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

“Of finer mould, and far sublimer view,
Whate'er his lot; on Fortune's envied mount
High-throned, or lost in the secluded vales
Of lowliness, is he whose hopes are built
In Heaven:—
Not all the pomp and pageantry of worlds
Reflects such glory on the Eye Supreme,
As the meek virtue of one holy man!—
For even doth his angel from the face
Divine, beatitude and wisdom draw.”

ANALYSIS OF PART II.

The second part of the Poem is devoted to a consideration of the Presence of the Deity, as influencing Human Life—In our journey through the world, we cannot but admit an overruling Power—The paternal care of the Deity—Consolation thence derived in scenes of woe—Pictures of a street-wanderer and an exiled captive—The hopes imparted to the soldier, by his confidence in the presence of God—The Sailor—Storm and wreck described—His consciousness of Preserving Providence.

As misfortune is observed by God, so, in like manner, the crimes of the wicked cannot escape Him— Picture of a murderer—Darkness; its varied influence depicted—Penitence—The young convict—The maniac boy—The arctic traveller—The missionary.

The Sabbath—Feelings excited by the tones of an organ swelling through a cathedral—The village christening—Rapid survey of the common lot.

As God has been defined “Love,” we may be assured that He eminently favours virtuous affection—The marriage scene—Raptures arising from the retrospections of the virtuous—Picture of a grandsire, sitting by his winter fire, and retracing the scenes of his life—Friendship.

Death — Apostrophe — Picture of a dying old man, attended by his daughter — The Funeral — The Almighty Presence.

Along the barren world as doom'd we roam
By devious paths to one perennial Home,
In tears or smiles we own the o'erruling Hand
That beckons on to that celestial Land,
Where, harbour'd all, life's billows sink away,
And the bright spirits bask in heaven's immortal ray.

And happy thou! through all the change of time,
Whom sorrow cannot burden with a crime;
Whose joyless heart and never-lighten'd care
Can nobly scorn the refuge of despair.

Like ocean's wand'rer guided by his star,
Thy heaven-taught spirit looks to him afar.

Say, ye whose hearts unburden'd can enjoy
The bliss of life, without the world's alloy;
What can illume their melancholy way,
Where Want begins, and Mis'ry crowns the day?
When bow'd by woe, and bleach'd by with'ring age,
Alone Life's orphan treads the world's cold stage;
His fortune wreck'd, his friends beneath the sod,
Where shall he fly, but to the arms of God?
Blest be yon viewless Spirit thron'd on high,
No heart's too wretched to attract His eye;
No lot too lowly to engage His love,
And win the smile of Mercy from above!
He gazes on the sleepless couch of wo,
And bids the dying light of hope to glow,
Unarms the peril, heals the wounded mind,
And charms each feeling home, to fate resign'd.

At wintry eve, when savage night-winds blow,
Pierce his cold cheek, and drift his locks of snow,
As oft the vagrant shivers through the street,
No voice to pity, and no hand to greet,
With many a pause he marks that window-pane,
Whose flick'ring blaze recalls his home again!
The friend and face, the music and the mirth,
And social magic of his evening-hearth,
A waked by mem'ry, warm his widow'd heart,
Till real woes in fancied bliss depart;
And one by one, as happier days appear,
To each he pays the homage of a tear;
Though homeless, still he loves home's joyous glare,
Looks up to heaven, and feels his home is there!

Within a dungeon, mildew'd by the night,
Barr'd from salubrious air and cheering light,
Lo! the pale captive pines in hostile lands,
Chain'd to his doom by adamantine bands.
Oh, how he pants to face the fresh-wing'd breeze,
And hear the voices of the summer trees:
To breathe, and live, and move, and be as free
As Nature is, and Man was made to be!
And when at night, upon his flinty bed,
Silent and sad, he lays his grief-worn head,
There as the dungeon-bell, with dismal sound,
Tolls midnight through the sleeping air around,
Remembrance wafts him to paternal climes,
And frames a fairy world of happier times.
The woodland haunts around his native scene,
The village dance upon the festive green,
His sloping garden where he lov'd to ply,
And smiled as peeping flower-buds hail'd his eye,
His beauteous partner and her blue-eyed boy,
Who prattled, played, and fed his soul with joy,—
By thought created, crowd around his heart,
And force the pangs of fond regret to start;
Each soft delusion claims a genial sigh,
Each dream of happiness bedims his eye;
Till, warm'd by Heaven, his home-wed bosom glows
With hopes that triumph o'er remember'd woes;
And far away the chainless spirit flies,
To vision'd realms of rest beyond the skies.

