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THE DESTINY OF NATIONS.

A VISION.

AUSPICIOUS REVERENCE! Hush all meaner song,
Ere we the deep preluding strain have poured
To the GREAT FATHER, only RIGHTFUL KING,
ETERNAL FATHER! KING OMNIPOTENT!
THE WILL, THE WORD, THE BREATH,
LIVING GOD.

Such symphony requires best instrument.

-THE

Seize, then, my soul! from Freedom's trophied dome The Harp which hangeth high between the Shields Of Brutus and Leonidas! With that

Strong music, that soliciting spell, force back Earth's free and stirring spirit that lies entranced.

For what is Freedom, but the unfettered use Of all the powers which God for use had given? But chiefly this, him First, him Last to view

Through meaner powers and secondary things
Effulgent, as through clouds that veil his blaze.
For all that meets the bodily sense I deem
Symbolical, one mighty alphabet

For infant minds; and we in this low world

Placed with our backs to bright Reality,

That we may
The substance from its shadow.

learn with young unwounded ken

Infinite Love

Whose latence is the plenitude of All,

Thou with retracted Beams, and Self-eclipse
Veiling, revealest thine eternal Sun.

But some there are who deem themselves most free

When they within this gross and visible sphere

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Chain down the winged thought, scoffing ascent
Proud in their meanness and themselves they cheat
With noisy emptiness of learned phrase,

Their subtle fluids, impacts, essences,
Self-working tools, uncaused effects, and all

Those blind Omniscients, those Almighty Slaves,
Untenanting creation of its God.

But properties are God: the naked mass (If mass there be, fantastic Guess or Ghost) Acts only by its inactivity.

Here we pause humbly.

Others boldlier think

That as one body seems the aggregate
Of Atoms numberless, each organized;
So by a strange and dim similitude
Infinite myriads of self-conscious minds
Are one all-conscious Spirit, which informs
With absolute ubiquity of thought
(His one eternal self-affirming Act!)
All his involved Monads, that yet seem
With various province and apt agency
Each to pursue its own self-centering end.
Some nurse the infant diamond in the mine;
Some roll the genial juices through the oak;
Some drive the mutinous clouds to clash in air,
And rushing on the storm with whirlwind speed,
Yoke the red lightning to their volleying car.
Thus these pursue their never-varying course,
No eddy in their stream. Others, more wild,
With complex interests weaving human fates,
Duteous or proud, alike obedient all,
Evolve the process of eternal good.

And what if some rebellious, o'er dark realms Arrogate power? yet these train up to God, And on the rude eye, unconfirmed for day, Flash meteor-lights better than total gloom. As ere from Lieule-Oaive's vapoury head

The Laplander beholds the far-off Sun
Dart his slant beam on unobeying snows,
While yet the stern and solitary Night
Brooks no alternate sway, the Boreal Morn
With mimic lustre substitutes its gleam,
Guiding his course or by Niemi lake

Or Balda-Zhiok,* or the

mossy stone

Of Solfar-kapper,t while the snowy blast
Drifts arrowy by, or eddies round his sledge,
Making the
poor babe at its mother's back!

* Balda Zhiok ; i. e. mons altitudinis, the highest mountain in Lapland.

+ Solfar Kapper; capitium Solfar, hic locus omnium, quotquot veterum Lapponum superstitio sacrificiis religiosoque cultui dedicavit, celebratissimus erat, in parte sinus australis situs, semimilliaris spatio a mari distans. Ipse locus, quem curiositatis gratia aliquando me invisisse memini, duabus prealtis lapidibus, sibi invicem oppositis, quorum alter musco circumdatus erat, constabat.-LEEMIUS De Lupponibus.

The Lapland women carry their infants at their back in a piece of excavated wood, which serves them for a cradle. Opposite to the infant's mouth there is a hole for it to breath through.—Mirandum prorsus est et vix credibile nisi cui vidisset contigit. Lappones hyeme iter facientes per vastos montes, perque horrida et invia tesqua, eo presertim tempore quo omnia perpetuis nivibus obtecta sunt et nives ventis agitantur et in gyros aguntur, viam ad destinata loca absque errore invenire posse, lactantem autem infantem, si quem habeat, ipsa mater in dorso bajulat, in excavato ligno (Gieed'k ipsi vocant) quod pro cunis utuntur: in hoc infans pannis et pellibus convolutus colligatus jacet.-LEEMIUS De Lapponibus.

Scream in its scanty cradle: he the while
Wins gentle solace as with upward eye
He marks the streamy banners of the North,
Thinking himself those happy spirits shall join
Who there in floating robes of rosy light
Dance sportively. For Fancy is the Power
That first unsensualizes the dark mind,
Giving it new delights; and bids it swell
With wild activity; and peopling air,
By obscure fears of Beings invisible,
Emancipates it from the grosser thrall

Of the present impulse, teaching Self-controul,
Till Superstition with unconscious hand
Seat Reason on her throne. Wherefore not vain,
Nor yet without permitted power impressed,
I deem those legends terrible, with which
The polar ancient thrills his uncouth throng:
Whether of pitying Spirits that make their moan
O'er slaughtered infants, or that Giant Bird
VUOKнO, of whose rushing wings the noise
Is Tempest, when the unutterable* shape
Speeds from the mother of Death, and utters once
That shriek, which never Murderer heard, and lived.
Or if the Greenland Wizard in strange trance

Pierces the untravelled realms of Ocean's bed

Jaibme Aibmo.

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