University of Virginia Library

Two years have fleeted, and almost a third,
Since thus the image of the Present (calm
It seem'd, yet was not) interwove itself
With my wild, wayward musings; till enlink'd
To truths that change not, Time's tumultuous sea
For once in the clear mirror of my soul
Lay changeless. Fool! to dream that passionate waves
Could, infant-like, forget their wrath so soon
And lull themselves into eternal sleep.
Fool! to forget that under-voice “no peace”
Of storms prophetic amid calm. Once more
It fell upon my spirit's slumbers—fell
Like sudden thunder on a mariner
Who sleeps at midnight: look'd I forth once more
With eager thought, yet tranquil, for my soul
Was anchor'd now upon a rock that lay
Fast rooted in the Eternity of truth,
And deep as heaven's foundations. What, if still
Cold dashing waters in the depths of ocean
Sweep o'er it and about, far, far above
My vessel rode securely o'er the waves,
And in tranquillity and rest I look'd
Forth on the untranquil, restless flood of the world.

In sooth, my spirit's peace was not of earth;
Or else the sudden shock of change and ruin
That met mine eyes had shaken my whole frame
As if with earthquake. Desolate and vast
The homes of millions sigh'd: and sulphurous clouds
Hung over them, from whence at intervals
Sharp lightnings flooded heaven with gusts of flame;
The stars were struck with blindness; and the sea
Roar'd; and the earth, as with volcanic fires,
Labour'd, and moan'd, and shook exceedingly.
Woe for the sons of men! woe, when the earth,
Whereon their hopes are builded as on rock,
The eldest, firmest, solidest of things,
Trembles as smitten with the curse of God.
Woe, woe! for baseless as a fabric built
Of clouds, and transient as they, are fears
Less deep than hell, and hopes less high than heaven.
Ay, for the earth may shudder, and the stars
Fall, as a fig-tree, swept of mighty winds,
Casts her untimely figs, and truth that rests
Upon the word of God stand forth, alone
Eternal amid perishable things.

The sharp shock of the earthquake ceased. Mine eye
Fell where the thunder of its ruin and wreck
Seem'd loudest, on the guilty land of France.
And,—as a scene of sunset glory plays
Delusively before us, though the sun
Be sunk, and wintry darkness clouding heaven—
A moment on my spirit's eye there flash'd
A dream of bygone hours:—a monarch throned
On arms and proud ambition, and the will
(Of fickle, frail foundations, frailest this)—
A people's shifting will, who scoff'd to own
The fountain of all kingly power in God.
Poor man! yet seem'd he throned securely:—long
His fate hung o'er him ere it fell, and long
The earthquake slumber'd under ere it came.
Long years he reign'd: his gilded sceptre sway'd
Pale crowds of flattering menials, men who swore
Allegiance, and innumerable throngs
Of warriors, and a Godless multitude
Whose god was Pleasure, and the lawless fires
Of dastard men whom sin alone inspired
With boldness, and a few heroic souls
Who pray'd and wept o'er that they saw and heard
In solitude, and many aching hearts.
Long years he reign'd: the assassin's hand in vain;
Was raised against him often times, but still
God's mightier hand was o'er him: and the floods
Of evil chafed and toss'd themselves in vain
The hour of their unloosing was not come;
And God reserved him for no common fall.
Long years he reign'd: and with the liberal hand
Of kingly friendship woo'd alliances
With distant courts, if only he might stay
His throne with strength, and crown his children's brows.
Nor lack'd he arms, or armies, or brave fleets,
Nor bulwarks lack'd, nor any thing but God.
But in the prime of glory, when his heart
Spake peace unto itself and tranquil age,
What time his kingly throne the kingliest shew'd,
Then came the voice from heaven, “There is no peace;”
And straightway a convulsive trembling shook
The ground whereon his throne was planted—none
Might save him then—earth shudder'd, and the heavens
Frown'd: fearfulness besieged and storm'd
His spirit, deem'd impregnable till now.
A few wild, unavailing struggles—fool!
As well go struggle to erect thy throne
Upon the Alpine avalanche—and all
Pass'd like a fugitive dream. They who had sworn
To live and die beside him, where were they?
Where were his courtly friends, his dastard troops,
His statesmen, and his warriors, and his peers?
Where were his loving subjects, where was France?
Was it they scoff'd a power that came of man,
And not of God? was it a viewless Hand
Withheld them? was it that they crouch'd with fear?
None raised a hand; none moved a foot; none spake;—
The earthquake palsied every arm and blanch'd
All faces pale, and drain'd all hearts of blood.
And like a fugitive dream it pass'd: his throne
Lay shatter'd in the dust, his palaces
Were ransack'd by a foul, infuriate crowd;
His armies struck a strange and traitorous league
With robbers and with murderers, and call'd
Them brethren; and his darling capital
Became a den of lawlessness and guilt
And devils, under semblance of control;
And trembled with dark memories of the past,
Dark bodings of the future, wild despair,
And wild, insensate hopes of golden bliss.

