The Poetical Works of Thomas Cooper :: :: University of Virginia Library

291

THE PARADISE OF MARTYRS.

A FAITH RHYME. In Five Books

293

DEDICATION.

TO WILLIAM EDWARD FORSTER.

I dedicate this book to you who sought
Me out, when you had read my Prison-Rhyme—
Disdainful of what cowards and serviles thought
Of one who had worn the fetters for no crime—
But only had lived and striven before his time,
And let his heart impel him to the deed
Of championship defiant for the Poor,
Their right to live by labour, and be freed
Indeed—not mocked with freedom—on the shore
Where Freedom hath her boast.
Kindness doth breed
Grateful remembrance in the inmost core
Of true men's hearts, when done to them in need.
Let me be named with those who ne'er forget
A kindness: reckoning it a great life-debt.

My friend, our lot in stormful time is cast;
And who to God and Conscience, reverent, own
Inviolable fealty should hold fast
Each other's hands, in spite of peasants' frown
Or nobles'. Your great path of Duty strown
With difficulty may be for many a day;
And, sometimes, you may have to strive alone;
But shoulder to shoulder with you, in the fray,
Shall stand the good and true, when heat is gone,
And party spleen,—and all perceive dismay
At serried foes doth never cast you down,
Nor difficulty your patient courage allay;
But your consistent course to all men shews
What you are now you will be to Life's close.

294

I shall not live to see your toil complete;
But know your steady aim to the end will be
Still to preserve Old England the firm seat
Of grandest freedom, and to give the key
Of knowledge unto all. Felicity
The highest that our fatherland can share
You wish to see her win: that every child
Be trained so wisely and well, it may with care
The laws which freemen love keep undefiled,
Nor heedless be of holier laws that bear
The Maker's fiat. Toiling, unbeguiled
By smiles, unquelled by frowns, the pearl still wear
Of an unsullied conscience, and your joy
Throughout Life's path, no censure shall destroy!

295

THE PARADISE OF MARTYRS.

PROËME.

BOOK I.

Exordium.—The changes of years—Growth and evils of Ritualism—The working-classes—The eternal future. Dream—A floral region in Paradise—Strain of music—Chorus of infant voice —Vision of English Martyrs: Latimer, Ridley, Lord Cobham, Bishop Hooper, Bilney, ‘praying Bradford,’ Philpot, Anne Askew, John Rogers, Lawrence Saunders, Bainham, Tomkins the weaver, Thomas Hawkes, the boy Hunter, Farrar, Lambert, Rowland Taylor, and Cranmer; and of the Scottish Martyrs: Patrick Hamilton, George Wishart, and Renwick; and their converse, on their errands to earth, as consolers of the suffering and sorrowful— Chorus of Martyrs as they ascend the terraced mountains—En- trancing view of the New Jerusalem—Angels open the pearly gates of the city of gold, and the Martyr-hosts march in—Vision of Heaven—Choral worship of Martyrs, angels, infant spirits, and men—Departure again of Martyr souls to earth, as ‘ministering spirits to the heirs of salvation.’

BOOK II.

Exordium.—Rapture of gathering the flowers and hearing the sounds of Spring: the wood-sorrel, primrose, blue-bell, violet, geum rivale, golden saxifrage: the cuckoo, stockdove, yellow-hammer, linnet, lark, blackbird, and woodpecker at work mocked by the jay and magpie: the herb Paris, orchids, fern, crowfoots, and lilies of the valley—Memory of a Mother—The starworts, ground-ivy, speedwell, pilewort, daisy, and moschatel: Throstle's nest—Even- ing task. Dream.—Vision, in Paradise, of the martyred Apostles, Fathers, and Prophets; Paul, Peter, James the brother of John, James the Just, Stephen, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Simeon, Ignatius, Isaiah, Abel, Zacharias, and John the Baptist; and their converse—Stephen leads the choral song, as they climb the terraced mountains to enter heaven.

BOOK III.

Exordium.—The Sea, seen from the shore of Cumberland— Thoughts of eternity—Dread of death—Confidence in our immor- tality—Evening task, of teaching peasants, contrasted with the treat of addressing artisans and mechanics—Cruel treatment and

296

neglect of English peasant children. Dream.—Sleep on Croyland Fen, and dream within a dream—Vision, in Paradise, of the meeting of Mediæval with Quaker Martyrs: Winfred of Crediton, Eoban, and Adalhere, with James Parnell, Edward Burrough, John Trowell, Richard Hubberthorn, Francis Howgill, Mary Dyar, William Robinson, Marmaduke Stevenson, and William Leddra; and their converse—Choral song, as they climb the terraced mountains.

BOOK IV.

Exordium.—Invocation to the Moon—Old superstitions— The Fairies: Newton, and his simple faith, contrasted with the Atheism of modern science: the stars—Love of existence—Reminiscences of the Past—Robert Owen and Louis Blanc—Communism and its fatal excesses in Paris—Fear for England. Dream. —Vision of flowers, in Paradise: giant bell-flower, grass of Parnassus, Trientalis, fairy orchis, pyrola, gymnadenia, and lady's tress—The French Martyrs: Claude Brousson, Dumas, Fulcran Rey, Guion, Bonnemere, Olivier Souverain, the brothers Du Plans, David Quet, Pierre de Bruis, Henri ‘the false hermit’—The Martyrs of Lyons, Toulouse, Gascony, Dauphiny, Lorraine and Picardy— The Albigenses and Vaudois of Provence—Prayer of the united Martyrs of France—Approach of the Martyrs of Madagascar, under the reign of the usurping Queen Ranavalona: the maiden Rasalama, the youth Rafaralahy, and others of the Malagasy— They are greeted by the French Martyrs—Approach of the Martyrs of ancient Gaul: Irenæus, Pothinus, Sanctus, Maturis, Vettius, and Blandina—The combined host of Martyrs ascend the terraced mountains.

BOOK V.

Exordium.—Winter on Morecambe sands—The lonely sea and the Cumberland mountains—Memory of a friend, in youth— His dying wish—Longings to know the Eternal Future—Littleness and ignorance of Man, and wisdom and equity of the government of God—Farewell to the sea—and entrance on the busy scenes of manufacturing Lancashire—Memory of Sir Robert Peel and the abolition of the Corn Laws—No more ragged crowds of poor men debating on ‘the Rights of Man’—Fulness of work and more building of mills— Forfeiture of independence by working men, and their disregard of political freedom—Evening task—News of the death of Mazzini—Lines to his great memory. Dream.—Vision of the spirits, in Paradise, of Italian Martyrs: Savonarola, Arnold of Brescia, Arnulph, and the martyrs of Piedmont, Naples, Apulia, and Calabria; the martyrs of Venice. Giulio Ghirlanda, Antonio Ricetto, Francis Spinula, and Fra Baldo Lupetino, the martyrs of Rome: Bartolomeo Bartoccio: their converse, and prayer for Italy—Approach of the Martyrs of Italy under the power of Paganism: Early Popes, Agnes the virgin, and Laurence: martyrs of the persecutions under Diocletian, Valerian, Com— modus, Decius, Maximian and Severus—Story of young Giulio related by Apollonius—Arrival of the Martyrs of the Valleys— Memory of Cromwell—Martyrs by the fell Inquisition—The Hand of Light and ascent of the Martyrs to their worship before the Throne.

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BOOK THE FIRST.

1

Full fleetly, thirty years of strife have flown
Since I—the dreamer—in yon prison-hold,
Struck my lone harp of rude and cheerless tone,
With hand unskilful, and perchance, too bold
For dainty ears that love the chords of gold,
Touched by sleek charmers, known by accent bland
And silken smile; and deem your rhyming scold
Of Power and Privilege; a fiery brand
That lordly men should quench, in this old queenly land.

2

Full fleetly fly the years! Gray Age hath come,
And Mind is slow,—for blood and brain are chilled,
And Memory maunders, or her tongue is dumb
As death, when she should tell what forms have filled
The soul with awe—what joys or throes have thrilled
The heart—throughout Life's changeful day:
A task that, once, young Memory deftly trilled,
And lightly, as a laughing child at play,
Till dull Age came, and chid the happy power away.

3

Old Age hath come, and my long-chosen task
Is unfulfilled—for, I have loitered long
As well as chosen. Yet a man may ask,
And wisely, if the loitering hath been wrong:
Fools gather wisdom, and the weak grow strong,
Not seldom, by delay: good thoughts have grown
Where evil flourished. When the fitful throng
And tempest of our noon of life are gone,
The calm oft comes, in glory, with the setting sun.—

298

4

Almighty and all-glorious Lord of all!
Eternal Source of life, and Fount of light!
A poor, dark wanderer, at Thy feet I fall—
Forgiving Father, at Thy feet! Thy bright
Pervading Presence in the darksome night
Of wandering watched me: Thou wert ever near,
Although I owned Thee not, and from Thy sight
Afar I fled, soul-palsied with the fear
That there was nought beyond the tomb: that dread so drear!

5

O God! I thank Thee that I never lost
Heart-worship for Thy Son—the Christ—the Blest!
That, while my reason wandered, driven and tost
From doubt to deeper doubt, until the quest
For Truth oft ended in Despair's unrest—
The torturous, wild unrest of fell Despair!—
Yet, in my gloom, that sorrowing Visage drest
In rays of moral beauty seemed to share
My sorrow, and to say—“Come hither! learn to bear

6

“My yoke, poor wanderer, and thou shalt find rest:
Rest from vain labour: from thy spirit's pain—
Swift ease: come hither, to thy Saviour's breast!”
Sweet Lord, I come! my labour hath been vain:
My search for rest. Unbind my heavy chain
Of sin: release me, Saviour, with Thy good
And powerful hand: wash out my guilty stain
Of rebel pride in Thy atoning blood!
In brokenness of heart, I come—my Lord—my God!

7

Thou givest peace not as the world doth give!
To me Thy peace be given—that, while this thread
Of mortal life is spun, my soul may live
For Thee alone; and I may humbly tread
My fatherland, from side to side, and spread
Thy truth. Help me to preach it to the Poor
Who strive to think out, while they toil for bread,
The mystery of existence, and explore
That sea's vast bounds where mightiest thinkers ne'er found shore!

299

8

Thou seest them, pitying Father, in their doubt
And darkness! And Thy just and sovereign gaze
Is fixt upon the mimesters who beclout
Themselves anew with rags of Rome, and raise,
Once more, for idol, with old pomps, and blaze
Of gold, and bannered splendours, and the sheen
Of lamps and candles, and the fragrant praise
Of incensed-chaunt, their starry-vestured Queen—
The lowly mother of the lowly Nazarene!

9

The toiling thousands grope for saving truth,
And yearn to find;—but ye seek not to save
Your untaught brethren with the words of ruth
And tenderness. It is for altars brave,
And gay bedizenments, ye hotly crave:
Dalmatica, and chasuble, and cope,
Biretta, rubied cross, and ivoried stave
Episcopal:—to have these toys ye hope—
But, for Christ's truth, still let the toiling thousands grope!

10

Out on your childish greed for gew-gaws: toys
On which your martyred sires could scarcely look
Without a frown! Are there no nobler joys
Within your grasp? Have ye for these forsook
The simple truths your fathers loved? They shook
The Romish slavery off; and freedom, then,
Truly became your birthright: if ye brook
Meekly the Papal yoke to wear again,
Will your sons look ye in the face, and call ye—Men?

11

The toiling thousands think upon the Past,
And its fierce martyr-fires; and, while they yearn
To fathom Mind's deep mysteries, feel no haste
To look for light from darkness, or to learn
Lessons from hildings who deserve their scorn.
In homely tongue, they ask—“No better tools
For digging out the Truth do doctors earn
Than these, within their costly halls and schools?
Do they build colleges to breed and foster fools?”

300

12

And then they settle down in doubt, or try
A resting-place in restless doubt to find
In vain: for, still, the agonising cry,
Aloud, is heard of Doubt half-maddening mind;
And, still, they grope for Truth—the inly blind!
Or, in disgust, they give up thinking;—game
And bet, like lords! on horses; and behind
Cast care and conscience; or the viler drame
Play out of sottishness and sensualism and shame!

13

O for the gift to earth of some great souls!
O for the birth of men to found a new
And nobler chivalry than decks the rolls
Of real or mimic war! O that a few
Among the Schooled and Privileged would thew
Their wills with high resolve, and grandly rise
To throw their hearts among the crowd,—the True
To champion, and cast down the forms of Lies—
Warriors for Good, old Evil's power to antagonize!

14

Not dead to noble sympathies, and words
Fraternal, are the crowd that doubt, and dare
The depths of sin. In every heart are chords
That vibrate to the touch of humblest player
Or lordliest, if responding chords declare
Their touch is truly human. Patrons smart
And scented,—teachers with the lofty air
Of condescension, seem to the stalwart, swart,
And sturdy sons of Labour—Things without a heart.

15

How long will this new dotage last—your strife
To re-enthrone old Priestcraft? Do ye dream
That ye can veritably restore to life
The dead putrescence? 'Midst the whirl of steam,
The speed of telegraphs, and lightning-gleam
Of knowledge which proclaims the Reign of Law,
Will toiling men a truth your bold tale deem
That ye can make your Maker; and with awe
Bow down, in trembling fear of your anathema?

301

16

They neither fear ye, nor your curse: your creed
Is monstrous to their common sense: they pine
For rest in Truth, not mockery. Strive to lead
The toiling crowd to reverence and enshrine
The Real Presence of the Lord Divine
Within their hearts, and let your acts reveal
That, while ye say ye love the Lord benign,
Ye truly serve Him; and, with grateful zeal,
Devout, responsive crowds will welcome your appeal.—

17

The night falls fast, and finds me brooding thus
O'er evils that afflict my fatherland:—
The night falls fast, yet brightly luminous
Beam out the cotton mills that round me stand,
Where garish gas turns night to day; and hand,
And eye, and mind of myriad toilers win
The wealth of England, but cannot command
A certainty of bread,—though, for her sin,
Woman, like man, doth weave, and watch, and toil, and spin.

18

Their toil now ceases, and my toil comes next.
I gather them around me, and essay
To teach them how to solve the “questions vext”
That puzzle and perplex them through the day,
Amid the din of wheels, and sweat and fray
Of factory life. Some yawn with weariness;
Some frown; some sneer; some seem but clods of clay:
But some look all aglow with bright excess
Of rapt conviction which their minds doth overbless.

19

My task ends all too soon. I wish the hours
Could stand; or these till morn could sit, and hear,
And think. But drowsiness their frames o'erpowers;
And, ere day dawns, they must the call austere
O' the factory-bell obey—Toil's chanticleer!
But, let it cheer my heart that, through each week
I can my task pursue,—although the sere
And yellow leaf be mine;—and freely speak—
Fearing no frowns, nor listening for applauses sleek.

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20

What hand—what stranger hand—shall close these eyes,
I cannot know,—or who stretch out my feet;
What hushed voice say—“A breathless corpse he lies,
His wanderings o'er: prepare the winding-sheet!”
Anxious to make my pilgrimage complete,
I will work on, rejoicing, let betide
What may, on earth. I covet the bright seat
He promised them that love Him, close beside
His throne of love—my glorious Lord, the Crucified!

21

I fear, no longer, that my being destroyed
Shall be, when men shall lay this body low;
That Mind shall perish in the mindless void,
And I shall cease to think, and feel, and know,
Although for ever there shall be the glow
Of thought and feeling in God's Universe.
The risen Christ with life shall re-endow
My soul; and ne'er shall sin again amerce
My Christ-enfranchised being with Death's benumbing curse.

22

For ever with my Lord, who said, “I am
The Resurrection and the Life,”I trust
To be; and to that trust I cleave. Still maim
And blind is Mind, and blind and maim it must
Remain, how Mind shall live when dust to dust
Returns. But, since we cannot know the state
Beyond the grave, all-unperturbed robust
And patient souls should wait—unfaltering wait,
And calmly,—for the spirit-life emancipate.—

23

Midnight hath come. I would that gentle sleep
Would visit me; but seldom comes repose,
Now age is raught. Thought the long watch doth keep,
To wander o'er the Past, with operose
And feeble steps, or vainly seeks to unclose
The barriers of the Future, till the brain
Is worn and wildered. Then, the startled doze
Of nervousness succeeds, or, hours of pain;
And, seldom, o'er the sense, Sleep spreads her blissful reign.

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24

I sought for slumber, and, unwontedly,
Sweet Slumber, swiftly, on my eyelids laid
Her hand, full gently—as, on mother's knee,
A gentle mother's hand is softly stayed
Upon her helpless child.
Again, I strayed—
Or seemed to stray—in spirit, beyond the bound
Of earthly life: no longer, now, affrayed
With visioned forms that agonised and frowned
With rage, or sat in emblemed pomp, enthroned and crowned.

An allusion to the Hall of Suicide Kings, in Book I of “The Purgatory of Suicides.”

25

I dreamed I walked the “land of pure delight,
Where everlasting spring abides, and never
Wither the flowers;”where neither worm nor blight
Attaints their bloom, for ever and for ever:
Where neither sin nor death again can sever
The noble Army of Martyrs from their Lord,
Or unto pain again their souls deliver.
To Jesu's heaven of bliss, it seemed, I soared,
Where myriads of His saints God and the Lamb adored.

26

But I knew not 'twas heaven, as first I woke—
Or seemed to wake—when I escaped from earth.
Upon my spiritual sight a vision broke
So like the “dear, dear land”

Dying speech of Gaunt, in Shakspere's Richard II.

that gave me birth,—
So like the woods, and vales, and hills where mirth
And glee were rife in childhood,—that it seemed
I had but lately left my Mother's hearth
To wander forth, and gather flowers that gleamed
With strange, unearthly splendour. Thus I dimly dreamed:

27

I wandered in the pathway of a wood
Where delicatest wind-flowers round me lay,
Like snow new fall'n; and spring-born bluebells stood,
In slender tallness, peering o'er the array
Of humble violets and pied pansies gay,
With mimic pride; while, waving overhead,
Young silken beech-leaves and slim birchen-spray
Fleckt the pure light that from above was shed;
And still I seemed some well-known woodland path to thread.

304

28

Yet, evermore, methought, no earthly hue
The trees and flowers displayed; while neither cloud
Nor shade there seemed to be. And, soon, a new
And dazzling light revealed a smiling crowd
Of childlike forms—but, dimness, like a shroud,
Swiftly enwrapped the vision; and terrene,
Again, seemed all things. Then, arose a proud
And terraced pile of mountains ever green;
And I sped on to reach them, through a lowlier scene.

29

Soft hills sloped gently towards a verdant vale:
Like the loved hills that bound thy vale, O Trent!—
And, midway, in the valley wound the trail
Of a bright river, like a filament
Of sparkling silver. On its banks were blent
Trent's floral riches—as I did misdeem—
The vernal crocus prankt with transient
And blushing beauty; cranesbill's sky-born gleam
Intense—looking like eyes of angels, in my dream;

30

The huge-leaved butter-bur, with flowers so quaint;
Clustered marsh-marigolds that did bedaze
My eyes, till I withdrew them by constraint;
And still more dazzling was the golden blaze
Of water-lilies.
Now, again, with rays
Of light encircled, childlike creatures smiled
Upon me. Unaffrayed, but in a maze
I stood; for none looked like an earth-born child:
They seemed too pure for souls derived from men defiled.

31

“What are ye, beauteous things?” methought I spake.
Silent, they beckoned me with smiles of grace;
And dimness soon again seemed to o'ertake
My vision—for, they faded till no trace
Remained of their bright forms. I trod, apace,
The vale, yearning to win the height sublime
O' the terraced mountains; but the winning face
Of some fair flower, so dear to childhood's time,
Brought back my thoughts, in wonder still, to childhood's clime.

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32

What virgin purity the flowers that grew
Nigh the bright winding river seemed to wear—
Sweet cicely, and meadow-sweet, and rue!
And cuckoo-flowers and chervils bloomed so fair,
They were as magnets to my eyes; and there
I lingered, when I fain would have begone
To climb the mountains, and behold what rare
Large prospect from their summits might be won
Of that rich floral realm so sweetly halcyon.

33

I stooped to pluck a lily from the marge
Of the fair river, since it grew so near,
And bloomed so dazzling white and grandly large;
But, ere I touched it, suddenly in my ear
Streamed music, soft as whispers, and yet clear
And sweet as that sweet “Pastoral Symphony”
Oft heard on earth—the dulcet harbinger
Of lofty praise, and holy and heavenly glee:
Charmed prelude to the burst of angel minstrelsy.

34

Still sweeter grew the sounds, and fairer bloomed
The flowers, till rapt thoughts strengthened that I trode
No earthly soil, but precincts to bliss-doomed
Celestial realms, where vigour is bestowed
On franchised souls to fit them for their load
Of bliss—the “weight of glory” which they bear—
“Far more exceeding and eternal,”—who see God:
They who eternal joys beyond compare
Esteem, with “light affliction”saints on earth may share.

35

The thought that I was heir of bliss so great,
And that earth's life of sin and sorrow and pain
Was past, began, well-nigh, to tribulate
The soul with ecstasy: an overgain
Of bliss, it seemed, for one who knew the stain
Of sin—though all forgiven—henceforth to dwell
With endless joy. But soon, in tuneful strain,
Some unseen choral band, with jubilant swell,
Above, around me, pealed these words delectable:—

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36

“Spirit, rejoice! thy mortal life is past:
This land of living light no cloud can gloom:
Sin cannot reach it, with her fatal blast:
Here flowers can never fade, but ever bloom:
Here pain, or sin-bred anguish cannot come:
Death vanquisheth Man's dust, but not the soul:
Man's spirit is no tenant of the tomb—
No prisoner to the grave. Rejoice, thy dole
Is ended; and thy soul hath reached her happy goal!

37

“Welcome, new heritor of bliss! begin
To enter on thy rest. Let no alloy,
Or thought that thou hast known the stain of sin,
Lessen thy rapture, or thy bliss destroy.
Onward, and prove the fulness of that joy
Thy Saviour promised. He thy debt hath paid,
And thou art free! Prepare for blest employ
Through countless ages! Joys that never fade
Are thine: increasing joys thy essence shall pervade!

38

“Onward, and join the dear companions blest
Thou soon shalt meet: they who thy Saviour loved
And served, and openly His Name confessed;
Nor to deny their Lord were weakly moved
When bad men threatened, but were faithful proved
Through lives of suffering, and in deaths of shame:
They who proclaimed that holy truth behoved
Their bodies should be given unto the flame
With joyous haste, so they might homage Jesu's Name!”

39

The glittering band of childlike creatures beamed
Above me, as the jubilant strain surceased,
That, now I knew, was theirs. Then, as I dreamed,
They vanished; and I entered on glad quest
For some I yearned to see among the Blest—
Some who the martyr's crown obtained by faith,
In fiery flames, and nobly did attest
The power of faith to draw the sting of death:
Who died exulting in their Lord with their last breath!

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40

My fatherland's intrepid martyrs were
The souls I longed to meet; and wish devout
I felt to gaze on reverend Latimer,—
The memory of whose nobleness oft wrought
Deep love within me, in my days of doubt
And wandering. Forthwith, as in dungeoned plight,

Another allusion to “The Purgatory of Suicides,” Book I Stanza 36

The soul with intellective power seemed fraught
To realize her wish; and, clothed with light,
The grand old martyr was revealed unto my sight!

41

And with him Ridley walked, in radiant dress
Of pure white robes; and garland-crowns they wore
Of flowers that did transcend in beauteousness
And splendour the fair flowers upon the shore
Of the bright river, though I deemed, before,
These were all-peerless. Hand in hand appeared
The shining martyrs. As, for Christ, of yore,
To burn together they nor shrunk, nor feared,
So were they to each other, now, in bliss endeared.

42

That his brave death-words rose within my mind,
Seemed quickly known unto the martyred sire;
And, that I feared their failure, he divined:
Whereat—unknowing that blest souls in higher
Ascents of purity the power acquire
To read their brethren's thought—I, speechless, stood
In wonder. Bravely, as if he marched the fire
Again to welcome with old hardihood,
He upward glanced, and thus his faith unshaken shewed:—

43

“Fear not, young heir of heaven! harbour no doubt
That Truth shall triumph. Falsehood's fellest power
The candle never shall again put out
We lighted up for England, in that hour
We dared the flame,—while, 'mong the crowds from tower
And hall and cloister, some that saw the deed
With fear at first, felt soon they would not cower
'Fore tenfold tortures; and, in flames, did read
This truth: the ‘Martyrs' blood shall be the Church's seed!’

308

44

“Fear not for Truth—for Christ's own glorious Truth!
Falsehood may, yet, put forth spasmodic force,
Again and oft, and vaunt her purity and youth,
Though every step of her foul crooked course
Speaks her decrepit. Despots may endorse
Her lies for truth, to prop their crumbling thrones;
And fools the gay-trickt harridan may nurse
And fondle; but rotten are her very bones:
Her scrannel songs scarce serve to drown her dying groans.

45

“Onward, young heir of Jesu's happy heaven!
We go on messages of mercy sweet,
Once more, to earth: such blest employ hath given
The Lamb to His glad saints. Thee soon shall greet
Dear souls familiar by their names: thy meet
And loving teachers: till a convoy bright
Of angels, swift, shall bring thee to the feet
Of Jesus throned, amid His saints in white;
And thou shalt worship with them in supernal light!”

46

Away, they sped!—the shining Martyr pair—
On their blest errand, with most eager love,
To do their loving Master's will. To share
Their work, methought, I coveted, and strove
To follow them. But, sweetest strains above,
Around me swelled, until I sank o'erpowered
With ecstasy of sweetness—though I longed to prove
The service of that heaven where saints adored,
In myriad throngs of love, their glorious risen Lord.

47

“Onward, still onward!”—did the sweet chaunt swell,
From unseen choristers—“Thou wilt not find
Thy rest in rapture. They on earth who dwell
Miss their chief happiness because, with blind
Perception of true bliss, they stay behind
To reap the lesser joys that virtue gives,
And toil not for the greater. God designed
The soul for duty; and he who, tireless, strives
To render duteous service unto God derives

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48

“Still higher bliss from every duteous deed.
God did engraft in moral natures sense
Of praise and blame; and holiest natures feed
On consciousness of duty done, and thence
Derive, for God's sweet service, more intense
And holy and earnest zeal: blest avarice
It is, to covet largest opulence
Of zeal for duty: who rest in rapture miss
True good: eternal service is eternal bliss!”

