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Stilled by thy voice! But quickly from afar
Defiance breathes with more malignant aim;
And alien storms with home-bred ferments claim
Portentous fellowship. Her silver car,

By sleepless prudence ruled, glides slowly on;
Unhurt by violence, from menaced taint
Emerging pure, and seemingly more bright:
Ah! wherefore yields it to a foul constraint
Black as the clouds its beams dispersed, while shone,
By men and angels blest, the glorious light?

XXXIX.

EMINENT REFORMERS.

METHINKS that I could trip o'er heaviest soil,
Light as a buoyant bark from wave to wave,
Were mine the trusty staff that JEWEL gave
To youthful HOOKER, in familiar style
The gift exalting, and with playful smile* :
For thus equipped, and bearing on his head
The Donor's farewell blessing, can he dread
Tempest, or length of way, or weight of toil ?—
More sweet than odours caught by him who sails
Near spicy shores of Araby the blest,

A thousand times more exquisitely sweet,
The freight of holy feeling which we meet,

In thoughtful moments, wafted by the gales

From fields where good men walk, or bowers wherein they rest.

* See Note.

XL.

THE SAME.

HOLY and heavenly Spirits as they are,
Spotless in life, and eloquent as wise,
With what entire affection do they prize
Their Church reformed! labouring with earnest care
To baffle all that may her strength impair;

That Church, the unperverted Gospel's seat;

In their afflictions a divine retreat;

Source of their liveliest hope, and tenderest prayer!—
The truth exploring with an equal mind,
In doctrine and communion they have sought
Firmly between the two extremes to steer;
But theirs the wise man's ordinary lot—
To trace right courses for the stubborn blind,
And prophesy to ears that will not hear.

XLI.

DISTRACTIONS.

MEN, who have ceased to reverence, soon defy,
Their forefathers; lo! sects are formed, and split
With morbid restlessness ;-the ecstatic fit
Spreads wide; though special mysteries multiply,

The Saints must govern, is their common cry;
And so they labour, deeming Holy Writ
Disgraced by aught that seems content to sit
Beneath the roof of settled Modesty.
The Romanist exults; fresh hope he draws
From the confusion, craftily incites
The overweening, personates the mad-
To heap disgust upon the worthier Cause:
Totters the Throne; the new-born Church is sad,
For every wave against her peace unites.

XLII.

GUNPOWDER PLOT.

FEAR hath a hundred eyes that all agree
To plague her beating heart; and there is one
(Nor idlest that!) which holds communion
With things that were not, yet were meant to be.
Aghast within its gloomy cavity

That eye (which sees as if fulfilled and done
Crimes that might stop the motion of the sun)
Beholds the horrible catastrophe

Of an assembled Senate unredeemed

From subterraneous Treason's darkling power:
Merciless act of sorrow infinite!

Worse than the product of that dismal night,
When gushing, copious as a thunder-shower,
The blood of Huguenots through Paris streamed.

XLIII.

ILLUSTRATION.

THE JUNG-FRAU AND THE FALL OF THE RHINE NEAR SCHAFFHAUSEN.

THE Virgin Mountain*, wearing like a Queen
A brilliant crown of everlasting snow,

Sheds ruin from her sides; and men below

Wonder that aught of aspect so serene
Can link with desolation.

Smooth and green,

And seeming, at a little distance, slow,
The waters of the Rhine; but on they go
Fretting and whitening, keener and more keen ;
Till madness seizes on the whole wide Flood,
Turned to a fearful Thing whose nostrils breathe
Blasts of tempestuous smoke-wherewith he tries.
To hide himself, but only magnifies;

And doth in more conspicuous torment writhe,
Deafening the region in his ireful mood.

XLIV.

TROUBLES OF CHARLES THE FIRST.

EVEN Such the contrast that, where'er we move,
To the mind's eye Religion doth present;
Now with her own deep quietness content;
Then, like the mountain, thundering from above

* The Jung-frau.

Against the ancient pine-trees of the grove

And the Land's humblest comforts. Now her mood
Recals the transformation of the flood,

Whose rage the gentle skies in vain reprove,;
Earth cannot check. O terrible excess

Of headstrong will! Can this be Piety?
No-some fierce Maniac bath usurped her name;
And scourges England struggling to be free :
Her peace destroyed! her hopes a wilderness!
Her blessings cursed-her glory turned to shame!

XLV.

LAUD *.

PREJUDGED by foes determined not to spare,
An old weak Man for vengeance thrown aside,
Laud, in the painful art of dying' tried,
(Like a poor bird entangled in a snare

Whose heart still flutters, though his wings forbear
To stir in useless struggle) hath relied

On hope that conscious innocence supplied,
And in his prison breathes celestial air.

Why tarries then thy chariot ? Wherefore stay,
O Death! the ensanguined yet triumphant wheels,
Which thou prepar'st, full often, to convey
(What time a State with madding faction reels)
The Saint or Patriot to the world that heals
All wounds, all perturbations doth allay?

* See Noto.

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