Turris Eburnea.
XXIV.
This scheme of worlds, which vast we call,
Is only vast compared with man:
Compared with God, the One yet All,
Its greatness dwindles to a span.
A Lily with its isles of buds
Asleep on some unmeasured sea:—
O God, the starry multitudes,
What are they more than this to Thee?
Yet girt by Nature's petty pale
Each tenant holds the place assigned
To each in Being's awful scale:—
The last of creatures leaves behind
The abyss of nothingness: the first
Into the abyss of Godhead peers;
Waiting that vision which shall burst
In glory on the eternal years.
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Tower of our Hope! through thee we climb
Finite creation's topmost stair;
Through thee from Sion's height sublime
Towards God we gaze through purer air.
Infinite distance still divides
Created from Creative Power;
But all which intercepts and hides
Lies dwarfed by that surpassing Tower!
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XXV.
Who doubts that thou art finite? Who
Is ignorant that from Godhead's height
To what is loftiest here below
The interval is infinite?
O Mary! with that smile thrice-blest
Upon their petulance look down;—
Their dull negation, cold protest—
Thy smile will melt away their frown!
Show them thy Son! That hour their heart
Will beat and burn with love like thine;
Grow large; and learn from thee that art
Which communes best with things divine.
The man who grasps not what is best
In creaturely existence, he
Is narrowest in the brain; and least
Can grasp the thought of Deity.
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XXVI.
They seek not; or amiss they seek;—
The cold slight heart and captious brain:—
To Love alone those instincts speak
Whose challenge never yet was vain.
True Gate of Heaven! As light through glass,
So He who never left the sky
To this low earth was pleased to pass
Through thine unstained Virginity.
Summed up in thee our hearts behold
The glory of created things:—
From His, thy Son's, corporeal mould
Looks forth the eternal King of Kings!
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XXVII.
A sudden sun-burst in the woods,
But late sad Winter's palace dim!
O'er quickening boughs and bursting buds
Pacific glories shoot and swim.
As when some heart, grief-darkened long,
Conclusive joy by force invades—
So swift the new-born splendours throng;
Such lustre swallows up the shades.
The sun we see not; but his fires
From stem to stem obliquely smite,
Till all the forest aisle respires
The golden-tongued and myriad light.
The caverns blacken as their brows
With floral fire are fringed; but all
Yon sombre vault of meeting boughs
Turns to a golden fleece its pall,
As o'er it breeze-like music rolls.
O Spring, thy limit-line is crossed!
O Earth, some orb of singing Souls
Brings down to thee thy Pentecost!