That men were bearing to the tomb, awoke,
And mingled with their friends: and armies, which
The trump surprised, met in the furious shock
Of battle, saw the bleeding ranks, new fallen,
Rise up at once, and to their ghastly cheeks
Return the stream of life in healthy flow:
And as the anatomist, with all his band
Of rude disciples, o'er the subject hung,
And impolitely hewed his way through bones
And muscles of the sacred human form,
Exposing barbarously to wanton gaze
The mysteries of nature, joint embraced
His kindred joint, the wounded flesh grew up,
And suddenly the injured man awoke,
Among their hands, and stood arrayed complete
In immortality; forgiving scarce
The insult offered to his clay in death.
"That was the hour, long wished for by the good, Of universal Jubilee to all
The sons of bondage: from the oppressor's hand The scourge of violence fell; and from his back, Healed of its stripes, the burden of the slave."
THE RELIGIOUS STUDENT.
"The youth of great religious soul, who sat Retired in voluntary loneliness,
In revery extravagant now wrapped,
Or poring now on book of ancient date,
With filial awe; and dipping oft his pen
To write immortal things; to pleasure deaf,
And joys of common men; working his way
With mighty energy, not uninspired,
Through all the mines of thought; reckless of pain,
And weariness, and wasted health: the scoff
Of pride, or growl of Envy's hellish brood;
While Fancy, voyaged far beyond the bounds
Of years revealed, heard many a future age,
With commendation loud, repeat his name-
False prophetess! the day of change was come-
Behind the shadow of eternity,
He saw his visions set of earthly fame;
For ever set; nor sighed, while through his veins
In lighter current ran immortal life;
His form renewed to undecaying health;
To undecaying health his soul, erewhile
Not tuned amiss to God's eternal praise."
THE MORTAL TO IMMORTAL CHANGED.
"All men in field and city; by the way;
On land or sea; lolling in gorgeous hall,
Or plying at the oar; crawling in rags
Obscure, or dazzling in embroidered gold;
Alone, in companies, at home, abroad;
In wanton merriment surprised and taken;
Or kneeling reverently in act of
prayer;
Or cursing recklessly, or uttering lies;
Or lapping greedily from slander's cup
The blood of reputation; or between
Friendships and brotherhoods devising strife;
Or plotting to defile a neighbor's bed;
In duel met with dagger of revenge;
Or casting on the widow's heritage
The eye of covetousness; or with full hand
On Mercy's noiseless errands, unobserved,
Administering; or meditating fraud
And deeds of horrid barbarous intent;
In full pursuit of unexperienced hope,
Fluttering along the flowery path of youth:
Or steeped in disappointment's bitterness-
The fevered cup that guilt must ever drink,
When parched and fainting on the road of ill;-
Beggar and king, the clown and haughty lord;
The venerable sage, and empty fop;
The ancient matron, and the rosy bride;
The virgin chaste, and shriveled harlot vile;
The savage fierce, and man of science mild;
The good and evil, in a moment, all
Were changed, corruptible to incorrupt,
And mortal to immortal, ne'er to change."
"And now, descending from the bowers of heaven,
Soft airs o'er all the earth, spreading, were heard,
And hallelujahs sweet, the harmony
Of righteous souls that came to repossess
Their long-neglected bodies: and anon
Upon the ear fell horribly the sound
Of cursing, and the yells of damned despair,
Uttered by felon spirits that the trump
Had summoned from the burning glooms of hell,
To put their bodies on, reserved for wo.
"Now starting up among the living, changed,
Appeared innumerous the risen dead.
Each particle of dust was claimed; the turf,
For ages trod beneath the careless foot
Of men, rose organized in human form;
The monumental stones were rolled away;
The doors of death were opened; and in the dark
And loathsome vault, and silent charnel-house,
Moving, were heard the moldered bones that sought
Their proper place. Instinctive every soul
Flew to its clayey part: from grass-grown mold
The nameless spirit took its ashes up,
Reanimate: and, merging from beneath
The flattered marble, undistinguished rose
The great; nor heeded once the lavish rhyme,
And costly pomp of sculptured garnish vain.
The Memphian mummy, that from age to age
Descending, bought and sold a thousand times,
In hall of curious antiquary stowed,
Wrapped in mysterious weeds, the wondrous theme
Of many an erring tale, shook off its rags;
And the brown son of Egypt stood beside
The European, his last purchaser.
In vale remote the hermit rose, surprised
At crowds that rose around him, where he thought
His slumbers had been single: and the bard,
Who fondly covenanted with his friend
To lay his bones beneath the sighing bough
Of some old lonely tree, rising, was pressed
By multitudes, that claimed their proper dust
From the same spot: and he that, richly hearsed
With gloomy garniture of purchased wo,
Embalmed, in princely sepulchre was laid,
Apart from vulgar men-built nicely round
And round by the proud heir, who blushed to think
His father's lordly clay should ever mix
With peasant dust-saw by his side awake
The clown, that long had slumbered in his arms.
"The family tomb, to whose devouring mouth
Descended sire and son, age after age,
In long unbroken hereditary line,
Poured forth at once the ancient father rude,
And all his offspring of a thousand years:
Refreshed from sweet repose, awoke the man
Of charitable life; awoke and sung;
And from his prison-house, slowly and sad,
As if unsatisfied with holding near
Communion with the earth, the miser drew
His carcass forth, and gnashed his teeth, and howled,
Unsolaced by his gold and silver then:
From simple stone in lonely wilderness,
That hoary lay, o'er-lettered by the hand
Of oft-frequenting pilgrim, who had taught
The willow-tree to weep at morn and even
Over the sacred spot, the martyr saint
To song of seraph harp triumphant rose,
Well pleased that he had suffered to the death.
"The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,'
As sung the bard by Nature's hand anointed,
In whose capacious giant numbers rolled
The passions of old Time, fell lumbering down:
All cities fell, and every work of man,
And gave their portion forth of human dust,
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