That with May dawn their leaves may be o'erflowed,
And dews about their feet may never fail?"
* This will remind the reader of a fine passage in Edwin
the Fair, on the specific differences in the sounds made by
the ash, the elm, the fir, etc., when moved by the wind; and
of some lines by Landor on flowers speaking to each other;
and of something more exquisite than either, in Consuelo—
the description of the flowers in the old monastic garden,
at the "sweet hour of prime."
In the Essay, entitled Theodiccea Novissima, from which the following passages are taken, to the great injury in its general effect, he sets himself to the task of doing his utmost to clear up the mystery of the existence of such things as sin and suffering in the universe of a being like God. He does it fearlessly, but like a child. It is in the spirit of his friend's words,—
"An infant crying in the night,
An infant crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry."
"Then was I as a child that cries,
But, crying, knows his father near."
It is not a mere exercitation of the intellect, it is an endeavour to get nearer God—to assert his eternal Providence, and vindicate his ways to men. We know no performance more wonderful for such a boy. Pascal might have written it. As was to be expected, the tremendous subject remains where he found it—his glowing love and genius cast a gleam here and there across its gloom; but it is brief as the lightning in the collied night—the jaws of darkness do devour it up—this secret belongs to God. Across its deep and dazzling darkness, and from out its abyss of thick cloud, "all dark, dark, irrecoverably dark," no steady ray has ever, or will ever, come—over its face its own darkness must brood, till He to whom alone the darkness and the light are both alike, to whom the night shineth as the day, says, "Let there be light!" There is, we all know, a certain awful attraction, a nameless charm for all thoughtful spirits, in this mystery, "the greatest in the universe," as Mr. Hallam truly says; and it is well for us at times, so that we have pure eyes and a clean heart, to turn aside and look into its gloom; but it is not good to busy ourselves in clever speculations about it, or briskly to criticise the speculations of others—it is a wise and pious saying of Augustine, Verius cogitatur Dens, quam dicitur; et verius est quam cogitatur.