Each for himself, Earth's eager children toil'd.
So Property began, twy-streaming fount,
Whence Vice and Virtue flow, honey and gall.
Hence the soft couch, and many-colour'd robe,
The timbrel, and arch'd dome and costly feast,
With all th' inventive arts, that nurs'd the soul
To forms of beauty, and by sensual wants
Unsensualiz'd the mind, which in the means
Learnt to forget the grossness of the end,
Best pleasur'd with its own activity.
And hence Disease that withers manhood's arm,
The dagger'd Envy, spirit-quenching Want,
Warriors, and Lords, and Priests—all the sore ills
That vex and desolate our mortal life.
Wide-wasting ills! yet each th' immediate source
Of mightier good. Their keen necessities
To ceaseless action goading human thought
Have made Earth's reasoning animal her Lord;
And the pale-featur'd Sage's trembling hand
Strong as a host of armed Deities,
Such as the blind Ionian fabled erst.
From Avarice thus, from Luxury and War Sprang heavenly Science; and from Science Freedom. O'er waken'd realms Philosophers, and Bards Spread in concentric circles: they whose souls Conscious of their high dignities from God, Brook not Wealth's rivalry; and they who long Enamour'd with the charms of order hate Th' unseemly disproportion; and whoe'er Turn with mild sorrow from the victor's car And the low puppetry of thrones, to muse On that bless'd triumph, when the Patriot Sage Call'd the red lightnings from th' o'er-rushing cloud And dash'd the beauteous Terrors on the earth
Up the fine fibres thro' the sentient brain.
More blood must stream, or ere your wrongs be full.
Yet is the day of Retribution nigh:
The Lamb of God hath open'd the fifth seal:
And upward rush on swiftest wing of fire
Th' innumerable multitude of Wrongs
By ma on man inflicted! Rest awhile,
Childre. of Wretchedness! The hour is nigh:
And lo! the Great, the Rich, the Mighty Men,
The Kings and the Chief Captains of the World,
With all that fix'd on high like stars of Heaven
Shot baleful influence, shall be cast to earth
Vile and down-trodden as the untimely fruit
Shook from the fig-tree by a sudden storm.
Ee'n now the storm begins; each gentle name,*
Faith and meek Piety, with fearful joy
Tremble far off-for lo! the Giant Frenzy
Uprooting empires with his whirlwind arm
Mocketh high Heaven; burst hideous from the cell
Where the old Hag, unconquerable, huge,
Creation's eyeless drudge, black Ruin, sits
Nursing th' impatient earthquake.
Pure Faith! meek Piety! The abhorred Form
Whose scarlet robe was stiff with earthly pomp
Hath met the horrible judgment! Whence that cry?
The mighty army of foul Spirits shriek'd,
Disherited of earth! For She hath fallen
On whose black front was written Mystery;
She that reel'd heavily, whose wine was blood;
She that work'd whoredom with the Demon Power
And from the dark embrace all evil things
Brought forth and nurtur'd; mitred Atheism;
This passage alludes to the French Revolution; and the subse◄ quent paragraph to the downfall of Religious Establishments.
Gives back the Steel that stabb'd him; and pale Fear, Hunted by ghastlier shapings than surround
Moon-blasted Madness when he yells at midnight! Faith! return meek Piety!
The kingdoms of the world are your's: each heart
Self-govern'd, the vast family of Love
Rais'd from the common earth by commoh toil
Enjoy the equal produce. Such delights
As float to earth, permitted visitants!
When in some hour of solemn jubilee
The massy gates of Paradise are thrown
Wide open, and forth come in fragments wild
Sweet echoes of unearthly melodies,
And odors snatch'd from beds of Amaranth,
And they, that from the chrystal river of life
Spring up on freshen'd wing, ambrosial gales!
The favor'd good man in his lonely walk
Perceives them, and his silent spirit drinks
Strange bliss which he shall recognize in heaven.
And such delights, such strange beatitude
Sieze on my young anticipating heart
When that blest future rushes on my view!
For in his own, and in his Father's might,
The Saviour comes! While as the Thousand Years
Lead up their mystic dance, the Desert shouts!
Old Ocean claps his hands! The mighty Dead
Rise to new life, whoe'er from earliest time
With conscious zeal had urg'd Love's wond'rous plan,
Coadjutors of God. To Milton's trump
The high Groves of the renovated Earth
Unbosom their glad echoes: inly hush'd
Adoring Newton his serener eye
Raises to heaven: and he of mortal kind
Wisest, he first who mark'd the ideal tribes
Up the fine fibres thro' the sentient brain.
Lo! Priestly there, Patriot, and Saint, and Sage,
Him, full of years, from his lov'd native land
Statesman blood-stain'd and Priests idolatrous
By dark lies mad'ning the blind multitude
Drove with vain hate. Calm, pitying he retir'd,
And mus'd expectant on these promis'd years.
O Years! the blest pre-eminence of Saints!
Ye sweep athwart my gaze, so heavenly-bright.
The wings that veil the adoring Seraph's eyes,
What time he bends before the Jaspar Throne
Reflect no lovelier hues! yet ye depart,
And all beyond is darkness! Heights most strange,
Whence Fancy falls, fluttering her idle wing.
For who of woman born may paint the hour,
When seiz'd in his mid course, the Sun shall wane
Making noon ghastly! Who of woman born
May image in the workings of his thought,
How the black-visag'd, red-ey'd Fiend out-stretch'd*
Beneath the unsteady feet of Nature groans,
In feverish slumbers-destin'd then to wake,
When fiery whirlwinds thunder his dread name
And Angels shout Destruction! How his arm
The last great Spirit lifting high in air
Shall swear by Him, the ever-living One
Time is no more!
Life is a vision shadowy of Truth;
And vice, and anguish, and the wormy grave,
Shapes of a dream! The veiling clouds retire,
And lo! the Throne of the redeeming God
Forth flashing unimaginable day
Wraps in one blaze earth, heaven, and deepest hell.
The final destruction imeprsonated.
Contemplant Spirits! ye that hover o'er
With untir'd gaze th' immeasurable fount
Ebullient with creative Deity!
And ye of plastic power that interfus'd
Roll thro' the grosser and material mass
In organizing surge! Holies of God!
(And what if Monads of the infinite mind?)
I haply journeying my immortal course
Shall sometime join your mystic choir! Till then
I discipline my young noviciate thought
In ministeries of heart-stirring song
And aye on Meditation's heaven-ward wing
Soaring aloft I breathe th' empyreal air
Of Love, omnific, omnipresent Love,
Whose day-spring rises glorious in my soul
As the great Sun, when he his influence
Sheds on the frost-bound waters—The glad stream
Flows to the ray, and warbles as it flows.
THE piteous sobs that choak the Virgin's breath
For him, the fair betrothed Youth, who lies
Cold in the narrow dwelling, or the cries
With which a Mother wails her Darling's death,
These from our Nature's common impulse spring
Unblam'd, unprais'd; but o'er the piled earth,
Which hides the sheeted corse of gray-hair'd Worth,
If droops the soaring Youth with slacken'd wing:
If he recall in saddest minstrelsy
Each tenderness bestow'd, each truth impress'd; Such Grief is Reason, Virtue, Piety!
And from the Almighty Father shall descend
Comforts on his late Evening, whose young breast Mourns with no transient love the aged friend.
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