University of Virginia Library

What gentle murmur hath disturbed the air?
Did I not feel upon my cheek a breath,
Silent, and soft, as of an angel's wing!—
They come—in midnight visitings they come—
Those forms, that hover o'er the poet's couch,
What time he gazes with most earnest eye,
And long-suspended breath, lest from his view
The imaged objects of idolatry
Should fade! I heard—even now I hear—a voice
Low, yet most clear; I felt—even now I feel—
Mysterious breathings, and the soul obeys
In unresisting motion, when the Power
Of Song makes felt her holy influence.
Hast thou beheld the obedient march of waves,
The appointed flow, the regulated fall,
The rise, and lapse alternate? even as soon
Shall they rebel against the silent maid,
Who walks in joy among the company
Of stars, and smiles enchantment on the deep,
As poet struggle with the awful Power
That wakes the slumbering spirit into song,
As Man forbid the soul to undulate
Through all its depths what time the breath of Heaven
Moves o'er the darkness:—

Spoke there not a voice—
And Chaos heard?—“Let there be light,” and light
Was over air and earth and on the deep.
And such a voice was heard on Chebar's banks,
Loud as the rushing of a thousand streams,
And, in stupendous visionry, were seen
Cloud piled on cloud, as when the hand of God
Makes calm the tempest—cloud on cloud uprolled,
And amber fire within, and, trembling through,
Uncertain flashes of a throne dim-seen,
Strange brightness of what seemed the countenance
Of Him who sate thereon: while, Spirit-like,
Lone emblem of the Glory Unrevealed,
Afar, in silent heaven, the rainbow woke.

Angelic Voice and Vision, oft of old
Vouchsafed to prophet, and prophetic bard!
Oh for one breath of that undying Spirit!
Oh for one ray of that empyreal light!

For me, and such as I am, humbler lay
Is more appropriate. Not to me was given
Empyreal impulse,—yet the ardent mind
Brooks not inglorious silence, yet my cares
Are often solaced by some lighter Muse.
When sorrow pressed me—when the heavy hand
Of sickness weighed on the dejected mind,
And saddened the exulting time of youth
With the dim eye and feeble foot of age;
When Hope's reviving glow with Health returned,
Some Spirit still was near to whisper song,
A form that, angel-like, hung o'er my bed
Of pain, to reconcile the soul to death,
And, angel-like, illumes my brighter hours.

What hour more fitting for such visitant,
Than when the silence of the night hath lulled
All care to rest,—the stir of intercourse,
The fretting bustle—all that jarring clashed
To drown the music of the mind, hath ceased?
What scene more suited to her agency
Can'st thou conceive?—Round my broad window's arch
The ivy's wreaths are wound, and through the frame
A few short shoots find unforbidden way;
The woodbine's pillared blossom in the breeze
Moves slowly, and upon the moonlight ground
The shadow casts an ever-varying stain;—
The sound of waters, too, is here,—that stream,
Whose windings long have led my truant feet,
Soothes with its ceaseless murmur,—opposite
My window is a poplar, all whose leaves
Flutter most musical;—the moonshine there
Plays strange vagaries,—now a flood of light
Spreads like a sheet of snow along the plain,—
Now all is darkness, save that through the boughs
On the green circle, like a summer shower
Slow falling from unagitated leaves,
Some glancing drops of light are checkering still;—
Now is the ivy coloured with the beams,—
Now on my floor they lie in quietness,—
Now float with mazy flow most restlessly,
—At rest, or quivering, still how beautiful!—
Like Fancy sporting with the poet's soul!

