The poetical works of James Montgomery :: :: University of Virginia Library

Javan's second Interview with Zillah. He visits the various Dwellings scattered throughout the Glen, and, in the Evening, sings to his Harp, amidst the assembled Inhabitants:—Address to Twilight; Jubal's Song of the Creation: the Power of Music exemplified.

Spent with the toils of that eventful day,
All night in dreamless slumber Javan lay;
But, early springing from his bed of leaves,
Waked by the songs of swallows on the eaves,
From Enoch's cottage, in the cool grey hour,
He wander'd forth to Zillah's woodland bower.
There, in his former covert, on the ground,
The frame of his forsaken harp he found:
He smote the boss; the convex orb, unstrung,
Instant with sweet reverberation rung:
The minstrel smiled, at that sonorous stroke,
To find the spell of harmony unbroke:
Trickling with dew, he bore it to the cell:
There, as with leaves he dried the sculptured shell,
He thought of Zillah; and resolved, too late,
To plead his constancy, and know his fate.

She, from the hour when, in a pilgrim's guise,
Javan return'd,—a stranger to her eyes,
Not to her heart,—from anguish knew no rest;
Love, pride, resentment, struggling in her breast.
All day she strove to hide her misery,
In vain;—a mother's eye is quick to see,
Slow to rebuke, a daughter's bashful fears,
And Zillah's mother only chid with tears:
Night came, but Javan came not with the night;
Light vanish'd, Hope departed with the light;
Her lonely couch conceal'd her sleepless woes,
But with the morning star the maiden rose.
The soft refreshing breeze, the orient beams,
The dew, the mist unrolling from the streams,
The light, the joy, the music of the hour,
Stole on her spirit with resistless power,
With healing sweetness soothed her fevered brain,
And woke the pulse of tenderness again.
Thus while she wander'd, with unconscious feet,
Absent in thought she reach'd her sylvan seat:
The youth descried her not amidst the wood,
Till, like a vision, at his side she stood.

Their eyes encounter'd; both at once exclaim'd,
“Javan!” and “Zillah!”—each the other named;
Those sounds were life or death to either heart:
He rose; she turn'd in terror to depart;
He caught her hand:—“O do not, do not flee!”
—It was a moment of eternity,
And now or never must he plight his vow,
Win or abandon her for ever now.

“Stay:—hear me, Zillah!—every power above,
Heaven, earth, thyself, bear witness to my love!
Thee have I loved from earliest infancy,
Loved with supreme affection only thee.
Long in these shades my timid passion grew,
Through every change, in every trial, true;
I loved thee through the world in dumb despair,
Loved thee, that I might love no other fair;
Guilty, yet faithful still, to thee I fly;
Receive me, love me, Zillah! or I die.”

Thus Javan's lips, so long in silence seal'd,
With sudden vehemence his soul reveal'd;
Zillah meanwhile recover'd power to speak,
While deadly paleness overcast her cheek:
—“Say not, ‘I love thee!’—Witness every tree
Around this bower thy cruel scorn of me!
Could Javan love me through the world, yet leave
Her whom he loved, for hopeless years, to grieve?
Returning, could he find her here alone,
Yet pass her by, unknowing as unknown?
All day was she forsaken, or forgot?
Did Javan seek her at her father's cot?
That cot of old so much his soul's delight,
His mother's seem'd not fairer in his sight:
No: Javan mocks me; none could love so well,
So long, so painfully,—and never tell.”

“Love owns no law,” rejoin'd the pleading youth,
“Except obedience to eternal truth:
Deep streams are silent; from the generous breast,
The dearest feelings are the last confest:
Erewhile I strove in vain to break my peace,
Now I could talk of love and never cease:
—Still had my trembling passion been conceal'd,
Still but in parables by stealth reveal'd,
Had not thine instantaneous presence wrung,
By swift surprise, the secret from my tongue.
Yet hath Affection language of her own,
And mine in every thing but words was shown;
In childhood, as the bird of nature free,
My song was gladness, when I sung to thee:
In youth, when'er I mourn'd a bosom flame
And praised a maiden whom I durst not name,
Couldst thou not then my hidden thought divine?
Didst thou not feel that I was wholly thine?
When for vain glory I forsook thee here,
Dear as thou wert, unutterably dear,
From virtue, truth, and innocence estranged,
To thee, thee only, was my heart unchanged;
And as I loved without a hope before,
Without a hope I loved thee yet the more.
At length, when, weary of the ways of men,
Refuge I sought in this maternal glen,
Thy sweet remembrance drew me from afar,
And Zillah's beauty was my leading star.
Here when I found thee, fear itself grew bold,
Methought my tale of love already told;
But soon thine eyes the dream of folly broke,
And I from bliss, as they from slumber, woke;
My heart, my tongue, were chill'd to instant stone,
I durst not speak thy name, nor give my own.
When thou wert vanish'd, horror and affright
Seized me, my sins uprose before my sight;
Like fiends they rush'd upon me; but Despair
Wrung from expiring Faith a broken prayer;
Strength came; the path to Enoch's bower I trod;
He saw me, met me, led me back to God.
O Zillah! while I sought my Maker's grace,
And flesh and spirit fail'd before His face,
Thy tempting image from my breast I drove,
It was no season then for earthly love.”

