University of Virginia Library

But, hail, thou city-Giant of the world!
Thou that dost scorn a canopy of clouds,
But in the dimness of eternal smoke
For ever rising like an ocean-steam
Dost mantle thine immensity; how vast
And wide thy wonderful array of towers
In dusky masses pointing to the skies!
Time was, and dreary solitude was here;
And night-black woods, unvisited by man,
In howling conflict wrestled with the winds,
But now, the tempest of perpetual life
Is heard, and like a roaring furnace fills
With living sound the airy reach of miles.
Thou more than Rome! for never from her heart
Of empire such disturbing passion roll'd,
As emanates from thine. The mighty globe
Is fever'd by thy name; a thousand years
And Silence hath not known thee! What a weight
Of awfulness will Doomsday from thy scene
Derive, and when the blasting Trumpet smites
All Cities to destruction, who will sink
Sublime, with such a thunder-crash as thou?

Myriads of spires, and temples huge or high,
And thickly wedded, like the ancient trees
Which darken forests with primeval gloom;
Myriads of streets, whose windings ever flow
With viewless billows from a sea of life;
Myriads of hearts in full commotion blent,
From morn to noon from noon to night again
Through the wide realm of whirling passion borne,—
And there is London! England's heart and soul:
By the proud flowing of her famous Thames
She circulates through countless lands and isles
Her tides of commerce; gloriously she rules,
At once the awe and sceptre of the world!

Angels and Demons! to your watching eyes
The rounded earth nought so tremendous shows
As this vast City, in whose roar I stand,
Unseen, yet seeing all. The solemn hush
Of everlasting hills; the solitudes
Untrod; the deep gaze of thy dazzling Orbs
Which decorate the purple noon of night
Oh, Nature! no such majesty supply.
Creation's queen, in sceptred grandeur, Thou
Upon the throne of Elements dost reign;
But in the beating of one single heart
There is that more than rivals thee! and here
The swellings of unnumber'd hearts abound;
And not a day but, ere it die, contains
A hist'ry, which unroll'd, will awe the Heavens
To wonder, and the listening Earth with fear!

In Capitals of such gigantic sweep,
And hence, involving for momentous sway
Materials, which by word or deed create
An impulse throbbing through th' excited world,
Spirits of Darkness! how hath vice prevail'd;
Though scornfully, as now your victims mock
The name of Satan with triumphant sneer.
Obliging creatures! did their race abhorr'd,
What blighting sense we have of Virtue's power
And all those living elements of love
And glory, which around them move and dwell
Imagine,—they would learn to guard them more.
But, no! so blindly fool'd and charm'd they seem
With the proud beauty of their own pure souls,
That when most fetter'd, they appear most free:—
How Devils laugh to see such wisdom bound!

Through what a range thy blended passions reach,
Thou second Babylon! The Book of Life
With records that have made the angels weep,
Each moment of thy fated hist'ry fills.
For, whatsoe'er a spirit can reveal
Of fallen nature, in its varied realm
Of Sin, thy demonstrations body forth.
Here, Fraud and Murder on their thrones erect
Infernal standards, and around them swarm
Such progenies as Vileness, Want, and Woe
Beget, to live, like cannibals, on blood;
Or, move as crawling vipers in the paths
Of infamy, foul lewdness, or despair.
Here, Misery her wildest form betrays,
And sheds her hottest tear. See! as they rush
Thy million sons, along yon clam'rous streets,
Upon them how she turns her haggard gaze,
Lifts her shrunk hand, and with heart-piercing wail
A boon in God's name asks:—but let Her die,
And be her death-couch those remorseless stones!
For when the hungry winter blast shall pause
To soothe the wailing of some lonely tree,
Thy crowds will stop, and pity her despair!
Here Pride, in her most vulgar glory struts;
And Envy all her vip'rous offspring breeds.
But Mammon! thou persuasive friend of Hell,
Sure London is thy ever-royal seat,
Thy chosen capital, thy matchless home!
Where rank idolaters, of every lot
And land, do bow them to the basest dust
Which Falsehood, Flattery, or Cunning treads
From dawn to eve; and serve thee with as true
A love as lauding Angels serve their God!
See! how the hard and greedy worldlings crowd,
With toiling motion, through the foot-worn ways;
The sour and sullen, wretched, rack'd and pale,—
The whole vile circle of uneasy slaves.
Mark one, with features of ferocious hue;
Another, carved by villany's own hand,
A visage wears, and through the trait'rous blood
The spirit works like venom from the soul.

What rush and roar unceasing! and how strange
A mass of objects, as I move along
Invisible, amid these floods of Life
I see;—a chaos of uncounted hearts
Beating and bounding, charged with great design,
And making Fate at every pulse to feel,
Before me acts its mighty tragedy!
Amid them rise those consecrated Shrines
Where ruins eloquent with history are;
Where Truth is worshipp'd, and the belfry-towers
Are frequent mutt'ring how the Hours depart,
With unregarded wisdom; or, with moan
Funereal, wailing for some vanish'd Soul.

