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FRAGMENTS.*

I.

SAW'ST thou that light? exclaim'd the youth, and paused:

Through yon dark firs it glanced, and on the stream
That skirts the woods it for a moment play'd.
Again, more light it gleam'd,-or does some sprite
Delude mine eyes with shapes of woods and streams,
And lamp far-beaming through the thicket's gloom,
As from some bosom'd cabin, where the voice
Of revelry, or thrifty watchfulness,

Keeps in the lights at this unwanted hour?
No sprite deludes mine eyes,-the beam now glows
With steady lustre.-Can it be the moon,
Who, hidden long by the invidious veil

That blots the Heavens, now sets behind the woods?
No moon to-night has look'd upon the sea
Of clouds beneath her, answer'd Rudiger,
She has been sleeping with Endymion.

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Methinks thou lookest kindly on me, Moon,
And cheerest my lone hours with sweet regards.
Surely like me thou'rt sad, but dost not speak

Thy sadness to the cold unheeding crowd;
So mournfully composed, o'er yonder cloud
Thou shinest, like a cresset, beaming far
From the rude watch-tower, o'er the Atlantic wave.

VI.

O GIVE me music-for my soul doth faint;
I'm sick of noise and care, and now mine ear
Longs for some air of peace, some dying plaint,
That may the spirit from its cell unsphere.

Hark how it falls! and now it steals along,
Like distant bells upon the lake at eve,
When all is still; and now it grows more strong,
As when the choral train their dirges weave,
Mellow and many-voiced; where every close,
O'er the old minster roof, in echoing waves retlows.

Oh! I am rapt aloft. My spirit soars

Beyond the skies, and leaves the stars behind. Lo! angels lead me to the happy shores,

And floating pæans fill the buoyant wind.

Farewell! base earth, farewell! my soul is freed, Far from its clayey cell it springs.

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All inere was mystery then, the gust that woke
The midnight echo with a spirit's dirge,
And unseen fairies would the moon invoke,
To their light morrice by the restless surge.
Now to my sober'd thought with life's false smiles,
Too much

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The vagrant Fancy spreads no more her wiles,
And dark forebodings now my bosom fill.

XI.

HUSH'D is the lyre-the hand that swept
The low and pensive wires,

Robb'd of its cunning, from the task retires.

Yes it is still-the lyre is still;

The spirit which its slumbers broke

Chain'd to the grovelling frailties of the flesh,
Mere mortal man, unpurged from earthly dross,
Cannot survey, with fix'd and steady eye,
The dim uncertain gulf, which now the muse,
Adventurous, would explore;-but dizzy grown,
He topples down the abyss.-If he would scan
The fearful chasm, and catch a transient glimpse
Of its unfathomable depths, that so
His mind may turn with double joy to God,
His only certainty and resting place;
He must put off awhile this mortal vest,

And learn to follow, without giddiness,

To heights where all is vision, and surprise,

And vague conjecture.-He must waste by night
The studious taper, far from all resort:

Of crowds and folly, in some still retreat;
High on the beetling promontory's crest,
Or in the caves of the vast wilderness,
Where, compass'd round with Nature's wildest
shapes,

Hath pass'd away, and that weak hand that He may be driven to centre all his thoughts

woke

Its forest melodies hath lost its skill.

Yet I would press you to my lips once more,
Ye wild, ye withering flowers of poesy;

Yet would I drink the fragrance which ye pour,
Mix'd with decaying odours: for to me
Ye have beguiled the hours of infancy,
As in the wood-paths of my native

XII.

ONCE more, and yet once more,

I give unto my harp a dark-woven lay;

I heard the waters roar,

I heard the flood of ages pass away. O thou, stern spirit, who dost dwell

In thine eternal cell,

Noting, gray chronicler! the silent years;

I saw thee rise,-I saw the scroll complete,
Thou spak'st, and at thy feet
The universe gave way.

TIME. *

A POEM.