Spirit of Light and Life! when Battle rears
His fiery brow amid terrific spears;
When deathful cannons to the clouds uproar,
And gasping hosts sleep shrouded in their gore,
E'en then, th' intrepid Heart that nobly glows
To face the fury of invading foes,
May look to Thee for mercy and for power,
To brave the peril of the carnage-hour;
Or, doom'd to fall amid the furious din,
While battle storms without, may find a peace within.

List! war-peals thunder on the battle-field;
And many a hand grasps firm the glitt'ring shield,
As on, with helm and plume, the warriors come,
And the glad hills repeat the stormy drum!

And now are seen the youthful and the grey,
With bosoms burning to partake the fray:
The first, with hearts that consecrate the deed,
All eager rush to vanquish or to bleed;
Like young waves racing in the morning sun,
That rear and leap with reckless fury on!
But, see that scar-worn man, who looks on high
With musing valour mirror'd in his eye;
Not all the bleeding revels of the day
Can fright the vision of his home away;
The home of love, and its attractive smiles,
His wife's endearment, and his baby's wiles:—
Fights he less brave through recollected bliss,
With step retreating, or with sword remiss?
Ah no! remember'd home's the warrior's charm,
Speed to his sword, and vigour to his arm;
For this he supplicates the God afar,
Fronts the steel'd foe, and mingles in the war.

The cannon's hush'd!—nor drum nor clarion sound;
Helmet and hauberk mingle on the ground;
Horseman and horse lie welt'ring in their gore;
Patriots are dead, and heroes dare no more;
While solemnly the moonlight shrouds the plain,
And lights the lurid features of the slain.

And see! where swift the banner'd coursers past,
A battle-steed beneath his rider cast;
Oh! never more he'll rear with fierce delight,
Roll his large eyes, and rally for the fight;
Pale on that bleeding corse a warrior lies,
While from the ruffled lids his white-swell'd eyes
Ghastly and grimly stare upon the skies!

But who, upon the battle-wasted plain,
Shall count the faint, the gasping, and the slain?
Angel of Mercy! ere the blood-fount chill,
And the brave heart be spiritless and still,
Amid the havoc Thou art hov'ring nigh,
To calm each groan, and close each dying eye,
And waft the spirit to that halcyon shore,
Where war's loud thunders lash the winds no more.

And on Thy deep, the girdle of the world,
When the fierce Hurricanoes have unfurl'd
Their thousand wings, to battle and to rave,
Sweep down the rock and scourge the yelling wave;
When skies in tempest-agonies outgroan,
And the mad elements seem left alone,
Lord of the Storm! oh, Thou art present there,
In the loud thunder, and the lightning-glare,
While from the rollings of unfathom'd sea
A mariner's last sigh ascends to Thee.

Lo! to the yellow beach a maiden hies,
Love at her heart, and sorrow in her eyes.
Warm down her cheek impassion'd drops of woe,
Through fearful omens, for her lover flow:
Oh will he, far by faithless ocean borne,
Dream of his lonely maid who lives to mourn?
Will he, whene'er by palmy streams he roams,
Muse on their twilight-walks and woodbine homes,
And that first spring, when in the cowslip dale
She blush'd an answer to his wooing tale?

The beach is won; before her moans a sea,
In all its dim and dread immensity!
Wide o'er the wave a wistful glance she throws,
Till the fond lover smiles away her woes;
Voiceless awhile he clasps his dark-eyed maid,
Then looks the promise love has often said;
But, ere his vessel, in the horizon's blue
Veil'd by the mist, hath vanish'd from her view,
Sweet mourner! heavenward hope uplifts her mind
To Him who wings the storm, and walks the wind.

Thrice has the sun upon his green-wave bed,
'Mid rosy clouds, his vesper radiance shed;
And thrice the moon from out the ocean rose,
Like pale-eyed beauty waking from repose;
While rock'd beneath, the melancholy wave
Sang like a mermaid o'er the scaman's grave.

The morn is up: and in her mellow ray
Millions of youthful billows pant and play;
Greeting the stately vessels as they glide
In sail-wing'd triumph o'er the breezy tide.

But, lo! around the marsh'lling clouds unite,
Like thick battalions halting for the fight;
The sun retires, and rending whirlwinds sweep
Fierce through the air, and flutter on the deep;
Forth from their caverns rush the fatal blasts,
Tear the loose sails, and split the creaking masts,
And the lash'd billows, rolling in a train,
Rear their white heads, and race along the main.

And, see! hurl'd backward from a hidden rock,
A shatter'd vessel reeling with the shock,
Like one appall'd by an unearthly sight,
Who stands, and shivers with convulsive fright:
There, in a den of waves, she heaves awhile,
Till on her deck the howling surges pile;
Then struggling sinks beneath the water's leap,
Like a huge monster wrestling with the deep.

