FROM THE LIBRARY OF REV. LOUIS FITZGERALD BENSON, D. D.
BEQUEATHED BY HIM TO
THE LIBRARY OF
PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
S*ctio* / 7*5/0
a«*%
.Vadhe appointed singers before ta.e LQB.D, that akoulcLpTaisc tlie BEAUTY of B10I.TNE S&.-Ozr<micZes.
Revised Edition . with additional Ballads.
HARTFORD HENRY S. PARSONS.
NEW YORK D. APPLETON &C°200 BROADWAY.
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2012 with funding from
Calvin College
http://www.archive.org/details/christianballad47coxe
CHRISTIAN BALLADS.
And he appointed singers before the Lord, that should praise the Beauty of Holiness.— Chronicles.
REVISED EDITION, WITH ADDITIONAL BALLADS,
HARTFORD: HENRY S. PARSONS.
NEW YORK: D. APPLETON & CO., 200BROADWAY.
1847.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1847, by
A. CLEVELAND COXE, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Connecticut.
JOHN HENRY HOB ART
My Dear Hobart,
I dedicate these Ballads to you, as a duty, and as a pleasure : as a duty, because, but for you, they would never have been written, and as a pleasure, be- cause I rejoice to associate my name with yours, in any thing, however humble, which I am permitted to do for the Church of God. I need not add, that I consider it in happy harmony with their design, that I am privileged to inscribe them to the inheritor of a name, whose praise is in all the Churches.
I know that to you at least they will not be unaccept- able. The glistening dews of a Christian boyhood are fast drying up, from both of us ; but here are some results of rambling talks, and rural walks, and holiday diversions, which, for years we have enjoyed together, and which, through life, will be dear to memory, as having gradually led us to find our best delight, and to choose our portion, in the amiable dwellings of the Lord of Hosts.
Yours, my dear Hobart,
A. C. C. Chelsea, New York,
June 28, 1840.
PREFACE.
The Catholic Religion, having the same original with Nature, is in perfect harmony with it, and shares its poetical element. A truly Catholic Church there- fore, will naturally exhibit more or less of that element, in its services and rites. History shows indeed that it may be diminished by unfavorable circumstances, with- out impairing essential Catholicity ; and on the other hand that it may be developed beyond proportion, to morbid excess, and the injury of parts more vital. But it is the glory of the Anglican ritual to retain in happy combination, as did the whole Church in its primitive age, the characteristics of reverend dignity and meek simplicity. In the language of one, whose sense of the Sublime and Beautiful will hardly be questioned, it displays the elemental poetry of true religion — "in buildings, in music, in decoration, in speech, and in the dignity of persons, with modest splendour, with un- assuming state, with mild majesty and sober pomp."
In this eulogy of the thoughtful Burke, a healthful taste will value the adjectives as well as the nouns. In the Latin Churches, it is to be deplored that the beauties of worship have risen to a pomp, majesty, state and splendour which can hardly be qualified : and 1*
VI
precious is the Anglican contrast, which, without sacri- ficing these attributes, exhibits in such harmony with them the primitive qualities of modesty, simplicity, mildness, and sobriety, originally impressed upon His Mystical Body by the Incarnate God, that it might be in all things, the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person.
This happy combination, if on the one hand it allows of less magnificence in the Cathedral, prevents on the other a poverty of tawdry pretension in the rustic Church : and produces every where a uniform pro- priety of beauty which captivates the imagination without repelling the reason.
Such is the essential poetry of that religion, which the Christian Ballads aspire to illustrate, and humbly to subserve. To those who love not the Church, they will seem as idle words, but they tell of things which in the heart and life of the Catholic are dear realities; realities which are felt though they cannot be un- derstood by the world : for there is a charm in the religious character which they help to form, which at- tracts very many who are incapable of discovering the secret of what affects them. Thus when we name, in a breath, the rural Walton, the scholastic Hooker, the saintly Herbert, the courtly Evelyn, the classic Wot- ton,the earnest Laud, the gorgeous Taylor, the magnifi- cent Strafford, and the royal Charles — men of the same times, but of widely differing circumstances ; the^ull- est perception feels that there is something belonging to them in common, which invests them with no ordinary
glory. It is that beauty of holiness which they drew from the breasts of the Church in which they lived and died, and which, through many sorrows, satisfied every spiritual want, and retained the unroving loyalty of their pure affections. They were lovely and pleas, ant in their lives, and in death they were not divided ; exhibiting, in both, the power of their religion to adorn every thing they enjoyed or suffered, from the May-day ramble of the fisherman, to the fiery trial of the Martyr.
Besides revising, with some toil, a book of careless verses, to which unexpected favour has been shown ; the author has completed the collection, by the addition of such other poems, of the same sort, as he has from time to time produced, since the Christian Ballads first appeared. They lack the boyish exhilaration of his early notes ; but on that very account may better suit the taste of many. The critic indeed will be pleased with little that the book contains. But if like a pointed arch that delights in the moss and ivy which would spoil a Grecian column, it exhibits more of Gothic roughness than of Doric delicacy, it may per- haps be allowed the merit of being in keeping with the architectural symbolism of the holy Faith. May it be approved by Christians, as it will doubtless be de- spised by the World.
St. John's Parish, Hartford, Julv, 1847.
BALLADS.
BALLADS
HYMN OF BOYHOOD.
One thing have I desired of the Lord, which I will require, even that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold thp fair beauty of the Lord, and to visit His temple.— Psalter.
1.
The first dear thing that ever I loved
Was a mother's gentle eye, That smiled, as I woke on the dreamy couch,
That cradled my infancy. I never forget the joyous thrill,
That smile in my spirit stirred, Nor how it could charm me against my will,
Till I laughed like a joyous bird.
2.
And the next fair thing that ever I loved
Was a bunch of summer flowers, With odours, and hues, and loveliness,
Fresh as from Eden's bowers. I never can find such hues agen,
Nor smell such a sweet perfume : And if there be odours as sweet as then,
'Tis I that have lost the bloom.
12 HYMN OF BOYHOOD.
3.
And the next dear thing that ever I loved
Was a fawn-like little maid, Half-pleased, half-awed by the frolic boy
That tortured her doll, and played : I never can see the gossamere
Which rude rough zephyrs tease, But I think how I tossed her flossy locks,
With my whirling bonnet's breeze.
4.
And the next good thing that ever I loved,
Was a bow-kite in the sky ; And a little boat on the brooklet's surf,
And a dog for my company : And a jingling hoop, with many a bound
To my measured strike and true ; And a rocket sent up to the firmament,
When Even was out so blue.
5.
And the next fair thing I was fond to love
Was a field of wavy grain, Where the reapers mowed ; or a ship in sail
On the billowy, billowy main : And the next was a fiery prancing horse
That I felt like a man to stride ; And the next was a beautiful sailing boat
With a helm it was hard to guide.
HYMN OF BOYHOOD. 13
And the next dear thing I was fond to love,
Is tenderer far to tell ; 'Twas a voice, and a hand, and a gentle eye
That dazzled me with its spell : And the loveliest things I had loved before
Were only the landscape now, On the canvass bright where I pictured her,
In the glow of my early vow.
7.
And the next good thing I was fain to love
Was to sit in my cell alone, Musing o'er all these lovely things,
Forever, forever flown. Then out I walked in the forest free,
Where wanton'd the Autumn wind, And the coloured boughs swung shiver:
In harmony with my mind.
And a spirit was on me that next I loved,
That ruleth my spirit still, And maketh me murmur these sing-song words,
Albeit against my will. And I wTalked the wroods till the winter came,
And then did I love the snow ;
And I heard the gales, through the wildwood aisles,
Like the Lord's own organ blow. 2
14 HYMN OF BOYHOOD.
And the bush I had loved in my greenwood walk,
I saw it afar away, Surpliced with snowrs, like the bending priest
That kneels in the church to pray : And I thought of the vaulted fane, and high,
Where I stood when a little child, Awed by the lauds sung thrillingly,
And the anthems undefiled.
10.
And again to the vaulted church I went,
And I heard the same sweet prayers, And the same full organ-peals upsent,
And the same soft soothing airs ; And I felt in my spirit so drear and strange,
To think of the race I ran, That I loved the sole thing that knew no change
In the soul of the boy and man.
11.
And the tears I wept in the wilderness,
And that froze on my lids, did fall, And melted to pearls for my sinfulness,
Like scales from the eyes of Paul : And the last dear thing I was fond to love,
Was that holy service high, That lifted my soul to joys above,
And pleasures that do not die.
HYMN OF BOYHOOD. 15
12.
And then, said I, one thing there is
That I of the Lord desire, That ever, while I on earth shall live,
I will of the Lord require, That I may dwell in his temple blest
As long as my life shall be, And the beauty fair of the Lord of Hosts,
In the home of his glory see.
ST. SACRAMENT.
A LEGEND OF LAKE GEORGE. I.
A Summer shower had swept the woods ;
But when, from all the scene, Rolled off at length the thunder-floods,
And streamed the sunset sheen ; I came where my postillion raised
His horsewhip for a wand, And said there's Horicon, good sir,
And here's the Bloody Pond I
And don't you see yon low gray wall,
With grass and bushes grown 1 Well, that's Fort George's palisade,
That many a storm has known : But here's the Bloody Pond where lies
Full many a soldier tall : The spring, they say, was never pure
Since that red burial.
ST. SACRAMENT. 17
3.
'Twas rare to see ! That vale beneath ;
That lake so calm and cool ! But mournful was each lily-wreath,
Upon the turbid pool : And — on, postillion, let us haste
To greener banks I cried, Oh, stay me not where man has stained
With brother's blood the tide !
4.
An hour — and though the Even-star
Was chasing down the sun, My boat was on thine azure wave,
Sweet, holy Horicon ! And woman's voice cheered on our bark,
With soft bewildering song, While fireflies darting through the dark,
Went lighting us along.
5.
Anon, that bark was on the beach,
And soon, I stood alono Upon thy mouldering walls, Fort George,
So old, and ivy-grown. At once, old tales of massacre
Were crowding on my soul,
And ghosts of ancient sentinels
Paced up the rocky knoll. 2*
18 ST. SACRAMENT.
6.
The shadowy hour was dark enow
For fancy's wild campaign, And moments were impassioned hours
Of battle and of pain : Each brake and thistle seemed alive
With fearful shapes of fight, And up the feather'd scalp-locks rose
Of many a tawny sprite.
7. The Mohawk war-whoop howled agen ;
I heard St. Denys' charge, And then the volleyed musketry
Of England and St. George. The vale, the rocks, the cradling hills,
From echoing rank to rank, Rung back the warlike rhetoric
sQf Huron and of Frank.
8. So, keep thy name, Lake George, said I,
And bear to latest day, The memory of our primal age,
And England's early sway ; And when Columbia's flag shall hero
Her starry glories toss, Be witness how our fathers fought
Beneath St. George's cross.
I
ST. SACRAMENT. 19
An hour again— and shone the moon
Above the mountain gray, And there the pearly Horicon
Leap'd up like fountain spray ; The rippled wavelets seemed to dance,
And starlight seemed to sing ; I never saw in all my life,
So gay and bright a thing.
10.
And naught, save lulling katydid,
Presumed the hush to mar ; And then it was, I longed to hear
Some light canoe afar ; I listened for the paddle's dip,
And in the moon-path clear, I wished some Indian bark might glide,
With all its shapes of fear.
11.
The Indian tales of Horicon, .Were in my spirit now, And sachems of the olden time,
With more than Roman brow ; And all the forest histories
That make our young romance, As in a wizard's glass, they moved
O'er that blue lake's expanse.
20 ST. SACRAMENT.
12.
And keep thy name, clear Horicon,
Thine Indian name, said I ; 'Tis meet, if thine old lords are dead,
Their fame should never die : So keep thy name, sweet Horicon,
And be, to latest days, Thine old free-dwellers' monument,
Their glory and their praise.
13.
But morn was up, the beamy morn,
That sapphire lake above, O'er waters blue as amethyst,
And innocent as love ; And there 'twas glorious to cool
The glowing breast and limb, For never did a river-nymph
In sweeter ripples swim.
14.
All day my boat was on the lake.
My thoughts upon its shore ; And emerald islets, one by one,
My joyous footsteps bore : And where, from green and mossy nests,
The sparks of quartz outshine, I pulled young flowerets from the rocks,
And oped the crystal mine.
ST. SACRAMENT. 21
15.
But when the breezy even came,
Again, outstretched I lay, Upon the weedy battlements
Of that old ruin gray. And all alone, 'twas beautiful
To muse, reclining there, And feel the chill, so desolate,
Of half autumnal air.
16.
Afar, afar, I cast mine eye
Adown the winding view : The lake, the distance, and the sky
Were all a heavenly blue : And distant Thung rose glorious
With colours for his crown, And girt with clouds all rainbow-like,
And robes of green and brown.
17.
A holy stillness, and a calm,
O'er me and nature stole, And, like a babe, the waters slept,
Within their pebbled bowl : The gales that tossed my tangled hair,
And stirred the fragrant fern, They only kissed the water's breast,
And smoothed its brimming urn.
22 ST. SACRAMENT.
18.
And I was dreaming, though awake,
Such thoughts as made me sigh, "When, hark ! the alder-bushes break,
And falls a footstep nigh ! A man of olden years came up ;
A brown old yeoman he, And on through thorn, and reedy bank,
He pushed his way to me.
19.
He climbed the rough old demilune,
"With iron-studded shoe, UjDturning, at his every stride,
Old flints and bullets too. And arrow-heads that told a tale,
Were in each earthy clod, That rumbled down the ravelin, And crumbled as he trod.
20.
Now tell me, tell me, yeoman good,
One tale to bear away, With relics for the well-beloved,
Of this old ruin gray ; With flowers, I've gather'd round the mole,
One legend would I twine ; And you may chance remember one,
That was some kin of mine !
ST. SACRAMENT. 23
21.
Canst tell of Cleveland, or Monroe,
That fought for George's sake : Or know you of the young Montcalm,
Or Uncas — on the lake 1 He called it Lake St. Sacrament,
That yeoman brown and brave, And thus, half soldier and half hind,
His simple story gave.
22.
My father was a Frenchman bold,
Came o'er the bitter sea, And here he poured his red heart's blood
For Louis' fleur-de-lys : And yonder did he bid me swear
To say, when he was gone, He drinks the Holy Sacrament,
Who drinks of Horicon.
23.
And then a lake-drop on his lip,
A tear-drop in his eye, He blest his boy, his king, his God,
And turned his face to die : A moment — and St. George's flag,
And England's musket roar, They rapt me from my soldier-sire,
And I beheld no more.
24 ST. SACRAMENT.
24.
He drinks the Holy Sacrament,
Who drinks this crystal wave, That Sacrament baptized his death,
And was, they say, his grave ; Adieu, adieu, thou stranger youth,
But say when I am gone, This lake is Lake St. Sacrament,
And not Lake Horicon.
25.
And down the quarry stumbled he,
Ere I could hold him back ; But sounds of crackling alderbush,
Betrayed his sturdy track. I saw the cottage-smoke upwreathe,
Beneath the mountain shade, And there I knew that old yeoman.
His hermitage had made. *
26.
And there, when I had followed him,
He told me, more and more, The magic and the witchery
Of that romantic shore. 'Tis many a year, he said, since here
There was no Christian soul ; The Indian only, or the deer,
To taste these waters stole.
ST. SACRAMENT. 25
27.
The savage, in the heat of noon,
Came panting through the wood, To stain the silver-pebbled beach,
And wash away his blood : And there, where those tall aspens stand,
They fought a horrid fray ; The very leaves that shaded them
Are trembling to this day.
28.
But years rolled on — the sun beheld
Those savage chiefs agen, All gather'd as at council-fires,
Or leagued with peaceful men : They listened, in their multitudes,
To one, that midst them stood, And reared the cross — as painters draw
John Baptist in the Wood.
29.
They listened to his wondrous words
Upon the pebbled strand : And ay — they welcomed in their hearts,
The reign of God at hand. With laud and anthem rung the grove ;
And here, where howled their yell,
I've heard their Christian litanies,
And old Te Deum swell. 3
26 ST. SACRAMENT.
30.
And when the golden Easter came,
Again they gathered there, All eager for the Christian name,
And Christ's dear cross to bear. Oh ! forest-aisles, ye trembled then,
Like fanes where organs roll, To hear those savage-featured men
Outpour the Christian soul.
31.
And in the wildwood's walks they knelt
To their own sins and pray ; And in these holy water-floods,
They washed their sins away : By Horicon, the Trinal God
Confessed them for his sons, And there the Holy Spirit sealed
His own begotten ones.
32.
Oh Abbana and Pharpar old
Must yield to Jordan's flow ; But never this clear Horicon ;
The Prophet said not so ! For sins more dire than leprosy
These waves have washed away, And so they named clear Horicon,
St. Sacrament, for aye.
ST. SACRAMENT. 2 7
33.
Then onward sped the missionaire
The wilderness to wake : A voice was on the desert air,
For God a highway make ! The lifted cross, from hill to hill,
Proclaimed the Gospel word, But sweet St. Sacrament was still
The laver of the Lord.
34.
And years on years went rolling by ;
The Indian boy grew old ; But longed once more, ere he should die,
That laver to behold : And panting from his pilgrimage
He came at heat of day ; The lake was calm as in his youth,
St. Sacrament, for aye.
35.
Then fell the white-man's tracks around
Upon this virgin sand : And bowed thy glories, Horicon,
Before his faithless hand ! He sent these waters o'er the sea
In marble urns to shine, And christen'd babes of Royalty
In streams that christened mine.
28 ST. SACRAMENT.
36.
Adieu, adieu ! my stranger boy ;
But say, when I am gone, This lake is Lake St. Sacrament,
And not Lake Horicon : And when some lip that charmeth thee,
Shall ask of thee a lay, Oh bid her call Lake Horicon,
St. Sacrament, for aye.