But hail, thou monument to hell!—yon pile
Whose massiness a mournful shadow frowns,
Where felon captives, for their crimes, await
The vengeance due to violated Law.
A day restored, and in thy dungeon wept
A victim, whom a darker prison holds
Than ever prescient horror shaped! Had Youth
Beheld him, more than fun'ral sermons teach,
His glance of agony had taught! How oft
When gaily passing, ominously came
A chill of terror from those prison-walls!
And when he enter'd their sepulchral gloom
Like memory that chill return'd.—To die
A malefactor's death; to be the gaze,
The direful, hideous, and detested gaze
Of thousands, glutting their unsated eyes
With morbid wonder, while on tiptoe placed
To see the Spirit gasping from his throat,
And chronicle his agony;—to live
A ballad-hero, in the creaking rhymes
Of vagabonds, and have his felon-name
From lip to lip thus vilely bandied out
For vulgar warning,—oh, ye sinless days
Of childhood! oh, ye hours of love and home,
And summer-dreams by haunted wood or wild,
And blessings nightly murmur'd from the lip
Of parents,—Glory of remember'd days!
Is this your ending, and his ghastly fate
For whom old Age did prophesy renown
And Fondness built her palaces?—A sire,
Who dream'd the heroic grandeur of his race
In him revived, and in the youthful ear
Did oft unrol his ancestry high-born,
To thrill the blood and keep the spirit brave;
A mother made of tenderness, who watch'd
His cradle-slumber, and when manhood came
Still breathed her spirit round his onward way;
Oh! these would shudder in their sacred tombs,
And on his name the kindless world expend
The infamy which to a gallows clings,
If Law should wreak her vengeance. But, one drop
Of poison, and this ignominious doom
Was saved!—a tremor of despair, a tide
Of anguish, burning through his blood and brain,
With the fierce whirling of imagined fires,—
And shrunk and ghastly lay the Suicide!

Huge, high, and solemn, sanctified by time,
And gazing sky-ward in the tow'ry gloom
Of temple-majesty, another Pile
Behold! in mid-air ponderously rear'd.
How dread a power pervadeth Things, this mass
Of ancient glory tells. Whereon it stands
The vacant winds did trifle; and the laugh
Of sunshine sported in bright freedom there:
It rose, and lo! there is a spirit-awe
Around it dwelling; with suspended heart
'Tis enter'd; where a cold sepulchral hush,
The holiness of its immensity,
The heaven-like vastness of those vaulted aisles,
Banners and trophies and heraldic signs,
And tombs of monumental melancholy,—
All with commingling spell the minds o'ercloud
Of Mortals, as they walk the haunted gloom
Of arch and nave, immersed in dreams of death.

Methinks Ambition might grow humble here:
Though, blazon'd high, the mausoleums rise,
And from stain'd windows rosy light-shades fall
On armory, and crests of costly hue,
Funereal pride, and sculptured canopies
Which grace the dust of hero, sage, or king,—
The sense that rankling clay beneath such pomp
Alone remains, humiliates and chills
The passion for proud greatness. But Her eye
More frequent to yon lonely Transept turns,
Where the dead heroes of the heart repose,
And on it gazeth with a deeper awe
Than ever high-raised tomb of Monarchs won:—
No matter! bard or king, the Curse decrees
For all, re-union with their fellow-clay.

Echoes on echoes roll'd and reproduced!—
As though invisibly with rushing flame
O'erwhelm'd, the music-haunted Temple sounds:
Hark! peal on peal, and burst on burst, sublime
The prelude comes, ascendeth loud and deep,
And then in waves of melody departs:
But ere it died, a thousand faces shone
With ecstasy; as sunshine, in a sweep
Of gladness over hill and meadow shot,
Can summon tints of glory from the scene,—
So drew the music, in its sweeping flow
O'er mortal features, flashes from the soul,
Bright hues and meanings, passionate as true.

The heaven of Music! how it wafts and winds
Itself through all the poetry of sound!
Now, throbbing like a happy Thing of air,
Then, dying a voluptuous death, as lost
In its own lux'ry; now alive again
In sweetness, wafted like a vocal cloud
Mellifluously breaking—seems the strain.
And what a play of magic on each face
Of feeling! when the cadence dismal sounds,
All eyes look darken'd with memorial-dreams;
But when the Organ's deep-toned rapture swells
With harmonies which stir heroic mind,
Bright raptures revel in each glowing face!
Till slow at length, the dying Anthem breathes
A musing tone of melancholy power
And pathos, causing buried years to breathe,
While mem'ry saddens; and in thoughtful eyes
The dewy brightness of emotion dawns.

All music is the Mystery of sound,
Whose soul lies sleeping in the air, till roused,
And lo! it pulses into melody:
Deep, low, or wild, obedient to the throb
Of instrumental magic; on its wings
Are visions too, of tenderness and love,
Beatitude and joy. Thus, over waves
Of beauty, landscapes in their loveliest glow,
And the warm languish of their summer-streams,
A list'ning soul is borne; while Home renews
Its paradise, beneath the moon-light veil
That mantles o'er the past, till unshed tears
Gleam in the eye of memory. But when
Some harmony of preternatural swell
Begins, then, soaring on enchanted plumes,
A soul seems wafted through Eternity!

