University of Virginia Library

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!—
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—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!—
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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!
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