37.
Then keep thy name, sweet Lake, said I,
Thine holy name alone ! I love St. C4eorge's memory,
And Indian honour flown ; But never heard I history
Like thine, old man, this day : The lake is Christ's for evermore,
St. Sacrament, for aye !
ANTIOCH.
And the disciples were called Christians first in AntiocLu
Acts of thv i
1.
Old Antioch shall answer ye
What title I would claim ! Old Antioch — whence Christian men
Confess their Christian name. I wear no other name but Christ's,
And His is name enow, Writ by our mother's spousal hand
On all her children's brow.
Yet something doth that mother give,
A token to her sons, And Catholic doth she surname
Her Lord's begotten ones : And these the children of her love,
Are children all of Heaven ;
Lo I — she answereth to God,
And these that thou hast given, 3*
30 ANTIOCH.
3.
1 know that many martyrs died At rack and cruel stake,
And Cranmer laid his prelate hand On Fire, for Jesus' sake :
And many a bishop's burning heart, Like flame was lost in flame :
But Christ — none other died for me I'll wear no other name.
4.
I wear the name of Christ my God,
So name me not from man ! And my broad country Catholic,
It hath nor tribe nor clan : For one and endless is the line
Through all the world that went, Commissioned from the Holy Hill
Of Christ's sublime ascent.
5.
For there, the Lord immaculate,
Himself ordained that came, And not himself did glorify
To wear his priestly name, His mantle — as he went on high,
To chosen sons bequeathed, And bade apostles feed his lambs,
As o'er them all he breathed.
ANTIOCH. 31
6.
'Twas there, as God had sent the Son,
The Son his own did send, And with them promised to abide
For ever — to the end : And faithful to his plighted love
The Lord is with us yet, Where our apostles bear the keys
He left on Olivet.
7.
Then call me not to other folds ;
No greener fields I see ; The shepherds of my Lord alone
Can feed a lamb like me : I cannot wander, if I will,
And whensoever wooed, Out-flames a burning chronicle
In Peter and in Jude.
S.
I read how Korah boldly swung
The censer God abhorr'd, And spurned old Aaron's litanies,
Commanded of the Lord. Those bold apostles echo it,
And while their voice I hear, If your strange folds seemed Eden's gate
That waving sword I fear.
32 ANTIOCH,
I hear my Saviour's earnest prayer,
That one we all may be, And — oh, how can I go with them,
Who tear Him bodily 1 I see the heralds of His cross
Whom Jesus sent of yore ; And can I spurn anointed hands !
I love my Saviour more.
10.
Dear Lamb of God ! I know full well
All power to Thee was given, And Oh there is none other name,
To name us, under Heaven ! I know when thou didst send a line
Through all the world to run, No arm of flesh, if that hath failed,
Can weave a surer one !
11. Thou, Priest and Prophet both for us,
Art priest above in heaven ; But to thy chosen still on earth,
Thy prophet power is given ; Thank God, it never failed, nor shall f
That long unbroken chain Begun in Thee — in Thee shall end,
When Thou shalt come again.
ANTIOCH.
12.
So Christ forbid that I should boast,
Save in his blood-red cross ; And let me, for the Crucified,
Count other gain but loss ; And ye that scorn his follower,
And deem my glory shame, Forget not, in upbraiding me,
To name me by His name.
DREAMLAND.
l. A lay, a lay, good Christians !
I have a tale to tell, Though I have ne'er a palmer's staff,
Nor hat with scallop-shell : And though I never went astray
From this mine own countree, I'll tell what never pilgrim told
That ever rode the sea.
2.
A lay, a lay, good Christians !
My boyish harp is fain To chaunt our mother's loveliness,
In an eternal strain : And true it is I never strayed
Beyond her careful hand, And yet my lay, good Christians,
Is of a Holy-Land.
DREAMLAND. oO
3.
In Dreamland once I saw a Church ;
Amid the trees it stood ; And reared its little steeple-cross
Above the sweet greenwood : And then I heard a Dreamland chime,
Peal out from Dreamland tower, And saw how Dreamland Christian-folk
Can keep the matin-hour.
4.
And Dreamland Church was decent all,
And green the churchyard round ; The Dreamland sextons never keep
Their kine in holy ground : And not the tinkling cow-bell there
The poet's walk becalms ; But where the dead in Christ repose,
The bells ring holy psalms.
5.
And Dreamland folk do love their dead,
For every mound I saw, Had flowers, and wreaths, and garlands such
As painters love to draw ! I asked what seeds made such fair buds,
And — scarce I trust my ears, The Dreamland folk averr'd such things
Do only grow from — tears.
36 DREAMLAND.
6.
And while I living the graves around,
I heard the organ pour : I was the only Christian man
Without that sacred door ! A week-day morn — but Church was full ;
And full the chaunting choir, For Dreamland music is for God,
And not for man and — hire.
I saw the Dreamland minister
In snowy vestments pray : He seemed to think 'twas natural
That prayer should ope the day : And Dreamland folk responded loud
To blessings in God's name, And in the praises of the Lord,
They had no sense of shame !
8. And Dreamland folk, they kneel them down
Right on the stony floor : I saw they were uncivilized,
Nor knew how we adore : And yet I taught them not, I own,
The posture more refined, For well I knew the picturesque
►Scarce suits the savage mind.
DREAMLAND. 37
9.
And Dreamland folk do lowly bow
To own that Christ is God : And I confess I taught them not
The fashionable nod. And Dreamland folk sing Gloria
At every anthem's close, But have not learn'd its value yet
To stir them from a doze.
10.
I saw a Dreamland babe baptized,
With all the church to see, And strange as 'twas — the blessed sight,
'Twas beautiful to me ! For many a voice cried loud Amen,
When, o'er its streaming brow, The pearly cross was character'd,
To seal its Christian vow.
11.
I learn'd that Dreamland children all,
As bowing sponsors swear, To bishop's hands are duly brought,
To Eucharist and prayer : And Dreamland maids wear snow-white reila
At confirmation-hour : For such — an old apostle wrote,
Should clothe their heads, with power.
38 DREAMLAND.
12.
The Dreamland folk they wed in Church
They deem the Lord is there, And, as of old in Galilee,
May bless a bridal pair : And strange enough, the simple ones,
They see, in wedded love, Sweet emblems of their Mother Church,
And Christ her Lord above.
13.
I saw a Dreamland funeral
Come up the shadow'd way : The Dreamland priest was surplice-clad
To meet the sad array ; And when his little flock drew nigh
To give the dust their dead, His voice went soothingly before,
As if a shepherd led.
14.
In earth they laid the Dreamland man ;
And then a chaunt was given, So sweet, that I could well believe,
I heard a voice from heaven : And singing children o'er the grave
Like cherub chaunters stood, Pouring their angel lullabies,
To make its slumber good.
DREAMLAND. 39
15.
The Dreamland folk count seasons four,
All woven into one ! 'Tis Advent, Lent, or Easter-tide,
Or Trinity begun : The first is green as emerolde,
The next of cypress-hue, The third is glorious all as gold,
The fourth is sapphire-blue.
16.
The Dreamland folk are simple ones !
Who knows but these are they, Described in ancient chronicle,
As Children of the Day ! They seemed no denizens of earth,
But more — a pilgrim-band, With no abiding city here,
Who seek a better land.
17.
So ends my lay, good Christians ;
And ye that gave me ear, Confess that 'twas of Holy-Land,
I beckon'd ye to hear : Christ bring us all, who bear his cross
Unto his own countree ! And so no more, good Christians,
Of Dreamland, or of me.
CAROL.
My Beloved is gone down into His garden; to the beds of spices, to feed ii the gardens, and to gather lilies.— Canticles.
1.
I know — I know
Where the green leaves grow,
When the woods without are bare ; Where a sweet perfume Of the woodland's bloom,
Is afloat on the winter air ! When tempest strong Hath howled along,
With his war-whoop wild and loud, Till the broad ribs broke Of the forest oak,
And his crown of glory bowed ; I know — I know Where the green leaves grow,
Though the groves without are bare. Where the branches nod Of the trees of God.
And the wild-vines flourish fair.
CAROL. 41
2.
For a fragrant crown
When the Lord comes down,
Of the deathless green we braid, O'er the altar bright, Where the tissue white
Like winter snow is laid. And we think 'tis meet The Lord to greet
As wise -men did of old, With the spiceries Of incense-trees,
And hearts like the hoarded gold, And so we shake The snowy flake
From cedar and myrtle fair ; And the boughs that nod On the hills of God,
We raise to his glory there,
I know — I know Where blossoms blow
The earliest of the year ; Where the passion-flower With a mystic power,
Its thorny crown doth rear ; Where crocus breathes,
And fragrant wreaths
4*
42 CAROL.
Like a censer fill the gale ;
"Where cowslips hurst To beauty first,
And the lily of the vale ; And snowdrops white ; .And pansies bright
As Joseph's coloured vest ; And laurel-tod Prom the woods of God,
Where the wild-bird builds her nest.
4. For oh we fling Each fragrant thing,
In the path of the newly wed ;. And, when we weep, P at flowers to sleep
On the breast of the early dead. And the altar's lawn, At morning's dawn,
We deck at Easter-tide, And the font's fair brim ; To tell of Him
Who liveth though he died ! Of flowers He spake ; And for His sake
Whose text was the lilies' bloom, We search abroad For the flowers of God,
To give Him their sweet perfume-
CAROL, 5.
I know — I know Where the waters flow
In a marble font and nook, When the frosty sprite In his strange delight
Hath fetter'dthe brawling brook, When the dancing stream With its broken gleam,
Is locked in its rocky bed ; And the sin^-sono- fret Of the rivulet
Is hush as the melted lead ; Oh then I know Where the waters flow
As fresh as the springtime flood, When the spongy sod Of the fields of God
And the hedges are all in bud.
o
For the flowing Font Bids Frost avaunt,
And the Winter's troop so wild : And still 'twill gush In a free full flush,
At the cry of a little child. Oh rare the gleam, Of the blessed stream
44 CAROL.
Iii the noon of a winter day, When the ruby stain Of the colour'd pane,
Falls in, with holy ray ! For then I think Of the brimming brink,
And the urns, at the voice divine, Like Moses' rod And the rocks of God,
That flushed into ruddy wine.
I know — I know No place below,
Like the home I fear and love ; Like the stilly spot Where the world is not,
But the nest of the Holy Dove. For there broods He Mid every tree
That grows at the Christmas-tide., And there, all year, O'er the font so clear,
His hovering wings abide ! And so, I know No place below
So meet for the bard's true lay, As the alleys broad Of the Church of God,
Where Nature is green for aye.
LAMENT.
FOR THE LENTEN SEASON,
And of some, have compassion.— St. Jude.
1.
Oh weep for them who never knew
The mother of our love, And shed thy tears for orphan ones,
Whom angels mourn above ; The wandering sheep — the straying lambs.
When wolves were on the wold, That left our Shepherd's little flock,
And ventured from His fold.
2.
Nay, blame them not ! for them, the Lord
Hath loved as well as you : But oh, like Jesus, pray for them
Who know not what they do : Oh plead, as once the Saviour did,
That we may all be One, That so the weeping world may know
The Father sent the Son.
46 LAMENT.
Oh let thy Lenten litanies
Be full of prayer for them ! Oh go ye to the scattered sheep
Of Israel's parent stem ! Oh keep thy fast for Christendom !
For Christ's dear body mourn ; And weave again the seamless robe,
That faithless friends have torn.
4.
Ye love your dear home-festivals,
With every month entwined ; Oh weep for those whose sullen hearths
No Christmas garlands bind ! Those Iceland regions of the faith
No changing seasons cheer, While our sweet paths drop fruitfulness,
Through all the joyous year.
5.
What though some borealis-beams
On even them may flare ! Pray God the sunlight of his love
May rise serenely there ; For fitful flames, Oh plead the Lord
To give His daily ray, With manna dropped, at morn and eve,
Along their desert way.
LAMENT. 47
6.
Oh weep for those, on whom the Lord
While here below did weep, Lest grievous wolves should enter in,
Not sparing of His sheep ; And eat thy bitter herbs awhile,
That when our Feast is spread, These too— that gather up the crumbs,
May eat the children's bread.
EMBER-PRAYERS.
1.
Let out thy soul, and pray !
Not for thy home alone ; Away in prayer, away !
Make all the world thine own. Let out thy soul in prayer ;
Oh, let thy spirit grow ! God gives thee sun and air ;
Let the full "blossom blow !
2.
There ! dost thou not perceive
Thy spirit swell within, And something high receive,
That is not born of sin 1 Oh, paltry is the soul
That only self can heed ! Sail outward — from the shoal,
And bourgeon, from the seed !
EMBER-PRAYERS. 3.
Moth and the rust consume
The spangled folds of pride ; Dry-rot doth eat the bloom,
And gnaw the wealth we hide : The spirit's selfish care,
Doth die away the same ; But give it air — free air,
And how the soul can flame !
4.
Yestreen I did not know
How largely I could live ; But Faith hath made me grow,
To more than Earth can give. Joy ! for a heart releas'd
From littleness and pride ; Fast is the spirit's feast,
And Lent the soul's high-tide.
5.
When for the Church I pray'd, As this dear Lent began,
My thoughts, I am afraid, Within small limits ran.
By Ember-week I learn'd
How large that prayer might be,
And then, in soul, I burn'd
That all might pray with me. 5
50 EMBER-PRAYERS.
6.
Plead for the victims all
Of heresy and sect ; And bow thy knees like Paul,
For all the Lord's Elect ! Pray for the Church — I mean,
For Shem and Japliet pray : And churches, long unseen,
In isles, and far away !
7.
Oh, pray that all who err
May thus be gather'd in ; The Moslem worshipper,
And all the sects of sin ! For all who love in heart,
But have not found the way, pray — and thy teurs will start !
'Twas so the Lord did pray.
8. Now- — 'gainst hard-hearted Rome,
Appealing to the Lord, All churches arc our home,
And prayer, the battle-word ! The saints, communion — one,
One Lord— one Faith— one birth, Oh, pray to God the Son,
For all his Church on Earth.
ENGLAND.
The glory of cliildren are their fathers.— Pro ve rbs.
1.
Land of the rare old chronicle,
The legend and the lay, Where deeds of fancy's dream are truths
Of all thine ancient day ; Land where the holly-bough is green
Around the druid's pile, And greener yet the histories
That wreathe his rugged isle ;
Land of old story — like thine oak
The aged, but the strong, And wound with antique mistletoe
And ivy-wreaths of song ; Old isle and glorious — I have heard
Thy fame across the sea, And know my fathers' homes are thine ;
My fathers rest with thee !
ENGLAND. 3.
I know they sleep in hallo w'd ground
Beneath the church's shade, Where ring old bells eternally,
For prayer incessant made ; Nor dull their ear to living prayers,
Nor vain the anthem's swell ; Where Christian sounds are lulling him,
The Christian slumbers well.
4.
And I could yet my dust lay down
Beneath old England's sward, For, lull'd by her, 'twere sweet to wait
The coming of the Lord : Oh England, let thy child desire
Upon thy breast to be, And bless thee in the mother-words
My mother taught to me !
5. For I have learned them in the tales
Thy sagest sons have told, And loved their music in romance
And roundelays of old : And I have wooed thy poet tide
From fountain-head along, From warbled gush, to torrent roar
And cataract of song.
ENGLAND. 53
And thou art no strange land to me,
From Cumberland to Kent, With hills and vales of household name
And woods of wild event : For tales of Guy and Robinhood
My childhood ne'er could tire, And Alfred's poet story roused
My boyhood to the lyre.
7.
And I have lived my student years
On Isis' wizard side, In sooth, no candidate, I ween,
For Alma-Mater's pride ; For fancy that could awe my soul
To surplice, hood, and gown, Hath mingled me in college-freaks,
And quarrels with the Town.
S.
Dear happy homes ! where others slight,
The boon my soul had prized, The cells where sages have been bred,
And human lore baptized ! Those walks of towering Magdalene,
Those Christ-church meads so fair, St. Mary's spire — chime answering chime,
And early bell for prayer ! 5*
54 ENGLAND.
9.
Oh shame ye yawning Balliol men
Who hate the prayer-bell's toll, That I, a far-off stranger wight,
Should love it, in my soul ; That oft the Mantuan's hackney'd verse
Revives at thought of you ; Oh, happiest of the happy — ye,
If but your bliss ye knew !
10.
In day-dreams of the roving wish,
The Cherwell's banks I've trod ; Have pulled an oar on Isis' tide,
Or strayed with gun and rod ; Have taken rooms ; burglarious thought I
Called quiet Corpus mine ; And won a prize ; ye wrangling sophs
Forgive the bold design !
11.
It ne'er can be — but, fancy-free,
To live in one's desire, To catch from dreams what real life
In Oxford would inspire ; This use of fancy have I made,
Forbidden else to roam, Till England is a home to me,
Besides my native home.
ENGLAND. 55
I
12.
Fair isle ! Thy Dove's wild dale along
With "Walton have I roved, And London too, with all the heart
Of burly Johnson, loved ! •
Chameleon-like, my soul has ta'en
Its every hue from thine, From Eastcheap's epidemic laugh,
To Avon's gloom divine.
13.
All thanks to pencil, and the page
Of graver's mimic art, That England's panorama gave
To picture up my heart ; That round my spirit's eye have built
Thine old cathedral piles, And flung the chequered window-light
Adown their trophied aisle3.
14.
I know thine abbey, Westminster,
As sea-birds know their nest, And flies my home-sick soul to thee,
When it would find a rest ; Where princes and old bishops sleep,
With sceptre and with crook, And mighty spirits haunt around
Each gothic shrine and nook.
56 ENGLAND.
15.
I feel the sacramental hue
Of choir and chapel, there, And pictured panes that chasten down
The day's unholy glare ; And dear it is, on cold gray stone,
To see the sunbeams crawl, In long-drawn lines of colour'd light,
That streak the banner'd wall.