GENIUS of musings, who, the midnight hour
Wasting in woods or haunted forests wild,
Dost watch Orion in his arctic tower,
Thy dark eye fix'd as in some holy trance;
Or when the vollied lightnings cleave the air,
And Ruin gaunt bestrides the winged storm,
Sitt'st in some lonely watch-tower, where thy
lamp,

Faint-blazing, strikes the fisher's eye from far,
And, 'mid the howl of elements, unmoved
Dost ponder on the awful scene, and trace
The vast effect to its superior source,

Spirit, attend my lowly benison !

For now I strike to themes of import high
The solitary lyre; and, borne by thee
Above this narrow cell, I celebrate

The mysteries of Time!

Him who, august,
Was ere these worlds were fashioned,-ere the sun
Sprang from the east, or Lucifer display'd
His glowing cresset in the arch of morn,
Or Vesper gilded the serener eve.

Yea, He had been for an eternity!
Had swept un varying from eternity
The harp of desolation-ere his tones,

At God's command, assumed a milder strain,
And startled on his watch, in the vast deep,
Chaos' sluggish sentry, and evoked
From the dark void the smiling universe.

• This Poem was begun either during the publication of Clifton Grove, or shortly afterwards. Henry never laid aside the intention of completing it, and some of the detached parts were among his latest productions.

In the great Architect, who lives confess'd
In rocks, and seas, and solitary wastes.

So has divine Philosophy, with voice
Mild as the murmurs of the moonlight wave,
Tutor'd the heart of him, who now awakes,
Touching the chords of solemn minstrelsy,
His faint, neglected song-intent to snatch
Some vagrant blossom from the dangerous steep
Of poesy, a bloom of such a hue,

So sober, as may not unseemly suit

With Truth's severer brow; and one withal

So hardy as shall brave the passing wind
Of many winters,-rearing its meek head
In loveliness, when he who gather'd it
Is number'd with the generations gone.
Yet not to me hath God's good providence
Given studious leisure, or unbroken thought,
Such as he owns,-a meditative man;
Who from the blush of morn to quiet eve
Ponders, or turns the page of wisdom o'er,
Far from the busy crowd's tumultuous din:
From noise and wrangling far, and undisturb'd
With Mirth's unholy shouts. For me the day
Hath duties which require the vigorous hand
Of steadfast application, but which leave
No deep improving trace upon the mind.
But be the day another's;-let it pass!

The night's my own-They cannot steal my night!
When evening lights her folding-star on high,

I live and breathe; and in the sacred hours
Of quiet and repose, my spirit flies,
Free as the morning, o'er the realms of space,
And mounts the skies, and imps her wing for
Heaven.

Hence do I love the sober-suited maid; [theme,
Hence Night's my friend, my mistress, and my
And she shall aid me now to magnify

The night of ages,-now when the pale ray
Of star-light penetrates the studious gloom,
And, at my window seated, while mankind
Are lock'd in sleep, I feel the freshening breeze
Of stillness blow, while, in her saddest stole,
Thought, like a wakeful vestal at her shrine,
Assumes her wonted sway.

Behold the world
Rests, and her tired inhabitants have paused
From trouble and turmoil. The widow now
Has ceased to weep, and her twin orphans lie
Lock'd in each arm, partakers of her rest.
The man of sorrow has forgot his woes;
The outcast that his head is shelterless,
His griefs unshared.-The mother tends no more
Her daughter's dying slumbers, but, surprised
With heaviness, and sunk upon her couch,
Dreams of her bridals. Even the hectic, full'd
On Death's lean arm to rest, in visions wrapp'd,
Crowning with Hope's bland wreath his shudder

ing nurse,

Poor victim! smiles.-Silence and deep repose
Reign o'er the nations; and the warning voice
Of Nature utters audibly within

The general moral:-tells us that repose,
Deathlike as this, but of far longer span,
Is coming on us that the weary crowds,
Who now enjoy a temporary calm,
Shall soon taste lasting quiet, wrapp'd around

The author was then in an attorney's office.

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Mouldering in holes and corners unobserved,
Till the last trump shall break their sullen sleep.

