The Sanctuary :: :: University of Virginia Library

A world there is, whose zone contains
Secrets and shadows none can see
Save God, whose boundless eye-glance reigns
O'er time, and through eternity,—
A Hades, where the holy Dead
Are by commission'd Angels led.

Two worlds, indeed, to us belong,—
Matter and Mind to both relate;
Each wields a charm o'er weak and strong,
Which makes, or mars, our inward state:
But that pure Orb, where spirits dwell,
Hides, for the Saints, a master-spell.

Behind this outer shell of Time,
On which the ling'ring earth-stains lie,
Wait viewless Glories, more sublime
Than ever gleam'd on mortal eye;
And, one day, they will rend the veil,
And turn the boldest sceptic pale!

197

Men talk, as if our world of sense,
Of earth and sea, of moon and sun,
Enclos'd Divine omnipotence,
And were the whole His Hands have done!—
Cities and homes, and haunts and ways
Seem to absorb their sensual gaze.

Yet, is God's inner-world, unseen,
More wondrous far than all we view;
And, though night-shadows intervene,
On faith it acts supremely true:
While from that world dread Nature draws
Her vital powers, and plastic laws.

Elect of heaven! like saints of old,
A Samson of the spirit be!
Burst from the bondage which would hold
That sightless Region back from thee;
And through those veils, which round thee fall,
Behold the secret All in All!

Thus, not alone when Death reveals
To soul unbodied, Truths and Things
A carnal mind from man conceals,—
Will come that world God's poet sings;
'Tis present, now!—to hope and fear,
Around, beneath, for ever near.

God, and His Angels, there abide,
Acting by ways we cannot know,
When fiends of Darkness may have tried
To plunge our doom in endless woe:
And thrills of awe, and throbs of dread,
How often have they round us spread!

And, to that Spirit-world have gone
Those living-dead our hearts enshrine,
Whose saintly brows to look upon,—
Dark earth itself made half-divine!
Yes, they are in that Orb of rest
Where none can sin, and all are blest.

198

Ah! who can tell, how near they come,
And hover nigh, on soundless wing;
Or haunt, unseen, Love's peopled home
Where faith for Christ is suffering?—
Formless, but still, in soul complete,
The dead can with the living meet.

Hence, walk with awe the realm of sense,
For, in God's secret world we are;
And from this last doth He dispense
That grace which rules our bosom-war,
When Mind and Matter, Faith and Sight,
Contend for their contrasted right.

Around us, Principles and Powers,
In viewless action, work and wind;
And through all circumstance and hours
They touch the heart, or tone the mind;
And, oft when souls are unaware,
Commingle with their praise and prayer.

That inner-World! though hid from Man,
With what a burst of beaming life
Hereafter will unveil its plan,
And be with rays millennial rife,
While risen Saints and Martyrs throng,
And chant Creation's easter-song!

“The beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom.” —Luke xvi. 22.

Vide Ps. xvi, c.

“Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust ------ The earth shall cast out the dead. —Isa. xxvi. 19.