Such sorcery in music dwells;—if they,
Now doom'd awhile to walk this heaven-roof'd world,
Might hear the melodies which I have heard,
When heaven, complexion'd by almightiness
In glory, sounded with the choral hymn
Of Princedoms high, and Dominations grand,
Of thousand Saints, of thousand Cherubim,
And angel-numbers, who out-million far
Bright worlds, which in the blue and waveless deep
Of night, innumerable hang,—if men
Might hear it, 'twould absorb their souls away!
Yet such I heard; oh! what a sea of sound
Went billowing with ecstatical delight
Through fathomless immensity, when hosts
Divine, their Holy, Holy, Holy, sung,
While loud Hosannahs to the living God
Commingled, making heaven more heavenly glow!

Another triumph of exhaustless mind,
Which Love and Wisdom, Beauty and fair Truth,
Tempt as I may, enchantingly produce.—
Visions of holiness, and lofty dreams
Of lofty Spirits, glorify the walls
Of this vast room; revealings of the soul
Intense, and passions of pictorial spell.
Painters are silent poets; in their hues
A language glows, whose words are magic tints
Of meaning, which both eye and soul perceive.
How wonderful is deathless Art! for Time
Obeys her summons, and the Seasons wait
Her godlike call; while glory, love, and grace,
And the deep harmonies of human thought
Move at the waving of Her mighty wand!

Then let me look on this ethereal show
Wherein the painter hath a mind transfused,
Turning his thoughts to colours. What a thirst
For beauty in his longing soul must burn
Who vision'd this,—a landscape gods might tread!
The sky hangs glorious; and the yellow smiles
Of summer, on a brightly-wrinkled stream
Are flashing with a restless joy, 'mid trees
Unpruned, and bowing graceful as the wind
In melody its fairy wing expands
Among them: over rocks of cloudy shape
The green enchantment of declining boughs
Is flushing, whence a vein of water flows,
And frolics on in many a shining trail
Of stream-like revelry; till margin-flowers
Beside it bloom, and shadow the young waves.
But there, a beautiful Perfection smiles!
An Eve-like form beside a dimpled lake
Is standing;—in her eye, a heaven of soul,
And o'er her figure an expressive bloom
Of youth, and symmetry, divinely graced.
The moon-like glowing of her loveliness,
Those limbs of light, and that seraphic air,—
Whence sprung it all, but from ideal thirst
For Beauty, purer than mere Sense beholds?

Here is a sunset, in that golden calm
Appearing, when the lustrous King of day
Awhile in bright complacence views the world
Which he hath glorified,—as Wisdom look'd
On infant Nature, when she lay complete
Beneath the full reflection of His smile.
And near, a night is pictured in its dead
Of noon: the canopy of azure pomp
Hung starless,—but the queen of heaven is there
In placid glory, and her slumb'rous veil
Hath shadow'd earth, and on blue ocean lies
In rolls of silver:—by the sallow beach
Two maidens in their girlhood stand, and seem
Enrapt, to watch how delicately bright
The moon's pale fancies tint yon fleeting waves;
Or, listen to the faint sweet undersong
Of dream-like waters, dying on the shore.

But, what is this!—the Deluge which devour'd
A living World! a sunless, moonless waste,
The globe into a chaos of wild sea
Dissolved! Her hour of agony is o'er;
But yet, the fierceness of unnat'ral clouds,
Like dying monsters welt'ring on the deep,
Frowns awful in the gloom.—How dead and mute
Th' enormous ruin! Not a look of life
Dwells there,—the carcase of a guilty World!
Woods, trees and flowers, with all which landscapes wear
In spring-time's young magnificence of bloom
And promise, with the god-like shapes of men,
Have perish'd. By the rocky darkness, crags
And mountain-skeletons by billows wash'd,
The oozy branches, where lank serpents coil,
And in the deadness of two pallid forms
Hurl'd from the deep, and dash'd upon the shore
In solitude, a mortal may be awed,
And dream, until he hear the Deluge roar!

But let it pass: for lo! the dark sublime,
The midnight and immensity of Art
I see; as though his eye had seen the hour
When down in thunder through the yawning skies
A whirlwind of rebellious Angels came,—
The painter hath infernal pomp reveal'd.
A second Milton, whose creative soul
Doth shadow visions to such awful life,
That men behold them with suspended breath,
And grow ethereal at a gaze!—how high
And earthless hath his daring spirit soar'd,
To paint the hell which kindled up the skies,
And wield the lightnings that his Maker hurl'd!

These arts are revelations which unfold
How Mind, disdainful of material bounds,
In spiritual romance delights to dream;
Through heavens of her creation to expand
Her wings, and wanton in celestial light;
As soars the lark from her low nest of dew
To sing and revel in the boundless air.
The fallen Myriads in whose blighted gaze
A beam of ruin'd glory shines, may look
With something of ambitious sympathy
On this proud struggle of the soul with sense,—
This warfare of the Visible with Things
Of viewless Essence, yet prevailing power.
A haughty captive fetter'd in his clay,
Man's Nature, peering through her prison-house,
Doth catch a shadow, and a dim advance
Of Something purer, brighter, yet to be.
And what is genius?—but the glowing mind
Half disembodied, flutt'ring in a realm
Of magic, dreaming, dazzled, and inspired?