49

And, now, grew visible a glorious band
Of spirits I seemed intuitively to know:
The gallant Martyrs of my fatherland:
Our noble Cobham; Hooper, the firm foe
Of slavish pomps; young Bilney, with faith's glow
Exultant; praying Bradford—devotee
So true and holy; Philpot, with the brow
Of high intelligence; Anne Askew, she
Who cheered her fellow-sufferers with such holy glee;

50

And melancholy Mary's victims: Rogers, first
On whom her priests, watching like wolves for prey,
Contrived to slake their sanguinary thirst;
Saunders, who burnt at Coventry; and they—
A hero-crowd besides—who, in the day
Of vengeful Gardiner, and power of Rome
Retrieved, and Bonner's savage zeal to slay,—
In Smithfield left their ashes, without gloom
Clasping the flames, triumphing in their fiery doom.

51

With these came Bainham, who, when fire had raged
And burned his nether limbs, aloud proclaimed
“This is a bed of roses!”—so assuaged
His faith fierce pain! The weaver humble-named,
Too,—Tomkins,—'neath whose wrist a taper flamed,
Held by brute Bonner, who thus vainly thought
To fright his victim; Hawkes, who threw his maimed
And burning arms aloft, to quell the doubt
Of trembling lovers who this sign of him had sought;

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52

Hunter, the gentle boy whose mother and sire
Rejoiced that God to them so brave a child
Had given, to bear Him witness in the fire;
Farrar, who, at Caermarthen, his foes foiled
So stoutly in the flames; Tindal, who toiled
For future ages, and received the crown
Of martyrdom,—by treachery foul beguiled;
With steadfast Lambert, who the tiger frown
Undaunted bore of Henry seated on his throne.

53

Brave Rowland Taylor with this martyred host
Came nobly on. But there was one aside
Who walked, as if for him there were no boast
Among his brethren—no exultant pride:
'Twas Cranmer, seeming with himself to chide,
Even in heaven! With these came many more
Who burned in England; while, great souls allied
In faith and fervour, whom in her heart's core
Of reverence faithful Scotland long hath proudly bore,

54

Came with them: noble Hamilton, whom proud
And sensual Beatoun dragged to death, but fell,
Himself a victim to his country's loud
Demand for vengeance; holy Wishart, well
And worthily ranked with martyrs vincible
By neither man nor demon; Renwick bold;
With crowds whom Power and Priestcraft could not quell:
The men who did the Solemn Covenant hold
As sacred:—men of high, heroic, martyr mould.

55

I saw this shining host, and knew the chaunt
Was theirs; and one upraised me with a smile;
And on I journeyed with them, while descant
They joined, how holy joys the spirit thrill
That thirsts some higher duty to fulfil,
Nor counts on rapture for reward, or ease,
Or rest, but evermore to service still
Aspires; and how the soul new service sees
Before it, ever; and thus eternal pleasures please.

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56

And then, conversing of the work they loved,
They told each other of the sights just seen
On earth,—for, soon, my wistful spirit proved
That these glad souls to mother Earth had been,
To cheer God's children in their earthly teen,—
And how they loved the loving sweet employ:
And then, by turns, they drew some picture sheen
Of holy suffering and of holy joy,
And patient faith and trust no suffering could destroy.

57

Some told of mother's love, and watchings pale,
Beside a dying child; and some pourtrayed
The dread heartbrokenness that bowed a frail
Old man whom Death had robbed of all the aid—
The earthly aid—he had, and lowly laid
His loving life-companion in the grave;
While some rehearsed how pining sorrow preyed
Upon the hearts of children who, to save
Their dying parents, watched them with devotion brave.

58

And some depictured how a virgin flower
Of loveliness no words could tell declined
Upon its fragile stem, from hour to hour—
A loving maid beloved: two intertwined
And beauteous natures: in the youth the mind,
And in the maid the form, being fair as heaven;
And how she slept in death, and the youth pined
Away in grief, for that all bliss seemed given
With her on earth: with her all bliss away was riven!

59

The shipwrecked sailor, in the ocean wide—
Others described—and how his last lorn prayer
Was for his bosom's love, the tender bride
He left on land, far off—the home so fair
He decked so daintily, with shells so rare
And foreign beauteous things; and how the dread
Mysterious boding in her heart despair
Succeeds, and daily her tears for him are shed,
Long ere some lone survivor tells her he is dead.

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60

And others told of negro slaves, and pain
And torture meekly borne by many a thrall
Who never breathed offence to those for gain
Who bought and sold him, but obeyed their call
To wait and toil when he could scarcely crawl
To do their fiendish bidding. Others shewed
How some bore ignominy that would not fall
Before men's idols, though it seemed the load
Would crush them: still the knee to Baal they never bowed.

61

The noble courage, in the Battle of Life,
Of peaceful warriors—others eulogised;
The men who with vindictiveness and strife
And hate and malice, daily agonised;
And strove to show mankind howe'er they prized
Red Victory's brow with laurel chaplet green,
Her real features were the Fiend's disguised.
And then they shewed how all who tried to wean
Men from War's madness suffered persecution keen.

62

With loving grief—such grief as saints can feel
In heaven—some told of hard oppression borne
By a poor widow, toiling at the wheel
Or loom, with hungered frame, sore weary and worn,
To keep her fatherless ones from sin and scorn,—
Yet meeting sympathy from none—but sneers
From bestial tempters she doth meekly spurn.
And how the meek one leans on Him Who hears
His saints' low cry, and bottles up His tried ones' tears.

63

And then they spoke of heavenly condolence
They bore to sorrowers: strength to fortify
The suffering with belief in Providence
That fills the cup of grief and trial nigh
Unto the brim in wisdom, and doth try
His saints in love, but never lets the cup
Run o'er; that counts each tear, that hears each sigh,
Of all His contrite ones; and, when they droop,
Sends heavenly help to bear their fainting spirits up.

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64

Of resignation, and of steadfast faith
When bad men persecute the good, and rage
And threaten them with chains and torturous death,
They told;—and how, on holy embassage
They went to bear such help, their lineage
Of suffering rendering them the bearers meet.
And gratefully, they said—Mind could not gauge
The Love Divine that sent them forth to greet
And strengthen struggling saints by earthly foes beset;

65

And that themselves, thus, with the Paraclete
Divine should share the work of comforting
God's saints was a reward ineffably sweet;
And had they known what the Eternal King
Designed them for, it would have drawn the sting
Of torture in their martyrdom till praise
Had filled their souls; and, like a bird on wing,
Each would have soared, exultant, with glad lays,
Above all thought of pain, in the devouring blaze!

66

Thus while they held sweet descant, glode
Around us, oft, bands of the bright young quire
I saw when first I seemed the blest abode
Of saints to enter; and I felt desire
Grow strong to know them. Ne'er seemed they to tire
But ever floated on, with rapturous eyne
Betokening how they did the speech admire
Of God's glad martyrs, who the scheme benign
Extolled that did to them sweet ministering work assign.

67

Ere I could ask, one answered my thought's quest.
“These are,” said he, “but scanty companies
Of that great myriad army of the Blest
Of which they all are numbered. Hither, when hies
A soul from earth, these meet it, and surprise
The welcome soul with sounds and looks of love,
And thus prepare it for the exercise
Of all the powers within its essence wove
By the Great Maker, that it may for ever prove

314

68

“The blessedness of being, which God hath given.
These are the souls of infants: they of whom
The Saviour said of such the kingdom of heaven
Is. Deem thou not He meant they hither come
As if heaven were all infants' bright heirloom
By native right of innocency. Each soul
From Adam born is born in sin; and doom
Of sin these 'scape, because Christ suffered dole
For them, and makes, by grace, their sin-grained spirits whole.

69

“Of such the kingdom of heaven is; and young
They are for ever! Thus, by Divine decree,
They who by actual sin of thought or tongue
Were never stained do first salute the free
And happy souls who join our jubilee
In heaven. Old sin-stained earth they visit never,
Since sin or guilt they never knew: while we
Revisit sin's abode: the Great Life-giver
Thus serving, thus His service blest enjoying ever!”

70

Soon seemed we to have raught the mountains green,
And up their terraced sides, untoiling, climbed,
Beholding myriad forms so bright, the sheen
Of all earth's gold and gems would have been dimmed
Beside their beauty. Countenances sublimed
From mortal care and fear and doubt they wore;
And, as they clomb the mountains, sweetly hymned
Their grateful joy, their earthly fight being o'er,
Of sin the stain and torture they should know no more.

71

They sang not praise because from fiery flame,
Or fiercer bodily pain, they were set free,—
Although they out of great tribulation came;—
But joyous hymns they sang set to the key
Of purest love, because their leprosy
Of guilt was cleansed, and o'er them sin's dread reign,—
By Him Who captive led captivity,—
Was broken, never to be resumed again:
Thus, as they climbed, they sang their ever grateful strain:—

315

72

“We come, O God, from holy work on earth,
To adore in heaven Thy glorious majesty!—
Father of all, and Son who once had birth
'Mong sinful men, and Holy Spirit, Three
In One, the Triune God!—to bow the knee
With all for whom Christ's precious blood hath streamed,
And angels fair!—to join heaven's jubilee,
With all the fallen whom Thou hast redeemed,
And all on whom for aye Thy unbroken smile hath beamed!

73

“For ever blessed be Thy Holy Name!
Great Giver of existence and of thought!
Let all Thy saints return Thee sweet acclaim
For all the wonders which Thy hand hath wrought—
For all the bliss with which our life is fraught—
For all Thy long-forbearance when the sway
Of rebel Sin we owned, and foully fought
Against Thy sovereign love, from day to day.
We bless Thee that Thou didst not cast our souls away!

74

“For ever blessed be Thy Holy Name!
Thou didst in mercy seek Thy wandering sheep,
When, lost in sin, and lost to sense of shame,
We wandered still, and had no will to creep
Back to Thy feet in penitence, and weep
To have such love as Thine so vilely spurned.
Great God, what wondrous mercy dost Thou keep
For men! We never had to Thee returned,
Hadst Thou not sought us: never should for sin have mourned.

75

“But Thou didst love us, and dost love men still—
E'en sinful men on earth; Thou dost not leave
Them in their sins, and helplessness of ill:
Them Thou dost seek, and grant a long reprieve
To their rebellion—drawing them to grieve
For sin, and win Thy sweet forgiving love!
Thy sweet forgiving love we feel, and cleave
To Thee, as all Thy saints in heaven have clove
For ages; and for aye Thy loving smile shall prove!

316

76

“We bless Thy Holy Name we never here
Shall grieve Thy holiness, indulge desire
Or thought of sin, or ever feel a fear
Of falling! Evermore in us the fire
Divine shall burn to love Thee, and acquire
Still holier zeal; for Thou wilt guide our aim
To serve Thee, while to Thee our souls aspire,
And still wilt feed in us the holy flame!
For ever and ever blessed be Thy Holy Name!”

77

So sang the myriad shining forms that climbed
The mountains ever green. And, as I glanced
Along their ranks, I saw their steps were timed:
So that in triumph-march the hosts, entranced
With joy, up by the terraces advanced,—
While newer hosts of shining ones, from earth,
Still more their numbers and their joys enhanced,—
For upward still they clomb, all sending forth
The pæans of their grateful joy and holy mirth.

78

Lo! when the hosts the mountain heights had won,
How shall I tell the glory of my dream?—
The golden crystal walls before us shone—
Those lofty walls adorned with sparkling gem
Of every name; and those twelve gates with beam
Resplendent of one matchless pearl:—the blest
Apocalyptic vision God did deem
Him worthy of who on the loving breast
Of Christ, on earth, so often found a loving rest!

79

The new Jerusalem—the home, I saw,
Of God's dear saints for whom the Lamb's own blood
Was shed; and on the angels gazed with awe,
Who, at the pearly gates o' the City of God,
In panoply of light, as keepers, stood.
I thought their eyes pierced through me—but, behold!
They oped the mighty gates; and, like a flood,
The Martyr-hosts—who in their Lord were bold—
Streamed in, with songs of triumph, on the floor of gold!

317

80

I went not with them; for methought the band
With which I marched, to whom heaven's realm was new,
Were marshalled by an angel with a wand
Of silver, till he other bands outdrew
From the great host; and soon he loudly blew
The golden trumpet which hung by his side—
And forth from out the gates a convoy flew
Of wingëd seraphim, who smiling cried:
“The Lamb unto the marriage-supper calls the Bride!

81

“Come in, ye blessed of the Lord, come in!
Receive the mansions by your Lord prepared:
The glorious Crown of Life ye now shall win!
His truth and love ye have on earth declared:
With Him the hate of wicked men ye shared:
And though ye were not called to prove your faith
In the fierce flames which His confessors dared,
Ye have been faithful in your lives, till death.
Come in! receive from His own hands the blooming wreath

82

“Of immortality. Come in, come in,
Ye blessed of the Lord! receive the bright
Reward!—the crown of glory ye shall win!”—
And now we seemed upborne on bands of light
By the winged seraphim, with gentle flight,
Into the City of God, even to the throne
Of God and of the Lamb: into the sight,
All-glorified, of Him who wore the crown
Of thorns, but now gives crowns of life unto His own!

83

Vision of holiest love, how shall I tell
Thy sweetness!—or the splendour of that brow
Of awfullest majesty, for earthlings spell
In characters that men may read! O may I know
That smile ineffable when hence I go
To meet my Judge!—but all earth's languaged lore
Could not my soul with potency endow
To tell my dream: all earth-made speech were poor
To unveil the glory that the King in His beauty were!

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84

The plenitude of pardon for all sin:
Eternal freedom from all sin and stain:
Welcome to mansions that should now begin,
And never fail—eternal welcome!—Pain
For ever ended, under His sweet reign
Of health, and light, and love, and bliss!—Largess
Of knowledge bounteous: things obscure made plain:
The soul become, in heaven, close auditress
Of the Eternal Word, whose accents overbless

85

The high archangels, as the saints in light:
Rapt consciousness no ceasing there should be
Of His all-gladdening smile: no darkening night
Of error—but bright perpetuity
Of rectitude: the soul from wrong set free,
That growth in wisdom of His works and ways
Might fill her enlarging powers with ecstasy,—
So that all souls, for aye, should grateful raise
To the All-Blest, All-Blessing One, their gladsome praise!

86

All mortal words are mean! More, far, of love—
Love bliss-endowing, bliss-entrancing, dwelt
In that one look that, from the throne above,
Glanced on my soul, than all the soul hath felt
On earth of joys in tenderness that melt
Our nature. And 'twas bliss ALL felt; and ALL
In speechless awe of overbliss, now knelt,
And loved, and worshipped, while it seemed to appal
The soul to experience bliss so beatifical!

87

Ten thousand times ten thousand harps of gold,
Tuned by the fingers of the angelic throng,
Forthwith began sweet prelude to unfold—
Harmonious prelude trumpets did prolong
Of cherub and seraph—to the choral song
Of all the host, unfallen and redeemed,
Of highest heaven. What voices, clear and strong,
Led the vast choir? They on whose foreheads beamed
The mark the Lamb had set: His Martyrs diademmed!

319

88

“Worthy the Lamb, that once for men was slain—
For sinful men!”—the holy martyrs cry.
“Worthy, redeeming Lord, Thou art to reign”—
Responded myriad angels holy and high—
“Who didst Thyself the souls of sinners buy
From endless pain; and didst Thy Father's rule
Of righteousness for ever justify!”
“We bow,” the archangels cried, “at Thy footstool,
O co-eternal Son, divinely pitiful!”

89

“O Father!” sang all heaven, “we laud Thy Name
For Thy eternal purpose made so clear
In giving Him to suffering and to shame—
Thy only begotten Son, so loved and dear
Unto Thy heart divine—who hath no peer
In all created life—Thy Son, who hath
In Thine own bosom ever dwelt, that here,
In this Thy heaven of love, men, saved by faith
In Him, might live: for ever saved from Thy just wrath!”

90

“O Spirit Divine!” sang on the general host
Of men and angels, “we adore Thy pure
Long-suffering love for man! O Holy Ghost,
Who didst so long the sight of sin endure—
Whose purity hath striven the foul to cure,
And conquered!—by whose sovereign breath
Sinners were born again,—their forfeiture
Of heaven was cancelled,—and they found the path
Up hither, by Thy light: made heirs of heaven, through faith!”

91

“Eternal Triune God!” sang ransomed men
And sinless babes, and principalities
And powers, and holy creatures with the ken
All-spiritual—the creatures full of eyes!—
And angel and archangel companies,
And cherubim and seraphim; and, from
The macrocosm of God, myriads of guise
And form man cannot name, devoutly come
To welcome God's loved saints to their eternal home:

320

92

“Eternal Triune God! Who wert, and art,
And art to come! Thrice holy, sovereign One!
Thyself sole Life, who dost their life impart
To all that live—Thyself sole Mind, the boon
To know who giv'st to all that think—sole Sun
The light who giv'st to all that live and feel—
Sole Strength, their strength who giv'st to all that on
The solid worlds or ether move—reveal
Thyself who dost, in glory and love unspeakable!

93

“We hymn Thy everlasting love, O Lord!
Thy love which gives us happy life, in thought
And act, Thy will in doing, and the reward
For ever finding in our work. Full fraught
Are all Thy works with love; and, by Thee taught,
For ever, thus, we work in love, and find
Our bliss enlarging ever; nor shall aught
Restrain or bound the bliss Thou hast designed
For all that do Thy will: the bliss with service joined.

94

“O God, our greatest bliss is that we love
Thee, and Thou lovest us. And Thou hast made
Us capable of loving more, and wove
In all our natures powers that, well essayed
In Thy blest service, Thou wilt ever aid
And strengthen, till for higher service still
Our being is fitted, and our thoughts all stayed
On Thy perfections. Father, let Thy will
Be done! With that desire alone our spirits fill!

95

“Thy will is happiness to all that live.
It was Thy everlasting love that moved
Thee to create, and happy life to give.
No other life Thou ever gav'st. They roved
From blessedness to bale, and swiftly proved
Their folly, who misused the freedom fair
Thou didst endow them with: for, it behoved
All spiritual natures should be free,—to share
Thy blest approval, or Thy righteous blame to bear.

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96

“Thy wisdom, as Thy power and love, adored
For ever be, by all that think and know!
We see not all Thy purposes, O Lord!
Not yet—although throughout the ages grow
Our essences in knowledge—do they glow
With full perception of Thy works and ways.
All-perfect One, Thou hast no yoke-fellow!
Afar, full oft, in awe we stand and gaze,
Or sink beneath the effulgence of Thy glory's rays!

97

“We see not all Thy purposes, or aim.
If through the ages Ill survive, though Good
For ever with it war, and no reclaim
For evil-doers be found; if still the proud
Submit not to Thy rule, repentant bowed,
At length, 'fore Thy high will so holy and bright—
Thy all-wise will be done! For us, no cloud
Can hide the truth that Thou art true; and right
Are all Thy ways, O Holy Dweller in the Light!

98

“We know Thy will is that, like Thee, we war
Unceasingly with Evil, and condole
With those that suffer: that, to still the jar
Of disobedience in each human soul,
In Thy blest sight is blessed. No control
We have o'er loftier essences that fell
From holiness and bliss. If in the roll
Of ages, spiritual powers who now rebel
Shall to Thy love return—O Lord, it shall be well—

99

“For, such return unto Thy arms of love—
Unto Thy heart, that yearns all being to bless—
Shall to Thy saints and angels grateful prove
Thy wisdom, in its depths, how fathomless!—
How perfectly the spotless, bright impress
Of love is stamped on Thy great government,
Through all Thy realms of life and boundlessness!—
O Thou who art alone all-prescient,
Thy holy will be done—O Lord, all-excellent!

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100

“Now round Thy throne again we grateful crowd,
And join our praise for all Thy goodness past,
Present, to come;—for all, with which endowed
Of intellect and strength, we feel Thou hast
Blest our existence! Giver of goodness vast,
Interminable, as of life, we hymn
The wondrous love with which Thou hast embraced
Alike, the wanderers who Thy gifts bedim,
But seek forgiveness,—and Thy steadfast seraphim!

101

“All praise be Thine—not ours—for constancy
Of service. Left, unguided, uninspired,
Unaided, unimpelled, O Lord, by Thee,
The brightness even of those Thou hast attired
With crowns of splendour, near Thee, had expired
In darkest wanderings of the will: the speed
With which we haste to go, with fervour fired,
Afresh, perpetually, on holy deed,
Had sunk to slowness, didst Thou not our fervour feed.

102

“Thy gladdening smile we feel to be our life:
And life it gives us now; happy, renewed
Existence, with the will and powers all rife
With zeal for high employ and amplitude
Of service: neither with less zest imbued
For lowliest work—so that we shelter fling
Round Thine own saints who suffer in the feud
With Evil,—or bold rebels, humbled, bring
Low at Thy feet in tearful penitence to cling.

103

“We see the sign of love beneath Thy feet,
That now, with energy renewed, we do
Again on earth our errands. When we meet
Once more around Thy throne in bliss to bow—
Another round of duty done—not slow,
We trust, we shall have proved in zeal for Thine
All-righteous rule. Go with us, Father, go!—
Or vigour of saint and angel shall decline,
And we shall fail to execute Thy will benign.

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104

“The presence of Thy visible glory, Lord,
We leave; but let us feel Thee ever near,
Where'er we go, and that Thou dost afford
Us loving aid while, serving in Thy fear,
We do our works of love. O Father! drear
The spaces of Thy universe would be
Without Thyself. Blest Father! ever cheer
Thy sons with consciousness that, while they flee
To do Thy will, Thou still art with them: they with Thee!’

105

Their choral praise was ended; but my rhyme
Is all unworthy of the theme. Inane
Were all attempts the choir of that pure clime
Of highest heaven, and their ecstatic strain
Of holiest worship, with the grand refrain,
So oft repeated, of their grateful joy,
To celebrate. To leave God's high domain
They now prepared, in lower realms employ
To share: to help the Good, or Evil to destroy.

106

Bright order still they kept. Who led the van?
God's holy Martyrs—with no banner spread,
Or ensign—but they, first, with zeal began
The crystal walls to pass—to join the dread
Encounter, still, with Evil: firm their tread
Upon the golden floor! And, marshalled forth
By resident seraphim of heaven, were led
To the gates the myriad host, beside—on earth,
Or other realms of God where first their souls had birth,

107

To re-enjoy their work for Him—their high
And rapturous toil of love and service blest.
The resident seraphs, and the beasts that cry—
Saying, “Holy, holy, holy!”—and never rest—
The spiritual creatures full of eyes—and drest
In white, the Elders crowned, who, by the sea
All-hyaline, before the Throne, attest
Likewise, perpetually, the sanctity
Of God Almighty—by His loving, high decree,

324

108

Remained in heaven—to me, to know 'twas given—
Ever with rapt and holy worship, there:
Within the Lamb's own light, in highest heaven
Remained to praise.
I heard a voice declare:
“Thou shalt return!” as I the precincts fair
Of bliss prepared to leave. A thrill of bliss
Awoke me; and I, trembling, breathed a prayer:
“Lord! let me not by sin, or cowardice
In the discharge of duty, the blest guerdon miss

109

“Of joys ineffable, in Thy glad realm
Of heaven! Henceforth, through every waking hour
Let me be breathing prayer! If trouble whelm
My spirit, and dark shapes of evil lour
Upon me—even in the hour and power
Of darkness, Saviour, let me feel Thee near!
Through Thee, let me be more than conqueror
O'er sin, and sloth, and pride, and doubt, and fear;
And then, Thy voice saying, ‘Come up hither!’ let me hear!”

327

BOOK THE SECOND.

1

Come forth, my Love! Old Winter, harsh and frore,
Flees the young vernal Sun! Come forth, my Love!
Let us renew sweet childhood's joys once more:
Once more return with merriment to rove
Adown the dear old lanes, through the loved grove,
O'er mead, and marsh, and pasture! Though with lithe
And limber steps we can no longer move,
The flowers will laugh around us! Ere Death's scythe
Shall reach us, let us share again Spring-pleasures blythe!

2

What say'st thou, Love—“Will there be flowers in heaven?”
They should grow there, Love, for thine own sweet sake.
But, while on earth we stay, and flowers are given
To us on earth so lovely that they make
Our hearts rejoice within us, and oft wake
A wonder whether saints in bliss behold
Aught that doth seem more truly to partake
Of rapturous loveliness than flowers unfold
Of loveliness on earth, though only of earth's mould,

3

Let us go forth, and look into their eyes
Of love, once more!
Old faces, ever new,
Men would look fondlier on ye, were they wise:
Ye harbour no ingratitude: the view
Of your bright beauty breeds no spite: your hue
And splendour raise no jealousies: content
Is your inheritance, and ye subdue
Aspiring thoughts in man: most eloquent
Is your frail life how briefly mortal life is spent!

328

4

How oft your mute but holy chaplainship
Hath led the heart of man to holiest prayer:
Heart prayer: more true than orisons o' the lip!
Still let me seek ye in the freshening air
Of morn; and as ye ope your eyes so fair
And look towards heaven,—upward I'll look
With grateful love, and humbly cast my care
On Him who careth for ye, in your nook
Wherein so lowlily ye nestle. In His Book

5

I learn He loved ye, when He walked on earth
With lowly men, and taught them that the king
So wealthy and wise was not, with all his girth
Of glorious robes and jewels glistering,
Arrayed like one of ye!—
Welcome, sweet Spring—
My natal time!—How I could love to live
For ever here, if thou wert garlanding
The earth, alway. Thanks, rather, let me give
For joys thou giv'st: this life of joy is fugitive!

6

Come forth, my Love! the sorrel of the wood—
Thy darling tenderling—in mossy shade
Now blossoms fair, the bluebell is in bud;
And the frail windflower and the primrose fade.
O violet sweet! hath thy rich hue dismayed
Thy pale companions?—Let's to the brooklet's edge!
See how the turbaned geum hath displayed
Its pride!—Step hither, darling, through the sedge:
'Twill glad thine eyes: I've found the golden saxifrage!

7

Hark! 'tis the cuckoo: Spring's true harbinger!
We all feel sure 'tis Spring—'tis life renewed—
When that quaint note—quaint, yet beloved—we hear!
How wondrous 'twas in childhood! All unviewed,
The curious voice with ardour we pursued,
Imagining the wood, the vale, the hill
Contained it,—nor desire to run subdued
Easily, though out of breath! How like our will
To follow fancies that can ne'er the wide soul fill!

