This Ordinance, whether, loss it would supply, 10
Prevent omission, help deficiency,
Or seek to make assurance doubly sure.
Shame if the consecrated Vow be found
An idle form, the Word an empty sound!
CATECHISING
FROM Little down to Least, in due degree,
Around the Pastor, each in new-wrought vest,
Each with a vernal posy at his breast,
We stood, a trembling, earnest Company!
With low soft murmur, like a distant bee,
Some spake, by thought-perplexing fears betrayed;
And some a bold unerring answer made:
How fluttered then thy anxious heart for me,
Beloved Mother! Thou whose happy hand
Had bound the flowers I wore, with faithful tie: 10
Sweet flowers! at whose inaudible command
Her countenance, phantom-like, doth reappear:
O lost too early for the frequent tear,
And ill requited by this heartfelt sigh!
CONFIRMATION
THE Young-ones gathered in from hill and dale,
With holiday delight on every brow:
‘Tis passed away; far other thoughts prevail;
For they are taking the baptismal Vow
Upon their conscious selves; their own lips speak
The solemn promise. Strongest sinews fail,
And many a blooming, many a lovely, cheek
Under the holy fear of God turns pale;
While on each head his lawn-robed Servant lays
An apostolic hand, and with prayer seals 10
The Covenant. The Omnipotent will raise
Their feeble Souls; and bear with ‘his’ regrets,
Who, looking round the fair assemblage, feels
That ere the Sun goes down their childhood sets.
CONFIRMATION CONTINUED
I SAW a Mother’s eye intensely bent
Upon a Maiden trembling as she knelt;
In and for whom the pious Mother felt
Things that we judge of by a light too faint:
Tell, if ye may, some star-crowned Muse, or Saint!
Tell what rushed in, from what she was relieved—
Then, when her Child the hallowing touch received,
And such vibration through the Mother went
That tears burst forth amain. Did gleams appear?
Opened a vision of that blissful place 10
Where dwells a Sister-child? And was power given
Part of her lost One’s glory back to trace
Even to this Rite? For thus ‘She’ knelt, and, ere
The summer-leaf had faded, passed to Heaven.
SACRAMENT
BY chain yet stronger must the Soul be tied:
One duty more, last stage of this ascent,
Brings to thy food, mysterious Sacrament!
The Offspring, haply, at the Parent’s side;
But not till They, with all that do abide
In Heaven, have lifted up their hearts to laud
And magnify the glorious name of God,
Fountain of grace, whose Son for sinners died.
Ye, who have duly weighed the summons, pause
No longer; ye, whom to the saving rite 10
The Altar calls, come early under laws
That can secure for you a path of light
Through gloomiest shade; put on (nor dread its weight)
Armour divine, and conquer in your cause!
THE MARRIAGE CEREMONY
THE Vested Priest before the Altar stands;
Approach, come gladly, ye prepared, in sight
Of God and chosen friends, your troth to plight
With the symbolic ring, and willing hands
Solemnly joined. Now sanctify the bands
O Father!—to the Espoused thy blessing give,
That mutually assisted they may live
Obedient, as here taught, to thy commands.
So prays the Church, to consecrate a Vow
“The which would endless matrimony make;” 10
Union that shadows forth and doth partake
A mystery potent human love to endow
With heavenly, each more prized for the other’s sake;
Weep not, meek Bride! uplift thy timid brow.
THANKSGIVING AFTER CHILDBIRTH
WOMAN! the Power who left his throne on high,
And deigned to wear the robe of flesh we wear,
The Power that thro’ the straits of Infancy
Did pass dependent on maternal care,
His own humanity with Thee will share,
Pleased with the thanks that in his People’s eye
Thou offerest up for safe Delivery
From Childbirth’s perilous throes. And should the Heir
Of thy fond hopes hereafter walk inclined
To courses fit to make a mother rue 10
That ever he was born, a glance of mind
Cast upon this observance may renew
A better will; and, in the imagined view
Of thee thus kneeling, safety he may find.
VISITATION OF THE SICK
THE Sabbath bells renew the inviting peal;
Glad music! yet there be that, worn with pain
And sickness, listen where they long have lain,
In sadness listen. With maternal zeal
Inspired, the Church sends ministers to kneel
Beside the afflicted; to sustain with prayer,
And soothe the heart confession hath laid bare—
That pardon, from God’s throne, may set its seal
On a true Penitent. When breath departs
From one disburthened so, so comforted, 10
His Spirit Angels greet; and ours be hope
That, if the Sufferer rise from his sick-bed,
Hence he will gain a firmer mind, to cope
With a bad world, and foil the Tempter’s arts.
