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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
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 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 BY 
 
 The Author of Afranius, Ariston, The Jewish Captives, 
 
 Faith, The Roman Martyrs, The Deluge, The 
 
 Periods, Hymns to our King, Our 
 
 Flag and other Poems. 
 
 / 
 
 fly o/co't-tn ' 
 
 .Vo>,., 1879. ^.^o'^/ 
 
 lOO COPIES FOR AUTHOR. 
 
Copyright, 1879. 
 
 H. T. CLAUDER, 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS. 
 BETHLEHEM, PA. 
 
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 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
Yisioisr I. 
 
 O'er me made weary with the toil of day 
 In gentle folds her curtains darkness drew, 
 And while in sleep my body breathing lay, 
 My soul took wing, and long in dreams it flew, 
 Till ere returned, so great the wonder grew, 
 Our Earth had come from out her final fire 
 That burn'd her curse away, and old made new ; 
 Her breast bloom'd o'er with all man could desire, 
 So bright, so blest, no thought beyond could more aspire. 
 
 I dream'd each storm was hush'd, nor roar'd one sea. 
 And smiled around the blue eternal skies. 
 While all from pain and death forever free 
 Had look more sweet than that of Paradise. 
 Music mine ear, and beauty thrills mine eyes, 
 And forms of grace have an immortal glow ; 
 No tear-drop trembles and no lip breathes sighs. 
 But in each heart Love whispers soft and low. 
 Since Heaven to Earth brought down this joy to ever grow. 
 
6 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 High on a central hill a city shone 
 Bathed in a glory of celestial light : 
 Not dull with tarnished time-decaying stone 
 Its gems and gold were flashing on my sight 
 The beams of Him whose face dispels the night. 
 Lofty it stood, the pride of earth and queen, 
 More dazzling than the sun when noon is bright. 
 And by a dim and mortal vision seen 
 'T would blind and burn the eye with its resplendent sheen. 
 
 Hast thou look'd on the Alps while yet the Spring 
 Left on their sides the white long-lingering snow 
 As down some mountain-gorge the sun did fling 
 In floods the splendors of his evening glow ? 
 Soon steeps and peaks to walls and turrets grow ! 
 A glittering city floating seems in air, 
 And angels in its light to come and go. 
 Until a cloud destroys the pageant rare 
 But leaves in thee such types as for last things prepare. 
 
 'T was thus 'mid time, in image veil'd and dim. 
 Would musing men on Alpine heights behold, 
 O Solyma, a dazzling vision swim 
 Of thy gem-flashing walls and streets of gold 
 To be remember'd when thy charms unfold : 
 And yet how poor at eve that mountain-sight 
 Beside the glories to mine eye unroll'd, 
 As Beauty's self now smiles to make thee bright 
 And pours upon thee still her everlasting light ! 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 There is in man a deep earth may not fill, 
 A throb in eyes for charms they never see ; 
 In ears an ache for strains that not yet thrill, 
 A cry in hearts for bliss not here to be 
 Since naught is fixed save in eternity. 
 Time mocks a dream it never can destroy 
 And men the visions chase fast as they flee 
 Which on will lure to where without alloy 
 Shines some immortal state in which to live is joy. 
 
 Oft I had felt the universal pain, 
 The void which craves in this our mortal lot ; 
 To fill it grasp'd, and always grasp'd in vain. 
 And found I wish'd a boon the earth had not, 
 Since stains on all its good some blackening blot; 
 But now as Solyma bursts on mine eyes 
 I know the bliss is near without a spot ; 
 Quick ! bear me there that I with glad surprise 
 May on existence see the bloom that never dies ! 
 
 In my bright dreams all things I saw made new : 
 The same, yet not the same did Earth appear : 
 Expanding in the fire more vast she grew, 
 And then with her my soul more large and clear. 
 While still my body had its shape when here : 
 Chang'd to its spirit-form, and yet mine own, 
 I was an essence in a loftier sphere 
 Flashing around the glories which there shone 
 Where things terrestrial lost are in celestial known. 
 
8- VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Mine eye reach'd far with sights of beauty fill'd ; 
 Mine ear drank now the sounds for which it yearn'd : 
 Each nerve intense was with a rapture thrill'd 
 Till in its joy my being glow'd and burn'd : 
 What once took years was in quick moments learn 'd 
 With glance dilate and wide as time and space. 
 To my ideal manhood I was turn'd, 
 Yet made angelic in my form and face — 
 My mortal beauty robed with an immortal grace. 
 
 While rais'd in knowledge I was like a child 
 So infinite and bright did all things seem ; 
 I gazed and ran and leap'd and sang and smiled 
 And felt I had what was in time my dream, 
 But seeing all as with an infant gleam 
 Of young intelligence that more would know 
 From our old world whose beauties on me beam 
 With strange new splendors of celestial glow, 
 And thought some Guide Avould come and its full wonders 
 show. 
 
 Lo ! as I dream'd I saw within the gate 
 Whose pearl was turning on its hinge of gold 
 A shining one time could not emulate. 
 He was a man of more than mortal mould 
 Transfused with light 'til glorious to behold. 
 And like the shape on whom the Greek once gazed 
 When up the morn a glittering car was roll'd 
 On which, by sun-steeds drawn, Apollos blazed, 
 Who, into marble cut, the god of light was praised. 
 
VISIONS OF SOIA'MA. 
 
 This was no god whose image from the brain 
 Was carved in stone that mortals might implore 
 By it deliverance from their sin and pain 
 Mock'd by the shape which they in vain adore. 
 He was a man Avith soul in clay no more, 
 But shrined in what it seem'd to me was light, 
 Such, that the glories which around him pour 
 Beam from within, until a seraph glows 
 Whose human form bright in the gate majestic shows. 
 
 Not now in mortal faces sits repose : 
 Impatience clouds or flashes from the eye, 
 And o'er each feature fitful changes throws. 
 Ev'n when the man is throned in dignity 
 A pain along his tortured nerves will fly 
 To show the worm amid the monarch's pride; 
 Not in a world where death his Avork may ply 
 Can peace in human hearts or looks preside 
 To breathe eternal calm o'er time's unrestful tide. 
 
 But in my coming Guide I saw a soul 
 Fix'd in itself, and to its centre true ; 
 If round him once the storm was heard to roll 
 It now Avas hush'd as heav'n in morning's hue 
 That hides the lark to warble from its blue. 
 The victor in life's war, and ceased its roar 
 His crown immortal hence he conscious kneAV 
 Where change can come not, nor a whirlwind more 
 Dash out its envious rage upon the waveless shore. 
 
10 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 He smiled and look'd as I have seen the day 
 When burst the young sun from his golden shroud 
 To slant down on the world a jocund ray 
 Which, tinting morning on her crimson cloud, 
 Awaked the tuneful birds to warble loud, 
 As if the king of heav'n o'erbrimm'd with joy 
 Flash'd bright his beams amid the feathery crowd 
 To thus benign their piping throats employ, 
 And one glad chorus raise without earth's sad alloy. 
 
 " Ivan," he said," thy heart's deep wish I know ; 
 The name I had on earth is here mine own ; 
 Then call me Asel now, and leave below 
 The words by which the pomp of pride is blown, 
 And only fit where dust makes king and throne. 
 Heaven loves the speech that bubbles from the heart 
 Unconscious of itself as glory thrown 
 Around the silent stars, whose beams will dart 
 From their resplendent spheres, nor hear the j^raise they 
 start." 
 
 " Illustrious sir," I said, " most bright and blest. 
 Long have I pensive felt within a sigh, 
 A throb of ages pulsing in my breast, 
 That in our mortal state seems like a cry 
 To lift the veil from being's mystery. 
 Yon glittering city doth our secret hold ; 
 O speed me there ! quick give me wings to fly 
 Above those walls, along those streets of gold. 
 Since, Solyma, in thee life's meaning will unfold !" 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 11 
 
 " Not yet you go," he said, "within that place, 
 
 The capital of earth luade pure by fire 
 
 Which left no wrinkle on her placid face 
 
 When round her globe in love more than in ire 
 
 Wild flames burn'd out the curse brought by our sire. 
 
 When comes the destined time thee will I bring 
 
 Within the glory which is man's desire 
 
 Where cherubim to seraphim do sing, 
 And cast immortal crowns before Creation's King." 
 
 At once we flew 'til vanished from our sight, 
 Eternal Solyma, thy gleaming towers, 
 And on a spot of beauty we alight 
 Sweet with the bloom of more than mortal flowers. 
 Where rivers glide, and smile celestial bowers. 
 With rapture thrill 'd I stand and gaze around 
 But, expectation kindling still my powers, 
 I burn to hear my shining Guide profound 
 On earthly things discourse with lips of heav'nly sound. 
 
 Lo, as we look'd from a familiar hill 
 Down where a river flow'd in winding grace 
 O'er Asel's face diffused a wave-like thrill, 
 And a low tender joy stole o'er his face 
 Which once on earth had tears push'd from their place. 
 Then silver'd forth what gush of manly song ! 
 Like wave on gurgling wave in evening chase, 
 Now as the tuneful music floats along 
 My memory gives me back the words so sweet and strong. 
 
12 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 O Home of my Childhood, I know thee well now 
 With the light of this glory so bright on my brow : 
 
 Since 'twas Heaven ordained thee dear place of my birth, 
 In its joy I forgot thee no more than on earth. 
 
 Home of my Childhood, when the angels do sing 
 In their rapture around the bright throne of their King, 
 
 As I shine with the throng and gaze through the light. 
 Often there will thine image float over my sight. 
 
 And long as the ages eternal shall roll 
 Their fresh tides of glory still more bright o'er a soul, 
 
 O Home of my Childhood, thy mem'ries will be 
 As the years shall flow onward, so much dearer to me. 
 
 " Frail as the shell," he said, " that sails the sea, 
 
 I, born on yonder hill, an infant thing 
 
 Forth voyaged on my immortality. 
 
 O, Peril stands to tear each bark's young wing, 
 
 And on time's billows send it shattering ! 
 
 So loud the war of wind and wave before 
 
 Heaven-anchor'd into bliss our souls we bring 
 
 Where light lies golden on a restful shore, 
 And the wild music of the sea is heard no more. 
 
 My Father was of David's royal blood, 
 And 'mid the wanderings of a weary race 
 Traced back his line ancestral to the flood. 
 Two tablets from the ruins of a place 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 13 
 
 Near Babylon enabled him to trace 
 In his long chain of life its links to Shem ; 
 And priests and princes oft his name did grace 
 Which once blazed out into a diadem, 
 The symbol of a crown of more than mortal gem. 
 
 In the first light I lived of earth's best age, 
 But long I was a jar upon its lyre, 
 Or like a spot of black on some white page. 
 Or darkening smoke-jet in a brilliant fire. 
 I was a lion in my play and ire 
 'Mid gentle kids disporting on the grass ; 
 Nor brain, nor nerve, nor limb, nor foot would tire 
 In mad and venturous deeds such as will glass 
 Within the boy the tempests o'er the man to pass." 
 
 But now soft music stole out on mine ear 
 Like some old prelude to an evening hymn, 
 And burst a vision beautiful e'en here 
 Where Heaven breathes o'er its grace in face and limb 
 Conforming to the perfect mould of Him 
 From whom our manhood finds and takes its all, 
 And from whose Godhead's glory to the rim 
 Of his Creation, rays will robing fall 
 In light on all fair things which we may lovely call. 
 
 Once on a morn of May 1 charm'd mine eye 
 
 Where, Love, O Florence, sheds round grace o'er thee, 
 
 Which caught in Greece of many an age the sigh 
 
14 VISIONS OP 80LYMA. 
 
 'Til one could fix its immortality. 
 Hence smiles in stone a dream : and all agree 
 A spark alone flash'd down from Attic skies 
 Could kindle into light a shape so free 
 From mortal blot, and which o'er time will rise 
 Expressing mankind's thought that unembodied dies. 
 
 City of Art, glass'd fair in Arno's tide 
 Within thee yet no form of Heaven may shine 
 Where everlasting Beauty doth preside 
 To mould each part, and breathe in every line 
 And prove by years undimm'd the shape divine. 
 But here I saw a bright immortal face 
 Of love and light and bliss the chosen sign, 
 And while each feature beam'd celestial grace 
 Flow'd forth a melody beseeming well the place. 
 
 On earth there was in hearts a sigh. 
 And the dull throb of pain ; 
 
 The tear-drop trembled in the eye 
 Then fell to fall again. 
 
 Oh, Change o'er all a shadow threw, 
 And Death stood darkening there, 
 
 So that the sparkle in the dew 
 Soon vanish'd into air. 
 
 Wild phantoms o'er the mind would rush. 
 The flesh with tortures thrill, 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 15 
 
 And ere the brimming cup could blush 
 The tempting wine wouldspill. 
 
 The Love that on the warm lip press'd 
 
 To leave its tender kiss 
 Would soon weep on a cold cold breast, 
 
 And find a pang for bliss. 
 
 But here on all things is the bloom 
 • That lives without decay, 
 Since He who brought us from the tomb 
 Shines our immortal Day. 
 Hallelujah ! 
 
 Sometimes when Evening sets her golden star 
 Bright in the bosom of an Alpine lake, 
 From a dim mountain-cliff", heard high and far, 
 A musing shepherd's song will softly break, 
 And all the echoes of the rocks awake ; 
 Lip answers lip and sound replies to soimd, 
 And as new breasts new inspirations take 
 That twilight music swells and spreads around 
 Until from peak to peak the melodies rebound. 
 
 And thus the strain that floated from yon hill 
 Borne distant on the calm celestial air 
 At first one saint enraptured with its thrill, 
 And then a flame of glory kindled there 
 'Til mingling millions in the joy did share. 
 
16 VISIONS or SOLYMA. 
 
 Hark ! Hallelujah rings from height to height 
 * s cherubim and seraphim declare 
 Their bliss that thrills through all the worlds of light, 
 And that one song with praise a universe makes bright. 
 
 Waked by the strains my dream was gone how soon ! 
 And where the noon had beam'd upon mine eye 
 I saw a pale star near the infant moon, 
 Whose silver circle pencill'd o'er the sky 
 While glittering round the pole the Wain stood high. 
 A thundering cloud made earth more dim and drear, 
 And for each joy before I breathed a sigh ; 
 Yet from the music-burst of that bright sphere 
 One low and lingering note lives murmuring in mine ear. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 17 
 
 r/L 
 
 VISION II, 
 
 Land of my heart, in this our western clime, 
 Home hist and best that God has made for man, 
 I feel in me thy destiny sublime, 
 And see thee crown of that eternal plan 
 "Which in earth's nebulous atom-whirls began. 
 
 as thy bannered bird majestic flies 
 Sunward because his mighty pinion can, 
 
 Up through the night of time, my country, rise 
 Where storms no more may beat, nor clouds obscure thy 
 skies ! 
 
 1 stood high on a cliff whose eao-le-nest 
 
 Once towered o'er antler 'd deer and wigwam smoke 
 Down looking on the warrior's waving crest 
 When through the valley battle's wild whoop broke. 
 Now to my soul of peace the vision spoke, 
 Above a hill a city's spire gleam'd bright, 
 A village-hum soft mountain-echoes woke ; 
 Out through the ocean-gates in glittering light 
 The blue of sky and sea nuide merry sails more white. 
 
 Sweet on the air was breathing fragrant June, 
 And tempting to her bloom the nuirnmring bee. 
 When, pass'd the blazing s])lendors of the noon, 
 
18 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Upon the mount I slept beneath a tree 
 Whose leaves arch'd o'er a whispering canopy. 
 Proud as a queen waved near niy head a rose, 
 And blossoms round my dreamy eyes could see ; 
 High in the heavens a summer sun still glows 
 And sailing o'er his face no cloud a shadow throws. 
 
 Delicious slumber o'er my senses stole 
 That seem'd to bathe my being in its dew, 
 Then wrapt into the past my wondering soul 
 'Til through the mystic shadow far it flew 
 Searching the types of things both old and new. 
 O, I desired would come my shining Guide, 
 And as the thought to fonder wishing grew, 
 He stood and smiled, and glitter'd at my side 
 Like some noon cloud through which the sun pours down 
 his tide. 
 
 " Where bright Orion belts," he said, " the sky 
 Thy telescope at night's last hour was turned, 
 And when the star-mist glimmered on thine eye 
 A wish to know within thy bosom yearn'd ; 
 Lo, now the mystic secret shall be learn'd !" 
 Through a black void we flew, soon as he said. 
 Beyond where suns resplendent wheel'd and burn'd, 
 And then more quick than morn's first flash we sped 
 
 'Til in a vaporous whirl we seem'd to fly and tread. 
 
 Mine eye could see wild atoms circling round 
 Frantic as storm-clouds in the midniyht air 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 19 
 
 'Mid blackness which was boundless as profound 
 With naught save Force and Silence ruling there 
 O'er elemental things most strange and rare. 
 " This dark nebulous mist," my Guide then spake 
 " The substance is of all, and thou art where 
 
 Th' eternal Spirit broods new worlds to make 
 That in this universal womb their nature take." 
 
 "This like the deep," I cried, "whence came our Earth?" 
 " Yes ! not from waters wild, but such as this," 
 He said, " her globe emerged in primal birth; 
 'T was vaporous atoms made her first abyss, 
 So dark and void, and men but blindly miss 
 Who teach old Ocean was earth's pristine womb. 
 Most blest of mortals, thine to know, the bliss ! 
 The Spirit bi-eathed o'er elemental gloom 
 To round and bring our world like life from death's drear 
 tomb." 
 
 " How wonderful !" I said : " those wise Greeks told 
 Of this same realm of Chaos and old Night ; 
 What Attic genius sang I now behold — 
 What Moses saw when flash 'd the Spirit's light 
 To bring the dread abyss before his sight. 
 Mother of worlds ! Creation's birth-place, hail ! 
 All-hail great Natures pristine moulds and might ! 
 The Glass of Science tells the ancient tale, 
 And in her light I see Eternal Truth prevail." 
 
 Now glimmer'd on my sight some feeble rays 
 That then in sudden glories beaming fly 
 
20 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 As when auroral splendor quivering-plays 
 Across the blackness of a polar sky 
 Flinging its color'd gleams of various dye 
 To ravish sailors from their chill despair ; 
 A myriad rainbows flashing o'er the eye 
 In wild chase brighten through the midnight air 
 'Til in the mingled light 'tis Heaven seems glitteriiig there. 
 
 Up through the night of atoms now I gaze, 
 And far I see an angel on his wing 
 Pois'd over me, and round him such a blaze 
 As near its globe of fire the sun may fling ; 
 While soon a band of beaming seraphs sing. 
 And smile and fly ecstatic in their bliss 
 Like in wild joy the early birds of spring 
 Who feel the south wind's breath, and sun's first kiss, 
 And dart across the sky and not a beam would miss. 
 
 Our nebulous world fill'd with the brilliant light 
 Now glitter'd like the mist in morning's beam 
 When through a rift the sun pours down his might, 
 And the slant shaft grows brighter in the gleam. 
 O, while I gaze o'erflows from Heaven a stream 
 Where trump and lip conspire to thrill mine ear, 
 And I, as bursts the sound, enraptured deem 
 'T is the melodious angels circling near 
 The everlasting throne, whose notes of joy we hear. 
 
 O long did Old Night, rule o'er all in his might 
 tSittina: black as the robe of his gloom. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 21 
 
 And the atoms did play, in their wild, wild way, 
 
 Yet of life e'en as void as. the tomb ; 
 Then God said, "Let light be!" and forth I flash'd free 
 
 In my glory forever to shine, • 
 
 And 't is life I will bring, and joy on my wing 
 
 While the robe of Creation is mine. 
 
 My dazzle of rays, hides the Ancient of Days 
 
 In the clouds that encircle his throne ! 
 My mantle of beams, in its brilliance of gleams 
 
 But by me could be woven alone. 
 Each seraph must shine, in my halo divine 
 
 And I bind him around with his robe ; 
 Nor shimmers a star, nor a sun flames afar 
 
 Unless I will engirdle his globe. 
 
 And the rainbow I form, and paint on the storm 
 
 And I curve round each glittering hue 
 As the Maker Divine, refulgent doth shine 
 
 'Neath the circle which I o'er Him threw. 
 Lo ! wide nature I fill with joy's keenest thrill 
 
 And the songs of the angels inspire. 
 Nor a harp can be found, nor lip to give sound 
 
 If my beam do not kindle the fire. 
 
 Through these atoms so dark, when flashes my spark 
 Lo, a thousand round worlds shall be born. 
 
 To sweep and to turn, and to beam and to burn, 
 And I'll cheer them with even and morn. 
 
22 VISIONS OP SOLYMA. 
 
 I'll see this wide gloom, ever blossom and bloom 
 
 When my suns in their glory arise, 
 And the light here shall beam, and life here shall teem 
 
 Where eternal the smile of the skies. 
 
 The light-song ended, we instinctive flew 
 f^wift as Aurora's gleam o'er polar snows, 
 And near a dazzling world with speed we drew 
 As it in sunlike splendor flames and glows, 
 And where sublime a mountain towering rose 
 We wing our way, and on its summit rest. 
 Each over space his glance in wonder throws 
 That kindles adoration in each breast 
 That we such glory to behold should thus be blest. 
 
 Worlds roll round worlds! round systems, systems sweep! 
 8uns, moons and stars in circles endless turn ! 
 Great globes of light and fire o'er space's deep ! 
 Wild maze of motions where all splendors burn ! 
 The secrets of the universe we learn 
 Spread out before us, and to sight unseal'd ! 
 The eye grasps all, yet more to know doth yearn 
 In vision boundless to the gaze reveal'd ! 
 So vast and bright, unhelp'd, my mortal brain had reel'd. 
 
 Wide as the space from Neptune to the sun 
 The nebulte we left we now behold — 
 One scene of atoms ! swift around they run 
 And into globes gigantic take their mould 
 
VISIONS OF SOIA'MA. 23 
 
 Like bubbles from the breath of Chiklhood roll'd 
 But not to glitter with so brief a glow. 
 Lo, now we see a centi^al sphere unfold 
 Round which the greater worlds revolving go 
 While move round these the less with circling speed more 
 slow ! 
 
 Then said my Guide, " In yon new world you see 
 That in its orbit wheels with youthful flight 
 What was our Earth when darkness had to flee 
 Before the prime command — ' Let there be light!' 
 Her atoms moving in th' abyss of night 
 Struck from themselves the pristine infant rays 
 Which with increasing speed flash'd forth more bright 
 Until our planet roll'd on in a blaze 
 Enrobed in splendid flames for ages not for days. 
 
 The sun was flrst invisible in gloom 
 Because the atom-whirl in him was slow, 
 And did not soon his primal night illume 
 When friction flamed from earth efl'ulgent glow 
 That wide through space her shining sphere did show. 
 Her brilliant day of light was not the time 
 In which the sun around her seems to go ; 
 It was a cycle vast of fire — sublime 
 In light and length and work that Day of all the Prime!" 
 
 Here I awoke and heard the whispering leaves 
 Still nninmiring with the music of the bee, 
 
24 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 While o'er me smiles the bower that Summer weaves, 
 And blushing in its grace my rose I see 
 Whose fragrant bloom makes sweet my canopy ; 
 But through an oj^ening smites the sun's keen fire 
 That on my brow wakes throbs of agony. 
 I wonder'd if 't was this could dreams inspire, 
 Or if I saw and heard the things that all desire. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 25 
 
 VISION III. 
 
 Grandly the Jung Frau lifts a royal head 
 Crown 'd by aerial Winter in his white ! 
 I saw the mountain-queen, when, bright and dread 
 Her crowai was glittering in the evening light. 
 O Heaven seem'd on her calm imperial height 
 By envious mists long hidden from my gaze! 
 To give that grandeur to my tearful sight 
 Some angel drew the veil, and lo, what blaze 
 Of splendors as the sun pours down his farewell rays ! 
 
 Ting'd by the sky, thy lake, O Thun, below 
 To image those eternal hills was spread. 
 That, giant sentinels, o'er thy pure glow 
 Stand silent as the guardians of the dead. 
 
 in that sunset beam mine eye was fed 
 With pleasures felt in Alpine vales alone 
 
 On which with smiles soft Beauty loves to shed 
 Her mingling charms down from her mountain-throne 
 Until her robing light o'er dell and cliff is thrown. 
 