329

8

List, list again! the stock-dove coos her coy
But fervent love; that lowly minor song
The yellow-hammer sings brings back the joy
Of early years; the linnet perched among
The golden gorse doth tenderly prolong
Old, sweet remembrances; while, overhead,
The soaring lark, in anthems clear and strong,
Leads back desire to joys that will bestead
The yearning soul most truly while on earth we tread.

9

But, list again! How tear the heart away
From earth, while listening to yon flute of gold
The blackbird sweetly plays? What powerful sway
Hath such rapt music for the soul! Oh cold,
Relentless Death! how I thy power controlled
Could wish, that I might ever stay on earth
And listen to her music manifold!
What wonder that her music and her mirth
Have such enchantment for a thing of earthly birth?

10

What tiny woodman's axe rings lightly down
Our path? Lo, yonder to the rotten tree
Clings the green-feathered worker, with his crown
Of burning crimson! With what saucy glee
The bar-winged jay and magpie laugh to see
Their neighbour's toil! Let idlers all deride—
He works in earnest, having found the key
To unlock the insect treasures that there hide:
Well done, fair bird! work on, whether they laugh or chide!

11

Shall we press inward, to the thicket dern,
Where rare Herb Paris springs, and orchids flout
The mystic stranger, 'mid young snake-curled fern?
Hark! in the swamp, how merrily the rout
Of snow-white crowfoots seem to sing and shout:
“We are as fair as lilies!” Many a year,
Loved lilies of the vale! with hope devout,
In vain, I've sought ye, and begin to fear
The music of your fairy bells I shall not hear

330

12

As in Lea Wood I heard it, when-a child,
Love-guided by my brave dear mother's hand,
I went to pluck ye, and my mother smiled,
Forgetting her oppressors 'midst the bland
And gladdening smile of Spring. 'Midst yon bright band
I soon shall meet her—for, in Christ she died!
Sweet Lord, I thank Thee, that in Thy glad land
No woe or weeping shall the Poor betide:
No more their souls shall ache beneath the scourge of Pride!

13

Away, old sorrows of the heart, away!
How surely do your memories live, though years,
We think, have buried them! But now sweet May
Hath come, this is no time for sorrow's tears.
Let tears flow, rather, from the fount that nears
The fount of sorrow, in the soul: so twin
Is all our nature! on the face that wears
The clouds of sorrow radiant joys soon shine;
And smiles to tears, soft, whisper—“Lo, we are akin!”

14

“It is the merry, merry month of May!”—
So sang we in our childhood; and the song
Let us sing cheerily 'mong the flowers so gay!
They are not fallen to sin, or stained with wrong.
O give us of your pureness, happy throng
Of virgin starworts!—your untainted show
Of beauty seems more truly to belong
To bliss, because so near the ground ye blow:
Even fairest flowers seem happiest when they humbly grow.

15

And humble as thy name doth thee betoken,
Lowly ground-ivy, not a cultured flower
Of which we hear words superfine fairspoken,—
Whether in trim parterre or lady's bower,
Or grand conservatory,—holds a dower
Of richer splendour than thy purple dye!
Nor seems the dahlia, in its robes of power,
More beautiful than thy meek fairy eye,
And tinct serene, as of the noon-day summer sky,

331

16

Dear speedwell, that so modestly dost cower
Under the hedgerow! Pilewort, with its sheen
Of gold, and daisy silver-rayed,—the flower
So dear to every child!—with lovelier mien,
Seem to gaze on us from their couch of green
Upon the ground, than if they did look down
From lofty boughs of lordly forest treen.
From lofty things we rather fear a frown,
Than look that smiles by them upon the earth be strown.

17

What hast thou found?—the fairy moschatel?
How fitly did the wise and reverent Swede
“Unglorying” name it! He named all things well—
The lowly interpreter of Nature: freed
From base self-worship, all things did him lead
To enthrone the All-Worshipful, and trace His hand
Of tireless care and wisdom in each weed,
Each winged and creeping thing, proud man hath banned,
As much as in the beautiful, the gay, the grand.

18

There goes the startled throstle from her nest!
Come, let us seek for it, but not destroy
Or rudely touch its precious treasure, lest
The bird should grieve when she comes back to pry
If all be safe. Eureka!—when a boy,
If I had found five eggs so beauteous blue
And speckled, I should have gone wild with joy!
I wish I had found out the value true
Of other pretty things I did so long pursue

19

Only to find them valueless and void
Of aught to make man happier. How the eyes,
The ears, the taste, and every sense beside,
Deceive us!—and, when undeceived, what sighs
We heave to be deceived again! Disguise
It as we may, the winsome world we deem
So false is chiefly our own making. Lies
Will sparkle as if writ with Truth's own beam
To minds content to rest on hopes that only seem.

332

20

Our steps grow weary, Love! Let us wend home—
Though home we share no longer, as in days
Gone by. Worn pilgrims, through the world we roam,
Calling no cot “our own,” kindling no blaze
On our own hearth, bidding a friend who pays
His evening visit “welcome!” now, no more.
What then? We know no want: so let us raise
Our thankful hearts unto the Great Bestower:
Life shall be Duty while it lasts; 'twill soon be o'er!

21

My evening task wrought out, once more, when sleep
Imperfectly again had shut out sense
Of outward things—which, evermore, we threap,
Are real and true, while but a fraudulence
Of brain o'er-busy 'tis, or indigence
Of gastric power, that fills the mind with dreams,—
I dreamt again that I had audience
Of martyred souls in converse on high themes:
A company brightly clad with heaven's own glorious beams.

22

The Martyrs' names ybore of reverence—names
A false religion teaches men should hold
As mediatorial. But, I wis, no claims
On earth they made so arrogant and bold;
And their descant in heaven left all untold
Such fictions of old Priestcraft. Holy Paul
The persecutor saved—I did behold;
And with him Peter and James; apostles all
Of Him who died to save their sinful souls from thrall.

23

They spake not of the kind of death they died:
Not Paul of his beheading; nor if on
The self-same day Peter was crucified

Peter's crucifixion, with the head downwards, on the same day as Paul's martyrdom.—Eusebius, Jerome, Hegesippus, Chrysostom, Prudentius, etc., etc.

Head downwards, in the spiritual Babylon;
Nor of the sword wherewith the brother of John
Was slain, by murderous Herod, heard I word
Of boasting made by James. And when, anon,
There met them James, the brother of the Lord,
Surnamed “the Just,” he spake not of the old record,

333

24

How lawlessly the Pharisaic mob
Hurled him sheer down from off the temple's wing
And beat his brains out with a fuller's club,

Death of James “the Just.”— Eusebius, Book II., c. I, and c. 23

Because full often they had felt the sting
Of his reproofs amid their trafficking
With vice in virtue's name. No thought of pride
Did to the souls of the Apostles cling,
While speaking of the Past. It seemed beside
A stream of Paradise, in lowliness, they hied.

25

Most gratefully they spake of what they owed
To their most loving Lord; and of the grace
He gave them, while upon the earth they trode,
His saving truth to welcome and embrace;
And power to war with old affections base,
Within; and strength and boldness to proclaim,
Alike to Greek and Jew, in every place,
The Gospel of God's Christ; and His high Name
To enthrone where'er they bore the cross, despising shame.

26

And then they spake, in wonder, how such weak
And faulty creatures as on earth they felt
They were, God should have used His truth to speak
And spread so widely through the realms where knelt
Fallen men to brutish idols:—from the belt
Of Libyan sand, and by the pillars named,
Falsely, of Hercules, where the Iberian Kelt
Worshipped the sun; and all around the famed
Great Mediterranean Sea, 'mong nations haughtily claimed

27

For vassals by the imperial men of Rome,—
To question-loving Athens, Corinth lewd—
Of merchandise and wealth and sin become
The heart of Greece, in her decrepitude;—
And through the isles o'er the Ægean strewed;
And in the stately cities of Levant,
And Lesser Asia; till again were viewed
The prostrate peoples who, with fire and chaunt,
Knelt to the sun, in degradation jubilant!

334

28

And then they blessed the holy name of Christ,
That now His truth across the seas was borne
To men in late-found regions; and rejoiced
That Gentile nations whom their sires with scorn
Had looked upon, and treated as forlorn,
Forsaken things of God, were filled with zeal
For Christian truth. And then they 'gan to mourn,
As happy spirits mourn in heaven, and feel
For brethren who reject blindly their highest weal.

29

“Oh that our brethren who on earth still boast
Of father Abraham's seed”—were the earnest cries
Of holy Paul—“from grovelling in the dust
Would cease, and strive to win the blessed prize
Of life we share in Jesu's Paradise!
When from their sight will they let fall the scales
Of stubborn prejudice, and exercise
The gift of patient thought, that never fails
To find out truth, when earnestness in men prevails,

30

“And preference for the truth, whate'er betide
Him that embraceth it? For God doth aid,
Unknowing to the seeking soul, and guide
Its search for truth. 'Twas thus displayed
Was His large pity, although fierceness swayed
My spirit, and I burned to shed the blood
Of Jesu's saints. His holy eyes pervade
Men's thoughts, marking their yearnings for the good,
And leading them by ways they have not understood.”

31

“Yet, 'twas not patient thought, my brother Paul,
I trow, that saved thee,” with fraternal smile
Spake Peter; “rather say 'tis goodness all—
Free, sovereign goodness—that doth choose the vile:
The persecutor, thou—on murder bent, the while:
The faithless, I, who did deny my Lord:
'Tis sovereign goodness that doth reconcile
Fallen men to God.”
“For ever be adored
That goodness! Thou hast spoken the wiser and better word”—

335

32

The great apostle of the Gentiles said,
With noble haste of meekness. “We must wait
The Lord's good time. 'Twill surely come. The dead
Shall rise to holy life. God will create
Israel anew. His people's afterstate
Of bliss on earth shall come. Men shall behold
The day when every Jew shall hail God's great
Messiah—Jesus the Nazarene—their old
Rapt seers with joy beheld, and rapturously foretold.”

33

“Yet God,” said James, the martyr of that lewd
And cruel king who gave the dancer vain
John Baptist's head for fee, “still lets the feud
Prevail 'tween Jew and Gentile. And the reign
Of Christ on earth seems distant far. The strain
Of triumph for the lowly Jesus swells
Not yet, o'er land and sea. Old Error's chain
Still binds half earth. The dark-skinned heathen sells
His children to the white for gold. Earth's lands are hells

34

“Of evil yet, in spite of all God's strife
With men, and Christ's dear suffering, and the zeal
Of His dear saints. And yet may many a life
Of Christian men be taken by the steel
Of murderers vile who bear the outward seal
And name of Christ. Or, men may have to burn,
In scores, for Christ's own truth, till nations feel
How bitter is the bondage they have worn
Beneath the Man of Sin: that priest of pride and scorn!”

35

Thus, while they spake, came other spirits I knew,
By mystic intellection, to belong
To apostolic times: the holy Jew,
Stephen, they stoned to death—that raving throng
Whose clothes Paul held, believing right was wrong,
And truth was falsehood! Now to him Paul cleaved;
And Stephen grasped Paul's hand with fervour strong—
Seeming to feel the highest triumph achieved
For Christ, since even the persecutor fierce believed.

336

36

With Stephen came the martyr in old age,
Brave Polycarp;

Polycarp. For his martyrdom see the Circular Epistle of the Church of Smyrna, in Archbishop Wake's Epistles of the Apostolic Fathers. Also Eusebius,Book IV., c. 15.

and he

Justin Martyr, the Philosopher. See Eusebius, Book IV., c. 16.

to Antonine
Who wrote apologetic words, the sage
Imperial moralist from fell design
And murderous deed seeking by sooth to incline
Towards tolerant regard for Christian men,
But failed; and Simeon of the Saviour's line;

Simeon, the relative of our Lord. For his martyrdom see also Eusebius, Book III., c. 32.

And bold Ignatius,

Ignatius. For the authorities respecting his martyrdom see Archbishop Wake's Epistles of the Apostolic Fathers.

—of so lively ken,
He looked as he would gladly face the lions agen!

37

“We spake, but now, of earth, and our own race,”
Said James, the brother of the Lord, with look
Of love fixed on the martyr Stephen's face;
“Regard for Abraham's seed must be unshook
Within us, even in heaven. Thou, in the book
Divine, in mortal life, wert deeply skilled,
Nor hath thy yearning soul desire forsook
To know the fulness of the words that filled
Thy heart with hope, yea, oft with joy thy bosom thrilled.

38

“Ages have rolled away since we of earth
Ceased to be habitants; and Abraham's seed
Still count God's great Messiah of no worth.
They deem He earned the malefactor's meed—
The scourge, the thorns, the cross, the spear; and feed
Their mean imaginations with a king
That shall be clothed with pomp and power, and lead
The conquered heathen of their wealth to bring
To his footstool a world-collected offering.

39

“Or, wise in grovelling doubt, but fools become
Perforce of their own wisdom, they avow
Their bold belief that wild delirium
Impelled God's seers to utter words of woe
Or rapture, and the kingdom to foreshew
Of His Anointed One. No Christ—they say—
There hath been, or there shall be. Of the Foe—
The Antichrist—they swell the battle-array,
Eager as their idolatrous sires for Falsehood's fray!

337

40

“Oh say, loved brother, who the holy seers,
And their deep meaning, ponderest still, change not
Thy cherished hopes for Israel into fears!
Shall our own race to faith in Christ be brought
By holy influences unknown, unsought,
In their long stubbornness?”—
“They shall return
To heart-obedience; and then fully fraught
With willingness to know, their souls shall learn
The truth of Christ, and all their hearts with love shall burn

41

“To Him their erring fathers crucified!”—
With holy haste, cried Paul; “blindness in part
Hath happened unto Israel, till the tide
Of Christian truth fill every Gentile heart;
And then the Jew shall worship; and, athwart
And thorough universal earth shall rise,
Alike from polished Frank and Ethiop swart,
The hymn of gladness that shall pierce the skies,
And draw even angels down to list men's harmonies!”

42

The face of Paul glowed with a holy light;
But Stephen's countenance with a brightness shone
Transc endent as the sun above the night
When earth is roofed with stars, as he made known
How strong his confidence in God had grown,
And God's great purpose to His prophets told,
In ancient times, and o'er the record strown
Of Holy Writ, in syllables of gold,
That did to faithful minds their meaning bright unfold.

43

“To Zion shall the Redeemer come,” he sung;
“And Jacob's late-born sons their sin shall leave;
And God with fire of praise shall touch their tongue,
When they at length His holy truth perceive.
And they no more His Holy Spirit shall grieve,
Nor shall their children, to the latest hour
Men shall exist on earth. Israel shall cleave
Unto the covenant-keeping God, their tower
Of strength; and hallow His high Name for evermore!

338

44

“Zion shall rise and shine, and know her light
Is come, and that the glory of the Lord
Hath risen upon her darkness; and the sight
Shall draw the grateful Gentiles toward
God's house of glory that shall be restored
On David's hill; and kings shall haste to own
The King of kings, in David's city adored;
And Midian, Ephah, and Sheba shall cast down
The golden burthens of their camels before His throne.

45

“All Israel's sons shall gather from afar,
And flow together first with fear—with joy,
Full soon—for men from under every star
The abundance of the sea shall bring, and cloy
Jerusalem with good. It shall upbuoy
The Gentile heart with gladness to join hand
In hand with Abraham's sons, while all employ
Their tongues to swell Christ's triumph, in one band
Of holy brotherhood gathered from every land.

46

“I see, with eyes of faith, the flying cloud
That, like a flock of doves, in joy return
Unto their windows! I behold the crowd
Of nations who our race beheld with scorn,—
And long did contumeliously spurn
And bruise,—now haste to bring the exiles home!
Lo! Judah's children from their long sojourn
Among the isles, in ships of Tarshish come!—
How shall the ruined narrow city find them room?

47

“The sons of strangers shall her walls extend
O'er neighbouring hills, and kings the work shall aid
For now the days of God's just wrath shall end,
And His sweet favour and mercy be displayed:
Jerusalem in joy shall be arrayed;
And through her gates, that shall continually
Be open, day and night, the new Crusade—
The host of love and peace—in holy glee
Shall crowd, from every shore washed by the surging sea!

339

48

“Her, all the haughty kingdoms of the earth
Shall serve, or perish. Even the fierce and high
Who brought her sorrow, now shall bring her mirth:
Yea, bending lowly, they shall come and lie
Repentant at her feet. And all shall vie
In zeal to pile with votive wealth the floor
Of God's new sanctuary; for beautify
His place on Zion He will again; no more
To be cast down by proudest king or conqueror!

49

“Though once forsaken, and her name with hate
Rehearsed, the Zion of the Holy One
With plenty and with joy shall be elate.
The Mighty One of Jacob shall make known
That He, the Lord, Her Saviour, for His own
Hath taken her; and men no more shall raise
The cry of violence in her streets, or groan
Of sorrow in her homes, through countless days:
For they shall call her walls Salvation—her gates Praise.

50

“Her sun shall never more go down, or moon
Withdraw its light. Her everlasting light
The Lord Himself shall be: no clouded noon
Of mourning she shall know, no cheerless night
Of sorrow: Righteousness shall rule with bright
And smiling sovereignty o'er all God's realm:
The branch of His own planting, in His sight
Shall flourish; and the weak the strong o'erwhelm;
And glory sit on Israel's spiritual warrior helm!

51

“The Lord will hasten it, in His own time!”—
He sang, with lips touched with a coal of fire
From the same altar, the prophetic rhyme
Of Him who struck with noblest hand the lyre
Of all that God-inspired and matchless quire
Who woke the echoes of each rocky dell
Through Judah's land, what time the armies dire
Of proud Assyria threatening came, but fell
By the destroying angel's hand,—without a knell,—

340

52

Dead corpses all,—found in the early morn;
And Sénnachérib fierce to Nineveh fled,
And died by slaughterous hands of children born
From his own loins:—while, as one from the dead
New risen, meek Hezekiah raised his head,
And he, and all Jerusalem, wondering, knew
How soon from threats that fill the heart with dread
God can deliver men—how soon subdue
His people's foes, that murderously their souls pursue.

53

Isaiah's lofty song the martyr sang;
And all sang with him, as they caught the strain;
While as they sang, loud heavenly echoes rang
Of elder songsters making sweet refrain.
And, forthwith, these appeared—a stately train
Of reverend forms—the minstrel leading them—
Isaiah's self: he who was sawn in twain

Isaiah. The account of his martyrdom is derived from a Rabbinical legend; but many commentators accept it, believing that it is referred to in Hebrews xi. 37.

In his old age, by one the diadem
Who stained, of Judah: impious fruit of pious stem:

54

Idolatrous Manasseh, who became
A penitent in trouble, and made prayer
To God, Who raised him from his prisoned shame,
And set him on his throne again—the rare
And precious fact in history to make fair
For all men's gaze, through time—that kings may keep
A promise made in trouble and despair,—
Though, trouble past, they usually hold cheap
Even oaths, and lightly law, most lawlessly, o'erleap.

55

The primal martyr, Abel, next I knew:
The son whom our first mother wept to see
Of life bereft; and whom his brother slew—
Her first-born son. A martyr sure, was he—
The first of men that died! By enmity
Of sin to holiness the victim fell;
And, through all years, bad men have raged to be
Convicted of their ill by men who well
Have lived; and sought, in blood, the hated good to quell.

341

56

The son of Barachiah, slain between
The temple and the altar,

“Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.”—Matt. xxiii. 35.

eke, I saw,—
With unnamed prophets whom the kings obscene
Of Judah and Israel slew, to gorge the maw
Of wickedness with righteous blood: God's law
Despising, and His vengeance drawing down—
At length—when that great prophecy with awe
The twelve disciples heard their Lord make known
Was full; and temple and altar were alike o'erthrown.

57

Last of the train came he who was the last
Of God's high messengers that went before
His Christ: he who proclaimed, as with the blast
Of a shrill trumpet, on old Jordan's shore—
“‘I am the voice of one foretold of yore—
The herald crying in the wilderness—
Prepare the way of the Lord!” Aspect he wore,
Elijah-like, of courage questionless,
That seemed his brethren with a sense of awe to impress.

58

And thus he spake: “With rapture, still on earth,
Blest prophet, by believing men thy song
Is sung; while unbelievers turn to mirth
Thy bright foretellings, saying—Declare how long
Shall Israel dwell in banishment, and wrong
Receive from nations who Isaiah's God
Adore—Isaiah's Christ with fervour strong
Profess to love? When shall the heavens be bowed,
And Christ descend on Olivet,—upon the cloud—

59

“They said they saw receive Him—the eleven
Who gazed so steadfastly upon the bright
Shekinah which upbore Him into heaven,
His native seat,—while, by them, two in white,—
The attendant angels,—pointed to the sight,
Saying—This same Jesus shall again descend,
Clothed in like manner with the cloud of light,
As ye have seen Him go? When shall the end
Of this world's kingdom be? Show us what signs portend

342

60

“The second coming of the Christ foretold
By fablers, and by doting men believed?
Where doth the wolf lie down within the fold
With the young lamb, in peace? Who hath perceived
The cow, no longer of her calf bereaved
By the grim bear, feed with him, while their young
Lie down together? What child hath achieved
The fearless feat to dare the forky tongue
O' the cockatrice, and play upon its den unstung?

61

“We see no signs that your famed Prince of Peace
Shall come, and o'er the happy nations reign.
The wolf—the Christian shepherd—yet doth fleece
The sheep; the royal lion and leopard drain
The life's blood of the labouring ox: in vain
We look for serpents that with children play,
And harm them not: knaves still the simple swain
Entrap and rob. Thus, ages pass away—
Christ will come, why doth He thus delay?

62

“So, in old time, the Pharisee and scribe,
Who listened to the Saviour's warning word,
Denied His truth, with scoff, and jeer, and gibe,
And, voluntarily blind, His claims ignored.
But, on their children was the vengeance poured
That Christ foretold. And yet will God, blest seer!
Thy prophecies fulfil. Again the Lord
Will come in judgment; but will first appear
In mercy. They who wait for Him discern Him near!”

63

Although in Paradise, the son of Eve,
With looks and words of mingled sorrow and love,
Began: “The first of martyred men must grieve
For memory of that brother who first strove
Against his brother. For the curse hath clove—
The curse of murder—to our sinful race,
Since first the spirit of evil did Cain move
To shed his brother's blood: no resting-place
The wanderer found: he ever saw the fancied face

343

64

“Of the avenger. And the murderer still
Doth tremble at the sound o' the fallen leaf—
And yet men murder! —yet, with rebel will,
Men wander from all good, and spend their brief
Sojourn on earth in filling it with grief!
I would the day were come, O Prophet sweet,
When how to bless each other shall be chief
Of men's desires and thoughts—when men shall greet
Each other with true loving hearts where'er they meet!

65

“I would thy glorious vision of the joy
And love and peace that men on earth shall feel, —
The works of love and peace that shall employ
Their hearts and hands, —the Present would reveal.
The Past hath wounds that no regrets can heal;
And, in the Future, until earth become
A world of loving men who for the weal
Of others toil unselfishly, —its gloom
Brings sorrow to my soul, even in this blissful home!

66

“Bear with me lovingly, dear saints of God!
Ye scarce can feel as I feel. When I came
A stranger here, where none but angels trod
This Paradise of blessedness; —where name
Of Man itself was new; —not without shame
And awe I witnessed how, with piercing eyes,
The angels wondered, when from fiery flame
And axe, and other deaths of hideous guise,
Truth's victims crowded hither, slain by Men of Lies!

67

“And, through the long, long ages, still arrives
The host of martyred men from earth. The hate—
The deadly hate—of evil men survives
For good men—oh, how long! I watch and wait,
But see not that their rage for murder doth abate.
O Lord, how long—”
“O gentle son of Eve!”
Isaiah gently spake: “doth not the Great,
The High and Lofty One wait also? Grieve
His essential Love it must—doth not thy soul believe—

344

68

“That still His saints fall victims to the rage
Of murderous brothers who are mad with sin? —
Could He not end them? —or, their wrath assuage?
But why, or wherefore, did their being begin?
God is all-wise: His work is not akin
To man's: abortive oft. And, if away
God took man's freedom, none reward could win
Who served God; and man's worship would convey
No praise unto God's ear, though it should last for aye.

69

“Thy gentle soul, O Abel, doth with love—
With pitying love—for suffering man, run o'er.
But, doth not God's forbearance larger prove
His love and pity—since He wields His power,
Not to crush sinners; but, His grace to shower
Upon their hearts, to soften them, and bring
Their wills towards good: although the noble dower
Of freedom that He gave, He will not wring
From man or angel: His own work disparaging.

70

“We may not wish that the All-wise had laid
The vast foundations of His universe
According to our wisdom; or had made
Intelligent creatures whom He did coerce
To keep His law, whom sin could not amerce
With suffering. What our Holy God hath done
Is done in goodness, as in wisdom. 'Sperse
Thy sorrow with the thought, O gentle one!
O' the joys of men and angels since their being begun.”

71

“I do adore His wisdom, and confess
His goodness infinite,” meekly replied
The son of Eve; ”my thought is languageless
When I would sum the good that is allied
Even with suffering. Yet again the tide
Of grief will swell, amid the joys of heaven,
When I bethink me how the earth is dyed
With blood of God's dear saints. From it long riven,
To lingering love of its old home the soul is given.”

345

72

“Sweet patriarchal spirit, and brethren dear!
I speak with diffidence, where elders tell
Their thoughts”—said Justin, the philosopher—
“Thoughts of deep mysteries that often dwell
In human hearts untold, until they swell
To bursting: for, men bind each other down
With chains that cause the spirit to rebel—
Forbidding men to think—until men moan,
And wish they never had the gift of thinking known.

73

“We ever deemed it past man's finding out
Why God had made a universe where death
And sin and suffering could be found—a doubt
To render possible, or peril faith
That God is what the holy volume saith
He is—the High and Lofty One, the True
And Holy and Good and Loving One, that hath
Been ever, and that ever shall be. But the clue
Of subtler, simpler thought we reach in this the new

74

“And sinless habitation of the soul—
Wherein her powers are strengthened, and her gaze
Is purged from fleshly films. God hath made all—
We now discern, surrounded with the blaze
Of His perfections—purposely to raise
Within His creatures perfect loving trust
In His unselfishness. In all their ways
Of lauding Him, the children of the dust
Fall short—unnaming that great attribute august!