“For earthly love it is no season now,”
Exclaim'd the maiden, with reproachful brow,
And eyes through tears of tenderness that shone,
And voice half peace half anger in its tone.
“Freely thy past unkindness I forgive;
Content to perish here, so Javan live:
The tyrant's menace to our tribe we know;
The Patriarchs never seek, nor shun, a foe;
Thou, while thou mayst, from swift destruction fly;
I and my father's house resolve to die.”

“With thee and with thy father's house, to bear
Death or captivity, is Javan's prayer;
Remorse for ever be the recreant's lot:
If I forsake thee now, I love thee not.”

Thus while he vow'd, a gentle answer sprung
To Zillah's lips, but died upon her tongue;
Trembling she turn'd, and hasten'd to the rock,
Beyond those woods, that hid her folded flock,
Whose bleatings reach'd her ear, with loud complaint
Of her delay; she loosed them from restraint;
Then bounding headlong forth, with antic glee,
They roam'd in all the joy of liberty.
Javan beside her walk'd as in a dream,
Nor more of love renew'd the fruitless theme.

Forthwith, from home to home throughout the glen,
The friends whom once he knew he sought again;
Each hail'd the stranger welcome at his board,
As lost but found, as dead to life restored.
From Eden's camp no tidings came; the day
In awful expectation pass'd away.
At eve his harp the fond enthusiast strung,
On Adam's mount, and to the Patriarchs sung;
While youth and age, an eager throng, admire
The mingling music of the voice and lyre.

“I love thee, Twilight! as thy shadows roll,
The calm of evening steals upon my soul,
Sublimely tender, solemnly serene,
Still as the hour, enchanting as the scene.
I love thee, Twilight! for thy gleams impart
Their dear, their dying influence to my heart,
When o'er the harp of thought thy passing wind
Awakens all the music of the mind,
And Joy and Sorrow, as the spirit burns,
And Hope and Memory, sweep the chords by turns;
While Contemplation, on seraphic wings,
Mounts with the flame of sacrifice, and sings.
Twilight! I love thee; let thy glooms increase
Till every feeling, every pulse, is peace:
Slow from the sky the light of day declines,
Clearer within the dawn of glory shines,
Revealing, in the hour of Nature's rest,
A world of wonders in the poet's breast
Deeper, O Twilight! then thy shadows roll,
An awful vision opens on my soul.

“On such an evening, so divinely calm,
The woods all melody, the breezes balm,
Down in a vale, where lucid waters stray'd,
And mountain-cedars stretch'd their downward shade,
Jubal, the Prince of Song (in youth unknown),
Retired to commune with his harp alone;
For still he nursed it, like a secret thought
Long cherish'd and to late perfection wrought,—
And still with cunning hand, and curious ear,
Enrich'd, ennobled, and enlarged its sphere,
Till he had compass'd, in that magic round,
A soul of harmony, a heaven of sound.
Then sang the minstrel, in his laurel bower,
Of Nature's origin, and Music's power.
—‘He spake, and it was done;—Eternal Night,
At God's command, awaken'd into light;
He call'd the elements, Earth, Ocean, Air,
He call'd them when they were not, and they were:
He look'd through space, and, kindling o'er the sky,
Sun, moon, and stars, came forth to meet his eye:
His spirit moved upon the desert earth,
And sudden life through all things swarm'd to birth;
Man from the dust He raised to rule the whole;
He breathed, and man became a living soul:
Through Eden's groves the Lord of Nature trod,
Upright and pure, the image of his God.
Thus were the heavens and all their host display'd,
In wisdom thus were earth's foundations laid:
The glorious scene a holy sabbath closed;
Amidst his works the Omnipotent reposed;
And while He view'd and bless'd them from his seat,
All worlds, all beings, worshipp'd at his feet:
The morning stars in choral concert sang,
The rolling deep with hallelujahs rang,
Adoring angels from their orbs rejoice:
The voice of Music was Creation's voice.

