The Seven Days, or the Old and New Creation :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Seven Days, or the Old and New Creation

By the author of "The Cathedral" [i.e. Isaac Williams]

Williams, Isaac (1802-1865)

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THE SEVEN DAYS, OR THE Old and New Creation.

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THE SEVEN DAYS, OR THE Old and New Creation.

Invocation.

O Thou that dwell'st in uncreated Light,
Whose habitation is eternity,
In unapproached glory infinite,
Father, and Son, and Spirit, One and Three,
When things were not Thou gavest them to be,
Setting them bounds of form and time and space,
And call'dst them good.—Grant me in them to see
And speak of Thine own goodness; by Thy grace
To read in them Thy will, through them to seek Thy face.

For these Thy works that on our senses crowd
Are syllables that speak the Eternal Mind,
Could we but read aright; but such a cloud
Our mortal vision dims, like men half blind

We stretch our hands to Thee, and cannot find;
Yet round Thy throne one chaunt of mystery
Sing all Thy works and answer sad mankind,
“The well of endless life it is with Thee,
And in Thy Light divine man too the light shall see.”

THE FIRST DAY. The Light.

ARGUMENT.

The creation of light on the first day emblematic of the true Light of the city of God. On the same day the Resurrection of Christ; the descent of the Holy Ghost; the Revelation of St. John. These symbolic of the final Manifestation. Light and heat before the sun suited to the development of vegetable life. Types of the New Creation the subject of these poems, rather than marvels of natural philosophy. Light before the sun representative of the true Light which lighteth every man before the Incarnation. The final separation between good and bad set forth in the dividing of the light from the darkness. Indications of sensible light without the sun in Scripture; the burning bush; the light of Goshen; the pillar of fire; the Shechinah; the light seen by St. Peter in prison; by St. Paul; by St. Stephen; by St. John. The illumination of Baptism.

The spiritual light now filling the world; its various developments; the type and antitype blending; unearthly light on Sundays flowing from the mind itself over creation. A village Sunday; the Church; the School; the Churchyard. The Sundays of past life; in childhood; at School; at College. St. Augustine conversing with his mother on the eternal light of God's presence.

MORNING.

I

Day of the light, new Day, immortal Day,
Bright harbinger of Day that knows no night,
Of days the first and last, whose golden ray
Is but the emanation of that Light,
Too glorious to be seen by mortal sight,
Which lights the unseen City of our God;
Day of all days, and light supremely bright,
Ere Morn and Eve their watch alternate trod,
And hung their lamps in Heaven with holy silence shod!

II

He spake, and thou wert nigh, with flowing robe
Unspeakable in radiance to invest
The morning of Creation, o'er the globe
Floating; ere yet the moon had lit her crest,
Or sun had left his mantle on the west;—
And thou when sun and moon shall be no more
Shalt light the glorious City of the blest;—
Light of the Lamb, that through th'eternal door
Didst burst on the dark world, and thy full day-spring pour.

III

Day of the Light, new Day, that upward springs
Bearing a new Creation from the tomb,
And Immortality upon thy wings,
Light of the Lamb; from the sepulchral gloom
Emerging, Heaven and earth dost thou illume;
Sabbath of Sabbaths; first of all the seven;
The first and last, until the day of doom,—
The Day to which the seven-fold light is given,
Last of the days of earth, first of the days of Heaven.

IV

Day of the Light, new Day, risen once again,
When seven times seven had fill'd the destin'd chime;
God's Tabernacle come to be with men,
On that due number'd Pentecostal time;—
The burning effluence of the eternal clime,
In tongues of Fire beheld, whose lambent flight
Ran to the heart, upward from thence to climb,
Divine irradiation, given to sight,
Building in man's deep heart the City of the Light.

V

Seven-fold shall be the light of that great Day,
Cloth'd with the seven-fold Spirit's burning beam,
Cloth'd with the Sun;—the uncreated Ray,
The Fountain from which flows the seven-fold stream
O'er all the week; the Day—the Day supreme
Because the first of days;—after the seven
Into itself returning; your high theme
The hallowed circuit of the days of Heaven;—
The Day known to the Lord; Light that shall be at even.

VI

“Day of the Lord,” new Day, when burning lips,
And His bright Presence Whom all shadows flee
Reveal'd to John the dread Apocalypse,
Of great realities which are to be,
Creation with the robe of prophecy
Investing, as with morning's twilight ray,
Ere barriers which now hold the eternal sea
Shall usher in the new and perfect day,
Hidden in Christ so long, Whose chariot wheels delay.

VII

O awful words that speak of this our state
Of mortal life as darkness and as night,
Wherein the good in dread expectance wait
The coming in of everlasting Light;
Which shall like lightning clothe, and bring to sight
Things of this darkness! None the power can tell
Of that Light dwelling with the Infinite;
This first of days, like some bright sentinel,
Ranges around the place where lights eternal dwell.

VIII

O awful bursting in—the endless ray—
Of that Regeneration! He Who then
The separation made 'twixt night and day,
The irrevocable word shall speak again;
Children of light and darkness amongst men
Be parted by an adamantine bar,
By Him Whose words for ever shall remain,
Like good and evil angels set afar,
While here the day and night wage their perpetual war.

IX

Now the new world, by sin yet undefil'd,
Well-pleasing found in the all-seeing eyes,
Up to its great Creator look'd and smil'd;—
As smiles an infant, while it helpless lies,
Responsive on its mother, smiling plies
Its gladden'd limbs all motion; calm and bright,
As in the breaking of the vernal skies,
Such smile hath something of celestial light,
Radiant with innocence from regions out of sight.

X

Morning of mornings, fairer than the dawn
Which ever since hath greeted mortal sight,
In all its blooming radiance thinly drawn
Along the eastern ridges, silver-white,
Then golden-tinged, then amethystine light;—
Decking the world which in her cradle lay
Emerging in vast outline from the night;—
Of morning's first and fairest, till that ray
Whose rising shall precede the everlasting day!

XI

Then Time first mounted on his silent car,
And like the cloudy pageantries of heaven
To his appointed setting from afar
Majestically moved; then first was given
To mark the entrances of morn and even,
The circuits of Time's wheels that onward roll;
Ere the starr'd heavens were on their courses driven,
And all the things of this created Whole,
Which hand in hand with Time are travelling to their goal.

XII

Those cloudy pageantries with semblance fraught
Arise from nothing, and to nothing tend,
Scatter'd by the bright sunbeams into nought;
But, as they move, still with their movements blend
And shape out things more stable without end,
In mimickries sublime, a moving mass:
So things of time as they to life ascend,
Arise from nothing and to nothing pass,
Of stabler things unseen may be themselves the glass.

XIII

But as the sea with his ten thousand streams
Spreads his broad arms the genial earth around;
Or as the sun sends forth his living beams
Which through the world with life and light abound;
So of Thy goodness, Lord, the deep profound
Doth flow through all Thy works, and still remain,
Bearing to end of time the cheering sound,
Though on them all hath pass'd the sinful stain,
And in their praises blends an undersound of pain.

XIV

Ere out of nothing rose this world so fair,
Before the ancient mountains had their birth,
Or watery seas hung floating in mid air,
The varied year, and year-encircled earth,
The chambers of the east or wintry north,
Wisdom convers'd with Thee, and from Thy rest
And secret endless sabbath issued forth
In giving life Thy love to manifest,
On all Thy works out-pour'd, e'en like a radiant vest.

XV

Straight at Thy word the lumination came,
Swift as the echo to the voice replies;
And through all space went forth the flowing flame;
Such light as in the diamond dwells, and lies
In all the jewel's fair varieties,
Or phosphor evening flames; such ample room
Finds in all stones, woods, waters; from our eyes
Hiding around; and at the Day of doom
Shall issue at that word with warrant to consume.

XVI

Like the sweet dawn—ere yet the morning sun
Opens his palace door with golden sway,
That awful Shechinah o'er all things shone
With luminous wave elastic, its own day
Creating, as it roll'd its mighty way;
For thus with all-pervading light combin'd
All objects as they drink the inflowing ray
Derive their hues and nature, and entwin'd
With seven-fold rainbow tints ethereal beauty find.

XVII

Pause of awakening life, while yet the Earth,
Like embryo in the womb ere being stir,
Gradual took form and kindled into birth;
Thus plants are nurtur'd by the genial air,
The light and heat and humid atmosphere,
Ere they can bear the sun's own glaring eye:
Slow the sweet dawn, and slow the vernal year,
Ere heaven's round fire in full intensity
Looks down from his high tower on the meridian sky.

XVIII

I speak not how this globe then launch'd in space,
And turning on its axis caught the ray;
And, as the eyelids on some morning face,
Open'd and clos'd the portals of the day;
What intervals of time began their way;
Nor of the harmonies in nature's shrine,
Their marvels, and their golden-link'd array;
But rather that philosophy divine
Whereby the hand of God hath mark'd their outward sign.

XIX

For when the worlds were out of nothing wrought;—
Like bubbles gilded with prismatic rays
Pois'd in mid air, then vanishing to nought,—
In going forth of this the first of days,
All the unravelling of the troubled maze,
And last return to Thee was in Thine eye,
When from the womb of time Thou shalt upraise
A new creation, a new earth and sky,
When all shall be one day of light and harmony.

XX

“Let there be light,” said God, and there was light;
God saw and bless'd—the first of all the seven,
And morn and evening mark'd the day and night;
Ere the bright orb was set in the mid heaven,
Or stars came thick upon the brow of even;
Such was the opening world, mysterious space,
Mirror of faith to contemplation given,
Wherein as in dark waters we may trace
Footsteps of God made Man, and awful things of Grace.

XXI

For what was this, the light which God first made,
But the faint shadow of the Holy One,
Whose uncreated beam hath all arrayed?
And what doth God call good, except thereon
He see the image of the eternal Son,—
The Lamb which washeth all things with His Blood,
Slain ere foundations of the world begun,
Whose counsels from eternity have stood?
In Him alone beheld whatever is is good.

XXII

His comings and His goings thus have trod
Ever in silence, nor can eye presume
To know or search the secret things of God;
Yet rays of light His footsteps may illume.
'Tis He that lit each traveller to the tomb,
And 'mid the heathen darkness did disclose
Life's path, dividing 'tween the light and gloom,
The Arbiter of hope and sweet repose,
Ere yet the Sun of life on Sion's hill arose.

XXIII

Ere yet the Light shone forth upon the earth
Orb'd in the Sun that rules our nether day;—
And He who is of everlasting birth
Within the Manhood cloth'd His living ray,
Hiding His Godhead in our house of clay.
But since reveal'd on Tabor's hallowed height,
Thence our Incarnate God He leads the way,
His countenance reveal'd to human sight,
Within His written Word the all-transcending Light.

XXIV

Light Uncreate that walk'd our earth below
And His Own Self upon the creature pour'd,
Till we new life in His own essence know;—
The Light that lighteth all men,—Light ador'd,
And in Himself adorable,—One Lord,
Light unapproachable, within whose seat,
Wherein the everlasting year is stor'd,
Creation, Easter, Whitsuntide all meet;
Light of the Father, Son, and holy Paraclete.

XXV

And haply, floating o'er the illumin'd globe,
Those emanations of created light
Which clad His goings forth, as with a robe,
May speak of those who after the last night
Cloth'd with His righteousness shall come to sight;
Himself shall put them on, in them shall come
With glory o'er all worlds, calm, tranquil, bright,
And in the resurrection from the tomb
Go forth in them and tread impervious on the gloom.

XXVI

And we—or they—who now without the door
Stand with our lamps, and through the even-tide
Tend on the radiant drops, which from the store
Of Pentecost in vessels frail abide,
And fall on gathering shades on every side;—
If then admitted to the Light, shall see
The King in His own beauty, and the Bride,
When sins and shadows shall for ever flee,
Crown'd with that golden crown—His own eternity.

XXVII

Thus light and shade, and day and night, awhile
Together blend in regions of our sight,
Shed or withdrawn as the Creator's smile:
For God made not the darkness, but the light,—
Set them asunder by the caves of night,
And in their goings made apart to dwell,
Diverse in their approaches and their flight,—
Alternate each in its sublunar cell,
Till the ne'er-ending Day itself is visible.

XXVIII

For God made not the darkness, made not sin,
Which is but absence of the glad Serene,
But doth its goings order, and begin
His own eternity to set between,
Divider 'tween the light and dark, and seen
As Sun of Righteousness, whose after-sway
Shall part them, bidding Judgment intervene,
On His left hand or right shall set for aye,
The wicked and the good—the darkness and the day.

XXIX

But all things to God's children gracious are;
The darkness is but season for their rest,
Sweet interchange of labour, time for prayer,
And contemplation; making manifest
The things of Heaven; the cloudy shades are blest
With dews refreshing; stern adversities,
And wickedness around them, fill the breast
With heavenward wings; experience hope supplies,
And God in mercy hides their future destinies;—

XXX

Hides in Himself that they to Him may turn;
As wakeful eyes to see the dawn arise,
If they thereon a streak of light discern;
And looking love the more, and loving prize:
As maiden turns to watch her mistress' eyes;
Our ignorance, our doubts, our inborn care;
The shade, the cloud, the dark that marks the skies;
They are but needful change to waken prayer,
For such as to the grave a sinful burden bear.

XXXI

When from his lantern dim the radiance breaks,
It opes the wanderer's pathway 'mid the gloom,
And scatter'd shadows his companions makes;
But should he reach some high o'er-arching room,
Which lights of some great festival illume,
He stands reveal'd unto himself and all:
Thus pales with man, when he hath pass'd the tomb,
The light that led the way, so faint and small,
Extinguish'd in the blaze of that celestial hall.

XXXII

By what electric circle shall the Light,
Like lightning, clothe us round; or from within
Come forth, and all our hearts reveal to sight;
Like some clear mirror, all that erst hath been
Bring forth, and every thought and deed of sin;
That wonderful epiphany, to sense
Unknown, unfelt, unthought of; but akin
To morning after night; when we go hence,
And spirit stands anew all live intelligence!

XXXIII

What eyes shall then come round? Oft fever-fir'd
The memory brings to sight things buried long;
Or the disorder'd senses are attir'd
With keener powers than human; ear and tongue
And eye that nearest may to us belong,
Lost to the power of reason and of love,
May clothe themselves with revelations strong;
Like witnesses unearthly from above,
Shewing what living lights may all around us move.

XXXIV

Light instantaneous, swifter than the wind
It travels through the regions of all space,
The sound of its own transit leaves behind,
Darts from the Heaven to earth with trackless pace.
Father of lights, Thine eyes in every place,
Thus awfully our goings forth surround;
And from the Heaven of Heavens looks down Thy Face,
Ere of Thine awful Voice we hear the sound;
Thine Eyes within our heart watching in light profound.

XXXV

They who Light's paths “as in the day” have trod,
And the all-seeing Eye around them brought,
Must tremble to awake and see their God;
Light itself speaks of Him; Light is, if aught,
The spirit's stole impalpable, like Thought
With movement so ubiquitous, where'er
The Will hath its unconscious impulse caught,
In presence simultaneous it is there;
Its whereabouts itself like one great Everywhere.

XXXVI

Without us and within us there is light,
Yea, as the sparks within the flint-stone hide
Till call'd forth thence by man, withdrawn from sight
Unharming and unharm'd within abide,
Till thence whole forests blaze on every side.
And round about us, from our sight conceal'd,
There hidden lies the inevitable tide
Of light created, which hath oft appeal'd
To human sight and sense by miracle reveal'd,—

XXXVII

Come forth from worlds that are beyond the sun,
Or lie about us deeper than his rays;—
Such Moses saw when flaming fires o'errun
The hallow'd Bush with their unharming blaze;
Such the dread light o'er mystic Israel stays,
With the Egyptian darkness compass'd round;
Such did through night the Pillar'd Guidance raise,
To lead along the wild's untrodden ground,
And in the holy Mount a dwelling-place hath found.

XXXVIII

Such into Peter's prison, like the moon,
Enter'd serene, in silence of the night;
Such by Damascus in the blazing noon,
Above the sun in his illumin'd height,
Encircled Saul, and mantled as with night
In its exceeding brightness; such from high
On saintly Stephen shed the unearthly light,
When he gaz'd up to Heaven, about to die,
And caught the beams that there shine everlastingly.

XXXIX

That Countenance on him who erst ador'd
In sea-girt Patmos, its last look bestows,
Upon the day of Light, Light's living Lord;
E'en like divinest music at its close;
Or as the Day-light sinking to repose,
Its rays still lingering on the western sky,
Caught by the moon which o'er the hill arose,
When the last words of dying prophecy
Spake of the Son of Man and of His coming nigh.

XL

Daughter of God, the earliest, eldest born,
First of created things! e'en now how sweet
Are all thy comings, like the early morn,
Before thy face Despair and Sadness fleet,
Thou tread'st the clouds, which 'neath thy radiant feet
Pass into nought; thou art Joy's emblem, nay,
Thou more than emblem, nurse, or parent meet;
Nature all gladdens 'neath thy genial ray,
And the heart freed from care in thee keeps holiday.

XLI

Noah—the Eighth—from comfort nam'd! Thou art
The eighth day's light, which to each part hath pour'd
The glowing circumcision of the heart,
And the new birth hath in the spirit stor'd.
Let there be Light, said God, and at His word
Light was; for thus again, when Earth and Sky
Shall be renew'd in glory of their Lord,—
One moment, “in the twinkling of an eye,”
Shall be the last great Light to shine eternally.

EVENING.

I

'Tis evening;—Light of lights, with us abide,
For without Thee whate'er this world afford,
'Twere “without form and void” on every side:
But Love brings down the presence of her Lord,
And all illumines with the Living Word;
As when 'mid hallow'd dews the morning sky
Itself hath on the face of nature pour'd,
And all the landscape's broad variety
Enters and imag'd lies upon the wandering eye.

II

And diverse as the drops of silver showers,
Sparkling on blades which drink the morning dew;
Or as in field, grove, hill, the varied flowers
In topaz, amber, emerald come to view.
Or as in heaven the stars diverse of hue;
So where the everlasting Light divine
In God's mysterious ways shall Saints renew,
Diversely in their order shall they shine,
Like jewels of all hues in the celestial shrine.

III

E'en now the peopled world's circumference
A Light there fills which is not of the sun,
Radiance of truth, which with the outer sense
And visual orbs hath small communion;
That emanation from the eternal Throne
More subtle than the sunbeams, whose pure ray
Through times and seasons uniform and one,
Through clime and place from east to west doth stay,
And like the lightning fills the circuit of the day.

IV

E'en now from side to side, from end to end
The dread illumination is outspread,
From east to west the lightning wings extend,
And like the resurrection from the dead,
Upon the rear of darkness seems to tread
The type of Omnipresence; from Heaven's gate
Descending all about our path and bed,
All things to bathe, all interpenetrate,
Bright as ten thousand suns the Eyes that on us wait.

V

As rippling eddies on the smooth still ocean
Their circles within circles spread around,
So from that central orb in ceaseless motion
Extend the magic circuits without bound,—
The floods of light, and move the depth profound:
Or gathering all into its own repose
Like far-extending sweet harmonious sound;
Or like if petals of a blooming rose
Infinite space within its bosom might disclose.

VI

The light without combines with light within,
Of which it is the semblance to our eyes,
Clearing the reins from darkness and from sin;
As when the fiery tongues came from the skies,
Into the heart of hearts, which hidden lies,
Entered the glowing Pentecost; the Flame
Carried the tongue within, Divinely wise;—
Fill'd with the effluence from whence it came,
The flower of living Light—God's everlasting Name.

VII

And what if interchangeably might blend
The Antitype, and as it fades and dies
Mutual and mutable unto the end,
Lead on its beautiful varieties,
In the Autumnal hues and evening skies.
As young Tobias to his sire was given
To guide his aged steps and nighted eyes;
While, as the morning star comes forth at even,
His father shewed the way and led his son to Heaven.

VIII

And even thus the Sundays of our life
A something from the eternal Light have worn,
And rise above the week-day sin and strife;
As range of distant hill-tops catch the dawn
While shadows wrap the vales and upward lawn;
As yet the sun from our close-bounded sight
Within his morning chambers is withdrawn;
E'en thus a something of unearthly Light,
Blending with Love Divine, rests on those Sundays bright.

IX

That Light unspeakable within the soul
Doth kindle its affections as they rise,
Mould, and imbue, and fashion, and controul,
Imparting life to all their qualities;
E'en as light visible, where'er it flies
O'er wide creation, doth itself diffuse
In every thing around on earth, sea, skies,
Endless diversity of living hues
Their combination blends, and with its grace endues.

X

Like flickering of the Great Day's chariot-wheels
Are these our Sundays, oft as each returns,
While more and more Light's onward course reveals,
And nearer and more near its presence burns;
Faith's practis'd eye the glimmering ray discerns;
And hears at intervals the coming roar.
Meanwhile as evening falls, Repentance learns
Walking with Him her darkness to deplore,
With Him who lived and died, and liveth evermore.

XI

Blest day of Light! your morn is risen again,
The village is all motion, son and sire,
Mother and child, through pathway, field, or lane,
Wind their slow way to where you ancient spire
Lifts o'er the autumnal trees its golden fire;—
Together wend and for a while forget
In peaceful thoughts which upward would aspire
The business of the world, the toil and fret,
In the calm House of Prayer, where rich and poor are met.

XII

It is a little emblem here below
Of that eternal City in the skies,
Which needs not sun nor moon therein to glow,
For there His light the mystic Lamb supplies;
A better light than that of morning's rise,
The light which with our darkness long hath striven;—
In Prophet's scroll, in Psalmist's melodies,
In Evangelic voice of sins forgiven;
For music, light, and love, is all we know of Heaven.

XIII

“The Lamb the Light thereof;”—O Day of Days!
Lift up your heads on high, and backward roll,
Ye everlasting doors, with songs of praise!
The Guest of sinners enters now the soul;
The Light of light, the living Altar-coal,
Heaven's kingdom shrin'd within; Refiner's fire.
Sanctify body, soul, and spirit whole,
Transmute, remould, remake us, make entire
A vessel meet for Thee from this terrestrial mire.

XIV

Now 'neath yon roof o'er-hung with sheltering trees
Wisdom reveal'd to babes stoops from above,
And gathers little children round her knees,
Whose angels see God's face; the light of love
Which unto them a sheltering charm may prove
Against the statesmen's fine-spun homilies,—
Statesmen, who thus the evil world would move;
I know no greater wisdom 'neath the skies
Than daily to unlearn the learning which they prize.

XV

As birds, which on the sky's blue vault withdrawn,
Or mount, or grove, or field, tumultuous throng
With their small harmonies, and fill the dawn,—
Unconscious imitate the matin song
Which warbled once from the angelic tongue,
When “sons of God” first hail'd the new-made skies;
Thus childish notes which to this Day belong
Are little types of those vast melodies,
When angels saw the Lord of Ressurection rise.

XVI

Why are the poor so bright in their array?
Because they are the children of the King;
This is His court and His great holiday;
Therefore their best they to His service bring.
Ye bees, put on your bright apparelling;
Ye lilies of the valley, lift your heads,
Your sun spreads o'er you his own healing wing!
Ye ladies and rich men in costly weeds,
The glaring world each day alike your lustre needs.

XVII

Nor less of wisdom now with light serene
Rests on yon solemn church-yard; where the sun
Now casts more slant his beam, perchance is seen
Some loiterer 'mid the graves, where one by one
They that pass by shall lie down, their work done
Or left undone for ever. Wisdom there
Her warning points anew from stone to stone,
Speaks to the eye in sterner character
Her lesson read in vain to the unwilling ear.

XVIII

In stillness now declines the autumnal noon,
The yellow leaves are waiting for their fall,
And from the hill looks down the rising moon;
Winter suspends his summons over all.
Now groups awhile are gather'd, great and small,
Now homeward part;—childhood, old age between,
Manhood and youth. A sweet and solemn call
Hangs o'er the stillness; hallow'd is the scene,
The awful yet-to-be blending with what hath been.

XIX

And haply then on wings of parting day
From evening bells and heavenward-climbing tower
Is heard the solemn music far away,
As if it would pursue them with its power,
And enter every home and cot and bower
With its indwelling sweetness, on the ear
Still lingering when the holy day is o'er;—
As o'er the scatter'd village standing near
Lengthens the hallow'd shade ere yet it disappear.

XX

Blest Sundays of our life, with other suns
Ye seem in memory o'er the week to shine,
With something of a glory which o'erruns
The stains of youth, unsullied as divine:
Like suns that take no stain though they have lien
'Mid things most foul and earthly, or appear
Playing on snows, when they their place resign
For purity that fled they leave a tear,
And in remembrance live most sternly, sadly dear.

XXI

Ye little ones, that shine above the seven,
The first-born children of the golden light,
And image upon earth the day of heaven;
Gathering ye lead us onward through the night,
And form the milky way that shines most bright.
Rightly may I your solemn voices own,
Ye little ones, whom it were death to slight,
For on you rests a hallow'd benizon,
Admitted to approach the nearest to the Throne.

XXII

The Sundays of our life, like stars aloof
Ye seem to disappear, and then when fled
Ye stay, and gather on Heaven's vaulted roof,
And in the dead of night with noiseless tread
Ye come, and stand around my trembling head,
Like guests from other worlds, and drawing near
Ye seem to speak with voices of the dead,
“Your lives are gather'd with us; year by year
Why were we sent? and why did we to you appear?”

XXIII

The Sundays of our life, ye pass us by,
Yet in remembrance live, and put on light,
Like witnesses which after death come nigh;
And haply oft forgotten, to our sight
Come forth again in weakness, or as night
Of age draws on, or death, neglected throng,
Of youth and childhood speaking now aright,
And pleading how we thoughtless did you wrong;
How many thrilling sights and scenes to you belong?

XXIV

What recollections in your tuneful bells
Live on, and recognise the Sunday sound?
Upon my earliest years your shadow dwells,
And where that ancient Church by mountain ground
Stands massive as the sea and hills around,
Dove-like seems hovering o'er my infancy;
The Day of Heaven came down in calm profound,
And as it lay at rest on mount and sea
Religion was alone the great reality.

XXV

Next where that Church upon the tree-girt hill
Look'd out from far on London's crown of towers;—
How deeply does their Memory linger still
And rise at interval of solemn hours;—
Or in night-dreams, may be, when sickness lowers,
O'ermantled with a stole and shroud of light,
Crown'd with a diadem of faded flowers,
Bright, yet whose brightness is like that of night,
While her head drops with dews that on her breast alight.

XXVI

The Sundays of our childhood disappear,
Yet are like tokens of a mother's love
Priz'd most when lost, and in remembrance dear
Tho' toy'd with while they lasted. O above
All mother's love, as heedlessly we rove,
With such compassionate care to set the bound
To tide of week-day thoughts;—awhile remove
Youth's buoyancies, to set on stable ground,
Our feet upon the Rock, and bid us gaze around!

XXVII

Then 'mid those haunts of Academic shade
How peaceful were your intervals of rest,
If rest ye could be call'd which gently laid
Your hand of sweet compulsion on the breast,
That fain would turn awhile from works unblest
To those which doubly bless with their repose
The giver and receiver, and impress'd
Their own more softening shadow, ere it goes,
On the still student's heart which its own sorrow knows.

XXVIII

But more than all I love your memories now
Because your week-days all, ye ancient bowers,
May be like Sundays of our life below,
Gather'd from this world's din 'mid sacred towers,
May give to prayer and praise the passing hours,
One blessed Sabbath all, one hallow'd day;—
With saints of old to talk, and make them ours,
Better to know and love—to love and pray,
And praying more to love, and so wear life away.

XXIX

On Sundays of our life so may we climb
O'er things of sight and sense, which see the sun,
Into that Light which was before all time,
Before the things of sight and sense begun,
And still to be when they their course have run;
When we shall know and we ourselves be known;
When love is lost in blissful union,
Of chaste and lowly souls the living crown,
And God Himself the Light which never goeth down.

XXX

By space and time incomprehensible,
The Light of Truth, the Light of Righteousness,
Wherein the pure in heart with God shall dwell;
That vision which is endless blessedness;
Which not a shade can sully or make less.
That Light to us were dark, and death condign
Our overwhelmed spirits would oppress,
Were it not that the Light is Love divine
Which on Christ's face doth aye, as from its centre, shine.

