EARTH.
And God called the dry land Earth.—Genesis, i. 10.
The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.—Psalm xxiv. 1.
The earth, O Lord, is full of thy mercy.—Psalm cxix. 64.
The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.—Isaiah, xi. 9.
The earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.—II. Peter, iii. 10.
Unconstant Earth! why do not mortals cease
To build their hopes upon so short a lease?
Uncertain lease, whose term but once begun,
Tells never when it ends till it be done:
We dote upon thy smiles, not knowing why,
And whiles we but prepare to live, we die:
We spring like flowers for a day’s delight,
At noon we flourish, and we fade at night:
We toil for kingdoms, conquer crowns, and then
We that were Gods, but now, now less than men.
If wisdom, learning, knowledge, cannot dwell
Secure from change, vain bubble earth, farewell.
Francis Quarles.
Earth’s cup
Is poisoned; her renown, most infamous;
Her gold, seem as it may, is really dust;
Her titles, slanderous names; her praise, reproach;
Her strength, an idiot’s boast; her wisdom, blind;
Her gain, eternal loss; her hope, a dream;
Her love, her friendship, enmity with God;
Her promises, a lie; her smile, a harlot’s;
Her beauty, paint, and rotten within; her pleasures,
Deadly assassins masked; her laughter, grief;
Her breasts, the stings of death; her total sum,
Her all, most total vanity.
Pollok.
And had earth, then, no joys? no native sweets,
No happiness, that one who spoke the truth,
Might call her own? She had, true native sweets,
Indigenous delights, which up the Tree
Of Holiness, embracing as they grew,
Ascended, and bore fruit of Heavenly taste.
Pollok.
Lean not on earth; ’t will pierce thee to the heart:
A broken reed at best, but oft a spear:
On its sharp point peace bleeds, and hope expires.
There’s nothing here but what as nothing weighs;
The more our joy, the more we know it vain;
And by success are tutored to despair.
Nor is it only thus, but must be so.
Who knows not this, though grey, is still a child;
Loose then from earth the grasp of fond desire,
Weigh anchor, and some happier clime explore.
Young.
Earth, thou great footstool of our God
Who reigns on high; thou fruitful source
Of all our raiment, life, and food,
Our house, our parent, and our nurse.
Mighty stage of mortal scenes,
Drest with strong and gay machines,
Hung with golden lamps around,
And flowery carpets spread the ground—
Thou bulky globe, prodigious map,
That hangs unpillared in an empty space,
While thy unwieldly weight hangs in the feeble air,
Bless that Almighty word that fix’d and holds thee there.
Watts.
A puff of honour fills the mind,
And yellow dust is solid good;
Thus, like the ass of savage kind,
We snuff the breezes of the wind,
Or steal the serpent’s food.
Could all the choirs
That charms the poles
But strike one doleful sound,
’T would be employed to mourn our souls;
Souls that were formed of sprightly fires
In floods of folly drowned.
Souls made of glory seek a brutal joy;
How they disclaim their heavenly birth,
Melt their bright substance down with drossy earth,
And hate to be refined from that impure alloy.
Watts.
There are wondrous things on the aged earth; ’tis speeding to its close;
From the very heart of the prosperous world the prophet-thunder grows;
And as this sphere whirls round and round upon its endless way,
And as the laws of the universe from their boundless centres sway,
From the everlasting hills of heaven look down a seraph-race,
And gaze upon the mighty change that speaks aloud through space:
With joy they hymn the Eternal, in whose embrace they live,
And strike the harp to him who loves to pity and forgive.
Stands the archangel Lucifer on a stormy planet near,
And the hollow sound of his mighty voice fills many worlds with fear;
“Vain earth,” he said, “thy pigmy lords may strive from thee to rise,
May gasp their hopes in frequent verse, they half philosophize,
Build temples to the monarch steam, be victors o’er the sea—
Their pride, their power shall disappear at one dark glance from me!
O for the fierce wild rapture of that fast approaching day,
When man and his brief dwelling in the storm are swept away.”
Far in the centre of all space burns the eternal throne,
Where God, unseen, ineffable, dwells in his light alone.
“My Son,” the one existence saith, “earth speeds its course to thee,
And soon beneath thy rule of love its kingdoms shall be free.
The demons dream of fury, of swift, consuming fire,
Dream that the spirit of the Lord is stern resentful ire:
But the whole universe shall know that mercy is divine—
Beloved Son! Men, angels, friends, for evermore are thine.”
Carrera.
I believe this earth on which we stand
Is but the vestibule to glorious mansions,
Through which a moving crowd for ever press.
Joanna Baillie.
As trees beneath the soil must shoot,
Before they form the grove,
So man in earth must spread his root,
That hopes to bloom above.
Thomas Ward.
Earth hath of thee had glimpses, shaped to suit
The contemplative Spirit, suffering
From occultation of the absolute,
The shadow of the spiritual thing
That passing, veils the Truth. Let it pass on!
Shine forth, O Sun! the universal King,
Intelligible God. Thy steadfast Throne
For ever is immovable, and Earth
Light from thine aspect borrows, and, anon,
In constant revolution, giveth birth
To darkness, not forsaken: for the Moon
And Stars reflect thy glory faintly forth,
In night, most holy night, in whose high noon
Majestic Heaven itself alone reveals
To faith,—a starry spell,—a visible tune,—
Until thy reappearing opes the seals
Of the mysterious Tome, and supersedes
Their borrowed lights—their spirit-motioned wheels.
Yet are they God’s! how happy he who reads
Their office rightly;—oracles Earth hears
In visionary slumber, hears and heeds;
The Deities of darkness, on the spheres
Enthroned, Angels of Night, whose choral gleams
Echo the word unto the worlds He cheers.
J. A. Heraud.