Thou, my GOD, and yet my brother man,
My worshipp'd Lord, and sympathising friend,
Who so hath loved us all, ere time began,
Who so wilt love us still, when time shall end,
Pardon and bless, if on my bended knee
As best of Men I raise the song to Thee!
For we can claim Thee ours, as of earth;
To us, to us, the wondrous child is given,
And that illimitable praise of heaven
Prisons his fulness in a mortal birth:
Hope of the world, what were all life, all health,
All honours, riches, pow'rs, and pleasures worth, If from Thy gracious face, Good Master, driven, Whose smiles are joy, and might, and rank, and wealth?
Not love alone, thou whom the SAVIOUR loved,
Not faith alone, O favour'd more than men,
Not five-score years of holiness approved,
Nor the dear beauties of thy joyful pen,
Mark thee alone GOD's friend; ennobled more
By the large gift of deep prophetic ken,
How full of ecstasy couldst thou adore
With thousand thousand shining ones before
That throne of glory, pouring out the hymn
While echoed far the rapturous amen
From brilliant flocks of thronging cherubim,
And those four restless Zoa, full of eyes:
O seals, O trumpets, wonders dread and dim!
Exile, thy praise be holiest mysteries.
That thanks to pay thee?-by what stretch of thought, What happy flight of reverential praise,
What tuneful hymn with holiest ardour fraught,
A welcome, worthy of the heart, to raise Even to thee,-whose Apostolic zeal Hath blest, corrected, comforted, and taught All generations for eternal weal?
GOD send the grace, with contrite breast to feel
The preciousness of each high argument
In those dear letters writ from heaven to earth; ;O thus to gather manna, kindly sent
To feast our souls in more than Egypt's dearth,— Thus, like to thee, through might in mercy lent, Dying indeed to sin, by second birth.
Palmyra, widow'd city of the dead,
How mournfully thy marshall'd columns stand
Grey sentinels above that desert sand,
Where once thy patriot multitudes were spread
In serried ranks around Zenobia's car,
Hurling defiance at despotic Rome,
When country's love inspired the righteous war
For temples, Lares, liberties, and home,
Yea, to the death: Palmyra, thy last boast Was this undaunted queen, the chaste, the fair, Wise to decide, and resolute to dare,
Sage among sages, heroine in the host: Hide not the fetters, as thou walkest there, Liberty's martyr, those become thee most.
Mournfully breaks the north wave on thy shore, Silent Iona, and the mocking blast
Sweeps sternly o'er thy relics of the past, The stricken cross, the desecrated tomb Of abbots, and barbarian kings of yore: Thee from the blight of death's encircling gloom Colomba saved, and to thy cloisters grey In pious zeal for GOD, and love for man, Of mighty truth led on the conquering van, And largely pour'd fair learning's hallow'd ray On night's dark deep,-an isolated star, The Pharos of those arctic Cyclades,
That lighted to her rocky nest from far Mercy's white dove, faint flutterer o'er the seas.
Around thy memory there lingereth still
A rare and gracious savour, reverend man,
Whose patient toil so long ago began
To sink the sacred wells on Zion-hill,
Whence issued ankle-deep truth's earliest rill,
That, deepening soon, in copious torrents ran
From thee their sometime patriarch, until
They reach us fathomless, a mighty sea:
O simple priest, pious, and just, and true,
Religious, learned,—thousand thanks are due
From England, and her children unto thee :
Thou, like thy Master, bowing His meek head,
Didst view thy perfect work of piety,
And die rejoicing it was finished.
Thence comest thou?-What kingdom of the stars
Is thine, imperial ghost?-with homage meet,
Cæsar, Augustus, thee my song shall greet,
And hail a Charlemagne the second Mars!
Yet other notes must fill the praiseful song
Than those hoarse clamours of continual wars,
Or never had I met thee blest among
Children of light: thee, rectitude of soul,
Majestic firmness, patriot excellence,
Simplicity and truth and sterling sense
On the bright record of the Great enroll:
Rejoice, fair France, in those dear memorie:
Of him, thy somewhile glory and defence.
Such monarchs earn the fame that never dies.
Visions of Oriental pomp around
Teem on my sight; a grand ideal scene,
Where upon Tigris Bagdat sits as queen;
Rises in dreamy splendour from the ground;
I hear the clashing cymbals, and the sound
Of brazen horns, and loud monotonous drums
From turban'd thousands in their war array
About Alraschid, as the conqueror comes
From perjured Greece, triumphant in the fray:
Best lord, and wisest judge, that ever sate
In the black mantle of the Caliphate,
When we recall thy race and thee, Haroon,
We note thee still the first, most good, most great,
Among those lesser stars the crescent moon.
All hail, our own, our ancient peerless boast!
From thee thy Britain loves her all to date,
Proud of a king, so wise, so good, so great,
Who pour'd the liberties we value most,
The sacred rights we chiefly venerate,
In rich abundance round our sea-girt coast:
Where is thy tomb among us? where the spot
Ennobled by some record of thy worth,
True Father of thy country ?-have we lost
All love of thee? hath England then forgot
Her patriot-prince, her lawgiver, her sage,
Who taught her, nourish'd her, and sent her forth Rejoicing on her way, from age to age
Queen of the seas, and Empress of the earth?
Thou hast borne many great and noble sons,
Florence the fair! that beauteous as a dream
Sittest enthroned on Arno's silver stream,
Where coyly through the laughing vale it runs,
And, oh not last, among those gifted ones,
Memory thine own undying Dante views:
Him, yet a child, strong love, that earliest winds
Fetters of rose around the purest minds,
Claim'd for his own, and like a monarch gave
To staid Melpomene, his laurell'd muse,
The happy captive for a favourite slave:
A slave? A mighty master,-from whose lyre
The pangs of hell, the terrors of the grave,
The joys of paradise, rush forth in fire!
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