The Anarchiad A New England Poem |
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| 11. | AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES.—No. XI.
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 | The Anarchiad |  |
AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES.—No. XI.
EXTRACT FROM THE ANARCHIAD, BOOK XVII.
THE LAND OF ANNIHILATION.
The critics are agreed that the intervention of gods, demons, and other supernatural agents, is absolutely necessary in epic poetry. The works of Homer, Virgil, and Milton, are indebted to this machinery for their brightest ornaments. But the Pagan system has been long explored; imitation has become trite and servile, and truth and reality, on such a subject, afford little assistance to poetic invention. Hence many eminent writers have recommended to the moderns to introduce some new kind of machinery, or to embellish their heroic poems by the agency of superior beings; borrowing from the mythology of India, or the wilder visions of the Goths.
The ideas of rude nations and enlightened ages concerning the future state and the inhabitants of another world, however erroneous in truth and theory, are replete with sublimity and horror. The hell of the Gothic bards is peopled with aerial beings, conceived by the boldest efforts of a terrified imagination; nor is there less sublimity in the extravagant inventions of the Shastah. Pictures of this kind, drawn by the
The society of critics and antiquarians have successfully deciphered the Seventeenth Book of The Anarchiad, in which the poet makes a descent into the infernal regions. It is curious to observe how closely he has been followed (as, indeed, might naturally be expected) by Homer, Virgil, and their successors in modern ages. The philosophical cause which has led all poets into those regions, we shall not attempt to investigate. The following extract is more excellent in its plan, and has suffered less from the hands of imitators. The Land of Annihilation, described in so picturesque a manner, is a valuable addition to the subterranean geography; but the theory of a race of beings, properly the denizens of that country, who, after having mixed, undistinguished, with mankind, and performed all human functions, then returned to their primitive nihility, might pass for a burlesque, if it were not found in so serious a performance.
And floods sulphureous whelm the vales of hell;
Where Naiad furies, yelling as they lave,
In fiery eddies roll the turbid wave:
The dubious bounds of nature, space, and time;
A realm extends its unessential gloom,
The vast creation's universal tomb!
There no fair suns emblaze the courts on high,
Nor moon, nor starry fires, the evening sky;
No matin clouds in ether hang their sails,
Nor moving spirit wakes the vernal gales;
But endless twilight, with a feeble ray,
Browns the dim horrors of the dusky day;
And silence, sameness, and eternal shade,
Th'unbounded wild inanity pervade.
The peerless power, Annihilation, reigns!
Eldest of fiends! whose uncreating breath
Peoples the shores of darkness and of death;
Down the deep gulf's absorbing vortex whirl'd,
Sink the vain splendors of each upper world;
Ambition's toils, the statesman's gloried name,
The hero's triumph, and the poet's fame;
Insatiate throngs, who, fired with the lust of gain,
Rive the firm earth, and force the faithless main;
Here, lulled to rest, eternal stillness keep,
And curtain'd close in dead oblivion, sleep.
His stern commands ten thousand demons wait;
To tread out empires, and to quench the stars;
Extinguish'd worlds in delug'd fires to lave—
Sweep ruin'd systems to a common grave;
Exterminate existence, and restore
The vanquish'd vacuum to the tyrant's power.
The vassal throng to desolating deeds;
But far beneath them spreads a junior fry—
The pigmy populace of the nether sky;
With feeble powers, for petty toils design'd,
Their humble province is to plague mankind,
Pervade the world, excite all mortal strife,
Inspire the wrongs, and blast the joys, of life.
Incarnate imps, and veiled in human guise;
Like man appear in stature, shape, and face—
Mix, undistinguished, with the common race;
Fill every rank, in each profession blend,
Power all their aim, and ruin all their end.
With deadly art pursues the healing trade—
The lancet wield, prescribe the poisonous pill,
Invent the nostrum, and, unlicensed, kill;
O'erload the stygian bark with frequent freight,
And crowd with angry ghosts the realm of fate.
Some vent their dogmas in the house of prayer;
With pious cant, or persecution's flame,
To vilest ends abuse each sacred name;
On rites and forms, with zeal eternal dwell,
Ope heaven for self, and doom the rest to hell:
To banish blest religion, all agree,
A work, O, Murray! fate reserves for thee!
The demon lurks beneath the lawyer's gown;
Confounds all right, and, arrogant in lies,
Spreads a dark mist before the judge's eyes;
Less dangerous thief, who, limited by fate,
Leave soul and body free, and ruin but th'estate.
Who seek on earth the politician's name;
Auspicious race! whom folly joys to bless,
And wealth and honor crown with glad success;
Formed, like balloons, by emptiness to rise
On pop'lar gales, to waft them through the skies,
In wond'ring air the fog-born meteors stand,
And shine the Wimbles of th'applauding land.
And, lo! th'expected scene advances near—
The promised age, the fiends' millennial year!
At that famed era, raised by angry fates,
See, from the shades, on tiny pinions swell
And rise, the young Democracy of hell!
Before their face the powers of Congress fade,
And public credit sinks, an empty shade;
Wild severance rages, wars intestine spread,
Their boasted Union hides her dying head;
The forms of government in ruin hurled,
Reluctant empire quits the western world.
Expert to act, eccentric to devise!
In retrogressive march, what schemes advance!
What vast resources, and what strange finance!
Chimeras sage, with plans commercial fraught,
Sublime abortions of projecting thought!
To paper coin, how copper mints succeed—
How Indian wars in brains prolific breed!
What strength, what firmness, guide the public helm!
How troops disbanded guard the threaten'd realm!
How treaties thrive! and, 'mid the sons of Ham,
The Lybian Lion shrinks before the Lamb!
New modes of taxing spring from Woglog's hands,
And peerless Wimble sells the western lands!
Their task performed; again, by sovereign doom,
The fiend compels them to their native home.
And seeks th'expansion of th'oblivious pool—
From all the clime th'innumerable crowd
Float, half-embosom'd in the genial flood;
Down the dark deep, in friendly union, flows
Tweedle's soft verse, and Copper's sounding prose;
Light Commutation, dancing on the wave
With federal Impost, finds the eternal grave;
Like bubble bright, the nation's glory rides,
And Acts of Congress load the downward tides;
By Collins steered, Rhode Island joins the train,
With all things else as transient, vile, and vain.
The coming heroes of the illustrious race;
When Wrongheads' steps shall seek their natal shore,
And Night her Blacklegs to his fire restore.
Thither, again, they tend; and there, at last,
Their projects, changes, and elections past,
Wimble shall turn to froth, to Bubo Zack;
Ben change to Copper; Woglog end in Quack:
From shade to shade, from nought to nought, decoyed,
All center whence they sprang—in one eternal void.
| The Anarchiad | |