PROLOGUE.
That sun-eyed Power which stands sublime
Upon the rock that crowns our globe,
Her feet on all the spoils of time,
With light eternal on her robe,
She, sovereign of the orb she guides,
On Truth's broad sun may root a gaze
That deepens, onward as she rides,
And shrinks not from the fontal blaze:
But they—her daughter Arts—must hide
Within the cleft, content to see
Dim skirts of glory waving wide,
And steps of parting Deity.
'Tis theirs to watch Religion break
In types from Nature's frown or smile,
The legend rise from out the lake,
The relic consecrate the isle.
'Tis theirs to adumbrate and suggest;
To point toward founts of buried lore;
Leaving, in reverence, unexpressed
What Man must know not, yet adore.
For where her court true Wisdom keeps,
'Mid loftier handmaids, one there stands
Dark as the midnight's starry deeps,
A Slave, gem-crowned, from Nubia's sands.
O thou whose light is in thy heart
Love-taught Submission! without thee
Science may soar awhile; but Art
Drifts barren o'er a shoreless sea.
MAY CAROLS
PART I.
I.
Who feels not, when the Spring once more,
Stepping o'er Winter's grave forlorn
With winged feet, retreads the shore
Of widowed Earth, his bosom burn?
As ordered flower succeeds to flower,
And May the ladder of her sweets
Ascends, advancing hour by hour
From scale to scale, what heart but beats?
Some Presence veiled, in fields and groves,
That mingles rapture with remorse;—
Some buried joy beside us moves,
And thrills the soul with such discourse
As they, perchance, that wondering pair
Who to Emmaus bent their way,
Hearing, heard not. Like them our prayer
We make:—"The night is near us . . Stay!"
With Paschal chants the churches ring;
Their echoes strike along the tombs;
The birds their Hallelujahs sing;
Each flower with floral incense fumes.
Our long-lost Eden seems restored;
As on we move with tearful eyes
We feel through all the illumined sward
Some upward-working Paradise.
II.
Upon Thy face, O God, Thy world
Looks ever up in love and awe;
Thy stars, in circles onward hurled,
Still weave the sacred chain of law.
In alternating antiphons
Stream sings to stream and sea to sea;
And moons that set and sinking suns
Obeisance make, O God, to Thee.
The swallow, winter's rage o'erblown,
Again, on warm May breezes borne,
Revisiteth her haunts well-known;
The lark is faithful to the morn.
The whirlwind, missioned with its wings
To drown the fleet and fell the tower,
Obeys thee as the bird that sings
Her love-chant in a fleeting shower.
Amid an ordered universe
Man's spirit only dares rebel:—
With light, O God, its darkness pierce!
With love its raging chaos quell!
III.
All but unutterable Name!
Adorable, yet awful, sound!
Thee can the sinful nations frame
Save with their foreheads to the ground?
Soul-searching and all-cleansing Fire!
To see Thy countenance were to die:
Yet how beyond the bound retire
Of Thy serene immensity?
Thou mov'st beside us, if the spot
We change—a noteless, wandering tribe;
The orbits of our life and thought
In Thee their little arcs describe.
In the dead calm, at cool of day,
We hear Thy voice, and turn, and flee:—
Thy love outstrips us on our way:
From Thee, O God, we fly—to Thee.