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

“The Lord is jealous:—He, who reigns on high,
Upholds the earth, and spreads abroad the sky;
His voice the moon and stars by night obey,
He sends the sun his servant forth by day:
From Him all beings came, on Him depend,
To Him return, their Author, Sovereign, End.
Who shall destroy when He would save? or stand,
When He destroys, the stroke of his right hand?
With none His name and power will He divide,
For HE is GOD, and there is none beside.

“The proud shall perish;—mark how wild his air
In impotence of malice and despair!
What frenzy fires the bold blasphemer's cheek!
He looks the curses which he cannot speak:
A hand hath touch'd him that he once defied;
Touch'd, and for ever crush'd him in his pride:
Yet shall he live, despised as fear'd before;
The great deceiver shall deceive no more;
Children shall pluck the beard of him whose arts
Palsied the boldest hands, the stoutest hearts;
His vaunted wisdom fools shall laugh to scorn,
When, muttering spells, a spectacle forlorn,
A drivelling idiot, he shall fondly roam
From house to house, and never find a home!”

The wizard heard his sentence, nor remain'd
A moment longer; from his trance unchain'd,
He plunged into the woods:—the Prophet then
Turn'd, and took up his parable again.

“The proud shall perish:—monarch! know thy doom:
Thy bones shall lack the shelter of a tomb;
Not in the battle-field thine eyes shall close,
Slain upon thousands of thy slaughter'd foes;
Not on the throne of empire, nor the bed
Of weary Nature, thou shalt bow thine head:
Death lurks in ambush; Death, without a name,
Shall pluck thee from thy pinnacle of fame:
At eve, rejoicing o'er thy finish'd toil,
Thy soul shall deem the universe her spoil;
The dawn shall see thy carcass cast away,
The wolves, at sunrise, slumber on their prey.
Cut from the living, whither dost thou go?
Hades is moved to meet thee from below:
The kings thy sword had slain, the mighty dead,
Start from their thrones at thy descending tread;
They ask in scorn,—‘Destroyer! is it thus?
Art thou,—thou too,—become like one of us?
Torn from the feast of music, wine, and mirth,
The worms thy covering, and thy couch the earth!
How art thou fall'n from thine ethereal height,
Son of the morning! sunk in endless night:
How art thou fall'n, who said'st, in pride of soul,
I will ascend above the starry pole,
Thence rule the adoring nations with my nod,
And set my throne above the Mount of God!—
Spilt in the dust, thy blood pollutes the ground;
Sought by the eyes that fear'd thee, yet not found;
Thy chieftains pause, they turn thy relics o'er,
Then pass thee by,—for thou art known no more.
Hail to thine advent! Potentate, in hell,
Unfear'd, unflatter'd, undistinguish'd, dwell:
On earth thy fierce ambition knew no rest,
A worm, a flame, for ever in thy breast;—
Here feel the rage of unconsuming fire,
Intense, eternal, impotent desire;

Here lie, the deathless worm's unwasting prey,
In chains of darkness till the judgment-day!’

“Thus while the dead thy fearful welcome sing,
Thy living slaves bewail their vanish'd king.
Then, though thy reign with infamy expire,
Fulfill'd in death shall be thy vain desire:
The traitors, reeking with thy blood, shall swear
They saw their sovereign ravish'd through the air,
And point thy star revolving o'er the night,
A baleful comet with portentous light,
Midst clouds and storms denouncing from afar
Famine and havoc, pestilence and war.
Temples, not tombs, thy monuments shall be,
And altars blaze on hills and groves to thee;
A pyramid shall consecrate thy crimes,
Thy name and honours, to succeeding times;
There shall thine image hold the highest place
Among the gods of man's revolted race!

“That race shall perish:—Men and Giants, all
Thy kindred and thy worshippers, shall fall.
The babe, whose life with yesterday began,
May spring to youth, and ripen into man;
But, ere his locks are tinged with fading grey
This world of sinners shall be swept away.
Jehovah lifts his standard to the skies;
Swift at the signal, winds and vapours rise;
The sun in sackcloth veils his face at noon.—
The stars are quench'd, and turn'd to blood the moon.
Heaven's fountains open; clouds dissolving roll
In mingled cataracts from pole to pole;
Earth's central sluices burst; the hills, uptorn,
In rapid whirlpools down the gulf are borne:
The voice that taught the Deep his bounds to know,
‘Thus far, O Sea! nor farther, shalt thou go,’—
Sends forth the floods, commission'd to devour
With boundless licence and resistless power;
They own no impulse but the tempest's sway,
Nor find a limit but the light of day.

