University of Virginia Library

'Twas but the vision of an eye-glance, gone
Ere thought could fix upon it,—gone like lightning
At midnight, when the expansive flash reveals
Alps, Apennines, and Pyrenees in one
Glorious horizon, suddenly lit up,—
Rocks, rivers, forests,—quench'd as suddenly:
A glimpse that fill'd the mind with images
Which years cannot obliterate, but stamp'd
With instantaneous everlasting force
On memory's more than adamantine tablet;—
A glimpse of that which eye hath never seen,
Ear heard, nor heart of man conceived.—It pass'd
But what it show'd can never pass.—It pass'd,
And left me wandering through that land of exile,
Cut off from intercourse with happier lands;
Abandon'd, as it seem'd, by its Creator;
Unvisited by Him who came from heaven
To seek and save the lost of every clime;
And where God, looking down in wrath, had said,
“My Spirit shall no longer strive with man:”
—So ignorance or unbelief might deem.

Was it thus outlaw'd? No; God left himself
Not without witness of his presence there;
He gave them rain from heaven and fruitful seasons,
Filling unthankful hearts with food and gladness.
He gave them kind affections, which they strangled,
Turning his grace into lasciviousness.
He gave them powers of intellect, to scale
Heaven's height; to name and number all the stars;
To penetrate earth's depths for hidden riches,
Or clothe its surface with fertility;
Amidst the haunts of dragons, dens of satyrs,
To call up hamlets, villages, and towns,
The abode of peace and industry; to build
Cities and palaces amid waste places;
To sound the ocean, combat with the winds,
Travel the waves, and compass every shore,
On voyages of commerce or adventure;
To shine in civil and refining arts;
With tranquil science elevate the soul;
To explore the universe of mind; to trace
The Nile of thinking to its secret source,
And thence pursue its infinite meanders,
Not lost amidst the labyrinths of Time,
But o'er the cataract of death down rolling,
To flow for ever, and for ever, and for ever,
Where time nor space can limit its expansion.

He gave the ideal, too, of truth and beauty;—
To look on Nature with a poet's eye,
And live, amidst the daylight of this world,
In regions of enchantment;—with the force
Of song, as with a spirit, to possess
The souls of those that hearken, till they feel
But what the minstrel feels, and do but that
Which his strange inspiration makes them do:
Thus with his breath to kindle war, and bring
The array of battle to electric issue;
Or, while opposing legions, front to front,
Wait the dread signal for the work of havoc,
Step in between, and with the healing voice
Of harmony and concord win them so,
That, hurling down their weapons of destruction,
They rush into each other's arms, with shouts
And tears of transport; till inveterate foes
Are friends and brethren, feasting on the field
Where vultures else had feasted, and gorged wolves
Howl'd in convulsive slumber o'er their corses.

Such powers to these were given, but given in vain;
They knew them not, or, as they learn'd to know,
Perverted them to more pernicious evil
Than ignorance had skill to perpetrate.
Yet the great Father gave a richer portion
To these, the most impoverish'd of his children;
He sent the light that lighteth every man
That comes into the world,—the light of truth:
But Satan turn'd that light to darkness; turn'd
God's truth into a lie, and they believed
His lie, who led them captive at his will,
Usurp'd the throne of Deity on earth,
And claim'd allegiance in all hideous forms,
—The abominable emblems of himself,
The legion-fiend, who takes whatever shape
Man's crazed imagination can devise
To body forth his notion of a god,
And prove how low immortal minds can fall
When from the living God they fall to serve
Dumb idols. Thus they worshipp'd stocks and stones
Which hands unapt for sculpture executed,
In their egregious folly, like themselves,
Though not more like, even in barbarian eyes,
Than antic clouds resemble animals.
To these they offer'd flowers and fruits; to those,
Reptiles; to others, birds, and beasts, and fishes:
To some they sacrificed their enemies,
To more their children, and themselves to all.

So had the god of this apostate world
Blinded their eyes. But the true God had placed
Yet further witness of his grace among them,
When all remembrance of himself was lost:
—Knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong;
But knowledge was confounded, till they call'd
Good evil, evil good; refused the right,
And chose and loved the wrong for its own sake.
One witness more, his own ambassador
On earth, the Almighty left to be their prophet,
Whom Satan could not utterly beguile,
Nor always hold with his ten thousand fetters,
Lock'd in the dungeon of the obdurate breast,
And trampled down by all its atheist inmates;
—Conscience, tremendous conscience, in his fits
Of inspiration,—whencesoe'er it came,—
Rose like a ghost, inflicting fear of death
On those who fear'd not death in fiercest battle,
And mock'd him in their martyrdoms of torments:
That secret, swift, and silent messenger
Broke on them in their lonely hours,—in sleep,
In sickness; haunting them with dire suspicions
Of something in themselves that would not die,
Of an existence elsewhere, and hereafter,
Of which tradition was not wholly silent,
Yet spake not out; its dreary oracles
Confounded superstition to conceive,
And baffled scepticism to reject:
—What fear of death is like the fear beyond it?