16. I hear the priest's far-dying chaunt,
The organ's thunder-roll ; I kneel me on the chilly floor,
And pray with all my soul ; I feel that God himself is there,
And saints are sleeping round ; Oh, save the Holy Sepulchre,
'Tis Earth's most holy ground.
17.
Thus, Albion, have I lived with thee,
Though born so far away ; With thee I spend each holy eve,
And every festal day. My Sunday morn is musical,
With England's steeple-tone ; And when thy Christmas hearths are bright.
A blaze is on my own.
ENGLAND. 57
IS.
What though upon thy clear green hills,
My footsteps never trod ; Thine empire is as far and wide
As all the world of God ! And by the sea-side glorious,
Have I been wont to stand, For Ocean is old England's own,
Where'er it beats the land.
19.
I've seen thy beacon-banners blaze
Our mountain coast along, And swelled my soul with memories
Of old romaunt and song : Of Chevy-chase, of Agincourt,
Of many a field they told ; Of Norman and Plantaganet,
And all their fame of old !
20.
What though the red-cross blazonry
Waved fast and far away ; Not so the nourish'd vaunt it flung
Of Cceur-de-Lion's day : Not so the golden tales it told
Of crown and kingdom won, And how my own forefathers fought
For Christ, at Ascalon.
58 ENGLAND.
21.
And well thy banner-folds may bear
In red — the Holy Rod, Thy priests have princes been to men,
Thy princes, priests to God ! And bold to win a crown in heaven
The royal martyr bled ; The martyrs' noble host is full
Of England's noblest dead.
22.
Thy holy Church— the Church of God
That hath grown old in thee, Since there the ocean -roving Dove
Came bleeding from the sea ; When pierced afar, her weary feet
Could find no home but thine, Until thine altars were her nest,
Thy fanes her glory's shrine ,•
23.
At least that Holy Church is mine !
And every h allow' d day, I bend where England's anthems swell,
And hear old England pray : And England's old adoring rites,
And old liturgic words, Are mine — but not for England's sake ;
I love them as the Lord's !
ENGLANP. 59
24.
And I have sung. By Babel's stream
The Hebrew's harp was still, For there, there was no God for him,
No shrine and holy hill : But here, by Hudson's glorious wave,
A song of thee I'll sound, For England's sons and spires are here,
And England's God around.
CHRONICLES. I.
THE STORY OF SOME RUINS. 1.
The abbeys, and the arches.
The old cathedral piles, Oh, weep to see the ivy
And the grass in all their aisles ; The vaulted roof is fallen,
And the bat and owl repose Where once the people knelt them,
And the high Te Deum rose.
2.
Oh, were they not our Father's !
"Was not his honour there ! Or hath the Lord deserted
His holy house of prayer ! Time was, when they were sacred
As the place of Jacob's rest, And their altars all as spotless
As the Virgin Mother's breast.
CHRONICLES. 61
3.
Oh, wo ! the hour that brought him,
The Roman and his reign, To shed o'er all our temples,
The scarlet hue and stain : Till the mitre and the crosier
"Were dizzen'd o'er with gems, And sullied with the tinsel
Of the Caesars' diadems.
4.
But still our Father loved us ;
And the holy place had still Its beauty, and its glory,
On its old eternal hill. His heritage they trampled,
Those men of iron rod ! But still it tower'd in honour,
The temple of our God.
II.
MARTYRS REFORM THE CHURCH.
Ye abbeys and ye arches, Ye old cathedral piles,
The martyrs' noble army Are in your hallowed aisles.
62 CHRONICLES.
And the bishop and the baron Have knelt together there,
And breathed a vow to heaven In agony of prayer.
2.
And to chase away the tyrant
From England's happy home, They have risen like their fathers,
'C4ainst the cruel hordes of Rome; For oh they love the temples
Where virgin Faith has trod, Though all too long within them,
Man showed himself as God.
Ye abbeys, and ye arches,
Ye old cathedral jnles, Again a holy incense
Is in your vaulted aisles ! Again in noble English
The Christian anthems swell, And out the organ pealeth,
Over stream and stilly dell.
And the bishop, and the deacon, And the presbyter are there,
In pure and stainless raiment, At Eucharist and prayer ;
CHRONICLES. 63
And the bells swing free and merry.
And a nation shouteth round, For the Lord himself hath triumphed,
And His voice is in the sound.
III.
BUT REGICIDES MAKE DISSEXT: 1.
Ye abbeys, and ye arches,
Ye old cathedrals blest, Be strong against the earthquake,
And the days of your unrest : For not the haughty Roman
Could make old England bow, But the children of her bosom
Are the foes that trouble now.
2.
A gleam is in the abbey,
And a sound ariseth there : 5Tis not the light of worship,
'Tis not the voice of prayer; Their hands are red with murder,
And a prince's fall they sing ! They would slay the Lord of Glory
Should He come as^aiii as Kino-.
64 CHRONICLES.
3.
And a lawless soldier tramples
Where the holy loved to kneel, And he spurns a bishop's ashes
With his ruffian hoof of steel ! Ay, horses have they stabled
Where the blessed martyrs knelt, That neigh — where rose the anthem,
And the psalm that made us melt.
4.
There, once a glorious window,
Shed down a flood of rays, With rainbow hues and holy,
And colours all ablaze ! Its pictured panes are broken,
Our fathers' tombs profaned, And the font where we were christen'd,
With the blood of brothers stained.
IV.
AND FULFIL THE SEVENTY-FOURTH rSALM.
9
1.
Ye abbeys and ye arches,
Ye old cathedrals dear, The hearts that love you tremble,
And your enemies have cheer ;
CHROMCLES. 65
But the prayers ye heard are breathing,
And your litanies they sing ; There are holy men in England
That are praying for their king.
2.
The noble in the cottage,
While the hind is in his hall, Still kneels, as if he heard them,
When your chimes were wont to call ; And at morning, and at evening,
There are high-born hearts and true, In the lowliest huts of England,
That will bless the king, and you.
And bishops, in their prison,
Will still the lessons read, How the good are often troubled,
While the vilest men succeed ; How God's own heart may honour
Whom the people oft disown, And how the royal David
Was driven from his throne.
4.
And their Psalter mourneth with them.
O'er the carvings and the grace,
Which axe and hammer ruin,
In the fair and holy place ; 6*
65 CHRONICLES.
O'er the havoc they are making In all the land abroad,
And the banners of the cruel In the dwelling house of God.
V.
BUT GOD IS WITH US TO THE END. 1.
Ye abbeys and ye arches,
How few and far between, The remnants of your glory
In all their pride are seen ! A thousand fanes are fallen,
And the bat and owl repose Where once the people knelt them,
And the high Te Deum rose.
2.
But their dust and stones are precious
In the eyes of pious men, And the baron hath his manor,
And the king his own again ! And again the bells are ringing
With a free and happy sound, And again Te Deum riseth
In all the churches round.
CHRONICLES. 67
Now pray ye for our mother,
That England long may be, The holy, and the happy,
And the gloriously free ! Who blesseth her, is blessed !
So peace be in her walls ; And joy in all her palaces,
Her cottages and halls !
All ye, who pray in English,
Pray God for England, pray ! And chiefly, thou, my country,
In thy young glory's day ! Pray God those times return not,
'Tis England's hour of need ! Pray for thy mother — daughter,
Plead God, for England — plead,
THE CHIMES OF ENGLAND.
Upon the bells.— Zechariah. 1.
The chimes, the chimes of Motherland,
Of England green and old, That out from fane and ivied tower
A thousand years have toll'd. ; How glorious must their music be
As breaks the hallow'd day, And calleth, with a seraph's voice,
A nation up to pray !
Those chimes that tell a thousand tales,
Sweet tales of olden time ; And ring a thousand memories
At vesper, and at prime ! At bridal and at burial,
For cottager and king, Those chimes — those glorious Christian chime.'
How blessedly they ring !
THE CHIMES OP EXCLAXD. 69
Those chimes, those chimes of Motherland,
Upon a Christmas mora, Outbreaking, as the angels did,
For a Redeemer born ; How merrily they call afar,
To cot and baron's hall, With holly deck'd, and mistletoe,
To keep the festival !
4.
The chimes of England, how they peal
From tower and gothic pile, Where hymn and swelling anthem fill
The dim cathedral aisle ; Where windows bathe the holy light
On priestly heads that falls, And stain the florid tracery
And banner-dighted walls !
5.
And then, those Easter bells, in Spring,
Those glorious Easter chimes ! How loyally they hail thee round,
Old Queen of holy times ! From hill to hill, like sentinels,
Responsively they cry, And sing the rising of the Lord,
From vale to mountain high.
70 THE CHIMES OF ENGLAND.
6.
I love ye — chimes of Motherland,
With all this soul of mine, And bless the Lord that I am sprung
Of good old English line : And like a son I sing the lay
That England's glory tells ; For she is lovely to the Lord,
For you, ye Christian bells !
7.
And heir of her ancestral fame,
Though far away my birth, Thee too I love, my Forest-land,
The joy of all the earth ; For thine thy mother's voice shall be,
And here — where God is king, With English chimes, from Christian spires,
The wilderness shall ring-.
SCOTLAND,
THE ORANGE SACRILEGE.
. Though all the nations that are under the king's dominion obey him, and fall
away, every one from the religion of their fathers God forbid that we
should forsake the law, and the ordinance-! We will not hearken to the king's words, to go from our religion, either on the right hand or the left. — Maccabees.
1.
'Twas a true -hearted Scotsman
Had risen from his knees, All in a glorious chapel
Reared by the old Culdees. That day the axe of Orange
On Scotland's altars rung, And down fair cross and crosier
Upon the Earth were flung.
2.
And as he rose from praying
The raving mob broke in ; And as he passed the portal,
He heard the spoiler's din. He beat his breast — and tear-drops
They stood in either eye : He left that church forever,
But thus did prophesy.
72 SCOTLAND.
3.
Ah me — St. Andrew's crosier !
'Tis broken and laid low : God help thee Church of Scotland,
It seemeth thy death blow ! They've robbed thee of thine altars,
They've ta'en thine ancient name But thou'rt the Church of Scotland,
Till Scotland melts in flame.
4.
Ay — hear it, heartless William,
Thou shalt have ne'er a son ! Thy tree — it shall be blighted,
For this that thou hast done ! Thine Orange-bough, in Britain,
Shall leave nor branch nor shoot; For God uproots the sovereign
That would his Church uproot !
5.
Ay — grasp old Scotia's thistle,
Thy daring hand must bleed ; But touch the cross of Andrew,
Thy soul shall rue the deed ! Unroof the Church of Scotland,
She lives in dens and caves ; She cries to God, and tyrants
Are ashes, in their graves.
SCOTLAND. 7o
6.
And thou, old Church, like princes
When clowns usurp their state, Shalt be confest, in exile,
The ancient, and the great ! Not she that thus usurpeth
Can boast one grace of thine ; That grace — it cometh only
Of Apostolic line.
Then leave to grim Genevans
Cathedral choir and aisle, Let psalms of Covenanters
Be quavered there, awhile : The very stones shall flout them,
In beauty built, and might, For apostolic service,
And high liturgic rite.
S.
And thou, true Church of Scotland,
Cast down, shalt not despair ; When dower'd wives are barren
The desolate shall bear ; Thy sons — they shall be princes,
To take their fathers' stead, And shame the church whose portion,
Is proud, and full of bread ! 7
74 SCOTLAND.
9.
When o'er the "Western waters
They seek for crook and key, The Lord shall make like Hannah's
Thy poor and low degree ! Thou o'er new worlds, the scej^tre
Of Shiloh shalt extend, And a long line of children,
From thy sad breast descend.
10.
And when, at length, old Scotland,
Her chiefs, and her true men, Her Highlands and her Lowlands
Shall find their hearts agen : When martyr' d Sharpe upriseth
In spirit 'gainst his foes, And souls are bred in Scotland
To match the great Montrose ;
11.
In Edin's high Cathedral,
No more the fish-wife's voice ; In Glasgow's crypts and cloisters,
No more the rabble's choice ; Oh then St. Andrew's crosier
Once more shall be upheld, And the Culdee mitre glisten
In Brechin and Dunkcld.
SCOTLAND, 75
12.
See after See uprearing
Once more the shatter 'd cross ; Once more a bishop treading
The heathery braes of Ross ; Fair Elgin's choir enfolding
The Moray shepherd's rest, And Holyrood — from ruins
Uprising, bright and blest ;
13.
From Berwick to the Orkneys,
How each old kirk shall gleam In beauty and in brightness,
With thy returning beam ! One heart in Gael and Saxon,
In cotter and in thane ; One creed — one church in Scotland,
From Caithness to Dumblane !
14.
Then faint not, Church of Scotland !
Thy glory and thy worth Shall make a new uprising,
In fair and sightly Perth ; Nor long shall be in coming
Thy best and brightest day, When once again thy glories
Shall shine along the Tay.
76 SCOTLAND.
15.
Bide thou thy time in patience !
The sons of thy bold foes Shall build thine old waste places,
Dunfermline and Melrose. Where now the sons of havoc
Upon thine altars tread, Thine own Liturgic Service
Shall bless the Cup and Bread.
15.
Save only from the spoiler,
That pure and ancient rite ! In Scotland's Altar-service
All churches must unite : And — as the Ark of Scotland
Keep thou thy rightful name, For thou'rt the Church of Scotland
Till Scotland melts in flame !
SEABURY'S MITRE ;
IN TRINITY COLLEGE, HARTFORD
1.
The rod that from Jerusalem,
Went forth so strong of yore ; That rod of David's royal stem,
Whose hand the farthest bore 1 St. Paul to seek the setting sun
They say, to Britain prest ; St. Andrew to old Caledon ;
But who still further West %
2,
Go ask !— a thousand tongues shall tell
His name and dear renown, AVhere altar, font, and holy bell,
Are gifts he handed down : A thousand hearts keep warm the name.
Which share those gifts so blest ; Vet even this may tell the same,
First mitre of the West !
78 seabury's mitre.
3.
This mitre with its crown of thorn,
Its cross upon the front ; Not for a proud adorning worn,
But for the battle's brunt : This helmet— with Salvation's sign,
Of one whose shield was faith ; This crown — of him, for right divine
Who battled unto death !
Oh ! keep it — till the moth shall wear
Its comeliness to dust, Type of a crown that's laid up where
There is nor moth nor rust ; Type of the Lord's commission given
To this, our Western shore ; The rod of Christ — the keys of heaven,
Through one, to thousands more.
5.
They tell how Scotia keeps with awe
Her old Regalia bright, Sign of her independent law,
And proud imperial right ; But keep this too for Scotland's boast ;
'Twill tell of better things, When long old Scotia shall have lost
Those gewgaws of her kings.
seabury's mitre. 79
6.
And keep it for this mighty "West
Till truth shall glorious be, And good old Samuel's is confest
Columbia's primal see. 'Tis better than a diadem, f Tne crown that Bishop wore, Whose hand, the rod of David's stem, The furthest Westward bore.
RUSTIC CHURCHES. st. Gabriel's, Windsor, Connecticut
1.
Yes— -'tis the village-joiner's work,
With but his axe and saw : No Wykeham was the humble clerk,
That such a plan could draw ! 'Tis what a rural parish could
With what its farms supplied ; Not what in mind and heart they would,
Had they the gold beside !
2.
Yet hath it merit— in the eye
That can, by fancy's aid, What Time can only give supply,
Of shrubbery and shade. Add but of ancient elms a score,
Those undissenting trees, And he that passes by, shall pore
Well-pleased, on what he sees*
RUSTIC CHURCHES. 81
3.
Its merit, first, is — what 'tis not !
'Tis not that timber thing By crude Genevan rites begot,
And used for town-meeting ! Nor yet a type of changing shifts,
Like halls, low-roof d and tinn'd, On which a wooden Babel lifts
Its weather-cock to wind.
4.
Nor does it bring those shaggy curs
Instinctively to mind, With forward parts adorned in furs,
But shaven close behind ; Like many a pine-wood parody
Of old Athenian fanes, That fronts a cotton-factory
All fleck'd with window-panes !
5.
Again — so country parsons speak,
Some merit it may claim In that it dares to look antique,
In colour, and in frame. And then, no passer-by can doubt
Its spiritual kin, For oh, it tells the truth, without,
Of what it is, within !
82 RUSTIC CHURCHES.
6.
All that the Church requires it hath,
Chancel, and porch, and nave, A sacristy, and holy bath
The sinner's soul to lave : And in the baptist'ry, a well ;
O'er-head, an open-roof ; A gable-cot to hold the bell ;
The cross — a church's proof !
7.
So once— where now St. Joseph's thorn
Blooms by an abbey's towers, Stood the poor Briton's church, forlorn,
And ruder far than ours ! Nor here the faithful eye shall fail
The brightening view to catch, That opened from that structure frail
Of wicker-work and thatch.
For dear is even the first rude art
Which holy Faith inspires ! The whole is augured from the part,
Achievements — from desires. At least such churches symbolize
The place where Christ was born ; And mangers may to minsters rise,
As noontide from the morn.
CIirRCHYARDS
ST. GEORGES, HEMPSTEAD.
1.
I never can see a churchyard old,
With its mossy stones and mounds, And green-trees weeping the unforgot
That rest in its hallowed bounds ; I never can see the old churchyard,
But I breathe to God a prayer, That, sleep as I may in this fevered life,
I may rest when I slumber there.
2.
Our mother, the Earth, hath a cradle-bed
Where she gathereth sire and son, And the old-world's fathers are pillowed there,
Her children, every one ! And her cradle it hath a dismal name,
When riseth the banquet's din, And pale is the cheek at dance or wine,
If a song of its sleep break in.
84 CHURCHYARDS.
3.