75

“It had been selfishness had He but made
A lifeless universe—however wise
Its mechanism and motions had displayed
His mind to be—or beauty of the guise
Of things, Him beautiful that did devise
Their forms and hues, had proven. But one Mind—
His own—the Awful One's—to know or prize
The wisdom and the beauty! How unkind
Were such Creator in His awfulness enshrined!

346

76

“To store His glorious universe with life
God's blest unselfishness His essence moved;
And thus all worlds with living things are rife.
But, gift of life alone had not Him proved
Unselfish. Living things it Him behoved
To bless—to make them worthy of His hand.
For, if no creature could have known or loved,
Have thought or felt—as well a barren strand,
Or lifeless ocean, God eternally had planned!

77

“God were not blest could He not love and feel
As well as know. Vain sages of the East
Affirm their Brahm, the highest, hath perfect weal
Because he is emotionless—divest
Of feeling—joy or grief; and in such rest—
Such blank quiescence—centres perfect bliss!
But God's word leaves us to no barren quest
About Himself—no cold hypothesis:
It tells us that He hates the sinner's ways amiss,

78

“But loves the righteous; that He hath great joy
When sinners turn and leave their sinful way,
And seek their Father's house; but that the alloy
Of grief is His when His own people stray
From His sweet service. If unwise men say—
Can, then, the Unchangeable rejoice or grieve,
And still be perfect? Yea, we answer, yea:
Unchangeable holiness, His saints believe,
Is His; and higher perfectness none can conceive.

79

“God's happiness is perfect, not because
He is almighty, or all-wise, or fills
Infinity, or gives all life by laws
Himself supports. But perfect happiness thrills
His holy essence, since He ever wills
And does that which is holy, perfectly.
Just ire, grief, love—emotions—are not ills
To perfect holiness. No change shall be
In God's all-perfect bliss throughout eternity.

347

80

“And from eternity hath been no change
In His all-perfect bliss, though He hath seen
Men's wickedness, and grieved. Grief was not strange
To God's omniscience. His creation teen,
He knew, must bring to Him, amid the sheen
Of His all-glorious perfectness—for free
If His creation were, though strong, or keen
In intellect, yet they must ever be
Subject to imperfection, as He did foresee, —

81

“And though foreseeing, chose to make them free,
And chose to grieve and suffer, that He might
Have creatures in His universe to be
Recipients of His bounty, and delight
Might take in blessing them, and oft requite
With tenderness their base ingratitude,
And follow them in their wanderings from the right—
Leaving it hard for sinful ears to exclude
His call of love with which He hath their souls pursued.”

82

He ceased; not as if all his thoughtful theme
Were uttered, but himself with measurement
Meting of lowliness: nor with esteem
And reverence for God's elder saints unblent
Seemed his demeanour. Praise, awhile, upsent
The Martyr-host, in silence, with devout
Rapt feeling: silence deep: more eloquent
Than words—for through each visage beamed the thought
Of grateful love with which their wondering souls were fraught.

83

“Thy words are sooth, my brother,” holy Paul
Thus earnestly the silence broke:“for Love
Alone is pure Unselfishness; and all
Our best conceptions, when on earth we strove
To express God's nature, did but feeble prove
Compared with that one sentence of His word—
That God is Love. The proof is brightly wove
In every sentence of that vast record
The archangels keep of all they know the Sovran Lord

348

84

“Hath done, since they primeval light first saw;
And, unto man, the proof is best revealed
In God's best gift of His dear Son, from woe
To save our sinful race. How oft this field
Of thought we visit! —and it still doth yield
Fresh riches, and will ever; for, again
And oft, this theme will charm us, till unsealed
Is every prophecy, and Christ's great reign
Makes unto men and angels God's great meaning plain!”

85

A hand of golden light appeared aloft!
The signal seemed to all familiar, for
Upward all glanced, and then around with soft
Benignant smile upon each other: store
Of love congratulant within the core
Of every heart fraternal beaming bright
Upon their faces, while they left the shore
Of that sweet stream with flowers so richly dight
I dreamt I saw, at first, with new-born spiritual sight.

86

Obedient to the sign, with lively pace
They trod the plain, till they the hills could climb,
And spoke with rapture of the errands of grace
From which they had returned, in lands of crime
And error that they once, in olden time,
Had known and loved. The martyred prophets said
Old Jordan's banks were fair as in their prime,
But o'er the land the stones of ruin spread
Scarce shewed what glories had belonged unto the dead.

87

And when sweet Olivet, and their loved lake,
Gennesaret, the Apostles saw, they told
How burnt within their hearts the words He spake
To them—the Lowly One—in days of old,
As if they heard His voice, and did behold
His meek form still. And then Jerusalem
They named with words that shewed above all gold
They priced her dust, and thought her still the gem
Of all the earth, though shorn of her old diadem.

349

88

But Polycarp spake sadly:“Light hath waned
In Smyrna and our Asian churches, where
It once burned purely. Long hath Falsehood reigned,
Boasting her crescent, in those regions fair.
And, though a few are found not loath to share
Christ's shame, or own His cross, —dark errors blind
Them till their good and ill seem but to bear
A semblance to the grace and beauty shrined
In marbled ruin, which upon that shore men find.”

89

“And Antioch—the beautiful—the great!”
Said bold Ignatius, “where our faith first found
A name—what marks her now? How desolate
And silent are the spaces where the ground
Oft shook with feet of crowds—the air with sound
Of festive shouts was filled”—
“Yet, within cell
Monastic, in those lands,” said Simeon, “bound
With fetters of the soul, although men dwell,
Sometimes they burst their bondage, we can gladly tell.

90

“Bethink ye both, my brethren, of the poor
Weak trembler with old age we lately hied
To comfort, at behest Divine, and found the lore
Of Christ his soul had sweetly learned, and tried
To enlighten others. And he joyous died,
For some had listened to his words with joy,
And learnt to love, in truth, the Crucified. —
O let the bliss we reap from such employ,
Revisiting old earth, all sad regrets destroy!”

91

But now to climb the mountains ever green
Began the Martyrs. All, with one consent,
Well-ordered step and timely march were seen
To keep, with bands that up before them went,
Or followed after; and right soon were blent
The myriad voices of the Martyr-throng
In choral triumph. Voice mellifluent
One raised, at call of them who did belong
Unto the Martyr-host: thus Stephen led the song:

350

92

“Glory to Thee, the covenant-keeping God!
Who didst our fathers in Thy goodness lead
Back to Thy way, when oft they wandering trod
The path of error, yea, pursued with greed
The rebel road, although for holy seed
Thou hadst them chosen; and didst from ruin save
Them oft, and them with heavenly manna feed, —
Yea, didst for their deliverance cleave the wave
In which their foes, o'erwhelmed, soon found a watery grave!

93

“O Holy One of Israel! hear the cry
Our longing hearts now send up to Thine ear!
Our race—the race of Abraham—soon bring nigh
To own Thy great Messiah, from their drear
And cheerless unbelief! O Lord, bring near
Our brethren, whom to love we cannot cease—
Feeling Thy love, and knowing they are dear
Unto Thine heart, and that it will increase
The bliss of saints to see the wanderers seek Thy peace

94

“Lord! bring the wanderers back! Remove the veil
From off the heart of Israel! Lord, make bare
Thy holy arm of might! They cannot fail—
Thy holy promises: Thou didst declare
The race of Abraham should for ever share
Thy smile; and Thou wilt yet their hearts dispose
To love Thee. Hasten, Lord, the time! The prayer
Of all Thy grateful saints regard: disclose
The morn when rays of love shall subdue all Thy foes!”

95

The song went on—the song of love and praise,
And prayer, and zeal for others' bliss. But now
The inward beckoning came that their glad lays,
For me, must end: unto the mountains' brow
I mote not climb; but on the earth below
Must longer toil.
I woke, with thankful mind
That God had given me pleasant life to know
On earth: a life He stores with bounties kind,
And heartfelt joy that dreary doubt is left behind.

353

BOOK THE THIRD.

1

I look, once more, upon the awful sea!
I may not sing of it as lordly Childe—
Albeit with heart-throes—sang exultantly,
As of a steed that under its exiled
And haughty rider bounded with a wild
Feeling of kindred scorn and pride. His fame
Was glorious in my boyhood; but 'tis soiled,
They tell me, now. Oh, can it be that shame
Shall his bright memory hide who bears that laurelled name!

2

I gaze, once more, upon the awful sea—
Not with exultant, but with wondering thought,
And humbled feeling. 'Midst eternity
And boundlessness yon tiny white-sailed yacht,
In the far-off horizon, seems to float!
The wide-spread, silent moor, the tallest hills,
Breed no such thinking in me, awe, and doubt,
As this strange sense, all-undefined, that thrills
My bosom while the measureless sea my vision fills.

3

What is Existence?—what Eternity?
What lies beyond our outer life? Thy waves,
For ever restless, change—O Living Sea! —
And our own breathing forms, —the dead, in graves, —
Change, ever! Thy vast waters, —whether raves
The tempest, or the weary winds find sleep,
As poets sing, within thy neighbouring caves, —
The pulse of language with their motion keep,
And seem, like us, to shout and whisper, laugh and weep!

354

4

Thy waters are not dead. They truly live:
More truly than the forms that in thee dwell.
These die; but thou dost still live on, and give
Thy outspread hands, when thy proud billows swell,
Unto the toiling sun, that ye may quell
Death's triumphs ever, and all Life renew.
Your progeny, the clouds and showers, dispel
Earth's barrenness. And thus, all Life seems due,
On earth—O glorious ministers of God! —to you.

5

Many-voiced Sea—as the melodious One,
Wondering, did name thee, in the days of old—
It is a luxury, 'neath the summer's sun,
To loiter on this Cumbrian shore, and hold
Communion with thy voices manifold.
Scarce louder than the murmuring bee the sound
Seems, now I sit upon this beech sweet-knolled
With thyme, and where the rock-rose doth abound,
And crimson cranesbills clothe with beauty the rough ground.

6

And now the air doth tremble 'neath high noon,
And Languor reigns, how, with thy simple lay, —
Which hath to me from boyhood, been a boon,
And purest joys brings back to mind, alway, —
Thou, darling yellow-hammer, seem'st to play
A witching treble to the waters' bass, —
While other birds are silent: even the gay
And tireless lark seeks now a resting-place,
And hides, beside his mate, among the tall ripe grass.

7

Sweet thoughts of pleasures past, thy soothing lull,
O Sea, calls up to memory; but thy shore,
To-morrow, may be strown with mast and hull
Of many a goodly ship, and mind me more
Of my own wrecks of purpose, and the poor
Fruition of endeavour to achieve
Great aims. 'Tis vain such failures to deplore,
Now I am near life's close; but still will grieve
The soul, though 'tis too late life's failures to retrieve.

355

8

Shall I behold thy waves when I have sailed
O'er this life's sea? I shall live on, when Death
Hath claimed my clay—his portion. But all-veiled
Is still the Future—the Eternal. Breath
And pulse I cannot have when its frail sheath
The spirit quits; but yet the soul may gaze
Upon thy restless waves, as oft she fleeth
To do God's high behests, —and, without daze,
May, look, O glorious Sun, upon thy gladdening blaze.

9

Shall after-life be indolence? Each thing
Living on earth, whether it will or nill,
The eternal purpose of the Eternal King
Doth most industriously and well fulfil,
Through every change—as thou dost, changing still,
Vast Sea, and still subserving in thy change
The ends of Him who holds thee by His will.
Surely, if franchised souls to some dull range
Were doomed, to God's known ways it were unlikeness strange!

10

Boundless as thy path seems to be, shall mine
Be, in the Future? Yet, how shrinks the soul
At thoughts of boundlessness! What! no confine—
No shore—but on, for ever;—and no goal—
No end! Space still beginning, and the roll
Of days grown dateless, numberless! And shall
This Self, that—like a prisoner on parole,
When It adventures forth to think, a thrall
Soon feels Itself, and hastens back to its poor cloisteral,

11

Dim-lighted home of flesh, affrighted at
The shapes of mystery It meets—soon quit the gloom
And glimmer of this earth, and try a state
Of veritable existence, in the womb
Of vastness all-illimitable, become
An unclothed spirit, and yet clothed upon
With immortality, fearless to roam
Through realms of life and realms of thought unknown, —
And still, for ever, feel Its journey scarce begun?

356

12

The soul within her prison-house of clay
Shrinks back at thought of such strange life unknown,
As if too perilous it were too stray
Through the wide universe of God alone—
Or, unconsorted, in some planet-zone
That girdles round some far-off solar fire,
With essences that large of ken have grown,
By myriad years of thought, yet never tire
To think and search; but ever pant for wisdom higher.

13

Alone, upon the pathless sea, rides yet
The tiny white-sailed yacht. Since height
Of noon no bark, no shallop, or corvette,
No humble fisher's boat, hath come in sight:
Still lonelily she floats, with sails so white—
Far off—so that no help could landsmen lend,
Were skies to change, and storms to come, with night.
But, God is there! No storm the ship can rend,
Unless, —His mandate given! —His ministers descend.

14

So God will be with my frail bark, and thine,
Frail brother, when the unknown seas we sail
Of unknown after-life. The Eye Divine
Is on us here, in earthly calm or gale;
And on each soul that lives beyond the veil
Unrent—each dweller in eternity;
The Hand Divine supports alike all frail
Existences in heaven and earth that be—
For frail were even the archangels, Sovran, without Thee!

15

Why should I shrink and fear, while I can lean
On the Eternal One? Yet, how I dread
The “inevitable hour”! Some, with serene
Indifference, of the grave as of a bed
Of rest, tell us, they dream—nay, they would wed
Annihilation gladly; while the best
And holiest I have known on earth have said
They had no fear, but longed to reach the rest
That for the people of God remaineth, with the Blest.

357

16

With a glad heart I tell—the phantom foul
That threatened Nothingness, to terrify
And fill with agony my doubting soul
Hath ceased. But still—What can it be to die?
That thought appals me. Though with strengthened eye
I look triumphantly beyond the grave,
And feel my trustful spirit can rely
On Him who strong, for ever, is to save—
Yet, on Death's self I cannot look with challenge brave.—

17

The filmy cloud I saw arise, but now,
Hath spread along the sky—a dark portent
That storm is near. So some slight signal, slow
Or swift, may warn me when my soul now blent
With flesh must leave it. May Death's storm be spent
Quickly, O Blessed Father! if Thy will
It be, —or, rather, let the veil be rent
All in a moment, while I seek to fill
My daily task, —that so I, with ecstatic thrill,

18

May pass from mortal to immortal life.
Nay! —let me breathe no prayer so full of fear
And selfishness! Up, to the battle's strife,
Once more! until the Master's voice shall cheer
Me, when—the mortal victory won—I hear
Him say, “Well done, thou good and faithful one,
Enter into my joy, my servant dear!” —
Lord, let me fight until the battle's done—
Nor ever wish for rest until the battle's won!

19

My nightly task—the task of Duty—claims,
Again, my heart and mind; a task now hard—
Nay, harder than he knows, who 'mid fierce flames
Moulds melted metal; or, with body marred
And crampt-up limbs, from sun and daylight barred,
Hews at the coal-seam; or, whose mighty blows
Ring loud upon the anvil. Small regard
The peasant lends me! “Why for him unclose
The bar to knowledge? want of it he hardly knows;

358

20

“And why disturb him?” —do ye ask, in scorn,
Or kindly? —“Leave him to his vulgar toil
And vulgar pleasures. Teach him not to spurn
The lot of ignorance, and seek the broil
Of thought, lest he encounter the dread foil
To deeper thought all thinkers surely find.”
I dare not join a project that would spoil
My brother-man, whom God hath given a mind
That may be nobly taught, and cultured, and refined.

21

It cannot be God's purpose that the soul
He meant to live for ever should be left
Untaught, and Man become a larger mole
To burrow in the earth, of light bereft,
Or crawl upon it like the reptile eft,
Unknowing of his heavenly destiny.
They practised on Man's freedom a fell theft
Who praised blind Ignorance, and said that she
Was Mother of Devotion. Set Man fully free—

22

Free from the bonds of ignorance and control
Of priests—free from the shackles of his pride
And low self-worship. Let him know the whole
Of Truth that hath been found, and do not hide
The fact that more Man knows not. He will chide
Himself, most healthfully, and gladly flee
From error, when himself thus dignified
He fully feels with his own sovereignty
Of soul, as freeborn Man. O set Man fully free!

23

And yet, though Knowledge be a precious boon
For Man, he who the task doth undertake
To teach men how to think, no mean poltroon
Must be in courage; nor, in weakness quake
At proud men's anger; nor, his task forsake
For others' coldness or dull sloth. To say
And do as others, nor with boldness break
From tyrant custom, or the gilded way
Of fashion, marks the million: only units stray

359

24

In paths of independence, and assert
Their native dignity of Man. And sloth
Seems rest so needful to poor men upgirt
For out-door labour through the day, it doth
Give pain to one, more than their ways uncouth,
To rouse them with hard messages of right
And wrong. How, if they sleep, can one be wroth?
In sooth, he ventures on a work of might
Who strives to keep a weary ploughman wake at night. —

25

My task is done once more: the hour hath passed
More pleasantly than I foreboded. Yet,
What drudgery 'tis to talk to looks aghast
With helpless wonder; or that seem to fret
With haste to leave you; or to figures set
As stark asleep as if nought but the loud
Last trump could consciousness in them beget;
While others glance around with spirit cowed,
As if they felt like leprous men among the proud!

26

How different were my labour amid shrewd
Auld Scotland; or th' West Riding, where our keen
Critics-in-fustian sit and inly brood;
Or, where Northumbrian miners with brave mien
Of kindly frankness earnestly upglean
Your thoughts; or, with the quick discerning throng
In noble Nottingham; or, my native scene
Of ancient Leicester; or, much more, among
Bold Birmingham's array of thinkers stern and strong;

27

Or, sceptical Northampton, where the knights
Of Crispin ply the awl, and challenge high
Hurl at old teachers—following all new lights!
Or, grand old Norwich; or, in Bristol, eye
Of England's west, where good men truly vie
One with another in truly Christian deed;
Or even 'mid London's shallow foppish fry,—
One might with Truth the mind more easily feed
Than get dull peasants to such teaching to take heed.

360

28

Poor English ploughmen! my very heart doth bleed
For you. Your little children I have passed,
Driven forth in “gangs,” to gather stones, or weed,
When scarcely it was daylight, o'er the vast
Wide fen of Lincolnshire, —their eyes upcast
For pity at their driver—the brute tool
Who pushed them on with curses; and “move fast,”
They must, or suffer his hard blows. No school
For the poor ploughman's child! He would be called a fool

29

By his own class, and proud by masters, who
Let his child learn to read God's word instead
Of toiling early and late, —and learning, too,
To swear like the big driver, —and lose dread
For foulest vice, where all restraints are fled,
And sex is rudely mixt. The boy or girl
Brings home a few poor pence each day for bread:
What's all the learning that his head might whirl
With pride, compared with bread, to the poor peasant churl?

30

Oh, gentlemen of England! in your House
Of power and wisdom, can ye find no heart
To end this wrong so horribly infamous?
Ye could set free the Factory child, and thwart
The chimney-sweeper, who made infants smart
And weep for years; and ye could boldly vote
Twenty gold millions to break up the mart
Of demons who the souls and bodies bought
Of negroes: —Why not seize this evil by the throat?

31

Landlords! upon your land this deed is done.
Doth not the tenant know your word is law?
Forbid the deed, then: tell him he must shun
The sin, and ye will cease the gain to claw,
And lower his rent. —“Idiot! expect to draw
Our teeth, as soon; or, ask to flay the skin
From off our backs! We do not yield one straw!” —
Why, then, right honourables! your sordid sin
I would not share, if your whole rent—roll I could win.

361

32

The hour of sleep returns, and still I weigh
The sins of other men. Upon my own
Black catalogue, with the like keen survey,
I fear, I do not dwell. Lord, from Thy throne
Look down in mercy still on those who groan
O'er others' sins, and oft forget to judge
Their own!
When waking consciousness had flown,
My dreaming consciousness returned. A drudge,
I seemed, at first, among old earthly scenes to trudge.

33

O'er Croyland Fen, methought, in evening gray,
I toiled, from rural Helpstone, —where poor Clare
Was born, —along the narrow winding way
The monks upraised, in dark old times, with care
And patient labour. 'Twas the desolate and rare
Vision renewed, of forty years gone by,
When—myriad ages past—no rude ploughshare
Had yet disturbed the marsh. Far as the eye
Could reach there was no tree that grew beneath the sky.

34

A clump of reeds rose, here and there, around
A pool; and, ghostlike, up the bittern reared
Its head out of the clump, and then to the ground
Sank down, and hid itself, and boomed its weird
And shivering note. But, what most strange appeared
Was that vast moving host of feathered things—
The countless flocks of geese, that homeward steered,
With deafening cackle, and with bleeding wings
Drooped to the ground, while,—heedless of their sufferings,—

35

The gooselike gosherd urged them with his staff.
The geese had just been plucked alive,—their quill
To exchange for gold. The gosherds, with a laugh,
Told me they helped the deed. But I felt ill,
And hastened on, while overhead the shrill
Curlew, the lapwing, and the heron, flew;
And, far up in the sky, the soaring, still,
And lordly glede seemed taking surer view
Ere pouncing, dartlike, down, his screaming prey he slew.

362

36

I went—the pilgrim of romance—to gaze
On Guthlac's ruined shrine—the hoary pile
Of Croyland; and the image that pourtrays
King Ethelbald the Mercian, broken and vile,
On that triangular bridge that joined the isle
So sacred to profaner ground, in years
When monks held marish and mere for many a mile.
Darkness was falling as I gazed; and jeers
From ploughboys that beheld me pained my ticklish ears.

37

So on I passed, to shun the boyish crowd;
But soon, from weariness, lay down to rest
Upon a grassy hillock, o'er which bowed
A bush in which some late bird kept her nest.
And, as she crooled, I slept.
Among the Blest—
From sleep within my sleep—again, I seemed
To wake surrounded with the host all drest
In light. But they whom now I saw—I dreamed—
Were souls I had in mortal life but lightly esteemed.

38

Stern devotees of mediæval time
They were: brave venturers among savage tribes;
Daring reprovers, eke, of kingly crime
And priestly sloth; —who heeded not the gibes
Of their own order; —nor concealed, for bribes,
The sins of monarchs whose haught pomp affrayed
Their trembling subjects; —or whom timid scribes
Writ “holy,” for they stalked in masquerade
Of cowl and hood, begirt with rope, in cloistered shade.

39

He whom men call the Apostle of Germany,
I saw—Winfred of Crediton

Winfred of Crediton in Devonshire (in the kingdom of Wessex), born in 680 A.D.—He was consecrated Bishop, and named Boniface by Pope Gregory II., in 723 A.D. His life was written by Willibald, one of his disciples.—See “Life of St. Boniface, Archbishop of Mayence and Apostle of Germany.” By the Rev. Geo. W. Cox, S.C.L. London, Joseph Masters: 1853.

—our Saxon saint,
Named Boniface, when episcopal degree
Was given him by the pope. In him no taint
Of Romish crime was found, natheless. Restraint
Or fear he felt not for tiara or crown;
But, like a Christian true, set forth his plaint
'Gainst papal simony; and dared to frown
Upon the heathenish sins 'mong prelates shown.

363

40

While he hewed down the sacred oak of Thor,
And preached to Hessian and to Frisian throngs
Of barbarous men, and taught them to abhor
Idols and wizards and blood, and sing the songs
Of Christ, the Prince of Peace,—sin that belongs
So often to magnanimous kings he dared
To scan: to Mercian Ethelbald the wrongs
Done to his people wisely he declared,
Until that regal heart to goodness he ensnared.

41

With Winfred walked his brethren who, of yore,
Were massacred, or slain, by heathen bands—
Eoban, and Adalhere,

—There were others martyred in Friesland besides Boniface and these two.—For their names, see Cox's “Life of St. Boniface,” p. 129.

and many more—
Meek, self—denying men—men of clean hands,
And minds devout—obeying Christ's commands
From love to Him who first loved them, and spread
O'er Frisic, Hessian, and Bavarian lands
The gospel of their Lord: giving the bread
Of life to perishing men: by no false zeal misled.

42

Remembering how, on earth, I lightly esteemed
The work of these stern toilers, whom I now
Rightly, by mystic gift of insight, deemed
True martyrs—I beheld, with sudden glow
Of pleasure, drawing near, in goodly row,
A band whom others lightly esteemed, on earth—
Lightly esteemed, and scorned, and trampled low;
But whose meek names I valued at right worth,
And oft felt pround I had with them one tie of birth.

43

Many of these meek ones died through men whose boast—
Oh, of such grievous sin, I blush to tell! —
Was rather than that liberty be lost
Of conscience for themselves they would rebel
Till doomsday: yet, like fiercest dogs of hell,
They worried men whose consciences felt fear
Of sin most tenderly; and tortures fell
Of whipping, hunger, and imprisonment drear,
And filthy, and foul, inflicted on God's servants dear.

364

44

Some of Old England were, and some of New.
Some were the victims of our boasted time
When kingly men in England overthrew
Crowned lawlessness and sanctimonious crime;
And some died when returned the kingly Mime
To reign and sin right royally. The rest
Were martyred men and women from that clime
Across the sea where, in the distant West,
Their persecutors found a refuge they deemed blest.

45

Parnell,

James Parnell.—For the cruel martyrdom of this dear young Quaker lad, at Colchester Castle, in 1655—during the Protectorate of Cromwell—see Sewell's “History of the Rise, Increase, and Progress of the Christian People called Quakers.”

I saw, the godly boy that death
Of heartless cruelty who died, i' the wall
Of Colchester's strong castle—with last breath
Entreating they would let the happy thrall
Go home to Christ! Young Burrough,

Edward Burrough.—Stifled to death in Newgate. For an account of his happy death, and for the eulogium pronounced on him after death, by his friend Howgill, see also Sewell's History.

loved of all
His suffering mates,—with pious Hubberthorn,

Richard Hubberthorn.—Nearly on the same page Sewell relates the death of this devoted servant of Christ, also in Newgate prison.

And others, who in Newgate drank the gall
Of wrong so meekly; and Trowell,

John Trowell.—He was so beaten and brusied and crushed by the Trained Bands of King Charles II., who were sent to break up Quaker's meetings by force, that he died.—See the beginning of the 7th Book of Sewell's History.

who was torn
And bruised and beaten, till he ceased on earth to mourn.

