A Student's Evening Hymn
I.
Now no more the slanting rays
With the mountain summits dally,
Now no more in crimson blaze
Evening’s fleecy cloudless rally,
Soon shall Night front off the valley
Sweep that bright yet earthly haze,
And the stars most musically
Move in endless rounds of praise.
II.
While the world is growing dim,
And the Sun is slow descending
Past the far horizon’s rim,
Earth's low sky to heaven extending,
Let my feeble earth-notes, blending
With the songs of cherubim,
Through the same expanse ascending,
Thus renew my evening hymn.
III.
Thou that fill’st our waiting eyes
With the food of contemplation,
Setting in thy darkened skies
Signs of infinite creation,
Grant to nightly meditation
What the toilsome day denies—
Teach me in this earthly station
Heavenly Truth to realise.
IV.
Give me wisdom so to use
These brief hours of thoughtful leisure,
That I may no instant lose
In mere meditative pleasure,
But with strictest justice measure
All the ends my life pursues,
Lies to crush and truths to treasure,
Wrong to shun and Right to choose.
V.
Then, when unexpected Sleep,
O’er my long-closed eyelids stealing,
Opens up that lower deep
Where Existence has no feeling,
May sweet Calm, my languor healing,
Lend note strength at dawn to reap
All that Shadows, world-concealing,
For the bold enquirer keep.
VI.
Through the creatures Thou hast made
Show the brightness of Thy glory,
Be eternal Truth displayed
In their substance transitory,
Till green Earth and Ocean hoary,
Massy rock and tender blade
Tell the same unending story—
"We are Truth in Form arrayed."
VII.
When to study I retire,
And from books of ancient sages
Glean fresh sparks of buried fire
Lurking in their ample pages—
While the task my mind engages
Let old words new truths inspire-—
Truths that to all after-ages
Prompt the Thoughts that never tire.
VIII.
Yet if, led by shadows fair
I have uttered words of folly,
Let the kind absorbing air
Stifle every sound unholy.
So when Saints with Angels lowly
Join in heaven’s unceasing prayer,
Mine as certainly, though slowly,
May ascend and mingle there.
IX.
Teach me so Thy works to read
That my faith,—new strength accruing,—
May from world to world proceed,
Wisdom's fruitful search pursuing;
Till, thy truth my mind imbuing,
I proclaim the Eternal Creed,
Oft the glorious theme renewing
God our Lord is God indeed.
X.
Give me love aright to trace
Thine to everything created,
Preaching to a ransomed race
By Thy mercy renovated,
Till with all thy fulness sated
I behold thee face to face
And with Ardour unabated
Sing the glories of thy grace.
To F.W.F.
Farrar, when o’er Goodwin’s page
Late I found thee poring,
From the hydrostatic Sage
Leaky Memory storing,
Or when groaning yesterday
Needlessly distracted
By some bright erratic ray,
Through a sphere refracted,—
Then the quick words, oft suppressed,
In my fauces fluttered;
Thoughts not yet in language drest
Pleasing to be uttered.
He that neatly gilds the pill
Hides the drug but vainly,
So, in chance-sown words, I will
Speak the matter plainly.
Men there are, whose patient minds,
In one object centred,
Wait, till through their darkened blinds
Truth has burst and entered.
Then, that ray so barely caught
Joyfully absorbing,
They behold the realms of Thought
Into Science orbing.
Thus they wait, and thus they toil,
Thus they end in knowing,
Like good seed in kindly soil
Taking root and growing.
Men there are whose ambient souls,
In rapt Intuition,
Seize Creation as it rolls,
Whole, without partition.
Not for them the darkened room,
Lens, and perforation;
Enemies are they to gloom,
Foes to Insulation.
Theirs the light of perfect Day,
Theirs the sense of Freedom;
Dungeons, and the tortured ray,
Serve for those that need ’em.
Song to them of right belongs,
Eloquently flowing;
Sweeping down time-honoured wrongs,
Surging, burning, glowing.
Songs in which all hearts rejoice,
Songs of ancient story;
Songs that fill a People’s voice
Marching on to glory.
Thus they live, and thus they love,
Thus they soar in singing;
Like glad larks in heaven above,
Dazzling courses winging.—
Here, I prithee, turn thy mind
To a little fable
Of the fledged and rooted kind,
Bird and vegetable.
Pensive in his lowly nest
Once a Lark was lying;
Often did he heave his breast
Querulously sighing.
For he saw with envious eyes,
Pampered vegetation—
Cabbages of goodly size,
Swoll’n with emulation.
Till their self-infolded green
Tight crammed, wide distended,
Seemed in sphered pomp to mean
All that it pretended.
Long he sought to win their place
In the Gardener's favour;
Well he caught the silent grace
Of a plant’s behaviour.
All was useless, he confest,
Earth for him unsuited;
Terror seized upon him, lest
He should there be rooted.
"Cabbages are cabbages,
Larks are larks," he muttered;
Then, light springing in the breeze,
Through the sky he fluttered.
Farrar, mark my fable well,
Fling away Ambition;
By that sin the angels fell
Into black perdition.
Cut the Calculus, and stop
Paths that lead to error;
Think—below the Junior Op.,
Gapes the Gulph's grim terror.
Then your Mathematic wings,
Plucked from off your shoulder,
Will express what Horace sings
Of that rash youth, bolder
Than his waxen wings allowed,
Or his cautious father.
Fall not thou from out thy cloud
Algebraic, rather
Try the Poll, for none but fools,-—
Fools, I mean, at College,
Reach the earth between two stools,
Triposes of Knowledge.
Better in poetic rage
Sing, through heaven soaring,
Than disfigure Goodwin’s page
By incessant poring.
