POPE'S " MESSIAH." Ye Nymphs of Solyma! begin the song; Rapt into future times, the Bard begun Whose sacred Flower with fragrance fills the skies: Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend, And white-robed Innocence from Heaven descend. 367 'Tis He the obstructed paths of sound shall clear, Sees lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise ; To leafless shrubs the flowering palm succeed, And odourous myrtle to the noisome weed. The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead, And boys in flowery bands the tiger lead; The steer and lion at one crib shall meet, And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet. HONOURS OF THE DAY. 369 And with their forky tongue and pointless sting shall play. Rise, crowned with light, imperial Salem, rise! Exalt thy towery head, and lift thy eyes! And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow. O'erflow thy courts: the LIGHT HIMSELF shall shine The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay, But fixed His word, His saving power remains; It would be difficult indeed to exhaust the admiring and affectionate epithets and sentiments which poets and others have lavished on the Feast of the Annunciation. The Day is the commemoration of the grandest embassy of the Universe; an embassy sent by the King of kings, not to kings or potentates, but to a poor and simple Virgin. The Ambassador is not an envoy sent at random; but one of the chief princes of the court of Heaven. To-day the Spirit which brooded over chaos, broods over the Virgin; to-day a star prepares to bring forth the Sun. To-day Heaven greets the earth, an Angel salutes a Maid; and to-day Infinity shelters in her womb. To-day the divine praises are celebrated by the angelic choirs; and to-day the whole world rejoices by reason of the exceeding joy at the coming of Christ through the overshadowing of the Spirit. When we see of what unprecedented and unexampled incentives to pride the blessed Virgin was the objectwhen we turn our eyes to the giddy pinnacle of her elevation above all other mortals, the half-celestial level on which she comported herself with such quiet grace and dignified propriety when we regard these things, we at once comprehend how it should be that the humility of the MaidMother has always been reckoned, if not her most illustrious, at least as her most exemplary, because her most difficult, virtue. Humility, indeed, was the typical virtue which we saw suggested by her conduct at the Purification, when it was displayed in association with such a reverence for Law as shrank from availing itself of a just and reasonable exemption. To-day, on the Feast of the Annunciation, we see the same humility in alliance with an entire deference and submission to the will of Heaven. Already she is a partaker of the mind of Jesus. The spirit of Christ in the depths of His singular agony is the spirit of Mary at the summit of her singular blessedness. "Not my will, but Thine, be done!" is the analogue of "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to Thy word!" The poetry of submission, that is, of a baptized stoicism, which takes for its motto, "Thy will be done!" is, as is natural in a world of crosses and sufferings, of very plentiful occurrence, and of very popular appreciation. There is no one to whose heart and experience such poetry does not appeal; and the sentiments it fosters and enunciates are equally due to God, and expedient in man. Towards the Infinite and infinitely Powerful, the discerning feeble and finite can hold but one attitude. In transcribing a single representative of this kind of poetry it is our wish to present excellence as thorough as possible, without risking the offence of offering verses whose over-popularity, SUBMISSION OF THE WILL. 371 as it may have rendered them trite, would render their insertion an impertinence. Upon verses of the desired character we seem to have fallen in the following poem from Miss Winkworth's "Lyra Germanica," in which it has for its title, "The Annunciation; " for its motto, the final speech of St. Mary to the just-departing Gabriel; and for its object to exhibit the "happiness of the soul that has no will but God's." It must be conceded that its picture of resignation and acquiescence is so complete as to be worthy of that symbol with which it concludes, of an ocean of glass spreading out broadly, and without a ripple, under the azure peace of a faithfully reflected heaven. Its author was John Joseph Winkler, a native of Luckau, in Saxony, where he was born, December 23rd, 1670. "Winkler was first pastor in Magdeburg, afterwards chaplain in the army, and accompanied the troops to Holland and Italy. Subsequently he returned to Magdeburg, where he became chief minister at the Cathedral, and member of the Consistory. He died there August 11th, 1722. He was an excellent man, of a deeply cultivated mind, and left ten very good hymns, contained in Freylinghausen's hymnbook."* Yea, my spirit fain would sink In Thy heart and hands, my God, Of the ways that Thou hast trod; And my soul repineth not, Well content whate'er befall; They are slain and vanquished all; Slumber in her Saviour's grave. * Rev. Theodore Kübler's Historical Notes to the Lyra Germanica. |