The village Children, while the sky is red
With evening lights, advance in long array
Through the still church-yard, each with garland gay,
That, carried sceptre-like, o'ertops the head
Charged with these offerings which their fathers bore 10 For decoration in the Papal time,
The innocent Procession softly moves :
The spirit of Laud is pleased in heaven's pure clime, And Hooker's voice the spectacle approves !
WOULD that our scrupulous Sires had dared to leave Less scanty measure of those graceful rites
And usages, whose due return invites
A stir of mind too natural to deceive;
Giving to 1 Memory help when she would weave
A crown for Hope!-I dread the boasted lights
That all too often are but fiery blights,
Killing the bud o'er which in vain we grieve.
Go, seek, when Christmas snows discomfort bring,
The counter Spirit found in some gay church
Green with fresh holly, every pew a perch
In which the linnet or the thrush might sing,
Merry and loud and safe from prying search,
Strains offered only to the genial Spring.
FROM low to high doth dissolution climb,
And sink1 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, 5
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 2 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,1
So with 2 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.
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 3 resting-place.
The edition of 1845 returns to the text of 1822.
This is borrowed from an affecting passage in Mr. George Dyer's History of Cambridge.-W. W. 1822.
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
Licence 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
* The Statesmen of the Revolution, who hailed the arrival of William of Orange from Holland.-ED.
+ See Burnet, who is unusually animated on this subject; the east wind, so anxiously expected and prayed for, was called the "Protestant wind."W. W. 1822.
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 hill1 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 sate of yore and wove
May-garlands, there let 2 the holy altar stand
For kneeling adoration ;-while-above,
Broods, visibly portrayed, the mystic Dove,
That shall protect from blasphemy the Land.
* In 1818, under the ministry of Lord Liverpool, £1,000,000 was voted by Parliament to build new churches in England.-ED.
This, and the two following sonnets, were probably the first composed of these "Ecclesiastical Sketches." The "church to be erected" was a new one built on Coleorton Moor by Sir George Beaumont. (See Prefatory note to the series, p. 1.)--ED.
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