VISIONS IN VERSE;
OR,
DREAMS
OF
CREA ZION AND REDEMPTION.
BY RICHARD F. FULLER,
Author of a "Life Sketch of Chaplain Fuller," 4c
" Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream areanim
Boston:
LEE     AND     SHEPARD.
LONDON: TRUBNER AND CO.
1864.





Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by
LEE & SHEPARD,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Mass.
Press of S. O. THAYER, Boston.





PREFACE.


A vexed question with the thoughtful
Christian mind has continually been,Why.has God created man in a state of
being exposed to certain sorrow and sin,
as 'well as eternal peril; thro' which he
must make his way to a purified and joyous existence, or fail of its attainment?
Why has He not formed man originally fit
for a holy and happy eternity?
Hypothetical solutions of this problem,
like that set forth in our volume, should
have, at least, the advantage of showing
that there may be some very good reason
for our probationary state; either the one
presented or some other, which faith can
anticipate or the light of eternity reveal.
Our Book also attempts to snatch spiritual glimpses of the great Drama of Christian Redemption in the past and future
development of Man, and Earth his habitation, together with Angel-ministries in
human affairs.










TABLE OF CONTENTS.


OVERTURE,
FIRST NIGHT,
SECOND NIGHT,
THIRD NIGHT,
FOURTH NIGHT,
FIFTH NIGHT,
SIXTH NIGHT,.
SEVENTH NIGHT,.
EIGHTH NIGHT,
NINTH NIGHT,.
TENTH NIGHT,
ELEVENTH NIGHT,
TWELFTH NIGHT,
THIRTEENTH NIGHT,


Page.
BEFORE CREATION. 17.  FALL OF LUCIFER. 35
S.  INGDOM OF SIN. 59..   PROBATION. 83
LET THERE BE LIGHT. 109.     AQUEOUS LIFE. 129
ANIMAL LIFE. 141..       ADAM. 151
S..   DEATH. 173
DELUGE. 191
HISTORY. 211.     COUNTERWORK. 233
PERSPECTIVE. 257










OVERTURE.










OVERTURE*.


9


OVERTURE.
I had a dream;--and thought to write
A book, in visions of the night;
Recording with a transcript true,
What then was passing in my view!
My Book, appearing to rehearse
In couplets visionary verse,
Seemed with iambic feet to sing,
Or, rather, with iambic wing!
There was no walking where we went,
So high above the firmament;
And, but for sleep, like Phaeton,
I had, unseated, tumbled down.
Never my Pegasus before
Had dared so loftily to soar,





10


OVERTURE.


Where, but for dream wings shadowy,
He could not in thin ether fly.
Nor would a waking frenzy e'er
Induce him such a flight to dare.
-Ah! should he chance to wake, before
The empyrean flight is o'er,
STo horse and rider it may prove
A fatal falling from above
While in sonambulism, he
Poises his pinion loftily,
Beyond poetic precedents;
Still with a dream-mad confidence,
And not the least concern at all,
Where dizzy stars would faint and fall
As he flies high, perhaps as low
A blind muse ventured once to go;
Yet never, till he lost his eyes,
Dared voyage on such enterprise,Where Satan's flamy billows roll,
All undiscovered as the pole,
Except by him and old Maro,





OVERTURE.


11


And him who wrote the Inferno:
Whose verses but an inkling tell
Of horrid phantoms met in hell.
But, what may most a marvel make,
To those who think of it awake,
Is the vast ages, brought to sight,
Within the compass of a night!
Indeed, the vision of my rhyme
Annihilated bounds of time,
And made remote events seem near;
As suns, i'the galaxy, appear,Though from his neighbor every star
Is still immeasurably far,
To us contiguous each to each
They seem, like sands upon the beach!
Would any reader slight my theme,
Because avowedly a dream;
Let me remind him, that we call
The poets but day-dreamers all:
And they who write fictitious prose





12


OVERTURE,


And romance, everybody knows,
Paint more unlike reality
Than wildest dreams of night may be.
While those that reason's castle build,
Form, like the fancy of a child,
Their structures so ingenious and
Most seeming massive, strong and grand,
That in their frande the cunning mind
May look in vain a flaw to find;Yet are they air-made, after all,
Cloud-castles, that may melt or fall
The palaces were conjured thus,
Built by Aladdin's genius,Creations of the mind's ideal,
How beautiful, but how unreal I
Those only can endure time's test,
That on the Rock of Ages rest:
Their Builder and their Maker, God,
They 'scape the fire and stem the flood *
This merit for my muse I claim,It publishes its real name,





OVERTURE.               13
And honestly, in all its theme,
Declares itself to be a dream.
And, should you here discover, that
The real for its picture sat,
Dream-limnMd though it be, in sooth,
Yet charactered in lines of truth;
Thus much receive: and, I implore
Thee, Reader, credit nothing more!










FIRST NIGHT.










FIRST NIGHT.


BEFORE CREATION.
" I was caught up to heaven, whether in the body or not, I cannot tell."
I dreamed, that, ere the birth of time
I viewed in vision scenes sublime;
In heaven uplifted ere the earth
Out of the chaos had a birth!
Pure souls I saw, whose heavenly grace
Conformed to them their dwelling place.
And all these beings, bound in One,
With his reflected glories shone.
His love in radiant volumes poured
On them, and they in turn restored.
Life was the product of this force;
Which shone, and sought again its source.
These beams, if any chance to know,
2





18


FIRST NIGHT.


Sometimes as stragglers seen below,
Such life is in the solemn ray,
That years are bound up in a day 1
This vision gave my spirit rest;
In slumber ne'er so well refreshed I
Flux and reflux of perfect love
With gentle undulations move
My heart in harmony to chime,
And joyously to beat in time:
As instruments of jarring strain,
May be, 'tis said, restored again,
And brought to tune, by sympathy
With those of purer harmony.
What most, I thought, delighted me,
Was ever varied unity,The always changed expression
Of what was still in essence one!
I scarce could individualize,
At first, with unaccustomed eyes,
And knew not whether those I viewed,
But one were, or a multitude.
As, when from darkness first we come
Into a gayly lighted room,
The dazzled, undistinguished blaze
Makes one to us the many rays.





BEFORE. CREATION.


19


Or, as a stranger to the sea,
A man (if such a thing could be)
That knew not water, doubting, while
On its 'innumerable smile'
Down looking from a mountain top,
Might wonder if a single drop
Or multitudes in unity,
Made up the measure of the sea.
But, gradually, in the mind
What I beheld, grew more defined;
And, though inseparable, showed
A multitude, bound up in God.
Here God, indeed,,is all in all;
Yet thought, becoming critical,
Each being soon discerns to be
An individuality,
More perfect, as a single soul,
For its relation to the whole!
And first, it seemed, my mind begun
To contemplate the highest One.
Not gazing, with uplifted glance,
Into his glorious countenance,(No vision fits the soul for this,
Until it bursts the chrysalis;)




20


FIRST NIGHT.


But, looking down, as in a glass,
I saw his mirrored glories pass;
And studied him, as here we do
In all the works of his we view,Save that no matter there might dim
The radiance reflecting him!
And thus he made before me move
His goodness, majesty and love;
His beauty and his power supreme
Forming the glory of my dream;
Fulfilling me with infinite
Spirit expansion and delight.
All beauties I have known below,
Were sparkles of this heavenly glow.
'Tis but a hint of God we see
In our sublimest scenery:
In lovely flowers and forms of art,
Conveying beauty to the heart;
In starry systems, viewed above;
In harmonies, the spirit move;
In all the traits divine, we scan,
Ennobling and adorning man.
As if a lens had gathered here
All beauties of the lower sphere,
I saw them, at a single glance,
In God's reflected countenance;





BEFORE CREATION.


21


And seizing on my spirit, they
Now hither, and now thither sway.
First seems my spirit most to move
God's holiness, and next his love:
Now his supreme omnipotence,
And, then, his special providence:
All his sublimity, awhile;
Anon the rapture of his smile:
His forming hand, his fatherhood,How great he seemed, and then, how good 1
But, soon, my self-forgetting thought,
By human sense of pain, was brought
To feel, that, what I most admire,
Is, out of Christ, consuming fire:
For, in my conscience, sin became
Its fuel, breaking out in flame.
And thus, like some midsummer flower,
I scarce endure the radiant shower
Of glory's tresses' golden flow,
Which pour all heaven down below.
Alas! too bright and beautiful!
The blooming chalice, overfull,
Compels a withering child of light
To long for refuges of night.





22


FIRST NIGHT.


O'er dazzled thus, I looked abroad
To find a hiding place from God,
And cool the kindling pains of sin,
His holiness inflamed within.
I looked not long, nor looked in vain:
One like a Lamb, that had been slain,
Was seated on the Father's throne,I saw my Savior in the Son!
Round me his- righteous mantle flowed,
And I was hid with Christ in God!
As one who, mid a multitude,
Beauty with deep emotion viewed,
In first flow of his feeling, might
Forget himself in his delight,
And seem his consciousness to lose,
Merged in the loveliness he views;
Yet soon his mind will turn its sight
To gaze upon its own delight;
Next, consciously inadequate
The beautiful to contemplate,
He seeks for sympathy, if there
Be others, his emotions share;
'Twas so my admiration flowed,
Forgetting self, at first, in God
And Jesus; next, my sight





BEFORE CREATION.


23


Turned inward on my own delight;
And, lastly, looking round I see
The souls, assembled there with me,0 1 what a host of radiant eyes I
In each what holy ardor lies!
Thus while I looked, my roving glance
One Being fastened, with a trance
Of new emotion! On the throne
With God, the Father, and the Son!
The three so intimately blent,
So like and yet so different,
I could not satisfy myself, if he
Another person still could be,
Or, in another place, the same
With God the Father, and the Lamb.
Three-fold divine developement,Each was alike and different;
Each was peculiar, yet the three
Had every other's quality.
A triple star, with beams allied,
And blended glory, side by side,
Which telescopes divide to light,
Sometimes of rosy, azure, white:
Yet, we may doubt, perhaps, if this
Be aught besides analysis,




24


FIRST NIGHT.


Like earth's equator and its zone;
Imaginary lines, alone,
For our convenience, that we may
The whole in fancied parts survey.
The Father's glory seemed like white
And dazzling beams of living light;
Which doth a rosy halo gain
From Christ, "the Lamb that once was slain;"
These with the Third of azure mild,
Shine on the spirits reconciled,
In triple glory gently lost,
The Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
S! blessed Comforter! how sweet
His presence at the mercy seat!
With drooping wings, the holy Dove
Expresses tenderness and love.
What melting loveliness is seen,
Blent in his holy, harmless mien!
His tender eyes what pity speak!
How merciful, how mild and meek!
The blessed Spirit, holy Dove,
Brings heaven down, bears man above.
Devotion flutters in his wings;
A heavenly melody he sings I
The heart, that harbors him, is blest,





BEFORE CREATION.


25


E'en on the earth, with heavenly rest;
The love of God, like breath respires,
With fervent prayers and pure desires.
The love, in holiness approved;
The love, the dear Redeemer moved;
This love the holy Spirit brings
To man, upon his peaceful wings!
And who is this angelic one,
Whose station is so near the throne?
What greatness, in his noble mien,
With equal gentleness, is seen!
On that less dazzling, glorious brow,
I rest my eyes admiring now.
His imitable virtues shine,
As human as they are divine.
Hast met, on earth, a man, who showed
To sense similitude of God?
Whose noble qualities endued
Expressively each attitude,A speaking statue, when he stood;
His gestures as in rhythm flowed;
His beaming eye so eloquent;
And much his whole demeanor meant?
'Then mayest thou conceive of him,
I saw, among the seraphim:





26


SFIRST NIGHT.


His form of lightning and of flame
Spoke "greatness," as his'proper name,Said, "I am Gabriel and I bear
In heavenly works a noble share."
Near him, a glorious form I saw,Was he a man of peace or war?
He bodied forth a heavenly might.
To do, I thought, is his delight.
And who, against his martial hand,
In conflict, could expect to stand?
The power, that lifted him above,
Was the omnipotence of love,The heavenly, everlasting might
Of justice, holiness and right.
Such were the lightning of his eye,
Such gave his motions majesty,
His glance made dreadful, and his word
Consuming, like a flaming sword.
The torch of conscience he applies;
And wakes the wrathful nemesis.
That burning presence none withstood,
Except by power of rectitude;
Forth from his eye such glances leap,
And thunders mutter there asleep I
Yet, as, in faith, a man may see,





BEFORE CREATION.


Enjoying its sublimity,
The tempest power, so Michael shone,
A joy to every heavenly one.
Another face my notice caught;
And moved in me a wondering thought.
His were a forehead, broad and high,
A deep and rather restless eye,
Used with his own thought to reflect,
Characterized by intellect.
Abstractedness his features mark:
His eye, so deep, is almost dark.
I saw no other, small or great,
Not willing to communicate
His inner thought, but him alone,
Of those in station near the throne.
Self-conscious, seemed his intellect
To brood, as well as to reflect.
Bright as the herald star of morn;
Almost, not quite, suggesting scorn:
Just as an intellectual saint,
Redeemed from his self-righteous taint,
Some lingering trace of what he was,
In glory even, may disclose.
This being rivetted the eye,
Like a marked child of destiny;





28


FIRST NIGHT.


Whose future, in the embryo,
Would with uncertainty foreshow
His checkered and distinguished lot,
Of marked events, we know not what.
Here doth this being taciturn,
Bright as the star of morning, burn;
An orient intellectual flame,
Called Lucifer,-I heard his name.
With beings heaven all peopled shone,--
Many in brotherhood of one!
Perceptions, sensibilities,
And light of radiant presences,
Like stars that undivided shine,
Their souls together flashed on mine!
No earth-crowd's all concentred gaze
Could thrill me like their heavenly rays.
Eyes, like in kind, not in degree,
We sometimes in the body see,
That with some one trait fainter shine
Of glories that in heaven combine,A soft eye, where emotions dwell,
In its pure, deep and limpid well;
A kindling eye, whose meteor glow,
Shafts of the spirit seems to throw:
And glances of a mighty one,





BEFORE CREATION.


29


More dazzling, sometimes, than the sun,Such as could make an eagle veil
His lids; and men beneath it quail!
I've seen an eye of tenderness,
A winning softness to express,
So like the harmless, holy dove,
All conquering with the power of love,
That I my life would rather give
Than such to injure or to grieve.
While thus absorbed in my survey,
I heard a voice most sweetly say,
"What think you of these homes of ours,Our gem paved streets and glittering towers,
Our mirror lake of gold below,
And streams of life that always flow;
Our trees, that bread of heaven bear,
And healing leaves that glitter there?
Led by the voice, I cast my eyes
About the streets of paradise.
The setting worthy of the gem
I thought, while thus admiring them.
The home of glory matches well
With spirits that in heaven dwell;
And seems from them the hue to take,
As sunbeams their own beauty make.





30


FIRST NIGHT.


Hast thou on earth a person seen,
With such similitude between
Himself and his surroundings, you
Scarce thought to separate the two?
His character was in his dress:
His dwelling did the same express.
His face conformed as aptly, too;
And all of them kept him in view;
As words, by genius chosen, can
So body forth the mind of man,
The sound is in the sense forgot,
And words and letters heeded not,So heavenly beauties blended fair
With the bright beings, dwelling there.
My roving eyes all heaven survey,
Well pleased; how long I cannot say:
Till something like a window seems
To change the prospect of my dreams.
Among all shining worlds, they say,
The telescopes a spot survey,
One only in the arch of heaven,
Which seems a realm to darkness given.
No orb will there look back on you,
In answer to your anxious view.
Mly dream of heaven seemed to see,





BEFORE CREATION.


31


Far distant in immensity,
A speck of darkness, such a one
As spots the surface of the sun.
It chilled my heart, and shocked my eyes!
"0 what is that?" my spirit cries,
Appealing to the angel, who
Invited me to heaven view.
He turned to me; but, ere he spoke,
The trouble had my slumber broke;
And waking thought conjectured, what
Might be that solitary blot
On all the brightness-that one space
Where darkness had its dwelling place!
Was it mere matter; which no word
Of God's creative voice had heard?
Or but a region unemployed,In all the world, one aching void?










SECOND NIGHT.










FALL. OF LUCIFER.


35


SECOND NIGHT.
FALL OF 'LUCIFER.
" I saw Satan like lightning fall from heaven."
Days passed,--which each a thousand years,
In heaven's chronology appears;
And still in mind I turned the theme
Of my apocalyptic dream;
Expecting nightly, once again
Its thread to take up-but in vain,
Until a dark night draped the skies,
And sightless pressed upon the eyes;
Such as blots every thing from view,
And only leaves the night and you.
In deeps of darkness there I lay,
And slowly sank in sleep away;
When,-whether bound by slumber's spell,
Or still awake, I cannot tell,




36


SECOND NIGHT.


