INTRODUCTION.
T HIS is the time when from its winter long
The slumbering world awakes to living mirth,
And green reviving groves resound with song.
The seed that died, new-quickened, springs from earth
In all the glories of a second birth;
Its opening buds their fresh-born fragrance shed,
And universal Nature rises from the dead.
Thus ever since the birth-day of the world,
When Time his onward-rushing life began,
When God the stars into their orbits hurled,
Set this ball rolling round the central sun,
And bade the annual race of seasons run, —
Emblem of that Great Day hath Spring-time come,
When rising Saints shall burst the cerements of the tomb.
And shall each little bird that spreads the wing
Trill forth new carols to his Maker's praise,
And thou, my soul, no new memorial bring?
Tune high thy rambling harp to solemn lays;
And sing, with sorrowing awe and deep amaze,
That mournful time when, from the wounds of God ,
Down the rich, dear-bought streams of thy Redemption flowed.
And, after death, tell how He visited
Those antient ghosts that lay in durance dire,
For ever dying and yet never dead; —
How He unpeopled the dense realms of fire,
And rose to glory with a new-born quire.
Touch not the theme, my soul, with prayerless tongue,
Nor be thy S AVIOUR'S pangs with voice unhallowed sung!
HYMN.
It was a glorious day
When, on the winding way
That led to Salem's towers and temple high,
From the assembled throng
Loud burst the choral song:
" Hosanna in the highest! " rang the cry;
While shouting thousands lined the road,
And boughs of palm before triumphant J ESUS strowed.
'Tis morning; and agen
The mighty crowds of men
Tread Salem's courts and throng her portals high;
Their many-voiced roar
Swells louder than before,
But " Crucify Him! " is the savage cry.
That clinging curse the welkin tore:
" His blood be on us and our children evermore! "
They bound the crown of thorn
Over His brow in scorn;
Then round Him flung, in royal mockery,
The purple robe of pride,
And loud before Him cried:
" Behold the King of Israel! Bow the kneel "
Stung at the sight Iscariot flies, —
Hell smoldering in his heart, and glowering from his eyes.
In vain false Pilate stands:
No washing of the hands
Clears from the heart the tinct of innocent blood!
The crowd, with cruel care,
Load His shoulders bare,
Like Isaac's, with the sacrificial wood;
And the red lash, with many a blow,
Scourges His moaning steps along the road of woe.
Thorough the city doors
The raging tumult pours,
And up the steep of Calvary they wind.
Golgotha! on thee
They plant the accursed tree;
No pity can the God of pity find!
Pierced were the hands that gave them bread,
And fast the beauteous feet that brought good tidings bled.
Scarce in His hands and feet
The iron sharp was set,
And quivering agony convulsed His frame,
When from earth, hell, and sky, —
Flushed with his victory, —
Proud Satan summoned all his Peers. They came;
And, shrouded in black clouds of spite,
Grimed the cerulean with opake, untimely night.
His course but half outrun,
Gladly the blood-red sun
Was from the woe-o'erwhelmed world shut out.
Burdened with terror wan,
The staggering earth rolled on,
Wrapped in eclipses dire; while, with hoarse shout,
Thronging mid-air in dusky crowds,
Fiends' fiery shapes, like lightning, glared athwart the clouds.
Shrunk by the strange portent,
The Temple-veil is rent;
The shaken tombs give up the dead they hold;
Old seers, in earth long housed,
Now from their slumbers roused,
See the dread things they prophesied of old;
And, hurrying by on soundless feet,
Their ghosts in grave-clothes glide along the gloomy street.
Far off, yet gazing there,
Stands, whelmed in dumb despair,
The Virgin Mother with a weeping train;
The sword, with keenest smart,
Is passing through her heart!
" 'Tis finished! " The great Sacrifice is slain.
The Roman hears His dying cries,
And " Of a truth this was the S ON of God , " replies.
Along the downward road
The meek Messiah trode,
'Mid shivering ghosts that thronged the highway wide.
Far belching lurid light
Through Chaos and old Night,
Looms the red gulph, whose rolling smoke-clouds ride
High o'er the dome, — a pall of sable
Which smothers up the noises of the huge Hell-Babel.
There in that torrid clime,
From what primeval time
Old Noah filled the world-inclosing Ark,
The antique giants, hurled
From that young-wanton world,
Had groaned in subterranean prison dark; —
Hell's grandest harvest-home of woe,
When doubled floods above peopled the fires below.
