And thou-whom millions far removed*
Revered-the hierarch meek and wise,
Thy ashes sleep, adored, beloved,
Near where thy Wesley's coffin lies.
He too-the heir of glory-wheref
Hath great Napoleon's scion fled?
Ah! glory goes not to an heir!
Take him, ye noble, vulgar dead!
But hark! a nation sighs! for he,t
Last of the brave who perilled all
To make an infant empire free,
Obeys the inevitable call!
They go-and with them is a crowd,
For human rights who THOUGHT and DID,
We rear to them no temples proud,
Each hath his mental pyramid.
All earth is now their sepulchre,
The MIND, their monument sublime
Young in eternal fame they are
Such are your triumphs, Death and Time.
DESCENT OF THE JUDGE AND HIS ANGELS.
METHOUGHT I journeyed o'er a boundless plain Unbroke by hill or vale, on all sides stretched, Like circling ocean to the low-browed sky; Save in the midst a verdant mount, whose sides Flowers of all hues and fragrant breath adorned Lightly I trod, as on some joyous quest,
* Adam Clarke.
+ Charles Carroll.
+ The Duke of Reichstadt.
Beneath the azure vault and early sun;
But while my pleased eyes ranged the circuit green,
New light shone round; a murmur came confused,
Like many voices and the rush of wings.
Upward I gazed, and mid the glittering skies,
Begirt by flying myriads, saw a throne,
Whose thousand splendours blazed upon the earth,
Refulgent as another sun. Through clouds
They came, and vapours coloured by Aurora,
Mingling in swell sublime, voices and harps,
And sounding wings and hallelujahs sweet.
Sudden a Seraph, that before them flew,
Pausing upon his wide-unfolded plumes,
Put to his mouth the likeness of a trump,
And towards the four winds four times fiercely
Doubling along the arch, the mighty peal
To Heaven resounded, Hell returned a groan,
And shuddering Earth a moment reeled, confounded
From her fixed pathway, as the staggering ship,
Stunned by some mountain billow, reels. The isles
With heaving ocean, rocked: the mountains shook
Their ancient coronets: the avalanche
Thundered: silence succeeded through the nations.
Earth never listened to a sound like this.
It struck the general pulse of nature still,
And broke for ever the dull sleep of death.
Now o'er the mount the radiant legions hung,
Like plumy travellers from climes remote
On some sequestered isle about to stoop.
Gently its flowery head received the throne;
Cherubs and Seraphs, by ten thousands, round
Skirted it far and wide, like a bright sea;
Fair forms and faces, crowns, and coronets,
And glistering wings furled white and numberless.
About their Lord were those Seven glorious Spirits
Who in the Almighty's presence stand. Four leaned
On golden wands, with folded wings, and eyes
Fixed on the throne: one bore the dreadful Books,
The arbiters of life: another waved
The blazing ensign terrible, of yore,
To rebel angels in the wars of Heaven:
What seemed a trump the other Spirit grasped,
Of wondrous size, wreathed multiform and strange.
Illustrious stood the Seven, above the rest
Towering, and like a constellation glowing,
What time the sphere-instructed huntsman, taught
By Atlas, his star-studded belt displays
Aloft, bright-glittering, in the winter sky.
ADAM, CESAR, AND ABRAHAM AT THE RESURRECTION.
NEAREST the mount, of that mixed phalanx first,
Our general Parent stood; not as he looked
Wandering at eve amid the shady bowers
And odorous groves of that delicious garden,
Or flowery banks of some soft rolling stream,
Pausing to list its lulling murmur, hand
In hand with peerless Eve, the rose too sweet,
Fatal to Paradise. Fled from his cheek
The bloom of Eden; his hyacinthine locks
Were turned to gray; with years and sorrows bowed
He seemed, but through his ruined form still shone
The majesty of his Creator: round
Upon his sons a grieved and pitying look
He cast, and in his vesture hid his face.
Close at his side appeared a martial form
Of port majestic, clad in massive arms,
Cowering above whose helm, with outspread wings, The Roman eagle flew; around its brim
Was charactered the name at which Earth's Queen Bowed from her sevenfold throne and owned her lord. In his dilated eye amazement stood;
Terror, surprise, and blank astonishment
Blanched his firm cheek, as when of old, close hemmed
Within the Capitol, amid the crowd
Of traitors, fearless else, he caught the gleam
Of Brutus' steel. Daunted, yet on the pomp
Of towering seraphim, their wings, their crowns,
Their dazzling faces, and upon the Lord,
He fixed a steadfast look of anxious note,
Like that Pharsalia's hurtling squadrons drew
When all his fortunes hung upon the hour.
Near him, for wisdom famous through the East Abraham rested on his staff; in guise
A Chaldee shepherd, simple in his raiment
As when at Mamre in his tent he sat,
The host of angels. Snow-white were his locks
And silvery beard that to his girdle rolled.
Fondly his meek eye dwelt upon his Lord,
Like one that, after long and troubled dreams,
A night of sorrows, dreary, wild, and sad,
Beholds, at last, the dawn of promised joys.
By this the sun his westering car drove low;
Round his broad wheels full many a lucid cloud
Floated, like happy isles in seas of gold:
Along the horizon castled shapes were piled,
Turrets and towers, whose fronts embattled gleamed
With yellow light: smit by the slanting ray,
A ruddy beam the canopy reflected;
With deeper light the ruby blushed; and thick
Upon the Seraphs' wings the glowing spots
Seemed drops of fire. Uncoiling from its staff,
With fainter wave, the gorgeous ensign hung,
Or, swelling with the swelling breeze, by fits
Cast off, upon the dewy air, huge flakes
Of golden lustre. Over all the hill,
The heavenly legions, the assembled world,
Evening her crimson tint for ever drew.
But while at gaze, in solemn silence, men
And angels stood, and many a quaking heart
With expectation throbbed; about the throne
And glittering hill-top slowly wreathed the clouds,
Erewhile like curtains for adornment hung,
Involving Shiloh and the Seraphim
Beneath a snowy tent. The bands around
Eying the gonfalon that through the smoke
Tower'd into air, resembled hosts who watch
The king's pavilion where, ere battle hour,
A council sits. What their consult might be,
Those seven dread Spirits and their Lord, I mused,
I marvelled. Was it grace and peace? or death?
Was it of man? Did pity for the Lost
His gentle nature wring, who knew, who felt
How frail is this poor tenement of clay?
Arose there from the misty tabernacle
A cry like that upon Gethsemane ?
What passed in Jesus' bosom none may know,
But close the cloudy dome invested him;
And, weary with conjecture, round I gazed
Where in the purple west, no more to dawn,
Faded the glories of the dying day.
Mild-twinkling through a crimson-skirted cloud
The solitary star of evening shone.
While gazing wistful on that peerless light
Thereafter to be seen no more (as oft
In dreams strange images will mix), sad thoughts
Passed o'er my soul. Sorrowing I cried, "Farewell,
Pale, beauteous planet, that displayest so soft,
Amid yon glowing streak, thy transient beam,
A long, a last farewell! Seasons have changed,
Ages and empires rolled, like smoke, away,
But thou, unaltered, beam'st as silver fair
As on thy birthnight! Bright and watchful eyes,
From palaces and bowers, have hailed thy gem
With secret transport! Natal star of love,
And souls that love the shadowy hour of fancy,
How much I owe thee, how I bless thy ray!
How oft thy rising o'er the hamlet green,
Signal of rest, and social converse sweet,
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