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Death's prime Slave-merchants! Scorpion-whips of When, stung to rage by Pity, eloquent men

Fate!

Nor least in savagery of holy zeal,
Apt for the yoke, the race degenerate,

Whom Britain erst had blush'd to call her sons!
Thee to defend the Moloch Priest prefers
The prayer of hate, and bellows to the herd
That Deity, Accomplice Deity

In the fierce jealousy of waken'd wrath
Will go forth with our armies and our fleets,
To scatter the red ruin on their foes?
O blasphemy! to mingle fiendish deeds
With blessedness!

Lord of unsleeping Love,* From everlasting Thou! We shall not die. These, even these, in mercy didst thou form, Teachers of Good through Evil, by brief wrong Making Truth lovely, and her future might Magnetic o'er the fix'd untrembling heart.

In the primeval age a dateless while
The vacant Shepherd wander'd with his flock,
Pitching his tent where'er the green grass waved.
But soon Imagination conjured up

An host of new desires: with busy aim,
Each for himself, Earth's eager children toil'd.
So Property began, two-streaming fount,
Whence Vice and Virtue flow, honey and gall.
Hence the soft couch, and many-color'd robe,
The timbrel, and arch'd dome and costly feast,
With all the inventive arts, that nursed the soul
To forms of beauty, and by sensual wants
Unsensualized the mind, which in the means
Learnt to forget the grossness of the end,
Best pleasured 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 the 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-featured Sage's trembling hand
Strong as an host of armed Deities,
Such as the blind Ionian fabled erst.

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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
The unseemly disproportion: and whoc'er
Turn with mild sorrow from the victor's car
And the low puppetry of thrones, to muse
On that blest triumph, when the patriot Sage
Call'd the red lightnings from the o'er-rushing cloud,
And dash'd the beauteous Terrors on the earth
Smiling majestic. Such a phalanx ne'er
Measured firm paces to the calming sound
Of Spartan flute! These on the fated day,

Have roused with pealing voice unnumber'd tribes
That toil and groan and bleed, hungry and blind.
These hush'd awhile with patient eye serene,
Shall watch the mad careering of the storm;
Then o'er the wild and wavy chaos rush
And tame the outrageous mass, with plastic might
Moulding Confusion to such perfect forms,
As erst were wont, bright visions of the day!
To float before them, when, the Summer noon,
Beneath some arch'd romantic rock reclined,
They felt the sea-breeze lift their youthful locks;
Or in the month of blossoms, at mild eve,
Wandering with desultory feet inhaled
The wafted perfumes, and the rocks and woods
And many-tinted streams and setting Sun
With all his gorgeous company of clouds
Ecstatic gazed! then homeward as they stray'd
Cast the sad eye to earth, and inly mused
Why there was Misery in a world so fair.
Ah far removed from all that glads the sense,
From all that softens or ennobles Man,
The wretched Many! Bent beneath their loads
They gape at pageant Power, nor recognize
Their cots' transmuted plunder! From the tree.
Of Knowledge, ere the vernal sap had risen
Rudely disbranch'd! Blessed Society!
Fitliest depictured by some sun-scorch'd waste,
Where oft majestic through the tainted noon
The Simoom sails, before whose purple pomp
Who falls not prostrate dies! And where by night,
Fast by each precious fountain on green herbs
The lion couches; or hyena dips

Deep in the lucid stream his bloody jaws;
Or serpent plants his vast moon-glittering bulk,
Caught in whose monstrous twine Behemoth* yells,
His bones loud-crashing!

