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

Having shown that the gradual announcement of an Incarnate Redeemer was the primary object of the Prophetic Scheme, the Second Book is principally devoted to a consideration of the necessity and probability of a Revelation from God, by an argument drawn from the nature of the human mind and the destinies of man.

Natural and Revealed Religion—The total inadequacy of the former is endeavoured to be shown by exhibiting a mind most exquisitely attuned to the glories and harmonies of the Universe, yet averse to the truth and character of Christ's atonement; till, finally convinced, by the utter helplessness of human philosophy, it reposes in the Faith which is from Heaven—The probability of a Revelation from God, induced from the weakness, obscurity, and impotence of ancient systems, and the frequent longing of their founders for some certain Lawgiver from above—The Doctrine of Pagan and Christian Philosophy—Sublime superiority of the latter—Its triumphant effects—This Revelation was gradually made, in analogy with the progressive tendencies of the human mind, and the Divine arrangements from the commencement of the World—Belief by compulsion would violate the freedom of the will, and reduce the character of man to an irresponsible nature—Christ—Revelation extends through all ages—Apostrophe to England as a country gloriously distinguished by the ameliorating influence of Christianity—Her Sabbaths—Prayers for the diffusion of the Gospel—And our Country's efforts in this holy toil—Concluding thoughts, sentiments, and descriptive associations.

There is a God, the Universe exclaims:
There is a God, Man's echoing heart replies,
And round the world that heaven-born answer rolls!
And thus Creation, while the spirit throbs

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In full response to her sublime appeal,
Hath canonised Imagination's creed,
Till all her splendours to the soul become
The faint reflections of a Vast Unseen!

Yet, vainly beautiful this god of earth
Whom Nature's worship for the soul creates:
Our homage is material; and the mind,
While in the light of elemental pomp
It lives and moves, may still its darkness keep;
Unvisited by that perpetual ray
Of Truth divine, from revelation born,
Where God a Person, not Abstraction is,
And His high Attributes to faith become
That inward Decalogue the will obeys.

There is a haunt whose quietude of scene
Accordeth well with hours of solemn hue,—
A church-yard, bosomed in a beauteous vale
Besprinkled o'er with green and countless graves,
And mossy tombs of unambitious pomp
Decaying into dust again. No step
Of mirth, no laughter of unfeeling life
Amid the calm of death that spot profanes.
The skies o'er-arch it with serenest love;
The winds, when visiting the dark-bough'd elms,
An airy anthem sing; and birds and bees
That in their innocence of summer joy
Exult, and carol with commingling glee,
But add to solitude the lull of sound.
By sea environ'd, yet the choral waves
By noon entranced, in dreaming slumber lie;
And when roused Ocean at the roaring blast
Foams in loud fury, still, the deep-toned storm
Mellow'd by distance, into music dies
Like that which echoes from the world afar,
Or lingers round the path of perish'd Years.

And here, companion'd by his soul alone,
A Being, whose unfathom'd spirit fought
With Loneliness, did wander oft and muse
His hours away; while dream-wove spells entwined
Their mystery round him:—if the Tomb its dead
Surrender'd, well might he arise and prove
How frail the creed which erring Nature moulds
When darkness rushes on the doom of Man!

In vain the witchery of words would tell
How fondly, by impassion'd dreams inspired,
His fancy wed the Universe with love.
The hues and harmonies of blended Things
Were beauty to the magic of his mind;
And all the thousand wheels of moving life
The intellectual melodies, which played
For ever on the mystic harp of Thought.
Such warm imaginings, where'er he came,
A glittering falseness on the true and stern
Suffused; and through the light of feeling shone
The scene of earth, and countenance of heaven.
The young enchantment of angelic Spring
Flow'd in his veins, voluptuously deep;
The budding infancy of flowers was dear
To him, nor would he tread their life away;
Nor wander in the soundless gloom of dell
Or grove, without a sympathetic hush.
And oh! to view him when the balmy night
Breathed o'er this quiet world, and from her throne
The lustrous Moon on tree and temple pour'd
The pallid radiance of her peaceful smile,—
In second paradise he seem'd to muse,
Priested by Sentiment, to worship there!