How dark a contrast hath a moment made
In this world's promise!—here, the shame of Art
Confronts me; and, might Pity deaden Hate,
My love for ruin should be lessen'd now.—
In a lone chamber, on a tatter'd couch
A dying Painter lies. His brow seems young
And noble; lines of beauty on his face
Yet linger; in his eye of passion gleams
A soul, and on his cheek a spirit-light
Is playing, with that proud sublimity
Of thought, which yields to death, but gives to time
A Fame that will avenge his wrongs, and write
Their hist'ry in her canonizèd roll
Of martyrs: be it for his epitaph,
He lived for genius, and for genius died!
So sad and lone! wall'd in by misery,
With none to smooth his couch, or shed the tear
Which softens pain, uncheer'd, unwept, unknown,
And famish'd by the want of many days,—
Hither, Ambition! wisdom breathes in woe.

There are, to whom Earth's elemental Frame
Of wonders seemeth but an outward show
To look upon, and form the life of things:
But some in more ethereal mould are cast,
Who from the imagery of nature cull
Fair meanings, and magnificent delights,
Extracting glory from whate'er they view;
Calling the common air a blessing, light
A joy, and hues and harmonies of earth
Enchanting ministers to sense and soul.
And such was he. An orphan of the woods,
With Nature in her ancientness of gloom
And cavern, dark-peak'd hill, and craggy wild
Whose boughs waved midnight in the eye of Day,—
He dwelt; until he hung the wizard sky
With fancies, and with nature one became
By deep communion with her scenes and sounds.
With all her moods, majestic, calm, or wild,
He sympathised. In glory did he hear
Ecstatic thunders antheming the storm!
And when the winds fled by him, he would take
Their dauntless wings, and travel in their roar!
He worshipp'd the great Sea;—when rocking wild,
Making the waters blossom into foam
With her loud wrath; or savagely reposed
Like a dark monster dreaming in his lair.

No wonder, then, by Nature thus sublimed,
With all her forms and features at his soul,
The brain should teem with visions, and his hand
A glorious mimicry of earth and heaven
Perform! till lakes and clouds, and famish'd woods
In wintry loneness, crags and eagle-haunts,
And torrents in their mountain-rapture seen,
All dread, all high, all melancholy Things,—
Full on his canvas started into life
And look'd creation! To the Capital
A parentless and unacquainted youth
He came, while many a prophecy still hung
About his heart, and made his bosom heave
With young expectancy. Romantic fool!
To fancy genius and success were twins
In such a sphere: how soon the dream was o'er!
Here Envy dogg'd him; Avarice trampled down
His worth, and in the gloom of aidless want
His spirit bow'd,—but never was enslaved.
There was that haughtiness of calm despair,
That forward looking to avenging years
Which plucks the thorn from present woe, and charms
Adversity from out her darkest mood,
To cheer him on, and buoy the spirit o'er
The indirection of opinion's tide.
He felt, as all the mighty ever feel,
True Greatness must o'erlook the living hour
And charge the Future with its fame alone!
Thus cherish'd he self-rev'rence; and the heart
Was faithful: from the hand or voice of men
No comfort came; but Nature was his own
As ever! When the jarring city-roar
Woke round him, he could hush it in the calm
Of memory, and natural solitude
Of pensive scenes: the dying thunder-tones
O'er his dark chamber mutter'd, bade him dream
Of deeper grandeur which pervaded night
Afar; and when a pilgrim sunset-ray
Came to his window, like a smile from Home,
He scorn'd the present, and would think, how once
He loved to watch the bright farewell of Day
Reflected o'er the roll of ocean-waves,
Like sea-clouds rising in a gorgeous swell:—
Thus lived the victim of an Art adored,
And perish'd in his passion!—On his name
A veil is hung, and his achievements lie
Forgotten; but a fame awaits them still!
Eternity will take a hue from time,
And life a shade of the immortal doom
Hereafter is. But even this false world
Shall round his honour'd tomb a death-wreath hang,
And on the eyelids of an Age unborn
Shall tears be trembling when his woes are read.—
Thus Merit starves, while pamper'd Folly struts
In mean presumption, with a golden lot
Endow'd, and smiled upon by vassal-eyes
Which hunt for favour. But the lofty Hearts,
Th' unbending pure, within whose natures lodge
All feelings that ennoble man and mind,
Are they by kingly fortune crown'd? Does Worth
Or Wisdom glorious exaltation win?
Look round the world, and answer! 'Tis the base,
The sly, insinuating, serpent-souls
Who wind about the meanest of mankind;
'Tis they, with lying blandness on the lip,
Whose tuneful flattery, that cloyless sweet!
Allays the gusty tempers of the proud
To fond subjection, and the vain enchant
To patrons blind, yet most benevolent,
Yes! these are they who glitter with the crown
Of fortune, sit upon the World's high thrones;
And on the toiling majesty of Worth
Beneath, look down, and laugh at virtuous Woe.