XXXI

But since the Light—the Vast—the Infinite—
The great Ineffable of boundless blaze,
To our weak senses were o'erwhelming night,
Lost in the astounding ocean of Thy rays,
Thou circumscribest Thine Almighty ways
To meet us—no vast Infinite afar,
But countenance of love that with us stays;—
Thou art Thyself “the bright and morning star,”
Fairest of gentle sights, Day's golden harbinger;—

XXXII

Bethlehem's own Star in the benighted soul;—
Thus e'en the Sun from his meridian tower,
Seems to come down unto his western goal,
Tempering with evening clouds his blazing power,
That we may gaze upon his parting hour,
Inviting us to converse with the sight:
And fair descending to his cloud-wrought bower
Imagination clothes with wings of light,
To sail 'mid burnish'd clouds beyond the day and night.

XXXIII

And if the passing light thus moulds at ease
Such semblances which into nothing flee,
Then what must be those blissful palaces,
Where Thy redeem'd for ever dwell with Thee?
Light opes the unmeasur'd vast of air and sea;
The mirror of eternal charities;
The golden pillar of the mystery
Which overhangs our being from the skies;—
The House that ne'er decays thereon all hidden lies.

XXXIV

On such an eve with thee at Ostia's seat,
Great Austin, gazing on the illumin'd West,
In contemplation lost and converse sweet,
And prelibation of approaching rest,
Sat saintly Monica; then doubly blest
With thee twice-born, twice usher'd from the womb,
The brand pluck'd from the burning to her breast,
To be a star that sets not o'er her tomb,
Shedding a glorious light to furthest Christendom.

XXXV

From step to step, sublime to more sublime
They pass'd, on meditation's burning wings,
Beyond the boundaries of earth and time,
From things of sight to pure imaginings,
And contemplation of the blissful things
Which are with Thee; and like a bird that flies
Catching the light—now more—now less—now brings
Its path in sight—now lost in distant skies,
They pass'd in thought beyond the reach of mortal eyes;—

XXXVI

Beyond where sun, moon, stars their path have trod,
Beyond created things and outward sign
Into the secret silence of our God,—
In blissful acquiescence, to recline
Beside the eternal Fount of Truth divine—
The pastures ever green—the living well—
Pleasures at Thy right hand—for ever Thine—
Whereby Thou feedest Thine own Israel,
In unapproached Light where Saints with Thee shall dwell.

XXXVII

Ye busy tumults of the flesh, be still,
Ye fantasies of earth, and sea, and air;—
Silent, ye heavenly Poles;—thou mortal will,
Be silent in thyself, hush'd every care;—
Ye dreams and revelations, and whate'er
Of tongue and outward sign, or sound, or strain
To speak of Him are made exceeding fair!
“Soon shall we pass,” they say, “we are but vain,
But He Who all things made for ever doth remain.”

THE SECOND DAY. The Firmament and the Waters.

ARGUMENT.

The mystery of waters; Baptism; the Well of life; man's daily need of ablutions: the gift of tears; the veil between the visible and invisible; our world the outer court of the Temple with beasts for sacrifice and profane crowds. Waters above the firmament called on to praise God with us. Whether the firmament may be this lower atmosphere; or the material universe; or the spiritual heavens. Mystically understood of the Written Word; Clouds, of Angels and Saints; among whom as amid Clouds the final Advent will be. Other sensible symbols; the Rainbow; the Thunder; the Snow; Rains; Dews. Beauty and charm of waters on account of their being types of spiritual good.

Ignorance of man; the elements counterpoise to each other; waters restraining fire; their abundance in seas, rivers, in all vegetable and animal life. Miracles in Scripture setting forth obedience and division; seen also in tides. The judgments of God; His footsteps in dark waters; morally considered and applied. The Deluge, and the Rainbow.

MORNING.

I

Obedient to the All-creative Word
Around our feet, beneath, and over-head,
On multitudinous wings and ways out-pour'd,
The mystery of waters now is spread;
And much, full much the cleansing flood we need,
As from the courts of Light we now descend
Into the dust of days, and weekly tread
The dry dull paths of death. O to the end
Wash us in all our works, on all our ways attend,—

II

Well of Baptismal waters, Fount of Light
Dwelling with God; wash feet and hands and heart;
Each hour of day, and after dreamy night;
Our hopes, our fears, affections, every part;
At home, abroad; in city, field, or mart;
Wash us and deep descend into our soul;
And thou, celestial Stream, whate'er thou art,
River at God's right hand, O gently roll
With Thine all-healing power upon our being whole!

III

For man the waters are on every side,
Without the living waters he must die,
The waters o'er, around, extending wide—
The waters—without them for ever nigh
Man enters not the palace in the sky.—
Thou, Well of Life, be with us where we go,
From step to step thy healing streams supply;
And while we tabernacle here below
The smitten Rock within the heart shall overflow.

IV

Man only day by day ablution needs,
Not that without alone, but that within;
From whence to him the sacred gift proceeds
Heart-cleansing tears,—tears that may cleanse from sin
The mother of our sorrow; and therein
Fountains of grace are open'd and appear;
Of all things sin hath left and grace may win
There nothing is more precious than a tear,
Making the offering due, on which it falls, more dear.

V

“Blessed are they that weep;”—and “Jesus wept,”
Who for us all the Fount of cleansing bears,
E'en when He went to waken one that slept;—
And thus to us unto the end of years
Hallows the sacred mystery of tears:
Waters above and waters are below,
For good or evil sorrow thus appears;
The waters from above He bids to flow,
And sets on godly tears His covenantal bow.

VI

Beauteous the portals on this nether sky
Of the ethereal Temple; where are seen
The wondrous curtains which are hung on high;
There safe from blasts which shake this world of sin
The golden Candlestick; and far within
The Holy Empyrean; on each hand
The service of adoring Cherubin;
The hosts of Heaven in lucid order stand,
Waiting to hear His voice and move at His command.

VII

There is the secret sanctuary of Heaven
Within the veil, too holy, and too fair
For mortal sight: but unto us are given
Hail-gendering halls and turbulent gross air,
Wherein the murky Thunder hath his lair,
Where Day and Night their shadowy range have ta'en,
And courser of the clouds with snow-white hair,
The outer courts where mingle crowds profane,
The sacrificial herd,—the knife,—the strife,—the pain.

VIII

There far from regions of our solar height
“The firmament,” where crystal pillars rise,
Hidden with God above all mortal sight,—
The Heaven of Heaven in the mysterious skies,—
The palace where His arch'd pavilion lies
'Mid the divided waters; whose bright floor
Is pav'd beneath with starry galaxies;—
Such as mankind as through a darkling door
In distance may descry—the great eternal shore;—

IX

Such as our Sun upon his star-girt throne
Discerns afar in Heaven, seen through the dark
On the ecliptic or the glistering zone,
Luminous chains and golden stairs that mark
The outskirts of the abyss, where the true Ark
Waters above and waters hath below;
Where all our universe seems but a spark
From that celestial Fire;—more than we know
Worlds of material life, which in their order glow.

X

Ye Heavens and Powers of Heaven, Angelic choirs,
Thrones, and Dominions, Hosts that fill the sky,
Intelligences pure, Cherubic Fires,
Ye Waters o'er the firmament which fly,
And thou, the glorious Firmament on high,
All praise and adoration are your ways,
While through the Heavens continual voices cry,
Order itself a sweet melodious maze,
And your obedience is a never-ending praise.

XI

And they who walk the Babylonian flames
With their small voice would join your heavenly song,
And be enroll'd among your blissful names;
Like ye yourselves in that obedience strong,
By which the ancient Heavens are ever young;
And with them in their praises shall be found
The Son of God walking the fires among;
And the good Spirit with fresh watery sound
“Like a moist whistling wind” encircling them around.

XII

Though knowledge be not ours—we little know—
In duty and obedience we may rest,
And join your everlasting songs below.
To you in beatific vision blest
In God Himself all things are manifest:
Or that glass Sea the mirror may afford,
The pure Crystalline by no cloud oppress'd,
Wherein ye learn of the Creating Word,
See what no eye beheld, hear what no ear hath heard.

XIII

But lowliness were meet for mortal blind;
That firmament and waters who can tell,
Unless he read in the eternal Mind?
Whether it speak of Heaven where God doth dwell,
And of Angelic Powers invisible
Securely set o'er firmament on high,
'Mid the dark waters unapproachable;
Or rather o'er our head the aerial sky,
The blue-arch'd housearound reveal'd to mortal eye?

XIV

This lower-vaulted dome—the inconstant rack
And the four chambers of the winds that ride
Bearing the clouds upon their wingèd back
From Iceland to the Ind;—where the moons hide—
Where thro' the dark looks down Heaven's twinkling pride,
Where o'er us bends day's blue—red—golden bow—
Cradles of rosy morn—sweet even-tide—
Where the night-dew his liquid pearls doth stow,
Where the Heavens seem to weep for sins that are below.

XV

Or be they Oceans that with crystal case,
Above the reach of elemental war,
With their broad arms the heavenly orb embrace,
Whose out-post is that fiery-seeming star
Which hath bright-blazing oceans for his car,
And mocking at what men call space and time
Comes looking on our centuries from far:
Mysterious visitant, with torch sublime
Searching the furthest nook of the ethereal clime!

XVI

Or may be o'er that firmament were stor'd
Spiritual worlds which then were given to be
“In the Beginning” which is Christ the Word;—
So ancient Wisdom deem'd the mystery,
Divided by the immutable decree,
Which spread its everlasting arms between;—
The invisible which we in faith descry,—
The waters and the firmament unseen,
Speaking of things to be in things which once have been.

XVII

O writ on earth and Heaven by God's own hand,
The beauteous language of the new-born soul!
Still as He guides her to the unseen land
He ever round her pathway doth unrol,
His living-pictur'd and illumin'd scroll
Magnificent in wisdom; and from sense
As the soul travels onward to its goal,
The shadows into substance shapes, and thence
Doth more and more unveil His own Omnipotence.

XVIII

All nature bears the impress of calm might
Majestic and resistless, yet whose sway
Is so serene withal and soft to sight,
As if with sternest obstacles at play:
At breath of Prayer e'en mountains pass away;
Giant in strenght, yet gentle as a child;
As the white clouds in some blue summer-day,
In their stupendous masses upward piled,
Moved by the silent air invisible and mild.

XIX

O beautiful—most beautiful, the Blue,
And White condensing, lit by the bright rays,
What awful soothing wisdom at the view
Enters the soul—as upon you I gaze!
And unto them who deeper pass in ways
And things of God, they more and more unfold,
And still their own sweet converse with them stays:
The House-holder hath treasures yet untold,
And brings from out His store the things both new and old.

XX

To them “The faithful Witness” is in Heaven,
The Sun of Righteousness on waters shed,
The Sacramental sign of sin forgiven.
Or sacred lore that speaks in saintly dead
Would make the firmament above our head
The Written Word; so beauteous, sweet, profound,
Though oft by clouds obscur'd, yet o'er us spread,
Where'er we go encircling us around,—
“The crystal terrible,”—the love that knows no bound.

XXI

Or what if mystic Wisdom understand
The firmament of blessed Powers above,
Celestial angels born at that command;—
And the divided waters Saints that move
In glory, taken to the place of Love,
Dropping sweet influence like honied dew
O'er Saints that are below, whom trials prove,
Both of Baptismal waters born anew,
And by death parted ere Thy kingdom comes to view

XXII

Such are the Clouds that drop on Sion's hill,
And seem to rest on Carmel's height; from thence
On Hermon's top their silvery dews distil;—
Prophets that bear celestial influence,
Stewards that living mysteries dispense;
And such the Clouds when with unnumber'd wings,
Seen in bright gold and dread magnificence,
The Son of Man His final coming brings,
Armies of Heaven that tend upon the King of kings.

XXIII

And haply therefore morn so oft reveals
'Mid gorgeous pageantries the lord of day,
Making the burning mists his chariot wheels,
When Heaven's bright ordinance throngs all the way,
His comings and his goings to array;
Nor is there aught more glorious given to sight
Which gentleness and majesty portray,
Than when the Heavens are moving in the light,
Cloud upon cloud pour'd forth in multitudinous flight.

XXIV

For as the Sun with manna-dropping clouds
Tempers his rays our feebler eyes to meet,
So Christ His visitations ever shrouds
'Mid holy men, in intervention sweet,
To shadow, shelter, soften; by His heat
Draws them all His approaches to attend,—
“Maketh the clouds His chariot,” round His seat
Multiplies Saints on Saints unto the end,
Till thousand times ten thousand with Him shall descend.

XXV

It was that sight o'er this ethereal ball,
When clouds on clouds in show majestic move,
Taught Homer of the Grecian Isles to call
Heaven's Power Supreme a “cloud-compelling Jove.”
And a strange augury of things above,
Playing with symbols deeper than it knew,
Mysteriously portray'd the Queen of Love
As born from ocean all things to renew;
Regenerate Earth and Heavens from Baptism rise to view.

XXVI

Who shall declare the clear crystalline Sea
Which is in Heaven; and round about the throne
The Rainbow like an emerald? what may be
The Rainbow—seeming crown, which circling shone
O'er Him whose countenance was like the sun?
What that which cloth'd Him like a radiant cloud?
In thunder speaks the fourfold cherub one;
Seven Thunders talk articulate and loud:
On nature's face around those living symbols crowd.

XXVII

The Rainbow and the Thunder both have place
Among the waters o'er the firmament;
Both are as lights from the Eternal's Face,
Both are as voices of the Omnipotent.
But one the messenger of peace is sent,
One the deep-pillar'd world with terror shakes;
But Love full oft her radiant bow hath bent
And comes to view when the dread thunder wakes,
And o'er the nighted world Light Evangelic breaks

XXVIII

In “Sons of Thunders;” then it needs must be
The voice of thunder is the voice of love,
For love is terrible in majesty
When it neglected wakens to reprove;
And the great blissful coming from above
Like lightning opens from the East to West.
Words like the sounds of thunder seem'd to move
Which spake to Christ from Heaven; on Tabor's crest
Like lightning was His Face; like snow His radiant vest.

XXIX

Thence from His treasure-house “the snow like wool”
He bids descend, Himself the mantle brings
On winter's breast serene and beautiful,
While all the atmosphere is fleecy wings,
Starry-white plumes, soft downy coverings,
Hexagonal; the nitrous robe outspread
Silently penetrates the womb of things,
While nature, like repentance, seems half dead,
And waiting for new life upon her wintry bed.

XXX

Heaven-born, baptismal robe, ethereal proof,
Wrought in the skies, where crystal threads combine,
And pure aerial fingers weave the woof;—
The Word, the Water, and the Breath divine,
It back returns not void. In hidden shrine
Of God's omnipotence the showers have won
New fleecy robes which in the sunbeams shine,
Creation in her nakedness puts on
His Gospel, and the robe of the Eternal Son.

XXXI

As vanishes away the shining snow
Seasons of grace, on ready-plumèd flight,
As God shall bid them thus they come and go.
White clouds, white-falling snow, white moon at night,
And the white stars on silver watches light:
White is the Horse and He that sits thereon,
His armies on white horses clad in white,
White was His hair, and white His shining throne,
And all His Saints the robes of snowy white have won.

XXXII

How beautiful the glistening pearls illume
The morning ere they take ethereal wings,
And vanish to the place from whence they come,
Like the fresh thoughts which every morning brings.
So full of wisdom are material things,
And mysteries divine disclose or hide
Ere yet the Visible to being springs;—
Wisdom which sat by the great Father's side
Conversing, ere the birth of the Eternal Bride.

XXXIII

Ye Oceans that are wandering o'er our heads
On the light-flowing air; thou Firmament
With golden flocks, at God's command which shed
Soft distillation, to each flower-bell sent
Whose azure cup with thankfulness is bent,
And drinks; and ye that o'er us ever move,
Rivers of blessing, ye shall not be spent,
But visit still the mourner from above,
That hides his head unseen but by all-seeing Love.

XXXIV

That dew celestial on its drooping leaves
Is cherish'd best when hidden, and the shade
Keeps from the garish sun what it receives
From Heaven; your gentle and descending aid
Ne'er fail'd to fall upon the heart that prayed,
In power and verdure rising manifest;
An Eden in the wilderness is made;
While “walking through dry places, seeking rest,”
The evil spirit flies the haunts that ye have bless'd.

XXXV

There to the thirsty homeless traveller
The desert vapors put on shapes benign,
Fresh watery lakes before his eyes appear,
Crown'd with fair trees that on the banks recline,
And cities bright upon their bosom shine.
So the false fiend that walks the burning sand
Semblance portrays to mock the trustful eyne,—
Such scenes of Paradise and heavenly land,
Which only on the banks of streams Baptismal stand.

XXXVI

But who shall speak thy wondrous goings forth,
Like some sepulchral spectre of the night,
Thou nam'd Aurora of the ill-omen'd north,
With lustrous train sweeping the aerial height,
Blood, gold, and flame; in men's bewilder'd sight
Riding on the meteorous canopy
To counterfeit the morning's blooming light;
Like that false Church which Time's dark night shall see,
Upon whose burning brow is written “mystery.”

XXXVII

Still ever moves some shadowy thing behind,
A cloud—a weight—a power, kindling with fire
The firmament, yet viewless as the wind;
Luminous arches, higher and yet higher,
Or falling stars come forth, red lance, or spire,
Or fiery column: meanwhile walks unseen
Some power electric, puts on burning tire,
In worlds where sense and spirit intervene,
And shrouds itself behind the wild ignifluous screen.

XXXVIII

The curse of ill is “Heaven above as brass;”—
And earth below as desert-blasted heath;
Or heavenly doors that so no cloud can pass
Shut up, but opening at Elijah's breath;—
Emblems of grace redeeming souls from death
Are Joseph's blessings of the gushing hill,
“Dews from above and deeps that couch beneath;”—
The way-farer that travels on and still
Goes on “from strength to strength” and “pools which waters fill.”

XXXIX

Then wonder not so fair the liquid hues
And draperies, that dress the circling skies,
When morn or eve the ambrosial tints diffuse,
Or white-blue noon upon the welkin lies;
As many colour'd are the aerial dyes
Which tinge those pendant waters, as they flee,
As if all hues which in the garden rise,
Or the hid treasures of the earth and sea
Had lent to the blue vault their colour'd jewelry.

XL

But those bright colours on the welkin lying
Fast as the fading effluence comes and goes
Are in a moment changed, each moment flying,
To teach us that enduring sure repose
The City hid beyond them only knows,
Whose gates are symbolized by gems most rare;
God bids His radiant atmosphere disclose
Something of loveliness beyond compare,
Possess'd alike by all, to speak those mansions fair.

XLI

So fast they change and come again to naught,
As if some angel painter on the face
Of the broad Heaven essayed his skilful thought
In all the colours which our world can trace,
Then each and each he hurries to displace
As all unworthy to express his mind,
Brings a black void again upon the space,
Then strives anew, yet ever fails to find
From such materials base to speak what he design'd.

XLII

Nor less on earth below the waters take
Such fleeting forms and floating semblances
Whose pillars at the coming sun-beam shake,—
Glaciers of snow and ice-born palaces,
And Alpine mountains turn'd to hanging seas,
To speak of pureness, power, and majesty;
Or falling Niagaras: what if these
Are given to speak of things beyond the sky,
Waters that range above the firmament on high.

XLIII

Ye Waters, what strange magic in you lies,
Bearing a youthful freshness in your sound
And in your sight, whene'er on earth or skies
Ye meet us, and whate'er your shape is found,
Or forms ye take, whether as Clouds abound
Before your march the south-wind blows his horn,
Or in fair hues careering soft surround
The car of Even, or the gate of Morn,
Or slow on mountain sides in dark-wing'd shadows borne:

XLIV

Or in the main that speaks Omnipotence,
Or in the streams that meet us, mighty river
Sweeping with power of waters, or sweet sense
Of rippling rill, still murmuring on for ever,
Or thundering waterfalls, whose pathways sever
Rocks after rocks—down falling—steps that shake
The mountains; or like calm after life's fever
The placid glass of hill-embosom'd lake,
Wherein the Eye of Heaven is evermore awake.

XLV

Is it some hidden sense of sins forgiven,
Some secret of our Baptism makes them wise
Beyond their natures, like the face of Heaven
Which in their liquid lapse reflected lies;
And with their passive substance blends the skies,
Beneath their deeps now resting and now fleeing;
And thus unconsciously the charm supplies;
Some living power which, unseen and unseeing,
Strange sympathy awakes 'neath our mysterious being?

XLVI

Since when o'er waters mov'd the Spirit blest,
Upon the waters Its own hallow'd home,
As broods a bird on her enamell'd nest,
And spreads abroad her life-inspiring plume;
The dove-like glory hovering o'er the gloom,
Infusing life into the formless mass
And power of being, ere yet from the womb
Brought into light:—we gaze, and in the glass
Shadows of our new birth before us darkly pass.

XLVII

Sweet is the rise of Day when first new-born
It opes the bright portcullis; clouds withdrawn
Like eyelids which o'er-arch the eyes of Morn,
Fringe the soft opening of the silver dawn,
Then pierced through with light, like airy lawn
Vanish before the Day, whose golden star
Pales his bright circlet, as the shadows yawn
Beneath his striding feet, the moon afar
Shews o'er the starless blue her solitary car.

XLVIII

Such was our Childhood's morn, from clouds of Heaven
Unbarring the dark portals of the soul
It issued from the waters; then 'twas given
To view around her the material whole
And lucid orbs of Heaven, and for that goal
Deep inborn aspirations; then on high
To watch the watery worlds themselves unrol,
Melting and moulding the ethereal sky
To diapason sweet and solemn harmony.

EVENING.

I

Mortal, didst thou stand by when first Heaven's roof
God wrought on high—those sapphire palaces,
Moulding the air to adamantine proof?
Didst thou behold Him when He hung the seas
On their ethereal pillars, there at ease
To range and pasture? Knowest thou, O man,
Who set the Clouds on airy balances?
Did God communicate to thee His plan?
And shall a worm be bold Omnipotence to scan?

II

Then humbly walk amid the mysteries
That shroud Creation's rise. And O thou vast
Of unimagin'd waters; and ye skies
Where on this second day thy footsteps past,
Spirit of boundless oceans, and were cast
Cerulean bars between, aerial space,
Which onward till the Day of fire shall last,
Save when shall ope Heaven's windows in their place
With ocean doors allied, to hide a guilty race.

III

Then upward sprung Heaven's fine o'er-arching wall;
Four elements below began to move;—
Flame borne aloof with tongue pyramidal,
Quadriform Earth, and Airs, and Floods that rove;
Whose laws discordant leagues of union prove;
While the Fifth upward rose to Heaven assign'd
Guarding from death, quintessence pure above;
But weak the wings of our terrestrial mind
In that clear height to soar, that element to find.

IV

Yet as four elements our substance blend,
And hold in bodily life the ethereal soul;
E'en so from that beginning to the end
Four elements make this material whole;
As the same wax will varied forms unrol;—
While Waters hold with strange encircling band
And thro' all pores the mighty flames control;
The Fire still watching at the door doth stand
To burst forth—and devour when God shall give command.

V

Such range of waters at creation's birth
O'er-canopy the void, or fill the womb
Of nature, blending with this lower earth,
Else would the all-conquering fires before the doom
Drink up the moist, the world herself entomb
Before the time on her own funeral pyre;
To hold, to bind, to quicken, or illume,
And beautify creation both conspire,
While through the liquid wave runs universal fire.

VI

Thus as they blend in their harmonious strife,
And balanc'd in proportions fill or fail,
Flourish or fade forms of material life;
For He Who holds the universal scale,
That neither element too much prevail,
In number weight and measure all things weighs;
As air bears on the full-embosom'd sail,
As dry with moist, with dew-drops crystal rays,
So mingling with all life a living ocean strays.

VII

Thou treasure-house of waters, wherein lie
Great fountains and abysses of the deep,
Within whose bosom mighty oceans vie,
Mother of far-spread seas, and the great sweep
Of waters, where the living thunders leap,
The Caspian and the Baltic's inland roar,
The dark-blue Adria in her summer sleep,
The huge Pacific waste, late-travers'd o'er,
And that from Atlas nam'd rocking from shore to shore,

VIII

And pole to pole! And ye far wandering floods,
In which a flowing ocean onward flies,
Wave upon wave in ceaseless multitudes,
Dividing earth as with great arteries,
Which hold communion with the seas and skies,
Rivers of mighty name, where navies ride,
To streams unnumber'd with their melodies,
O'er which the mountain-boy at ease may stride;
From Mississippi's sweep, or Ganges' kingly pride,

IX

To those ten thousand tides of rill and river
In every nook of earth which speed and throng,
Seem flowing on and flowing on for ever.
How sweetly, how majestic, calm, and strong,
The body of clear waters hastes along,
As if instinct with life, and thought, and will.
Filling the mountain-sides with cheerful song,
While from each rocky pass or hanging hill
Hastens itself to yield each tributary rill.

X

Hence too pervading moistures such as hide
With all material life, together blend,
Flow through their thin recesses, and abide
In labyrinth meandrings without end,
In vegetable pores upward ascend,
Life-giving saps and quickening streams that run
From stock to branch, from branch to leaf extend,
And all spring's varied liveries put on,
Or fill blood-teeming veins in all that see the sun.

XI

So vast upon this nether world outspread
The magazine of waters here below,
Ere Earth had from their bosom rear'd her head,—
Her green head 'neath the blue ethereal bow.
Nor less the mighty waters bid to flow
O'er the serene above, the azure roof
Hanging with curtains fair that come and go,
Where light and wave combine to weave the woof,
And spread in beauteous halls their tapestries aloof.

XII

What images of boundless majesty,
The armies of the Heavens, they onward go,
Now seeming to pursue, and now to flee,
Now as if waiting for some unseen foe
Marshal gigantic powers, and stalking slow
O'er the blue welkin. Now advancing flock,
Marching and counter-marching to and fro,
And then as if the peaceful Heavens to mock,
Encountering face to face with earth-astounding shock,—

XIII

The big drops fall, the rushing floods come down:
As if in monstrous semblances and show
To imitate on high the gathering frown
And clash of armèd multitudes below.
Vain thought! those watery hosts of Heaven, they flow
At nature's beck, to do their Maker's will;
Mysteriously His voice they hear and know,
Moving, or hurrying on, or standing still,
And never flag nor fail, His orders to fulfil.

XIV

They hear in Heaven Him Whose Almighty word
The waters from the waters did divide;
And that same Voice on earth the waters heard,
Bidding the Red Sea stand with clamorous tide,
And hold a glassy wall on either side,
These to lead forth, and those to overthrow,
A watery sepulchre of human pride;—
That we might mark how His behest they know,
How at His word they stand, and at His word they flow.

XV

Lo, the soft seas on sapphire-arching wall,
Like living portals, rais'd on high, they stand
On curv'd crystalline waves, ready to fall,
The fast-careering tides together band
And hang, with billows upon either hand,
While the Diviner Presence is between;—
The Cloud, the Ark, the Mantle. The command
Which once in things invisible hath been,
Is ever and anon in dread respondence seen.

XVI

The Word went forth; stretch'd was the hallow'd Wood;
The Waters heard, divided, and were stayed,
That men might walk between the roaring flood,
“The waters saw Thee, and they were afraid.”
Yea, that dread Voice at which they first were made
They heard again, when on the angry storm
The rein of His commands Christ gently laid;
They heard the voice of God, and saw His form,
Cloth'd with the flesh of man, and with his life-blood warm.

XVII

And that dividing Voice e'en daily now
Is heard on every shore, that Voice that cried,
“Hitherto and no further shalt thou go.”
Heard and obey'd in every flowing tide;
Setting on earth and on Heaven's circuit wide
The mirror of sublimer mysteries,
Obedience and division, to abide
For ever in man's final destinies,
In that new Kingdom where his own true being lies;—

XVIII

Of that division which shall be above,—
Of order and obedience speak their ways,
Instinct themselves with law at which they move;
Their own Creator's voice within them stays.
Man only hears His voice and disobeys,
Or hearing hears not. Order, love, and awe
Interweave all around a living maze;
Within us and without us there is law,
A witness on each side: he cannot thence withdraw.