 'T was in a bower amid the bloom of May 
 
 1 saw those Alps sublime before me stand 
 All-glorious in the light of lingering day, 
 
 Great monarchs of the scene, so strong and grand. 
 
26 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Yet touch'd to smiles by evening's golden wand. 
 Now to mine ear a mellow shepherd's horn 
 In music brought for sleep a sweet command ; 
 Soon in my soul was deepest slumber born 
 Lull'd by the low of kine from their companions torn. 
 
 E'en brighter than yon sunlit Alpine snow- 
 Flew o'er the solitary top my Guide ; 
 With his celestial radiance yet aglow 
 He folds his wings, and sits down at my side : 
 His halo on his brow I yet descried. 
 "Whence you clear air, yon mountains whence, to learn, 
 And all earth's hills and vales in beauty's pride, 
 Such is the wish I see within thee burn : 
 And, Ivan, thou shalt know ere I to Heaven return." 
 
 Upward we soar'd above the silent Queen 
 Into calm regions of aerial blue, 
 And gazed in wonder on the evening scene 
 Which burst in widening glory on our view. 
 O'er Switzerland a downward glance we threw 
 To see on mountains, mountains grandly hurl'd. 
 Eternal pinnacles to heaven upgrew 
 By forces piled of a volcanic world — 
 Yon Alps once waves of fire that over oceans whirl'd. 
 
 Briglit in the light a myriad tops of snow 
 Gleam'd over chasms black in sunless gloom ; 
 O'er torrents wild the waving rainbows glow. 
 
VISIONS or SOLYMA. 27 
 
 And hark, an avalanche, with thundering boom 
 By distance faint, falls in its mountain-tomb. 
 The cataract's Alpine roar in murmurs dies! 
 More soft on glaciers is eve's dying bloom. 
 As loftier in the air we circling rise : 
 Lo ! yet an eagle's scream can pierce up through the skies ! 
 
 More quick than thought along the mystic wire 
 That 'neath the oceans flashes round the earth : 
 More quick than from the sun in subtle fire 
 Magnetic virtues kindle into birth 
 Wide-darting through the worlds as if in mirth : 
 More quick than even fancy in the soul 
 Whose lightning-thoughts have an immortal worth, 
 Afar we fly, and see a young world roll 
 Involved in dazzling flames that blaze from pole to pole. 
 
 Lo, while we look upon the burning sphere 
 Fierce into space its column'd flames outleap 
 With thunder-roars that wake my mortal fear. 
 And then sink back the fires in gulfs as deep 
 Like ocean's billows when wild tempests sweep. 
 Myriad Atlantics heave before mine eye 
 In mountain-waves of light that never sleep 
 While their volcanic smoke rolls black and high 
 'Til larger than the Alps the lurid volumes fly. 
 
 Through weary ages seem'd my painful gaze 
 Until less loud the long c^unmotion grows. 
 
28 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 When, ceased the noise and cloud, and blinding blaze, 
 Enlarging rifts a rolling globe disclose 
 Round which an atmospheric ocean shows 
 One blue expanse that robes a solid sphere. 
 
 " Thus," said my Guide " from flames the air arose 
 Which belts our Earth in crystal circuit clear; 
 
 A Cycle vast her Second Day will hence to thee appear. 
 
 As long I gaze, and muse through Time's dull flow, 
 Still smooth and round that circling world is seen 
 As if no vales could sink, or mountains grow 
 While waveless fire glows on as it has been. 
 Ages like vistas seem through forests green 
 That to a dreamy infinite extend, 
 'Til, lo, a change breathes o'er the shining scene! 
 The world begins to heave, white mists ascend, 
 And fire and water long t(^ battle fury lend ! 
 
 Steam rolls in clouds, and with the air is blent 
 To drop down into it perpetual rains. 
 By the hot surface vaporized, and sent 
 Upward again where Chaos wild complains. 
 Yet as the heat subsides the moisture gains 
 And ocean girdles the great globe around : 
 Where fire had blazed the water now attains — 
 One lifeless liquid deep, void and profound, 
 Along whose wide expanse the lonely billows sound. 
 
 Heaved from the sea a darkling isle appears 
 That makes the rippling waves in circles go. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 29 
 
 And as the liftiug land more high uprears 
 Smoke bursts again, and the volcanoes glow, 
 Which o'er the waves to towering mountains grow. 
 Their summits piercing through the vaporous cloud 
 From which stream down the rains in torrent flow, 
 And earthquake-thunders bellow deep and loud 
 Beneath the curtaining mists which that new world enshroud. 
 
 Now through the lurid openings of the steam 
 Which hangs around the globe its circling fold, 
 I see the lingering flames like lightnings gleam. 
 And when at last in space the clouds are roll'd 
 It is another world I glad behold. 
 What varied scenes burst on my wondering sight 
 Fresh from Jehovah's master-touch and mould ! 
 The Third Day's work is o'er — an age of might 
 When Are and laud and sea were mix'd in frantic fight. 
 
 The mountains lift their heads through azure air, 
 And down on hills and valleys grandly gaze ; 
 The sinuous shores with grace bound ocean there, 
 And rivers glide and brooks in winding maze; 
 The islands smile, the billow curls and plays : 
 Here swells a mound and silvers near a lake. 
 While Beauty flings o'er all lier l)rilliant rays 
 'Til one fair scene the blending glories make, 
 Pr(){)hetic of the charms the world enrobed will take. 
 
 Waked from my sleep in my sweet Alpine bower 
 I saw the Junu- Frau in the moon's cold rav ; 
 
30 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 High in the misty light she seem'd to tower 
 
 Sad as a Queen who sends her lord away 
 
 'Mid battle's roar his monarch-part to play, 
 
 And thinks he may come back lone on his bier 
 
 Along the streets he pass'd in proud array ; 
 
 Upon his cheek she drops in love a tear 
 
 While heaves her royal breast with an oppressing fear. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 31 
 
 Yisio:^^ lY. 
 
 Morn after morn I rose, O Blanc, to see 
 The cloud-veil lift that floated round thy head, 
 And show sublime thy mountain-majesty. 
 Out from the darkness which the night had spread 
 Up high in heav'n a glorious glow was shed 
 Around thy toj) encrimson'd with the dye 
 That blushes from the sun in rosy red ; 
 Aloft thy snow-crown radiant in that sky 
 Will ever stand in light before my memory's eye. 
 
 And when the noon withdrew its burning ray, 
 As with my friend I walk'd on Jura's side, 
 O who may tell the sweetness of that day ! 
 Low was the voice of him who since hath died, 
 Fell'd like a tree whose limbs their fruit spread wide. 
 Frail as a flower, yet sturdy as a pine 
 Which has a thousand Alpine storms defied, 
 A gentleness his manly soul did twine 
 As when o'er mountain-rocks curls forth in bloom a vine. 
 
 We look'd from gardens where the rose of May 
 Shed forth its fragrance on a vernal air. 
 And shaded walks, and seats, and mansions grey 
 Made Paradise for us to see and share 
 
32 VISIONS OP SOLYMA. 
 
 Whose beauty e'en in Switzerland is rare. 
 Most sweet our converse on the Church and State, 
 And thee, our Country, to our hearts so fair. 
 Oh, has MacVickar felt the blow of fate ? 
 But from the stroke for him doth bliss immortal date ! 
 
 Majestic Blanc before us tower'd in jH'ide 
 With robe and diadem of sparkling snow, 
 High from Geneva's lake, fair as his bride, 
 The monarch rose, and on his kings below 
 Imperial look'd in power's supernal glow ; 
 A mist-wreath often would his forehead kiss 
 As when a queenly lip its love would show ; 
 Not ev'n the gate that guards celestial bliss 
 Can flash out from its pearl more splendid white than thit- 
 
 So bright the glory shone that faint I grew. 
 And in the shadow of a cliff would rest 
 Where slumber came, and in my dreams I flew 
 O'er worlds that seem'd with brilliant sun's oppress'd. 
 Yet kindled the old longing in my breast 
 To hear again my Guide in discourse high. 
 He with my breathing wish stood there confess'd ; 
 Not Alpine snow bejieath a summer sky 
 Is robed in brightness such as ravish'd now mine eye. 
 
 " Ivan," he said, " the cycle was not done 
 When, waked, you saw the moon on Jung Fran set; 
 Mists long involved the globe, and liid the sun 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 33 
 
 Who pierced the air, invisible as yet ; 
 In soils made warm by fire, by rains made wet, 
 Profuse and wide, the seeds created lay 
 Whence Beauty for the earth a robe must get, 
 Aiid touch'd to life by a diffusive ray 
 These start to giant growths, and close the Third Grand 
 Day. 
 
 Grass fring'd the streams, and o'er the mountains crept. 
 And for a world a verdant carpet laid ; 
 Up grew tall pines that in their cones had slept. 
 And feathery ferns their banners wide display 'd ; 
 Round steaming lakes the forests were array'd 
 Which rose, and fell, and buried in the fire 
 Beneath a mountain-weight, the fuels made 
 Whence over cheerful hearths bright flames aspire. 
 And wheels work on for man his slaves that never tire." 
 
 " O Sir," I said, " how plain the Page Divine ! 
 
 Before a sun could be no solar days ! 
 
 In the same light His Word and Works must shine ! 
 
 Dispell'd each cloud I glow with joy and praise 
 
 To see all clear in Truth's eternal blaze ; 
 
 Who sow'd the stars o'er the celestial fields 
 
 Breathed thoughts in souls He chose to tell his Avays ! 
 
 What ends the night his Word so long conceal'd ? 
 The Book of Science has the Book of God reveal'd !" 
 
 " 'T is so," he said, " and drawn the veil you see 
 Sublime creative cycles forth unfold 
 3 
 
34 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 From Him who is, and was, and is to be. 
 And doth Himself his universe uphold 
 In whom it took its everlasting mould. 
 Him first. Him last, Him all in Heaven we sing 
 Whose glory brightens all that we behold : 
 His Fourth Day's work before thee I will bring 
 Ere for his courts of lig^ht I wave a farewell winar. 
 
 When nebulous worlds were flung off" by the sun 
 Long whirl'd his atoms ere they flamed to light, 
 But when the ages had their circles run, 
 His globe, eiFulgent, flashing far and bright. 
 To all his worlds brought warmth and life and sight : 
 A central magazine of needed fire 
 Outblazing into universal night — 
 Palace of God, where his cherubic choir 
 Their songs eternal hymn to the Creation's Sire ! 
 
 Yet mists fill all the air to darken earth, 
 And veil the splendors of the sunlit sky, 
 Until, behold a true celestial birth ! 
 Lo, from the night of time the vapors fly 
 And bring the brilliant hour of glory nigh ! 
 INIan was not made, but angels tuned the lay 
 When burst the sight, and th' Almighty Eye 
 Look'd as the curtains of the clouds gave way, 
 And wide the sun stream'd out the light of the Fourth 
 Day 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 35 
 
 To show tliy blue expanse, eternal dome, 
 Whose curves sublime from darkness round unfold 
 And roof the world where man shall have his home ! 
 Thee, Morning paints in crimson and in gold, 
 And Evening's glories cherubim behold ! 
 While sinks the sun the moon her silver throws 
 O'er sea and land as on her globe is roll'd, 
 And sown with stars the glittering concave glows 
 Where Heaven to Earth in light her times and seasons 
 shows. 
 
 Cry aloud ! cry aloud ! all-hail the Kingly Sun ! 
 On his throne without a cloud, his high reign he hath begun ! 
 
 Cry aloud ! cry aloud ! ye angels harp and sing ! 
 May this monarch bright and proud, life and glory ever 
 fling! 
 
 In whispers we will sing as comes the Queen of Night ! 
 O how beautiful a thing, like a spirit of the light ! 
 
 Low breathe the softest string, as bright she lifts her face, 
 As she sails without a wing, and for ages be her race ! 
 
 O be mute ! O be mute ! the stars are in the sky ! 
 O stop the harp and lute as the glory passeth by ! 
 
 They glitter as they move along their march sublime ! 
 Let them fling their light of love over all the night of time ! 
 
 To Him be all the praise from whom the splendors came ! 
 O most wonderful his ways, and Jehovah is his name! 
 
36 VISIONS OF SOI.YMA. 
 
 Are his Avorlds o'er heav'n sown, like gems which beauty 
 grace ? 
 What the brightness of his throne ! what the glory of his 
 face I 
 
 Thus angels sang, some pois'd on balanced wing, 
 With pinions furl'd some walking o'er the ground ; 
 Some skimm'd the air with graceful fluttering. 
 And earth o'erflow'd with the melodious sound 
 That rose to thrill the universe around ; 
 The Fourth Day was Creation's jubilee ! 
 Cherubic armies strains ecstatic found 
 To voice aloft, Jehovah, joy to Thee 
 In Godhead's essence One, in Persons ever Three !" 
 
 I woke when tearful twilight wept her dew, 
 And wrapt her shadows round the mountain's height, 
 And as the solemn darkness deeper grew. 
 The star of evening beaming on the sight 
 Hung over Blanc a diadem of light. 
 Sparkling above the grand imperial brow 
 To sink away, and leave a blacker night ; 
 With it my too resplendent visions fled 
 Like morning's golden glow from mansions of the dead. 
 
VISrOXS OF SOLYMA. 87 
 
 VISION Y. 
 
 O, is it so that Heaven liath chosen me 
 To know the counsels deep, and wise, and old 
 Which flower in time out from eternity? 
 Will not the thunder blast the vainly bold 
 Who as Jehovah's own their plans unfold ? 
 Send slumber as Thou wilt, and where and when 
 But let me tuneful sing what Thou hast told ! 
 What kindles in my soul shall write my pen 
 True as the harp gives back the breathing breeze again. 
 
 And why, O Florence, were not sight, nor sound 
 In vision'd dreams reveal'd on Arno's side ? 
 Thy dust in street and tomb is holy ground : 
 By thy Tribuna's group, in glorious pride. 
 Where Grecian Venus godlike doth preside 
 As o'er her lesser lights the morning star, 
 Why flow'd not there my inspiration's tide ? 
 Perchance my Guide in other worlds afar 
 Could not for me some work of light or leave, or mar. 
 
 Not Niobe, majestic as she stands 
 With sheltering robe, and her great mother's heart 
 To shield her child from fierce Apollo's hands, 
 Or take into herself the fatal dart — 
 
;>8 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Stone turn'd to grief by touch of magic art 
 — Nor yet the slender Campanile's grace, 
 
 Nor grand duomo's swell, my dreams could start ; 
 
 Nor Dante's dust, Savonorola's face 
 Nor all high souls that haunt the bright immortal place. 
 
 If Earth could Heaven allure, Florence, to thee 
 Had downward come in many a tuneful throng 
 Glad angels eager in their ministry. 
 Tomb, temple, palace, picture, marble, song, 
 All hallow thee, and thy great fame prolong ; 
 Genius and Nature smile on Arno's vale 
 Whose circling mountains, piled so grand and strong 
 Into the clouds, like warriors plumed in mail, 
 Such scenes of beauty guard as seem a poet's tale. 
 
 Eternal Rome, shall my angelic Guide 
 Descend in thee, and breathe into my soul ? 
 O when, O where shall he stand at my side 
 Creation's panorama to unroll? 
 Quick ! Asel, quick ! from Heaven an altar-coal 
 To touch my lips that I may purely sing ! 
 ■ 'Til burns that fire I'll wander round this goal 
 
 Of boyhood's dreams, of manhoods thoughts the spring; 
 Long to imjDcrial Rome earth yet shall homage bring. 
 
 E'en from the early blush of my life's morn. 
 Marbled Apollo, was my soul with thee. 
 Who, like a star, youth's visions did adorn ; 
 
VISIONS OF SOIA'MA. 39 
 
 And now do I behold thy majesty ? 
 The breast, the brow, the limbs, the grace I see, 
 The look of power, and sunlike face divine 
 Bright flashing forth the light of deity ! 
 Genius on thee has made such beauty shine 
 As heaven o'er earth above the boldest thought of mine. 
 
 From this ideal form mine eye I turn , 
 
 And, lo, contrasting agony behold ! 
 With pride nor features flame, nor nostrils burn : 
 Round writhing limbs, fold circling over fold 
 To hiss and kill those twisting snakes are roll'd ! 
 His sons to save the wrench of that old sire ! 
 Immortal rage too strong for mortals bold ! 
 Minerva's serpents crush 'til all expire — • 
 
 Thus hate has conquer'd love in every martyr's fire. 
 
 Now, Angelo and Raphael I go 
 Where shrines the Vatican your Christian art. 
 And thoughts of noblest souls in color glow, 
 To teach the head, and touch to tears the heart. 
 Ghastly Girolomo, I shrinking start 
 To see above Life's Cup in death thy stare. 
 And turn where rays of glory round Him dart 
 Who floats transfigured in the mountain-air ! 
 The halo on his brow sole Hope in man's despair. 
 
 Nor would I miss the matchless touch of power 
 That hurls round terrors through the Sistine gloom. 
 
40 VISIONS OP^ SOLYMA. 
 
 AVhat forms there writhe ! what faces glare and lower ! 
 Guilt and Despair shriek bursting from the tomb 
 To meet in flames an everlasting doom ; 
 Hope seems to tremble 'neath its crown of rays, 
 And Fear and Death have reign in this dark room ; 
 Flashing aloft in thundering judgment's blaze 
 'Tis Jove, not Jesus there, round whom the lightning plays. 
 
 The Moses, best Italia's Master shows ! 
 All manhood's dignity in marble here ! 
 What power and conscious goodness in repose ! 
 The Sovereign, Prophet, Poet all appear 
 In one whose glance from earth to heaven grows clear ; 
 Yet brow and mouth, th' expanding nose • 
 And flowing beard, tell most the grand old Seer. 
 Jehovah's own in Art's perfection glows. 
 And from his seat of power o'er man his spell yet throws. 
 
 But Angelo, in thy majestic dome. 
 Thy name is lifted nearest to the sky 
 Whose imaged concave is thy native home ! 
 O Heaven's own grandeur floats before mine eye, 
 And circling there sublime my soul lifts high 
 To.whei'e the cherubim are round the throne! 
 Whence'er I gaze I feel thy genius nigh 
 That breathed immortal reverence into stone, 
 And thrills me to thy thought as here I walk alone. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 41 
 
 Bropp'd from St. Peter's ball near noon's fierce sky 
 I sought the Appiaii way for Scipio's tomb ; 
 In mouldering dust the warrior-heroes lie 
 Who Spain and Carthage fill'd with battle's gloom, 
 And Asian nations gave to slavery's doom, 
 Then elimb'd the Capitol to take a crown 
 From Rome victorious and in freedom's bloom ; 
 As by the candle's ray I groped me down, 
 Grim death sat on the grave and leer'd with mocking frown. 
 
 'Twas in the catacombs Rome's noblest died : 
 Above them chains and flames, the wild beast's glare 
 And frantic yell, the demon-tortures plied, 
 The arena's blood and pain and cry and stare 
 And horrors worse than fiends may make or share ; 
 AroUnd the heroes, coffins in a night 
 AVhere Hope refulgent tramples on despair. 
 And shows beyond, the triumph in the fight — 
 The Christian conqueror's crown a diadem of light ! 
 
 Castle of Death ! the warrior-angel's sword 
 Gleams o'er thy walls first built for Hadrian's clay. 
 Ghastly as skulls the memories in thee stored 
 Of Borgias worse than Neroes in their sway. 
 Blood, battle, murder, incest were their play ! 
 Chains, dungeons, racks, and masses mix'd with groans, 
 And shepherds thundering on their flocks to slay — 
 Such papal horrors saw these shivering stones. 
 And Peter's chair more red than Babylon's old thrones. 
 
42 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Where 'neath the Pantheon's dome Rome's altars blazed. 
 And gods from all the earth stood round in stone : 
 AVhere to the skies the people's shouts were raised 
 To shake the Colosseum, grand and lone : 
 Where Genius o'er the Forum flashing shone, 
 And on the Capital fame's heroes proud 
 The laurel had for making nations groan — 
 Rome sees her modern wire above the crowd ; 
 Hark, on her walls the locomotive thunders loud ! 
 
 The reign of monks and ivy is no more, 
 And all the cobweb-fancies of the past ; 
 Humanity outgrows such childish lore 
 To see the tyrant's chains fall thick and fast, 
 And in itself our manhood stand at last. 
 Italia, thou art one by blood and pain ! 
 The smile of peace be o'er thy future cast, 
 And on thy throne may Love and Justice reign 
 'Til more than Rome's old glory gilds our world again ! 
 
 I sat in the Borghese at mild eve 
 Amid fair scenes of statues, groves and bowers ; 
 Behind the noise and glare of Rome I leave 
 To have the bloom and scent of Spring's young flowers 
 While shines the setting sun on those grey towers. 
 Lo, soon I sank in slumber sweet and deep 
 When came a breath on all my spirit's powers ; 
 My Guide I saw smile o'er my pleasing sleep, 
 And knew why thus he came his guardian watch to keep. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 43 
 
 " Ivau," he said, " the Days of Earth began 
 Successive each in time to that before, 
 Yet, oft, together their vast cycles ran 
 To do the work for which we all adore — 
 Building for man his world, they were no more. 
 Evening and Morning are the names that show 
 How grand Progression ever onward bore 
 Each from a dimmer to a brighter glow- 
 As to Perfection all upon our earth must grow. 
 
 Niag'ra, thunderless, his floods still pours ; 
 Unseen his rainbows quivering danced around ; 
 The ocean hurl'd his waves on voiceless shores. 
 And tempests lash'd the air without a sound. 
 Silence and Darkness ruled the vast profound ; 
 Since, blank the sun, ere made an eye to see. 
 And in one drear eternal stillness bound, 
 Without an ear, a universe would be — 
 A tomb which e'en the earthquakes rock'd but noiselessly. 
 
 O shall this air whose invisible breath 
 Can music stir, and thrills of rapture wake, 
 Encircle a lone world as mute as death 
 And void of varied pleasures it might make ? 
 Or shall this light whose rays of radiance break 
 Forth from the beaming sun, no beauty show 
 In leaf, or flower, or hill, or cloud, or lake. 
 But joy be dead in such a wealth of glow 
 AVhich without sense and soul is useless in its flow ? 
 
44 VISIOXS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Pure Spirit ! how can it dull matter know ? 
 How that which thinks, feels, wills, sees right and wrong 
 Where reason lives, where passion's tempests blow — 
 Which gushes musical in voiceless song, 
 And eyes the Infinite with vision strong — 
 How can such essence things to thoughts translate, 
 Perceive the gross and hard and round and long 
 And bridge the strange abyss, so dark, so great 
 That yawns across as if some chasm fix'd by fate ? 
 
 Between the soul and these material things 
 The body's nerves as mediators lie : 
 Each through some sense its secret message brings 
 From land and sea and air and from the sky 
 As wires traversing earth the far make nigh 
 The thoughts of nations flashing wide around 
 In ways to science still a mystery. 
 O God, man's spirit knows through sight and sound 
 And smell and touch and taste, but how is too profound ! 
 
 To make for souls such nerves long cycles took 
 From the first raollusk building on to man. 
 Through old Earth's Fifth and Six Days you nuist look 
 Tracing for ages the evolving plan 
 Which on mid long gradations wisely ran. 
 Lo, on the waters lies one poor round thing ! 
 Scarce motion in the paltry life you scan ; 
 Yet see ! it stirs ! it feels, and thus doth bring 
 On earth an era new which angels see and sing. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 45 
 
 How awful life ! one iusect on its wing 
 Warm'd by a sunbeam to a moment's flight 
 Drops not amid its summer fluttering 
 To change its little day for sudden night 
 But sends a shudder o'er the wondering sight. 
 In earth and ocean yet each atom teems 
 With that which moves and feels, and e'en the light 
 Binding the universe around with beams 
 Hides Life's mysteries where it dancing joys, and gleams. 
 
 What then Man's Soul ! with impulse, passion, thought, 
 That which can love and hate and fear and will — 
 A quickening spirit into being brought. 
 Or pierced with pain, or keen with pleasure's thrill ; 
 A something time, nor space, nor worlds can fill — 
 Once struck, a spark forevermore to blaze. 
 Perchance flash forth immortal millions, 'til 
 Souls thick as stars shall be to curse or praise 
 In lives that must go on through everlasting days. 
 
