On a Sunbeam falling through the
Painted Window.
"Sunbeam of summer! 'oh, what is like thee?
Hope of the wilderness, joy of the sea!
One thing is like thee, to mortals given—
The faith touching all things with hues of Heaven."
SCOFFER or Sceptic, thou who canst not see
With the clear eye of Faith beyond the land
Where finite Reason takes her farthest stand,
And doubtest of the blessed Trinity,
Doubtest, because it is a mystery;
Come, fool, untwist yon sunbeam's triple strand;
Scan well the invisible and triune band,
And read its emblem Truth spread out for thee.
There dwells the red ray of productive heat;
The blue ray working change in things begun;
And there, between them, gleams the yellow light
Which saves the Universe from hopeless night-
So Father, Son, and Holy Spirit meet,
Creating, changing, saving, Three in One.
"All the world's bravery that delights our eyes
Is but thy several liveries;
Thou the rich dye on them bestow'st,
Thy nimble pencil paints the landscape as Thou goest.
"A crimson garment is the robe thou wear'st;
A crown of studded gold thou bear'st;
The waving lilies in their white,
Are clad but with the laws of almost naked light."-COWLEY.
LIGHT! Thou dost arch the vaulted Heav'n with
Deck forth the meadow in its summer show,
And glitter in the sparkling Ocean flow:
Thine is the gleam of diamond and dew,
The sea-shell's roseate lip and pearly hue:
Thou fall'st on the swan's neck like virgin snow,
On the flamingo's wing with crimson glow,
And the snake's speckled skin thou dost renew.
Thine is the blush of Morn, the golden hour
Of Sunset; the star's twinkle, and the play
Of Arctic skies' Aurora; thou dost shine
In the Moon's silver: thine is the array
Of the dark cedar and the gorgeous flower;
This universal garb of beauty thine.
Stars from the Chapel Tower.
Εἰς τὸν ὅλον οὔρανον ἀπόβλεψας τὸ ἕν εἶναι φήσι τὸν Θέον.
MYRIADS of stars are glimmering overhead
In heaven's dark vast; and to mine upturn'd gaze
Fresh myriads twinkle in the eternal maze.
Were ye all formed for Man alone; and fed
With fire but on his Earth your light to shed?
Or have ye other ends? May ye not blaze
In Heaven's high front the demon host to daze,
Threat'ning attack? Or of the blessed dead
Are ye the happy homes? Or is your throng
Of beings than the Angels little lower?
Teem ye with men like us, who worship gold:
Who love and hate; thirst for, and cringe to power?
But hush! methinks I hear your spheral song-
"Cease the vain guess! In us God's face behold."
Stranger than fiction!"-SHAKSPEARE.
FAIR was the myth that made the Milky Way
A drop which fell from sleeping Juno's breast,
When lilies chang'd for white their purple vest;
And grand the thought that there were wont to
The old Sun's chariot-wheels, ere Birth of Day:
But, Galaxy, these latter days have drest
In grander beauty thy majestic rest;
The truth more strange than fiction's wildest lay.
For Man hath pierc'd thy mystery, to find
Myriads of stars along thy course thick-strown
As forest leaves scatter'd by Autumn wind,
Or the wreath'd sands that gleam on Ocean coasts:
A radiant pavement fit for Angel hosts
To march on, singing praises, to His Throne.
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves."-SHAKSPEARE,
Sidera diversos hominum variantia casus."-MANILIUS.
THE Planets rule not over mortal birth:
Astrologers in vain draw from the sky
The horoscope of Man's nativity;
False is their art, their Science nothing worth:
The stars' conjunctions touch not things of Earth:
And vainly does the Gipsy Sorc'ress try,
By chiromantic skill and gaze, to spy
Prognostics of much joy or sorrow's dearth,
Trac'd in the wrinkled network of the palm,
Where the lines, silver-crossed, map out the plan
Of future life.-Yet God hath given to Man,
In his own hands, for good or ill, his fate;
And stars, unconscious of his birth, may calm
His dying, with sweet hopes of happier state.
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