XIX

But though man disobeys, yet as a drop
In white-fleec'd flocks above which compass round
The Shepherd of the skies, man cannot stop
The dark abyss unfathom'd and profound
Of God's great Judgments, awful “as the sound
Of many waters”—onward borne, and still
Like multitudinous waves together bound,
They syllable His voice, and do His will,
Obey or disobey,—His counsels they fulfil;—

XX

His counsels shall evolve eternal good,
As from the turbulent tumultuous mass
Creation at His voice in beauty stood:
So headstrong multitudes, that onward pass
Unto the grave, are to the wise the glass
God's judgments to disclose on every side,
And His own righteous kingdom. But, alas,
To us in waters deep His steps abide,
And from our sinful eyes in clouds and darkness hide:

XXI

Or faith were faith no more, but blissful sight,
Which now is sorely tried; hard to control
Our faltering steps while we behold no light,
Sorrow the way and sin obscures the goal.
But 'mid the water-floods that o'er us roll
Oft nigh to overwhelm us, and appal,
No anchor is there for the unstable soul
But that Almighty love embracing all,
To know how great is God, and we ourselves how small.

XXII

But Moses didst Thou take within the cloud
There to behold Thy glory; to the good
To see Thee in Thy judgments is allowed;
The cloud becomes illumin'd; light-imbued
Itself leads onward; 'mid the shades is viewed
Becoming greater; when by sorrow tried
Thy ways to them are better understood,
The Darkness that surrounds them is their guide
They ask not, need not sight, but love Thee and abide.

XXIII

The ways of God are in the marble seas;
But when thereon the light descends, to them
They but disclose their hidden palaces,
Their precious things, and many a secret gem,
Jewels that pave the new Jerusalem.
Thus to behold awhile it may be given
Deep things of Providence, but soon o'erwhelm
Clouds that obscure the tranquil eye of Heaven,
Darkness is on the deep and o'er the waves is driven.

100

XXIV

Like voice of many waters, all confused,
Tumultuously the footsteps o'er us sound
Of God's dark visitations, good abused,
Evil triumphant, with their dread rebound
Laying some holy home upon the ground,
And suddenly with a tempestuous sweep
Cherish'd remembrances and hopes are drown'd;
Thy Judgments like an overwhelming deep
Pass o'er me—low I bow—I tremble and I weep.

XXV

But 'tis the Light more than the Dark therein
That awes our spirits, when with lightning fall
God's judgment opes to us the paths of sin
Which we unheeding trod; around recall
Remembrances and circumstance of all;—
Till sudden stern inflictions, as they move
Into life's daily order, they appal
No longer, but themselves harmonious prove;
And sorrow's voice itself becomes the voice of love.

101

XXVI

Like many waters sweet and musical,
Life in the sound and love; sweet to retrace
Such Providences dark which seem'd of all
Severest; fall'n on some familiar place
Again, and then again, a little space,
Rushing of waters bearing to the ground;
Above—the dark avertings of Thy Face;
Until at length the maze is all unwound,
That Thou in him of love hast something worthy found.

XXVII

For thus have I beheld one more and more
Weigh'd down to earth as by a Hand severe,
Within him and without him crosses sore,
Stern visages of sorrow gathering drear,
And severing from things man's heart holds dear;
Until at length I saw the mystery,
Him to Thy Cross Thou wert thus drawing near,
That he might fix thereon a loving eye,
And 'mid the blessed Dead beneath Thine Altar lie.

102

XXVIII

Or gathering round some holy family,
As in some ever-green embosom'd nest,
Watchers divine are gazing,—there to see
How sorrow as it passes makes most blest;
A Holy Shadow seems thereon to rest,
As if the Child of Nazareth had been there;
Or Bethany drew round her honour'd Guest:
And such a home were a continual prayer,
For Angels sure are near, such peace hath fill'd the air.

XXIX

But in this scene of mutability
With subtle and slow steps the world deceives;
Beside the living waters grows the tree
Oft drooping with its spray, as one that grieves,
Yet fragrancy and healing on its leaves.
Then silently an alien graft by stealth
Within its hidden bosom it receives;
And now it is no more a shade of health,
But courts this world's bright sun,—all vanity and wealth.

103

XXX

Thus oft what well began will end in sin,
And sinful lost declensions often tend
To a remedial afterward; therein
Judgments of God and ways of men so blend
Beyond all comprehension; some descend;
Some fall—then rise toward Heaven; all seem to tell
“The first as last, the last as first shall end;”
As from a “cloudy pillar” seems to swell
A Voice which cries aloud of that dread parable.

XXXI

'Tis so upon the individual road
In shrine or hearth retir'd; nor less so when
His Providences walk the world abroad,
Their steps are in dark waves, no human ken
Can trace the whence or whither; evil men
Corrupt and sore oppress the Guest divine
That sojourneth among us; she again
Looks upward, holds 'mid clouds her hallow'd sign,
While trampled to the earth with shame her children pine;

104

XXXII

For that “oppression makes the wise man mad,”—
Mad to the world in seeming foolishness,
Yet haply wise to God, and render'd sad
In wisdom; soon the clouds that most oppress,
When God lays still His wind, shall fall and bless
With riches true from Heaven: the loving mind
Waits, for she knows such mists are but the dress
That veil diviner visits, and behind
Disclose their forms of light upon the wandering wind.

XXXIII

Thus now the flowing Century looks back
Emerging, as she passes from the cloud,
And sees behind the light-illumin'd track,
As one arisen from a sepulchral shroud.
To Europe and the nations 'tis allow'd
To view unveil'd the long tumultuous war
That shook the earth; and from the hurrying crowd
Of dark events that mingled from afar
The Watcher now looks forth, like some bright Evening star.

105

XXXIV

When France that worshipp'd Self was given to prey
On her own vitals; glory was her shame,
Which meteor-like had turn'd to seeming day
Her night of outer darkness. Russia came
And made her strength to be the Almighty name,
Leaning on righteous Providence, her shield
Was He Whose Name is “Wonderful.” To fame
Of impious Frederick Prussia's power appeal'd,
And trampled lay beneath the war-horse in that field,—

XXXV

Then she unlearn'd that strain, and loving thee,
Louisa, Queen that pray'd, thou and thy wrong
Wert in that war her shout of victory,—
Thy name that was upon the soldier's tongue:
Austria, her lineage vaunting, suffer'd long:
While Britain in that strife on either hand
Made duty her own watch-word, and was strong,—
Watch-word of King and chiefs by sea and land,
And therefore o'er the foe victorious took her stand.

106

XXXVI

Since leagu'd with France, her ways of evil trod,
She waits the doom the righteous Judge thinks good,
From some more faithful nation, fearing God;
While ancient landmarks which so long have stood
Give way before the evil multitude,
And statesmen prone to ill. Meanwhile is heard
The voice of God above the water-flood,—
Their disobedience shall fulfil His Word,
And deeper than we see the mighty depths are stirr'd.

XXXVII

Again above the storm is heard sublime
From things of earth the chaunt inscrutable,
And borne along as a celestial chime
O'er rising of men's passions seems to swell;
As from the place of the Unchangeable,
With understrain of solemn mystery:—
It is the voice of that dread parable,
“The first the last, the last the first shall be,”
So sways the balance still of endless destiny.

107

XXXVIII

But if Thy judgments are like the great deep,
Yet like the strong-set mountains firm shall stand
Thy righteousness. Therefore no more I weep;
Thy love is like the pure circumfluous band
Of the blue Heavens; thither on either hand
And upward points Thy Cross. There is no sea
Deep as Thy Providence, yet thence to land
Upon that Wood which hallowed is by Thee,
We pass o'er the abyss of that great mystery.

XXXIX

Within that ark which walk'd the o'erwhelming sea,
Enshrining in itself God's Presence dread,
With Noah and his wondrous company,
Upon those mighty waters would I tread,
Waters below and waters over-head
And waters all around, with sea and sky
Commingling; awful horrors far outspread
Their raven wings' sepulchral canopy,
Whence Nature shall again uplift a reverend eye.

108

XL

And see, the glorious Bow lifts her bright arch;
Magnificent in beauty; and from thence
The light and water build their stately march
To Heaven; the covenant reveal'd to sense,
And bended by Thy hands, Omnipotence;
There doth the heavenly Archer stand in light,
And to all time his gracious shafts dispense:
Those faces of dread terror puts to flight,
As the Morn's rising beams scatter the shades of night.

121

THE THIRD DAY. The Sea and the Earth.

123

ARGUMENT.

The voice of the Sea an echo to the song of the morning stars at the foundation of the world. The formation of new worlds resembling interruptions of Nature's course by earthquakes and thunder. The natural movement of waters owing to the first command of gathering together. Their obedience to God renders their sounds pleasing, and motions healthful. The sea in its various aspects. Secrets of the deep, its saltness and its tides. Combined with evil since the fall. The sea to the earth, what sleep is to daily life.

The Dry Land. Its internal structure, geological and mineral. Mountains, vales, rivers, and woods. Forest contemplations. Manifold diversity in forests and gardens. The command to look to “the fig-tree and all the trees.” Various kinds of flowers in all climes. Their structure and distinctive character indicating the care of God in the human soul. The Lily, the Autumnal Crocus, the Rose, the Vine, the Corn fields. Climbing plants. Healthful and poisonous. Their lessons of God's providence and man's frailty. Christ the Tree of Life, in whom Nature is called on to rejoice. Solomon wise in nature's mysteries; his fall our warning.

125

MORNING.

I

Hark, with what eddying circles down time's river
Sweet hymning undulations without end
Are borne along—for ever and for ever—
While morning stars their songs melodious blend,
To see the Earth with hill and vale ascend
From the abyss of waters; mountain crown'd
And veil'd in mist, while from her sides descend
Numberless rivers to the deep profound,
And the great thundering Sea takes up the harmonious sound!

126

II

Therefore such dewy freshness still remains
In sounds of Ocean water, which along
From shore to shore that ancient song sustains,
Whose murmuring lapse and cadence ever young
With miracle of waters, sweet and strong,
Of full-voiced praise and adoration tells;
Great symbol of the Church's endless song,
The chaunt of the First-born that moves and swells,
The mystic Temple where God's holier presence dwells.

III

Then strongly based on ribs of adamant,
Like giant Andes or the Uralian chain,
The granite multitudes His Hand did plant,
Like shelly range on tortoise back, again
“At Thy rebuke” to hide beneath the main.
To her from Ocean-chambers issuing hail!
While her green robe floats over hill and plain,
And from her jewell'd brow the white mists sail,
Rises the Virgin Queen lifting her bridal veil.

127

IV

There is a music and sublimity
In your dread origins, as forth ye come
From your Creator's hand; like when the sea
Lifts up her glorious voice; or moons illume
The mist-envelop'd mountains 'mid their gloom
Walking in brightness;—thoughts which man beseem,
Joy and adoring wonder; in their room
Comes forth earth-delving Science with her theme,
Like telling in the morn of the sick worldling's dream.

V

As subterranean Thunders from below
Put forth their hands, shaking the earth and sea,
Some Sodom or Gomorrah to o'erthrow;
Or from their sulphur house all suddenly
To execute their warrant Lightnings flee;
Or hurricanes upon some village scene
Come forth in their long-thundering majesty;
So then in mountain-moving worlds serene
The voice of God was heard, the Almighty hand was seen.

128

VI

Then secretly with simultaneous awe
O'erflowing endless from the Eternal's Breast
Into all things enter'd their being's law,
With omnipresent guidance to invest;
Such as in after age, with glass-eyed quest
And manifold induction seeming wise,
Philosophy to sage might manifest,—
Causes, effects, and stern necessities,—
How waters downward flow, how air-wing'd flames arise.

VII

Whence have ye sprung, ye fountains, like the morn?
Why do ye haste? and whither speed along?
And why is never fill'd your watery bourne?
What hidden impulse urges you to throng?
And keeps your watery footsteps fleet and strong?
It is that Voice which, sleepless as the sea,
Is on you like a spell, and keeps from wrong,
“In one place let the waters gather'd be;”
Ye never cease to hear, nor, hearing, cease to flee.

129

VIII

Drop after drop, wave after wave, from steep
Falling to steep, while one drop hastes away
Another fast succeeds, till to the deep
All glide along; but if they move or stay,
What men call nature is that they obey,
And ever hear anew that first command:
As on alternate watch the Night and Day
First issued forth in course o'er sea and land,
And still for ever young that ordinance doth stand.

IX

'Tis that which renders sweet and musical
Voices of nature, that they but fulfil
Their Maker's first behest; in sounding fall,
Or liquid lapse serene of brook or rill,
Or lakes upon their watches standing still,
They are but echoes of the Eternal Voice,
But mirrors of His omnipresent will,
And that sublime obedience seems their choice,
Therefore they seem to live, and living to rejoice;—

130

X

Because with them to live is to obey;—
The Word within them in unbroken force
Is as a wheel that rests not, but whose sway
Is to themselves a law, whose guiding source
No after-reckoning knows and no remorse;
But with a power no let nor weakness mars
Wings globe or globule to perpetual course,
Sets their own bounds to wandering moon and stars,
And hedges in the sea with brazen bolts and bars.

XI

Because with them to live is to obey
Their great Creator, and in Him to rest,
Doing His will Who on their natal day
Look'd on them as they rose at His behest,
And call'd them good. Yea, should they seem impress'd
With alter'd will of God in other mood,
For chastening and for vengeance seem unblest,
And to partake of man's inquietude,
Yet are they relics still of that primeval good;—

131

XII

And bear within themselves in their decay
Symbols of good restor'd,—in embryo bear
Shapings and shadowings of regenerate Day;
As young of all live creatures which appear
A bloom from their Creator's hand to wear,
Belov'd and loving, hopeful yet and new;
Till grown familiar with our sinful air;
Then e'en in their decay will come to view
Types of a better world, substantial, endless, true.

XIII

Therefore I love you still, ye glorious Seas,
And as ye rise from Nature's genial womb,
Would read within you greater destinies,
Where lights from Heaven your watery vasts illume,
And open all your majesty and gloom;
Would read within you our Creator's mind,
And mightier things which are beyond the tomb,
For resurrection is in you enshrin'd,
And Love is o'er you like a radiant robe reclin'd.

132

XIV

Fresh from His hand as at creation's birth,
Thou image vast of the Omnipotent!
Ye beauteous watery arms encircling earth,
By salt within your secret springs unspent
Renew'd in youth and freshness, whence is sent,
From circling friths and fountains underneath,
To sunny isles and river'd continent
Savours of immortality which breathe,
Combining with the sun to renovate from death.

XV

And thou, great Ocean, what doth thee impel,
With mountain multitudes against the land,
Thus threatening on thy bed to rage and swell,
Then as remembering that Divine command,
Fall gently murmuring on the soft smooth sand?
That still small Voice, by thee heard evermore,
Makes the weak yielding sands to be a band
To bind the strong man in his wild uproar,
And lay him like a babe soft slumbering on the shore.

133

XVI

How sweet to watch the billow from its sleep
Far on the seas on pendent curve to rise,
Then cresting its huge belly on the deep,
Wave after wave careering, till it lies,
And on the strand in a soft whisper dies;
Or lash'd by winds up the rock's black'ning side
Scatters its silver spray, and whitening flies.
Sweet too to watch from far the circuit wide,
And blending with the skies its dark empurpled tide.

XVII

Gather'd sublime upon its watery heaps,
With high-o'erarching and cærulean bow,
The treasure-house of waters broadly sweeps:
How sweet to view from some Heaven-climbing brow
Where 'tween the opening mountains it doth shew
Like a huge serpent, with its dark-blue form
Emerging; and as if the world below
There wound about a live gigantic worm,
Basking with sun-bright scales, or blackening for the storm.

134

XVIII

As from the land we gaze upon the main
Why thus, like the chameleon's changeful hue,
Varies the mantle of the watery plain,
Murky, or white, or yellow, green, or blue,
Each rainbow tint in beauteous semblance new?
As God looks on the waters thus they prove;
Fears, joys, and consolations come to view;
And our Baptismal covenant of love
Changes its varied hope as change those skies above.

XIX

But who the secrets of the abyss hath found?
Where is the saltness gender'd? And what store
Bids it according to the need abound?
To temperate zones the most where needed more,
And less of saltness where the polar shore
Has its own icy bonds? What mind below
The lunar chains electric shall explore
Which urge the tidal motions? Who shall know
Why the vast watery worlds in westward courses flow?

135

XX

What eye of man, what solar gleam divine
Hath been to the foundations of the deep;—
Where valley, cave, and Alp, and Apennine;—
And corals of all hue that boundless sweep,
Like forests waving in a midnight sleep,
Where star or moon ne'er reach'd with pearly ray,
Nor wind hath stirr'd the unfathomable keep?
Like the starr'd Heavens they mock our feeble gaze,
To speak the All-seeing One and His mysterious ways.

XXI

And guesses of diviner truth may lie
'Neath those Arabian tales, of crystal walls,
Palaces submarine of other sky,—
And Grecian auguries of sapphire stalls,
Nereids and Gods and more than kingly halls,
And “ocean sire of all things” deem'd aright.
On Galilean waves a radiance falls,
Which hath those Heathen fables put to flight,
And left on the blue deep footsteps unearthly bright.

136

XXII

Not for thy seeming beauty on that day
Thy Maker on thee look'd, and call'd thee good,
But for the deeper wisdom which there lay,
Shadows sublime which on thy rising brood,
Of Him Who on thy troubled surface stood
As on a crystal floor. Oh for that key
Of David to unlock the water-flood—
The power of mighty waters and the sea
Hiding in unknown deeps the gems of mystery!

XXIII

O'er foam-topp'd heaving ridges, hollow vale
Of waters, billowy glens, and hanging cave,
As on his wild home sports the Heaven-born gale;
Thus thoughts on thoughts agglomerate, wave on wave,
Keep the soul fresh in motion, airs that save,
Salt founts of hidden grace. O speaking shore,
While sparkling sprays our lingering footsteps lave,
And the red sun flaming with radiant ore
Shines like a golden shaft upon a marble floor!

137

XXIV

Great living image of Eternity,
Like Heaven's blue depth at night! thus “as the sound
Of many waters” seem'd God's voice to be;
And as the waves which on the sea abound
The souls of men in God's own hand are found,
He moves them as He wills, within a deep
Where fathom of man's thought ne'er touch'd the ground;
Moulds them to speak His voice, His course to keep;
O symbol of the Vast, and Powers that never sleep!

XXV

To thee from scenes of this tumultuous life
Seek wearied men, and gaze where Ocean flows;
From the world's business and the stir and strife,
In Ocean's restless motion find repose,
His boundlessness and freedom;—from the throes
And yearnings of undying sympathies
That rest in God alone; the view bestows
Sweet soothing influence, for on it lies
His shadow in Whom hide their endless destinies.

138

XXVI

And still the freshening memories of that sight,
Oft with an innocent and pure regret,
Far inland where we toil, by day and night
Visit us, 'mid the fever and the fret,—
Of seas and skies in some soft image met,
When all the little billows are at play
In glistening exultations, as if set
To keep some shining summer holiday;
Or stirr'd by the black storm to some autumnal fray.

XXVII

Yet 'tis not all for good—the Bridal Queen,
Crown'd with the stars and clothed with the sun,
Sitting above the waterflood is seen;
But “the great Whore,” the mystic Babylon,
“Sitteth on many waters.” There alone
The cormorant on the rock stands in the sky
Preying on speckled victims he hath won,
While white-wing'd ships, on dove-like ministry,
Bear to benighted realms the tidings from on high.

139

XXVIII

It is not all for good—that serpent length
That winds around can bask and look divine,
But only to deceive, and shew his strength
Like the false world in shipwrecks; smiles benign
That lure and are not; hopes that sail and shine,
Then disappear. A time is at the door
When of these wrecks and storms shall be no sign,
The sea shall yield her dead and be no more,
Save that mysterious Sea upon the secret shore.

XXIX

Mirror of man within, O wreck divine!
All forms of nature which with us converse
Bear good and evil in their chequer'd sign;
And the broad Sea that lesson to rehearse
Blends with beatitudes the primal curse;
For weal or woe extending on each side:
It is the heart of this great universe,
Whose veins and arteries branch far and wide,
Rivers and flowing founts and circulating tide.

140

XXX

The Sea and Land divide this nether globe,
As through the circling year in every place
The Night and Day weave their alternate robe.
The Sea unfruitful spreads o'er empty space,
Yet quickens all the earth with sweet embrace:
O'er empty time thus spreads unfruitful Sleep,
Yet freshens all our life with dews of grace.
Both cherish, soothe, they both around us sweep,
And all life's dusty ways with dews celestial steep.

XXXI

Like a vast sea of being is our sleep,
Mighty, unfruitful, full of mystery,
In which the stars of Heaven as in a deep
Look down, and there are mirror'd; 'tis a sea
Where things that once have been, or are to be,
Converse with us and spirits come around.
Something it hath akin to Deity,
Spreading unseen in channels underground,
Whereby its freshening powers have our weak senses found.

141

XXXII

As first arising from the watery deep
The varied world beheld the encircling sky,
So this our life rises from formless sleep.
And without sleep our life were dead and dry,
Like desert sands of burning Araby:
In both through this our life which else were dead
The everlasting arms beneath us lie:
For Ocean is the earth's restoring bed,
Whose influence unseen is all around her spread.

XXXIII

And why from out the Sea's mysterious womb
Arose this order'd world which round us lies,
But that new worlds did in the distance loom
From the Baptismal waters to arise?
And why ere yet the sun was in the skies
Was life thro' vegetable kingdoms stirr'd,
With all creation's living energies;
But lest the creature's honour be preferr'd?
For light and life are Thine, Thou all-creating Word.

142

XXXIV

Then, music of the waters, lift your sweet
And solemn voices! let delight and wonder
Gaze on your roaring falls or rippling feet:—
Whether with flowing oceans burst asunder,
And thousand rushing falls above and under,
Some magazine of mighty floods down sweeps
The music of his waters, heard in thunder:
Or from the mossy rocks some fountain creeps,
Heard thro' the day and night, thro' night and day ne'er sleeps

XXXV

The music of its waters: or between
The winding banks some river, fleet and strong,
With sinuous lapse and soothing sound serene
Round some rude crag plies his low undersong,
The music of the waters; or among
Rocks lov'd from childhood on some wild sea shore
The billowy tide its pebbled sands along
Lifts up its frothy head and is no more;—
Music of waters still,—still lingering o'er and o'er—

143

XXXVI

The music of the waters,—sweet your sound,
Ye flowing waters, for where'er ye go
That first command unbroken still is found
In your glad voices, whether the winds blow
The sea's deep organ, rivers winding slow,
Hoarse water-falls, or rills that tinkling fleet;
But should the silent pool forget to flow,
There things unclean in lurid concourse meet,
And pestilence and death brood o'er the unhallow'd seat.

144

EVENING.

I

And now from Ocean—with her flowing tides
Heaving alternate from her hidden breast,
Like some huge animal whose ribbed sides,
Now swelling forth, now in themselves compress'd,
Inhale—exhale by turns; from her unrest,
And countenance of anger or of mirth—
We turn to thee with many-mountain'd crest
Lifting thyself to light, our parent Earth,
What tongue of man shall speak the secrets of thy birth?

145

II

As first beneath the uplifted veil reposing,
From seas emerg'd magnificent and new,
Mount after mount, vale after vale disclosing,
The mother of creation comes to view,
Cloth'd with the purple morn, with pearls of dew,
And streams like silver hanging on the steep.
Then rock to rock its watery trumpet blew
With torrents numberless that downward leap,
Like armed troops that haste their order'd ranks to keep,

III

At the loud signal's sound. Nature appears
Cloth'd infinite in her variety,
Beyond what thought of man thro' endless years
Could traverse or pursue; to clime and sky
Adapting each in wondrous harmony,
Profusion endless, tree and herb and flower,
Each in itself a world of mystery,
O'er mount, field, marsh; each as that Word of power
Hath gifted it with life and with life-giving dower.

146

IV

But He that clad the beast with dappled skin,
Beauty and colour, shape, and outward grace,
Hath set His wonders too its frame within,
Vertebral range and sinews: thus while face
Of nature hath been deck'd in every place,
That Voice Creative in earth's secret womb
Hath stor'd its marvels, which we darkly trace,
Cradles of adamant, basaltic room,
With starry bright arcades that light the nether gloom:—

V

Salt's subterranean realms—stalactic walls—
Marble-arch'd roofs, with pillar'd walks between—
Storied abodes within; nature's ceil'd halls—
Coal's sulphur belts,—metallic veins unseen,
Gold, iron, arteries of silver sheen,
And jewels rich with many hues, the eyes
Of purple amethyst, and emerald green,
Opal like morn, the ruby's evening dyes,
For uses here of earth, for emblems of the skies.

147

VI

Come let us range the subterranean vast,
Dark catacombs of ages, twilight dells,
And foot-marks of the centuries long past
Which look on us from their sepulchral cells
With speculative eyes, sea-bedded shells,
And strange anatomies of monstrous sight,
Where dark oblivion with the Mammoth dwells;—
Save dimly when tradition sheds her light,
And scares the secret realms of old primeval Night.

VII

Then glad emerge we to the cheering Day,—
Some sun-ranged height, or Alpine snowy crown,
Or Chimborazo towering far away
O'er the great Andes' chain, and looking down
On flaming Cordilleras, mountain thrown
O'er mountain, vast new realms which meet our eyes,
Prairies, majestic solitudes unknown,
Rocks, rivers, plains, where Orellana lies,
And mighty oceans blend with the far mightier skies.

148

VIII

Or further, where those Indian Isles adorn
The marble seas of Mexico, which sweep
And bask within the New World's golden morn,
Wall'd up to Heaven with verdant-hanging steep,
Like Edens of the wave, which seem to weep
O'er fallen man, drooping on ocean's breast;—
Like flowery baskets on the glassy deep,
Or some Elysian mansions of the blest
Sailing amid the clouds that purple the bright West.

IX

O'er tracts untravers'd, woods or plain or height,
Wide Orient wastes, or new Australian clime,
Man's soul expands into severe delight
Of awful ecstacy and dread sublime,
For then we pass to the new-born of time
Unconsciously in spirit, ere the rod
Of disobedience swept the tracks of crime;—
To climes that breathe fresh from the hand of God,
By mortal eye unseen, by mortal step untrod.

149

X

Hail, silent contemplations far aloof
From haunts of busy men! ye solemn Woods,
And pillar'd heights of branch-inwreathing roof,
Admit me to your shades and solitudes,
Whose towering glooms where endless Sabbath broods,
Communion move with immortality,
Symbols of holier worship, and abodes
Where the great Maker of the earth and sky
In His own House of Prayer to sinful man draws nigh.

XI

Thus God would compass with adoring awe,
Embodied in o'er-arching height, where sees
The Eye unseen, and to Himself would draw;
All silence, save where the obedient breeze
Makes sublime music, as it tends the trees
That He hath planted; or the falling rill
Goes on its task with softer melodies;
Or in some lake embosom'd 'neath the hill
Blending with downward skies the shadowy groves are still.

150

XII

But who shall tell their multifarious kind,
Nature, and form, and purpose, endless store
Diversified, for grace or use design'd,
For flower, or fruit, or fuel, roof or floor,
Or sea-borne bark to visit foreign shore;
While each from sun, earth, water, and bright air
Its inborn law developes evermore,
And clothes itself with varied character;
Obedience, order all, and harmony is there.

XIII

The Oak, late bearing leaf, long gathering strength,
Deep rooted, wide in majesty and power;
The Poplar o'er the groves in spiral length
Ascending, graceful Ash, and Cedar tower
Pyramidal, and Chestnut's orient flower;
The white-bark'd pendent Birch, sea-whispering Pine;
Lithe Aspen trembling after summer shower;
Willows that o'er the dead seem to recline;
The Ornus coral-bough'd; the solemn Palm divine.

