Poem by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

The Sabbath

  Fresh glides the brook and blows the gale,
    Yet yonder halts the quiet mill;
  The whirring wheel, the rushing sail,
    How motionless and still!

  Six days of toil, poor child of Cain,
    Thy strength the slave of Want may be;
  The seventh thy limbs escape the chain--
    A God hath made thee free!

  Ah, tender was the law that gave
    This holy respite to the breast,
  To breathe the gale, to watch the wave,
    And know--the wheel may rest!

  But where the waves the gentlest glide
    What image charms, to lift, thine eyes?
  The spire reflected on the tide
    Invites thee to the skies.

  To teach the soul its nobler worth
    This rest from mortal toils is given;
  Go, snatch the brief reprieve from earth
    And pass--a guest to Heaven.

  They tell thee, in their dreaming school,
    Of Power from old dominion hurl'd,
  When rich and poor, with juster rule,
    Shall share the alter'd world.

  Alas! since Time itself began,
    That fable hath but fool'd the hour;
  Each age that ripens Power in Man,
    But subjects Man to Power.

  Yet every day in seven, at least,
    One bright republic shall be known;--
  Man's world awhile hath surely ceased,
    When God proclaims his own!

  Six days may Rank divide the poor,
    O Dives, from thy banquet-hall--
  The seventh the Father opes the door,
    And holds His feast for all!

1. Trevylyan to Gertrude
2. The Pilgrim of the Desert
3. Love and Fame
4. On the Reperusal of Letters Written in Youth
5. The Desire of Fame

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