And with regard to the more special peculiarities of the High Church school, it is remarkable how at every turn he broke away from them in his poetry. It is enough to refer to the justification of marriage as against celibacy in the Ode on the Wednesday in Passion Week; the glorification of the religion of common against conventual life in his Morning Hymn, and in his Ode on St. Matthew's Day. The contending polemic schools have themselves called attention to the well-known lines on the Eucharist in the poem on Gunpowder Treason. It is clear that, whatever may have been the subtle theological dogma which he may have held on the subject, the whole drift of that passage, which no verbal alteration can obliterate, is to exalt the moral and spiritual elements of that ordinance above those physical and local attributes on which later developments of his school have so exclusively dwelt. These instances might be multiplied to any extent. It would, of course, be preposterous to press each line of poetry into an argument. But the whole result is to show how far nobler, purer, and loftier was what may be called the natural element of the poet's mind, than the artificial distinctions in which he became involved as a partisan and as a controversialist. This is no rare phenomenon. Who has not felt it hard to recognise the author of the Paradise Lost and of the Penseroso in the polemical treatises on Divorce and on the Execution of Charles I? Who does not know the immeasurable contrast between Wordsworth the poet of nature and of the human heart, and Wordsworth the narrow Tory and High Churchman of his later years? In all these cases it is the poet who is the real man-the theologian and politician only the tem porary mask and phase. A. P. STANLEY. [From The Christian Year.] THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT. (The Christian Inheritance.) See Lucifer like lightning fall, Dashed from his throne of pride; The Saints his spoils divide; This world of Thine, by him usurped too long, Now opening all her stores to heal Thy servants' wrong. So when the first-born of Thy foes Dead in the darkness lay, When Thy redeemed at midnight rose And cast their bonds away, The orphaned realm threw wide her gates, and told Into freed Israel's lap her jewels and her gold. And when their wondrous march was o'er, Among their fathers' tombs ; A land that drinks the rain of Heaven at will, Whose waters kiss the feet of many a vine-clad till ;- Oft as they watched, at thoughtful eve, A gale from bowers of balm Sweep o'er the billowy corn, and heave The tresses of the palm, Just as the lingering Sun had touched with gold, Far o'er the cedar shade, some tower of giants old; It was a fearful joy, I ween, To trace the Heathen's toil, The limpid wells, the orchards green, Left ready for the spoil, The household stores untouched, the roses bright Wreathed o'er the cottage walls in garlands of delight And now another Canaan yields Ye Paynim shadows dark! Immortal Greece, dear land of glorious lays, Lo! here the unknown God' of thy unconscious praise As little children lisp, and tell of Heaven, So thoughts beyond their thought to those high Bards were given. And these are ours: Thy partial grace The tempting treasure lends: These relics of a guilty race Are forfeit to Thy friends; What seemed an idol hymn, now breathes of Thee, There's not a strain to Memory dear, There's not a sweet note warbled here, O Lord, our Lord, and spoiler of our foes, SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. (Balaam's Prophecy.) O for a sculptor's hand, That thou might'st take thy stand, Thy wild hair floating on the eastern breeze, Thy tranced yet open gaze Fixed on the desert haze, As one who deep in heaven some airy pageant sees Where each old poetic mountain Inspiration breathed around. Gray. See Burns's Works, i. 293. Dr. Currie's edition. In outline dim and vast Their fearful shadows cast The giant forms of empires on their way They tower and they are gone, Yet in the Prophet's soul the dreams of avarice stay. No sun or star so bright In all the world of light That they should draw to Heaven his downward eye: He sees the angel's sword, Yet low upon the earth his heart and treasure lie. Lo! from yon argent field, One gentle Star glides down, on earth to dwell. Our eyes may see it glow, And as it mounts again, may track its brightness well To him it glared afar, A token of wild war, The banner of his Lord's victorious wrath : But close to us it gleams, Its soothing lustre streams Around our home's green walls, and on our church-way path. We in the tents abide Which he at distance eyed Like goodly cedars by the waters spread, While seven red altar-fires Rose up in wavy spires, Where on the mount he watched his sorceries dark and dread He watched till morning's ray On lake and meadow lay, And willow-shaded streams, that silent sweep Around the bannered lines, Where by their several signs The desert-wearied tribes in sight of Canaan sleep He watched till knowledge came Upon his soul like flame, Not of those magic fires at random caught: But true Prophetic light Flashed o'er him, high and bright, Flashed once, and died away, and left his darkened thought And can he choose but fear, Who feels his God so near, That when he fain would curse, his powerless tongue Alas! the world he loves Too close around his heart her tangling veil hath flung Sceptre and Star divine, Who in Thine inmost shrine Hast made us worshippers, O claim Thine own; O teach our love to grow Up to Thy heavenly light, and reap what Thou has sowa FIFTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. (The Lilies of the Field.) Sweet nurslings of the vernal skies, Bathed in soft airs, and fed with dew, What more than magic in you lies, Relics ye are of Eden's bowers, Fall'n all beside-the world of life, How is it stained with fear and strife! |