Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. IV. The Nineteenth Century: Wordsworth to Rossetti
John Keble (17921866)Extracts from The Christian Year: Third Sunday in Lent
S
Dashed from his throne of pride;
While, answering Thy victorious call,
The Saints his spoils divide;
This world of Thine, by him usurped too long,
Now opening all her stores to heal Thy servants’ wrong.
Dead in the darkness lay,
When Thy redeemed at midnight rose
And cast their bonds away,
The orphaned realm threw wide her gates, and told
Into freed Israel’s lap her jewels and her gold.
And they had won their homes,
Where Abraham fed his flock of yore,
Among their fathers’ tombs;—
A land that drinks the rain of Heaven at will,
Whose waters kiss the feet of many a vine-clad hill;—
A gale from bowers of balm
Sweep o’er the billowy corn, and heave
The tresses of the palm,
Just as the lingering Sun had touched with gold,
Far o’er the cedar shade, some tower of giants old;
To trace the Heathen’s toil,
The limpid wells, the orchards green,
Left ready for the spoil,
The household stores untouched, the roses bright
Wreathed o’er the cottage walls in garlands of delight.
To Thine all-conquering ark;—
Fly from the ‘old poetic’ fields,
Ye Paynim shadows dark!
Immortal Greece, dear land of glorious lays,
Lo! here the ‘unknown God’ of thy unconscious praise!
‘The sword in myrtles drest,’
Each legend of the shadowy strand
Now wakes a vision blest;
As little children lisp, and tell of Heaven,
So thoughts beyond their thought to those high Bards were given.
The tempting treasure lends:
These relics of a guilty race
Are forfeit to Thy friends;
What seemed an idol hymn, now breathes of Thee,
Tuned by Faith’s ear to some celestial melody.
Nor flower in classic grove,
There ’s not a sweet note warbled here,
But minds us of Thy Love,
O Lord, our Lord, and spoiler of our foes,
There is no light but Thine: with Thee all beauty glows.