The Treasury Of Sacred Song

Sure thou didst flourish once! and many springs,

Many bright mornings, much dew, many showers

Past o'er thy head; many light hearts and wings,

Which now are dead, lodged in thy living bowers.

And still a new succession sings and flies;

Fresh groves grow up, and their green branches shoot

Towards the old and still enduring skies,

While the low violet thrives at their root.

But thou beneath the sad and heavy line

Of death, doth waste all senseless, cold and dark;

Where not so much as dreams of light may shine,

Nor any thought of greenness, leaf, or bark.

And yet -- as if some deep hate and dissent,

Bred in thy growth betwixt high winds and thee,

Were still alive -- thou dost great storms resent [134]

Before they come, and know'st how near they be.

Else all at rest thou liest, and the fierce breath

Of tempests can no more disturb thy ease;

But this thy strange resentment after death

Means only those who broke, -- in life, -- thy peace.

So murder'd man, when lovely life is done,

And his blood freezed, keeps in the centre still

Some secret sense, which makes the dead blood run

At his approach that did the body kill.

-- And is there any murderer worse than sin?

Or any storms more foul than a lewd life?

Or what resentient [135] can work more within,

Than true remorse, when with past sins at strife?