46

Howgill

Francis Howgill. —He died in Appleby gaol, after five years imprisonment. His death was peacefully triumphant.—See the 9th Book of Sewell's History.

came on with these—a valiant soul,
A noble warrior for his Lord, —no name
His brethren held more worthy: in the goal
At Appleby he died, with sweet acclaim
Of praise to God that worthy to bear shame
He had been counted, for the Christ he loved! —
With these came hundreds, little known to fame,
Who died in dreary prisons, still unmoved,
By suffering, to desert the faith their souls approved.

47

New England's victims followed those of Old:
Victims whom barbarous Endicot pursued
With hatred—helped by shepherds of Christ's fold!
Good Mary Dyar,

—Of all the New England Martyrs, this heroic and holy woman seems to have been the flower. Her death—after prolonged ill-treatment and suffering—was joyous and exultant.—See the 5th Book of Sewell's History.

who climbed with fortitude
The gallows' ladder twice. In mockery lewd
Called down the first time: soon with joy she clomb
Again, to die—saying, sweetly, that she viewed
The Paradise of Christ, beyond the tomb,
Where she had been, in spirit, for days: her heavenly home!

365

48

Next, with unlyric names,

—William Robinson a merchant of London, and Marmaduke Stevenson of Yorkshire, were condemned to be hanged along with Mary Dyar. The three went hand in hand, exultantly, to the gallows. Robinson and Stevenson being dead, Mary Dyar was ordered to ascend the ladder, which she did readily; but when they had tied her hands and bandaged her eyes, they told her she was reprieved. Yet she was executed some months after. The bodies of Robinson and Stevenson having hung till they were dead. they were cut down, and thrust naked into a hole dug for them at the foot of the gallows. —See Sewell's 5th Book.

joined hand in hand,
Fraternally, came on the faithful sufferers twain
Whose naked flesh, as if they bore the brand
Of felony, or shared the crime of Cain,
Was thrust into the ground, with foul disdain,
Even at the gallows' foot. Then, Leddra,

William Leddra. —He was chained to a log, both day and night, during a long winter, and in an open prison. He died with the calmest resignation. —See Sewell's 6th Book.

bright
Hilarious soul, followed—who met death's pain
Crying, “Lord, receive my spirit!” —seeming God's light
To see, with dying eyes: blest Stephen's martyr-sight!

49

The souls of women, young and old, whom fiends
That dared to claim the name of Christian men
Whipped through New England towns

—The barbarous whipping of Elizabeth Hooton, a woman of threescore years of age, of Anne Colman, of Mary Tomkins, of Alice Ambrose, and others, is recited also by Sewell in his 6th Book.

—for they were “Friends,” —
A deadly crime! —arrived with these. And when
These unadorned new-comers met the ken
O' the Martyrs to the blinded Pagan rage
Of mediæval times, in a green glen
Of Paradise, amazed, I saw them wage
A race of love to join—as if their lineage

50

They knew was one; and though so far apart,
In time and place, they lived on earth, they felt
Their zeal for Christ proclaimed them of one heart.
“Brothers,” spake Winfred, “when on earth we dwelt,
And preached to savage Teuton and fierce Kelt,
It scarce was strange that, blind with idol-zeal
And gust for sin, —even while to Christ we knelt, —
They slew us, thinking then to rob and peel
Our tents of gold and silver we could not reveal

51

“As in our keeping, since no needless load
We carried, cumbered and bowed too much with sin.
But who your deaths and sufferings could forebode—
Your torturous martyrdoms—from your own kin,
Your own dear flesh and blood? Nay, that within
The bounds of likelihood might be; but they
Who took your lives professed high discipline
Of self-denial, and could not seek to slay
Ye that your gold and silver might become their prey

366

52

“What was the gain they sought? what earthly good
Could they acquire in slaying ye? No hoard
Of wealth ye had, that they should shed your blood
To seize it and possess.”
“Be Christ adored,”
Spake noble Howgill, “though their deed abhorred
We may not, by the nature of the mind,
Forget, we still feel loving pity toward
The men whom bigotry had rendered blind—
Nay, mad—as still it maddens thousands of mankind.

53

“Dost thou not think, my brother, that as brave
Martyrs for wrong are sometimes found, as for
The right? I doubt not but that some who drave,
Fiercely, our feeble ones with whipping sore,
From town to town, believed they did no more
Than bounden duty; and if called to bear
Smiting, the rod to death they would have bore
Sooner than name of foul apostate wear,
Or gold and silver as the apostate's guerdon share.

54

“It was not earthly gain our foes obtained,
Or sought. Our deaths could not enrich our foes
In any sordid sense. But still remained
In them the carnal mind that doth oppose
Itself to goodness. Though by outward shows
And loud profession, men do oft persuade
Themselves and others that within them glows
True Christian zeal, the proof is soon betrayed
That not one moment its pure fires their hearts pervade.

55

“How eagerly men praise great earnestness,
Though earnest men are caught by falsehood's bait
So easily! Surely men should laud much less
Quick zeal than slower wisdom. They who wait,
Patient, at Wisdom's feet, regenerate
Become in spirit, and feel no tyrant will
To fetter the free mind—to emasculate
The soul. Their victories they win meekly, still
Not seeking to compel, but to persuade the ill:

367

56

“To win men over by conviction, clear
And calm, that so the settled mind in ease
May rest, and satisfaction. Kings no fear
Have of their subjects if their reigning please.
But though meek men may bear kings' wrong decrees,
Their hearts will aye the sceptred wrong disown.
Force never truly reigns: its falseness frees
All men from heart-obedience to the throne:
For force is falseness, even to the simplest clown.”

57

“Ay, force is falseness,” said our Saxon saint;
“And neither force nor falseness masterdom
Can win for Truth. With us failed false constraint,
When, backed with fancied power from Papal Rome,
We forced the Teuton nations to succumb
To Christ. In vain we triumphed, as the oak
Of Thor I hewed in pieces. Awe held dumb
Thor's worshippers to witness the bold stroke;
But soon their awe was gone—revenge within them woke,

58

“And back to their old homage at the shrine
Of their old Thunder God they went with zeal,
While on ourselves they fell with leonine
And bloody rage. God did, at length, His seal
Set to His truth, when wiser men the appeal
Made to their moral sense-the meek yet broad
Attack on conscience-which will straight reveal
Its living power in man, though long by fraud
It hath been lulled to slumber, or by force o'erawed.

59

“I would more wisdom had our earnest toil
Directed. Savage men, like children, might,
We thought, be held by fear or kindly guile,
And taught to fall in reverence at the sight
Of saintly bones or gaudy incensed rite,
As they had fallen before the Sun and Moon,
And Thor and Woden. Oh, that holy light
Upon our eager minds had clearer shone,
That their dark souls for Christ we might in love have won!”

368

60

“Ye worked according to your light. And they
By their light—twilight, rather,”meekly said
Young Parnell, “now are judged, by Him whose sway
Knows neither weakness nor injustice. Dread
In holiness are His commands: to tread
His courts in heaven, unfit they were: the praise
Of God and of the Lamb who for them bled
They could not sing: but just are all His ways:
Only transgressors of His law its sentence slays.

61

“None can transgress the law they never knew;
Therefore, the millions of the heathen live
Their after-life of trial, where the view
Of truth and right and wrong God doth them give
In clearness, and His Spirit doth with them strive,
That they may yield their wills to Him, and share
Salvation by His Christ. Alternative
Of choice they still to exercise may dare.
He saveth none by force: all freely His yoke bear.

62

“It is our highest bliss to feel we serve
Him freely, who to save us freely came—
To feel that we have no desire to swerve
From holiest service—that we know no aim
Or will but ever, with the holy flame
Of love, to burn towards Him who loving gave
Himself for us. How worthily His name
Could we extol, if each were but a slave
In ace! It would the worship of high heaven deprave.”

63

“How clumsily men frame their theories
Of right!” Winfred resumed; “in our dark time,
We strove poor heathen men to christianize,
Believing unbelief a damning crime,
Even when of every Christian truth sublime
They were as ignorant as a child unborn!
Nay, this strange misbelief became the prime
Incentive to our warfare with their scorn
And spite, that we might save them from their fate forlorn.

369

64

“No gentler motives had our hearts impelled
To venture 'mid their swamps and forests wild,
And dare their savage rage. Had we not held
Them lost—lost irremediably—exiled
From bliss for ever—we could not have toiled
To martyrdom that we might save their souls.
Thank God! that now the darkness that defiled
Our vision is removed. No wrong controls
His government: we now discern, wherever rolls

65

“A world that holds His creatures rational,
There all are judged by perfect equity;
Not equity by wits fantastical
Apparelled with the seeming drapery
Of fairness, though, in truth, 'tis tyranny
Abhorrent to the sense of right in man
Implanted by his Maker.”
“We with thee
Adore,” spake Leddra, “Him whose marvellous plan
Gives all within the moral and intelligent span

66

“Of His high rule probation fair and free
And noble. How we could have feared that ire
Consuming from His holy hand must be
The lot, inevitably, of son and sire
In utter darkness born—that endless fire
Should be their portion who ne'er knew His will,
And therefore could not guiltily conspire
Against His holy government, is still
Our wonder, and must aye our minds with wonder fill.”

67

“And yet,”after some silence, Adalhere
Spake thoughtfully, “when we beheld how base,
How vile, how shudderingly soul-stained they were
We saw bow down to idols;—how no trace
Of purity remained in them;—no place
Within their hearts for aught but lowest lust,
And dark desire, and passionate embrace
Of foul indulgence;—how could we have trust
That any of their fallen souls would live among the just?”

370

68

“And in God's holy word,” spake Hubberthorn,
With slow and gentle speech, “we were not told
That when men's souls had passed their mortal bourne,
There might be to the gaze of some unrolled
A second scene of trial. If so bold
Our minds had been as to affirm what none
Could truly say, in covenant new or old,
God clearly had revealed,—nor His own Son,—
Had we not trespassed, and beyond our duty run?”

69

“To be not wise above the written word,”
Meekly said Mary Dyar, “even when the power
Of God's own Holy Spirit within us stirred,
I always thought was safest. Yet the hour
Hath been, on earth, when a rich spiritual shower
Of knowledge fell on us, from heaven, that shewed
Us meanings in the word which, heretofore,
We saw not. May not deeper meanings crowd
The written page not yet revealed unto the proud,

70

“Who trust in their own reason?”
“If the heart
Of truth,” young Burrough said, “seek truth from Him
Whose word is truth, will not He truth impart
Unto it in the reading, though with dim
Unlearned gaze the page be read? They trim
The outward lamp in vain, to read and learn,
Whose minds with self-conceit unto the brim
Are filled; and do not for God's own light yearn:
The natural man doth not the things of God discern.

71

“The Gentiles having not the law, a law
Were to themselves, the apostle briefly wrote:
Briefly, yet fully. Men may safely draw
Safe inference that the law of conscience ought
To be, and will be, only against them brought
When they are judged.”
“But, since even conscience fails
To give a truthful light to men untaught
Christ's truth,” said elder Howgill; “it curtails
Even good men's hope for men where heathenism prevails.

371

72

“Yet, if good men were wise as well, some aid
For reaching deeper truth they might have gained
By patient thought. In God's own image made—
His moral image—man is not disdained
By his great Maker, though so foully stained
By sin. He doth not cast men off—their being spill—
As some men blunder God hath blundering reigned
In His own universe: not able ill
Or good to make of some, for lack of forming skill!

73

“God never moral agents made to end
Their being eternally, though they would break
His laws persistently, nor would amend
Their lives at His entreaty;—nor doth He slake
His vengeance by inflicting on them ache
And torture endless, though they did not know
His law. He doth poor heathen souls awake
To after-life, and therein doth bestrow
Their path with motives that may lead them from all low

74

“And base preferments into choice of good.
All glory to His holy name! in vain
Christ hath not for the heathen shed His blood;
Millions, in that great spiritual domain
Of Christ—the after-life of men whom chain
Of earthly circumstances bound, enslaved,
And crushed with weight of evil, —now the strain
Of gratitude swell high, that their depraved
And fallen souls Christ hath from endless ruin saved!”

75

“‘Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?’
I answered oft,” spake humble Trowell, “when
Lewd London wits, falsely named erudite,
Mocked at all Christian teaching, in that den
Of beasts London became when citizen
Aped harlot king, in revelry and sneers
At purity and truth. I answered men,
When any heathen soul 'fore God appears,
That he will find hard measure I can have no fears.”

372

76

“And that the simplest faith is oft more wise
Than logic subtleties, I make no doubt,”
Again said Winfred; “ yet the tears and cries
Of million sufferers in the lands without
Christ's gladdening gospel; and the maddened shout
Of thousands, when beneath the ponderous wheel
Of some huge idol's chariot falls, devout,
The Hindoo suicide; the hideous zeal
O' the heart for sin, which Asian city-crowds reveal;

77

“The brutal cannibalism and murderous strife
That stain so foully yon sweet South Sea isles;
The dark infanticide; the waste of life
In every vile indulgence that defiles
Both body and soul; the thrift of priestly wiles;
The fattening of the priest, and suffering lean
Of yon poor pilgrim, whom the thought beguiles
That he shall win heaven's bliss by tortures keen,
And crawling vilely on the earth, like things unclean;—

78

“Oh, who can think of Man where yet the sound
Of Christ's dear name was never heard, or where
Men's erring souls reject Him with profound
And stolid ignorance that His yoke to bear
Would make them free, —and not desire to share,
Again, the cheering toil, the suffering sweet
Of Christ's blest heralds who His truth declare
To heathen men; and teach them to repeat
His name; and lead them for salvation to His feet!”

79

His look was lit with light of pitying love
For souls of men still living in the gall
Of bitterness and bond of sin. Above,
Around, there seemed to glow, and soon to fall,
A crowning radiance, on the heads of all:—
A token bright that all the Martyr band
That loving spirit sweetly did enthral,
And that with joy, at God's supreme command,
They would return to earth to toil in heathen land!

373

80

“Let us rejoice,” spake Winfred yet again,
“That now the ministry of love is ours,
As spirit-messengers from God to men;
That, sometimes, He our essences empowers
To aid with strength the poor weak soul that cowers
At shapes of superstition, and doth pant
For spiritual light where heathen darkness lours
On every side, and nought is ministrant
By tongue, or eye, or ear, unto the heart's deep want.

81

“But lately, Eoban and Adalhere
And I, most gladly hastened to obey
Our gracious Lord's behest, a poor fakeer
To help with spiritual whisperings of the way
Of life. In old renowned Benares lay
His skeleton form upon an iron bed,
For five long years. We heard him mourn and pray
To many demon gods with names of dread,
That he to purer light and safety might be led:

82

“He vowed to arise, and creep on hands and knees
To any idol's shrine, however long
The journey were, in order to appease
The wrath of Seeva, or the vengeance strong
Of Doorga or Kalee! or, with the thong
Of knotted whip to lash his fleshless frame;
Or scorch his limbs with fire; or any wrong
From men receive in silence, even to shame
Of spitting, or contempt outpoured upon his name.

83

“The light of conscience had grown feeble and dim;
But, as that light is quenchless in the breast
Even of the savage, it still lived in him—
Nay, had become a spectre of unrest
Unto him. Bodily pain did not molest
His thought; beneath no suffering did he faint:
With burden of sin alone he was opprest:—
Oh, that he could be cleansed from sin's dark taint!—
He cried, all day, and oft all night, without restraint!

374

84

“At last, a sleek-fed Bramin saw him lie,
And proudly bade him rise, since now the coin
Was spent that he had saved by toil,—whereby
His meagre food was bought,—and said,‘Go, join
The crowd of labouring men, and cease to whine
About the burthen of thy sin, and strive
To bring fanams to Veeshnu's sacred shrine—
For that will better please the gods—to give—
Than thus, in sloth and pain, a loathsome life to live!’

85

“A crowd of gazers raised him; but the use
Of joints and thews was hard to be retrieved.
He lived, but paid the forfeit of the abuse
Of life for those five years: unto him cleaved
Palsy and pain, and inwardly he grieved,
Alway, with burthen of his sin weighed down.
The fakeer's iron bed, he still believed,
Nearer true light had brought him; and a groan
Oft told he wished for leaving it he could atone.

86

“His misery had grown sore, and all could tell
Around him that Insanity would claim
Him for her victim, if he could not quell
His fiery torture. So with noisy blame
They urged him to remember the great name
Of Juggernauth, whose worshippers oft found
Relief o' the soul when, sunk in sin and shame,
They had of life been weary. And, soon bound
To Orissa, toiling on, he reached the festal ground.

87

“But—not to worship at the shrine obscene!
'Twas God's own gracious Providence, we felt,
That led him thither. One with humble mien,
A Christian teacher, stood, and meekly dealt
Out truth to the crowd. Full soon the heart did melt
Of the poor listener! 'Twas the real relief
His soul so long had sought. In tears he knelt
At Jesu's feet; and, like the dying thief,
At once was pardoned, and escaped from all earth's grief!

375

88

“His joy destroyed his earthly life, but brought
Him joy in heaven! Oh, many will yet believe
In Jesu's saving truth, they long have taught
The dark Hindoo so patiently. It doth them grieve
That they so little of success achieve—
The lowly teachers who cross ocean-tide
To win men's souls for Christ; but we perceive
Sure signs of coming harvest which shall wide
Wave o'er the world. In grateful patience let us bide!”

89

“Ever in grateful patience, and in faith,”
Said meek young Parnell; “God hath also sent
Us to that land where men to shapes of death
And murder bow, while still to them is lent
Such light of conscience that, in discontent
With their own fallen nature, they still crave
To lose sin's burthen, or that life were spent.
And they who yield to Christian teaching brave
Endurance need, while their own sires around them rave

90

“With horrid cursing, and their mothers curse
More horridly the children they have borne;
And children curse their parents who rehearse
The name of Jesus, as their Saviour. Scorn
And hatred, and a menaced life forlorn,
Or loss of limbs, or death, await on them
Who dare decide for Christ. If some return
To their old vileness, bravely some contemn
All threats of danger, holding precious Truth's bright gem.

91

“They who, in England, mock the enterprise
Of Christian men that preach to the Hindoo,
And, scoffing, ask why he so long defies
Converting power, and is so hard to woo
Unto conviction, and change old for new,
Might cease their gibes if they would mark the tale
Of truthful witnesses. How long the True
Shall thus be martyr to the False, we fail
To know: yet know the True most surely shall prevail.

376

92

“It shall prevail as surely as God lives
And giveth life to all that live throughout
His universe. Himself the assurance gives;
And He Himself is Truth. His foes so stout
Shall yield; the falsely wise shall cease to doubt;
Barbarian darkness shall behold His light;
And universal nations join the shout
That God hath come to reign in truth and might:
God and His Christ have come to bring the reign of Right!’

93

New radiance fell upon that company
Of loving Martyrs while young Parnell spake,
And lit their faces with such heavenly glee
Of holy love, it seemed in me to awake
Deep longing that I could such love partake.
But, now, soft strains of music that I seemed
To recognize began, forthwith, to break
Upon my spiritual ear: the strains I dreamed
I heard before: above, around, they sweetly streamed!

94

And lo! above the Martyr band appeared
The hand of golden light all quickly saw,
And, seeing, seemed with expectation cheered
Of higher joys. It did their footsteps draw
Unto the terraced mountains, which, by law
Of their blest spiritual existence, all
Must at appointed seasons, with rapt awe
Ascend, to enter at the trumpet's call
High heaven, and share its worship in high festival.

95

The mountains ever green, my mind discerned,
Did picture endless life, and endless bliss,
Attained by all who climbed them—all who yearned
To be for ever good: from wrong and vice
Set free—from hate and rage and prejudice
For ever: and their essences imbued
With love and purity: no thought amiss:
No wrong affection: no solicitude—
Except to be in holiness for aye renewed.

377

96

The mountains all were terraced, as I knew
Intuitively, that in Christ's rest so bright
No thought of labour might bedim the view
Of His dear saints at home. So light
Was the ascent, it seemed to some a flight
In ether. Yet the sense of order stilled
Each mind, as if the want of it would blight
Their bliss. So up they stepped, as troops well drilled
Step lightly, without toil: each heart with joyaunce filled!

97

And as they 'gan the terraces to climb,
I saw their steps were timed, as in my dream
I saw before: a triumph-march sublime
It was; and as they marched they turned the theme
Of their late converse to a tuneful stream
Of choral song; and thus the Martyrs sung:—
“We come, O Lord, to share the quickening beam
Of Thy bright glory with a grateful tongue,
For that Thou hast our hearts with chords of gladness strung.

98

“We laud Thy wondrous love, eternal, vast,
And infinite as Thine own Self, that found
The ransom for our souls: the love Thou hast
Displayed for fallen man—that doth abound
Even for the deeply fallen! O that around
Thy throne may soon be gathered millions more
Who grope in heathen darkness, where the sound
Of Christ's blest name none bear, and none adore
Thy glorious majesty, Thy wisdom, love, and power.

99

“Reclaim the nations, Lord! Bring back the lost—
The wanderers through long ages! From the chain
Of guilt and misery let the captive host
Of heathen men be freed! O let the reign
Of Thy dear Son begin! To swell the train
Of His long-promised triumph, let men come,
Who long in degradation dark have lain,
Blinded and maimed, in Superstition's gloom,—
By Christ redeemed,—to share the brightness of our home!

378

100

“It would Thy heart rejoice that they were saved:
It would Thy saints rejoice to see them blest:
O Father, save our race by sin enslaved!
Thy Son hath died Thy grace to manifest:
Send forth Thy healing Spirit to quell the pest
And plague of sin: Thy saving health dispense
O'er all the earth, till every human breast
Be consecrate to Thee with love intense:
All rebel wills be bowed in sweet obedience!”

101

Their song was longer; but a sudden sense
Grew in me that I must not share the sight
O' the City of God, or join the confluence
Into its gates of God's own Martyrs bright,
As heretofore, or scale the mountain's height;
But must return to earth.
I woke, to wait
My final call. Lord, while I strive to fight
The fight of faith, help me to vindicate
Thy truth, and win the fallen from their low estate!

381

BOOK THE FOURTH.

1

O fair young Moon, if there were nought but thy
Bright crescent to attract men's gaze from earth,
It were enough to make them bless God's sky!
The children love to see thee, and with mirth
Welcome thy coming; and to Age thy birth,
Anew, is ever gladdening, as a sign
That Nature is not old, but still brings forth
Her undimmed glories, and her gifts benign—
Sustained in during energy by the Hand Divine!

2

What countless, million-million, mortal eyes
Have watched the swelling of thy silver bow,
Until it grew a shield—then shrank in size,
And vanished, to appear again a show
Of beauty above all stars that sparkling strow
The vault of Night. With what joy-ravishment
The first young human pair the primal glow
Of thy return first saw! How oft hath blent
Fears with the hopes of later mortals when was bent,

3

Once more, thy shining form above their heads,
And corn-fields cried for the reaper, but the rain
Fell, pitiless: the rain that surely sheds
Its torrents by thy fickle leave: the swain
So held it. And, now men, of science vain,
Disdainfully regard the Past, they hold
It still the same. Although in thy domain,
They swear, there is no moisture: But a cold,
Dry, lifeless cinder is thy seeming face of gold!

382

4

When sweet young eyes so often by thy light—
Blest boon for lovers!—wandered to breathe sighs
Of tenderness and constancy, a slight
On thy bright form, they would have deemed surmise
That thou wert aught so mean. With their own eyes,
Did they not see that Sabbath-breaking Jew
Who gathered sticks i' the wilderness, his prize
Upon his shoulder, ever exposed to view,
A prisoner in thy orb, rolling amid the blue?

5

Argal, in thee there must be living things!—
What, if in thy mild region still dwelt fair,
Though fallen, angels, who with feeble wings
Ventured, sometimes, down through the lower air,
To whisper mortals, and to sin ensnare—
For that they were themselves ensnared, not prime
In sin, and therefore were not doomed to share
Great torment: yet the wish grew, with their crime,
To spread for other souls of sin the deadly slime.

6

But thou the lamp for fairy revels wert,
My grannam said—for her own grannam saw
The little people gaily dance and flirt,
I' the mystic grassy ring, with shivering awe,
And spake aloud!—not knowing the mystic law
That would subject her to their mighty power—
To tickle her nose and ears with an oaten straw,
And pinch her sides in sleep; turn the milk sour
She had left in dirty bowls, and play pranks, hour by hour—

7

All in the night: they had no sunshine game:
'Twas all by moonshine! And when they were seen
By mortals who were silent, good luck came
To the man or woman. Gold was found, I ween,
I' their shoon, i' the morning; if the poor to glean
Went forth in harvest, they would gather sheaves!
The bullfinch would not rob their cherry treen;
The swallows would build, and twitter, 'neath the eaves;
And luck come naturally as fall the autumn leaves!

383

8

Thou wert the patroness of so much good
I' the time of Fancy, that one shrinks to tell,
Fair Moon! how thy account of evil stood;
How thy eclipse foreshadowed griefs to quell
The stoutest heart: shipwreck and storm, and yell
Of drowning sailors; and conspiracy,
Secret and dark, and murderously fell,
'Gainst kings; and overthrow of cities free;
And famine and plague, and every dread calamity!

9

And was it all a dream, fair shining Moon?
Does thy eclipse forebode nor good nor ill?
Will fairies leave no gold in idlers' shoon?
Are all the fairies gone, and must we till
Our ground with sweat o' the brow, and must we still
Ring out our toil on the anvil, and work on,
Or starve? And, in thy realm, doth no sweet rill
Murmur, or river flow? Is the dream, too, gone,
That angels lived upon thee? Is there never-a-one?

10

And art thou, seeming splendour of the night,
Only a cinder, lifeless, dark, and cold?
Then we will bless thee for thy borrowed light;
And still more bless the goodness that doth hold
Thee in thy orbit, by the rule untold
Till Newton scanned it, and, thence, safely scanned
The vast mechanic system manifold
Of central wheel and wheels dependent, planned
By God's own wisdom: formed and held by His own hand!

11

“God, acting in His own great universe”—
So, when one asked what Gravitation was,
The immortal sage defined it, in his terse,
Significant way. He did not care two straws
What critics, foolish and fine, prated of “laws.”
He knew that law could not itself maintain:
There must be the Unseen Sustaining Cause,
To ensure the sequence men call “law.” In vain
Even Halley doubt pled often: Newton, with hands twain

384

12

Held fast his faith; and, with a lowly mind
And truthful heart, kept on his wondrous way
To the end. 'Tis not in lowliness mankind
O' the scientific class, in this our day,
Shew greatness. They their searching wit display
In spying “evolution,” everywhere—
“Selection natural,”—and the sovereign sway
Of what they call “development.” O rare
Development of wit! what fools our fathers were!

