SPIRIT OF TRUTH! to bless these worthless lays :
Nor impious is the hope; for Thou hast said,
That none who ask in faith should ask in vain.
You I invoke not now, ye fabled Nine!
I not invoke you, though you well were sought
In Greece and Latium, sought by deathless bards,
Whose syren song enchants; and shall enchant,
Through Time's wide-circling round, though false
their faith,
And less than human were the gods they sung. Though false their faith, they taught the best they knew ;
And (blush, O Christians !) liv'd above their faith. They would have bless'd the beam, and hail'd the day, Which chas'd the inoral darkness from their souls Oh! had their minds receiv'd the clearer
Of revelation, they had learn'd to scorn
Their rights impure, their less than human gods,
Their wild mythology's fantastic maze.
Pure Plato! how had thy chaste spirit hail'd
A faith so fitted to thy moral sense!
What hadst thou felt, to see the fair romance
Of high imagination, the bright dream
Of thy pure fancy, more than realiz'd!
Sublime enthusiast! thou hadst blest a scheme
Fair, good, and perfect. How had thy wrapt soul
Caught fire, and burnt with a diviner flame!
For e'en thy fair idea ne'er conceiv'd
Such plenitude of bliss, such boundless love,
As Deity made visible to sense.
Unhappy Brutus! philosophic mind!
Great 'midst the errors of the Stoic school!
How had thy kindling spirit joy'd to find
That thy lov'd virtue was no empty name;
Nor hadst thou met the vision at Philippi;
Nor hadst thou sheath'd thy bloody dagger's point
Or in the breast of Cæsar or thy own.
The pagan page how far more wise than ours! They with the gods they worshipp'd grac'd their
Our song we grace with gods we disbelieve!
Retain the manners, but reject the creed.
Shall fiction only raise poetic flame,
And shall no altars blaze, O Truth, to thee?
Shall falsehood only please, and fable charm?
And shall eternal Truth neglected lie,
Because immortal, slighted, or profan'd?
Truth has our rev'rence only, not our love;
Our praise, but not our heart; a deity
Confess'd, but shunn'd; acknowledg'd, nor ador'd;
Alarm'd we dread her penetrating beams;
She comes too near us, and too brightly shines.
Why shun to make our duty our delight?
Let pleasure be the motive, disallow
All high incentives drawn from God's command;
Where shall we trace, through all the page profane,
A livelier pleasure and a purer source
Of innocent delight, than the fair book
Of holy Truth presents? for ardent youth,
The sprightly narrative; for years mature,
The moral document, in sober robe
Of grave philosophy array'd: which all
Had heard with admiration, had embraced
With rapture, had the shades of Academe,
Or the learn'd Porch produced it :-Tomes had then
Been multiplied on tomes, to draw the veil
Of graceful allegory, to unfold
Some hidden source of beauty, now not felt!
Do not the powers of soul-enchanting song,
Strong imagery, bold figure, every charm
Of eastern flight sublime, apt metaphor,
And all the graces in thy lovely train,
Divine Simplicity! assemble all
In Sion's songs, and bold Isaiah's strain?
Why should the classic eye delight to trace
The tale corrupted from its prime pure source,
How Pyrrha and the fam'd Thessalian king
Restor❜d the ruin'd race of lost mankind;
Yet turn, incurious, from the patriarch saved,
The rescued remnant of a delug'd world?
Why are we taught, delighted to recount
Alcides' labours, yet neglect to note
Heroic Samson 'midst a life of toil
Herculean? pain and peril marking both,
A life eventful and disastrous death.
Can all the tales which Grecian story yields;
Can all the names the Roman page records,
Of wondrous friendship and surpassing love;
Can gallant Theseus and his brave compeer,
Orestes, and the partner of his toils;
Achates and his friend; Euryalus
And blooming Nisus, pleasant in their lives
And undivided by the stroke of death;
Can each, can all, a lovelier picture yield
Of virtuous friendship: can they all present
A tenderness more touching than the love
Of Jonathan and David?-Speak, ye young,
Who, undebauch'd as yet by fashion's lore,
And unsophisticate, unbiass'd judge,
Say, is your quick attention more arous'd
By the red plagues which wasted smitten Thebes,
Than heaven's avenging hand on Pharaoh's host?
Or do the vagrant Trojans, driven by fate
On adverse shores successive, yield a theme
More grateful to the eager appetite
Of young impatience, than the wandering tribes
The Hebrew leader through the desert led?
The beauteous maid,* (though tender is the tale,)
Whose guiltless blood on Aulis' altar stream'd,
Smites not the bosom with a softer pang
Than her in fate, how sadly similar,
The Gileaditish virgin-victims both
Of vows unsanctified.-
Such are the lovely themes which court the bard,
Scarce yet essay'd in verse-for verse how meet!
While heav'n-descended song, forgetting oft
Her sacred dignity and high descent,
Debases her fair origin; oft spreads
Corruption's deadly bane, pollutes the heart
Of innocence, and with unhallow'd hand
Presents the poison'd chalice, to the brim
Fill'd with delicious ruin, ministering
Th' unwholesome rapture to the fever'd taste,
While its fell venom, with malignant power,
Strikes at the root of virtue, withering all
Her vital energy. Oh! for some balm
Of sovereign power, to raise the drooping muse
To all the health of virtue! to infuse
A gen'rous warmth, to rouse a holy zeal,
And give her high conceptions of herself,
Her dignity, her worth, her aim, her end!
For me, Eternal Spirit, let thy word
My path illume! O thou compassionate God!
Thou know'st our frame, thou know'st we are but
From dust, a seraph's zeal thou wilt not seek,
Nor wilt thou ask an angel's purity.
But hear, and hearing, pardon; as I strive,
Though with a feeble voice and flagging wing,
A glowing heart, put powerless hand to paint
The faith of favour'd man to heaven; to sing
The ways inscrutable of heaven to man
May I, by thy celestial guidance led,
Fix deep in my own heart the truths I teach!
In my own life transcribe whate'er of good
To others I propose! and by thy rule
Correct th' irregular,* reform the wrong,
Exalt the low, and brighten the obscure !
Still may I note how all th' agreeing parts
Of this consummate system, join to frame
One fair, one finish'd, one harmonious whole !
Trace the close links which form the perfect chain
In beautiful connexion; mark the scale
Whose nice gradations, with progression true,
For ever rising, end in DEITY!
*What in me is dark
Illumine! what is low, raise and support!
|