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Ranolf and Amohia

II

II.

But while all this they watch, lo, still and grand,
The enormous Moon!—how, like
A great gold cymbal on its edge upright,
Upon the mountain's ridge it takes its stand
page 272 So close—there balanced broad and steady,
To bathe in dreamily-magical light
What seemed a magical dream already,
Twice beautify the beautiful, and strike
Transcended sense dead-mute with admiration!—
And who could mark, with wondering soul-elation,
That revel of redundant loveliness,
Nor some such truth as Ranolf felt confess;

"O these charms of great Nature! who ever has seen them
In their glory as these are, nor owned that the notion
They force on the thinker, is true, not illusive—
That our senses and they, so composed as between them
To awake in the mind such delightful emotion,
Are proofs self-attested, as logic conclusive,
Of Benevolence somewhere, in what has created
And keeps them to act and react on each other:
A sentiment this, that no Science can smother.
Nor condemn it as anthro pomorphical folly—
Since a cause they must have, one intelligent wholly—
To hold that the Cause of these marvels must mean them
To display that Benevolence—mutely reveal it
In delight to the creature most fitted to feel it!
—Aye truly! and though by stem reasoning's parity
You maintain that in Nature, the baleful, disgusting
Should be proof in its Cause of defect of such charity—
That if Beauty be vaunted as sign of Benevolence,
Deformity equally argues Malevolence,—
Yet the first so outs plendours the last—so exceeds it—
And the last has such uses, Mankind almost needs it—
'Tis hard not to side with the hopeful and trusting!
Yes, cavil and carp, the nice balance adjusting,
page 273 Yet is Beauty in literal truth, nothing less
Than a Gospel—-an embassy mute yet express
From some Power imperial, of friendliness felt
For mankind—say of Love! one that never will cease
To diffuse its serene revelations of peace;
Bright dawns and rich sunsets its eloquent books;
And the broad laugh of flowers, and the soft-chiming brook's
Secret murmurs of joy, and the rapture of birds,
Its angelical whispers,—accredited words:
But holiest Woman's affectionate looks,
Most thrillingly potent to move and to melt,
Are the pages where clearest its plenary power
Of divine Inspiration for ever has dwelt!
And he who has basked but one bliss-giving hour
In their sunshine and solace, like me must avow,
With the loveliest lessons of Love, it is thou
O God-ordained Beauty, the Spirit canst fill!
Aye, 'tis Thou, in all shapes, of celestial good-will,
Art the sweetest, most suasive Evangelist still! "—