Borne like a sunbeam on the bounding waves,
Behold! a mariner the tempest braves;
Home, life, and love, and near-imagin'd death,
Nerve the stout limb, and lengthen out his breath:
A rock is reach'd, dash'd on a wave-worn peak
Lies the wreck'd sailor, shiv'ring, wan, and weak;
With livid face, and looks of ghastly dread,
And locks, like sea-weeds streaming from his head;
Unmoved the lips, but with his upturn'd eyes,
He shadows forth a Saviour in the skies;
Visions a viewless temple in the air,
Feels God around, and silence is his prayer!

Can Guilt, though hidden from the gaze of earth,
Fly from His view, who gave all being birth?
From her first shadow on the yielding soul,
To the dark hour when all her terrors roll,
His sleepless eye detects each buried plan,
And bares the bosom-secret of the man.
Yes! oft He locks the weapon in his hand,
And makes the murd'rer for his capture stand;
Or, when the flood of years has roll'd away
The darksome horrors of the blood-curs'd day,—
His vengeance frowns upon the felon's sleep,
Forcing his haggard eye to wake, and weep!

Upon the midnight-heath, where fierce winds growl,
Like famish'd wolves careering as they howl,
While cloudy billows darkly swell and rise
As if an ocean brooded in the skies,
Aghast and quaking, see the murd'rer stand,
Shrink from himself, and clench his crimson hand;
Unearthly terrors freeze his shudd'ring frame,
While conscience writhes upon the rack of shame:
Beneath him gasps the victim of his deed,
In that faint struggle ere the spirit's freed;
One piteous gaze—his languid eyelids close,
And life and torture sink to dead repose.

Why stands the murd'rer fetter'd to the spot,
Life, fame, and judgment in his guilt forgot?
Chain'd by his crime, he cannot—dare not fly,
A Spirit seems to grasp him from the sky!
And though no human eye the murder sees,
A curse from heaven comes mutter'd in each breeze.

Though Crime entomb herself within the heart,
And veil her anguish with dissembling art;
Though 'mid the glare of day, and dazzling strife
That flashes o'er the shadowy stream of life,
She move as merry as the morning air,
Unmarr'd by grief, unsorrow'd by a care,—
Darkness shall bear the burden of her sin,
And fan the hell of thought that flames within!

At deep dead night, when not an earthly sound
Jars on the brooding air that sleeps around;
When the coarse raptures of a Christless day,
Touch'd by the wand of Truth, dissolve away,
Unhallow'd Guilt shall in her bosom feel
A rack too fierce for language to reveal;
A sense unutt'rable within the soul
Of Him pervading—living through the whole:
On ev'ry limb shall creeping terror come,
Lock the white lips, and strike cold anguish dumb;
Vengeance shall utter an imagin'd yell,
And Fancy flutter round the gulph of Hell.

Not so comes darkness to the good man's breast,
When Night brings on the lulling hour of rest;
Tired of the day, a pillow laps his head,
While heavenly vigils watch around the bed;
His spirit bosom'd on the God of all,—
Peace to the hour! whate'er the night befal:
Then, pleasing Memory unrolls her chart,
To raise, refine, and regulate the heart;
Exulting Boyhood, and its host of smiles,
Next, busy Manhood battling with its toils,
Delights and dreams that made the heart run o'er,
The love forgotten, and the friends no more—
The panorama of past life appears,
Warms his pure mind, and melts it into tears!
Till, like a shutting flower, the senses close,
And on him lies the beauty of repose.

Yes! in the dark, Imagination seems
Girt with a shadowy brood of awful Dreams,
Which round her in appalling visions fly,
Dread as the phantoms on a thunder-sky;
And Guilt starts back, by gloomy horror driven,
But Virtue braves them with a smile from Heaven.

'Tis night: and sternly comes the mutt'ring wind,
While cloud-battalions slowly march behind;
Alone the way-worn pilgrim winds his track,
His wallet resting on his weary back;
Though dark the path, and dreary grows the night,
And not a heaven-lamp yields its holy light,
Firm o'er the starless wild he moves his way,
For HE pervades the night, who form'd the day!
Thus on he roams beneath the brooding sky,
Till, lo, a lattice twinkles on his eye,
And merrily from out his woodland dome,
His babes bound forth, and hail the wand'rer home.

When Conscience darts her stings into the mind,
And heart-broke Folly turns to look behind,
Then, righteous Heaven, without Thy hopeful ray,
What fell despair would lower on our way!
Where shall we light the burden of our woes?
How should we lull our anguish to repose?—
But, when the rebel Heart has ceas'd to roam,
And yearns o'er visions of forsaken home,
Thy love will hail the chasten'd wand'rer there,
And hush to peace the tempest of despair.

