As dawn encroaching on a summer night;
His purpose sure, for consummated beauty
To him is love, religion, law and duty.
Long ere our God vouchsafed himself to be
A baby God, a human Deity,
The vast prophetic impulse of the earth
Foretold, and shadow'd forth the mystic birth;
Nor all the art of sacerdotal lies,
Nor the world's state, could so incarnalise
The strong idea, but that men, set free
By pure imagination's liberty,
Conceived the fancy of a boy divine.
Some fables fashion'd a fierce God of wine,
Abortive issue of intense desire,
Begot by Thunder and brought forth by Fire.
Some milder spirits cull'd two twinkling lights
From the throng'd brilliance of their Grecian nights,
And gave them names, and deem'd them great to save
The wandering mariner on the weltering wave.
Some, wiser still, believed the sun on high
A deathless offspring of the empyreal sky,
A personal power that could all truths reveal,
Mighty to slay, and merciful to heal.
Some feign'd—and they came nearest to the truthA destined husband of eternal youth,
Born of a mortal mother, and, ere born,
Doom'd to the pilgrim's houseless lot forlorn,
To fight and conquer, a victorious slave,
Strong in subjection, by obedience brave.
Such thought possess'd the nameless artist's mind
When he the God, the baby God, design'd,
That perfect symbol of awaken'd will,
Matching its might against predestinate ill.
The serpent writhing round his lower part,
His infant arm defies to reach his heart.
One mighty act is all the wondrous boy,
Line, limb, and feature, all are strength and joy.
Yet half an hour ago that infant slept,
Smiled at his mother's breast, and haply wept :
And when his task is done, the serpent slain,
Soft in his cradle-shield may sleep again.
THICK lay the dust, uncomfortably white,
In glaring mimicry of Arab sands.
The woods and mountains slept in hazy light;
The meadows look'd athirst and tawny tann'd;
The little rills had left their channels bare,
With scarce a pool to witness what they were;
And the shrunk river gleam'd 'mid oozy stones,
That stared like any famish'd giant's bones.
Sudden the hills grew black, and hot as stove
The air beneath; it was a toil to be.
There was a growling as of angry Jove,
Provoked by Juno's prying jealousy—
A flash-a crash-the firmament was split,
And down it came in drops-the smallest fit
To drown a bee in fox-glove bell conceal'd ;
Joy fill'd the brook, and comfort cheer'd the field.
ON HIS SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY.
HAPPY the year, the month, that finds alive
A worthy man in health at seventy-five.
Were he a man no further known than loved,
And but for unremember'd deeds approved,
A gracious boon it were from God to earth
To leave that good man by his humble hearth.
But if the man be one whose virtuous youth,
Loving all Nature, was in love with truth;
And with the fervour of religious duty
Sought in all shapes the very form of beauty;-
Feeling the current of the tuneful strain,
Joy in his heart, and light upon his brain,
Knew that the gift was given, and not in vain ;
Whose careful manhood never spared to prune
What the rash growth of youth put forth too soon;
Too wise to be ashamed to grow more wise;
Culling the truth from specious fallacies :—
Then may the world rejoice to find alive
So good, so great a man, at seventy-five.
WRITTEN AT BELLE-VUE, AMBLESIDE.
STILL is it there, the same soft quiet scene,
Which, whether sodden with importunate rain,
Or sprinkled with the yellow sun, that pours
Columnal brightness through the fissured clouds
Of autumn eve, or, e'en as now display'd,
In the full brightness of the argent moon,
Is yet the same, the same beloved scene,
Which neither time nor change shall wipe away
From the capacious memory of the soul.
Oh blessed faculty of inward sight,
Safe from disease and mortal accident
As love itself, secure from dull caprice
Of prohibition! Blind Mæonides,
That, wandering by the myriad-sounding sea,
Saw not his footsteps on the passive beach,
Nor saw, alas! the many beauteous eyes
That gleam'd with gladness at his potent song,
Had yet a world of beauty-verdant hills,
Bright with the infinite motion of their leaves;
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