They come—in midnight visitings they come—
But not such forms as in the calm of night
Seek the soft twilight of the gentle moon!—
What form is yonder?—never hath the dream
Of night been bodied in a wilder shape!
Stern is his brow, and gloomy, and his height
Is as the shadow on the burial ground,
When the moon's light upon some sculptured form
In cold reflection lies!—A heavy cloud,
And red, as though from steaming vales of blood
Exhaled, o'ershades him with its canopy!
Whither, sad Spirit! whither would'st thou haste?
A wavering melancholy fire hath lit
Thine eye; thy voice is dreary as the fear,
That wakes the wounded warrior from his trance,
When the black vulture from her heavy wing
Flaps on his brow the drops of stiffening gore,
Or the steed dying falls, a weary weight,
On his bruised body. Whither would'st thou lead,
Dark Spirit, whither? To that fatal field,
Where moonlight gleams on many a broken helm,
On many a shieldless warrior, o'er whose limbs
The trembling hand of love had linked the mail,
Alas in vain?—the supple limbs of youth,
And manhood's sinewy strength, and rigid age,
Together lie:—the boy, whose hands with blood
Were never stained before, upon whose lip
The mother's kiss was ominously pressed;—
The man, alive to every tenderest thought,
Who cherished every fire-side charity;—
And he, who, bending with the weight of years,
Felt the sword heavy in his straining hand,
Who had outlived the social sympathies
That link us to our kind—here, side by side,
Sleep silent: he, who shrunk at every sound,
Who throbbed in terror for a worthless life,
Lies like a brother with the hopeless man,
Who desperately dared in scorn of death:—
The brave man in convulsing agony
Hath grasped, and holds in death the hireling's hand:—
—He, who was wont to calculate each chance,
To measure out each probability,
Behold him now extended on the earth,
Near that robuster frame, whose tenant soul
Flashed rapid in the energetic eye,
Whose thoughts were scarce imagined, ere they sprang
Forth-shaped in instant action:—here lies one,
Whose soul was vexed by Passion's every gust,
And like the light leaf trembled:—gaze again,
Look on the mutilated hand, that still
Clings to the sword unconscious;—milder man
Than he, whose mutilated hand lies there,
Breathes not;—each passion that rebelled was hushed;
So placid was his brow, so mild his eye,
It seemed no power could break the quiet there,
Till, in the agony of tenderness,
As his wife hung upon his bending neck,
And lengthened out in sobs that last embrace,
He could not look upon her countenance,
And the big tear he struggled to repress
Fell on the rosy infant's cheek, who smiled
At the unusual plume, and with stretched hand
Half drew the shining falchion from its sheath,
Then clung in mimic terror to his sire:—
—He parted:—soon the dewy breeze of morn,
The wild bird's carol and the wild-flower's breath,
And the blue hills, emerging from the sea
Of mists, that bathed all night their pinnacles,
Infused serenity:—and, as he past
The funeral-ground, and heard the Sabbath bell
Peal its long solemn sound, be-sure he thought
That with his fathers, in the family-grave,
His bones would moulder, and the thought was sweet:
Alas! ere long the soldier's hasty hand
Shall shape his burial-place, and the short prayer
Be muttered gracelessly above his grave!
—His was not what the great of earth would deem
A happy life; yet what is happiness,
If he who by his daily labour buys
His children's daily food, who feels no thought
Repine against his lot, if such a man
Thou deem'st not happy, what is happiness?—
His death was it not happy? though he came
The proud assertor of an evil cause,
He came self-justified: the patriot's glow
Illumed his cheek in life's last agony!
Fallen warrior, there are those that weep for thee!
Aye, there is one who, in her daily prayer,
Leaves not the absent soldier's name forgot—
There is an eye that, as each passing cloud
Obscures the air, will shape it to thy form;
And, when she thinks on thee, if the chill breeze
Roll the dry vine-leaf in its hurrying whirl,
Will start as tho' it were thy courser's hoofs:
Oh! she hath often from the cradle snatched
Her dreaming child, and hushed its little plaints,
Soothing him with the tale of thy return,
And rushed to show the infant to his sire,
Then laid it rudely by, and bitterly
Wept when she saw another face than thine.
[OMITTED]
[OMITTED]

—Kings of Earth,
Whose is the crime, if Man should abdicate
His better nature?—Statesmen, whose the crime,
If, uninstructed, he should rise in wrath,
And rush with impulse irresistible,
Right onward to your ruin and his own?—
Have you not blotted from his memory
All sense of justice, when your shameless deeds
Confused each rule and ordinance of right?
Have you not drunk the cup of blasphemy?
Have you not sold, in impious merchandize,
Slaves, and the Souls of Men?—

Thou wert alone,
Thou, England, like some hill, whose lofty brows
Retain at eve, and joyously effuse
The light, that loves to lie and linger there:—
Only with thee Religion found a home,
Only with thee did Liberty repose! [OMITTED]