But there are other miracles of mind
In this Queen-city; whatsoe'er the Hand
Can shape, or pregnant Thought conceive; whate'er
Applying Art can from the soul translate
To sense or vision, for the World's free gaze,
Is here produced. Thus, London is a sun
Of inspiration to the parent-isle;
Within the circle of a minute act
Uncounted minds, of multiplying power
To times and generations.—But a trace
Of Me, humanity! thou dost not lose,
However lofty thy victorious march;
For in this region of the learn'd and wise,
The pettiness and pride of nature dwell.
Then what is Genius, with a heart unsound?
One noble action doth outweigh it all
With more than priceless value. Meek and pure,
Who lives in humble earnestness, partakes
His lot with cheerful eye, and loving heart,
And sees a Brotherhood in all mankind;
Whose Teachers are the Elements, whose lore,
A Bible on the soul impress'd,—that man,
Howe'er undignified his earthly doom
Appear, is far more glorious in the eye
Of Angels, than the spirit-ruling host
Of learning, who have never learnt the way
To virtue, and the heart's true nobleness.—
But this I would not that the earth believed;
Corruption is the rankling seed I sow,
And aye abundant may the harvest bloom!

That mighty lever which has moved the world,
The Press of England, from its dreadless source
Of living action, here begins to shake
The far-off Isles, and awe the utmost Globe!
The magic of its might no tongue can tell!
Dark, deep, and silent oft, but ever felt;
Mix'd with the mind, and feeding with a food
Of thought, the moral being of a Soul.
A trackless Agent, a terrific Power,
It could have half annihilated Hell
And her great Denizens, by glorious sway:
But oft, so false, so abject, and so foul
It grows,—no blasting pestilence e'er shed
Such ruin, as a tainted Press contrives
For thought and feeling, when its poison works:
This wrecks the body,—that can havoc souls;
And who shall heal them? Let thy Temples rise,
Britannia! they are but satiric piles
Of sanctity, while poison from thy Press
Is pour'd, and on its lying magic live
Thy thousand vulgar, who heart-famish'd seem,
When Slander feeds not with a foul excess
Their appetite for infamy. The sun
Not surer where his deadly rage extends
The fierceness of a burning nature proves,
Than pages of pollution, sent from hour
To hour, across an Empire's heart, awake
A tinge of sentiment and hue of thought
In many, till they act the crimes they read.

E'en now mine eye a dismal wretch beholds
By fate or fortune for a villain doom'd;
In whom is center'd all which can profane
The name of Man! ignoble as the dust,
And rocky-hearted as a wretch can be:
And him with what delight a Devil views
Heap lie on lie with such remorseless speed,
And so envenom with his viper-touch
The good and glorious, that all Virtue seems
To wither, and all Wisdom to be dead
Awhile, beneath the blackness of his taint!
Yea! such a Monster do I see destroy
The healthful nature of the noblest mind:
And yet live on his execrable life,
And like a plague-spot spread his soul abroad
Till millions turn as tainted as his own!

How false, and yet how fair, are scenes of man!
Between what is, and that which seems to be,
How dark a gap of untold diff'rence frowns!
There is a hollowness in human things
Of pride or pleasure born, which none confess
Yet all must ever feel. The moments tuned
To highest happiness, have strings which jar
Upon some inward sense; the sweetest cup
Enchanted Ecstasy can drink, will leave
A humbling dreg of bitterness behind.
But this sad vict'ry of unrestful thought,
This cloud-tint on the brightest firmament
Of Joy, this deep abyss of discontent
Beyond a universe to fill!—though felt
Is rarely own'd; for Pride steps in, and puts
A smile upon the cheek, and in the eye
Delusion; making Love, or Wealth, or Fame
The seeming aspect of Perfection wear;
And thus, deceiving each, and each deceived,
Men gild the hour, and call it happiness!

A proof is here: a chamber long and large,
Of regal air, and with o'erbranching lights,
From the high ceiling pouring down a noon
Of lustre, which doth goldenly bedeck
The costliness around. Amid it, group'd
For converse, meet a host of either sex;
And who are they?—the race Ambition bred,
And madden'd, till they won the envied wreath.
Oh! what a demon-fire, what parching heat
Through blood and spirit, is the lust of Fame!
No tiger-passion tearing at the soul,
So dreadful as the ever-gnawing wish
For reputation! How it burns the heart
Away, and blisters up the health of life!
Yet, such have many in this blended host
Endured; but now, as high and dominant
As Potentates and intellectual Lords
They reign upon their thrones of Mind, and live
The worshipp'd of the Land. But are they blest
With that deep fulness of supreme delight
Which young Imagination's eye portray'd?
Oh, Thou! bewilder'd with the mock of fame,
Come here, and prove what rottenness of heart,
What fev'rous envy, what corrosive sense
Of emulation, in these glorious dwell,
What under-currents in this scene of joy!
Smiles in the surface, but a coward-tide
Of jealousy beneath. Hark to the gibe
O Hate! the tart dissent, the damning sneer;
To such a littleness the mighty fall!
Behold it, Ignorance! thy blush recall,
And take a happier name. But what a feast
Of vengeance doth my gloomy nature find
In this false scene, where they whom Wisdom crowns,
And Praise exalts, whose spirits are abroad
In this great world, and so angelic seem,
Beneath the shadow of Almighty wings
The simple think they mused sublime!—betray
The more than weakness of unworthy man,
When nature's venom quickens at the heart,
Or stern reality some feeling tries.