 Now stirr'd the ocean's solitary waste ; 
 Each drop in sea and stream and cloud was made 
 A minim world which whirl'd in frantic haste 
 Where microscoiDic monsters fed and play'd. 
 The mollusks in their curving shells array'd 
 Bright through the waters glance with glittering dye, 
 And plaited creatures in the shallows laid 
 With armor mail'd their claws gigantic try — 
 E'en in that pristine world the wiles of war they ply. 
 
46 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Soon starr'd and flower'd the busy corals build 
 Palace and temple 'neatli the blue of waves : 
 The azure deep with branching whiteness fill'd 
 Is column'd high, and from a myriad graves 
 Fresh toilers come, and while the billow raves 
 With tiny force defying isles they form. 
 And e'en a continent which ocean braves ; 
 Scarce earthquakes stop the curious tropic swarm 
 Working for man whose empire fears the shock and storm. 
 
 With fish the waters teem — the brook, the bay, 
 The wide full river and the boundless sea ! 
 Bright scaly swimmers glitter in the day. 
 And glide on balauc'd fin, and circle free, 
 Glancing along as if in frolic glee : 
 Or rush like armies crowding through the deep 
 Down where alone th' Almighty eye may see : 
 Still on the watery myriads swarm and sweep. 
 And skim the ocean's floor and on the billows sleep. 
 
 Huge batlike monosaurs obscure the sun. 
 And reptiles through the waters cleave their way. 
 While rival monsters swim, and fly and run 
 Holding in all the elements their sway ; 
 Thunderous the roars in their gigantic play 
 Beneath the trees that cast great shadows round ! 
 Monarch of all, the whale begins his day. 
 Gambols the waves, and sports with curious sound, 
 Or drops his bulk beneath to seek the dark profound. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 47 
 
 True Evolution mark'd those ages old 
 Up from a mollusk to immortal man, 
 Ascending ever to a loftier mould ; 
 And yet no monstrous mixtures marr'd the plan, 
 Nor hideous forms into each other ran. 
 Those shades more exquisite which never blend 
 Than in the picture's colors you may scan ; 
 Creation's myriads ne'er the law transcend 
 Forbidding hybrid shapes that eye and soul offend. 
 
 As Earth's Fifth Cycle closed the birds upfiew. 
 And from evolving waters sought the air ; 
 The simpler tribes into the nobler grew 
 By a progression which the wise declare, 
 Sublime, the works of the Almighty share. 
 Long, long the ages ere a lark of morn 
 Soar'd as with song the cherubim to dare, 
 And Heaven could hear from every rival thorn 
 Amid the sparkling dews the thrilling matins born. 
 
 What colors flash'd like wings of Avaving fire 
 When Morning through her clouds pour'd down the day 
 To wake her music in each tuneful choir 
 Responsive to a solitary ray ! 
 'T was ages made the thrill of each bright lay ; 
 As from his crag the mountain-eagle wheels 
 With kingly pinion on his sunward way. 
 The power of wing and eye the monarch feels 
 Upon his cycle's work perfection shows and seals. 
 
48 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Great Sixth Day hail, which doth creation close! 
 The brightest glory shines to hallow thee. 
 And Beauty wreathing Wisdom blooms and glows. 
 The dust of earth astir with life I see 
 By Him inspired without whom naught can be ! 
 First tiny creatures from the ground forth creep. 
 Then higher forms in vision clear to me ! 
 The land has burst from its long primal sleep ! 
 Lo, with each onward sun life's noisy tokens sweep ! 
 
 As leap the shapes from tree to tree 
 Lo, in the woods the graceful branches bend 
 'Til smiles the earth a scene of youthful glee. 
 I hear from all her realms the joy ascend. 
 And shore and sea and air glad tributes blend. 
 E'en doth the snake in glittering beauty glide, 
 Nor glares his eye, nor can his fang offend. 
 Splendid I see the anaconda slide 
 Lifting aloft his towering crest in guiltless j^tride ! 
 
 Behold the sturdy bull uprear his head. 
 And at his lordly side his gentle mate ! 
 The antler'd deer walks forth with highborn tread, 
 And lion 'stalks'in his majestic state 
 Monarch of all, yet in the cycle late. 
 Flies swift with nostril high and streaming mane 
 The glorious horse, and in gigantic state 
 O'er all the elephant towers from the plain 
 To mark as near the time when man on earth shall reign. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 49 
 
 The crown of all, to Man each cycle tends 
 As Egypt's pyramid, built o'er a king, 
 From its wide base into the clouds ascends, 
 Tier over tier, with gradual lessening 
 Up to the point whence altar-fires could fling 
 Perpetual radiance glittering o'er the sand. 
 O, Earth to Heaven more near the pile did bring 
 As it arose in solid might and grand 
 To lift its flame to God sublime o'er all the land ! 
 
 Or as at morning when the golden rays 
 Through rents of clouds slant upward to the sun, 
 And pointing meet within his kingly blaze, 
 So in our past the beams of glory run 
 To that old day when earth's grand work was done. 
 Between the brightness of Creation's birth, 
 And that resplendence Christ for us hath won, 
 Man trembling stands, and looks to Heaven from earth, 
 All-conscious in himself of some immortal worth." 
 
 But now my Guide I could no more behold. 
 And ceased the whispering music of his tone. 
 While all around was lone and still and cold 
 As one in sudden night on whom had shone 
 Auroral splendors of the Arctic Zone. 
 Lo, what a dazzling flood streams o'er the sky 
 As from a thousand suns down on me thrown ! 
 Never such brilliance burst on mortal eye 
 Where angels in the light exultingly did fly. 
 4 
 
50 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 The fair Borghese smiled a Paradise ; 
 Graceful on circling hills trees I could view, 
 Rank above rank, in verdant beauty rise ; 
 Amines climb'd the rocks, and mosses dripp'd with dew, 
 And air was sweet with flowers of tropic hue 
 Whose tufts were touch'd by more than mortal art, 
 While mingling red and gold the apple grew 
 And orange glow'd, and from each grove did start 
 Birds of such voice and wing as seem'd of Heaven a part. 
 
 Fair fountains fell and flash'd in morning beams 
 Whose rainbows saw the fishes glittering glide, 
 And music murmur'd from the lapse of streams 
 Where kid and lamb sport at the lion's side, 
 And 'neath an eagle's eye a dove I spied, 
 While 'mid celestial bloom of field and grove 
 Bright tuneful cherubim their anthems tried, 
 And over all down streaming from above. 
 The light of Beauty shone in everlasting love. 
 
 As ere the orient sun his face may show 
 Oft gilded clouds and mountains grow more bright, 
 And o'er the landscape spread prophetic glow 
 Until the monarch from his throne of light 
 Bursts forth in blazing beams upon the sight, 
 So herald rays flash'd from some Form Divine. 
 He comes, He comes in his own Godhead's might. 
 And Heaven and Earth I saw around Him shine 
 Transcendent in a light above all song of mine. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 51 
 
 My God in mortal shape ! I slirink ! I gaze ! 
 His lustrous majesty had made me blind 
 While I look'd in its overpowering blaze 
 Save that his grace He pour'd into my mind 
 Which my outdazzled sight rais'd and refined. 
 With lifted hands He earthward turns his eye 
 As on my knees I gaze in awe behind, 
 AVhen 'neath his radiant feet I now descry 
 An image of Himself that seem'd in death to lie. 
 
 Hence ever dimm'd Apollo's form and face 
 Which o'er the Vatican diffuse their spell, 
 And all the Phidian marbles which did grace 
 Where once Minerva's flashing image fell, 
 Old Athens, on thy templed citadel ! 
 O vain for me each line of human art 
 Since in my soul that Beauty came to dwell ; 
 Jehovah kindling grace in every part 
 Beheld around the whole hLs own perfections dart. 
 
 Th' Almighty stoops to breathe and lo I see 
 A man stand forth, and look into the sky, 
 Then bend before creative majesty! 
 Power crowns his head, and flashes from his eye, 
 And robes a form made for dominion high 
 In one who must first love and then adore. 
 
 " Our Father ! Adam !" I with rapture cry 
 As all my soul goes out as ne'er before — 
 
 An orphan I in this lone universe no more ! 
 
52 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Most wretched he who doubts from whence he came, 
 Or whither must his uiiflesh'd spirit go ; 
 Who feels that he himself a deathless flame 
 Between two dark eternities doth glow 
 Which by his glimmering light he cannot know. 
 Bewilder'd, what for him but grim despair ! 
 Back into night he would his life-light blow! 
 He recks not if he die, nor when, nor where — 
 His whence of being knows not, his whith'r does not care. 
 
 Now I believe the tale m}' nursery told 
 When hush'd upon my mother's gentle knee 
 I heard in music the tradition old 
 Yet scorn'd in mad youth's wild o'ermastering glee. 
 O has my infant faith come back to me ! 
 My Bible true, and 'mid its hallow'd rays 
 By Adam's side once more fair Eve I see ! 
 Glow earth and sky with bright immortal lays. 
 And on the hills of life sublimest songs of praise ! 
 
 With some cherubic noise I soon awoke 
 While on my cheek the dew of tears would fall ; 
 But, lo, what splendors o'er my vision broke ! 
 St. Peter's is ablaze ! from base to ball 
 A myriad Easter flames encircle all, 
 And paint in fire the dome upon the sky, 
 'Til sudden darkness, like a funeral pall 
 Comes down in midnight on my dazzled eye. 
 And o'er the faded scene I heave a mortal sigh. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 53 
 
 VISION YI. 
 
 Ye isles of Greece, I mark how sweet your smile 
 Enthroned between the blue of sky and sea : 
 Each shore, each bay, and cliff, and mountain-pile 
 Which o'er these glittering waves looks bright on me 
 Is shrined in some immortal memory. 
 Soft on these waters is the morning's kiss 
 Where battle roar'd, and Persian ships did flee ; 
 O could War's din burst o'er a scene like this? 
 Thermopylse, thou roll'd it back to Salamis ! 
 
 And Sunium's rocks I towering see afar 
 On which Minerva's columns gleam in white, 
 More welcome once than was the northern star 
 To Grecian sailors after storm and fight. 
 My fancy now beholds their wild delight. 
 And hears from bloody decks exulting cries 
 As round Colonna glides a ship in sight 
 Of great Athena flashing to the skies 
 From bronze of spear and helm her light on Attic eyes. 
 
 In the Piroeus drops our anchor down 
 Near where Themistocles his walls built strong 
 Beneath the terrors of each rival's frown. 
 Kot now from harlior'd ships tlie sailor's song 
 
54 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 O'er waves where whistles scream and engines roar ! 
 Yea ! near his grave who fought the Persian wrong, 
 Funereal smoke pollutes the classic shore, 
 And shows Olympian gods in beauty rule no more. 
 
 Here Plague and Battle equal havoc made ; 
 The civic strife began in fleshly pain 
 To warn thee, Greece, scarce yet in arms array'd ! 
 I think I see the horrid sights again — 
 The living writhe, the dying who remain 
 AVhere ghastly heaps of corpses festering lie ! 
 But who may tell the pang where none complain 
 Oppressing in its voiceless agony 
 A nation's heart with grief too strong for word or sigh ! 
 
 It was prophetic of the coming doom. 
 What years of blood ! Ye Persian tyrants see ! 
 Smile baftled Xerxes from thy monarch-tomb, . 
 And all thy minions laugh, slain here for thee ! 
 The conquering sons of Greece, the brave, the free 
 Their country kill that hurl'd thy hosts away ! 
 ,Blind Havoc waves her torch o'er land and sea. 
 And tyrants grin as Grecians Grecians slay ! 
 My country,' may such clouds ne'er hide from earth thy day! 
 
 The fatal mandate comes ! the walls are low ! 
 'Twas Grecian envy hurl'd down Grecian pride! 
 Dire fatal strife ! rang ruin in each blow 
 Against the stones that Asian power defied ! 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 55 
 
 Soon, Athens, Philip's sword will seek thy side : 
 The Roman then, and the barbarian throng. 
 And worse, the turban'd Turk will o'er thee ride 
 To lash thy sons, thy daughters force and wrong, 
 And make on Attic soil his rule of ruin long! 
 
 Stop ! 'tis within the Agora we stand ! 
 Immortal marbles here once rose around 
 From whose white lips, though mute, went forth com- 
 mand ! 
 Each on his porch, above this hallow'd ground. 
 And throned in proud equality, was found, 
 Jove king of gods, and Archon Attic king ; 
 And painted there, for once without a sound, 
 Did fierce Democracy its ballots bring, 
 And over all stood Day his morning beams to fling. 
 
 By Conon planted, master of the sea, 
 Lo, on this spot his plane-trees waved their green 
 Above the form, which, Solon, imaged thee ; 
 And, marbled near, Demosthenes was seen 
 With his prophetic look and godlike mien 
 As if o'er Macedon he thundered far 
 His words of fire, like which none since have been. 
 Oh, Athens, doom'd to set thy sinking star 
 Or he had stirr'd the dead of Marathon to war ! 
 
 Wing'd Mercury aloft seems here to fly 
 Above the clouds to his Olympian gate, 
 
56 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 And Venus smiles, the beauty of the sky, 
 Near grand Apollo in his sunlike state, 
 While o'er these gods of stone sublime sits Fate, 
 And high mid all my foncy can behold 
 To twelve divinities twelve altars great 
 From which Athenian incense often roll'd — 
 More pious centre, Rome, than thy famed post of gold ! 
 
 Enroof 'd by heaven's eternal blue stood here 
 The Drama's Temple where thrill'd thousands came 
 When Attic genius waked the smile or tear. 
 Yes ! o'er this spot, enkindled by the flame 
 That lit the tragic trio to their fame, 
 The chorus sang, and men and gods and fate 
 Gave virtue joy, and guilt to pang and shame, 
 Majestic o'er the stage in mimic state. 
 While shook applauding Greece with passions wild and 
 great. 
 
 Thy si)irit. Homer, lingered in each place 
 To breathe o'er marble and immortal lyre. 
 And to the Drama give its charm and grace, 
 As some divinity enshrined in fire, 
 Or with the halo crown 'd that gods desire. 
 Bard of the world, o'er ages to preside, 
 O in the light of her poetic sire 
 Flash'd over her, Greece owned in filial pride 
 Homer her morning sun with whom no noon has vied. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 57 
 
 Pride of the whole, Acropolis, to thee, 
 I turn my beating heart and glowing eye ! 
 The temple smiles of wingless victory, 
 And other shrines as fair as thine are nigh, 
 But far o'er earth and nearest to the sky, 
 Athena lifts her head into the light. 
 Of each proud Attic soul the dream and sigh, 
 Whose conquering symbol of Olympian might 
 Stands flashing onward Greece to triumph in the fight. 
 
 Beside the temple-gate thy statue shone. 
 Great Pericles, from whom this Avealth of art ! 
 'T was thy imperial look and magic tone 
 That touch'd to sympathy the Attic heart, 
 And call'd forth treasur'd gold from field and mart. 
 O, in the Agora, above the crowd, 
 Did e'er this ruin o'er thy vision start ? 
 If so, had never burst thy thunders loud, 
 Nor Phidias throned OlymjDian Jove, so high and proud. 
 
 Thou pillar'd Parthenon, O why no more 
 Down on yon guarded city is thy gaze ? 
 Perfection was in man a dream before 
 Art gather'd into thee its scatter'd rays, 
 And grandeur throned, whose light o'er ruin plays. 
 Though shatter'd now by storm and fire and shell 
 Aloft some wrecks still stand from brighter days ! 
 Both Hate and Love have marr'd thy citadel. 
 But left these columns lone our mortal doom to tell. 
 
58 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 I stood on the Acropolis in tears. 
 Has Nature changed ? Yet once this soil grew men : 
 This air breathed fire in souls that knew no fears, 
 And 'neath these skies was freedom nurtur'd then 
 Where heroes bled for Greece in street and glen. 
 From such sires, slaves ! Has Athens fall'n to this ? 
 O ne'er can glory gild her brow again ? 
 Bold mountains blush that tower yon sky to kiss ! 
 Ye saw the deeds of Marathon and Halamis. 
 
 The pensive Plato mused in that sad place 
 Where spread his wood its academic shade ; 
 Are these his Greeks? are these the warrior race 
 From that bright state his dreams immortal made — 
 These whom the Roman scourged, the Moslem flay'd? 
 Wise Socrates, and thou great 8tagarite, 
 On Grove and Porch alike has ruin play'd ! 
 Your work is vain ! o'er all sits mocking night 
 Where shattered wrecks lie round with tears to blind the 
 sight. 
 
 The end the same if kings or people rule. 
 Since all too strong in man his passion's sway 
 For statesman's laws, or philosophic school: 
 And Sparta stern, and Athens rich and gay, 
 And gorgeous empires prove alike death's prey. 
 The broken arch, the pillar and the tomb 
 With ivy, bat, and owl and ruins grey ; 
 The bone, the dust, the worm, the mould, the gloom. 
 These are the signs that mark a universal doom. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 59 
 
 Oppress'd I sank down on a stone and slept, 
 And soon my Guide stood smiling in my sight 
 While still in my sad dreams I sigh'd and wept. 
 He was enrobed in beams of purpling light 
 And golden on his head a crown fiash'd bright. 
 
 *' Ivan," he said, '• thy pain I saw afar 
 From restless doubts that in thy bosom fight, 
 And I have left behind my radiant star 
 
 To drive from thee these clouds thy faith and peace that 
 mar." 
 
 " Oh, Sir !" I said, " Wby, why, this wo of earth ? 
 Must death forever lift o'er man his dart. 
 And breathe a sigh e'en in his voice of mirth ? 
 Black dreams of horror from my vision start 
 That to the universe their gloom impart. 
 Corrupted in itself must be our root 
 Infused with poison by Satanic art, 
 For ne'er could spring such dire terrestrial fruit 
 Unless the tree be bad from which the evils shoot." 
 
 " Lo, now," he said, " I touch to power thine eye 
 
 To see earth's panorama wide unroll'd !" 
 
 And as to Heaven I saw my Asel fly 
 
 On dazzling clouds the pictured scenes unfold. 
 
 Aloft a splendid city I behold 
 
 That tower'd from earth to glitter in the air. 
 
 Soon I perceived 't was Babylon of old ; 
 
 Hung in the sky so bright aud flashing there 
 It seem'd of Solyma a type in vision rare. 
 
60 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 I saw a square immense wide walls enclose 
 Along whose top might thundering chariots sweep, 
 And, tier o'er tier, a terraced garden rose 
 Where ceaseless Summer could gay empire keep; 
 'Mid northern cedars tropic balsams weep, 
 And palm-leaves throw their shadows on the pine. 
 Bright-plumaged birds see mountain-monsters leap, 
 And from earth's climes such bloom of plant and vine 
 That flowering near the clouds a Paradise doth shine. 
 
 And over all and mingling with the sky 
 Amid the stars a watch-tow'r lifts its head 
 On which an altar-fire gleams far and high 
 Shining like Mars in battle's fiery red 
 As if a flame in air by spirits fed. 
 Sublimely from this height Chaldeans gazed 
 By whom the heavens were mapp'd and chronicled. 
 O as that light across my vision blazed 
 Upon the mystic's city's glare I look'd amazed. 
 
 Up built as for the monarch of the earth 
 High on a mound a j^alace I behold 
 Fit for a king of some celestial birth. 
 Its pictured walls fierce battle-scenes unfold 
 Where warriors throned on chariots high are roll'd. 
 With human heads wing'd bvills I see in stone. 
 Grim solemn guards gigantic in their mould, 
 And signs that wisdom, swiftness, strength alone 
 Can keep a conquer'd world beneath an empire's throne. 
 
VISIONS OF SOI.YMA. fil 
 
 Wide open fly the gates of glittering brass, 
 And shouts of armies burst out on mine ear 
 As after chariots fetter'd captives pass, 
 While standards streaming in the light appear 
 Above the spoils of earth transported here. 
 Lo, crown'd and scepter'd a great monarch rode 
 Whose glance imperial aw'd to dust in fear! 
 Vast Babylon he built for his abode. 
 And shook the trembling globe as if it felt his load. 
 
 The scene is chang'd ! wild sounds of revel rise, 
 And palace-lights flash through the midnight far ! 
 'T is now the Persian's shouts that cleave the skies ; 
 'Tis now ascends the Persian's conquering star 
 To glare through clouds of blood on sights of war. 
 See on the banquet-floor a headless king 
 With robe distain'd, and flesh which red wounds scar ! 
 The Grecian madmen next shall armies bring. 
 And Battle, wave on wave, tempestuous nations fling. 
 
 The walls are down, the palaces are dust ! 
 I hear the owl's sad hoot, and bittern's cry ! 
 Dark on the empire's crown a cycle's rust ! 
 O God how cold the moon in yon clear sky 
 On ruin sheds her beams, and wakes the sigh ! 
 The lone fox barks to the dread serpent's hiss. 
 And fierce hyenas with loud lions vie : 
 Not ev'n the midnight's solemn bat I miss: 
 Nor sight, nor sound is here that tells of mortal bliss. 
 
62 VIRIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 'Tis desolation all, and ghastly death ! 
 Is this the spot where millions lived and died ? 
 Beat here the pulse of joy to music's breath ? 
 Did here the monarch in his glory ride 
 AVith purple victory flashing at his side 
 While nations yell'd his triumph to behold ? 
 Was this the throne of power, the seat of pride 
 Where War and Commerce mingling currents roll'd 
 'Til Babylon was styled earth's splendid head of gold ? 
 
 Yon fleshless royal skull the worm disdains 
 Where ages since he crawl'd to make his meal. 
 Through that dull hole burst once loud festal strains, 
 And rang exulting shouts peal after peal ? 
 Or through that eyeless socket ere did steal 
 From beauty looks of love in morning's ray ? 
 And on those mouldering bones was flesh to feel 
 In warm embrace the beating heart's wild play? 
 See, grave on grave, an empire's dust where death has sway ! 
 
 On wall and cylinder, in stone and clay, 
 What histories darken'd on through dust and doom ! 
 'Neath death's grim grasp the Oriental empires lay 
 With scarce a struggling beam upon their tond) 
 To tell to man their glory and their gloom. 
 Lo, Genius smiles, the ruins wandering o'er. 
 When starting out from pillar, grave and room 
 The wedge and hieroglyph their secrets pour, 
 And visible in lioht lost nations live once more. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 63 
 
 The Pyramids I see along the Nile ! 
 Rises from base to point unbroken stone 
 Unpictured and unpillar'd in each pile 
 In symbol of Creation's God as one 
 Majestic on his universal throne. 
 Grand witnesses ye stand of man's first creed ! 
 Towering 'mid wreck'd beliefs in liglit alone 
 Ye testify to one immortal need, 
 And pinnacled to heaven one flame which all might read. 
 
 from the sides of Nice's eternal hills 
 Which look down on the river's mirroring face 
 Came rocks with which Art yet our bosoms thrills 
 Carved to excite the wonder of our race. 
 
 What cities those old banks did crown and grace ! 
 If Karnak ! Luxor ! Shatter'd as ye stand 
 Your column'd grandeur hallow'd makes its place, 
 And lifts to the sublime with such command, 
 Immortals, what your power fresh from the sculptor's hand ! 
 
 How Theban greatness, Memphian glory yet 
 
 Are lingering symbols of a nations pride ! 
 
 They shine like skies, which, though the sun has set, 
 
 Impurpled glow more than if noon did ride 
 
 To pour its brightness down in dazzling tide : 
 
 Or mellow now their light as moonlit ray 
 
 On ghostly chnuls that through the midnight glide. 
 
 1 look again, and lo, the blushing day 
 
 Calls forth its Memnian strains while morning splendors 
 play. 
 
64 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Egypt grows not dim by Babylon's side : 
 Here crimson'd monarchs too the nations sway'd, 
 And all the royal arts of conquerors tried ; 
 They scourged the lands by which they were obey'd ; 
 Theirs torch and chain, and warriors lash'd and flay'd, 
 And captive women forced down for their lust. 
 On Nilus long was earth's old drama play'd 
 Where scepter'd monarchs trampled meaner dust, 
 And dream'd their diadems beyond Time's ruthless rust. 
 
