FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestations of the sons of God: for the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope; because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God: for we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. Rom. viii. 19-22. IT was not then a poet's dream, An idle vaunt of song, Such as beneath the moon's soft gleam Which bids us see in heaven and earth, In all fair things around, Strong yearnings for a blest new birth With sinless glories crown'd; Which bids us hear, at each sweet pause From care and want and toil, When dewy eve her curtain draws Over the day's turmoil, In the low chant of wakeful birds, All true, all faultless, all in tune, Creation's wondrous choir Open'd in mystic unison To last till time expire. And still it lasts: by day and night, All hymn thy glory, Lord, aright, Man only mars the sweet accord, O'erpowering with "harsh din" The music of thy works and word, Ill match'd with grief and sin. 1 Sin is with man at morning break, And through the live-long day Deafens the ear that fain would wake To Nature's simple lay. But when eve's silent foot-fall steals And one by one to earth reveals When one by one each human sound Then Nature's voice no more is drown'd, Then pours she on the Christian heart At which high spirits of old would start Just guessing, through their murky blind, Few, faint, and baffling sight, Streaks of a brighter heaven behind, A cloudless depth of light. Such thoughts, the wreck of Paradise, Through many a dreary age, Upbore whate'er of good and wise They mark'd what agonizing throes Shook the great mother's womb; But Reason's spells might not disclose The gracious birth to come; Nor could th' enchantress Hope forecast The hour that saw from opening heaven Beyond the summer hues of even, Thenceforth, to eyes of high desire, The meanest things below, As with a seraph's robe of fire Invested, burn and glow : The rod of heaven has touch'd them all, The word from heaven is spoken; "Rise, shine, and sing, thou captive thrall; "Are not thy fetters broken? "The God who hallow'd thee and blest, "Why mourn'st thou still as one bereft, "Now that th' eternal Son "His blessed home in heaven hath left "To make thee all his own?" Thou mourn'st because Sin lingers still Stain our immortal birth : Because, as Love and Prayer grow cold, And worldlings blot the temple's gold With uses vile and base. |