 | The Poetical Works of Robert Montgomery |  |
MARTYRDOM.
Here is the doom of Hero, Bard, or King:
The cross of hatred first their hearts endure,
And then, the crown of homage on their heads
Dying, or dead, at last cold Justice puts!
Their crown we witness,—has their cross been weigh'd?
We boast their triumphs,—have we told their tears?
We laud their greatness,—have we felt their gloom,
Their lonesome watchings, and their weepings long,
The fret, the fever, and those wasting pangs
Year after year, which wore the heart of Youth
To sickness, ere the laurell'd moment came
When truth and triumph paid high Merit's due?
Result the many only dare to prize;
But still, the process solemn, stern, and strange,
Through stormful agonies, and griefs, and glooms,
By which a Hero to his great result
Attaineth, why should this no homage win?
Luther was great at threat'ning Worms, we grant;
But, greater still in solitude, and tears,
When first he grappled with his fiery heart
And, in the prison of a papal creed,
Panted, and pray'd for evangelic day.
The cross of hatred first their hearts endure,
And then, the crown of homage on their heads
Dying, or dead, at last cold Justice puts!
Their crown we witness,—has their cross been weigh'd?
We boast their triumphs,—have we told their tears?
We laud their greatness,—have we felt their gloom,
Their lonesome watchings, and their weepings long,
The fret, the fever, and those wasting pangs
Year after year, which wore the heart of Youth
To sickness, ere the laurell'd moment came
When truth and triumph paid high Merit's due?
Result the many only dare to prize;
But still, the process solemn, stern, and strange,
Through stormful agonies, and griefs, and glooms,
By which a Hero to his great result
Attaineth, why should this no homage win?
Luther was great at threat'ning Worms, we grant;
But, greater still in solitude, and tears,
When first he grappled with his fiery heart
And, in the prison of a papal creed,
Panted, and pray'd for evangelic day.
Heroes are martyrs, if their minds be pure
And highly-temper'd; for, the Truth is strange
To men who only by their bodies live,
And to the pageantries and powers of Sense
External yield their sympathies alone;
Or, never down Themselves presume to gaze
With eye reflective: so, when prophets rise,
And utter oracles from deeps of Life
Hidden, and heavenly, from the Flesh remote,
To them they sound like necromantic tones;
Eye, ear, and taste, compose their All in All;
And though around, within, above them moves
And lives, an energising Power Supreme,
Whose vesture is that Visible they love,
They give no credence save to flesh, and form.
Yet, what is genius, but a mouth for God
To speak Himself to Nature, and to Man,
And from the visible and vain of sense
Attract us unto mysteries divine,
But viewless, by external semblance hid?
There, Faith's reality alone is found!
Since all expression which the Outward bears,
Is but a token of God's inner-truth
And purpose. Thus, beneath a veiling shroud
The Infinite an awful Presence robes,
His thought embodies, or reflects its power.
And highly-temper'd; for, the Truth is strange
To men who only by their bodies live,
And to the pageantries and powers of Sense
External yield their sympathies alone;
Or, never down Themselves presume to gaze
With eye reflective: so, when prophets rise,
And utter oracles from deeps of Life
Hidden, and heavenly, from the Flesh remote,
To them they sound like necromantic tones;
Eye, ear, and taste, compose their All in All;
And though around, within, above them moves
And lives, an energising Power Supreme,
Whose vesture is that Visible they love,
They give no credence save to flesh, and form.
Yet, what is genius, but a mouth for God
To speak Himself to Nature, and to Man,
And from the visible and vain of sense
Attract us unto mysteries divine,
But viewless, by external semblance hid?
There, Faith's reality alone is found!
Since all expression which the Outward bears,
Is but a token of God's inner-truth
And purpose. Thus, beneath a veiling shroud
The Infinite an awful Presence robes,
His thought embodies, or reflects its power.
| The Poetical Works of Robert Montgomery | |