Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SANCTUARY, by HORACE SMITH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SANCTUARY, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: In israel was many a refuge city
Last Line: His own calm breast.
Alternate Author Name(s): Smith, Horatio
Subject(s): God; Heaven; Israel (state); Sanctuaries; Paradise


IN Israel was many a refuge city,
Whereto the blameless homicide might flee,
And claim protection, sustenance, and pity,
Safe from the blood-avenger's enmity,
Until the law's acquittal sent him thence,
Free from offence.

Round old cathedral, abbey-church, and palace,
Did we ourselves a sanctuary draw,
Where no stern creditor could glut his malice,
And even criminals might brave the law;
Nor judge nor justice in that chartered verge
Their rights could urge.

These times are gone; felons and knavish debtors
May mourn the change, but who bewails their case?
For why should God and King be made abettors
Of guilt and fraud, the champions of the base?
Never may such a desecration stain
Our land again!

But all are not divested of their charter;
One refuge still is left for human woes.
Victim of care! or persecution's martyr!
Who seek'st a sure asylum from thy foes,
Learn that the holiest, safest, purest, best,
Is man's own breast!

There is a solemn sanctuary founded
By God himself; not for transgressors meant;
But that the man oppressed, the spirit-wounded,
And all beneath the world's injustice bent,
Might turn from outward wrong, turmoil, and din,
To peace within.

Each bosom is a temple; when its altar,
The living heart, is unprofaned and pure,
Its verge is hallowed; none need fear or falter
Who thither fly; it is an ark secure,
Winning, above a world o'erwhelmed with wrath,
Its peaceful path.

O Bower of Bliss! O Sanctuary holy!
Terrestrial antepast of heavenly joy!
Never! oh, never may misdeed or folly
My claim to thy beatitudes destroy!
Still may I keep this Paradise unlost,
Where'er I'm tost.

Even in the flesh, the spirit disembodied,
Unchecked by time and space, may soar elate,
In silent awe to commune with the Godhead --
Or the millennium reign anticipate,
When earth shall be all sanctity and love,
Like heaven above.

How sweet to turn from anguish, guilt, and madness,
From scenes where strife and tumult never cease,
To that Elysian world of bosom'd gladness,
Where all is silence, charity, and peace;
And sheltered from the storm the soul may rest
On its own nest!

When, spleenful as the sensitive Mimosa,
We shrink from Winter's touch and Nature's gloom,
There may we conjure up a Vallombrosa,
Where groves and bowers in summer beauty bloom,
And the heart dances in the sunny glade
Fancy has made.

But, would we dedicate to nobler uses,
This bosom sanctuary, let us there
Hallow our hearts from all the world's abuses;
While high and charitable thoughts and prayer,
May teach us gratitude to God, combined
With love of kind.

Reader! this is no lay unfelt and hollow,
But prompted by the happy, grateful heart
Of one who, having humbly tried to follow
The path he counsels, would to thee impart
The love and holy quiet which have blest
His own calm breast.





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