13

They thought God could create, if that He chose;
And had created. Sages of science, now,
Shake their small heads, and mutter they suppose
'Twas a mistake! But, if you ask them how
The universe came to be, they say they trow
'Tis better to say nought: 'tis not for frail,
Imperfect mortals, such as they, to allow
Themselves in airs pretentious the dark veil
From Nature's face to lift—the veil all-mystical!

14

And this sounds modest; but men need a rest
Both for the heart and mind. No Godless creed—
If one may call it so—can ease the breast
In trouble; or the heart's affections feed
With satisfaction; or within us breed
Resolve to battle with temptation strong
To moral evil. Surely, no great greed
A man will feel to conquer sin, so long
As he believes not in the Judge of right and wrong.

15

I would not hastily condemn. God knows
I have great cause, remembering errors past,
To shun hot speech. But why this prate of “laws,”
And “reverence” for them? Each encomiast
Of our grandees of science utters fast
And loud his praises for their championship
Of Truth. But what is their Truth worth? A vast
Dim waste of words it seems to me to skip
From sequence unto sequence, and yet never grip

385

16

The deeper Truth—that there must be a Cause
For all this sequence, though it ever be
As fixed as they assert it is. No “laws”
Are known by stones or trees, by sky or sea;
Nor can they, senseless, pay a penalty
For disobedience. Men discern full well
They break a law when pain or misery
Succeeds an act. Rocks, trees, or waters tell
No sinners' tale of suffering, for they ne'er rebel.

17

God makes a law for free-willed essences—
Angels or men. Man in the plenitude
Of regal power; or, where true freedom is,
Men representative make laws, and rude
Rebellion 'gainst them brings on humble and proud—
Or should bring—penalty most sure. We all
Admire right law, and sensibly conclude
Them wise that made such law; but never call
A law its own enactor. Why should mortals fall

18

In “reverence” before sequence which they deem
The “law of Nature”? Surely we should rise
Above such heathenism, and God supreme
Over His realm of Nature recognize,
Nor dare to say His power to the All-wise,
Almighty One is fixed.
The summer air
Invites. I have performed my exercise
Of duty, and should sleep; but they so fair
And bright appear—the beauteous stars!—that I must share

19

The glorious sight, once more. How full of life
Must be the world-stored universe of God!
Yon glittering splendours cannot be unrife
With conscious being. Each sphere is surely trod
By moral agents: not the mean abode
Of animal natures only. 'Twere to deem
God's work unworthy of Himself to load
Immensity with suns, if every beam
They shed, however bright, shewed only Death supreme;

386

20

Or, merely forms that simply live and feel,
But neither know, nor thought reflective share.
Creatures, God made to inherit bounteous weal,
According to their natures; and His care
Of all shews that His wisdom deems them fair;
Yet, higher joy must fill God's holy mind
Looking on Man, than on the forms most rare
In outward beauty to the earth assigned,
That are to all earth's truly beautiful so blind.

21

And, if the all-bounteous Father doth feel joy
In giving life, and higher joy the more
He gives of higher life, nought should destroy
Our love of life. To deem the gift but poor—
The highest gift that God, the Great Bestower,
Can give, is surely base; and baser still
It is to wish Death should our being devour.
Thank God! I never felt such wish: no ill
With hatred of Existence could my bosom fill.

22

I love existence. And I would not die,
Although I'm old, except to live again,
And think, and feel, and know, and satisfy
My being with comprehending what all men
On earth can only apprehend. The ken
All-spiritual I long to have—the gaze
Angelic, gleaning, at once, what in this den
Of clay-bound mind we cannot reach, though days
And years be spent in trying to pierce the Stygian haze.

23

And yet, how know we that the essences
Of things are better known to angels than
To men? Man knows most surely that he is;
But knows not what he is. Can angels scan
Their own existence, through and through, with span
And compass of familiarity,
And say, “We know ourselves”? No more than man,
I trow, can aught created boast, with glee—
“We have the key that unlocks Being's mystery!”

387

24

“As gods ye shall be!” said the snake to Eve;
And still man whispers it to his own ear.
And while he doubts so much he should believe
With childlike simpleness, he feels no fear
To grasp his Maker's attributes, or near
Approach to make, at least, to what God's hand
Alone can do. I would not tarry here
To learn such “science,” though they call it “grand;”
But, for right aims, I still would live in Fatherland.

25

Not many have seen more of it than I:
Its hills and vales and woods; its streams, its strand;
Its quaint old cities, and its hamlets shy;
Its crowded, gay, new towns bizarrely planned;
Its moated castles, and its abbeys grand
In ruin, with its proud cathedralled piles.
Through shire and hundred, over Fatherland,
On foot, by wain, on steed, what merry miles
I've sped! The thought with pleasure still my heart beguiles.

26

I love existence. Never can return
The hours of youth or manhood; but I feel
'Tis pleasant, oft to let the mind disurn
The Dead beloved, and bring them back to seal
Old friendships o'er again; to think o' the zeal
We felt in our debates—the merriment—
The fire—the fun—the wish the hour to steal
Past midnight: then the grave rebuke swift sent
From brows of senior “take care!” men—so eloquent!

27

I thank the Almighty' Maker that I've lived,
And feel life hath been blessed. What, though pain
Hath mingled with my ease? I have not grieved
At pain so much as at my inward stain
Of sin and guilt. My life hath been, i' the main,
A pleasant pilgrimage. I cannot hold
With him who scorns this life, as but a vain
And worthless dream, soon over and soon told:
A dream that doth mere changes of a dream unfold.

388

28

Life hath been real to me; real in its joy,
And in its sorrow. And the reality
Of life I would not lose. No pleasures cloy
In life that men name rightly. If their free
Heritage of choice men will abuse, yet see
The issue must be punishment, the blame
Is justly theirs. Men know the high decree
That links their sin with punishment and shame,
And know their arguments against it halt and lame.

29

The men I knew who said, “There is no sin:
Creatures of circumstance men are; and praise
And blame are follies”—I ever heard begin
To praise and blame, if to forget their craze
You could beguile them. In the startling days
Of forty-eight, old Robert Owen said
His solemn say, very oft—“He but betrays
His folly who blames and praises.” Ere his head
Was turned, he praised and blamed the living and the dead!

30

I well remember how his new-found friend,
Young Louis Blanc—an exile—sat by his side,
At Ashburner's, the opening and the end
Comparing, of his speech. Puzzled, he tried
To unravel it, but failed. I had to hide
My face for laughter. But, the old man's look
Was quite triumphant; and he glanced with pride
Around,—as who should say, “No sovereign duke
Or king can match my greatness: I no equal brook!”

31

Self-worship was his foible—nay his sin!
And all his followers to the top of his bent
Befooled and flattered him; and did but grin
At others for born fools who shewed they lent
No ear to Robert's teaching. No dissent
Was borne with. His was the name o' the Age!
“The Age of Owen” 'twould be called when blent
With dust he was! They told him so! The sage
Nodded,—as he would say,“That's true, a crown I'll wage.”

389

32

So proud at heart—and yet how meek and kind
He was, even when the storm of anger swelled
Around him! Imperturbable his mind
In contest seemed, when younger; but he held
His head up loftily, in age, and quelled
Dissent with words that shewed he deemed men low
In intellect who could not see he excelled
All teachers of his time. So surely grow
Proud thoughts in man whose fellows weakly to him bow!

33

Yet, one feels glad to have known a man that drew
Thousands around him who became so sure
That what he taught was truth. Alas! how few
Are able to resist a panic! Be the lure
Substance or shadow, when the calenture
Sets in, the human sheep begin to run;
And, soon, all run who see the race! Impure,
Unholy license seemed a precious boon
To fools. Some saw their folly ere life's task was done;

34

But Owen never changed, or faltered. From
The outset of his course he seemed possessed
Of rocklike strength of will. The masterdom
Of all men's ills should yield to his behest,
He told the crowds. They could suspect no jest:
He gave his wealth, his time, to spread the scheme
Of Socialism. He never seemed distrest
At failure; and when others ceased to dream
Of winning Eden back to Earth, and said no gleam

35

They saw o' the promised light, he widely stared,
And said he wondered, for the light was full—
Nay, fuller than the sun's own light it glared:
The triumph was at hand: their eyes were dull
Who could not see the signs of it. No lull
Of earnestness he shewed for fourscore years;
And, in old age, he said nought could annul
His triumph: it was come! They gave him cheers:
He was stone-deaf: I do not think they reached his ears.

390

36

Owen has gone; and, with him, too, his sect.
And Communism hath, once more, had its day
Of murderous rule, in Paris! All bedeckt
With beauty was their city, when a stay
But brief I made in it—although the fray
O' the Reds with Cavaignac was barely o'er,
And their new President did not display
His purpose to be Emperor yet. She wore
Her splendour still—the famous city—as of yore.

37

Frenchmen were proud of Paris—even the poor,
As were the rich: they hurled no monument down,
Although they soaked the stones with human gore.
The column in the Place Vendôme no frown
Provoked—the Louvre's array of art no groan
Evoked of hatred from the workmen-bands
That struck for broader freedom. Now the tone
Of Labour's sons is changed. They say the sands
I' the glass of Privilege are spent: all with their hand.

38

Or heads shall labour, for the future. “Pride
And idleness should have no rest,” they said;
And so they burned their city, and defied
All retribution! though their land had bled
Beneath the Prussian's proud revengeful tread,
They turned to shed each other's blood! The old
Mad zest for civil strife is still misbred
Within them. God forbid we should their mould
So fraticidal take—'midst changes manifold!

39

For change hath come in England that I deemed
Unlikely yet to come, for many a year;
And other changes threaten. It had seemed
Great cause, indeed, for joy to me to hear
Some changes had been wrought; but now a fear
Checks my new joy that License soon may come—
Wild License, rather than the triumph dear
Of Liberty, in this dear isle, her home
So long—where all her exiled sons find welcome room!

391

40

After such midnight musing, slumber came.
And, soon, the wakeful mind—as a player would say—
Caught up her cue from these last thoughts, to frame
Her converse in my sleep.
I dreamt my way
I took again, in Paradise, where lay
Familiar flowers: the bell-flower tall and fair,
That blooms by rocky Tees, even near the spray
Of the High Force: grass of Parnassus rare
In beauty—nay, most beautiful beyond compare—

41

That decks the banks of forked Tyne,
Where he turns south, by old quaint Alston, high
Above all towns in perch,—and where, with fine
Sense of the beautiful—(sure, bending nigh,
The angels whisper them!)—one child doth vie
With another in reverence for the fresh “God-flower”—
For so they name it! And that living eye,
Or star of the earth—the Trientalis—dower
Of loveliness—that one would gaze at, hour by hour!

42

It grows in the park of Alnwick—but we found
It first in Scotland—I and my Love—near chill
But cheerful Grantown, where frail flowers abound:
The fairy orchis, with its infantile
And chaste white florets: pyrolas that thrill
The soul with wonder at their gracefulness;
While gymnadenias rich perfume distil
Around your heathery path; and lady's tress
Renders your power to name its beauty languageless.

43

I dreamt such flowers I found, but each enhanced
In delicate grace of form, richness of scent,
And bloom, till, as before, I seemed entranced
To ecstasy, amid such lavishment
Of loveliness and sweetness. But soon lent
I hearing to the voice I dreamt I heard
Of one discoursing in a strain that sent
Strange vigour through me, as when one doth gird
Himself for fight—for fiery words his blood have stirred.

392

44

I knew it was the voice of Claude Brousson,

“the Evangelist of the Desert”—See a good, compact life of him, published by Hamilton, Adams and Co. 1853. The Preface is signed by “Henry S. Baynes.”

“The Evangelist of the Desert”—martyr brave,
Who, strangled on the wheel, with soul so strong
Met death, at Montpellier, when Louis drave
From France its holiest sons—himself the slave
Of Rome, although “Magnificent” proclaimed—
Louis “le grand Monarque”—to whose blood clave
The vengeance of the Lord, when men's hearts flamed
With hate of kings, and Pride and Privilege were tamed.

45

With Claude walked other martyrs by the wheel:
Dumas, and Fulcran Rey, Guion, Bonnemere,
And Olivier Souverain,

... and other martyrs of Montpelier. —Their deaths are all described in the volume I have just mentioned.

—who all with leal
Fidelity and readiness did bear
Their torture, and escaped to Christ. Their share
Of bliss these now were reaping; and with them
A crowd beside of brothers, each now heir
Of Jesu's heaven. And all seemed, in my dream,
Intently listening to the Desert Preacher's theme.

46

“Brothers,” spake Claude, “regird the loins o' the mind;
And still take heart that we the combat keep
With Rome's dark falsehood—though we find
Her power so strong, her hold so wide and deep
O'er human hearts, when we descend the steep
To earth, on God's great errands. Let us hold
His promise fast—that He will call His sheep,
In every land, into Truth's holy fold:
Let us hold firmly by His word proclaimed of old!”

47

He paused, as if reluctant to speak on,
From large emotion, —while his brethren held
His form in silent deep observance. Soon,
The fact to me was mystically revealed
That Claude, but now, had from his ancient field
Of warfare and of suffering journeyed home,
Again, to heaven; and had not yet unsealed
His later knowledge, whether the day of doom
They waited for so long had come for slaughterous Rome.

393

48

“Tell us, loved brother, if our own loved France”—
With meek impetuousness, spake Fulcran Rey—
“Have left the spectacle—the song—the dance—
Her boast of victories—and begun to pray.
We learned that there the priest had lost his sway
O'er men, though women seek his benison.
We wait to know that Frenchmen change their gay
And volant life, for earnestness. Soon gone
Will be Rome's power, if Frenchmen grave and pious have grown.”

49

“Ye marked my hesitance,” Brousson replied;
“I cannot tell ye that our France grows wise
Or pious. Still she keeps her boastful pride
And vanity—although the Prussian dyes
Her soil with blood, and still for vengeance cries,
Remembering the dread wrong he suffered while
The wasteful Corsican won victories
Like sports, and fed his eager hosts on spoil,
And humbled kings, as if they were but peasants vile.

50

“I deem, my brother, that thou judgest right:
Rome's day is gone when France casts off her yoke
In earnest, and no longer, in loose plight
Affects to wear it, as a masterstroke
Of policy. When neither jest, nor joke,
France makes of Christian truth, but with the force
Of all the reason that she boasts, the Book
Reads for herself, and reads with the remorse
Of conscience, she will soon break down the Papal curse.

51

“But, even now, Rome seeks on her to lean:
Fallen Rome on conquered France! The old man shorn
Of territory and civil rule, with keen
And smarting sense of the Italians' scorn—
For oft they jest around his nest forlorn, —
His petty realm—the City Leonine,
Across the Tiber—still uplifts his horn
Of pride, and dares to mutter curse malign
On all his foes; and frets till France doth give the sign

394

52

“That she will yet befriend him—for no friend
He hath 'mong reigning potentates: none heed
His blessing or his curse. Some think their end—
The end of kings—is near, and feel they need
To care most for themselves, since treasons breed
So fast around them; while the stronger strive
To strengthen more their thrones—ignoring creed
And faith—by following plans preventative,
They think, of revolution: for they now perceive

53

“The earthquake threatens, throughout Europe broad,
From Labour's children, who so small a share
Of good gain for themselves, although they load
Others with plenty, by their skill, and toil, and care.
The earthquake threatens; and strong kings for war
Myriads now train, and the dire drame pursue
With deadlier weapons; and auxiliar
Artillery, more deadly still, now through
The air whirls weights of metal such as men ne'er knew,

54

“Or heard of, since the warring world began;
And ships are clad with iron plates, immense
In thickness, —and impelled with hurricane
Velocity, by force of steam, intense.
Thus, horrible destruction, at expense
Enormous, emperor, and king, and czar
Make ready, confident, when Turbulence
Sounds trumpet, with the giant game of war
To wield off revolution, or subdue its jar!

55

“Our own loved France—now bruised and bleeding France—
Raves, too, of warlike preparation, quick,
Like conquering kings—nay, with an arrogance
The nations round deem nought but lunatic,
Boasts her revenge shall come, and she will strike
Her foes with such paralysis of fear,
They at her feet shall crawl, and, trembling, lick
The dust! To pray, didst ask, my brother dear,
If France had now begun? Such tidings we shall hear

395

56

“From earth, in God's own time, I trust. But prayer
Is farthest from her thought—of all the thought
That enters human minds, when filled with care,
And torn with sorrow, for the suffering brought
To their own doors, upon their hearths, about
Their beds—sorrow o'erwhelming to the mass
Of men—but sorrow Frenchmen learn to flout
With merriment, and mockery, and grimace!
Oh, when, great God, shall reason truly mark our race!”

57

Silent, the Martyrs walked, when Brousson ceased,
In holy sorrow, till Bonnemere thus spake:
“And who hath ruined France? who, but the priest—
What, but the subtle power of the fell Snake
Of Rome—did first the strength of Frenchmen break
Under the yoke? How long and bravely strove
Our grand forerunners, who the chain, and stake,
And fiery flame, with spirit of the dove
Endured—blessing their foes who them with fury drove

58

“From life, although their lives to France had been
Unmeasured good! How long we strove—our aim
How pure—God truly knows! The haughty, unclean,
Yet worshipt king—the pride, and yet the shame,
Of France! —yielded, at last, to play Rome's game
To the full; and, in expelling from his land
Its Christian people, struck the blow to maim
Its industry and wealth: his court, so grand,
Robbed Poverty of its bread with unrelenting hand;

59

“And vice and waste became the heritage
Of his doomed house, till Misery rose with fell
And fierce revenge to crush out Privilege!
And still they hear the voice of vengeance swell
Above the roar of war; and who shall spell
When it shall cease?”—
“And when from France the true
Disciples of the Lord were driven”—to tell
His thought, Dumas began—“the Atheist crew
Soon gave the tone to court, and crowd, and science, too.

396

60

“When nought was left to represent the faith
Of Christ, but mass idolatrous—the bread
Turned into Deity by the noisome breath,
Perchance, of some foul priest, and overhead
Held up for worship; while the incense spread
Its odour round; and eunuch songsters strained
Their hireling throats, by opera music led;
And cloth of gold unto the priest pertained,
While rags scarce clad the peasant whom the Church had drained

61

“Of his last mite—what wonder that the minds
Of men revolted with disgust from show
And showman too? Few, now, the forgery blinds,
'Mong Frenchmen; but men much more easily throw
Their idols down than learn to humbly bow
'Fore sovran Truth. Oh that the Lord would raise
Up for Himself, in France, some teacher low
In men's esteem, but who with Truth's pure blaze
Should fire French souls, till they proclaim the Saviour's praise!”

62

“God hath His witnesses, though few”—in haste,
Spake Claude:“a remnant of our race give ear
And heart unto the truth. They have embraced
Its teachings from the stranger, and hold dear
The word of life. Brethren, we will not fear!
Their number shall increase, till France shall be
Among the foremost nations that revere
The Crucified; and, over land and sea,
Her sons shall champion the new Christian Chivalry!”

63

“Lord, let Thy servant's faith be realized
Right early!”—prayed the Martyr company,
Aloud;—and sounds that shewed some sympathised
With them, in Paradise, were heard. The three
Brothers Du Plans

co-workers also with Claude Brousson.

approached, with holy glee
“Amen” responding: with them, David Quet,

—Broken on the wheel at Montpellier.—For a record of his martyrdom see also the “Life of Claude Brousson.”

And elder martyrs twain—Pierre de Bruis,

see note 6

And Henri, “the false hermit,”

Pierre de Bruis and Henri, “the False Hermit”—See some account of their labours and martyrdom in a translation of Antoine Monastier's “History of the Vaudois Church,” published by the Religious Tract Society.

as the men of prey
Misnamed their victim, in the famed St. Bernard's day.

397

64

And, after these, drew near a Martyr crowd—
A crowd innumerous—that on earth were named
With many names—some given by wicked, proud,
And persecuting men; and some that epigrammed
Their virtues. They who, when the faggots flamed
Around their limbs, at Lyons, aloud exclaimed
They saw the heavens opened; and, at Toulouse,
Where met, i' the Middle Age, the Council famed
For persecution, they whom its foul abuse
Meekly received, and dared its sentence murderous.

65

And they who bled or burnt, for stubborn faith,
In Gascogne, and Provence, and Dauphine;
And, in Lorraine and Picardy, met death
Exultantly: some called “The men that pray,”
And some “The men that sing:” some termed the stray
Dwellers with wolves, or Turlupins. The poor
That loved them called them “pure”—Cathari: they—
The proud—who hated them, never forbore
To give them names of guilt, without a metaphor.

66

Poor Men, Poor Weavers, Publicans,
Beghards, Beguines, and Manichees, some chose
To call them, as they wandered o'er the plains
Of sunny France, or climbed the Alpine snows,
Or hid in Pyrenæan vales from foes;
And Albigenses were they called, who fell
In thousands by De Montfort's sword

Simon de Montfort. —One hundred thousand crusaders (and some say more) in 1209 ravaged Languedoc, and slaughtered countless “heretics,” under the leadership of Simon de Montfort, and Amalric, the Abbot of Citeaux, and legate of Pope Innocent III.

—the blows
Approved by Rome, who said the work was well
And nobly done: work worthy of the fiends of hell!

67

Anon, joined these, another Martyr host:
The Vaudois of Provence, whom fierce Oppéde

The Baron Oppede. —The merciless butcheries, devastations, and nameless horrors executed upon the poor Vaudois of Provence, under the fierce leadership of this man, are vigorously related in a crowded volume entitled “History of the Protestants of France,” etc., by G.de Felice. Translated by P. E. Barnes. Routledge and Co. 1853.

Slew with the sword, or burnt—a holocaust
To glut his bad revenge—the slaughter made
By order of the king, won by the aid
Of Cardinal de Tournon: penitent
In death, the royal Francis strongly bade
Henri, his son, to follow with punishment
The guilty deed: a charge to which dull heed was lent.

398

68

The gathered Martyr companies of France
That lived, on earth, some centuries apart,
Yet gave each other the fraternal glance,
And seemed a mighty army of one heart.
Forthwith, in serried ranks they formed athwart
The flowery plain, as if their wont to meet
Thither, it were—not to record the smart
Of their past martyrdom, but one to greet
Another, and rehearse old earthly memories sweet.

69

Their greetings all renewed, the waving Hand
Of Light again appeared above. All saw
The signal, and the universal band
Struck up the song of praise and love and awe,
With mingled prayer for France—the holy law
Obeying which, in Paradise, doth bind
All souls from earth, and did them thither draw,
To pray their Lord for those still left behind,
In Fatherland, that they may all His mercy find.

70

“Great God of might, who dost all worlds possess—
Creator of our being—Redeemer strong
From sin—and Sanctifier who dost men bless
With heart-renewal, and grace to leave the wrong
And cleave unto the right! Again, our song
We raise—our brother-song of grateful joy—
That, though we grieved Thy holiness so long,
In mortal life, Thou didst not us destroy;
But didst preserve our souls to share Thy blest employ!

71

“O Holy Lord, make bare Thy sovran arm,
And from our Fatherland old Error chase!
No longer let the priest, with baneful charm,
Delude men's souls! No longer let our race
Give up their souls to folly and foul embrace
Of deadliest sin! Thy power to humble pride,
O Lord, Thou hast displayed before their face,
With awful force, and still Thou dost them chide—
But, by their blinded eyes Thy hand is undescried.

399

72

“O God, let men, throughout the humbled realm
Of France, begin to think—until from off
Their eyes the scales shall fall, and shame o'erwhelm
Their souls that they so long have lived to scoff
At things Divine, and to deride all proof
Of Thine Existence, who so long hast borne
With their foul sin. Let Frenchmen keep aloof
No longer from Thy Christ! Oh, let their scorn
Of meekness end! Lord, beam upon their souls forlorn!”

73

The prayerful song went on—the fervid plea
For France, that God would cleanse her mental sight
From folly's films, her veil of vanity
Remove, restore her spirit from the blight
Of scepticism, and fill it with the bright
Perception that in Christ is true repose—
Repose her restless spirit needs to upknit
Her ravelled strength, —to still her strifeful throes, —
And a transcendent future for her sons disclose.

74

Their prayer harmonious ended; when began
The brethren towards the terraced hills to wend,
In serried ranks. The Martyr caravan,
Triumphant marching, did its wings extend
Across the plain till the low hills ascend
I, erst, saw in my dream: the river's marge
It also touched; and often seemed to bend
Its lines by the winding river: space so large
It filled. —But, now, I heard one Mind new thoughts discharge.

75

'Twas one whose flesh by pincers was torn off—
Bold John le Clerc,

The woolcomber of Meaux is an observable figure among the martyrs of France. “In his zeal against the deceiving errors which he saw abounding on every hand, he involved himself and the good cause he had at heart in common ruin, by rashly offending the most cherished prejudices of the prevailing creed. The inhabitants of Metz, whither he had withdrawn, were accustomed annually to repair in crowds on an appointed festival to a neighbouring chapel, where a statue of the Virgin, with others of favourite saints, were the objects of special devotion to the credulous and ignorant populace. “Like Paul of old, the spirit of Le Clerc was stirred within him to see the city thus wholly given to idolatry; and, forgetful of the example of the apostle in like circumstances, he repaired at an early hour to the church, and breaking the images in pieces, he scattered them before the altar. Though no one witnessed the daring sacrilege, Le Clerc had no desire to flee. The act was designed as a testimony against the sin in which the people were preparing to unite; and when he was dragged before the judges by an enraged multitude, who could hardly be restrained from tearing him in pieces, he fearlessly proclaimed to them Jesus Christ as the sole object of rightful worship. “The courageous confessor was sentenced to be burned alive; but even a death so horrible could not satisfy his enraged executioners. He was mutilated and torn with red— hot pincers, and his sufferings were prolonged with the most savage ingenuity; after which the sentence of his judges was carried into execution by burning him in a slow fire. . . . While his executioners tore his flesh, and mutilated his face, in a manner too horrible for description, he solemnly ejaculated the words—‘Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They that make them are like unto them: so is every one that trusteth in them. O Israel, trust thou in the Lord: He is thy help and thy shield.’”

they martyred in Lorraine,
For that, with fiery zeal, beneath the roof
Papists called holy he broke their idols vain
To pieces. To the few I saw remain—
Brousson, Bonnemere, and Dombres

—He and Boisson, both colleagues of Claude de Brousson, went to martyrdom, at Nismes, singing the praises of God, and “finished their course with joy.”

