With bounty more and more enlarged,
Till the whole air is overcharged;
Give ear, O Man! to their appeal
And thirst for no inferior zeal,

Thou, who canst think, as well as feel.

Mount from the earth; aspire! aspire!
So pleads the town's cathedral choir,
In strains that from their solemn height
Sink, to attain a loftier flight;
While incense from the altar breathes
Rich fragrance in embodied wreaths;
Or, flung from swinging censer, shrouds
The taper-lights, and curls in clouds
Around angelic Forms, the still
Creation of the painter's skill,
That on the service wait concealed
One moment, and the next revealed.
-Cast off your bonds, awake, arise,
And for no transient ecstasies!
What else can mean the visual plea
Of still or moving imagery-
The iterated summons loud,

Not wasted on the attendant crowd,
Nor wholly lost upon the throng
Hurrying the busy streets along?

Alas! the sanctities combined By art to unsensualise the mind,

Decay and languish; or, as creeds

And humours change, are spurned like weeds:

The priests are from their altars thrust;

Temples are levelled with the dust;

And solemn rites and awful forms
Founder amid fanatic storms.

Yet evermore, through years renewed
In undisturbed vicissitude

Of seasons balancing their flight
On the swift wings of day and night,
Kind Nature keeps a heavenly door
Wide open for the scattered Poor.
Where flower-breathed incense to the skies
Is wafted in mute harmonies;

And ground fresh-cloven by the plough
Is fragrant with a humbler vow;
Where birds and brooks from leafy dells
Chime forth unwearied canticles,
And vapours magnify and spread

The glory of the sun's bright head—
Still constant in her worship, still
Conforming to the eternal Will,
Whether men sow or reap the fields,
Divine admonishment She yields,
That not by bread alone we live,
Or what a hand of flesh can give ;
That every day should leave some part
Free for a sabbath of the heart:

So shall the seventh be truly blest,
From morn to eve, with hallowed rest.

1832.

XLII.

A JEWISH FAMILY.

(IN A SMALL VALLEY OPPOSITE ST. GOAR, UPON THE RHINE.)

GENIUS of Raphael! if thy wings

Might bear thee to this glen,
With faithful memory left of things

To pencil dear and pen,

Thou would'st forego the neighbouring Rhine,

And all his majesty—

A studious forehead to incline

O'er this poor family.

The Mother-her thou must have seen,

In spirit, ere she came

To dwell these rifted rocks between,

Or found on earth a name;

An image, too, of that sweet Boy,
Thy inspirations give-

Of playfulness, and love, and joy,

Predestined here to live.

Downcast, or shooting glances far,
How beautiful his eyes,

That blend the nature of the star
With that of summer skies!
I speak as if of sense beguiled;
Uncounted months are gone,
Yet am I with the Jewish Child,
That exquisite Saint John.

I see the dark-brown curls, the brow, The smooth transparent skin, Refined, as with intent to show

The holiness within;

The grace of parting Infancy

By blushes yet untamed;
Age faithful to the mother's knee,
Nor of her arms ashamed.

Two lovely Sisters, still and sweet
As flowers, stand side by side;
Their soul-subduing looks might cheat
The Christian of his pride:

Such beauty hath the Eternal poured

Upon them not forlorn,

Though of a lineage once abhorred,

Nor yet redeemed from scorn.

Mysterious safeguard, that, in spite
Of poverty and wrong,

Doth here preserve a living light,
From Hebrew fountains sprung;
That gives this ragged group to cast
Around the dell a gleam

Of Palestine, of glory past,

And proud Jerusalem!

1828.