But our mother the Church, hath a gentle nest,
Where the Lord's dear children lie, And its name is sweet to a Christian ear,
As a motherly lullaby. Oh the green churchyard, the green churchyard,
Is the couch she spreads for all, And she layeth the cottager's baby there,
With the lord of the tap'stry hall !
4.
Our mother the Church hath never a child,
To honour before the rest, But she singeth the same for mighty kings,
And the veriest babe on her breast ; And the bishop goes down to his narrow bed,
As the ploughman's child is laid, And alike she blesseth the dark-brow'd serf,
And the chief in his robe arrayed.
5.
She sprinkles the drops of the bright new-birth,
The same, on the low and high, And christens their bodies with dust to dust,
When earth with its earth must lie ; Oh the poor man's friend, is the Church of Christ
From birth, to his funeral day ; She makes him the Lord's, in her surpliced arms,
And singeth his burial lay.
CHURCHYARDS. 85
6.
And ever the bells in the green churchyard
Are tolling, to tell ye this ; Go pray in the church, while pray ye can,
That so ye may sleep in bliss. And wise is he in the glow of life,
Who weaveth his shroud of rest, And graveth it plain on his coffin-plate,
That the dead in Christ are blest.
7.
I never can see a green churchyard,
But I think I may slumber there, And I wonder within me what strange disease,
Shall bring me to homes so fair ; And whether in breast, in brain, or blood,
There lurketh a secret sore, Or whether this heart, so warm and full,
Hath a worm at its inmost core.
For I know, ere long, some limb of mine,
To the rest, may traitor prove, And steal from the strong young frame I wear,
The generous flush I love : I know I may burn into ashes soon,
With this feverish flame of life ; Or the flickering lamp may soon blaze out,
With its dying self at strife.
CHURCHYARDS. 9.
And here — I think — when they lay me down
How strange will my slumber be, The cold cold clay for my dreamless head,
And the turf for my canopy ; How stilly will creep the long long years
O'er my quiet sleep away, And oh what a waking that sleep shall know,
At the peal of the Judgment-day !
10.
Up— up from the graves and the clods around
The quickened bones will stare ; i know that within this green churchyard
A host shall be born to air ; A thousand shall struggle to birth agen,
From under the sods I tread : Oh, strange — thrice strange, shall the story be
Of the field where they lay the dead !
11.
Oh bury me then, in the green churchyard,
As my old fore-fathers rest, Nor lay me in cold Necropolis,
'Mid many a grave unblest ; I would sleep where the church-bells aye ring out ;
I would rise by the house of prayer, And feel me a moment at home, on earth,
For the Christian's home is there.
CHURCHYARD-. 87
12.
I never loved cities of living men.
And towns of the dead, I hate j Oh let me rest in the churchyard then,
And hard by the church's gate : 'Tis there I pray to my Saviour Christ,
And I will, till mine eye is dim, That, sleep as I may in this fevered life7
I may rest, at last, in Him.
TRINITY, OLD CHURCH.
EASTER EVEN,
Thy servants think upon her stones, and it pitieth them to see her in the dust.— Psalter.
1.
The Paschal moon is ripe to-night
On fair Manhada's bay, And soft it falls on Hoboken,
As where the Saviour lay : And beams, beneath whose paly shine
Nile's troubling angel flew, Show many a blood-besprinkled door
Of our passover too.
2.
But here where, many an holy year,
It shone on arch and aisle, What means its cold and silver ray
On dust, and ruined pile % Oh where's the consecrated porch,
The sacred lintel where, And where's that antique steeple's height
To bless the moonlight air 1
TRINITY, OLD CHURCH. 89
3.
I seem to miss a mother's face
In this her wonted home ; And linger in the green churchyard
As round that mother's tomb. Old Trinity ! thou too art gone !
And in thine own blest bound, They've laid thee low, dear mother church,
To rest in holy ground !
4.
The vaulted roof that trembled oft
Above the chaunted psalm ; The quaint old altar where we owned
Our very Paschal Lamb ; The chimes that ever in the tower
Like seraph-music sung, And held me spell-bound in the way
When I was very young ;
The marble monuments within ;
The 'scutcheons, old and rich ; And one bold bishop's effigy
Above the chancel-niche ; The mitre and the legend there
Beneath the coloured pane ; All these — thou knewest, Paschal moon,
But ne'er shalt know again !
8*
90 TRINITY, OLD CHURCH.
6.
And thou wast shining on this spot
That hour the Saviour rose ! But oh, its look, that Easter morn,
The Saviour only knows. A thousand years — and 'twas the same?
And half a thousand more ; Old moon, what mystic chronicles,
Thou keepest, of this shore !
7.
And so, till good Queen Anna reign'd,
It was a heathen sward : But then they made its virgin turf,
An altar to the Lord. With holy roof they covered it ;
And when Apostles came, They claimed, for Christ, its battlements,
And took it, in God's name.
8.
Then, Paschal moon, this sacred spot
No more thy magic felt, Till flames brought down the holy place,
Where our forefathers knelt. Again, 'tis down — the grave old pile ;
That mother church sublime ! Look on its roofless floor, old moon,
For 'tis thy last — last time !
TRINITY, OLD CHURCH. 91
Ay, look with smiles, for never there
Shines Paschal moon agen, Till breaks the Earth's great Easter-day
O'er all the graves of men ! So wane away, old Paschal moon,
And come next year as bright ; Eternal rock shall welcome thee,
Our faith's devoutest light !
10.
They rear old Trinity once more :
And, if ye weep to see, The glory of this latter house,
Thrice glorious shall be ! Oh lay its deep foundations strong,
And, yet a little while, Our Paschal Lamb himself shall come
To light its hallowed aisle,
TRINITY, NEW CHURCH.
ASCENSION DAY, 1846.
I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires- And I will make thy windows of agates and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones. And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord ; and great shall be the peace of thy children.— Isaiah.
1.
'Tis raised in beauty from the dust,
And 'tis a goodly j3ile ! So takes our infant Church, I trust,
Her own true stamp and style. As birds put forth their own attire,
As shells o'er sea-nymphs grow, 'Tis ours — nave, chancel, aisle and spire,
And not a borrowed show.
2.
Not this, a church without — to hide
Conventicle within ; Here is no masquerade outside
Of but the lion's skin ! Not this a lie engraved in rocks !
'Tis— what it shews abroad, A mountain piled in shapely blocks,
And made the House of God.
TRINITY, NEW CHURCH. 93
3.
'Tis native comeliness ! As earth
Puts forth her golden sheaves, As flowers mature their brilliant birth,
And trees put on their leaves ; As human flesh grows sound and fair
Around the human bone, So doth the Church this glory wear,
And clothe herself in stone.
4.
How like herself our Mother seems
In this — her ancient dress ! 'Tis as a robe the gazer deems
Well worn by loveliness. The clothing that befits a queen,
With ease and grace she wears ; Her home attire, for daily scene ,
And daily work of prayers !
Not this a Gothic gazing-stock,
Where naught is meant or told ; Translated into solid rock,
The prayer-book's self behold ! Sermons in stones ! Yes— more beside,
A language, and a voice ! Much utter'd — but far more implied
That makes the heart rejoice.
(> I TRINITY, NEW CHURCH.
6.
Without — eacli little carving speaks
Of Christ, the Crucified, To Jews a stumbling-block, to Greek?
'Tis foolishness beside : But oh, to all the faithful — see,
From porch to topmost tower, It telleth of the Trinity,
And preacheth Christ with power !
7.
Within — behold the promised grace,
Fair stones, and colours too, To beautify the holy place,
And shed a feeling throuo-h \ Windows of agates — pictured sights
AVith floral borders bound, Yes — pleasant stones, and sapphire-lights
That throw a glory round.
8.
Oh God, how beautiful and vast
Men's minds and fancies grow, When, in thy mould of doctrine cast,
Their warm ideas flow ! When 'tis thy Church inspires the thought,
And forms the bold design, Till, from a sullen rock, is wrought
A symbol so divine !
TRINITY, NEW CHURCH. 95
But note the better part, as well :
The Church's children all, Called daily, by the holy bell,
To prayer and festival. Oh gather them from far abroad ;
Oh pray, and never cease : When all thy sons are taught of God,
How great shall be their peace !
10.
Dear cross ! hold fast thy height in air :
Stand ever wide, blest door ! And ever crowd, ye faithful, there,
High, lowly, rich and poor ! Sweet bells ! ring ever your glad sound,
And let its message be Ho ! ye that thirst — here Christ is found,
And here His home is free.
THE SPIRE-CROSS.
The oftence of the Cross.— Si. Paul.
1.
Cross of Christ, Star of grace, O'er the high and holy place, Like the light of Jesu's face
So divine, For love of what thou art, My best and chosen part, I hail thee in my heart ;
Blessed Sign !
2.
Let Japanese and Jews, And Antichristian crews, The stumbling-block refuse
And deride ! But oh thou glorious Tree, Bathed with Jesu's blood, for me, Thou Cross of Calvary, Crimson dyed j
THE SPIRE-CROSS. J7
3.
Their souls have never known What comes by thee alone, And their heart is like a stone
In their breast ! But mine the broken Bread, And the Blood my Saviour shed ; And the Cross, on which He bled, Is my rest.
How glorious is its form,
In the starlight, or the storm,
In the morning, or the warm
Light of noon ; It peereth in the air, O'er the holy place of prayer, And is beautiful and fair, By the moon.
5.
Let it be the Christian's boast;
Let it glitter from the coast !
Like a watchman, at his post,
Let it say
Here the Lord Jehovah dwells,
Here ring the holy bells,
Here the Church's service swells ;
Come and pray ! 9
98 THE SPIRE-CROSS.
As the rent and ravell'd rag Of the soldier's flying flag, On the rampart's blazing crag,
Rouseth him ; It points me to the prize, And to see it in the skies, Brings the tear-drops to my eyes, And they swim.
Like a trumpet's stirring psalm, It reminds me what I am, A soldier of the Lamb !
And, right down, My soul it yearns to kneel, And renew my Saviour's seal, That I may, with newer zeal,
Win His crown.
8. And so thou glorious Cross, On the steeple's golden boss, O'er a world of gilded dross,
Lifted high, Thou hast been to me, this day, Like a far descending ray, That lights some hut of clay, From the sky !
THE SPIRE-CROSS. 99
My banner bright art thou, And I wear thee on my brow, With my baptismal vow, Writ in gore : Oh Jesu, from my heart, Let its shadow ne'er depart, But, to brinsr me where Thou art, Go before !
ORATORIES.
PRIVATE PRAYER IN CHURCHES.
In a Church's aisle or towers,
Vestry, porch, or chancel-side, If — in prayerless days like ours,
Any open door is spied ; Say not that the Sacristan
Happens there, to ply his broom ; Say — some viewless friend of man Beckons thee, and says there's room.
'Tis the house of prayer — Go in !
'Tis the Christian's home by right ! Find some nook, confess thy sin, And go forth in Jesus' might.
2.
Halt not for some foolish doubt !
Is it not thy Father's home ] "Who will dare to turn thee out,
When the Master bids thee come ?
ORATORIES. 101
Is it open 1 Worship God !
If another lounges round, Talking, staring, laughing broad,
Let him learn — 'tis hallowed ground, 'Tis the house of prayer — &c.
Like the publican of old,
Hide the face, and smite the breast, Say his words, and — manifold
Be thy secret sins confess'd ! For the people there that pray,
For the priest, whose vows are there, Brother-like a collect say,
Pray some dear familiar prayer.
'Tis the house of prayer — &c.
Oh 'tis sweet a home to claim
Thus, where'er a church we see,
Stealing in, though not with shame,
Yet to worship noiselessly ;
Like the birds to nestle there
Where the Psalmist's cedars grow ;
And to leave a fragrant prayer
Wafting heavenward as we go.
'Tis the house of prayer — Go in !
'Tis the Christian's home by right !
Find some nook — confess thy sin,
And go forth in Jesus' might. 9*
WAYSIDE HOMES.
1. As I rode on mine errand along,
I came where a prim little spire Chimed out to the landscape a song,
And glowed in the sunset like fire.
2. Its cross beamed a beckoning ray,
And the home of my Mother I knew ; So I pressed to its portal to pray,
And my book, from my bosom, I drew.
3.
How sweet was the service within,
And the plain rustic chaunt how sincere !
How welcome the pardon of sin,
And the kind parting blessing how dear !
4.
And the parson — I knew not his name,
And the brethren — each face was unknown ;
But the Church and the prayers were the same, And my heart claimed them all for its own.
WAYSIDE HOMES. 103
5.
For I knew — in my own little nook, That eve, the same Psalter was said,
And Lessons, the same from the Book, By my far-away darlings were read.
6.
So I prayed, and went on in my way,
Blessing God for the Church He hath given :
My steed on his journey was gay ; So was I— on my journey to Heaven.
LITTLE WOODMERE.
THE PRAYER-BOOK PATTERN. 1.
A nave it had, and a chancel,
The Church of Little Woodmere !
A porch at the south : on the north-side Did a tower and its steeple peer.
And a bell, o'er the eastern gable, In a cross-topped belfry swung ;
When the Litany was beginning, The gable-bell was rung.
3.
The chancel it had. a window, All cunningly set with stains :
There were angels and saints and martyrs Seen in its pictured paries.
4.
From the dust and noise of the highway, 'Twas a furlong perchance withdrawn ;
Hard by stood the rectory-mansion, On a trim little shrubbery-lawn.
LITTLE WOODMERE. 105
5.
And all round the church was a churchyard,
With beautiful clumps of trees ; The churchyard cross was planted
On a hillock — like Calvary's.
6. A quaint little roof o'er the gateway,
Where funerals paused with the bier ! When the priest came forth, in his surplice,
He began the service here.
7. The rich and poor, all together,
On the south of the church were sown, To be raised in the same incorruption
When the trumpet, at last, is blown.
8. On the north of the church were buried
The dead of a hapless fame ; A cross and a wail for pity,
But never a date, or name.
9. Here and there was a quiet corner,
With a rustic seat in shade, Where mourners would come and ponder
On the dear ones around them laid.
106 LITTLE WOODMERE.
10.
And there I mused till the bell toll'd, And thought, with the soul in bliss,
The best of good things for the body- Were to sleep in a spot like this.
11.
As I joined in the throng from the village That were keeping St. Barthelmy's day,
And passed along, with a how-d'ye, And festival greeting to pay ;
12.
I noticed a train of dear children ;
The school of the parish stood near, And, led by a dame and a deacon,
They came — full of joy and of fear.
13.
And each had a musical Psalter,
For these were the singers ; each one
I fancied might stand for the cherubs, They carve with a scroll, upon stone.
14.
As I entered the nave, by the portal, I came to the font ; and thought
Of the door to the Church Universal, And how the new-birth is wrought-
LITTLE WOODMERE. 107
15.
For a moment I knelt in devotion ;
And then — as I raised mine eyes And caught the clear blaze of the chancel,
In the glow of a broad sunrise ;
16.
The altar — all bright with its silver, And the fair white cloth bespread ;
The credence prepared for oblation, The chalice, and paten of bread ;
17.
I thought of the Church triumphant,
And the altar where Jesus stands, Our great High-priest forever,
With a censer of gold in his hands.
18.
There was a plain cross o'er the rood-loft,
By the chancel's depth relieved ; And figures were carved, in the railing,
Of saints, who have fought and achieved.
19. And I thought of the happy departed,
And of Jesus' descent into hell ; And of babes, and of glorious virgins,
In Paradise-glory that dwell.
108 LITTLE WOODMERE.
20.
The nave it was dim, for its ceiling- Was dark with its timbers of oak :
Of the Militant Church 'twas the symbol ; And here knelt the worshipping folk.
21.
They knelt — rich and poor knelt together, The ploughman at side of the squire :
They reck'd not of gewgaw or feather, If white was the soul's attire.
22.
On the gospel-side hung the pulpit ;
'Twas corbell'd with angel and scroll : Xnd now — from the sacristy entered
The priest, in his cope and his stole.
23.
And soon swelled the tones of the service : The people were singers, each one ;
They chaunted a psalm from the Psalter, Men and maidens, the sire and the son.
24.
And then came the Prayer and Commandments, The Collect, with fervour devout,
And then the Epistle and Gospel ;
And the Creed — it went up with a shout !
LITTLE WOODMERE. TQ9
25.
I would you had listened the sermon :
Nathanael, the saint without guile, Was the text— and the blessed example,
And guileless as he was the style.
26. And oh, how like Heaven was communion,
Thus far from the world and its cares ! If my life were but led in that village,
'T would indeed be a life-time of prayers !
27. Afar from the blast of polemicks,
Afar from their hate and strife, No scorn of the brawling declaimer
Should turn the still course of my life.
28. While they would rail on, I'd be praying ;
And, blest with a foretaste of bliss, Live only with Herbert and Ferrar,
Forgetting such ages as this.
29. With names, in the Canon of Heaven,
That shine like the glittering skies, Mine too be the scorn of the creatures
Whose god is the Father of Lies ;
110 LITTLE WOODMERE.
30.
But — call me a Jew or a Pagan, I'd pray the good Lord to forgive,
And in heart, and in spirit, a Christian, 'Tis so I would die, and would live !
DESOLATIONS.
VIRGINIA CHURCHES
Jerusalem lieth waste, and the gates thereof are burned with fire : come and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach— Nehemiah,
1.
Hast been where the full-blossomed bay-tree is blow- ing, With odours like Eden's around 1 Hast seen where the broad-leaved palmetto is grow-
ing;
And wild- vines are fringing the ground % Hast sat in the shade of catalpas, at noon,
And eat the cool gourds of their clime ; Or slept where magnolias were screening the moon,
And the mocking-bird sung her sweet rhyme %
2.
And didst mark, in thy journey, at dew-dropping eve,
Some ruin peer high o'er thy way, With rooks wheeling round it, and ivy to weave
A mantle for turrets so gray 1 Did ye ask if some lord of the cavalier kind
Lived there, when the country was young ? And burned not the blood of a Christian to find
How there the old prayer-bell had rung !