 Rocks, tombs and temples ponlpous titles show. 
 And e'en plebeian bricks have royal signs ! 
 Can kings evade this blight on all below ? 
 Not if the monarch-wealth of earth combines 
 Shall man grasp that for which he ever pines. 
 The Arab sells the bone the worm has spoil'd ; 
 Nor may the dust the pyramid enshrines 
 Escape the doom 'gainst which the monarch toil'd 
 — Pharaoh's entempled flesh by strangers seized and soil'd ! 
 
 Egypt, within thy tombs our mortal strife 
 Is carv'd and pictur'd 'til thyself we see ! 
 In limb and face what energy of life ! 
 From night revives each trade once known to thee ! 
 How bold thy ancient art ! how true yet free ! 
 Arms seem to move and bosoms heave with breath ! 
 Bright-sculptured lives in graves thy history 
 Where deep amid a gloom of mocking death 
 The cofiin'd mummy's lip its silent sermon saith. 
 
VISIONS OP SOLYMA. 65 
 
 Lo, Persia reels before the Grecian arms, 
 And at Arbela finds an empire's grave ! 
 War Tyrus shakes with battle's wild alarms 
 And bridges for her death the ocean-wave, 
 f-^oon Israel hears the jNIacedonian rave 
 Soothed by the vision'd Priest in grand attire ; 
 Fierce Afric's sands behold the madman brave 
 To find the fane of Jove his thundering sire 
 — Babylon the curtain drops, and sees the wretch expire. 
 
 He left behind what brood on Egypt's soil ! 
 Learning and Lust in royal monsters wed, 
 And the old land of kings foul tyrants spoil ; 
 In Cleopatra fierce the fire was fed 
 AVhen to her arms imperial Cresar sped. 
 And Nilus hears a soft voluptuous sound 
 As glides the Queen embracing on her bed ; 
 Antonius next enclasps the Syren round — 
 And last caressing asps her tempting bosom found. 
 
 Oh ! 'neath the heel of Rome how Egypt groans ! 
 How can the pyramids endure the pain 
 Nor on th' oppressors hurl their vengeful stones ? 
 Ye warrior-Pharaohs wake to cleanse the stain 
 From the proud land that saw your gorgeous reign ! 
 Let Luxor's pillars Latin tyrants crush, 
 Nor giant Sphynx have monster-arms in vain ! 
 Egypt, her slave, feeds Rome without a blush ! 
 Then Ciesars bleed the world to make your purple flush ! 
 5 
 
66 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Imperial victors ! you I now behold 
 Throned over earth and nations at your feet, 
 While from all lauds to Rome the spoil is roll'd, 
 And on the Capitol the conquerors meet 
 Whom, as their gods, with shouts the people greet. 
 The fetter'd Briton sees the Scythian's chains, 
 And Jew and Goth the triumph proud complete. 
 Kings are the slaves whom Roman valor gains 
 To cringe beneath the glance their manacles disdains. 
 
 I see the chariot glittering with its spoil : 
 I see aloft the victor on his throne : 
 I see the crown rewarding all his toil 
 His temples circle with its laurell'd zone : 
 I see above where Art in sculptured stone 
 Has made the Capitol with beauty beam ; 
 I see o'er all the hero stand alone, 
 Within his lordly eyes a conqueror's gleam 
 Such that the mortal thing a worshipp'd god doth seem. 
 
 I see the Colosseum's galleried crowd ; 
 I see barbarians kill'd while Romans smile ; 
 I see uncaged the wdld beasts strong and loud ; 
 I see the gory dead in ghastly pile; 
 I see where blood-spots red and deep defile ; 
 And him I see enthroned at whose command 
 From India's shore to Britain's gleaming isle 
 Imbruted men, and beasts of every land 
 Beain the work of Hell on the arena's sand. 
 
VISIONS OF SOI.YMA. 67 
 
 Who wears that crown ? whom does that purple fold ? 
 Who sways a world from yon imperial throne? 
 Is it a man of kingly soul and mould ? 
 I see a wretch with tyrant-pride upblown 
 Who scepter'd grins, and calls the earth his own, 
 Lust in his eye and murder in his soul ! 
 When laughs this human ape the nations groau ; 
 Does Heaven or Hell such monster give control 
 Who loathed and scorned by earth, her despot, rules the 
 whole ? 
 
 O Rome, a farce of blood is play'd in thee ! 
 A demon-brute is throned thy realm doth spurn. 
 Whom Satan jeers, yet says thy king must be ! 
 Rise, Goth and Vandal, rise ! let vengeance burn ! 
 Down o'er the Danube swift your wild hosts turn ! 
 They come ! they come ! on Tiber's shore they yell ! 
 Rome, from their swords thy tyrants soon shall learn ! 
 Thy gates are forced ! blind furies on compel, 
 And Heaven to punish Earth hurls down the torch of Hell. 
 
 Red round the Colosseum bursts a blaze ! 
 The Pantheon's gods are robed in Gothic fire 
 AVhich on the Caesar's palace glaring plays 
 Till o'er Rome's hills wild Havoc's flames aspire : 
 Barbarians glut with torch and sword their ire : 
 Tlie vengeance of the ages in those cries 
 Sent down to savage son from savage sire 
 That tell the fated hour to earth and skies 
 For wliich from blood and death breathed up to Heaven 
 what si'dis ! 
 
68 VISIONS OP SOLYMA. 
 
 Gaul ! Britain ! Carthage ! Egypt ! Grecia ! Tyre ! 
 Wake from the dead, ye ghosts of nations, wake ! 
 In triumph gather round Rome's funeral pyre ! 
 And, shades of men, from your long silence break ! 
 Your feast is here! Grim vengeance ye may slake 
 For chains and flames, and the drear dungeon's gloom, 
 And war's red horrors such as conquerors make ! 
 Fly spirits through the portals of the tomb 
 To shriek in air your joy at Heaven's predestined doom ! 
 
 As haste like clouds black vultures o'er the sky 
 When sinks a wounded lion on the ground 
 Leaving his fleshless bones where he may die 
 For ages strewn in ghastly heaps around, 
 So when the battle-trumjjets cease to sound 
 The noiseless work begins of crumbling Time 
 By whom on arch and wall his moss is bound. 
 'T is Ruin wrecks man's monuments sublime 
 That earth in its decay may read each empire's crime. 
 
 Now o'er Olympus rose a face most plain 
 E'en from the mountain's top unto the car 
 Wheel'd on the polar sky and call'd the Wain. 
 Sometimes it seem'd a mist thin, dim and far. 
 Such, as breathed o'er, a morn of spring may mar. 
 But then, with gradual light, it brighter shone 
 Until, its features beaming like a star. 
 Flamed out into a sun, when, fainter grown. 
 It faded to the cloud in which at first made known. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 69 
 
 Thus on it kept, and long ahsorb'd my gaze — 
 A giant face of mist upon tlie sky, 
 Then bursting forth into a brilliant blaze 
 To lessen next its lustre to the eye 
 'Til scarce its pictured features I descry : 
 And once 't was lost, but, brighter than before, 
 Soon flash'd its dazzling glory wide and high. 
 O, strange that sight thus changing evermore : 
 Now lone and drear and dark, now kindling hill and shore. 
 
 O that my Guide would come who might explain 
 
 This mystery with meaning hid from me ! 
 
 Swift as my wish he at my side again 
 
 Stands blazing in celestial panoply 
 
 Such as the angels only share and see. 
 
 His wings lay purpling on a vest of white, 
 
 And o'er his brow a star that seem'd to be 
 
 A sparkle in a crown of golden light 
 
 That closed my trembling eyes o'erdazzled at the sight. 
 
 " Ivan," he said, " Grand error of our race. 
 Behold it pictured on yon image there ! 
 So in the lotus-flower the Boodhists trace 
 Such mystic lore as Pantheists now declare. 
 That brings the soul to nought and hence despair. 
 Their One becomes the All, their All the One 
 As flames or fades yon face into the air, 
 'Til being's course eternally is run. 
 And the Nirvana ends what nature had begun. 
 
70 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Man iiiix'd with nature is a man no more : 
 A drop lost in her universal sea 
 That breaks and bursts along a shadowy shore 
 Where spectres chase dim spectres as they flee : 
 The All a womb and tomb for you and me. 
 By everlasting fate souls onward whirl'd 
 As driven atoms from a God are free, 
 And each a bubble-phantom of a world 
 That on an ocean gleams and then to naught is hurl'd ! 
 
 This Egypt's error, India's torpid creed. 
 And this the poison of the classic clime 
 Where Greece immortal planted earth's best seed : 
 In China too the flilsehood flowers sublime 
 To cast its baleful shadow over time, 
 And Europe's science would the vision own 
 That sinks to naught the souls which heav'nward climb. 
 The Pantheist hates the God he would dethrone 
 Since in the Eye of Light each subtle thought is known." 
 
 A palace next high o'er Olympus rose 
 In glory flaming like some cloud of morn 
 Within whose breast the brilliant sun first glows. 
 Out from the mists seem glittering pillars torn 
 Whose tops Corinthian leaves and flowers adorn, 
 And over all, round into heaven, a dome 
 Stands like the sky, and beauty fresh is born 
 To spread its light o'er that celestial home 
 Whence radiant gods flv forth the universe to roam. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. il 
 
 Majestic Jove on his Olympian throne, 
 Crown'd with a sun, sheds o'er the scene a blaze; 
 He grasps the thunder as he rules alone 
 Encircled in the glory of his rays 
 From which the eager lightning gleams and plays. 
 Beneath him Juno sits, and near his side, 
 Rolling her eyes around in scornful gaze : 
 All-diadem'd with light, and Jove defied 
 The Queen of Heaven doth smile a sovex'eign in her pride. 
 
 Sunray'd Apollo saw I flaming far, 
 And as the moon Diana shining there. 
 While Venus beam'd forth like the morning star. 
 And stern Minerva from her gorgon hair 
 Shook down war's horrors through the midnight air ; 
 Huge Vulcan limp'd, and in his armor bright 
 Stood Mars emjjlumed, and burning Jove to dare ; 
 Lo, all the Grecian gods flashed on my sight — 
 Here robed in gentle grace, majestic there in might. 
 
 Osiris, Osis, and all Egypt's crew, 
 Brahm, Vishnu, Shiva from the Indian land 
 Three-faced and horrid to my shrinking view, 
 I saw with Thor, and his Valhalla stand. 
 And fiend-monsters from the Afric strand, 
 With new world gods — Australia's bloody host. 
 And Zealand's throng, and those who dire command 
 From Patagonia to the Greenland coast — 
 And many a demon dark, and many a worshipp'd ghost. 
 
72 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Around the mountain-top moon, stars and sun 
 Move o'er the sky in wikl capricious dance, 
 Where hairy comets flaming circles run. 
 Lo, birds and beasts of every clime advance 
 Until Olympus blackens to my glance ! 
 Fang'd reptiles glide, and talon'd creatures fly, 
 And griffins glare, and leering satyrs prance 
 While nameless shapes their antic horrors try 
 That make my brain reel round as they whirl o'er the sky. 
 
 Beneath the mountain's base dark millions bend 
 Whose altars smoke to gods wide o'er the plain ; 
 In colunni'd temples crowding priests attend 
 To mark with blood dire superstition's reign 
 Where sights and sounds attest all mortal pain. 
 Knives cut the living flesh, while in despair 
 Red murder drives its victims death to gain ; 
 O wild the frantic cries that pierce the air 
 AVhen men false gods adore, and seek their guardian care ! 
 
 Black through a midnight-mist I saw a leer 
 That like a ghost doth haunt my memory still ; 
 Of mingled hate and scorn it was a sneer 
 From a malignant heart and evil will 
 That through creation sent a wave of ill. 
 O then I knew 't was Satan's face did wake 
 In me and all such keen and quivering thrill 
 While lurid lightnings through the darkness break. 
 And earth and sky in dread with shattering thunders shake. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 73 
 
 Tower'd to the zenith now a throne of light 
 Where angels over angels singing flew 
 In clouds that flash'd around their splendors bright 
 Whose blaze of glory wide the heavens o'ergrew, 
 And through its beams the Face Divine I knew 
 Where Love and Majesty eternal blend. 
 Creation's God in my adoring view ! 
 Glad cherubim and seraphim attend, 
 And through the universe celestial praises send. 
 
 Prone on the ground I heard a thunder-peal 
 Tliat seem'd to shake the centre of the world, 
 And even make the dome eternal reel. 
 Olympus and its gods to night are hurl'd, 
 And far by tempests their great palace whirl'd. 
 Bright in the gleaming silver of the moon 
 Are glittering mists about the mountain curl'd 
 Which in the glory of that eve of June 
 Sublimer seems than when old Greece her hai'ps did tune. 
 
 I saW' St. Peter's wider now than Rome 
 With pillars fading in the sky's deep blue, 
 And high through golden clouds the heaven-round dome 
 Above Olympus thrill'd my vision'd view. 
 Where Grandeur smiled and gentle Beauty grew. 
 Although to such a size the temple rose, 
 Yet, Angelo, thy soul within I knew! 
 The home of earth's old gods the pile outglows, 
 And over all our world its moonlit splendor throws. 
 
74 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 For pagan gods, lo, Christian saints appear ! 
 Prayers seek Peter once by Jove received, 
 And Juno's children cry in Mary's ear ; 
 Apostles are adored more than believed 
 Where incense smokes in clouds, and men deceived 
 On angels call, and build to saints the shrine 
 'Til o'er idolatries my spirit grieved. 
 O grand old Church is such defilement thine ? 
 Breathe on her dust of death Eternal Power Divine ! 
 
 Encircled round his head a triple crown 
 Whose diamonds blazed out from a rim of g(Jd, 
 And with imperial scarlet flowing down 
 A pontiff-monarch throned I now behold 
 Like purple Csesar ruling Rome of old. 
 His image, diadem'd, salutes mine eye 
 The temple o'er, of various size and mould ; 
 Lo, bursting shouts I hear from earth to sky ! 
 " Our Lord, our God, the Pope, infallible," they cry. 
 
 Not cohorts now, but monks fly o'er the world, 
 And priests command where consuls once had sway : 
 No eagle on a banner is unfurl'd 
 But lion-headed landis, sleek with their prey, 
 Wave high and large beneath the moon's pale ray. 
 A pile of ashes glimmers through the air. 
 And rusted screws and racks and in decay 
 Old ])rison cells around are glooming there — 
 No victims writhing now in torture and despair. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 75 
 
 Wide o'er the temple's walls the creeds I read, 
 And words of Scripture glitter'd in the moon : 
 The faith was there for which the martyr's bled 
 When Christian Truth at morn shone like her noon, 
 And childhood's love did manly hearts attune. 
 Yet all was in a dim confusing haze 
 As when a brilliant autumn dies too soon. 
 And clouds of mist veil from the midnight gaze 
 The orb whose glory else would from the zenith blaze. 
 
 Behold the worshipp'd Pontiff sink his head, 
 And drop in ghastly i)ain down from his throne! 
 The god is medicined and purged and bled. 
 And like his fellow mortals gives a groan 
 While priests and people echo with a moan. 
 Alas, Death grins and pounces on his prey, 
 And shuts the papal flesh beneath a stone 
 Where in the eyeless skull the worm has sway 
 — Th' Infallible in dust until the Judgment-Day ! 
 
 Now on the mountain rises like a cloud 
 Sophia's grand proportions in the air 
 'Mid angel-harpings musical and loud. 
 Sublime the circling dome expanding there 
 Which glittering pillars with their strength upbear ! 
 Nor saint nor image yet do men adore. 
 Hark ! in an eloquence divine and rare, 
 More grand than the old Grecian's thunder-roar, — 
 The Everlasting Gospel sounds the wide world o'er. 
 
76 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Imperial genius rear'd the Christian pile, 
 A monumental temple pure and grand, 
 But pictured saints and angels soon beguile, 
 And bread and wine adored the faith demand 
 That must alone in God eternal stand. 
 Lo ! black the cloud that settles on the place, 
 'Til, fierce as earthquakes, battle shakes the land. 
 Justinian rise ! with thy majestic face 
 Frown on the dotard kings who thus thy courts disgrace ! 
 
 Long ages pass ! predestined strikes the hour ! 
 I hear the Turk's dread cry and cannon-roar ! 
 'T is Heaven's hot vengeance burns in this fierce power 
 Whose torch is blazing on Byzantium's shore : 
 O'er thee, Sophia, shines the cross no more, 
 But flames the crescent glittering from thy crown! 
 Thine altar stains the Turk with Christian gore 
 And from thy Avails he tears the image down 
 — Wild Islam's vengeance-yells thy prayers to saints do 
 drown. 
 
 On Zion's hill the pointed minaret gleams, 
 And o'er that birth place glorious with a star 
 The warlike Moslem's conquering banner streams ; 
 Where stood the cross the crescent glares afar 
 To shed its baleful light, and hateful mar 
 The spot made glorious by a Savior's stain. 
 Nay ! o'er his tomb the Turkish scimitar. 
 And where He rose when burst the angel-strain 
 Mohammed's name we hear, and feel 'tis Satan's reign. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 77 
 
 The locust-cloud is over Palestine, 
 The scorpion stings along the banks of Nile : 
 Fierce deserts scorch where once bloom'd gardens green : 
 Where taught Apostles, Moslem priests defile, 
 And towers o'er martyr-graves the Prophet's pile ; 
 The light is out that glow'd on Afric's shore 
 Whose midnight gloom breeds errors dark and vile. 
 Eternal Ti-uth arise to pale no more 
 And o'er each land of blood blaze brighter than before! 
 
 O longer shall the crescent gild the wave 
 
 Where battled Greece to blast the Persian power ! 
 
 O longer shall the frenzied Dervish rave 
 
 Beneath where St. Sophia's pillars tower ! 
 
 Shall Rvissian sword, or Christian truth the hour 
 
 Of freedom bring to smile o'er future time? 
 
 Black clouds of vengeance over Stamboul lower ! 
 
 Heaven be kind ! blot out this rule of crime 
 And lift the cross again above the dome sublime ! 
 
 Where St. Sophia stood St. Paul's behold 
 
 In grandeur rising from Olympian snow ! 
 
 Its walls seem marble blazing o'er with gold, 
 
 And yet impurpled with the day's young glow 
 
 Amid whose rays the angels glittering go. 
 
 And wiug'd with love the earth to heaven unite ! 
 
 1 hear the ancient Gospel-trumpet blow ! 
 
 The noon's full glory bursts from blood and night, 
 And Faith and Order shine in its eternal light. 
 
78 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Thine Apostolic Form and Creed Divine 
 Have made thee, England, first in rank and might! 
 The State rests on the Church in thy design. 
 And throne and people on a mutual right. 
 Imperial Queen, ne'er on our sadden'd sight 
 May Ruin burst and tear thy rule away ! 
 O mail thee, England, for earth's final fight, 
 And then thy banner streaming in yon ray 
 -Shall wave in the full noon of the millenial day! 
 
 Shall British gold support the pagan shrine? 
 Shall British hands make gods for heathen eyes ? 
 Shall British firms escort the idol-sign. 
 And glaring in the oriental skies 
 Compel the drug which China fears and buys ? 
 Thou British Church protest, then onward go 
 To plant thy Faith and Order, strong and wise ; 
 From thee round earth the light of Heaven shall glow 
 Until to close the scene the judgment-trumpets blow ! 
 
 Lo, from Olympus fades St. Paul's away ! 
 Is it a temple rises in my dreams ? 
 Shines there the Parthenon in glory's day 
 To flash from Greece immortal beauty's gleams? 
 Sublime the structure on yon cloud that beams ! 
 'T is not Sophia's, Paul's, nor Peter's dome, 
 But nobler yet the youthful wonder seems; 
 Why gush these tears as if I saw my home ? 
 The heart more tender grows as far the lone feet roam. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 79 
 
 My Country's Capitol I pictur'd see ! 
 Majestic towers aloft thine awful height ! 
 A starry Flag is waving over thee 
 To make the mist that gathers o'er my sight ! 
 Pillar'd thy grandeur in eternal light! 
 Stand there forever emblem of the free ! 
 Liberty in thee shall grow more bright, 
 And earth's last manhood best of all shall be ; 
 Sun of the world our western land by God's decree ! 
 
 After the brilliance of this vision'd scene 
 Wide over man succeeds one waste of war. 
 What do these phantom-horrors torturing mean ? 
 Deep down in blood sets Hope's refulgent star, 
 And Havoc thunders from destruction's car. 
 The world a battle-field where nations die. 
 I hear the yells of demons from afar ; 
 In clouds they rush across my wilder'd eye. 
 And Hell o'er all the earth lifts up her triumph-cry. 
 
 Around our globe a winding sheet of fire 
 Sunlike outblazes in the blue of space, 
 Until it seems Creation's funeral pyre 
 After the final judgment of our race. 
 "Asel," I cried in pain, " whence must we trace 
 These streams of ruin which our world o'erflow? 
 As over ocean billows billows chase 
 Thus dash o'er man eternal waves of wo ; 
 Oh, is it Satan breathes to make mad tempests blow ?" 
 
80 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 " Ivan," he said, " Behold Olympus now 
 Enrobed no more in winter's glittering white. 
 But clothed with circling verdure to its brow 
 Where pines stand up gigantic in their height, 
 And sturdy oaks I see in monarch-might ! 
 Curls clustering forth from tree to tree the vine 
 While growths of every land entrance our sight ; 
 
 more than in old Greece the mount divine 
 Beauteous in immortal green doth tower and shine ! 
 
 How bold the torrents dashing down his side 
 To meet and mingle in the lake below 
 In which the mirror'd mountain see his pride 
 Of lone and kingly grandeur shadowy grow ! 
 Bright in the waters fishes glide and glow 
 And birds and beasts I see of every clime 
 Glad as Avhen airs of Paradise o'er blow. 
 Above Olympus hangs the sun sublime 
 Brilliant as over earth in Eden's morning prime." 
 
 Lo, Adam now, and Eve together stand. 
 
 While Asel speaks, above the mountain's base ! 
 
 Majestic he, in form and feature grand, 
 
 And she ideal in her perfect face ; 
 
 He clothed with power and she with gentle grace. 
 
 Taught by the vision I had seen at Rome 
 
 1 knew the common jjarents of our race ; 
 Dreaming Olympian Eden was their home, 
 
 Earth's flowering green their floor, the blue of Heaven 
 their dome. 
 
VISIONS OF SOIiYMA. 81 
 
 Bhe holds some golden fruit in her fair hand 
 As he in love looks on her beauty's glow ; 
 Her eye and smile persuade with sweet command ; 
 His admiration with his gaze doth grow 
 'Til hot desires like tempests madly blow. 
 God, Law and Vengeance from his soul retire, 
 And will melts in his passion's flaming flow. 
 As when down mountain-torrents ruin dire 
 Sweeps long-resisting rocks in fierce volcanic fire. 
 
 He longs, he takes, he eats, reluctant still. 
 His manhood lost before a woman's power, 
 And Eden barter'd for love's mystic thrill. 
 Unwatch'd, the spark may burn the kingly tower ; 
 The breeze that whisper'd to the fragrant flower 
 May roar in tempests that with thunders kill. 
 As morn-mists into lightning-clouds may lower 
 So love whose smiles the earth with bliss should fill, 
 By reason uncontroll'd, blasts, source of every ill. 
 
 Olympus shakes, the world is struck with pain, 
 Dire vengeance piercing to her burning heart ; 
 The heavens grow black and stream in torrent-rain 
 And fierce the thundering elements take part, 
 While Death glares over all, and waves his dart. 
 War soon with blood the riven mountain dyes ; 
 'T is Satan rules with ruin's power and art. 
 To wake in man his sin, and pain and cries, 
 And reign o'er earth accurs'd, and leer from vengeful skies. 
 
82 VISIONS OF SOI.YMA. 
 
 Then Asel said, " In man all follows will — 
 Will even over Reason has the throne, 
 King of the soul to make alive or kill. 
 Desires, affections, passions, all must own 
 Supreme allegiance to the will alone. 
 The Will a monarch hence whose might may spurn 
 The force of motives, which like cobwehs blown 
 When tempests drive, or leaves where mountains burn, 
 Before the will are swept, that man his power may learn. 
 
