The lightnings lance the clouds, and North to South, And East to West, a tale of darkness tell! Hark! as the wearied echoes howl themselves Away, the roaring of the midnight sea, Beneath the cliff, doth take a sounding life, For she is waved with glory! billows heave Their blackness in the wind, and, bounding on In vaulting madness, beat the rocky shore Incessant, flaking it with plumy foam.
This section of the subject may be advantageously closed by proceeding from terrestrial landscape to one of divine beauty.
Paradise!-I see it as it rose
In youthful splendor on my savage eye: A starry jubilee still rang; the wings. Angelical of many a hovering shape Still joy'd, and glitter'd in the virgin air That seem'd one atmosphere of melody! As yet, no cloud was born; the sunshine fed The flowers with beauty, till the twilight dew; Birds, Eden-sprung, with sky-tints on their plumes, And butterflies, bright creatures, rich as they, Like showers of blossoms from a tree upwhirld On starry wing hung trembling in the air! More glorious yet!—from Eden's mount I gazed,— The greenery of whose untrodden hills
Changed like the laughing hues on plumage seen- And saw two creatures of celestial mould. Till these were made, companionless the world Appear'd, and as a heart suspended lay, All throbbing for the vision that should dawn! And they were fashion'd, breathing shapes of life, With radiant limbs, whose robes were innocence, And eye that spoke the birth-place of the soul!
The one did glance the blue immensity Above, with a majestic gaze, and eye The sun, as though he felt himself akin To his pre-eminence, and throned state: The other, in her fair perfection seem'd A shape apparell'd by her own pure smiles, Surpassing beauty, and subduing love; While, ever as she moved, the blush of flowers O'erveil'd her; and a breezy host of sounds, ̧ Like magic birds, embosom'd in the air In sweet attendance caroll'd round her path. Never hath sunny mood, or shaping dream, Divined the vision which in Eden lay,—
Each sound was music, and each sight a heaven!
Vivid imagery is the characteristic of the preceding extracts. The thoughts which sadden, or enliven, the following passages, show that Mr. R. Montgomery is not unfamiliar with the recesses of the human heart; indeed, sometimes he "considers too curiously;" occasionally, the thoughts are too metaphysically refined. Some of the contemplative passages are full of Byronian depth; as, for instance, the contrast of battle triumphs to the physical misery of a battle-field; Of worldly meanness sepulchred in self,
And clinging, wormlike, to corporeal clay,
to its joyless external pomp: of the elevation of successful genius, to the pangs inflicted on it, by the envious mean, &c.
Of kings, though gorgeously it dare the eye;
With that dim haunting of the dreary tomb, That often through the banquet-splendor gapes,- A darkness that defies a sun!—
At that deep hour, when, dwindling to a blank, The earth departs, and those dear sounds of life That once prevail'd so eloquently sweet, Grow faint and dismal, as the dreary voice Of waters, gurgling round a drowning man, The solemn meanings of the past are known. What spirit warn'd in every funeral knell ! How oft the hearse-train, stealing through the rush Of sounding pathways with a spectral glide, The vision of a dying moment gave!
In the following passage, the expressions wolfeyed,' 'bubbles out in song,' 'a sunbeam in a storm,' are replete with poetical feeling.
There droops a man,
Poetic sadness in his pensive eye,
As haunting tombs, or scenes beyond the dead; And here, a victim of tempestuous thought, Wolf-eyed, and glaring out his wilder'd mind In glances lit with torture!—while to mock Their coward anguish, see a soulless thing Appear, whose spirit bubbles out in song : And this is life,- —a sunbeam in a storm!
The idea conveyed by the following sentence in italics derives its forcible effect from its terse simplicity.
FALL OF EMPIRES.
Tell me what are they?
And she, earth's ancient tyranness, dread Rome
The rolling of her battle-cars, the voice
Of Scipio, and the sound of Cæsar's march,
But now, come down from thy celestial height ! Descend, and struggle with the heartless crew Who out of others' tears extract their joy. The rocky nature of ignoble minds, Ambitious spite, and unrelenting hate, And all who nibble at each young renown, 'Tis thine to wrestle with; thy spell is o'er, And glory is a feast for shame :—reproach It not; true happiness it never breathed!
O thou, that hunger'st for bewild'ring fame, Come here, and prove what rottenness of heart, What fev'rous envy, what corrosive sense Of emulation, in these glorious dwell! What under-currents in this scene of joy! Smiles in the surface, but a coward tide Of jealousy beneath. Hark! to the gibe, O Hate, the tart dissent, the damning sneer,- To such a littleness the mighty fall!
Behold it, Ignorance! redeem thy blush, And take a happier name.
The subjoined passage is imbued with a melancholy but true philosophy. Canning is probably implied.
Alas, Ambition! see yon gifted man,
Stand forth awhile, surpassing and sublime;
His brow imperial, in his eye a blaze
Of meaning, pour'd from a majestic soul:
Borne on the whirlwind of triumphant Thought, Through the wide universe his spirit sweeps!
Thrones, monarchies, and states, he summons each To strict accompt; their victories and kings
Arraigns, and bids Britannia front them all! The Senate wonders, Rapture finds a tongue, And Envy sinks abash'd to praise. But go, Young Emulation, when this glowing scene Hath cool'd to common life, and mark him well! The hero is no hero here! the mean
Have tortured whom a kingdom could not bend : Around him, too regardful, scandal flies;
And words, like gnawing vipers, poison life Away, or rankle in the spirit's core.
In the next passage the argument is wrought up to its logical climax with accurate and striking force of thought.
The rounded earth nought so tremendous shows
As this vast city, in whose roar I stand,
Unseen, yet seeing all. The lifeless gloom
Of everlasting hills, the solitudes
Untrod, the deep gaze of thy dazzling orbs That decorate the purple noon of night, Oh Nature! no such majesty supply. Creation's queen, almightily endow'd, Upon the throne of Elements thou sitt'st: But in the beating of one single heart, There is that more than rivals thee! and here, The swellings of innum'rous hearts abound; And not a day but, ere it die, contains A hist'ry, that, unroll'd, will awe the heavens To wonder, and the listening earth with fear!
The next and last passage I shall quote in this section of my subject, is sublime in thought and diction.
SATAN'S ADDRESS TO THE ALMIGHTY.
Thou dread Avenger! ever-living One! Lone Arbiter! Eternal, Vast and True; The soul and centre of created things In atoms or in worlds; around whose throne Eternity is wheel'd; who look'st—and life
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