“Woe to the Guilty Land! The palmer-worm
Shall waste her harvests! Like an evening cloud
The locust-swarms shall rise, and where they leave
The desolated vale, the canker-worm
Shall creep. A few thin ears shall still remain
Of all that Summer promised: there the slug
Shall batten, there the caterpiller crawl,
And on the blighted grain shall insect tribes
Leave their cold egg, and perish:—Wake and weep,
Wake, Drunkards, from your dream! Is this an hour
To pledge the wine-cup?—in your land the vine
Hath withered!—on your hills the cedar dies,
And foreign arms are gleaming to the sun—
Wake, Drunkards, wake!”—'Twas thus the Prophet spoke,
And they obeyed not. When hath Man obeyed
The voice of warning?—Though no prophet called
Unhappy France, though on her palace-wall
No hand, dim-seen, inscribed the words of doom,
As in old Babylon, she might have known
What fate would follow, when she stretched her arms
Impatient for the tyrant,—might have heard,
In true anticipation, every shriek,
That soon must ring throughout her ravaged realms;—
She might have heard the rush of soldiery,
Numberless as the atoms, that the wind
Drifts in the stormy desart, when some ribbed
And rifted hill of sand is whirled along—
She might have heard the warriors of the Don
And Dwina, shouting forth their strange hurra,
Screaming in sunny vales the dissonance
The northern peasant hears, when midnight storms
Shake his rude hut, and from the crashing roof
The whirlwind tears the rushy covering!—
Woe to the land where Prussia's plunderers come!
Behind their path the blaze of cottages
Shall shine, a beacon to the thousand hordes
Afar on Danube's banks! Woe to the land,
Where England comes in anger! Weep, ye wives,
The cross of blood is streaming in the sky!
Weep, daughters, weep, for brand and bayonet
Are sparkling in the sunbeam!—

Oh! what joy
Is thine, green daughter of the western star,
Ireland, my country, oh! what joy is thine!
What language shall not sing thy Wellington,
While the fond poet deems the deathless name
Shall give his numbers immortality?—
[OMITTED]
Eternal Spirit, thou who promisest
That, when some few are gathered in thy name,
Thou art amidst them! that the humble prayer
Is not unheard by thee,—didst thou not gaze
With favour, when the climes of half the world,
Moved with one impulse, sent their children forth
To dash the tyrant from his tainted throne?—
—Strange were the offerings on that Sabbath-day,
And stern the priests, who watched the sacrifice
On Waterloo's red field!—for choral hymn
Was heard the cannon's shock,—black incense steamed
Against the cloudy heaven! proud warriors there,
For whom the trumpet pealed a matin-note,
Lie cold, and cannot hear the screams and shrieks,
That shock the ear of night—and cannot hear
The shout of England's pride, of Prussia's joy!
—Never from Indian island, lately taught
The Christian's happy creed, where, underneath
The grove's cool boughs, meet many a family
On Sabbath eve, arose a hymn more sweet
To claim the ear of Heaven, than from that field
Of blood, when, gazing on the piles of dead,
The fainting soldier sighed his gratitude!—

On what a scene that morning Sun arose!—
Struggling through heavy mists, his watery beams
Shone coldly on that fated plain, and gleamed
On groves, whose boughs, rent by the midnight storm,
All bare of beauty lay;—from weary bed
The warrior started, on whose fretting ear
All night the voices of the changing winds,
The shivering of branches, and the calls
Of sentinel from foreign bivouac,
Came ceaseless, often with that lulling sound,
Which brings the hope of sleep, in mockery,
To him who fain in sleep would lose the thoughts,
The anxious thoughts, that crowd upon his soul;—
Morn dawns—the trance of sleep is gone,—what joy
Welcomes the rising morn! what eloquence
Of lip, and eye, and gesture! There were those,
Who in the battle lived a thousand lives,
If life were measured by the warrior's joy;—
Now, now the tide tumultuous rolls along,
Swift as the clouds in winter's chilling night,
That, hurrying onward, with their dusky folds
Darken the moon,—swift as their shadows sweep
Along a plain of snow or level lake!—
Look, look how rapidly yon coursers press
Up thro' those shrouds of smoke:—at times you hear
The shouting riders, when the glancing hoof
Bounds light on softer earth—at times you see,
When the breeze wafts aside the battle-cloud,
The dark brow guarded by the shadowy helm,
The cuirass sparkling on the warrior's breast,
The long lance levelled in the steady hand;
And oft, before the lancers' charging lines,
The blue sword's momentary gleams are seen
In horizontal whirl of rapid light,
Or downward ray direct;—with thundering tramp
The courser presses on;—“Revenge—Revenge!”
Heard you that wild scream—Brunswick's battle-shout?
Stern Mourners! oh, how fearfully avenged!

