The Poetical Works of Robert Montgomery :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Kings of mind, who govern from their graves,
Our thoughts their subjects, and our hearts their homes
Perennial, when they first in light emerge,
Like new expounders of almighty Will,
Forth from the secresy of truth unveil'd
Glad tidings bring they, of a Glory meant
Yet to awaken, and the world invest.
Their utt'rance, large; their meditation, lone;
By passion for the Infinite o'erpower'd,
They dart their glances into Things to come;
Intense, beyond the teachings of the soul
To reach, or satisfy. But, how received,
These new Avatars, sent on missions high,
To herald forth eternity in truth
For all who love them? Are loud welcomes rung?
Greetings of head, and jubilees of heart
Do these salute them with applausive joy?
Alas! too holy the vocation far
Of Truth's high Priests, when first behind the veil
Of outward things themselves presume to pass,
And bid us follow, with responsive track
Through the rent shroud their faith had first undrawn.
Time is their justice. When their tombs are rear'd,
Then, Wonder dares to consecrate their deeds;
Will call them, primates in the church of man,
Great Nature's own episcopate they form,
And rule, like metropolitans of mind.

But, mark the conflict when their voice emerged!
Struggles within, and all without them, rose.
Their great Impression was the God unseen,
But felt, an Infinite through finite glimpsed;
Yet, how they falter'd! of themselves afraid,
When Thoughts in vain articulation sought;
Or giant Apprehensions, dim and deep,
Scarce ventured forth in intellectual shape
And bodied meaning! Oft, expression fail'd
In form to realise what feeling grasp'd:
Language was only a prismatic mean
But half refracting, with imperfect ray,
The truth essential, which they purely saw
Single, and one, within the soul contain'd.
But when the mind could stammer forth its tones,
Profound, original, and preaching high
On God, and Nature, Science, Man, and Soul,
No music breathed they to the world's dull ear.
But, harshly strange, and dissonant they seem'd,
With fruitless paradox, for sense unfit
And reason dang'rous! Such the first salute
Prophetic genius from the world obtains:
And such have earth's regenerators met,
From God-called Moses, to the German monk.

But if to Morals and to Man they bring
Authentic tidings from the Throne of Truth,
Divine, yet most disturbing, scowl and scorn,
Affronting coldness, and condemning fears
Assail them ever, with a shameful wrong,
From all who love the ancient, but the new
Abhor, like treason! Thus the world, self-blind,
Hath greeted oft how many a regal Soul
That rules her now, with legislative awe!
Wisdom itself seems heresy to fools;
And freedom is but license to the slaves
Who love the fetters, which their languors fit.
Their light is darkness, and their being death,
And rotting silence all the soul admires,
Admits, or sanctions, in that dormant calm
By cent'ries gather'd o'er imprison'd mind.
E'en like a temple, where the owls retreat,
And the bats lodge within long-moulder'd shrines,
Ope but a window, let a sun-burst in,
And what a screaming anarchy awakes
Where falls the light, or sounding footstep comes!
So, in the temple of deserted Man

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Where sin for ages unmolested breeds,
Or lying Errors long repose enjoy,
If but a day-beam of immortal truth
The gloom dissever; or, a living Thought,
Divine as heaven, original from God,
Down from the skies should suddenly alight,
And walk his spirit with a kingly tread
Majestic, what a host of wild alarms
The priests of Dulness round the stranger raise,
And call it mad, the dead in mind to wake!