151

XIV

And now as if in some ethereal land
The branching Elms are in the morning sky,
Distinct in their proportions, while they stand,
As if expectant of some mystery
In their sublime of stillness; broad and high
Built by long years; like skeletons they rise
In nakedness of winter dark and dry;
But all the glorious summer in them lies,
And Resurrection's power conceal'd from mortal eyes.

XV

Nor less the storied Cedars standing nigh,
Fresh in their wintry green above the rest,
Speak of an endless life that cannot die,
The emblem of the Just in their high nest
On Lebanon; the Palm with plumèd crest
Recumbent marks the desert's living spring,
Whose branches, when He came as Salem's guest,
Were spread 'neath feet of our Eternal King;
And now by white-robed choirs are borne where angels sing.

152

XVI

Add too with countless sylvan families
Fruit-bearing kinds which in each clime abound,
Cocoa, and Fig, white Almond, vermeil eyes
Uphung on Cherry boughs, and on the ground
The Orchard hosts each its own tree around;
Pomegranate then, and Date, lone friendly child
Of dry Saharas; and thy golden round,
Orange and Citron;—tables in the wild
Before the guests were born in rude exuberance piled.

XVII

“Behold the fig-tree,”—words of hallowed lore,
“Behold the fig-tree now and all the trees!”
They speak of Resurrection at the door,
And manifold in order and degrees
They set forth those on earth and in the skies,
Who drink beside the everlasting Well;—
And infinite in their diversities
In union of the Godhead ever dwell,
Three Persons and One God, One and unchangeable.

153

XVIII

Varied as sounds that speak of joy or grief
Each tree hath its own music with the wind,
As many-toned as note of birds; each leaf
Answers the breeze according to its kind,
As human accidents in diverse mind
Diverse affections move: varieties
Through the broad woods all form'd their place to find,
Strangely unnumber'd as the peopled skies,
They ask our love to God and plead His charities.

XIX

But who shall tell flower-tribes that fill the earth,
China, Peru, or Alp,—the universe
Thick starr'd with flowery nooks? Who tell their worth
Esculent or medicinal? diverse
In use, or form, or hue? their ranks rehearse
Botanic? and alike in every place
Eden's sweet graces bowing 'neath the curse
Through orders infinite? Or who shall trace
Their language more divine within the realms of Grace?

154

XX

O wondrous book of Wisdom, spread abroad,
Which all may read, to whom the eye and ear
For pilgrim meet upon his heavenly road
Is given, and love their best interpreter;
E'en as a loving child doth see and hear
Each look and speaking gesture unexpress'd,
The language of a home familiar sphere
Which stranger knows not, yet well manifest
In those accustom'd ways which speak a parent's breast.

XXI

And if each seed, herb, flower, beneath our feet
Is full of varied wonder, how much more
Each soul of man where God hath deign'd His seat?
And 'mid the unnumber'd multitudes that pour
In some great city, each hath its own store
Of thoughts, desires, affections; each an eye
Which with intrinsic hues and secret lore
Reflects within the omnipresent sky;
Each hath within his soul his own eternity.

155

XXII

The Hand that form'd the Heavens and choirs above
Hath left His marks within each flowret's breast,
Of all-sustaining power and endless love;
And as in flowers in form and fragrant vest
Their soil, and clime, and sky is manifest;
Thus diverse characters of form and mind
On nations, tribes, and families impress'd,
Scatter distinctive wonders on each kind,
Yet hath each inner self the all-seeing Eye enshrin'd.

XXIII

Within the wayside flower there is a world
Of mystery, a very sea or sky
Of wonders in its secret bosom furl'd;
As seen by Angel's ken, or mortal eye,
When mirror'd its recesses open lie
All-spangled o'er with beauteous characters;—
Like the blue vault in its immensity
With all its constellations and bright stars,
Or ocean's purple waste alive with silvery spars.

156

XXIV

It hath its galaxy, its starry Heaven,
Its rainbow in the optic glass reveal'd,
And glory to the summer sunsets given,
Enclasp'd with leaves which feed, adorn, and shield,
Whose branching veins in verdant veil conceal'd
Circulate vital streams: in each leaf found
The monarch of the forest or the field
Its storied miniature spreads forth around,
Made by the Hand Divine ere planted in the ground.

XXV

Such is the mystic Lily of the Vale,
White with the Bridal robe outshining kings,
With texture wove in Heaven that cannot fail,
And washèd white with Blood, by the new springs
Of Paradise, besprent with crystal rings.
Or widow'd Violet with purple hues,
In modest shades drooping its fragrant wings,
Which vernal Resurrection still renews,
And from its essence weaves with air and sunny dews.

157

XXVI

Why should I speak how that mysterious flower
Purpling the Autumnal meads, its virgin head
Uplifts, as leaning on some unseen Power,
Sublime in helplessness; its wondrous seed
Hiding below within its earthly bed,
Safe from the treading hoof, or winter's breath,
Regenerate power cherish'd among the dead:
E'en like the blessed Maid of Nazareth
Shrining that Life within which dying conquer death.

XXVII

And Sharon's Rose, life's mirror, Queen of flowers,
Its fragrant beauty girds around with spears,
Teaching us that a thorny fence embowers
Whate'er on earth a form of beauty rears.
But there a deeper mystery appears,
And He Who hath arisen the Only Good
Embalms to us those solemn characters;
For crown'd with thorns before mankind He stood,
In a red kingly robe, and cover'd o'er with Blood.

158

XXVIII

And who shall speak of Vines that spread and spring
(Mirror divine!) in sweet societies,
With cruciform embraces while they cling,
As setting forth fraternal charities,
Upward they climb, then seem among the skies
To say, “Our conversation is in Heaven;”—
With pendent drops half-hid, whose juices rise
From sour to sweet, like sense of sin forgiven,
With gold or purple gems that catch the autumnal even.

XXIX

The Corn-fields laugh and sing, on the glad plain
Heaven's breath descends, the multitudes untold
Wave like the billows of the wind-swept main:
First clothe the slopes with emerald—then with gold;
Thirty or sixty or an hundred fold:
Bearing that parable unto the end,
When on a shining cloud they shall behold
The gold-crown'd Reaper to the earth descend,
And to their final task His white-wing'd servants send.

159

XXX

For thus within man's heart on earth beneath
Lies hid the Heavenly Kingdom; first the blade
Through early frosts contending; then the sheath
Sheltering the tender flower; then ear afraid
Of winds severe or gentle, rear'd by shade
And sunshine; then the full-ranged stalk outspread,
Joy of the heart speaking of cares repaid,
As with its loaded treasure hangs the head,
In glad exuberance fill'd from one that once seem'd dead.

XXXI

The autumnal air with seeds of embryo life,
Swarms numberless, in berry, shell, or fruit;
Some drop into their sepulchre, all rife
With resurrection; some as in pursuit
Of fitter place on wingèd parachute,
Or feathery hooks adhesive seek to find
Their rest; that voice Divine is never mute,
The germinating life in each enshrined,
While God a body gives according to their kind.

160

XXXII

And who shall tell the plants which arborous twine
On other's aid their marriageable dower?
Some spring aloft, like scented eglantine,
And crown with flowery tops the matted bower;
Some clasp with sinuous arms; some lift a tower
Of spiral strength; some weave the umbrageous roof
O'er sylvan green arcades; some spread a shower
Of drooping leaves abroad, or hang aloof
Pendent with tapering plumes or bristling thorny proof;—

XXXIII

Flowers intermingling, whose enamell'd streak
Might vie with dripping Iris in the sky,
Or roseate colours on Aurora's cheek:
Emblems of faith some to Heaven's moving eye
Turn disk or leaf; some climb with suns on high
Westward—the Hop, the Bean, such healthful prove;
But backward twines poison's black Bryony;
Health those attends which as they climb above
Expand the Cross's form, the hallowed sign of love.

161

XXXIV

For not alone on root and leaf and flower
Hath God laid colour, form, and odours sweet,
But stor'd within them medicine's healing power,
Nurse of our sorrows. Nor I deem unmeet
The warning sign, that such are made the seat
Whence poisonous cups and palsied deaths proceed,
Meet lesson, where such lures the senses cheat,
How sinful man doth circumspection need
'Mid things that are around of endless death the seed.

XXXV

Whether we climb the hills, or rove the woods,
Walk by the stream, or pause by moss-grown wells,
We find our God in all their solitudes,
The Father of our Lord Who with us dwells;
It is the Speaker of the parables
That pleads unto our eyes and every sense,
Nature's sweet Gospel, which of mercy tells;
Lest we should deem of His Omnipotence
Thron'd above Heaven too high to heed our wants from thence.

162

XXXVI

O ye of little faith, consider now
The lilies of the field; behold and see,
They neither toil nor spin, yet how they grow,
That all the East with her embroidery
Is not as one of these; and cannot ye
Yield up your cares upon that Parent's breast?
Let these your book of meditation be;
Look for your mirror in their silver vest;
Yield up to Him your lives, and in Him find your rest.

XXXVII

That wisdom which God writes in every field
Ne'er sleeps, but like good angels, wakes to dwell
About us, thro' the livelong year reveal'd;
From flower that mocks the snowy icicle,
Hung on Christ's wintry cradle, to the bell
Which lingers last on the autumnal height:
Some wake before the dawn, that love to tell,
Some softly whisper to the evening light;
The Cereus breathes the same on bosom of the night.

163

XXXVIII

Come, let me read your lessons, to the child,
And to declining years; like stars on high,
With music in your voices, sweet and wild;
Yet are they all from Heaven, which, while we sigh,
Attune our thoughts to peace. “If we that die
Are thus by Him attired around your feet,
How fair that robe of immortality,
When God shall clothe the soul for Him found meet?
What fragrant balms of Heaven shall make their dying sweet?”

XXXIX

Yes, glittering fair with the celestial dew,
Ye are like children speaking at our feet,
Claiming our love that we may learn of you,
And pictur'd for mankind with lessons meet,
In every place where ye his eyes may greet,
With characters that are of Paradise;
Like living jewels bearing odours sweet,
So manifold, so bright, your colour'd dyes;
What well of light within thus all your grace supplies?

164

XL

To the proud world ye are “a book that's seal'd;”
To souls that stooping go, from out the ground
Like whispers from the dust ye are reveal'd:
I listen'd and I heard your voices' sound,
“All flesh is grass, as flowers with beauty crown'd
Its glory, waxing wan and withering.”
I listen'd and I heard yet more profound,
“Ye in the dust that dwell, awake and sing,
Your dew is as the dew of herbs that wait the spring.”

XLI

All flesh is grass, its glory like the flower,
How soon the bloom is sere, the green is dry,
Light loving eyes that beam'd with gentle power,
Communicating thoughts of pleasantry,
And bade the pensive heart put sadness by;—
Love's fragrance shed around and purple light;
How soon survives naught in their alter'd sky,
But memories of something gone from sight,
Which like a pallid shade visits the heart at night.

165

XLII

And they that were the glory of the morn,
Set up on high, hearts, eyes upon them cast,
With all things which this mortal clay adorn,
Soon change their hue 'neath the deflowering blast,
Reminding of the grave and worm at last:
Others succeed,—but their short time is o'er,
Their plans and purposes which were so vast,
With all the pleasing hopes they had in store;
The place that knew them well, it knows them now no more.

XLIII

To Angels, one by one, was given the scroll
To open, and with sound unearthly speak,
E'en so the Seasons as they onward roll
Awake prophetic voices; accents weak
Gain on the ear till they in fulness speak;
With winds that wait Thy beck, dew, rain, or rill,
That minister, and in due tendance seek
The service thus assign'd them to fulfil,
And e'en the frosts that come with wintry summons chill.

166

XLIV

Sweet symbolry! when issues Thy command
Men's summer hopes are falling to the ground,
Bared and bereav'd of all alone they stand;
Those wither'd leaves gather their roots around
To cherish and sustain, till they are found
Ready to rise in their appointed time,
Rooted in Christ. If such Thy cares abound
O'er things thus born to die, what thought sublime
Can reach Thy tender watch? what ear can catch the chime

XLV

In ways of Thy sweet Providence, that tend
On thankless man, on every plant that springs
From the dry root of Jesse without end,
For sake of that lov'd Branch which Israel sings,
Whereon the Spiritbroods with hallowed wings;—
On every tree which in that garden grows
Water'd with Blood, while night her shadow brings
On that dark vale of tears where Cedron flows,
When from the bleeding Stem the Olive graft arose.

167

XLVI

Lo, walking in the garden He hath made,
The voice of God amid the trees is heard,
While on the world falls the cool evening-shade,
In awful stillness; not a sound is stirr'd,
The Trees that He hath planted speak His word;
He seeks for fruit 'neath the Fig's barren leaves,
Yet seeks in vain: while sentence is deferr'd
O'er guilty man, around all nature grieves,
And into all her shades the awful curse receives.

XLVII

And in our inmost reins knowledge awakes,
Knowledge of good and evil, from us fall
The robes of Grace divine, yet mercy breaks
E'en in that Voice which doth on justice call
Amid the trees; in dark embowering hall,
And 'mid the flowery carpets strew'd beneath,
We hear the vocal symbols, great and small,
Written alike on each—which speak of death;—
And whisper that a hope survives the parting breath,

168

XLVIII

That eve hath set in darker solitude,
Come ye who from the death-doom'd world would flee;
The thorn-curs'd ground is mark'd by sweat of Blood,
And Eden hath become Gethsemane.
Ye that therein would enter, come and see;—
The Angel watch sleep at that Eden's door,
And we may now approach that awful Tree,
Which was the life in Paradise of yore,
The Tree of Life!—it seems a living tree no more;—

XLIX

The wood of a dead tree that bears the Dead!
This is the Tree of life, the Tree that bears
Of Everlastingness the only seed.
When in “the place of skulls” it disappears,
It shall from yonder garden fill the spheres;
Beside life's stream, the Tree which God hath made,
Crown'd with an immortality of years,
Twelve kinds of fruit, and leaves that never fade,
The nations come to rest beneath this healing shade.

169

L

Therefore from shrine of God another Voice
All nature through her kingdoms seems to wake,
And bids the forest and the field rejoice;
The valleys laugh and sing; and for His sake
Ye hills and mountains forth in singing break,
For the Deliverer comes! And, O ye seas,
With all that moves therein, glad music make,
With your loud floods, and clap your hands, ye trees,
For through your haunts are shed diviner sympathies.

LI

Year upon year still follows, wheel in wheel
Returning to itself; and evermore
The words Divine in sweet awakenings steal
O'er nature, and her sacred youth restore;
So beautiful this mansion, studded o'er
With vales, and mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas,
The prison-house of sinners: how much more
That blissful realm of which death holds the keys,
And that far better world which Thou hast hid in these?

170

LII

But that wise King who spake of every kind,—
Who in the Temple where God's Presence dwells
O'er shaft and frieze the mystic lily twin'd,
Who sung of Christ in flower-fraught canticles,—
Yet fell himself from Heaven. Their syllables
Are writ on skies above, too high for man;
And rather would I note what wisdom tells,
How every work below His Eye must scan,
Who arch'd the blue-bell'd flower, and Heaven's encircling span.

183

THE FOURTH DAY. The Sun, Moon, and Stars.

185

ARGUMENT.

We look to the starry skies as an exile to his home. God hath turned our face upwards, and disclosed to us the stars to shew us the obedience and peace of Heaven. Their teaching is of love and beauty, of endless Sabbath, of motion combined with rest, of reverential awe. Their infinite number. The seven Planets of our solar system described: probability of some secret connection the destiny of our globe may have with them. The Moon the most beautiful from her nearness to us. Multitude and vastness of the Fixed Stars. The Zodiac and the Four Seasons. Treasures of earth and treasures of Heaven compared. On this same Day Christ sold for pieces of silver. Three mysteries—of the Incarnation—of Grace—of Nature: these three combined in one.

Our own true Sun the Sun of Righteousness, on whom spiritual life depends. The Moon as the faithful witness in Heaven representing the Church, subject to wane and increase; effect of its sacred lustre on all earthly objects. Stars representing Angels and Saints; but our Sun alone supplies life and light of day. They are for signs, and seasons, days, and years; the same mystically understood of Christ, His Church, and Saints as marking the periods of time. Superiority of mind and spirit over material worlds: the visible Heavens teach us the order and harmony of the invisible.

187

MORNING.

I

As one to native walls his own no more
Looks, by a stranger led, with wondering eyes;
Or as our exil'd Parents gaz'd of yore
On where the light of their lost Paradise
Cast on the desert gloom cherubic dyes;
So on our earth when night's dark shadow falls
We lift our eyes, and see upon the skies
Those flowers of Heaven whose solemn sight appals,
Like jewell'd gates that shine on our lost Salem's walls.

188

II

Creatures of dust upon the earth we creep,
Yet bear divine original from high,
And upward turn from realms of death and sleep;
On all the flowers about our feet that lie,
On all the stars that range the vaulted sky,
Are writ the living characters of love;
To meet our downward or our upturn'd eye;
That we might learn what the Unseen must prove
Where God to spirits pure reveals Himself above.

III

For now He brings to view man's starry home
Above the earth-born clouds,—where evil powers
With death's dark messengers can never come,—
And turns his face towards those celestial towers,
Where the Sun kindles the bright ambient bowers
Of lustrous light; there bids the shining spheres,
Dropping from high serene and solemn hours,
To number out the exile's destin'd years,
While in their silver course obedience meek appears.

189

IV

High as the Heavens are set the earth above
(And infinite extends the wondrous sign)
So are the thoughts of God's eternal love
Compar'd with ours; so are the ways Divine
Higher than man's: what hallowed peace benign
Breathes stilly thro' the terrible Immense,
Sets mortal pride afar, and seems to twine
Deep harmonies which soothe each jarring sense:
Well Plato deem'd their ways melodious eloquence.

V

New pledge of love; the Lover of mankind
Spreads forth the secret riches of the skies
To meet his view, and speak of more behind;
Systems on systems pour'd, whose suns are eyes
Enamell'd, clustering with ambrosial dyes;
And ever and anon shews the blue veil
Diamonded o'er and o'er; as panting lies
The dolphin on the shore with bright-orb'd scale,
Or like the Almond-tree in Salem's flowery vale.

190

VI

Then from the depths beyond for ever new
Pours forth fresh multitudes, bound without bound,
Turns the broad Heavens and brings them all to view;
Like that Junonian bird that spreads around,
His whirring pinions trailing on the ground,
His star-ey'd theatre his head above,
Then wheels again about with step profound
Catching the light, in silence seems to move,
His tread like music soft, and all his motion love.

VII

How deep the o'er-hanging stillness, full of awe,
All motion, yet all motionless around!
Like those the vocal jewels of the Law,
The voice of God in the dread brilliants bound,
Awful as thunder, hearing sense is drown'd.
Such was the stillness of the wintry gloom
When Bethlehem's star mov'd on without a sound,
And such when Christ arose from the dark tomb,
And haply such shall be when sounds the trump of doom.

191

VIII

They on their noiseless axles seem asleep,
So motionless, because so swift they move,
And high aloof perpetual Sabbath keep;
For such the ministries of those above,
Because their labour is eternal love;
And love doth on the golden centre rest;
Nor e'er from her appointed pathway rove;
Such life and light is on their ways impress'd,
Mirrors of those who walk in their obedience bless'd.

IX

To do God's will as it is done in Heaven;—
In this our thoughts must end, from this begin;
Hence sight of those material worlds is given;
Creatures below set forth man's soul within,
All mark'd by his unrest and with his sin;
So from those orbs disclos'd to human eyes,
Though dim and distant, we a thought may win
Of vastness, peace, and mutual charities,—
Of beings which unseen are hid in inner skies.

192

X

What strange adoring wonder o'er them lies,
Silent magnificence of endless praise,
Like the intelligence of loving eyes,
Like life the very trembling of their rays.
How eloquent their silence, while we gaze,
E'en as of one who for an utterance seeks;—
As if their solemn voices they would raise,
But when His glory on their vision breaks
In adoration sink and silence only speaks.

XI

From the rude strife of tongues, from clamorous throes,
The wordy interchange, the noise, the fray,
We lift our hearts to their calm deep repose;
From things we love around whose fast decay
Is with the flowers; o'er us in surer stay
With thoughts of the Unchangeable they bless;
For they are not like creatures of a day,
But in their light that wanes not, nor grows less,
Something they seem to have of everlastingness.

193

XII

Like loop-holes of eternity, like eyes
Of fabled Argus, that with stern appeal,
When seeming dead unnumber'd o'er us rise;
While from the unfathom'd depths to sight they steal
As if eternal whispers to reveal,
Laden upon their watch with words that burn;
Like that Ixion on the wingèd wheel,
Whose warning voice aloud at every turn
Reverence and awe divine and justice bids to learn.

XIII

How numberless e'en to our sight reveal'd,
Immeasurable worlds through depth and height,
Thick-sown as golden flowers in summer field,
How multitudinous in their soundless flight,
How spiritual, how vast, and infinite!
Through the illimitable they ever fly,
Come forth to view in the serene of night,
And seem like out-posts of eternity,
Watching without the place which God hath hid on high.

194

XIV

And first of all upon the glorious arch
Appear and disappear the wandering seven,
Now here now there upon their wondrous march,
Like diamond drops, in course elliptic driven
Around the sun with their own moons in Heaven;
Each on us looks in his own solitude
Untrembling, through the night, at morn, or even;
In mystic dance and solemn sisterhood
Move their harmonious orbs and sing the Only Good.

XV

Light-clad, light-wing'd, light-footed Mercury
In the Sun's nearer presence loves to hide,
Lost in the effulgence oft from human eye,
Less seen therein but not less purified:
Then Venus;—next our Earth;—then Mars doth ride
On his red horse and lifts his fiery crest;
Then belted Jupiter in circuit wide
With four attendant moons shines o'er the rest;—
Earth—fourteen-hundred fold would scarce his balance wrest.

195

XVI

Then Saturn, arch'd in icy palaces,
Rainbow'd around, and bridg'd with Alpine show
Of moon-like pendent Heavens or glacier seas,
Or may be diamond kingdoms starr'd with snow,
Flies with the lunar seven that with him go.
And Uranus beyond, with sail unfurl'd,
Borne to the furthest verge our sun may know,
May look on other confines, world on world,
Where other stars around far other suns are hurl'd.

XVII

Like the wing'd moth that round the taper wheels
Her orbèd flight and rapid circuitings;
Unseen the while, as round and round she reels,
The strange magnificence of her bright wings;
Or as attendants on the throne of Kings
Lose themselves in that light and majesty,
Bright in the lustre that attendance brings;—
Their wonders and their glories, while they flee,
Are seen by other eyes than our mortality.

196

XVIII

Creation's various kingdoms here below
With mutual federations intertwine;
And haply these the worlds that with us glow
Around one central sun, with us combine,
In unreveal'd relationships benign,
And other chains of being; of our light,
Not of our sin, or aught of sinful sign
Partaking: and in realms beyond our sight
Some destinies divine may us with them unite.

XIX

But fairest of the stars that walk the skies,
Set near the Sun in inner courts to rove,
And fairest seen in his own glowing dyes,
Hesper the golden-horn'd, or Queen of Love;
Now in the dawn lists to the early dove,
Now sits more lovely in his western bower;
O beauteous handmaid watching from above,
Companion of the morn and evening hour,
Emblem of faith Divine, of Grace the maiden flower.

197

XX

But most to us our Moon because so near,
Associate of our earth on her vast flight,
By sympathies and ministrations dear;
While constant in mutation to our sight
She comes and sits upon the throne of night;
For such to us are most exceeding fair
Which to ourselves come nigh. Both join their light,
Dependant both their mutual aid they share,
And drink one fount of life, companions through the air.

XXI

'Tis sweet to watch the crescent lately born
Eve after eve advancing; toward the West
Her orbèd bow; Eastward her hollow horn
Extending day by day, with silver crest
To rule the night, fulfilling that behest
Original; till on the East afar
Her full-fac'd orb serene and manifest
Looks on the Sun; with gold-empurpled car
He on the wave descends with his own evening star.

198

XXII

And sweet to watch the signs, when without cloud
Her lustrous mantle covers all with light;
Then wild with life the forest rings aloud;
And sylvan nature keeps the festal night;
The clanging cranes are heard in unseen height;
The fisherman is out upon the deep,
For Ocean tribes are swarming infinite;
The moon is up upon the Eastern steep
To speak an eye in Heaven which watches while we sleep.

XXIII

But as the ship, in full-wing'd pride array'd,
Shews afar off but like the painted fly
With pennons couch'd upon some honey'd blade;
As men and ploughing steers from mountain high
Like ants that on the sand their labours ply;
So our great Sun with all his worlds must seem,
Amid the vast of the star-peopled sky,
Like shadow of a leaf upon a stream,
Yea as in a dark room a mote in the sunbeam.

199

XXIV

'Mid other suns of suns and spheres of spheres
Our universe itself may seem afar,
With all the mighty globes with her she bears,
Fix'd in the distant space a twinkling spar;
Yea, could Thought travel on from star to star
Before her still would stretch the encircling hall,
With naught her everlasting flight to bar,
Before her flies the omnipresent wall,
Each place the centre and circumference of all.

XXV

For what these wandering Worlds, a number'd flock
Compared with all those starry companies,
Which, from his Afric Cape or Tuscan rock,
Some Galileo with his tube descries;
While as he marks their chains thro' distant skies,
And metes their orbs and tracks the course they run,
He seems to hear their solemn harmonies,
While system rang'd o'er system, sun with sun,
Disclose the golden stairs of the Eternal Throne.

200

XXVI

Before those countless hosts all human speech
Fails, hence the Bull, the Lion, and the Bear,
Spotted with worlds: men's words in vain would reach
The infinite and glorious theatre
With golden-pinion'd orbs in noiseless stir;—
Then in despair they mock the dread Sublime,
And syllable their fiery character
By symbols from some creeping thing of time,
Seen on our annual course the universe to climb:—

XXVII

The Zodiac, with swarming worlds alive
Unnumber'd, creatures of the sacred Ark,
Cluster'd with stars;—each thick as wingèd hive
Seen on the vernal skies;—each twinkling spark
A sun of unseen worlds that dots the dark;—
There while the burning voyager doth steer
His course in Heaven, more thick the worlds that mark
His annual path, and pave the hemisphere,
Than flowers which 'neath our feet attend the rolling year.

201

XXVIII

The Ram, his hornèd front with crystal starr'd,
Spreading in Heaven his golden fleece aloof,
Opens the gates, for Argonaut unbarr'd;
Then comes the Bull, and with his harness'd hoof
Breaks up the April furrows; on Heaven's roof
Then sit the Twins dropping May's vernal flowers:
And now the Crab with shell of starry proof
And out-stretch'd claws holds summer's slow-pac'd hours;
Then springs the Lion forth; and after summer showers

XXIX

The Virgin robed in blue; the Autumnal Scale,
In equal poise balancing night and day;
The Scorpion folding back his forked tail;
The Archer, and the Centaur's sylvan sway—
Haunts where the Kid and Goat are seen at play:
Then Winter sad outpours his watery urn;
Wherein the glittering Fishes catch the ray;
Such the celestial mansions, where in turn
Upon their golden track the fiery coursers burn.

202

XXX

Thence round the earth in fair quaternion range
The Seasons, unperceiv'd in order steal
With alternation sweet of grateful change;
Like those Cherubic Forms in each reveal
A varied face diverse, wheel within wheel,
Weeks, days and hours inweave, ring within ring,
With speaking eyes unnumber'd make appeal,
Touching each other with outstretching wing,
And thus on living car the throne of God they bring.

XXXI

“Four spirits of the Heavens,” that walk the globe
Commission'd and caparison'd for man
To shadow forth in their transparent robe
The four swift ages of his short-lived span;
And picture forth himself from sere to wan;
Memorials which still sweetly, sternly mind
Of seed-time and of harvest. Soft gales fan
The odorous flowers and leave the seed behind,
As feelings of our youth breathe sweet upon the wind—

203

XXXII

Of childhood and of freshness, hope and love,
Which hear the sounds of music; when the sight
Of mountains, woods and waters, all things move
Friendships and new affections; vernal light,
The spring-tide of the heart, makes all things bright:
Then seeds remain when leaves and blossoms fall,
Seeds which within are planted infinite,
When manhood hath like summer ripen'd all,
And winter wraps to sleep in her sepulchral thrall.