A meteor of lightning flame
From zenith down to nadir came;
And, flashing from the sheath of night,
Smote on the eyes with awful light
Its keen edge seemed to penetrate,
And soul and marrow separate.
Whether I slept still, or awoke,
I know not; but, upon that stroke,
I started up, and heard a cry
Of sadness, filling all the sky,--
An accent, such as he, who hears,
Has ever after in his ears!
The voice was--" Whither art thou gone?
Where art thou fallen, star of morn?"
I woke. But still, upon my eye
The light flashed; still I heard the cry I
And, many days, as in the dream,
I heard the sound and saw the gleam 1
A secret sense within me stirred,
That something dreadful had occurred,
A dark foreboding, undefined,
Of fearful import in the mind.
I rose, to see, if from the morn,
The herald star indeed were gone
Yet, where the ringlets part to flow,





FALL OF LUCIFER.


37


It still bedecks Aurora's brow,
Till, like a spectre, she is gone,
Laid by the weird Hyperion.
Another dream, at even, brought,
What I by day had vainly sought.
It ushered me, once more, among
The shining and seraphic throng.
And some one asked, of those near by"What was the light, and what the cry?"
"Thou knowest, Sir!" I said: and he,
Explaining kindly, answered me:"Thou hast been here before; and one
Thou sawest, standing near the throne,'
Called Lucifer: but, if again
You look for him, you look in vain.
The greatest and the first to sin,
He fell; and vast his fall has been.
His disobedience broke the tie,
That binds the blessed to the sky,Sweet gravitation, which above
Secures, by silken cords of love,
And here sustains each happy one,
Where God is love, and heaven his throne!"





38


SECOND NIGHT.


"And did not Lucifer know this?"
I asked,--"I thought a mind was his
Marked with intelligence; and what
Could tempt him, in his happy lot?
Here, where all treasures are possessed,
Jointly with God, by all the blessed,
And nought is left to be desired,--
0 1 what could tempt him?" I inquired.
"Here all God's power and wealth are given
To happy souls, that dwell in heaven,
And of these boons the brightest gem
Must be, that God still shares in them.
With those we love, what we possess
To share, is chiefest happiness.
And, where is now this fallen star?
His fall so swift has borne him far 1"
The angel pointed to the spot,
Before I saw,-that single blot,
That sole dark space, in all the light I
I looked; and the appalling sight
A thousand fold more hideous seemed
Than the dark blank before I dreamed!
There death and chaos seemed to live;
The aching void made positive!
I shrank from that dark sight: and then





FALL OF LUCIFER.


39


I heard the angel speak again:"What tempted here this spirit high?"
-"Ah sir I thou knowest;" I reply.
" Among the angels, who was here
To whisper treason in his ear?
And who was cunning, to devise
A fraud, for such discerning eyes?
What hate has spurred another on,
To cast such excellency down?"
The angel answered: "Though, henceforth,
In time to come, he tempt the earth;
So subtle, specious, falsely wise,
He still is ancestor of lies;
Himself the first dark origin
And the progenitor of sin.
His own lust drew and led him on;
And his own will has cast him down.'
"Was this then in a corner done?"
I asked---"or by the angels known?
The rise and progress did they see
Of that dark treason's history?"
He answered: "Naught is secret here;





40


SECOND NIGHT.


And, in the spirit, all is clear;
Discerned by our intelligence,
Like outward things by eyes of sense.
Each thought and wish, though unexpressed,
Is read, through windows in the breast.
We saw, we sorrowed; and we strove
To save from sin by ceaseless love."
"'0 strange I" I cried. "Explain the way
Of this dark treachery, I pray!"
"We saw him first,"-he said,-"neglect
His other gifts, for intellect;
Although we scarcely then could know,
To what dark issue this might grow.
For meditation he desired
Abstraction; in himself retired,
And introverted in his thought,
He less and less communion sought.
Now, angels, in the heavenly state,
Are eager to communicate.
Expression is the twin of thought;
Together both to being brought.
Love longs, like sunbeams, to dispense
Emotion and intelligence.
This fluency of souls sincere,





FALL OF LUCIFER.


41


Deep, fervent, makes our music here.
Electric chain that comes and goes,
From kindred soul to soul it flows,
And leaps from heart to heart, above,
To multiply the bliss of love.
When Lucifer we saw inclined
To privacy within his mind,
Less loving, while the more lhe thought,
We gathered round him, and we sought
To draw his mind from brooding there,
And in his mediation share;
Gently expressing this desire,
While his deep musings we admire.
But, gradually, day by day,
His manner seemed still more to say,
We half disturbed him; and he sought
Absorption in secluded thought.
"An object, e'en to angel eyes,
Near and oft looked at, magnifies.
And Lucifer was thus led on
To self-exaggeration.
And,-as, if viewing what is near,
More than the things that distant are,
We grow near sighted, whereby all,
Except the near is rendered small;





42


SECOND NIGHT.


So self, to his sight magnified,
And, in his soul, engendered pride.
This seed of sin thus camie to start,
A little germ, within his heart:
For, thus, above his peers, he deemed
Himself, and somewhat higher seemed,
And worthy more esteem and trust
With God, the holy One and Just.
"God sorrowed; and, with Jesus, sought
To undeceive him, in his thought,
And rescue from the fearful chasm,
That opened near, of egotism.
The Holy Spirit tried to move
Within his heart the ancient love.
But Lucifer, with wondrous skill,
Contrived to parry each appeal,
With shrewd evasive subtlety;
And would not see with single eye.
With his resistance pride increased,
Till angels from their efforts ceased.
A voice proceeded from the throne,'He will not see: leave him alone!'
"The heart's love, but a step behind,
Follows conviction of the mind.





FALL OF LUCIFER.


43


From self o'er-weening to self-love,
Doth Lucifer now downward move,
God's equal favor soon he must,
Thus over-weening, think unjust.
And fancied wrongs will irritate:
So Lucifer soon learns to hate
His equals, as his rivals, first;
And, next, he hates the Sovereign worst,
As author of his fancied wrong,Thus treason hurries him along.
"However changed the form of sin,
Each still is near to each akin;
And, hand in hand, they hunt the prey.
Each to the other leads the way.
And he is guilty, thus, of all,
Who sins in one thing, great or small.
In Lucifer, his heart-neglect,
In exercise of intellect,
Seemed a small sin: but soon 'tis seen
To lead his spirit to o'erween;
Till egotism, near allied,
Induces in his bosom pride;
Which self deceives,-and soon he must
Think peers are favored, God unjust.
Whence rivalry and hatred rise,





44.


SECOND NIGHT.


To banish him from paradise.
"The Holiest of Holies saw
This first infraction of his law;
Albeit, with too pure an eye
To look upon iniquity.
In heaven's music, stealing in,
He heard discordancy of sin.
Soon all perceived the grating tone;
And, first in heaven, pain was known.
All eyes turned toward the Father's face,
In silence, for an hour's space,
Watching his mandate: but no word
His ministers in heaven heard.
Then, privileged with souls above,
To share the counsels of his love,
The seraphim that silence broke,
And Gabriel, great-hearted, spoke:"0 God! what dreadful woe has come
To this our everlasting home I
How hast thou suffered to begin
In heaven here corrupting sin!
For death is in it, to destroy
All beauty, holiness and joy.
It works within us agony:





FALL OF LUCIFER.


45


We know what it will be-to die!
Why sufferest thou the deadly leaven,
Corruption, to begin in heaven?
The pillars of our state it must
Roll down, to perish in the dust.
If sin be suffered here to dwell,
Heaven will be soon transformed to hell.
Thy throne will fall, 0 Father I we,
All holy ones, will fall with thee!
Why doth not now thy outstretched arm
Repel from us this deadly harm?
Why, still unmoved, serenely thus,
No mandate wilt thou give to us?
For we are thine, Almighty Lord!
We wait upon thy sovereign word.
To glorify thee and obey,For this, and this alone, we pray,
In thee our being bound up still!
O! bid us now to do thy will1"
"He spake. But hast thou ever seen
An earthly parent, wise, serene,
His eager and impetuous child
To hear in silence, gracious, mild;
As, on a level, in his love,
But in his wisdom far above?





46


SECOND NIGHT.


That childish counsel, while he hears,
Seems like a bird song in his ears,
Outwarbled from a warm heart true I
The gentle father hears him through;
But, on his tranquil face, the while,
An unconvinced parental smile!
So heard the Highest, with an air
The angels charged with folly there.
"Next Michael spake; and much the same.
And thus the heavenly hosts acclaim.
Now answers from the throne are given;
While every soul is hushed in heaven.
Deep thunders that melodious strain,
Like many waters of the main," God will preserve, by means more wise,
The blessedness of Paradise."
And then the Counsellor was heard.
And thus advised the heavenly Word:"0 Father! baneful here have been,
Already, the effects of sin.
Most dark, most horrible must be
Its sorrow to eternity!
But thou hast suffered it; and so





FALL OF LUCIFER.


47


'Tis wisest, let all heaven know!
-Obedience, to be prized by thee,
Almighty Father, must be free i
Thus on thy creatues is bestowed
The means to make them sons of God.
Their wills must be as free as thine,
O God! or they are not divine.
Pure, holy, hast thou made them; still
Left to their own free choice of will.
And, though this liberty must cost
Some spirits, in perversion lost;
Yet, thus the saints are purified,
In bliss forever to abide.
Undoubtedly, thy outstretched arm
Shall keep the heavenly ones from harm:
While, now should Lucifer be hurled,
An exile, to his proper world,
It may in heaven hereafter be,
That souls shall sin, as first did he.
But if he bide in heaven awhile,
Permitted here his subtle guile
To try with all, that dwell above;
He thus will win all he can move:
And such probation will secure,
That allthe others shall be pure.
Then, if thou banish him and his,





48


SECOND NIGHT.


And, to confirm our heavenly bliss,
Admit no beings here, till he
First proves them with his subtlety,
Our heaven shall always be secured."
"When thus, in substance, spake the Word,
With tender tones, the Holy Ghost
Sighed,-" Many souls may thus be lost I
But never one shall fall, till I
The utmost powers of suasion try;
And, over-matching Satan's skill,
Make heavenly free the power of will."
"And I,"-the Son cried,--"will, to prove,
In this probation, heavenly love,
Bestow my life; to save each soul
From Satan, and from sin's control.
None, save against the Holy Ghost
They sin, rejecting me, are lost.
Persuasion's utmost power shall draw
The souls of earth to heaven's law,
When I, in shame, am lifted high,
And for the sake of sinners die!"
"So sweetest sweet the music flowed
Of voices from the throne of God,





FALL OF LUCIFER.


49


That discord, like a minor tone
Of mingling cadence, almost none,
Seemed to enhance its sweetness, as,
In songs of earth, sometimes it has,
By master skill, when sparsely thrown,
A spice of sadness, in the tone!
Then, all the angels showed desire
To look into this, clustering nigher,
Its mystery to fathom, and
Its deeps of love to understand!
One only, with a brow of gloom,
Had heard it like the voice of doom.
Repenting not, the Wicked One
Pondered the counsel of the Son,
Knowing that now in heaven should be
A scope for all his subtlety;
That he, a season, here might rage,
And war with love and wisdom wage,
Permitted, every holy heart
To tempt, with his seductive art.
"Thus, on the souls of purity
He cast aboad his evil eye;
As worms are greedy to devour
Unsullied sweetness of a flower;
And, when they see it, only seek
4





50


SECOND NIGHT.


To blight and canker its pure cheek.
And, in bad men, as foul desires
A maiden purity inspires:
Polluting beauty, bloom and joy,
As buds, defiling worms destroy!
"The power of truth is fully known
To few, on earth, perhaps to none;
While the vast influence of lies
Is plainly shown to human eyes,
By history of all mankind
And every individual mind.
Nay! very earth, unconscious, hath
Its vestiges, in lines of scathe.
To science, by the strata fold,
Is the long controversy told.
"But, first, before the age of man,
In heaven, Lucifer began,
Subverting, by the power of sin,
All spirits, sublety could win.
His cunning cheats, the Holy Ghost
Exposed to all the heavenly host;
And passions, by the devil stirred,
Were disenchanted by the Word.
[his blessed influence every soul





FALL OF LUCIFER.


51


Made free from Lucifer's control.
Against clear light, pure influence,
Fell some in disobedience;
And, choosing, by their own free will,
Cast in their lot with Satan still.
"Approaching with his subtleties,
Thus Lucifer corrupted these:The ego was the vital part,
He aimed at, with insidious dart.
If he could teach to overween,
Though many a step might lie between,
He persevered, secure to win,
By slow and sure degrees of sin.
Of self who thought more highly than
He ought to think, at once began
To hold less highly than he should,
Others, whose gifts were just as good.
E'en God's impartial justice, next,
His wounded egotism vexed:
And Satan, soon, insidious,
The King could draw in question, thus.
His next approach was sympathy,'He knew to feel for them; since he
Had been unjustly treated, too.'





52


SECOND NIGHT.


"And, thus disposed, their eyes he drew
To his own powers, with skill displayed,
And offered for the others' aid.
Dark treason so had formed a root,
To spread abroad and grow to fruit.
For, subtle Satan wearied not,
In all the progress of his plot:
And, from his breast, the hateful leaven
Spread where it could, with souls in heaven;
Swelling to giant schemes, which they
Contrived against the Sovereign's sway.
"Thus Satan's work in heaven was done,
When he had tested every one,
And gathered to his standard all,
That subtlety could make to fall.
His number, if we should compare
With all the hosts of heaven there,
Was small, indeed; yet, not a few,
If them alone we have in view.
And now the Sovereign, with an eye
Too pure to see iniquity,
Searcher of hearts, bends all his gaze
On Lucifer, with burning rays.
Then Satan fell, and Satan's crew,





FALL OF LUCIFER.


53


To hide from the Almighty's view,
Shot madly from the heavenly sphere,
And plunged in that dark region drear,
Which you have seen,-the only place
Left blank in all the realm of space:
And, after, like a comet train,
His bad hosts followed him amain 1
4"Succeeding this most awful sight,
Which flashed across the disc of night,
All heaven was hushed, a little time:
And then burst forth a strain sublime;
Which all the souls in heaven raise,
Of rapture, thankfulness and praise."
Thus heaven was purged. And, to secure
Its blessedness forever pure,
The power of God surrounds it all
With pearly gate and glittering wall;
And never more shall enter in
Its precinct any form of sin.
Whatever loves and makes a lie;
Whatever sullies purity,
Shall never pass the pearly gate,
Nor enter on the heavenly state:





54


SECOND NIGHT.


Not innocence, till purified,
Nor virtue, save as silver tried,
By hard experience refined
And by probation disciplined.
None enter, but a palm they bear,
And crowns, the fruit of conquest, wear.
None, but have striven, suffered, loved,
In life's severe ordeal proved,
Not one, that has not felt before,
What he shall know, now nevermore,
Tears, disappointment, pain, defeat,
Dark nights and days of sultry heat,
A hope deferred, heart sick desire.
Escape from sin as if by fire,
A bitter travail, on the earth,
In labors of the second birth.
Not one, except of sin he be
Washed in the fount of Calvary,
Content the Savior's cross to bear,
His cup and baptism to share.
From tribulation coming, they
The stains of sin have washed away.
Some from a long probation; some
From scarce an hour of earth, hath come:
Yet long enough, for each to prove
A fitness for celestial love;





FALL OF LUCIFER.           55
To purge the dross, if more or less,
And fit for final happiness;
The Savior's love to signalize
By every age in paradise!










THIRD NIGHT.P










KINGDOM OF SIN.


59


THIRD NIGHT.
KINGDOM OF SIN.
" The smoke of their torment ascendeth forever and ever."
A gloom, enveloping the sky,
Half sable, lined the canopy.
The low clouds, like dishevelled hair,
And dangling mist, depressed the air.
In broad day crouching shadows stalk,
Where they are nightly wont to walk,
Which seem within to penetrate
And cloud the mind with gloomy weight.
Day's sable sister, following him,
Was meet to match a day so dim;
Without a ray of light, to show
Whether I were awake or no.
Now, through my room a radiance flowed.





60


THIRD NIGHT.