 When our Grand Parents made their fatal choice, 
 The will left God and fix'd itself on sin ; 
 Hence cursed He earth, and this made Hell rejoice 
 As man sank down, — his ruin first within — 
 W^here glooms despair, and bursts wild demon-din. 
 In all the worlds the cause and law the same; 
 Eternal Hell or Heaven ye shun or win. 
 Because in W^ill the source of praise and blame 
 As Life and Death in Choice from the beginning came." 
 
 Just then a cloud of fragrance gather'd o'er, 
 And through this Asel leaping upward flies ; 
 The music of his voice I heard no more. 
 But saw his wings still waving on the skies 
 As I gazed heav'nward with a sad surprise. 
 as he vanish'd in the far blue air 
 Stole down a song sweet as the evening's sighs ; 
 By distance faint, the welcome bursting there. 
 Made earth more dark and drear, and chill'd me to despair. 
 
VISIONS OF SOTA'MA, 83 
 
 1 woke, and the Acropolis was lone. 
 Above the Parthenon a summer moon 
 Flung down her lustres on each classic stone. 
 Soft as the whis})ers of a dream I soon 
 Heard music floating in the night's clear noon ; 
 A Greek was singing to his thrill'd guitar 
 With love's own passion fierce, and such a tune 
 As pours the nightingale to his bright star 
 Which beams in its blue depths, and seems to smile afar. 
 
84 VISIONS OF SOLYMA, 
 
 VISIOK YII. 
 
 Cyprian Venus ! goddess of yon isle, 
 Born from a glittering bubble of the sea, 
 The rose and myrtle sprang beneath thy smile, 
 And beauty bloom'd in thy divinity. 
 From some high cliff dost thou look down on me 
 The blue wave cleaving in morn's crimson gleam ? 
 Thy temple on this shore no more may be, 
 Yet, while a pulse can thrill, a soul can dream, 
 Shall shine, O Love, o'er man thy bright immortal beam ! 
 
 Above these rocks what conquering banner flies. 
 And flings its restless shadows on the wave ? 
 'T is not the dove but lion meets mine eyes ; 
 Thy flag. Old England, streams so free and brave 
 O'er thundering ships sent here this isle to save ! 
 Ye Cyprian hills and valleys burst in bloom 
 'Neath brighter smiles than even Venus gave ; 
 And, Moslem, o'er the east be this thy doom 
 That under British rule thy faith shall And its tomb ! 
 
 Far through yon southern haze lies Afric's shore 
 
 The veil of ages rent from sea to sea ! 
 
 The Nile rolls on a mystery no more. 
 
 And Congo's flood was, Stanley, traced by thee ! 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 85 
 
 But sliall the cloud of death eternal be? 
 Must War chain slaves in blood and horror there 
 While Hell o'er Afric laughs in denion glee ? 
 Say, who shall save the land from its despair ? 
 'T is England, answering, waves her ensign in the air ! 
 
 O'er Egypt float ! Where British genius found 
 The long-veil'd fountains of the worshipp'd stream, 
 Fling out thy folds above the mystic ground ! 
 Hope of the world, and star of its last dream 
 Let Afric brighten in thine empire's beam. 
 And over Cyprus shine advancing morn 
 Whose rays now gild with a prophetic gleam ! 
 Yes ! Empress-Queen, a continent be born 
 Where Freedom yet shall bloom, and scepter'd Truth adorn. 
 
 Gaily our vessel cuts the (Egean wave 
 To leave behind Olympian legends vain 
 Whose imaged gods that neither hear nor save, 
 Greece, o'er these isles too long had fatal reign! 
 What peaks aloft tower over sea and plain ! 
 Great Lebanon, I see thy sunlit snow, 
 Impurpled white, w'ithout a mist-breath stain : 
 Bright as the robes in which the angels glow 
 Who in eternal light from Heaven resplendent go. 
 
 Thou mountain-priest, in hierarchal pride. 
 Above all meaner hills forever stand 
 As Aaron mitred at his altar's side 
 
86 A'ISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Look'd interceding down on Israel's band ! 
 O regal guardian of yon sacred land 
 O'er which beyond the clouds thy summits soar, 
 What mighty prospects thy far rocks command ! 
 Round thee through ages oft would Battle roar 
 Where nations won earth's crown, or sank to rise no more. 
 
 Thy top could see the bloom of Paradise — 
 Perchance the rainbow smile the ark to rest. 
 Beyond thee oriental empires had their rise, 
 And nations stream'd out to the youthful west. 
 Nor far the land Jehovah's feet have press'd ! 
 Did Adam's eye survey those peaks sublime ? 
 Did Jesus see thee in that radiant vest ? 
 Long lines of heroes in this march of time 
 Have gazed aloft where Libanus doth heav'nward climb. 
 
 Thy clifts, Berytus, gleam white in the day 
 Where villas jDeep amid the leaves and bloom ! 
 Soon drops our anchor in St. George's bay 
 That saw the dragon meet his bloody doom. 
 Hark ! our ship's welcome with a cannon's boom ! 
 Imperial Titus here made wretches fight 
 To mark a birthday with red murder's gloom. 
 And Turk and Christian have left battle's blight — 
 'T is now the crescent flames through superstition's night. 
 
 Is this Phoenicia ? this the letter'd shore 
 
 Whence Cadmus shone on Greece, and hence the world ? 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 87 
 
 Here did Tyre's purple flush, and Commerce roar 
 Round giant wharves which back the billows hurl'd ? 
 Above these waves was Dido's flag unfurl'd 
 Whose empire's star rose o'er Atlantic isles ? 
 O hence in tempests was ^^neas whirl'd 
 'Til, burst from Juno's power, and Syren-wiles, 
 High o'er Italia's soil Rome's rising grandeur smiles. 
 
 'Tis Carmel flir I see whose misty form 
 Towers like Elijah when his prayers command 
 Clouds from the sea, and bring the torrent-storm 
 Not sent 'til Baal's priests died from the land. 
 Behold the Prophet by his altar stand ! 
 Phoenicia's god, e'en blood for thee is vain ! 
 Fire cleaves the skies from the Almighty hand, 
 And bursts the victim-blaze wide o'er the jilain — 
 O Israel in its light Jehovah rules again ! 
 
 What sound steals forth o'er Esdraelon's flowers ! 
 Soft as the murmur of a mermaid's moan 
 It whispers through the leaves of fields and bowers, 
 And now it dies away, so low and lone. 
 Then louder rises by the night-wind bloAvn. 
 A sigh it seems from some lost ocean-shell 
 Long exiled from the home where it had grown ; 
 In music now its quivering bosom's swell 
 Of its old coral groves, and sea-caves loved would tell. 
 
5 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Bright over Sharon the bloom of the rose 
 That breathes from its heart its ft-agrance to spring ; 
 But where, tell me where, the genius that glows 
 Immortal to make the flower it would sing ! 
 
 The olive drops down its blossoms like snow, 
 And hangs out its fruit to shine through the air: 
 His roots in the rocks the monarch must grow 
 O'er graves of the good who died in despair. 
 
 Graceful the wave of the plume of the palm, 
 Touch'd into music by morn's magic breeze — 
 The glory remains, but no more a psalm 
 Glows with the praise of the prince of the trees. 
 
 Leaps over yon hills the agile gazelle 
 As dark as of old its soft eye of love : 
 But who to the morn its beauty may tell, 
 Or sing in th' eve to the voice of the dove ! 
 
 The lily yet blooms, the raven is here : 
 And green yet the grass with dews of the spring : 
 Why o'er our fields doth no teacher appear 
 His lessons of love from Nature to bring ! 
 
 The mountains stand round, the valleys expand ; 
 The lakes and the rocks and streams are the same ; 
 But Israel is far away from his land 
 O'er which in his hate the Moslem doth flame. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 89 
 
 Back, ye long exiles, fly back to your home! 
 Plant on your liills the dear vine as of old ! 
 Why o'er the world should your weary feet roam ! 
 England for you waves her banner's bright fold ! 
 
 City of Refuge ! Moslem min'rets rise, 
 To mock thee, Hebron, in thy name and j^lace ! 
 O'er fancy's eye the panting murderer flies 
 By the avenger press'd in frantic chase : 
 Down clang the ponderous gates to close the race ! 
 Patriarchs left their treasured dust behind 
 To hallow'd make the spot yon tombs disgrace, 
 Where dozing Turks nargiles puff', reclined, 
 And priests who live from graves their paltry 2>lunder find. 
 
 Yon mountain-wall that bounds the east behold 
 Where Pisgah's top o'erlook'd the promis'd land ! 
 Up from the past its curtain is unroU'd 
 To show thee, Moses, there majestic stand 
 Like Sinai 'mid his peaks with high command 
 Yet in the glory of Jehovah bright ! 
 Thou, Angelo's ideal, art more grand 
 Than marbled shape oft marring fancy's sight 
 Which robes each mortal thing in its perfections light. 
 
 O thou the infant dimpling in the IS^ile 
 When look'd a Princess with maternal eye, 
 And Genius radiant shed on thee a smile ! 
 Son of a slave, thy lone and pleading cry 
 
90 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Waked in that royal breast an answering sigh 
 That gave the rank and nurture of a king. 
 Not Karnak's pile, not Sinibel's sculptures high, 
 Nor battles won, nor cities built, will bring, 
 Rameses, fame a star, like this mean child's we sing ! 
 
 Grand as a pyramid did Moses grow 
 But nobler by the measure of a soul ! 
 Egypt's immortal age gave him its glow, 
 And as the clouds from that dim jjast we roll 
 We see that Moses was its crown and goal. 
 Nor tomb, nor temple, nor the Memnian face. 
 Nor pyramids that mark the starry jiole. 
 Nor all the glory of the Nile-born race 
 Can match the light of love that on the slave shed grace. 
 
 Man's lesson o'er, the lesson now of God ! 
 In Horeb's bush Jehovah spake and shone, 
 And gave the prophet his immortal rod 
 Whose power all nature hence shall feel and own. 
 And haughty Pharaoh shake on Egypt's throne. 
 Behold along the Nile the monarch's pride ! 
 The mountain gives to him itself in stone 
 To leave an image cycles has defied. 
 While, guards o'er kingly dust, the j^yramids preside. 
 
 On temple-walls above the sculptured throngs 
 The royal j)riest, in glittering robes array'd, 
 That incense has which to his <rods belonors : 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 91' 
 
 'Mid battle scenes, or triumph-pomp display'd 
 High over all, more than Osiris made. 
 Above his chariot towers the Pharaoh-king, 
 Whose nod imperial keeps the world afraid. 
 Omnipotence alone to dust can bring 
 The proud and conquering soul of this all-worshipp'd thing. 
 
 Old pictured halls explain what Moses did 
 To make such monarch feel Jehovah's ire 
 Whose soul was hard as his own pyramid. 
 The Nile is blood : the heavens pour down in fire : 
 The glories of the sun in night retire 
 While over Egypt death his pinion waves 
 'Til each sad home its first-born sees exjjire. 
 And o'er the land the frantic mother raves — 
 O is it but through wrath Eternal Mercy saves ! 
 
 Behold the flying slaves beside the sea 
 Press'd by the flashing chariots of the foe 
 With all the power of Egypt's Chivalry ! 
 Between, the cloud o'er Israel sheds its glow, 
 But glares through night to keep back Pharaoh's blow. 
 Jehovah's Presence moves along the shore 
 To glide in fire those walls of waves below — 
 Safe leads the Light of Love where waters roar, 
 And sin's embattled host shall dare the waves no more. 
 
 Forward I tis Jehovah's cloud 
 Leads Israel to the sea ! 
 
92 VISIONS OF SOLYMA, 
 
 Forward ! Egypt, fierce and proud, 
 Clanks chains behind the free ! 
 
 Forward ! waves thy mountain-walls 
 Shall tow'r along thy way ! 
 
 Forward ! when thy Maker calls 
 'T is madness to delay. 
 
 Forward ! where yon guiding glow 
 Moves through the parted deep, 
 
 Pharaoh shall lie buried low : 
 In death his minions sleep. 
 
 Forward! in yon cloud and fire 
 Jehovah makes his shrine : 
 
 Forward ! neither stop nor tire, 
 And what is best is thine. 
 
 Forward ! Israel fear no foes ! 
 
 Thy rest is o'er the sea ! 
 Milk there with the honey flows ! 
 
 The grape there waits for thee ! 
 
 Forward ! Heaven's own fire shall die, 
 And Heaven's own manna cease ! 
 
 But Jehovah thy supply, 
 
 Thy Bread, thy Light, thy Peace ! 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA, 93 
 
 The Prophet stands upon the mount sublime 
 Bright in outbeamings from Jehovah's face, 
 And thunder through the flames for future time 
 Eternal Laws to rule and teach a race ; 
 Yet 'mid the awful glory gleams of grace 
 That gild the cloud, and in the Holiest shine, 
 Where long, Redeemer, was thy dwelling-place, 
 Since altar, priest and sacrifice were thine. 
 To tell those olden times Salvation's scheme divine. 
 
 Immortal Prophet, now from Pisgah's height 
 The land is clear and glowing in thine eye, 
 By Heaven enabled for the promis'd sight. 
 From mount to sea the rich possessions lie, 
 And from where snowy Hcrmon meets the sky 
 Down to Arabia's fiercely blazing sand — 
 One splendid vision of posterity 
 
 Which will a world make bright from this fair land — 
 Then, Moses, soar to God, and in his Presence stand ! 
 
 Lo, Jordan parts as once the sea of old, 
 And leads the ark on through the guardian waves 
 Where Israel follows in Jehovah bold ! 
 Why flows that blood? Why groans the land o'er graves? 
 Why dies a warrior who an infant saves ? 
 The sword ! the torch ! why do they gleam and glare 
 Where through the gloom of death wild Battle raves ? 
 Will not Almighty Goodness hear and spare ? 
 The })rayers of victims rise to vanish in the air. 
 
94 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 To worship gods and stocks the blight of man ; 
 One idol-temple even yet our earth ! 
 It was in Paradise the curse began, 
 And to be cured by a celestial birth, 
 Where thou, Philosophy, can have no worth! 
 Hence in the wilderness a nation dies 
 That round a calf of gold danc'd in its mirth ; 
 Hence Canaan must expire 'mid death's lone cries 
 Lest Israel should be led to- its idolatries. 
 
 Resplendent sparkles flashing in the morn 
 Far o'er the vale Engedi's fount declare 
 Above whose form a glittering rainbow born 
 Smiles sweet as Hope 'mid madness of despair. 
 Left soon the rocks, beneath the sky's fierce glare 
 The mountain-waters wander to death's sea, 
 In which, the spectral cliffs, storm-rent and bare, 
 Mirror'd behold their own deformity. 
 Where islands, vain as dreams, first charm, then mocking 
 flee. 
 
 Did David look upon that dismal scene 
 Where Sodom for its sins went down in fire ? 
 How desolate the placid robing green 
 In whose embrace will life itself expire ! 
 Yon glittering rock stands proof of Heaven's just ire ! 
 Once Israel's warrior down Engedi's hill 
 Crept near to Saul, and, quench'd his passion's fire, 
 O'er midnight cliffs his manly voice did thrill 
 To tell he saved the king; who burn'd himself to kill. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 95 
 
 Worthy the hero was of Israel's crown 
 Refusing thus his monarch-foe to slay 
 Who sought in blood his right to trample down ! 
 The sling, the pebble, and war's grand array 
 Around Goliath blazing in the day, 
 The giant slain, the youth upon his breast. 
 The gory head round which plumes waving play 
 While Israel's shouts their triumph-joy attest — 
 O sweet these Bible tales with nursery memories blest ! 
 
 And palace-born our Psalmist could not be ! 
 The pomp of courts, the luxuries of kings 
 Had stifled his grand manly minstrelsy. 
 The flowers, the hills, the lakes, the sparkling springs, 
 The sea's wild roar, the tempest's sounding wings. 
 With night and stars and e'en the earthquake's throe. 
 The mountain-cave, the courage battle brings — 
 These stirr'd his soul and made his music flow 
 Who touch'd the heart of man to answering joy or wo. 
 
 To keep its fitful strings in purest tone 
 'T is Heaven's own hand must touch th' immortal lyre ; 
 And as in flames that o'er the altar shone 
 'T is Heaven in man must breathe ethereal fire 
 That over time will flash and souls inspire. 
 Harmonious Nature, the Divine in thee. 
 Evokes the symphonies that we admire, 
 And most in human hearts 'tis this must be 
 To call forth from their depths eternal melody. 
 
96 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Born from white Lebanon's sublimest snows, 
 Leontes, lusty, roars and foams along ; 
 He boils, he raves, like lightning flashing goes 
 To chasm-glooms where his wild mountain-song 
 In murmurs dies, then, rising loud and strong. 
 It furious bursts to cataract-noise again, 
 Till, mild as warriors who find battle wrong, 
 He, left the rocks round which the thunders reign. 
 Would visit Sharon's rose and Esdraelon's plain. 
 
 As the young river dashing on to sing 
 With rush and roar and quivering rainbow spray. 
 The manly soul of Israel's Psalmist king 
 Was tuned to music by wild passion's sway 
 That round his throne the storm would bring to play. 
 But as the stream diffusive in its flow 
 Amid the bloom of field and garden gay. 
 So, Solomon, bright as a morning's glow 
 Sweeps on in light thy song where tempests never blow. 
 
 His words how true, how beautiful, how wise ! 
 Immortal in love's rhythmic melody 
 His seems the strains breathed down from Paradise. 
 Bright Canticle of Hearts, how melt in thee 
 All images that move to sympathy ! 
 The dove, the rose, the soft and dear gazelle. 
 Thy pillar'd smoke, and royal canopy 
 That stars in light the monarch round — how well 
 Thy pure connubial types our love to God may tell ! 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA, 97 
 
 Like some tall palm that yields its fruit and shade, 
 And in a desert shelters fount and flower, 
 Is, Solomon, thy reign of peace display 'd ! 
 Thy palace-joys, the glory of thy power, 
 And the gay charms that wing and paint life's hour, 
 With Love and Justice clasping round thy throne — 
 All that may gild a scene where sin must lower 
 — Teach vain is time e'en if a world we own — 
 A shadow back from death on all is ever thrown. 
 
 To build the temple thy great work, O king ! 
 I see ite pillar'd dome crown Zion's hill. 
 And o'er Jerusalem its splendors fling. 
 Lo, at thy prayer descending glories fill 
 The brightening courts, and thy loved Israel thrill ; 
 Then in a cloud within the veil find place 
 To flash to man in light Jehovah's will — 
 Symbol divine. Creator, of thy face 
 Where Thou through altar-blood didst shine and shed thy 
 grace. 
 
 O'er worshipp'd shrines, on every shaded height. 
 The idols stand which prostrate crowds adore, 
 Giving to demon-gods th' Almighty's right. 
 Astarte, Moloch, Chemosh, who before 
 Your images lies stain'd with victim-gore ? 
 Immortal Solomon apostate there 
 O'er whom the angels weep, and saints deplore ! 
 Who to the temple call'd the cloud by prayer, 
 'T is he before the universe such sin doth dare ! 
 7 
 
9.8 VISIONS OF SOLYMA, 
 
 Ye holy prophets cry with louder voice ! 
 Let judgment thunder in each awful tone ! 
 AVhat lip can sing ? what loyal heart rejoice ? 
 Arrest the harp ! o'er joy be sackcloth thrown ! 
 Let prayer arise and sacrifice atone ! 
 Dark o'er the eastern mountains clouds are seen ! 
 The storm will burst ! in doom each murnmring moan ! 
 Lo, over Israel red the vengeance gleams 
 Whose bolt will flash and fall when best Jehovah deems. 
 
 The hour has come ! a clash of arms I hear ! 
 O'er hills and valleys Babylon's banners fly ! 
 The gates are down ! the people crazed with fear ! 
 Jerusalem, Avhat flames blaze o'er the sky ? 
 O God, thy temple round, th^y, wild and high, 
 Enwrap with midnight glare, and roaring climb 
 'Mid triumph shouts, and Israel's wailing cry ! 
 The walls and pillars, black with war and time, 
 Shall prove that Heaven is just and look from gloom 
 sublime. 
 
 Before the awful Presence idols rose ! 
 E'en Moloch in Jehovah's citadel ! 
 Hence o'er the land war's whirlwind thundering blows 
 Which to the earth the doom for crimes shall tell 
 Flash'd out in words of fire before it fell. 
 The temple-gold shall gleam in Baal's tower ! 
 In night and chains the king and priests who sell 
 To lies their souls, grasp'd in a tyrant's power, 
 While over Israel long: the cloud shall hang and lower. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 99 
 
 Jerusalem, in thee I sank to sleep 
 Near Omar's mosque that stands on Zion's height ! 
 E'en in my dreams I seera'd to sigh and weep ; 
 The soul of man enchain'd in death and night 
 Glared like a phantom blackening on my sight. 
 As one whose clew has dropp'd in some strange maze, 
 Or on dark mountains lost without a light, 
 The world was gloom to my bewilder'd gaze, 
 And seem'd a mystery where not Hope may shed its rays. 
 
 From Heaven then flashing down my Asel smiled. 
 Without a tAvilight gleam or herald ray 
 Conceive the sun to burst from darkness piled 
 The zenith round, and make a sudden day 
 O'er earth and sky sweet as a noon of May ! 
 Such to my midnight soul was my dear Guide 
 About whose head a beaming light did play. 
 And as he blazed and dazzled at my side 
 Despair throned black on clouds was in his glance defied. 
 
 " Of God," he said, " the idol is a sign — 
 A proof the soul of man to Him aspires. 
 Each image shaping from a wish divine 
 Shows heav'nward trendjlings of celestial fires 
 Whose flames aloft point where the heart desires. 
 To know th' Invisible who all has made, 
 So infinite and high, man's spirit tires, 
 Which would behold Him hence to sense display'd 
 
 That eye and ear may help and not the mind degrade. 
 
100 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 The cherubim and seraphim all shine 
 In forms material, radiant as the light, 
 And splendid as you see this shape of mine 
 That speeds from star to star more quick than sight- 
 Without their bodies souls would be in night ; 
 Creation e'en the Angels only know 
 Through essences,, refined, indeed, and bright, 
 In substance yet what earth and sky can show 
 Which range from the dull clod to the Aurora's glow. 
 
 When Science marks the speed of starry beams. 
 Sublimes the metals in her fiery heat, 
 Untwists the light, and in electric gleams 
 Suspects where spirit may in matter meet, 
 Quick and diffusive, from the brain its seat, 
 She shows in what we bright celestials dwell 
 Who fly across the universe more fleet 
 Than darts the flash round earth man's thought to tell, 
 Or rays from morning's sun to gild yon citadel. 
 
 Th' Eternal God alone is spirit pure, 
 And by the angels in his works but seen 
 Which veil a glory they could not endure. 
 He who is, was, and hath forever been, 
 Was made visible too in his own sheen 
 Of blazing light, or in a radiance hid 
 Where clouds on clouds were piled into the screen 
 The tabernacle saw, and which were bid 
 Crown Sinai's peak when flamed that mountain-pyramid. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 101 
 
 There was in angels from the ages old 
 As in the men who images adore 
 A wish th' Almighty Maker to behold. 
 This was Creation's sigh, and evermore 
 Did Cherubim with voiceless prayer implore 
 Some shape that would make visible their God. 
 But how? but when? but where? such thoughts may soar 
 Too daring, and bring down the rod ; 
 None could conceive the Word made Flesh on earth's mean 
 clod. 
 
 Incarnate for the Universe the Son, 
 And not for man on his poor globe alone. 
 Seraphim more admire what God has done 
 Than mortals can for whom He did atone 
 Because to them adoring are made known 
 The glory veil'd, and the eternal love 
 That stoop'd to death from the Creator's throne 
 To lift a ruin'd world to light above — 
 And hearts that keenest feel to loftiest song will move. 
 
 Behold yon terraced ridge of Bethlehem 
 Where St. Helena's glitters in the morn ! 
 When hung the star like a celestial gem 
 To sparkle in the place where Christ was born, 
 Who look'd exulting on the babe forlorn ? 
 Th' orient kings brought gifts and felt the thrill, 
 And faith the Virgin Mother might adorn, 
 But Israel in that light was slumbering still, 
 And Israel's monarch raged that infant's blood to spill. 
 