XXXIII

Then at Spring's coming opes the ethereal screen,
The clouds expand their whitening sails, and flee
Shap'd by soft airs, sweet, musical, serene,
The moon looks on the sunny earth, the sea
Rejoices in ship-bearing majesty;—
The rivers in their courses laugh and sing,
The earth spreads forth her flower-fraught tapestry,
The birds upon the boughs are carolling;
And beasts and birds and men in sweetness own the spring.

204

XXXIV

I deem that such are shadows which appear
Of things as yet unseen, whereon the Dove
Sits brooding, and the Righteous Sun draws near,
Regenerating souls which in Him move,
Trembling to life and everlasting love:
When all that inner world whereon death lay,
Heart, intellect, and spirit, kindling prove,
And through and through touch'd with the enlivening ray
Summer put on, and own the still-increasing Day.

XXXV

One language is on all things great and small,
Decay and change and death on all we see;
Nor can the universe's flaming wall
Though built of worlds, vast, beautiful, and free,
Shut out the writing of that stern decree,
The Hand which wrote in Babylon of old,
In characters of fire and mystery;
Like a worn garment He the Heavens shall fold,
Although that robe be set with diamond drops and gold.

205

XXXVI

Then what is mortal glory at its height?
'Tis but a dew-drop spangling on the thorn,
Ere 'tis absorb'd in smiles of its own light.
Yea, like those burning drops with day-lightborn,
Whose twinkling multitudes the ground adorn
With bright profusion of celestial tears,
Those stars and shining systems, on that morn
And time itself shall vanish with the spheres,
When of the Son of Man the sign in Heaven appears,—

XXXVII

Our Sun Himself reveal'd. This is the Day
When man his God for plates of silver sold,
The day whereon o'er man's dark house of clay
He bade the Heavens their treasures to unfold,
Their silver orbs and palaces of gold;
With lanterns and with torches of the night,
In mantle of the dark that made him bold,
The traitor sought the Everlasting Light;
And such is man and God, O wondrous awful sight!

206

XXXVIII

Three mysteries are there, one of God made man,
Of God so great in power and majesty
Himself enfeebling down to our weak span,—
To be a child, to hunger, weep, and die:—
That He whom loftiest angels hid on high
On soaring contemplation ne'er could reach,—
Himself the fount of immortality,—
As man with wretched men should walk and teach,
Such love leaves far behind all human thought and speech.

XXXIX

Another mystery in the realms of grace,
That He Who hath His dwelling in the skies,
Where naught but holiness can see His face,
To meanest of mankind whom men despise
Should bend His ear so low, and fix His eyes,
So near the lowest whisper of distress,
As heart to heart of each man testifies;
Should note each deed, word, thought,—to heed and bless,
As o'er a dying child a mother's tenderness.

207

XL

In nature's kingdom is the wondrous third,
The mystery of Godhead none can tell,—
That yesterday with all-creative word
He cloth'd this little earth on which we dwell,—
In every little leaf and flowery bell,
In particles of grain upon the strand,
In smallest touch to man invisible,
He left the impress of Almighty hand;—
To-day launch'd suns and worlds as countless as the sand.

XLI

And these great mysteries are One in three,
The wreath which awful Wisdom hath put on,
On brow of our Incarnate Deity;
In glistening dew-drops shines the full-orb'd sun,
Or in the broad-faced sea; in herb or stone
The image of the Cross is found below,
And on the o'er-arching Heavens a place hath won;
Yea, stars shall grow dark at that Sign of Woe;—
So things both small and great Almighty Presence shew.

208

EVENING.

I

Our Sun the full quaternion round us brings;—
Three days—the Light—the Laver—and the Bread—
Then shedding health from His illumin'd wings,
With immortality brought from the dead,
Our God Incarnate is around us spread.
The Sun now speaks of Him Who into light
On the mount Olivet above their head
Ascended, and a cloud receiv'd from sight,
Who shall in clouds return like morning after night.

209

II

If Heaven's great gem, the eye of this our sphere
Ne'er in his glory seems to fail or fade;
How great, how high that Sun, how wondrous near,
Who hath the Heavens His tabernacle made
In our Redemption, and from chambers laid
O'er the dark waters, girt with silent awe
Goes as a Bridegroom forth in light arrayed!
Nothing is hid from His all-searching Law,
From Him all things that are their life and being draw.

III

All life below blends with his course sublime;
When he ascends on circuit of the sky,
With him all nature upward seems to climb;
When he his tower meridian holds on high
All nature opens to his genial eye;
When he descends on the ethereal walls
With him all nature seems to droop and die;
Like the strong man in Gaza, when he falls,
He buries with himself Day's high-o'erarching halls.

210

IV

Then a new scene and countless lights are born
Kindling the arch with many-twinkling fire,
Till the return of the eternal morn;
With station upon station, tier on tier,
Of eyes a living amphitheatre,
While man performs his part upon the stage,
All watching; each from his small orbit here
Behind the curtain goes age after age;
They stand as lamps around his passing pilgrimage.

V

Our Sun is hid—the witness now in Heaven
Gently takes up the sceptre in his room,
The beautiful exchange of silent even;—
The mirror of our life amid the gloom,
Decreasing still, still rising from the tomb;
Emblem of change and frail mortality;
Which borrowed lustres for awhile illume;
The Church which ever seems to wane and die,
And then when seeming dead to rise more gloriously;—

211

VI

A boat which toils “in jeopardy,” and then
When waves and winds o'erwhelm her, hath she bowed,
And sees her Saviour's Image; then again
Bears on emerging from the storm and cloud.
'Tis sweet to watch from a tempestuous shroud
The moon ascending on the face of night,
And sailing in her brightness; when allow'd
To see far off the mountains in their might,
And rocks and streams more near rejoicing in the light.

VII

And sweet to watch the Church as from the dust
She tricks her faded beams with many a sigh,
And upward looks with self-renewing trust,
And seems awakening from the tomb to cry,
“Rejoice not o'er me, O mine enemy,
When I in darkness sit I shall arise.”
Again o'erflows her sacred treasury,
The handmaid arts fly with her through the skies,
And upon earth awake forgotten charities.

212

VIII

Clothed with the Sun unchangeable, yet seen
For ever changeful, with her guiding ray,
As Earth its envious shadow lifts between,
Her strength alternating with sure decay.
Yet still unharm'd she holds her heavenly way,
Seen or unseen alike, the same remains,
And tides Baptismal own her ceaseless sway:
Thus fear checks hope; and sorrows hope sustains,
Supporter meet for man still held in sinful chains.

IX

And as the moon constant in naught but change
Sets forth the phases of the Church below,
Thro' mutable gradations thus may range
The soul in Christ; and through a scale may go
Of bright and dark, of weakness or of woe;
Now with dimm'd hope, and now with stedfast choice
Forth issuing from her strait, His face to know,
E'en as the Bridegroom's friend to hear His voice,
Or as the Bride herself, and hearing to rejoice.

213

X

Or may be more that she from Him recedes
To dwellers upon earth she seems allied
To greatness, full-orb'd brightness o'er her breeds;
But nearer she approaches to His side
She doffs that lustre and puts off her pride;
In spirit-like illapse she gliding nears,
Her life is hidden with the Crucified,
Emptying herself of glory and past years,
Till in His Presence lost from man she disappears.

XI

Yet rather would I deem that friendly light,
As swelling to the Passover of yore,
Emblem of good, tho' changeful to our sight,
Cresting her bow with strength and golden store,
Then laps'd—unstrung—cast off; but yet the more
Filling her womb with children meet for Heaven,
Her boat unlading on the unseen shore,
And then returning: on her courses driven;
Such is the Church below to guide our wanderings given.

214

XII

How beautiful the moon-light now endues
The straggling village, where its mantle lies,
Pensively sleeping with its silver hues,
Transmuting what it touches with soft dyes,
Melts down distinctions of the glaring skies,
With depth sublime of shadow and faint line,
Ennobles what was vile and sanctifies;—
Strange power the harsh to soothe, the rude refine,
To make the earth like Heaven, the human seem divine!

XIII

The awe-inspiring outline of dark mountain
Lying at rest, blue vault ethereal;
And both reflected in the sable fountain;
The gabled cot, the silver-mantled wall,
Mansion or manse, rude hut or ruder stall,
All are made one in that pale lunar dress;
While the soft snow-like lustre over all
Enters the heart with solemn tenderness;—
Such is that symbol's power to hallow, change and bless.

215

XIV

And with the moon, soft arbitress of night,
To guide our path and cheer our thoughtful bed,
The witnesses come round and crown the height,
Diverse in glory, silver, green, or red,
E'en like the Resurrection from the dead;
Or like Angelic glories, Orders nine;
Or Apostolic choirs above our head;
Armies of martyrs, virgin choirs that shine;
Unnumber'd as the stars all Abraham's seed Divine.

XV

Like radiant clusters on the living Vine
Hanging with worlds; bright orbs that without end
Their mutual ministrations intertwine,
And interchange of lustre love to blend;
Like angels which descend and reascend
The viewless stairs of Heaven; or Virgin urns
Which on the Bridegroom's coming shall attend;
But they themselves shall hide when He returns,
When far outshining all the Sign of Mercy burns.

216

XVI

Those orbs nocturnal that adorn the gloom,
And rise like sweet companions to our sight,
The traveller's path to guide, cheer, and illume;—
Those constellations numerous, vast, and bright,
They cannot one and all dispel the night;
Profitless their regards, and cold their rays,
To turn our sepulchre to life and light;
Ranging afar they seem on us to gaze,
As if to watch and ward—but cannot change our ways.

XVII

It is our Sun alone, our Eye in Heaven,
'Tis Christ alone transforms our dark to day,
Who hath to night a resurrection given,
And to His Saints and Angels lent His ray;
That while on distant orbits they obey,
Their lamps celestial on our path may shine
To soothe and aid our sin-benighted way;—
While silent spheres around they intertwine;
Christ is alone our Life, our Light, and Day divine.

217

XVIII

“The sun and moon and stars to Him shall bow,
Like pursuivants which on His kingdom wait;
And signs and seasons in their order show
And gradual bring the everlasting state,
Like sentinels which range without the gate;
Flowers which come forth the language of the sky,
And of our fading seasons mark the date;
The vocal symbols of eternity,
Which changing usher in the years that shall not die.

XIX

They are for signs and seasons, days and years;—
To guide the sailor o'er the trackless main,
As each upon its lofty home appears;
Arctos, or Southern Cross, or Northern wain,
Orion, and the Pleiads' watery train;
The traveller by your watches o'er his head
'Mid pathless solitudes of Asian plain
Steers his night wanderings, while o'er him spread
Gleam like a thousand eyes companions from the dead.

218

XX

And he who tills the ground must look on high,
To ply his toils, and read the starry flight:
Thus sons of earth mark the all-varying sky,
And can ye not, ye children of the Light,
Note all around the changeful signs of night?
Lift up your eyes, behold the Heavens around,
There signs invisible shall blend with sight,
And on the stars dread signals shall be found,
Ere the Archangel's trump the peal of judgment sound.

XXI

They are for signs and seasons, days and years,
While traversing the pathless infinite
They speak the motion of the wandering spheres,
Of pilgrim-kanes and stations mark the site,
And number watches of the waning night
Until the Bridegroom shall again return,
Cloth'd with His own eternity of light;
Thus saints on high with bright example burn,
And nations as they shine Heaven's righteous paths discern.

219

XXII

They are for signs and seasons more Divine;—
Hence sacred Hours on golden hinges move
The doors of Heaven, and from their orbs that shine
Drop flowers that fade not, orisons that prove
Steps Heavenward, starry beads of prayer and love;
And sacred Years that bring back sacred Days;
While each, in its departing, from above
Its snowy mantle on Christ's cradle lays;
Or full-orb'd Paschal moon doth on His cradle gaze.

XXIII

The types and antitypes around us shine,
And are for signs and seasons, years and days;
For Christ Himself is our appointed Sign,
Numbers our centuries, o'er daily ways
In His own sacred Twelve Himself displays,
And in His Church marks each returning seven;
While Saints'-days in their place cloth'd with His rays
Note thro' her horoscope the days of Heaven,
To guide our yearly course in silent watches given.

220

XXIV

Haply in the Chaldean sage of yore
There was a deeper wisdom than he knew,
Divinely hid in his fond foolish lore,
While he in fabling science would pursue
Affinities, conceal'd from mortal view,
Of things that are in Heaven with things on earth,
Vainly he caught the shadows of the True;
For destinies of man, death, age, and birth,
With other worlds combine; so boundless is their worth.

XXV

Not like those fabled gods that sat aloof,
They interjoin with our mortality,
And in their orbits on the unbounded roof
Come forth, to order, guide, and beautify,
Have influence benign o'er land and sea.
Thou call'st them by their names, for they are Thine,
They answer in their watches, Here we be;
Then cheerfully they at Thy bidding shine,
And speak Thy peace to man with their own tongues divine.

221

XXVI

They look on us and draw nigh through the day
But we behold them not till night reveals;
Unnumber'd ministrations mark our way
Of spirits which the light of life conceals,
Until death's solemn mantle o'er us steals;
Save that below, since Christ hath left our sphere,
In this the silence of His noiseless wheels,
Till in the dawn our Sun again appear
His Church and Saints are given our night to guide and cheer.

XXVII

And what if faith like a celestial glass
Should shew Heaven's court encamp'd around in air,
Eyes that behold and sleep not, forms that pass
Of such mysterious sort beyond compare
That this material universe so fair
But faintly shadows them! it so must be,
For intellect and thought and spirit are
Surpassing far in order, kind, degree,
So infinitely great in power and dignity.

222

XXVIII

Like stars 'mid pearls reflected 'neath the sea,
So things of sense and spirit range untold,
And how they blend is hid in mystery:—
How round our Sun seven shining orbs are roll'd,
How seven lamps mark'd the mercy-seat of old;
How Christ was like the sun reveal'd to sight
Amid seven Candlesticks of burning gold;—
How twelve hours make the day, and twelve the night,
Twelve Prophets and Apostles Twelve dispense the Spirit's light.

XXIX

As down time's river to the shoreless ocean
We haste, and gaze upon the flowing sweep
Of waters, all the scene is one wild motion,
Where clouds that range above, and woodland steep,
Blend with the reeds and rocks beneath the deep;
All in one sweet confusion mingled lie,
In one harmonious picture soft as sleep,
Scenes seen below and Heaven's blue majesty,
And difficult to part the things of earth and sky.

223

XXX

The star of Bethlehem seen to move and stand,
The new-born stranger own'd its Lord: the sun
Shrunk from mount Calvary: at man's command
The sun and moon stood still on Gibeon;
Stars fought for Sisera; what union
Have Heavens and Earth; what starry sympathies!
Sackcloth put on, break forth in orison
For man on earth; with him to being rise,
And fall like falling figs upon his obsequies!

XXXI

It is all mystery; and who shall tell
Why madness with the shades that o'er her fleet
Within a lunar cave appears to dwell;
Then Reason is unthroned from her high seat;
And spiritual agencies our senses meet
More mark'd, and worlds unseen which with us range;
Then tides of feeling, in the soul that beat,
Have with the moon intercommunion strange,
And with her veering orb veer in their mental change.

224

XXXII

How wondrous are we made, that earth-born worm
Should hide within him such ethereal ray;
That he beyond the reach of cloud and storm,
Or moon or star or comet's lightning way
Should mount the altitudes of Heaven, and weigh
And mete out worlds, and know their paths, and see
Beyond the confines of the night and day!
Mirror'd in his deep heart they needs must be,
For in his flesh he hides an immortality.

XXXIII

'Tis not with stars to travel, height above,
Nor depth, nor light, nor motion swift, nor space,
But reason, awe divine, and sacred love,
And earnest longings to behold God's face,
Whose silver chains reach to the Throne of Grace;
These are the drops akin to deity;
For these our God hath left the Holy Place,
The ninety-nine creations hid on high,
To put on Infant limbs, and lisp an Infant cry.

225

XXXIV

Therefore on that within me would I gaze
With silent wonder and adoring awe,
More than on worlds where rapt amazement strays,
Whose Maker in the flesh creation saw:
For He, the Sun of suns, would spirits draw
Into love's orbit, till in its sure spell
Obedience shall itself become their law,
'Mid other worlds of light unspeakable;
Lest unhoused “wandering stars” they should in blackness dwell.

XXXV

O blessed they, the children of the sky,
Who bring about their ways,—into their heart,—
And live beneath that Omnipresent Eye,
Nor ever from that lov'd obedience start!
Through all the spheres of nature and of art,
This is the sole distinction amongst men.
O awful darkness, awful counter-part,
Dwelling with us, our earthly denizen,
Sign of that place where man shall ne'er see light again!

226

XXXVI

Our God Incarnate is and seems so nigh,
E'en as the sun on the horizon's goal,
Yet inaccessible in Deity.
The planets round their sun in order roll,
Each in its orbit; and the Christian soul
He by His quickening Presence makes His own,
And interpenetrates its being whole,
Its life, its light, its All Himself alone,
Tho' unapproach'd afar upon His distant throne.

XXXVII

The universal Life, the only Good,
To whom all souls tend with outstretch'd desire
Yet ne'er approach; but thence by love imbu'd,
As more and more they would to Him aspire,
In those approaches find their quickening fire,
Their rest in that obedience; His bright glance
Their immortality; the solemn choir
They join, and interweave the mystic dance,
Their being, strength, and light, to see His countenance.

227

XXXVIII

This is the sweet and solemn mystery,
The diapason of their song profound,
While on the silver chain of sympathy
They seem to move with peace eternal crown'd;
And bring this nightly lesson all around,
That they whose mutual lights each other bless
Within the “many mansions” shall abound,
In all their varied glories, more and less,
And there for ever shine, the stars of righteousness.

XXXIX

Thus ever keep they in their courses even,
And interweave fraternal charities,
Such sweet subordination is in Heaven;
While each to other of its light supplies,
Attracting and attracted; diverse size,
Diverse their light and heat, their orb and course,
Yet one is their obedience through the skies;
Each to its centre bound with ceaseless force,
Each drinking life and light from the Eternal Source.

228

XL

Such order and obedience is in Heaven,
None fails or swerves upon his swift career
Where through the trackless space his course is given,
For did of disobedience aught appear
It would the golden ordinance unsphere,
And Heaven's bright-harness'd wains, zone within zone,
In turmoil terrible, with rended geer,
Car upon car, and steed on steed o'erthrown,
The universe itself would bring in ruin down.

XLI

Thus each man hath his order'd sphere assign'd,
And orbit within orbit,—man with man,
And family with family combin'd,
Relationship and service, each his span
And circuit in the all-disposing plan.
He Who to worlds metes out their light and space
Hath set to each his post, the will and can
To work out for himself His destin'd place,
Measuring to each the gift of nature and of grace.

229

XLII

Thus Thou install'st the sun, Thy type to men,
And to him, though a shadow soon to flee,
In our own short-lived state, short-sighted ken
Given an eternal seeming, as to be
An image of Thine own eternity;
Unchang'd yet changing all, like summer flowers,
Meting to all in order and degree
Space apt for kindling their internal powers,
The seasons, ages, years, the minutes, days and hours.

XLIII

Mysterious was that fable known of old
Apollo in his watch-tower seen divine
Yet found with men in city, camp, or fold;
Or as Arachne in her central shrine
'Mid labyrinth of webs that round her twine
Sits sleepless; so throughout the liquid sky
Are track'd the circling paths, line within line,
Where Wisdom is with omnipresent eye
Watching from end to end in ceaseless charity.

230

XLIV

Or rather like the bird whose outstretch'd plume
Gathers her nestling brood at fall of night;
So 'mid the dark and over-hanging gloom,
Brooding amid the peopled infinite,
And multitudinous worlds that come to light,
Rests the dim shadow of Omnipotence;
Stupendous and unspeakable the sight;
Yet while it overawes all human sense
Doth to the little worm his glowing lamp dispense.

XLV

The Fourth Day now is at its evening bourne,
The moon hath climb'd up the ethereal wall,
And caught the beam upon her silver horn;
The king of day is in his western hall,
The mountain shades are length'ning where they fall;
Ye warders, shining in your own calm day,
Keep round your watch, so still and musical,
Whether we sleep, or wake with you and pray,
Until the Day shall break and shadows flee away.

239

THE FIFTH DAY. The Fishes and the Birds.

241

Argument.

Invited by the Stars to our heavenly home we turn to take affectionate leave of the creatures below. The Air and the Waters filled with life at the Divine word,—compared to the rapid expansion of morning light. Multiplicity in kinds and habits of fish. Wisdom walks in the bottom of the deep. Beauty of shells. Diversity of fish in different seas. Each kind knows its appointed habitation. Migratory hordes. The Eucharist on this Day. The sacred and moral teaching of fish. Their mystical intention.

The birds,—described on the sea shore and riverbanks. Amphibious kinds emblematic of evil. Wonders of the bird's nest. The spring of springs. Profusion and variety of birds. Their songs and spiritual teaching, as connected with the Ascension on this Day. Heavenly-mindedness and thanksgiving. The Dove—the Red-breast—the Lark—the Nightingale —the Owl: Kite: Ravens—the Eagle—the Ostrich —the domestic Cock, and the Peacock. Migrations of birds a divine lesson to man. The Redstart—the Swallow—the Frigate bird. The bird of Paradise— the Stork. Parental instinct the image of God's love. Birds of prey represent the gathering together of mankind to the great Sacrifice.

243

MORNING.

I

The stars within their palaces sublime
Attune their silver harps; the earth and floods
Responsive carry on the glorious chime;
The streams are whispering to the list'ning woods,
The woods are answering from their solitudes
With boughs and tuneful birds; whose grateful lays
Call upon man who o'er his sorrow broods;
Man too his voice melodious fain would raise,
And Angels lean from Heaven to carry on the praise.

244

II

And ye, sweet families that fly or rove,
Sport in mid air, or glance where waters flow,
Invited to our starry homes above,
On all your haunts and ways that are below
We linger, till our thoughts with wonder glow;
While in each varied instinct and retreat
We read of things far greater than ye know;
Lessons ye bear for sin and sorrow meet,
Like babes which Wisdom loves to play around her feet.

III

As on some foreign land a foster child,
Tho' rear'd 'mid strangers, hardships, woe and pain,
Looks lovingly, by parting thoughts beguil'd,
To bosoms which his exile there sustain,—
Turns with tear-glistening eye, and turns again;
So to those homes above ere we return
From this our earth, and sky, and circling main,
We marks of our Creator's hand discern
Stamp'd on our house of pain, and would His praises learn.

245

IV

'Tis the fifth day, fresh bloom the Earth and Heaven,
On earth the varied tapestry conferr'd,
And flowering gems to the blue vault are given;
Now Sea and Air ask for the Almighty Word.
Lo, through all space that living Voice is heard;
Kingdoms unnumber'd, kinds and kindred born;
Through all her secret depths Nature is stirr'd,
And moving souls the air and wave adorn,
Swift as light issues forth from silver gates of morn.

V

Sweet and expansive as the morning light
Bathes every nook, emerging from the gloom,
So Nature through her realms beyond the sight
Out-pour'd with pangless birth her teeming womb;
Each sea, lake, river, fount, in vernal bloom
Swarming with all their mingled shapes appear'd;—
Eyes, will, life, motion all the world illume;
The spouting whale its length thro' ocean rear'd,
The minnow in the brook his boat in silence steer'd.

246

VI

Then imag'd in the watery glass were seen
The forms of winged life which were above;
Where the tree flung its shade o'er waters green
The singing bird pour'd forth its voice of love;
The fish responsive in their gladness move;
Rejoicing myriads their live haunts pursue
Through every clime, o'er waste, mount, vale, or grove;
The eagle pois'd on the majestic blue,
The gnat tried his blithe horn in airy circlets new.

VII

Twin-born the fish and fowl;—in seas and skies
One Hand is seen, one Maker's laws prevail,
Who oneness loves in all diversities;
The birds and fish are born with rudder tail;
The air expands the plume, or fishy mail;
Pheasant-like dyes and peacock-spangles range
Thro' variations of the finny scale,
Beauteously sorted to some wild sea-change;
Each vary seas or skies in wondrous instinct strange.

247

VIII

What multitudinous tribes unnumber'd, stor'd
In those few words of that Divine command;
He who would reckon each sea-wandering horde
May count the Atlantic waves that reach the strand;
Or mete the sea within the hollow hand.
With shell or scale, with fin or feet; some creep,
Some glide with lightning speed, some ever stand;
Some row their oary barge in silent sweep;
Some wing the upper wave, some ply the lower deep.

IX

How sweetly in the lake or crystal stream
Their joyous inmates sail, or start aside
Scar'd by the shadow of a passing gleam;
Then with their silvery forms serenely glide,
Or pennons dropp'd with gold, and softly slide
Like a live star, with motion like repose;
Nor less in bosom of the ocean tide:
What brilliancy of hues around them glows,
From life's own well within such purple effluence flows.

248

X

Some in their shelly armour scarcely creep,
Then spring upon their prey with winged tail;
Some dart like living arrows of the deep,
Or steer their state in purple-speckled scale.
Embosom'd in their forms of sheltering mail,
Then swell the wind-balloon, and at their will
Furl or unfurl within their breezy sail,
While opens or contracts the trembling gill,
And winnowing the wave their quivering forms are still.

XI

Now anchor'd seem in slumber, 'neath some cave,
Or bank, or stone, hous'd motionless, or lie
Asleep within the bosom of the wave,
With feathery sails and unclos'd shadeless eye;—
Still, save the tail which buoys them tremblingly.
So meet the alternations of repose
For all beneath the moon; sleep, ere we die,
Death's brother is and shade where'er he goes,
The witness of our sin, repairer of our woes.

249

XII

How beauteous their sea-kingdoms, where the sail
From harbouring bays fills its light wing, and flees
O'er the vast waters whitening in the gale!
Men make themselves companions with the seas
And with its watery inmates, in the breeze
Exulting; then their wondrous tales bring nigh
Of Scyllas, Sirens, and Symplegades,
And monsters of the deep that welter'd by,
Like Isles that walk'd the seas, spouting their founts on high.

XIII

Spirit of awe and wonder, let me float
O'er the wild waves and catch the inspiring breeze;
Be thou my pole-star, pilot, tortoise-boat,
Or dolphin charm'd by music; where at ease
Harbour and herd at bottom of the seas
Wave-wandering tribes, with their wild ways and wars,
With roving and returning companies;
Where mountains, birds, beasts, trees, and flowers, and stars
Have their strange counterparts shut in by watery bars.

250

XIV

Great wonder-working Nature, hand in hand
Lead me with thee into thy secret store,
That I may spell this day's Divine command,
Note the live syllables and more and more
May enter in and marvel and adore;
Or rather, gracious Spirit, may of Thee
Study and read Eden's primeval lore
With Adam, or with One far more than he
Who this day gave us wings ascending, and made free.

XV

Through Nature's palace lead me, where withdrawn
'Mid sea-weed caves of ocean far she hies,
'Mid coral bowery roofs, and, like the dawn,
Floors moon-beam pav'd and pearly canopies
Which imitate below cerulean skies;
With scales that gleam with gold and radiant spar
Meteor-like glides the fish of many dyes;
It seems the dwelling of the evening star
Upon the mountain-top so beautiful afar.

251

XVI

Vain boast of man that these are all for him!
They are for glory of his God alone,
E'en as the burning-winged Seraphim;
In waste of waters from all age unknown
Hid in the deep His marvels thick are sown,
Heaven's silvery chains in secret there abide,
E'en as in waters which surround His throne:
What are those giant monsters roaming wide
But things which God hath made to humble mortal pride?

XVII

What foot hath walk'd beneath the watery brine
Pav'd with sea-stirring life, live shells that steal
'Mid their own emerald caves, and move and shine
In bosom of the deep? Who shall unseal
Great Ocean's book of wonders, and reveal
Their tribes, which e'en to name were learned lore?
What power to mould their forms, and then anneal
Their rainbow tints that gem the ocean floor;—
Once homes of living things, now shells upon the shore?