O ye numberless,
Whom foul Oppression's ruffian gluttony
Drives from life's plenteous feast! O thou poor
wretch,

Who nursed in darkness and made wild by want,
Roamest for prey, yea thy unnatural hand
Dost lift to deeds of blood! O pale-eyed form,
The victim of seduction, doom'd to know
Polluted nights and days of blasphemy;
Who in lothed orgies with lewd wassailers
Must gaily laugh, while thy remember'd home
Gnaws like a viper at thy secret heart!
O aged Women! ye who weekly catch
The morsel toss'd by law-forced Charity,
And die so slowly, that none call it murder!
O lothely Suppliants! ye, that unreceived
Totter heart-broken from the closing gates
Of the full Lazar-house: or, gazing, stand
Sick with despair! O ye to Glory's field
Forced or ensnared, who, as ye gasp in death,
Bleed with new wounds beneath the Vulture's beak
O thou poor Widow, who in dreams dost view
Thy Husband's mangled corse, and from short doze
Start'st with a shrick; or in thy half-thatch'd cot
Waked by the wintry night-storm, wet and cold,
Cow'rst o'er thy screaming baby! Rest awhile

*Behemoth, in Hebrew, signifies wild beasts in general. Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord, mine Holy one? Some believe it is the elephant, some the hippopotamus; some We shall not die. O Lord, thou hast ordained them for judg-affirm it is the wild bull. Poetically, it designates any large

Bent, etc.-Habakkuk.

quadruped.

Children of Wretchedness! More groans must rise.
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
The innumerable multitude of wrongs
By man on man inflicted! Rest awhile,
Children 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.
Even 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,

With conscious zeal had urged Love's wondrous 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 through the sentient brain.
Lo! Priestley there, Patriot, and Saint, and Sage,
Him, full of years, from his loved native land
Statesmen blood-stain'd and Priests idolatrous
By dark lies maddening the blind multitude
Drove with vain hate. Calm, pitying, he retired,
And mused expectant on these promised 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,

Mocketh high Heaven; burst hideous from the cell What time he bends before the Jasper Throne,t

Where the old Hag, unconquerable, huge, Creation's eyeless drudge, black Ruin, sits Nursing the impatient earthquake.

O return!

Pure Faith! meek Piety! The abhorred Form
Whose scarlet robe was stiff with earthly pomp,
Who drank iniquity in cups of gold,
Whose names were many and all blasphemous,
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 nurtured: mitred Atheism:
And patient Folly who on bended knee

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!
Return, pure Faith! return, meek Piety!
The kingdoms of the world are yours: each heart,
Self-govern'd, the vast family of Love
Raised from the common earth by common 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 crystal 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
Seize on my young anticipating heart
When that blest future rushes on my view!
For in his own and in his Father's might

The Savior 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

*Alluding to the French Revolution.

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 seized 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-visaged, red-eyed Fiend outstretch'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!

Believe thou, O my soul, 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 Wraps in one blaze earth, heaven, and deepest hell. Forth flashing unimaginable day,

Contemplant Spirits! ye that hover o'er
With untired gaze the immeasurable fount
Ebullient with creative Deity!
And ye of plastic power, that interfused
Roll through 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 ministries of heart-stirring song,
And aye on Meditation's heavenward wing
Soaring aloft I breathe the 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.

* David Hartley.

+ Rev. Chap. iv. v. 2 and 3.--And immediately I was in the Spirit: and behold, a Throne was set in Heaven, and one sat on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and sardine stone, etc.

The final Destruction impersonated.

THE DESTINY OF NATIONS.

A VISION.

AUSPICIOUS Reverence! Hush all meaner song,
Ere we the deep preluding strain have pour'd
To the Great Father, only Rightful King,
Eternal Father! King Omnipotent!

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

The Will, the Word, the Breath,—the Living God. Guiding his course or by Niemi lake

Such symphony requires best instrument.
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 entranc'd.

For what is Freedom, but the unfetter'd 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 learn with young unwounded ken
The substance from its shadow, Infinite Love,
Whose latenee is the plenitude of All,
Thou with retracted Beams, and Self-eclipse
Veiling, revealest thine eternal Son.

