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THE DEDICATION OF THE TEMPLE.

Εἰ γὰρ τὸ καταργούμενον διὰ δόξης, πολλῷ μᾶλλον τὸ μένον ἐν δόξη.—2 Cor. 111. 11.

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Of days I thought when the Crusader gave
His lordly acres to that Gothic altar;

Hung up the helm, and habergeon, and glaive,
And taught his manly Saxon lip to falter

The dark old tongue of beauty through the Psalter;
Therewith resigning to the Lord the whole

Long-treasured memories of a soldier's soul.

Of all magnificence of thoughtful stone
Then seem'd I the original to scan;

Of Time's superbest temples many a one,

Typing the Infinite, though reared by man ;
Mighty cathedrals metropolitan,

To whose high brows, like many crowns, are given
The stormy pomps, and starry peace of heaven.

I look'd, albeit 'twere an English June,

On Solomon's temple with amazèd eye,

The great round rosy oriental moon*

Tinging the paleness of the immaculate sky;
I heard the wondrous octave's wassailry,†
Like multitudinous murmurings alive,

When all the summer hums about the hive.

"The moon which hung over our head displayed colours of fire and of the rose."Lamartine's Voyage, &c.

† "Solomon held a feast, and all Israel with him, seven days and seven days.”—1 Kings, viii. 65.

I saw the glorious moonlight raining through

The lateral windows. * What a wealth was there
Of glistering stones of every orient hue!
What onyxes, and Indian jewels rare,

What rich orfevyry of barbaric air!t
Brave things, the camel bore a weary road,
Or gallant ship with canvas moon-besnow'd.

From Gihon, peradventure, golden-bright,
Or Havilah, whose tropic forests quiver,
Sleepily parleying, in the purple light,

Unto the liquid lyre of Eden's river,

That panteth forth on its four chords for ever
Sweet sorrow, like the strain a wild bird weaves,
Remembering summer 'mid the yellow leaves.

The air was taken with a faint fine sense

Of eastern gums, of cedar, and of nard;
Cherubs were hanging o'er the frankincense,
Carven to keep eternal watch and ward,

With calm deep eyes, of passionless regard;
And flowers were there, with half their leaves unroll'd,
Steep'd in the fadeless sunset of their gold!

A little space, and this magnifical

And profuse beauty, beyond fancy's showing,
Was fill'd with seraph's songs that rise and fall;
Seven sweet blue summers§ in its silent blowing-
God for the dew, and it the lily growing||—

Well might it task angelic harps to swell
Up from Shallecheth unto Ariel !**

Two "holy ones and watchers" of that throng
Fix'd my regard by an attraction sweet,
Standing all radiant, where the angel strong,

Whilome with coming of his stormy feet,
Troubled the red waves of Araunah's wheat;

The younger seraph first his anthem sung,
And this its import in our mortal tongue :—

"Glory to God upon God's holy mountain,

Keep the wild spirit of the world in tune!
Joy, too, be ours, who saw, like column'd fountain,
These shafts spring upward to the sun and moon;
Not from man's cunning heart the ideal hewn,

But graven first on yon empyreal blue_

A faultless flower, created ere it grew !††

"Windows of narrow lights."-1 Kings, vi. 4. See margin.

"I have prepared with all my might for the house of my God onyx stones, and stones to be set, glistering stones."-1 Chron., xxix. 2.

The curious reader may find, in the first book of "Raleigh's History of the World,” a chapter "of the place of Paradise," in which, among a variety of theories, there are some given which identify it with the lands reached by the navies of Hiram and Solomon. S"So was he seven years in building it."-1 Kings, vi. 38.

Compare the imagery in Hosea, xiv. 5.

"Westward with the gate Shallecheth."-1 Chron. xxvi. 16.

Καὶ τὸ ἀριὴλ πηχῶν τεσσάρων καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀριὴλ. κ. τ. λ. lxx. ; Ezeh. xliii. 15. The altar is here called Ariel, i. e., the hearth of God; the same appellation is extended to the city of Jerusalem.-Isaiah, xxix. 1

me.

tt "All this, said David, the Lord made me to understand in writing by his hand upon -1 Chron. xxviii. 19; c. f. Ex, xxv. 40; Gen. ii. 5.

