Sacred Meditations and Moral Themes In Verse By the Rev. Robert Montgomery ... Third Edition--Revised and Enlarged |
 |
MORAL POWER OF THE PRESS. |
 | Sacred Meditations and Moral Themes In Verse |  |
130
MORAL POWER OF THE PRESS.
But, in this prologue of preparing means
Heaven-moulded, chief and prime of arts immense,
See, Printing rise—that miracle of Powers!
That bids the Past become perpetual Now,
Gives Reason sway, Imagination shape,
To Time a soul, to Thought a substance lends,
And with ubiquity, almost divine,
For living permanence and local power
Each ray of Soul immortally endows.
Heaven-moulded, chief and prime of arts immense,
See, Printing rise—that miracle of Powers!
That bids the Past become perpetual Now,
Gives Reason sway, Imagination shape,
To Time a soul, to Thought a substance lends,
And with ubiquity, almost divine,
For living permanence and local power
Each ray of Soul immortally endows.
Thou great Embalmer of departed mind!
Thou dread Magician! by whose mental charm,
A mournful, pale, and solitary man
Who pines unheeded, or who thinks unknown,
Long after dust and darkness hide his grave,
Himself can multiply with magic force
Beyond the reach of language to explore,
And the wide Commonwealth of minds may rule
With sway imperial! Who can image Thee,
Whether to Heaven uplifting mind and man,
Or, Hell-ward both seducing, like a Fiend?
Boundless in each thine unremembered sway!
Thine was a voice, whose resurrection-blast
Pealed through the catacombs where buried Mind
For centuries lay; and, lo! with living might
The Fathers burst their cerements, and breathed;
Dead Intellect from classic tombs came forth
Quickened, and into active substance changed
By thy vast potency: and then was felt
The pith of thought, the marrow of the mind
Itself transfusing,—like a second life
The old absorbing, as with heat divine.
And since that moment, have not Books become
Our silent Prophets, intellectual Kings,
And Hierarchs of human thought
To vice, or virtue? Are they not like Shrines
For truth?—Cathedrals, where the chastened heart
Can worship, or in tranquil hours retreat
To meet the Spirit of the olden time?
For there the drama of the world abides
Yet in full play, immortally performed.—
Still ride the fleets o'er Actium's foughten waves
Before us; patriots fight and tyrants fall;
Sparta and Corinth, and the famous Isles
That fought for freedom till their blood ran o'er
With brave contention,—yet convene, and clash
Their forces; still the Roman eagle flies
In full-winged triumph o'er the subject world;
Cæsar and Pompey yet the earth alarm,
Or, drag their chariot with the captive East;
Battles are raging, Kingdoms lost or won,
Yea, all the Genius of gone time is there
In books articulate,—whose breath is mind.
Thou dread Magician! by whose mental charm,
A mournful, pale, and solitary man
Who pines unheeded, or who thinks unknown,
Long after dust and darkness hide his grave,
Himself can multiply with magic force
Beyond the reach of language to explore,
And the wide Commonwealth of minds may rule
With sway imperial! Who can image Thee,
Whether to Heaven uplifting mind and man,
Or, Hell-ward both seducing, like a Fiend?
131
Thine was a voice, whose resurrection-blast
Pealed through the catacombs where buried Mind
For centuries lay; and, lo! with living might
The Fathers burst their cerements, and breathed;
Dead Intellect from classic tombs came forth
Quickened, and into active substance changed
By thy vast potency: and then was felt
The pith of thought, the marrow of the mind
Itself transfusing,—like a second life
The old absorbing, as with heat divine.
And since that moment, have not Books become
Our silent Prophets, intellectual Kings,
And Hierarchs of human thought
To vice, or virtue? Are they not like Shrines
For truth?—Cathedrals, where the chastened heart
Can worship, or in tranquil hours retreat
To meet the Spirit of the olden time?
For there the drama of the world abides
Yet in full play, immortally performed.—
Still ride the fleets o'er Actium's foughten waves
Before us; patriots fight and tyrants fall;
Sparta and Corinth, and the famous Isles
That fought for freedom till their blood ran o'er
With brave contention,—yet convene, and clash
Their forces; still the Roman eagle flies
In full-winged triumph o'er the subject world;
132
Or, drag their chariot with the captive East;
Battles are raging, Kingdoms lost or won,
Yea, all the Genius of gone time is there
In books articulate,—whose breath is mind.
| Sacred Meditations and Moral Themes In Verse | |