112 DESOLATIONS.
3.
And did ye not glow, when they told ye — the Lord
Had dwelt in that thistle-grown pile ; And that bones of old Christians were under its sward,
That once had knelt down in its aisle ? And had ye no tear-drops your blushes to steep,
When ye thought — o'er your country so broad, The bard seeks in vain for a mouldering heap,
Save only these churches of God !
4. Oh ye that shall pass by those ruins agen,
Go kneel in their alleys and pray, And not till their arches have echoed amen
Rise up, and fare on, in your way. Pray God that those aisles may be crowded once more,
Those altars surrounded and spread, While anthems and prayers are upsent as of yore,
As they take of the Chalice and Bread.
5.
Ay, pray on thy knees, that each old rural fane
They have left to the bat and the mole, May sound with the loud-pealing organ again,
And the full-swelling voice of the soul. Peradventure, when next thoushalt journey thereby,
Even-bells shall ring out on the air, And the dim-lighted windows reveal to thine eye,
The snowy-robed pastor at prayer.
CHELSEA.
1.
When old Canute the Dane
Was merry England's king ; A thousand years agone, and more,
As ancient rymours sing ; His boat was rowing down the Cam
At eve, one summer day, Where Ely's tall cathedral peered
Above the glassy way.
2.
Anon, sweet music on his ear, Comes floating from the fane,
And listening, as with all his soul, Sat old Canute the Dane ;
And reverent did he doff his crown, To join the clerkly prayer,
While swelled old lauds and litanies
Upon the stilly air. 10*
114 CHELSEA.
3.
Now, who shall glide on Hudson's breast,
At eve of summer day, And. cometh where St. Peter's tower
Peers o'er his coasting way : A moment, let him slack his oar,
And speed more still along, His ears shall catch those very notes
Of litany and song*
4.
The Church that sung those anthem prayers
A thousand years ago, Is singing yet by silver Cam,
And here by Hudson's flow : And Glorias that thrilled the heart
Of old Canute the Dane, Are rising yet, at morn and eve,
From Chelsea's student train.
5.
Venite Exultimus, there
Those ancient scholars sung, And Jubilate Domino
The vaulted alleys rung : And our gray pile will tremble oft
Beneath the organ's roar, When here those very matin-songs,
With high Te Deum pour !
CHELSEA. 115
6.
And where are kings and empires now,
Since then, that went and came % But holy Church is praying yet,
A thousand years the same ! And these that sing shall pass away :
New choirs their room shall fill ! Be sure thy children's children here,
Shall hear those anthems still.
7.
For not like kingdoms of the world,
The holy Church of God ! Though earthquake-shocks be rocking it,
And tempest is abroad ; Unshaken as eternal hills,
Unmoveable it stands, A mountain that shall fill the earth,
A fane unbuilt by hands !
8.
Though years fling ivy over it,
Its cross peers high in air ; And reverend with majestic age,
Eternal youth is there ! Oh mark her holy battlements,
And her foundations strong ; And hear, within, her ceaseless voice,
And her unending song !
116 CHELSEA.
9.
Oh ye, that in these latter days
The citadel defend, Perchance for you, the Saviour said
I'm with you to the end : Stand therefore girt about, and hold
Your burning lamps in hand, And standing, listen for your Lord,
And till he cometh — stand !
10.
The gates of hell shall ne'er prevail
Against our holy home, But Oh be wakeful sentinels,
Until the Master come ! The night is spent — but listen ye ;
For on its deepest calm, What marvel if the cry be heard,
The marriage of the Lamb !
VIGILS.
Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning.
And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding ;
Blessed are those servants whom the lord, when he cometh, shall find watching :
And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. — The Holy Gospel in the Ordering nf Deacons,
1.
It is the fall of eve ; And the long tapers, now, we light
And watch : for we believe Our Lord may come at night.
Adeste Fideles.
An hour — and it is Seven,
And fast away the evening rolls :
Oh it is dark in heaven, But light within our souls.
Veni Creator Spiritus !
118 VIGILS.
3.
Hark ! the old bell strikes Eight ! And still we watch with heart and ear,
For as the hour grows late The Day-star may be near.
Jubilate Deo !
4.
Hark ! it is knelling Nine ! But faithful eyes grow never dim ;
And still our tapers shine, And still ascends our hymn.
Cum Angelis !
5.
The watchman crieth Ten ! My soul, be watching for the Light,
For when he comes agen, 'Tis — as the thief at night.
Nisi Dominus !
6.
By the old bell — Eleven ! Now trim thy lamp, and ready stand
The world to sleep is given, But Jesus is at hand.
De profundis !
VIGILS. 119
At Midnight — is a cry ! Is it the bridegroom draweth hear ]
Come quickly, Lord, for I Have long'd thy voice to hear ! Kyrie Eleison !
Could ye not watch One hour % Be ready : or the bridal train
And Bridegroom, with his dower, May sweep along in vain.
Miserere mei !
By the old steeple — Two ! And now I know the day is near !
Watch — for his word is true, And Jesus may appear ! Dies Irae !
10.
Three — by the drowsy chime !
And joy is nearer than at first. Oh, let us watch the time
When the first light shall burst ! Sursum corda.
120
11.
Four — and a streak of day ! At the cock-crowing he may come
And still to all I say, Watch — and with awe be dumb. Fili David !
12.
Five ! — and the tapers now In rosy morning dimly burn !
Stand, and be girded thou ; Thy Lord will yet return ! Veni Jesu !
13.
Hark ! 'tis the Matin-call ! Oh, when our Lord shall come agen,
At prime or even-fall, Blest are the wakeful men !
Nunc dimittis.
MATIN BELLS.
I myself will awake right early.— Psalter,
I.
The Sun is up betimes,
And the dappled East is blushing, And the bonny matin-chimes,
They are gushing — Christian— gushing ! They are tolling in the tower,
For another day begun ; And to hail the rising hour
Of a brighter, brighter, Sun ! Rise — Christian— rise !
For a sunshine brighter far Is breaking o'er thine eyes,
Than the bonny morning-star !
2.
The lark is in the sky,
And his morning-note is pourino- : He hath a wing to fly,
So he's soaring — Christian — soaring !
122 MATIN BELLS.
His nest is on the ground,
But only in the night ; For he loves the matin-sound,
And the highest heaven's height. Hark — Christian — h ark,
At heaven-door he sings ! And be thou like the lark,
With thy soaring spirit-wings !
3.
The bonny matin-bells,
In their watch-tower they are swinging ; For the day is o'er the dells,
And they're singing— Christian — singing ! They have caught the morning beam
Through their ivied turret's wreath, And the chancel-window's gleam
Is glorious beneath : Go— Christian — go,
For the altar hath a glare, And the snowy vestments glow,
Of the presbyter at prayer !
4.
There is morning incense flung From the child-like lily-flowers ;
And their fragrant censer swung, Make it ours — Christian — ours !
MATIN BELLS. 123
And hark, our Mother's hymn,
And the organ-peals we love ! They sound like cherubim
At their orisons above ! Pray — Christian — pray,
At the bonny peep of dawn, Ere the dew-drop and the spray
That christen it, are gone !
THE CURFEW.
1.
In each New-England village At nine o'clock at night,
C^'11 w^nra /VM "Plnrrlanrl'a /inr&m
And says — put out the light ! Then tell they to their children,
Of long long years ago, The tale of Battle-Abbey,
How they fought with shaft and bow.
2.
But here's another story
New-England wives may tell, How he that bade the curfew
Heard an unbidden bell : And let the boy that listens,
Which best he liketh say, The bell that rings for darkness,
Or the bell that rings for day.
THE CURFEW. 125
3.
When William lay a-dying
All dull of eye and dim, And he that conquer'd Harold,
Felt one that conquer'd him ; He recked not of the minutes,
The midnight, or the morn, But there he lay — unbreathing
As the babe that is still-born.
4.
But suddenly a bell toll'd !
He started from the swound, First glared, and then grew gentle,
Then wildly stared around. He deemed 'twas bell at even,
To quench the Saxon's coal, But oh, it was a curfew
To quench his fiery soul.
Now, prithee, holy father !
What means this bell, I pray Is't curfew-time in England,
Or am I far away 1 God wot— it moves my spirit
As if it ev'n might be,
The bells of mine own city,
In dear old Normandie. 11*
126 THE CURFEW.
6.
Ay, sire — thou art in Rouen ;
- And 'tis the prayer-bell's chime,
In the steeple of St. Mary's
That tolls the hour of prime ! Then bid them pray for William,
And may the Virgin-born, In the Church of His sweet mother,
Hear their praying, this blest morn.
7.
Little dream the kneeling people
Who joins them in their prayers ! They deem not stout king William
Their paternoster shares : Nor see they how he lifteth
With theirs, his dying hand : The hand that, from the Saxon,
Tore the crown of fair England !
8.
Nor heard they — as responding
To their chaunting oft he sighed, Till rose their de profundis,
And the mighty Norman died : But I have thought, who knoweth,
But if that early toll, Like the contrite malefactor's,
Saved a dying sinner's soul !
THE CURFEW. 127
9.
In two worlds — the Anglo-Saxon
Hears yet the curfew knell ; Oh might we learn from William
That soul-awaking bell! Then should the sound that covers
At night, the cheery coal, Stir too the morning-embers
Of worship, in the soul,
WILDMINSTER.
An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me.-~Exodus.
1.
Gro where the mossy rock shall be,
Thy nature-hallow'd shrine, The le.afy copse thy canopy,
Its fringe, the gadding vine ! There let the clusters round that blush,
Be sacramental blood, And fountains, by thy feet that gush,
Thy pure baptizing flood.
2.
There let the snoy as /n be spread
Upon the turfj^nound : There break the life-bestowing bread,
And bless the people round. There, the green bush thy chancel rail,
Its cushion'd floor the sod, Bid boldly to the silvan pale,
The kneeling host of God.
WILDMINSTER. 129
3.
Look up, and fretted vaults are there,
And heaven itself shines through, Or evening is depictured fair,
The starlight, and the blue ! A temple never built by hands,
And many a shadowed aisle, There — where the column'd forest stands,
Be thy cathedral pile !
4. There, are full choir and antiphon
At lauds and vesper-time, And everv nir.hfi rincrs unison
"With priestly voice, at prime : There, shall thy solitary soul
Find out its cloister dim, With not the labouring organ's roll,
But nature's gushing hymn.
5.
There, the full flowers their odours fling
To bid thee pour thy prayer, And vines their fragrant censers swing
O'er all the hallowed air ; And sweet as fuming thuribles
With Heaven's own rites that blend, There, from the wildwood's sombre cells,
Shall contrite sighs ascend.
130 WILDMINSTER.
6.
Go to the harvest-whiten'd west,
Ye surpliced priests of God, In all the Christian armour drest,
And with the Gospel shod : Go, for their feet are beautiful,
That on the mountain stand, And, more than music, musical,
The watchman's voice at hand.
Go, for the midnight wanes apace ; The Sun himself is nigh !
1*0 to the wild ana lonely place,
And in the desert cry. Go, — and the greenwoods are thy fanes,
Thine altars — -every sod ! Say to the wilderness, He reigns,
Thy Saviour and thy God !
Lo ! where the unsent heralds run,
Why wait thy priests, oh Lord ! These, that were bid, from sun to sun,
To preach the GosjDel word 1 Oh to thine harvest, Saviour, send
The hosts of thine employ, To reap the ripened sheaves that bend,
And shout them home with joy !
NASHOTAH.
AMERICAN MISSIONS. 1.
Oh Lord, our Lord, how spreads that little seed * Which was, at first, of every seed the least !
The birds of air shall scarce its growth out-speed ; Its world-wide branches knit the West and East.
2.
But how it makes my heart of hearts upswell, To see our English ritual planted there,
Where walks his round Nashotah's sentinel, And breaks its daily service on the air !
3.
Rude as the Saviour's birth-place are its halls,
O'er which, like Bethlehem's star, the cross appears
And oft the watchman of those outpost walls, In tented fields, his wakeful voice uprears.
4. Oft, on their summer-mission, as they fare,
They seek the wildwood settler's far retreat, And rear their curtained chapel — while, to prayer,
The forest-dwellers haste with ready feet.
132 NASHOTAH.
5.
And, where, at dawn, the prairie-fox did bark, Are heard, by night, sweet canticle and chaunt :
Where sung before no choirist but the lark, Ring out the Church's anthems, jubilant !
6. Then, in the wilderness, is heard the voice
Of one that, like the Baptist, bids repent ; While the rude trappers tremblingly rejoice,
And hearts, long-hardened, soften and relent.
7.
And there the Norway rover, or the Swede,
Kneels with frank Switzer, and the florid Dane ;
And England's exile weeps to find the seed
His Mother scattered — bound in sheaves again :
8.
While here and there, those mingled groups amid, The smoking torches shew the desert-child ;
The sad Oneida's countenance, half hid,
The bloody Osage — tamed, yet darkly wild.
9.
Flares on the Negro's swarth the self-same blaze : Nor lacks the scene, from Shem's sad tents, some one
Nashotah's priests have found in desert ways, Rebecca's child, and Isaac's homeless son.
•
NASHOTAH. 123
10.
Thus, in the outskirt earth, earth's races meet, For such their Maker's wonderful award,
And, at our Mother's fair commissioned feet, Learn of the Cross, and bow to own its Lord !
11.
Another service greets the morrow's dawn,
And babes are christen'd, and a prayer-book left :
Then — in a trice — priest, chapel, all are gone ! 'Tis something if the woodman feels bereft !
12.
Oh might our Mother's ingrate sons that rend
Her yearning bowels, in the mother-land, See how she blesses thus the world's far end, And drop the butcher's weapon from their hand 1
13.
And you, ye clerks, 'neath Oxford's glorious domes That kneel, full oft, too listless, at your prayers,
Think of the rites that bless these forest homes, And yours, perchance, shall be as blest as theirs.
14.
For not your hymns, that Wykeham's roofs rebound,
Not Waynflete's arches wake such deep delight,
As that Nashotah's wilds alike resound
The self-same prayers, and own the same sweet fite ! 12
134 NASHOTAH.
15.
Oh 'tis the glory of our service blest
Not that alone cathedrals hear it sung, But that its music cheers the world's wild "West,
And swells, in rudeness, from the woodman's tongue.
16.
And oft I think — what joy and strength, in God,
Prophetic vision of what thus I sing, Had given to saintly Ken, or martyr'd Laud,
When seemed the Church half dead with suffering !
17.
Or ev'n to him, the frail but reverend sire,
Whose palsied palm passed down the lineal grace,
Yes — ev'n to Cranmer, with that palm on fire, And Moses' radiance on his dying face ;
18.
Had he th' Australian wilderness foreseen, Canadian fastness, and the torrid land,
And priests, despising seas that roll between,
By Christ commissioned, through his flaming hand !
19.
Rejoico we then, remembering other times When hung the Church's life upon a thread,
That God hath slain her tyrants, for their crimes, And raised her up, immortal, from the dead !
ST. SILVAN'S BELL,
Desire of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth, for thy possession.— Psalter.
1.
A fortnight it was from Whitsuntide,
And a service was said that day, In a little church, that a goad man built
In the wilderness far away. A twelve month before, and there was not there,
Or temple or holy bell, But the place — it was free from holiness,
As the soul of the Infidel.
Five thousand years this world is old,
And twice four hundred more, And that green spot had forest been,
From the eldest days of yore : And there had the red-man made his hut,
And the savage beast his lair, But never, since this old earth was young,
Was it hallow'd with Christian prayer.
136 ST. silvan's bell,
3.
But now, for the first, a bell rung out,
Through the aisles of the wild greenwood, And echo came back from the far far trees,
Like the hallo of Robin Hood : And the red deer woke, in his bosky nook,
That strange strange sound to hear, And the jessamine-buds from his side he shook,
And he listen'd awhile in fear.
4.
But the bell that rings for the Prince of Peace,
Is never a beast's alarm, And down went his antler'd head agen,
Like an infant asleep on its arm : And the woodman went by, and stirred him not,
With his wife, and children, round, And the baby leaped up, on its mother's breast,
And laughed at the church-bell's sound.
5.
For the babe, he was all unchristened yet,
And well might he leap for joy ; A fountain was gushing, where rung that bell,
That should make him a Christian boy ! And his mother — she thought of the Catechist,
And she blessed the Lord above, That her child should be baptized for Christ,
And taught in his fear and love.
ST. SILVAN 8 BELL.
137
6. And she prayed in her heart, as Hannah prayed,
He might kneel in the chancel fair, Like children they brought to the Lord of old,
To be blest with the bishop's prayer : And she saw, far off, the vested priest,
The ring, and the marriage-bann, Making some maiden a happy wife,
And her boy a happier man.
7. And the bell rung on ; arid the wood sent forth,
From their log-built homes around, The yeomanry all with their families,
A-wondering at the sound ; And tears, I saw, in an old man's eye,
That came from a far countree ; It minded his inmost soul, he said, Of the church-bells over the sea. « 8.
For a boy was he, in England, once,
And he loved the merry chimes ; Had heard them ring out of a Whitsuntide,
And waken the holiday-times ! And a boy was he, when hither he came
But now he was old and gray ;
He had not thought that a Christian bell,
Should toll on his burial day. 12*
138 ST. silvan's bell.
9.
A boy was he, when he first swung axe
Against the strong oak limb ; He was gray-haired now, when he heard the bell
And threw it away from him ; And he followed the sound — for he thought of home,
And the motherly hand so fair, That led him along through the churchyard mounds,
And made him kneel down to prayer.
10.
And now did an organ's peal break out,
And the bell-notes died away : And a holy bishop, in robes, was there,
And priests in their white array. And I heard a voice go up the nave,
And the priests, responding plain ; Lift up your heads, ye gates — they said,
For the King of Glory's train !
22.