Who needs a teacher to admonish him
That flesh is grass, that earthly things are mist?
What are our joys but dreams? and what our
hopes

But goodly shadows in the summer cloud?
There's not a wind that blows but bears with it
Some rainbow promise:-Not a moment flies
But puts its sickle in the fields of life,

gazed

And mows its thousands, with their joys and cares.
'Tis but as yesterday since on yon stars,
Which now I view, the Chaldee Shepherd
In his mid-watch observant, and disposed
The twinkling hosts as fancy gave them shape.
Yet in the interim what mighty shocks
Have buffeted mankind-whole nations razed-
Cities made desolate,-the polish'd sunk
To barbarism, and once barbaric tates
Swaying the wand of science and of arts;
Illustrious deeds and memorable names
Blotted from record, and upon the tongue
Of gray Tradition, voluble no more.

Where are the heroes of the ages past?
Where the brave chieftains, where the mighty ones
Who flourish'd in the infancy of days?
All to the grave gone down. On their, fallen fame
Exultant, mocking at the pride of man,
Sits grim Forgetfulness.-The warrior's arm
Lies nerveless on the pillow of its shame;
Hush'd is his stormy voice, and quench'd
blaze

Of his red eye-ball.-Yesterday his name
Was mighty on the earth.-To day-'tis what?
The meteor of the night of distant years,
That flash'd unnoticed, save by wrinkled eld,
Musing at midnight upon prophecies,
Who at her lonely lattice saw the gleam
Point to the mist-poised shroud, then quietly
Closed her pale lips, and lock'd the secret up
Safe in the charnel's treasures.

O how weak
Is mortal man! how trifling-how confined
His scope of vision! Puff'd with confidence,
His phrase grows big with immortality,
And he, poor insect of a summer's day!
Dreams of eternal honours to his name;
Of endless glory and perennial bays.

He idly reasons of eternity,

As of the train of ages,-when, alas!
Ten thousand thousand of his centuries
Are, in comparision, a little point

the

Too trivial for account.-O, it is strange,
"Tis passing strange, to mark his fallacies;
Behold him proudly view some pompous pile,
Whose high dome swells to emulate the skies,
And smile, and say, My name shall live with this
Till Time shall be no more; while at his feet,
Yea, at his very feet, the crumbling dust
Of the fallen fabric of the other day
Preaches the solemn lesson. He should know
That time must conquer; that the loudest blast
That ever fill'd Renown's obstreperous trump
Fades in the lapse of ages, and expires.
Who lies inhumed in the terrific gloom
Of the gigantic pyramid? or who

Rear'd its huge walls? Oblivion laughs, and says,
The prey is mine.-They sleep, and never more
Their names shall strike upon the ear of man,
Their memory bursts its fetters.

Where is Rome?

She lives but in the tale of other times;
Her proud pavilions are the hermit's home,
And her long colonnades, her public walks,
Now faintly echo to the pilgrim's feet,
Who comes to muse in solitude, and trace,
Through the rank moss reveal'd, her honour'd
dust.

But not to Rome alone has fate confined
The doom of ruin; cities numberless,
Tyre, Sidon, Carthage, Babylon, and Troy,
And rich Phoenicia-they are blotted out,
Half-razed from memory, and their very name
And being in dispute.-Has Athens fallen?

Is polish'd Greece become the savage seat
Of ignorance and sloth? and shall we dare

[naines,

And empire seeks another hemisphere.
Where now is Britain?-Where her laurell'd
Her palaces and halls? Dash'd in the dust,
Some second Vandal hath reduced her pride,
And with one big recoil hath thrown her back
To primitive barbarity.Again,
Through her depopulated vales, the scream
Of bloody Superstition hollow rings,
And the scared native to the tempest howls
The yell of deprecation. O'er her marts,
Her crowded ports, broods Silence; and the cry
Of the low curlew, and the pensive dash
Of distant billows, breaks alone the void.
Even as the savage sits upon the stone
That marks where stood her capitols, and hears
The bittern booming in the weeds, he shrinks
From the dismaying solitude.-Her bards
Sing in a language that hath perished;
And their wild harps suspended o'er their graves,
Sigh to the desert winds a dying strain.