A gleaming form beside me stood.
It was the angel: well I knew
His flashing form and accent, too.
"Come! I will lend thee winge;" said he,"The Dark Realm to explore with me!"
I shrank, and said-"why would we know
The secrets of the world of wo;
While, in the sunny scenes of joy,
We may eternity employ?
Like what we learn, we may be made,
By curiosity betrayed."
"Because," the angel said, "the night
May give us knowledge of the light.
In their antagonism, best
Is quality of each expressed.
The splendors of the noonday sun
Have less of human homage won,
Than, when the dawning light pursues
Night's shrinking shadow, and suffuse
Your purple east the blended dyes
Of day and darkness in the skies,Then blushes of detected night
Publish the glories of the light.





KINGDOM OF SIN.


61


So, if you watch the soaring sun,
Till sloping to the horizon:
When, on night's bosom sinking, he
His glorious head lays heavily;
As with her raven tresses there
Hyperion blends his golden hair,
His gentler beauty beams more bright
Than in the dazzle of his light.
-So, sin and darkness seem to show
God's light and love with brighter glow.
And, therefore, angels eagerly
Look into this deep mystery.
Thus when the spirit said or sung,--
As the swift eagle bears her young,
He carried me on pinions bright,
Fast as a thought or fancy's flight.
Delicious sense of motion seemed
To thrill with rapture, while I dreamed.
In waking hours, I oft before
Wished for a lark's quick wing to soar;
Or eagle's pinion, that, with ease,
Skims over high ethereal seas,
Mapping minutely with his eye
The earthly scenes beneath him lie.
But, never wish had equalled this





62


THIRD NIGHT.


Dream-transport of angelic bliss!
We onward seem our way to urge,
Until we reach the very verge
Of the Dark Realm. And, then, his wing
The spirit rests on, fluttering;
Fixed in his flight, perhaps an hour;
Like humming bird before a flower.
Here as we waited, I could mark
The limit of the light and dark.
There was no mingling, where they met,Shading together, making jet
A twilight, at the border line:
Nor even there the two combine.
The Spirit's plumage and his down
Of beaming light had longer grown,
While we were waiting; till they, now,
My body lightly overflow.
Whether this only were the cause
Of that hour's stationary pause,
Or whether to momentum gain,
I had not means to ascertain,
Nor long to turn it in my thought;
For, like a bolt from heaven shot,





KINGDOM OF SIN.


63


He dashed against the veil of night,
And pierced it with his sudden flight.
Then, o'er the gloom that region veiled,
Bright as a meteor he sailed.
I shrank among his plumes secure,
The place thus able to endure
And scrutinize, from light that streams
O'er all the way, with searching beams.
Like pitchy darkness all the scene
Was pierced, as if by lightning keen,
Which does not banish, but disclose
Night's horror, wheresoe'er it goes.
For, still her brows more frightful frown,
Thus by the passing lightning shown;
Whose grim and dim deformity
Before we felt, but now we see.
Secure with my good angel here,
I knew no particle of fear;
And looked, at ease, as on we whirled,
At horrors of the wicked world.
I saw malignant spirits raise
Their hands, to hide the meteor blaze;
And marked the angel-radiance smite





64


THIRD NIGHT.


Their lurid eyes with blasting light,
While their malignant looks expressed
The blackest passions of the breast,Revenge and hatred, pain and care,
Despite, ambition, wrath, despair.
We passed o'er towns and villages
Of outcast wretches such as these;
Their imprecating howl or screech
We heard, which serves with them for speech.
Some things, they did and said, ne'er can
Be uttered in the ears of man.
Thank God! in nature and in art,
They have as yet no counterpart.
No symbol and no sound gives sense
To such unknown experience.
But, other things I saw, have been
Since copied by the sins of men.
With them obtained what writers call
The "social compact,"--as if all
Had made a bargain, meet to bind,
By mutual consent of mind.
This fraud of argument by name
Direct from the first Liar came;
Who calls things by their opposite,
Then, by the name, proves wrong is right.





KINGDOM OF SIN.


65


The social principle of heaven
Is help, by strength to weakness given.
Superior powei the means is made
Of lending to the feebler aid.
To rule is but to serve: the sense
Of greatness is beneficence.
The only use of higher power
Is help, it renders to the lower.
The good, that he can do with it,
Is all the owner's benefit.
More blest the higher than the low,
Because 'tis happier to bestow.
The higher have the joy to give;
More blessed this than to receive.
But, here, the very opposite,
Inverted, marked the realm of night.
Dominion, not to help, was used,
But for a selfish end abused.
The ruler his own pleasure sought;
Of others' welfare took no thought.
The social compact, so called, here,
Consisted in the bond of fear;
The more intelligent and strong
Combined the weaker class to wrong
In this dark region, narrowly
5





66


THIRD NIGHT.


I watched the darker company.
My angel, as he travelled nigh,
Brought all to view of vision's eye,
As if a sun, that circled low,
With light the passing scene to show.
The objects just beneath, in sight,
Seemed dazzled and disturbed by light,
Thrown in convulsions by the ray,
And tortured till it went away.
Therefore, the distant things alone
Were in their normal nature shown.
Yet these our magnifying ray
Made large as life and plain as day.
The germ and growth I here could trace
Of all the plagues, that curse the place.
In different social circles, they
Steps of development display.
The first from idleness proceed
To every form of evil deed.
They need no shelter, raiment, food;
And angel's business, doing good,
They have no heart for: thus a-void
Is their existence unemployed.
The next communities disclose
How ennui to mischief grows,





KINGDOM OF SIN.


67


Breaks forth to frantic violence
And a fierce clash of elements.
No scope for mischief can they find,
Except to wreak it on their kind.
Hence, anger, feud, revenge shoot forth,
And multiply from south to north,
From east to west, with magic speed
That marks the spread of evil seed,
Which soon grow ripe for all the evil,
Invented by the plotting devil.
A dusky form I look upon,
That spreads huge raven wings anon;
And, low and sinister in flight,
Is seen full often to alight.
Where'er he settles, soon you see
Signs of redoubled misery.
He rises now, and moves away,
To stoop upon another prey.
Is this a bird, this hideous thing,
With such a spread of dusky wing?
Without the soaring power to rise,
How low and sinister he flies!
In him combines each evil trait,
In forms of earth seen separate,He flies with stillness of the owl;





68


THIRD NIGHT.


With evil eye is wont to prowl,
And pounce, with deadly malice fierce,
On bad things he may render worse.
The vulture's head has imaged his;
And serpents show his lurid eyes.
There is no copy of his claw,
Among all birds I ever saw.
The cruellest conception dim
Can give, of what belongs to him,So fit to catch away, and tear,
With clasp of pitiless despair I
And, horrors of his mouth, can speak
Nor cruel fang, nor crooked beak!
All strength my trembling limbs forsook,
When on this form I chanced to look.
I shuddered; and, with whispered cry,
My angel begged afar to fly.
"0! what if you he should discern,
And all his wrath against us turn?"
"Fear not!" the angel said: "for he
Has long ago had sight of me.
He looks; but, light he cannot bear,
And keeps his distance still, with care.





KINGDOM OF SIN.


69


As doth a watchful raven, when
It scarcely seems to notice men,
Yet keep beyond the range of shot,
Although they think it heeds them not.
So, too, this form will further fly,
If I approach him; and, if I
Too fast pursue, he seeks to hide,
And into some black chasm glide."
To verify the fact, his flight
He turned toward the form of night,
By slow approaches; and the thing
Still kept his distance, on the wing.
The angel hastened in his flight,Immediately, in lake of night,
Down, down, the object plunged: and, then,
As we returned, it rose again.
"That you "-the angel said-" may know
What this dark object does, below;
WVe will retire where we can view
Whatever he may please to do."
So saying, he on high did rise,
And eased the dark form's dazzled eyes.
The monster sped upon his way,
And mischief wreaked upon his prey.





70o


THIRD NIGHT.


We saw him in a great crowd spring,
And fold his evil boding wing;
Then ope his mouth in blasphemies,
Haranguing with rhetoric lies.
"What riot has let loose his rage?
What strifes this multitude engage?
What hatred for the neighbor burns;
And each against the other turns?
Now let the cauldron cease to boil 1.
The civil sword has sharp recoil.
Without a handle it is made;
A point, at both ends, and a blade.
Its stroke the hand that wields it, wounds;
Its thrust with equal force rebounds.
Receiving, while we give, a pain,
Is loss equivalent to gain.
E'en at this price, you'll not forego
Sweets of revenge, full well I know.
To gratify this appetite,
Must always be our chief delight.
Yet, we may shun self sacrifice,
And sate it still, if we are wise.
"As things are going on, you see,
You've nothing in security.





KINGDOM OF SLN.


And each one every way must look,
For fear of the assassin's stroke.
Since we, who never can be slain,
From wounds may suffer deadly pain.
Whatever one wrests from another,
His next door neighbor or his brother,
Full well he knows, some other may,
At any moment, snatch away.
So insecure a life must be
Uninterrupted misery.
Now, hear my counsel! Join your hands
Together, in united bands.
Seek to concentrate and combine
Your strength, by skilful discipline.
And then some foreign nation may
Be pounced on as an easy prey!"
Applauses loud, when he had spoke,
From the fierce congregation broke.
And, with tumultuous acclaim,
Him as their chosen chief they name.
Now, by his orders, they are placed
And separated into caste,
Each rank, ingeniously planned,
The ranks beneath it to command.
Those first in cunning and in hate





THIRD NIGHT.


He makes the chief rank of the State;
The simplest and the weakest put,
In this gradation, at the foot.
Thus, all, except the least, possess
The means some other to oppress;
And wrongs, which from the higher flow,
In turn descend on those below.
So, each class has an interest,
Except the lowest, in this cast;
And that too ignorant is and weak
The yoke of those above to break.
When this arrangement he had brought,
He military science taught.
Then, making one a deputy,
He spread his dusky wings to fly.
A tortuous, crooked path he wound;
As foxes put to fault a hound.
Yet, the good angel seemed to know
The very turn he'd choose to go,
And at a distance, we pursue;
Till, in his zigzag course, he flew
Unto that very tribe, for whom
He had prepared a martial doom.
He sets on foot here spreading far
A rumor of the coming war,





KINGDOM OF SIN.


73


In such a second-handed way,
That none its origin can say.
Next, he exhorts them to prepare,
By organizing, for the war;
Pleading necessity, persuades
To rank in high and lower grades.
War comes, with all its terrors, here,The rush, the roar, the flight, the fear,
The wavering ranks, in fierce attack,
Now forward, and now beaten back
And, where is he, the dusky Form,
The evil Bird, that brought the storm?
Like the Greek Mars, on one side, now,
Then, on the other, see him go!
He throws his weight into the scale,
Against the side which would prevail:;
That he may thus prolong the fight,
As if a revel of delight.
When to its height the battle grew,
The Dark Form spread his wings and flew;
The danger thus, I thought, to shun,
Or satisfied with what he'd done.
But, soon, his after movement showed,
He meant to spread the strife abroad,





74


THIRD NIGHT.


And make one feud the nucleus for
A scene of universal war.
The other powers, successively,
He sought, with his persuasive plea:
According to their temper, plied
Passion, 'self-interest, honor, pride.
One with this combatant; another,
To balance him, leagues with the other;
As children, in their games, divide,
And choose a chief, for either side.
Thus spreads the plague spot, wide and far,
Till all the realm resounds with war I
More horrible this direful scene
Than conflicts mortal men between;
For, while death-pain the battle gives
The wounded sufferer still lives.
Death lends no refuge, as he does
To the afflicted mortal's woes.
Neither fails strength; the strife goes on,
Not ended by a setting sun I
Unbroken night is fit for them,The owls and bats of this dark realm I
The wrath of conflict and the pain
And hate, here wax, but never wane I
Nothing can end the strife, at length,





KINGDOM OF SIN,


75


As sundown or exhausted strength.
Nought limits its increasing woe,
Nor says it shall no further go.
The clash of conflict swells amain,
The shrieks of fear, of wrath, of pain I
The tempest's terror ever grows;
No limit lulls it to repose I
The awful waves of strife, that roll,
Vibrate with horror through my soul;
And I, with whispered fear, beseech
My friend to fly beyond its reach.
"Soon shall you leave the scene," says he,
"Too horrible for you or me.
But, first, learn well, before you go,
What woes from disobedience flow.
Such consequences still attend
Rebellion 'gainst our heavenly Friend.
His reign is all beneficence,
And blessings issue ever thence.
They wrong themselves, who disobey
And rise against his righteous sway.
And, ere we go, look well around,
And scrutinize this so-called ground.
My shafts of light shall pierce it through,





76


THIRD NIGHT.


And bring its structure to the view."
So saying, his concentred ray
The scenes beneath my eye display.
I saw a rayless heat pervade,
And melt the lurid realm of shade.
A sable mist the region dim
Envelopes with a hissing film;
Its lower strata boil and steam,
And molten earth, rock, metal seem;
While monstrous bubbles, boiling up,
Swell high, and soon in chasms ope.
All the ingredients were at war:
Repulsion was the only law.
To fly apart were all impelled,
And with disunion rages swelled;
By outside pressure, kept in place,
And light, that filled surrounding space:
For, light they hated more and feared;
And hatred, thus, their world insphered.
In all this place, 'twas clear to see,
No live corporeal thing could be.
Nor was there, in the region all,
One herb or leaf or animal!
And, now, the angel turned his flight,





KINGDOM OF SIN.


77


Departing from the realm of night.
The darkness, all along his course,
Shrank from him, with repulsive force,
And rifted, like the Red Sea tide,
Whose waves for Israel divide.
Away from him, the billowy shade
Retreat tumultuary made.
Yet, as apostles, the unjust
When leaving, shook away the dust,
Lest they might bear away with them
Aught of the evil they condemn;
So did the angel, ere he crossed
The border of the region lost,
His pinions shake with power, though he
Not in the least endangered me.
A meteor shower falls from his plumes;
And, like a crash of worlds, illumes,
In brilliant volleys all the night,
With broken galaxies of light!
Soon as we passed the border line,
And entered on the world divine,
The angel broke forth in a song,
Melodious, sudden, sweet and strong,
With seas of ecstacy, that roll
Their waves of sweetness on my soul!





78


THIRD NIGHT.


Ah! that was such a season, as
No bodily experience has!
Its joy my soul could not contain,
Elated with the angel's strain;
Which, like an ecstacy excites
My spirit to divine delights.
The language of that strain sublime
Was kin to none of human clime:
And, yet, the song's inflection gave
A meaning, that it seemed to have.
Although I could not speak a word,
Far less translate the language heard,
Nor even grasp it, as it passed,
That memory might hold it fast,
And snatch some sweets, to make my own,
If not a word, at least, a tone;
Yet was my spirit satisfied,
Nor further in its meaning pried
Than this, that, all its purport showed,
It made a melody to God;
Whose glories, while we praise him, come
And make of us a heavenly home,---
God-filled, by contemplation,
His glory rendering our own!
Thus, on our way, too, as we passed,
(Too sweet for me the joy to last!)





KINGDOM OF SIN.


All heavenly ones, in song amain,
Take up the angel's rapture-strain,
Each with a different part, as suits,
Jehovah's varied attributes,
And mingling all the many lays
In harmony of heavenly praise.
Ah 1 'twas a season, that I shall
In memory's echoes, e'er recall;
Though formless, wordless, vague, it may
Be thought's mere shadow of a lay!
Too brief my transit! I was laid,
Now, gently back, upon my bed;
Where, for a while, soft stealing dreams
Seemed to prolong my heavenly themes,
Until the rosy morning's stroke
Smote on my eyes; and I awoke,
In dawn of consciousness,--and still
The music seemed my ears to fill I
I started--wondered, could it be,
That I was in eternity?
-No 'twas the earth's sweet morn of May;
And choral songsters hailed the day I










FOURTH NIGHT.










PROBATION.


83


FOURTH NIGHT.
PROBATION.
" They shall be tried as silver is tried."
One gentle eve of joyous June,
With a full face, the mellow moon,
Mid soft-eyed stars of trembling light,
Beamed smiling on the balmy night.
Her fondling airs lured me abroad,
To muse among the works of God,
Not to the earth alone confined,
But passing with uplifted mind,
O'er spheres, that pave the milky way,
And with a wider reach than they 1
0! what a blessing are the eyes;
Which help the mind o'er matter rise,
On subtle seas, whose boundless flow





84


FOURTH NIGHT.