And thou! just gilded with a public smile,
Thy mind is dancing on a sea of thoughts
Which revel onward with delirious joy:
For now, the hackney'd wonder of the Night
Thou art, and by the music of fair tongues
Enchanted; flatt'rers feed thine ears with praise,
And clog it into deafness. Hear'st thou not
How Envy whispers off thy bloom of fame,
Till Meanness in false robe arrayeth thee!
Thou fool of flatt'ry! this the glorious doom
Ambition sought! Is Greatness only great,
When flatter'd, known, and seen? Canst thou so bend,
And be thus derogate? Wilt thou, whose eye
The stars can read, with heaven and earth commune,
Who feel'st the fibres of Creation's heart
In trembling harmony with thine, descend
To lose thy loftiness in this dull scene?
Back to thy haunts! the Ocean and the Winds
Attend thee; Nature is thy temple; kneel,
And worship in her mighty solitude.
Look up! and learn a lesson of the Sun,
That bright Enchanter of the moving heavens!
Lonely and lofty in his orb sublime,
But acting ever;—such is noble fame.

Some gracious, grand, and most accomplish'd few,
Each with a little kingdom in his brain,
Who club together to recast the world
And love so many that they care for none,—
These have I witness'd, laughing at their realms,
Of airy texture, by ambition wove.
But here is madness, far outfooling this!
For lo! the den whence Oracles proceed
Like exhalations from the noisome earth
That, once inbreathed, are death! This wonderful
Perfection of the vile, surpasseth all
Temptation, in my darkest mood, employs!
Yes, here are Spirits, such as hell-thrones grace,
Convened to disinherit God of souls,
And on the blasphemous attempt of pride
Erect a dynasty of Sense supreme;
Each man a god unto himself, let loose
In all the blinding wantonness of will.
And this is “freedom,” dignified for Man!
When, having fed the agonies of life
By years of being, weary, worn, and sad,
To close existence in the clay he treads,
A soulless, dreamless, unimagined Nought?

Where sleep the thunders of convicting Wrath?
Devils believe, and tremble; men deny
And laugh! How enviably endow'd they are!
We bow'd and blasted by opposeless heaven,
Abhor the Godhead, but his name confess;
But things of earth, infatuated, vile,
Too darken'd to dissect a flower, or tell
The meaning of an atom which they tread,
Would dare annihilate the living God
Above, and mock the pangs of Hell below!
Oh! all, and more than Satan could desire,
Blind Teachers of the blind! could this world dare
To wallow in the darkness that ye breed,
To such, the heathen would be heavenly-wise;
For they, by revelation unillumed,
Soar'd out of sense, and in the Skies their gods
Enthroned, or heard them on the haunted Deep,
Or in the howling of the homeless Winds.
A cloud was on them; but a Spark within
Yet lived, and saved them from eclipse of soul.
For admiration must be felt, while Power
Existeth; on it man will gaze, and learn
The vast dependence for his lot ordain'd;
Dread Shadows of an omnipresent One
Move round him; in the march of Elements
His steps are traced, and Truth is ever by,
To tread them deep, and track them on to God.

And hence, these murd'rers of the soul are weak
In process; too infernal is the Creed
They fashion; far too poor in its exchange
For that divineness of redeeming Love
They combat; since with freedom they are free,—
As billows toss'd upon the giant main,
As feathers on the travell'd whirlwind borne
Are free!—No, rather some corruptive arts
Of saintly mixture; or the glozing tongue
Of hypocrites, with innovating clouds
Of doctrine—would I at their work behold,
Than the rash vileness of blaspheming fools.
A few they poison, but re-action wakes!
For one they ruin, thousands are sublimed
To holy vengeance, which to hell may prove,
Excess of evil is the source of good.

But lo! again the calm-eyed Evening comes:
The heavens are flaming with a rosy sea
Of splendour, richly-deep; and, floating on,
It reddens round the dying sun, who glares
With fierce redundancy awhile, then sinks
Away, like glory from Ambition's eye.
Behind him, many a dream of old Romance
Will cry, “What rocks, and hills, and waves of light!
Magnificent confusion! such as beam'd
When the rash boy-god charioted the skies
And made a burning chaos of the clouds!”
But this hath ended: and a breathless calm,
As though eternity were closing round
The World, to let it faint in light away,
Creeps o'er the earth, like slumber shed on air.

