# Religious Musings (unsourced)

Dated Christmas Eve 1794, rewritten and edited for publication in 1796
This is the time, when most divine to hear, The voice of Adoration rouses me, As with a Cherub’s trump: and high upborne, Yea, mingling with the Choir, I seem to view The vision of the heavenly multitude, Who hymned the song of Peace o’er Bethlehem’s fields! Yet thou more bright than all the Angel-blaze, That harbingered thy birth, Thou Man of Woes! Despiséd Galilaean! For the Great Invisible (by symbols only seen) With a peculiar and surpassing light Shines from the visage of the oppressed good man, When heedless of himself the scourgéd saint Mourns for the oppressor. Fair the vernal mead, Fair the high grove, the sea, the sun, the stars; True impress each of their creating Sire! Yet nor high grove, nor many-colour’d mead, Nor the green ocean with his thousand isles, Nor the starred azure, nor the sovran sun, E’er with such majesty of portraiture Imaged the supreme beauty uncreate, As thou, meek Saviour! at the fearful hour When thy insulted anguish winged the prayer Harped by Archangels, when they sing of mercy! Which when the Almighty heard from forth his throne Diviner light filled Heaven with ecstasy! Heaven’s hymnings paused: and Hell her yawning mouth Closed a brief moment.
Lovely was the death Of Him whose life was Love! Holy with power He on the thought-benighted Sceptic beamed Manifest Godhead, melting into day What floating mists of dark idolatry Broke and misshaped the omnipresent Sire: And first by Fear uncharmed the drowséd Soul. Till of its nobler nature it ’gan feel Dim recollections; and thence soared to Hope. Strong to believe whate’er of mystic good The Eternal dooms for His immortal sons. From Hope and firmer Faith to perfect Love Attracted and absorbed: and centered there God only to behold, and know, and feel, Till by exclusive consciousness of God All self-annihilated it shall make God its Identity: God all in all! We and our Father one!
And blest are they, Who in this fleshly World, the elect of Heaven, Their strong eye darting through the deeds of men, Adore with steadfast unpresuming gaze Him Nature’s essence, mind, and energy! And gazing, trembling, patiently ascend Treading beneath their feet all visible things As steps, that upward to their Father’s throne Lead gradual — else nor glorified nor loved. They nor contempt embosom nor revenge: For they dare know of what may seem deform The Supreme Fair sole operant: in whose sight All things are pure, his strong controlling love Alike from all educing perfect good. Their’s too celestial courage, inly armed — Dwarfing Earth’s giant brood, what time they muse On their great Father, great beyond compare! And marching onwards view high o’er their heads His waving banners of Omnipotence.
Who the Creator love, created Might Dread not: within their tents no Terrors walk. For they are holy things before the Lord Aye unprofaned, though Earth should league with Hell; God’s altar grasping with an eager hand Fear, the wild-visag’d, pale, eye-starting wretch, Sure-refug’d hears his hot pursuing fiends Yell at vain distance. Soon refresh’d from Heaven He calms the throb and tempest of his heart. His countenance settles; a soft solemn bliss Swims in his eye — his swimming eye uprais’d: 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 immitigable 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 fill’d their vials with salutary wrath, To sickly Nature more medicinal Than what soft balm the weeping good man pours Into the lone despoiléd 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 naturalised 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 sea of blood bestrewed with wrecks, where mad Embattling Interests on each other rush With unhelmed rage!
’Tis the sublime of man, Our noontide Majesty, to know ourselves Parts and proportions of one wondrous whole! This fraternises man, this constitutes Our charities and bearings. But ’tis God 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, 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, 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 Galilaean! 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 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, Teachers of Good through Evil, by brief wrong Making Truth lovely, and her future might Magnetic o’er the fixed untrembling heart.
In the primeval age a dateless while The vacant Shepherd wander’d with his flock, Pitching his tent where’er the green grass waved. But soon Imagination conjured up An host of new desires: with busy aim, Each for himself, Earth’s eager children toiled. So Property began, twy-streaming fount, Whence Vice and Virtue flow, honey and gall. Hence the soft couch, and many-coloured robe, The timbrel, and arched dome and costly feast, With all the inventive arts, that nursed the soul To forms of beauty, and by sensual wants Unsensualised the mind, which in the means Learnt to forget the grossness of the end, Best pleasured with its own activity. And hence Disease that withers manhood’s arm, The daggered Envy, spirit-quenching Want, Warriors, and Lords, and Priests — all the sore ills That vex and desolate our mortal life. Wide-wasting ills! yet each the immediate source Of mightier good. Their keen necessities To ceaseless action goading human thought Have made Earth’s reasoning animal her Lord; And the pale-featured Sage’s trembling hand Strong as an host of arméd Deities, Such as the blind Ionian fabled erst.