And I could not but weep, for I knew, on high,
The Saviour had asked of God, That the utmost lands might all be His,
And the ground whereon I trod : And I bless'd the good Lord, that here at length
His own true heralds came, To challenge for Christ His heritage,
And hallow it with His name.
ST. silvan's bell. 139
12.
Now pray with me, that ever there,
St. Silvan's bell may ring, And the yeomen brave, with their children all,
The praise of the Saviour sing : And pray ye still, that, further west,
The song of the bell may sound, Till the land, from sea to sea, is blest,
And the world is holy ground.
DAILY SERVICE.
One day telleth another.— Psalter.
1.
When the gorgeous day begins, In the world's remotest East,
And the sun his pathway wins,
Bringing back some glorious feast ;
There, forestalling fears and sins, Kneels the faithful English priest :
There the altar glitters fair,
Spread for Eucharistic prayer.
2.
And, as each meridian line,
Gains the travelled sun, that day,
Still begin those rites divine, Still new priests begin to pray ;
Still are blest the bread and wine, Still one prayer salutes his ray :
Continent and ocean round
Rolls the tided wave of sound !
DAILY SERVICE. 141
3.
Then at last the prairied West,
Sees the festal light appear, And Nashotah's clerks, from rest,
Early rise, their song to rear ; Gird they then the snowy vest,
Raise they then the anthem clear ; Anthems, in the East, that rose, Girded earth — and there must close.
4.
But when, there, the holy light
Fades adown their west afar, And begins the vesper rite,
Faithful as the vesper star, Then — just then — has passed the night,
Where our eastern altars are ; And another daylight fair Wakes a new earth-girding prayer.
5.
Brethren of the West — my soul
Oft, to you, will westward wing, When some little hymn, I troll,
At the hour of offering, Thinking how 'twill onward roll
Till your voice the same shall sing ; Utter'd o'er and o'er agen, Till ye give the last Amen.
142 DAILY SERVICE.
6.
That same hymn, ere I have sung, Has been sung in England's fanes,
And perchance, in barbarous tongue, 'Mid the orient hills and plains ;
And — to die, the woods among,
Swells, from aisles and tinted panes,
To the forest's solemn cells,
Where the roving red-man dwells.
Moves my spirit at the thought That our service, Anglican,
From the faithful Isle, hath caught Thus, the many hearts of man ;
For this sign, our God hath wrought, 'Gainst the heartless Roman's ban j
Seal of life, and fire divine,
Mother, in those words of thine !
8.
One — in water sanctified,
Though proud Trent confess it not ; One — in blood from Jesus' side,
Though the claim be long forgot ; One — in Spirit, far and wide,
With each ancient part and lot ; Mother, let me ever be, One with Christ, and one with thee !
CHRISTMAS CAROL,
1.
Carol, carol, Christians,
Carol joyfully ; Carol for the coming
Of Christ's Nativity ; And pray a gladsome Christmas
For all good Christian men ; Carol, carol, Christians,
For Christmas, come again.
Carol, carcyl.
2.
Go ye to the forest,
Where the myrtles grow, Where the pine and laurel
Bend beneath the snow : Gather them for Jesus ;
Wreathe them for His shrine ; Make His temple glorious,
With the box and pine.
Carol, carol.
144 CHRISTMAS CAROL.
3.
Wreathe your Christmas garland,
Where, to Christ, we pray ; It shall smell like Carmel
On our festal day : Libanus and Sharon,
Shall not greener be, Than our holy chancel,
On Christ's Nativity.
Carol, carol.
Carol, carol, Christians !
Like the Magi, now, Ye must lade your caskets,
With a grateful vow : Ye must have sweet incense,
Myrrh and finest gold, At our Christmas altar,
Humbly to unfold.
Carol, carol,
5.
Blow, blow up the trumpet,
For our solemn feast ; Gird thine armour, Christian,
Wear thy surplice, priest !
CHRISTMAS CAROL. 145
Go ye to the altar,
Pray, with fervour, pray, For Jesus' second coming,
And the Latter Day.
Carol, carol.
6.
Give us grace, oh Saviour,
To put off in might, Deeds and dreams of darkness,
For the robes of light ! And to live as lowly,
As thyself with men ; So to rise in glory,
When thou com'st again.
Carol, carol.
13
CHRISTENING,
1.
Oh, if there be a sight, on earth, That makes good angels smile,
*Tis when a soul of mortal birth, Is washed from mortal guile :
2.
When some repentant child of Eve's,
In age, is born anew j Or when, on life's first buds and leaves,
Falls the baptismal dew.
3.
But all the same ! The soul that, in
That laver undefiled, Is truly washed from wrath and sin,
Must be a little child.
Children alone that grace may claim, Whether, to babes, be given,
Or to the child-like heart, the name Of all the sons of Heaven !
CHRISTENING. 147
5.
See, then, the font, the church's door,
The group with gladsome look, The waters, and the priest to pour,
The sponsors, and the book !
6.
What light is on all faces, now,
As low they bend to pray ! How kindly on the grandsire's brow,
Each furrow smoothes away !
7.
How fond the pale young mother's eye
Lights up, with tearful charm, To see her babe enfolded lie,
Upon the surpliced arm !
8.
And he, of innocence, that wears
That sign and spotless vest, How Shepherd-like ! Like Him that bears
The lambkin in his breast !
9.
But hark ! the tiny Christian's name !
Hush ! 'Tis the Mystic Trine ! The Water, and the Spirit, came,
And, there, is life divine !
148 CHRISTENING.
10.
The Cross is signed — mysterious seal
Of death, our life that won : And Christ's dear spouse, for woe or weal,
Hath borne her Lord a son.
11.
For woe or weal ! The grafted shoot
Alas ! may fade and die ; Though long the fatness of the Root
This shower of grace supply !
12.
But Jesu ! take thy child from earth,
Ere sense and guile begin, If, only so, this second birth
May 'scape the death of sin.
THE CALENDAR.
1.
My Prayer-book is a casket bright,
With gold and incense stored, Which, every day, and every night,
I open to the Lord : Yet when I first unclasp its lids
I find a bunch of myrrh Embalming all our mortal life ;
The Church's Calendar.
2.
But who would see an almanac When opes his Book of Prayer ;
Of all the leaves between its lids, These, only, are not fair !
So said I, in my thoughtless years, But now, with awe, I scan
The Calendar, like Sybil leaves
That tell the life of Man. 13*
150 THE CALENDAR.
God set the sun and moon for signs :
The Church His signs doth know, And here — while sleeps the sluggish world,
She marks them as they go. Here for His coming looks she forth
As, for her Spouse, the bride ; Here, at her lattice, faithfully
She waits the morning-tide.
4.
All Time is hers, and, at its end,
Her Lord shall come with more : As one for whom all time was made
Thus guardeth she her store ; And, doating o'er her letters old,
As pores the wife bereft, Thus daily reads the Bride of Christ,
Each message He hath left.
5.
As prisoners notch their tally-stick,
And wait the far-off day, So marks she days, and months and years,
To ponder and to pray ; And year by year beginning new
Her faithful task sublime, How lovingly she meteth out,
Each portion in its time !
THE CALENDAR. 151
6.
This little index, of thy life,
Thou, all thy life, shalt find So teaching thee to tell thy days,
That wisdom thou may'st mind. Oh live thou by the Calendar ;
And when each morn you kneel, Note how the numbered days go by,
Like spokes in Time's swift wheel.
7.
With this thy closet seek ; and learn
What strengthening word to-day, From out the Holy Book of God,
Our Mother would display ; And know thy prayers go up on high,
With thousands, that, unknown, Are lighted at the self-same fire,
And mingle at God's throne.
For so — though severed far on earth
Together we are fed ; And onward, though we see it not,
Together we are sped ! Oh live ye by the Calendar,
And with the good ye dwell ; The Spirit that comes down on them,
Shall lighten you as well.
THE SOUL-DIRGE.
Then said Jesus, will ye also go away.— St. John.
1.
The organ play'd sweet music
Whileas, on Easter-day, All heartless from the altar,
The heedless went away : And down the broad aisle crowding,
They seem'd a funeral train, That were burying their spirits,
To the music of that strain.
2.
As I listen'd to the organ,
And saw them crowd along, I thought I heard two voices,
Speaking strangely, but not strong ; And one, it whisper'd sadly,
Will ye also go away ; But the other spoke exulting,
Ha ! the soul-dirge, — hear it play !
THE SOUL-DIRGE, 153
3.
Hear the soul-dirge ! hear the soul-dirge !
And see the feast divine ! Ha! the jewels of salvation,
And the trampling feet of swine ! Hear the soul-dirge ! hear the soul-dirge !
Little think they, as they go, "What priceless pearls they tread on,
Who spurn their Saviour so !
4.
Hear the soul-dirge ! hear the soul-dirge !
It was dread to hear it play, While the famishing went crowding
From the Bread of Life away : They were bidden, they were bidden
To their Father's festal board ; But they all, with gleeful faces,
Turn'd their back upon the Lord.
5.
You had thought the church a prison,
Had you seen how they did pour, With giddy, giddy faces,
From the consecrated door. There was angels' food all ready,
But the bidden — where were they 1 O'er the highways and the hedges,
Ere the soul-dirge ceased to play !
154 THE SOUL-DIRGE.
6.
Oh, the soul-dirge, how it echoed
The emptied aisles along, As the open street grew crowded,
With the full outpouring throng ! And then — again the voices ;
Ha ! the soul-dirge ! hear it play ! And the pensive, pensive whisper,
Will ye also go away 1
7.
Few, few were they that linger'd
To sup with Jesus there ; And yet, for all that spurn'd him,
There was plenty, and to spare ! And now, the food of angels
Uncover'd to my sight, All-glorious was the altar,
And the chalice glitter'd bright.
Then came the hymn Trisagion,
And rapt me up on high, With angels and archangels
To laud and magnify. I seem'd to feast in Heaven ;
And downward wafted then, With angels chaunting round me,
Good-will and peace to men.
THE SOUL-DIRGE. 155
I may not tell the rapture
Of a banquet so divine ; Ho ! every one that thirsteth,
Let him taste the bread and wine ! Hear the Bride and Spirit saying,
"Will ye also go away 1 Or — go, poor soul, for ever !
Oh ! the soul-dirge — hear it play !
THE CHURCH'S DAUGHTER.
1.
Oh woman is a tender tree !
The hand must gentle be, that rears Through storm and sunshine, patiently,
That plant of grace, of smiles and tears.
2.
Let her that waters, at the font,
Life's earliest blossoms, have the care ;
And where the garden's Lord is wont To walk His round — oh keep her there.
Who, but her Mother Church, knows well The deep-hid springs, of grief and joy,
That in the heart of woman swell,
And make that heart — or else destroy %
Who, but the Church, can every power Of the true woman, nurse to life,
Till, fit for every changeful hour, Is seen the maiden — woman- — wife !
the church's daughter. 157
5. ?Tis not alone the radiant face,
And some accomplished gifts, that shine ; The harmony of every grace
Is nurtured by her care divine.
6.
She — not the coy and bashful art,
But all the instinct of the pure, The virgin soul — the angel heart,
Alone is mindful to mature.
7.
E'vn like the first warm sun of May,
Or, to the daisy, April showers, Her earliest lesson — how to pray,
Clothes the young soul with fragrant flowers
8.
Then, planted by the altar's pale,
The Church, with catechising art, Trains to the chancel's trellis'd rail,
The wandering tendrils of the heart.
9.
And when before the mitred priest
She bids, at length, her daughter kneel,
What lavish'd gifts of grace increas'd,
Shine from her dear Redeemer's seal ! 14
158 the church's daughter.
10.
Or when, her snowy veil beneath, She stands a pale and fearful thing,
And, trembling like her orange -wreath, Gives her fair finger to the ring j
11.
When manly honour makes her bride, In God's own name, Triune and dread,
And, from the holy altar's side,
Another blessing crowns her head ;
12.
See how the Church's care, for her, Hath done the jealous parent's part,
And been to him, a monitor,
To whom she gives her daughter's heart.
13.
Nor shall she e'er desert, through life, Through fearful life, that daughter's side,
But ever, o'er the wedded wife,
Bend fond, as o'er the kneeling bride.
14.
When the pale mother clasps her child, And pats her darling to its rest,
Or sinks to slumbers undefined,
Her bride-ring shining o'er her breast :
the church's daughter. 159
15.
Again, to hallow that pure joy,
Comes Holy Church and tells her, then,
Of Mary, and the Holy Boy ;
And claims the turtle-doves agen.
16.
Or if, within the darken'd room,
The trail of death be sweeping slow,
The Church that taught her unto whom, Shall teach her, too, the way to go.
17.
Then spreads she, there, an altar lone ;
Her priest, to bless and break, is there, And angels, radiant from the throne,
Come winging round the scene of prayer.
18.
So points the Church to Paradise,
And bids, in peace, her child depart ;
Then shuts to earth the blessed eyes,
And binds with balm each bleeding heart.
19.
Then roses pale, and rose-marine,
She scatters o'er the marble dust ; And at the last heart-rending scene,
As earth takes back its precious trust ;
160 the church's daughter.
20.
From the deep grave she lifts the eye, Where the free spirit wings hath found ;
And leaves her child's mortality, To rise an angel from the ground.
I LOVE THE CHURCH.
1.
I love the Church — the holy Church,
The Saviour's spotless bride ; And oh, I love her palaces
Through all the land so wide ! The cross-topp'd spire amid the trees,
The holy bell of prayer ; The music of our Mother's voice,
Our Mother's home is there.
2.
The village tower — 'tis joy to me,
I cry the Lord is here ! The village bells — they fill my soul :
They more than fill mine ear ! O'er kingdoms to the Saviour won,
Their triumph-peal is hurled ;
Their sound is now in all the earth,
Their words throughout the world. 14*
162 I LOVE THE CHURCH.
3- And here — eternal ocean cross'd,
And long, long ages past ; In climes beyond the setting sun,
They preach the Lord at last ; And here, Redeemer, are thy priests
Unbroken in array, Far from thine Holy Sepulchre,
And thine Ascension-day !
Unbroken in their lineage ;
Their warrants clear as when Thou, Saviour, didst go up on high,
And give good gifts to men ; Here, clothed in innocence they stand,
To shed thy mercy wide, Baptizing to the Trinal Name,
"With waters from thy side.
5.
And here, confessors of thy cross,
Thine holy orders three, The bishop, and the elders too,
And lowly deacons be ; To rule and feed the flock of Christ,
To fight, of faith, the strife, And to the host of God's Elect,
To break the Bread of Life.
I LOVE THE CHURCH. 163
6.
Here rises, with the rising morn,
Their incense unto Thee, Their bold confession Catholic,
And high doxology : Soul -melting litany is here,
And here — each holy feast, Up to the altar, duly spread,
Ascends the stoled priest.
7.
Then with the message of our King,
The herald stands on high : How beautiful the feet of them
That on the mountain cry ! And then — as when the doors were shut,
With Jesus left alone, The faithful sup with Christ — and He
In breaking- bread is known.
And kneeling at the altar's rail,
With blessings all divine, As from the Saviour's hand, they take
The broken bread, and wine ; In one communion with the saints,
With angels and the blest, And looking for the blessed hope
Of an eternal rest.
164: I LOVE THE CHURCH.
The peace of God is on their heads ;
And so they wend away, To homes all cheerful with the light,
Of love's inspiring ray: And through the churchyard and the graves,
With kindly tears they fare, Where every turf was decent laid,
And hallowed by a prayer.
10.
The dead in Christ — they rest in hope ;
And o'er their sleep sublime, The shadow of the steeple moves,
From morn to vesper-chime : On every mound, in solemn shade,
Its imaged cross doth lie, As goes the sunlight to the west,
Or rides the moon on high.
11.
I love the Church— the holy Church,
That o'er our life presides, The birth, the bridal, and the grave,
And many an hour besides ! Be mine, through life, to live in her,
And when the Lord shall call, To die in her — the spousj of Christ,
The Mother of us all.
NOTES.
NOTES.
PREFATORY XOTE.
The Christian' Ballads were originally contributed to the Church- man in 1839. Several of them were soon republished in England, and then again circulated in America, credited to the English periodicals which had borrowed them ; when, as they seemed to enjoy some favour, they were collected, and published at New York, in the following year.
The following are the ballads which were contained in the first edition: St. Sacrament ; Hymn of Boyhood ; Antioch ; Chronicles ; Desolations ; Churchyards ; Trinity, Old Church ; England ; Chelsea ; Vigils; Matin-bells; The Chimes of England ; Wildminster ; Dream- land; Carol ; Lament; St. Silvan's Bell; and, I love the Church.
The additional ballads which appear in the present edition, have, with a few exceptions, been written since 1840 ; and the others are given with some additions and amendments.
I. ST. SACRAMENT. Lake George — the most beautiful sheet of water in the State of New- York— was called Horicon by the Aborigines ; but, by the French missionaries, was named St. Sacriment ; because they deemed its waters too pure for anything but the holy Sacrament of Baptism, and
168 * NOTES.
are said to have sent specimens to France, to be used for that purpose. The Royal American army gave the lake its popular name in compliment to the reigning sovereign, and as a token of their attachment to the house of Hanover.
The visit commemorated in the ballad was made in the summerof 1839.
Page 16. — The Bloody Pond. A dark looking, little, circular pond, near the southern extremity of the lake, is so called, from its having been the receptacle of the bodies of the English and Americans, who were massacred by the Indians, after the capitulation of Fort William Henry, in the old French war.
Page 16. — Fort George. The ruins of this fort are yet in good preservation ; but of Fort William Henry nothing but mounds and em- bankments remain.
Page 19. — Sachems. Some of my readers may not know that such is the aboriginal term for the Indian chiefs.
Page 20. — Emerald islets. The surface of the lake is broken by in- numerable little islands, some of them but a few feet in diameter, which look as if they merely floated on the water. You are told by the boat- men, who row you about, that the islands are just one for every day in the year ; an assertion which I cannot dispute.