Meanwhile the Arts, in second infancy,
Rise in some distant clime, and then, perchance,
Some bold adventurer, fill'd with golden dreams,
Steering his bark through trackless solitudes,
Where, to his wandering thoughts, no daring prow
Hath ever plough'd before,-espies the cliffs
Of fallen Albion.-To the land unknown
He journeys joyful; and perhaps descries
Some vestige of her ancient stateliness:
Then he, with vain conjecture, fills his mind
Of the unheard-of race, which had arrived
At science in that solitary nook,
Far from the civil world; and sagely sighs,
And moralizes on the state of man.

Still on its march, unnoticed and unfelt,
Moves on our being. We do live and breathe,
And we are gone. The spoiler heeds us not.
We have our spring-time and our rottenness;
And as we fall, another race succeeds,

To perish likewise.-Meanwhile Nature smiles-
The seasons run their round-The Sun fulfils

His annual course-and Heaven and earth remain
Still changing, yet unchanged-still doom'd to feel
Endless mutation in perpetual rest.

Where are concealed the days which have elapsed?
Hid in the mighty cavern of the past,
They rise upon us only to appal,

By indistinct and half-glimpsed images,
Misty, gigantic, huge, obscure, remote.

Oh, it is fearful, on the midnight couch,
When the rude rushing winds forget to rave,
And the pale moon, that through the casement
high

Surveys the sleepless muser, stamps the hour
Of utter silence, it is fearful then

To steer the mind, in deadly solitude,

Up the vague stream of probability;

To wind the mighty secrets of the past,

And turn the key of Time!-Oh! who can strive

To comprehend the vast, the awful truth,

Of the eternity that hath gone by,

And not recoil from the dismaying sense
Of human impotence? The life of man
Is summ'd in birth-days and in sepulchres:
But the Eternal God had no beginning;
He hath no end. Time had been with him
For everlasting, ere the dæædal world
Rose from the gulf in loveliness.-Like him
It knew no source, like him 'twas uncreate.
What is it then? The past Eternity!
We comprehend a future without end;
We feel it possible that even yon sun

May roll for ever: but we shrink amazed-
We stand aghast, when we reflect that time

Knew no commencement,-That heap age on age,
And million upon million, without end,
And we shall never span the void of days
That were, and are not but in retrospect.
The Past is an unfathomable depth,
Beyond the span of thought; 'tis an elapse

Alluding to the first astronomical observations Which hath no mensuration, but hath been

made by the Chaldean shepherds.

For ever and for ever.

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Now look on man
Myriads of ages hence,-Hath time elapsed?
Is be not standing in the self-same place
Where once we stood?-The same eternity
Hath gone before him, and is yet to come;
His past is not of longer span than ours,
Though myriads of ages intervened;

For who can add to what has neither sum,
Nor bound, nor source, nor estimate, nor end?
Oh, who can compass the Almighty mind?
Who can unlock the secrets of the High?
In speculations of an altitude

Sublime as this, our reason stands confess'd
Foolish, and insignificant, and mean.
Who can apply the futile argument
of finite beings to infinity?

He might as well compress the universe
Into the hollow compass of a gourd,
Scoop'd out by human art; or bid the whale
Drink up the sea it swims in!-Can the less
Contain the greater? or the dark obscure
Infold the glories of meridian day?
What does Philosophy impart to man
But undiscover'd wonders?-Let her soar

23

| Against his Maker's will? The Polygar,
Who kneels to sun or moon, compared with him
Who thus perverts the talents he enjoys,
Is the most bless'd of men!-Oh! I would walk
A weary journey, to the furthest verge

Of the big world, to kiss that good man's hand,
Who, in the blaze of wisdom and of art,
Preserves a lowly mind; and to his God,
Feeling the sense of his own littleness,
Is as a child in meek simplicity!

What is the pomp of learning? the parade
Of letters and of tongues? Even as the mists
Of the gray morn before the rising sun,
That pass away and perish.