The barking whelps of Sin
Cease their Cerberean din
In sullen hush profound at His appearing;
And round, with eager awe
While countless thousands draw,
From burning marl their forms forlorn uprearing,
The great Immanuel, God and Man,
Proclaims to souls long lost Redemption's wondrous plan.
Hoarse oaths and curses foul,
The horror-breeding howl,
The crackling, seething hiss of quenchless fires,
Ceased. The seas of flame,
Before His eye grown tame,
Flickered aslant their faint retreating spires;
And softly, o'er the dying coals,
Hope sank, like gentle rain, into their thirsty souls.
Hushed in amazement pale,
The spectres heard that tale,
From Bethlehem's manger to Mount Calvary;
The scourge, the smiting scorn,
The galling crown of thorn; —
But more than all, O sad Gethsemane,
Thy garden agony, where God
Wept ages of old guilt away with drops of blood.
His hands outstretching wide,
His feet, His pierced side,
With oozing wounds again in anguish bled;
When lo! the billowy host,
With new emotions tost,
Struck to the heart, hang down the sorrowing head;
Till Love dissolves their shuddering fears
In sighs, and sobs, and prayers, and penitential tears.
Then from those myriads first,
In joyous anthem, burst
The long, loud alleluias' solemn swell.
The dismal walls around
Unechoing hear the sound,
Such concord strange strikes dumb the caves of hell:
While, startled from their filthy lair,
Unnumbered black wings whirr athwart the reechy air.
Vain is their old control
Over the doomed soul;
Strong trembling terror seized the fiends obscene.
Death and his hideous Dam
Confessed the conquering L AMB ;
At whose advance in majesty serene,
Confounded both, like guilty thieves,
Slunk writhing from the unbarred ports; whose ponderous leaves,
Obedient to His tongue,
On their harsh hinges swung;
And, launching o'er the gulf whose dreary coasts
Were never crossed before,
Nor shall be evermore,
The God triumphant led the shouting hosts:
And sudden, sullen silence fell
On all the astounded fires and hollow vaults of Hell.
Meanwhile, in dark conclave,
Exulting Satan gave
The various history of his late campaign.
His Peers attentive hang
Upon the proud harangue,
How, baffled for long years in strugglings vain,
At last, and mocked by every tongue,
Nailed to the slave's vile cross their Foe expiring hung.
" The babbling seers of old
V " In vain His reign foretold,
" And our defeat to swell His late renown!
" Our host shall quail no more
" Before His thunder's roar, " —
At thought of that dread day, a lowering frown
Ridged all his brow, black with the brunt
Of thunderbolts that yet scarred deep his horrid front.
" Can helmed Cherubim,
" Or sworded Seraphim,
" Angel or Archangel withstand your might?
" Before your engines dire,
" How did the harping quire
" Fly howling from the havoc of the fight!
" Hell shall be theirs; while, like the levin
" Our rushing squadrons storm the eternal gates of heaven! "
" To arms! To arms! " they cry,
And to their armory
In Pandemonium the swart throng repair;
Behind their rapid flight
They drag the attendant Night,
Their leathern wings flapping the dusky air, —
And, through the dim retreating dun,
To the wonder-wearied world let in the evening sun.
But see! In wild amaze
Strikes their astonied gaze
That host far-gleaming o'er the deep abyss;
And, caught in cadence dim,
They hear the echoing hymn
In triumph wafted from the realms of bliss:
Lost is their oldest, dearest prize,
To reinforce the dread battalions of the skies!
As the foul Fiends approached,
The liquid fires were broached
That He had staunched; whom, maddened at his doom,
Satan fierce defies
With furious blasphemies,
While howls add horror to the lurid gloom.
Hoarse to the shrill, despairing yell
Resounded drear, deserted, solitary hell.
But now the morn is come
To ope the sealed tomb,
And, earlier than the faithful feet of love,
The brightest of the Seven
That stand in highest heaven,
With radiant wings the night-clad azure clove.
With splendor all his raiment shone;
Earth shook the while he rolled away the mighty stone.
Prostrate on the ground,
As in a dreamy swound,
The pagan soldiery pressed the trembling sod.
Lo! sudden gleams illume
The spicy-breathing tomb,
And forth, like rushing morn, rises the God :
Nor lingering long in Judah's land,
Soars to His seraph-girdled throne at God'S right-hand.
Thus when, with summons dread,
Startling a world of dead,
The rousing Trump of Doom shall wake the deep,
Following Him who rose
In triumph o'er our foes,
The just shall burst the bands of Death and Sleep;
And Death shall die, — to rise up never, —
And Hell's broad gates be barred for ever and for ever.