But some there are who deem themselves most free
When they within this gross and visible sphere
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, uncaus'd 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,

Or Balda-Zhiok,* or the mossy stone
Of Solfar-kapper,† while the snowy blast
Drifts arrowy by, or eddies round his sledge,
Making the poor babe at its mother's back!
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-control,
Till Superstition with unconscious hand

Seat Reason on her throne. Wherefore not vain,
Nor yet without permitted power impress'd,
I deem'd those legends terrible, with which
The polar ancient thrills his uncouth throng;
Whether of pitying Spirits that make their moan
O'er slaughter'd infants, or that Giant Bird
Vuokho, of whose rushing wings the noise
Is Tempest, when the unutterable shapeý
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 untravell'd realms of Ocean's bed
(Where live the innocent, as far from cares
As from the storms and overwhelming waves
Dark tumbling on the surface of the deep),
Over the abysm, even to that uttermost cave
By misshaped prodigies beleaguer'd, such
As Earth ne'er bred, nor Air, nor the upper Sea.
There dwells the Fury Form, whose unheard

name

With eager eye, pale cheek, suspended breath,

* 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 Lapponibus.

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 breathe through.-Mirandum prorsus est et vix credibile nisi cui vidisset contigit. Lappones hyeme iter facientes per vastas 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.

Jaibme Aibmo.

And lips half-opening with the dread of sound,
Unsleeping Silence guards, worn out with fear,
Lest, haply escaping on some treacherous blast,
The fateful word let slip the Elements,
And frenzy Nature. Yet the wizard her,

Was moulded to such features as declared That Pity there had oft and strongly work'd, And sometimes Indignation. Bold her mien, And like a haughty Huntress of the woods She mov'd: yet sure she was a gentle maid!

Arm'd with Torngarsuck's* power, the Spirit of And in each motion her most innocent soul
Good,

Forces to unchain the foodful progeny

Beam'd forth so brightly, that who saw would say
Guilt was a thing impossible in her!

Of the Ocean's stream.-Wild phantasies! yet wise, Nor idly would have said for she had lived
On the victorious goodness of High God
Teaching Reliance, and Medicinal Hope,

Till from Bethabra northward, heavenly Truth, With gradual steps winning her difficult way, Transfer their rude Faith perfected and pure.

If there be Beings of higher class than Man,
I deem no nobler province they possess,
Than by disposal of apt circumstance

To rear up Kingdoms: and the deeds they prompt,
Distinguishing from mortal agency,

They choose their human ministers from such states
As still the Epic song half fears to name,
Repell'd from all the Minstrelsies that strike
The Palace-roof and soothe the Monarch's pride.

And such, perhaps, the Spirit, who (if words Witness'd by answering deeds may claim our Faith)

Held commune with that warrior-maid of France

In this bad World as in a place of Tombs, And touch'd not the pollutions of the Dead.

"Twas the cold season, when the Rustic's eye
From the drear desolate whiteness of his fields
Rolls for relief to watch the skiey tints
And clouds slow varying their huge imagery;
When now, as she was wont, the healthful Maid
Had left her pallet ere one beam of day
Slanted the fog-smoke. She went forth alone,
Urged by the indwelling angel-guide, that oft,
With dim inexplicable sympathies

Disquieting the Heart, shapes out Man's course
To the predoom'd adventure. Now the ascent
She climbs of that steep upland, on whose top
The Pilgrim-Man, who long since eve had watch'd
Shouts to himself, there first the Abbey-lights
The alien shine of unconcerning Stars,
Seen in Neufchatel's vale; now slopes adown

Who scourged the Invader. From her infant days,The winding sheep-track yale-ward: when, behold

With Wisdom, Mother of retired Thoughts,
Her soul had dwelt; and she was quick to mark
The good and evil thing, in human lore
Undisciplined. For lowly was her Birth,
And Heaven had doom'd her early years to Toil,
That pure from Tyranny's least deed, herself
Unfear'd by Fellow-natures, she might wait
On the poor Laboring man with kindly looks,
And minister refreshment to the tired

In the first entrance of the level road

An unattended Team! The foremost horse
Lay with stretch'd limbs; the others, yet alive,
But stiff and cold, stood motionless, their manes
Hoar with the frozen night-dews. Dismally
The dark-red down now glimmer'd; but its gleams
Disclosed no face of man. The Maiden paused,
Then hail'd who might be near. No voice replied.