Earthly things
Are but the transient pageants of an hour;
And earthly pride is like the passing flower,
That springs to fall, and blossoms but to die.
Tis as the tower erected on a cloud,
Baseless and silly as the school-boy's dream.
Ages and epochs that destroy our pride,
And then record its downfall, what are they
But the poor creatures of man's teeming brain?
Hath Heaven its ages? or doth Heaven preserve
Its stated eras? Doth the Omnipotent
Hear of to-morrows or of yesterdays?
There is to God nor future nor a past;

Throned in his might, all times to him are present;
He hath no lapse, no past, no time to come;
He sees before him one eternal now.

Time moveth not!-our being 'tis that moves,
And we, swift gliding down life's rapid stream,
Dream of swift ages and revolving years,
Ordain'd to chronicle our passing days;
So the young sailor in the gallant bark,
Scudding before the wind, beholds the coast

Even to her proudest heights-to where she caught Receding from his eyes, and thinks the while,

The soul of Newton and of Socrates,
She but extends the scope of wild amaze
And admiration. All her lessons end

la wider views of God's unfathom'd depths.

Lo! the unletter'd hind, who never knew
To raise his mind excursive to the heights
Of abstract contemplation, as he sits
On the green hillock by the hedge-row side,
What time the insect swarms are murmuring,
And marks, in silent thought, the broken clouds
That fringe with loveliest hues the evening sky,
Feels in his soul the hand of Nature rouse
The thrill of gratitude, to him who form'd
The goodly prospect; he beholds the God
Throned in the west, and his reposing ear
Hears sounds angelic in the fitful breeze

That floats through neighbouring copse of fairy brake,

Or lingers playful on the haunted stream.
Go with the cotter to his winter fire,
Where o'er the moors the loud blast whistles shrill,
And the hoarse ban-dog bays the icy moon;
Mark with what awe he lists the wild uproar,
Silent, and big with thought; and hear him bless
The God that rides on the tempestuous clouds
For his snug hearth, and all his little joys:
Hear him compare his happier lot with his
Who bends his way across the wintry wolds,
A poor night-traveller, while the dismal snow
Beats in his face, and, dubious of his path,
He stops, and thinks, in every lengthening blast,
He hears some village-mastiff's distant howl,
And sees, far-streaming, some lone cottage light;
Then, undeceived, upturns his streaming eyes,
And clasps his shivering hands; or overpower'd,
Sinks on the frozen ground, weigh'd down with
sleep,

From which the hapless wretch shall never wake.
Thus the poor rustic warms his heart with praise
And glowing gratitude,-he turns to bless,
With honest warinth, his Maker and his God!
And shall it e'er be said, that a poor hind,
Nursed in the lap of Ignorance, and bred
In want and labour, glows with nobler zeal
To laud his Maker's attributes, while he
Whom starry Science in her cradle rock'd,
And Castaly enchasten'd with its dews
Closes his eyes upon the holy word,
And, blind to all but arrogance and pride,
Dares to declare his infidelity,
And openly contemn the lord of Hosts?
What is philosophy, if it impart
Irreverence for the Deity, or teach
A mortal man to'set his judgment up

Struck with amaze, that he is motionless, And that the land is sailing.

Such, alas!

Are the illusions of this Proteus life;
All, all is false: through every phasis still
'Tis shadowy and deceitful. It assumes
The semblances of things and specious shapes;
But the lost traveller might as soon rely
On the evasive spirit of the marsh,
Whose lantern beams, and vanishes, and flits,
O'er bog, and rock, and pit, and hollow way,
As we on its appearances.

On earth

There is nor certainty nor stable hope.
As well the weary mariner, whose bark
Is toss'd beyond Cimmerian Bosphorus,
Where Storm and Darkness hold their drear do-
main,

And sunbeams never penetrate, might trust
To expectation of serener skies,
And linger in the very jaws of death,
Because some peevish cloud were opening,
Or the loud storm had bated in its rage:
As we look forward in this vale of tears
To permanent delight-from some slight glimpse
Of shadowy unsubstantial happiness.