—I heard him say,
“My brothers, we can never here complain
Of what doth seem the All-wise One's delay
In saving France; but, how mysterious seems His way!

400

76

“He leaves the land which so much martyrs' blood
Hath consecrated, and where Mind hath won
Its proudest triumphs, —in its hardihood
Of unbelief and pride to wander on; —
And seeks the barbarous races 'neath the sun:
The dwellers on the islands of the sea,
And far-off continents, but dimly known
When we were sharers of mortality—
Lo! while I speak, the new-born spirits hither flee! —

77

“For Sin with Holiness the war on earth
Will wage till comes the end, and ever slake
Its thirst with blood of Saints—yea, count it mirth
To see their bodies writhe with torturous ache,
Or burning. So, some hither from the stake
Now come, and some slain by the piercing spear;
And from the rock let fall to earth, where brake
Their bones, others have come. Welcome, ye dear
Disciples of our Lord! —We give ye heavenly cheer!”

78

“Welcome, dear brethren, from the island far,
To Jesu's Paradise!” aloud Brousson
And his companions cried; “ye welcome are
To all God's Saints!”
I knew this Martyr throng
From Madagascar came—the island, long
And broad, the channel named the Mozambique
Divides from Afric land. Victims of wrong
They felt they were, and did no pardon seek,
But met their death with joy, and Christian courage meek.

79

Victims of Ranavalona

Queen of Madagascar.—How this woman, who had no rightful claim to the throne, seized it, on the death of King Radama, has been related in English periodicals many times. The reader will find a compact account of the Malagasy martyrs in the “Narrative of the Persecution of the Christians in Madagascar,” etc., by the Missionaries Freeman and Johns. London: Snow, 35, Paternoster Row; as also in “Madagascar: its Mission and its Martyrs,” published by the same house.

—savage queen—
A demon-legion seemed to fill and rule,
As when Christ dwelt on earth, the spirits unclean
Possessed the man: the evil spirits so foul,
That, driven out of man, they begged control
O'er filthy swine, and gained their strange request—
Christ—as the Judge of men—letting the shoal
Of swine be drowned, His mind to manifest—
The Jews, by keeping them, Jehovah's law trangressed.

401

80

Sisters there were, as well as brethren, in
The island Martyr band. The queen so vile
Spared neither her own sex, nor her own kin.
The maiden Rasalama,

—The calm, but glorious death of this proto-martyr of Madagascar is beautifully told in the last-mentioned little volume.

with a smile—
As proto-martyr of her native isle—
Led on the Christian company. Her hand
She gave Rafaralahy,

“My sister, I will not leave you to the end.” said this young man, separating himself from the crowd to walk by the side of Rasalama, as she was led to death. A few days after-wards he, also, was martyred.

the youth who while
They led her forth to death, with bravery grand
Walked with her as she sang—spite of the queen's command.

81

Full soon it was his turn to die. They slew
Him as he knelt where her unburied bones
Were strewed. And more they killed. I fear, all new
Ye would their names proclaim, and strange the tones,
If I pronounced them! Few to their death groans
Gave heed, in‘Christian’ England—where the boast
Is rife— “There are no Martyrs now.” “The moans”—
Say ye? —“were faint on that far southern coast”?
Truly, full oft their moans in hymns of joy were lost!

82

“Sing us, sweet sister,” spake Brousson, “the hymn
We heard that thou didst sing when thou wert led
To martyrdom.”

The Malagasy martyrs all went, singing hymns of praise, to the place of death. This so enraged their persecutors, that at last they stuffed straw into the mouths of the sufferers.

To me her words were dim:
The melody with windings seemed to thread
The spiritual air, till—as the great one said—
With “linkèd sweetness long drawn out,” the mind
O'erpowered seemed tears of tenderness to shed,
With rapturous thrill. Thus sounds are intertwined
With feeling, whether in earth or heaven, for human-kind!

83

Then sang the Malagasy, in their tongue,
And with like tenderness, in joyous strain,
And in full chorus, other hymns they sung
In their late days of martyrdom and pain.
Their music rose above the flowery plain,
Until I saw the infant company
Of Welcomers gather in troops, amain,
And float o'erhead, and list with ecstasy
And wonder, what the music, new to heaven, might be.

402

84

And then, in spiritual tongue, the men of France
Spake with the Malagasy of the time
Of persecution—when no sustenance
They gat, for days, i' the woods, and had to climb
Rude rocks, and hide in caves, or in the slime
Of swamps, to escape their hunters; and the hate
O' the wicked queen to flee: their only crime
They worshipped Christ, and would not fall prostrate
'Fore blocks of wood by ignorant heathen consecrate.

85

With grateful joy the Malagasy told
How first the missionary-men to preach
Began, and how some felt that truth gat hold
Of all their heart; and when by signs to teach—
By printed signs as well as spoken speech—
The men began, what wonder, and what zeal
Some felt to learn until their minds could reach
The meaning of God's word, and sweetly feel
What great salvation for their souls it did reveal.

86

And how they hid its precious leaves, when raged
Fierce Ranavalona, and nightly drew them forth
From their concealment, and by stealth assuaged
Their thirst for the living water: how i' the earth
They hid Christ's printed truth, and with what mirth
They dug it up when none of all their foes
Were nigh. And then, how great they deemed the worth
Of Bunyan's Pilgrim-story

“Bunyan's Pilgrim-story.”—It was translated into Malagasy by Mr. Johns, the Missionary; and soon the natives prized it next the Bible.

to disclose
Their hearts began—yea, told of it with rapt applause!

87

“O brethren, these are wondrous ways of God!”
Said Claude; “how know we but this savage isle—
For such was Madagascar, when we trod
The soil of earth—may, in the Future, smile
Triumphantly o'er Hellas, and the land of Nile—
Yea, over Europe's proudest boast of art
And science? Oft doth God select the vile,
In men's esteem, to enact a lofty part:—
What, if this isle be set down in some future chart

403

88

“O' the world, as the pre-eminent Christian seat
Of knowledge and refinement? God may bring
Judgment upon the nations that maltreat
His truth, and deem it false; that madly wring
From intellect and sensual revelling,
Alike, the dregs of pleasure; and ignore
Their Maker's name; yea, proudly backward fling
His benefits, and call them curses. O'er
Our ancient home awful judicial change may lour!’

89

“Cast not away blest hope!” with cheery shout,
Cried one who led another band in view,
While thus the Preacher spoke of fear and doubt,
And to the terraced mountains nearer drew
The Malagasy and the friendly few
That journeyed with Brousson. The Martyr band
That now approached, thus cheerily led, I knew,
By mystic insight, were of Gallic land,
Likewise: its ancient Martyrs: they who bore the brand

90

Of infamy, when pagan Rome held rule,
And savagely shed Christian blood for game,
By scourge and torture so unpitiful,
'Twere hard to tell: worse than the fiery flame!
And dread exposure, 'mid the loud acclaim
Of thousands, to the claws and teeth of beasts
Wild from their scorching Afric clime: no shame
They felt to boast refinement, yet such feasts
They held i' th' amphitheatres, with brutal jests

91

Mocking frail woman's sufferings, as of men
The groans. 'Twas Polycarp's disciple

“Polycarp's disciple,” Irenæus. —He was martyred at Vienne, in Gaul, A.D. 202, in the persecution under Severus.

led
Gaul's ancient martyrs. He who in Vienne
Was slain. And, with him, they whose blood was shed
So recklessly in Lyons, by the dread
Decree of Antoninus Verus, blythely trod
The floral way: Pothinus,

—See Eusebius, Book V.C.I.

whom from bed
They dragged—the man of ninety—to give God
His dying testimony, and seal it with his blood;

404

92

Sanctus, the deacon, stout, defiant, brave,
Amidst all threats and tortures; Attalus,
Maturus, Vettius, and the female slave,
Blandina

... and others.—See Eusebius, Book V. C. I.

—noblest martyr for the cross
Of all her sex, in times iniquitous;
And many more.
“Cast not away blest hope!”
Cried Irenæus; “still remain for us
God's patience and His love. Let us look up,
My brethren, yet, for fallen France! Let not faith droop

93

“While the great Intercessor pleads in heaven,
And saints on earth. Asunder, God the veil
Of scepticism will rive, as He hath riven
The veil of heathenism! France shall the trail
O' the serpent see, ere long, and humbly wail
In penitence, that she so long hath held
The false for true, for pure the bestial:
Shall mourn she hath the power of Evil swelled;
And grieve 'gainst God and Christ she hath so long rebelled!

94

“Cast not away blest hope!” again he cried,
“Blest hope we may not, will not cast away!”
Cried all the Martyr company; “Christ died
For sceptic, as for heathen, Gaul: her day
Of grace is not yet past: full soon the ray
Of holiest Truth, with soul-awakening might,
May beam upon her. Send it, Lord, we pray!
Let France no longer be a realm of night;
But shine among the nations, by Thy Gospel light!”

95

The prayer and song went on, as now to climb
The terraced mountains they began; the song
Went on—and other songs, with chaunt sublime,
The joyous myriads sang—the happy throng
That, marching, climbed the height with step so strong
And limber: age and weakness felt no more!
They climbed—but sense that I might not prolong
My visit to that realm grew, as before,
Within me; and I woke to find myself on shore

405

96

Of earth, a pilgrim still: Death's mystic sea
Uncrossed! Yet, I must cross it soon: the years
Must now be scanty that remain for me
On th' hither side o'the tomb. Life onward wears
Happily, thank God! Scarcely a “vale of tears”
This life hath been for me. Still let me prove
My happiness in Duty: then, no fears
Cold Death can bring: 'twill be but a remove
From happy life below, to happier life above!

409

BOOK THE FIFTH.

1

The winter's sun beams bright, as if'twere spring,
Gladdening the waters of the lonely sea:
Lonely as death: not even a bird on wing:
No glimpse of man, or boat: a jubilee
Of silence and of death, it seems. With glee
The unburied giants of old Cumbria wear
On their huge shoulders their death drapery—
The pall of snow. Wide Morecambe sands are bare,
But sparkle, as if strewed with dust of diamonds rare.

2

All things are bright, though silent. Overhead
There is no cloud: 'tis one deep vault of blue
That mocks the eye to gauge it. If, instead,
I look upon the waters, without clew
Or rod, for measurement, I am: I view
The boundless still; and still within me rise
The old, old baffled thoughts I yet pursue,
But can achieve no end. Oh, for new eyes
Of Mind, to pierce the deep, the eternal mysteries!

3

I had a friend, in youth, I loved full well.
He was no mannikin—no dapper thing
That smirks, and reckons Life a bagatelle;
But girt the bow of his mind with steely string,
And shot far after Truth—within the ring
Oft planting his arrow where her jewels glow,
All-priceless. Humble in birth, he was a king
In thought. I see his broad Baconian brow
Brighten, as mind-fire flashes in the eyes below;

410

4

I hear his manly tones announce the clear
Decision he had raught, when we the fray
Dialectic,—stern, unbending, and austere,—
Had waged for hours. And now I hear him say—
They were his dying words—for soon the clay
That glorious spirit left: “Oh, how I long
To be all intelligence!” Thus did he pray
In death: prayed from the passions' blinding throng
To escape for ever, that on Truth, with vision strong,

5

For ever he might gaze: with spiritual eye—
The eye unlensed, unorganed, unbeshrined
In flesh, undimmed by vulgar slovenry
Of earthly use. He prayed that as pure Mind
He might exist: not only unconfined
By shroud o' the flesh, but unannoyed, unstained
By the foul cleavings of all humankind
To the earth, which do convince the soul, sore-pained,
That, while on earth, unto the grovelling clay 'tis chained.

6

Hath he his dying wish obtained in death—
That is, in the real life beyond the grave?
For, since 'tis not the kernel perisheth,
But only the shell, one cannot choose but crave
To know what kind of life our spirits have
Unclothed upon with flesh. Doth he still see—
Hear—feel? Or, did the senses but enslave
And dull the soul's perceptions—while, now, free
From sense, she is Perception's self—the destiny

7

My dying friend aspired to—and now he
Is “all intelligence”? Yet, often he said,
In our tense arguings, that it could not be
For any mere creature to have being unwed
To vehicle, or clothing: only the Dread,
All-infinite One could be pure Mind. And then,
If asked—How such thought-regions can we tread?
He quoted Cudworth—whose intellectual ken
He deemed the strongest of all late Platonic men.

411

8

And thus men quote, and reason still—or guess;
But get no farther!
Yon big cumulus cloud
Hath suddenly risen from some lake's recess,
To hide the lordliest mountain in its shroud;
And Coniston Old Man, that looked so proud
Above his fellows, is invisible—
While more clouds pile upon the obscurer crowd
Of peaks, and make them seem to bulge and swell
Till they in stature Alps or Andes would excel.

9

Let me leave clouds and mountains, for the sea!
Our reasoning is but rasher guessing, full
Of fancied peaks from which immensity,
We think, at last, we fathom. We are dull
Scholars in learning how to pick and cull
True treasure from the trash of our own thought.
All reasoning on the eternal future null
And void must be. What God hath left untaught
About it must be best unknown, or left in doubt.

10

Let me breathe freely thy fresh air, glad main!
And, thankful, gaze upon thy boundlessness—
What, though I try to measure thee, in vain?
He measureth thy waters—measureless
To man—in the hollow of His hand! Transgress
Thy bounds thou canst not; neither can I mine.
It will be wisest for me to repress
Guesses about the Future, and resign
My soul with confidence into the Hand Divine!

11

I thank Thee, Lord, the days of arrogance
Are past, when I presumed Thy government
Divine to arraign: with rash precipitance,
Forbidding Thee to punish sin unblent
With blame of Thine own creatures, on earth sent
To do Thy will, but given to have a will
Themselves. I thank Thee that the veil is rent
Of pride; and, since Thou only know'st how ill
It is in man to sin—his span of life to fill

412

12

With base ingratitude for all Thy care
Perpetual, all Thy love unwearied,—new
Ever, each night and noon and morn,—I dare
Not judge what sin deserves. Thou only true
And righteous judgment canst pronounce, whose view
Is blinded by no error, and whose right
It is to judge. That punishment is due
To baseness here, men doubt not: to requite
The lawless, would on law and justice be a blight.

13

Man's teachers now are saying, on every hand,
What I once rashly said and sung—that pain
And punishment cannot be ever: bland
And bountiful and tender, doth Thy reign
In Nature Thee proclaim; and every grain
Of Gospel truth is sweetened with Thy love:
Thou canst not punish ever, and the stain
Of evil from Thy holy throne above
For ever see—men say: it would Thy being disprove!

14

Vast Sea! how little of thy compass can
I judge from this scant spot on which I look
Upon thy waves? And can it be that Man
The slave of sin—from his dim finite nook—
Doth claim to read, off-hand, the eternal Book—
The Book o' the infinite government of God?
Surely, Unerring One, Thou dost not brook
That men, unblamed, should thus assume the nod
Divine—should thus forget their kindred with the clod!

15

Farewell, grand Sea! I may not soon upon
Thy waters look again, and try to read
Thy healthful lessons. Hence, I must begone,
Away from silence, to the crowds who lead
Their lives in noise and haste, and greatly need
Patient and thoughtful guidance from the way
Of Error to the paths of Truth. Lord, speed
Me in my aim to spread Thy Truth, I pray—
For soon I shall have lived, to the end, my little day!—

413

16

I left the realm of silence by the Rail.
There was no Rail whereon the steam-steed sped
With snort, and puff, and haste to turn men pale
With fear, and fill their hearts with instant dread
Of death, when I was young. But steady tread
Of waggon-horses, stout and strong;—the dash
Down hill and up, o' the mail, without a shred
Of fear, to coachee's chirrup—not the lash
O' the whip; the cheery horn; no dread of deathful crash!

17

“Oh, for the dear old coach again!” I cry—
But soon remind myself o' the pelting rain,
And that umbrella which the old man would try
To hold up still for shelter with insane
Resolve, although it drenched our necks; the pain
Of sitting, crampt, for lack of room; the wind
That kept us in one posture, like a chain—
It was so keen! And then I am inclined
To own 'twas well men did the steam-steed find, and bind!

18

I left the realm of silence, and arrived,
Once more, i' the realm of noise, and haste, and toil:
The realm of cotton mills, in which seemed hived
Man, woman, child: all join the gainful moil,
'Midst heat, and rattle of machines, and broil
Of steam. And still they build new mills, and vaunt
That nought their manufactures spread aslant
Until their enterprise shall henceforth foil
The world—where'er is found the human habitant!

19

But thirty years ago, Lancastrian land
Was filled with discontent; and ghastly fear
Prevailed the Poor would seize the pike and brand,
Through hunger-bitten madness, and ungear
The chariot of the State, and Order sheer
Overboard cast into the abysmal flood
Of universal ruin. Many a seer
Proclaimed that revolution, battle, and blood
Must come, if men and women and children had not food.

414

20

How the sage holder of the reins displayed his skill,
And starving crowds gat food, there is no need
That I should tell. When hungry men could fill
Their stomachs, they soon ceased to list the rede
Of Agitators. “Let us work, and feed
And clothe ourselves and children,” soon became
The all-prevalent resolve. They worked with speed;
And when broke out, across the sea, the flame
Of war, and they could get no cotton, they did not blame

21

The “Cotton Lords,” of whom, in bygone time,
They spoke so angrily. Their common sense
Kept them from insurrectionary crime;
And, famine-stricken though they were, suspense
Of work and wage with patience most intense
Was borne. And, now the wheels go round
Again most merrily, thoughts of turbulence
Return not—for men's eyes upon the ground,
Are fixed: to thoughts of food and clothes their minds are bound,

22

Except where curse of gambling hath possest
The souls of men and women—for to share
This madness of their husbands, with wild zest,
Women are found! No more, i' the open air,
I see, at eve, pale, eager groups, with rare,
Though homely eloquence, holding debate—
Their heads unhatted, and their lank limbs bare
Of clothing, save with rags—far on, till late
Dusk hour: and still they lingered to deliberate

23

How freedom should be won, and man be ruled
As man, by his own free choice, not as a slave!—
And hath the fervent thirst for freedom cooled?
“You see the ragged crowds no more!”—with brave
Display of triumph, they proclaim, and wave
Their new-bought hats! Most gladly I discern
The rags are gone; but sorrowfully crave
Whither had fled the intelligence, and stern
Passion for freedom with which once they seemed to yearn—

415

24

The starving “Mill-hands!” Was thy word then true—
Sage Age-fellow illustrious, that—spite all
The cry and rage and threat against the Few
That rose from the Many—'twas not to disenthrall
Themselves from serfdom, but to make their call
And shriek of hunger heard till they were fed?
'Twas all that Chartism meant; and now the tall,
Grim scaring spectre flees—for men have bread
To the full; and all their say for Freedom they have said?—

25

Then, from my inmost soul, I sorely grieve
That I and others bore for such as ye—
The grovelling sons of sires who could upheave
The world with fear—whose rags, so vile to see,
Were robes of honour, for they were the fee
Of independence!—sorely grieves my soul
We bore the chain for such as bow the knee
To Pelf and Privilege, so that the dole
To work for wages they may have. Is this the goal

26

Of Freedom? Have ye reached it, then, so soon?
And now, with hands in pockets, ye can prate
Of shares in stores and building clubs; and—boon
'Bove all!—can bet on horses—like the great!
Or, on the flight of pigeons; or, elate
With idiot pride, lead greyhounds in a string,
And bet upon the swiftness of their gait!—
For, now, all's well! With scorn, aside ye fling
Fantastic Freedom, and vote the way sure bread to bring

27

Into your cupboards! Ye are men of sense:
Your ragged sires were fools, and dreamers wild.
Freedom to feed ye prize: with abstinence
And Liberty ye cannot be beguiled;
For ye have tasted bread, and said, and smiled,
“'Tis sweet, and we will keep it. Take our vote
And welcome! Rule with hands clean or defiled,
So long as we can feed to the full. A groat
We care not how ye rule; on that we spend no thought!”

416

28

And did we brave the dungeon, but to know
That toiling men have sold their birthright like
Esau of old, for a mess of pottage? Low,
Indeed, your starving sires, who talked o' the pike,
Would say their well-fed sons had sunk! Heart-sick
To see such degradation, they would be,
And cry—“Ye strike for wage—but why not strike
For Freedom? Ye who have the vote, like free
Men use it: your own hands now hold your destiny!”

29

My hour of teaching came; but there came few
To listen of the hands-in-pockets crowd:
They flocked to gaze upon some gew-gaws“new
From Lunnon!”I to my lodging with a cloud
Of moody thinkings paced—
Hush! hush! the shroud
They are preparing for the breathless clay
That held the noblest soul on earth! No proud
Large-acred duke, or gartered marquess they
Adorn with heraldry, and clothe with Death's array.

30

“The great Triumvir,”saith the printed sheet
Of evening news,“hath died at Pisa.”Fame
Shall now reverse her trumpet, and, with meet
Proclaim, speak of an actor in the drame
O' the Nineteenth Century, whose high-souled aim
None equalled. And Italia's passionate heart
Shall sob with penitence, and throne the name
Of her Mazzini far above the smart
And courtly names of men that played their part

31

Of seeming patriotism, for kings to win
Continuance of their sceptres. Ay, 'tis night
With the poor lifeless clay: shrunken and thin
It lies, no doubt! Quenched are those lamps of light—
Those “windows of the soul”—so dazzling bright
When it looked through them, while he thought and spoke
Of home! —so full of splendour and of might,
When from his eloquent lips the syllables broke
Of fair Italia fully freed from foreign yoke,

417

32

And then united: Tuscan, Piedmontese,
Roman, Venetian, and Sicilian land,
All one freed home for patriot hearts at ease!
Old feuds now mourned; and thrown away the brand
So often drawn to shed with brother's hand
A brother's blood! The worn, thin clay is cold
And lifeless—but, I dare be sworn, 'tis grand
In death! No soul e'er left a nobler mould;
And still, I doubt not, it is beauteous to behold!

33

How glossy were his raven locks when first
I saw that classic head! But when I saw
Him after his return from Rome—the worst
Having befallen his rule, from the fell paw
Of France—and while I gazed, with sorrowing awe,
Upon his face, I marked his head was gray!
I spake on't—but it only served to draw
A smile from him:“We watched, by night and day,
While Garibaldi and our Romans kept the fray”—

34

He calmly said—“with the French and Oudinot.
I never slept on a bed, and only ate
Dry bread and raisins, while they met the foe;
And Saffi, and I, and Armellini, sate
To mete out justice—or deliberate
What next to essay. The Corsican's false heir
Hath blasted our fair hopes. But better fate
Awaits us. Never, my friend, can I despair:
Our cause shall yet, in Rome, victorious laurels wear!”

35

Where shall his tomb be? In Santa Croce's fane,
Where sleep the grandest of Italian dead?
Mazzini's bones were worthy to be lain
By the bones of Angelo, the sculptor dread,
Or Galileo's—but his final bed
Should be in Rome. She was the darling dream
He cherished: Popeless Rome become the head
Of Italy: her beauty, again, the theme
Of all; and crowned with her freed People's diadem!

418

36

Oh, honour the dead clay, Italians, for
The sake o' the soul that wore it! Honour well
The clay, for the soul's sake; but homage more
The lofty memory of the man! Oft tell
Your children how he toiled, amid the swell
Of tyrant rage, and failure of his plan,
So oft renewed, the Austrian's pride to quell,
Freedom restore, and Italy in the van
To place, of nations: the Great Realm Republican!

37

Say how he toiled and never fainted; nor
His toil gave up till death! So deep, so true
Was that great love to Freedom which he bore,
And to his darling Italy! Ever grew
The affection with his years. He never knew
An ebb and flow of that great love. 'Twas one
With his own being: a love that did imbue
And colour all his thoughts, and give them tone:
He lived and breathed in that great love, supreme, alone!

38

Champion of“God and Duty”—for they were
Thy watchwords—who shall now the counsels guide
Of Freedom? Only one true arbiter
She needs: the Man of Equity. Low Pride
That pulls down higher Pride—setting aside
One wrong to plant another—doth but breed
New troubles, and impede the gladdening stride
Of Freedom. Had poor France but taken heed
To thy sage chiding, she had now been free indeed.

39

Farewell, grand Soul! Rienzi meets thee there,
In Christ's bright heaven—the heaven of truthful souls—
With Brescian Arnold, and the man of prayer,
The martyred Savonarola: men, i' the rolls
Of Papal Rome, set down to share the howls
Of the accurst. Thank God, nor Pope, nor Priest,
Shall be our judge! 'Tis He alone controls
Our destiny. —Grand spirit, take thy rest
With Him and Christ, in the sweet regions of the Blest! —

419

40

Midnight hath found me pondering, once again,
The change of earthly things. One cannot hear
That great ones die, and pass it by, as men
Pass by the deaths of every day—no tear
Shedding, or heed vouchsafing to the drear
Dull tale. —
I slept again—the sleepless Mind
Still of her waking thoughts keeping a clear
And vivid hold—and seemed to tread the assigned
Realm of the Lord's beloved, whom evil men maligned

41

And martyred. By the winding river I seemed
Again to walk; but ere I stooped to take
One growth of that sweet floral land, I dreamed
The forms I kenned of two that, while awake,
I thought of sorrowfully. One of them spake
With the bold martyr who to fiercest flame, —
By cunning of the Pope he caused to quake, —
Was doomed at last: the Pope whose English name
Was Breakspear: none more skilfully played the Papal game.

42

Girolamo Savonarola told his heart,
In Paradise, with forceful yet with meek And gentle speech. Arnold of Brescia's

His triumphant patriotism and mortification of Pope Adrian (Breakspear), with his fall and martyrdom by burning, at the command of the Pope he had humbled, are among the most romantic incidents of Italy's romantic history.

part
Was sterner. As, in life, he never sleek
Or servile features wore, or uttered weak
And wavering words, so now he seemed to look
And speak as one who lived in days antique,
And lineage claimed with men who could not brook
The thought of slavery, much less bear its hateful yoke.

43

Truly Italian souls they were. Their inward fire
Of patriotism was equal. One had learned
To mitigate his speech, so that no ire
Was e'er suspected. In the other yearned
O'er Italy a soul that often burned—
Some hastily said—with flame that made them fear
It was unchastened. But the pure discerned
No sin in all his warmth. Thus, oft, sincere
And fervid souls are judged with judgment too austere.

