LXXXIV.

From heaven's bright orb, and purest day,

Through chancel-window's many-coloured glass*,

More truly falls not emblematic ray

On missal, priest, or gazing crowds at mass, Than doctrine radiates from the human mind

The lasting tints there long before combined.

LXXXV.

Devotion, seated in our peasant's soul,

Shines praise and prayer o'er Scripture's every page,

All doubt dispels, can wayward thoughts control,
To crush the proud sees God himself engage;

Sees guardian spirits on our earth descend,
Celestial powers with powers terrestrial blend.

LXXXVI.

Thus round devoted Moses angels dwell;

An angel's was the smile that favour won When Jochebed each rising fear did quell,

Resume the mother, and conceal her son.

*This allusion to the interference of popery in distorting and discolouring the truth, whose rays directed through a holier and a more natural medium might be made benignly to fall upon the gradual and grateful expansions of the human mind, is meant to awaken, in those who employ either force or artifice to crush the intellectual energies, a sense of the inadequacy and danger of their ungodly purpose.

His brow and temples thus spoke heaven's resolve
To smite oppressors, and their bonds dissolve.

LXXXVII.

While, 'mid the fertile Nile's papyrus green,

The beauteous babe floats, wrapt in pleasing sleep, Near Levi's daughter are bright angels seen

Upon the shady banks to sit and weep.

One lovely child makes all her sorrow flow,
Ten thousand bleed in their prophetic woe.

LXXXVIII.

When torn affection shed a parting tear

Upon the mother's bloom-lost, grief-worn face;

When prayers of faith, deep sighed through pangs of fear,
Bid Abraham's God behold her last embrace;

Mysterious whispers made Thermutis guide
Her votive choirs to Nile's o'erflowing tide.

LXXXIX.

Along its flowery brink some cherub leads,

In sportive rings, the fair harmonious band,
Till where the ark, 'mid proudly waving reeds,
The princess charms, and woos her gentle hand;
To lingering Miriam then he bends his flight,
On Moses, saved, directs her ravished sight.

XC.

The child now speaks his dictates on her ear:
Dissent must yield: she runs, she flies to tell
Her sad despondent parent not to fear;

While round the ark the maids enraptured dwell,
Or fondle in their arms the weeping boy,
Behold their lord, and all his tears deem joy.

XCI.

Soon Jochebed before them looks the nurse:

She seems to smile upon the proffered gold, Though to her soul it strike a tyrant's curse:

Thermutis thinks she sees that smile unfold

An avaricious mind: the nurse retains ;

Then walks the mother to the softest strains.

XCII.

High as the river's source these strains ascend,
Of Ethiopia's clouds and showers they sing;
Glad hills and dales consenting echoes blend

With melody that moves, or sweeps the string: Sweet vernal scent through sun-gilt groves distils; With various praise the glorious landscape thrills.

XCIII.

In gorgeous splendour Pharaoh's daughter glides,
Sublime amid her fair voluptuous train;

O'er all her thoughts th' adopted son presides;
The wise are taught, and mighty victors slain;
Egyptian valour gains eternal fame ;

The foe 's discouraged, and the slave made tame.

XCIV.

While tones mellifluent charmed the balmy air,
Recalling hours in blissful converse run,

Where Egypt's knights and dames did oft repair,
To spread their bloom before a monarch's sun,
Thermutis saw her Moses' laurels spread
On Beauty's bosom, round a Pharaoh's head.

XCV.

Far other views possess our Christian hinds,
Far different ends angelic aid implored;
Seraphic symphonies delight their minds;

In Amram's son they view lost Israel's Lord.

If man by woman fell, she too does save;

The Nile fair Moses seals; Christ bursts the grave.

XCVI.

Euphrates, to the Boor, wears angels' gloom;

Their wrath wafts more than thunder in its sound, When Adam's dread irrevocable doom

In vengeance peals, and roars through hell profound : But Jordan's clear, calm breast reflects their smile; Their frowns and smiles invest the rising Nile.

XCVII.

Their looks its tyrant's secret thoughts lay bare;
Their hand writes on his sacrilegious walls:

Remorse and fear his guilty conscience tear;
Approaching judgments impious mirth forestalls:
His flattering minions gone to curse of dreams,
Gilboah's spirit stalks mid infant screams.

XCVIII.

Sulphureous vapours choke the despot's breath,
When on him sleep, with all its horrors, comes,
Of fiery torments, never dying death,

Where writhing agony his limbs benumbs;

Till hell's red darts, rough barbed by demons' toil,
The monster pierce, and from his heart recoil.

D