The good man's hope is laid far, far beyond
The sway of tempests, or the furious sweep
Of mortal desolation.-He beholds
Unapprehensive, the gigantic stride
Of rampant Ruin, or the unstable waves
Of dark Vicissitude.-Even in death,-
In that dread hour, when with a giant pang,
Tearing the tender fibres of the heart,
The immortal spirit struggles to be free,
Then, even then, that hope forsakes him not,
For it exists beyond the narrow verge
Of the cold sepulchre.-The petty joys
Of fleeting life indignantly it spurn'd,
And rested on the bosom of its God.
This is man's only reasonable hope;

And 'tis a hope which, cherish'd in the breast,
Shall not be disappointed.-Even he,
The Holy One-Almighty-who elanced
The rolling world along its airy way,
Even He will deign to smile upon the good,
And welcome him to these celestial seats,
Where joy and gladness hold their changeless reign.
Thou, proud man, look upon yon starry vault,
Survey the countless gems which richly stud,
The Night's imperial chariot ;-Telescopes
Will show thee myriads more innumerous
Than the sea sand;-each of those little lamps
Is the great source of light, the central sun

Round which some other mighty sisterhood
Of planets travel, every planet stock'd
With living beings impotent as thee.
Now, proud man! now, where is thy greatness fled?
What art thou in the scale of universe?
Less, less than nothing!-Yet of thee the God
Who built this wondrous frame of worlds is careful,
As well as of the mendicant who begs
The leavings of thy table. And shalt thou
Lift up thy thankless spirit, and contemn
His heavenly providence! Deluded fool,
Even now the thunderbolt is wing'd with death,
Even now thou totterest on the brink of hell.

How insignificant is mortal man, Bound to the hasty pinions of an hour; How poor, how trivial in the vast conceit Of infinite duration, boundless space! God of the universe! Almighty One! Thou who dost walk upon the winged winds, Or with the storm thy rugged charioteer, Swift and impetuous as the northern blast, Ridest from pole to pole; Thou who dost hold The forked lightnings in thine awful grasp, And reinest in the earthquake, when thy wrath Goes down towards erring man, I would address To Thee my panting pæan; for of Thee, Great beyond comprehension, who thyself Art Time and Space, sublime Infinitude. Of Thee has been my song-With awe I kneel Trembling before the footstool of thy state, My God! my Father!-I will sing to Thee A hymn of laud, a solemn canticle, Ere on the cypress wreath, which overshades The throne of Death, I hang my mournful lyre, And give its wild strings to the desert gale. Rise, Son of Salem! rise, and join the strain, Sweep to accordant tones thy tuneful harp, And leaving vain laments, arouse thy soul To exultation. Sing hosanna, sing, And hallelujah, for the Lord is great

And full of mercy! He has thought of man;
Yea, compass'd round with countless worlds. has
thought

Of we poor worms, that batten in the dews
Of morn, and perish ere the noon-day sun.
Sing to the Lord, for he is merciful:"
He gave the Nubian lion but to live,
To rage its hour, and perish; but on man
He lavish'd immortality, and Heaven.
The eagle falls from her aerial tower,
And mingles with irrevocable dust:
But man from death springs joyful,
Springs up to life and to eternity.
Oh, that, insensate of the favouring boon,
The great exclusive privilege bestow'd
On us unworthy trifles, men should dare

To treat with slight regard the proffer'd Heaven,
And urge the lenient, but All-Just, to swear
In wrath, "They shall not enter in my rest."
Might I address the supplicative strain
To thy high footstool, I would pray that thou
Wouldst pity the deluded wanderers,
And fold them, ere they perish, in thy flock.
Yea, I would bid thee pity them, through Him,
Thy well-beloved, who, upon the cross,
Bled a dead sacrifice for human sin,
And paid, with bitter agony, the debt
Of primitive transgression.

Oh! I shrink,

My very soul doth shrink, when I reflect
That the time hastens, when in vengeance clothed,
Thou shalt come down to stamp the seal of fate
On erring mortal man. Thy chariot wheels
Then shall rebound to earth's remotest caves,
And stormy Ocean from his bed shall start
At the appalling summons. Oh! how dread,
On the dark eye of miserable man,
Chasing his sins in secrecy and gloom,
Will burst the effulgence of the opening Heaven;
When to the brazen trumpet's deafening roar,
Thou and thy dazzling cohorts shall descend,
Proclaiming the fulfilment of the word!