So lived, so felt he; making all without
Enchantment for responsive thought within;
But that Eternity which girdles time,
Majestic Faith, and everlasting Hope,
Commoved not him: Hereafter drown'd his soul
In seas of darkness, billowing with doubt
And fear!—That this divine, all-beauteous Orb
Whose faintest impulse, sent from breeze or star,
So thrillingly his heart confess'd, was framed,
Upheld, and circled through the void profound
By Power apart, invisibly enthroned,
His innate majesty of mind declared.
But such a god, of dreams and shadows born,
No bended knee, no voice nor vow adored:
He was—a Spirit, or pervading Sense,
A sightless Agent, an almighty Self
Articulated by the tones of Earth
And gloriously by nature's pomp reveal'd,—
So fancy dreamt; and Feeling taught no more.
And hence did Pride and Passion, which imbue
Mortality with taints of sin and wo
And colour all the atmosphere of life
With clouds of awful gloom, work unrestrain'd,
And rule or sanction the decrees of Thought.

At length Affliction, in whose teaching gloom
The keen-eyed jealousy of Guilt beholds
Truths which our mental Cains deny, or dread,
Blighted his home with desolating blast!
And One, the beatings of whose heart were his
Re-echo'd, she who walk'd with angel-step,
Her looks the living sunshine of his soul,
Her tones the music of his memory,
Whose printless foot made consecrated ground,
The hope and heaven of all,—lay still in death!
Then came that worldless, dread, eclipse of mind,
The agony which curdles soul and sense
As though annihilation had begun,
Or man were mouldering into dust again!

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One beam of heaven had brought salvation now;
But Darkness girt him with its deepest shroud,
Wherein he stood, nor wept, nor spoke, nor sigh'd,
But, mute and stone-like, turn'd to cold despair!

With tender rudeness to his couch they bore
The widow'd martyr; day by day, and hour
By hour, Affection with her heavenly eye
Attended, faintly smooth'd his pallid brow,
Then touch'd his hand, and with a yearning gaze
Woo'd his dumb anguish into speaking life,
Which came at last; and then, alone he nursed
His sorrow;—in the breathless noon of night,
All unperceived, the lovely dead he found;
There stood, and gazed, enamour'd of the grief
That, now unfrozen, from his spirit pour'd
Tears fast and free, in all the storm of wo!
On that cold form, so spiritually pale,
Where the lone night-watch flung a spectral gleam,
He look'd, as though a life were in that look
Absorb'd, and felt that never more would flash
From pulseless clay revealings of the soul!
The mystery of Being was fulfill'd,
The seal of Nature set, the vision gone,
Or vanish'd in some universe of gloom!
And yet, from dreams a Light immortal soothed
The mourner, when from out the grave he saw
An Apparition, bright as golden air,
Ascend, assume her own appealing smile
And point with waving hand to better worlds!

But Life no longer seem'd the living sense
Of mortal nature; but a ghastly dream
Wherein he moved, by Destiny compell'd.
A dismal trance of dull satiety
This lone world grew; a dampness of despair,
The sullen winter of a broken heart
Was all he felt,—was all he wish'd to feel!
A demon-shadow, by his anguish bred,
O'er all things brooded: in the light no light
Appear'd; e'en melody no music brought,
And earth emaciate as an orb of death
To him became; his thoughts alone did live;
And these, like pulses from a tortured brain,
Throbb'd in the spirit with eternal pang!

And now, the poison of dejection work'd;
His cheeks were blighted; o'er his thin-worn hands
The veins meander'd with a dying hue;
The mournful hair that arch'd his manly brow
Droop'd like decaying locks; his bright eye lost
The boldness of expressive fire, and grew
Unearthly, from its depth of lifeless gaze:
And oft did mothers heave maternal sighs,
And children cease their revel, when he pass'd
Unheedful by them, like a Shape from tombs.

