As with a Cherub's trump: and high upborne,
Yea, mingling with the Choir, I seem to view
The vision of the heavenly multitude,
Who hymn'd the song of Peace o'er Bethlehem's fields!
Yet thou more bright than all the Angel blaze,
That harbinger'd thy birth, Thou, Man of Woes!
Despised Gallilæan! For the Great
Invisible (by symbols only seen)
With a peculiar and surpassing light
Shines from the visage of th' oppress'd good Man,
When heedless of himself the scourged Saint
Mourns for th' Oppressor. Fair the vernal Mead,
Fair the high Grove, the Sea, the Sun, the Stars,
True Impress each of their creating Sire!
Yet nor high Grove, nor many colour'd Mead,
Nor the green Ocean with his thousand Isles,
Nor the starr'd Azure, nor the sov'reign Sun,
E'er with such majesty of portraiture
Imag'd the supreme beauty uncreate,
As thou, meek Saviour; at the fearful hour
When thy insulted Anguish wing'd the prayer
Harp'd by Archangels, when they sing of Mercy!
Which when th' Almighty heard, from forth his Throne, Diviner light fill'd Heaven with ecstacy!
Heaven's hymnings paus'd: and Hell her yawning mouth Clos'd a brief moment.
Of Him, whose Life was Love! Holy with power
He on the thought-benighted Sceptic beam'd
Manifest Godhead, melting into day
What floating mists of dark idolatry
Broke and misshap'd the Omnipresent Sire:
And first by fear uncharm'd the droused Soul,*
Till of its nobler Nature it 'gan feel
Dim recollections; and thence soar'd to Hope,
Strong to believe whate'er of mystic good
Th' Eternal dooms for his Immortal Sons.
From Hope and firmer Faith to perfect Love
Attracted and absorb'd: and centred there
God only to behold, and know, and feel,
Till by exclusive Consciousness of God
All self-annihilated it shall make †
God its Identity: God all in all !
We and our Father one!
Who in this fleshly World, the elect of Heaven,
Their strong eye darting thro' the deeds of Men,
Adore with steadfast unpresuming gaze
Him, Nature's Essence, Mind, and Energy!
And gazing, trembling, patiently ascend,
Treading beneath their feet all visible things
As steps, that upward to their Father's Throne
Lead gradual-else nor glorified nor lov'd.
They nor Contempt imbosom nor Revenge:
For they dare know of what may seem deform
The Supreme Fair sole Operant in whose sight
All things are pure, his strong controlling Love
Alike from all educing perfect good.
* Το Νοητον διηρηκασιν εις πολλων
+ See this demonstrated by Hartley, vol. 1. p. 114, and vol. 2, p. 329. See it likewise proved, and freed from the charge of Mysti
cism, by Pistorius in his Notes and Additions to part second of Hartley on Man. Addition the 18th, the 653d page of the third volume of Hartley, octavo edition.
Theirs too celestial courage, inly arm'd—
Dwarfing Earth's giant brood, what time they muse
On their great Father, great beyond compare!
And marching onwards view high o'er their heads
His waving Banners of Omnipotence.
Who the Creator love, created might
Dread not: within their tents no Terrors walk
For they are Holy Things before the Lord
Aye-unprofan'd, tho' Earth should league with Hell!
God's Altar grasping with an eager hand
Fear, the wild-visag'd, pale, eye-starting wretch,
*Sure-refug'd hears his hot pursuing fiends
Yell at vain distance. Soon refresh'd from Heaven
He calm's the throb and tempest of his heart.
His countenance settles: a soft solemn bliss
Swims in his eye: his swimming eye uprais'd
And Faith's whole armour glitters on his limbs !
And thus transfigur'd with a dreadless awe,
A solemn hush of soul, meek he beholds
All things of terrible seeming: yea, unmov'd
Views e'en th' immitigable ministers
That shower down vengeance on these latter days.
For kindling with intenser Deity
From the celestial Mercy-seat they come,
And at the renovating Wells of Love
Have fill'd their Vials with salutary Wrath,
To sickly Nature more medicinal
Than what soft balm the weeping good man pours
Into the lone despoiled trav'ller's wounds!
Thus from th' Elect, regenerate thro' faith,
Pass the dark Passions and what thirsty Cares *
* Our evil passions, under the influence of religion, become inno
Drink up the spirit and the dim regards
Self-centre. Lo they vanish! or acquire
New names, new features-by supernal grace
Enrob'd with Light, and naturaliz'd in Heaven.
As when a Shepherd on a vernal morn
Thro' some thick fog creeps tim'rous with slow foot,
Darkling he fixes on th' immediate road
His downward eye: all else of fairest kind
Hid or deform'd. But lo! the bursting Sun!
Touch'd by th' enchantment of that sudden beam,
Strait the black vapor melteth, and in globes
Of dewy glitter gems each plant and tree;
On every leaf, on every blade it hangs !
Dance glad the new-born intermingling rays,
And wide around the landscape streams with glory!
There is one Mind, one omnipresent Mind,
Omnific. His most holy name is Love.
Truth of subliming import! with the which
Who feeds and saturates his constant soul,
He from his small particular orbit flies
With bless'd outstarting! From Himself he flies,
Stands in the Sun, and with no partial gaze
Views all creation; and he loves it all,
And blesses it, and calls it very good!
This is indeed to dwell with the most High!
Cherubs and rapture-trembling Seraphim
Can press no nearer to th' Almighty's Throne.
But that we roam unconscious, or with hearts
cent, and may be made to animate our virtae-in the same manner as the thick mist melted by the Sun, increases the light which it had before excluded. In the preceding paragraph, agreeably to this truth, we had allegorically narrated the transfiguration of fear into holy awe.
Unfeeling of our universal Sire,
And that in his vast family no Cain
Injures uninjur'd (in her best-aim'd blow
Viotorious Murder a blind Suicide)
Haply for this some younger Angel now
Looks down on Human Nature: and, behold!
A sea of blood bestrew'd with wrecks, where mad
Embattling Interests on each other rush
"Tis the sublime of man,
Our noontide Majesty, to know ourselves
Parts and proportions of one wond'rous whole!
This fraternizes man, this constitutes
Our charities and bearings.
Diffus'd thro' all, that doth make all one whole;
This the worst superstition, him except*
Aught to desire, Supreme Reality!
The plenitude and permanence of bliss!
O Fiends of Superstition! not that oft
The erring Priest hath stain'd with Brother's blood
Your grisly idols, not for this may Wrath
Thunder against you from the Holy One!
But o'er some plain that streameth to the Sun,
Peopled with Death; or where more hideous Trade
Loud-laughing packs his bales of human anguish ;
I will rise up a mourning, O ye Fiends!
* If to make aught but the Supreme Reality, the object of final pursuit, be Superstition; if the attributing of sublime properties to things or persons, which those things, or persons, neither do nor can possess, be Superstition-then Avarice and Ambition are Superstitions; and he, who wishes to estimate the evils of Superstition, should transport himself, not to the temple of the Mexican Deities, but to the plains of Flanders, or the coast of Africa.-Such is the sentiment conveyed in this and the subsequent lines.
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