And well, lone pilgrim, at the shaded hour
Of twilight, when a golden stillness reigns,
Like lustre from a far-off angel-host
Reflected, and the unoffending breeze
Hath music which the day-wind seldom brings,
May sadness oversteal thee; and thy heart
Unspeakably with yearning fancies glow.
Of life, a living Vision; and the hour
Which ends it, like a cloudy dream of Air
That vanisheth to some allotted world;
Of faded youth, and unforgotten friends
Whose tombstones over life a shadow fling
No sunshine can efface; of all which makes
The lone Heart wander to a dream-like home
Of sadness, mortal! thou didst ponder now.

Such will not ever be: thy death-gloom pierced,
And awful on the unimprison'd soul
A sun-burst of revealing Truth will blaze!
Wherein these mysteries of sight and sense
Shall all unravell'd lie.—The tender night
With tragic darkness robed; the lone sweet star,
Oft worshipp'd for a beatific Orb
Where bright Immortals dwell; the moon's romance;
The sun's enchantment, when He wakes to smile
The day abroad, or preach departing life
By his deep setting; with the spirit-tone
Of winds, the Ocean's ever-mutt'ring waves,
And all which thus predominantly awes
Or saddens feeling, shall itself resolve
In spiritual completion. Then, thy tear
Ecstatic, radiant with adoring thought;
Each thrill of rapture, like a viewless chain
From heaven let down and link'd around the soul,—
Shall be translated by unbodied Mind.
Meanwhile, be mine to veil thee with a show
Of outward Things; and sensualise the will,
Whose promptings, more than conscience, men obey.

Now hath dead Midnight hush'd the world: it lies
Suffused with freshness, like a meadow steep'd
In verdant quiet, when the flood hath pass'd.
All deeply pure, impalpably divine
A Something o'er this hour prevails, which men
Call Awe, which doth not in their day-life reign;
For then, a flush'd existence, and a false
Enchantment gathers round the rising Hours
To hue their destiny. But Midnight cools
The spirit into thinking calm; then sounds
Come o'er it with a deeper thrill; and scenes
Which in the day a common gladness wore,
Grow solemn; then the airy leaf-notes mourn:
And boughs, like hearse-plumes, wave their shadowy pomp.
By day the present, but at night the past
Prevails; a moonlight-tenderness o'er things
Departed, flings a fond and dream-like gloom;
And then, Life takes a feeling from the soul,
And in earth's tints of paradise can trace
A beauty which unkinder hours deny;—
The harp is shatter'd, but the sounds remain!

Yet, 'tis not that the tenderness of tears
Awakes; that Childhood smiles upon the thought
As looks an Angel through the veil of dreams;
It is not that the heart-remember'd rise
From early tombs, to be once more beloved
And featured, till the deadness of the dead
In men'ry's vision-life is half forgot:
`Tis not such charm alone; nor that which frowns
From Temple, sky, or everlasting Hill
Which darkness hath enrobed. But that deep sense
Which he who pierces through the lonesome air
Far o'er the mute immeasurable sky
Where travel worlds, for adoration feels,
Making the midnight holy! Silent Orbs!
On me no mystic awfulness ye shed;
For when unblasted, I beheld ye rise
And glitter into being, bright and pure,
Like radiant echoes of Almighty will!
But mortals, dimly aided by their dreams,
Behold ye, nursing the unutter'd thought,
With pond'ring hope and apprehensive awe.
They wonder, if the unearth'd Spirit dwells
Among ye! where the seraph-mansions blaze,
And who amid them are the bright and blest!

And is there not a spirit-World? The blind
May question, and the mocking idiot laugh;
But in her, round her, wheresoe'er she move,
Mortality might reap immortal faith,
And feel what cannot in the flesh be known.
In the wild Mystery of earth and air,
Sun, moon, and star, and the unslumb'ring sea,
Science might learn far more than Sense adores,
And by thy panting for the unattain'd
On earth; by longings which no language speak;
By the dread torture of o'ermastering Doubt;
By thirst for Beauty, such as eye ne'er saw
And yet is ever mirror'd on the mind;
By Love, in her rich heavenliness array'd;
By Guilt and Conscience, that terrific Pair
Who make the Dead to mutter from their tombs
Or colour Nature with the hues of hell!
By all the fire and frenzy of a soul
Guilty with crime, or agonised by dread,
And by that voice where God the Speaker is,—
Thy doom, oh mortal! whatsoe'er thy wish
In the black deep of thine unfathom'd heart,
Is deathless, as the damnèd Angels are!

Now is mine hour, the hour of conflict, come,
When the dark Future over nature frowns
Like destiny; now spirit is itself
Again, and Thought, within her cell retired,
Doth hold dim converse with Eternal Things.
Many are musing now! and sighs are born,
In slow succession, like unwilling tears
Prophetic and profound. The worldling sees
In darkness, what the day could not reveal,—
Himself! and sorrows at the faithful view.
“Another day eternal made! O Time
And Destiny, how swift ye roll the world
Along, to which such eager myriads cling
In duty, fondness, or despair! Alas!
Too much we make, yet far too little think
Of time: but, oh, at this untroubled hour
How awfully mine inward visions rise!
Infinity is round me; and I feel
A dampness on my spirit, and a dark
Unearthliness of thought; the dead awake,
Unlock their tombs, and tell me I must die!”
What sadness here! and what a wounded soul;
And yet the World shall his physician be!

