You, on whose progress dazzling trains await
Of pompous horses; whom vain titles please;
Who will be served by others on their knees,
Yet will yourselves to God no service pay;
Pastors who neither take nor point the way
To Heaven; for, either lost in vanities
Ye have no skill to teach, or if ye know
And speak the word" Alas! of fearful
things

'Tis the most fearful when the people's eye
Abuse hath cleared from vain imaginings;
And taught the general voice to prophesy
Of Justice armed, and Pride to be laid low.

XIX.

ABUSE OF MONASTIC POWER.

AND what is Penance with her knotted thong;

Mortification with the shirt of hair,
Wan cheek, and knees indúrated with prayer,
Vigils, and fastings rigorous as long;

If cloistered Avarice scruple not to wrong
The pious, humble, useful Secular,
And rob the people of his daily care,
Scorning that world whose blindness makes her
strong?

Inversion strange! that, unto One who lives
For self, and struggles with himself alone,
The amplest share of heavenly favour gives;
That to a Monk allots, both in the esteem
Of God and man, place higher than to him
Who on the good of others builds his own!

For their abode the shrines of Waltham choose:
Proud Glastonbury can no more refuse
To stoop her head before these desperate
shocks-

She whose high pomp displaced, as story tells,
Arimathean Joseph's wattled cells.

XXII.

THE SAME SUBJECT.

THE lovely Nun (submissive, but more meek
Through saintly habit than from effort due
To unrelenting mandates that pursue
With equal wrath the steps of strong and weak)
Goes forth-unveiling timidly a cheek
Suffused with blushes of celestial hue,
While through the Convent's gate to open view
Softly she glides, another home to seek.
Not Iris, issuing from her cloudy shrine,
An Apparition more divinely bright!
Not more attractive to the dazzled sight
Those watery glories, on the stormy brine
Poured forth, while summer suns at distance
shine,

And the green vales lie hushed in sober light!

XXIII. CONTINUED.

YET many a novice of the cloistral shade,
And many chained by vows, with eager glee
The warrant hail, exulting to be free;
Like ships before whose keels, full long embayed
In polar ice, propitious winds have made
Unlooked-for outlet to an open sea,
Their liquid world, for bold discovery,
In all her quarters temptingly displayed!
Hope guides the young; but when the old must

pass

The threshold, whither shall they turn to find The hospitality-the alms (alas!

Alms may be needed) which that House bestowed?

Can they, in faith and worship, train the mind To keep this new and questionable road?

XXIV. SAINTS.

YE, too, must fly before a chasing hand,
Angels and Saints, in every hamlet mourned!
Ah! if the old idolatry be spurned,
Her adoration was not your demand,
Let not your radiant Shapes desert the Land:
The fond heart proffered it-the servile heart;
And therefore are ye summoned to depart,
Michael, and thou, St George, whose flaming
brand

Whose rival sword a like Opponent slew:
The Dragon quelled; and valiant Margaret
And rapt Cecilia, seraph-haunted Queen
Of harmony; and weeping Magdalene,
Who in the penitential desert met
Gales sweet as those that over Eden blew !

XXV.

THE VIRGIN.

MOTHER! whose virgin bosom was uncrost
With the least shade of thought to sin allied;
Woman! above all women glorified,
Our tainted nature's solitary boast;
Purer than foam on central ocean tost;
Brighter than eastern skies at daybreak strewn

With fancied roses, than the unblemished moon
Before her wane begins on heaven's blue coast;
Thy Image falls to earth. Yet some, I ween,
Not unforgiven the suppliant knee might bend,
As to a visible Power, in which did blend
All that was mixed and reconciled in Thee
Of mother's love with maiden purity,
Of high with low, celestial with terrene!

XXVI.

APOLOGY.

NOT utterly unworthy to endure
Was the supremacy of crafty Rome;
Age after age to the arch of Christendom
Aerial keystone haughtily secure;

Supremacy from Heaven transmitted pure,
As many hold; and, therefore, to the tomb
Pass, some through fire-and by the scaffold

some

Like saintly Fisher, and unbending More.

