Thus giants of the wood,
Wild elephant or mountain bull,
Beneath some quiet stripling's rule
Stand quailing and subdued.
Who knows but here, in mercy lent,
A gleam preventing heaven we see,
A token of love's victory
In sweet awful sacrament?
Hearts fallen and sin-born,
Oh, why are ye so fondly stirred?
For bounding lamb or lonely bird
Why should ye joy or mourn?
Ah, you have been in Jesus' arms,
The holy fount hath
you imbued
With His all-healing kindly blood,
And somewhat of His pastoral charms,
And care for His lost sheep,
Ye there have learned: in ordered tones
Gently to soothe the lesser ones,
And watch their noon-day sleep.
Lo, far and wide the love o'erflows,
The love that to your souls He gave
In the regenerating wave ;—
Both man and beast His mercy knows;
Nor from His pattern swerve
His children, tending lamb or dove:
But aye the choice of all your love
Ye for His least reserve.
To point the way where they should go,
By word and gesture, o'er and o'er,
Teach them untired all courteous lore,
Hear their first prayers, so meek and low :
These are your arts by these
Ye in the fold your task fulfil,
And the good Shepherd on the hill
From far approving sees.
Keble's Lyra Innocentium.
SATAN'S APOSTROPHE TO THE SUN.
"The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork."-Psal. xix. 1.
"O THOU, that with surpassing glory crowned
Look'st from thy sole dominion like the god
Of this new world; at whose sight all the stars
Hide their diminished heads; to thee I call,
But with no friendly voice, and add thy name,
O Sun! to tell thee how I hate thy beams,
That bring to my remembrance from what state
I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere;
Till pride and worse ambition threw me down,
Warring in heaven against heaven's matchless King:
Ah, wherefore! He deserved no such return
From me, whom He created what I was
In that bright eminence, and with His good
Upbraided none; nor was His service hard.
What could be less than to afford Him praise,
The easiest recompense, and pay Him thanks,
How due! yet all His good proved ill in me,
And wrought but malice; lifted up so high
I 'sdained subjection, and thought one step higher
Would set me highest, and in a moment quit
The debt immense of endless gratitude,
So burdensome, still paying, still to owe:
Forgetful what from Him I still received,
And understood not that a grateful mind
By owing owes not, but still pays, at once
Indebted and discharged; what burden, then?
Oh had His powerful destiny ordained
Me some inferior angel, I had stood
Then happy; no unbounded hope had raised
Ambition! Yet why not? some other power
As great might have aspired, and me, though mean,
Drawn to his part; but other powers as great
Fell not, but stand unshaken, from within
Or from without, to all temptations armed,
Hadst thou the same free will and power to stand?
Thou hadst; whom hast thou then or what to accuse,
But Heaven's free love dealt equally to all?
Be then His love accursed, since love or hate,
To me alike it deals eternal woe.
Nay, cursed be thou; since against His thy will
Chose freely what it now so justly rues.
Me miserable! which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is hell, myself am hell;
And, in the lowest deep a lower deep
Still threatening to devour me opens wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.
Oh, then, at last relent: is there no place
Left for repentance, none for pardon left?
None left but by submission; and that word
Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame
Among the spirits beneath, whom I seduced
With other promises and other vaunts
Than to submit, boasting I could subdue
The Omnipotent. Aye me! they little know
How dearly I abide that boast so vain;
Under what torments inwardly I groan,
While they adore me on the throne of hell.
With diadem and sceptre high advanced,
The lower still I fall, only supreme
In misery: such joy ambition finds.
But say I could repent, and could obtain,
By act of grace, my former state; how soon
Would height recall high thoughts, how soon unsay
What feigned submission swore? Ease would recant
Vows made in pain, as violent and void.
For never can true reconcilement grow
Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep:
Which would but lead me to a worse relapse
And heavier fall; so should I purchase dear
Short intermission bought with double smart.
This knows my punisher; therefore as far
From granting he, as I from begging peace
All hope excluded thus, behold, instead
Of us outcast, exiled, his new delight,
Mankind created, and for him this world.
So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear,
Farewell remorse! all good to me is lost t;
Evil, be thou my good: by thee at least
Divided empire with heaven's King I hold,
By thee, and more than half perhaps will reign,
As man ere long, and this new world shall know."
NOTES.-I'sdained is here put for "I disdained." Rues, repents. Vaunts, boastings. By "punisher" is meant God.
"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?" Job xxxviii. 4.
On his great expedition now appeared,
Girt with omnipotence, with radiance crowned
Of majesty divine, sapience and love
Immense; and all his Father in him shone.
About his chariot numberless were poured
Cherub and seraph, potentates and thrones,
And virtues, winged spirits, and chariots winged
From the armoury of God; where stand of old
Myriads, between two brazen mountains lodged
Against a solemn day, harnessed at hand
Celestial equipage; and now came forth
Spontaneous, for within them spirit lived,
Attendant on their Lord: heaven opened 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 Heavenly ground they stood; and from the shore
They viewed the vast immeasurable abyss
Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild,
Up from the bottom turned by furious winds
And surging waves, as mountains, to assault
Heaven's height, and with the centre mix the pole.
"Silence, ye troubled waves, and thou deep, peace,"
Said then the omnific Word; "your discord end!"
Nor stayed; 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
Followed in bright procession, to behold
Creation, and the wonders of his might.
Then stayed the fervid wheels, and in his hand
He took the golden compasses, prepared
In God's eternal store, to circumscribe
This universe, and all created things.
One foot he centred, and the other turned
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 heaven created, thus the earth,
Matter unformed and void; darkness profound
Covered the abyss; but on the watery calm
His brooding wings the Spirit of God outspread,
And vital virtue infused, and vital warmth,
Throughout the fluid mass; but downward purged
The black tartareous, cold, infernal dregs,
Adverse to life: then founded, then conglobed
Like things to like, the rest to several place
Disparted, and between spun out the air;
And earth, self-balanced, on her centre hung.
"Let there be light," said God; and forthwith light
Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure,
Sprung from the deep; and from her native east
To journey through the aëry gloom began,
Sphered in a radiant cloud, for yet the sun
Was not; she in a cloudy tabernacle.
Sojourned the while. God saw the light was good;
And light from darkness by the hemisphere
Divided light the day, and darkness night,
He named. Thus was the first day even and morn
Nor past uncelebrated, nor unsung
By the celestial quires, when orient light
|