Moral and Sacred Poetry

Begin the anthem ever sweet and new,
While I extol him, holy, just, and good.
Life, beauty, light, intelligence, and love
Eternal, uncreated, infinite!

Unsearchable Jehovah! God of truth,
Maker, upholder, governor of all!
Thyself unmade, ungoverned, unupheld!
Omnipotent, unchangeable, Great God!
Exhaustless fulness! giving unimpaired !
Bounding immensity, unspread, unbound!
Highest and best! beginning, middle, end!
All-seeing Eye! all-seeing, and unseen!

Hearing, unheard! all-knowing, and unknown!
Above all praise! above all height of thought!
Proprietor of immortality!

Glory ineffable! bliss underiv'd!

Of old thou built'st thy throne on righteousness,
Before the morning stars their song began,
Or silence heard the voice of praise. Thou laid'st
Eternity's foundation-stone, and saw'st

Life and existence out of Thee begin,

Mysterious more, the more displayed, where still
Upon thy glorious Throne thou sit'st alone,

Hast sat alone, and shalt for ever sit.

Alone, Invisible, Immortal one!

Behind essential brightness unbeheld,

Incomprehensible! what weight shall weigh,

What measure, measure Thee! What know we more
Of Thee, what need to know, than thou hast taught,

And bid'st us still repeat, at morn and even ?
God! Everlasting Father! Holy One!

Our God, our Father, our Eternal All!

Source whence we came, and whither we return;
Who made our spirits, who our bodies made,

Who made the heaven, who made the flowery land,
Who made all made, who orders, governs all,
Who walks upon the wind, who holds the wave
In hollow of thy hand, whom thunders wait,
Whom tempests serve, whom flaming fires obey,
Who guides the circuit of the endless years,
And sit'st on high, and mak'st creation's top
Thy footstool, and behold'st, below Thee, all-
All nought, all less than nought, and vanity.
Like transient dust that hovers on the scale,
Ten thousand worlds are scatter'd in thy breath.
Thou sit'st on high, and measur❜st destinies,
And days, and months, and wide revolving years;
And dost according to thy holy will;

And none can stay thy hand, and none withhold
Thy glory; for in judgment, Thou, as well

As mercy, art exalted, day and night.
Past, present, future, magnify thy name.

Thy works all praise Thee, all thy angels praise,
Thy saints adore, and on thy altars burn

The fragrant incense of perpetual love.

They praise Thee now, their hearts, their voices praise,

And swell the rapture of the glorious song!

Harp! lift thy voice on high, shout, angels, shout!

And loudest, ye redeemed! glory to God,

And to the Lamb who bought us with his blood,
From every kindred, nation, people, tongue;
And washed, and sanctified, and saved our souls;
And gave us robes of linen pure, and crowns
Of life, and made us kings and priests to God.
Shout back to ancient Time! sing loud, and wave
Your palms of triumph! sing, Where is thy sting,
O Death! where is thy victory, O Grave!
Thanks be to God, eternal thanks, who gave
Us victory through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Harp! lift thy voice on high! shout, angels, shout!
And loudest, ye redeemed! glory to God,
And to the Lamb, all glory and all praise
All glory and all praise at morn and even
That come and go eternally, and find
Us happy still, and Thee for ever blest!
Glory to God and to the Lamb. Amen.
For ever, and for ever more. Amen.

CREATION AND PROVIDENCE.

INVITATION TO PRAISE THE

CREATOR.

MILTON.

LET us with a gladsome mind Praise the Lord, for he is kind, For his mercies shall endure, Ever faithful, ever sure.

Let us blaze his name abroad,
For of gods, he is the God:
Who by his wisdom did create

The painted Heavens so full of state.

Who did the solid Earth ordain
To rise above the wat❜ry plain :
Who by his all-commanding might,
Did fill the new-made world with light.

He caused the golden-tressed sun
All the day long his course to run:
The horned moon to shine by night,
Amongst her spangled sisters bright.

All living creatures he doth feed,
And with full hand supplies their need;
Let us therefore warble forth,
His mighty majesty and worth:-

That his mansion hath so high Above the reach of mortal eye; For his mercies shall endure, Ever faithful, ever sure.

CREATION.

MILTON.

THE SON

On his great expedition now appear'd, Girt with Omnipotence, with radiance crown'd

Of majesty divine; sapience and love Immense, and all his Father in him shone. About his chariot numberless were pour'd Cherub and Seraph Potentates and Thrones, And Virtues, winged Spirits, and chariots wing'd

From th' armoury of God, where stand of

old

Myriads between two brazen mountains , lodg'd

Against a solemn day, harness'd at hand,
Celestial equipage; and now came forth
Spontaneous; for within them spirit liv'd,
Attendant on their Lord: Heav'n open'd
wide

Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound
On golden hinges moving, to let forth
The King of Glory in his powerful Word
And Spirit, coming to create new worlds.
On heav'nly ground they stood, and from the
shore

They view'd the vast immeasurable abyss,
Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild,
Up from the bottom turn'd by furious winds
And surging waves, as mountains, to assault
Heav'n's height, and with the centre mix

the pole.

Silence, ye troubled Waves, and thou

Deep, peace,

Said then th' omnific Word; your discord end!