The spirit only falls below,
And reaches e'en the formless shore,
With waves, the soul may voyage o'er I
When night, with silver lamps, to us
So much of God discloses thus,
I sometimes think, the human stature
Not at the apex of our nature.
Its watch seems set to look before,
Toward powers reserved for us in store,
And others needing, to upturn,
And what is over us discern.
The ancients, from a house-top bed,
Could gaze the night-watch over-head:
But moderns roof it out; and, thus,
Heaven's chandelier is lost to us.
Thus in the balmy eve, I went,
Attracted by the firmament,
That scatters lustres, soft and still;
And, on the vantage of a hill
Reclined; that I the better might
Look through the vistas of the night.
There stars with fancy seemed to play,
In spheres that swell and shrink away,
As if, now, willing to reveal,
But, next, receding, to conceal,





PROBATION.


85


And balk bold knowledge's desire,
With a coy smile of laughing fire.
The moon, the while, of lustre chaste,
Each dim, ideal outline graced
With shadowy, uncertain air;
And all the real softened there.
My mind the body now disused,
Except the sight,-I saw and mused,
Still guarding 'gainst insidious sleep,
Determined wide awake to keep.
But night, from star-gemmed, raven plumes
And flowing moon, that all illumes,
Scattered her poppies on the sense,
And lulled with soothing influence,
So silent, soft and gradual,
That seeming not to sleep, at all,
The border line unknown I crossed;
And seemed awake, in slumber lost!
The scene was little changed; for light
Beamed still with presence mildly bright,
Of radiance increasing,-and
The seraph seemed by me to standMy dear good angel! while his word
Of melody once more I heard:




86


FOURTH NIGHT.


"A work," he said, "will soon begin,
In the dark realm, we saw, of sin,
And wonders are about to be,
Which the good angels wish to see.
For, God has made his purpose known
To all the spirits round his throne;
And every seraph has a share
In what he will be doing there.
" This work, which heavenly wisdom planned,
We canvassed, in a council grand.
For, God to us in heaven explains
His purpose; and he even deigns
To ask our counsel: that he may
More perfectly make known his way,
And let the joyous seraphs bear
In his beneficence a share,
Who, with expansive, pure delight,
Fathom his purpose infinite.
"With boundless joy, the intellect
Discerns him cause of each effect;
And through all systems, can survey
Unlimited the Living Way;
Omniscience suffered to explore,
And to infinity adore!





PROBATION.


87


-Ah I! mortals, that, with wondrous mind,
Have sought the ways of God to find,
And have attained, in life's short span,
To knowledge, elevating man,
By the diviner scope of soul,
O'er all the suns and stars, that roll;
Yet, what they learned, still led to morel
The intellect would fain explore,New realms of human ignorance,
New worlds to conquer in advance,
New sphinxes, still, with riddles new,
New secrets of inviting view,
New legions of distressing doubt,
And God, ne'er perfectly found out;
With hope, deferred on earth, heart-sick,
Longing, like Plato, Newton, Dick,
With knowledge filled, to still go on,
And study the eternal One!
Such have, at last, in heaven, found
A vision, knowing not a bound,
Permitted, with the angels bright,
To understand the Infinite;
Explore his purposes; and bear
In work divine a heavenly share;
The rapture of intelligence
To know, surveying the immense;





88


FOURTH NIGHT.


Celestial harmony to prove,
And feel, forever, heavenly love I
"0! we have had, in heavenly bliss,
Seraphic counsel, such as this I
For God has showed to us his plan
Of forming and redeeming man I
To our celestial sympathy,
Unfolding what is yet to be,
With a prophetic overture
And a fulfillment, slow and sure;
Which, wrestling with the powers of night,
Wins gradual victories of right,
And brighter and more glorious grows,
As it progresses toward the close,Climactic sweetness in the strains,
Till love a final triumph gains!
Then we, like children, are permitted,
Whatever beings limited,
May deem a difficulty still,
Or obstacle to heavenly will,
Or fancied fault of plan divine,
Or imperfection in design,
To speak of; while He points to us
The reason why 'tis better thus.
And, then, we hear the colloquy,





PROBATION.


89


In heaven, of the blessed Three;
And of the office, each will do,
In carrying out the plan in view!"
"Dear angel! tell me every word,"
I cried, "which you in heaven heard!"
"'Not all! But such as suits the state
Of earth," he said, "I will relate;"The great Jehovah spake;-" To win
This region from the reign of sin,
We must to suasion have recourse;
'Tis not a victory of force.
Creation, too, must gradual be;
Proportioned to this victory.
Should I now fill that region drear
With light, that makes the glory here,
'Twould blast the demons, there that dwell,
And burn the chaos up in hell.
The sinner, fugitive from light,
Flies to the refuges of night.
What heaven illumines, makes him blind.
Our joys are tortures to his mind.
God is, to him, consuming fire;
Distance and darkness his desire.' "





90


FOURTH NIGHT.


-Here I broke in upon him thus,"This is not as it seems to us 1
Did God, but in a certain way
He could effect his purpose, say?
This language has an inference
To limit his omnipotence."
"God has "-he said-"all power there is;
Omnipotence means only this.
No other power can his oppose;
And nothing limits what he does.
All might he has; yet, there is what
Divine omnipotence cannot.
God cannot lie; nor force a will,
And leave it a free agent, still.
The moral being, he has made,
Omnipotence can but persuade.
On such a will, coercion's weight,
Not winning, would annihilate.
And, it is in a kindred sense,
You speak of God's omniscience.
He knows,- you understand by this,Not, what is not, but, that which is.
To know what is not, could it chance,
Not knowledge were but ignorance.
And, so, to do, what contravenes





PROBATION.


91


God's love and holiness,-this means,
If it, indeed, have any sense,
Weakness, and not omnipotence."
Silenced, but scarce convinced,-"In heaven
(I asked) was this the answer given?"
"Beyond such rudiments," he said,
"The least in heaven long has sped;
And the conceit to none occurred.
But, I another question heard,"Why, by progresive steps, create,
While'for the issue angels wait?"
Though, but a point, with all its years,
Time in eternity appears;
Yet, some child-angels eagerly
Wished, that it all at once would be,
And, God besought, to consummate,
And, with the first, the last create.
The Father, bending from the throne,
Spake thus to them in tender tone:"My children! here is work for you,
In life a loving part to do!
I might insensate matter, thus,
Make, in a moment, glorious.
But, 'tis the least of all my plan;





92


FOURTH NIGHT.


Matter I only make for man
I fit it up, for his abode,
While he's at school for home and God."
"' 0 Father!"-said an angel-child;
And brightly, through a tear drop, smiled,"Place man with us; and let-us be
His teachers for eternity 1
Put not the feeble infant, where
Sin ravages and black despair!
Not angels strong the realm could brook I
We shudder, even there to look!"
-" 'I grieve, that it cannot be thus,
That man, at once, should be with us.
But, we remember, all too well,
The spirits, once with us, that fell.
Sin must not enter here, again,
To give the blessed angels pain,
While it abides, and most of all,
When sinners down from heaven fall,
Swift to the dreary deeps afar,
Like Lucifer, the morning star!
-That moment gave us all a pain;
Which cannot come to us again!' "





PROBATION.


93


"Then, in each angel's face, was read,
What, but for reverence, were said,That they would suffer, willingly,
Man's benefactor so to be.
For, being's babes, in heaven above,
As in earth's homestead, move to love.
And, then, the Counsellor, the Son,
Took up the thene with tender tone.
Love's gentle glories crowned his head;
While thus our Elder Brother said:"' Henceforth, my brothers! none may be
Born here to blest eternity,
Till such the test of sin abide
Tried, as the silver pure is tried,
And, in the crucible refined,
Essayed in temper of the mind.
Thus, passion-proof, new souls become
Fitted for our celestial home;
Exempt from sin's assaults to be,
And sorrow, in eternity.
Creation, thus, is double made;
And has a first and second grade.
The soul, formed pure, yet capable
From innocence to fall to hell,
Must enter, through a second gate,





94


FOURTH NIGHT.


Into creation's perfect state.
This second act tasks heavenly powers,
Although omnipotence is ours;
Nor can, by power alone, be done:
For this, man's free will must be won.
Here labors our contested case,
Which we must overcome by grace;
The finite mind, persuading, win
From cheats and sophistries of sin.
Against its advocate, the Devil,
Subtle in lies and sire of evil,
We must prevail by arguments
And by persuasive influence.
The souls, that cannot so be won,
Although we mourn, must be undone,
And, wvith their own adopted kin,
Banished to the abode of sin!"
"Alas -"- the angels said--"must we,
Mere lookers on, the contest see?
What sorrows will our bosoms rend,
To view its unsuccessful end!
0! might we balk sin's adverse powers;
And match their lies with truths of ours;
Stand side by side with them; as they
To sin persuade, with good gainsay;





PROBATION.


95


And, every drop of strength we have,
Exhaust, in striving souls to save!
Success, 'twould seem, must so be sure.
So fair and lovely is the pure
And holy, it will ever win,
Against the hideousness of sin.
O Father! grant this boon to us!"
"Then graciously 'twas answered thus:'Yes I spirit-ministers,'-said He,'Shall each of you commissioned be;
To guard, with every holy power,
Man's slumber and his waking hour!
Your forms unseen the babe shall keep,
In spotless innocence, asleep;
And watch him, with his parents, while
He cheers them, with his dimpled smile.
And, you shall join his childhood play,
Child angels, more than children gay 1
And, in the progress of his youth,
Parry his foes, by power of truth:
With pure thoughts and bright images,
Employ his mind, his fancy please;
And bring to him, on your swift wings,
Sweet musings of all heavenly things.
In manhood, as he grows mature,





96


FOURTH NIGHT.


His riper mind may you secure,
Upbearing him by knowledge far
In orbits of each circling star;
Enlarging, through the spheres of light,
By science, toward the infinite.
Still better lore shall you impart,The light of wisdom in the heart;
Till he rejoice, like us above,
Illumined by celestial love.
"'True; man must be exposed to sin:
Yet, after we his spirit win
Unto creation's second birth,
You soon shall bring him here from earth;
Through the dark valley, safely guide,
And mortal Jordan's chilly tide;
Till he death's raiment put away,
And 'scape the Nessus-robe of clay,
Heaven's immortality to don.
What glory shall we thus have won I
For, here shall his eternal day
Earth's pain how amply overpay!
His longest stay there then shall seem
A fleeting vapor or a dream.
Thus, many, from the power of sin,
Even as infants, you shall win;





PROBATION.


97


Still more, in childhood's guileless day,
By your pure influences' sway;
And others, in the morn of youth,
Converting by the power of truth.
For many, at meridian hour,
Born of the Holy Spirit's power,
Life's zenith-sun, from noon, shall rise,
To set no more, in paradise.
And, softly shall the Spirit's ray
On snowy age in glory play:
Thus full of years, to heaven born,
Well ripened; like a shock of corn,
Which, to be quickened, still must die,
Death winning immortality."
---" 'Ah!' said an angel; his bright eye
Kindling with light of prophecy,'See I not, in man's soul a stain,
Sin's canker, of a knawing pain?
His spirit see, the poison kill!
He cannot 'scape it, if he will!
He cannot pure again be made,
By his own will, or angel's aid!
Lo I how the enemy of souls
His eye askance in malice rolls!
He laughs, in triumph, as he stands,





98


FOURTH NIGHT.


To snatch his prey from angels' hands ' "
"Oh! what a sudden shadow, now,
O'ercasts the blessed angels' brow;
And saddens, for a little while,
The sunshine of their lovely smile!
-But, hark l a voice of tender tone 1
With such a sweetness of its own,
And ever welcome accent heard,
'Tis called, for excellence, "The Word!"
-"0! still,"-the angel cried,-"it calls,
Sweeter than crystal waterfalls,A tinge of sadness, in its tone,
Flowing through heaven from the throne,"
"'There is a remedy! Rejoice,
My brothers!'-says that sweetest voice.
SOne balm there is, to heal the soul,
And rescue it from death's control:
One fountain,-'tis the vital blood,
Shed freely by the Son of God;
Thus, from the world's foundation, slain,
The Lamb of God, to cleanse the stain!' "
"What wonder, in each angel's face,
With sadness, now, disputes the place!





PROBATION.


99


And eagerly each longing eye
Would look into this mystery;
Till, overwhelmed, they bend, and cry,-.
' O! holy, holy Lord on high!'"
-This narrative, while it conferred
A pleasure, in my bosom stirred
The kindling thoughts; which all were fain
To interrupt his rhythmic strain
With questions, while my listening soul,
Swayed with the music's sweet control,
Bids interrogatives to hush,
And stays their current, as they rush.
Thus the pleased heart essays to bind
The curious, inquiring mind:
As, when a connoisseur has scanned
The sphinx, a master-artist planned,
Who counteracted, with success,
The puzzle, which it would express,
And while it stirs the craving pain
Of knowledge's desire, in vain,
Art seems the questioning to quell,
And still assure us, all is well,
Inspiring the sacred sense
Of beautiful omnipotence.
The mind and heart in counterpoise:





100


FOURTH NIGHT.


One asks; the other still enjoys.
Yet, impulse cannot always bind
The gathered current of the mind.
Anon, it breaks forth:-So, with me,
Now conquered curiosity.
--"What, my angel can there be
Sorrow, in your felicity!
Sorrow in heaven!-'tis not thus
Ever supposed to be by us."
"Not such as sin creates" (replied
My angel) "can in heaven abide.
Nor, such as pity, strong to love,
But weak to help, in men may move.
Nor sympathy, whose trembling tear
Shadows a bitterness of fear.
Our sorrow finds a blest relief
In privilege to succor grief;
And in victorious confidence,
Since pity arms omnipotence,In knowledge and prophetic sight;
That all the issues will be right,
Through us, the blessed instruments
Of the divine benevolence.
Call you this sorrow?  If it be,





PROBATION.


101


Know that such heavenly sympathy
Dwells in each angel bright above,
And most in God, whose name is love.
We weep: but love, and help, and hope,
Still brighten every tear, we drop;
And with the bow of promise shine
Our sorrows, spanned by light divine.
Since, otherwise, we must not know
Scenes, that are happening below:
Or else, we must not feel, above;
Which would preclude angelic love,Love I chiefest joy of our abode;
Our breath; the very soul of God;
Joy's essence; heaven's very sun;
God's sceptre, swaying every one I
Such, selfish souls could only please;
And, with us, there are none of these."
"There must be sorrow, then," (I sighed,)
"In glory, where the good abide:
Since, there are those, you cannot win
From their own voluntary sin;
Who make of Lucifer a father,
Than light, preferring darkness, rather;
With him their souls identify,
And join his home of cruelty.





102


FOURTH NIGHT.


Now, Revelation doth declare,
That, from the mansions of despair,
The smoke of torment, ceasing never,
Ascends in angels' view, forever:
So, you must suffer, I suppose,
Eternal sympathy with woes!"
"Suppose" (my angel answered) "naught,
Inferred from half-enlightened thought 1
Remember, through the darkened glass
Of human reason, light may pass
Imperfectly, and much refracted,
Much by the medium counteracted,
Mixed with the grosser scope of sense,At best, a poor crepusculence;
Whose scanty beams of lustre dim
Unveil a world of shadows grim,
Huge fantasies, whose figure fierce
More rays are needed, to disperse.
Too little light may serve to aid
And magnify the realm of shade."
"Ah!" (thought I, and, perhaps, I said--)
"In the night watches, on my bed,
With light enough, to show the gloom,
I've seen such shadows, in my room,




PROBATION.


103


Of a deportment huge and wild,
My terror, when I was a child;
Which to escape, I hid my head
Under the clothing of the bed,
Till kindly Morpheus came, to calm
My fears, and, with his poppies, charm
My spirit, to enchantment deep
Of blessed boyhood's tranquil sleep 1"
"And," (said the angel,) "such as these,
Man's intellect, in twilight, sees!
The mental glass, through which you gaze,
Has just enough refracted rays,
With darkness struggling, broken, dim,
To show a world of figures grim
And speculations of the mind;
Whose sketch in human books we find,
Called reason, yet grotesque and wild,
As night-shapes to a waking child:
Huge, monstrous, shadowy, unreal,
For want of light, a dim ideal;
Chimeras, which, in very dawn
Of heaven, vanish, and are gone;
Like the night's images, from sight
Of children, if we bring a light
Into the chamber, where they lie,





104


FOURTH NIGHT.


For fear, scarce venturing a cry I
"These optical illusions, you,
As real vision, sometimes view;
And call them reason, and, forsooth I
Human philosophy and truth!
By sages, such, in system wrought,
Build Babel fantasies of thought;
Which vanish, naught to naught, away,
Touched by the wand of heaven's first ray.
In twilight, erst, they nothing were;
And, now, as nothing they appear.
Spinoza and the scholiast
With these their gift of reason waste,Arachnes of humanity;
Who spin, with wondrous subtilty,
Mere cobwebs, that the worldly-wise
Entangle, as unwary flies!
Sometimbs, men recognize, that these
Are but unreal fantasies;
And make of them a fair romance,
Which, manhood's toy, the mind enchants,
And may, in parabolic way,
To wise men, real truth convey,
Discerning, with shrewd observation,
The symbols of imagination."