THE COMMINATlON SERVICE
SHUN not this Rite, neglected, yea abhorred,
By some of unreflecting mind, as calling
Man to curse man, (thought monstrous and appalling.)
Go thou and hear the threatenings of the LORD;
Listening within his Temple see his sword
Unsheathed in wrath to strike the offender’s head,
Thy own, if sorrow for thy sin be dead,
Guilt unrepented, pardon unimplored.
Two aspects bears Truth needful for salvation;
Who knows not ‘that?’—yet would this delicate age 10
Look only on the Gospel’s brighter page:
Let light and dark duly our thoughts employ;
So shall the fearful words of Commination
Yield timely fruit of peace and love and joy.
FORMS OF PRAYER AT SEA
TO kneeling Worshippers no earthly floor
Gives holier invitation than the deck
Of a storm-shattered Vessel saved from Wreck
(When all that Man could do availed no more)
By him who raised the Tempest and restrains:
Happy the crew who this have felt, and pour
Forth for his mercy, as the Church ordains,
Solemn thanksgiving. Nor will ‘they’ implore
In vain who, for a rightful cause, give breath
To words the Church prescribes aiding the lip 10
For the heart’s sake, ere ship with hostile ship
Encounters, armed for work of pain and death.
Suppliants! the God to whom your cause ye trust
Will listen, and ye know that He is just.
FUNERAL SERVICE
FROM the Baptismal hour, thro’ weal and woe,
The Church extends her care to thought and deed;
Nor quits the Body when the Soul is freed,
The mortal weight cast off to be laid low.
Blest Rite for him who hears in faith, “I know
That my Redeemer liveth,”—hears each word
That follows—striking on some kindred chord
Deep in the thankful heart;—yet tears will flow.
Man is as grass that springeth up at morn,
Grows green, and is cut down and withereth 10
Ere nightfall—truth that well may claim a sigh,
Its natural echo; but hope comes reborn
At Jesu’s bidding. We rejoice, “O Death,
Where is thy Sting?—O Grave, where is thy Victory?”
RURAL CEREMONY
CLOSING the sacred Book which long has fed
Our meditations, give we to a day
Of annual joy one tributary lay;
This day, when, forth by rustic music led,
The village Children, while the sky is red
With evening lights, advance in long array
Through the still churchyard, each with garland gay,
That, carried sceptre-like, o’ertops the head
Of the proud Bearer. To the wide church-door,
Charged with these offerings which their fathers bore 10
For decoration in the Papal time,
The innocent procession softly moves:—
The spirit of Laud is pleased in heaven’s pure clime,
And Hooker’s voice the spectacle approves!
REGRETS
WOULD that our scrupulous Sires had dared to leave
Less scanty measure of those graceful rites
And usages, whose due return invites
A stir of mind too natural to deceive;
Giving to Memory help when she would weave
A crown for Hope!—I dread the boasted lights
That all too often are but fiery blights,
Killing the bud o’er which in vain we grieve.
Go, seek, when Christmas snows discomfort bring,
The counter Spirit found in some gay church 10
Green with fresh holly, every pew a perch
In which the linnet or the thrush might sing,
Merry and loud and safe from prying search,
Strains offered only to the genial Spring.
MUTABILITY
FROM low to high doth dissolution climb,
And sink from high to low, along a scale
Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail;
A musical but melancholy chime,
Which they can hear who meddle not with crime,
Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care.
Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear
The longest date do melt like frosty rime,
That in the morning whitened hill and plain
And is no more; drop like the tower sublime 10
Of yesterday, which royally did wear
His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain
Some casual shout that broke the silent air,
Or the unimaginable touch of Time.
OLD ABBEYS
MONASTIC Domes! following my downward way,
Untouched by due regret I marked your fall!
Now, ruin, beauty, ancient stillness, all
Dispose to judgments temperate as we lay
On our past selves in life’s declining day:
For as, by discipline of Time made wise,
We learn to tolerate the infirmities
And faults of others—gently as he may,
So with our own the mild Instructor deals,
Teaching us to forget them or forgive. 10
Perversely curious, then, for hidden ill
Why should we break Time’s charitable seals?
Once ye were holy, ye are holy still;
Your spirit freely let me drink, and live!
EMIGRANT FRENCH CLERGY
EVEN while I speak, the sacred roofs of France
Are shattered into dust; and self-exiled
From altars threatened, levelled, or defiled,
Wander the Ministers of God, as chance
Opens a way for life, or consonance
Of faith invites. More welcome to no land
The fugitives than to the British strand,
Where priest and layman with the vigilance
Of true compassion greet them. Creed and test
Vanish before the unreserved embrace 10
Of catholic humanity:—distrest
They came,—and, while the moral tempest roars
Throughout the Country they have left, our shores
Give to their Faith a fearless resting-place.