See, where they meet—the pride of England meets
The veteran strength of France—and who shall tell
The tidings of such meeting? who shall live
To say, “My brethren perished by my side?”—
Proudly the Eagle, with exulting wing,
Hath revelled in the tempest;—will he shrink
From this day's storm? untrembling we have viewed
His proudest flights, and shall we tremble now?—
Loud o'er the dinning field, like battle-whoop
Heard in some Indian vale, the hordes of France
Shout in mad revelry their leader's name.
They charge—they shrink—they fly!—With bolder sweep
Another charge is made;—again they shrink—
And yet another dash—Ha! there they stand,
An overpowering force—with frantic shout
The groves of Hougomont ring wildly!—Hark,
Again the cry of Britain!—From that wood
How few shall fly!—But yonder see La-Haye,
Where, black with blood, the heavy tri-color
Flaps o'er the shattered homestead sullenly.
Still, still, wave after tempest-driven wave,
The gloomy hosts of France pour ceaselessly;
Wave, after broken wave, they burst upon
Our serried squares impenetrable still!

On what a scene the westering sun sinks down!—
The doubtful battle still unfixed—the rage
Of France—the force of England.—Still they strive,
Till now the angel of the evening star
Sheds vainly upon earth his smile of peace,
And from her throne in heaven the summer moon
Shines in her silent beauty. She beholds
A strange and troubled scene. I will not tell
The fatal flight of France—I will not pause
To gaze on Blucher:—Who hath not received,
With joy, that mocks the poet's utterance,
The happy tale?—Yet, in the days to come,
When joy is calm, and triumph, like a dream,
In mellowed brightness, soothes the fantasy,
Some future Surrey to the harp shall tell
The moonlight meeting, when the Prussian chief,
Who veiled the furrowed brow and hoary hair
With the accustomed helm, in joy of heart
Greeted victorious Wellesley.—'Twas an hour
Of proudest triumph. Centuries have waned,
And, through their fading shadows, none may mark
Like glory o'er the mournful record gleam!

Fair orb of night, in what calm majesty
Thou sailest onward in thy quiet course!
Like waves, that ripple o'er a summer sea,
The soft clouds glide before thee; many an eye
In joy beholds thy course; thy silent beams
Fall on the virgin's cheek, who, blushingly,
Leans o'er the lofty casement, in whose eye
The warm tear glistens, as the lover's song
Dies gradually upon her doating ear—
Oh, with what pleasure she beholds thy beams!
—But there are those, who with a wilder joy
Hail thee!—but there are those who curse thy light!—
Fly, D'Erlon, fly!—Last eve the sable flag
Shadowed thy host—fly! fly! revenge is near,
And Blucher's bloody brand!

Fallen Emperor!
Home from the battle-field who welcomes thee?
And where be they, who from thine iron rock
Hailed thee?—oh where thy destined triumphs now?
“Joy in Grenoble's streets, in Lyons Joy,
Joy—in the purple halls of Paris, Joy!
Again the Eagle gazes on the sun!”
Such were the songs that shook thy capital;—
Joy that no good heart echoed!—frantic joy—
A momentary madness, that the soul
Shrinks in the lonely hour to recognize!
Triumphant shouts of ruffian revelry,
Heard, like the cannon's roll, at evening hour,
By some devoted town, more deep, more dread,
Amid the silence of surrounding woe!