252

XVIII

Spiral, or orb'd, cornute, or annular,
Bivalve, or multivalve;—what tongue shall tell
Their forms testaceous, where some living spar
Of Ocean once had made his horned cell
Sea-pasturing, now it lies a beauteous shell;
Where on the pebbled margin of the seas
Their little homes to us are visible,
Like tombs of men, cities, lost palaces,
Whereby on shore we read of Ocean's mysteries.

XIX

Or stand amaz'd at some sea-wander'd worm,
And question him of wonders of the deep,
Where beyond reach of sunshine or of storm
Submarine hordes and herds their kingdoms keep,
Wave-moving habitations; from whence peep
Sea-monsters; in their strange instinctive ways
Of solitary range or numerous sweep,
A guiding Omnipresence with them stays,
And marks them for His own; they tell the deep His praise.

253

XX

Wisdom is there, whose eye doth never sleep,
She compasses Heaven's circuit star-inwrought,
And walks upon the bottom of the deep;
'Tis she the little Nautilus hath taught
With shell-canoe, adventurous Argonaut,
Oars to put forth and spread an air-blown sail,
As if man's labour'd skill to set at naught;
She tells the Echinus of the rising gale,
Safe on his ballast pois'd,—his anchor in the veil.

XXI

Some Wonder hath sent forth with her own stamp,
As with the purple dye or music shell
The Murex and Tritonis; or the lamp
Of Noctiluca, o'er the Atlantic swell
Torch-bearing tribes; or as the seamen tell
The Seal amphibious sitting on the rock,
Where lightning flash hath made him visible,
Rejoicing in the roaring thunder-shock,
Seems with the storm at play, the elements to mock.

254

XXII

But who can speak the unnumber'd tribes that throng
In all the flowing seas from pole to pole,
Atlantic deeps or Arctic coasts among,
Or where the Indian Oceans onward roll,
Bays Erythrean and the Egyptian shoal,
Or Adria's purple robe gemm'd with bright Isles;
Each hath its haunts and its appointed goal;
Or where Australia with its coral piles
Lifts o'er the purpling surge its brilliancy and smiles.

XXIII

Manifold as herb-kingdoms 'neath each sky
They vary form and nature, and put on
In thousand modes endless diversity
Of instinct, haunt, or nurture; seek and shun
Diversely, and by varied arts are won,
Hook, net, or spear; so without sight or sound
In every place that Voice for ever One
With power creative hath its being found,
In sea, or stream, or fount, girds each and all around.

255

XXIV

Each hath its kingdom, its allotted home,
Each finds untaught its place; all know the bourne
Of nature, nor beyond their orbit roam;
Tribes, race, and families; their lines unworn,
Save as in the bright rainbow, or the morn,
Into each other melt the golden hues
That separate their ranks and each adorn;
Fish fly aloof; and fowls the waters choose;
Wing'd fin, or finny foot the doubtful way pursues.

XXV

Still constant in their stations and their change,
As monthly-veering moon, or night's dark dome
With starry flocks on high; their summer range
And wintry house they know, their hearth and home,
And blue horizon o'er them where they roam,—
Thence inland haunts, whene'er the season calls
To genial streams, and the o'ershadowing gloom
Of woodland bank, or foaming water-falls;
Then wind their downward course to ocean's watery stalls.

256

XXVI

That law that in the living Word went forth
Hath ever been about them, like a wall,
And mark'd their habitations, south or north,
Ganges or Oronoko, in each hall
Of Ocean's briny chambers; great and small
Hedged in their own sea-homes and ancient skies
Save when they hear that trumpet's sounding call,
Or herald sign; then at its bidding rise
With all their finny troops, and spread their companies.

XXVII

Rous'd by that summons from the Arctic pole,
What summer moon or starry Pleiades
Brings like a torrent down the herring shoal?
With outstretch'd wing their army fills the seas,
Norwegian creeks and clustering Hebrides,
From Iceland to the Baltic stretch'd afar,
Deploys their columns in the southern breeze;
Then back recall'd to their own northern bar,
They hide in icy folds 'neath their own wintry star.

257

XXVIII

It is the Eternal's mandate bids them roam,
The Angel of His Presence is their guide,
Sends forth their legions, keeps, and summons home.
Such powers mysterious in the deep preside,
Exert their wondrous spell, their footsteps hide.
Hence fabled Neptunes with their forkèd wand,
With silver-sandal'd Nereids 'neath the tide;
They saw a regal sceptre on the strand,
A bridle they perceiv'd that own'd a Master's hand.

XXIX

The Day and Night alternate from their cave
He bade to range the earth; the watery race
He bade from sea to sea to change the wave;
He of the feathery tribes from place to place
Marshals the ranks, aerial paths to trace;
While at His unseen beck they come and go.
All motion, all mutation; Time, and Space,
Winds, Seasons, Stars, they traverse to and fro,
Their stations and their bounds they at His bidding know.

258

XXX

'Tis God, our God, is with them in their seas,
This is the secret stamp'd on tales of yore,
Of instincts and of human sympathies;
Of Proteus and half-gods in sea, on shore;
And of the dolphin which Arion bore,
Charm'd by the harmonies of his sweet shell;
And such that later legendary lore
Of saints and fish that lov'd the saints so well,
And join'd that Paduan saint their Maker's praise to tell.

XXXI

Such would I read a mirror more divine,
As of that Whale wherein the Prophet pray'd,
And wisdom learnt as in a holy shrine;
The creature heard, the Prophet disobey'd.
And in that Voice which 'neath the waters sway'd
And brought the Galilean fish to shore,
With silver sign which our Redeemer paid;
Opening its mouth it paid the sacred store,
And own'd the Lord of all beneath the watery floor.

259

XXXII

Ye finny nations, like your own clear sea,
In bosom of the waters deep and mild,
Wherein ye sport majestic, blithe, and free;
Fair as its surface which the sunbeams gild,
With all its radiant hues so soft and wild:
That animation, which within you lies,
Is like the laughing waves when ocean smil'd;
Yet as ye blend in sweet societies,
How hidden is your life, like angels in the skies!

XXXIII

O beauteous life continued without change,
While He who gave them life that life supplies,
And one and all through realms assign'd they range;
Have naught yet all possessing, heavenly-wise;
E'en as the poor in spirit, nothing prize,
Have nothing; yet the common air is theirs,
Theirs the blue vault, and starry-peopled skies,
Theirs all the sights which beauteous ocean wears,
Theirs is one common Lord on Whom they cast their cares.

260

XXXIV

Alas, far other is the sight reveal'd
In Adam's sinful sons, as they are found;
Kingdom they add to kingdom, field to field,
Make themselves sure and grow into the ground.
“Possession,” how much in that word is bound!
And in that awful word of conflict “Mine!”
While nature's liberty is spread around,
Our Father, and “our” home, “our” hope divine;
But men their restless souls with love of greed entwine.

XXXV

Yet Ocean glasses Heaven's own troubled brow
And fallen man; from hence the ravening maw
“An open sepulchre,” the mind—the blow
Insidious, shark's dire tooth, and lobster claw,
The fang, the sword injurious, and the saw;
Passions of man they speak and evil will.
Yet these are guiltless by their nature's law,
While men have power to choose and know the ill,
And destinies more high to break or to fulfil.

261

XXXVI

See how its surface is of war the seat!
Man's wingèd homes thereon that come and go
Are nam'd and arm'd for war, with thunders meet,
And lead the van of conflicts urg'd below,
Pursuing and pursued, while to and fro
Great prey on less, upon the weak the strong.
What are these signs but that they bear our woe?
Yet unto us alone the Angelic song,
Peace and good will 'mong men and God's own words belong.

XXXVII

These on Thee wait, till Thou shalt them relieve,
And ope Thine hand according to their need;
Thou with Thyself on this same hallow'd eve,
Thou with Thyself e'en sinful man didst feed,
Thyself of immortality the seed.
All speaks this Day of deeper mystery,
Which neither eye, nor ear, nor heart can read,
Which hidden in the waters is with Thee,
Where Faith hath her abode in an unfathom'd sea.

262

XXXVIII

Thou art Thyself the “goodly Pearl,” from man
Hid in the deep; of Light the living Well,
Compass'd around with flesh of mortal span;
The radiant moon is sphered in a sea-shell;
The fish unseen in the dark waters dwell.
Such is the life in God, which hidden lies
In its Baptismal haunts invisible;
It hath its kingdom, its own world and skies,
But lift it from the waves and soon anon it dies.

XXXIX

Man is that Fish which dwells beneath the deep,
Which doth alike his haunts and knowledge bound,
Of worlds unnumber'd which about him sweep
He nothing knows; but in that narrow round
Soul, will, and choice are given him, ways profound,
While ever nearer to the eternal shore,
The meshes of the net his path surround,
Where Angels gather in the chosen store,
And fling the bad away—perish evermore.

263

XL

Peace-speaking tribes! to contemplation given
Are men that love you; sweet philosophy
Hath mingled with your praises thoughts of Heaven:
Admit me to your silent company,
With fabled Aristæus 'neath the sea
O'er-arching, charm'd with that melodious tale.
Or on your waters gazing placidly
Here let me pause, as sinks the noon-tide gale,
Anchor awhile at rest, and harbour'd furl the sail.

264

EVENING.

I

And now arising from the deep profound
Emerge we on the shore; where Staffa's cave
With pillars upon pillars thrown around
Looks at her image in the glassy wave;
Their marble feet where Isles Ionian lave;
Or with vermillion groves, heap piled on heap,
Hardening herself the sun and storm to brave
The World of coral issues from the deep,
Where sea-birds skim the surge or mailèd tortoise creep.

265

II

But what are these which wing the Atlantic shore
Careering with their troops, on sea or land,
Delighting in the blast and love the roar?
Some skim the surge, some walk the eddying strand,
Some float on side-long plume; some trooping stand
On whitening reefs; the Cormorant from the rest
Flaps far away his length of wing; at hand
Some look down from the cliff's aerial nest;
The Heron'mong the reeds uplifts his towering crest.

III

Wild and majestic as the sea they love
Our souls upon their pinions have they borne
To the great vast, our petty cares above;
Yea, if with them we take the wings of morn,
And seek the desert nakedness forlorn,
Thy Presence, seen in instincts manifold,
Continues in Thy creatures still unworn,
In all their cries and ways which were of old;—
E'en there Thine Hand shall lead, and Thy Right-hand shall hold.

266

IV

And haply contemplations more Divine
Of Baptism, and the Heaven-ascending wing
Are with them, and may blend the ethereal sign,
By ocean, or by river, lake, or spring;—
The Swan, the queen of waters, like a thing
Of majesty and beauty borne along
'Mid verdant banks where birds on branches sing;
The darting King-fisher, where insects throng,
Fanning their gem-like wings the shining streams among.

V

Some eye within the pool their glorious make,
Or with their new-born plumage try the wave,
While others dive below and rise and shake
Their glossy pinions; some the surface lave,
And light on the green margin, seek the cave,
Or green embowering branch; love and delight
Expands their souls and utterance seems to crave,
Through all their motions speaks, and fills the sight,
Rejoicing in the flood of new-born life and might.

267

VI

Amphibious some by shore, or pool, or cave,
Of fin and scale bereav'd, or seen in flight
Borne onward on the bosom of the wave;
Serpentine lengths with hairy main aright,
And all the Egyptian brood uncouth as night;
The crab slow-sailing from his rocky lair
To sea-weed basins; meanwhile oft to sight
Porpoises leaping up into mid air,
Or 'neath the sun-bright cliff they flock and slumber there.

VII

On confines of both realms a doubtful race
From either element their being draw;
On their foul gait, and lineament, and face,
By nature's self, and by mount Sinai's law,
Is stamp'd abomination;—things of awe,
Loathing, or wonder;—witnesses design'd
How God admixtures hates, our nature's flaw,
That souls who in His kingdom place would find,
Must free the wing and leave their lower selves behind.

268

VIII

But see those angel-painters, which have been
So busy in mosaics of the deep
'Mid the shell-homes,—on mount or valley green
Are now 'mid nests, in cavern, rock, or tree,
With pencil and enamel sporting free;
With order, without order, strange and wild!
Wonder-wrought nests, wherein Philosophy
May stoop to gaze together with the child,
Tints grain'd indelible where new-born nature smil'd!

IX

Thence to the light of day burst from the shell,
Profusion on profusion, pour'd apace
Exuberant wings which knew wherein to dwell,
Mount, vale, or glen, or waste, aerial space,
Or shore, or play'd on Ocean's silvery face
With all his streams and wells, exulting pour'd
According to their kinds, and chose their place;
Within, without answer'd sweet music's chord,
As with its silent law moved the instinctive Word.

269

X

That Word convey'd the universal soul
According to their kinds, which power might prove
From age to age to urge and to control;
And what are those delights of vernal love
Which poets sing of, which through stream and grove
Sweetly and strongly through all nature reigns?
'Tis all that Voice of blessing from above
“Bring forth and multiply!” which still remains
Though dash'd with sinful taints and mix'd with sinful pains.

XI

Spring's golden-harness'd stars that law in Heaven
Read as they pass on their high course, and thence
From year to year on their return 'tis given
To rain on earth their genial influence,
Which men call love as seen by sight and sense.
'Tis but that Voice, and what that Voice hath blest.
Thence are those ways beyond intelligence,
Those marvels which surround each feather'd nest,
And arts beyond all art of the parental breast.

270

XII

Strange was the jubilee which on that day
Thrill'd through the regions of this claustral womb,
Which hems us round beneath the starry ray,—
This earth and sea and sky-encircled gloom,
The cradle of all living and the tomb;—
Rejoicing and rejoicing; 'twas the spring,
The spring of springs, in beauty, joy and bloom,
With swarms on swarms, with feet, or fin, or wing;
They creep, they swim, they fly, or walk, or soar and sing.

XIII

Who those aerial tribes and their retreat
On sky or grove or ground,—what tongue can tell
Their buoyant and elastic frames, replete
With air-embosom'd sails that shrink or swell,
And fit them in ethereal homes to dwell;—
The beak, the talon, and the tuneful throat,
Where music hath her overflowing well
Of modulation sweet and vernal note;
And how the insect tribe on sounds harmonious float?

271

XIV

Nature is teeming with their auguries
Did we but hear aright; no need of wand
To quarter out the Heaven, for all the skies
Are full of Deity; in every land
With their own tongues, which Angels understand,
Of morn, and eve, of seasons and their change,
And of their dear Creator's bounteous hand
They sing; one great “Te Deum” new and strange,
One deep Doxology through all the tuneful range.

XV

Creatures of God, that fly or swim abroad,
Heaven's harbingers, what lessons do ye bring
To earth-worn pilgrim on his heavenward road?
On Jordan's banks ye birds that fly and sing,
Ye fish below that haunt the sacred spring:
Ye which in Galilean waters dwell,
Or on that chosen Sea your shadows fling;
The mysteries of your being deign to tell,
And let me from your banks bear home the scallop shell.

272

XVI

When first the Heavens were open'd from above
It was on sacred Jordan's ancient flood;
The Spirit came descending like a Dove;
And Dove-like on the waters seem'd to brood—
On waters—when He hallow'd them for good;
Thence sanctified are creatures of the wing,
And with celestial emblems all endued.
What lessons shall this Day to wisdom bring,
To hallow its return by sea, or lake, or spring?

XVII

Lift up your eyes, ye pilgrims, see your God!
'Twas on this day that on the clouds sublime
Ascending He the stair ethereal trod.
His are the eagle-souls which through all time
Throng round the Crucified, the aerial clime
Surmounting, beyond reach of earthly wing.
And little ones which free from care and crime
Look not before and after, rise and sing,
And thankful own His hand whate'er His hand may bring.

273

XVIII

Ye worms of earth, lift up your hearts and eyes,
This is the day when Christ went up above,
And we with Him find wings and upward rise.
His is the Dove which hid in thickest grove
Lowers its meek head, then pours its note of love,
On top oak-bough oft heard at interval;
His the home-bird which in snow-veil'd alcove
Forces his way, or in the wintry hall,
To thrill aloud his chaunt so clear and musical.

XIX

His all the tuneful host; the speckled breast
Amid the green-bough'd elm-tree seen hard by,
Lifting his morning chaunt above the rest;
Until the Blackbird joins the minstrelsy
With his shrill pipe that fills the choral sky.
His is the Lark with which the welkin rings,
Higher she mounts and higher, yet more high,
And flings melodious matins from her wings,
Lies lowliest on the ground, yet nearest Heaven she sings.

274

XX

Sweet bird, with all thy soul to praises given,
Who on the blue ethereal poised at ease,
Lost from men's sight dost converse hold with Heaven;
And looking down on man's proud palaces
Pity us groveling worms whom such things please:
Then growing sad and mute from that calm height
Descend to earth and earth's necessities!
Thy lesson who can fail to read aright,
Which ere we spell it o'er hath entered ear and sight?

XXI

On this day He ascended; His are they,
With Him they soar and sing and never fail;
He hallows them to wisdom on this day—
His feathered angels; His the Nightingale
Which by the ivied casement in the vale,
By haunts of men that some perchance may hear,
Renews night-long his sweet and solemn tale,—
That when men sleep celestial guards are near,
Singing their sleepless hymns too pure for mortal ear.

275

XXII

But who shall tell the lore to sight or sound,
In their wild instincts varied infinite,
Of all the feather'd families around?
Moon-loving Owl, he on his noiseless flight,
Seen like a ghostly spirit of the night,
Speaks some unearthly presence brooding near.
The Falcon train'd to war; the hovering Kite,
Making the mountain solitudes more drear,
While with him on the wing the raven troops appear.

XXIII

To Him th'young ravens call: when heard aloud
The falling crag echoes 'mid mountains high,
From his dark house within the stormy cloud
Answers the Eagle's solitary cry,
The monarch of the mist, and then sails by.
The Bustard runs and rises on the wind;
The Ostrich skims the plains of Araby
And mocks the horse and rider left behind,
A dromedary bird, and swift as mountain hind.

276

XXIV

His are they all. Who bids the blast breathe low,
And spare the Halcyon brooding on her nest,
Or gives to her the coming calm to know?
Who in the instincts of the creature's breast,
E'en while it follows nature's own behest,
Such signs of good and evil interwove;
The loyal heart—the stedfast faith impress'd?
While without law, yet full of law they rove,
A law unto themselves, and all that law is love.

XXV

Thine too that bird amid the homes of men
That chaunts the watches of the waning night,
Summons to watch and pray, and wash again
Our faults with tearful sorrow; heard aright
Of Peter and his fall. In beauty's light
Walking at ease the Peacock, woodland-bred,
Plume-crown'd, with snaky neck comes soft to sight,
Starr'd rainbow eyes o'er-canopy his head,
Sailing with outstretch'd state and earth-disdaining tread.

277

XXVI

Thine are the fowls that neither sow nor reap,
Nor gather into barns, but great and small
Look up to Thee, whether they wake or sleep,
Look up to Thee, the Maker of them all;
Not one without Thee to the ground can fall.
Ethereal-minded, how around they preach,
Angelic, Evangelic their sweet call,
Heaven's witnesses, and spirit-like their speech;
Wise should we be indeed to practise all ye teach.

XXVII

Thine are those travelling herds that range aloof,
Plume thick on plume, the aerial caravan,
With wedge-like march right onward o'er Heaven's roof,
They aid alternate wings, rear, flank, or van,
Beating the air with multitudinous fan.
A still small Voice in Heaven o'er sea and land
Marshals their pathless ways. O heedless man,
The Crane and Swallow know their Lord's command,
Man will not hear His voice, nor see His guiding hand.

278

XXVIII

Ye winged pilgrims, which no dwelling own
But in the flying seasons, and resort
To all our eaves and haunts, your stay make known
By stranger plume, or voice, or feather'd sport,
Or holding on green lawn your transient court;—
Why are ye pour'd around us, but to tell
In these your sojournings, so sure, so short,
That we like you should here as exiles dwell,
Bound to an unseen home like tented Israel?

XXIX

Black-throated stranger, snow-capp'd guest of spring,
Perch'd on the shrub thou art one moment seen,
Then with sweet note and ruddy underwing
Glancing in outspread flight from green to green,
Eyest me with stranger look; where hast thou been?
With what Angelic burden art thou here?
Enlivening with thy stay the garden scene,
Just come and gone, we know not whence nor where,
Yet piping thy soft note, “stranger and sojourner.”

279

XXX

The Swallow—should she hear that trumpet call
From stars in Heaven which summons her away,
Whate'er it be at the Autumnal fall,
Will leave her unfledg'd nest, and stern obey
The summons to depart, nor knows delay.
What is this spell which o'er maternal love
Hath dignity the gentlest heart to sway,
Emblem of Him Whose calling from above
Mightier than kindred ties or home-delights must prove?

XXXI

What shall we say of those that day and night,
Whether they wake or sleep, on airy sail
Still dwell aloof in everlasting flight?
To higher heavens when winds below prevail
They rise, and rest above the stormy gale
On cross-like plumes: such Faith's angelic wing,
Which ne'er on wood or water, mount or vale
Found rest, but hath within the elastic spring
Of high affections borne above each earthly thing.

280

XXXII

Lo, trailing plumes, like a gold-spangled shower
Glittering with gems or crimson-painted skies,
From Indian isle to isle, a flying power
Of light and beauty,—bird of Paradise!
To calms aerial will he sink or rise
To keep his plumes, of Eden duly styled.
On gifted bards rich Nature thus supplies
Wings dipp'd in Heaven which summer sunsets gild;
Blest they who keep the same in spirit undefil'd.

XXXIII

But dearer far to men that honour'd bird,
Albeit rude of form, emblem benign
Of filial piety; whose cry is heard
High up in Heaven, when true to vernal sign
And beck'ning Hand unseen, he waves his line
O'er the dark pyramids; the live cloud moves
Its shower of wings to sacred Palestine,
Carmel and Eastern isles,—'mid city groves,
And walks of Moslem men, the Stork which mercy loves.

281

XXXIV

Yea, Love is multiplied 'mid sternest things;
The Eagle stirs afloat her new-fledg'd nest,
Flutters above and spreads expansive wings,
And bears them on her plumes. God on that breast
So pitiless to others hath impress'd
A parent's tenderness, and lodgèd there
'Mid mountain solitudes in our unrest
An image, how His own protecting care,
Himself unto Himself, on eagle wings would bear.

XXXV

Before our path o'er mountain, heath, or moor,
The Lapwing with strange feats, wondrous in wile,
The foot intrusive from her nestling store
Lures off with cries and feints; that as we smile
Caught by her guileful simpleness, the while
Heart-moving signals of the creature's love
Our harder thoughts to wisdom may beguile;
There is a heart whose treasure is above,
Which as the serpent wise, is simple as the dove.

282

XXXVI

“Come unto Me.” Lo, yonder 'neath the wood
The homestead bird with instantaneous cry
With mantling plumes hath gather'd all her brood,
Ere yet above her head the untaught eye
Hath caught the quivering hawk that hovers nigh.
He sees what we behold not, and His call
We hear, alas! but heed not, or we sigh
To see the dangers, and we fear to fall,
Yet haste not 'neath that wing outspread to harbour all.

XXXVII

Life is with death commingling, from the Whale
That makes the sea a cauldron in his might,
Or Condor with his outstretch'd plumy sail,
To those quick forms, like particles of light,
Which wave their burnish'd cloud in Evening bright;
Numbers innumerable, insects rife,
Rejoicing rise to regions of our sight:
Or all the wave is luminous with life,
One animated mass teeming with joy and strife.

283

XXXVIII

Through seas, earth, air,—all realms of night and day,—
Life is by death sustain'd, and scaly fin,
And feather'd pinion are outspread for prey;
Eloquent world! without us and within
All things bear stamp of our primeval sin,
With pain and death and all their family;
But ye,—O wondrous grace such love to win!—
Bear sin and sin's remedial mystery,
For guilty men to live that Innocence must die.

XXXIX

And who shall speak what power inscrutable,
When on the Afric desert falls the slain,
Brings down the Vulture troop with charmèd spell?
From far like specks beyond the mount or main
Coming to sight on the ethereal plain,
More near and near careering; eddying round
More and more near in hurried flight they gain,
With eagle whoop descending, on the ground
And on the unburied dead with talon'd greed they bound.

284

XL

Emblems of sin and men by sin defil'd!
We search their natures for some power allied
To smell, sound, sight; in creatures soul and wild
What if Redemption's mystery may hide
In that instinctive soul which is their guide?
May shadow forth the wonders of that grace
Which brings the Saints around the Crucified?
They flock to Him throughout all time and space,
Men marvel at the power which in them finds such place.

XLI

His death our life; His Body fills our veins
With spiritual blood, lifts up with eagle-wings,
And the soul's flight above the world sustains.
Thus where her sternest shadow nature flings
The meek rejoice; to all their food He brings;
Man to his work until the evening goes;
In Him, to Him the feather'd morning sings;
And wearied eve in cedars finds repose;
In fir-trees ever green the Stork her dwelling knows.

293

THE SIXTH DAY. Beasts, creeping things, and Man.

295

ARGUMENT.

All is now suspense and expectation until Man appears. Creation of cattle after their kinds, and insects. All marked with the effects of our sin. Their affinities with things heavenly and spiritual, shewn in the universal application of them as types; in the Zodiac; in the symbolic figures of the East; in the fables of Æsop; in the Mosaic Law, wherein the creatures surround the Lamb of God. Distinctions between them abolished; the Ark; the Vision of St. Peter. But all stamped with Divine lessons; the dog teaches fidelity; the cloven-foot the symbol of safe-treading; the hind, of walking on high places; chewing the cud, of contemplation; beasts of burden set forth patience; the serpent, wisdom; the dove, innocence; the ant, providing for Heaven; the silkworm, resurrection; the bee, divine anointing of kings; the butterfly, angelic natures. Insect architects are “taught of God;” much more is man for everlasting habitations and “a building of God.”

From other creatures ascent to Man. Man alone able to know his Creator. The Trinity in deliberation: man created in the image of God; image of the Trinity variously explained. Though man be fallen yet still God loves in him His own Image. His dominion over the creatures, in like manner as that over the inner world, forfeited by his own disobedience. On this same day the restoration of man by the death of Christ. The Trinity again revealed in converse. Returning to the image of God man finds his lost dominion, peace and Paradise restored. As beheld in Christ the creatures again are good. The Sixth Day of the world now verging towards its close.

297

MORNING.

I

As when the unnumber'd audience hang their gaze
On opening of some glorious theatre,
Which all its meet accoutrement displays,
The curtain now uplifted, eye and ear
All watching, till the actors shall appear;
So while the stars adorn the encircling skies,
And air and wave their living inmates cheer,
Watchers of Heaven look down with wondering eyes,
Till habitants of earth and Man himself shall rise.

298

II

Gradation on gradation all ascend
The silver chain of order; from their deep
And adamantine base first upward tend
Material worlds; and thence to being creep
The vegetable realms their place to keep;
Animal worlds then with their tribes have striven
Of every form and phase, and onward sweep
To Man, to whom the soul divine is given,
Communing with the stars, and face that looks to Heaven;

III

Which still remains, though fallen; still his sight
Turns heavenward, and the stars on him look down
With deep mysterious tenderness of night,
And in his darkest wanderings seem to own.
What though of things below thou art the crown,
Thou knowest them by name, and they are thine,—
To some for sorrow is thy service known,
Some frown and rage against thee, some repine;—
As thou thy Maker's yoke so they thy yoke decline.

299

IV

That Morn of morns how sweet and musical!
At their Creator's voice new Life and Love
Went forth, and purple pinions waved o'er all,—
A mantle as of music from above:
Deep minstrelsies the soul of nature move,
Like universal Pan, whose pipe o'erflows
From fabled haunts of some deep-hidden grove;
So Love in all the stir of being rose,
Yet had within itself its own Divine repose.

V

For like some mighty music, sweet, sublime,
There something is that fills the earth and sky,
And in the burst of spring, throughout all time,
Wakens more deep that mystic harmony
Which hidden 'neath all nature seems to lie.
Upborne as by a buoyant underflood
Stilly with multifarious voice they cry,
In solemn accents feebly understood,
'Tis God Who made us all, and God alone is good.