And not more beautiful beneath the ray
Of risen morn, night-shades dissolve away,
And the unmantled world, embathed in light,
Awakes in orient glory, clear and bright,—
Than do the sinful mists that shroud the soul
Melt off beneath religion's mild control,
Till the full impress of our God appears,
Made pure and perfect by repentant tears.
Now, day by day, celestial feelings rise
Fresh from the heart, and reach th' immortal skies:

Now comes the hour, when rambling all unseen,
Except by stars, upon the dusky green;
When winds are voiceless, and the breezes still,
Save truant ones, which rove some wooded hill,
Eternal glories dawn upon the heart,
Till tears ecstatic from the soul-fount start;
And sorrow, bursting from ideal gloom,
Soars after Christ, and triumphs o'er the tomb.

But when the erring heart at Passion's shrine
Hath basely sacrificed each trait divine:
When Guilt hath stain'd it with her deepest dye,
And blood for blood is Nature's dreadful cry,
Angel of Mercy! thy becalming power
Alone can tame the terrors of the hour;
Thine is the charm that bids the heart unbind,
Mount on the wings of Faith, and leave Despair behind;
Thine is the voice that soothes the dying breath,
And breathes a halo round the brow of Death.

And hark! the midnight bars have ceas'd to sound,
The dungeon guard has paced his clanking round,
And all is lone, and dismal as the deep
When weary Storms sink mutt'ring into sleep;
But one there is, in yonder glimm'ring cell,
Whose young heart wept, and wonder'd while it fell;
A wreck of crime upon his stony bed,
With eye wild-rolling and bewilder'd head.
'Tis not the chain that clinks upon his straw,
'Tis not the blow of violated law,—
But racking thoughts which rive his shudd'ring heart,
And make each fibre of the bosom start.
Yes! they have borne him to his native streams,
Where young-eyed Fancy wove her fairy dreams;
To each wild glade where Boyhood loved to roam,
Till twilight came, and call'd the truant home:
And where is she who rock'd him to repose,
And sang, and smiled, to lull his infant woes?
And he who greeted with paternal joy
The dawning virtues of his darling boy?
Afar, beneath the trampled sod they sleep,
He neither heard them sigh, nor saw them weep!—
That wasted eye and palpitating cheek,
Those wringing hands, and that delirious shriek,
Oh, these betray the burning load of pain
Remembrance piles upon his phrensied brain:
Till Faith descend upon her wings of Love,
And show the Mercy-seat unveil'd above;
Then, firm his glance, hush'd every groan and cry,
And hypocrites might shake to view a felon die!

'Tis sad to see the eye forget its ray,
And sorrow sit where smiles were wont to play;
'Tis sad, when youth is fresh, and fair, and warm,
And life is fraught with every sweeter charm,
To see it close the lip, and droop the head,
Wane from this earth, and mingle with the dead;
But, oh! nor death, nor wo, can ever seem
So heart-appalling as that wild'ring dream.
That life in death—a desolated Mind,
Around whose wreck the weeds of madness wind.

Down yon romantic dale, where hamlets few
Arrest the summer pilgrim's frequent view,
The village wonder, and the widow's joy,
Dwells the poor, mindless, pale-faced maniac boy:
He lives, and breathes, and rolls his vacant eye
To greet the glowing fancies of the Sky;
But on his cheek unmeaning shades of wo
Reveal the wither'd thoughts that sleep below.—
A soulless Thing, a haunter of the woods,
He holds wild fellowship with fields and floods;
Sometimes along the woodland's winding glade,
He starts, and smiles upon his pallid shade;
Or scolds with idiot threat the roaming wind,—
But rebel music to that ruin'd mind!
Or on the shell-strewn beach delighted strays,
Playing his fingers in the noontide-rays;
And when the sea-waves swell their hollow roar,
He counts the billows plunging to the shore;
And oft, beneath the glimmer of the moon,
He chaunts some wild and melancholy tune,
Till o'er his soft'ning features seems to play
A flick'ring gleam of mind's recover'd sway.

Thus, like a living Dream, apart from men,
From morn to eve he haunts the wood and glen;
But round him, near him, wheresoe'er he rove,
A shielding Angel tracks him from above;
Nor harm from flood or fen shall e'er destroy
The lonesome wand'rings of that maniac boy.

But lo, in pale sublimity of forms
The arctic billows glare like frozen storms!
For thus, in terrible array, are seen
Mountains of ice where never man hath been,
Where not a sound, nor motion dares advance
To violate their everlasting trance;
Save when the riven glaciers downward crush
Themselves to water, with chaotic rush;
Or Silence trembles, like a thing aghast,
When o'er her waste the wolfish echo pass'd;—

E'en here beneath the wings Almighty roam
The brave sea-warriors from their English home,
And find amid such wilderness of waves
An Eye that watches, and a Hand that saves.