420

44

“They flung thy ashes to the Tiber,” said
The Florentine,

—Savonarola.

“and to the Arno mine;
And soon the sea commingled and outspread
Them o'er the globe. And so each foul design
To frustrate Freedom fails! Though to confine
And stifle her life-giving breath they strive,
Men's strife but serves to spread her breath divine
Till slaves inhale it, and restorative
Proclaim her power to every enslaved soul alive!

45

“Kingship—that we ne'er loved—still lives, 'tis true;
But our loved Italy owns no despot sway.
And, were it not for Loyola's cunning crew,
The Papacy would soon see its last day.
Oh, surely, on the march of Freedom, may
We now congratulate each other, while
We laud the Almighty Ruler. Though His way
Be in the clouds for ages, they shall smile
With joy, who watch with patience how He works His will!”

46

“My joy is feebler, brother, than thine own,”
The elder martyr spake: “I long to see
Our countrymen unto full manhood grown,
In thought and act. Scarcely from childhood, we
Can say they have passed, while many a devotee
Climbs on his knees the Santa Scala,

“Nearly opposite the steps of the church of St. John Lateran, we saw the devout, or penance-performing worshippers, ascending the Santa Scala on their knees. This is a flight of stone steps, said to have been taken from the palace of Pontius Pilate at Jerusalem, twenty-eight in number. The strange spectacle of young and old, rich and poor, fat and lean, cheerful and sorrowful, slow and rapid, clumsy and agile, moving on their knees up those steps, must be seen to be understood. The contortions, the jostling, the groaning, the praying, the kissing the steps, the serious gravity of some, the anxious faces of others, the irresistible tumbling, and, consequently, ludicrous collisions occasioned by the sudden stoppages of others, render the scene mournful, or ridiculous, according to the state of mind of the observer.”

day
By day; and, when the baby effigy
Of Christ—the doll Bambino

“We visited the church of Santa Maria d'Aracœli. Here a monk shewed us the far-famed Bambino, a swathed and dressed olive-wood image of the infant Saviour, encrusted with jewels, —which they take, if requested, to the titled and opulent sick. A carriage, two hours after, was seen to receive it and return it. The women in the streets kneel as it is borne past them.”—Page 97 of the same work.

—on its way
To the sick is seen, Italian women kneel and pray,

47

“I' the open street. How can men call our land—
Our Italy beloved—except in whim—
A land of Christ, who died that we might stand
Acquitted in the Father's sight? The hymn
They raise to Mary, Queen of Seraphim,
And Mother of God—not to the Crucified!
‘Ora pro nobis!’—how their voices swim,
Yet, in our spiritual ear! When last we hied
On our Lord's errand, and again beheld the pride

421

48

“And pomp of their false worship, and the throng's
Profanity, beneath that stately dome,
How burned our minds with sense o' the Saviour's wrongs
Inflicted in our loved Italian home!
If Christian martyrs of old pagan Rome
Could rise, and see what priests call worship, in
You proud basilica, that still the gloom
Of heathenism prevailed—the gloom and sin—
They would declare: so near to heathenism akin

49

“Is popish worship! Oh, that God would bring
To nought the guilty system, and restore
His Son's pure truth!”—
“To the Eternal King
Be fullest praise that on the Italian shore
Men scatter Gospel seed! The Christian sower
Is free to come, and bring the Bible, too!
Doubt not, Italians, now they are free to explore
Its truths, will soon, intelligently, the true
Discern, and faith in their old priestly frauds eschew.”

50

Thus Savonarola strove the overhaste
To check that Arnold felt. But now drew near
A band of Italy's martyrs of the Past: Arnulph,

“At this time (A.D. 1128) under Pope Honorius II., a certain priest, named Arnulph, came to Rome, a man of great devotion and a distinguished preacher. While he proclaimed the word of God, he rebuked the dissoluteness, the libertinism, the avarice, and the extreme haughtiness of the clergy. He exhibited, for universal imitation, the poverty and life of spotless integrity of Jesus Christ and His apostles. In truth, his preaching was approved by the Roman nobility, as that of a true disciple of Christ. But, on the other hand, it exposed him to the intense hatred of the cardinals and the clergy, who seized him by night, and put him to death secretly.”—Trithemius: quoted by Monastier.

the holy preacher, bold, austere,
In time of Pope Honorius, who with fear
Filled hearts of cardinals and priestly knaves:
With fear—not penitence: they shed no tear;
But seized him, nightly, by the hands of slaves,
And silenced his bold preaching in the Tiber's waves.

51

With him came Martin Gonin, and Varaille, And Nicolas Sartoire, and Pierre Masson,

Martin Gonin was but thirty-six years of age. He was sentenced to be drowned in the Isèré, in Dauphine. The sentence was executed in the night. —Geofroi Varaille, aged fifty, was burnt at Turin, 1558. —Nicolas Sartoire, a young student of Berne, was burnt at Aosta, in Piedmont, 1557. —Pierre Masson, a Vaudois barbe, or pastor, was waylaid on a journey, and arrested. He was put to death at Dijon, in 1530.— Monastier.

And hundred martyrs more, from many a vale
Of Piedmont: poor Vaudois barbes, so long
Exposed, with their devoted flocks, to wrong
From popes, and priests, and Dominic's black band. Next came Mathurin,

burnt at Carignan, in Savoy, in 1560, His wife found entrance to his prison, exhorted him to constancy in the presence of his judges, and offered to go with him to die, if they would give her leave: They granted her request.—Monastier.

and his wife so strong
In faith, who cried“Don't yield! give me your hand!”
And walked with him to burn, with fortitude so grand!

422

52

Of northern Italy these: the southern clime—
The sunny Naples—had its victims, too:
Apulians, and Calabrians, who no crime
'Gainst man committed; and to God with true,
Humble, and faithful hearts they lived. But who
Could 'scape the Inquisition's deadly gaze? —
They butchered eighty men with the knife: they slew
Them as his sheep or swine a butcher slays,
Cutting their throats, in turn. And ere they gave to the blaze

53

Their female victims, sixty were tortured till
Some died o' their wounds. Nor did Venetia proud
Escape the Inquisition's yoke. Its various skill
In killing men and burying them was shewed
In Venice: the victim no expense of shroud
Needed: tied on a plank, a stone at his feet,
Between two little gondolas they rowed
Him to the outer harbour: then, with fleet
Motion, the boats withdrew. Without a winding-sheet,

54

Their victim found a grave in the lagoon. Giulio Ghirlanda,

see note 11

calling on the Lord,
Thus sank to death; Ricetto

see note 11

, next; and soon
Spinula

see note 11

, and Fra Baldo

Giulio Ghirlanda was the first who suffered martyrdom in the city of Venice. He sank into the deep, calling upon the Lord Jesus.—The next was Antonio Ricetto, a most honourable man. In the gondola he was firm, prayed for those who put him to death, and commended his soul to his Saviour.—Francis Spinula was drowned ten days after Ricetto.—The most distinguished of all the martyrs of Venice was Fra Baldo Lupetino. He was of a noble and ancient family, became a monk, and rose to high rank in his Order. He was imprisoned twenty years by the Pope and the Inquisition, and then put to death. He met his martyrdom with great firmness, and in peace.—“Sketches of Protestantism in Italy,” by Robt. Baird, D.D., of New York.

: the record
Of all the names were long to tell. Reward
In Paradise these found, and to embrace
Their brother martyrs came. O'er the green sward
And flowery vale, in crowds, they trode apace,
While high and holy gladness shone in every face!

55

What famed Italian city had not there
A martyr for Christ's unadulterate faith
'Twere hard, indeed, to tell. Florence the fair
Had many besides Girolamo to death
Who bravely went. And many the martyr's wreath
In Parma, Mantua, and Bologna gained;
Or in Ferrara took the fiery path
To heaven; or, while fierce Spanish Philip reigned,
In Milan, boldly in the flames Christ's truth maintained.

423

56

Whence came the chiefest hundreds of that host?
Even from the spiritual Babylon. 'Twas Rome,
Herself, that fierceliest kept the demon boast
Of zeal in bringing heretics to doom,
By fire, or sword, or rack, or cord, or gloom
And hunger and silence of the prison cell.
Who thirsted most for blood in Christendom? —
For blood of Christ's own saints? The tyrants fell
Who boasted that they kept the keys of heaven right well!

57

Their greetings o'er, I saw the martyrs group
Together, for discourse of what they saw,
Of late, on earth; and of their faith, or hope,
That popish frauds would cease to overawe
Their countrymen, and Christ's pure truth be law,
Alone, unto their consciences. Of brave Aspect, Bartoccio

Bartolomeo Bartoccio, son of a wealthy citizen of Castello, in the duchy of Spoleto. He was imprisoned, but escaped to Venice and thence to Geneva. In 1567, he was seized in Genoa, by the Inquisition, and sent to Rome, on the requisition of the Pope.“After an imprisonment of nearly two years, he was condemned to be burnt alive. With a firm step he went to the place of execution; and, whilst the flames were enveloping his body, the words Vittoria! vittoria!—victory! victory! were distinctly heard from his dying lips.”—Dr. Baird, in the volume just mentioned.

soon began to draw
A crowd around: he who was seen to wave
His hand, and heard to shout “Vittoria!” when they gave

58

His comely body to the flames at Rome.
“Italian brothers, who love Christ!”—so spake
The noble martyr; “in our ancient home
We see the dawn, at length, begin to break
Of that thrice happy day, when old, opaque,
Benumbing errors of the soul shall fade
Like mists before the sun—when men shall wake
And cast off Superstition's dreams, dismayed
No longer by the hideous forms such dreams pourtrayed.

59

“What, though Italians linger somewhat, yet,
To dash in pieces the false shapes that long
Enthralled their father's souls;—to break the net
Of Loyola fully from off their limbs with strong
And manly effort? We shall hear the song
Of triumph soon, o'er Jesuit falsities:
The Book of Christ's own truth is now among
Them: it lies open to enquiring eyes:
The Evangel shall, itself, our land evangelise!

424

60

“There is no preacher like the Bible's self.
The living teacher is but human, like
His kind: he may be swayed by love of pelf,
Or pride; or may be led astray by sick
Fancies that oft mislead even politic
And sober men. The Book will ne'er mislead.
'Twill win its own grand way. Full soon the trick
Of frightening men from reading it shall breed
A proud resolve from frown of priestcraft to be freed.

61

“All hail the happy day, when earnest men
And women too, on all the Italian soil,
Each day by day, and hour by hour, with ken
Of humbleness, and prayer, and spiritual toil,
Shall ‘search the scriptures,’ and thus find the foil
To baffle, effectually, the guileful game
Which priests so long have played, and end the spoil
They have made of human souls i' the holy name
Of Christ!—Oh, holy Lord, cut short their reign of shame!”

62

“Amen, amen!” responded the rapt crowd—
“O Lord, subvert the soul-benumbing power
Of priestcraft, in our noble land!”—aloud
They prayed—“Thine own apostles trod its shore;
Thy martyrs bled upon the sanded floor
O' the Colosseum; the cities' streets engrained
Have been with many a Christian martyr's gore;
Our mountains and our vales their blood hath stained!
O Lord! to our loved land restore their faith unfeigned!”

63

“And my soul saith ‘Amen,’” the Brescian said;
“But what, if God to answer prayer delay—
Prayer scarce accordant with His purpose dread,
Or not yet ripened, so that they who pray
Can say they know it? He, in sovereign sway,
May humble Italy still more;—confound
Her national councils;—bring to low decay
Her wealth and strength. So long the craven hound
Of Austria, unto Prussia next she may be bound.

425

64

“Oh, who can think upon her worldly glory—
Her old, great names of conquest and renown—
Her names of patriotism, so bright in story!
Her names of eloquence—the names thick strown
O'er history's pages—they that wear the crown
In Art, and Song, and Music—and not sigh
To see Italia sit with face half-prone
To the dust, and with half-folded hands—while sky,
And earth, and sea, resound with the awakening cry

65

“Of new-born nations who aspire to be
A something in the scale, when worth is weighed,
And rank assigned 'mong men? Her ancientry
Would blush to see of what poor stuff are made
Her modern men—mere men of masquerade:—
Except the few now leaving earth—the few
So far above the rest, each seems a shade
Of some old worthy which her soil upthrew
When naturally, it seemed, there glory and greatness grew!”

66

“My brother Arnold”—Savonarola spake,
With haste, and yet with tenderness, “we are all
Italians, and thy words, as a trumpet, wake
Our passionate love for Italy! Yet fall
Thine accents on our incorporeal
And auditory sense, as if they told
Thy heart were more upon yon earthly ball
Than here, in Jesu's heaven”—
“My brother, hold!”
Cried Arnold; “think me not, I pray thee, overbold

67

“When I avow my spirit's love intense
For earthly themes, though far below the worth
Of heavenly. Yet, I hear with reverence
Thy meek reproof. For here, if not on earth,
The holier soul should have what elder birth
Claims there: brethren's obedient love.”—
“I join
With thee, Bartoccio,” Arnulph said;—“'Tis dearth
Of knowledge stops the way. The Book divine,
If once Italians search with earnestness, no shrine

426

68

“Of the Madonna shall find worshippers.
Before the gaudy rags with which priests dress
Her images, our women shall rehearse
Their prayers no more; but hasten to confess
Christ Intercessor, who, alone, access
Unto the Father opens. And the crime
Of years shall end: the crime of heinousness,
That set up Mary as a means to climb
To heaven, shall never more be heard of through all time!”

69

At once, Italia's myriad martyr host
I saw, lift up their hands, and cry, in prayer—
“Lord God Almighty, if one holocaust
Of martyrdom the vengeful Papal slayer
Could make of all our bodies, did we wear
Them once again, on earth, we would with joy
Crowd to the flames—yea, clap our hands, and bear
Them with a shout,—would it the vile alloy
Of Mariolatry with Christian truth destroy!

70

“Lord, let Thy servant's prophecy be soon
Fulfilled! Let sickly sentiment no more
Be misnamed piety; nor homage done
To Mary be miscalled devotion. Pour
Thy light upon our loved Italian shore—
Thy holy light into Italian mind—
Until their mid-age darkness men abhor;
And seeing how Superstition did them blind,
Regard it as the foulest foe of human-kind!”—

71

Forthwith, a venerable sight I saw
Of ancient martyrs from Italian land,
That seemed their brother martyrs' gaze to draw
As they approached. No sons of Hildebrand,
Or Innocent, or Urban proud. The band
Lowly and meek, they were, that Pagan hate
Drove to the catacombs; and thence trepanned,
Full oft, to murder them. A throng more late
I' the world's record came with them: sharers of like fate,

427

72

And sharers of their lowly meekness too;
But hugely varnished in the midnight time
That followed, as saints and miracle-workers true—
Some of them Roman bishops, ere a crime
Had stained the name of Pope; and some in prime
Slaughtered of maidenhood—young virgins fair;
And others of their sex, in age. Sublime
In bravery, they did the fiercest tortures bear,
Until their torturers f?ltered 'fore their courage rare!

73

Popes Clement, Sixtus, Fabian, Felix, all— With Lucius and Cornelius

I would not deny to these primitive Bishops of Rome the rank of true martyrs.

—though none dreamed
Of it—all canonised! The pretence tall,
“I am infallible,” none made. Each seemed
A child in lowliness. A face that beamed
With beauty followed: Agnes,

the Virgin: martyred at Rome, in 305. Jerome, Augustine, and Ambrose, join in praise of her virtues.—See Alban Butler's “Lives of the Saints.”

the virgin whom
Shrewd Diocletian, when he falsely deemed
He could destroy Christ's truth, sentenced to doom,
With many more, filling his realm with fear and gloom.

74

Laurence,

The circumstances of the martyrdom of Laurence, in A.D. 258, are often doubted. But if he really were roasted to death, over a slow fire, on a gridiron, I see no reason to doubt that the intrepid martyr, after suffering some time, should have defiantly bid his torturers to turn him on the other side.

the victim of Valerian, slain
With tortures most ingenious and prepense;
And Roman martyrs in a crowd, i' th' reign
Of reckless Commodus, for Truth's offence,
Driven to fierce deaths; and more, pre-eminence
Of martyrdom beneath the bloody sway
Of Decius who obtained; a throng intense
Suffering Maxentius caused, ere yet the fray
O'the Milvian bridge brought Constantine the victor's bay.

75

And many slaughtered in Maximian's rage;
And others by Severus' seeming word
Of fairness. Boasting Italian lineage,
These, all the gladsome martyrs of their Lord,
Now joined in heaven upon the flowery sward,
A grateful army, to commemorate
The sweetness of their bliss. On earth abhorred
Of wicked men, they felt their afterstate
The sweeter: it was bliss full-blossomed, consummate.

428

76

And now, in happy groups—withouten note
O' the times in which they lived on earth—for here
'Twas true fraternity—though ages mote
Have rolled between their births—in groups of dear
And holiest friendship gathered, they gave ear
Unto each other how the errand sped
On earth, from which they had returned. Austere
And brave, as when the forfeit of his head
He paid to Commodus, sage Apollonius

a Roman senator, was beheaded in the reign of Commodus, after defending himself before the Senate. —Eusebius, Book v., c. 21; Jerome, in his Catalogue of Illustrious Men; Tertullian; etc.

said—

77

“On errand of our loving Lord, I stood,
Of late, near to the soul of one sore pained
And worn by buffeting the surging flood
Of his heart's doubts and fears. Renown he gained
In college studies, when a youth, and none
More welcome would have found if he the pale
Of Rome's apostate Church had entered. Groan,
And ave, and tears, his sister did not fail
To offer to Madonna, ere she took the veil;

78

“And then the simple nun spent half her life
In praying Mary from the heretic's snare
To save her brother. Home brought daily strife,
With father's ire, to Giulio,—mother's prayer
And passionate entreaty. If to share
The fellowship of young or old he tried,
He gat no help, no solace: to beware
Of mortal sin, of dark presumptuous pride
They warned him: not one strove to cheer him: all to chide.

79

“Young Giulio durst not fully tell his soul
To any mortal. Unto God he made
His moan: to God alone! The priestly scowl
Was on him in the street. 'Neath sun or shade,
The wistful maids who saw him inly prayed
Madonna to be saved from deadly stain
Young Giulio bore—their own confessors said.
He struggled with his doubts and fears in vain:
He dared not bow to Mary, nor false worship feign;

429

80

“And, with conviction of heart-sin, he shrank
From supplicating God with cheerful mind.
Could he have brought his burthen with a frank
And filial trust before the Lord—the blind
Had fully gaine his sight. But fears had twined
Themselves so thickly with his doubts, his gaze,
In love, upon the Saviour of mankind
He dare not fix—in grateful love; or raise
To Him, in cheerful confidence, one note of praise.

81

“He pondered o'er the old Waldensian book,
So long in secret kept—the page of light
That first his faith in Romish errors shook—
Until he shrank with horror at the sight
Of Rome's idolatries, and murderous spite
Shewn to God's people, and His Truth; and thought,
Not seldom, he would tell the truth outright—
Would own himself the foe of the Devout,
Misnamed; and cry Rome's creed was but a Tale of Naught!

82

“But soon, again, remembrance of his sin
Bereaved his soul of strength. He dared not speak
Of others' sin, while yet he could not win
A sense of pardon for his own. To seek
So great a boon aright, he feared—with meek
Distrust of his own power—he knew not how;
And hourly prayed that God, who aids the weak,
Would strengthen him the way of life to know
And enter on it boldly, spite of every foe.

83

“Our ministry—in answer to his cry—
The Lord vouchsafed unto him; and, in deep
Dependence on our Guide Divine, the eye
Within we strove of blinding films to sweep,
And fix it on perception that to reap
In joy is promised unto them that sow
In tears. Some strength he gained, but soon o'er-cheap
He deemed salvation was, by faith: with low
Prostration he must still, with tears, in secret, bow.

430

84

“We dreaded, now, lest penance, and the scourge,
And all the false humility and vice—
Not virtue—wherewith monks affect to purge
Men's sins, should fill his fancy, and entice
Him to attempt himself to pay the price
Wherewith his Saviour had already bought
His soul and ransomed it for Paradise.
Our dread grew gloomier, for his mind, o'erwrought,
Seemed sinking—when the Hand Divine deliverance brought.

85

“An English Christian—whom young Giulio met
Amid some ruins, where, to nurse his grief,
In solitariness, and 'scape the fret
And torment of being watched, i' the fall o' the leaf,
He wandered—courteously besought a brief
Historic reason, if young Giulio's lore
Were rich enough to give it,—like a reef
Of rocks the sea hath left far on the shore—
Why there lay ruins which such marks of beauty bore.

86

The question pleased him, for he knew each stone
And vestige well of Rome's rich treasure-heap
Of ruins. And he pleased the stranger. Flown
Was twilight, ere their walk was done. No peep
O' the moon was yet: and, 'mid the dark to creep
From stone to stone, they tarried—for the theme
The stranger touched made Giulio's spirit leap
With eagerness. Denouncing Rome's dark scheme,
The English Christian shewed how freely did redeem

87

“Men's souls, He whom the Father's pitying love
From His own bosom gave. Young Giulio's eyes
The darkness hid, and much his spirit strove
To hide its tempest—so long used to spies
And listeners—but, o'ercome with sweet surprise,
He told his secret. Now, the stranger blessed
The hour the Guide Divine—who doth advise
His servants true—had led him to the quest,
Unknown, of one who panted for the Saviour's rest.

431

88

“Experienced in the windings of the heart
And intellect—the wards o' the locks of thought
And feeling—the good stranger drew apart
The fastenings of young Giulio's mind; upcaught
The meaning of his failure to be taught
The truth of Christ by th' old Waldensian book;
And gave him—such the words—‘a treasure fraught
With priceless wealth.’In his young hands he took
It, while his frame throughout with grateful tremor shook!

89

“It was the Bible in his native speech.
God shone upon it as he read. In Rome,
Now Giulio doth, each day, Christ's gospel preach,
Where'er a poor man opens his mean home
To let the word of life be heard. They come
And listen, stealthily or boldly, while
The preacher onward speeds; and, readily, some
Ask for the Book, and buy it. With the smile
Of scepticism some hear; and pass on to revile.

90

“For Doubt abounds: its name is legion. Where
Hath Rome's old tyrant power 'mong men been felt,
And human souls a strong deliverer
Not sought in sternest doubt—scorning to melt
In tears, where men so long have bowed and knelt
In childish fears? Doubt still abounds; but death
To doubt the Book in many hearts hath dealt.
'Tis seed-time yet. The harvest comes, God saith.
We rest upon His word whose name is Truth, in faith!”

91

To Apollonius, while he told his tale
Of sorrow and joy, some hundred audience lent;
And when he raught the end, they did not fail
To thank the Guide Divine. Meanwhile upsent
Were songs of praise. 'Mid other groups were blent
Like laud and joy, others told how fared
They, in their visits to old Earth. Intent
All seemed on learning what they chiefly cared
To know: that faith increasingly by men was shared.

432

92

Just as the Hand of Light again was seen,
And the glad myriads in due order filed
Across the vale, their march unto the green
And terraced mountains to begin,—it thrilled
My soul to see how that large army smiled
To see another Martyr band advance—
A glorious band—confessors undefiled!
To join their brethren. Who were these? One glance
Sufficed to show they fell by Rome's intolerance

93

In Piedmont, when rose the solemn hymn,
“Venge, Lord, Thy slaughtered saints!” from Milton's soul;
And Cromwell threatened English vengeance grim
That made the Pope turn pale, and stop the foul
And bloody massacre. Mother with infant roll
They did adown the rocks: atrocity
The Savoy Duke endeavoured to control,
But could not. The Pontifical decree
Was given in haste: Rome feared the fiat of the Free!

94

One noble heart came up with these, although
He died before them. He who sang the song
Of Simeon, in the fire—“Now lettest Thou
“Thy servant, Lord, depart in peace!”—So strong
The heart of man God makes to bear vile wrong!
Thus brave Bazana of Luzerna

a nobleman burnt to death at Turin, on the 23rd Nov., 1623. They bandaged his mouth, as he left the prison. “But, as the executioner was tying him to the stake, the bandage fell off, and the martyr thus proclaimed the cause of his death:—‘People,’ he said, ‘it is for no crime I die, but for seeking to act in conformity with the word of God; to sustain truth against error; to—’Here the Inquisitors stayed him, by putting light to the pile. Bazana set up the song of Simeon, as versified by Theodore Beza, that touching canticle sung by the faithful of his Church after the sacrament—

‘Laisse-moi désormais,
Seigneur, aller en paix’—

But his voice was soon silenced by the flames.”—See “The Israel of the Alps:” translated from the French of the Rev. Dr. Alexis Muston. London: Ingram, Cooke, and Co. 1863.

died.
He doth to the black calendar belong,
Likewise, o' the Inquisition's murders wide
And deep. Could blackest Hell itself their vileness hide?

95

The Martyrs of the Valleys, newly come,
Filed off in order for the march. No peal
Of trumpet summoned them, no pipe, nor drum,
That rouseth men, on earth, to slaughterous zeal.
The beckoning Hand of Light to advance, or wheel
Guides them. And on they move—Italia's host
Of Martyrs, on whom Rome set her strong heel,
To crush out life: a dreadful holocaust
To Evil! Nor is her zest for murder changed, or lost—

433

96

Though great Mazzini's life of labour served
To kindle fire of freedom in the breast
Of his “Young Italy”—and strongly nerved
Some manly arms and hands to win a blest
Victory for freedom; and the age-long pest
Of Popery now hangs its head. Oh, no!
Rome hath not changed. Nor ever will men rest
Peacefully in Truth while she can work them woe.
Of Freedom and of Truth she is the deadliest foe!—

97

I heard begin the tuneful swell of praise—
Soon changed to prayer for Italy—as on
The Martyr Army marched. But soon my gaze
On their bright ranks grew dim; and faint the tone—
And fainter—of their chaunt. Before the throne
The martyrs soon will bow, in rapture high,
I thought, as I awoke. But, not yet done
Is my earth-labour. I must better try
To live—“as ever in my great Taskmaster's eye.”

“Journal of a Tour in Italy, in 1850; with an account of an interview with the Pope at the Vatican.” By the Rev. Geo. Townsend, D.D., Canon of Durham: page 91. Rivingtons, 1850. [Dr. Townsend was the antagonist of Sir Wm. Drummond, the author of “Œdipus Judaicus.”]