THE CHRISTIAD,

A DIVINE POEM.

BOOK I

I..

I SING the CROSS!-Ye white rob'd angel choirs, Who know the chords of harmony to sweep;

Ye who o'er holy David's varying wires,

Were wont of old your hovering watch to keep, Oh, now descend! and with your harpings deep, Pouring sublime the full symphonious stream

Of music, such as soothes the saint's last sleep, Awake my slumbering spirit from its dreain, And teach me how to exalt the high mysterious theme.

II.

Mourn! Salem, mourn! low lies thine humbled state Thy glittering fanes are levell'd with the ground! Fallen is thy pride !-Thine halls are desolate! Where erst was heard the timbrel's sprightly sound, And frolic pleasures tripp'd the nightly round, There breeds the wild fox lonely,--and aghast Stands the mute pilgrim at the void profound, Unbroke by noise, save when the hurrying blast Sighs, like a spirit, deep along the cheerless waste.

III.

It is for this, proud Solyma! thy towers
Lie crumbling in the dust; for this forlorn
Thy genius wails along thy desert bowers,
While stern destruction laughs, as if in scorn,
That thou didst dare insult God's eldest-born;
And, with most bitter persecuting ire,

Pursued his footsteps till the last day-dawn
Rose on his fortunes-and thou saw'st the fire
That came to light the world in one great flash expire,

IV.

Oh! for a pencil dipt in living light,

To paint the agonies that Jesus bore!

Oh! for the long-lost harp of Jesse's might,

To hymn the Saviour's praise from shore to shore; While seraph hosts the lofty pæan pour, And Heaven enraptur'd lists the loud acclaim! May a frail mortal dare the theme explore? May he to human ears his weak song frame? Oh! may he dare to sing Messiah's glorious name?

V.

Spirits of pity! mild Crusaders come!

Buoyant on clouds around your minstrel float; And give him eloquence who else were dumb, And raise to feeling and to fire his note! And thou, Urania! who dost still devote Thy nights and days to God's eternal shrine,

Whose mild eyes 'lumin'd what Isaiah wrote, Throw o'er thy bard that solemn stole of thine, And clothe him for the fight with energy divine.

VI..

When from the temple's lofty summit prone,
Satan o'ercome, fell down; and 'throned there,
The Son of God confest, in splendor shone;
Swift as the glancing sunbeam cuts the air,
Mad with defeat, and yelling his despair,

Fled the stern king of Hell-and with the glare Of gliding meteors, ominous and red,

Shot athwart the clouds that gathered round his head.

VII.

Right o'er the Euxine, and that gulph which late
The rude Massagetæ ador'd-he bent
His northering course,-while round, in dusky state,
The assembling fiends their summon'd troops augment;
Cloth'd in dark mists, upon their way they went,
While as they pass'd to regions more severe,

The Lapland sorcerer swell'd, with loud lament,
The solitary gale; and, fill'd with fear,
The howling dogs bespoke unholy spirits near,

VIII.

Where the North Pole, in moody solitude,
Spreads her huge tracks and frozen wastes around;

There ice-rocks pil'd aloft, in order rude,

Form a gigantic hall; where never sound

Startled dull Silence' ear, save when profound, The smoak-frost mutter'd: there drear Cold for aye "Thrones him, and fix'd on his primæval mound, Ruin, the giant, sits; while stern Dismay

Stalks like some woe-struck man along the desert way.

IX.

In that drear spot, grim Desolation's lair,
No sweet remain of life encheers the sight;
The dancing heart's blood in an instant there

Would freeze to marble.-Mingling day and night, (Sweet interchange which makes our labours light,) Are there unknown; while in the summer skies

The sun rolls ceaseless round his heavenly height, Nor ever sets till from the scene he flies,

And leaves the long bleak night of half the year to rise.