But pangs like these were lucid intervals
In the delirium of the life they led,
And all unwelcome as returning reason
Which through the chaos of a maniac's brain
Shoots gleams of light more terrible than darkness.
These sad misgivings of the smitten heart,
Wounded unseen by conscience from its ambush;
These voices from eternity, that spake
To an eternity of soul within,—
Were quickly lull'd by riotous enjoyment,
Or lost in hurricanes of headlong passion.
They knew no higher, sought no happier, state;
Had no fine instinct of superior joys
Than those of sense; no taste for sense refined
Above the gross necessities of nature,
Or outraged Nature's most unnatural cravings.
Why should they toil to make the earth bring forth,
When without toil she gave them all they wanted?
The bread-fruit ripen'd, while they lay beneath
Its shadow in luxurious indolence;
The cocoa fill'd its nuts with milk and kernels,
While they were sauntering on the shores and mountains;
And while they slumber'd, from their heavy meals,
In dead forgetfulness of life itself,
The fish were spawning in unsounded depths,
The birds were breeding in adjacent trees,
The game was fattening in delicious pastures,
Unplanted roots were thriving under ground,
To spread the tables of their future banquets!

Thus what the sires had been, the sons became;
And generations rose, continued, went,
Without memorial,—like the Pelicans
On that lone island, where they built their nests,
Nourish'd their young, and then lay down to die:
Hence, through a thousand and a thousand years,
Man's history in that region of oblivion
Might be recorded in a page as small
As the brief legend of those Pelicans,—
With one appalling, one sublime distinction,
(Sublime with horror, with despair appalling,)
—That Pelicans were not transgressors;—Man,
Apostate from the womb, by blood a traitor.
Thus, while he rose by dignity of birth,
He sunk in guilt and infamy below
Creatures whose being was but lent, not given,
And, when the debt was due, reclaim'd for ever.
O enviable lot of innocence!
Their bliss and woe were only of this world:
Whate'er their lives had been, though born to suffer
Not less than to enjoy, their end was peace.
Man was immortal, yet he lived and died
As though there were no life nor death but this:
Alas! what life or death may be hereafter,
He only knows who hath ordain'd them both;
And they shall know who prove their truth for ever.

The thought was agony beyond endurance:
“O thou, my brother Man!” again I cried,
“Would God that I might live, might die, for thee!
O could I take a form to meet thine eyes,
Invent a voice with words to reach thine ears;
Or if my spirit might converse with thine,
And pour my thoughts, fears, feelings, through thy breast,
Unknown to thee whence came the strange intrusion!
How would my soul rejoice, rejoice with trembling,
To tell thee who thou art, and bring thee home,
—Poor prodigal, here watching swine, and fain
To glut thy hunger with the husks they feed on,—
Home to our Father's house, our Father's heart!
Both, both are open to receive thee,—come;
O come!—He hears not, heeds not: O my brother!
That I might prophesy to thee,—to all
The millions of dry bones that fill this valley
Of darkness and despair!—Alas! alas!
Can these bones live? Lord God, Thou knowest.—Come
From the four winds of heaven, almighty breath!
Blow on these slain and they shall live.”

I spake;
And, turning from the mournful contemplation,
To seek refreshment for my weary spirit,
Amidst that peopled continent, the abode
Of misery which reach'd beyond this world,
I lighted on a solitary glen
(A peaceful refuge in a land of discord)
Crown'd with steep rocks, whose hoary summits shone,
Amid the blue unclouded element,
O'er the green woods, that, stretching down the hills,
Border'd the narrow champaign glade between,
Through which a clear and pebbly rill meander'd.
The song-birds caroll'd in the leafy shades,
Those of resplendent plumage flaunted round;
High o'er the cliffs the sea-fowl soar'd or perch'd;
The Pelican and Albatross were seen
In groups reposing on the northern ridge:
There was entire serenity above;
Beauty, tranquillity, delight, below;
And every motion, sound, and sight, were pleasing.
Rhinoceros nor wild bull pastured here;
Lion nor tiger here shed innocent blood;
The antelopes were grazing void of fear,
Their young in antic gambols ramping by;
While goats from precipice to precipice
Clamber'd, or hung, or vaulted through the air,
As if a thought convey'd them to and fro.
Harmony reign'd, as once ere man's creation,
When brutes were yet earth's sole inhabitants.
There were no human tracks nor dwellings there,
For 'twas a sanctuary from hurtful creatures,
And in the precincts of that happy dell
The absence of my species was a mercy:
Thence the declining sun withdrew his beams,
But left it lighted by a hundred peaks,
Glittering and golden, round the span of sky,
That seem'd the sapphire roof of one great temple,
Whose floor was emerald, and whose walls the hills;
Where those that worshipp'd God might worship Him
In spirit and in truth, without distraction.

Man's absence pleased me; yet on man alone,
Man fallen, helpless, miserable man,
My thoughts, prayers, wishes, tears, and sorrows turn'd,
Howe'er I strove to drive away remembrance:
Then I refrain'd no longer, but brake out,
—“Lord God! why hast Thou made all men in vain?”