There be, who love the ways to view
- Of Kings and Kingdoms here;
(And sure, 'tis worth an Angel's gaze,
To see, throughout that dreary maze,
God teaching love and fear:)
O say, in all the bleak expanse,
Is there a spot to win your glance,
So bright, so dark as this?
A hopeless faith, a homeless race,*
Yet seeking the most holy place,
And owning the true bliss!
Salted with fire they seem to show
How spirits lost in endless wo
May undecaying live.
Oh sickening thought! yet hold it fast
Long as this glittering world shall last,
Or sin at heart survive.
And hark! amid the flashing fire,
Mingling with tones of fear and ire,
Soft Mercy's undersong-
"Tis Abraham's God who speaks so loud,
His people's cries have pierc'd the cloud,
He sees, He sees their wrong;‡
He is come down to break their chain;
Though never more on Sion's fane
His visible ensign wave;
[The Jews, alluded to in these lines, "a nation scattered and peeled," without a home in the whole world, of which, as the peculiar people of God, they were once the favoured heirs. Without a temple, without a sacrifice, without a priest,-how fearfully and wonderfully do they fulfil the old prophetic record! How literally is His blood upon them, and upon their children!] + St. Mark, ix. 49.
'Tis Sion, wheresoe'er they dwell,
Who, with His own true Israel,
Shall own Him strong to save.
He shall redeem them one by one,
Where'er the world-encircling sun
Shall see them meekly kneel:
All that he asks on Israel's part,
Is only, that the captive heart
Its wo and burden feel.
Gentiles! with fix'd yet awful eye
Turn ye this page of mystery,
Nor slight the warning sound:
"Put off thy shoes from off thy feet-
The place where man his God shall meet,
Be sure, is holy ground."
THE CHILDREN IN THE TEMPLE.
And he answered and said unto them, I tell you, that if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out. St. Luke, xix. 40.
[Almighty and everlasting God, who, of thy tender love towards mankind, has sent thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, to take upon him our flesh, and to suffer death upon the cross, that all mankind should follow the example of his great humility; mercifully grant that we may both follow the example of his patience, and also be made partakers of his resurrection, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.]
YE whose hearts are beating high
With the pulse of Poesy,
Heirs of more than royal race,
Fram'd by Heaven's peculiar grace,
[The Sunday next before Easter, so called in reference to the palm branches thrown before our Saviour on his way to Jerusafem, five days before his crucifixion.]
God's own work to do on earth. (If the word be not too bold) Giving virtue a new birth,
And a life that ne'er grows old
Sovereign masters of all hearts!
Know ye, who hath set your parts?
He who gave you breath to sing,
By whose strength ye sweep the string,
He hath chosen you, to lead
His Hosannas here below ;-
Mount, and claim your glorious meed;
Linger not with sin and wo.
But if ye should hold your peace,
Deem not that the song would cease-
Angels round His glory-throne,
Stars, his guiding hand that own,
Flowers, that grow beneath our feet,
Stones in earth's dark womb that rest,
High and low in choir shall meet,
Ere His Name shall be unblest,
Lord, by every minstrel tongue
Be thy praise so duly sung,
That thine angels' harps may ne'er
Fail to find fit echoing here:
We the while, of meaner birth,
Who in that divinest spell
Dare not hope to join on earth,
Give us grace to listen well.
But should thankless silence seal
Lips, that might half heaven reveal,
Should bards in idol-hymns profane
The sacred soul-enthralling strain
(As in this bad world below
Noblest things find vilest using,)
Then, thy power and mercy show,
In vile things noble breath infusing;
Then waken into sound divine
The very pavement of thy shrine,
Till we, like heaven's star-sprinkled floor,
Faintly give back what we adore,
Child-like though the voices be,
And untunable the parts,
Thou wilt own the minstrelsy,
If it flow from child-like hearts.
CHRIST WAITING FOR THE CROSS.
Doubtless Thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not. Isaiah lxiii. 16. [Portion of Scripture appointed for the Epistle in the Service for the Day.]
FATHER to me Thou art, and Mother dear,
And Brother too, kind husband of my heart
So speaks Andromache in boding fear,
Ere from her last embrace her hero part:
So evermore, by Faith's undying glow,
We own the Crucified in weal or wo,
* [Yet while my Hector still survives, 1 see
My father, mother, brethren, all in thee;
Alas! my parents, brothers, kindred, all
Once more will perish, if my Hector fall.
Iliad vi. 429, Pope's Version vi. 544.]
Strange to our ears the church-bells of our home,
The fragrance of our old paternal fields
May be forgotten; and the time may come
When the babe's kiss no sense of pleasure yields
Even to the doting mother: but thine own
Thou never canst forget, nor leave alone.
There are who sigh that no fond heart is theirs,
None loves them best-O vain and selfish sigh!
Out of the bosom of His love He spares-
The Father spares the Son, for thee to die:
For thee He died-for thee He lives again:
O'er thee He watches in His boundless reign.
Thou art as much His care, as if beside
Nor man nor angel liv'd in heaven or earth:
Thus sunbeams pour alike their glorious tide
To light up worlds, or wake an insect's mirth:
They shine and shine with unexhausted store;
Thou art thy Saviour's darling-seek no more.
On thee and thine, thy warfare and thine end,
Even in His hour of agony He thought,
When, ere the final pang His soul should rend,
The ransom'd spirits one by one were brought
To his mind's eye-two silent nights and days*
In calmness for His far-seen hour He stays.
Ye vaulted cells where martyr'd seers of old
Far in the rocky walls of Sion sleep,
Green terraces and arched fountains cold,
Where lies the cypress shade so still and deep,
Dear sacred haunts of glory and of wo,
Help us, one hour, to trace His musings high and low:
*In Passion week, from Tuesday evening to Thursday evening; during which time scripture seems to be nearly silent concerning our Saviour's proceedings.
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