102 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 O look aloft ! the universe outstreams 
 In radiant glories o'er yon trembling skies, 
 And pours its angels robed in splendid beams 
 To sing the wonders which on time arise. 
 On pinion swift with joy the seraph flies, 
 And all creation with new rapture glows. 
 The star, the harps, the wings, the triumijh-cries — 
 Heaven more glad than earth since Heaven best knows 
 What God Incarnate means 'mid pain's terrestrial throes." 
 
 " O 8ir," I said, " I seem waked from a sleep 
 That made my soul insensible and blind 
 'Til o'er my stupid lethargy I weep. 
 That babe my God ! Jehovah thee I find 
 Within my mortal flesh, thy temple, shrined ! 
 Yea ! He whose feet yon Jordan loved to lave, 
 And his blest brow with drops bajitismal sigu'd, 
 He made the floods, He mystic virtues gave. 
 He hangs aloft the cloud and rules the ocean-wave. 
 
 Creation's King the darkling Tempter met 
 'Mid yon wild rocks that look on Death's lone sea : 
 By hunger press'd and with the night-dews wet 
 He plead the promise used by worms like me ; 
 And where the blue wave curls on Galilee 
 He taught and wrought — the maim'd, the deaf, the blind. 
 The demon-torn who foam in lunacy. 
 The sick, the sad, the dead his Godhead find 
 That cures the aching flesh and heals the suflfering mind. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 103 
 
 O, how could He who blissful angels made, 
 And pour'd the gladness o'er celestial plains, 
 Built palaces of joy in light display'd. 
 Say, how could He dwell in a world of pains, 
 Endure the scorching suns, the chilling rains, 
 And drop his tears amid the sons of crime ! 
 He shaped the stars, and nature's frame sustains, 
 And rolls the cycles on of awful Time, 
 Yet 'mid earth's wretches moves in lowliness sublime. 
 
 'T is He, 't is He the prophets have reveal'd ! 
 The types of ages point us on to Hira ! 
 The veil is rent ! the mystery unseal'd ! 
 Ye men exult and sing ye seraphim, 
 And let the rapture to Creation's rim 
 O'erflow to wake all worlds in kindling praise ! 
 No more the hope is faint, the light is dim ! 
 Salvation shines forth in resplendent blaze, 
 And o'er the universe streams wide its noon of rays!" 
 
 " Yes !" Asel said, " Not Heaven such sight can show 
 Where beams eternal one pure morn of bliss. 
 Nor feels a quivering pang amid its glow. 
 And hence the thrill o'er pain relieved must miss 
 More sweet than its cherubic smile or kiss. 
 No scene like this in sinless stars is found 
 Where death is not, and joy immortal is ; 
 And lingering angels hence our world surround 
 
 To see the suffering heal'd, and love's blest deeds abound. 
 
104 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 What myriads dared the seas and cross'd the earth — 
 The pilgrim-throng, the warrior in his mail 
 To see the place of the Messiah's birth, 
 Or on the mountain of his passion wail ? 
 This land inspires the song, awakes the tale, 
 Its scenes are treasured and its relics sought. 
 Each flower and tree and cave and crag and vale — 
 Here heroes stood, here martyr-armies fought 
 — By christian blood ungain'd, by christian gold unbought ! 
 
 Yet faint the flame of such a mortal love 
 Compared with raptures which the angels thrill 
 Who pause on balanc'd wing the land above 
 To see the glory there, and here the ill : 
 Bright bliss of Heav'n, dark woes the earth that fill 
 In one broad glance the sons of light behold. 
 And Bethlehem's rock and Calvary's hill. 
 Loud sound from burning lij)s and harps of gold — 
 First loved in serajih-hearts, in seraph-strains then told." 
 
 ■"Asel," I said, " what light beams in thy speech ! 
 The reason of the Death now tell to me 
 If to that depth my human thought may reach !" 
 
 " Ivan," he said, " I will explain to thee 
 The secret of thy being's mystery. 
 Science the same the elements has shown 
 That build all worlds, and flashing out we see 
 The light from star, and lamp, and diamond stone 
 One universal robe o'er the Creation thrown. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 105 
 
 And one o'er worlds the Moral Law lias reign 
 To bind the whole in the Almighty's sway. 
 Its breach unpunish'd here would burn and stain 
 'Til seraphs from their spheres might burst away, 
 And hurl Jehovah's throne to its decay. 
 ' Oflence is Death !' Eternal Justice cries ; 
 Sin loose on earth on earth would never stay, 
 But glare in fire aloft into the skies, 
 And o'er Creation flame the Death that never dies. 
 
 Man knows his guilt a punishment demands ; 
 Hence altars rise, hence sacrifices blaze. 
 Hence temple, blood and priest in all the lands ! 
 A world of sin from God averts its gaze. 
 And flies to hide in some bewildering maze. 
 Who then the broken Law shall satisfy ? 
 Man owns it vain while he the victim slays ; 
 Lo, Godhead takes our flesh that it may die. 
 Nor Everlasting Justice stain its majesty. 
 
 Hark ! the lone garden's cry ! the Cross behold ! 
 Creation's Monarch bleeding dies alone ! 
 Guilt's anguish o'er a holy soul is roU'd ! 
 The thorn, the nail, the taunt, the spear, the moan ! 
 Above the Earth He made He hangs to groan. 
 And veils the Sun He robed around with light ! 
 While burst the graves, while rends the mountain-stone, 
 'Tis only angels read the lesson right 
 As Godhead's glory hides in Hell's predestin'd night. 
 
106 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 To them how dear the hallow'd spot, the sacred scene ! 
 Where learning errs, and priests will mumble lies, 
 And temples mark a place where naught has been, 
 Cherubic hosts pause gazing from the skies, 
 And know where stood the Cross of sacrifice. 
 Yon garden's stain, yon hill, each riven tomb 
 That gave its dead to hear its Maker's cries. 
 And the dire robe of universal gloom — 
 Eternal in the light their memories live and bloom." 
 
 " Thick darkness these glad eyes can veil no more ! 
 
 gentle sir, I see it all," I cried, 
 
 " The beams of Truth's bright noon around me pour ! 
 
 1 know the Cross, and know me justified 
 Since 't is for me the Savior lived and died ! 
 Love thrills in me beyond what angels feel ! 
 Not in their flesh the Godhead doth abide ! 
 For me He came ! on me Salvation's seal ! 
 
 O then from me o'er worlds let loudest anthems peal ! 
 
 Earth, the curse in thee shall die, the throe, 
 The ruin to thy heart that burns in fire. 
 
 The wail from thee of death's perpetual wo, 
 This human mystery of Jehovah's ire — 
 All in the Cross I see at last expire ! 
 But teach me now the lesson of the grave ! 
 • He burst its power ! I see Hell's host retire ! 
 
 1 see Him leave the world He came to save; 
 
 Yet back will come my cloud, and fear makes rae a slave." 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 107 
 
 " To unbelief," he said, " the grave is gloom, 
 And shadows veil the dim and awful place ! 
 
 Faith thy glance grows bright before His tomb ! 
 No more is death the phantom of our race 
 
 But victory shines aloft with radiant face ! 
 Behold as morn is gilding Olivet 
 A form ascending with majestic grace ! 
 Apostles gaze, it meets their vision yet. 
 Then fades to leave a joy, not eyes with tears to wet. 
 
 1 saw it beam just now in Paradise ! 
 
 I gazed on Jesus sceptred on his throne ! 
 I heard the sweet cherubic music rise 
 That floats o'er worlds to make his praises known ! 
 Within the light I stood that round Him shone ! 
 In Him the doubt is gone ! the shadows flee ! 
 O Heaven the Gospel sees in Him alone 
 Nor word, nor rite are needed more for me ! 
 The Sun Himself beheld dispel's life's mystery !" 
 
 "All, all is clear," I said with joyful cry. 
 Darkness and He together may not dwell ! 
 Faith hence shall be my telescopic eye. 
 And through life's gloom his AVord and CJhurch shall tell 
 Of Him who is the blest Invisible. 
 O as the sun behind a cloudy screen 
 His beams Avill flash where shadows never fell, 
 So He for me in bright eternal sheen 
 Sheds glory on the grave where night so long hath been. 
 
108 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 While now upon Jerusalem I gaze 
 I seem to see the Pentecostal fire 
 Encircle holy heads in lambent blaze. 
 Blest scene where light and joy and love inspire, 
 And power impels to triumphs we admire ! 
 The prayer, the sound, the flames, the tongues explain ! 
 Thy words of grace my ear can never tire ; 
 Nor think me bold, nor ignorant, nor vain 
 When I some ray of Truth Eternal wish to gain." 
 
 "As round the earth this ocean of the air 
 Gives life its bloom," he said, " and man his breath ; 
 Or as the light its girdle bright and fair 
 Must weave in suns to save from night and death, 
 The Holy Ghost to souls, the Scripture saith, 
 Is life and health and energy to will. 
 And left by Him impossible is faith, 
 Since down we sink in gloom and doubt until 
 We ever wander on in sin invincible. 
 
 Begin in caves, or on the palace-height, 
 
 Yet to the sun all gilding rays you trace. 
 
 And so in men is the Eternal Light 
 
 Flash'd down on them in radiancy of grace — 
 
 No soul unlit by the Almighty's face ; 
 — 'T is here a blaze and there a glimmering gleam 
 
 That brightens through the cloud upon our race ; 
 
 As Avide o'er earth the solar glories stream 
 Each son of dust on earth has some immortal beam. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 109 
 
 The Pentecostal grace man's power increased, 
 And kindled love and joy to warm the breast ; 
 Nor has the rushing energy yet ceased. 
 But still our world with the old light is blest 
 That leads through time to everlasting rest. 
 If wild the tempest bui'sts, the grace is more 
 To breathe and burn 'til earth has Christ confess'd. 
 Eternal Spirit visit every shore, 
 And man thy temple make while cherubim adore !" 
 
 " O Sir," I said, " no lingering clouds remain ! 
 Far to the west along the sea's deep blue 
 Old CpBsarea's towers I see again 
 Where Herod's piles to Csesar's honor grew, 
 And Rome's imperial eagles conquering flew. 
 But O the joy, we Gentiles there began 
 To feel the flame that lit before the Jew ! 
 On Peter's glimmering vision burst the plan 
 Whose universal grace through Christ shines over man. 
 
 Dimming the burning splendors of the day 
 In yon far east a light seems in the sky, 
 And fancy sees the sun hid by its ray 
 As once when in his glory passing by 
 The Prince of Life made blind a dazzled eye. 
 I mark the beams, I hear the voice divine 
 While Jesus to his throne is flashing high 
 To leave in Paul the noon of faith to shine 
 When seal'd his radiant brow with his new Master's sign. 
 
110 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 As fancy looks again, Apostles fly 
 Who wing'd by flames the Church o'er earth extend ! 
 In chain and fire they preach and dare and die 
 Mankind in universal faith to blend, 
 O God their words what power and joy attend ! 
 More than imperial conquest is their aim 
 "When for a world their prayers in faith ascend ; 
 Hark ! the Everlasting Gospel they proclaim, 
 And nations own the Cross baptized in the new Name." 
 
 " Grand was the Hebrew for the covenant old, 
 Ivan," he said, " but best persuasive Greek — 
 Most musical — the Gospel to unfold, 
 And Alexander, 'though his sword did reek 
 With blood, yet taught his conquer'd lands to speak 
 The New Covenant tongue, and o'er the world 
 Did Rome, predestined, rule imperial seek 
 That on the roads where she her armies hurl'd 
 
 The Church might nations find, and lift the Cross unfurl'd. 
 
 Thus both the Latin speech and Latin power 
 Apostles helped the races to subdue, 
 And soon o'er all the Church was seen to tower 
 'Til like a mount of light she glittering grew 
 To blaze forth as her God the risen Jew. 
 Beneath the smile that beam'd from Constantine 
 She preached the Faith far as his eagles flew. 
 And as her triumphs wider spread and shine 
 Applauding earth confess'd the conquering power divine. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. Ill 
 
 Vandal, and Goth and Jew and peace and war, 
 Ambition's storms, the dream that lulls from Brahm, 
 Olympian Jove and the grim northern Thor, 
 Imported gods whose shrines the Pantheon cram. 
 With Gnostic, Persian, Greek, and all who palm 
 On man their philosophic lies for gold — 
 Apostate priest, ecclesiastic sham 
 — All help'd by Hell their dark corruptions roll'd 
 'Til whelm'd beneath the floods the Church in night behohl ! 
 
 Lo, now the morning breaks ! the shadows flee ! 
 From Luther's cell bursts forth an age of light ! 
 One Bible chain'd a fetter'd world sets free ! 
 A monk by faith a Pontifl' shakes with fright, 
 And monarchs fear and empires feel his might. 
 See Aristotle fall ! See Bacon soar, 
 And Newton shine, 'til, scatter'd time's old night 
 Mankind ad vane s to recede no more — 
 Soon will millenial day our joyful world gild o'er ! 
 
 Germania, reform flash'd first from thee, 
 Then Switzerland, like Alps, grew grand and strong, 
 And France her heroes gave to make men free, 
 But, England, time has shown to thee belong 
 The energy of will, the scorn of wrong, 
 The j^ower to conquer and to colonize. 
 On isle and continent thy sway be long ! 
 Thy speech, thy laws, thy liberties the prize 
 Where thy protecting banner o'er the nations flies ! 
 
112 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 See, England, o'er the western wave thy child 
 Between two mighty oceans grows sublime, 
 And as bright culture blooms along the wild 
 The mingling nations crowd from every clime 
 Whose blood shall make the noblest race of time. 
 Land of the world ! thy light shall yet return 
 To Europe's realms, and where the Eden prime 
 O'er Asia smiled thy kindling rays shall burn 
 'Til all the earth of thee shall Christian Freedom learn." 
 
 He ceased with the muezzin's evening cry 
 
 As flash'd the sun from Omar's minaret 
 
 Before he sank the western sea to dye 
 . With crimson glories for his orb to set. 
 
 No star above the mountains trembled yet, 
 
 But sail'd across the crescent-moon a cloud. 
 
 My lingering locks were soon with night-dews wet 
 
 As I mused down the hill where, high and proud, 
 Jehovah's temple stood and peal'd its anthems loud. 
 
VISIONS OF SOIA'MA. 113 
 
 YISION YIII. 
 
 From Zion's crest, along the lone Dead Sea, 
 On the far shore where crimson'd Queenly Tyre, 
 And from the sparkling breast of Galilee — 
 Whence'er I look'd — I Hernion saw aspire 
 With glittering sides bathed in the noon's keen fire. 
 He lifts his head through clouds o'er Palestine 
 Above his subject cliffs, and seems a sire 
 Amid his sons who see his white locks shine 
 Like those of prophets once esteem'd by men divine. 
 
 And, Hermon, bright with thy fresh morning dews 
 While bound the young sun thine old brow with flame, 
 Or painted in the evening's dying hues. 
 Or robed in storms when thunders bursting came 
 That shook the ribs of thy great mountain-frame 
 
 — In whate'er light or air I saw thee tower, 
 Thy lofty grandeur always was the same, 
 Thou silent symbol of Eternal Power 
 
 When Summer clothes thy sides or Winters round thee 
 lower ! 
 
 Beneath the moss of rocks without my tent 
 Whose curtains glimmer'd to the evening star, 
 I sank in dewy slumbers kindly sent 
 To one whose wearv feet had wander'd far. 
 
114 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 When in my dreams I saw a shining car 
 From Heaven descend above the mountain's height, 
 And quick as gleams my Arab's scimitar 
 My Asel beaming through the dusk of night 
 Bends o'er me as I sleep and smiles on me in light. 
 
 " O Sir," I said, " thy words so wise and true 
 Have left my soul calm as the mount serene 
 Which lifts its brow 'mid heav'n's eternal blue 
 To circling stars that sparkle in their sheen 
 With voiceless splendors o'er this placid scene. 
 O tell me, Asel, tell me whence thou art. 
 And what upon the earth thy life hath been ; 
 Tell, if thou cans't, in Paradise thy part, 
 Since thy dear image shines forever on my heart." 
 
 " Were it a cloudless morn thine eye could see," 
 He said, " a hill behind Jerusalem 
 On which blest Heaven my birth did give to me 
 Not long before the star of Bethlehem 
 Blazed o'er the manger like an orient gem. 
 My parents both were sprung from David's line, 
 And I, an only son, derived from them 
 All that on mortal life like ours can shine 
 When touch'd to light and joy by beams that are divine. 
 
 My mother in my memory now will seem 
 
 Like some tall rose that blooms on Sharon's plain 
 
 In stately beauty such as poets dream. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 115 
 
 Its fragrance flinging out in sun and rain 
 As if it lived to bless and not in vain : 
 While like a cedar on the mountain's breast 
 My father comes back to my mind again 
 In look and stature towering o'er the rest 
 As Lebanon's grand trees stand of the earth the best. 
 
 Like them I look'd but more like Israel's King 
 Who rose through battle to a victor's throne ; 
 Nor fought the hero as the bard could sing. 
 My face and form, 'twas said, were David's own, 
 To his ideal manhood nobly grown. 
 And his grand image, glory of our line, 
 Bright pictured on our walls as mine was shown, 
 When years and wars had left on me their sign. 
 And I, a warrior crown'd, in triumph came to shine. 
 
 I track'd the wild beast to his cavern'd lair, 
 And hurl'd the spear to pierce his savage breast ; 
 I shot the soaring eagle in the air. 
 Or pierced him sitting on his mountain-nest ; 
 And I of wild things love the wildest best. 
 Inaccessible peaks I scaled alone, 
 On dizzy heights with tempests sought my rest. 
 Or climb'd sublime where Silence has her throne, 
 Or on the billows toss'd, and felt the sea mine own. 
 
 The Grecian games on which great Herod smiled 
 Had charm'd the noble Jews of mine own age. 
 
116 VISIONS OF SOLYMA, 
 
 Yet by our elders hated as defiled. 
 The temple-hill beheld our youth engage 
 Like those who glow on the Homeric page. 
 The discus hurl'd, the splendid chariot-race 
 With horses thundering on in rival rage, 
 Shed over Jewish ways an Attic grace 
 While frown'd our startled cliffs on this Olympian chase. 
 
 Train'd thus to guide my steeds high on the car, 
 And practice the keen arts of each wild game, 
 I panted for the strife of real war. 
 And felt within my breast consuming flame, 
 Nor cared what it might be nor whence it came. 
 One burning wish soon blazed through all my soul 
 
 — To mix in battle's scenes, and win a name 
 That like my father David's on should roll 
 
 'Til men my deeds should write on the eternal scroll. 
 
 My mother weeps, my father flames in ire, 
 And I with sword and helm and circling shield 
 Stand mail'd and flashing round with martial fire 
 
 — Adonis in war's panoply conceal'd, 
 And eager for the perils of the field. 
 My mother with her tears my breastplate wet. 
 And kiss'd and wept with love that would not tire, 
 And wept and kiss'd again, and linger'd yet 
 
 Until the wearied sun within the sea had set. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 117 
 
 Sweet iu the fading ray the brilliant bloom 
 Of mingling flowers from garden, walk, and wall 
 That on the evening shed out their perfume 
 While towering waves a palm's tall plume o'er all. 
 And from an olive-grove long shadows fall ; 
 Lo, flashes up the flame of sacrifice, 
 While, in the temple, choirs responsive call ! 
 The dew of tears is in my lingering eyes. 
 And as I leave our hill I breathe my farewell sighs. 
 
 Beneath the shadow of Antonia's tower 
 I met a Caesar, an imperial youth, 
 
 Throned on whose Roman brow shone pride and power 
 Yet mingled with a light of manly truth ; 
 A soldier or a sybarite in sooth 
 As the great world might open him a way. 
 Avarice, or Ambition's fatal tooth 
 His soul had not yet gnaw'd — 'til locks turn gray 
 The terrible in man oft waits to have its sway. 
 
 My Caius yet was neither boy nor man ; 
 Artless as shrewd, and passionate as deep, 
 And, when capricious, in each whim a plan : 
 A beautiful young tiger in whom sleep 
 The power of fang and claw, and who may creep 
 To play, or spring to kill in lawn or wood. 
 Caius could laugh, or sing, or fight, or weep. 
 While yet be work or revel his gay mood 
 Always the Roman fire he show'd, and conquering blood. 
 
1.1^8 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Jerusalem, my joy and pride and home 
 
 I leave thee now, but imaged on my heart. 
 
 Why o'er the world must I so wildly roam ? 
 
 A light is round thy towers as now we part 
 
 In glory brighter than from mortal art. 
 
 I see again yon mansion on the hill 
 
 Where Love in tears sits pierced with sorrow's dart 
 — O how I felt in me pain's mystic thrill 
 As in my grief I wept yet left Jerusalem still. 
 
 As hung a star of morn o'er Hermon's brow 
 Our vessel flew with sails expanding wide, 
 And life seem'd pulsing in her conquering ])row. 
 Far Ciesarea fades as on we glide 
 'Til forced by storms in Salamis we ride. 
 
 — Sicilia then, Italia, Ostia, Rome ! 
 
 Although a Jew I OAvn a flush of pride 
 When I gazed on the Capitol's high dome, 
 
 The Gentile Csesar's guest in his imperial home. 
 
 Not now I sing of pleasure's wildering maze 
 When earth was held but as a victor's prize ; 
 When over Rome stream'd glory's blinding blaze 
 In crimson splendors dazzling to surprise, 
 And hide their chains from fetter'd nations' eyes ; 
 But I in soften'd strain will tell alone 
 What touch'd and chang'd my life, nor ever dies ; 
 Since now, the deed that else would wake the groan, 
 Thrills into joy through Him who did for it atone. 
 
VISIONS OF 80LYMA. 119 
 
 Mount Vaticaiius iu the sunset burn'd 
 
 That on the Tiber left its dying stains 
 
 When 'mid the Caesar's garden-bloom I learn'd 
 
 The joy of love too soon to turn to pains 
 — That heart's true fire which, kindled once, remains. 
 
 Dark eyes of beauty shot through me desire 
 
 That flash'd in flames along my burning veins, 
 
 'Til, like the sun, I was a mass of fire. 
 And mine, perchance like his, I felt a funeral pyre. 
 
 Julia, before mine eyes I see thee now 
 
 Crown 'd like a goddess with those golden rays 
 
 Which shed their evening halo round thy brow 
 
 — A Grecian Venus to my passion's gaze 
 
 With marble turn'd to flesh, and the bright blaze 
 Of whose divinity was human made. 
 A heart beats in the breast, and kindling plays 
 Upon the cheek the changeful blush display'd 
 
 Which tells its tale of love yet fears what it has said. 
 
 Alas ! I learn'd my Julia was a wife — 
 Young Summer wedded to the AVinter's cold 
 Whose killing frosts congeal'd around her life 
 As if a polar mantle should enfold 
 The tropic bloom o'er which had always roll'd 
 The sun's full tide of animating flame. 
 We met ! she fled, but left a look to mould 
 My soul and life, since o'er me rushing came 
 The fury of a love that only love could tame. 
 
120 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Beneath Rome's eagles long I sought to die, 
 And fought where'er the glittering ensign waved. 
 Gaul, Britain, Spain beheld love's agony, 
 And o'er the Orient I war's perils braved, 
 But still I lived and loved and cursed and raved. 
 Where others courted life I hated mine. 
 And yet from danger's depths was snatch 'd and saved 
 — For Heaven predestined by the Power Divine 
 Whose Everlasting Will doth life and death assign. 
 
 Once when our engine-thunders long were vain 
 Against a sturdy wall of mountain-stone 
 That tower'd the strongest in the land of Spain, 
 I fix'd my ladder and climb'd up alone 
 While missiles, blazing, down on me were thrown. 
 I stood upon the top — ten soldiers fell, 
 And all soon fled — my circling sword now shone 
 With lightning's tipp'd, and sooner than I tell 
 I flung Rome's eagle out from Spain's proud citadel. 
 
 Yell after yell, an army's voice, arose 
 Sent back in thunders from each conquer'd hill, 
 And with a victor's joy each soldier glows. 
 All hearts united in one mingling thrill 
 As then burst on to me the throng, until 
 While borne across the camp on shoulders high 
 Again the triumph-shouts the wild air fill. 
 And I whose breast for death not fame did sigh 
 Now hear my name peal'd forth from earth into the sky. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 121 
 
 My Caius told Tiberiut* of the deed, 
 When an imperial order call'd for me 
 To haste from Spain to Rome with royal speed 
 There to receive a crown of victory 
 The Senate voted by a full decree. 
 'T was Ctesar round my head the laurel bound, 
 But as I knelt the eye that I did flee 
 With passion-glance my frenzied spirit found 
 — Nor Ciesar's Avords I heard, nor saw the pageant round. 
 