T HIS is the time when from its winter long
The slumbering world awakes to living mirth,
And green reviving groves resound with song.
The seed that died, new-quickened, springs from earth
In all the glories of a second birth;
Its opening buds their fresh-born fragrance shed,
And universal Nature rises from the dead.
Thus ever since the birth-day of the world,
When Time his onward-rushing life began,
When God the stars into their orbits hurled,
Set this ball rolling round the central sun,
And bade the annual race of seasons run, —
Emblem of that Great Day hath Spring-time come,
When rising Saints shall burst the cerements of the tomb.
And shall each little bird that spreads the wing
Trill forth new carols to his Maker's praise,
And thou, my soul, no new memorial bring?
Tune high thy rambling harp to solemn lays;
And sing, with sorrowing awe and deep amaze,
That mournful time when, from the wounds of God ,
Down the rich, dear-bought streams of thy Redemption flowed.
And, after death, tell how He visited
Those antient ghosts that lay in durance dire,
For ever dying and yet never dead; —
How He unpeopled the dense realms of fire,
And rose to glory with a new-born quire.
Touch not the theme, my soul, with prayerless tongue,
Nor be thy S AVIOUR'S pangs with voice unhallowed sung!
HYMN.
It was a glorious day
When, on the winding way
That led to Salem's towers and temple high,
From the assembled throng
Loud burst the choral song:
" Hosanna in the highest! " rang the cry;
While shouting thousands lined the road,
And boughs of palm before triumphant J ESUS strowed.
'Tis morning; and agen
The mighty crowds of men
Tread Salem's courts and throng her portals high;
Their many-voiced roar
Swells louder than before,
But " Crucify Him! " is the savage cry.
That clinging curse the welkin tore:
" His blood be on us and our children evermore! "
They bound the crown of thorn
Over His brow in scorn;
Then round Him flung, in royal mockery,
The purple robe of pride,
And loud before Him cried:
" Behold the King of Israel! Bow the kneel "
Stung at the sight Iscariot flies, —
Hell smoldering in his heart, and glowering from his eyes.
In vain false Pilate stands:
No washing of the hands
Clears from the heart the tinct of innocent blood!
The crowd, with cruel care,
Load His shoulders bare,
Like Isaac's, with the sacrificial wood;
And the red lash, with many a blow,
Scourges His moaning steps along the road of woe.
Thorough the city doors
The raging tumult pours,
And up the steep of Calvary they wind.
Golgotha! on thee
They plant the accursed tree;
No pity can the God of pity find!
Pierced were the hands that gave them bread,
And fast the beauteous feet that brought good tidings bled.
Scarce in His hands and feet
The iron sharp was set,
And quivering agony convulsed His frame,
When from earth, hell, and sky, —
Flushed with his victory, —
Proud Satan summoned all his Peers. They came;
And, shrouded in black clouds of spite,
Grimed the cerulean with opake, untimely night.
His course but half outrun,
Gladly the blood-red sun
Was from the woe-o'erwhelmed world shut out.
Burdened with terror wan,
The staggering earth rolled on,
Wrapped in eclipses dire; while, with hoarse shout,
Thronging mid-air in dusky crowds,
Fiends' fiery shapes, like lightning, glared athwart the clouds.
Shrunk by the strange portent,
The Temple-veil is rent;
The shaken tombs give up the dead they hold;
Old seers, in earth long housed,
Now from their slumbers roused,
See the dread things they prophesied of old;
And, hurrying by on soundless feet,
Their ghosts in grave-clothes glide along the gloomy street.
Far off, yet gazing there,
Stands, whelmed in dumb despair,
The Virgin Mother with a weeping train;
The sword, with keenest smart,
Is passing through her heart!
" 'Tis finished! " The great Sacrifice is slain.
The Roman hears His dying cries,
And " Of a truth this was the S ON of God , " replies.
Along the downward road
The meek Messiah trode,
'Mid shivering ghosts that thronged the highway wide.
Far belching lurid light
Through Chaos and old Night,
Looms the red gulph, whose rolling smoke-clouds ride
High o'er the dome, — a pall of sable
Which smothers up the noises of the huge Hell-Babel.
There in that torrid clime,
From what primeval time
Old Noah filled the world-inclosing Ark,
The antique giants, hurled
From that young-wanton world,
Had groaned in subterranean prison dark; —
Hell's grandest harvest-home of woe,
When doubled floods above peopled the fires below.
