Xeniola :: :: University of Virginia Library

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,—

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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!

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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

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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!

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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,

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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

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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!