From Avarice thus, from Luxury and War Sprang heavenly Science; and from Science Freedom. O’er waken’d realms Philosophers and Bards Spread in concentric circles: they whose souls, Conscious of their high dignities from God, Brook not Wealth’s rivalry! and they, who long Enamoured with the charms of order, hate The unseemly disproportion: and whoe’er Turn with mild sorrow from the Victor’s car And the low puppetry of thrones, to muse On that blest triumph, when the Patriot Sage Called the red lightnings from the o’er-rushing cloud And dashed the beauteous terrors on the earth Smiling majestic. Such a phalanx ne’er Measured firm paces to the calming sound Of Spartan flute! These on the fated day, When, stung to rage by Pity, eloquent men Have roused with pealing voice the unnumbered tribes That toil and groan and bleed, hungry and blind — These, hush’d awhile with patient eye serene, Shall watch the mad careering of the storm; Then o’er the wild and wavy chaos rush And tame the outrageous mass, with plastic might Moulding Confusion to such perfect forms, As erst were wont, — bright visions of the day! — To float before them, when, the summer noon, Beneath some arched romantic rock reclined They felt the sea-breeze lift their youthful locks; Or in the month of blossoms, at mild eve, Wandering with desultory feet inhaled The wafted perfumes, and the flocks and woods And many-tinted streams and setting sun With all his gorgeous company of clouds Ecstatic gazed! then homeward as they strayed Cast the sad eye to earth, and inly mused Why there was misery in a world so fair.
Ah! far removed from all that glads the sense, From all that softens or ennobles Man, The wretched Many! Bent beneath their loads They gape at pageant Power, nor recognise Their cots’ transmuted plunder! From the tree Of Knowledge, ere the vernal sap had risen Rudely disbranchéd! Blessed Society! Fitliest depictured by some sun-scorched waste, Where oft majestic through the tainted noon The Simoom sails, before whose purple pomp Who falls not prostrate dies! And where by night, Fast by each precious fountain on green herbs The lion couches: or hyaena dips Deep in the lucid stream his bloody jaws; Or serpent plants his vast moon-glittering bulk, Caught in whose monstrous twine Behemoth yells, His bones loud-crashing!
O ye numberless, Whom foul Oppression’s ruffian gluttony Drives from Life’s plenteous feast! O thou poor Wretch Who nursed in darkness and made wild by want, Roamest for prey, yea thy unnatural hand Dost lift to deeds of blood! O pale-eyed form, The victim of seduction, doomed to know Polluted nights and days of blasphemy; Who in loathed orgies with lewd wassailers Must gaily laugh, while thy remembered Home Gnaws like a viper at thy secret heart! O agéd Women! ye who weekly catch The morsel tossed by law-forced charity, And die so slowly, that none call it murder! O loathly suppliants! ye, that unreceived Totter heart-broken from the closing gates Of the full Lazar-house; or, gazing, stand, Sick with despair! O ye to Glory’s field Forced or ensnared, who, as ye gasp in death, Bleed with new wounds beneath the vulture’s beak! O thou poor widow, who in dreams dost view Thy husband’s mangled corse, and from short doze Start’st with a shriek; or in thy half-thatched cot Waked by the wintry night-storm, wet and cold Cow’rst o’er thy screaming baby! Rest awhile Children of Wretchedness! More groans must rise, More blood must stream, or ere your wrongs be full. Yet is the day of Retribution nigh: The Lamb of God hath opened the fifth seal: And upward rush on swiftest wing of fire The innumerable multitude of wrongs By man on man inflicted! Rest awhile, Children of Wretchedness! The hour is nigh And lo! the Great, the Rich, the Mighty Men, The Kings and the Chief Captains of the World, With all that fixed on high like stars of Heaven Shot baleful influence, shall be cast to earth, Vile and down-trodden, as the untimely fruit Shook from the fig-tree by a sudden storm. Even now the storm begins: each gentle name. Faith and meek Piety, with fearful joy Tremble far-off — for lo! the Giant Frenzy Uprooting empires with his whirlwind arm Mocketh high Heaven; burst hideous from the cell Where the old Hag, unconquerable, huge, Creation’s eyeless drudge, black Ruin, sits Nursing the impatient earthquake.
