Christian Year

Of the bright things in earth and air

How little can the heart embrace!

Soft shades and gleaming lights are there —

I know it well, but cannot trace.

Mine eye unworthy seems to read

One page of Nature’s beauteous book;

It lies before me, fair outspread —

I only cast a wishful look.

I cannot paint to Memory’s eye

The scene, the glance, I dearest love —

Unchang’d themselves, in me they die,

Or faint or false their shadows prove.

In vain, with dull and tuneless ear,

I linger by soft Music’s cell,

And in my heart of hearts would hear

What to her own she deigns to tell.

’Tis misty all, both sight and sound —

I only know ’tis fair and sweet —

’Tis wandering on enchanted ground

With dizzy brow and tottering feet.

But patience! there may come a time

When these dull ears shall scan aright

Strains that outring Earth’s drowsy chime,

As Heaven outshines the taper’s light.

These eyes, that dazzled now and weak,

At glancing motes in sunshine wink.

Shall see the King’s¹⁰¹⁰Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off. Isaiah xxxiii. 17. full glory break,

Nor from the blissful vision shrink:

In fearless love and hope uncloy’d

For ever on that ocean bright

Empower’d to gaze; and undestroy’d,

Deeper and deeper plunge in light.

Though scarcely now their laggard glance

Reach to an arrow’s flight, that day

They shall behold, and not in trance,

The region “very far away.”

If Memory sometimes at our spell

Refuse to speak, or speak amiss,

We shall not need her where we dwell

Ever in sight of all our bliss.

Meanwhile, if over sea or sky

Some tender lights unnotic’d fleet,

Or on lov’d features dawn and die,

Unread, to us, their lesson sweet;

Yet are there saddening sights around,

Which Heaven, in mercy, spares us too,

And we see far in holy ground,

If duly purg’d our mental view.

The distant landscape draws not nigh

For all our gazing; but the soul,

That upward looks, may still descry

Nearer, each day, the brightening goal.

And thou, too curious ear, that fain

Wouldst thread the maze of Harmony,

Content thee with one simple strain,

The lowlier, sure, the worthier thee;

Till thou art duly train’d, and taught

The concord sweet of Love divine:

Then, with that inward Music fraught,

For ever rise, and sing, and shine.