Page 21. — Distant Thing. This fine mountain, which some call Tongue mountain, is the limit of one's view, to the northward, from the walls of Fort George.
Page 21. — Its brimming urn. Lake George may well be called an overflowing basin, for its outlet is a rapid and descending stream, which after making a succession of beautiful waterfalls, finds its way into Lake Champlain.
Page 23. — Cleveland. I hope to be pardoned for introducing the name of a collateral relative, who served in the old French war, and afterwards became General Cleveland, and bequeathed his name to a flourishing city in Ohio, which he himself laid out, in 1796, when there was not a single white inhabitant in that part of the Territory. Forty years after, when it was incorporated as a city, its annual exports were valued at six millions of dollars. The family name was originally brought to America, by Moyses Cleveland, of Ipswich, in the county of Suffolk, England, who settled in the Colony of Massachusetts, in the memorable year 1648 — 0.
NOTES. 169
Page 23. — Monrce. This name, with those of Montcalm and Uncas, is familiar to all readers, from that beautiful romance of Mr. Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans.
Page 27. — St. Sacrament for aye. As a similarity may be observed between this passage and another in the New York Review, for October, 1830, it may be proper to state, that the ballad and the article which contains the latter, are by the same writer.
II. ANTIOCH.
The principle, asserted in this ballad, is simply the primitive, and Catholic one, of the Apostolical Succession. Those v.ho would see it discussed are recommended to the celebrated Letters of Law (author of the Serious Call) to Hoadley, the notorious Bishop of Bangor; or to a tract, upon the Qualifications for administering the Sacraments, by Leslie ; to whose famous "Short Method with a Deist," it is appended, in all genuine editions. As to the historical fact of the Succession, tha useful work of Mr. Chapin.on the Primitive Church, may be consulted ; and also the little book of the Hon. and Rev. Arthur Perceval.
Page 30. — Himself ordained. So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an High priest. Heb/eics, V. 5.
Page 31. — As God had sent the Son. As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receiveye the Holy Ghost, &c. St. JohnXX, 21.
All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth : Go ye therefore &c. St. Matthew, XXV III. 18.
Page 31. — How Korah, 8?c Compare Numbers XVI. with //. Peter II. and the Epistle of St. Jude.
If the sin of Korah is one which can be committed under the Christian dispensation, it follows that there must be a legitimate priesthood, against which it is sinful to rebel ; and, by a comparison of Hebrew and Christian orders, it will be seen, that Korah was a deacon, who despising his bishop, usurped the functions of a priest. This interpretation was forcibly urged by the Reverend John Wesley, against those of his own
15
170 NOTES.
Society, who undertook., against his entreaties, to administer the Sacra- ments ; as may be seen in his sermon, written about a year before his decease, and published in the Arminian Magazine in 1790.
Page 32. — My Saviour's earnest prayer. That they all may be one ; as thou Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us . that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. St. John XVII. 21.
It is observable that the conversion of the world is here connected with Christian unity. The breach of unity is, by inference, connected with a scandal to the cause of Truth. So then St. Peter, speaking of schismatics, says — " by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of." (II. Peter, II. 1, 2.) Again he says that these schismatics " Shall privily bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them.'' The unsettling of men's minds, and final apostasy, was to be the consequence, then, of departure from the apostolical ministry. Let history be the comment. In Geneva, where the presbyterian schism was instituted by Calvin, we find that the whole sect, in the time of Voltaire, had privily lapsed into Socinian Deism, denying the Lord that bought them. The presbyterians of England, have so universally lapsed into the same heresy, that " the Dissenters' Chapels' Bill" has been passed, within the last few years, to allow them to retain the proper- ty which they received as Calvinists. The Puritans of Massachusetts have in like manner lapsed from the strictest Calvinism, into the coldest Socinianism, as is sufficiently notorious, from the writings of their most eminent preachers. In all these instances has Scripture been fulfilled by the privy bringing in of the heresy which denies the Lord that bought its. And let earnest minded persons consider, whether schisms, thus universally running to seed in the most heathenizing of heresies, can possibly have been the planting of the Lord.
Page 32. — It never failed. For the historical fact, see the works which I have before commended, in these notes. For Scripture-proof, take the following line of argument.
It is evident that our blessed Lord ordained the apostles. It is evident that they ordained others ; as for instance Timotheus and Titus. It is evident that these were commanded to ordain others ; and that thus the succession was handed into the second century. Now can it be possible it was to stop there, when our Saviour had said to the apostles, "lo, I grn with you always, wen unto the end of the world !"
NOTES. 171
The gift of apostleship was in Timothy by the putting onof St. Paul's hands. (II. Tim. I. 6.) It is plain that the same gift, or a share in it, was to be imparted to others in the same way, by Timothy ; who is not only told what kind of persons to ordain, but cautioned to " lay hands suddenly on no man." (I. Tim. V. 20.) Where would be the impor- tance of this caution, if ivilhout the laying on of his hands, any one, in Ephesus, might have been a valid minister of Christ !
The argument, in the case of Titus, Bishop of Crete, is equally con- clusive.
To this, add the unanimous testimony of the primitive age ; and even the consent of the reformed, until many of them became a party to their own opinion, and denied the Apostolical Succession from personal feeling,
lit. DREAMLAND.
This little ballad is intended as a playful reproof of those who, in many places, misrepresent the Church, by neglecting the decorum and decency which her standards require. It is the misfortune of the American Church, to have many nominal members, who bring disgrace upon her, by cold formality on the one hand, and a slovenly disregard of her injunctions on the other.
Page 35. — Hadflowers, and wreaths. This practice, once of ordinary occurrence, in England, is thus explained by that true-hearted Church- man, John Evelyn, in his Sylva. " We adorn their graves with flowers, and redolent plants, just emblems of the life of man, which has been compared in Holy Scriptures, to those fading beauties, whose roots be- ing buried in dishonour, rise again, in glory."
Page 37. — Do lowly bow. The humble bowing of the head, at the adorable and saving name of Jesus, is intended as a confession of the glorious doctrine of St. Paul, in Philippians, II. 10. It is the design of this verse, simply, to censure the irreverent foppery, with which somt reduce this edifying act of faith to a mere formality.
Page 37.— Clothe their heads. See I. Corinthians, XL 6, 10. The use of veils, at confirmation, in obedience to the spirit of this passage..
172 NOTES.
is still common in many places. Afention to such matters is, of course, disapproved by the censorius ; but as it was the wisdom of the Holy Ghost to write such a chapter as the eleventh of First Corinthians, it is the wisdom of faith, to obey its letter, and carry its spirit into every- thing of the sair.e kind.
Page 38. — Angel lullabies. The consoling text — " I heard a voice from heaven, &c," is sometimes chaunted, at the grave, according to the rubric; and may be said, in poetry, to make that slumber good, which is thus hallowed and blessed.
IV. CAROL. The decoration of Churches and Churchyards, with evergreens and flowers ; and such customs as those of " the Rushbearing," and " Posy Sunday," which are still extant, in England ; though wholly voluntary , and not ordained by the Church, are with unprejudiced persons, a beautiful illustration of the faculty, by which she invests every good gift of God, with sacted associations.
The holy Gecrge Herbert speaks, as follows, in his Country Parson-. " The Country Parson is a lover of old customs, if they be good and harmless, and the rather because country people are much addicted to them, so that to favour them therein is to win their hearts, and to oppose them therein is to deject them. If there be any ill in the custom, which may be severed from the good, he paies the apple, and gives them the clean to feed on." Again ; " The country parson takes order that the Church be swept and kept clean, .... and at great festivals strewed, and stuck with boughs, and perfumed with incense."
80 Wordsworth, in his Ecclesiastical Sketches, describes a day among the parishes of Westmoreland, when the village children are accustomed to come forth
" by rustic music led,
Through the Btill churchyard each with garland gay. That carried, sceptre-like, o'er-tops the head Of the proud bsarer."
NOTES. 173
It is by such spontaneous and instinctive tributes ; precisely such in principle, as were ordained, in the Old Testament, and accepted in the new ; fXehemiak, VIII. 15 ; St. Matthew XXI. 8 ;; that the beautiful gifts of God are severed from vain and worldly uses, and made to min- ister o a sanctified taste, in Christians of full years : while, for children, they perform a useful part, in making the associations of their religion- attractive and lovely.
But while He, who bade us to "consider the lilies," will doubtless approve of our employing their glorious clothing, io show our delight in that greater Solomon who created them, we must reflect that we live in a gainsaying and censorious time, and that it is far hetter that we should deprive ourselves of an innocent gratification, than minister an occasion of stumbling to weak brethren. And though there are those who would complain of Gabriel's censer, and reform the very ritual of Heaven ; we must remember that it is a duty not to let our good be evil spoken of : and in deference to this injunction, I would be far from ad- vising the restoration of any merely voluntary practice, however inno- cent, in places where the grievous sins of dissension and evil-speaking would be the only fruits.
V.
LAMENT.
If an humble member of the Church may make a suggestion .- ought not our Lenten Season to be kept with some reference to the divided state of Christendom ? In our own land, we find eminently lovely characters, ofien, arrayed against what we know is the Church — the body of our blessed Lord and Saviour, Christ. The circumstances of this country's original settlement were such, as to favour and strengthen a growth of ignorance on this subject, heretofore unparalleled in the Christian world ; and through influences of education and accidental prejudice, there are hundreds of pious and gentle Spirits wandering from their true mother; and knowing nothing of her. For such, we have only one resource, but that is the best — even prayer. The most clear and convincing argument fails when directed against their seven-fold armour
15*
174 NOTES.
of pro-judgment or indifference. But prayer may enlist Him in their behalf, who pierceth the joints of the harness. At least, it will help ourselves: for, to be true Catholic Christians in our land and day, we need not only the boldness of Paul, and the ardour of Peter, but more ihan all, the meekness and long-suffering of our blessed Lord himself. If we were partisans, we might be angry at unwarrantable opposition : if we were striving for earthly things, we might abandon to the chilly arms of their desolate systems, those who answer us with railing accusation. But we are their servants and strive for their benefit —not for our own. We would fain see all Christians blest with us, in the Catholic fold of Christ; and when was there ever advice so appro- priate as that of an old apostle, to a primitive bishop ! — "And the servant of God must not strive ; but be gentle unto all men ; apt to teach ; pa- tient; in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God perad venture will give them repentance, to the acknowledging of the Truth."
VI. ENGLAND.
In thrs ballad, such feelings towards the mother-country, are expressed, as I am happy to believe, not personal to myself, but common to nearly all educated and liberal-minded Americans.
Page 54. — Balliol men. Perhaps I should rather have apostrophised the Men of Belial, than the respectable society named in the text ; but a college that once had such a man as S^uthey, for a member, can afford to bear a little responsibility for his juvenile Jacobinism. The apostrophe was suggested by his mean little poem on "the Chapel Bell," written in 1793. The young pintisocrat seems to have had a peculiar spite against that bell ; as another of his poems begins with the hemistich " Toll on, toll on, old bell!
Page 54 — Quiet Corpus. I have an impression that Corpus must be a quiet place for a moderate reading man, not over studious, and fond of conversation. What can be got from books and pictures gives an American this impression; but I know nothing about it, and am very likely wide of the mark.
NOTES. 175
VII.
CHRONICLES.
This ballad is a history of the apostolic commission in England, from the first century, to the Restoration.
Page 60. — Altars all as spotless. This refers to the early British Church, in its original independence, purity and poverty; before the conversion of the Saxons, by St. Augustine, A. D. 596.
Page 61. — Oh, too! the hour. Not the hour of Augustine's mission, and Patriarchate ; for he was sent to convert the Saxons, by the good and great Gregory, who abhored the idea of a supremacy ; but the hour when the pall was imposed, with an oath of subjection, in the days of William Rufus, against every principle of apostolical precedent, and eanon law.
Page 62. — To chase aio ay the tyrant. The English reformation was no revolution. It merely threw off the usurped supremacy of the bishop of Rome, and restored the Church, to her primitive purity, and independence; rejecting whatever was papal, but carefully retaining all that was apostolical.
Thus it differed essentially from the Continental Reformation ; with which we have no concern, except to deplore it, as a miserable failure. It is only an artifice of papists to confound the Anglican reformation, with the Lutheran schism; for while they are powerless against the former, they are mighty in exposing the latter, and it is easier to make the ignorant believe that the two are one and the same thing, than it is to face the direct question — in what essential point does the Anglican Church now differ from the Church of the Apostolic age.
It is another artifice of the papists to discuss the character of Henry VIII, instead of shewing in what particular the Anglican Church de- parted from Catholic doctrine and discipline, during the reign of that tyrant. As for Henry, it may be conceded that he was nearly as bad as some of the Popes; and that the vices of both, paved the way for the Church's iestoration to primitive purity. So did the adultery of Ahasuerus save ihe Hebrew Church from Haman ; and the Church of England has as much to do with the character of Esther, as with that
176 NOTES.
of Anne Boleyn. A political quarrel, indeed, gave opportunity for the restoration of the English Patriarchate, to its original independence ; but its reformers were its own bishops ; and like the primitive apostles, they sealed their work with their blood.
Page 63. — A nation shouteth round. For the first twelve years of Elizabeth, the papists themselves, frequented the sacraments and min- istry of the ancient Church of England ; showing that in nothing had its identity been lost, or its Catholicity impaired, even in their estima- tion. During that period two popes had offered to receive and approve the Common Prayer, if the Q,ueen would but consent to the papal su- premacy— so that, even in their judgment, the church had forfeited noth- ing essential to Catholicity, by translating and reforming her worship. Thus, till 1569, when Pius V. forced those Englishmen who were in favor of his supremacy, to become recusants, there was in England, one pure and undivided Church, which, but for the Romish and Puritan schisms, which soon followed, would have become the joy of the whole earth, for beauty and primitive completeness. The recusancy of 1569 was the origin of the Papal sect in England, which has no thread of connection, with the ancient Church of England ; and owes its existence, as well as its creed, to the novelties of the pseudo-council of Trent.
Page 63. — Children of her bosom. Having successfully, but with great tribulation survived the persecutions of Rome, the poor Church of England was next called to suffer for the testimony of God's truth, at the hands of rebellious sons. It is impossible for one, with any thing that is generous in his bosom, to behold her, in this new emergency, without veneration and awe ; whether she be considered in her individ- ual confessors, harrassed by a popular outbreak, which confounded all ranks in ruin, and overwhelmed alike the primate, the premier, and the piince ; or whether she be regarded as a venerable mother, sitting in her own house in sackcloth, and baring her breast to the blows of the children of her bowels.
Page 63. — A prince's fall. Under the first Stuart, the Church of England had begun to be understood, by the States of the Continent; and she was fast securing the admiration, and imitation of foreign church- es, when the violence of the Puritans plunged both church and state, into abject misery and eontempt. James left to his son a legacy of mis- chief; but both the filial and the personal piety of Charles disqualified
17'
him for a true appreciation of his difficulties. The abuses of the state were not of his making : those of the church, he was zealous tu reform, by the primitive pattern. He was fast gathering around him that noble company of divines who now illustrate the misfortunes, as he designed that they should the glories of his reign. "With such a generation of bishops, it is a painfully pleasing thing to fancy, what the Church of England would have been under a pious and enlightened prince, who loved letters, encouraged the arts, delighted in men of learning was a pattern of domestic virtue, and lacked nothing but a considerate and well-affected people, to exhibit to the world the model of Empire, — a kingdom which was but a family. But England was cursed with Pyms, and Cromwells ; and became the frantic populace, that requiried a mas- ter instead of a father: and thus was lost the golden opportunity. But, Charles the First remains, the only king of England, since the accession of his family, for whose character it is possible to feel an enthusiasm, and for whose faults there exists the plenary apology, that they were the results, and not the causes, of a popular spirit of rebellion.
Page 64.— The blessed Martyrs. As the martyrs, of the Marian times, were the reformers of the church ; so the murderers of Laud and King Charles, and the barbarous persecutors of such men as Jeremy Taylor, were the authors of Dissent. Suppose then, the court was cor- rupt : so it was in the days of Nero, when the Spirit of God wrote the commandment, " Honour the king." Or suppose some of the clergy were depraved : so was it, when our Saviour said " The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat; all therefore, whatsoever they bid you ob- serve, that observe and do." Or suppose Laud had superstitions — so had Cotton Mather. Or suppose he cropped Prynue's ears ; so did St- Peter the ear of Malchus ; and Coiton Mather burned witches, and tor- tured Quakers. Yet Laud is a papist, forsooth, because he kept vigils and fasts; while the fact that Cotton Mather did the same, is always adduced to show that in spite of infirmities he was a saint. But this is only reiort against cavil: and good only to disarm prejudice. Let the candid enquirer read Dr. Southey's Book of the Church, from begin- ning to end ; and compare it with such bo >ks as Le Baj' Life of Laud , Sir Thomas Herbert's Two last yearsof C.iarles, and Dr. Wordsworth's Theophilus Anglicanus.
Page 65. — The noble in the cottage. Sir Walter Scott has beautifully
178 NOTES.
introduced this fact, into his fine fiction, the story of Woodstock; where Alice Lee, and Dr. Rochecliffe at their devotions, are so beautifully pourtrayed. Woodstock, Vol. i. p. 174. Philadelphia.
Page 65.— Their Psalter. See Psalm lxxiv. 5—10, 20—24. Hearing it read, one Sunday, during divine service, at St. Mark's in the-Bowery, suggested these verses.
Page 67. — Daughter. Every American bishop, priest, and deacon, derives his ordination from theapostles, through the Church of England. See Perceval on the Apostolic Succession.
Bishops White and Madison, from whom, (with Bp. Provoost) all our clergy have descended, were consecrated at Lambeth, Feb. 4, 1787 ; and landed in the New- World, on Easter-day succeeding, lo begin a succession which already has its representatives at the antipodes.