At length, the unbeliever sought the Night
To tell him secrets of eternity.
And then, how terrible the spirit-throes
Of doubting agony a Deist felt!
Above him,—the majestic sea of heaven
Where island-orbs of beauty sail'd and shone;
Around him, dimness and the calm of death
By nothing marr'd, but when some moving branch
Of cypress, like a dying billow shed
A faint sound on the feeble wind.—Intense
And deep, and passionate the gaze he sent
Far in the blue infinity of night!
Oh, let some Angel on his wings of love
Be wafted, and the burning doubt which preys
On sorrow with permitted voice subdue!
He listen'd!—on the air a faded leaf
Fell slowly, with a sad and ling'ring sound
Whose tone seem'd not of earth; but soon it still'd:
And then, the midnight of despair return'd,
And in the blackness of his heart he wish'd
Eternal nothingness his tomb to be!

An hour there came from heaven at last, when Faith
Look'd up, and view'd her God.—As evening smiled
On ocean's western brim, where molten waves
A restless glory of rich waters made,
A pensive wanderer, on the pebbled beach
He stood, communing with the conscious Scene.
Where'er his feeling glance reposed, a charm
There glow'd, which told Almightiness had touch'd
The world; and when the folding clouds enwreath'd
The Day-god on his sunset-throne, and cool
And calm the unimpassion'd Twilight rose,
That purity of second childhood came
Whose tenderness is truth.—In such meek hour
When darkness from the soul dissolves away,
With gentle step and gentler mien approach'd
A hoary Sage, by hallow'd wisdom blest.
The balmy light, the beauty and romance
Of scene, well harmonised with heavenly thought.
And hence, the solemn Teacher on his soul
The dews of immortality distill'd:—
Not hiding Mercy in dogmatic gloom,
Or, led by light presumingly inspired,
Outvent'ring on the mystic waves which roll
Between us, and the shore of worlds unseen;
But, meekly firm, of everlasting Love,
Creative power, and providential Truth

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That Christian spake; and leaf by leaf the Book
Of Man's redemption from primeval wo
Unroll'd, and challenged wide Creation's law
To prove, how Nature visioneth the plan
Which God himself descended to reveal.

With soften'd eye, and brow intently sad,
Such theme of glory did the sceptic hear,
Yet answer'd not; but look'd to heaven, and sigh'd.
Now twilight into solemn gloom retired;
The pomp of clouds was o'er; and ocean lay
In floating darkness round the rock-hewn beach;
But here and there prevailing starlight gleam'd
On some excited billow: deep the hour
And holier the scene, as each, immersed
In contemplation, track'd his homeward way;
Unvoiced their feelings, and their thoughts unknown:
But Heaven had watch'd them; and ere shrouding night
Mantled the earth, an unbeliever pray'd!—
When years had vanish'd, and converted mind
Lived in the light of Deity, and knew
The depths of God's redeeming love, how look'd
The Infidel on what his heart had been?
Go! ask some martyr of a dungeon-gloom,
How fresh the light, how beautiful the airs
Of heaven which visit his reviving frame,
And he shall tell thee, what the mourner felt
When broke the clouds from his benighted soul
And Morn, eternal Morn, began to smile!