CONGRATULATION
THUS all things lead to Charity secured
By THEM who blessed the soft and happy gale
That landward urged the great Deliverer’s sail,
Till in the sunny bay his fleet was moored!
Propitious hour!—had we, like them, endured
Sore stress of apprehension, with a mind
Sickened by injuries, dreading worse designed,
From month to month trembling and unassured,
How had we then rejoiced! But we have felt,
As a loved substance, their futurity: 10
Good, which they dared not hope for, we have seen;
A State whose generous will through earth is dealt;
A State—which, balancing herself between
Licence and slavish order, dares be free.
NEW CHURCHES
BUT liberty, and triumphs on the Main,
And laurelled armies, not to be withstood—
What serve they? if, on transitory good
Intent, and sedulous of abject gain,
The State (ah, surely not preserved in vain!)
Forbear to shape due channels which the Flood
Of sacred truth may enter—till it brood
O’er the wide realm, as o’er the Egyptian plain
The all-sustaining Nile. No more—the time
Is conscious of her want; through England’s bounds, 10
In rival haste, the wished-for Temples rise!
I hear their sabbath bells’ harmonious chime
Float on the breeze—the heavenliest of all sounds
That vale or hill prolongs or multiplies!
CHURCH TO BE ERECTED
BE this the chosen site; the virgin sod,
Moistened from age to age by dewy eve,
Shall disappear, and grateful earth receive
The corner-stone from hands that build to God.
Yon reverend hawthorns, hardened to the rod
Of winter storms, yet budding cheerfully;
Those forest oaks of Druid memory,
Shall long survive, to shelter the Abode
Of genuine Faith. Where, haply, ‘mid this band
Of daisies, shepherds sate of yore and wove 10
May-garlands, there let the holy altar stand
For kneeling adoration;—while—above,
Broods, visibly portrayed, the mystic Dove,
That shall protect from blasphemy the Land.
CONTINUED
MINE ear has rung, my spirit sunk subdued,
Sharing the strong emotion of the crowd,
When each pale brow to dread hosannas bowed
While clouds of incense mounting veiled the rood,
That glimmered like a pine-tree dimly viewed
Through Alpine vapours. Such appalling rite
Our Church prepares not, trusting to the might
Of simple truth with grace divine imbued;
Yet will we not conceal the precious Cross,
Like men ashamed: the Sun with his first smile 10
Shall greet that symbol crowning the low Pile:
And the fresh air of incense-breathing morn
Shall wooingly embrace it; and green moss
Creep round its arms through centuries unborn.
NEW CHURCHYARD
THE encircling ground, in native turf arrayed,
Is now by solemn consecration given
To social interests, and to f
avouring Heaven;
And where the rugged colts their gambols played,
And wild deer bounded through the forest glade,
Unchecked as when by merry Outlaw driven,
Shall hymns of praise resound at morn and even;
And soon, full soon, the lonely Sexton’s spade
Shall wound the tender sod. Encincture small,
But infinite its grasp of weal and woe! 10
Hopes, fears, in never-ending ebb and flow;—
The spousal trembling, and the “dust to dust,”
The prayers, the contrite struggle, and the trust
That to the Almighty Father looks through all
CATHEDRALS, ETC.
OPEN your gates, ye everlasting Piles!
Types of the spiritual Church which God hath reared;
Not loth we quit the newly-hallowed sward
And humble altar, ‘mid your sumptuous aisles
To kneel, or thrid your intricate defiles,
Or down the nave to pace in motion slow;
Watching, with upward eye, the tall tower grow
And mount, at every step, with living wiles
Instinct—to rouse the heart and lead the will
By a bright ladder to the world above.
Open your gates, ye Monuments of love
Divine! thou Lincoln, on thy sovereign hill!
Thou, stately York! and Ye, whose splendours cheer
Isis and Cam, to patient Science dear!
INSIDE OF KING’S COLLEGE CHAPEL, CAMBRIDGE
TAX not the royal Saint with vain expense,
With ill-matched aims the Architect who planned—
Albeit labouring for a scanty band
Of white robed Scholars only—this immense
And glorious Work of fine intelligence!
Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore
Of nicely-calculated less or more;
So deemed the man who fashioned for the sense
These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof
Self-poised, and scooped into ten thousand cells, 10
Where light and shade repose, where music dwells
Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth Page 275