PROBATION.


105


"Your statement none may well deny,"
(I answered) "yet, I pray, apply
To my suggestion one pure ray,
And, make it vanish thus away 1"
"Though I should show the cause," (said he,)
"Thy glass may darken it to thee.
Yet, I will state the reason, why
We suffer not, from sympathy
With lost ones: 'Tis because they choose
Perdition; heavenly grace refuse.
Their own will doth their lot create:
A change of will would change their state;
Which is forever permament,
Because they never will repent.
Grace has been offered and neglected,
Salvation tendered, and rejected.
The Spirit, which with them has striven,
They have aggrieved away and driven.
We can do naught for them, in hell;
For, they all heavenly aid repel.
To grieve for such, would surely be
Worse than a waste of sympathy.
With us, in harmony with love,
Astraea has her seat above.
She shows us the necessity,





106


FOURTH NIGHT.


That it should so with evil be.
Since God is One, who all has made;
In nature One to all pervade:
With opposites, it cannot be,
His single nature should agree,
In such a way, to make it well
With evil, happiness in hell.
He cannot double-deal with us
And with the fallen spirits, thus.
He would subvert himself; his own
Godhead and character dethrone.
All beings, He created good,
And in his own similitude,
He would to evil sacrifice,
And blot the light out from the skies.
Himself and countless hosts of heaven
Would, this way, in exchange be given
For willful wicked spirits, who,
Compared with us, are very few.
No! let them suffer; since they must
And will! We mourn not what is just!"
--But, here, the angel's language wrought
My mind to such a pitch of thought,
That, just, as these last words he spoke,
In my excitement, I awoke!





FIFTH NIGHT.










LET THERE BE LIGHT.


109


FIFTH       NIGHT.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
Dream on, young Hearts! Though thus the real
Assume a shadowy ideal,
Your world of softer sentiments
Is truer than the sphere of sense;
For, heavenly things are figured forth
In the hard outlines of the earth;
And, you idealists may glean
Something of what the figures mean,
Whose lore the realist affords
Dead language, untranslated words.
Dream on; but, not of power or pelf.
Or aught that centres ip yourself,Day-dreams of eminence or fame,





110


FIFTH NIGHT.


Hallucinations of a name,
Whose praise is but a passing breath,
Or proud ambition's wordly wreath!
Dream on! but, never castles build
Of air, with empty nothing filled!
Dream ye the blessed visions, fraught
With wise instruction, heavenly thought,Devotion, kindled from above;
And, what men call the dream of love I
The world, with scorn and bitter jeer,
Names what is nothing, real, here;
And, what alone is real, deems
The sentiment of airy dreams;
Sees what is not; but, has no eyes
For what in spirit-vision lies;
Beholds not God all-present; and
Sees water, as it says, and land:
Yet, has no real sense of these,
Discerning not their verities.
The voice of sea, and sky, and ground,
Is as a trump's uncertain sound,
For wordly hearts, who never guess
God's beauty, that the forms express.
Dead language all of them appear:
Their sounds mean nothing to the ear.





LET TIHERE BE LIGHT.


111


-'Be not of these! but, still dream on
Love visions of the Holy One I
While thus I dreamed, by night or day,
Asleep or wake,-I cannot say,
If I the body left, or whether
The mind and flesh were still together,My visionary Spirit came,
A form of white and dazzling flame.
-" Creation's drama, come and see,
How it begins!" he said to me.
We hied forth to the dark realm, then,
While he afforded light again.
'Twas like a boiling cauldron, stirred.
Volcanoes burst; and sounds were heard,
That thundered, with resistless might,
The fiat of the Infinite.
An awful joy of wonder filled
My soul, and thought, within me stilled;
While God the wrath of enemies
Converted to his purposes,
Applying counteractive might
To each disruptive force of night.





112


FIFTH NIGHT.


Antagonism thus he noosed;
And wondrous harmony educed.
Forward the spheral orbits start,
Not able, now, to fly apart;
And, still to love-attractions bound,
Their centres swiftly circle round.
While each to each would gravitate;
Checked by antagonistic hate,
A force, resultant thence, employs
Their courses, keeping them in poise.
The old force, hate centrifugal,
Now balanced love centripetal.
Thus God produces praise from wrath.
And swift the worlds went on their path,
In harmony astonishing;
And broke their silences, to sing
His praises, as they circle round,
To well adapted orbits bound!
"My angel!" I exclaimed,-" how fair,
How wonderful these movements are!
And, yet, in your account, I heard
In heavenly counsel, not a word
Of this most glorious victory,
Which God wins o'er the enemy."





LET THERE BE LIGHT.


113


He answered-"You, by questions, broke
The thread of what I would have spoke.
But, now attend, and you shall see
The miracles about to be."
I looked, and wondered, I could see
The regions of immensity,
Within my scope of vision found,
Like the horizon's narrow bound!
All plain in view, they thus appear
As if, for my perception, near.
I marked their intervals of space;
Which even thought would tire to trace.
The distance, relatively thus,
From fiery Sirius to us,
Were nearness, in comparison,
Through matter's round, with many a one:
Yet, all as near me now, I may,
And equally in sight, survey.
More wondrous still,, their real size
Was undiminished to my eyes;
Which measured their dimensions grand,
As easily as grains of sand!
The same vast scope of view sublime
Abolished boundaries of time.
Before me, like a river's flow,
8





114


FIFTH NIGHT.


The mighty tracts of ages go.
This strange perceptive faculty
So much awhile astonished me,
That I forgot the scenes in view,
For wonder at the vision new.
--"My angel! how is this?" I cried.
-"You see in spirit," he replied.
"Though, for the body's brain and eyes,
Distance and time are boundaries;
Yet, such belong to flesh aud sense,
Which shackle man's intelligence.
The soul, without the body, sees,
Freed from such obstacles as these.
To God and his good angels, all
Is now, and neither great nor small.
Eternity affords a light,
Which brings all space and time to sight,
And gives perception of the whole,
With equal nearness to the soul.
'Tis therefore we are patient; though
Fulfillment seem to mortals slow.
From heaven, with an eye serene,
By which the far result is seen,





LET THERE BE LIGHT.


115


We watch the sure development
Of Providence, in each event;
Though progress, like a cauldron, boil,
In opposition made to toil
And wrestle, victory to win
Over the power of death and sin;
And, though its waves, with oft reflow,
And undercurrent, backward go.
Such, we perceive, must be the path
To certain peace, through strife and wrath.
And, when commotions most assail;
When wrong awhile seems to prevail,
And wreaks its malice first on those
God for his witnesses, has chose,
Who, as the hero-martyrs, fall,
And underneath the altar call:
While retribution still delays,"How long, 0 Lord!" a mortal says.
-Yet, at the longest, it will be
How brief, viewed in eternity!"
And now I looked around, to mark
The changes of the region dark.
My soul was ravished by a sound,
Breathed soft and musical around;
Beginning in a whisper still,





116


FIFTH NIGHT.


The heart with melody to fill:
Such as, unspoken, I have known,Thought's intimate and tender tone,
Pervading me with the profound,
Sweet octaves of celestial sound I
This music, like a fountain, welled,
Till its increasing volume swelled,
With sweetest variations, and
A tone through all supremely grand!
Its cadence, so commanding, stirred
My spirit, with a heavenly word;
Diffusing, like a sea, abroad
The beauty and the power of God!
I think, some men have heard this strain;
And partially transcribed again:
For, with like sentiment, I've felt
A master's oratorio melt
My sensibilities,-yet, 0!
Though like the strain, how far below!
The music to a climax grew.
I heard its language plainer too;
Whose import I could understand,
And gather the divine command
Omnipotent,-" Let there be light!"





LET THERE BE LIGHT.


117


The voice aroused my sense of sight,
From which my ears, with music caught,
Had turned my inattentive thought.
I cast my eyes up; and, behold!
A host of angels manifold,
With cluster-faces and bright eyes,
Thronged all the sky, like galaxies,
Intent the spectacle to view,
And hear the heavenly music, too!
Now, imperceptibly, the light,
With sweet approach, dawned on my sight,
Tinging the night, with glories there
Pervasive, and as heavenly fair!
Pouring on darkness such a flood,
As Calvary's atoning blood;
Arraying with such gorgeous glow,
The region, where its arrows go,That, though it was a dream of night,
I never shall forget the sight,
Until God show my soul the morn,
Vouchsafed by Christ, of heaven, dawn
Its purple-crimson, ruddy robe
Mantled the sphere of every globe,The damask of Aurora's dawn,
Creation's first and fairest morn!





118


FIFTH NIGHT.


Like stars, I saw the angels bright,
As day approached, pale out of sight.
And, yet, I felt that they were there,A cloud of witness-faces fair,
To hold the world in full survey,
As they do ever, night and day.
-0! could man feel the angel eyes,
That search his heart through each disguise,
And see the secret bosom, stirred
With thought and yet unuttered word'
And, more, 0! might we realize
The gaze of God's omniscient eyes!"Let there be light!" the music says.
With even pace, the dawning rays,
Pervasive as the music, roll
O'er every sphere, from pole to pole;
And both sides filling with the light,
No part permitted to be night.
Wondering at this phenomenon,
I looked about, to find the sun.
Huge centre-spheres, of vaster size,
Were plain enough before my eyes;
But not, as yet, among them, one,
A source of lustre, like the sun.





LET THERE BE LIGHT.


119


This ray was still a dawning glow,
Where day and darkness interflow.
The former, like Aurora's flood,
Made wounded darkness red as blood.
The latter purpled still the stream
Of heaven's pure, white, o'erflowing beam.
But, now, God separates the light,
And calls it "Day," the other "Night."
Huge billows, by divine control,
I saw the raven-masses roll,
So sundered by the power of God,
Like the Red Sea by Moses' rod,
Returning, Pharaoh to drown.
The dark deeps, with a thunderous frown,
Mass their black billows in array,
Divided from the light of day!
Earth's progress out of chaos toiled,
And, with a deep commotion, boiled;
Soaked, as a saturated bog;
And all the damp air steeped with fog;
Water above, a steaming flood;
Water below, mixed with the Iud.
Thus, each the other made unfit
For anything to live in it.
The wet forbade a plant to grow:





120


FIFTH NIGHT.


Nor fish could swim the oozy flow.
Above, the steam would strangle breath;
And, air, for aqueous life, was death.
But, now, with separated flow,
The upper leaves the sea below.
Its congregated vapor crowds
In huge, light-mantled, gorgeous clouds.
While, shoreless, with no solid ground,
The ocean wraps the earth around.
Thus, spanned above, the firmament
Arched its grand concave like a tent.
And now, I saw earth's bosom heave:
While the mad ocean's swelling wave
Roared upward to the firmament,
With huge force in vain effort spent;
Leaping to heaven, then again
Sinking exhausted to the main,
Whose valleys vast of counterflow
Reversed the mountain waves below..-"Peace!" said a voice, ne'er disobeyed.
And the fierce heart of ocean swayed;
Till, loosed from his domain, was found
The liberated solid ground,
Whose continent and sea-girt isle,
In the new light of heaven smile,





LET THERE BE LIGHT.


121


While fresh lands from the ocean come,
Dripping, like Venus from the foam.
Yet, not a living creature graced,
Nor green herb, all the lifeless waste;
Nor was there trace of what had been,
In shell or fish or herb marine.
For, ocean, in whose single drops,
We now see life, with microscopes,.
Did not a living thing contain.
While chaos ruled the dark domain.
But, lo! in liberated earth,
The trees and herbage sprang to birth;
In coarser forms than those, that, now,
Improved in generation, grow,--
Barbaric ancestors, and rude
Forefathers of, the present wood,
Of sweeter grasses, fairer flowers,
Of garden,. grove and lawn of ours 1
First, lichens fixed their hardy root,
And, in each fissure thrust a shoot;
Till air, rain, frost, by their decay,
Prepared for better plants a way,
Which, with development of race,
Kept in their progress even pace.





122


FIFTH NIGHT.


Thus soil, dissolved from minerals,
Fed plants, as food for animals.
And, now, God tempers unto them
The clime of this recovered realm.
More tender still, the better plants
Can less endure protracted wants;
And, should the day, unbroken, shine,
Taxing their powers of growth, they pine,
Longing for night, whose masses black
Are kept from day, divided back,
While the forced plants, in lingering light,
Desire the rest and dews of night.
Yet, when its billows o'er them swell,
Should they too long in darkness dwell,
They lose their greenness, as they grope,
And, toward the light, reach vainly up.
But, now, God bids the sun to wear
A golden, glorious photosphere;
Surrounds the moon, with silver veil
Of softer lustre, pearly pale;
And robes with glory spheres afar,
At home a sun, abroad, a star,
Intruding not on solar light,
But, in day's absence, suns of night.
These star gems, at such intervals,
God scattered o'er the purple walls,





LET THERE BE LIGHT.


123


That man's conception toils, in vain,
Their mighty spaces to attain.
Yet, far from him though they appear,
They look to be each other near,
And sometimes, like a sheet of light,
Line all the canopy of night.
I've seen them, with a student's gaze,
So confluent with silver rays,
And near as drops of April rain.
I've heard them sing a choral strain,Sweet neighbors, social companies
Of blended lights and harmonies!
But, now, in vision's spirit-view,
Discerning as the angels do,
To me, as to each other, they
Were brought as near, for my survey;
While each displayed its wondrous size
And vast dimensions to my eyes.
Such is the spirit's power, to see
With God's light of eternity!
In these our school.days, while we dwell,
Incarnated and visible,
While, through the forms, as symbols, taught
Ideas, in a grade of thought,
A union so dissimilar





124


FIFTH NIGHT.


As powers of mind and body are,
With counterpoise and half control,
Limits and counteracts the soul.
Still, as the latter grows in stature,
The former weakens in its nature;
Yet, never frees us from its gyve,
While mortal men incarnate live.
With strongest mind the body mixes;
A limit to its vision fixes;
Blends with its truth delusive error,
Shadows of weakness, pain or terror:
Its brightest faith waylays with fears;
Thought circumscribes to make ideas;
And exercises o'er the best
A power, by mortals scarcely guessed;
Till it is loosed and done away,
And the soul sees in heavenly day.
Then, like the shadows of the morn,
Are all our limitations gone.
Then, time and space, future and past,
The great and small, minute and vast,
Half soul, half clay, a centaur race,
Chimera time and phantom space,
The light of human forms unreal
And figments of a false ideal,
Thus viewed with liberated ray,





LET THERE BE LIGHT.


125


Freed from the flesh, in heavenly day
And the full triumph of the morn,
Away, like vapors, they are gone!
And, so, the break of morning beams
Across the prospect of my dreams,
To drive the phantom-shadows hence,
And bring to view a world of sense.
The lid, thus lifted by the morn,
Is o'er the spirit's vision drawn.
For, tle same curtain shuts the one,
And opes the other to the sun.
What one unveils, doth close, in fact,
The other, in the very act.
And, when the lovely daylight shed
Its smiling sunshine on my bed,
It woke a world of beauty,-but
The brighter eye of vision shut!










SIXTH NIGHT.










AQUEOUS LIFE.


129


SIXTH NIGHT
AQUEOUS LIFE.
"And God said,-' Let the waters bring forth abundantly the
moving creature that hath life.' "
Months passed; and ne'er, in form of flame,
My visionary angel came.
Full well a dreamless sleep I slept;
Or consciousness no record kept,
On memory's tablet, of the scene,
Where, in my vision, I had been:
Until the heat persuaded me
To seek the borders of the sea,
Whose ocean-zephyr, freshly fanned,
And the cool water kissed the sand.
'Twas here I came, wooed by the breeze,
A comrade of the summer seas.
9





13-0.


SIXTH NIGHT.


Wrapped in a meditative mood,
Where golden beams of summer brood,
I watched the sparkling ocean's glance,
And sunny waves' successive dance.
Here seemed the sea with every art,
To seek to captivate the heart.
Loving companionship it gave
My spirit, with the sunny wave;
And long, bright hours, I loved to stand
And watch the ocean, on the strand.
For, all the fickle waters were
Like exponents of character.
And, what I often sought to find,
By studying another mind,
Intent to look a spirit through,
The ocean showed to open view,
Without disguise; for, like a child,
Of changing mood, it frowned or smiled;
Kissed with the oscillating wave;
And shell or moss, a token, gave,
Reached upward, with a gentle hand,
And, tossed to me upon the strand.
Yet, in old Neptune change appears;
And, like a child, from smiles to tears:
To passion prone, caprice and whim,
His temper oft impelling him,





AQUEOUS LIFE.


