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

What are thine hopes, Humanity!—thy fears,
Poor voyager, upon this flood of years,
Whose tide, unturning, hurries to the sea
Of dark unsearchable eternity,
The fragile skiffs, in which thy children sail
A day, an hour, a moment, with the gale,
Then vanish;—gone like eagles on the wind,
Or fish in waves, that yield and close behind?
Thine Hopes,—lost anchors buried in the deep,
That rust, through storm and calm, in iron sleep;
Whose cables, loose aloft and fix'd below,
Rot with the sea-weed, floating to and fro!
Thy Fears—are wrecks that strew the fatal surge,
Whose whirlpools swallow, or whose currents urge,
Adventurous barks on rocks, that lurk at rest,
Where the blue halcyon builds her foam-light nest;
Or strand them on illumined shoals, that gleam
Like drifted gold in summer's cloudless beam:
Thus would thy race, beneath their parent's eye,
Live without knowledge, without prospect die.

But when Religion bids her spirit breathe,
And opens bliss above and woe beneath;
When God reveals his march through Nature's night,
His steps are beauty, and his presence light,
His voice is life:—the dead in conscience start;
They feel a new creation in the heart.
Ah! then, Humanity, thy hopes, thy fears,
How changed, how wondrous!—On this tide of years,
Though the frail barks, in which thine offspring sail
Their day, their hour, their moment with the gale,
Must perish;—shipwreck only sets them free;
With joys unmeasured as eternity,
They ply on seas of glass their golden oars,
And pluck immortal fruits along the shores;
Nor shall their cables fail, their anchors rust,
Who wait the resurrection of the just:
Moor'd on the Rock of Ages, though decay
Moulder the weak terrestrial frame away,
The trumpet sounds,—and lo! wherever spread,
Earth, air, and ocean render back their dead;
And souls with bodies, spiritual and divine,
In the new heavens, like stars, for ever shine.
These are thine Hopes:—thy Fears what tongue can tell?
Behold them graven on the gates of Hell:
“The wrath of God abideth here: his breath
Kindled the flames:—this is the second death.”
'Twas Mercy wrote the lines of judgment there;
None who from earth can read them may despair!
Man!—let the warning strike presumption dumb;—
Awake! arise! escape the wrath to come!
No resurrection from that grave shall be;
The worm within, is—immortality.

The terrors of Jehovah, and his grace,
The Brethren bear to earth's remotest race.
And now, exulting on their swift career,
The northern waters narrowing in the rear,
They rise upon the' Atlantic flood, that rolls
Shoreless and fathomless between the poles,
Whose waves the east and western world divide,
Then gird the globe with one circumfluent tide;

For mighty Ocean, by whatever name
Known to vain man, is every where the same,
And deems all regions by his gulfs embraced
But vassal tenures of his sovereign waste.
Clear shines the sun; the surge, intensely blue,
Assumes by day heaven's own aërial hue:
Buoyant and beautiful, as through a sky,
On balanced wings, behold the vessel fly;
Invisibly impell'd, as though it felt
A soul, within its heart of oak that dwelt,
Which broke the billows with spontaneous force,
Ruled the free elements, and chose its course.
Not so:—and yet, along the trackless realm,
A hand unseen directs the' unconscious helm;
The Power that sojourn'd in the cloud by day,
And fire by night, on Israel's desert way;
That Power the obedient vessel owns:—His will,
Tempest and calm, and death and life, fulfil.

Day following day the current smoothly flows;
Labour is but refreshment from repose;
Perils are vanish'd; every fear resign'd;
Peace walks the waves, Hope carols on the wind;
And Time so sweetly travels o'er the deep,
They feel his motion like the fall of sleep
On weary limbs, that, stretch'd in stillness, seem
To float upon the eddy of a stream,
Then sink,—to wake in some transporting dream.
Thus, while the Brethren far in exile roam,
Visions of Greenland show their future home.
—Now a dark speck, but brightening as it flies,
A vagrant sea-fowl glads their eager eyes;
How lovely from the narrow deck to see
The meanest link of nature's family,
Which makes us feel, in dreariest solitude,
Affinity with all that breathe renew'd:
At once a thousand kind emotions start,
And the blood warms and mantles round the heart!
—O'er the ship's lee, the waves, in shadow seen,
Change from deep indigo to beryl green,
And wreaths of frequent weed, that slowly float,
Land to the watchful mariner denote:
Ere long the pulse beats quicker through his breast,
When, like a range of evening clouds at rest,
Iceland's gray cliffs and ragged coast he sees,
But shuns them, leaning on the southern breeze;
And, while they vanish far in distance, tells
Of lakes of fire and necromancers' spells.

