fyxmll Utitemtg Jilratg THE GIFT OF .Qr.s^i , .b>..!3rr^^Vr1r4'V1^r?^^ AlL-^.^fY /Mk/A Two Christmas Hymns By Alfred Domett First published in London, in i8j7 and iSjS Greetings of ALL SOULS CHURCH Chicago, 111 Christmas, mdcccxcvii /fc«U-# OvA^. H ^^^Y ^j^^vt^ THE Ni;w unity: ^ ,/ .^ ,,;7?, H/.^^^^-^ LFRED D OME TT, poet, traveler, states- man, was horn at Camberwell, England, in 1811. After studying at Cambridge he traveled extensively in America and else- where; afterwardsjettled in New Zealand, practiced law, occupied high positions in the legislative and executive departments of the new govern- ment which he helped organize. He was fellow towns- man and beloved companion of Robert Browning ; is the " dear old friend," referred to in Robert Browning's " Guardian Angel" and is the " Waring " who Glides away Like a ghost at break of day, in Browning' s poem of this name. Domett died, beloved and revered by those who knew him, in 188 J, He is described by one who knew him as a '■'■sterling, manly, independent nature." Competent critics have ventured to place this first hymn next to the great Christmas hymn of "John Milton, which carried our Christmas greeting last year. The second h^mn, less known and less accessible, will reward the study it re- quires. The two hymns taken together enforce a truth dear to All Souls Church, viz., that rational study is not destructive of deep love and high reverence for fesus of Nazareth. The Nazarene peasant., the fesus of human- ity will ever quicken Christmas joys., inspire Christmas hymns., and receive the glad homage of Christmas carols. The text followed is that found in " Flotsam and fet- sam ; Rhymes Old and New." Published by Smith bf Elder., London., i8yj. A Christmas Hymn (Old Style, 1837) I T was the calm and silent night ! — Seven hundred years and fifty-three Had Rome been growing up to might, And now was Queen of land and sea ! No sound was heard of clashing wars ; Peace brooded o 'er the hushed domain ; Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars, Held undisturbed their ancient reign, In the solemn midnight Centuries ago ! n ' T 'was in the calm and silent night !— The senator of haughty Rome Impatient urged his chariot's flight. From lordly revel rolling home ! Triumphal arches gleaming swell His breast with thoughts of boundless sway ; What recked the Roman what befell A paltry province far away, In the solemn midnight Centuries ago ! Ill Within that province far away Went plodding home a weary boor : A streak of light before him lay, Fall 'n through a half-shut stable door Across his path. He passed — for naught Told what was going on within ; How keen the stars ! his only thought ; The air how calm and cold and thin, In the solemn midnight Centuries ago ! IV O strange indifference ! — low and high Drowsed over common joys and cares : The earth was still — but knew not why; The world was listening — unawares ! How calm a moment may precede One that shall thrill the world for ever ! To that still moment none would heed, Man's doom was linked no more to sever In the solemn midnight Centuries ago ! V It is the calm and solemn night! A thousand bells ring out, and throw Their joyous peals abroad, and smite The darkness, charmed and holy now/ The night that erst no name had worn. To it a happy name is given ; For in that stable lay new-born The peaceful Prince of Earth and Heaven In the solemn midnight Centuries ago! A Christmas Hymn (New Style, 1875) I GAIN the dumb delight, The winding-sheet of Winter white ! The great world's feverish moan sinks mute and muffled, As Nature lays cool hands divine Upon its weary heart, awhile unruffled : The splendor-fibred trees pure coral shine ; All still ! — and if small birds, so black and large perchance In sudden startled quest On the dazzling tracery rest And shake snow-powder ofF, they but enhance The sacred silence of the bright white universal trance. II Then bells burst out along The pale dim-burnished sky they throng ; Their floating tones in yellow light dissolving, Like joys that die in rapture soft ; Or peal on peal in headlong haste revolving. Full many a merry somersault aloft The airy tumblers turn in their ethereal play; Or down, down, down they come From the full resounding dome. In frank, confiding, open-armed array, Like blissful angels charged to bring their old good news to-day ! Ill But why so glad, you bells ? 