But, hark! the moaning voice of deep-tongued bells
Herald the midnight o'er the drowsy world.
Now Earth is one day older; time itself
More awful, and the dead to Hades gone.
Earth, Heaven, and Hell, have felt this fleeted day,
That now is chronicled for Judgment! Morn
Hath look'd on many with her radiant eye
Whose brows shall never meet Her beam again!
Another Sun, another System works
Around them; they who dwelt in distant climes,
And diff'rent aspect wore, the friend and foe,
The loveless and the loving, all who once
Through time, or circumstance, estranged and far
Existed,—now are met where nothing more
Is alien, but one Darkness, or one Light,
As vice or virtue doom'd them. Oh! ye sad
And discontented, weary, worn, and grey;
Thou martyr of the melancholy hour
Loving the silence for the dream it gave,
Sick of the world, and sighing for a tomb;
And ye, on whom this Life a burden lay,
Yet often loosed it when the dying bell
Of Midnight, like a warning from the grave
Went in its sadness through the soul,—your gaze
Doth witness what your nature never dreamt;
The Veil is torn, the Mystery unseal'd,
And ye are men no more! Methinks a Voice
From many, would revisit this far world!
But no:—the Dust is faithful to its dead,
And they are silent, till the Trumpet speak!

And now, my wand'rings dark though this free Isle
Are o'er; through town and village, house and street,
By virtue of my being, have I roam'd,
A sightless Presence, an unshadow'd Power,
An undream'd Watcher moving round the hearts
Of men, and looking into depths of soul
Where none but Hell, and the Immortals gaze.
The sights which none have seen; the voices none
Have heard, with all the agony and glow,
The longings, workings, and unrestful strife
Of passion, mingled in the sleepless mind,
And fever'd into what a life is named,—
These have I witness'd; and on what thou art,
And wert, and might'st have been, heaven-favour'd Land!
Reflected, weighing thee for future worlds.—
For future worlds! each day and hour, thy dead
Are there; each moment is a Hell or Heaven
To many of thy dust. Thou bear'st the awe
Of Destiny; as on the earth thy power
Hath stamp'd its mightiness on every realm,
Printing the roll of Time with many a track
Of gloom and glory, havoc or renown,
So, when the Universe is roll'd away
Beneath the shadow of Almighty frown,
Eternity shall chronicle thy name
For wonder; it will be a sign in heaven!

Then speed thee onward in thy vaunting course
Of empire; let no dream of Judgment shade
Thy soul, or touch thee with a solemn fear:
Plunge in the future! let the past be dead
To thee; for when shall England's sceptre fail?
Thus dare, and do, and perish in thy dream!
Ye buried Empires, which have braved the world,
Rise from your tombs, and speak! for once I mark'd
Your palmy greatness; sea-famed Tyre I saw
When ocean cower'd beneath her vassal-ships;
And hoar Chaldea's hundred-gated Queen
In high-wall'd glory! Tell me, what are they?
And she, earth's ancient tyranness, vast Rome,
The rolling of her battle-cars, the voice
Of Scipio, and the sound of Cæsar's march,
Did I not hear, when Kingdoms were her slaves?
And thou, the fairy-isled, forsaken Greece!
When Sage and Bard, and battle-wreaths, were thine,
When all which centuries glorified could yield
Was consecrated to thy vast renown,
I walk'd thy streets, and prophesied thy doom!
Thus fell the mighty;—shall not Britain fall?

But lo! the heavens are ominously black,
Methinks, as though they frown'd a dark response.
Erewhile, and star-troops in their island-glow
Around the wan Enchantress of the skies
Appear'd, while lovingly the azure lay
Between them, softer than the lid of sleep.
But now, all pregnant with portentous ire,
The clouds have muffled up the pomp of night:
There is a gasping in the heated air,
A wing-like flutter in the tim'rous boughs,
And sigh, and sound, from out the heart of Things
Invisible, breathed forth; the Storm awakes!
And tones of thunder thrill the heart of Earth;
The lightnings cleave the clouds, and north to south,
And east to west, a tale of Darkness tell!
Hark! as the wearied echoes howl themselves
Away, the clamours of the midnight-sea,
Beneath yon cliff in thund'ring chorus rise,
While she is waved with terror! billows heave
Their blackness in the wind, and, bounding on
In vaulting madness, beat the rocky shore
Incessant, till it whitens with their foam.

I love this passion of the Elements,
This mimicry of chaos, in their might
Of storm! And here, in my lone awfulness
While ev'ry cloud a thunder-hymn repeats,
Earth throbs, and Nature in convulsion reels,
Farewell to England! Into other climes
My flight I wing, but round her cast that spell
I weave for Nations till their doom arrive.
And come it shall! When on this guardian-cliff
Again I stand, the whirlwind and the wrath
Of Desolation will have swept all thrones
Away; a darkness, as of old, will reign,
The woods be standing where yon cities tower,
And Ocean wailing for a widow'd Isle!