HYMN.
FOR THE BUILDING OF A COTTAGE.
I.
Lay foundations deep and strong
On the rock, and not the sand—
Morn her sacred beam has flung
O'er our ancient land.
And the children through the heather
Beaming joy from frank bright eyes
Dance along, and sing together
Their loud ecstasies.
Children, hallowed song to-day!
Sing aloud; but singing pray.
Orphic measures proudly swelling
Lifted cities in old time:
Build we now a humbler dwelling
With a humbler rhyme!
Unless God the work sustain
Our toils are vain and worse than vain.
Better to roam for aye than rest
Under the impious shadow of a roof unblest!
II.
Mix the mortar o'er and o'er
Holy music singing:
Holy water o'er it pour
Flowers and tresses flinging!
Bless we now the earthen floor:
May good Angels love it!
Bless we now the new-raised door
And that cell above it!
Holy cell, and holy shrine
For the Maid and Child divine!
Remember thou that see'st her bending
O'er that babe upon her knee
All Heaven is ever thus extending
Its arms of love round thee!
Such thought thy step make light and gay
As yon elastic linden spray
On the smooth air nimbly dancing,
Thy spirits like the dew glittering thereon and glancing!
III.
Castles stern in pride o'er-gazing
Subject leagues of wolds and woods;
Palace fronts their fretwork raising
'Mid luxurious solitudes!
These, through clouds their heads uplifting,
The lightning wrath of heaven invoke:
His balance power is ever shifting;
The reed outlasts the oak.
Live, thou cottage! live and flourish
Like a bank which mild dews nourish
Bright with field flowers self-renewing,
Annual violets, dateless clover;
Eyes of flesh thy beauty viewing
With a glance may pass it over;
But to eyes that wiser are
Thou glitterest like the morning star!
O'er every heart thy beauty breathes
Such sweets as morn shall waft from those new planted wreaths!
IV.
Our toils—not toils—are all but ended;
The day has wandered by:
Her silver gleams the moon hath blended
With the azure of the sky:
Yet still the sunset lights are ranging
On from mossy stem to stem;
Low winds their odours vague exchanging
Chaunt day's requiem.
Upon the diamonded panes
The crimson falls with fainter stains:
More high in heavenward aspiration
The gables shoot their mystic lines:
While now, supreme in grace as station
The tower-like chimney shines.
Beneath that tower an altar lies.
Bring wood: light up the sacrifice!
Now westward point the arched porch—
Crown with a Cross the whole: our cot becomes a Church!
V.
Strike once more a livelier measure
Circling those fair walls again:
Songs of triumph, songs of pleasure
Well become you, gladsome train!
Mark that shadowy roof! each angle
Angel heads and wings support:
Those the woodbine soon must tangle
These the rose shall court,
And mingling closer hour by hour
Enclose ere long a sabbath bower.
There shall the Father oft at even
Entone some ancient hymn or story
Till earth once more grows bright as heaven
With days of long past glory,
When Truth and Honour ranged abroad
To cleanse the world from Force and Fraud;
When Zeal was humble; Hope was strong:
And Virtue moved alone the angelic scourge of Wrong!
VI.
O happy days! exhaustless dower
Of spotless joys and hours well spent
Renewed while moons their radiance shower
Upon the Acacia's silver tent,
Or airs of balmiest mornings thrill
And swell with renovated play
The breasts of children, childlike still
And innocent alway.
O'er them light flit our woes and jars
As shades o'er lilies, clouds o'er stars:
Even now my fancy hears the cooing
Of doves from well-known perch or croft;
The bees even now the flowers are wooing
With sleepy murmur soft.
Glad home, from menial service pure!
Thee shall no foreign wants obscure:
Here all the ties are sacred ties:
And Love shines clear through all, and Truth asks no disguise.
VII.
Kings of the earth! too frail, too small
This humble tenement for you?
Then lo! from Heaven my song shall call
A statelier retinue!
They come, the twilight ether cheering
Not vain the suppliant song, not vain,
Our earth on golden platform nearing,
On us their crowns they rain!
Like Gods they stand, the portal
Lighting with looks immortal!
Faith, on her chalice gazing deep:
And Justice with uplifted scale:
Meek Reverence; pure, undreaming Sleep:
Valour in diamond mail:
There Hope with vernal wreath: hardby
Indulgent Love; keen Purity;
And Truth with radiant forehead bare:
And Mirth, whose ringing laughter triumphs o'er Despair.
VIII.
Breathe low! stand mute in reverent trance!
Those Potentates their mighty eyes
Have fixed: Right well that piercing glance
Roof, wall, and basement tries!
Foundations few that gaze can meet:
Therefore the Virtues bide with few:
But where they once have fixed their seat
Her home Heaven fixes too!
They enter now with awful grace
Their acceptable dwelling-place:
In tones majestical yet tender
They chaunt their consecration hymn
From jewelled breasts a sacred splendour
Heaving through shadows dim.
The rite is done: the seed is sown:
Leave, each his offering, and be gone!
Stay, ye for whom were raised these walls!
Possession God hath ta'en: and now His guests He calls.
