FROM THE "HYMN ON THE FAIREST FAIR."
I feel my bosom glow with wonted fires:
Raised from the vulgar press, my mind aspires,
Wing'd with high thoughts, unto His praise to climb
From deep Eternity who call'd forth time:—
That ESSENCE, which, not mov'd, makes each thing move,—
Uncreate beauty—all-creating love...
Ineffable, all-powerful GOD, all free,—
Thou only liv'st, and all things live by thee...
Perfection's sum—prime cause of every cause,
Midst and beginning, where all good doth pause...
Incomprehensible, by reachless height;
And unperceived, by excessive light.
O King! whose greatness none can comprehend,
Whose boundless goodness does to all extend,—
Light of all beauty, ocean without ground,
That standing, flowest—giving, dost abound...
Great Architect—Lord of this universe,—
That sight is blinded would thy greatness pierce.
Then follows this noble simile, nobly sustained, and with a flow and harmony of verse not common in the poets of his period:—
Ah! as a pilgrim who the Alps doth pass,
Or Atlas' temples crown'd with winter glass,—
The airy Caucasus, the Apennine,
Pyrenees' cliffs, where sun doth never shine;—
When he some craggy hills hath overwent,
Begins to think on rest, his journey spent,
Till mounting some tall mountain he do find
More heights before him than he left behind,—
With halting pace so while I would me raise
To the unbounded limits of Thy praise,
Some part of way I thought to have o'errun;
But now I see how scarce I have begun—
With wonders new my spirits range possest,
And, wandering wayless, in a maze them rest.
Oh! that the cause which doth consume our joy
Would the remembrance of it too destroy!