“‘Alone along the lyre of Nature sigh'd
The master-chord, to which no chord replied:
For Man, while bliss and beauty reign'd around,
For Man alone, no fellowship was found,
No fond companion, in whose dearer breast
His heart, repining in his own, might rest;
For, born to love, the heart delights to roam,
A kindred bosom is its happiest home.
On earth's green lap, the Father of mankind,
In mild dejection, thoughtfully reclined;
Soft o'er his eyes a sealing slumber crept,
And Fancy soothed him while Reflection slept.
Then God—who thus would make his counsel known,
Counsel that will'd not man to dwell alone—
Created Woman with a smile of grace,
And left the smile that made her on her face.

The Patriarch's eyelids open'd on his bride,
—The morn of beauty risen from his side!
He gazed with new-born rapture on her charms,
And Love's first whispers won her to his arms,
Then, tuned through all the chords supremely sweet,
Exulting Nature found her lyre complete,
And, from the key of each harmonious sphere,
Struck music worthy of her Maker's ear.’

“Here Jubal paused; for grim before him lay,
Couch'd like a lion watching for his prey,
With blood-red eye of fascinating fire,
Fix'd, like the gazing serpent's, on the lyre,
An awful form, that through the gloom appear'd
Half brute, half human; whose terrific beard,
And hoary flakes of long dishevell'd hair,
Like eagle's plumage ruffled by the air,
Veil'd a sad wreck of grandeur and of grace,
Limbs worn and wounded, a majestic face,
Deep-plough'd by Time, and ghastly pale with woes,
That goaded till remorse to madness rose:
Haunted by phantoms, he had fled his home,
With savage beasts in solitude to roam;
Wild as the waves, and wandering as the wind,
No art could tame him, and no chains could bind:
Already seven disastrous years had shed
Mildew and blast on his unshelter'd head;
His brain was smitten by the sun at noon,
His heart was wither'd by the cold night-moon.

“'Twas Cain, the sire of nations:—Jubal knew
His kindred looks, and tremblingly withdrew;
He, darting like the blaze of sudden fire,
Leap'd o'er the space between, and grasp'd the lyre;
Sooner with life the struggling bard would part,
And, ere the fiend could tear it from his heart,
He hurl'd his hand with one tremendous stroke
O'er all the strings; whence in a whirlwind broke
Such tones of terror, dissonance, despair,
As till that hour had never jarr'd in air.
Astonish'd into marble at the shock,
Backward stood Cain, unconscious as a rock,
Cold, breathless, motionless through all his frame:
But soon his visage quicken'd into flame,
When Jubal's hand the crashing jargon changed
To melting harmony, and nimbly ranged
From chord to chord, ascending sweet and clear,
Then rolling down in thunder on the ear;
With power the pulse of anguish to restrain,
And charm the evil spirit from the brain.

“Slowly recovering from that trance profound,
Bewilder'd, touch'd, transported with the sound,
Cain view'd himself, the bard, the earth, the sky,
While wonder flash'd and faded in his eye,
And reason, by alternate frenzy crost,
Now seem'd restored, and now for ever lost.
So shines the moon, by glimpses, through her shrouds,
When windy Darkness rides upon the clouds,
Till through the blue, serene, and silent night,
She reigns in full tranquillity of light.
Jubal, with eager hope, beheld the chase
Of strange emotions hurrying o'er his face,
And wak'd his noblest numbers to control
The tide and tempest of the maniac's soul:
Through many a maze of melody they flew,
They rose like incense, they distill'd like dew,
Pour'd through the sufferer's breast delicious balm,
And soothed remembrance till remorse grew calm,
Till Cain forsook the solitary wild,
Led by the minstrel like a weaned child.
O! had you seen him to his home restored,
How young and old ran forth to meet their lord;
How friends and kindred on his neck did fall,
Weeping aloud, while Cain outwept them all:
But hush!—thenceforward when recoiling care
Lower'd on his brow, and sadden'd to despair,
The lyre of Jubal, with divinest art,
Repell'd the demon, and revived his heart.
Thus Song, the breath of heaven, had power to bind
In chains of harmony the mightiest mind;
Thus Music's empire in the soul began,
The first-born Poet ruled the first-born Man.”

While Javan sang, the shadows fell around,
The moving glow-worm brighten'd on the ground.
He ceased: the mute assembly rose in tears;
Delight and wonder were chastised with fears;
That heavenly harmony, unheard before,
Awoke the feeling,—“Who shall hear it more?”
The sun had set in glory on their sight,
For them in vain might morn restore the light;
Though self-devoted, through each mortal frame,
At thought of Death, a cold sick shuddering came,
Nature's infirmity;—but faith was given,
The flame that lifts the sacrifice to heaven:
Through doubt and darkness then beyond the skies
Eternal prospects open'd on their eyes;
Already seem'd the immortal spirit free,
And Death was swallow'd up in victory.