Gaze on the human frame!—the active foot—
The unwearied hand—the eye intelligent—
The powers and motions—the unceasing breath—
The impulse, the resistance,—each to each
Proportioned,—all dependent upon all,—
All fearfully, all wonderfully made!—
—But view the soul,—it hath been rightly called
A world within,—an agitated world,
Where Passions, Prejudices, Weaknesses,
Bold Aspirations, Terrors tremulous
Hold restless conflict, warring ceaselessly,
Even like the outer earth; aspiring Hope,
With pinions quivering, longs to bathe in heaven;
Lo! Fear, unsteady, hopeless of support,
His dim eye casts upon a deeper gulf,
That indistinctly swims before his sight;
A thousand, thousand phantoms more are there,
That, shifting, mock the pencil which would range
Their shadowy groups;—such is the human soul,
And such the inmates who hold empire there!
—In each man's bosom thus there lies a world,
All peopled with the same inhabitants,
Each shining with its own peculiar light,
Each with its own peculiar atmosphere.—
Oh, I could dwell upon this fond conceit,
Till lost in contemplation. One man's soul
Commands respect, and “marks him from mankind.”
Fair is the promise of his opening youth,
Fortune hath garlanded his glorious brow;
He stands alone:—the Desart Pyramid,
Warred on in vain by every wind of heaven,
That frowned through ages, and through ages more
Shall frown defiance to the lightning's bolt,
Seems not to press more proudly on its base.
—Where stands this mighty man? Do kings still bend
The humbled knee, or, with vain show of strength,
Send armies to their doom? Do senates still,
With mockery of counsel, legalize
Slavish submission to this lord of earth?
Where stands he?—All have heard the monstrous tale!
The man, who gazed in horror on his crimes,
Whose daily supplication for his son,
Forced to the tyrant's wars, came to the ear
Of heaven, as though it were in truth a curse
Upon the tyrant; he, even he, half grieves,
As, dazzled with the glory, he looks back
On former days, and sees the heavy doom
That righteously awaits the man of blood!—
[OMITTED]
—From thy sad place of former banishment,
Didst thou not gaze at times upon the sea?
How many a bark upon the barren wave
Hath past, and left no trace,—how many a ball
Hath hissed along the waters,—oh, how oft
Hath Man, 'gainst Man arrayed, encountered here
In hope of glory! All are now forgot,—
The dweller of the neighbouring coasts, no more,
Can hold their deeds in memory, than the eye
Rest on the cloud, or colour, that is past,
Or these still waves retain the imaged form,
While, by some distant shore, the gallant bark
On other waters flings its heavy shade!—
[OMITTED]
Time was—in dateless years—when spectral eve
Sent shadowy accusers from dark realms;
And at calm dead of night, tyrants, appalled,
Started and shrieked, lashed by avenging dreams;
And when the sunlight came, the joyous sun
Was, to the sickly and distracted sense,
The haunt of demons, and his living light
Seemed the hot blazes of the penal fire;
'Twas said that Furies o'er the bed of sleep
Watched with red eye, and, from the throbbing brow
Drank with delight the dew that agony
Forced forth;—but this, it seems, is fable all!—
—Hath not Philosophy disproved a God?
Ere yet the chymist called the bolt from heaven,
We spoke of Spirits governing its beam,—
Ere yet he learned to part and analyse,
The rock, we deemed some more than human power
Had planted it in ocean,—till he stirred
The muscles of the dead with mimic breath,
And called the cold convulsion life, we deemed
That Heaven alone could bid the dry bones shake!
—But joy to Man! progressive centuries
Have erred, and Wisdom now at length appears—
And, lo! the Goddess! not with brow austere,
Features that tell of silent toil, and locks
Laurelled, as erst in the Athenian Schools;—
Nor yet with garment symboled o'er with stars,
And signs, and talismans, as in the halls
Of parent Egypt; not with pensive eye,
And dim, as though 't were wearied from its watch
Through the long night, what time, to shepherd-tribes
Of fair Chaldæa, she had imaged forth
The host of Heaven, and mapped their mazy march,
While the bright dew on her tiara'd brow,
And the cold moonlight on her pallid face,
And the loose wandering of her heavy hair,
As the breeze lifted the restraining bands,
And the slow motion of the graceful stole,
When with her jewelled wand she traced the line
Of milky light—all gave a sober air
Of mild solemnity. She comes not now,
Like that tall matron, on whose sunny cheek
The smile of pleasure shone, when over earth

“Yoked her naval chariots to the gale.”

Montgomey.