The barking whelps of Sin
Cease their Cerberean din
In sullen hush profound at His appearing;
And round, with eager awe
While countless thousands draw,
From burning marl their forms forlorn uprearing,
The great Immanuel, God and Man,
Proclaims to souls long lost Redemption's wondrous plan.
Hoarse oaths and curses foul,
The horror-breeding howl,
The crackling, seething hiss of quenchless fires,
Ceased. The seas of flame,
Before His eye grown tame,
Flickered aslant their faint retreating spires;
And softly, o'er the dying coals,
Hope sank, like gentle rain, into their thirsty souls.
Hushed in amazement pale,
The spectres heard that tale,
From Bethlehem's manger to Mount Calvary;
The scourge, the smiting scorn,
The galling crown of thorn; —
But more than all, O sad Gethsemane,
Thy garden agony, where God
Wept ages of old guilt away with drops of blood.
His hands outstretching wide,
His feet, His pierced side,
With oozing wounds again in anguish bled;
When lo! the billowy host,
With new emotions tost,
Struck to the heart, hang down the sorrowing head;
Till Love dissolves their shuddering fears
In sighs, and sobs, and prayers, and penitential tears.
Then from those myriads first,
In joyous anthem, burst
The long, loud alleluias' solemn swell.
The dismal walls around
Unechoing hear the sound,
Such concord strange strikes dumb the caves of hell:
While, startled from their filthy lair,
Unnumbered black wings whirr athwart the reechy air.
Vain is their old control
Over the doomed soul;
Strong trembling terror seized the fiends obscene.
Death and his hideous Dam
Confessed the conquering L AMB ;
At whose advance in majesty serene,
Confounded both, like guilty thieves,
Slunk writhing from the unbarred ports; whose ponderous leaves,
Obedient to His tongue,
On their harsh hinges swung;
And, launching o'er the gulf whose dreary coasts
Were never crossed before,
Nor shall be evermore,
The God triumphant led the shouting hosts:
And sudden, sullen silence fell
On all the astounded fires and hollow vaults of Hell.
Meanwhile, in dark conclave,
Exulting Satan gave
The various history of his late campaign.
His Peers attentive hang
Upon the proud harangue,
How, baffled for long years in strugglings vain,
At last, and mocked by every tongue,
Nailed to the slave's vile cross their Foe expiring hung.
" The babbling seers of old
V " In vain His reign foretold,
" And our defeat to swell His late renown!
" Our host shall quail no more
" Before His thunder's roar, " —
At thought of that dread day, a lowering frown
Ridged all his brow, black with the brunt
Of thunderbolts that yet scarred deep his horrid front.
" Can helmed Cherubim,
" Or sworded Seraphim,
" Angel or Archangel withstand your might?
" Before your engines dire,
" How did the harping quire
" Fly howling from the havoc of the fight!
" Hell shall be theirs; while, like the levin
" Our rushing squadrons storm the eternal gates of heaven! "
" To arms! To arms! " they cry,
And to their armory
In Pandemonium the swart throng repair;
Behind their rapid flight
They drag the attendant Night,
Their leathern wings flapping the dusky air, —
And, through the dim retreating dun,
To the wonder-wearied world let in the evening sun.
But see! In wild amaze
Strikes their astonied gaze
That host far-gleaming o'er the deep abyss;
And, caught in cadence dim,
They hear the echoing hymn
In triumph wafted from the realms of bliss:
Lost is their oldest, dearest prize,
To reinforce the dread battalions of the skies!
As the foul Fiends approached,
The liquid fires were broached
That He had staunched; whom, maddened at his doom,
Satan fierce defies
With furious blasphemies,
While howls add horror to the lurid gloom.
Hoarse to the shrill, despairing yell
Resounded drear, deserted, solitary hell.
But now the morn is come
To ope the sealed tomb,
And, earlier than the faithful feet of love,
The brightest of the Seven
That stand in highest heaven,
With radiant wings the night-clad azure clove.
With splendor all his raiment shone;
Earth shook the while he rolled away the mighty stone.
Prostrate on the ground,
As in a dreamy swound,
The pagan soldiery pressed the trembling sod.
Lo! sudden gleams illume
The spicy-breathing tomb,
And forth, like rushing morn, rises the God :
Nor lingering long in Judah's land,
Soars to His seraph-girdled throne at God'S right-hand.
Thus when, with summons dread,
Startling a world of dead,
The rousing Trump of Doom shall wake the deep,
Following Him who rose
In triumph o'er our foes,
The just shall burst the bands of Death and Sleep;
And Death shall die, — to rise up never, —
And Hell's broad gates be barred for ever and for ever.