Polluted nights and days of blasphemy;
Who in loath'd 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-forc'd Charity,
And die so slowly, that none call it murder!
O loathly 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
Forc'd or ensnar'd, 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 shriek: or in thy half-thatch'd cot
Wak'd by the wintry night-storm, wet and cold,
Cowr'st o'er thy screaming baby! Rest awhile,
Children of Wretchedness! More groans must rise,
More blood must steam, 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 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.
Ev'n now the storm begins; each gentle name,
* This passage alludes to the French Revolution; and the subse
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,
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 Dæmon Power
And from the dark embrace all evil things
Brought forth and nurtur'd; 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 your's: each heart
Self-govern'd, the vast family of Love
Rais'd from the common earth by common toil
Enjoy the equal produce. Such delights
quent paragraph to the downfall of Religious Establishments. I am convinced that the Babylon of the Apocalypse does not apply to Rome exclusively; but to the union of Religion with Power and Wealth, wherever it is found.
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
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 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
* The Millenimum:-in which I suppose, man will continue to enjoy the highest glory, of which his human nature is capable. That all who, in past ages, have endeavoured to ameliorate the state of man, will rise and enjoy the fruits and flowers, the imperceptible seeds of which they had sown in their former life; and that the wicked will, during the same period, be suffering the remedies adapted to their several bad habits. I suppose that this period will be followed by the passing away of this earth, and by our entering the state of pure intellect; when all Creation shall rest from its labours.
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
Statesmen 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 Jasper 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-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!
+Rev. Chap. iv. v. 2, 8.-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, &c.
The final destruction impersonated.
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
Forth flashing unimaginable day
Wraps in one blaze earth, heaven, and deepest hell.
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.
* This paragraph is intelligible to those, who, like the author, believe and feel the sublime system of Berkley: and the doctrine of the final happiness of all men.
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