She yoked her cloudy chariot to the breeze,
And scattered blessings with a bounteous hand,
While young Triptolemus, with flushing face,
And animated eye, revealed his love,
And playfully amid her yellow locks
Wreathed the gay poppy's flowers, and round her brow
The green and golden wheat! How beautiful
Oh Goddess, the calm splendour of thy brow,
As flowing lightnings tinge with silent gleam
Earth's coronal of love!

Hath Wisdom robed
Her form with mystery?—as when Athens bowed,
At old Eleusis' venerable shrine,
The suppliant knee, while cymbal clashed, and song
Re-echoed, and, with pomp of sacrifice,
The victims bled to pale Persephone,
Till all was perfected;—then came a pause,
And stop of sound most sudden, and the step
Of votaries falling on the earth so soft,
That not an echo caught the still small sound,
As sad they entered the interior vault;
And not a stir was heard among the crowd,
Till from the fane, with sadness in their looks,
The venerable sages issued forth,
Burthened with thoughts they never may reveal!
[OMITTED]

Philosophers, anatomists of soul,
Ye have displayed a fearful spectacle,
The human heart exposed in nakedness!
Come, gaze upon a kindred sight of woe;
A hideous phantom,—from the bloated limb
Dull drops the heavy flesh,—the bloodless vein
Shrinks,—and the long cold arm, so ghastly white,
Strikes with damp rattle on the bony thigh;
A sickly green hath rusted on the brow,
As though 't were borrowed from the charnel stone;
And the dry dust is on the spider's web,
That shades the vacant dwelling of the eye;
A few thin locks still linger on the brow,
And the chill breeze will sometimes shake those locks,
With something not unlike the stir of life,
More fearful than the fearful calm beneath!
Well may'st thou shudder now,—but, if that frame
Should move,—if from his lonely prison-place,
By old Seville, or where Toledo taught
Black secrets, started some foul fiend, whose task
It is, to breathe around the vaulted grave
The dewy dampness, that the mouldwarp loves,—
To bathe the fungus with the clammy drop,
That oozes from the dead decaying flesh,—
To feed in silence the sepulchral lamp;
What, if, o'erwearied with the tedious task,
He loosed the ligaments that held him there,
And, bursting thro' the sepulchre's cold clasps,
He bathed his black wings in the moonlight sea,
And flinging round his path a meteor-shower,
And pouring on the gale his stormy voice,
Stained with his dusky presence the blue night;
—What, if he breathed himself into that frame,
Swelled out those limbs to giant vastitude,
Gave animation to the morbid mass,
Lit the deserted fortress of the eye,
And stalked 'mong men, and called upon the tribes,
That gazed in awe, to bow before his might,
And conquering, and to conquer, bent his course,
And roused a thousand brother-fiends to share
The spoil, and glory in the gloomy view!—
Even such a Spirit over Earth has passed,
Seared with his shadow the green earth, and dimmed
Heaven's light above. “Hail, Revolution, hail!
All hail, redeeming Spirit!”—shout and song,
The ceaseless voice of maddening multitudes
Rung the acclaim! Thro' courts, through cottages,
That Spirit stalked. The temple's sanctuary
Is foul,—the Christian altar stained with blood!
The lovely novice-nun, whose lingering ear
Dwelt on the evening hymn, who half believed,
As through the chapel's painted panes she viewed
The slow-descending sun, that from his orb
On some slant beam angelic psalmists come
To join the hymns of earth:—oh! she hath shrunk
To feel the ruffian's hand fling back her veil,
To see the face that scorned her agonies,
To hear the screams, and shouts, and heavier sobs,
Till sight, and sense, and feeling past away;
At length she wakens from that utter trance
Never to smile again; and fears to pray;
And hates herself for her unworthiness!

