Were all my loud, evil[150] days
  Calm and unhaunted as is thy dark tent,
  Whose peace but by some angel’s wing or voice
      Is seldom rent,
    Then I in heaven all the long year
    Would keep, and never wander here.

    But living where the sun
  Doth all things wake, and where all mix and tire
  Themselves and others, I consent and run
      To every mire;
    And by this world’s ill guiding light,
    Err more than I can do by night

    There is in God, some say,
  A deep but dazzling darkness; as men here
  Say it is late and dusky, because they
      See not all clear: 
    O for that night! where I in him
    Might live invisible and dim!

This is glorious; and its lesson of quiet and retirement we need more than ever in these hurried days upon which we have fallen.  If men would but be still enough in themselves to hear, through all the noises of the busy light, the voice that is ever talking on in the dusky chambers of their hearts!  Look at his love for Nature, too; and read the fourth stanza in connexion with my previous remarks upon symbolism.  I think this poem grander than any of George Herbert’s.  I use the word with intended precision.

Here is one, the end of which is not so good, poetically considered, as the magnificent beginning, but which contains striking lines throughout:—­

  THE DAWNING.

Ah! what time wilt thou come?  When shall that cry, The Bridegroom’s coming, fill the sky?  Shall it in the evening run When our words and works are done?  Or will thy all-surprising light Break at midnight, When either sleep or some dark pleasure Possesseth mad man without measure?  Or shail these early, fragrant hours Unlock thy bowers,[151] And with their blush of light descry Thy locks crowned with eternity?  Indeed, it is the only time That with thy glory doth best chime:  All now are stirring; every field Full hymns doth yield; The whole creation shakes off night, And for thy shadow looks the light;[152] Stars now vanish without number; Sleepy planets set and slumber; The pursy clouds disband and scatter;—­ All expect some sudden matter; Not one beam triumphs, but, from far, That morning-star.

  O, at what time soever thou,
  Unknown to us, the heavens wilt bow,
  And, with thy angels in the van,
  Descend to judge poor careless man,
  Grant I may not like puddle lie
  In a corrupt security,
  Where, if a traveller water crave,
  He finds it dead, and in a grave;
  But as this restless, vocal spring
  All day and night doth run and sing,
  And though here born, yet is acquainted
  Elsewhere, and, flowing, keeps untainted,
  So let me all my busy age
  In thy free services engage;
  And though, while here, of force,[153] I must
  Have commerce sometimes with poor dust,[154]
  And in my flesh, though vile and low,
  As this doth in her channel, flow,
  Yet let my course, my aim, my love,
  And chief acquaintance be above. 
  So when that day and hour shall come,
  In which thyself will be the sun,
  Thou’lt find me drest and on my way,
  Watching the break of thy great day.