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I mark'd the anointed singer year by year

Gather the waifs wash'd up by war's wild tide;
What though the old man might not live to hear
His psalms to-day adown Moriah's side
Sweep, by the mountain echoes glorified;
Yet Faith, like Poetry, can bear to be
Fed upon things a blind world cannot see.

And still he stored an appanage that shamed

Imperial spoils his songs of thought divine,
Gifts of the muse, in Paynimry so named ;

There with adulterous beauty made to shine,
By lust call'd love, idolatry, and wine;
Here fitliest emblem'd by a maid who sings,
Moved by the Spirit, to the King of kings.*

And yester morning from the vaulted fire

Over Heaven's crystal storiest downward borne.
O what a burst I heard from lip and lyre,

Jeduthun's harp and Heman's sounding horn ;t
And silver-snarling trumpets bade the morn
Go tell the godless waves on Gentile coasts
How Salem singeth to the Lord of Hosts!

"Praise our good God!" on many a tube and chord,
Some subtle spirit inextricably blent,
Music's dark dream with the interpreting word.§
Zebulon deem'd his seal that strain had lent,
Tuned by some Jubal for an instrument,

To crash with grander touches than before,
His fine old endless anthem evermore!

That measure paled with awe Dan's lion brow, ¶
And tented Issachar's, the thoughtful-eyed ;'
And the fair sons of Joseph's fruitful bough

Look'd on a prouder pomp than ever dyed
Their ancient mountain tops at eventide ;††
And Asber saw the red gold blazing higher
Than all his nightly furnaces of fire !‡‡

Then from the Holiest, the brightly dark,
Earth's only reliquary meet to hold
The ancient, awful, stream-compelling ark,

The living heart, whose pulses manifold

Make this house living-on the Presence roll'd,
And on the brazen scaffold left the King,
Fairer than God of mythic fancying.

"It is time to baptise poetry in Jordan, for she will never become clean by washing in the waters of Damascus."-Cowley, Pref. to Davideis. † Amos, ix. 6.

1 Chron. xxv. 3, 5.

§ "The trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound; they lifted up their voice with the instruments of music, and praised the Lord, saying, for He is good."2 Chron. v. 13.

"Zebulon shall dwell at the haven of the sea."-Gen. xlix. 13.

"Dan is a lion's whelp."-Deut. xxiii. 22.

"Rejoice, Issachar, in thy tents."-Deut. xxxiii. 18. "The children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do."— 1 Chron. xii. 32.

tt "Joseph is a fruitful bough."-Gen. xlix. 22. "Blessed of the Lord be his land for the chief things of the ancient mountains."-Deut. xxxiii. 18-15.

"And of Asher he said, under thy shoes shall be iron and brass.”—Deut. xxxiii. 24, 25, margin. "Brass and iron were here melted, being in great plenty in this country."— Bishop Patrick, in locum.

Wiser than wrinkled men, who watch the disc
Of the weird moon from many a turret tall;
Or trace their dreams on starry obelisk,

Where, white as their own hair, the cataracts fall
Of Egypt's Nile, yet beautiful withal;
Whose sunny-featured Father's Spirit lies
Saintly behind the Hittite's passionate eyes.

In flower and leaf he reads a history writ,*

Thousand sweet silent tongues, one central thought!
Man's life (the theme of Ethnic's moon-blind wit)
Opens its gates to him, and hideth not

His

Dreams that the very dreamer hath forgot; eye hath follow'd manhood's stormy main To its far fountain in the baby's brain.†

But still that awful sea of wisdom breaks

To the sweet tune call'd poetry by men ;
And still for him his darkest thinking takes

A luminous robe of words, the glory then
Of eloquent tongue and wonder-working pen.
A strange triplicity of realms hath he
Crown'd king of nations, thought, and poesy!