Nor stay'd, but on the wings of Cherubim
Uplifted, in paternal glory rode

Far into Chaos, and the world unborn;
For Chaos heard his voice: him all his train
Follow'd in bright procession to behold
Creation, and the wonders of his might.
Then stay'd the fervid wheels, and in his
hand

He took the golden compasses prepar❜d
In God's eternal store, to circumscribe
This universe, and all created things;
One foot he centred, and the other turn'd
Round through the vast profundity obscure,
And said, Thus far extend, thus far thy
bounds,

This be thy just circumference, O World.
Thus God the Heav'n created, thus the Earth.
Let there be Light, said God, and forth-
with Light

Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure, Sprung from the deep, and from her native East

To journey through the aery gloom began, Spher'd in a radiant cloud; for yet the sun Was not; she in a cloudy tabernacle Sojourn'd the while; God saw the light

was good;

And light from darkness by the hemisphere Divided: light the Day, and darkness Night He nam'd. Thus was the first day ev'n and

morn:

Nor past uncelebrated, nor unsung

By the celestial quires, when Orient light Exhaling first from darkness, they beheld; Birth-day of Heav'n and Earth; with joy and shout

The hollow universal orb that fill'd, And touch'd their golden harps, and hymning prais'd

God and his works: Creator, him they sung, Both when first evening was, and when

first morn.

Again, God said, Let there be firmament Amid the waters, and let it divide The waters from the waters: and God made The firmament, expanse of liquid, pure, Transparent, elemental air, diffus'd

In circuit to the uttermost convex
Of this great round: partition firm and sure,
The waters underneath from those above
Dividing for as Earth, so he the world
Built on circumfluous waters calm, in wide
Crystalline ocean, and the loud misrule
Of Chaos far remov'd, lest fierce extremes
Contiguous might distemper the whole

frame:

And Heav'n he named the Firmament; so

even

And morning chorus sung the second day.

The earth was form'd; but in the womb

as yet

Of waters, embryon immature involv'd, Appear'd not: over all the face of Earth Main ocean flow'd, not idle, but with warm Prolific humour soft'ning all her globe, Fermented the great mother to conceive, Satiate with genial moisture, when God said, Be gather'd now, ye waters under Heav'n, Into one place, and let dry land appear. Immediately the mountains huge appear Emergent, and their broad bare backs up. heave

Into the clouds, their tops ascend the sky: So high as heav'd the tumid hills, so low Down sunk a hollow bottom, broad and

deep,

Capacious bed of waters: thither they
Hasted with glad precipitance, uproll'd
As drops on dust conglobing from the dry;
Part rise in crystal wall, or ridge direct,
For haste; such flight the great command
impress'd

On the swift floods: as armies at the call
Of trumpets (for of armies thou hast heard)
Troop to their standard, so the watery throng,
Wave rolling after wave, where way they
found,

If steep with torrent rapture, if through plain Soft-ebbing; nor withstood them rock or hill, But they, or underground, or circuit wide With serpent error wand'ring, found their

way,

And on the washy ooze deep channels wore ; Easy, ere God had bid the ground be dry, All but within those banks, where rivers now Stream, and perpetual draw their humid

train.

The dry land Earth, and the great receptacle

Of congregated waters, he call'd Seas;

And saw that it was good, and said, Let th'
Earth

For seasons, and for days, and circling years,

And let them be for lights, as I ordain
Their office in the firmament of Heav'n

Put forth the verdant grass, herb yielding To give light on the Earth; and it was so.

seed,

And fruit-tree yielding fruit after her kind,
Whose seed is in herself upon the Earth.
He scarce had said, when the bare earth, till
then

Desert and bare, unsightly, unadorn'd,
Brought forth the tender grass, whose ver-
dure clad

Her universal face with pleasant green,
Then herbs of every leaf, that sudden flower'd
Opening their various colours, and made gay
Her bosom smelling sweet: and these scarce
blown,

Forth flourish'd thick the clust❜ring vine,
forth crept

The smelling gourd, up stood the corny reed Embattled in her field, and the humble shrub,

And bush with frizzled hair implicit : last Rose, as in dance, the stately trees, and spread

Their branches hung with copious fruit, or gemm'd

And God made two great lights, great for

their use

To man, the greater to have rule by day,
The less by night altern; and made the stars,
And set them in the firmament of Heav'n,
To illuminate the Earth, and rule the day
In their vicissitude, and rule the night,
And light from darkness to divide. God saw,
Surveying his great work, that it was good:
For of celestial bodies first the sun

A mighty sphere he fram'd, unlightsome first,
Tho' of ethereal mould: then form'd the
moon

Globose, and every magnitude of stars, And sow'd with stars the Heav'n thick as a field :

Of light by far the greater part he took,
Transplanted from her cloudy shrine, and
plac'd

In the sun's orb, made porous to receive
And drink the liquid light, firm to retain
Her gather'd beams, great palace now of
light.

Their blossoms; with high woods the hills Hither, as to their fountain, other stars

were crown'd

With tufts the vallies, and each fountain side;
With borders long the rivers: that Earth

now

Repairing, in their golden urns draw light,
And hence the morning planet gilds her

horns;

By tincture or reflection they augment Seem'd like to Heav'n, a seat where god's Their small peculiar, though from human

might dwell,

Or wander with delight, and love to haunt
Her sacred shades: tho' God had yet not
rain'd

Upon the Earth, and man to till the ground
None was, but from the Earth a dewy mist
Went up and water'd all the ground, and

each

sight

So far remote, with diminution seen.

First in his east the glorious lamp was seen,
Regent of day, and all the horizon round
Invested with bright rays, jocund to run
His longitude thro' Heav'n's high road; the
gray

Dawn, and the Pleiades before him danc'd, Plant of the field, which, ere it was in th' Shedding sweet influence: less bright the Earth

God made, and every herb, before it grew
On the green stem; God saw that it was

good:

So ev'n and morn recorded the third day.
Again th' Almighty spake, Let there be
lights

High in th' expanse of Heaven to divide
The day from night; and let them be for

signs,

moon

But opposite in levell'd West was set
His mirror, with full face borrowing her
light

From him, for other light she needed none
In that aspect, and still that distance keeps
Till night; then in the east her turn she
shines,

Revolv'd on Heav'n's great axle, and her
reign

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