"HERE Man more purely lives, less oft doth fall, More promptly rises, walks with stricter heed, More safely rests, dies happier, is freed Earlier from cleansing fires, and gains withal A brighter crown.” * - On yon Cistertian wall That confident assurance may be read;
And, to like shelter, from the world have fled Increasing multitudes. The potent call
Doubtless shall cheat full oft the heart's desires; Yet, while the rugged Age on pliant knee Vows to rapt Fancy humble fealty,
A gentler life spreads round the holy spires; Where'er they rise, the sylvan waste retires, And aëry harvests crown the fertile lea.
DEPLORABLE his lot who tills the ground, His whole life long tills it, with heartless toil Of villain-service, passing with the soil To each new Master, like a steer or hound, Or like a rooted tree, or stone earth-bound; But mark how gladly, through their own domains, The Monks relax or break these iron chains;
While Mercy, uttering, through their voice, a sound Echoed in Heaven, cries out, "Ye Chiefs, abate These legalized oppressions! Man, whose name And nature God disdained not, Christ died for,
- Man, whose soul
cannot forfeit his high claim
To live and move exempt from all control Which fellow-feeling doth not mitigate!"
RECORD We too, with just and faithful pen, That many hooded Cenobites there are, Who in their private cells have yet a care Of public quiet; unambitious Men, Counsellors for the world, of piercing ken; Whose fervent exhortations from afar Move Princes to their duty, peace or war; And ofttimes in the most forbidding den Of solitude, with love of science strong, How patiently the yoke of thought they bear! How subtly glide its finest threads along! Spirits that crowd the intellectual sphere With mazy boundaries, as the astronomer With orb and cycle girds the starry throng.
AND, not in vain embodied to the sight, Religion finds even in the stern retreat Of feudal sway her own appropriate seat; From the collegiate pomps on Windsor's height Down to the humbler altar, which the Knight And his Retainers of the embattled hall Seek in domestic oratory small,
For prayer in stillness, or the chanted rite; Then chiefly dear, when foes are planted round, Who teach the intrepid guardians of the place- Hourly exposed to death, with famine worn, And suffering under many a perilous wound- How sad would be their durance, if forlorn Of offices dispensing heavenly grace!
AND what melodious sounds at times prevail! And, ever and anon, how bright a gleam Pours on the surface of the turbid Stream! What heart-felt fragrance mingles with the gale That swells the bosom of our passing sail! For where, but on this River's margin, blow Those flowers of chivalry, to bind the brow
Of hardihood with wreaths that shall not fail?- Fair Court of Edward! wonder of the world! I see a matchless blazonry unfurled Of wisdom, magnanimity, and love; And meekness tempering honorable pride; The lamb is couching by the lion's side, And near the flame-eyed eagle sits the dove.
Furl we the sails, and pass with tardy oars Through these bright regions, casting many
Upon the dream-like issues, the romance Of many-colored life, that Fortune pours Round the Crusaders, till on distant shores Their labors end; or they return to lie, The vow performed, in cross-legged effigy, Devoutly stretched upon their chancel floors. Am I deceived? or is their requiem chanted By voices never mute, when Heaven unties Her inmost, softest, tenderest harmonies; Requiem which Earth takes up with voice un- daunted,
When she would tell how Brave, and Good, and Wise,
For their high guerdon not in vain have panted!
As faith thus sanctified the warrior's crest While from the Papal Unity there came, What feebler means had failed to give, one aim Diffused through all the regions of the West; So does her Unity its power attest
By works of Art, that shed, on the outward frame Of worship, glory and grace, which who shall blame That ever looked to heaven for final rest? Hail, countless Temples! that so well befit Your ministry; that, as ye rise and take Form, spirit, and character from holy writ, Give to devotion, wheresoe'er awake, Pinions of high and higher sweep, and make The unconverted soul with awe submit.
WHERE long and deeply hath been fixed the root In the blest soil of Gospel truth, the Tree (Blighted or scathed though many branches be, Put forth to wither, many a hopeful shoot) Can never cease to bear celestial fruit. Witness the Church that ofttimes, with effect Dear to the saints, strives earnestly to eject Her bane, her vital energies recruit. Lamenting, do not hopelessly repine
When such good work is doomed to be undone, The conquests lost that were so hardly won:-
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