University of Virginia Library

The Sabbath bells are travelling o'er the hill;
The gentle breeze across the fresh-reaped fields
Blows fitful; scarcely, on the broad smooth bay,
With full white-gleaming sail, the slow ship moves;
Thin float the clouds; serene the mountain stands;
And all the plain in hallowed beauty lies.
God of the Sabbath, on thy holy day
'Tis meet to praise Thee! In the high-domed fane,
Glorious with all the legendary pomp
Of pictured saints, where skilful singers swell
The curious chant, or on the lonely hill,
Where, on grey cliff and purple heather, shines
The shadowless sun at noon, Thou hear'st alike.
Vainly the narrow wit of narrow men
Within the walls which priestly lips have blest,
In the fixed phrases of a formal creed,
Would crib thy presence; Thou art more than all
The shrines that hold Thee; and our wisest creeds
Are but the lispings of a prattling child,
To spell the Infinite. Kings have drawn the sword,
Lawyers have wrangled, to declare thy being;
And convocations of high-mitred men
The foaming vials of sacerdotal wrath
Outpoured, and, with tempestuous proud conceit,
Shook the vast world about a phrase to name Thee,
In vain. Thou, like the thin impassive air,
Dost cheat the grasp of subtlest-thoughted sage;
And half our high theology is but
The shadow, which man's poor and clouded ken
Hath cast across thy brightness. I would sing
Thy praise with humble heart, and, like the lyre
Wind-swept, the comings of thy breath would wait,
To wake my rapture. Lift up your heads, ye hills,
And nod His praise, ye sharp far-stretching lines
Of crags storm-shattered, and ye jagged peaks
Sky-cleaving! you His mighty power upshot
From the red ocean of His nethermost fire,
In primal ages: there inform ye lay,
In seething lakes, your molten masses huge,
In turbid waves, with inorganic roll,
Far-heaving through the dark abysmal space
Chaotic; thence His word creative hove
Your marshalled ridges; rank on rank ye rose,
Granite and gneiss, and every ordered kind
That careful science counts; the giant frame
Of this fair world, of peace-enfolden vales
Storm-fronting fence, and bulwark ever sure.
Ye mountain torrents, with far-sweeping foam,
Ye leaping cataracts, and deep-swirling pools,
Ye streams with the full-gathered grandeur rolling
Of countless rills, from huge far-sundered Alps,
Ye waters, with your thousand voices, praise
The mighty Lord! He of your sleepless floods
Is the unsleeping soul. All motion comes
From Him. Thou Ocean, with thy living belt
Girdling the Earth, whether serene, as now,
Thou liest, licking with an innocent ripple
The feet o' the green-throned isles, or, like a spurred
And furious charger, wild from coast to coast
Drivest far-sounding—thou, in all thy changes,
Art full of God; yea, all thy works, O Lord,
Are full of Thee! and who is dull to these
Shall from the teaching of the schools come back
With beggarly blindness. He shall mount in vain
His telescope, to spy Thee in the clouds,
Who in green herb and starry flower, beneath
His vagrant foot, hath failed to see and love
Thy manifest beauty. O make clear my sense,
Thou great Revealer, to the grand array
Of open mysteries that encompass round
Our daily walk with Godhead, that no vain
And wordy fool may cheat my facile ear
With echoed vollies of man's crude conceit,
Misnamed God's thunder! From Thyself direct
Thy secret comes to all, whom Thou shalt deem
Worthy to find it. Councils, doctors, priests,
Are but the signs that point us to the spring
Whence flow thy living waters; and, alas!
Too oft with wavering, or with cowardly hand
Back-turned, they point. Teach Thou my stablished soul
To seek Thy teaching, Lord, and trust in Thee.

The generations of uncounted men
Have hymned Thy praises, Lord. Their stammering tongues
With strange crude doctrine magnify the power
Of Him, whose vastness they were fain to grasp,
But could not. Even the folly of the fool
Shall praise Thee, Lord. Thou hast a place for all.
The wicked and the weak are but the steps,
Whereon the wise shall mount, to see Thy face;
And mighty churches, and high-vaunted faiths,
Are but the schools, wherein thy centuries train
The infant peoples to the manly reach
Of pure devotion; and most wise are they,
Who hear one hymn of varied truth through all
The harmonious discord of strange witnesses,
Prophets and martyrs, priests, and meek-eyed saints,
And rapt diviners, with imperfect tongue,
Babbling thy praises. Egypt's brutish gods,
Dog-faced, hawk-headed, crocodile, and cat,
Snake-eating ibis, and the spotted bull,
Not without apt significance did type
Thy severed functions to a sense-bound race.
In sea and sky, green tree, and flowing stream,
In flying bird, and creeping beast, they found
Pictorial speech, and speaking signs of what
They crudely guessed of Thee. To clearer Greeks
Stout Briareus, celestial Titans strong,
And supreme Jove, with weight of thunderous locks,
Throned like a king, and sceptre in his hand,
And ministrant eagle, spake thy mighty power
With awful grace. Each seized a part of Thee,
And, with a fond assurance, deemed to hold
Thy whole Infinity in earthly bonds
For human needs. Nor less the Christian priest
Portentous erred, when with rash hand he clutched
The awful Triune symbol, and defined
The immeasurable Majesty Supreme
With curious phrase and scientific rule,
And with the thorns of wiry logic fenced
Thy bristling name, from touch of thought profane;
Then, from a throne high-seated, and girt round
With triple-tiered presumption, grasped thy bolt,
Sported thy thunder, and with thy best friends
Filled a far-dreaded Hell, that he might seem
A god on Earth, whom awe-struck, grovelling men
Might see, and feel, and handle. The pale monk,
Wasting his flesh within a cold damp cell,
And straining his dull vision, till he saw
God's features, in the dim putrescent light
Of his own sick imaginings—this man caught
A glimpse of Thee, and, with such fiery haste
Did hold Thee, and with prostrate worship hug,
That nevermore his head he dared to lift
Erect, and with proud-sweeping glance survey
The riches of thy wide luxuriant world,
Man's privilege.—On so nice a pivot turns
True wisdom; here an inch, or there, we swerve
From the just balance; by too much we sin,
And half our errors are but truths unpruned.

The errors of Thy creatures praise Thee, Lord.
Not they who err are damned; but who, being wrong,
In obdurate persistency to err
Refuse all bettering. Hope for such is none.
Hope lives for all, who flounder boldly on
Through quaggy bogs, till firmer footing found
Gives glorious prospect. One Deceiver haunts
The hearts of faithless men; his name is Fear.
O Thou, who ridest glorious through the skies,
In thunder or in sunshine strong the same,
The Almighty builder of this fair machine,
Whose beauty blinds star-eyed philosophy,
Whose vastness makes our staggered thinking pant
For utterance vainly—Father of all Power,
Eternal Fount of liberty and life,
Free, measureless, unspent—if e'er my voice
Rose to thy throne, in reverent truthful prayer,
Slay me this demon, yellow Fear, that maims
The arm of enterprise, nips the bud of hope,
And freezes the great ocean of our life,
That should run riot in the praise of Thee,
With wave on wave of proud high-venturing deeds.
O may this Sabbath, with its gentle dews
Shed by thy Spirit on my chastened soul,
Restore my blighted bud of thought, and lift
This low-crushed life into a mighty tree,
Branchy, and blooming with fair summer fruits
Exuberant-clustered!—May all Sabbaths be
A ripe and mellow season to my heart,
Lovely as golden autumn's purple eve,
Genial as sleep, whence the tired limb refreshed
Leaps to new action, and appointed toil,
With steady hope, sure faith, and sober joy.