This darkness is the shadow of Thy wing:
Beneath it I am almost sacred,—here
Can come no evil thing, &c.—Elizabeth Lloyd.
The resemblance of these lines to the following passage from Milton’s Second Defence of the People of England is so striking that we are inclined to regard them as a paraphrase:—
Let me then be the most feeble creature alive, so long as that feebleness serves to invigorate the energies of my rational and immortal spirit, so long as in that obscurity in which I am enveloped the light of Divine Presence more clearly shines. Then in proportion as I am weak, I shall be invincibly strong; and in proportion as I am blind, I shall more clearly see. Oh that I may thus be perfected by feebleness, and irradiated by obscurity! And indeed in my blindness I enjoy in no inconsiderable degree the favor of the Deity, who regards me with more tenderness and compassion in proportion as I am able to behold nothing but himself. Alas for him who insults me, who maligns and merits public execration! For the divine law not only shields me from injury, but almost renders me too sacred to attack,—not indeed so much from the privation of my sight, as from the overshadowing of those heavenly wings which seem to have occasioned this obscurity, and which, when occasioned, he is wont to illuminate with an interior light more precious and more pure.
In Keble’s lines for “St. John’s Day” occurs this stanza:—
Sick or healthful, slave or free,
Wealthy or despised and poor,
What is that to him or thee,