300

VI

As when on banks of Ganges, far and near
Stillness of death and sylvan horrors brood,
From clouded skies should the bright moon appear,
Or thunders and swift lightning rouse the wood,
What seem'd e'en now but lifeless solitude
Wakes up, and rings with every sight and sound;
So at the Voice Divine Creation stood,
In multifarious forms pour'd forth around,
In the sweet gift of life rejoicing from the ground.

VII

Full-limb'd intelligences walk the earth,
What veil mysterious o'er their birth-day lies!
While every clod is bursting into birth;—
As first into new being they arise,
And drink their Maker's boundless charities,
Drink and are glad,—are glad because they live,
Like glittering drops the well of life supplies,
Radiant with joy, because their God doth give,
And upward to the Fount of all their blessings strive.

301

VIII

Self-moving forms, by will internal steer'd,
By passions oar'd, by chance desire full-sail'd,
Athwart or straight, by breath impulsive spher'd
Within their soul, as new-born life prevail'd,
All powers organic to its service hail'd,
Through all the body with a lightning glance
To motion urged and sound—with power entail'd
To after kinds,—not as the starry dance,
But as the unseen Will gave joyous utterance.

IX

The Lion's kingly brow, the mail'd cuirass
Of huge and horn'd Rhinoceros appear'd,
Streak'd Tiger, spotted Pard, and countless pass
Many-form'd tribes, and many-horned herd;
In beauty and in gladness at the Word
They lift their heads, and fill with life the land;
Snake-handed Elephants their bulk uprear'd,
Live towers of arrowy war, and on each hand
The Elk, and Camel-ship to steer o'er desert strand.

302

X

The Horse starts at the shade himself had cast;
The antler'd head emerges as from sleep,
In semblance of the grove wherein it pass'd;
Wool-bearing tribes range pasturing, white-fleeced Sheep,
And browsing Goat hanging upon the steep,
Soft-eyed Gazelle, huge Giraffe, trunk-like kind,
Light-footed Roe, tall Antelope, with leap
Rebounding and rebounding; graceful Hind,
Fair as acacia-tree, elastic as the wind.

XI

Nor less in harmless troops unnumber'd play'd
The smaller kinds on lawn, or grove, or hill,
Pair'd or in flock, or solitary stray'd;
The Coney by his rock sports, eats his fill,
Then feeds on contemplation and is still;—
Soft-footed Hare that haunts the moonlit range;
Mate-loving Mole; the Squirrel's airy will
Of storm sagacious and of windy change;
The Beaver on the stream that builds his portal'd grange.

303

XII

Full-shap'd, full-cloth'd, and full of life upsprung,
Teeming as swarms which Indian shades embower,
Till with their thousand cries the welkin rung;
For thick as motes in sun-light's golden shower
Burst forth Creation in her early hour:
But most on rivers' bank the joyance spread,
And multiplied all motion, will, and power;
The Sea-horse sported on his watery bed;
The Frog beneath the reed rear'd his enquiring head;—

XIII

Anon extending both his arms to swim
Amphibious pass'd into his verdant isle;—
The Lizard to the bank; uncouth of limb
Mail'd and caparison'd the King of Nile
On wave or shore tried feats of harmless guile;
Four-footed some, some many-footed roll
Serpentine shapes, and as they creep the while
Unclasp their golden wings, with buoyant soul
Make air their dwelling-place, their crowning end and goal.

304

XIV

The Grasshopper, the Bee's melodious wing,
The booming Beetle with his evening horn,
Their music-making motions seem to sing,
Like sparks of joyous life; the May-fly born
To die, and never see a second morn,
Yet sporting in the sunset to its close:
Each with bright wings his Maker doth adorn,
And bids him to rejoice; His voice he knows,
And sports till falling eve hath brought him death's repose.

XV

Nations with nations creep the insect race,
'Mid Nature's boundaries wall'd, together twine
And interweave their tribes, filling all place;
Each sylvan lodge, each shrub, each pool, or mine,
Swarms with its myriads,—horn'd beeve, fleecy kine,
Or caravans on wing;—wonders Divine,
Strange miniatures; each knows its order'd way
That climbs the stair of being, till they shine
The purple-bright expansion of a day,
Angel-like forms disclose, and pass for aye away.

305

XVI

Now mock the big creation,—peacock-plumed
With elephant proboscis, or with mail
Of tortoise-like enamel, when illumed
With sunset hues it folds its filmy sail
Beneath the emblazon'd shield or feather'd tail;
Some Pard-like spotted o'er, or Zebra-lined,
Quivering with trunk elastic: tongue would fail
To speak their aptitudes of form and mind,
And transformations strange according to their kind.

XVII

Now counterfeit the vegetable world
With frolicsome vagaries as in sport,
Mimic the branch—or flower—or leaflet curl'd;—
Intelligent to form in other sort
The natures, shapes, and hues of Flora's court
Wherein they dwell. The bud—lo,—by degrees
A full-blown flower! in interval as short
Aurelian generations wing the breeze,
And fill the doubtful mead with floral semblances.

306

XVIII

With joy and beauty the aerial troop
Purple and paint the lea; some hang below,
Others on sunbeams ride with buoyant group
On clouds of airy gladness, to and fro,
Or up and down careering: others glow
Diamond-like or impearl'd, each a wing'd gem;
E'en as the Cistus with its summer show
Puts forth its flowerets like a diadem,
And drops them all at noon around the parent stem.

XIX

To them who trace their tribes from kind to kind
How complicate and deep their harmonies,
Similitudes, gradations undefin'd,
Their changes, symbols, strange analogies,
Where Nature's finger modulates and plies
Whatever stop she pleases;—breathes control,
And of their discords makes sweet melodies,
Inspiring into all one living soul
Of order and of peace that animates the Whole!

307

XX

But e'en that spring of springs, that morn of morns,
Creation's self, I deem but shadow dim
Of this our new Creation which adorns
The face of earth and Heaven, and Nature's hymn
Faint echo of the song of Seraphim
Which our ears hear not; from its wintry cells
Each Year awakes that Bridal lamp to trim,
And reads to earth the mystic Canticles;
But my dull heart knows not; the soul that in them dwells.

XXI

Nor can we of the creatures deem aright
As perfect from their Maker's Hand they came,
So interwoven are they to our sight
With images of ill; through all their frame
Such laws are inly wrought, though free from blame,
Yet made to glass our passions, rage and lust,
Cunning and pride, stamp'd with our sin and shame,
Creatures that rise from and return to dust,
Yet sanctified to teach the wisdom of the Just.

308

XXII

And this sublunar mansion where they dwell,
As first it issued from its Maker's hand,
A vision is to man inscrutable;
So is its visage marr'd, and sea and land
Furrow'd with lines of sorrow, and the brand
Of thunders from below or from on high;
Where all of good by the Divine command,
(As night pursues the day along the sky,)
Fellow'd or follow'd is by dark adversity.

XXIII

Yet creatures of our Father are they all,
And we in Him may see that they are good,
Good after their own kinds, as to His call
They answer in their places, as endued
With powers and with perfections, or as view'd
In signs and counter-signs of higher things,
As rightly by Omniscience understood;
Something divine to us their study brings,
Wherein the wounded hart may drink at Sion's springs.

309

XXIV

Strange are the affinities 'tween earth and Heaven;
Star-watching Seers that meted out the skies,
There ranged the animals on vault of even,
Marking them out with Heaven's own burning eyes;
The Lion's range; the Crab as backward hies
The year into itself; the snowy Bear;
Hot summer's Dog; Heaven-climbing Capricorn;
As if man's destinies were mirror'd there,
Making the things of earth of heavenly things declare.

XXV

More than they knew within them did divine
Nature's own voice of wisdom, on Heaven's sphere
Thus fain to write the Zodiac, and enshrine
The creatures there in starry character.
Thus beasts half-human, half-divine uprear
Their heads, where Nineveh long buried lies,
Like Gods ascending from the earth appear,
And startle these our Christian centuries:
And such by Chebar's banks spoke language of the skies;—

310

XXVI

There the Four wingèd Beasts the Throne reveal,
In them the mystic Heavens a place have found;
Mix'd creature-shapes, hands, wings, and living wheel.
Thus man on earth is in his nature bound
With beasts that perish, with them walks the ground,
'Mid lusts and appetites of lower things,
Yet looks before and after, inly crown'd
With a Divinity which in him springs,
And blends with doubtful shape th'unearthly eye and wings.

XXVII

Around Mount Sinai's base was Israel taught
The language of the creatures, which made wise
Their tables and their flocks, and round them brought
All nature, like a school of mysteries,
Meet training of that childhood; open lies
Creation's self their book; but on it thrown
The line of deep distinction, to arise
With adamantine walls as yet unknown,
When their meek Master's crib the Ox and Ass shall own.

311

XXVIII

And thus that Lydian Sage in sportive guise,
The Æsop of our childhood, gave the tongue
Of wisdom to the beast, brought to our eyes
The characters which to each kind belong,
As varied as the notes of sylvan song:
Thus through each phase of folly and of crime
Rocks and home streams and woodland haunts among
Scatter'd the seeds of wisdom for all time,
Touching deep Nature's chord, mysterious, strange, sublime.

XXIX

But Israel all their kinds divinely led
To range in order round the Holy Lamb,
Clothed with that sacrifice and inly fed,
The Lamb that is in Heaven. The victim came
Replete with auguries stamped on his frame,
Spotless and patient, not events to hide
Within its entrails, but speak praise or blame
As men within the covenant abide,
Till 'tween the sheep and goats the Shepherd shall divide.

312

XXX

But by the door to Noah's ark of wood
All enter'd and were hallow'd; in the sheet
Let down from Heaven all sanctified for good:
With the wild beasts in their own dread retreat
The second Adam walk'd; as it was meet
When He for us and them the burden bore;
And now He sits on high, and 'neath His feet
Beasts of the field are placed as was of yore,
Who to themselves and us shall their lost loves restore.

XXXI

Isis no more is that Egyptian cow,
But set apart by our Redeemer's seal,
The victim o'er which shines the Heavenly bow
Encircling, hidden mercies to reveal;—
Our bodies' help, sign of our spirits' weal.
On the meek ass did our Redeemer ride;—
Alas, that to man's mercies such appeal
Should not for pity's self be sanctified!
And more than all the Lamb by gentle Una's side.

313

XXXII

The Horse no more the emblem of our pride,
Whose neck is clothed with thunder and with war:
On the white Horse the Word of God doth ride;
And with Him on white Horses from afar
Armies of Heaven: then let the battle-car
Be broken, and on earth contentions cease.
The hosts of Heaven are with the Morning Star
That opes the portals of eternal peace,
And from the yoke of pain the creature finds release.

XXXIII

And learn we their affections and their love
Their Master and their Master's friends to own,
(Ah, that men so would love their God above!)
As ye, light-slumbering dogs. The unclean alone
Without th'eternal City shall be thrown.
O beauteous picture of th'unswerving mind,
By Tigris banks and Eastern shades unknown
The Angel and Tobias onward wind,
The faithful dog is seen numbering their steps behind.

314

XXXIV

On speckled snake and toad with jewell'd eye
Terror with beauty sits, they near us dwell,
Dread witnesses, and as they hide and fly
Shoot chilly fears significant, that tell
Of loves that please but bear the keys of Hell.
Yet Faith which finds an Eden in the wild
'Mid harmful things herself unharm'd shall dwell,
To unclean natures shall be reconcil'd,
And on the adder's den shall play the little child.

XXXV

And hence the tale in legendary lore
Of lions in their wrath which stand dismay'd
At virgin purity; since they of yore
Crouch'd gazing on the Virgin-Seer that pray'd,
In silence, saw their Maker and obey'd.
And may we read that Babylonian sign
That worldly empires by those beasts pourtray'd
Harm not Thy little ones? for all are Thine,
And for Thy chosen flock work endless good Divine.

315

XXXVI

With mountain Chamois grant to walk aloof,
And the Hind's feet, still higher yet and higher
From cliff to cliff to pass, shod with the hoof,
The parted hoof of peace,—that can aspire
On slippery heights to walk and yet attire
Its limbs in fleetness. Or if rather mine
Clear streams and haunts of men and village spire,
In pensive rumination to recline,
Meet sacrifice for man, nor 'neath that yoke repine.

XXXVII

Learn we with sheep to know the Shepherd's voice,
And knowing to obey; from beasts that bear
Our burden in our Master to rejoice,
And His sweet service, Who our yoke doth share
With us and makes our burden free from care.
Yea, to the keen-eyed serpent is it given
To teach us wisdom; from the dove to share
Breasts iridescent as the summer even;
And from the ant betimes to lay up store in Heaven.

316

XXXVIII

And ye, fair maids that weave the silken thread,
Think of the worm, and that his winding-sheet
That speaks of Resurrection from the dead,
Sent from his southern skies your eyes to greet.
Think, children, while ye eat the treasured sweet,
Of the Bee's wisdom, when the summers shine,
His social love, his hymning labours fleet;
From age to age he bears the unalter'd sign
That kingdoms are of Heaven and majesty divine.

XXXIX

Yea, meanest things seem most with wisdom rife,
With more than their own wisdom are made wise,
In types of resurrection unto life.
What can the worm forecast of after-rise
To angel wings, flower-haunts, and vernal skies?
Or Mole-eyed pioneer that delves the ground
Deem of man's wisdom which about him lies?
What can man know of destinies profound,
Or deem aright of eyes that now his ways surround?

317

XL

What miniatures are on the butterfly!
The bird of Paradise is on his plume,
Feathers carbuncled o'er with jewelry;
His order'd plumage glittering downs illume.
But why this fading waste of golden bloom?
It is to set forth man, the creeping worm,
And this his shell, the star-encircled gloom,
From whence may issue forth a radiant form;—
Alas, how many die and never pass the storm!

XLI

As on a magic world on you I gaze,
Ye insects, wondrous revelation lies
In all your transformations and your ways,
For ye are mark'd as with unnumber'd eyes,
A letter'd hieroglyphic each supplies:
While a mysterious stranger from a thing
That crawls on earth, looks earthward, feeds and dies,
Issues the Angel-plumed that loves the spring;
Or flies of scorpion name, and dragons of the wing.

318

XLII

If Wonder leads me through her twilight halls
To comet after comet, suns afar,
Lost in amazement, near at hand through stalls
Of insect life no less, from spar to spar,
Which one brief noon alone doth make and mar,
Aerial gems, melodious flutterings,
Weavings of airy circlets, each a star
With beauty animate and rainbow wings,
Each in itself a world outshining pride of Kings.

XLIII

The insect scarce-discern'd doth live and move,
A creeping speck, a live intelligence,
Self-motion hath, and will, and hate, and love,
Exquisite form, and perfect lineaments,
Yea, light as of the stars, feeling, and sense.
And who shall paint the mansion where it dwells,
The mote—the channel'd range—the order'd fence;—
Of Bee or Wasp the inner citadels,
The hanging storied domes, the subterranean cells?

319

XLIV

The Ant—belov'd of wisdom—hath her glades,
Her groves by the Ilissus, learnèd stores,
With walks between and academic shades;
The Marmot builds his Babylon,—ranged floors,
Populous streets, and vaulted corridors.
Lo, springs the Beaver's many-timber'd hall,
Nineveh by the waters! Thus outpours
The Fount of wisdom over great and small,
Seen in an insect's cell or Heaven's o'er-arching ball.

XLV

Wise beyond wisdom unto man assign'd
“They all are taught of God,” in Him they mould
Their haunts and habitations in their kind;
And shall not they of the celestial fold
Learn of Him their own heavenward clue to hold
Above all reason and our human thought,
In yearnings for that country lost of old,
The saving of our souls Divinely wrought,
In ways that are of God and of His Spirit taught?

320

EVENING.

I

From beasts this day we unto man ascend;
As in a city filled with festal throng
Of meaner sort and crowds from end to end,
Should one who wandering there and wondering long
Hath wound his way the motley groups among
His venerable sire himself behold,
By the king's side and in his presence strong,
Sitting above in purple and in gold,
He turns from all the rest in filial love made bold.

321

II

So look we now to our first Sire of old;
For naught in bird or beast of sight or sound,
Or aught in their pursuits in field or fold,
Nor sylvan scene, nor grove with mountain crown'd,
Nor streams nor seas, nor creature in them found,
Nor stars that in their beauteous order roll,
And contemplations of the skies around,
Nor converse with its kind, the human soul
Can satisfy and fill—its being's end and goal.

III

For neither beast, nor aught of earthly mould,
Nor air nor sea with all their companies,
Nor the blue vault adorn'd with stars and gold,
Where sun and moon in brightness walk the skies,
Can comprehend their Maker good and wise;
No voice, no hand intelligent to ply
Their harp responsive to sweet Litanies,
Naught in them to reflect Heaven's gracious eye,
Or be the living Priest of this great Sanctuary.

322

IV

For making of the sun and sea and earth
Of no forecasting counsel do we read,
Of no deliberation at their birth,
No plan as in the moulding of the seed,
From which so vast a temple should proceed
As to fill earth and Heaven, where God's own Name
Shall be the Light, nor sun, nor moon to need;
So awful, so mysterious is the frame
Rais'd to the throne of God when freed from sin and shame.

V

And therefore as beneath a beauteous veil
The Godhead are disclos'd, as here below
Amid their instruments so poor and frail
Men sit their work designing, whence may grow
Some matter meet for counsel, bent to know
Union of thought on import grave and deep;—
That God His Image may on man bestow,
Dominion o'er this lower world to keep,
On whom may ever rest the Eye that cannot sleep.

323

VI

From that mysterious converse deep, Divine,
The Temple rises perfect, full, entire,
That God His living Presence there may shrine,
Planting His Breath therein, the undying Fire,
Which on wing'd adorations may aspire
Ever to Heaven; to walk this earthly span,
Yet join'd in union with the Seraph choir,
With wisdom given his Maker's works to scan,
The Image of his God, high-dower'd, high-destin'd man.

VII

But not alone;—the purple bloom of Heaven
Doth with the mystic Bridegroom now disclose
The mystic Bride for love and fealty given,
And cleaving to the side from whence she rose;
Presaging that which no division knows,
Marriage in Heaven, afar from sinful shame;
As some frail flower beside another grows
Both on one stem with like though feebler frame,
Or day in waters seen though softer yet the same.

324

VIII

O thou Creation's wonder, man's dread soul,
All outward nature mighty to combine
To thine own service, govern, awe, controul;—
Light, motion, heat, that triune Fire divine;—
The Shechinah of that material shrine;—
The Fire that in the bush unharming burn'd;—
The undivided Trinity; to shine,
To move, to burn; unknown and undiscern'd,
Save through the outer man to its own purpose turn'd!

IX

And might I speak what is unspeakable,
When mind doth know itself, and knowing love,
A Trinity divine in man may dwell;—
Knowledge, and Love, and Mind; which loving knows,
And knowing loves itself; till they disclose
The Three in One, which as the soul doth prove
Itself on its own centre finds repose;—
Life and light lost in everlasting love;
For God Himself is Love, the Triune God above.

325

X

Or say we rather 'twas in moral store
Of that transcendant flower which in him lay,
Wisdom to know; Devotion to adore;
Justice to walk along His sacred way?
These o'er the creatures hold imperial sway,
Semblance of God, with Godhead thus combined
Above the beasts; to love, discern, and pray;
Pure effluence in form organic shrined,
The impress here below of the Eternal Mind.

XI

Marvels divine veil'd from the outer sense,
Which in man's Sire primeval hidden lie,
Surrounded with the robe of innocence,
The hidden vest of immortality,
With superadded grace and virtues high!
The limner thus some mould distinctive rears,
Then adds each beauteous light and varied dye.
Image Divine the inmost spirit bears,
While in the form of man the breathing earth appears.

326

XII

Or Reason, Will, and Memory, three in one;
Or Body, Soul, and Spirit; where our God
'Mid these our low creations may enthrone
His Presence. Fill'd with Heaven a living clod,
Crown'd with dominion on the earth he trod,
Beatitude around him, while as yet
He needed not, nor knew the chastening rod,
The Sun of this new world, where Heaven was met
With earth—alas, too soon in tearful night to set,—

XIII

And pillars of the world with him bring down,
Lower and lower falling; far extends
Into eternity of worlds unknown
The shadow of his ruin, far descends,
Lower and lower falling, that Heaven bends
Beneath the weight, whose ruin terrible
Like mountain upon mountain all things blends,
Lower and lower falling—down to Hell:—
Meet cause for God Himself to come with man to dwell.

327

XIV

Such Image of Himself in man below
God hath beholding lov'd, and loving bless'd;
Yea, though thus helpless, fallen, yet e'en now,
Such tenderness on the maternal breast
For babes brought forth in pain hath God impress'd;
While all things onward to corruption run,
Such love is of all loves first, purest, best.
Where'er the semblance of the Three in One,
There concord is and peace and blissful union.

XV

Awful that Image still its ruin rears,—
The soul of man, O wondrous mystery!
The light or darkness at her will appears;
She hath the power to choose, for she is free;
She is the Maker of her destiny.
As bodiless creations of the brain
She hath the power to clothe with form, and see,
In painting, sculpture, or poetic strain:—
They come forth at her voice, and at her voice remain.

328

XVI

In its Creator's semblance given to be,
The soul itself hath a creative dower,
Of which with all its charms sweet Poetry
Is but the beauteous semblance, Heaven-born power
To fashion, and set forth for their short hour
Its visionary shapings: thence they spring,
And shine, and please, and pass,—a rainbow shower;
Power to give form and character and wing,
Creating out of naught a never-dying thing.

XVII

The soul the light or darkness, as she moves,
Blends with herself, transmuting unaware,
Gives a solidity to that she loves,
And on it walks as on a crystal stair;
Or beats therewith the bodiless light air
As with substantial wings; or sinks to Hell
Imbruted and incarcerate; her snare
Makes in herself, her chain, and prison cell,
Part of her very self, wherein she needs must dwell.

329

XVIII

Lodged in herself she dwells, a star apart,
'Mid complicate and fond anxieties,
Which she around her weaves from her own heart;
Like a lone spider which in centre lies
Of self-wrought and sun-gilded canopies;
Where should aught haply touch the point extreme,
Instantly shakes the whole; she hurried flies;
The gossamer pavilion and the gleam
One little breath of air shall hurry down the stream.

XIX

That portraiture so fair, with running stains
And colours false degenerate more and more,
Upon man's ruin'd offspring scarce remains;
As if some pencil foul from Lethe's shore
Or dipp'd in Stygian flames had dash'd it o'er;
So was the visage marr'd of dying man,
Spoil'd of his righteous robe and ruin'd sore,
Lying in death; till that Samaritan
Laid on his pitying beast; and then our health began.

330

XX

O'er creatures here below which God hath made
Stamp'd sovereignty man bears; but from him they
Start off aloof, indignant or afraid;
In his own soul couch other beasts of prey,
And animals unclean, born to obey,
Passions and strong affections; some disdain,
Some chafe unwilling, or reject his sway;
Through suffering he his kingdom must regain;
The Cross his sceptre make;—to serve God is to reign.

XXI

For not alone upon the unclean Swine,
And Lion now of peaceful mien no more,
And Serpents which about our feet may shine;—
Not only on the fowls of Heaven, which o'er
The mountain tops or 'mid the clouds may soar;—
Not only o'er the gliding tribes that love
The watery deep below and silent shore,
Man hath dominion lost given from above,
Which bear the unwilling yoke or from him heedless rove:—

331

XXII

O'er Rage and Lust, those unclean beasts within,
The serpent of deceitful thoughts that creep,
Or lofty-wing'd imaginings, that win
A place among the clouds or o'er the steep,
Or speculations such as love the deep
Of contemplation and in silence dwell,
The Soul doth now her lost dominion weep;
For she hath lost that crown unspeakable,
The Image of her God which was that empire's spell.

XXIII

But He who closed and oped the Lion's maw,
To spare or slay according to His Word;—
Who on the black-wing'd raven laid His law,
When at Mount Horeb's cave His summons heard,
And morn and evening came the obedient bird;—
Who from the Galilean sea to shore
With silver tongue the finny inmate stirr'd;
The Son of Man that sceptre shall restore,
And o'er the world within that kingdom as of yore.

332

XXIV

As when some sculptor in the plastic clay
Hath wrought a beauteous image, frail though fair,
Which marr'd by spoiler rude in ruin lay,
And then that loss in marble doth repair;
Thus, heavenly things with earthly to compare,
On this same hallow'd day, this noon's decline,
God hath remade the object of His care,
Set in dominion o'er His works to shine,
The Image of Himself, though human yet divine.

XXV

When He Who launch'd in space the shining spheres,
Himself hung on the Tree, and for us died,
Moulding anew the never-failing years;
And in that slumber from His wounded side
Issued in life the Everlasting Bride,
“The Mother of all living,” from His Blood,
Bone of His bone, beneath His shade to hide;
Then as around the Cross all nature stood,
God look'd upon that Day and call'd it very Good.

333

XXVI

Then 'gan Creation in her second spring,
Put off her filthy garments from the dead,
And clothed with change of raiment, plumed her wing,
With everlasting joy upon her head;
In the earth-roaming creatures then were read
Emblems and embryos, blood-wash'd and shriven,
Glistening with dews, in which around were shed
Reflections of the things that are in Heaven;
And to unlock their ways the keys of David given.

XXVII

Then was again, when our New Birth began,
The Triune God in awful converse known,
The Father's Voice,—the Dove—the Son of Man
Issuing from Jordan's wave; on Tabor's throne
The Father's Voice—the Cloud—the Face that shone;—
On Golgotha's mysterious Sacrifice,
Consenting and approving, Three in One;
For man thrice dead, regenerated thrice;
So great the birth, the fall, the ransom and the price.

334

XXVIII

And man that lost dominion given in vain,
In semblance of the awful Trinity,
Through body, soul, and spirit shall regain
Over the creature worlds which in us lie,
Hallow'd anew to mutual harmony;
As when the ethereal Light diffused around
Blends all in one the sky, the earth, and sea,
Their mirror in the gazing eye is found;
There is no strength but where that threefold cord is bound.

XXIX

Union alone is peace and sacred rest,
When all to One return, for God is One;
The Triune Godhead on the soul impress'd
In our Redemption; by the Incarnate Son
Renewing in that kingdom here begun;—
Taking our ills to give us His own good;
Within restoring peaceful union;—
The Spirit, and the Water, and the Blood,
When dove-like on the wave the hallow'd wing shall brood.

335

XXX

Made Son of Man to make us sons of God;
Incarnate made that we might be Divine;
Our destin'd way of death for us He trod;
Our Great High-Priest, in His own hallow'd shrine
Oblation made for us (O love benign!)
What He from us receiv'd;—for us to strive
With our great enemy;—Himself resign
In death for us, that we in Him might live;
We our own death to Him, He us His life doth give.

XXXI

That we might be made rich, Himself made poor;
Troubled for us, that we His peace might win;
An outcast made, that we might find the door;
Our leprosy took on Him and our sin,
Not to retain but heal, to clothe within
With innocence and health; His wounded Side
Opening for us, that we might enter in,
As to an Ark of refuge, there to hide,
Hide from our sinful selves and in His love abide.

336

XXXII

Our death in life, our life in death, our Breath
In that new Eden of the hidden skies,
Where by those fiery cherubims of death
He led the Thief, unseen by mortal eyes,
By living streams of that new Paradise.
His Bride unclean and sinful He regains
By taking her uncleanness; as He dies
Pouring His vital Blood into her veins,
Whereby in dying life in her His Spirit reigns.

XXXIII

Rightly thyself to know, thyself to scan,
This is to know thy God; though foul-defaced
His Image still is in thee, wretched man;
He pleadeth still within thee, though displaced
By meaner things. His Finger there hath traced
Again the lines of that creative Love;
And with the filial robe hath inly graced;
O let thy tears like a new Baptism prove
Whereon again may brood the Spirit from above.

337

XXXIV

The eye which in its mirror takes the sea
The mountains and the wood, the stream and plain,
And the broad starry vault's immensity,
Cannot behold itself; e'en thus in vain
The soul would know its image, till it gain
The mirror of God's truth; and as it learns
What it hath been, and what may now remain,
What it should be, cleanses as it discerns,
Shrining that crystal fire which in its spirit burns.