The dead shall start astonish'd from their sleep!
The sepulchres shall groan and yield their prey.
The bellowing floods shall disembogue their charge
Of human victims-From the farthest nook
Of the wide world shall troop their risen souls,
From him whose bones are bleeching in the waste
Of polar solitudes, or him whose corpse,
Whelm'd in the loud Atlantic's vexed tides,
Is wash'd on some Carribean prominence,

To the lone tenant of some secret cell
In the Pacific's vast
⚫ realm,
Where never plummet's sound was heard to part
The wilderness of water; they shall come
To greet the solemn advent of the Judge.
Thou first shalt summon the elected saints,
To their apportion'd Heaven! and thy Son,
At thy right hand, shall smile with conscious joy
On all his past distresses, when for them
He bore humanity's severest pangs.
Then shalt thou seize the avenging scymitar,
And, with a roar as loud and horrible
As the stern earthquake's monitory voice,
The wicked shall be driven to their abode,
Down the immitigable gulf, to wail
And gnash their teeth in endless agony.

Rear thou aloft thy standard.-Spirit, rear Thy flag on high!-Invincible, and throned In unparticipated might. Behold

Earth's proudest boasts, beneath thy silent sway,
Sweep headlong to destruction, thou the while,
Unmoved and heedless, thou dost hear the rush
Of mighty generations, as they pass

To the broad gulf of ruin, and dost stamp
Thy signet on them, and they rise no more.
Who shall contend with Time-unvanquish'd Time
The conqueror of conquerors, and lord
Of desolation ?-Lo! the shadows fly,
The hours and days, and years and centuries,
They fly, they fly, and nations rise and fall.
The young are old, the old are in their graves.
Heard'st thou that shout? It rent the vaulted skies;
It was the voice of people,-mighty crowds,-
Again! 'tis hush'd-Time speaks, and all is hush'd;
In the vast multitude now reigns alone
Unruffled solitude. They all are still;
All-yea, the whole-the incalculable mass,
Still as the ground that clasps their cold remains.

Rear thou aloft thy standard.-Spirit, rear
Thy flag on high! and glory in thy strength.
But do thou know the season yet shall come,
When from its base thine adamantine throne
Shall tumble; when thine arm shall cease to strike,
Thy voice forget its petrifying power;
When saints shall shout, and Time shall be no more
Yea, he doth come-the mighty champion comes,
Whose potent spear shall give thee thy death wound,
Shall crush the conqueror of conquerors,
And desolate stern Desolation's lord.

Lo! where he cometh! the Messiah comes!
The King! the Comforter! the Christ!-He comes
To burst the bonds of death, and overturn
The power of Time.-Hark! the trumpet's blast
Rings o'er the heavens! They rise, the myriads rise-
Even from their graves they spring, and burst the
chains

Of torpor-He has ransom'd them,

Forgotten generations live again,

Assume the bodily shapes they own'd of old,
Beyond the flood:-the righteous of their times
Embrace and weep, they weep the tears of joy.
The sainted mother wakes, and in her lap
Clasps her dear babe, the partner of her grave,
And heritor with her of Heaven,-a flower]
Wash'd by the blood of Jesus from the stain
Of native guilt, even in its early bud.
And, hark! those strains, how solemnly serene
They fall, as from the skies-at distance fall-
Again more loud-The hallelujah's swell;
The newly-risen catch the joyful sound;
They glow, they burn; and now with one accord
Bursts forth sublime from every mouth the song
Of praise to God on high, and to the Lamb
Who bled for mortals.

Yet there is peace for man.-Yea, there is peace Even in this noisy, this unsettled scene; When from the crowd, and from the city far, Haply he may be set (in his late walk O'ertaken with deep thought) beneath the boughs Of honeysuckle, when the sun is gone, And with fix'd eye, and wistful, he surveys The solemn shadows of the Heavens sail, And thinks the season yet shall come, when Time Will waft him to repose, to deep repose, Far from the unquietness of life-from noise And tumult far-beyond the flying clouds,

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