“The vision opens:—sunk beneath the wave,
The guilty share an universal grave;
One wilderness of water rolls in view,
And heaven and ocean wear one turbid hue;
Still stream unbroken torrents from the skies,
Higher beneath the inundations rise;
A lurid twilight glares athwart the scene.
Low thunders peal, faint lightnings flash between.
—Methinks I see a distant vessel ride,
A lonely object, on the shoreless tide;
Within whose ark the innocent have found
Safety, while stay'd Destruction ravens round:
Thus, in the hour of vengeance, God, who knows
His servants, spares them, while He smites his foes.

“Eastward I turn;—o'er all the deluged lands,
Unshaken yet, a mighty mountain stands,
Where Seth, of old, his flock to pasture led,
And watch'd the stars at midnight, from its head:
An island now, its dark majestic form
Scowls through the thickest ravage of the storm;
While on its top, the monument of fame,
Built by thy murderers to adorn thy name,
Defies the shock;—a thousand cubits high,
The sloping pyramid ascends the sky.
Thither, their latest refuge in distress,
Like hunted wolves, the rallying Giants press;
Round the broad base of that stupendous tower,
The shuddering fugitives collect their power,
Cling to the dizzy cliff, o'er ocean bend,
And howl with terror as the deeps ascend.
The mountain's strong foundations still endure,
The heights repel the surge.—Awhile secure,
And cheer'd with frantic hope, thy votaries climb
The fabric, rising step by step, sublime.
Beyond the clouds they see the summit glow
In heaven's pure daylight, o'er the gloom below;
There too thy worshipp'd image shines like fire,
In the full glory of thy fabled sire.
They hail the omen, and with heart and voice
Call on thy name, and in thy smile rejoice:
False omen! on thy name in vain they call;
Fools in their joy;—a moment and they fall.
Rent by an earthquake of the buried plain,
And shaken by the whole disrupted main,
The mountain trembles on its failing base,
It slides, it stoops, it rushes from its place;
From all the Giants bursts one drowning cry;
Hark! 'tis thy name—they curse it as they die:
Sheer to the lowest gulf the pile is hurl'd,
The last sad wreck of a devoted world!

“So fall transgressors:—Tyrant! now fulfil
Thy secret purposes, thine utmost will;
Here crown thy triumphs:—life or death decree,
The weakest here disdains thy power and thee!”

Thus when the Patriarch ceased, and every ear
Still listen'd in suspense of hope and fear,
Sublime, ineffable, angelic grace
Beam'd in his meek and venerable face;
And sudden glory, streaming round his head,
O'er all his robes with lambent lustre spread;
His earthly features grew divinely bright,
His essence seem'd transforming into light.
Brief silence, like the pause between the flash
At midnight and the following thunder-crash,
Ensued:—Anon, with universal cry,
The Giants rush'd upon the Prophet—“Die!”
The king leapt foremost from his throne;—he drew
His battle-sword, as on his mark he flew;
With aim unerring, and tempestuous sound,
The blade descended deep along the ground:
The foe was fled, and, self-o'erwhelm'd, his strength
Hurl'd to the earth his Atlantean length;
But, ere his chiefs could stretch the helping arm,
He sprang upon his feet in pale alarm;
Headlong and blind with rage he search'd around,
But Enoch walk'd with God, and was not found.

Yet where the captives stood, in holy awe,
Rapt on the wings of cherubim, they saw
Their sainted sire ascending through the night;
He turn'd his face to bless them in his flight,
Then vanish'd:—Javan caught the Prophet's eye,
And snatch'd his mantle falling from the sky;
O'er him the Spirit of the Prophet came,
Like rushing wind awakening hidden flame:
“Where is the God of Enoch now?” he cried;
“Captives, come forth! Despisers, shrink aside!”
He spake, and, bursting through the Giant-throng,
Smote with the mantle as he moved along:
A power invisible their rage controll'd,
Hither and thither as he turn'd they roll'd;
Unawed, unharm'd, the ransom'd prisoners pass'd
Through ranks of foes astonied and aghast:
Close in the youth's conducting steps they trod:
—So Israel march'd when Moses raised his rod,
And led their host, enfranchised, through the wave,
The people's safeguard, the pursuers' grave.

Thus from the wolves this little flock was torn,
And, sheltering in the mountain-caves till morn,
They join'd to sing, in strains of full delight,
Songs of deliverance through the dreary night.