 Soon I am welcomed on the Caprean isle 
 Where rose a palace towering from the deep. 
 'T was wealth imperial made the rocks to smile 
 With brilliant bloom, and taught the vines to creep, 
 And' rainbows dance above the cataract's leap. 
 A world was tax'd for this sweet Paradise 
 Amid whose scenes I could but muse and weep. 
 Lo, in a garden stands before mine eyes 
 The Julia whom I loved— 'slie starts, she looks, she flies ! 
 
 Her spouse Lucillus too was Caesar's guest 
 With seventy winters snow'd upon his hair ; 
 A sapless tree whose leafless limbs confess'd 
 That his old life was wasting slowly there 
 Beside a flower young in the morning air. 
 They could each other love as frost the fire, 
 Or Sharon's rose cold Hernion's bosom bare — 
 Girl, wed not him who might have been thy sire ! 
 Youth always marry youth with pure and fond desire. 
 
122 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Long gazing on two rocks I stood at eve 
 Round which roars foaming a tempestuous sea, 
 While in my madden'd soul I sigh and grieve 
 The fate that Julia keeps away from me ; 
 And think that to ourselves those cliffs agree, 
 So near, and yet with billows wild between 
 Through gulfs the earthquakes made once ruthlessly 
 When Etna's craters thunder'd o'er the scene — 
 Lo, murmurs forth this song from a sweet grotto's green ! 
 
 O'er the sea a cloud is flying : 
 
 In the sky the day is dying : 
 
 On the land breathes evening sighing : 
 
 Venus, pity my distress 
 
 As I weep in loneliness. 
 
 Hark ! the nightingale is singing ! 
 'Gainst his cage his breast is flinging ; 
 Love's lone passion-thrill is ringing ; 
 
 Venus pity my distress ! 
 
 I too pine in loneliness. 
 
 Once I fled to keep from sinning : 
 Once I feared he would be winning : 
 Sad, sad end of such beginning ! 
 
 Venus, pity my distress 
 
 Or I sink in loneliness ! 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 123 
 
 If I perish in the gazing ; 
 If I die mine eyelids raising ; 
 Yet will I look, e'en if blazing 
 
 Jove's own vengeance sends distress 
 
 In eternal loneliness. 
 
 Before I wish'd, I hoped, but now I knew 
 My Julia felt for nie responsive flame. 
 Wild down the cliff I to her madly flew 
 When o'er the lawn Lucillus tottering came 
 Lisping from frigid lips her thrilling name. 
 I stopp'd, and saw she join'd him on a height 
 That beetling o'er the sea was known to fame 
 As where a Csesar fell down in the night 
 By murderous billows seized no more to see the light. 
 
 ■ They stood together o'er the battling deep 
 Where spon she left him gazing at a sail 
 That in the distance seem'd his eye to keep. 
 A glance, a gesture, but they did not fail 
 To tell how far o'er her could love prevail. 
 She vanish'd, and I rush'd to do her will. 
 Ye rocks, ye waves, ye heard that long lone wail 
 Which through the mountains shiver'd with a thrill ! 
 
 Yes ! mad by lawless love, we yearn, we burn, we kill. 
 
 I stood transfix'd, and forced to know the end. 
 The ghastly face, the hands clench'd in despair, 
 The shrieks that to the cavern 'd cliffs ascend 
 
124 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 And seem to pierce with agony the air : 
 The plunge and on the waves the silvery hair ! 
 He sank and rose and sank to rise again 
 Dash'd onward by the whirling currents where 
 The boiling waters to the winds complain 
 That such a murder'd wretch can leave no tell-tale stain. 
 
 The Caprean palace blazed, and streaming wide 
 Its festal splendors glitter'd o'er the sea 
 In which Lucillus hurl'd had gasp'd and died. 
 I wave the nuptial torch with nuptial glee, 
 And lead my bride to love's sweet canopy. 
 We spake no word, but buried the dark deed 
 Within our souls, and wild and gay and free 
 Wing on the hours that bright with pleasure sjDeed — 
 Th' Omniscient Eye alone our damning crime might read. 
 
 With Cfesar's leave to Palestine we go. 
 And life was like the rainbow of a dream 
 Where angels wave their wings in morning's glow. 
 The Past we would forget for fear the gleam 
 Of its red murder-light would backward stream 
 To bring to view a dead man's ghastly stare ! 
 The Future ! O while all things blissful seem 
 O'er it would gloom a cloud with lightning-glare 
 — The Present we will gild and its oblivion share. 
 
 Ours thus the moment as it forward flies 
 
 To make each floating bubble still more bright 
 
VISIONS OP SOLYMA. 125 
 
 Before in air dissolve its glittering dyes. 
 We sport, we build, we plant, so gay to sight 
 That in our life could seem no stain of night. 
 O Galilee above thy tranquil blue 
 How beautiful our home in orient light ! 
 Here Love and Joy entwined together grew 
 As oak and vine blend strength and grace in wedlock true. 
 
 The very mountain to our touch turn'd bloom : 
 Its rocks were robed and cluster'd forth the vine 
 Where cascades fell, and flowers shed round perfume, 
 And Music o'er the couch where we recline 
 Murmur'd to festal lamps to brighter shine ; 
 And, Galilee, when evening shadows fell 
 To make in waves a starry bosom thine, 
 Joy fill'd our souls, and O what song may tell 
 How Love did wing us on as breathed o'er us his spell ! 
 
 Jerusalem was wreathed for us in smiles 
 The world will give where strength and beauty wed, 
 And often stared from streets and palace-piles 
 Her throngs on us as if in triumph led. 
 While for our good the priestly prayers were said. 
 But O the joy that beam'd on my old home ! 
 The prodigal return'd ! the darkness fled ! 
 No more the warrior over earth to roam, 
 Nor fade from his fond eye Jehovah's temple-dome. 
 
126 VISIONS or solyma. 
 
 Once dreamily I ventured out alone 
 With white sail drooping on the listless lake. 
 The jjurple evening on the mountain shone 
 Adown whose gorges splendors stream'd to break 
 In light upon the waves, and shadows make 
 That darken'd to the bottom of the deep. 
 Capriciously my lazy way I take : 
 Now with the rising breeze I swifter sweep, 
 And now I trim my sail, and now I doze to sleep. 
 
 I turn'd a cliff, and saw a crowd around 
 A man whose cloak was made of camel's hair ; 
 About him was a leathern girdle bound, 
 And in his form and face a Prophet's air ; 
 Elijah seem'd majestic standing there ! 
 I furl'd my sail, I stopp'd, I gazed, I heard ! 
 His voice was deep and musical and rare ; 
 O through me like an arrow pierced his word. 
 And then in fire I saw each sin my life had blurr'd. 
 
 An image glared in blood ! I shriek'd ! I fled ! 
 A mountain-tempest burst down on the sea. 
 And on the wings of darkness scared I sped. 
 O wild thy billows furious Galilee 
 As I in night and storm toss'd over thee ! 
 Thy face, Lucillus rose ! thy pleading hand. 
 Thy sinking form, thy look of agony, 
 And on the waves thy white hair's floating strand- 
 O Heaven, I am a Cain, and this my nuirder-brand ! 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 127 
 
 A billoAV dash'd to wreck my fragile craft, 
 
 Nor left a jilauk to which a wretch could cling, 
 
 And as I sank I thought Lucillus laugh'd 
 
 O'er me, like him, a struggling, strangling thing 
 
 In pain and night where none their aid could bring 
 
 While clamorous waters battle for my breath. 
 
 And in mine ear the surges roar and ring — 
 
 God to guilt how terrible such death ! 
 
 A blood-spot on each prayer a drowning murd'rer saith ! 
 
 A giant billow flung me on the land 
 
 To leave me shivering in the midnight wind ; 
 
 1 cold and dripping rise and feebly stand. 
 But like a furnace blazes round my mind 
 
 Where Madness whirls the flames to Guilt assign'd. 
 I climb the dizzy rocks from steep to steep, 
 And dwell with beasts, nor rest from memory find ; 
 The dews of night upon me softly weep 
 As on a mountain-clitt' I shriek in frenzied sleep. 
 
 I must my guilt confess if Heaven forgive. 
 What ! wife, wealth, fame, light, love forever lost ! 
 Must I a felon die, or guilty live, 
 And on eternal flames be burning toss'd ? 
 The Good and Evil strive ! the line is cross'd ! 
 An Angel turns from Hell to Heaven my feet ! 
 My crime no more shall haunt me with its ghost! 
 The State shall know, and I my doom will meet : 
 'Tis Truth alone can lead to a celestial seat. 
 
128 . VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 The waves were still'd within my stormy breast 
 When I beheld the Prophet on the wikl ; 
 I knelt before him and my sin confess'd ; 
 He gazed upon me with an aspect mild 
 As looks a Father on his suffering child, 
 Then led me to a brook, and sprinkled me 
 With drops baptismal meant for the defiled. 
 I follow'd as he went on to the sea 
 W'hich murmur'd to the hills its morning melody. 
 
 What see I now ? a crowd upon the shore 
 And in the midst a man who is Divine. 
 All, hush'd, the Sovereign Majesty adore 
 Attested by eternal Godhead's sign 
 Whose circling rays around his temples shine. 
 Behold the Prophet doth the God baptize 
 Who Nature made his glory to enshrine, 
 When, lo, a Holy Dove beams on our eyes 
 While bursts the Father's voice in witness from the skies. 
 
 I sought my home — the world to me had been — 
 My path through pain is hence to Paradise. 
 When Julia knew I was a Nazarene, 
 O who could paint her scorn, her wild surprise. 
 Her Roman pride that death and fate defies, 
 The nostril's curl, the glance, the look, the tone 
 That breathes its hate as when a tigress cries ! 
 She cursed, she raved, she left me crush'd and lone 
 Amid the wrecks of life sad as its mortal groan. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 129 
 
 I found a Priest and ofFer'd sacrifice. 
 Lo, in its flames my sin seem'd buru'd away ! 
 To Pilate next my painful pathway lies 
 That Rome may know the crimes that on me weigh. 
 Atonia's tower long hid me from the day 
 Until at last th' imperial order came 
 To quench from open'd veins in blood life's ray, 
 And soon sinks into night my vital flame — 
 I, bodiless, a soul without its mortal frame. 
 
 " O Sir," I cried " our future is most dread ! 
 Unflesh'd ! how ! whitlier can a spirit fly ! 
 
 lift the awful shadow from the dead ! 
 The soul itself a thought, a dream, a sigh, 
 
 A midnight shade that darkling wanders by ! 
 Devoid of sense and limb, how can it know 
 These things material iu the earth and sky ? 
 How can it be in space, or come, or go ? 
 Bewildering is our night and none a ray may throw." 
 
 " Ivan," he said, " not to philosophise 
 
 1 came to thee from Heaven on radiant wing ; 
 Our God is infinite and deep and wise, 
 
 And from Himself in lavish wealth can bring 
 A myriad forms of life I may not sing. 
 What He permits I will to thee reveal. 
 And on the rest Death only light can fling, 
 When he from mortal eye doth lift the seal — 
 Eternal life begins with the last throe we feel. 
 9 
 
130 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 High in Autonia's tower a lofty cell 
 O'erlook'd the temple on Moriah's height; 
 At morn and eve I heard the music's swell, 
 And saw the altar flashing up its light. 
 Far to the w^est how beautiful the sight 
 Where I perceived the glimmer of the sea ! 
 More near the Jordan seem'd a thread of light, 
 And harvests waved, O Israel's land, o'er thee 
 To cheer a soul that long'd from earth to be set free ! 
 
 Lone on my couch I lay with sever'd vein 
 To measure life as in warm drops it fell 
 Soft-plashing on the stone without a pain. 
 Day after day each fainter sound I tell 
 'Til swims in circles round my darkling cell. 
 And comes down on my soul a wildering haze — 
 A shock goes shivering through life's citadel 
 When soul and body part, and in amaze 
 A radiance bursts on me with an immortal blaze., 
 
 A cloud of angels waiting round me flies. 
 And quicker than the noon can speed its ray 
 My soul was wafting 'mid their melodies 
 To where was beaming out a brilliant day 
 Whose splendors flashing drew us on our way 
 As by a spell invisible and strong 
 Within a ring of light, but not to stay. 
 Since to an inner world we dart along 
 While as the brightness grows so sweeter grows the song. 
 
VISIONS OP SOLYMA. 131 
 
 We reach'd at last the sun Avhere pure souls go 
 With angel-escorts to his Paradise, 
 And not to burn, but joy within his glow, 
 Exulting 'til from dust their bodies rise 
 Plumed for immoi'tal manhood in the skies. 
 To comets, planets, meteors, wild and far. 
 Rush all the evil souls our world supplies. 
 Where life, not always pain, is yet ajar, 
 And as the sins more dark more keen the ills that mar. 
 
 Earth's battle o'er I had the conqueror's prize : 
 The gloom of time chang'd to eternal light. 
 And for death's rattling gasps loud triumph-cries ! 
 No more to see a tear, nor cloud, nor night. 
 Nor virtue strangled in the grasp of might. 
 Mine cherub, seraph and the radiant throng 
 Of saints and martyrs in the victor's right 
 Where glories everlasting roll along, 
 And God o'er all in Paradise awakes the song. 
 
 Down from Antonia's tower they bore my clay 
 Into a mountain-tomb of dreary stone 
 Which never saw a smile beam from the day. 
 A venal crowd was paid for shriek and groan 
 Whose frantic noise but mock'd my mother's moan. 
 The face of death, the midnight of the tomb 
 Where crawls the quiet worm to feast alone. 
 Corruption's stench that stifles the perfume — 
 O in the universe no scene like this of gloom. 
 
132 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Amid the light of bliss I felt a spell 
 That drew me from the sun to death's drear reign ; 
 A change, a shock, a force that would compel, 
 A momentary thrill of earth's old pain, 
 Before, transfused, my soul is flesh'd again 
 Within a body of ideal mould — 
 No more the tortured thing that did complain 
 Of mortal ills which over man are roll'd, 
 But splendid in a youth whose bloom cannot grow old. 
 
 Supreme the joy, since mine perfection's dream ! 
 My flesh and soul were all that they could be ! 
 Swiftness and power and beauty's robing gleam. 
 And grace more than a poet's eye could see, 
 Or artist catch when genius glances free ! 
 Sublimed I was to an immortal man 
 In glory fix'd for his eternity 
 To seal and crown the everlasting plan 
 Which ere Creation's morn in God's great thought began. 
 
 Thus in my tomb I stand when, lo, a shock ! 
 An earthquake rolls along the mountain's breast ; 
 Wide burst the doors and rends the solid rock ! 
 Not in the grave's habiliments were dress'd 
 The rising dead that from the earth were press'd. 
 But, like myself, all beam'd in grace and light. 
 Since in our forms Jehovah shone confess'd. 
 Lo, soon around again the mist of night ! 
 The sun in blackness robes, the world is veil'd from sight ! 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 133 
 
 Hung on the cross, between two thieves, He dies 
 On whom I said baptismal waters fell ! 
 Thorns pierce his head : I hear his last lone cries ! 
 In darkness hid, wild pains his soul compel 
 As earth inflicts the blow urged on by hell, 
 And Justice on Him flames with blood-red gleam. 
 'Tis He who groans alone the pang can tell 
 Incarnate Godhead feels to man redeem, 
 And o'er the night of guilt the Love Eternal stream. 
 
 Three days we linger'd guarding round his tomb 
 Ere his Divinity did make Him rise, 
 And flash immortal joy o'er mortal gloom. 
 Then wing us to the sun, our Paradise. 
 We fly in clouds and thrill with bliss the skies 
 Escorting to his throne Creation's King, 
 While from glad worlds ascend cherubic cries. 
 And angels seek Him on exultant wing 
 To whose eternal praise a universe must sing." 
 
 He ceased, and as I woke the sun arose 
 To pour his radiance upon Hermon's head ; 
 Impurpling splendors glitter on his snows 
 Whose glory beaming far around is sjjread 
 As if to brighten'd life had waked the dead. 
 Slowly I descend the mountain's height, 
 And muse on the sweet words my Asel said 
 That shine still on my path in joy and light 
 Prophetic of a day without a stain of night. 
 
134 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 VISION IX. 
 
 O sacred mount those hours spent on thy top 
 A panorama made in memory, 
 And oft 'mid busy toils and lands I stop 
 To know my soul has not forgotten thee, 
 And find thy beauties lingering still in me. 
 Yes ! Sharon, Carmel, and old Hermon's snow, 
 And Lebanon as bright as dreams I see, 
 With Galilee in day's last golden glow, 
 And Jordan sparkling on through the long vale below 
 
 — Abarim's hills with peaks that solemn stand 
 Yet beaming in the smile of evening skies 
 Like orient sentinels of the Holy Land — 
 Jerusalem the Queen appears to rise 
 Majestic though she breathes a captive's sighs. 
 And to the west the sun above the sea 
 Ting'd by the glory of the day that dies 
 
 — Yes ! Tabor, all this sacred scenery 
 
 In me yet lives and wakes, and will remember'd be ! 
 
 On thee Our Saviour glow'd, most holy place. 
 Transfused into his Godhead's native light 
 That touch'd his form to more than mortal grace 
 Until thy mountain-summit grew too bright 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 185 
 
 With radiance dazzling the Apostles' sight. 
 Here too did Moses and Elias beam 
 In splendors suiting their prophetic might, 
 And blest must be the spot whence came my dream 
 That on his future sheds for man Hope's gilding gleam. 
 
 Beneath the stars upon the mountain's side 
 I pitch'd my tent within a sheltering grove, 
 When Asel shiningjlike the glorified 
 And smiling with a look of sweetest love 
 Flew glittering from a cloud that hung above. 
 
 " Ivan," he said, " I will to thee unfold 
 A grand procession of events to move 
 Across the coming years of earth unroll'd 
 
 'Til beams o'er man the age by kindling prophets told. 
 
 'Twas Heaven decreed by fierce volcanic throes 
 To hurl the ridge of rocks down in the sea 
 From Britain's isle to France that once arose. 
 And thus from wars of other lands keep free 
 A soil design'd to nurse wise liberty. 
 Here Roman, Celt, Goth, Norman and the Dane, 
 Old England, mix their blood and speech in thee 
 To mould a race fit to earth's empire gain 
 Where Christian Truth shall bloom, and Christian Freedom 
 reign. 
 
 'Mid tropic glories o'er the perfumed deep, 
 Ceylon, the British Lion guards thine isle ; 
 
136 VISIONS OP^ SOLYMA. 
 
 He watches India from the mountain-steep 
 In clouds that crown the Himmahiyan pile ; 
 At Hong Kong awes celestial force and guile, 
 And over China glares witli lordly eye: 
 Wild Canada o'erlooks, and many a mile 
 Far towards the pole beneath an arctic sky 
 Where silent glaziers freeze, and icebergs thunder by. 
 
 The Lion's folds on the Pacific wave 
 O'er isles more brilliant than Aurora's dreams 
 By corals built while storms and billows rave ; 
 O'er vast Australia wide his banner streams, 
 And through black Afric's midnight England beams. 
 O strong the mind and arm of such a race 
 Whose Flag high o'er the world in triumph gleams! 
 What tears, what blood, what toils, what battles trace 
 The conq'ror's onward march to such imperial place ! 
 
 While firm the Briton's will yet wise his soul ! 
 Bound by his laws he keeps his spirit free, 
 And fights for rights submitting to control. 
 Nor stains with frenzy's blood his liberty. 
 Kings, Nobles, Commons in their orders three 
 Support with triple power the stalwart state ; 
 As the sound acorn makes a vigorous tree, 
 So, England, is thine empire not from fate — 
 Healthful it grows at home and hence o'er earth is great. 
 
 Conqu'ring thy speech as is thy conqu'ring will 
 Fused from all times and climes to suit a world ; 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 137 
 
 By War and Commerce scatter'd wide until 
 It rules wher'er thy banner is unfurl'd. 
 Horrid the wrongs by Clive and Hastings hurl'd 
 From battle's throat o'er the bright Indian land : 
 Nor we forget the crimes that on have whirl'd 
 Thy car of triumph to thy wide command — 
 Heaven will search thy sin though Earth should bless thy 
 hand. 
 
 Will ever England grow beyond her kings 
 And all the costly pomps of titled pride, 
 To risk her empire on the truth of things 
 AVhere manhood is itself, and naught beside ? 
 Not o'er her breast will Revolution ride 
 To leave the spot of blood, the glare of crime ; 
 That mastering strength which has the world defied, 
 Without an earthquake throe, in might sublime. 
 Shall rend each gilded link of earth's dim orient time. 
 
 Thine image, England, see on yon far shore ! 
 The mother loves her features in her son 
 E'en when the giant is a child no more ; 
 As towers his stature so her heart is won, 
 Nor would a greatness mar so well begun. 
 Yes ! in thy Country Heaven ordain 'd it so ! 
 The blood of all the world is there to run 
 Puls'd back through all with universal flow 
 'Til in each race diffiised shall Christian Manhood grow. 
 
138 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. - 
 
 England, thy star may sink, thy conquests fly 
 Like fragments of a cloud when tempests sweep, 
 And all the sword has done for thee may die 
 Until thy shrivell'd isle throned on the deep 
 Her glory but recalls that she may weep, 
 But still immortal will thy memories be ! 
 O'er our wide world thy speech shall live, thy letters keep 
 Thy power o'er man, and law and liberty 
 Down to the end of all a name enshrine for thee ! 
 
 And more than this, thy truest empire yet. 
 Thy Church, aloft o'er each satanic foe, 
 Bright as a sun shall beam no more to set, 
 And when the billows beat and tempests blow 
 Her light o'er earth shall shine like Heaven's own bow. 
 The true dominion hers thy valor wins 
 Which on through time shall univei'sal grow ; 
 Propitious Power, forgive the conqu'ror's sins 
 From whose blest realm for all millenial joy begins ! 
 
 Lo ! now to his own land comes home the Jew ! 
 A garden of delights is Palestine 
 Where hill and vale smile robed in beauty new ! 
 The olive blooms and purples forth the vine 
 While o'er the land behold Messiah shine ! 
 A Church on Zion's hill, Jerusalem, 
 Streams out from thee o'er earth the light divine, 
 And gleams on thee, O Queen, each monarch-gem 
 By prophets promised for thy royal diadem ! 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 139 
 
 Behold the Sects ! ye learn'd, ye good, ye great, 
 Heroes who lived for truth and martyrs died, 
 And pass'd to crowns in the celestial state 
 To shine in triumph 'mid the glorified, 
 Your prayers are heard ! the time for which ye sigh'd 
 Has dawn'd upon your sons, who come with joy. 
 In clouds on brightening clouds, as prophesied, 
 To make for man a peace without alloy 
 — One Apostolic Church which Hell cannot destroy ! 
 
 A vision glows on me from future years ! 
 The Oriental Church from death awakes ! 
 Her chains are rent and dried her captive tears, 
 And as her idols from her breast she shakes 
 Around her queenly brow youth's morning breaks ! 
 The Cross is shining from Sophia's dome 
 Whose glory the Old East resplendent takes, 
 And now no more in wildering maze to roam 
 Eternal Truth sits temjiled in her ancient home. 
 
 I look again, and brighter yet the glow! 
 Bursts on the Latin Church down from the sky 
 A holy splendor evermore to grow; 
 A Pope infallible infallibly 
 Declares Infallibility a lie. 
 
 And Rome made pure rules over earth once more 
 With a dominion which can never die. 
 While breaks aloud the joy from shore to shore. 
 And over the bright scene the angels sing and soar. 
 
140 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Throned like a Queen, Jerusalem mine eye 
 Beholds a mitre-crown flash over thee, 
 And in its ray Earth's Bishop I descry. 
 Both King and Priest, in true descent from me 
 Enroll'd in David's own posterity. 
 Stands in the Christian Church our covenant throne 
 Since in our line both word and type agree ! 
 Wide o'er the world our house shall rule alone, 
 'Til nations thrill'd with joy our promis'd sceptre own. 
 
