They glut the whirlpools of abysmal night;
They gather up the flaming shreds of morn; With streams and forests of a world unborn They set the hills of Eden in her sight.
True poet-soul, is ought beyond your power?
The very sea in all her caves is still
When you, prophetic, from life's utmost hill, With song's unearthly vision in your eyes, Stretch forth your hands,-a watcher on his tower, God in his heaven bidding light arise.
I like a church; I like a cowl;
I love a prophet of the soul;
And on my heart monastic aisles
Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles:
Yet not for all his faith can see,
Would I that cowled churchman be.
Why should the vest on him allure,
Which I could not on me endure?
Not from a vain or shallow thought
His awful Jove young Phidias brought;
Never from the lips of cunning fell
The thrilling Delphic oracle;
Out of the heart of Nature rolled
The burdens of the Bible old;
The litanies of nations came,
Like the volcano's tongue of flame,
Up from the burning core below,―
The canticles of love and woe:
The hand that rounded Peter's dome,
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,
Wrought in a sad sincerity;
Himself from God he could not free;
He builded better than he knew;—
The conscious stone to beauty grew.
Know'st thou what wove yon woodbird's nest
Of leaves, and feathers from her breast?
Or how the fish outbuilt her shell,
Painting with morn each annual cell?
Or how the sacred pine-tree adds
To her old leaves new myriads?
Such and so grew these holy piles,
Whilst love and terror laid the tiles.
Earth proudly wears the Parthenon,
As the best gem upon her zone,
And Morning opes with haste her lids,
To gaze upon the Pyramids;
O'er England's abbeys bends the sky,
As on its friends, with kindred eye;
For, out of Thought's interior sphere,
These wonders rose to upper air;
And Nature gladly gave them place,
Adopted them into her race,
And granted them an equal date
With Andes and with Ararat.
These temples grew as grows the grass;
Art might obey but not surpass.
The passive master lent his hand,
To the vast soul that o'er him planned;
And the same power that reared the shrine
Bestrode the tribes that knelt within.
Ever the fiery Pentecost
Girds with one flame the countless host,
Trances the heart through chanting choirs,
And through the priest the mind inspires.
The word unto the prophet spoken
Was writ on tables yet unbroken;
The word by seer or sibyls told,
In groves of oak, or fanes of gold,
Still floats upon the morning wind,
Still whispers to the willing mind.
One accent of the Holy Ghost
The heedless world hath never lost.
I know what say the fathers wise,-
The Book itself before me lies,—
Old Chrysostom, best Augustine,
And he who blent both in his line,
The younger Golden Lips or mines,
Taylor, the Shakespeare of divines.
His words are music in my ear,
I see his cowlèd portrait dear;
And yet, for all his faith could see,
I would not the good bishop be.
MILTON'S PRAYER FOR PATIENCE
Men point at me as smitten by God's frown:
Afflicted and deserted of my kind,
Yet am I not cast down.
I am weak, yet strong;
I murmur not that I no longer see;
Poor, old, and helpless, I the more belong,
Father supreme, to thee!
When men are furthest, then art Thou most near; When friends pass by, my weaknesses to shun, Thy chariot I hear.
Is leaning toward me; and its holy light
Shines in upon my lonely dwelling place,-
And there is no more night.
I recognize thy purpose clearly shown:
My vision thou hast dimmed, that I may see
Thyself, thyself alone.
I have naught to fear;
This darkness is the shadow of thy wing;
Beneath it I am almost sacred; here
Can come no evil thing.
Trembling, where foot of mortal ne'er hath been, Wrapt in that radiance from the sinless land, Which eye hath never seen!
Shapes of resplendent beauty around me throng;
From angel lips I seem to hear the flow
Of soft and holy song.
When heaven is opening on my sightless eyes, When airs from Paradise refresh my brow, That earth in darkness lies.
My being fills with rapture,-waves of thought
Roll in upon my spirit,-strains sublime
Break over me unsought.
Give me now my lyre!
I feel the stirrings of a gift divine:
Within my bosom glows unearthly fire,
Lit by no skill of mine.
Life of Ages, richly poured,
Love of God unspent and free,
Flowing in the Prophet's word
And the People's liberty.
Never was to chosen race
That unstinted tide confined; Thine is every time and place,
Fountain sweet of heart and mind!
Secret of the morning stars,
Motion of the oldest hours,
Pledge through elemental wars
Of the coming spirits powers!
Rolling planet, flaming sun,
Stand in nobler man complete; Prescient laws thine errands run, Frame the shrine for Godhead meet.
Homeward led, the wandering eye
Upward yearned in joy or awe,
Found the love that waited nigh,
Guidance of thy guardian Law.
In the touch of earth it thrilled;
Down from mystic skies it burned;
Right obeyed and passion stilled
It eternal gladness earned.
Breathing in the thinker's creed,
Pulsing in the hero's blood,
Nerving simplest thought and deed,
Freshening time with truth and good.
Consecrating art and song,
Holy book and pilgrim track, Hurling floods of tyrant wrong
From the sacred limits back.
Life of Ages, richly poured,
Love of God, unspent and free,
Flow still in the Prophet's word,
And the People's Liberty!
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