Lightly for both the bosom's lord did sit Upon his throne;"unsoftened, undismayed By aught that mingled with the tragic scene Of pity or fear; and More's gay genius played With the inoffensive sword of native wit, Than the bare axe more luminous and keen.

XXVII.

IMAGINATIVE REGRETS.
Not alone

DEEP is the lamentation!
From Sages justly honoured by mankind;
But from the ghostly tenants of the wind,
Demons and Spirits, many a dolorous groan
Issues for that dominion overthrown:
Proud Tiber grieves, and far-off Ganges, blind
As his own worshippers: and Nile, reclined
Upon his monstrous urn, the farewell moan
Renews. Through every forest, cave, and den,
Where frauds were hatched of old, hath sorrow
past-

Hangs o'er the Arabian Prophet's native Waste, Where once his airy helpers schemed and planned

'Mid spectral lakes bemocking thirsty men, And stalking pillars built of fiery sand.

XXVIII.

REFLECTIONS.

GRANT that by this unsparing hurricane Green leaves with yellow mixed are torn away, And goodly fruitage with the mother spray; 'Twere madness- wished we, therefore, to detain,

With hands stretched forth in mollified disdain, The "trumpery" that ascends in bare displayBulls, pardons, relics, cowls black, white, and

grey

Upwhirled, and flying o'er the ethereal plain Fast bound for Limbo Lake. And yet not choice

But habit rules the unreflecting herd,
And airy bonds are hardest to disown;
Hence, with the spiritual sovereignty trans-
ferred

Unto itself, the Crown assumes a voice
Of reckless mastery, hitherto unknown.

XXIX.

TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE.

BUT, to outweigh all harm, the sacred Book, In dusty sequestration wrapt too long,

MEN, who have ceased to reverence, soon defy Their forefathers; lo! sects are formed, and split

With morbid restlessness ;-the ecstatic fit Spreads wide; though special mysteries multiply,

The Saints must govern, is their common cry:
And so they labour, deeming Holy Writ
Disgraced by aught that seems content to sit
Beneath the roof of settled Modesty.
The Romanist exults; fresh hope he draws
From the confusion, craftily incites
The overweening, personates the mad-
To heap disgust upon the worthier Cause:
Totters the Throne; the new-born Church is sad
For every wave against her
peace unites.

XLII.

GUNPOWDER PLOT.

FEAR hath a hundred eyes that all agree To plague her beating heart; and there is one (Nor idlest that!) which holds communion With things that were not, yet were meant to be.

Aghast within its gloomy cavity

That eye (which sees as if fulfilled and done
Crimes that might stop the motion of the sun)
Beholds the horrible catastrophe
Of an assembled Senate unredeemed
From subterraneous Treason's darkling power:
Merciless act of sorrow infinite!

Worse than the product of that dismal night,
When gushing, copious as a thunder-shower,
The blood of Huguenots through Paris streamed.

XLIII. ILLUSTRATION.

THE JUNG-FRAU AND THE FALL OF THE
RHINE NEAR SCHAFFHAUSEN.

THE Virgin Mountain,* wearing like a Queen
A brilliant crown of everlasting snow,
Sheds ruin from her sides; and men below
Wonder that aught of aspect so serene
Can link with desolation. Smooth and green,
And seeming, at a little distance, slow,
The waters of the Rhine; but on they go
Fretting and whitening, keener and more keen;
Till madness seizes on the whole wide Flood,
* The Jung-frau.

And scourges England struggling to be free: Her peace destroyed! her hopes a wilderness! Her blessings cursed - her glory turned to shame

XLV. LAUD.

PREJUDGED by foes determined not to spare,
An old weak Man for vengeance thrown aside,
Laud, "in the painful art of dying" tried,
(Like a poor bird entangled in a snare
Whose heart still flutters, though his wings for-
bear

To stir in useless struggle) hath relied
On hope that conscious innocence supplied,
And in his prison breathes celestial air.
Why tarries then thy chariot? Wherefore stay,
O Death! the ensanguined yet triumphant
wheels,

Which thou prepar'st, full often, to convey
(What time a State with madding faction reels)
The Saint or Patriot to the world that heals
All wounds, all perturbations doth allay?

