The poetical works of Samuel Rogers :: :: University of Virginia Library

War and the Great in War let others sing,
Havoc and spoil, and tears and triumphing;
The morning-march that flashes to the sun,
The feast of vultures when the day is done;
And the strange tale of many slain for one!
I sing a Man, amid his sufferings here,
Who watched and served in humbleness and fear;
Gentle to others, to himself severe.

Still unsubdued by Danger's varying form,
Still, as unconscious of the coming storm,
He looked elate; and, with his wonted smile,
On the great Ordinance leaning, would beguile
The hour with talk. His beard, his mien sublime,
Shadowed by Age—by Age before the time
From many a sorrow borne in many a clime,
Moved every heart. And now in opener skies
Stars yet unnamed of purer radiance rise!
Stars, milder suns, that love a shade to cast,
And on the bright wave fling the trembling mast!

Another firmament! the orbs that roll,
Singly or clustering, round the Southern pole!
Not yet the four that glorify the Night—
Ah, how forget when to my ravished sight
The Cross shone forth in everlasting light!

'Twas the mid hour, when He, whose accents dread
Still wandered through the regions of the dead,
(Merion, commissioned with his host to sweep
From age to age the melancholy deep)
To elude the seraph-guard that watched for man,
And mar, as erst, the Eternal's perfect plan,
Rose like the Condor, and, at towering height,
In pomp of plumage sailed, deepening the shades of night.
Roc of the West! to him all empire given!
Who bears Axalhua's dragon-folds to heaven;
His flight a whirlwind, and, when heard afar,
Like thunder, or the distant din of war!

Mountains and seas fled backward as he passed
O'er the great globe, by not a cloud o'ercast
From the Antarctic, from the Land of Fire

To where Alaska's wintry wilds retire;
From mines of gold, and giant-sons of earth,
To grots of ice, and tribes of pigmy birth
Who freeze alive, nor, dead, in dust repose,
High-hung in forests to the casing snows.

Now mid angelic multitudes he flies,
That hourly come with blessings from the skies;
Wings the blue element, and, borne sublime,
Eyes the set sun, gilding each distant clime;
Then, like a meteor, shooting to the main,
Melts into pure intelligence again.