For thou wer't born of woman! thou didst come,
O Holiest to this world of sin and gloom,
Not in thy dread omnipotent array;
And not by thunder strew'd
Was thy tempestuous road;
Nor indignation burnt before thee on thy way.
But thee a soft and naked child,
Thy mother undefiled,
In the rude manger laid to rest
From off her virgin breast.
The heavens were not commanded to prepare
A gorgeous canopy of golden air ;
Nor stoop'd their lamps th' enthroned fires on high;
A single silent star
Came wandering from afar,
Gliding uncheck'd and calm along the liquid sky;
The Eastern sages leading on,
As at a kingly throne,
To lay their gold and odours sweet
Before thy infant feet.
The earth and ocean were not hush'd to hear
Bright harmony from every starry sphere;
Nor at thy presence brake the voice of song
From all the cherub choirs,
And seraph's burning lyres
Pour'd through the host of heaven the charmed clouds along.
One angel troop the strain began,
Of all the race of man,
By simple shepherds heard alone
That soft Hosannah's tone.
And when thou dids't depart, no car of flame
To bear thee hence in lambent radiance came;
Nor visible Angels mourn'd with drooping plumes;
Nor did'st thou mount on high
With all thine own redeem'd outbursting from their tombs:
For thou did'st bear away from earth,
But one of human birth,
The dying felon by thy side to be
In Paradise with thee.
Nor o'er thy cross the clouds of vengeance brake,
A little while the conscious earth did shake
At that foul deed by her fierce children done,
A few dim hours of day,
The world in darkness lay,
Then bask'd in bright repose beneath the cloudless sun.
While thou did'st sleep beneath the tomb,
Consenting to thy doom,
Ere yet the white robed Angels shone
Upon the sealed stone.
And when thou did'st arise, thou did'st not stand
With devastation in thy red right-hand,
Plaguing the guilty city's murth'rous crew;
But thou did'st haste to meet,
The mother's coming feet,
And bear the words of peace unto the faithful few;
Then calmly, slowly, did'st thou rise
Into thy native skies,
Thy human form dissolved on high
In its own radiancy.
Fair nature smiled in all her bowers,
But man, the master-work of God,
Unconscious of his latent powers,
The tangled forest trod:
Without a hope, without an aim,
Beyond the sloth's, the tiger's life,
His only pleasure, sleep or strife,-
And war his only fame.
Furious alike and causeless beamed
His lasting hate, his transient love;
And even the mother's fondness seemed
The instinct of the dove.
The mental world was wrapp'd in night;
Though some the diamond's of the mine,
Burst through the shrouding gloom to shine
With self-emitted light.
But see the glorious dawn unfold
The brightest day that lurks behind!
The march of armies may be told,
But not the march of mind.
Instruction! child of Heaven and Earth,
As heat expands the vernal flower,
So wisdom, goodness, freedom, power,
From thee derive their birth.
From thee, all mortal bliss we draw;
From thee, religion's blessed fruit;
From thee, the good of social law
And man redeemed from brute.
From thee, all ties to virtue dear,
The father's, brother's, husband's name;
From thee, the sweet and holy fame
That never cost a tear.
Oh! breathe thy soul along the gale,
That Britons still in generous strife,
Knowledge and freedom may inhale,-
The mingled breath of life!
So shall they share what they possess,
And show to distant worlds thy charms;
Wisdom and peace their only arms,
Their only aim to bless.
He is the freeman whom the truth makes free,
And all are slaves besides. There's not a chain
That hellish foes, confed'rate for his harm,
Can wind around him, but he casts it off
With as much ease as Sampson his green withes.
He looks abroad into the varied field
Of Nature, and though poor, perhaps, compared
With those whose mansions glitter in his sight,
Calls the delightful scenery all his own.
His are the mountains, and the valleys his,
And the resplendent rivers; his t'enjoy
With a propriety that none can feel,
But who, with filial confidence inspired,
Can lift to Heaven an unpresumptuous eye,
And smiling say-My Father made them all.
Are they not his by a peculiar right,
And by an emphasis of int'rest his,
Whose eye they fill with tears of holy joy,
Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mind
With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love
That plann'd and built, and still upholds a world,
So clothed with beauty, for rebellious man?
Yes-ye may fill your garners, ye that reap
The loaded soil, and ye may waste much good
In senseless riot; but ye will not find,
In feast or in the chase, in song or dance,
A liberty like his, who, unimpeached
Of usurpation, and to no man's wrong,
Appropriates nature as his Father's work,
And has a richer use of yours than you.
He is indeed a freeman; free by birth,
Of no mean city, plann'd or ere the hills
Were built, the fountains open'd, or the sea,
With all his foaming multitude of waves.
His freedom is the same in ev'ry state,
And no condition of this changeful life,
So manifold in cares, whose every day
Brings its own evil with it, makes it less :
For he has wings that neither sickness, pain,
Nor penury, can cripple or confine :
No nook so narrow but he spreads them there
With ease, and is at large. Th' oppressor holds
His body bound, but knows not what a range
His spirit takes, unconscious of a chain ;
And that to bind him is a vain attempt,
Whom God delights in, and in whom he dwells.
Acquaint thyself with God, if thou would'st taste.
His works. Admitted once to his embrace,
Thou shalt perceive that thou wast blind before ;
Thine eyes shall be instructed, and thine heart
Made pure, shall relish with divine delight,
'Till then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought.
Brutes graze the mountain-top, with faces prone
And eyes intent upon the scanty herb
It yields them or recumbent on its brow,
Ruminate, heedless of the scene outspread
Beneath, beyond, and stretching far away
From inland regions to the distant main.
Man views it and admires, but rests content
With what he views. The landscape has his praise
But not its Author. Unconcern'd who form'd
The Paradise he sees, he finds it such,
And such well-pleased to find it, asks no more.
Not so the mind that has been touched from Heaven,
And in the school of sacred wisdom taught
To read his wonders, in whose thought the world.
Fair as it is, existed ere it was:
Nor for his own sake merely, but for his
Much more he fashion'd it, who gives it praise;
Praise that, from earth resulting, as it ought,
To earth's acknowledg'd Sov'reign, finds at once
Its only just proprietor in Him.
The soul that sees him, or receives sublimed
New faculties, or learns at least t' employ
More worthily the pow'rs she own'd before,
Discerns in all things, what with stupid gaze
Of ignorance, 'till then she overlook'd,
A ray of heav'nly light gilding all forms
Terrestrial, in the vast and in the minute,
The unambiguous footsteps of the God
Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing,
And wheels his throne upon the rolling worlds.
Much conversant with Heav'n, she often holds
With those fair ministers of light to man,
That fill the skies nightly with silent pomp,
Sweet conference; inquires what strains were they
With which Heav'n rang, when ev'ry star, in haste
To congratulate the new-created earth,
Sent forth a voice, and all the sons of God
Shouted for joy-"Tell me, ye shining hosts,
That navigate a sea that knows no storms,
Beneath a vault unsullied with a cloud,
If from your elevation, whence ye view
Distinctly, scenes invisible to man;
And systems, of whose birth no tidings yet
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