CXII.
Now all in Heaven is tranquil; peeps one cleft
Of silver splendour; mark! an angel stands there,
And breathes his bubble, as fresh childhood deft;
Blushing into life, the concave pays his care,
And purple melts to gold; the scarce white cloud
Mantles the mines that make such depth of blue,
And the delicate ripple tingles to that shroud,
Consorting music with its late-found hue,
Such is religion:—immanent in the altars
That the pure heart prostrates at Beauty’s shrine,
In ceremonies, pomps, and forms it falters;
But rapt at Nature, stands confessed divine:
Offspring of Joy and Love, religion wings
The adoration of the heart’s mute strings.
CXIII.
Hail! holy triumph of time-chastened piles;
Your lofty music thrills along the soul;
Welcome! the sunbeams, glistening through your aisles,
Tinging their gold with history’s coloured roll:
Young voices move your melodies, young limbs
White-robèd, pluck the buds of innocence.
Mild silver beckons to the light which swims
Evolved through darkness, fashioning forms for sense.
But I love best, when faith moves dreary self,
Toppling its pride and pedestal to the ground;
Most then in Being lose the world, that elf,
Harbouring their errors in a happier sound:
What matters whether Heaven exist or no?
Their prayers find Heaven, or lose the sense of woe.
CXIV.
I knew a man, whose heart could find no home,
Whose very fulness but provoked his dearth;
He was too proud to show how he could moan,
Most thought him cold, few understood his worth;
But closeted feelings bring forth bitter fruit;
And solitude preys on love, making it mad;
Hearts throb more genial, even to a worthless suit,
Than when experience answers, all is sad:
He hath grasp’d sometimes at the empty air,
Parcelling it out to visions of his mind;
Deifying some idea, he’s call’d it fair;
Alas! he could not long continue blind:
Who’s separate from his fellows may live great;
Yet fate decrees he’ll curse his empty state.