The Poetical Works of Robert Montgomery Collected and Revised by the Author |
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SPIRITUAL LONELINESS. |
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 | The Poetical Works of Robert Montgomery |  |
SPIRITUAL LONELINESS.
And not unlike, in moods of thought intense
To this, was that experience, which the soul
Of Luther gather'd, while for ten lone months
By friendly capture in his Patmos hid.
Here did he muse; and watch, or weep, or pray,
Enter himself, and down the mind's abyss
Take many a deep and undescribèd gaze;
Till forms of terror, phantoms of despair,
And dread emotions, meaningless, or vast,
Throng'd into power, and haunted him like hell!
To this, was that experience, which the soul
Of Luther gather'd, while for ten lone months
By friendly capture in his Patmos hid.
Here did he muse; and watch, or weep, or pray,
Enter himself, and down the mind's abyss
Take many a deep and undescribèd gaze;
Till forms of terror, phantoms of despair,
And dread emotions, meaningless, or vast,
Throng'd into power, and haunted him like hell!
Meet was the spot for high-wrought feeling's hour.
Within were chambers, long, and large, and roof'd
With fretted stone-work, dimly worn by years,
Where the glad sunbeam caught a pensive tinge
Paler than twilight; and the tread of feet
Fell like a sound, which ought not there to be:
While from their ancient walls the stern-brow'd Dead
Look'd on the living, as with sad rebuke,
Or solemn warning. From a window-niche
The eye might witness hills of forest-wood
In green confusion, stretching far away
Into wild distance; while to Fancy's ear
The pleasing anthem of perpetual birds
Made the huge Forest with their concert thrill.
And here, in myst'ry and in mournfulness,
Shrined in the solitude of his own soul
How much of Deity might Luther learn!
Ascending oft the mountain-peaks of mind,
The Alps of thought, far up the Godhead ranged,
To talk with his Eternity to come.
Within were chambers, long, and large, and roof'd
224
Where the glad sunbeam caught a pensive tinge
Paler than twilight; and the tread of feet
Fell like a sound, which ought not there to be:
While from their ancient walls the stern-brow'd Dead
Look'd on the living, as with sad rebuke,
Or solemn warning. From a window-niche
The eye might witness hills of forest-wood
In green confusion, stretching far away
Into wild distance; while to Fancy's ear
The pleasing anthem of perpetual birds
Made the huge Forest with their concert thrill.
And here, in myst'ry and in mournfulness,
Shrined in the solitude of his own soul
How much of Deity might Luther learn!
Ascending oft the mountain-peaks of mind,
The Alps of thought, far up the Godhead ranged,
To talk with his Eternity to come.
How like a poem must his life have read,
Where fiction's self by fact had been surpass'd,
When now, by retrospection's quiet gaze
Unroll'd and re-perused! To boyhood's prime
And young experience, when the miner's cot
Roof'd his sad hours of struggle and of sin,
Down the strange past, through all his soul endured,
Dark conscience felt, or prescient fancy dream'd,
Remembrance flew; and now, in castled pomp
Behold him exiled! far from Rome's dread eye
Which glared with hunger for his mangled form.
And well might he, when thus the past renew'd,
The present acted, and the future brought
Prophetic influence into vivid play,
Seem by intensity transform'd, and fired,
Till Unrealities around him throng'd,
And Phantoms, which derision loves to mock,
Fever'd his life with supernat'ral force
Till Matter's self a form of Mind assumed,
And feeling suffer'd all which fancy shaped.
Where fiction's self by fact had been surpass'd,
When now, by retrospection's quiet gaze
Unroll'd and re-perused! To boyhood's prime
And young experience, when the miner's cot
Roof'd his sad hours of struggle and of sin,
Down the strange past, through all his soul endured,
Dark conscience felt, or prescient fancy dream'd,
Remembrance flew; and now, in castled pomp
Behold him exiled! far from Rome's dread eye
Which glared with hunger for his mangled form.
And well might he, when thus the past renew'd,
The present acted, and the future brought
Prophetic influence into vivid play,
Seem by intensity transform'd, and fired,
Till Unrealities around him throng'd,
And Phantoms, which derision loves to mock,
Fever'd his life with supernat'ral force
Till Matter's self a form of Mind assumed,
And feeling suffer'd all which fancy shaped.
| The Poetical Works of Robert Montgomery | |