime!
Sole refuge in a howling Wilderness,
Whence Man flees from Despair; and, with blind guess,
Nature flings up her mole-casts without plan!
Thyself built on a rock, from thee we scan
The End and the Beginning, and possess
A clue to the dark Labyrinth, where less
Would not suffice than thy all-reaching span
Of boundless view! Two thousand years enshrine
Thy hallowed walls, mellowed and rich with Time,
And mantled with associations fine,
While hearts of Men around thee cling and climb.
Thy fall would strew the Earth; and, crushed, in thine,
Man fall to lowest depths from heights sublime!
Oh, if our poor comparatives of grand,
Derivatives of Holy and Sublime;
Our ruins, hoary with the frost and rime
Of centuries, and haunting all the land
With memories; whose slow decays command
Men's wonder; which to desecrate were crime;
Minster or Abbey, from whose towers Time's chime
Rings out the Fleeting; Man's work, which can stand
His test no longer;—if such “ruins” be,
What will thy fall involve, what awe, what dread!
Where from the wrath to come then shall we flee?
On hearth and altar the fire shall lie dead;
And Man, as at a Devils' Jubilee,
Break loose, and Cains their brothers' blood shall shed.
Derivatives of Holy and Sublime;
Our ruins, hoary with the frost and rime
Of centuries, and haunting all the land
With memories; whose slow decays command
Men's wonder; which to desecrate were crime;
Minster or Abbey, from whose towers Time's chime
Rings out the Fleeting; Man's work, which can stand
His test no longer;—if such “ruins” be,
What will thy fall involve, what awe, what dread!
Where from the wrath to come then shall we flee?
On hearth and altar the fire shall lie dead;
And Man, as at a Devils' Jubilee,
Break loose, and Cains their brothers' blood shall shed.
| Stones from The Quarry | |