Behold! yon Vessel with heroic prow
Through a white realm of ice advancing now,
Her cables stiffen'd into chains of frost,
And the proud bearing of her beauty lost,—
The prey of ocean, will she not descend,
Tomb'd in dead ice, with none to mark her end?
No! faith and valour, and inviolate hope,
With danger in its deepest midnight cope;
And Home shall listen yet, with pausing breath,
To tales of ruin—the romance of Death,
When frowning o'er her, like a Fiend he stood,
And mutter'd, “Sink in ghastly solitude!
And may the corpses of thy crew be seen
To freeze and whiten where thy sails have been!”

Victors of Nature in her dreadest might!
Dauntless as winds that roam with free delight,
When once again the rocks of England rise
In tow'ring welcome on your dazzled eyes,
As round the hearth young household-voices ring,
Like the glad melodies of jocund spring,
What records with your laden hearts unroll?
Where is the painter, on whose gorgeous soul
Visions of undepicted beauty rose,
Like them that glitter'd on irradiant snows?
Bright as the Palace John of Patmos view'd,
What ice-domes flash'd in frozen solitude!
What rocks of ruby glare, when sunset came
Full on their whiteness, like a wingèd flame!
And while the crimson of declining day
Lit the cold fretwork of the crystal spray,
How oft a seaman with ecstatic eyes
Drank the rich magic of celestial dyes,
Blent like a rainbow's, when the waters heave
And tremble, while the braided colours weave.—
But there was beauty that outdazzled this,
Making the air one fairy-clime of bliss,
When moonlight flung a robe of silver haze
Athwart the mountains that received its rays,
Till the stain'd welkin by reflection shone,
Like floating emerald, or a verdant sun,
So brightly green, so exquisite the glow!—
And then, what meteors did pale twilight throw
O'er the chill air, in wild electric play!
Sublimely fierce, or delicately gay,
The Borealis like a creature spread
Its length of living glory o'er their head,
And seem'd exulting with victorious light,
To mock the darkness with its radiant might.
But, oh, the silence!—dream-like, cold, and vast,
As though the day of awful doom had pass'd,
And Earth remain'd to wither, dead and lone,
A blighted rebel, by her God unknown!
So mute and soundless must that hour have been,
When, gazing round on nature's ghastly scene
Of crag and ice interminably piled,
A frozen chaos, a sepulchral wild,—
The seaman ponder'd till a thought of death
Check'd the cold murmur of his faintest breath:
Nature and God alone were reigning now:
And the high meaning of his dauntless brow
Dethroned by awe, dissolved and waned away,
For Silence, like a spirit, seem'd to pray,
Till the blood listen'd in his breathless frame,
And, small and still, the voice Almighty came!

Exhaustless Mercy! like that pilgrim brook,
That never once the marching hosts forsook,
When through the scorching wastes of Egypt's land,
The cloud-led Israel steer'd by God's command,
Thy stream, along the herbless path of life,
Makes verdure smile, with bloom celestial rife:
But if there be, round whom with holier might
Dwells the deep sense of Heaven's o'erwatching light,
Soldiers of Christ! whose banner faith unrolls,
The true schechinah of protected souls
'Tis theirs to witness, when through clime and zone
Where the grim idol mounts Jehovah's throne,
And Man, degraded as the trampled clod,
Bleeds at the shrine of some barbaric god,
Wild as the torrent in its desperate fall,
Whom blood, nor death, nor agonies appal,
With spirit blighted, and with reason blind,—
Who can rebuild his desolated mind?

“Go forth and teach”—and ye have gone, and done
Deeds that will shine, when thou art dark, O Sun!
Heroes, whose crowns with gems of glory shine,
Dug from the depths of heaven's eternal mine,
Oh, what a conquest hath the Cross obtain'd!
E'en where of old a hell of darkness reign'd,
And Crime and Havoc, fiend-begotten pair,
In mortal bosoms made their savage lair,
And issued thence to riot, rage, or kill,
Like incarnations of a demon's will,
The peace that passeth understanding grows,
And Earth seems born again, without her woes;
So wondrously the spell divine descends,
And man with nature in communion blends:

The isles have seen HIM! and the deserts raise
Anthems that thrill the halls of heaven with praise;
Crouching and tame the tiger Passions lie,
Hush'd by the gaze of God's subduing eye:
Temples and homes of sacred truth abound,
Where Satan once with all his fiends was found:
And, hark! at sunset while the shaded calm
Of forest coolness floats on wings of balm,
As roams the pilgrim in that dying glare,
From a lone hamlet winds the voice of prayer,—
Breath of the soul by Jesu taught to rise
And blend with music heard beyond the skics!
Ecstatic thought! the zenith of our dreams,
Error has died in Truth's victorious beams:
And where the savage round his altar fed
On the warm fragments of the limbless dead,
Cots which an English heart delights to hail
Deck the green wilds of many a foreign dale,
And, turn'd by Piety's familiar hand,
Religion sees her tear-worn Bibles stand.

