THE ANGEL OF THE CHURCH.

CXI.

1.

WHY is our glorious Angel seen to mourn,

With earth-bent brow forlorn ?

Why hangs the cold tear on his cheeks?

Ah me! his silence speaks;

It is the Spoiler's parricidal hand,

And the apostate land,

Which would herself God's candlestick displace,

And put aside her cup of grace:

Hence, darkly gleaming through the nightly grove,

Bow'd down in pitying love,

Thou hearest all alone,

The short precursive moan,

When in their mountain lair th' awakening thunders

move.

2.

"Not for the Spoiler's parricidal hand,

Nor the apostate land,

That I am darkly seen to mourn,

With earth-bent brow forlorn ;

But that the widowed Church, in hour of pride,
Her sackcloth laid aside,

Slumbering in Canaan's camp, and wakes to mourn Her ancient strength and glory shorn.

Where are thy weekly fasts? Thy vigils where ? Therefore each wandering air,

Comes o'er thee desolate;

And ere it reach Heaven's gate,

Blows frustrate o'er the earth thy feeble-hearted prayer."

3.

The flood-gates on me open wide,

And headlong rushes in the turbulent tide

Of lusts and heresies; a motley troop they come ;

And old imperial Rome

Looks up, and lifts again half-dead

Her seven-horned head;

And Schism and Superstition, near and far,

Blend in one pestilent star,

And shake their horrid locks against the Saints to

war.

4.

"Not for the flood-gates opening wide,

I fear, nor for the turbulent rushing tide; But for the Church, so loth at her mysterious board, To see her present Lord.

Therefore, around thine Altars deep,

The Angels bow and weep;

Or oh, in strength of Heaven's ennobling might,

How should we see the light!

And one a thousand chase, ten thousand turn to

flight!"

5.

Again I hear thy plaintive tale

In the autumnal gale;

But, since thou passed'st through the fires,

With our old martyr Sires,

Thou seem'st as one escaped the flame,

But looking back for something left behind;
The unshackled high resolve, the holier aim,
Single-eyed faith in loyalty resign'd,

And heart-deep prayers of earlier years.
And, since that popular billow o'er thee past,
Which thine own Ken from out the vineyard cast,
Now e'en far more

Than then of yore

An altered mien thy holy aspect wears.

And oft thy half-averted brow

Doth seem in act to go,

With half out-spreading wings,

And foot that heaven-ward springs;

Therefore to thee I draw, by fear made bold,

And strive with suppliant hand thy mantle skirts to

hold.

6.

"Can they who flock to Freedom's shrine,

Themselves to me resign?

There lift the Heav'n-defying brow,

And here in meekness bow?

There to put on the soul aggrieved,

And attitude their high deserts to claim;

Here kneel from their deserts to be relieved,

Claim nothing but the cross, and their own shame ?

And now, behold and see

In holy place the ABOMINATION stands,

Whose breath hath desolated Christian lands,

In semblance fair,

And saint-like air,

The Antichrist of heathen liberty!

E'en on Religion's hallowed ground,

He hath his altar found;

And now ere winter's net

Is o'er thy pathway set,

Haste and arise, to Judah's mountains flee

And drink the untainted fount of pure Antiquity."

LET US DEPART HENCE.*

CXII.

Is there no sound about our Altars heard

Of gliding forms that long have watched in vain
For slumbering discipline to break her chain,
And aim the bolt by Theodosius feared?
"Let us depart :-these English souls are seared,
Who, for one grasp of perishable gold,
Would brave the curse by holy men of old
Laid on the robbers of the shrines they reared;
Who shout for joy to see the ruffian band
Come to reform, where ne'er they came to pray,
E'en where, unbidden, Seraphs never trod.
Let us depart, and leave the apostate land
To meet the rising whirlwind as she may,
Without her guardian Angels and her God.

Y.

* Μεταβαίνωμεν ἔντευθεν. Among the portents which took place before the taking of Jerusalem by the Romans, the following is mentioned by Josephus: "During the Festival which is called Pentecost, the Priests, by night, having come into the inner temple to perform their services, as was their custom, they reported that they perceived, first a motion, a noise, and then they heard as it were a great crowd, saying, Let us depart hence." Vide Bishop Newton on the Prophesies, vol. ii. Dissert. 18.