Oh, fallen monarch! on the verge of years,
Strange retrospect must often now be thine
Of thy long fateful Past:—a witness thou
And sufferer in that former storm of wrath,
Whereof the wrecks the angry waves cast up
Still crumble on the shores of Time; then days
Of seeming smoothness, until thou thyself
Snatch'd from the pilot's hands the unruly helm,
And yielding to the passionate gusts awhile,
Drave right before the tempest, till the winds
Were somewhat lull'd; and all men praised thy skill.
And long thy vessel rode through billowy seas,
And many blasts of winter: not a fear was there
Of shipwreck, while thy hand might hold
The rudder. Proudly o'er the seas thy bark
Rode forth; but on a sudden, in full noon
Of glory, every sailyard bent with wind,
Struck on a sunken rock: then might you hear
The crash of bulwarks amid cries for help
And howlings of the pitiless storm. The masts
Fell ruinous and the waves rush'd in amain,
And thou thyself, disrobed of glory, borne
By some chance solitary plank, wast cast
Upon our rugged shores. Strange retrospect,
Oh fallen, shipwreck'd monarch, must be thine:—
Behind thee lies thy track of wild adventure,
Bright with fleet gleams and overcast with storms:
And still upon the far horizon's skirts
Thy vessel struggles with the sullen waves,
In desperate hope: and ever and anon
One and another takes the broken helm,—
In vain: for still they cry not unto God,
Whose are the heavens, and earth, and winds, and seas.

Meanwhile the twilight shades of life, O king!
Are closing fast around thee, and full soon
That life will fleet before thy dying eyes
As the vain pageant of a moment;—earth
Dissolve as into viewless air, and time
Grow pale before a close eternity.
Oh, if a voice from heaven could reach thee, king,
Would it not cry aloud—“Awake! awake!
From the wild fever of thy life-long dream,
With its vain nightmare tossings and brief lulls
Of slumber, for an everlasting morn
Of stern reality draws on apace,
And death's alarum soon, O king, will strike?
Oh, take thine eyes from off that batter'd crown,
Clutch not that broken sceptre:—thou art weary,
Weary of all, but mostly of thyself;
'Tis not too late to tear away the garb
Of faithless superstition: fling thyself
At foot of Jesus' cross, and, like a child,
Cast upon Him thy sick, sin-laden soul,
Till on the blood-stain'd Mount of Calvary
His smile speak reconcilement to thine heart,
And overflood with holy tears thine eyes,
Thy soul with peace and pardon. None may speak
That blessedness, and as the ebbing sands
Of life run smoothly, peacefully away,
Thy high enduring future would stand forth
Against the false delusions of thy past
In brighter, clearer vividness of truth,—
A victor's palm, a golden harp of praise,
A crown of pure, imperishable glory,
A brotherhood of angels, life, light, love,
The cloudless and eternal smile of God.”

My thoughts were thus at random wandering far,
When, lo! another and severer shock
Of earthquake smote the lawless, foodless, Godless land
Of France with desolation. To and fro
She reel'd in anguish and despair: her streets
Were lit up with the fires of hell, and groan'd
With dying groans and stream'd with streams of blood.
Vaunting of late unto the world she spake,
And bade the nations look on her, and see
How holy was the cause of freedom, what
Serene and awful majesty there lies
In a great people's will: how in the hour
Of conquest they were conquerors of themselves;
And how their tearless, bloodless triumph fill'd
In the world's records one unstainèd page.
Their vauntings echo'd through all lands, and woke
Unholy thoughts and cravings in the minds
Of wicked men: and with an idiot's mirth
They scorn'd the freedom of their fathers, scorn'd
The faith their fathers loved, and thought that they,
Like that same holy, happy, heavenly France,
Might trample on the laws of God and man
And fling their fetters in the face of heaven,
And yet be patriots, citizens, and men.

But while these thoughts were brooding in their hearts
Nor yet had found free utterance, that land
Of light and liberty—the foremost far
In the great march of reason—glorious France,
Even in the midst of her rejoicings, grew
Upon a sudden deadly pale, her heart
Was choked with blood, and ceased awhile to beat.
Awhile—then grappling with the energy
Of men in a death-struggle, at her cry
Of direst need, the iron ranks of war
Did grapple with these sons of liberty,
That monstrous brood of madness and foul crime,
And reckless of their choicest blood, did wrest
Their murderous arms from fathers, brothers, sons,
And trample out the hideous torch of hell.

Oh Freedom! heaven-born Freedom! wert thou not,
Like Light thy sister, never to be stain'd
By aught of sin, though in a sinful world,
Surely they had polluted thy fair name
By breathing it through their polluted lips
And screening, more like lying fiends than men,
Such hellish deeds behind thy heavenly shield!
But thou, as free as is the fetterless wind,
Thy chariot, visitest all lands, all seas,
Thou lightest on the lonely mountain-top
And on the clear blue glaciers and white snows,
And minglest with the flowing clouds; the stars
Smile on thee; and the ocean billows bend
Beneath thy printless footstep and the flow
Of thy aërial robes: the forests wave,
The rivers glide before thee and the rills.
Hail, Freedom! dear ambassadress of heaven!
Thou hauntest not the golden palaces
Of tyrants, nor the despot's dreamy couch,
Nor dwellest in the Bacchanalian vaults
Of fouler lawlessness—but on the throne
Of holy monarchs and anointed kings,
And in the reverend senate and the halls
Of high ancestral rank, and in the streets
Of frank and honourable merchandise,
And where the peasant's rose-twined cottage smiles
Its welcome home; and wheresoever beats
With Christian liberty a faithful heart.

Once more a lull upon the nations—strange
As was the former tempest, and my thoughts,
Weary with their long watching, rock'd themselves
To rest with murmur of the ebbing waves.