Along the silent walks of studious men
That fiend hath past. No more the winding wave
Recalls to memory those enchanting times,
When, on Diana's cheek the breeze of dawn
Breathed rosy colouring, as with buskined foot
The graceful huntress past thro' pearly dew,
And, in the groves of Delos, roused the lark
To greet her brother's beam;—no more the bard
Pours songs to Venus, and deludes his heart
With the fond fiction!—Gods, whom Greece adored,
Farewell! farewell the everlasting page
Of Homer! Dreams of Sophocles, farewell!
Wise men proscribe your influence, yet be sure
That not in vain that influence hath been breathed;
Renounce more soon, my friend, the lucid page
Of old Eudoxus, fling away the book
Where Newton's spirit lives,—renounce more soon
The search of nature through her hidden walks,
Than the bard's spiritual breathings;—they will yield
A calm, sweet temper, that delights to please,
And can enjoy the pleasure it imparts!
—But if thy secret bosom hath rejoiced
At its own grand conceptions, if the flow
Of music, heard at twilight-time, hath waked
Feelings, not much unlike its varying tones,
To thee I need not tell, what added strength
Will nerve the plume, that seeks with elder bards
Olympus high, and bathes in Castaly;
—Oh! for such wisdom would'st thou not renounce
The sophist's jarring sounds, and view in scorn
The dreams that France hath called Philosophy?
Would'st thou not gaze in wonder and contempt,
Like the Peruvian, when, in Cusco's fane,
The white-robed priest flung down the offerings
Of flowers and fruitage, and, with bitter voice,
Called on the savage man to bend his knee
To sculptured stone, and in prostration fall
Before the graven work of human hands,
While through the open roof the mid-day sun
Shone visible a God, and with the blaze
Of brightness mocked the taper's sickening ray!

Spirit of Heaven, undying Poetry,
Effluence divine! for by too high a name
I cannot call thee,—ere the ocean rolled
Round Earth, ere yet the dewy light serene
Streamed from the silent fountains of the East,
To fill the urns of morning, thou didst breathe,
And, musing near the secret seat of God,
Wert throned o'er Angels! thou alone could'st look
On the Eternal Glory; till thy voice
Was heard amid the halls of heaven, no breath
Disturbed the awful silence! Cherubim
Gazed on thy winning looks, and hung in trance
Of wonder, when thy lonely warblings came,
Sweet as all instruments, that after-art
Of angel or of man hath fashioned forth.
—Spirit of Heaven, didst thou not company
The great Creator?—thou didst see the sun
Rise like a giant from the chambering wave,
And, when he sank behind the new-formed hills,
Shrined in a purple cloud, wert thou not there,
Smiling in gladness from some shadowy knoll
Of larch, or graceful cedar, and at times
Viewing the stream that wound below in light,
And shewed upon its breast the imaged heaven,
And all those shades, which men in after-days
Liken to trees, and barks, and battlements,
And all seemed good to thee?—wert thou not near,
When first the starting sod awoke to life,
And Man arose in grandeur?—Thou didst weep
His fall from Eden, and in saddest hour
Thou wert not absent. From the peopled ark
Thy voice arose:—the tribes of air and earth
Forgot their fears of the increasing wave,
When, from thy throne within the human heart,
Breathed slow the evening-psalm, ere yet the Dove
Roamed o'er the watery waste with weary wing!
Spirit of Heaven, thy first best song on earth
Was Gratitude! Thy first best gift to man
The Charities—Love, in whose full eye gleams
The April-tear;—all dear Domestic Joys,
That sweetly smile in the secluded bowers
Of Innocence! Thy presence hath illumed
The Temple! With the Prophets Thou hast walked,
Inspiring!—oh! how seldom hast thou found
A worthy residence!—the world receives
Thy holiest emanations with cold heart;
The bosom, where, as in a sanctuary,
Thy altar shines, with its own grossness dims
The blaze, or, faint with the “excess of light,”
Thy votary sinks, and in a long repose
Would rest the wearied soul: how many a one
Insults thy presence, forcing thee to join
The haunts of riot and of revelry,
Yet, when the voice of Eloquence in vain
Would rouse a sinking people to the sense
Of shame, then, Spirit, thou dost deeply move
The soul!—oh, breathe, as with thy Milton's voice,
And paint to nations, sunk in sloth and sleep,
The virtues of their fathers! let thy song
Come like the language of a better world,
Like fancied tones, that soothe the musing bard
When passions slumber, and serenity
Breathes softly, as the gale on summer's eve.
Fling images of love, as fair as those
That, from the bosom of the deep, allure
The mariner, presenting to his eye
The hills his little feet were taught to climb,
The valley where he lived, the pillared smoke
That shines in the evening sun, from the low roof
Where dwell his children and deserted wife!

I may not venture on such theme: I feel
My many weaknesses! a little while
Repose, my Harp, in silence! We have waked
Numbers too lofty. Rest we here awhile!