So weak is all unaided Nature lends
To educate the restless soul of man,
Or solace wo, or subjugate the will
To Conscience, on whose throne dread Justice reigns.
Became it not, then, that almighty Love
From Whom did emanate this wondrous world,
The silence of eternity to break,
Become apparent, and His Name divulge
That mortals might draw near Him, and adore?
Could He, to whom the universe of life
From wave and wind a hymn of worship sends,
Let Man alone be ignorantly dumb,
Or mock by Superstition's jarring creed
The awful witness of the God within?
And, did not Man himself, of old, secure
By feign'd communion with celestial Pow'rs,
Profound dominion for the sacred rites
That reach us from the past? In wood, or grove,
And cave orac'lar, Legislation knew
From Heaven to find a sanction and a strength
Reveal'd; and long'd for Deity by truth
Declared, and by celestial faith adored.
Thus Plato, in his pure ambition, nursed
A glorious longing for supremer Mind,
The soul to tune, and teach him perfect Law.

The past survey, and what hath Reason done?
Passion and Doubt her waning light withstood:
And stubborn ages, as they swept along,
But mock'd her impotence with blind misrule,
Of creed, or crime begot. Man look'd abroad,
And on his spirit rush'd one vast belief!
From life and matter, from the sun and moon
And the deep waters did a power appeal,
Attesting God, and teaching His domain;
But how to worship, how His law obey,
In vain would philosophic Reason find
In pensive shade, or Academic bower.
The World was deified; terrestrial gods
In all that pantheistic Sense believed,
A mystic reign for adoration held:
Thus, Neptune on his ocean-car appear'd,
Apollo gloried in the realm of light,
And Dian, with her starry nymphs begirt,
The virgin Moon inspired. No wind there breathed,
There waved no grove, no fountain-music play'd,
No River roll'd in liquid joy along,
But Superstition lent a listening ear
To hail her fancied god; each City claim'd
Presiding deities, and built her fanes
For monsters imaged out of monstrous thought,
Where dark Pollution fed her secret fires.
At length, Idolatry the mind subdued;
From tombs evoked the undeserving Dead,
Or, round the statues of her living great
In sycophantic homage knelt, and pray'd.

Religion thus in clouds of error lost,
Morality no saving charm possess'd
To harmonise the wheels of social life.
The world without, to that far mightier world
Within, a secondary station held,
And action was alone the source of law;
While thought and impulse, those creative springs
On which the conduct of our being turns,
In secret wildness kept unholy sway.
Men learn'd to live, but were not taught to die;
Each hour proclaim'd its own peculiar heaven;
The heart might covet what the hand revered;
And in the soul, a thousand years of sin
Lie floating, on a sea of fancy toss'd,
And be unblamed! No inward law prevail'd,
Like that which ever to the Christian speaks;
Prejudging thought, ere yet by deed express'd,
And throning conscience in the heart of man.

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Thus, who can wonder that a darkness hung
Round heathen ages, by no hand unveil'd?
Magnificent and mighty was the Past,
In learning, prowess, and devoted arts:
Yet ne'er was hero, in his sun-bright car,
With all his panoply of gorgeous hues
And lauding thunders from a nation's lip
To tell his conquest,—so sublimely great
As dying Stephen, when that martyr quench'd
By glorious faith the agonies of death,
The sky beheld, and for his murd'rers pray'd!

Bright as the morning of primeval day
Burst on the waters of chaotic gloom,
Came revelation on the darksome world.
Then error vanish'd in celestial truth;
Hush'd were false Oracles, and quench'd the fires
Which savage bigotry for ages fed:
New light, new order, new existence rose!
The pangs of Wo, the wrongs of patient Worth,
Were now no more, as once their truth had been:
Eternity the debt of Time would pay,
The soul redeem, and justify its God.

Yet was not this transcendent scheme of love
To Earth unfolded, till maturing age
Had nerved the spirit for its high display.
But just as nature, by apparent means
And fine gradations of effective power,
The miracle of life and form achieves,
So Mind, in her advance to heavenly things,
Progressively to full redemption came.
In the calm innocence of youthful Time
When Earth undeluged lay, the vocal Word
By deep communion did Himself impart
To his frail creature, Man: and Spirits bright,
And loving Angels by their Lord empower'd
Brought inward messages from God on high.
When darkly sunk in Amoritish guilt
The patriarchal purity was o'er,
Religion hallow'd with Mosaic law,
And special covenant, and ritual pomp
Of ark and fane and sacrificial blood,
The chosen People; thus in types began
Sublime Theocracy; and when it sunk
To kingly sway, prophetic Bards reveal'd
The One Jehovah, and the promised Seed:
Thus moved the destinies of Earth along
In light and darkness, as career the waves
Through sun and tempest, till Messiah rose.