131


To chafe at trifles, gloom and fret.
No self command he has; and, yet,
Without a thought of artifice,
His mood upon the surface lies;
And, like the children, wins your heart
By absence of deceit and art.
Upon a cliff, one sunny day,
That looked upon the sea, I lay;
And, with the waves communing, thought
A meaning each of them had brought;
As, one by one, their prattling crest
They raise with foam from ocean's breast,
Run to the rock, beneath my feet,
And plash, and laugh, and quick retreat;
While, sometimes, with a larger flow,
A threatening wave runs to and fro,
Lashing the rock, whereon I lay,
As if to bid me go away!
Here, musing thus, I watch the wave,
With fancies of the ocean cave,
Built from the hints, the waters toss
To me in coral, shell or moss;
And, while I gaze, down drops the lid,
My outer sense unconscious hid,
And opes the visionary eye,





132


SIXTH NIG-T.


To see what scenes in dreamland lie.
Now, from the cliff I plunge, and go
The ocean surface far below,
To walk among the woods marine,
And visit ocean's every sceneOf grotto, grove and vine and flower,
And, fathom-deep, in ocean bower,
To rest upon the mossy seats,
And walk among the wealthy streets,
Which treasures in mosaic pave
With varied gems, beneath the wave 1
But, all this grandeur grew forlorn,A castle, with the tenant gone!
A banquet with no guest to greet!
A city, with a' silent street!
A mansion, with no occupantSave echo, every step to haunt;
With life,-except for lack of breath!
A body, beautiful in deathWhose snowy temples broad expand,
For noble thoughts and fancies grand:
The marble lids, that, drooping, close
The wells of language in repose,
Seem like the curtains of a shrine,





AQUEOUS LIFE.


133


To veil the orbs of soul divine:
The round-cut lips of chiselled snow
Words fan no more to ruby glow;
They lose the color of the gem,
And the live coal, once laid on them!
A lifeless tenement is here,And 0 1 for Christ, to touch the bier!
'Tis said, where arctic regions grand
A shroud of snowy white expand;
Where to the hope, ice-rainbows break
Or coldly keep, the signs they make;
And seas of fire, to tantalize,
Stream in auroras of the skies,
Yet, not a ray of heat bestow,
To comfort freezing realms below,
And only light enough, to see
The vast extent of misery,
Whose beams, as chill, with fiery hues,
Like mockery, the zone suffuse,'Tis said, where these wide winters reign,
E'en worldly men, of heart profane,
Are smitten with an awful mood,
And in a dreadful thought subdued.
No life is here; and chill winds moan,
Like spirits of the lost, alone,





134


SIXTH NIGHT.


Whose phantom-voices fill the vast,
Dread solitude of silent waste.
Alone, alone,-they would they were.
But, there's a presence, seems to stir,
With spectre-step, in every wind,
And fearful pressure on the mind!
Not absence; not a vacancy:
But, nearness, like a drowning sea,
With whelming billows, seems to roll,
And smother the affrighted soul!
-If out of Christ, eternity
May such a scene to sinners be I
A mood like this, beneath the sea,
Mid riches there, stole over me.
"0 God!" I cried: "breathe thou but here!
Let life the caves of ocean cheer!"
I threw me on the gems, and wept;
Till, weary with my grief, I slept.
And, in repose, methought, I had
An answer of assurance glad;
Such as I've known, of comfort deep,
When I have prayed myself to sleep,
Pouring my heart forth, seeking rest,
Like John beloved, on Jesus' breast I





AQUEOUS LIFE.


135


I thought, I woke, in that wild place,
With something swaying on my face;
Like the soft hand, an infant lays,
Who with a sleeping parent plays.
I looked; and lo I a little bough
Of ocean-plant was on my brow;
And smiles were sparkling in the skies,
To greet me, as I raised my eyes.
I looked around with wonder; for
The change impressed my mind with awe.
How long, upon the gems and gold
I slept, can never now be told;
But, in the mean while, plants, the size
Of full-grown trees, had time to rise.
Flowers, that attained to lily-bloom,
Now filled the sea with sweet perfume;
And darling little fairy floss,
The miniature of downy moss,
With figures exquisite, that seem
The larger growths to pantomime.
Yet greater wonders still than these
Engage my fancy, in the seas.
Leviathans before me pass,
Like a stupendous mountain-mass,
Yet, with a nimble, agile gait,





136


SIXTH NIGHT.


Unconscious of a bulky weight.
A wonderful adornment they
Lent to the ocean, in their play;
Spouting the fountains forth, that rise,
To fall in splendor from the skies,
With rainbow showers, of dazzling glow,
Exhilarating us below.
And, then, the seals shot up to me,
With fond familiarity.
Their eyes so full of language, and
A mien which seems to understand!
As if about to speak, they come;
And I can scarce believe them dumb.
I fancy, now and then, that each
Has something to express in speech;
But, holds himself to silence, now,
In the performance of a vow.
These seals, as if they once had been,
Or now could claim, a human kin,
With a confiding innocence,
And cousin-like intelligence,
Crowd round me, in the coral caves,
And plash among the sparkling waves.
In real life, so human-like,
The seals my observation strike,
That I am led to wish, I could





AQUEOUS LIFE.


137


Have power of magic understood,
To change them back, to be, again,
As once, 'twould seem, they must have been,
Mankind, ere some magician's art
Had robbed them of their human part.
Like fairy land, mid palaces
And pleasure-parks, beneath the seas,
Through gem-strown path and meadow green,
And gardens, rich with flower-sheen,
And all the fondest fancies wish,Grottoes and groves and friendly fish,
I walked, in pleasures of the deep;
Till, weary, once again, for sleep,
On moss-grown gems, I made my bed,
And pillowed with the gold my head,
Lulled by the swaying waves, and, thus,
Soothed by the swell luxurious
And water-kisses, with the joy,
I had in swimming, whei a boy I










SEVENTH NIGHT.










ANIMAL LIFE;.


141


SEVENTH NIGHT.
ANIMAL LIFE.
" And God made the beasts of the earth after their kind."
In the recesses of the wood,
Is sanctuary solitude;
In whose cathedral-stillness dwell
Pure presences invisible
And holy influences, fraught
With lovely quietude of thought.
Hither you come, a welcome guest,
To rove at will, or weary rest.
Each leaf that rustles where you tread,
Has some kind word in whisper said.
Each balmy breeze has paused, to fan
The cheek, and kiss the brow of man,
With sweet assurances of love,





142


SEVENTH NIGHT.


And influences from above,
Still pressing on you everywhere
The ambient touches of the air!
0! the sweet loneliness 1 where, yet,
The truly loved are with us met,
In heart-embrace, on every side,
Of God and spirits glorified!
Here, oft I feel my bosom swell,
Blending with the Invisible.
Hither, when wounded in the strife
And struggles of the human life,
I come, in these recesses calm,
To find for suffering a balm.
Suspicion, hatred, envy, fear,Not one of them pursues me here.
Unfriendly words and looks unkind,
Sorrows of heart, and strifes of mind,
Desist to follow spirits, chased
To this cathedral, called a waste.
St. Paul's the deep wood is to me;
And, in its aisle, I bend the knee.
Thus, has the wood to many givej
A kindly influence of heaven;
Bound up the heart, the fancy fed,





ANIMAL LIFE.


143


And aspiration gently led
In heavenly paths, that ministered
The consolations of the Word.
Through trackless woods, I often stray,
At random, heedless of the way;
Drifting at will, thought unemployed,
Except to passing trees avoid;
Notsnoticing where I am led
By wayward feet unpiloted;
Glad, in the mild, moist atmosphere,
With wild flowers breathing sweetness here,
And mellow light, through green leaves strained,
As by a temple window stained,
And checkered by the branches, made
A lattice work of light and shade.
Once walking thus, thought's train was loosed
With fancies wandering, I mused;
And, in the colonnade content,
But little noticed where I went;
Till, 'neath my feet, a moss-green bed
Appeared, luxuriously spread,
So soft, and gemmed with blossoms white,
And meet to Morpheus invite;
And I, half consciously, was led





144


SEVENTH NIGHT.


To throw myself upon the bed.
And, soon, the easy senses round,
Its gentle gyves has slumber bound.
-Pass on, ye seasons! pristine spring
To me though nevermore ye bring;
And I can nevermore enjoy
The spring, as when I was a boy.
It once impelled my pulses wild,
Like a spring-torrent, when a child:
But, now, its harder frozen rills
Are loosed not, as on vernal hills.
Nor can the summer call to bloom
A waste of years, with sweet perfume:
Too often seared, its herbage lies,
Scathed by the many summers, dies I
And sober autumn, when it comes,
To heap again the harvest homes,
With dying whispers in the sheaves,
And lessons, written on the leaves
Of mournful, moralizing fall,
May ne'er the heart again appall,
As, once, the wilder flow of youth
It sobered, with a sadder truth.
To be, once more, by spring renewed
And fully feel the autumn mood;





.ANIMAL LIFE.


145


For summer bloom and winter waste,
Old hearts must live again the past,
And wend a retrogressive way-....
-As I did, in my dream, that day;
In vision hurrying as nought
Can hasten, save the wings of thought.
Borne back, beyond e'en Adam's hour;
And, wending in his woody bower,
Where, echo-less in stillness, spoke,
Before his day, Dodona's oak;
Whose stern colossal grandeur sighs
Through a slow growth of centuries,
Before it heard a vernal hymn
Of songsters warbling in the limb,
Or saw a stately lion stalk,
With heart of oak, the forest walk,
Rejoicing in his royal roar,
In sympathy with sovereign power.
The cedar-harps of Lebanon
ZEolus only played upon.
Not man nor beast their colonnade
Sheltered, with majesty of shade.
All uninhabited I found
The earth, to mighty silence bound;
Where expectation only dwelt,
10





146


SEVENTH NIGHT.


Whose waiting presence could be felt,A listless void was there, to make
With loneliness the spirit ache.
-But, suddenly, came o'er my mind
A pause, like that before the wind;
Arresting every limb, to stop,
And leaf, upon the tall tree-top.
Each nodding flower and swaying shoot,
Spell-bound, seemed motionless and mute.
Till music out of silence stole,
With bosom stillness, on the soul;
Slow dawning into sound, and heard,
As light, from darkness sweetly stirred;
From silence whose crescendo-sweep,
Is sweet, melodious and deep:
Through branch and blade and blossom straying;
With each delighted leaflet playing.
Life-freighted, 'neath its passing wing,
The 'animals, created, spring,
To people all the solitude,
Both open ground and full grown wood.
Not such, as now we know, they were,
Precisely, in their character:
For none of them on others prey;





ANIMAL LIFE.            147
And every sort together play,
Not being taught, as since they've been,
To enmity, by human sin;
But bound together, great and small,
b[n Eden, ere the human fall 1










EIGHTH NIGHT.










ADAM.


151


EIGHTH NIGHT.
ADAM.
"And God said,-Let us make man in our image."
I roamed a paradise of flowers,
That garlanded the woody bowers.
Blossoms and fruit belonged to all,
Alike produced by great and small:
For, every plant could boast a bloom;
And all the flowers had sweet perfume I!
Since then, full many plants and trees
Produce not one or both of these.
The fruit of some of them is soured,
Others, yet blooming, are deflowered.
Some, with the outer bloom, have lost
The fragrance, Paradise could boast.





152


EIGHTH NIGHT.


But, all the growths in Eden graced
Rich fruits, delicious to the taste,
Formed from bright blossoms sweet and fair
To bless the sight and spice the air I
'Tis but a ruin, now we see
Of perfect plant or flowery tree.
Some features and some parts remain;
And some a portion still retain
Of bloom and fruitage, Eden graced:
Some beauty still adorns the waste;
Enough, perhaps, for fancy skilled
The perfect form again to build,Much, like a vine-clad, ruined tower,
Which charms us with romantic power
Of pathos; in a waste forlorn,
Reminding of its grandeur gone,
And reconstructing, in the thought,
The pride and power, that came to naught.
In Eden, bloom was perfect, and
Surrounding me, on every hand.
Beauty was one, yet manifest
And in variety expressed:
The soul, by every avenue
Of varied sense, approaching to;





ADAM*.


153


In fragrance, sound and glowing form,
As if to take a soul by storm.
When I would think how sweet the smell,
The form exerted weird spell;
While, like aroma, floated round
A warbled ecstasy of sound.
My swimming vision missed the bloom
Intoxicated with perfume.
I lost the perfume, while the ear
Was spell-bound, melody to hear.
Thus, thought, assailed by every sense,
Could give to neither audience:
Or, if exerting all its might,
The mind should fasten on the sight;
Where shall it look? on blooming trees?
Or sprinkled fruit, begemming these?
Or flowers, of sweet humility,
That captivate the downward eye?
Or, through the telescopic air
Of Eden, gaze on distance near?Since, ere his fall, the eye of man
Had power the other worlds to scan;
Each feature study, and discern,
By sight, what science strives to learn.


In Eden, thus I seemed to rove





154


EIGHTH NIGHT.


Through a fruit-laden, flowery grove,
And on the bloomy pavement tread,
Whose blossoms only bend the head,
While, with mosaic sweetness, they,
In clusters strong, sustain the way.
The birds, of varied finery,
Flash everywhere upon the eye;
Stirring the spirit, through the ear,
Their notes of melody to hear:
And when I chance to lift the eye
Through Eden's telescopic sky,
I see the worlds in grandeur roll,
And hear their music in my soul;Till poppies of subduing sleep
My beauty-weary senses steep;
And, sinking in repose, I seem
To have a dream within a dream.
Now beams upon my vision One
Of beauty radiant as the sun.
His raiment is like lightning, and
His countenance cannot be scanned,
With such a light divine it beams!
Yet, like the Son of Man he seems:
Or, rather, man resembles him,
As images or pictures dim,





ADAM.


155


Imperfect of the perfect One;
Somewhat as earth is like the sun,--
The form, without the glory bright,
And of the sun a satellite.
This heavenly Being now began
To mould the clay to form of man.
I watched, with wondrous interest,
The power, his plastic hand possessed.
The dust, he took up, to arrange,
Experienced from his touch a change.
Each particle of clay or sand
Won glory from his forming hand;
Caught from his touch a tinge of light,
Of rosy hue or snowy white.
The water turned to blood; and stone
To softer texture of a bone.
And; what he scooped from strata fresh,
Became like handfuls of the flesh.
How interesting 'twas, to see
The moulding of divinity!The frame-work, curiously made,
With marrow and with pores inlaid;
The veins and arteries through all,
In channels great or vessels small,
Contrived to all the body flood





156


EIGHTH. NIGHT.


With a pervasive vital blood I
I saw him stretch the sinews, still
To lengthen and contract at will.
With these he wound the bones, that they
Might thus the mind of man obey.
I saw him form the human heart,
To take the blood, and blood impart.
While this so sensitive he wrought,
A heavenly tear he shed, methought,
Forecasting sorrows, it must know,
And sensibilities of woe;
Which make the tender bosom bleed,
And man another heart to need,
When this one, wrung with grief and sin,
Changes to callous stone within.
I saw him take the greatest pains
In a slow structure of the brains;
Both the material to prepare,
And its arrangement shape with care.
But, 'twas not possible for me
The mode of making it to see;
Except the first stage, while he planned
And kneaded it, with plastic hand:
For, in the process, it became
Soon, as a scintillating flame;





ADAM.


157


Then, lightning, and I could not brook,
With dazzled eyes, on it to look,
Till, with the scull, he capped it o'er.
And, then, he stood his work before,
And murmured-" Heart! thou shalt not rest,
While life lasts, beating in the breast!
And, Brain, be thou the organ wrought
Of spirit and unceasing thought I
Still shalt thou labor, though but clay,
To dream, by night, to think, by day I
And ah! if thou wilt never in
Admit a wandering thought of sin,
This organ nothing shall derange
To jar from tune, to waste or change!
And, you, true yoke-fellows, "-he said"I've bound together, Heart and Head!
What God hath joined in union, never
Let sin of man presume to sever!
For, if man feels, without the mind,
A superstition makes him blind;
And, if he think, without the heart
A glow of feeling to inmpart,Like comets, in a space-abysm,
His way is lost in atheism!"





158


EIGHTH NIGHT.


