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THE DEAD CHURCH.

257

THE DEAD CHURCH.

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

WILD, wild wind, wilt thou never cease thy sighing?

Dark, dark night, wilt thou never wear away?
Cold, cold church, in thy death sleep lying,
Thy Lent is past, thy Passion here, but not thine
Easter-day.

Peace, faint heart, though the night be dark and sighing;

Rest, fair corpse, where thy Lord himself hath

lain.

Weep, dear Lord, where thy bride is lying; Thy tears shall wake her frozen limbs to life and health again.

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O, YET We trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,

To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt and taints of blood;

That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroyed,

Or cast as rubbish to the void,

When God hath made the pile complete ;

That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another's gain.

Behold! we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last, far off, at last, to all,

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And every winter change to spring.

So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant crying in the night :
An infant crying for the light:

And with no language but a cry.

THE wish, that of the living whole

No life may fail beyond the grave,-
Derives it not from what we have

The likest God within the soul?

HOPE, DOUBT, AND TRUST.

259

Are God and Nature then at strife,

That Nature lends such evil dreams?
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life;

That I, considering everywhere

Her secret meaning in her deeds, And finding that of fifty seeds She often brings but one to bear;

I falter where I firmly trod,

And falling with my weight of cares Upon the great world's altar-stairs, That slope through darkness up to God;

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call

To what I feel is Lord of all,

And faintly trust the larger hope.

THE MILLENNIUM.

COWPER.

O SCENES surpassing fable, and yet truc,
Scenes of accomplished bliss! which who can

see,

Though but in distant prospect, and not feel
His soul refreshed with foretaste of the joy?
Rivers of gladness water all the earth,

And clothe all climes with beauty: the reproach
Of barrenness is past. The fruitful field
Laughs with abundance; and the land, once lean
Or fertile only in its own disgrace,

Exults to see its thirsty curse repealed.
The various seasons woven into one,
And that one season an eternal spring,

The garden fears no blight, and needs no fence,
For there is none to covet, all are full.
The lion, and the libbard, and the bear,
Graze with the fearless flocks; all bask at noon,
Together, or all gambol in the shade

Of the same grove, and drink one common stream.
Antipathies are none. No foe to man

Lurks in the serpent now: the mother sees, And smiles to see, her infant's playful hand Stretched forth to dally with the crested worm, To stroke his azure neck, or to receive

THE MILLENNIUM.

261

The lambent homage of his arrowy tongue.
All creatures worship man, and all mankind
One Lord, one Father. Error has no place:
That creeping pestilence is driven away:
The breath of Heaven has chased it. In the heart
No passion touches a discordant string,

But all is harmony and love. Disease

Is not the pure and uncontaminate blood
Holds its due course, nor feels the frost of age.
One song employs all nations; and all cry,
"Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us!"
The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks
Shout to each other, and the mountain-tops
From distant mountains catch the flying joy;
Till, nation after nation taught the strain,
Earth rolls the rapturous Hosanna round.
Behold the measure of the promise filled;
See Salem built, the labor of a God!
Bright as a sun the sacred city shines;
All kingdoms and all princes of the earth
Flock to that light; the glory of all lands
Flows into her; unbounded is her joy,
And endless her increase. Thy rams are there,
Nebaioth, and the flocks of Kedar there:
The looms of Ormus, and the mines of Ind,
And Saba's spicy groves, pay tribute there.
Praise is in all her gates: upon her walls,
And in her streets, and in her spacious courts,
Is heard salvation. Eastern Java there

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