There are, who deem no revelation true
Which doth not, by divine compulsion, awe
The universal mind to one belief.
But, where the freedom of inviolate will,
If, dazzled into reasonless assent,
Belief is passive, and conviction blind?
The lines of human character are lost,
No principle can act, no feeling sway,
No Passion on the altar of pure Faith
Can nobly die, in sacrifice to Heaven:
As heave the waters to a reinless wind,
So, led by impulse, would the spirit yield
To Fate's high will, without one virtue blest.
For what is virtue, but a vice withstood,
Or sanctity, but daring sin o'ercome?
Life is a warfare, which the soul confronts,
While good and evil, truth and error clash,
Or rally round it in confused array;
And he who conquers, wins the crown of Light
Which Heaven has woven for her warrior-saint.

A God incarnate, with His glory veil'd,
Altar, and priest, and sacrifice combined
In mystic oneness of almighty Love,
Behold Him bleeding! on His awful brow
The mingled sorrows of a world repose:
“'Tis finish'd!”—at those words Creation throbs;
Round Hell's dark universe the echo rolls;
All nature is unthroned; the mountains quake
Like human beings when their death-pang comes;
The sun has wither'd from the frighted air,
And with a tomb-burst, hark! the Dead arise,
And gaze upon the living, as they glide
With soundless motion through the darken'd streets
Most awfully!—the world's Redeemer dies!

That hour of Blood, that scene of Death, is past,
And quench'd the savage eyes that mock'd and smiled
On Calv'ry, when the direful Cross upbore
A martyr'd Saviour: but there comes a mood,
When Fancy wanders to that fated hill,
And from His pleading face, to heaven upturn'd
In godlike pity for the murd'rous Jew,
A look celestial for the soul derives
When faints it oft in penitential gloom.

And thou, my Country! foremost in the van
Of glory found, no Empire which bedecks
The globe, exalted mercies can record
Like those that crown, and still encircle Thee,
Eden of isles! whom ocean loves to guard.
From the foul darkness of engulphing sin
Celestial Mercy bade thy spirit rise
Victorious, and in Christ regen'rate be.

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And, thus environ'd by elective grace,
E'en like a fortress for the faith art thou:
And though not spotless be thy past career,
Religion from thy thousand Temples calls
Aloud on Deity, and walks unseen
The paths of goodness, musing holy joy.

But ah! that day of spiritual delight
Of old revered, and by our fathers blest,
Thy Sabbath, England! is that halcyon morn
Of holiness, when Heaven remembers thee
With sanctifying love, and sheds abroad
A balm that beautifies the face of things.
Redemption won the boon; and long may sounds
From steeple-towers of venerable gloom
Or Minsters brown which deck the hawthorn-vales,
Of sabbath-music on the breezy wings
Of matin rise, and soft emotions crowd
The soul that listens to their tender chime.
And thus, while unpolluted Altars stand
O'er time secure, and christian ardour keeps
The virtues of our glorious Land alive,
Jehovah! still for us Thine arm will rule;
And Ocean, faithful to her island-born,
Bulwark the clime whose sceptre bows to Thee.