“Thy kingdom come!” prophetic voices throng
In choral harmony, and chant, “How long,
How long, O beatific King of kings,
Till ransom'd earth with gospel-music rings?
How long a period ere that Sun arise
Which glitter'd on Isaiah's holy eyes,
And clad the cedar'd hills of Palestine
With veils of glory, wove from sheen divine?”

Oh for that day, beyond what poets dream,
Deck'd by Imagination's crystal beam,
When vanquish'd Sin shall leave Messiah's throne
To rise in full transcendancy alone:
Hate, War, and Tumult, all the brood of crime,
Shall then be banish'd from the scene of time;
Evil be dead, Corruption breathe no more,
And Peace, the seraph, smile from shore to shore,
While round her Prince sublime hosannahs swell,—
“Thy truth has wither'd all the thrones of Hell!
For ever and for ever live and reign,
Till earth be purified to heaven again!”

Thou unimagined God! though every hour,
And every day speak Thy mysterious power;
Upon the seventh, creation's work was crown'd:
Upon the seventh, ten thousand worlds wheel'd round!
And ever hallow'd be Thy chosen day,
Till Nature die, and Time shall roll away.

Sweet Sabbath morn! from childhood's dimpled prime
I lov'd to hail thy calm-renewing time;
Soft steal thy bells upon the trancèd mind,
In fairy cadence floating on the wind,
Telling of friends and times long flown away.
And pensive hopes harmonious with the day.

On thy still dawn, while holy music peals,
And far around the ling'ring echo steals,
What Heart communes not with the day's repose,
And, lull'd by angel-dreams, forgets its woes?
Who, in His temple, gives to God a prayer,
Nor feels an image of bright heaven is there?
The pleading stillness of the vaulted pile,
Where gather'd hearts their homage breathe awhile,
The mingled burst of penitential sighs,
The choral anthem pealing to the skies,
Exalt the soul to energies sublime,
And thoughts that reach beyond the realm of time.

Emblem of peace! upon the village plain
Thou dawn'st a blessing to the toil-worn swain:
Soon as thy smiles along the upland play,
His bosom kindles to salute the day;
Humble and happy, to his lot resign'd,
He owns the inward sabbath of the mind.

And when, with low-drawn sighs of love and fear,
His suppliant vows have sought Jehovah's ear,
Serene the thoughts which o'er his bosom steal,
As home he wanders for the sabbath meal:
There shall kind Plenty wear her sweetest smiles;
There shall his ruddy children play their wiles;
While the fond mother, lapp'd in worldless joy,
Fondles with frequent kiss her infant boy.
At noon, a ramble round the burial-ground,
A moral tear on some lamented mound;
Or breezy walk along the green expanse,
Where endless verdure charms the ling'ring glance,—
These are the wonted blessings of the day,
Which all his weekly toils and woes repay.
And when the shroud of night hath veil'd the view,
And star-gleams twinkle on the meadow-dew,
Some elder boy beside his father's knee
Shall stand and read the Eternal History:

Orhousehold-prayer, or chanted hymn shall close
The hour that charms him to a sweet repose.

And Melody,—an echo breathed from heaven!
By her ineffable delight is given;
Whether she melt a passion from the mind,
Or with Æolian languish lull the wind;
Whether she madden in the mingled roar
Of Alpine billows bounding to the shore;
Or on the elfin pinions of a breeze
Float o'er the flowers, and woo the vernal trees,—
Alike divine! But, deeper in the soul
Sinks melody's omnipotent control.
When from the fluted organ, full and deep
Billows of music through the dim aisles sweep!
Ear, eye, and heart, confess the awful spell,
While soul and being with the magic swell,
And as the spiral echoes upward wind,
Die off—and scarcely leave the man behind.

And now, while faintly-ebbing murmurs roll
Entrancing music o'er the prostrate soul,
Religion loves to linger in some aisle,
Where through emblazon'd panes a vesper smile
With pallid radiance quivers in the gloom,
Or crowns, like seraph-light, th' inspiring tomb;
The thrilling echoes of sepulchral ground,
The monumental awe suffused around,
The fretted arch with its gigantic sweep,
The world's great Spirits throned in marble sleep,—
Subdue each earthly passion into fear,
As though the resurrection-hour drew near!

But not alone the vast and vaulted pile,
An echoing cloister, or the pillar'd aisle,
Hallow the mind: for humblest fanes impart
A holy magic to the feeling heart.

