THUS all things lead to Charity secured By THEM who blessed the soft and happy gale That landward urged the great Deliverer's sail, Till in the sunny bay his fleet was moored! Propitious hour! - had we, like them, endured Sore stress of apprehension,70 with a mind Sickened by injuries, dreading worse designed, From month to month trembling and unassured, How had we then rejoiced! But we have felt, As a loved substance, their futurity:
Good, which they dared not hope for, we have seen; A State whose generous will through earth is dealt; A State which, balancing herself between
Licence and slavish order, dares be free.
BUT liberty, and triumphs on the Main, And laurelled armies, not to be withstood - What serve they? if, on transitory good Intent, and sedulous of abject gain,
The State (ah, surely not preserved in vain!) Forbear to shape due channels which the Flood Of sacred truth may enter - till it brood O'er the wide realm, as o'er the Egyptian plain The all-sustaining Nile. No more - the time Is conscious of her want; through England's bounds, In rival haste, the wished-for Temples rise!
I hear their sabbath bells' harmonious chime
Float on the breeze the heavenliest of all sounds That vale or hill prolongs or multiplies!
BE this the chosen site; the virgin sod, Moistened from age to age by dewy eve,
Shall disappear, and grateful earth receive The corner-stone from hands that build to God. Yon reverend hawthorns, hardened to the rod Of winter storms, yet budding cheerfully; Those forest oaks of Druid memory, Shall long survive, to shelter the Abode
Of genuine Faith. Where, haply, 'mid this band Of daisies, shepherds sate of yore and wove May-garlands, there let the holy altar stand For kneeling adoration; -while- above, Broods, visibly portrayed, the mystic Dove, That shall protect from blasphemy the Land.
MINE ear has rung, my spirit sunk subdued, Sharing the strong emotion of the crowd,
When each pale brow to dread hosannas bowed While clouds of incense mounting veiled the rood, That glimmered like a pine-tree dimly viewed Through Alpine vapours. Such appalling rite Our Church prepares not, trusting to the might Of simple truth with grace divine imbued; Yet will we not conceal the precious Cross,71 Like men ashamed: the Sun with his first smile Shall greet that symbol crowning the low Pile: And the fresh air of incense-breathing morn Shall wooingly embrace it; and green moss Creep round its arms through centuries unborn.
THE encircling ground, in native turf arrayed, Is now by solemn consecration given
To social interests, and to favouring Heaven; And where the rugged colts their gambols played, And wild deer bounded through the forest glade, Unchecked as when by merry Outlaw driven, Shall hymns of praise resound at morn and even; And soon, full soon, the lonely Sexton's spade Shall wound the tender sod. Encincture small, But infinite its grasp of weal and woe! Hopes, fears, in never-ending ebb and flow; The spousal trembling, and the "dust to dust," The prayers, the contrite struggle, and the trust That to the Almighty Father looks through all.
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