And may the glories of Thy gospel shine
From zone to zone, till earth one Temple prove,
And lauding angels, as they gird the Throne
With choral raptures, hear from saints below
Perpetual anthems which to Christ ascend.
For Thou hast promised, and Thy word shall reign!
Let earth be riven, sun and system die,
Or nature into nothing be recall'd,
Ere this be doubted,—the decree of God!
Oft in the hush of meditative hours
When fancy wanders on mysterious wing
Far into chaos, greets the dawning world,
And down the surging tides of ages floats
E'en to the living hour,—I glow to trace
Omniscient wisdom and perennial love.
E'en now, as here in solitary mood
My spirit warbles in a dream of song,
What destinies are weaving for the race
Of man! what energies of heart and soul
In mingled yet harmonious play, for time
That doom complete Eternity has plann'd?

And, if our wingèd aspirations dare
The hour outfly, and future glory meet,
My brother Man! wherever doom'd thou art,
In dark isles bosom'd on the dusky main
A savage found, magnificently free;
Or, in some icy wilderness of waves,
Soon on thy soul may Revelation dawn
And bid lost nature recognise its God.

That prayer is heard: for with it richly blend
Approving echoes from Britannia's heart.
E'en now, her Genius on some native cliff
Let Fancy view, in speculation rapt.
To rocky isles, and dreadful island-wastes
That spot the billows, her dejected eye
Is turn'd, and what a vision of despair
The savage dwellers on the sea create,
Who round their dying captive dance and howl;
Or, prostrate at some tow'ring idol's car,
In bloody rapture limb and life destroy.
To Heaven she looks, and lo! a sudden burst
Of morning-brightness o'er the midnight-scene;
For woods of horror, laughing corn-fields wave;
For cavern'd homes, and huts of wildest gloom
What sylvan cots and glitt'ring mansions rise,
While sun-clad spires in every woodland gleam!
And ships are riding in securest bays
Of Commerce, where of old untravell'd sea
Lay in grim slumber, or by whirlwinds lash'd.
All things have glided into beauteous change,
And Man, at whose creation God rejoiced,
Not in the gloom and guilt of nature pines,
But beaming with recover'd soul, appears,
A true Schechinah where the Spirit dwells.
The Genius of my Country!—on her brow
What apostolic smiles of love and light
Begin; for her the vision hath unroll'd
Its promise; and to her hath God appeal'd
For Earth, and bade from His divinest source
The spirit of immortal truth proceed
In heavenly conquest, till the knell of Time
Be sounded, and the church in heaven complete.

And here awhile, on this majestic hope
Of brighter ages let the Lyre repose.
But pardon, ye who feel how Nature makes
Her priesthood vocal, if in fond delay
A poet gaze upon the gorgeous eve,
And watch the shadows of a waning sky.

A sunset! what a host of beaming clouds
In mingled lustre multiplied and flash'd,
And flung their beauty in reflected tints
On golden waters, lull'd in gleaming rest,
And then, concenter'd in one pomp of light
Like that which girds th' apocalyptic throne!
But, ere the sun behind yon sea withdrew,
A thunder-gloom in silent threat advanced;
And the loud hiss of unexpected rain
Rang through the air with its rejoicing fall,
The verdure sparkled, and the sun retired
On waves of glory like an ocean god:
From out the billows beam'd a rainbow-form

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Which died in azure o'er the distant hills;
The sea-gull flutter'd on his foam-like wing,
And, like a seraph in the air conceal'd,
The wind-tone warbled with unearthly joy.

An hour with nature is an hour with heav'n,
When feeling hallows what the fancy views:
And thus, O Twilight! may a soul discern
In thy meek stillness what harsh day obscures.
Now Mem'ry too with mournful love recalls
Some heart-romance, till years of verdant joy
Revive, and bloom within affection's world.
Bright Forms, by greeting childhood so beloved!
Maternal tones, and features, of whose smile
In blissful rivalry our own was born,
And voices, echoed in our dreams of heaven,
Around us throng, until th' unliving past
Our being enters, and seems life again.

