His Name. From The French Of Victor Hugo Poem by Edward Henry Bickersteth

A lily's odour—holy angels' light—
The tints of twilight bidding day farewell—
The plaint of friends—the bosom's heaving swell—
The parting hour's mysterious sounding knell,
And the soft echo of a lover's kiss;—
The crested arch, whose rays are seen on high,
Which Phœbus' shrine a trophy still retains—
The voice which pours its soothing o'er our pains—
The holy vow the vestal heart proclaims—
Or the first breathings of an infant's dream;—
The song of distant choir—the sigh which gave
Hyperion's daughter to embrace her child—
The murmur of a trembling wood note wild—
All that by which swift thought may be beguiled—
These, oh my lyre! must fail before His name.
Breathe it—oh! breathe it softly—like a sound
Borne on a cloud of incense in its flight;
Oh! be it, like the temple's mystic light,
Enshrined, a sacred word—where all of bright,
And pure—the loved—eternally do dwell.
Yet oh! my friends!—no more my muse may dare
To syllable with meaner sounds that name,
Till my rapt soul take wing in words of flame
To wander mid Elysium's blissful plain,
Where treasures fail not, and where all is love.
There shall mine early chaunt like incense rise
Harmonious—faithful—as a holy pray'r
Or cloistered vesper song—an angel's care
Above—intense—invisible—the air
Trembling with mystic melody around.