Thus, in soliloquy, to muse
He seemed: and painted next the hues
Of fair vermillion on the cheek;
And glances, which in bright eyes speak;
The marble brow and ivory neck;
And rosy tips, the fingers deck.
I looked with joy upon the form,
Perfect, expressive, seeming warm
With what it spoke; in mould of earth,
Shaping a soul of heaven forth!
And, what seemed most my eye to strike,
It looked the Maker very like;
Curtained, like sunshine, in a shroud
Of gauzy mist or fleecy cloud.
So imaged, stood the Maker forth,
Veiled in the flesh, he formed of earth.
How beautiful it was, to scan,
Though lifeless, yet the form of man I
Sculptors perchance have made a limb,
Or single feature like to him.
And painters some half perfect hue
Have made to hint the figure true.
But, here, each perfect part the whole
Combined, to body forth the soul;
Even before the spirit-flame,





ADAM.


159


By God breathed, in the nostril came.
I never saw'an artizan
Rapt in his work, like the God-man.
While it was doing and when done,
He seemed to feel himself alone,
And heedless, in abstraction lost,
Of the surveying spirit-host;
Regardless of their silent gaze,
As we are of the starry rays.
At least, an air like his, I've known,
In those who thought themselves alone;
As the mind's action moved, the frame,
And on the lips its musing came.
Without the will, a sympathy
'Twixt mind and members seemed to be;
The latter, at their own control,
Still moving to express the soul.
'Twas so the heavenly human Son
Looked at his work, when he had done;
And so the musings of his soul
Along his lips in language stole.
-And then the silence there he broke,
While to the man he made, he spoke:"Fair creature, I have formed of earth,





160


EIGHTH NIGHT.


Thy Maker thus to image forth;
And I have made thee, to afford
A perfect copy of the Lord!
Now, what remains for me to do,
But give the breath of life to you?
Shall I but instinct lend to thee,
Only the animal to be?
Then wert thou king of beasts; thy sway
All other races would obey;
For thou alone hast form divine,
And theirs are stepping-stones to thine.
Thou art the flower or fairer fruit
They but the branches and the roc
Thence, by a slow successive grade,
Developing to man, the head:
As if their forms were tentative;
Wherein creative Power would strive,
In each attempt, with more success,
Till he attained to perfectness.
Ah! shall I render now to thee
A likeness not alone to be;
But the original to share,
And, with the form, the spirit bear?
If I do not, thy pefect shape,
Like imitations of an ape,
Will but disgrace and parody





ADAM.


161


The spirit imaged forth in thee.
And, yet, if I th' original
Spirit add to the animal,
Thy nature, then, must be divine
And indestructible, like mine,
Endowed with free-will of the soul,
And guided by thy own control.
Free choice the substance is of all
Who share the essence spiritual.
Omnipotence cannot compel
Nor force a spirit to do well:
For this its essence contravenes;
Its very name free agent means
And indestructible; since this
The spirit's very nature is.
God may persuade; but never can,
If he bestow a soul to man,
With the free spirit force employ,
Or its existence e'er destroy.
Else, had he kept the angels all,
Nor suffered Lucifer to fall:
And, with the fall, he would have slain,
When only not-to-be was gain.
-"Sleep, Statue, here! I hardly can
Breathe into life the mould of man
11





162


EIGHTH NIGHT.


I would not mock the original
With being, only animal;
And, if I give a deathless soul,
With free will and a self control,
To Satan's wiles exposed, I can
Sadly forecast the fall of man,Sorrow and sin, the tragedy
Of man with God at enmity;
His own self with himself at war,
And breaking his own being's law,
Until persuaded and restored
To turn again and seek the Lord I
Ah! thus I see before my eyes
A desecrated paradise;
Man, wandering through ages, while
Seduced by sin and Satan's guile,
Spite of persuasions from above,
Efforts of grace and heavenly love,
And all that can be done, to win
His life from misery and sin!"
-While this soliloquy I heard,
My reason was so strongly stirred,
That I my very dream forgot,
In the confusion of my thought.
What! said.my wondering soul, can this





ADA..


163


Be as the vision shows it is?
And cannot, then, divine control
Omnipotent compel the soul?
And now, I thought, a Friar gray
Stood at my side and seemed to say,"0 yes I God can a free will force,
When he prefers to take that course;
And, if he ever save a soul,
'Tis by compulsion and control.
Whom He makes willing, can't refuse;
And He could all men did he choose:
But, 'tis his pleasure to select,
And force salvation on th' elect."
-"Why then," said I, "doth He permit
Any to perish?"
"He sees fit,"
The Friar said.
"Then," answered I,
"His will is, to eternity
That some should sin and perish, too 1"


"0 yes, indeed! that must be true I





164


EIGHTH NIGHT.


Saith not the scripture so? " he cried.
"Quite the reverse, sir; " I replied.
"A thousand texts to one, I see,
Which all declare that man is free."
"Believe them both," he said.
" Then, why
Teach you but one, sir?" I reply.
"We must not use our-reason," said
The Friar: "we shall be misled."
"Reason perverted,-I'll admit,
'Twere wiser not resort to it.
And, my advice if you would heed,
You would not with it make a creed.
Do you not, mister Friar, see
The Gospel speaks to us as free?
You make in it a fearful schism,
And graft there Turkish fatalism.
The franchises, on us bestowed,
Prove best the sovereignty of God;
Since nothing short of kingly powers
Such charters could have rendered ours.





ADAM.


165


From God derived, on him they rest,
And by his gift are still possessed.
In this he governs, that he can
Turn to his praise the wrath of man;
Accomplish what he has in view,
Whatever man may choose to do;
Make use of Judas's offence
As he could his obedience;
And render choice, if good or ill,
The means of his own purpose, still.
"Divers expedients, even man,
By skill, can use to serve his plan.
Any expedient God can make
The impress of his purpose take.
To force free will, would be against
Our reason and our common sense.
All things are possible; but this
Sheer nothing and but nonsense is;
In'terms a contradiction; what,
To utter, is to say, 'tis not.
Thus, not omnipotence 'twould be,
To render two times two but three.
This evidently were nonsense,
Weakness, and not omnipotence.
And, mister Friar, don't you see,





166


EIGHTH NIGHT.


Should God the free will force, 'twould be
His choice and act, whate'er were done,
Both good and ill beneath the sun;
And we were not responsible,
Whetheri we evil did or well.
Sin is, God's will to disobey:
So, this would take all sin away.
Thus, sorrow sinless would remain;
And suffering would God ordain:
And, were this so, the God above
Would not be God; for God is love.
And such omnipotence as you
The God of love attribute to,
Would never have admitted in
The world a sorrow or a sin.
Then, Friar, be advised by me,
To let these knotty problems be;
Or solve in such a way, as suits
Jehovah's lovely attributes.
Your dogma plucks the brightest gem,
Love, from his royal diadem;
Or, proves no sin nor sorrow is,
In life hereafter, nor in this:
Which contradicts experience;
Shocks reason and our common sense:
To see it, must the eyes be blind;





ADAM.


167


To know it, you must have no mind."-A deep-drawn and a sudden sigh
Broke in upon our colloquy.
I looked around; and saw, once more,
The Maker bend his image o'er;
While, on its lips his own he pressed,
And breathed a soul in Adam's breast!
His bosom heaved; he oped his eyes,
And looked around in paradise.
With perfect powers his life began,
And faculties mature of man;
Yet, joyous as a gentle child,
Sweetly ingenuous, he smiled,
Greeting his heavenly Maker, too,
Like one he intimately knew.
At once, the twain began to talk,
And, arm inarm, together walk.
Delightful 'twas, the traits to find,
In Adam, of each age combined,The guilelessness of childhood, and
Reason, mature to understand;
The playfulness of early youth,
With earnestness and love of truth.
As if, together, could it be,





168


EIGHTH NIGHT.


Fruit with the flower, adorned a tree;
Spring's graces, with the beautiful,
From other seasons we would cull;
Chasteness of winter, wealth of fall,
Flowers of the summer, blended all
With buoyant spring-time, dew of dawn,
The bird song and the rose of morn.
I wondered, as I looked abroad
At the almighty power of God;
Educing good on earth from ill,
While evil had a foothold still.
Though wrath I saw, in many ways,
Omnipotence had turned to praise;
Yet, could I find no single trace
Of evil lingering in the place,
Except one wily, creeping worm,
That wore the lowest grade of form.
A4d but one vegetable showed,
In Eden, enmity to God.
This was a tree, appearing fair,
Surrounded by the others there.
Yet not another plant or tree
With it had contiguity;
For, all apart the tree had grown
And, midst the garden, stood alone.





ADAM.                169
With interlacing boughs, the others
Grew loving, like a band of brothers:
But, none to this one reached a spray;
And this from them withdrew away I
The serpent, too, beneath its shade
Was coiled, or in its branches laid.
The other animals, though they
In company together play,
Avoided him; while he withdrew,
And seemed to shun the others, too.
Yet, outwardly, the beast and tree
Were colored bright and fair to see;
The plant possessing lurid fruit,
A red-veined and a purple shoot.
The spotted serpent matched the same,
With colors borrowed from the flame.










NINTH NIGHT.










DEATH.


173


NINTH NIGHT.
DEATH.
In Adam all died."
The Lord, in Eden, Adam heard;
Gazed in his face, drank in his word;
Walked with him, in each heavenly place;
And knew his Maker face to face.
When God has left him, Adam finds
The souvenir, of God reminds.
Each lovely outline, He has wrought,
Bears the bright image of his thought.
In flowing breeze and singing bird,
Sounds the plain import of his word.
The river and the running stream
His music and his mirror seem.
All nature's words, well understood,
To man are eloquent of God.





174


NINTH NIGHT.


Never, in nature, near as then,
Has God been found of hermit-men;
Who have to solitude retired,
By ardor of devotion fired.
Nor has He been so clearly seen
As then, without a veil between;
Which, since, around the heart has been
Woven by subtlety of sin.
Surely, if man might ever be
Alone, in God's society,
Without the kindred beings, made
Of man's capacity and grade;
If the ascetic, lonely cell
Of solitude were ever well:
It was with Adam; in a place,
Where God met with him face to face;
While, in God's absence, nature's sign
Was understood of sense divine.
Yet, even then, He said,-" 'Tis not
For man a healthy, happy lot.
It is not good for him, to be
Alone in my society.
A helpmeet I will make, who can
Be'still a bosom-friend of man;
That fellowship may fit them more
To love their Maker and adore.





DEATH.


175


Thus have I found it good to be,
Even for animal and tree.
In pairs I make them all; and, so,
By twos, in company to go.
Companionship, by tempting, may
One of the parties lead astray:
Yet, loneliness may sooner make
Man's heart the way of life forsake."
My mind, to meditation stirred,
Was so perplexed by what I heard,
That I looked round the place, to see
If my good angel were with me.
And there he stood, of dazzling white,
Of flashing face and wings of light,
Of pure, calm, meditative brow,
And deep gaze, all with love aglow!
-Thank God! our guardian spirits, here,
Although unseen, are flitting near,
Sweet thoughts instilling, and a sense
Of pure and peaceful influence!
Their swords of spirit-flame oppose
The legions of our bosom foes.
Ah! when we think not of it, and,
Indifferently idle, stand,





176


NINTH NIGHT.


What conflict rages in the skies,
Ourselves the cause, ourselves the prize!
The powers of darkness and the air
Contend with our good angels there,
Though wehear nothing of the strife,
Whence are the issues of our life!
And, yet, we feel the war's effect,
Although the cause we least suspect.
When dark temptation's hour assails,
The host of Amalek prevails.
And, in our many moods depressed,
When life and love ebb in the breast;
When faith is feeble, and our hope
And energies too faintly cope:
Then, in a balanced contest, fight
The hosts of darkness and of light!
0! tell me, who is arbiter
Of this prolonged, eventful war?
Say! can the issues hang on chance;
Or rival strength of sword and lance?
Unconscious man! on you depends,
How the momentous conflict ends 1
You are your own fate's architect:
Its issues are, as you elect I
In dream, I could my angel view,





DEATH.


177


As waking senses never do.
His gaze of seraph-radiance
And love-inspiring countenance
With rapture made my heart rejoice!
His thoughts, breathed in me with his voice,
Whose elevatedtone I heard,
Such aspiration in me stirred,
That I felt all drawn upward then,
And thought I could not fall again,
Nor ever lose the lofty power
Of that most elevating hour 1
And then I asked him, to make known
Why Adam was not well alone,
With God and angels visible,
In happy paradise to dwell;
Especially, as I had read,
How, in the sequel, Eve misled?
The angel answered,--" To the wise,
A great truth this may symbolize.
Let none salvation seek, alone:
For, in your world, mankind are one,
And every individual
Is like a portion of the all.
So, self is saved, by saving others,
12





NINTH NIGHT.


And doing good to human brothers.
But the ascetic seeks his own
Self-culture, in his cell alone;
Forgetting, that he never can
Love God, without the love of man;
Nor ever save himself, unless
He rid his soul of selfishness.
He comes to God, by doing good,
Not by unbroken solitude.
The individual cannot
In life attain a happy lot,
Except he with him, lift above
The whole race, by a brother's love.
-Death cuts these cords of race, that bind
Each individual to his kind:
And then, as character decides,
To his own place, each person glides."
Adam, in happy Eden, loved
Each various animal, that roved,
According to their qualities,The strength of one, another's size:
One, for its fleet and airy pace;
Another, for its form of grace;
Each, for the salient traits, that were
Its more peculiar character.





DEATH.


And every bird and animal
Loved Adam, whether great or small;
To him in homage rendering
Their faculty of foot and wing,
Each, with alacrity and joy,
In Adam's service to employ.
And yet, he often felt how great
The step between him and their state:
An interval, as deep and broad
As that between the man and God I
He could not love, with all his power,
A grade, at such a distance lower.
And scarcely equal seemed his love
To soar to God supreme above,
Without the help, it needed then
As now, of love for fellow men.
So, Adam sometimes sat to think,
On a bright streamlet's mossy brink;
While pausing there, his feet to lave,
At noontide, in the pearly wave,
And on his face awhile to look,
Reflected from the limpid brook.
At length, his image came to move
With something like Narcissus' love.
Yet, Adam changed it, in his thought,





180


NINTH NIGHT.


And with his plastic fancy wrought.
As, once, Pygmalion his ideal
Projected to a figure real,
Till love the marble made to glow,
As fable says, and life bestow;
So, Adam, by his fancy's art,
A figure formed to win his heart,
Day's vision and the dream of rest;
Till God wrought Eve of Adam's breast,
While he was plunged in deep repose.
And he beheld her, when he rose,A figure actual and real,
Embodying his own ideal!
Seldom-nay! has there ever been
Such marriage-union made, since then?Where the fair world within of thought
Its outer history has wrought;
While fancy thus the fact created,
And actual with ideal mated?
Most unions this, we fear, reverse,
Pairing for better or for worse;
Convenience and proximity
And money making matrimony.
Beauty of person many draws,
By stress of semi-sensual laws,





DEATH.


181


To marriage of convenience,
Condition, circumstance or sense;
But bodies married, sans the mind,
A loneliness in union find.
The fancy's more promethean fire,
Fanned by aspirings of desire,
Whose pure ideal ardors throw
A glory over all below,
To Hymen feebler lustre lends;
For, with the marriage, romance ends.
A sigh for such may Petrarch breathe,
And with its charm a sonnet wreathe;
Its passion pure the poet's lyre
With longing heavenly inspire;
And, spirits, seeking it in vain,
Spice a sweet minor in the strain:
Yet, has it not, since Eden, been;
And had but a beginning, then;
Nor, ever will be perfect, even
In the realities of heaven.
It failed in Eden; and will never
Prove a complete success, forever I
No! though the marriage-knot be new
Often the sweetest tie below;
It is not pure enough, to be
Portioned with immortality I





.182


NINTH NIGHT.


Yet, a fair page, in paradise,
Adam and Eve characterize,
Before their disobedience
Supplanted purer love by sense;
While yet the heavenly Artisan,
Divinely multiplying man,
Moulded their bodies of the clod,
Called, in the Bible, "sons of God."
Since then, He makes no more of earth,
But fashions by a second birth,
As only the Creator can,
The issue, sprung from fallen man.
Born of the Spirit, heirs of flesh
May be created thus afresh;
But, no more sons of men, to-day,
As first they were, are made of clay.
God uses now material
Pure, incorrupt and spiritual.
Short-lived, if any, the delight
From a forbidden appetite.
Reproaches, while the cup is quaffed,
Transgressors tasting in the draft;
And, dreadful, when they cease to drink,
The moment they begin to think,
Scourged by a scorpion-lash within,





DEATH.


