The Poetical Works of Robert Montgomery :: :: University of Virginia Library

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

377

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!

378

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!