FROM low to high doth dissolution climb, And sink from high to low, along a scale Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail; A musical but melancholy chime,
Which they can hear who meddle not with crime, Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care.
Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear The longest date do melt like frosty rime, That in the morning whitened hill and plain And is no more; drop like the tower sublime Of yesterday, which royally did wear
His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain Some casual shout that broke the silent air, Or the unimaginable touch of Time.
MONASTIC Domes! following my downward way, Untouched by due regret I marked your fall! Now, ruin, beauty, ancient stillness, all Dispose to judgments temperate as we lay On our past selves in life's declining day : For as, by discipline of Time made wise, We learn to tolerate the infirmities
And faults of others, gently as he may, So with our own the mild Instructor deals, Teaching us to forget them or forgive. Perversely curious, then, for hidden ill Why should we break Time's charitable seals? Once ye were holy, ye are holy still; Your spirit freely let me drink, and live!
Even while I speak, the sacred roofs of France Are shattered into dust; and self-exiled From altars threatened, levelled, or defiled, Wander the Ministers of God, as chance Opens a way for life, or consonance
Of faith invites. More welcome to no land The fugitives than to the British strand, Where priest and layman with the vigilance Of true compassion greet them. Creed and test Vanish before the unreserved embrace
Of catholic humanity :-distrest
They came, and, while the moral tempest roars Throughout the Country they have left, our shores Give to their Faith a fearless resting-place.
THUS all things lead to Charity, secured By THEM who blessed the soft and happy gale That landward urged the great Deliverer's sail, Till in the sunny bay his fleet was moored! Propitious hour! had we, like them, endured Sore stress of apprehension,* with a mind Sickened by injuries, dreading worse designed, From month to month trembling and unassured, How had we then rejoiced! But we have felt, As a loved substance, their futurity:
Good, which they dared not hope for, we have seen; A State whose generous will through earth is dealt; A State, which, balancing herself between License and slavish order, dares be free.
BUT liberty, and triumphs on the Main, And laurelled armies, not to be withstood, - What serve they? if, on transitory good Intent, and sedulous of abject gain,
The State (ah, surely not preserved in vain !)
Forbear to shape due channels which the Flood Of sacred truth may enter, till it brood O'er the wide realm, as o'er the Egyptian plain The all-sustaining Nile. No more, the time Is conscious of her want; through England's bounds, In rival haste, the wished-for Temples rise!
I hear their Sabbath bells' harmonious chime
Float on the breeze,― the heavenliest of all sounds That vale or hill prolongs or multiplies!
BE this the chosen site; the virgin sod, Moistened from age to age by dewy eve, Shall disappear, and grateful earth receive The corner-stone from hands that build to God. Yon reverend hawthorns, hardened to the rod Of winter storms, yet budding cheerfully, Those forest oaks of Druid memory,
Shall long survive, to shelter the Abode
Of genuine Faith. Where, haply, 'mid this band Of daisies, shepherds sat of yore and wove May-garlands, there let the holy altar stand For kneeling adoration; — while, above, Broods, visibly portrayed, the mystic Dove, That shall protect from blasphemy the Land.
MINE ear has rung, my spirit sunk subdued, Sharing the strong emotion of the crowd, When each pale brow to dread hosannas bowed While clouds of incense mounting veiled the rood, That glimmered like a pine-tree dimly viewed Through Alpine vapors. Such appalling rite Our Church prepares not, trusting to the might Of simple truth with grace divine imbued; Yet will we not conceal the precious Cross, Like men ashamed: the Sun with his first smile Shall greet that symbol crowning the low Pile: And the fresh air of incense-breathing morn Shall wooingly embrace it; and green moss Creep round its arms through centuries unborn.
THE encircling ground, in native turf arrayed, Is now by solemn consecration given
To social interests, and to favoring Heaven, And where the rugged colts their gambols played, And wild deer bounded through the forest glade, Unchecked as when by merry Outlaw driven, Shall hymns of praise resound at morn and even,
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