Strange Isle! a moment to poetic gaze
Rise in thy majesty of rocks and bays,
Glens, fountains, caves that seem not things of earth,
But the wild shapes of some prodigious birth;
As if the kraken monarch of the sea,
Wallowing abroad in his immensity,
By polar storms and lightning shafts assail'd,
Wedged with ice-mountains, here had fought and fail'd;
Perish'd—and, in the petrifying blast,
His hulk became an island rooted fast;
—Rather, from Ocean's dark foundation hurl'd,
Thou art a type of his mysterious world,
Buoy'd on the desolate abyss, to show
What wonders of creation hide below.

Here Hecla's triple peaks, with meteor lights,
Nature's own beacons, cheer hybernal nights:
But when the orient flames in red array,
Like ghosts the spectral splendours flee the day;
Morn at her feet beholds supinely spread
The carcass of the old Chimera dead,
That wont to vomit flames and molten ore,
Now cleft asunder to the inmost core;
In smouldering heaps, wide wrecks and cinders strown,
Lie like the walls of Sodom overthrown,
(Ere from the face of blushing Nature swept,
And where the city stood the Dead Sea slept;)
While inaccessible, tradition feigns,
To human foot the guarded top remains,

Where birds of hideous shape and doleful note,
Fate's ministers, in livid vapours float.

Far off, amidst the placid sunshine, glow
Mountains with hearts of fire and crests of snow,
Whose blacken'd slopes with deep ravines entrench'd,
Their thunders silenced, and their lightnings quench'd,
Still the slow heat of spent eruptions breathe,
While embyro earthquakes swell their wombs beneath.

Hark! from yon caldron cave, the battle-sound
Of fire and water warring under ground:
Rack'd on the wheels of an ebullient tide,
Here might some spirit, fall'n from bliss, abide,—
Such fitful wailings of intense despair,
Such emanating splendours, fill the air.
—He comes, he comes; the' infuriate Geyser springs
Up to the firmament on vapoury wings;
With breathless awe the mounting glory view;
White whirling clouds his steep ascent pursue.
But lo! a glimpse;—refulgent to the gale,
He starts all naked through his riven veil;
A fountain-column, terrible and bright,
A living, breathing, moving form of light:
From central earth to heaven's meridian thrown,
The mighty apparition towers alone,
Rising, as though for ever he could rise,
Storm and resume his palace in the skies,
All foam, and turbulence, and wrath below;
Around him beams the reconciling bow;
(Signal of peace, whose radiant girdle binds,
Till nature's doom, the waters and the winds;)
While mist and spray, condensed to sudden dews,
The air illumine with celestial hues,
As if the bounteous sun were raining down
The richest gems of his imperial crown.
In vain the spirit wrestles to break free,
Foot-bound to fathomless captivity;
A power unseen, by sympathetic spell
For ever working, to his flinty cell
Recalls him from the ramparts of the spheres:
He yields, collapses, lessens, disappears;
Darkness receives him in her vague abyss,
Around whose verge light froth and bubbles hiss,
While the low murmurs of the refluent tide
Far into subterranean silence glide,
The eye still gazing down the dread profound,
When the bent ear hath wholly lost the sound.
—But is he slain and sepulchred?—Again
The deathless giant sallies from his den,
Scales with recruited strength the ethereal walls,
Struggles afresh for liberty—and falls.
Yes, and for liberty the fight renew'd,
By day, by night, undaunted, unsubdued,
He shall maintain, till Iceland's solid base
Fail, and the mountains vanish from its face.

And can these fail?—Of Alpine height and mould
Schapta's unshaken battlements behold;
His throne an hundred hills; his sun-crown'd head
Resting on clouds; his robe of shadow spread
O'er half the isle; he pours from either hand
An unexhausted river through the land,
On whose fair banks, through valleys warm and green,
Cattle and flocks, and homes, and spires are seen.
Here Nature's earthquake-pangs were never felt;
Here in repose hath man for ages dwelt:
The everlasting mountain seems to say,
“I am,—and I shall never pass away.”

Yet fifty winters, and, with huge uproar,
Thy pride shall perish;—thou shalt be no more!
Amidst chaotic ruins on the plain,
Those cliffs, these waters, shall be sought in vain!
—Through the dim vista of unfolding years,
A pageant of portentous woe appears.

Yon rosy groups, with golden locks, at play,
I see them,—few, decrepit, silent, gray;
Their fathers all at rest beneath the sod,
Whose flowerless verdure marks the House of God,
Home of the living and the dead;—where meet
Kindred and strangers, in communion sweet,
When dawns the Sabbath on the block-built pile;
The kiss of peace, the welcome, and the smile
Go round; till comes the Priest, a father there,
And the bell knolls his family to prayer:
Angels might stoop from thrones in heaven, to be
Co-worshippers in such a family,
Whom from their nooks and dells, where'er they roam,
The Sabbath gathers to their common home.
Oh! I would stand a keeper at this gate
Rather than reign with kings in guilty state;
A day in such serene enjoyment spent
Were worth an age of splendid discontent!
—But whither am I hurried from my theme?
Schapta returns on the prophetic dream.