 'T is Love must bring to rest the warring heart ! 
 More powerful than the thunderbolt the light 
 Out from whose silence life alone can start 
 With all its bloom around the earth so bright 
 Whose colors mingling charm and thrill the sight : 
 And Love like light goes forth in noiseless peace, 
 Yet hath in it omnipotence of might 
 From Satan's cruel sway to bring release. 
 And in her melting glance make earth's wild tumults cease." 
 
 With rapture's thrill I from my sleep awake 
 To see the morning o'er Judea glow, 
 And as down Tabor lone my way I take 
 My melancholy steps become more slow, 
 Nor turn'd my thoughts to those fair scenes below. 
 Aloft in light and bliss my soul would soar 
 Where I saw Asel gleaming upward "go ; 
 O, Holy Land, thee will I see no more. 
 But tears will dim mine eyes as I sail from thy shore. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 141 
 
 YISIOK X. 
 
 O Ganges, sacred parent of this stream 
 'Gainst which our vessel throbs with heart of fire, 
 Thy flowing drops polluted into steam 
 In clouds around thine imaged gods aspire 
 As if Jove breathed again, the vapor's sire ! 
 Calcutta's palaces rise in our view 
 With oriental splendors we admire, 
 And graceful minarets are on the blue 
 Which Heaven rounds over earth, and tints with its own 
 hue. 
 
 Great Capital of gods, out from the wave 
 Benares lifts a grandeur that beseems 
 The spot where Ganges loves his own to save ! 
 Her temples stand fantastic as my dreams, 
 While loftier than their towers the crescent gleams. 
 Plung'd in the stream a smile what thousands win 
 From Boodh's dull face inwreathed with ghastly beams ; 
 And in the river leave each burdening sin 
 That ever staiu'd a soul, or tortured it within ! 
 
 O Delhi once in thee ruled Tamerlane 
 Enthroned where lone these dreary ruins lie. 
 Magnificent the gorgeous Mogul reign 
 When jewels like the stars in yon blue sky 
 
142 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Blazed out from diadem and canopy. 
 The vastest empire earth has ever seen 
 Conquer'd its capital along this plain ! 
 O who may paint the wrongs that here have been — 
 The wrecks of torch and sword with lash and chain between ! 
 
 Of courts and camps her tale will Delhi tell, 
 The pageantry of kings, and pomps of war, 
 And where each battle's fiery tempest fell 
 When thunder'd over men her empire's car, 
 But thy tomb, Agra, passions should not mar, 
 Nor wake from sleep thy raonarchs in their night ! 
 Yes ! still as gleams o'er earth the morning star 
 Aloft the Taj lifts up its marble white 
 Above the King and Queen who seem to smile in light. 
 
 Dark in each Moslem's face the leer of hate 
 Sent up by malice from a stormy breast ! 
 Can he forget his glory once was great. 
 And treasures which the infidel did wrest 
 By battle's right to keep him still oppress'd ? 
 His glance of scorn, his look of stifled pride, 
 Beware ye victors from the christian west 
 Before whose cross the crescent has to hide — 
 Not always earthquakes sleep in the volcano's side. 
 
 Nor less the cringing Brahmin's glittering eye. 
 With snakish gleam, thou British conqu'ror fear ! 
 Know he who whines, and bends as he slinks by 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 143 
 
 Is yet a god, and even worshipped here 
 Although thy pandering slave he may appear. 
 He recks not death that to Nirvana sends ; 
 Without his caste he has for woe no tear ; 
 Beware his ice and fire ! a curl ascends 
 Whose silent flame the mountain-burst within portends; 
 
 Delhi recall ! the blood of red Cawnpore ! 
 The ghastly scenes before grim Lucknow fell ! 
 Those treacherous shots from Gunga's ambush'd shore ; 
 The infant's shriek and outraged mother's yell, 
 And horrors worse than in the glare of hell ! 
 Your safety not in thunders from the gun. 
 Nor Sepoy faith, nor valor which men sell. 
 Your empire lasts until your work is done — 
 Swift plant the seed of truth before sinks down your sun. 
 
 'Tis British thousands Indian millions hold! 
 Drops in the ocean to keep back its waves, 
 Or grains of sand to pillar mountains old ! 
 Can swords and muskets guard you from your graves, 
 If, left of Heaven, the human tempest raves ? 
 Know in th' Almighty nuist your empire stand ! 
 'Tis He who still'd the sea yet rules and saves; 
 Sow then in faith ! broadcast it o'er the land — 
 The earthquake's checks are bended knee and tireless hand. 
 
 Go feed the poor ! the famine-blasted find. 
 Nor tell vour creed 'til vour relief is done ; 
 
144 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Christ cured the flesh that He might heal the mind. 
 Not Tinnevelli's harvest was begun 
 Until by loving help the heart was won. 
 Give bread and work ! then teach and then baptize ! 
 As melts the snow before a glowing sun 
 Such Gospel saves a world where else it dies — 
 China, India, Earth will hear its melodies. 
 
 Deep in the orient soil are Satan's wiles ! 
 For strong and stormy souls the Moslem's creed, 
 And for the passionless Nirvana smiles ; 
 A demon-error for each human need, 
 While in stern caste a mystic cunning read 
 Which fetters round in iron a nation's heart ! 
 Vain can the tongue of man or preach or plead ! 
 'Tis Heaven must give the eloquence whose art 
 Shall India's millions touch and from death's slumbers start. 
 
 Stopp'd by the eve my poncha's lulling sound 
 Not now with blazing heats I gasping lie ; 
 Lone o'er the eastern scene I gaze around 
 So strange to my untutor'd western eye. 
 Yon patriarch palm, those birds of brilliant dye. 
 The rooted Banyan's venerable shade. 
 And tangled vines profuse that hide the sky, 
 The mingling glories in the flowers display 'd 
 Gay as yon turban'd Rajah splendidly array'd 
 
 Upon his elephant in royal pride 
 Who holds a palace-howdah up in air, 
 
VISIONS OF HOLYMA. 145 
 
 And swings his awkward bulk from side to side — 
 Yon noisy monkeys chattering mischief there 
 Above the tiger crouching in his lair, 
 These, pictured in my memory still I find, 
 Undiram'd by time, untouch'd by life's long wear. 
 And India, so inwoven with my mind. 
 As flowers round leaves of trees her scenes my thoughts 
 have twined. 
 
 Yon mountain-cave shows me a tongue of fire 
 In lambent circles darting flames around 
 To tell of Shiva's power, and Shiva's ire, 
 While from its glare a hideous roar of sound 
 Where priests with ghastly blood my soul confound ; 
 And yonder from a glacier's glittering pile 
 Leaps out the Ganges with one bursting bound 
 To dash and thunder through each dark defile, 
 And then make India bloom, and like a garden smile. 
 
 Before me spreads, O Doon, thy Paradise ! 
 The Eden of the world flowers in my sight, 
 While, lo, behind, the Himmalayas rise 
 To pillar Heaven in their vast monarch-might. 
 Around those lofty tops eternal white 
 That soars up to the realms where smile the blest. 
 And crimson in the gorgeous evening light 
 Peak piled sublime on peak — yet o'er the rest. 
 The pinnacle of Earth, stands peerless Everest ! 
 10 
 
146 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 By glory blinded I sank down in sleep ! 
 My eyes would swim in tears as o'er the world 
 Arose before my dreams each towering steep 
 'Til in wild circles round my brain was whirl'd 
 As if I upwards saw those mountains hurl'd 
 For angel-watchers to step down to men-; 
 AVhen, lo, as yet I gaze, with pinions furl'd, 
 I see my Asel sail to earth again — 
 O God one vision more makes my predestined ten ! 
 
 I dream'd that I now slept a thousand years 
 While watch'd in silent beauty there my Guide. 
 I felt a pang of death, its gloom, its fears. 
 And with a wrench and thrill my spirit glide 
 Out from my flesh into the spaces wide 
 Of the bright air, and then on gleaming wing 
 Flash to the sun among the glorified, 
 And knew myself a pure immortal thing 
 Of light and song and bliss as if in life's young spring 
 
 A cycle pass'd of joy in Paradise 
 When I and all men to the Judgment came. 
 From sea and land I saw the dead arise. 
 And stand before a throne sublime of flame 
 Vast as some Himmalayan mountain's frame 
 Enwrapp'd from base to top in sheeted blaze. 
 Lo, there the Son of God gives praise or blame 
 For all the deeds of earth in Time's long days 
 — Eternal Life or Death to man as Justice says. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 147 
 
 what a scene burst now upon mine eye ! 
 
 1 seem'd amid the brilliant star to stand 
 That in Orion sparkles o'er the sky, 
 
 And whence I could the universe command 
 With its far-sweeping worlds, in vision grand, 
 Which flash and turn as I entranc'd behold, 
 And knew Omnipotence the glory plann'd 
 To stream where suns and systems burn'd and roll'd 
 — Creation's widest wonders to my gaze unfold. 
 
 As ocean tosses in some morning gale 
 So billows glitter over Saturn's rings 
 Drawn toward him by a power that must j^revail ; 
 Until, behold the vast circumference swings. 
 And on him all its flying fragments flings. 
 While his eight moons in their swift circlings pause, 
 Each hurl'd along a path of light that brings 
 All madly dash'd by a resistless cause 
 Upon the central orb released from its old laws. 
 
 And belted Jupiter feels his great train 
 Thrown on him in a wild eccentric way 
 That shakes his thundering globe as if with pain. 
 And Uranus and Neptune join the play ; 
 Nor comet, meteor, satellite may stay 
 Where they through ages roll'd in ceaseless round, 
 But all in wild commotion cloud the day 
 Inrushing on the sun with such a sound 
 As bellows through the universe and o'er its bound. 
 
148 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 The impact dash'd wide into space a blaze 
 Which nature's circuit dazzled with its light ; 
 Red mountain-flames rush out before my gaze 
 To sink in deep abysses down from sight 
 While other worlds grew in the glare more bright. 
 An image of old earth becomes the sun, 
 And outlined like our globe by mystic might 
 'Til when the rush and work of fire were done 
 Our world in giant form out from the wreck seem'd won. 
 
 This centre seeking constellations ran : 
 Pleiades, Arcturus and the northern Wain 
 And then the star on which I stood, began 
 Eternal orbits in the skies to gain 
 Whose wildering maze of globes whirl'd in my brain. 
 Sun-fused, round this new earth all worlds now roll, 
 A circling universe for Christ to reign 
 Where, throned, his sovereign sceptre shall control 
 In wisdom's everlasting love and light the whole. 
 
 When young Spring paints the flower, and curls the vine, 
 And breathes down gladness from a smiling sky 
 Gay birds through air in clouds will glancing shine, 
 Flashing the brilliance of each tropic dye ; 
 So from the worlds the angels flock and fly. 
 My senses swim with songs and wings and light 
 As in the zeal of love the pinions vie, 
 While through the vistas of the rays too bright 
 Enthroned in Solyma One blinds my mortal sight. 
 
VISIONS OF 80LYMA. 149 
 
 Loud in the ecstasy of dreams I cry 
 "Asel, I see the glory of the King, 
 But not as Moses view'd it passing by 
 When o'er its beams Jehovah had to fling 
 A veiling shadow to subdue its dazzling. 
 Creation's Capital full I behold 
 Where the cherubic legions homage bring, 
 And wide round w^hich the universe is roll'd 
 By Him who was, and is and shall be as of old." 
 
 " Ivan," he said, " excessive joy restrain 
 And I will touch thine eye to sight, and show, 
 The seats where all men dwell in bliss or pain. 
 As once on earth in flocks the solemn crow. 
 Cawing, to wise debate would eager go. 
 Within thy vision's larger range now see 
 Those flying specks of black that smaller grow ! 
 Out of our system's WTeck the evil flee 
 To fitting worlds where they shall dwell eternally. 
 
 Behold yon globe as red as once was Mars 
 That sheds like blood strange light out into space, 
 And tinges with its hue the blushing stars ! 
 Its realm of rocks the drear predestined place 
 Whose gloom receives for crimes the murderous race. 
 Like birds of prey you see them now alight. 
 And one, a chief, the tiger in his face. 
 Stands scowling on a crag to have in sight 
 His new domain of pain where day shades into night. 
 
150 VISIONS OP SOLYMA. 
 
 His castled rock in pride look'd on the Rhine 
 Which flung the image back of tower and wall 
 Then onward dash'd of rage the foaming sign. 
 From a low chamber 'd room, black as a pall, 
 Red life-drops gleam on him and seem to fall. 
 He rush'd out with his knights to burn and kill, 
 And where rose o'er the stream a palace tall 
 He stole through night a chieftain's blood to spill, 
 And lance and torch in hand rode forth to hurl round ill. 
 
 The lust of murder still consumes his heart — 
 An impulse in him burning like a fire 
 On through eternity its blaze will start 
 While impotent the fury of such ire 
 Where spirits like himself can ne'er expire. 
 Behold him now just what he was in time, 
 A wretch with passion toss'd, and mad desire, 
 And murderous where impossible his crime — 
 What Death finds man he is with equity sublime. 
 
 A world of homicides before you now. 
 And towering o'er the rest their leader Cain, 
 The everlasting brand upon his brow, 
 While in his soul the hunger of a pain. 
 See, as a whirlwind sweeps across a plain. 
 With furious blows they on each other fly 
 To quench the thirst of blood, and fighting gain 
 A moment's ease for pangs that in them cry — 
 Like eagles, beak'd and claw'd, they battle in the sky." 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 151 
 
 " Sir," I said, " but where the waves of flame ? 
 I thought the evil lived within a blaze 
 That scorch'd their risen flesh, while o'er them came 
 The worm that blasts, and creeps, and winds, and stays ; 
 A ghastly torment for eternal days. 
 In yon drear world I see indeed a gloom 
 Like evening's dusk, and with no smile of rays. 
 Yet fire and worm, nor burn, nor sting in doom — 
 
 A furnace does not glare, but rather frowns a tomb." 
 
 " Eternal Love can no tormentor seem 
 
 To roast the flesh," he said, " in frolic ire 
 
 As if a luxury to hear men scream. 
 
 There is another worm, another fire 
 
 Which in the spirit work and never tire. 
 
 The evil in themselves just suffering gain 
 
 'Mid cold or flame as wills Creation's Sire ; 
 
 Guilt in the soul is everlasting pain 
 Where ill must always grow and Satan always reign," 
 
 I look'd and saw ten conquering men appear 
 Who all had swept the earth with whirlwind war 
 To empire raise in blood and death and fear ; 
 Each one enthroned on his triumphal car 
 Rode onward in the gleam of battle's star, 
 Leaving behind the shriek, the pang, the gore 
 With all the ghastly wrecks that earth can scar, 
 And cared for millions robb'd, and kill'd no more 
 Than ocean's hungry waves for sands on which thev roar. 
 
152 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Their kingdoms then were niark'd out on the globe 
 To which the murderous spirits glooming went, 
 And o'er each province in his crown and robe 
 Its monarch seem'd with his domain content, 
 When all grew black as if a cloud were sent. 
 And then, like hawks, the armies fight again. 
 O wild the war, O dire the wounds that rent ! 
 It was the outburst of a sheer despair 
 That in the screamings of a tempest rose and battled there. 
 
 One king, imperial in his face and mien. 
 Outspread his wings and to a mountain flew. 
 And gazed majestic o'er the horrid scene, 
 Until what meant the worm and fire I knew 
 As anguish o'er his brow a shadow threw ; 
 Earth lost to him, and its bright glory o'er 
 Made sting and flame, and life with such a crew 
 Where he must loathe, yet live forevermore — 
 O in his look a pang I never dream'd before ! 
 
 Oft I had seen o'er Hermon's ancient steep 
 The eagle on his pinions towering rise ; 
 He balanc'd hangs in air, then with a sweep 
 Mounts on his circling pathway through the skies 
 Where beams the sun on his undazzled eyes. 
 But never could I know the pow'r of flight 
 As when that monarch his new pinion tries 
 Soaring sublime o'er my admiring sight, 
 And flashing where a city stream'd efliilgent light. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 153 
 
 Not far behind two guarding angels fly 
 With purple wings and robes of gleaming w^hite, 
 While from before two others I descry 
 That seem'd to come from Solyma the bright, 
 All arm'd with swords as warriors for a fight. 
 When the celestial watchers hover'd near 
 The monarch stopped, and quail'd before their might, 
 And shrieking fled as one in pain with fear, 
 Nor paus'd 'til in his world, and on his face a tear. 
 
 Tow'rd Solyma he gazed with torturing woe 
 AVhere he might now have been in light and bliss ; 
 Were in his power the song, the croAVU, the glow, 
 And all that in immortal glory is ? 
 Did he his chance of life forever miss ? 
 Lo, now I saw what was eternal fire 
 That glared and flamed out from despair's abyss — 
 In night, self-wreck'd, a soul that must aspire 
 Forever to the smile of its Almighty Sire ! 
 
 " Beyond the Southern Cross," then Asel said, 
 " Behold yon flocks like autumn birds that flew 
 From winter storms, and o'er the sky would spread 
 To hide the sun, and heaven's ethereal blue 
 Make black with spots, as still the numbers grew, 
 Until the quivering wings seem'd filling air ; 
 And thus yon clouds conceal the stars from you. 
 As, crowd on croAvd, the myriads darken there. 
 And, thronging thousand worlds, to farther worlds repair." 
 
154 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 "And, lo," I cried, " Cherubic forms unfold ! 
 Brighter than dazzling suns great angels fly 
 On wings of light that wave like glittering gold 
 Splendid as earth e'er saw on evening's sky ! 
 As guides and guards they seem in love to vie, 
 And, scattering o'er the worlds, to oft alight. 
 The flight of all has ceas'd, and I descry 
 O'er hill and vale, in gleaming glory bright, 
 Celestial shapes that move in beauty o'er my sight." 
 
 " The virtuous heathen see in peace who died. 
 And infants blooming from each age and clime !" 
 With seraph-smile my Asel then replied. 
 
 " Behold explain'd the mystery sublime 
 Which like a cloud of night hung over time ! 
 Who follow'd nature's law, and reasons's ray 
 Share not the doom of those self-plung'd in crime, 
 And hence from yon dim realms a glittering way 
 To Solyma's bright joy and everlasting day. 
 
 For passions wild, and fierce and mad desires, 
 But not for ignorance the glare of Hell 
 Where blaze too in the man despair's grim fires. 
 In those faint worlds the saints their wisdom tell 
 To souls bewilder'd, yet in light to dwell. 
 And who, matured, exultingly shall go 
 Him to behold before Invisible. 
 O glad the day when Life's immortal glow 
 O'er myriads brought from gloom its radiancy will throw ! 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 155 
 
 See Plato sit at ancient Adam's feet ! 
 See Socrates from Moses meekly learn ! 
 Confucius, Cyrus, Cicero repeat 
 Instructions which to give Apostles yearn, 
 And on those glimmering globes you may discern 
 The teaching saints in their celestial white, 
 While, guarding o'er, in splendid circlings turn 
 The cherubim and seraphim most bright — 
 Solyma's wing'd hierarchs soar panoplied in might. 
 
 As tiny buds of various scent and hue, 
 AVhen yet time was, smiled shelter'd from the cold 
 Beneath the glass while winter-tempests blew. 
 And, when the frosts were o'er, would flowers unfold, 
 To paint the vernal lawn with red and gold, 
 So infants, ripe at last in wisdom's beam. 
 And led through light to beauty's destined mould. 
 Blest Solyma, in thine eternal gleam 
 Shall bloom aloft in thee to their perfection's dream ! 
 
 Beyond Orion's orange-tinted star, 
 And through tlie beams where suns in sparkles shine, 
 Behold a blazing world that rolls afar, 
 And only by a potency divine 
 Is to thy sight reveal'd as now to mine. 
 'Tis Pandolon that burns before thine eyes. 
 Black Satan's seat and where his proud ensign 
 Imperial floats within a splendid blaze 
 Whose dazzle flaming glares with mystic ghastly rays ! 
 
156 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 Supreme in ill, its Sovereign darkling towers 
 Majestic from the gloom about his throne 
 Above his potentates, dominions, powers, 
 As if Mount Everest, volcanic grown. 
 Soaring 'mid clouds, and crown'd by fire alone. 
 And thunder-riven where his summits climb 
 Should scorn his lesser peaks in ruin thrown — 
 So Satan on his peers in sin and crime 
 In regal splendor looks, and blasted might sublime. 
 
 Once in old Babylon, as we call'd Rome, 
 I saw converging earth's great highways meet; 
 Beneath the Capitol's encircling dome, 
 Beheld returning legions legions greet. 
 And conquering armies rushing from pow'r's seat : 
 So now at Pandolon, swift come and go, 
 Demons that wing the universe as fleet 
 As lightnings flash o'er clouds in fiery glow 
 When thunders on a globe red bolts of vengeance throw. 
 
 A monarch rules each world possess'd by Hell 
 Peopled from earth, or other realms of pain 
 Whence men or angels into ruin fell ; 
 But over all is Satan's sovereign reign 
 Throned high on Pandolon's infernal plain 
 Where cherubim and seraphim in blasted pride 
 
 — Power above power — with fiendish disdain 
 
 Dark homage bring from spheres where they preside 
 
 To the Imperial Prince who first his God defied. 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 157 
 
 From these dire realms, O Solyma, to thee, 
 Metropolis of worlds, with smiles we turn : 
 Thou dream of time made true eternally 
 Round thee the universe doth circling turn, 
 And for thy Kin(j^ immortals breathe and yearn. 
 City of God, and cynosure of man. 
 The mystery of bliss in thee we learn 
 Flashing in light to crown Jehovah's plan 
 Which in the Word made Flesh new reign of joy began ! 
 
 Within this palm I feel love's pressure still, 
 And seem to see again my mother's smile. 
 As, hand in hand, we climb'd Moriah's hill 
 Up where the temple lifted once its pile 
 Above the gloom of Hinnom's dark defile. 
 The High Priest shone resplendent in the morn, 
 And touch'd by blood, and pure from earth's deep guile, 
 Withdrew the veil the cherubim adorn. 
 While bursting from those courts peal'd voice and pipe and 
 horn. 
 
 Jerusalem, thy tented fields were white 
 Whose banners waved their folds across the sky ; 
 They glitter now like morn to fancy's sight. 
 As from the world the Jews seem drawing nigh 
 To kneel wathin the house of Him most High ! 
 Then flamed the altar-light, then song arose 
 As when angelic lips their anthems try : 
 Again the music thrills, the beauty glows 
 And Heaven's own temple smiles its portals to unclose. 
 
158 VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 
 
 On Solyma in type that childish gaze ! 
 >See from the universe celestials stream 
 Through constellations dazzled by their blaze ! 
 From both the poles where Cross and Wain o'erbeara. 
 Where Ophiucus, Aries, Lyra gleam, 
 Speeding through Cygnus and the Milky Way, 
 And star-mists which Magellan's clouds I deem, 
 And Aldabaran with his mystic ray — 
 On flash the shining hosts to Bolyma's bright day. 
 
 Leaving the worlds they guard for worship now 
 Cherubic armies, and the saintly throng, 
 With everlasting glory on each brow, 
 O'er the Creation pour in light along 
 To bend before the throne and wake the song. 
 Glance Michael, Raphael, Gabriel o'er mine eye ! 
 And angel-patriarchs to whom belong 
 The amplest honors of the ancient sky 
 On wings majestic tow'rds the beaming city fly. 
 
 Within thee, Solyma, I hear them sing. 
 And see disclosed amid the clouds of light 
 In my own manhood's form Creation's King 
 Enrobed effulgent in his Godhead's might 
 Shining through tears of love that dim my sight ! 
 Immortal burns the flame while we adore ! 
 His body human, how divinely bright ! 
 O Hallelujah, I to Him nmst soar 
 To worship in his Light and leave Him nevermore!" 
 
VISIONS OF SOLYMA. 159 
 
 I woke and heard the music of a horn 
 That pour'd out mellow notes by distance sweet, 
 While just below, by wildest tempests torn 
 Black clouds were driving on to touch my feet. 
 And thunders shook the monarch-mountain's seat. 
 Lo, as the summer whirlwinds cease to blow 
 The sun's last beams those Himmalayas greet. 
 And mingles with their white a crimson glow 
 As brilliant as my dreams o'er Solyma could throw. 
 
:ji2^