174 THE WORt.D. 



Of Paradise, when all the holy streams 

 And beautiful bowers of Eden laud -blush'd red 

 Beneath its awful waving 1 , and the eyes 

 Of the lane outcasts quailed before its glare, 

 As from the immediate questioning of God. 



And men are gazing to these " signs in Heaven" 

 With most unwonted earnestness ; and fair 

 And beautiful brows are redd'ning in the light 

 Of this strange vision of the upper air : 

 Even as the dwellers of Jerusalem, 

 Beleaguer'd. by the Roman, when the skies 

 Of Palestine were thronged with fiery shapes, 

 And from Antonia's tower the mailed Jew 

 Saw his own image pictured in the air 

 Contending with the heathen ; and the priest 

 Beside the temple's altar veiled his face 

 From that fire -written language of the sky. 



Oh, God of mystery I these fires are thine ! 

 Thy breath hath kindled them, and there they burn. 

 Amid the permanent glory of Thy heavens, 

 That earliest revelation, written out 

 In starry language t visible to all, 

 Lifting unto Thyself the heavy eyes 

 Of the down looking spirits of the earth ! 

 The Indian leaning on his hunting bow, 

 Where the ice mountains hem the frozen poJe, 

 And the hoar architect of Winter piles 

 With tireless hand his snowy pyramids, 

 Looks upward in deep awe while all around 

 The eternal ices kindle with the hues 

 Which tremble on their gleaming pinnacles, 

 And sharp, cold ridges of enduring frost, 

 And points his child to the Great Spirit's fire. 



Alas ! for us who boast of deeper lore, 

 If, in the maze of our vague theories, 

 Our speculations, and our restless aim 

 To search the secret, and familiarise 

 The awful things of nature, we forget 

 Ttf own Thy presence in Thy mysteries ! 