From eve till morn strange meteors streak the pole;
At cloudless noon mysterious thunders roll,
As if below both shore and ocean hurl'd
From deep convulsions of the nether world:
Anon the river, boiling from its bed,
Shall leap its bounds and o'er the lowlands spread,
Then waste in exhalation,—leaving void
As its own channel, utterly destroy'd,
Fields, gardens, dwellings, churches, and their graves,
All wreck'd or disappearing with the waves.
The fugitives that 'scape this instant death
Inhale slow pestilence with every breath;
Mephitic steams from Schapta's mouldering breast
With livid horror shall the air infest;
And day shall glare so foully on the sight,
Darkness were refuge from the curse of light.
Lo! far among the glaciers, wrapt in gloom,
The red precursors of approaching doom,
Scatter'd and solitary founts of fire,
Unlock'd by hands invisible, aspire:
Ere long, more rapidly than eye can count,
Above, beneath, they multiply, they mount,
Converge, condense,—a crimson phalanx form,
And rage aloft in one unbounded storm;
From heaven's red roof the fierce reflections throw
A sea of fluctuating light below.
—Now the whole army of destroyers, fleet
As whirlwinds, terrible as lightnings, meet;
The mountains melt like wax along their course,
When, downward pouring with resistless force
Through the void channel where the river roll'd,
To ocean's verge their flaming march they hold;
While blocks of ice, and crags of granite rent,
Half-fluid ore, and rugged minerals blent,
Float on the gulf, till molten or immersed,
Or in explosive thunderbolts dispersed.
Thus shall the Schapta, towering on the brink
Of unknown jeopardy, in ruin sink;
And, this wild paroxysm of frenzy past,
At her own work shall Nature stand aghast.

Look on this desolation:—mark yon brow,
Once adamant, a cone of ashes now:
Here rivers swampt; there valleys levell'd, plains
O'erwhelm'd;—one black-red wilderness remains,
One crust of lava, through whose cinder-heat
The pulse of buried streams is felt to beat;
These from the frequent fissures, eddying white,
Sublimed to vapour, issue forth like light
Amidst the sulphury fumes, that, drear and dun,
Poison the atmosphere and blind the sun.
Above, as if the sky had felt the stroke
Of that volcano, and consumed to smoke,
One cloud appears in heaven, and one alone,
Hung round the dark horizon's craggy zone,
Forming at once the vast encircling wall,
And the dense roof, of some Tartarean hall,
Propt by a thousand pillars, huge and strange,
Fantastic forms that every moment change,
As, hissing, surging from the floor beneath,
Volumes of steam the' imprison'd waters breathe.
Then, should the sun, ere evening gloom ascend,
Quick from the west the murky curtain rend,
And pour the beauty of his beams between
These hideous arches, and light up the scene;
At the sweet touch of his transforming rays,
With amber lustre all the columns blaze,
And the thick folds of cumbrous fog aloof
Change to rich drapery of celestial woof:
With such enchantment air and earth were fraught,
Beyond the colouring of the wealthiest thought
That Iceland scalds, transported at the view,
Might deem the legends of their fathers true,
And here behold, illumining the waste,
The palace of immortal Odin placed;

Till rapt Imagination joy'd to hear
The neigh of steeds, the clank of armour near,
And saw, in barbarous state, the tables spread
With shadowy food, and compass'd with the dead,
Weary from conflicts,—still the fierce delight
Of spectre-warriors, in the daily fight:
Then while they quaff'd the mead from skulls of foes,
By whirlwind gusts the din of battle rose;
The strife of tongues, the tournament of words,
Following the shock of shields, the clash of swords;
Till, gorged and drunken at the' enormous feast,
Awhile their revels and their clamours ceased;
Ceased to the eye and ear;—yet where they lay,
Like sleeping lions, surfeited with prey,
In tawny groups, recumbent through the den,
In dreams the heroes drank and fought again.

Away with such Divinities! their birth
Man's brain-sick superstition, and their mirth
Lust, rapine, cruelty;—their fell employ
God's works and their own votaries to destroy.
—The Runic Bard to nobler themes shall string
His ancient harp, and mightier triumphs sing;
For glorious days are risen on Iceland:—clear
The Gospel-trumpet sounds to every ear,
And deep in many a heart the Spirit's voice
Bids the believing soul in hope rejoice.
O'er the stern face of this tempestuous isle,
Though briefly Spring, and Autumn never, smile,
Truth walks with naked foot the unyielding snows,
And the glad desert blossoms like the rose.
Though earthquakes heave, though torrents drown, his cot,
Volcanoes waste his fields,—the peasant's lot
Is blest beyond the destiny of kings:
—Lifting his eyes above sublunar things,
Like dying Stephen, when he saw in prayer
Heaven open'd, and his Saviour beckoning there,
He cries, and clasps his Bible to his breast,
“Let the earth perish,—here is not my rest.”