Way-wanderer, when along the rough-hewn Bench From the thwart wain at length there reach'd her

The sweltry man had stretch'd him, and aloft
Vacantly watch'd the rudely pictured board
Which on the Mulberry-bough with welcome creak
Swung to the pleasant breeze. Here, too, the Maid
Learnt more than Schools could teach: Man's shift-
ing mind,

His Vices and his Sorrows! And full oft
At Tales of cruel Wrong and strange Distress
Had wept and shiver'd. To the tottering Eld.
Still as a Daughter, would she run: she placed
His cold Limbs at the sunny Door, and loved
To hear him story, in his garrulous sort,
Of his eventful years, all come and gone.

So twenty seasons past. The Virgin's Form,
Active and tall, nor Sloth nor Luxury

Had shrunk or paled. Her front sublime and broad,
Her flexile eye-brows wildly hair'd and low,
And her full eye, now bright, now unillum'd,

ear

A sound so feeble that it almost seem'd

Distant: and feebly, with slow effort push'd,

The silent frost had eat, scathing like fire.
A miserable man crept forth: his limbs
Faint on the shafts he rested. She, meantime,

Saw crowded close beneath the coverture
A mother and her children-lifeless all,
Yet lovely! not a lineament was marr'd—
Death had put on so slumber-like a form!
It was a piteous sight; and one, a babe,
The crisp milk frozen on its innocent lips,
Lay on the woman's arm, its little hand
Stretch'd on her bosom,

Mutely questioning, The Maid gazed wildly at the living wretch. He, his head feebly turning, on the group Look'd with a vacant stare, and his eye spoke

Spake more than Woman's Thought; and all her The drowsy pang that steals on worn-out anguish.

face

They call the Good Spirit Torngarsuck. The other great but malignant spirit is a nameless Female; she dwells under the sea in a great house, where she can detain in captivity all the animals of the ocean by her magic power. When a dearth befalls the Greenlanders, an Angekok or magician must undertake a journey thither. He passes through the kingdom of souls, over an horrible abyss into the Palace of this phantom, and by his enchantments causes the captive creatures to ascend directly to the surface of the ocean.-See Crantz' Hist. of

Greenland, vol. i. 206.

She shudder'd but, each vainer pang subdued,
Quick disentangling from the foremost horse
The rustic bands, with difficulty and toil
The stiff cramp'd team forced homeward. There
arrived,

Anxiously tends him she with healing herbs,
And weeps and prays-but the numb power of Death
Spreads o'er his limbs; and ere the noontide hour,
The hovering spirits of his Wife and Babes
Hail him immortal! Yet amid his pangs,

With interruptions long from ghastly throes,
His voice had falter'd out this simple tale.

The Village, where he dwelt an Husbandman,
By sudden inroad had been seized and fired
Late on the yester-evening. With his wife
And little ones he hurried his escape.
They saw the neighboring Hamlets flame, they
heard

Uproar and shrieks! and terror-struck drove on
Through unfrequented roads, a weary way!
But saw nor house nor cottage. All had quench'd
Their evening hearth-fire: for the alarm had spread.
The air clipt keen, the night was fang'd with frost,
And they provisionless! The weeping wife
Il hush'd her children's moans; and still they
moan'd,

Till Fright and Cold and Hunger drank their life.
They closed their eyes in sleep, nor knew 't was
Death.

He only, lashing his o'er-wearied team,
Gain'd a sad respite, till beside the base

Of the high hill his foremost horse dropp'd dead.
Then hopeless, strengthless, sick for lack of food,
He crept beneath the coverture, entranced,
Till waken'd by the maiden.-Such his tale.