XXXV

When the inner man the outward doth command,
When God's own Image hath subdued man's pride,
And sits self-mastery on the bridling hand,
Then, as the clouds which the sun's light would hide
Are by his light transform'd and glorified,
The Word within the body shall transmute
To His own service, all things on each side
To one high object shall responsive suit,
As melodies that dwell in the obedient lute.

338

XXXVI

But men forget in earth's oblivious dream
This is a place of exile, not reward,
And therefore envious nature oft may seem
Step-dame—not nursing mother;—so much marr'd
Of all her fair proportions, so debarr'd
Of all substantial good or peaceful rest;
Ill-nurtured, ill-affianced, and ill-starr'd,
The universal plaint; though once thrice bless'd,
A mirror of the change that marks the human breast.

XXXVII

When first in Christ the world's foundation stood
As all the creatures from His hand proceed
God saw them in the Son, and call'd them good;
E'en so to us are they all good indeed
As we in Christ behold them; in them read
The language of His love who for us died;
Seen in the sun fair is each flower and weed,
Without him they in formless dark abide;
All things in Thee are good, and naught is good beside.

339

XXXVIII

In all things seen around 'tis Thou alone
Meet end and object to our thoughts dost prove,
Naught else but Thou art worthy to be known;
No ways are good but end in Thee above;
No motions good but those which Thou dost move;
No thoughts but those alone by Thee inspired;
Nothing but Thou art worthy of our love;
Nothing but Thou in all to be admired;
Nothing but Thou alone by soul of man desired.

XXXIX

The Sixth Day now is verging to its end,
The Sixth Age of the world; the mountain height
Looks bright, but shadows on the earth descend;
That word Divine bears onward in its might,
“Increase and multiply,” as heard aright
Of Christ and of His Church in mystery,
Sowing the desert world with orient light,
And bringing forth all hidden harmony;
Dark night,—or evening clear,—we know not what shall be.

349

THE SEVENTH DAY. The Rest of God.

351

ARGUMENT.

Creation finished. In no creature can God find rest, but only in Himself. On the creation of Man God rests in Christ “the express Image of His Person;” alone the Supreme Good. The Sabbath or rest of God, wherein He still works both in things of Creation and of Redemption. Man also can find no rest in the creature, but only in God. This Sabbath is the rest of the soul in Christ in this His Kingdom; not in cessation from labour but in “faith working by love:” as the rest of God who still continues to sustain all that He has made: repose of mind amidst the world, not in things of the world. The number Seven speaks of pardon. Sabbatic rest of the Christian opposed to servile fear of the Jew. The sacred Seven becomes by Ten indefinitely progressive; as expressing a further rest which ever remaineth for the people of God. Works of the six days seen by the creatures; the Sabbath of God discernible by man only. Has no evening. Six a perfect number, prolific, and of the world. Seven made up of four and three implies the world of four quarters united to the Divine Three.

Christ resting in the grave on the great Sabbath. The intermediate state: the Paradise of God: withdrawal and cessation from the miseries of this life. Sleep an image of that rest. “To sleep in Christ.” “To be with God.” Night also and stars. How thin the veil between us and that state. Dreams, and recollections renewed in them. The fall of Jericho on the Seventh day. That rest precedes the great morning, when them which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. Invocation to all creatures to praise God.

353

MORNING.

I

'Tis finishèd; for God hath made the light;
And hung the aerial firmament on high,
Traversed with clouds; set ocean fair to sight;
Carpeted earth with green embroidery;
Given the great sun and moon to range the sky,
And trembling fires aloof their watch to keep;
And living shafts that through the waters fly;
Set birds to sing around, and soar, and sweep,
And on the stable ground creatures that walk or creep.

354

II

But not in light, or arching firmament
Traversed with clouds; nor ocean fair to sight,
Round the green earth with living bow half-bent;
Nor in the sun or moon on throne of night,
Nor constellations in aerial flight,
Nor in the breathing objects set around,
The living wonders of Creative Might,
In naught of these the rest of God is found;
God His own Image made and with a Sabbath crown'd.

III

For in Himself alone, and in the Word
Whereby He all things made and call'd them good,
In the Incarnate Son, Creation's Lord,
God can alone find rest; by Him endued
All sanctified and bless'd creation stood;—
The Brightness of His Glory, and alone
The Image of His Person; in whose Blood
Wash'd as with light lay all beneath the throne,
By Him all things were made, were made for Him alone.

355

IV

In naught but Good supreme can God find rest,
Which is Himself; from the Sabbatic skies
He goeth forth Himself to manifest
In works of love, life-giving charities;
For all self-motion central rest implies.
Thus man in God alone can find repose,—
That rest abroad in wandering sympathies
He in the creature seeks but never knows,
Till he return to God from whence his being rose.

V

For all the things that move in earth and sky
Are anchor'd on some stay, and stable pole;
Some hidden ground of rest doth in them lie;
As God hath His own rest Who moves the whole.
Thus to that rest Divine returns the soul,
Undress'd of its mortality and change;
While all around the elements unrol
The forms of motion and mutation strange,
The whirlwind—earthquake—storm—or nature's order'd range.

356

VI

He rests not day nor night, but Sabbath keeps
By resting in His ceaseless charities;
His ear is ever ope, His eye ne'er sleeps;
Each flying moment His calm energies
Touch every spring which hid in nature lies;
Life at His ordering lives; Fire owns His sway;
Seas move at His command; and through the skies
Winds know His beck; and clouds in their array
Hang listening for His voice, and waiting to obey.

VII

Thus God His Sabbath keeps, yet works in love;
With tides, winds, seasons—earth, and air, and seas,—
With cares mankind doth exercise and prove;
Hence exile, widowhood, want, and disease,
Bereavement, suits of law, with all the pleas
Which end in sorrow, and of ills the chief
The wounded soul which its own shadow flees;
Or friends which fail and fall; that we in grief
May seek our promised rest, may find in Christ relief.

357

VIII

The soul its Sabbath keeps on Christ's own breast,
Which labouring labours not, nor sorrow knows,
But labouring in Him in His love hath rest,
And resting in His love in that repose
Feeds on the events of life, and fuller grows,
Transmuted by that love and sanctified.
As when the Breath of Heaven serenely blows,
The sail full-bosom'd cleaves the ocean tide,
And when it seems at rest doth then most swiftly glide.

IX

In all the countless creatures spread around,
Above, beneath, before us, and behind,
The ceaseless marvels of His hand abound,
Living expressions of the Eternal Mind,
Of Wisdom, Power, and Love; to each assign'd
Home, medicine, food, His faithful care attest;
Naught are they all but as in them we find
The indications of a Father's breast,
Where man his weary head may lay, and be at rest.

358

X

But rest is not for man, unless again
The image of his God shall be restored,
For which he in the creature seeks in vain;
It is not in the sun, the stars afford
No vision of their Maker and their Lord;
Man in his soul must seek, e'en there must be
The mirror which reflects the Incarnate Word,
The Light invisible, serene and free,
The partner or the shade of His eternity.

XI

Within its orbit lives, within it dies
Each creature we behold; but upward spring
Man's thoughts by nature seeking other skies,
As birds by nature rise upon the wing.
Though Heaven itself as from an unclean thing,
Like some fair flower from shade of coming night,
Shuts up itself from our imagining;
While, like a wandering exile in its sight
Man ever vainly seeks, yet cannot bear the light.

359

XII

Sevenfold—sabbatic number—pardon's reign;
Sevenfold forgiveness once made Peter bold,
Proportion'd to the sevenfold crime of Cain;
But infinite the number, seventy-fold,
That seventy-fold which Lamech spake of old,
Is that Sabbatic grace by which we live,
The fountain of forgiveness which untold
Exuberant dwells in Christ,—love to forgive,—
For boundless is the grace with boundless ills to strive.

XIII

Therefore the Christian's labours and his toils
Are but Sabbatic rest, for servile fear
In duty is Judaic work that soils
The sabbath of our calling, seen to wear
But week-day disapparel, worldly gear;
While faith that works by love, love that reprieves,
In working rests on Christ; thus given to bear
Accepted fruit, the Tree of healing leaves,
Dropping celestial balm for every soul that grieves.

360

XIV

Sabbatic rest and service, more of rest
As more of love prevails; and service less,
Or less of servitude as more impress'd
All actions with that love which maketh free;
That yoke which is our perfect liberty.
Yet this our Sabbath blessed and divine
But shadow is of that which is to be;
As was of old that promised Palestine,
So this our Sabbath rest is but a passing sign.

XV

Still onward and yet onward, Sabbath yet
Arises out of Sabbath, Sabbath days
Then Sabbath years, then onward time is set
To Sabbath Jubilees of rest and praise,
And Sabbath of a thousand years; we gaze
And see on outskirts of this world outworn
A Sabbath hid beyond the solar rays,
Which God hath hallow'd on the silent bourne,
The blessed sleep of those that wait the eternal morn.

361

XVI

Canaan's Sabbatic land, while it remain'd
Did but disclose the better Palestine
Of this our rest in Jesus, this attain'd
Yearns onward for a Sabbath more divine;
As men their graduated glass incline
To catch some far-off landscape, and bring near;—
Tube within tube unto the distant line
They lengthen, till the sun-lit scene appear,
Distinct upon the sight, and growing large and clear.

XVII

And inward, and far inward, that sweet rest
Within the inmost temple hidden lies,
The rest which is in God; the aching breast
Shrine within shrine strives onward, as it dies
To sin and self, till on His Breast it lies
With all its sorrows. O sad thoughts of mine,
Pursuing with wing'd feet and clamorous cries
The haunted—hunted soul! but in that shrine
Safe from pursuit and noise is silence, sweet, divine.

362

XVIII

After our works which shall in God be done,
And God declareth good, we too shall rest
The rest of God, which hath no setting sun,
Where by no sense of weariness oppress'd
They always see His face, rest on His breast;
For God who is our Sabbath knows no night,
And were we with unwearied wings possess'd,
And could attend the sun throughout his flight,
We ne'er should evening know, but ever dwell in light.

XIX

There is a world wherein Christ is the Sun,
And as we live, see, hear, and look around,
In these low worlds where we our courses run,
Discerning form and colour, sight and sound,
Through windows of this flesh;—those that are found
Worthy of that pure world shall see aright
With other senses and their fulness crown'd,
In that true Sun reveal'd to other sight,
Mingling with their own souls His thought-transcending light.

363

XX

As hidden 'neath the sable garb of night
These beauteous worlds with their variety
Of scene, and face, and hue that please the sight,
Unseen, unnoted, undistinguish'd lie,
Till in the coming dawn the shadows fly,
And lift the veil. So when our Sun shall rise
The hidden form of man's Divinity
Shall clothe itself in colours of the skies,
His Image live again as night within us dies.

XXI

From that good will wherein she now doth wait
Something of meek expectancy shall rise,
Trimming her lamp beside the eternal gate;—
The soul shall put on boundless sympathies
Like God Himself, and living charities,
From things created with enlarging ken
Feeding on truth, which growing life supplies,
The City of God's sabbath amongst men,
The City named of Peace,—all shall be sabbath then.

364

XXII

The six days' works the bird and beast behold,
Of sky and sun and stars and sea and land;
But in His works thus vast and manifold
Man may discern his God, read His command,
And in His wonders know a Father's hand;
By them may on a ladder upward climb
From step to step—on the six days—and stand
On threshold of the seventh day, rest sublime,
Which knows no eventide, beyond the reach of time.

XXIII

Such Sabbath is the kingdom from above,
Which is below among the things of sight,
The type of that obedience and calm love
Which is in Heaven, where work and rest unite,
Itself its own reward and true delight,—
Whate'er it be—by senses undiscern'd—
Where labour hath no need of changeful night,
As fire consumed not that on which it burn'd,
As earth which seems at rest although most swiftly turn'd.

365

XXIV

Peaceful and sweet as the calm face of night
With all its stars to cheer our wanderings given,
So spiritually calm, unearthly bright,
Far from care's reach. And like those planets seven
That keep their watches in our nether Heaven,
So they that from their centre now decline,
In wanderings to and fro, at random driven,
Shall in their motions find the rest Divine,
As round their central Sun they in their orbits shine.

XXV

“Enoch the seventh from Adam” found that rest,
And saw the dawn of the eternal Sun
Coming with Saints ten thousand manifest.
When on the circling Ten that Seven hath run
It bringeth home from mystic Babylon.
When the Seventh Trumpet soundeth Time is done,
The angel standing on the earth and sea
Proclaims the coming in of the great Jubilee.

366

XXVI

Thus upon number's hidden harmonies
Creation's self as on melodious chime
Arises: in the perfect Six there lies
Division and production through all time,
The world within itself complete—sublime;—
One thereto added makes the golden Seven;—
Of days the hallowed fulness and the prime,
The mystic Week, the Earth combined with Heaven;—
Speaks the predestin'd whole, the seal of sins forgiven;—

XXVII

The lucid ring, which is eternity,
For ever placed on finger of the Bride;
The circling orb wherein no end can be;—
The one great Day which hath no even-tide;
The House on pillars seven which shall abide,
Where Wisdom hath prepared her Bread and Wine;
The rest of God to works of men allied;
The day which hath a seven-fold sun Divine;
The stone with seven Eyes which therein ever shine.

367

XXVIII

The veil was on his face when Moses spake
Of this the hallow'd sabbath; from his face
Yet here and there the hornèd radiance brake;
For Israel earth-ward groan'd, so slow to trace
Beneath that servile yoke the day of Grace;
Kept ward, and jubilee, heard trumpet call,
Held seven-day feast within the sacred place,
Hew'd boughs and dwelt beneath the verdant hall,
Yet sighing kept the while the mystic festival.

XXIX

The rest of God wherein our four-fold earth
Shall be united to the Holy Three,
And all return to Him that gave them birth,
Seven is the crowning of the mystery;
When time which rises from eternity,
The stream whereon men toil their six-days' thrall
Again is swallowed in that boundless sea,
“The peace of God;” whate'er survives the fall,
Shall pass into that Rest, and God be All in All.

368

EVENING.

I

'Tis finishèd and Christ rests in the grave,—
The Sabbath of all Sabbaths there to keep,
Hid in the darkness of the rocky cave
After His work of sorrow;—there to sleep
The rest of God; in that mysterious deep
Which henceforth for the saints of God remains,
Sabbatic land seen from mount Pisgah's steep,
True Paradise, where wash'd from sinful stains
In Eden's sacred stream they rest from all their pains.

369

II

That Paradise wherein no fearful hare
Flees the pursuing dog; no keen-eyed kite
O'er innocent sweet bird hangs in 'mid air;
Where no fair-dappled snake his guilty flight
Hides amid flowers and verdant boughs, whose sight
Startles man's heart with instantaneous chill;—
Wherein no sultry sun, no moon at night
Harms their soft sleep; but every thought and will
Finds rest in God alone—rest on His holy Hill.

III

Hid in the rocky cave with Christ at rest:
No noise of this bad world with all its harms
Shall reach them more, on Christ's own bosom blest;
No wars, nor rumour'd wars, nor aught that charms
In the tumultuous stir and sound to arms;
No noise of politics, nor the mad roar
Of popular seditions and alarms;
No doubts and no misgivings reach them more,
Or break their quiet rest upon that silent shore.

370

IV

The buying and the selling, and the sound
Of bridals, and the plantings, and the war,
The marriageable arts with spousal crown'd,
That ring within the ears, the senses jar,—
The movements and the wranglings from afar,
Which some shall make to smile, and some to weep;—
These all—like twinklings of a distant star,
Or murmuring sounds far off upon the deep,
Shall soothe and deepen more that peaceful-vision'd sleep:—

V

That sleep to which no evil Dream draws near
Muffled in ghostly mantle, to upbraid,
Or to allure with sin; no step of Fear
Approaches or stands by with silent shade;
No fire, nor murderous hand, nor call for aid
Can break that tranquil rest, or wake again;
That slumber hath no surfeit heavy made,
Or the distemper'd fumes of fever'd brain;
For thus to sleep in Christ is to be free from pain.

371

VI

O antepasts e'en now of that repose,
Each blissful interchange, serene release
From hopes deferr'd, from fears and toilsome throes!
To be in haven after wintry seas;—
Lodged in a wilderness to be at ease
From noise of falling kingdoms and their fray;—
In the sick night when pains relenting cease
Upon the quiet bed in peace to pray,
And hear the early bird that antedates the day!

VII

After a long—long journey worn and spent
To be at last housed in a tranquil home,
And hear without the roaring element!
To be no more a traveller to the tomb,—
To bear no more the Cross, the Church's doom
Oh, to be freed from liberty, so rife
With its own chains, with its own inner gloom,
The tyranny of freedom and the strife,
The iron of the soul that eats into the life!

372

VIII

Yet not such sleep as here on the soul lies,
Dropping the wearied lid and drooping wing,
So with her fleshly mate to sympathize;
But rest from thoughts which the rude senses bring,
The plenitude of life, the second spring;
When the soul veil'd within that Paradise
Opens to God, and hears the Angels sing,
With a new heart and other ears and eyes,
Receiving God with all awakened sympathies.

IX

For if that slumber is with Christ to be
There is a wakeful sense, pardon's sweet seal,
A consciousness brought near to Deity;
When the soul's strength that pardon doth anneal,
And something of His Presence there reveal,
As cannot be before the parting breath;
It is “to be with God,” it is to feel
The Everlasting Arms stretch'd forth beneath,
Emerging in that land beyond the vale of death.

373

X

When Death shall on this world his shadow turn
The soul shall then herself behold aright,
And face to face her image shall discern.
This glassy window now brings to our sight
Green scenes of peopled day and sunny light,
And all the landscape broad and manifold;
When darkness sits behind it and black night,
Naught there but our reflection we behold,
Which seems on us to look serenely stern and cold.

XI

For when the flesh in the grave's solitude
Sleeps, in that wakening of the bodiless mind,
As with another sense, new powers endued,
The soul her very self shall feel and find,
To which her former self shall seem but blind;
For she in God shall see, Who bearing hence,
As bandages of sense themselves unwind,
He who made eyes and ears and feeling sense,
Himself shall give to know in His Omnipotence.

374

XII

What is this sun-bright world with all its show,
Whose sights and sounds have so our senses bound?
'Tis but descending to a pit below,
But hiding for a moment under ground,
When, lo, the solemn stars will come around,
Nor aught of this bright world upon us break;
So as it enters death's dark cave profound
To things of Heaven the hidden soul shall wake;
So wondrous vast the change that one short hour shall make.

XIII

E'en now beneath the night's ambrosial star,
When we with slumberous veils lie mantled o'er,
Distinctions of the world are set afar;
The peasant and the prince, the proud and poor
To undiscerning blank doth night restore,—
As in the cradle and the grave they lie,—
Beside of nothingness the silent door
Rescued to nature's own equality,
From which through wakeful day they strive in vain to fly.

375

XIV

And what is death,—but that, severely kind,
From fettering weeds unmindful of his cries
The tender mother doth the child unbind,
And lays him in the bed till morn arise?
Yea, haply more, that her soft lullabies
May mingle with his dreams, and with sweet lays
Steal through the cell of hidden memories,
In vision bring around past sinless days,
Allay each troubled thought, and tune the soul to praise.

XV

Fair are the hues of the departing year,
Upon the fading leaf which autumn lays,
Making its going hence to be more dear:
And fair are hues of the departing days,
Which evening on the western sky displays;
Fair because hope lies under that decay,
Where hope is not no beauty's hand arrays;
This is the charm in things that pass away,
That into shades they melt which speak a better day.

376

XVI

And what is Night, whose soft and dewy veil
Returns so oft, with covering so sublime,
So awful yet so beautiful? what tale
Is writ on her deep brow, in every clime
Which carries back the heart to Eden's prime,
And lifts to Heaven with dread serener trust?
Image it is of intervening time,
When men have laid their bodies in the dust,
Before that one great morn, the rising of the Just.

XVII

Therefore is Night to solemn musing dear,
And named of contemplation by the wise,
Mantling the busy world from eye and ear
To lift the curtain from the hidden skies,
And there reveal around unnumber'd eyes.
What is it, but the ether-vaulted room
Which hangs about that mystic Paradise,
When man descends into the door of gloom
Which opens mighty worlds that are beyond the tomb;—

377

XVIII

Spiritual eyes that fill the dread Serene,
So far off, yet so nigh, whose hidden state
Dwells with us and so near, the world unseen;—
Like night and day which on our being wait,
So intertwine and interpenetrate;—
For where are they our fellow pilgrims dear,
But in that night which lies behind the gate,
Night fraught to us with many a dewy tear,—
About, around, and oh, we cannot tell how near!

XIX

More have we there than we have left behind,
Parents, it may be, brothers once so gay,
Whose memories now are on the autumnal wind
With all the scenes of infancy, and they
Who with us shared our fleeting yesterday,
No hope or love or sorrow left untold,
Companions and partakers of our way;
They too with whom we hourly converse hold,
And read their treasured thoughts the wise and good of old.

378

XX

Where are they now? O hidden blest repose!
So thin the veil by your retirement worn,
We too may be with you ere evening's close,
If meet to join those stars which night adorn.
Whether they sleep beyond the Western bourne,
Or on the precincts of our being lie,
They are th'outgoings of the eternal Morn,
Which shall be borne on wings of Deity,
Like clouds that burn with gold kindling the Eastern sky.

XXI

With her—and after her works done of yore
Follow the soul, and enter in that rest;
From fragments old and wrecks of memory's store
She moulds unto herself a downy nest,
Where Contemplation broods, there soothed and blest
With notes prelusive of the bridal strain
Heard afar off, and upon Jesus' breast
Awakening! Winter past, and gone the rain,
Oh, never, never more, never to come again!

379

XXII

For in that rest which to the good is given
Their works do follow them, with them abide,
Sweet companies in that the nether Heaven,
Nor with the earthly vesture cast aside.
Thus dreams—sleep's shadowy creations—hide
The 'fore and after, and their mysteries
To bodily strange presence seem allied,
Long-vanish'd scenes, far distant climes arise,
And long-forgotten things stand out before our eyes.

XXIII

For sleep below with nightly interchange
Given here our frail weak nature to repair,
That other world in which our spirits range,
Though blended with our ill and mix'd with care,
I deem the shadow of that mansion fair
Which is in Christ,—that slumber of the blest,
Softly embalming with ambrosial air,
Ere that the soul with her own body dress'd
Shall come forth with fresh life, new senses manifest.

380

XXIV

Yea, what are dreams? And for what purpose sent?
Why come and go they, like the viewless wind,
Or glimpses of some Angel visitant?
While yew or myrtle leaves their temples bind.
Strange intimations in our nights enshrined
That in that sleep in Christ, which lies so near,
In some mysterious form the conscious mind
Is full awaken'd in another sphere
To consciousness of God, and sees in vision clear.

XXV

When feverish fumes of sickness passing by
The strong man have brought down, and clear'd the brain,
From hiding-places old, where stored they lie,
Remembrances of childhood rise again,
As from the folds of some oblivious strain,
With an unearthly freshness in their bloom,
The home—the village scene—the distant plain—
The rude plank bridge—the brook,—far off they loom,—
Scenes loved in infancy and faces fill the room.

381

XXVI

Within the soul as in a hollow cave
Echo the murmurs of the world without,
The peopled strife, the tumult, and the wave,
But these are moulded by her own deep thought,
And through the avenues of sense are fraught
With her own feeling; images she views
Which in the mirror of the soul have caught
Their meanings, and imbibe her inward hues,
But oft 'tis of herself the shadow she pursues.

XXVII

And as the concave hills make audible
Sounds which therein unseen reverberate,
Shaping their utterance; in the soul's dark cell
Thus thoughts oft find a voice articulate
Which from material objects love or hate
Make sensible; until the soul oft rings
Aloud with them, and of her inner state
Insensate grows—and heedless—hears not things
Of God, and His within continual whisperings.

382

XXVIII

But when this throbbing pulse shall cease to beat
The still small Voice, which speaks Omnipotence,
Shall then be heard in being's inmost seat;—
Broke loose from bonds of this tumultuous sense,
And quickened all to new intelligence
The soul shall know, borne everlastingly
Above the reach of our rude elements,
And on the two-fold wing of charity
Shall spread herself abroad, and rest upon the sky.

XXIX

The higher life the lower still retains,
The plantal the material, nor in vain,
The sensitive the plantal,—silver chain—
The intellect the sensitive; again
Upon the intellect's aerial wain
Spiritual life ascends; and thus above
E'en lower faculties may yet remain,
When faith itself is lost in endless love,
On which to the third Heavens the soul itself shall move.

383

XXX

As when a lamp is by a sudden wind
Extinguish'd, or hath wasted quite away,
'Tis darkness for a moment, till we find
The moon herself hath lent her outward ray,
And emulates again the silver day:
She gently lets her snowy fleece to fall
On tortuous windings of the travell'd way,
Making night beautiful, on ruin'd wall
Seeming to sit alone or old deserted hall.

XXXI

Thus haply that sweet light of Paradise,
Compared with blaze of glory infinite
Which with the Resurrection shall arise,
Is but as this the feebler lamp of night,
To those full splendors of the morning bright,—
When to itself again as Time returns
It brings the first—last day, the Day of Light,
Wherein the soul the Sun of suns discerns,
And ever unconsumed in His own glory burns.

384

XXXII

For from six days created there arose
The Sabbath uncreate, that seventh-day Morn,
Which no creation hath, no evening's close,
Save that Eighth Day's return, when Light was born
Before the sun;—like that white vesture worn
By the eternal Bride; when from the gloom
Emerging, He Who erst at night's dim bourne
In silence rose from Sabbath of the tomb,
Before His Coming sends the dreadful trump of doom.

XXXIII

The Sabbath at whose evening shall be light,
When round this worldly amphitheatre
The paths shall open to the infinite;
Through all the skies around in vision clear
The golden forms of angels shall appear:
One moment—in the twinkling of an eye—
Within us, and around us, every where
As God shall speak the word, the light shall be,
The hallowed Sabbath light of immortality.

385

XXXIV

When the seven Priestly Trumpets full shall sound
Their warnings of repentance—seven long calls,
And Jericho shall fall unto the ground;
When o'er the Universe's flaming walls,
As world on world in burning ruin falls,
Shall enter the triumphant Jubilee,
Where Sabbath dwells in everlasting halls;
When death shall be no more,—when Earth and Seas
And Sun and Moon and Stars shall from their places flee.

386

Praise Him, ye Spirits that behold His face,
Thrones, Angel Powers with all your company,
Ye Heavens and Waters o'er the Heavenly place;
Praise Him, thou Sun, and shining Stars on high,
And thou, white Moon, walking the nightly sky,
And ye fair Clouds, and whitening Mists that sail,
And hang above your crystal canopy,
Or let fall glistening drops or snowy veil,
Or Heavens that lie around opening with lightning pale,—

And lift your thunder voice, or hurrying fleet
From pole to pole: and ye too, Day and Night,
Cease not to speak His praise, in concert meet,
With darkness and returns of grateful light.
Let Earth to Heaven respond: thou mountain height
On mountain piled, ye Alps and Andes strong,
Which hide your heads in Heaven, and here in sight
Stretch adamantine arms, a giant throng,
Clothed with green robes below, and watery thundersong;—

387

And thou, ne'er-slumbering Sea, His praise proclaim:
Fountains and Streams that murmur as ye flow,
Whisper through every land your Maker's Name;
Ye Birds that fill the air, and Fish below,
Beasts wild or gentle, wheresoe'er ye go
Fulfilling His commands, exalt His praise!
Man too with Priestly choirs and white-robed show
In beauteous temples lift your sounding lays;
And spirits of the Just your hallowed voices raise.

While happier Worlds in higher praise combine,
In reverend silence or harmonious sound,
Earth stilly on doth to her end decline
On her corporeal watch and silent round,
And with a voice that speaketh from the ground
Blends with her praise her prayers, and heard alone
From all her echoing caves, and haunts profound,
Sends forth of all our sins the piteous groan;
Hear Thou my prayer, O Lord; my days to Thee are known.