He spake glad words that trembled into woe;

He rose, and blest the host with happy hand;
As on an autumn day, those flags of snow

The torrents, motionless on their rocky stand,
The hot mist hides, and half the golden land-
So hung the cloud before a thousand eyes,
Till fire came down and lit the sacrifice."

Ceased the fair spirit; and angelic creatures
With choral acclamation made consent.
The elder seraph, then, of calmer features,
Exceedingly majestical, that blent

Something like sorrow in their temperament-
Shadows from amaranthine flowers of bliss!—
Spake to a graver argument like this :-

"Yea, let Magnificats proclaim the birth,
Unto the dwellers in the lands below,

Of this fair place, the joy of all the earth,'

This dim-bright place, where faintest odours flow
From cedar flowers eternally in blow;

And faintest hues as from Heaven's windows fall,
In gloried darkness round the ritual.

"The heavenliest thing of all that is not Heaven!
Yet worthier far an angel's lauds to reach,
The lamps of worship lighted morn and even-
God's silent witnesses that always teach,
Like day and night, with an unutter'd speech;

His visible ark, man's dovelike soul to win
From earth's great waterflood of woe and sin.

This alludes to Goethe's beautiful speculations on the idea of the general form of a plant, which has been considered by competent judges the leading idea of modern botany.See Whewell's Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, vol. i. pp. 30-32.

In these lines the writer has spoken with some recollection of Cousin's "Critique on Locke" in his History of Modern Philosophy, lecture xvi.

How oft from sheaf by shadow standing paly,
Like motionless boat and shadow fancy drawn ;
Or purple-fruited place, like Elealeh;

Or heather'd height o'er tracts of sunny lawn,
Wine-dark all day, and iron-red at dawn;
Shall Israel seek this sacramental dome,
Three times a-year to bear high memories home!

But this is not eternal, nor may bound

Time's lofty argument; this is but the bright
And luminous centre, whence go orbing round
The advancing circles, that by day and night
Work the slow wisdom of the Infinite;
Dim, like a blind man's dreaming of the sea,
To angel's ken that great futurity!

Dim, but not meaningless-I heard a strange

Vague voice of sorrow breathing in that prayer;
I saw the countenance of the young king change,
Till it was touched with something of the air
That the stern features of a prophet wear,
When his thin hand to Heaven he lifteth up,
And pours red wine of fury from God's cup.

I heard again a sterner voice of warning,

Borne where "God giveth his beloved sleep ;"t
Over this temple, lo! the meteor morning

Spreads like a rose on fire; but tints more deep,
More fiercely beautiful, this shrine shall steep,

When all its carven work, in fiery hail,

Shall smite the foeman's gonfalon and mail.

Mortals shall mourn a beauty pass'd away,

Like journeyers grieving when the darkness mars
The architecture of the dying day,

Though soon shall gleam beyond those fading bars
The moon's white sail amid the islèd stars;

But from earth's changes angels only borrow
Serener thoughtfulness, which is not sorrow.

Incense may die upon this fragrant air,

The lamp be quench'd, and the oblation cease;
There is a fadeless beauty yet more fair-

God hath provided better things‡ than these,
The pageants of his earthly palaces;

For this dark ritual, with wondrous art,
Singeth sweet songs to many a heavy heart.

Poetical truth finds its best proof in a self-manifestation, to the emotions that arise from reflection or observation. In a chorus, which, perhaps, more than any other passage in

classical poetry, possesses the colouring of modern sentiment, Sophocles says, ròv oivŵπ' ȧvéxovσa kloσòv.-Edip. Col. 674; and Homer repeatedly speaks of oivona óvтov. How far this epithet truly describes a certain aspect of mountain scenery, the writer is content to leave to the judgment of any observer not quite destitute of the poetical temperament.

t "And the Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and said unto him, This house, which is high, shall be an astonishment," &c.-2 Chron. vii. 12-21. Few readers will have forgotten Mr. Davison's beautiful answer to the infidel objection, which sets the prophetic vision of Solomon on a level with the sentiments of the Roman conqueror of Carthage, when the sight of that city in flames turned his thoughts to the destiny of his own country.Disc. on Proph., p. 219.

Heb. xi. 40.

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