The Giants' frenzy, when they lost their prey,
No tongue of man or angel might portray:
First on their idol-gods their vengeance turn'd,
Those gods on their own altar-piles they burn'd;
Then, at their sovereign's mandate, sallied forth
To rouse their host to combat, from the north;
Eager to risk their uttermost emprise,
Perish ere morn, or reign in Paradise.
Now the slow tempest, that so long had lower'd,
Keen in their faces sleet and hailstones shower'd;
The winds blew loud, the waters roar'd around,
An earthquake rock'd the agonising ground;
Red in the west the burning mount, array'd
With tenfold terror by incumbent shade,
(For moon and stars were wrapt in dunnest gloom,)
Glared like a torch amidst creation's tomb:
So Sinai's rocks were kindled when they felt
Their Maker's footstep, and began to melt;
Darkness was his pavilion, whence He came,
Hid in the brightness of descending flame,
While storm, and whirlwind, and the trumpet's blast,
Proclaim'd his law in thunder as He pass'd.

The Giants reach'd their camp:—the night's alarms
Meanwhile had startled all their slaves to arms:
They grasp'd their weapons as from sleep they sprang,
From tent to tent the brazen clangour rang:
The hail, the earthquake, the mysterious light
Unnerved their strength, o'erwhelm'd them with affright.
“Warriors! to battle;—summon all your powers!
Warriors! to conquest;—Paradise is ours!”
Exclaim'd their monarch:—not an arm was raised;
In vacancy of thought, like men amazed,
And lost amidst confounding dreams, they stood,
With palsied eyes, and horror-frozen blood.
The Giants' rage to instant madness grew;
The king and chiefs on their own legions flew,
Denouncing vengeance! Then had all the plain
Been heap'd with myriads by their leaders slain;
But, ere a sword could fall,—by whirlwinds driven,
In mighty volumes, through the vault of heaven,

From Eden's summit, o'er the camp accurst,
The darting fires with noonday splendour burst;
And fearful grew the scene above, below,
With sights of mystery, and sounds of woe.
The embattled cherubim appear'd on high,
And coursers, wing'd with lightning, swept the sky;
Chariots, whose wheels with living instinct roll'd,
Spirits of unimaginable mould,
Powers, such as dwell in heaven's serenest light,
Too pure, too terrible, for mortal sight,
From depth of midnight suddenly reveal'd,
In arms, against the Giants took the field.
On such an host Elisha's servant gazed,
When all the mountain round the prophet blazed;
With such an host, when war in heaven was wrought,
Michael against the Prince of Darkness fought.

Roused by the trumpet that shall wake the dead,
The torpid foe in consternation fled;
The Giants headlong in the uproar ran,
The king himself the foremost of the van,
Nor e'er his rushing squadrons led to fight
With swifter onset than he led that flight.
Homeward the panic-stricken legions flew;
Their arms, their vestments, from their limbs they threw;
O'er shields and helms the reinless camel strode,
And gold and purple strew'd the desert road.
When through the Assyrian army, like a blast,
At midnight, the destroying angel pass'd,
The tyrant that defied the living God,
Precipitately thus his steps retrod;
Even by the way he came, to his own land,
Return'd, to perish by his offspring's hand.
So fled the Giant-monarch;—but unknown
The hand that smote his life;—he died alone;
Amidst the tumult treacherously slain:
At morn his chieftains sought their lord in vain,
Then, reckless of the harvest of their toils,
Their camp, their captives, all their treasured spoils,
Renew'd their flight o'er eastern hills afar,
With life alone escaping from that war
In which their king had hail'd his realm complete,
The world's last province bow'd beneath his feet.

As, when the waters of the Flood declined,
Rolling tumultuously before the wind,
The proud waves shrunk from low to lower beds,
And high the hills and higher raised their heads,
Till ocean lay, enchased with rock and strand,
As in the hollow of the Almighty's hand,
While earth with wrecks magnificent was strew'd,
And stillness reign'd o'er Nature's solitude:
—Thus, in a storm of horror and dismay,
All night the Giant-army sped away;
Thus, on a lonely, sad, and silent scene
The morning rose in majesty serene.

Early and joyful o'er the dewy grass,
Straight to their glen the ransom'd Patriarchs pass:
As doves released their parent dwelling find,
They fly for life, nor cast a look behind;
And when they reach'd the dear sequester'd spot,
Enoch alone of all their train “was not.”
With them the bard, who from the world withdrew,
Javan, from folly and ambition flew;
Though poor his lot, within that narrow bound
Friendship, and home, and faithful love, he found:
There did his wanderings and afflictions cease;
His youth was penitence, his age was peace.

Meanwhile the scatter'd tribes of Eden's plain
Turn'd to their desolated fields again,
And join'd their brethren, captives once in fight,
But left to freedom in that dreadful flight:
Thenceforth redeem'd from war's unnumber'd woes,
Rich with the spoils of their retreated foes,
By Giant-tyranny no more opprest,
The people flourish'd, and the land had rest.