Whose names were many and all blasphemous,
Hath met the horrible judgment! Whence that cry? The mighty army of foul Spirits shrieked Disherited of earth! For she hath fallen
On whose black front was written MYSTERY; She that reeled heavily, whose wine was blood; She that worked 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 stabbed 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-governed, 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 odours snatched from beds of Amaranth,
And they, that from the crystal river of life Spring up on freshened wing, ambrosial gales! The favoured 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
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 urged Love's wondrous plan, Coadjutors of God. To MILTON's trump
The high Groves of the renovated Earth Unbosom their glad echoes: inly hushed, Adoring NEWTON his serener eye
Raises to heaven: and he of mortal kind Wisest, he first who marked 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-stained 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.
0 Years! the blest preeminence 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 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 outstretched t Beneath the unsteady feet of Nature groans, In feverish slumbers-destined then to wake, When fiery whirlwinds thunder his dread name And Angels shout, DESTRUCTION! How his arm
* 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, &c.
The final Destruction impersonated.
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.
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 ministeries of heart-stirring song,
And aye on Meditation's heaven-ward 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
the frost-bound waters-The glad stream and warbles as it flows.
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