THE CHRISTIAD, A DIVINE POEM. BOOK I I.. I SING the CROSS!-Ye white rob'd angel choirs, Who know the chords of harmony to sweep; Ye who o'er holy David's varying wires, Were wont of old your hovering watch to keep, Oh, now descend! and with your harpings deep, Pouring sublime the full symphonious stream Of music, such as soothes the saint's last sleep, Awake my slumbering spirit from its dreain, And teach me how to exalt the high mysterious theme. II. Mourn! Salem, mourn! low lies thine humbled state Thy glittering fanes are levell'd with the ground! Fallen is thy pride !-Thine halls are desolate! Where erst was heard the timbrel's sprightly sound, And frolic pleasures tripp'd the nightly round, There breeds the wild fox lonely,--and aghast Stands the mute pilgrim at the void profound, Unbroke by noise, save when the hurrying blast Sighs, like a spirit, deep along the cheerless waste. III. It is for this, proud Solyma! thy towers Pursued his footsteps till the last day-dawn IV. Oh! for a pencil dipt in living light, To paint the agonies that Jesus bore! Oh! for the long-lost harp of Jesse's might, To hymn the Saviour's praise from shore to shore; While seraph hosts the lofty pæan pour, And Heaven enraptur'd lists the loud acclaim! May a frail mortal dare the theme explore? May he to human ears his weak song frame? Oh! may he dare to sing Messiah's glorious name? V. Spirits of pity! mild Crusaders come! Buoyant on clouds around your minstrel float; And give him eloquence who else were dumb, And raise to feeling and to fire his note! And thou, Urania! who dost still devote Thy nights and days to God's eternal shrine, Whose mild eyes 'lumin'd what Isaiah wrote, Throw o'er thy bard that solemn stole of thine, And clothe him for the fight with energy divine. VI.. When from the temple's lofty summit prone, Fled the stern king of Hell-and with the glare Of gliding meteors, ominous and red, Shot athwart the clouds that gathered round his head. VII. Right o'er the Euxine, and that gulph which late The Lapland sorcerer swell'd, with loud lament, VIII. Where the North Pole, in moody solitude, There ice-rocks pil'd aloft, in order rude, Form a gigantic hall; where never sound Startled dull Silence' ear, save when profound, The smoak-frost mutter'd: there drear Cold for aye "Thrones him, and fix'd on his primæval mound, Ruin, the giant, sits; while stern Dismay Stalks like some woe-struck man along the desert way. IX. In that drear spot, grim Desolation's lair, Would freeze to marble.-Mingling day and night, (Sweet interchange which makes our labours light,) Are there unknown; while in the summer skies The sun rolls ceaseless round his heavenly height, Nor ever sets till from the scene he flies, And leaves the long bleak night of half the year to rise. |