And see, down where yon arches shed their gloom,
And mottoes speak from many a time-worn tomb,
There, where the Font uprears its marble brow,
The village sponsors breathe their sacred vow,
While timidly a mother, young and mild,
To Heaven presents her dedicated child:
And oft she gazes on the sleeping boy,
Lock'd to her breast with all a mother's joy;
Fearful and fond, and twining for repose,
Like a young bud around the parent rose.

But who shall paint her meditative eye,
Her look of love and heaven-appealing sigh,
When on the cherub brow, with hope divine,
The holy preacher prints the liquid sign?
Joy, doubt, and fear in mingled passion rise,
Gush through her heart, and glitter in her eyes.

Whene'er I gaze upon a sinless child,
Tossing its merry head of ringlets wild,
Lip, cheek, and eye, all in that lovely glow
Young spirits feel, as yet unchill'd by wo,
A voiceless wonder animates each sense,
To think how Mercy watches innocence!

Survey the scene of life: in yonder room,
Pillow'd in beauty 'mid the cradle gloom,
While o'er its features plays an angel-smile,
A breathing cherub slumbers for a while:
Those budding lips, the faintly-fringèd eye,
That placid cheek, and uncomplaining sigh,
The rounded limbs in soft embrace entwined,
Like flower-leaves folded from the sev'ring wind,—
All by their tender charms her babe endear,
And feed the lux'ry of a mother's fear.

Next, mark her infant raised to childhood's stage,
Bound in the bloom of that delightful age,
With heart as light as wavelets on the deep,
And eye that Wo has scarcely taught to weep:—
The tip-toe gaze, the pertinacious ken,
Each rival attribute of mimick'd men,
The prompt decision, and presuming way,
Now picture forth his yet auspicious day.

Whether at noon he waft his tiny boat
By winding streams, and woody bank remote,
Or climb the meadow-tree, or trail the kite,
And thinks that heaven ne'er match'd that moving sight!
Or roam the haunted wood at dying day,
To list with spell-bound ear the cuckoo's lay,—
A Hand above o'er-rules the vent'rous boy,
And draws the daily circle of his joy.

And thus, when manhood brings its weight of care,
To chain the soul, and curb the giddy air,
The father, friend, the patriot, and the man,
Share in the love of Heaven's parental plan;
Till age o'ersteal his mellow'd form at last,
And wintry locks tell summer youth is past;
Then, like the sun slow-wheeling to the wave,
He sinks in glory to a welcome grave.

Lord of the Universe! enthron'd sublime
In secret glory over Space and Time,
Though oft the red-wing'd lightnings sear the sky,
And mutt'ring thunders mark Thy track on high,
One omnipresent, ever sleepless Love
Pervades what issues from Thy power above:

When from Thy hands primeval earth outsprang,
And starry music o'er the launch'd world rang,
Thine emblem, God, was Love! nor eye can see
Where love is not the master-trait of Thee.

And since that time, when first in Eden's bower
The stainless Adam bent to beauty's power,
Have Souls commingled in affection's flame,
In weal unsever'd, and in wo the same.

Young, chaste, and lovely—pleased, yet half afraid,
Before yon altar droops a plighted maid,
Clad in her bridal robes of taintless white,
Dumb with the scene, and dazzled with delight.
Around her hymeneal guardians stand,
Each with devoted look, and feeling bland;
And oft she turns her soul-expressing eye,
Dimm'd with a tear for happiness gone by!
Then coyly views, in youth's commanding pride,
Her own betroth'd one kneeling by her side:
Like lilies bending from the noon-tide blaze,
Her bashful eyelids droop beneath his gaze;
While love and homage blend their blissful power,
And shed a halo round his marriage-hour.

What though this chance-abounding life ordain
A path of anguish and corrective pain;
By want or wo, where'er compell'd he rove,
A cot's a palace by the light of love!
There beats one heart, which until death will be
A fountain-source of fondest sympathy;
One frownless eye to kindle with his own,
One changeless friend, when other friends are flown:
Oh, sanction Thou the love-united pair,
Author of love! for Thou art present there.

There be some heart-entwining hours of life,
With uncontrollable sensation rife;
When mellow'd thoughts, like music on the ear,
Thrill through the soul, and revel in a tear.
And, such are they, when, tranquil and alone
We sit and ponder on long periods flown;
And, charm'd by Fancy's retrospective gaze,
Live in an atmosphere of other days;
Till friends and faces, flashing on the mind,
Conceal the havoc time has left behind.

Yon aged man,—with what a musing eye
He dreams and lingers o'er the days fled by,
When pensive, sitting by his evening-fire,
To Mem'ry's peaceful glade his thoughts retire,
While cherub grandsons pat his willing knee,
Shake their bright curls, and prattle off their glee.
Now gently fleet back joy-wing'd days of old,
When Hope led forward, and the eye look'd bold:
With holy calm he thinks of place and time,
Beloved when left, unblotted with a crime;
Cold friendship's smiles are re-illumined now,
And gleams of fancy lighten on his brow!
What Hand puissant gave to life each form,
Scatter'd the cloud and piloted the storm?
Guided him onward through his thorny road,
Bestow'd each joy, and brighten'd each abode?
Ah! see the pious tear of mem'ry roll
In welling rapture from his grateful soul,
That trembles like the waking pulse of joy,
To feel, Heaven raised the man, and rear'd the boy!

