ring no joy
on your course! Let the tomb open to Ossian, for his
strength has failed. The sons of song are gone to rest.
My voice remains, like a blast that roars lonely on a
sea-surrounded rock, after the winds are laid. The dark
moss whistles there; the distant mariner sees the waving
trees!

CHRISTOPHER SMART

FROM A SONG TO DAVID

Strong is the lion-like a coal
His eyeball, like a bastion's mole
His chest against the foes;
Strong the gier-eagle on his sail;
Strong against tide th' enormous whale
Emerges as he goes:

But stronger still, in earth and air
And in the sea, the man of prayer,
And far beneath the tide,
And in the seat to faith assigned,
Where ask is have, where seek is find,
Where knock is open wide.

Beauteous the fleet before the gale;
Beauteous the multitudes in mail,
Ranked arms and crested heads;
Beauteous the garden's umbrage mild,
Walk, water, meditated wild,
And all the bloomy beds;

Beauteous the moon full on the lawn;
And beauteous when the veil's withdrawn
The virgin to her spouse;
Beauteous the temple, decked and filled,
When to the heaven of heavens they build
Their heart-directed vows:

Beauteous, yea beauteous more than these,
The shepherd King upon his knees,
For his momentous trust;
With wish of infinite conceit
For man, beast, mute, the small and great,
And prostrate dust to dust.

Precious the bounteous widow's mite;
And precious, for extreme delight,
The largess from the churl;
Precious the ruby's blushing blaze,
And Alba's blest imperial rays,
And pure cerulean pearl;

Precious the penitential tear;
And precious is the sigh sincere,
Acceptable to God;
And precious are the winning flowers,
In gladsome Israel's feast of bowers,
Bound on the hallowed sod:

More precious that diviner part
Of David, even the Lord's own heart,
Great, beautiful, and new;
In all things where it was intent,
In all extremes, in each event,
Proof--answering true to true.

Glorious the sun in mid career;
Glorious th' assembled fires appear;
Glorious the comet's train;
Glorious the trumpet and alarm;
Glorious th' Almighty's stretched-out arm;
Glorious th' enraptured main;

Glorious the northern lights a-stream;
Glorious the song, when God's the theme;
Glorious the thunder's roar;
Glorious, Hosannah from the den;
Glorious the catholic