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For all the stammering of those simple men,

A four-fold unity of truth they reach :

Drops as of light fall from their trembling pen,

And Christ speaks through them with a tenderer speech.

And through all time our father's faith shall speed,
And the old utterance be sent abroad,

And eastward chanted rise the changeless creed-
O Light from Light, O very God from God!

But for the New Atlantis-for the Church

Where faith and knowledge heart-united dwell—

I think it lies far-off beyond our search,
Enfolded by the Hills Delectable.

F

SUPER FLUMINA.

I.

I READ again that wondrous song,
So strongly sweet and sweetly strong,
That ancient poem, whose music shivers
With a chime of rolling rivers

Through the forest of the psalms-
Now it droppeth some golden bead,
Hebrew litany, or creed,

On its rosary of the reed :

Now among the dark-green palms, And through the harp-hung willows grey, It yearneth its sweet self away.

And then the stream is fleck'd with froth, And then the psalm is white with wrath, And all the sorrow of the verse

Swells out majestic to a curse.

"Blessèd be thou, Psalm!" I said, "Whether thy deep words be read Soft and low with bended head; Or whether chance at vesper-tide In some minster grand and grey, By the organ glorified,

Soft the Super Flumina

Rustles by the wreathen pillar,
While the hush of eve grows stiller,
Till you seem to hear a river,
Willows tremble, harp-strings quiver,
And a beautiful regret

To the heavenly Sion set."

"And why," I thought, "must she be still,
The Muse, that with her hallow'd fire
Those chosen shepherds did inspire
Of Bethlehem and of Horeb's hill;
And now, in exile chants again,
Not less divinely, such a strain,
As he the son of Jesse play'd
In Kedron's olive-hoary glade,

The glittering grief upon his brow?

In Christ's own church must she rest now, Fair, angel-fair, but frozen, like

A marble maid whose death-white fingers Enclasp a harp, o'er which she lingers Stone-silent, but may never strike ?"

II.

Musing thus a spirit bright

Stood by me that summer night:

"Come where the river rolleth calm

Of that Babylonian psalm;

Thou shalt learn, by me reveal'd,
Why those holy lips are seal'd."

III.

Then on a great Assyrian quay,
Fast by the town of Nineveh,

At noon of night, methought I stood

Where Tigris went with glimmering flood.

And walls were there all storied round
With old grim kings, enthroned, encrown'd.
Strange-visaged chief, and wingèd bull,
Pine-cone, and lotus wonderful.
Embark'd, I floated fast and far,
For I was bound to Babylon.

I saw the great blue lake of Wan,
And that green island Ahktamar.
I saw above the burning flat
The lone and snow-capp'd Ararat.
But ever spell-bound on I pass,

Sometimes hearing my shallop creep,
With its cool rustle, through the deep
Mesopotamian meadow grass.
And now (as when by moons of old,
Grandly with wrinkling silver roll'd,
It glimmer'd on through grove and lea,
For the starry eyes of Raphael
Journeying to Ecbatane)
The ancient Tigris floweth free,

Through orange-grove, and date-tree dell,
To pearl and rainbow-colour'd shell,
And coral of the Indian sea.

Take down the sail, and strike the mast,
Here is Euphrates old, at last.

Begirt with many a belt of palm,
Round fragrant garden-beds of balm,
(In one whereof old Chelcias' daughter
Went to walk down beside the water,
The lily both in heart and name,
Whose white leaf hath no blot of shame,)
Grandly the king of rivers greets
His Sheshach's hundred-gated streets.

Through the great town the river rolls,

Through it another river fleets,

Whose awful waves are living souls.
High up, the gardens folded fair,
Rainbow'd round many a marble stair,
Hang gorgeous in the starlit air;

And trees droop down o'er spouted fountains,
That once the hunter Mede saw set
Far off upon the purple mountains,
Blossom'd with white and violet.
But o'er the sea of living souls,

And o'er the garden, and the wave,

A muffled bell, methinketh tolls,

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"For thee, earth's chief ones stir the grave." And rises to the stars a cry Of triumph and of agony, Far over all the ancient East"How hath the golden city ceased! In shadow of his dim blue room, High overhead in painted gloom, Like sunset cloud-encompass'd, Bel Sleeps golden in his oracle.

Falleth a voice of far-off Pæans

Down where the lion banner droops :
“There is a sword on the Chaldeans;
Bel boweth down and Nebo stoops."
Ah! I hear a sound of woe
By Euphrates come and go,
From the Lebanonian snow.

Rolling wave and sighing breeze
Wash'd through firs and cedar-trees-
And the chesnuts' plumes of white
Tossing in a fierce delight—
And a voice that calls and calls,

Through the algums, set like walls,

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