In no false weakness heaves the votive sigh
Of fond remembrance o'er man's fleeting youth;
The poetry of pure regret is there!
To love the past but makes the present dear;
The mournful wisdom of our discontent
Can then unteach what young Delusion taught
Alone; since who that lives, and living, thinks,
But adds another to an endless train
Of sad Confessors since the world began?—
A life of glory is a dream fulfill'd,
That fades in acting, as the gorgeous cloud
E'en as it dazzles is but dying air!

If I too, ere autumnal age my brow
Has wrinkled, or the twilight of chill days
Begun, the barrenness of earth perceive,
And feel mortality's most aching wear
Fever and fret the soul; if all which bloom'd
Like Eden once, hath grown a desert now
Of dying hope, and faded joy; if Life be lone,
And sad, and bleak, while aspirations droop
Unwatch'd within me, and delightless earth
More tomb-like grows, as death's absorbing dream
Haunts the worn spirit wheresoe'er it fly
For refuge, may I not existence mourn?
No! let me fall, and worship at the Fount
Of promise; life is Heaven's surpassing gift,
And what his Maker wills, should man revere.

To cover earth with shades of hell; accuse
The sun of darkness, and the world blaspheme;
All hope deny, coequal man disdain,
And mar the heavenliness of human joy,
Betrays a tempest of unholy thought
Raised by the Demon of our darker hours!
But, nobly true, inexplicably deep
That mournfulness by solitude inspired,
When mild dejection ends in musing bliss.
Like a mute pilgrim, on some distant shore
At twilight shaping in the skiey air
The towers and temples of his native land,
While on his ear the sounds of home renew
The sweetness of their social melody,—
Oft may some Dreamer in a spirit-trance
Fancy existence to be exile now;
See visions of departed heaven, and hear
The muffled language of mysterious Worlds.
And oh! how oft beneath the bluest sky
In summer arching over lake or wood,
When round and round, with antic motion sport
The insect-populace of beams and flowers;
When herb is bright, and breeze is gay, the Mind
A mystic shadow of dejection feels,
While voiceless omens and prophetic fears
Haunt the deep heart with their undying spell.
For ever on the solemn verge we seem
Of gloom unknown, or glory unreveal'd;
And who shall say, that life does not preserve
A faint reflection of some vanish'd State
By man forgot, as oft the sea retains
A dim resemblance of departed storm?

'Tis night; the holiness and heaven of time!
And censure me, mild Elements, whose sway
Of loveliness hath now serened the world,
If by your charm my soul is unsubdued
By prayer, while Nature in devotion seems.
Mysterious hour! when most self-knowledge reigns.
And minutes are soft Teachers, whom the heart
Obeys: and, art Thou not more deeply fill'd
With inspiration from thy Maker sent,
O Earth! than in the day's tyrannic roar?
And if there be, as saintly minds allow,
Some god-like moment, when pure Spirits walk
This lower world, where man is doom'd to strive,
Tranquillity enshrines their presence now.
In pale omnipotence of light the moon
Presides, too brilliantly for meeker stars
To venture forth, save one bright watcher, seen
O'er yon lone hill to let his beauty smile:
The clouds are dead; and scarce a breeze profanes
The blissful calm, save when some rebel dares
On fitful wing to wander into life
Awhile, and make unwilling branches wave,
Or moonlight flutter through the boughs, and fall
In broken radiance on the grass beneath.
The earth grows soundless; and yon giant elms
Hush'd into leafy trance their shade project
Before them: Night and Stillness are enthroned.

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Now may the spirit on religious wing
Expatiate; soaring where no science can,
Yet haply, hover round some truth unknown.
And be this earth all reverently trod,
Since out of it did human Dust proceed!
Let all we look upon religion make
For inmost thought, or meditative love.
On choral winds aye let there float a voice
Of God; and Ocean with his organ-waves
Eternal anthems to Jehovah peal.
And oh! may I, when pangful life is o'er,
In some pure region of almighty bliss
A harping strain from those bright Singers learn,
Who in the orchestra of Glory waft
Divine Emmanuel! to Thy merit due,
From golden lyres an everlasting praise.