 | Poetic Lucubrations |  |
87
ÆNIGMA.
I
With me the constellations in the skyPursue their courses and direct their flight:
With me the azure canopy on high
Moves quickly on in genial beauty dight:
With me the sparkling purple garb of night
To mortal view extends its vivid glow:
Without me Phœbus yields no more that light,
Which doth around each circling planet flow,
But stagnant, spreads a fearful gloom on all below.
88
II
The rolling thunder, and the howling wind,That hurls the green wave to a mountain's height:
The fleet red light'ning frightfully combin'd,
With all the horrors of December's night:
The crashing earthquake dreadful to the sight:
The hail stones hissing, smoking o'er the land:
And red volcanic flames whose blazing light,
Like op'ning Tart'rus, doth afar expand:—
Obey with trembling awe my potentous command.
III
The cascades gentle fall, the gurgling stream:The silver birch-tree and the waving pine:
And ærial shadow's awfully that seem,
To be of regions and of kind divine:
89
In heav'n's own colors and such dread array,
Reflected on the torrents of old Rhine,
Which fall from heights where mortals seldom stray:—
By me, in beauty live, or melt into decay.
IV
By me the surgy billows of the deep,Vain man envelope, with his scatter'd stores:
With me the milder seas unruffled weep,
And shed their tears along the sobbing shores:
With me in war the hollow cannon roars:
With me the victory is won or lost:
With me in despot's chains the slave implores
Aid from his foe, with arms uprais'd and cross'd,
As if poor wretch! midst thieves in lands of plunder toss'd.
90
V
Yet hills, which never beautified a scene,But are with gloom and barrenness imbued:
And hidden rocks which light have never seen,
And stagnant pools which grandeur ne'er have view'd
The works of man which o'er the earth are strew'd—
Each molten image, and each massy pile,
And architrave of mechanism rude:
My vaunted pow'r deride with haughty smile,
And oft from age to age its potent spells revile.
| Poetic Lucubrations | |