96 EMIGRANT FRENCH CLERGY. On our past selves in life's declining day : XXXVI. EMIGRANT FRENCH CLERGY. EVEN while I speak, the sacred roofs of France Of faith invites. More welcome to no land Of catholic humanity :-distrest They came, and, while the moral tempest roars * This is borrowed from an affecting passage in Mr George Dyer's history of Cambridge.-W. W., 1822. NEW CHURCHES. Throughout the Country they have left, our shores XXXVII. CONGRATULATION. THUS all things lead to Charity, secured Good, which they dared not hope for, we have seen; XXXVIII. NEW CHURCHES. BUT liberty, and triumphs on the Main, Intent, and sedulous of abject gain, The State (ah, surely not preserved in vain !) 97 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. 98 CHURCH TO BE ERECTED. Forbear to shape due channels which the Flood 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 the Sabbath bells' harmonious chime Float on the breeze-the heavenliest of all sounds. XXXIX. CHURCH TO BE ERECTED.† BE this the chosen site; the virgin sod, Shall long survive, to shelter the Abode Of genuine Faith. Where, haply, 'mid this band * In 1818, under the ministry of Lord Liverpool, £1,000,000 were 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 church built on Coleorton Moor by Sir George Beaumont. (See Prefatory note to the series, p. 1.)-ED. NEW CHURCH-YARD. 99 XL. CONTINUED. MINE ear has rung, my spirit1 sunk subdued, XLI. NEW CHURCH-YARD. THE encircling ground, in native turf arrayed, To social interests, and to favouring Heaven; 1 1827. spirits 1822. The Lutherans have retained the Cross within their churches: it is to be regretted that we have not done the same.-W. W., 1822. It has always been retained without, and is now scarcely less common within the churches of England. Did the poet confound the Cross with the Crucifix? -ED. + Compare Gray's Elegy, stanza 5— "The breezy call of incense-breathing morn." -ED. 100 CATHEDRALS, ETC. Unchecked as when by merry Outlaw driven, Shall hymns of praise resound at morn and even; Encincture small, XLII. CATHEDRALS, ETC. OPEN your gates, ye everlasting Piles ! Types of the spiritual Church which God hath reared; To kneel, or thrid your intricate defiles, Open your gates, ye Monuments of love Divine! Thou, Lincoln, on thy sovereign hill! Thou, stately York! and Ye, whose splendours cheer Isis and Cam, to patient Science dear! |