VIII,
SCOTLAND;
The melancholy religious condition of Scotland, at the present time., is the best comment on the injury which was done to that kingdom, by the destruction of her ancient establishment, under the dull usurper of Orange. It is to me a strange thing, that the Scottish writers, who have lately shed such glory upon their country, and many of whom have been attached to the Church of England, should have bad so little to say, of this great national outrage. I know there is an impression, that the establishment of the Kirk was the unanimous voice of the Scottish people. But such is not the case ; as is well known to those who have looked in- to the matter. In a collection of letters on the Scottish Church, printed in London in 1690 ; says Mr. Sage, afterwards a Scottish bishop, " I can affirm with a well-grounded assurance, that if by the people you mean the Commonalty .... the third man, throughout the whole kingdom, is not presbyterian : and if, by the people, you mean those who are persons of quality and education .... I dare boldly say not the thirteenth." And even, at the present day — if I may trust an article in Blackwood's, at- tributed to Professor Wilson — the following is a just account of things. "The greater part of the Scotch aristocracy and landed men (the in-
NOTES. 179
finitely greater part of them) are not members of the Kirk of Scotland at all. They are, as all their forefathers were, episcopalians. They yield, as their ancestors did, to the voice of the majority of the gross population." No. XX. Nodes Ambrosiance.
Page 73. — Shall flout litem. For a very graphic description of the poor appearance which the Kirk makes in Glasgow Cathedral, and some tine remarks thereon, see '.'Peter's Letters," (No. Ixvii.) by Lockhart.
Page 73.— And shame the Church, fyc. The American Church owes its episcopate to the persecuted and almost extinguished Church of Scot- land ; which not only gave to America her first bishop, in the person of Seabury, but by so doing, was the means of securing the Lambeth con- secrations, with which that from Scotland was united. (See Bp. Wilber- force's American Church, page 194.) Thus she may be said to have put her more flourishing sister to shame.
Page 74. — Thefish-tcife's voice. The story of Jenny Geddes, and her exploit in the High Church of St. Giles, Edinburgh, (July 23d, 1637,) is probably familiar to my reader ; but may be found in the Tales of a Grandfather, Second Series, i. 96. Philadelphia.
Page 75. — Braes of Ross. The old See of Ross, has once more a bishop.
Page 75. — The Moray shepherd. No Scottish bishop is more ven- erated, in America, than the late good bishop of Moray, (Dr. Jolly) who should have been buried in Elgin Cathedral, where many of his prede" cessorslie entombed.
Page 75. — Along the Tay. The founding of Trinity College, at Perth, is hailed by the friends of the Church of Scotland, as an earnest of bet- ter days at hand.
Page 76. — Scotland's altar service. The Scotch Liturgy, is not only more perfect and primitive than the Latin Missal, but is also far less in accordance with the Romish doctrine, than the English Liturgy, which, (as the papists teach,)regards the Consecraiion as concluded by a repetition of the words of Institution, without the Invocation of the Spirit. In America, where the Scottish Liturgy has been followed, without a whisper of disapprobation, it is earnestly hoped that the Scottish Church will never surrender its distinctive glory, for any suggestions of expediency, or threats of vengeance, from parties whose influence is as ephemeral as their opinions are ignorant and contracted.
180 NOTES.
IX.
SEABURY'S MITRE.
Learning that the mitre, worn by bishop Seabury in his episcopal min- istrations, was yet in existence. I had the curiosity to obtain it. through the Rev. Dr. Seabury, of New York, and placed it in the Library of Trinity College, with an appropriate Latin inscription. An aged pres- byter, the Rev. Isaac Jones, of Litchfield, came into the Library, on commencement-day, 1847, and betraying some emotion at the sight, I said to him, "you probably have seen that mitre on Seabury's head." He answered — "yes, Sir, in 1785, at the first ordination in this country, I saw him, wearing his scarlet hood, and that mitre ; and though I was then a dissenter, his stately figure and solemn manner impressed me very much. He was a remarkable looking man."
Page 78. — Crown of thorn. The mitre is of black satin, adorned with gold-thread needlework. The Cross is embroidered on the front; and on the reverse, a truly significant emblem, the crown of thorns.
Page 78. — Her old Regalia. The discovery of the ancient Regalia of Scotland in 1817, was the subject of great national enthusiasm: and the royal jewels are now preserved, in the castle of Edinburgh, as symbols of the independence of the kingdom.
X.
RUSTIC CHURCHES.
The folly of ambitious architectural attempts in brick and mortar, in our rural parishes, has reigned too widely, and involved to much waste, to be considered a trifling evil. The parish-church described in the text was designed on the principle of realiiy : and was intended to show that propriety and even taste may be gratified, with just such resources as any country -village possesses in itself. Although making no preten- sion to accuracy of detail, it is interesting, therefore, as a legitmate rural church, the natural result of Catholic principles of architecture, con-
NOTES. 181
tending with want of means, and modified by the peculiarities of Amer- ican climate and material.
Page 81. — That timber thing. The old meeting-house of New Eng- land, is a genuine symbol of the spirit that reared it; and remains as a witness against prelacy and the consecration of churches, handed down from the Puritans. Although designed for what are called town-meet- ings, as well as for spiritual uses, there is therefore a kind of respecta- bility about it, as being the honest exponent of its origin: a re- spectability, which vanishes when the modern meeting-house, with its tin-roof and Grecian pillars is substituted ; and which is superseded by vulgar pretension, when, as is sometimes the case, its place is supplied by a Gothic structure, with all the external symbols of Liturgy and Episcopacy.
Page 81. — Pine-icood parody. Instead of removing the old meeting- house, it is often subjected to the operation of modernizing ; which con- sists in giving it a row of Doric columns and a pediment, in front. The old steeple is also taken away, and a spruce cupola substituted. With such a heavy frontispiece, the old house, in the rear, accords very ill. A profile view exhibits a foreground of gawky columns, looking like the legs of a shag-dog, while the rear reminds us of the same dog fantasti- cally shaven in the hinder parts, as is the fashion with fanciers.
Page 32. — St. Joseph's thorn. The celebrated Glastonbury thorn, which blooms at Christmas, is said to have been the staff of St. Joseph of Arimathea, when he came into England as a missionary, A. D. 64. In its immediate vicinity stood the earliest British Church, described by old Fuller as follows :
" It had in length sixty -feet, and twenty-six in breadth, made of rods, wattled or interwoven. . . . Let not stately modern churches dis- dain to stoop, with their highest steeples, reverently doing homage to this poor structure as their first platform and precedent. And let their chequered pavements no more disdain this oratory's plain floor, than its thatched covering doth envy their leaden roofs." Eccles. Hist. Vol. i.p. 14. London, 1837.
16
182 NOTES.
XI. CHURCHYARDS.
The parish of St. George's, Hempstead, is the oldest in the state Of New York ; and its churchyard, though not a model cemetery, is dear to me as containing the remains of my kinsman Edward Henry Hyde, sometime a member of the University of New York, and at the time of his death, intended for Holy Orders. This ballad was suggested by a moonlight visit to his grave, in 1840.
XII. TRINITY, OLD CHURCH.
The removal of the old Trinity church, was a sad sight to many New Yorkers ; notwithstanding the proposed splendors of the new church. I had often worshipped in it, in my boyhood ; and just as its destruction was beginning, had a final opportunity of paying my vows there on my twenty-first anniversary, Friday, May 10. 1839.
Page 89.— Effigy. The statue of Bishop Hobart, now in the sacristy of the new church, occupied the place of an altar piece in the old church.
XIII. TRINITY, NEW CHURCH. Thi3 Church was consecrated on Ascension-day, 1846, when I had the satisfaction of being present at the solemnities.
Page 94.— Mould of doctrine. The original Greek of Romans vi. 17, (as criticised by a venerated kinsman, in familiar conversation,) suggest- ed this expression, which is a literal translation of what our English version renders— /<?rm of doctrine. The whole text is sadly distorted, in the authorized translation.
NOTES. 183
XIV. ORATORIES.
The custom here commended has had its examples among the best of men of widely differing piety; and I would instance Herbert, Hooker, and Henry Venn. Even in the dullest days of the eighteenth century, it is gratifying to find Dr. Johnson recommending it, on one occasion, to his friend Boswell. See Life of Johnson, i. 397. Dublin.
Page 101. — The Psalmist's Cedars. See Psalm xcii, 11, 12.
XV.
LITTLE WOODMERE.
Had the Church, as it is in the English Prayer-book, been allowed its quiet and natural development, during the seventeenth century, it would have been found in every English village, as I have pourtrayed it in this ballad. Such, Herbert and Ferrar and Hooker would have had it; and in our own days, bishop Heber.
Page 104. — When the Litany, 8?c. "It was a custom, in several churches, to toll a bell, whilst the Litany was reading, to give notice to the people that the Communion Service was coming on." Wheatley, page 174. Boston.
Page 105. — On the North. It was the custom of our ancestors to bury outcasts and criminals, on the shady side of the Church.
XVI.
DESOLATIONS.
In the Diocese of Virginia, such ruins as are here described, unhap- pily abound.
184 NOTES.
XVII.
CHELSEA.
The General Theological Seminary of the American Church is situa- ted in that quarter of New York, known as Chelsea.
Page 113. — When old Canute. See the story in Sharon Turner's An- glo-Saxons, ii. 348. Philadelphia. Canute himself composed a ballad upon the occasion, of which a fragment remains.
" Merry sang the monks in Ely, When Canute the king was sailing by ; Row, ye knights, near the land, And let us hear the monks' song."
Such is Turner's translation. Wordsworth has a beautiful sonnet oa this incident.
XVIII. VIGILS.
The Latin lines at the end of every stanza, are the titles of anthem? or chants, appropriate to the hours.
Page 117. — Adeste Fideles. Hither ye faithful.
Page 117. — Veni Creator. Come Holy Ghost : as in the Ordinal.
Page 118. — Jubilate Deo. The hundredth Psalm.
Page 118. — Cum Angeles. With Angels, Sec. t as in the Eucharist.
Page 118. — Nisi Dominus. Unless the Lord keep the city, the watch, man waketh but in vain. Psalm exxvii.
Page 118. — De Profundus. Psalm exxx.
Page 119. — Kyrie Eleison. Lord have mercy upon us : as in the Litany.
Page 119. — Miserere. Psalm lvii.
Page 119. — Dies Iroe. The day of wrath.
Page 119. — Sursuvi Corda. Lift up your hearts, as in the Eucharist.
NOTES. 185
Page 120.— Fili David. Oh ! Son of David : as in the Litany. Page 120. — Veni Jesu. Come Lord Jesus.
Page 120. — Nunc Dimittis. Now Lord, lettest thou thy servant de- part in peace. The songof Simeon, St. Luke ii. 29.
XIX.
THE CURFEW.
The anecdote of William I., which is employed in this ballad, will be found in nearly all English histories. The Curfew bell, an institution of that monarch, is generally understood.
Page 124.— New -England village. So late as the beginning of the present century, the nine-o'clock-bell is said to have been generally obeyed in New England, by the breaking up of company, and the re- tiring of families.
XX.
NASHOTAH.
At Nashotah, in Wiskonsan, a thousand miles from the Atlantic sea- board, is a religious establishment of unmarried missionaries, who live and labour in the spirit of the primitive day. All that i3 said of it, and them, in this ballad is literally true.
The founders of this mission were, in 1840, my fellow-students at Chelsea, and Wiskonsan was then a wilderness. It is now a Christian diocese, and has a bishop and twenty one clergy ; the blessed results, in a great degree, of the self-denying labours of the brethren of Nashotah.
Page 132. — The Norway rover. Wiskonsan is rapidly filling up with the better class of emigrants from Europe ; and the itinerant brothers of Nashotah have under their care settlements of Norwegians, Swedes, Irish, Welsh, English, and Oneida Indians. They have also baptized several Jews.
Page 132. — The sad Oneida. Several Oneida Indians are training. 16*
186 NOTES.
for Holy Orders, at Nashotah : p. ;d at the first Diocesan council of Wis- konsan, in 1847, there were present several Oneidas, as lay delegates. They had walked two hundred miles to be present, and on the last day, had accomplished forty five miles. One of them spoke in debate; probably for the first time (says my friend the Rev. Dr. Kip,) that an American Indian has been heard in the councils of the Church.
XXI.
ST. SILVAN'S BELL. When this ballad was written, it was a mere fiction. The Nashotah missionaries have since erected a church, by the name of St. Silvanus, and it can hardly be doubted, that the effects, anticipated in the ballad* have resulted in some degree.
XXII. THE CHURCH'S DAUGHTER.
In this ballad I feel that I have very imperfectly expressed, what, nevertheless, I may have sufficiently suggested, a conviction that, in the formation of female character, the Church's system, if faithfully carried out, naturally devolopes that harmony of graces which her Creator de- signed for woman, as the companion, and minister of man.
Page 159. — Rose-marine. I have taken a quaint sort of license with the botanical name of the flower rosemary, (rosmarinus,) which has no reference to the rose at all, but is similar in sound. I judge it not out of place in a ballad. The custom of using rosemary at funerals is thus explained by Wheatley, on the Common-Prayer ; which see, p. 514. Boston.
" To express their hopes that their friend is not lost forever, each per- son in the company usually bears in his hand a sprig of rosemary : a custom which seems to have taken its rise from a practice among the
NOTES. 187
heathens, of a quite different import. For they have no thought of a future resurrection, but believing that the bodies of those that were dead would forever lie in the grave, made use of cypress at their fune- rals, which is a tree that being once cut never revives, but dies away. But Christiana, on the other side, having better hopes and knowing that this very body of their friend, which they are now going solemnly to commit to the grave, shall one day rise again, and be reunited to Ms soul, instead of cypress, distribute rosemary to the company, which being always green, and flourishing the more for being cropt, (and of which a sprig only being set in the ground, will sprout up immediately and branch into a tree,) is more proper to express their confidence and trust."
XXIII.
I LOVE THE CHURCH.
I am not ashamed to confess that I have a passion for the Beauty of Holiness, as exemplified in the Liturgy and Offices of the Church; and if this book of ballads shall serve to impress the humblest Christian with a deeper love for his high and glorious privileges in this life, and with a more ardent longing for his hopes in the life of the world to com^ I shall feel that I have neither written nor lived in vain.
INDEX
OF PRINCIPAL SUBJECTS.
Absolution, 10-2.
Advent, 39, 143.
Altar, 58, 60, 71, 76, 77, 89, 107, 112, 1 22, 130, 140, 145, 154, 159, 163.
Angels, 104, 108, 118, 154, 159.
Architecture, 80, 82, 92, 104.
Baptism, 26, 37, 146, 156.
Bowing, 37.
Burial, 38, 84, 87, 159.
Catechizing, 136, 157.
Catholic, 29, 30, 163.
Children, 11,37, 38, 106, 124, 136, 146,157.
Chimes, 53, 68, 121, 137.
Christmas, 41, 44, 56, 143.
Church, the, 45, 49, 58, 60, 94, 103, 106, 108, 115, 134, 156, 161.
Churches, 14, 35, 44, 55, 62, 75, 80, 88, 92, 100, 102, 104, 111, 161.
Churchyards, 35, 52, 83, 105, 164.
Churching, 159.
Confirmation, 37,137,157.
Consecration, 90, 138.
Cross, 95,96, 148, 164.
Departed, the, 52,84, 107, 160,161.
Dissent, 31, 45, 50, 63, 73.
Easter, 26,39, 42, 69, 91.
Eraber-davs, 49.
190
INDEX.
Eucharist, 107,152, 163.
Evergreens, 40,42, 69, 143.
Fasts, 46, 48.
Festivals, 46, 69, 106.
Flowers, 41,42,129,159.
Godparents, 37, 147.
Houses, religious, 131.
Houses, rectory, 104.
Introit, 108.
Keys, 31, 74, 78.
Lent, 45, 49.
Lord's prayer, 157.
Martyrs, 30, 58, 104, 134.
Matrimony, 38, 137, 158.
Missions, 128, 131, 135.
Orders, 30, 78,134, 162.
Paradise, 107, 159.
Parish schools, 106.
Perpetuity, 115, 134,161.
Pulpit, 108.
Prayers, private, 100.
Preaching, 25, 109, 130, 132, 163.
Rebellion, 65.
Reformers, 61, 134.
Responses, 36, 108.
Restoration, 67.
Ring, 137, 158.
Schism, 46, 63.
Service, daily, 46, 95, 102, 103, 106, 112, 113.
Succession, 30, 78, 115, 134, 162.
Symbols, 82, 94, 106, 107, 108.
Unity, 49, 114,131, 141, 151, 166.
Viaticum, 159.
Vigils, 117.
Visitation of sick, 159.
Year, the Christian, 39, 46, 149.
CONTENTS
Dedication,
Preface,
Hymn of Boyhood,
St. Sacrament,
Antioch,
Dreamland,
Carol,
Lament,
Ember-prayers,
England,
Chronicles,
The Chimes of England,
Scotland,
Seabury's Mitre,
Rustic Churches,
Churchyards,
Trinity, old Church,
Trinity, new Church,
The Spire-cross,
Oratories,
Wayside Homes,
Little Woodmere,
Desolations,
Chelsea,
Vigils,
Matin Bells,
The Curfew,
Page. 3 5
- 11 16
- 29 34
- 40 45
- 48 51
- 60 68
- 71 77
- 80 83
- 88 92
- 96 100
- 102 104
- Ill 113
- 117 121
- 124
192 CONTENTS.
Wildminster, ....... 128
Nashotah, - - - - - - - - 131
St. Silvan's Bell, - - 135
Daily Service, ....... 140
Christmas Carol, - - - - - 143
Christening, ....... 146
The Calendar, - - - - - - - 149
The Soul-dirge, .... . - 152
The Church's Daughter, ..... 156
I love the Church, - - - - - - - 161
Notes, 167
Index, 189
Contents, - ----- 191
HARTFORD:
WILLIAM FAXON
PRINTER.