Chain'd to the car of Time, as on we roll
Through cloud and sunshine to th' Eternal goal,
How favour'd he, whose soul, through Grace refined,
Meets by the way some all-partaking mind,
Some feeling friend, by Nature mark'd our own,
And moulded true to every tender tone!
Let fortune frown, congenial scenes depart,
And “farewell” rive the fetters of the heart,—
'Tis sweet, when roaming by a wave-girt strand,
To weave fond visions of our own far Land;
Or dream, while faintly chimes the convent-bell,
Of distant friends, and each domestic spell,
And feel one Spirit tracks our lone career
And dwells in every heart to Friendship dear.

And if brief absence in our chequer'd life
Wake in fond bosoms sympathetic strife,
How deep the wo when death's terrific hand
Tears a loved victim to a shadowy land!—
Oh Death! thou dreadless Vanquisher of earth,
The elements shrunk blasted at thy birth;
Thine is the conquest of untold mankind,
Victims before, and carnage strewn behind!

And say, when thoughtful on our couch we lie,
And scan the future with uncheated eye,
How fancy dreads to realise the tomb,
Shrinks into awe, and shudders at its doom;
What shapes of horror glide around our bed,
Damp from the ghastly regions of the dead,
While nature hovers o'er that fearful brink,
Where Faith turns wild, and Thought too weak to think;
Trembling and startling, like a shade in sleep,
Or a lone vessel on the surging deep,—
Till Revelation's heaven-directed beam
Melts every doubt in some celestial dream;
Oh, then no more convulsing terrors roll;
Then, then, the hallelujah of the soul!

Wing'd on the hope of heaven, it speeds away
To the bright source of beatific Day.

Lo! on a shaded couch, with pillow'd head,
And pallid limbs in dewy languor spread,
The dying parent, like a wailing breeze,
Moans in the feverish grasp of wan Disease;
While sad and watching, with a sleepless eye,
A lovely daughter sits and muses by:
So Gabriel sat within the Saviour's tomb,
When his pure spirit walk'd th' Eternal gloom.

There, as some ancient abbey's muffled bell
Tolls o'er the drowsing world the day's farewell,
Frequent she glances at his wrinkled brow,
And those dear eyes, so dim and deathful now,
Till all his love and all his care returns,
And memory through her brain and bosom burns!—
That drooping hand, so delicately weak,
How often had it smooth'd her infant cheek;
Or danced her, lightly tripping by his side,
And prattling sweetly with delighted pride;
Or pluck'd the baby flower that charm'd her age,
Or gently oped Instruction's pictured page,
Or pointed to some mild and mournful star,
That throned its beauty in the sky afar.

And see, no more the arrowy throes of pain
Pierce his bound head, or force the plaintive strain;
Slumber hath heal'd them with its holy balm,
And chain'd the senses in oblivion's calm;
Pleased at his quiet mien, with timid breath,
She stirs to see—alas! the sleep of Death;
Pulseless and pale, beneath the taper's glow,
Lies her loved parent, but a lifeless show!

She shook not, shrick'd not, raised no maniac cry,
Nor wrung her hand, nor heaved one heart-deep sigh;
But stood aghast, too awful for relief,
Mute, stiff, and white,—a monument of grief!

To hear a dying lip's last accent speak,
And watch the death-chill on a sunken cheek;
Or see the flaming eye-ball fiercely roll,
As if it wrestled with a parting soul;
Or, hear the last clod crumble on the bed,
And thrill some hollow mansion of the dead,
This, this is wo!—but deeper far the gloom
That haunts us, when we pace the desert room,
And shadow forth an image of our love,
Rapt to Elysian realms of light above;
'Tis now, while low and long the heavy knell
Pours on the breeze a parted soul's farewell,
Despair and anguish curtain round our view,
And all but sorrow seems to be untrue.
How sadly vacant turns the frequent gaze,
To where a mourn'd one smiled in other days!
The eye that glitter'd with each gen'rous thought;
The glowing mind with worth and wisdom fraught;
The twilight walk by some romantic stream,
Where Friendship warm'd, while Fancy wove her dream;
The smile, and wit,—all, all the feeling heart
Delights to trace on mem'ry's faithful chart
Return upon us; Omnipresent Power!
'Tis Thine to lull this agonising hour;
To charm the burden from the soul, and be
A Saviour-God in more than sympathy.