His countenance settles; a soft solemn bliss
Swims in his eye-his swimming eye upraised:
And Faith's whole armour glitters on his limbs !
And thus transfigured with a dreadless awe,
A solemn hush of soul, meek he beholds
All things of terrible seeming: yea, unmoved
Views e'en the inmitigable ministers

That shower down vengeance on these latter days.
For kindling with intenser Deity

From the celestial Mercy-seat they come,

And at the renovating wells of Love
Have filled their vials with salutary wrath,

To sickly Nature more medicinal

Than what soft balm the weeping good man pours Into the lone despoiled traveller's wounds!

Thus from the Elect, regenerate through faith, Pass the dark Passions and what thirsty Cares Drink up the Spirit, and the dim regards Self-centre. Lo they vanish! or acquire New names, new features-by supernal grace Enrobed with Light, and naturalized in Heaven. As when a shepherd on a vernal morn

Through some thick fog creeps timorous with slow foot,

Darkling he fixes on the immediate road

His downward eye: all else of fairest kind
Hid or deformed. But lo! the bursting Sun!
Touched by the enchantment of that sudden beam
Straight the black vapour melteth, and in globes

Of dewy glitter gems each plant and tree;
On every leaf, on every blade it hangs!
Dance glad the new-born intermingling rays,
And wide around the landscape streams with glory!

There is one Mind, one omnipresent Mind,
Omnific. His most holy name is Love.
Truth of subliming import! with the which
Who feeds and saturates his constant soul,
He from his small particular orbit flies,
With blest outstarting! From Himself he flies,
Stands in the sun, and with no partial gaze
Views all creation; and he loves it all,
And blesses it, and calls it very good!
This is indeed to dwell with the most High!
Cherubs and rapture-trembling Seraphim
Can press no nearer to the Almighty's Throne.
But that we roam unconscious, or with hearts
Unfeeling of our universal Sire,

And that in his vast family no Cain
Injures uninjured (in her best-aimed blow
Victorious murder a blind suicide)

Haply for this some younger Angel now
Looks down on human nature: and, behold!

a.m.

A sea of blood bestrewed with wrecks, where mad
Embattling interests on each other rush

With unhelmed rage!

V 'Tis the sublime of man,

Our noontide majesty, to know ourselves

Parts and proportions of one wondrous whole!
This fraternizes man, this constitutes

Our charities and bearings. But 'tis God aim
Diffused through all, that doth make all one whole;
This the worst superstition, him except
Aught to desire, Supreme Reality!
The plenitude and permanence of bliss!
O Fiends of Superstition! not that oft

The erring priest hath stained with brother's blood
Your grisly idols, not for this
may wrath
Thunder against you from the Holy One!

But o'er some plain that steameth to the sun,
Peopled with death; or where more hideous Trade
Loud-laughing packs his bales of human anguish;
I will raise up a mourning, O ye Fiends!

And curse your spells, that film the eye of Faith,

Hiding the present God; whose presence lost, presence lost.

The moral world's cohesion, we become
An anarchy of Spirits! Toy-bewitched,
Made blind by lusts, disherited of soul,
No common centre Man, no common sire
Knoweth! A sordid solitary thing,

a.m

'Mid countless brethren with a lonely heart
Through courts and cities the smooth savage roams
Feeling himself, his own low self the whole
When he by sacred sympathy might make
The whole one self! self, that no alien knows!
Self, far diffused as Fancy's wing can travel,!
Self, spreading still! Oblivious of its own,
Yet all of all possessing! This is Faith!

This the Messiah's destined victory!

But first offences needs must come! Even now *
(Black Hell laughs horrible—to hear the scoff!)
Thee to defend, meek Galilean! Thee
And thy mild laws of Love unutterable,
Mistrust and enmity have burst the bands
Of social peace; and listening treachery lurks
With pious fraud to snare a brother's life;
And childless widows o'er the groaning land
Wail numberless; and orphans weep for bread
Thee to defend, dear Saviour of mankind!

Thee, Lamb of God! Thee, blameless Prince of peace!

From all sides rush the thirsty brood of War,—
Austria, and that foul Woman of the North,
The lustful murderess of her wedded lord!
And he, connatural mind! (whom in their songs

* January 21st, 1794, in the debate on the address to his Majesty, on the speech from the Throne, the Earl of Guildford moved an amendment to the following effect:-"That the House hoped his Majesty would seize the earliest opportunity to conclude a peace with France," &c. This motion was opposed by the Duke of Portland, who "considered the war to be merely grounded on one principle-the preservation of the Christian Religion." May 30th, 1794, the Duke of Bedford moved a number of resolutions, with a view to the establishment of a peace with France. He was opposed (among others) by Lord Abingdon, in these remarkable words: "The best road to Peace, my Lords, is War! and War carried on in the same manner in which we are taught to worship our Creator, namely, with all our souls, and with all our minds, and with all our hearts, and with all our strength."

So bards of elder time had haply feigned)
Some Fury fondled in her hate to man,
Bidding her serpent hair in mazy surge

Lick his young face, and at his mouth imbreathe
Horrible sympathy! And leagued with these
Each petty German princeling, nursed in gore!
Soul-hardened barterers of human blood!
Death's prime slave-merchants! Scorpion-whips
of Fate!

Nor least in savagery of holy zeal,

Apt for the yoke, the race degenerate,

Whom Britain erst had blushed to call her sons!
Thee to defend the Moloch priest prefers

The prayer of hate, and bellows to the herd
That Deity, accomplice Deity,

In the fierce jealousy of wakened wrath,
Will go

forth with our armies and our fleets To scatter the red ruin on their foes!

O blasphemy! to mingle fiendish deeds

With blessedness!

Lord of unsleeping Love,*

From everlasting Thou! We shall not die.

These, even these, in mercy didst thou form,

Browning

Feachers of Good through Evil, by brief wrong wing
Making Truth lovely and her future might
Magnetic o'er the fixed untrembling heart.

* Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord, my God, mine Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, thou hast ordained them for judgment. &c. Habakkuk.