They gathered close around the old pit's brink,
And thought again but knew not what to think.
The man, to solitude accustomed long,
Perceives in everything that lives a tongue;
Not animals alone, but shrubs and trees
Have speech for him, and understood with ease.
After long drought when rains abundant fall,
He hears the herbs and flowers rejoicing all,
Knows what the freshness of their hue implies,
How glad they catch the largess of the skies:
But, with precision nicer still, the mind
He scans of every locomotive kind;
Birds of all feather, beasts of every name,
That serve mankind or shun them, wild or tame,
The looks and gestures of their griefs and fears
Have all articulation in his ears;
He spells them true, by intuition's light,
And needs no glossary to set him right.
This truth premised was needful as a text,
To win due credence to what follows next.
A while they mused; surveying every face,
Thou hadst supposed them of superior race:
Their periwigs of wool, and fears combined,
Stamped on each countenance such marks of mind,
That sage they seemed, as lawyers o'er a doubt,
Which, puzzling long, at last they puzzle out:
Or academic tutors, teaching youths,
Sure ne'er to want them, mathematic truths;
When thus a mutton, statelier than the rest,
A ram, the ewes and wethers sad, addressed.
"Friends! we have lived too long. I never heard
Sounds such as these, so worthy to be feared.
Could I believe that winds, for ages pent
In earth's dark womb, have found at last a vent,
And, from their prison-house below, arise,
With all these hideous howlings to the skies,
I could be much composed; nor should appear,
For such a cause, to feel the slightest fear.
Yourselves have seen, what time the thunders rolled
All night, me resting quiet in the fold.
Or, heard we that tremendous bray alone,
I could expound the melancholy tone;
Should deem it by our old companion made,
The ass; for he, we know, has lately strayed,
And, being lost perhaps, and wandering wide,
Might be supposed to clamor for a guide.
But ah! those dreadful yells what soul can hear,
That owns a carcass, and not quake for fear!
Demons produce them doubtless, brazen-clawed,
And, fanged with brass, the demons are abroad :—
I hold it, therefore, wisest and most fit,
That, life to save, we leap into the pit."
Him answered then his loving mate and true,
But more discreet than he, a Cambrian ewe.
"How! leap into the pit, our life to save?
To save our life leap all into the grave?
For, can we find it less? - Contemplate first
The depth, how awful! falling there we burst:
Or, should the brambles, interposed, our fall
In part abate, that happiness were small;
For, with a race like theirs, no chance I see
Of peace or ease to creatures clad as we.
Meantime, noise kills not. Be it Dapple's bray,
Or be it not, or be it whose it may,
And rush those other sounds, that seem by tongues
Of demons uttered, from whatever lungs,
Sounds are but sounds; and, till the cause appear,
We have at least commodious standing here.
Come fiend, come fury, giant, monster, blast
From earth, or hell, we can put plunge at last "
While thus she spake, I fainter heard the peals, For Reynard, close attended at his heels
By panting dog, tired man, and spattered horse,
Through mere good fortune, took a different course.
The flock grew calm again, and I, the road
Following, that led me to my own abode,
Much wondered that the silly sheep had found
Such cause of terror in an empty sound,
So sweet to huntsman, gentleman and hound.
Beware of desperate steps. The darkest day,
Live till to-morrow, will have passed away.
That Judah's shepherds heard at night, When, far above them, angel quires
Hung hymning, and a sudden light
Fringed all the clouds with gold,
That round the "heavenly vision" rolled
Those starry lyres, that told
Of a Redeemer's birth,
Made this their burden "Peace on earth!"
Those golden lyres, by angels strung,
And attuned to angel ears,
With yet another burden rung,
In accord with hymning spheres:
Those awe-struck shepherds, gazing up again;
In words distinct and bold,
From lyres and lips that rolled,
And the Redeemer's message told,
That other burthen heard-"Good will to men!
Yes, and one heavenly burden more,
The burden that good spirits love to bear,
That angel-anthem earthward bore,
And its sweet tones filled all the holy air. 'Glory to God!" The lowliest and nighest, As well as the remotest of the quire,
Their lips all glowing with a seraph's fire,
Sang, "To our God be glory in the highest."
Their message to the up-gazing shepherds given,
Breaking the solemn silence of the night,
Those sons of music, holiness, and light,
In sweet society retired into the depths of heaven.
"Glory to God!" -To Him doth glory come
From the death-shock of armies, met in battle,
Where his own children lie, like butchered cattle,
In hecatombs around a bursting bomb;
Or, in the thick cloud sulphurous and dun,
Poured from the hot throat of a thundering gun,
As if to hide its murders from the sun;
Where the long roll of the unmuffled drum,
And the shrill shrieking fife
prayer of the down-trodden ones
Of faintly-ebbing life,
The yell of dying horses, that are crushing
Their riders under them—the jeer— the flouting
Of hostile squadrons, at each other rushing-
"The thundering of the captains and the shouting TO HIM, who from his goodness draws his bliss, Cometh there " glory," from a scene like this?
No! But from fields, all green with growing things, And fresh with frequent rains,
From pastures, round whose ever-flowing springs,
Cattle are grouped in summer: from broad plains, Yellow with harvest, that the breathing West,
Heaves like an infant's or an ocean's breast,
Just sinking to repose;
From vineyards, loaded with their purpling fruit,
Quietly basking on their sunny slopes,
From meadows in their lily-spangled suit,
From orchards, fragrant with their blooming hopes, And from the constant babble of the brook,
That dashes down amongst its mossy rocks,
Where the lone patient angler throws his hook,
And from the panting flocks,
Gathered for washing on its grassy side,
And, as they issue dripping from its tide,
From the loud bleatings of o'er-anxious dams,
And from the ready answer of their lambs,
And from the shout and the loud laugh of men,
In time of vintage or of "harvest home,"
In toil and health rejoicing, even as when,
Beneath the leafy and o'erarching dome
Of Paradise, did Love with Joy and Plenty roam
From peaceful scenes, like these, unknown to story,
Yet not the less enjoyed, to God there cometh "glory."
But from a world, that, like a wayward child,
A father's guiding care, and love, had spurned,
And sought its pleasures in the dens defiled,
Where Luxury and Lust their victims burned
On Belial's altar; but hath now returned
With bitter tears and a repentant sigh,
From the far country where it hath sojourn'ed,
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