Ah! suffering to the height of what was suffer'd,
Stung with too keen a sympathy, the Maid
Brooded with moving lips, mute, startful, dark!
And now her flush'd tumultuous features shot
Such strange vivacity, as fires the eye
Of misery Fancy-crazed! and now once more
Naked, and void, and fix'd, and all within
The unquiet silence of confused thought
And shapeless feelings. For a mighty hand
Was strong upon her, till in the heat of soul
To the high hill-top tracing back her steps,
Aside the beacon, up whose smoulder'd stones
The tender ivy-trails crept thinly, there,
Unconscious of the driving element,
Yea, swallow'd up in the ominous dream, she sate
Ghastly as broad-eyed Slumber! a dim anguish
Breathed from her look! and still, with pant and sob,
Inly she toil'd to flee, and still subdued,
Felt an inevitable Presence near.

Thus as she toil'd in troublous ecstasy,"
An horror of great darkness wrapt her round,
And a voice uttered forth unearthly tones,
Calming her soul,-" O Thou of the Most High
Chosen, whom all the perfected in Heaven
Behold expectant-

Sent forth, when she the Protoplast beheld
Stand beauteous on Confusion's charmed wave.
Moaning she fled, and entered the Profound
That leads with downward windings to the Cave
Of darkness palpable, Desert of Death
Sunk deep beneath Gehenna's massy roots.
There many a dateless age the Beldame lurk'd
And trembled; till engender'd by fierce Hate,
Fierce Hate and gloomy Hope, a Dream arose,
Shaped like a black cloud mark'd with streaks of

fire.

It roused the Hell-Hag: she the dew damp wiped
From off her brow, and through the uncouth maze
Retraced her steps; but ere she reach'd the mouth
Of that drear labyrinth, shuddering she paused,
Nor dared re-enter the diminish'd Gulf.

As through the dark vaults of some moulder'd
Tower

(Which, fearful to approach, the evening Hind
Circles at distance in his homeward way)
The winds breathe hollow, deem'd the plaining groan
Of prison'd spirits; with such fearful voice
Night murmur'd, and the sound through Chaos went.
Leap'd at her call her hideous-fronted brood!
A dark behest they heard, and rush'd on earth;
Since that sad hour, in Camps and Courts adored,
Rebels from God, and Monarchs o'er Mankind!”

From his obscure haunt

Shriek'd Fear, of Cruelty the ghastly Dam,
Feverish yet freezing, eager-paced yet slow,
As she that creeps from forth her swampy reeds,
Ague, the biform Hag! when early Spring
Beams on the marsh-bred vapors.

"Even so" (the exulting Maiden said)
"The sainted Heralds of Good Tidings fell,
And thus they witness'd God! But now the clouds
Treading, and storms beneath their feet, they soar
Higher, and higher soar, and soaring sing
Loud songs of Triumph! O ye spirits of God,
Hover around my mortal agonies!"
She spake, and instantly faint melody
Melts on her ear, soothing and sad, and slow,—
Such Measures, as at calmest midnight heard
By aged Hermit in his holy dream,
Foretell and solace death; and now they rise
Louder, as when with harp and mingled voice
The white-robed* multitude of slaughter'd saints
At Heaven's wide-open'd portals gratulant
Receive some martyr'd Patriot. The harmony
Entranced the Maid, till each suspended sense

[The following fragments were intended to form part of the Brief slumber seized, and confused ecstasy.
Poem when finished.]

"Maid beloved of Heaven!"
(To her the tutelary Power exclaim'd)
"Of Chaos the adventurous progeny
Thou seest; foul missionaries of foul sire,
Fierce to regain the losses of that hour

When Love rose glittering, and his gorgeous wings
Over the abyss flutter'd with such glad noise,
As what time after long and pestful calms,
With slimy shapes and miscreated life
Poisoning the vast Pacific, the fresh breeze
Wakens the merchant-sail uprising. Night
A heavy unimaginable moan

At length awakening slow, she gazed around:
And through a Mist, the relic of that trance
Still thinning as she gazed, an Isle appear'd,
Its high, o'er-hanging, white, broad-breasted cliffs,
Glass'd on the subject ocean. A vast plain
Stretch'd opposite, where ever and anon

* Revel. vi. 9, 11. And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held. And white robes were given unto every one of them, and it was said unto them that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.

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