'T is shame and wrong your rapture tells ! Cold morn ! why halo round with cheery kindness Your chill return, which but recalls That deed of rabid hate and ruinous blindness. Most piteous scene in History's pictured halls. The one World-murder done in ghostly Palestine ! Is it a cause for mirth That the dull ferocious Earth In mirk and mystery left so long to pine, Sq welcomes spirits when they come surcharged with light divine ! IV Swords flash and sceptres wave — Could none that gentlest grandeur save! O widest woe! that this, Time's boon most royal, A rabble spurned with ribald scorn — No worldly might to worth so wondrous loyal! — See! 'tis the golden solitary Morn ; See! splendid mists, still palms and glistening kine; the Sun Undiamonds the blades Of the shortening fig-tree shades; Soft clouds ascending gently one by one The hollow cave of liquid light, emerge o'er moun- tains dun ; 6 If, by the poppied corn, There sits in Syrian garb wayworn. Upon a rock the level beams are firing, One who, of ample brow sublime, And ardent look serene yet so aspiring, Speaks such great-hearted music, for a time The brazen-kilted Knight his Emperor's work delays. Must draw the studded rein ; And the boor his creaking wain Let stand — spellbound by thoughts that so amaze — So boundless, kindling, fresh, they match that rising Day-Star's rays: VI If still, as Sunset fills With awe the hushed vermilion hills, Blue dusk the listening fishers' lake obscuring — Those easy and immortal words Drop quietly as footprints less enduring Red petrified sea-beaches' keep of birds A million years ago alit from vanished skies: — Can none, O churlish Fate! Of the brave and wise and great — None look into those deep mysterious eyes. And read how vast a human Soul informs that clay disguise! VII To murder one so young! To still that wonder-teeming tongue Ere half the fulness of its mellowed glory Had flashed in mild sheet-lightnings forth! Who knows, had that majestic Life grown hoary. Long versed in all man's weakness, woes and worth, 7 What beams had pierced the clouds that veil this voyage of care! Not Zeus, nor Baal's throne Nor Osiris quelled alone, But Doubt, or wforse assurance of Despair, Or Superstition's brood that blends the tiger w^ith the hare! VIII Who knows but we had caught Some hint from pure impassioned Thought, How Matter's links and Spirit's that still fly us. Can break and still leave Spirit free; How Will can act o'ermastered by no bias ; Why Good omnipotent lets Evil be ; What balm heals beauteous Nature's universal flaw; And how, below, above. It is Love, and only Love Bids keen Sensation glut Destruction's maw — Love rolls this groaning Sea of Life on pitiless rocks of Law ! IX This day, then, must we ask Befits it not its radiant mask, Where Spring's green pulses sleep, so soon to waken. Beneath bright innocence of snow? But rather, like the human heart forsaken. Some grand still Polar waste, where sad rays throw Long violet solemn shades, and luridly illume Each iceberg's sullen frown. As the blood-red Sun goes down At ghastly noon, and to their dismal doom Leaves moaning crags and grinding floes in loneliest lifeless gloom ? X Nay — is it then so slight A thing that this Day sprung to light Of moral beauty Man's supreme ideal ; A soul of sympathy so vast 'Twas scarce conceived till first he made it real! That of all Facts left for the heart at last — Looming beyond the light by Logic's pharos thrown, Its faintest circled rim, In the supersensuous dim. The most majestic — loveliest — made its own The purest, widest, truest Soul, and loftiest ever known ! XI At least — at lowest, say, A quickening breeze of Life this day Came, when into dead calm had feebly drifted Man's Hope of Hopes — an Albatross Flapping vain wings to rise — and freshly lifted The worn Seafarer for a flight across Some thousands of new years o'er the Material Deep Where Man must founder not, Or his very race would rot ! Fell swamp from which kind Fate his course must keep Or down 'mid crawlers of the slime 'twill be his doom to creep ! XII What! this One, Nature's — all! (Though why not God's, that Mystery call?) O none the less Mankind's upsoaring splendid Through brightening gyres of Circumstance Is with his great heart-truths and hopes so blended, To keep that height they give its only chance! — 9 So firmly through the woof — to crown the array so dense Of Shapes of light and love — Amaranthine flowers he wove, The imperial purple of pre-eminence Man wears, were tattered, would you tear those wreaths immortal thence! XIII True, this Soul-Conqueror — this — World-melting Marvel from the Abyss — Cared not, in subtly faint Hellenic fashion To syllogise of life to-be, But kindled to insatiate thirst and passion That old ambition of Eternity Which fires Man's heart for noblest deeds it dreams