PATRIOTIC SYMPATHIES.

LAST night, without a voice, that Vision spake
Fear to my Soul, and sadness which might seem
Wholly dissevered from our present theme;
Yet, my beloved country! I partake
Of kindred agitations for thy sake;
Thou, too, dost visit oft my midnight dream;
Thy glory meets me with the earliest beam
Of light, which tells that Morning is awake.
If aught impair thy beauty or destroy,
Or but forebode destruction, I deplore
With filial love the sad vicissitude;

If thou hast fallen, and righteous Heaven re

WHO Comes with rapture greeted, and caress'd
With frantic love-his kingdom to regain?
Him Virtue's Nurse, Adversity, in vain
Received, and fostered in her iron breast:
For all she taught of hardiest and of best,
Or would have taught, by discipline of pain
And long privation, now dissolves amain,
Or is remembered only to give zest
To wantonness.-Away, Circean revels!
But for what gain? if England soon must sink
Into a gulf which all distinction levels-
That bigotry may swallow the good name,
And, with that draught, the life-blood: misery,
shame,

By Poets loathed; from which Historians shrink!

IV.

LATITUDINARIANISM.

YET Truth is keenly sought for, and the wind Charged with rich words poured out in thought's defence;

Whether the Church inspire that eloquence,
Or a Platonic Piety confined
To the sole temple of the inward mind;
And One there is who builds immortal lays,
Though doomed to tread in solitary ways,
Darkness before and danger's voice behind;
Yet not alone, nor helpless to repel
Sad thoughts; for from above the starry sphere
Come secrets, whispered nightly to his ear;
And the pure spirit of celestial light
Shines through his soul-"that he may see and
tell

Of things invisible to mortal sight."

V.

WALTON'S BOOK OF LIVES.

THERE are no colours in the fairest sky
So fair as these. The feather, whence the pen
Was shaped that traced the lives of these good
men,

Dropped from an Angel's wing. With moistened

eye

We read of faith and purest charity
In Statesman, Priest, and humble Citizen:
O could we copy their mild virtues, then
What joy to live, what blessedness to die!
Methinks their very names shine still and bright;
Apart-like glow-worms on a summer night;
Or lonely tapers when from far they fling
A guiding ray; or seen-like stars on high,
Satellites burning in a lucid ring
Around meek Walton's heavenly memory.

VI.

CLERICAL INTEGRITY.

NOR shall the eternal roll of praise reject
Those Unconforming; whom one rigorous day
Drives from their Cures, a voluntary prey
To poverty, and grief, and disrespect,
And some to want-as if by tempests wrecked
On a wild coast; how destitute ! did They
Feel not that Conscience never can betray,
That peace of mind is Virtue's sure effect.
Their altars they forego, their homes they quit,
Fields which they love, and paths they daily
trod,

And cast the future upon Providence ;
As men the dictate of whose inward sense
Outweighs the world; whom self-deceiving wit
Lures not from what they deem the cause of

God.

VII.

PERSECUTION OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANTERS.

WHEN Alpine Vales threw forth a suppliant cry,
The majesty of England interposed
And the sword stopped; the bleeding wounds
were closed;

And Faith preserved her ancient purity.
How little boots that precedent of good,
Scorned or forgotten, Thou canst testify,
For England's shame, O Sister Realm! from
wood,

Mountain, and moor, and crowded street, where lie

The headless martyrs of the Covenant,
Slain by Compatriot-protestants that draw
From councils senseless as intolerant
Their warrant. Bodies fall by wild sword-law;
But who would force the Soul tilts with a straw
Against a Champion cased in adamant.

VIII.

ACQUITTAL OF THE BISHOPS. A VOICE, from long-expecting thousands sent, Shatters the air, and troubles tower and spire; For Justice hath absolved the innocent, And Tyranny is balked of her desire: Up, down, the busy Thames-rapid as fire Coursing a train of gunpowder-it went, And transport finds in every street a vent, Till the whole City rings like one vast quire. The Fathers urge the People to be still, With outstretched hands and earnest speech in vain!