O return! Pure Faith! meek Piety! The abhorréd Form Whose scarlet robe was stiff with earthly pomp, Who drank iniquity in cups of gold, Whose names were many and all blasphemous, Hath met the horrible judgment! Whence that cry? The mighty army of foul Spirits shrieked Disherited of earth! For she hath fallen On whose black front was written Mystery; She that reeled heavily, whose wine was blood; She that worked whoredom with the Daemon Power, And from the dark embrace all evil things Brought forth and nurtured: mitred Atheism! And patient Folly who on bended knee Gives back the steel that stabbed him; and pale Fear Haunted by ghastlier shapings than surround Moon-blasted Madness when he yells at midnight! Return pure Faith! return meek Piety! The kingdoms of the world are your’s: each heart Self-governed, the vast family of Love Raised from the common earth by common toil Enjoy the equal produce. Such delights As float to earth, permitted visitants! When in some hour of solemn jubilee The massy gates of Paradise are thrown Wide open, and forth come in fragments wild Sweet echoes of unearthly melodies, And odours snatched from beds of Amaranth, And they, that from the crystal river of life Spring up on freshened wing, ambrosial gales! The favoured good man in his lonely walk Perceives them, and his silent spirit drinks Strange bliss which he shall recognise in heaven. And such delights, such strange beatitudes Seize on my young anticipating heart When that blest future rushes on my view! For in his own and in his Father’s might The Saviour comes! While as the Thousand Years Lead up their mystic dance, the Desert shouts! Old Ocean claps his hands! The mighty Dead Rise to new life, whoe’er from earliest time With conscious zeal had urged Love’s wondrous plan, Coadjutors of God. To Milton’s trump The high groves of the renovated Earth Unbosom their glad echoes: inly hushed, Adoring Newton his serener eye Raises to heaven: and he of mortal kind Wisest, he first who marked the ideal tribes Up the fine fibres through the sentient brain. Lo! Priestley there, patriot, and saint, and sage, Him, full of years, from his loved native land Statesmen blood-stained and priests idolatrous By dark lies maddening the blind multitude Drove with vain hate. Calm, pitying he retired, And mused expectant on these promised years.
O Years! the blest pre-eminence of Saints! Ye sweep athwart my gaze, so heavenly bright, The wings that veil the adoring Seraphs’ eyes, What time they bend before the Jasper Throne Reflect no lovelier hues! Yet ye depart, And all beyond is darkness! Heights most strange, Whence Fancy falls, fluttering her idle wing. For who of woman born may paint the hour, When seized in his mid course, the Sun shall wane Making noon ghastly! Who of woman born May image in the workings of his thought, How the black-visaged, red-eyed Fiend outstretched Beneath the unsteady feet of Nature groans, In feverous slumbers — destined then to wake, When fiery whirlwinds thunder his dread name And Angels shout, Destruction! How his arm The last great Spirit lifting high in air Shall swear by Him, the ever-living One, Time is no more!
Believe thou, O my soul, Life is a vision shadowy of Truth; And vice, and anguish, and the wormy grave, Shapes of a dream! The veiling clouds retire, And lo! the Throne of the redeeming God Forth flashing unimaginable day Wraps in one blaze earth, heaven, and deepest hell.
Contemplant Spirits! ye that hover o’er With untired gaze the immeasurable fount Ebullient with creative Deity! And ye of plastic power, that interfused Roll through the grosser and material mass In organizing surge! Holies of God! (And what if Monads of the infinite mind?) I haply journeying my immortal course Shall sometime join your mystic choir! Till then I discipline my young and novice thought In ministeries of heart-stirring song, And aye on Meditation’s heaven-ward wing Soaring aloft I breathe the empyreal air Of Love, omnific, omnipresent Love, Whose day-spring rises glorious in my soul As the great Sun, when he his influence Sheds on the frost-bound waters — The glad stream Flows to the ray and warbles as it flows.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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