of here! Breath mightiest and alone To evoke its grandest tone; Of each harmonious rise in his career. Each diapason of ascent, the stirring key-note clear! XIV But this One bade him strain. Say you, to heights he seeks in vain — Ideal perfections that bemock his station? Nay, but the endless strain and strife Secure his nature's endless elevation! — The germ, deep-hid in life, of higher life, Conscience, this Sunburst woke; Truth, Justice, Love, his ray So quickened to outflower With predominance and power. The palmy growth still claims imperious way Through this World's cramping crystal walls to some diviner Day! XV And if, in fine excess And secret happy consciousness. The fervid aim at fitness for instalment In some rare clime Truth, Love and Right Flush with full bloom unreached in this en- thralment. Be forced to leap into a faithlike sight In such rare clime extant, its actual glorious goal, — Against assurance sure It must endlessly endure! Shall not the first these heart-depths to unroll Be hailed Discoverer and dear King among the Lords of Soul! XVI Spurn from his Faith — of Will Love-fired to selfless w^ar with 111, And deathless life to soothe the undying fever — Hell's blight, the shamble's stains and steams ; It were a Sun to flood and flush for ever The boundless blue — no cloud-hole's shower of beams Silvering the sea-gloom — glory girt with hate and shame ! A lily pure, that creed Would be loved — what crimson weed Of Greece so loved! sweet faiths of graceful fame Olympian poppies of no charm beside its fragrant flame! XVII What though wan Logic deems Illusions these immortal dreams ; Hesperian garden-growth of golden apples Which she can prove not — see nor touch ; Their realm at least is real ; for all she grapples Of actual fruit or blossom hangs o'er such A shadowy garden's wall, and springs from roots within ; Aye ! all she sees and knows But in Mystery springs and grows ; Her simplest queries can no answer win : *' What can Attraction be ? or Force ? or Motion how begin ? " XVIII To sing that golden fruit Hope, Justice, Love, are never mute ; White Maidens warbling through the Dusk its splendor ; And Science, our Alcides true Shall make the Dragon — Matter — yet surrender The Spirit-realm it guards and glides into! Meanwhile the men of mightiest heart our course must light; All honor ie to them. And to Him the diadem Who rose, the Atlas from whose heaven-bathed height In clearest prospect glowed the unimaginable sight ! XIX Fear you 't will die away. Flit, wholly fade in fancied Day ? Is the World's long advance a masque so hollow ! But Heart is pioneer of Mind — The pillared fire her patient march must follow ! He to transfigure, glorify his kind, Made all the Universe a breathing human breast ; Man's race one rose of snow Through Eternity to blow. His great Idea ! shall Hope or Reason rest Below, while, though mist-veiled, on high, towers so- sublime a crest ! XX Look where gigantic flowers Most gorgeous deck Peruvian bowers ; Milk-white lake-lilies purple-hearted shining Shield-broad, each leaf an islet wide, A leathery floor with crinkled wine-dark lining Deep-cabled, firm, where ghost-like stalk and glide Plover and Ibis shy, by no vibration checked : — 'Tis on black lakes obscure Which the forest-glooms immure; — Ink-waters strange that no light-rays reflect : — So in sad days of darkest doubt Truth's brightest blooms expect! XXI Think you the mighty Sea Of Nature can exhausted be ? Press on, O Man! no upward impulse scorning! High instincts pant their race to run ! Fresh Souls will come auroral — sons of Morning,, To rouse and rein these coursers of the Sun 13 Along the empyreal path He was the first to trace ! — — Then still recall, O Earth, With a festal smile, his birth ! For this, o'er Earth's benumbed and beauteous face. Still, Winter, breathe your chilly charms of kindliest innocent grace ! XXII You hollies scarlet-bossed. Purple with dainty rims of frost Your puckered leaves for this — or gleam snow- spangled ! Prank every fringe with crystals gay. You cedars! Ring sweet bells, by fears unjangled; Peal forth melodious promise of a day When in more luminous love — more loving knowledge great — In the serene sunshine Of intelligence divine, The whole majestic World shall walk elate With her sublimest hero's faith in Man's exalted fate ! '4 Printed in the year of our Lord eigh- teen hundred and ninety-seven, with Venetian ornaments of the fifteenth cen- tury, at the Lakeside Press, Chicago Cornell University Library PR4613.D3T8 Two Christmas hymns; first published in L 3 1924 013 341 783 ir ^K-i y>*x' W. k."^