183


In bitter penalty of sin.
Could they the stolen sweets enjoy,
Without a conscience to annoy,Without the shadow of a fear;
Could they protract the short-lived cheer,
And the exhausted senses be
Delivered from satiety:
Yet, if they once have tasted pleasure,
Which God gives in unmingled measure,
And known the joy of Jesus' smile,
The carnal must be counted vile,So far below the soul's delight,
As to be deemed its opposite.
True pleasures never pall nor cease,
But, in partaking them, increase:
While carnal satisfactions can
Mock only the desires of man;
For, warring with the spirit, they
Take all his bosom peace away.
0! what a grief was that first woe,--
The spring, whence all our sorrows flow,The first compunction felt within,
And bitter sense of primal sin I
Did they not thus the wrong rehearse,
And of the evil deed converse?




184


NINTH NIGHT.


" 0  'twas not want, our virtue tried;
For, every wish was satisfied,
And perfect pleasure was bestowed,
With innocence enjoying God!
Nor ignorance has been our ruin:
For, well we knew what we were doing.
Flow, bitter tear-drops, from the eyes!
These are the founts, whence sorrows rise,Adown time's vista far to flow,
Swelling with tributary woe,
Where sorrow's river to our sin,
In all time, traces origin!"
Death passed on Adam!-what is death?
'Tis not alone the loss of breath.
That consequence is not the worst;
And may not mark the state, at first.
The pulse may beat, the breath may flow;
Health tinge the cheek with ruddy glow;
The senses may be keen in us,
The muscles strong and vigorous;
The mind a faculty may show,
Truth, in its lower plane to know:
And, yet, the death, in such a one,
Its early stages have begun.
We breathe divine afflatus, when





DEATH.


185


We truly live, and only then:
And, when we lose the influence high,
In what is best of life, we die.
The inner life has ceased from breath,
And this the substance is of death.
This, from the soul, its hearing steals;
The eye of faith from vision seals.
The sensibilities, which can
Reveal the heavenly world to man,
No longer, then, communicate
The glories of the heavenly state.
The world celestial vanishes;
For, now the soul no longer sees.
Mute is the music of the spheres;
For, now the soul no longer hears.
Lost is the life's electric tie,
Which binds to God by sympathy,
And makes his love and life to roll,
Thrilling the currents of the soul.
Thus in our God to live and move,This is the spirit's life and love.
To lose this animating breath,
Is for the soul a state of death,
Death passed on Adam 1 Yet, could he,
aIn death not even, cease to be.





186


NINTH NIGHT.


Insensibility, alas I
Could not upon the spirit pass.
The powers, bestowed for heavenly gain,
Perverted, serve a source of pain.
The spark divine is made, by sin,
A conscience-fire, to flame within;
And Dives, with its torment wrung,
Calls for a drop, to cool his tongue.
What fiendish exultation ran
Through Hades, at the fall of man!
Then disobedience swept away
The barrier, set to Satan's sway;
Exposed the soul to his perversion,
And opened earth to his incursion.
The stricken planet felt, at this,
Its first shock of paralysis;
And, through the path ecliptic wheeling,Inclined its dizzy axis, reeling;
Begun, with altered revolution,
The first stage of its dissolution.
For human habitation fitted,
The sin its tenant, man, committed,
Earth, first, to drowning deluge, doomed,
And, last, by fire to be consumed:
Perhaps, by evil overloaded,





DEATH.


181


In broken parts to be exploded;
Like the four planets, which appear
The fragments of a former sphere;
Or, as a comet late unfurled
Its blaze-train, like a burning world,
To still roll on in revolution,
A beacon-fire of retribution.
Yet, rather, as we hope and trust,
The fire may purify the dust,
To 'dure the dreadful judgment day,
When former things shall pass away.
Then the blue canopy shall roll
And come together, like a scroll;
Night from her tresses shake the stars;
The moon don bloody robe of Mars;
Swell o'er the sun a sackcloth-spot,
Till all his disc the darkness blot;
The air explode with thunder sound,
And only ether flow around.
The sea, that breeds the stormy cloud,
To drape the earth in sombre shroud,
And make men's heart sink, as they feel
Shadowed by darkness visible;
Which nurses in its bosom dire,
The forked and dragon tongues of fire;
Cradles the tempest, mad and blind,





188            NINTH NIGHT.
And fosters passions of the wind,The sea shall out of being cease;
And break no more perpetual peace.
Then, fire, that purges all this dross,
Through the atonement of the cross,
Shall mantle with a splendor-robe,
And make a sun the shining globe I





TENTH NIGHT.










DELUGE.


191


TENTH NIGHT.
DELUGE,
" The waters of the Flood were upon the earth."
The death of Adam draped my muse,
With sober, downcast, sable hues.
I mourned, I fancied, more than they,
Who lay the senseless dust away,
And follow, with a solemn tread,
The sad procession of the dead;At least, when such by faith may see
The soul in immortality;
Since they return to earth alone
The frame, whose occupant is flown.
I followed, in sad obsequies,
The tenant of the chrysalis.





192


TENTH NIGHT.


The wingdd-one I wept, inurned,
And for the death of spirit mourned;
Still trembling at the fell control,
Which has a power to kill the soul.
Before the mourning-season ends,
Melpomene my mood attends,
Haunting my heart, by day, depressed,
Sighing, in melancholy rest.
October tints the mellow year
And painted leaves, becoming sere.
The deep-dyed sunbeams solemn gaze;
By night, the silver moonbeams blaze;
And Dian, in her zenith-car,
Rides, full-orbed, with the brightest star,
While lesser lights avoid her ray,
Shrinking, as from the light of day.
My angel came, on such a night;
For dreamy voyage to invite
My willing thought: and forth we flew,
The fallen state of man to view.
Great changes over earth had passed,
Since I, in vision, saw it last,Ages elapsing, it would seem,





DELUGE.


193


In the swift drama of my dream,
Leaving vast intervals between
Each act or subdivided scene.
Instead of one pair, here, as then,
I saw a multitude of men.
Eden I sought for now, in vain;
But found vast villas, on the plain,
And ruins, where, of yore, had been
Cities of pride, laid waste by sin,
Made of Apollyon a prey,
And in destruction snatched away.
Huge Babel's half built tower I spied,Unfinished monument of pride,
Ambition's half-completed plan
And disconcerted scheme of man!
Yet, many meaner turrets stood,
In cities, built before the Flood,
Heaven-daring, and inhabited
By crowds, at will of Satan led.
tknd, here, mid multitudes of men,
The Raven Form I saw again,Portentous, busy, fluttering
From place to place, with Stygian wing;
And nearer, with wide pinion sweepifig,
Nor now, as erst, his distance keeping;
13





194


TENTH NIGHT.


Ruffling his shaggy plumage nigh;
Devouring me with vulture-eye.
-"Resist the Devil he will flee:"
Said my good angel unto me.
SOnly his willing foe he catches;
As charms a snake the bird he watches."
So saying, 'gainst the Devil's breast
Ithuriel's lance he laid in rest.
The winged monster waited not,
But, cre his onset, left the spot,
And, shrieking horrid blasphemies,
Affrighted, fallen Phosphor flies.
Yet, soon I saw him there again
Resume his ravages of men.
-"0 Angel I haste to help!" I cried.
"There is a Helper;;" he replied,"And none who look to him for aid,
Shall be the foul fiend's victim made."
So speaking, he drew nigh the shape,
With wings too swift for his escape.
The monster watched him, coming near,





DELUGE.


195


Divided 'twixt his wrath and fear.
IHate sparkled in his venom-eye,
And made him hesitate to fly.
"Now," said my angel, "do not fear,
Though I a moment leave you here.
The Lord's prayer and sweet scripture-verse,
From stores of memory, rehearse.
Look up to God; on him rely;
And even you the fiend will fly."
He set me down, while so he said;
And, on a swift wing, upward sped,
Till, like a faintest speck, I noted,
With longing eye, aloft he floated.
The fiend flew up, for space to stoop;
Then seemed in circles swift to swoop,
Whose centre I was, till I saw
The tension of his vulture-claw.
But, yet, I had no thought of fear,
As I beheld him drawing near.
My prayer and scripture I repeated:
And, when his ear my accent greeted,
To shun the truth, away he flies
With angry threats and blasphemies.
While thus he sweeps afar, reviling,





196


TENTH NIGHT.


My angel flutters to me, smiling;
And, in his feathers harbors me,
As we pass on, new sights to see.
We read, in ancient history,
Of fallen grandeur, faded glory:
Mid Carthage-ruins, Marius,
Matching his fallen fortunes thus,
In a waste city's solitude,
Which peers his own despairing mood,
Seeks, in a wreck of pride cast down,
For desolation like his own,Ambition's broken tower to view,
In columns, fallen Carthage strew;
The picture of his own despair,
In blackened walls and ashes there,
An emblematic counterpart
Of his own blasted, broken heart!
-For, disappointment would not be
The comrade of prosperity,
And, rather chooses to be placed
In scenes of desolated waste,
Of ruined greatness, grandeur gone,
Fortune in keeping with its own:
Finding a comfort strange and drear,
Fr6m view of rival ruin here.





DELUGE.


197


'Mid blighted earth and fallen man,
When thus I saw their Artizan,
Seeming to muse, with eye declined,
Carthage and Marius came to mind.
He saw his disconcerted plan,
Opposed by disobedient man.
His work of love he looked upon,
Wasted by fiend Apollyon,
Whose aim is always to destroy
Beauty and loveliness and joy.
With folded arms, the Son of God,
As if in meditation, stood.
And, while I looked into his face,
His speaking thoughts I seemed to trace,
As, rapt in wonder, love and awe,
His countenance divine I saw.
Sadness was there; yet, not like theirs,
By fears afflicted, sins or cares.
His sorrow was benevolent,
Disinterested sentiment,
Pity and disappointed love,
Raised by almighty power above
His grief,-called grief, because we know
No other title to bestow
On a sublimer sentiment
Than human name or precedent.





198


TENTH NIGHT.


I looked around me then, to see
If others were not moved like me,
But, I perceived, that mortal eyes
This Being could not recognize.
The death, which passed upon the mind,
Had made to spirit-vision blind.
Their orbs of sight unconscious'roll,
Without perception of the sou..
As lower animals behold
A landscape loveliness unfold;
And see the form, but not the thought,
That had ap eye esthetic caught:
So, men, while outward matter seeing,
Could not discern the heavenly Being.
And, equally incognito,
Apollyon hasted to and fro,
With busy malice, still employing
His energies in all destroying.
'Twas thus his epithet he won,
"Destruction" or "Apollyon";
An indefatigable hater,
Still counteracting the Creator:
While Jesus, rescuing from ruin,
And snatching from our own undoing,
The souls redeemed their Savior call,




DELUGE.


199


That dearest, sweetest name of all!
The counterwork I gazed upon
Of Jesus and Apollyon:
No personal encounter, but
A strife of plot and counterplot.
The Devil seemed to understand,
He had a license in the land,
Not to constrain, but free to win,
By the seductive wiles of sin:
Christ, by his spirit, whom he could,
The while persuading to be good.
Such, by his power, he still surrounded,
And every enemy confounded,
Restored them, when they went astray;
And led them in the living way.
On the dark mountains, stumbling, some,
Who heard his call, refused to come.
Some, long entreated, owned his sway
And, none were ever turned away.
But many, keeping on in sin,
Apollyon contrived to win.
Spell-bound I watched the drama dread;
And tears of bitter sorrow shed.
It seemed so strange to me, that any,





200


TENTH NIGHT.


So woful strange, that very many
Should Jesus' pleading call refuse,
And rather hell than heaven choose;
All his entreaty, love and warning
And heart's blood, shed to save them, scorning!
Absorbed in this dread drama, I
Watched generations passing by.
Fixed to it, like a fearful tale,
I saw progressive sin prevail,
Evil and ruin going on,
And prospering Apollyon;
While tokens I could plainly see
Of horrible catastrophe,
Which fixed and riveted attention,
By very pain and apprehension.
And fearful was the issue; for
Raging Apollyon I saw,
As if he could no longer wait
The terminus of each life-date,
Striving the limit to remove
'Twixt waves beneath and floods above;
That in a deluge might be blent
The erst divided firmament.


I looked to see the Son of God,





DELUGE.


201


Hoping deliverance from the flood:
But, sadly seemed to hear him say,"'Tis better; sin should have its way;
And, men, destroyed, no more give birth
To generations, on the earth,
Born but Apollyon's prey to be,
And multiply man's misery."
"But, with the wicked, will the good
Be whelmed," I cried, "beneath the flood?
Cannot the Power almighty save,
And pluck them from the watery grave:
Or in a common ruin must
The wicked implicate the just?"
-"Not so!" the angel answered me:
"For, God shall their deliverer be,
And make all issue well for them:
Nor sorrows scathe; nor waters whelm."
--"Methinks, then, I can look upon
The billows of Apollyon;
Whose hungry deeps devour man's race,
Restoring chaos to the place:
Since, I may also see the Lord,
The just, deliverance afford;





202


TENTH NIGHT.


And, from devouring Satan snatch
The prey, he covets most to catch."
"Come, then! we'll look the nations through,"
The angel said, "with bird's eye view;
To find, who serve God and adore,
If there be any one but Noah."
I wondered, while we winged our way,
That we could all so quick survey.
I noticed, in the spirit-sight,
Matter as shadow, soul as light.
Through dwellings and through distant spaces,
Like stars, we saw the myriad faces;
Whose character the spirit sealed,
And, what they were, at once revealed.
And, as a glance would show the eyes,
If stars were shining in the skies;
Or, if the dull orbs sinister
Showed but a cometary blur;
Much easier than this, we could
Distinguish evil souls from good.
The lurid glare a glance could tell
Of passions, set on fire of hell,
And burning, with inverted flame,
To seek the source, from whence they came:





DELUGE.


203


While, spirits, fired with heavenly love,
Flamed, with a pure white fire, above.
Thus, did the earth to us appear,
Soul-dotted, like a starry sphere;
The cities showing galaxies,
While elsewhere sparser lights arise.
But, what astonished me, on all
The population of the ball;
The lurid, dull lights indicate
Man's totally perverted state.
I found one just man only-Noah:
With all my search, I saw no more.
While all the other souls were blind,
Faith oped the eye-sight of his mind,
To recognise the Son of God;
Who told him of the coming flood,
And taught him, with a labor skilled,
In toiling years, the ark to build,The ark of safety! such as He
Shall, his disciple's refuge, be!
The people mock at Noah, with scorn,
When he would of their peril warn.
His labor, for the vague hereafter,
And foregone pleasure, make their laughter.





204


TENTH NIGHT.


Each at his self-denial rails,
Flouting his words, as idle tales.
-Methought, while this I gazed upon,
The same has since been going on:
By faith, the followers of the Lord,
Obeying his prophetic word,
Make ready for the judgment-day,
And earthly things to pass away;
While worldlings, in pursuit of pleasure,
And piling up corrupted treasure,
The works of pious men assail,
And God's word deem an idle tale.
And now the deed on earth was done,
Plotted by fell Apollyon.
The deeps above, confusing, flow,
Severed no more from seas below;
Which, all unseen, on sunbeams rise,
To burst the cisterns of the skies:
Thence gathered waters fall again
In forty days' successive rain;
Till firmaments, above, below,
Uniti'ng, highest earth o'erflow;
And all are drowned with waters dark,
Except the dwellers in the ark.





DELUGE.


205


The slaughter of o'erwhelming seas
Was meet Apollyon to please,
And satisfy with ruin, could
Death ever have sufficient food.
But God beheld with pity. Though
Justice had retribution so;
Yet, the sad spectacle could move
His bosom of paternal love,
With a sure promise, to decree,
It never so again should be.
And, to dispel from mortals all
The dread of future floods to fall,
His rainbow in the cloud He set,
A sign He never will forget.
Viewing the glowing colors seven,
Reaching a path from earth to heaven,A train of glory, following
The messenger, despatched to bring
Even to earth the radiant love,
That fills the spheres of life above;
I thought how great must pity be,
Embracing all Noah's family,
And sparing, for his sake alone,
The offspring, he has called his own!
How merciful the grace, that can





206


TENTH NIGHT.


Compassionate the sins of man,
And labor still, to save him from
His wilful, self-elected doom!
O Love, how infinitely kind,
Beyond the measure of the mind:
And, yet, to fill the thought with this,
Is sweetest source of peace and bliss
So swiftly, such a countless host,
Body and soul, together lost,
Drowned in perdition, given o'er,Had malice appetite for more?
However much Apollyon hated,
Glutted with ruin, was he sated?
No! with his evil eye, the ark
He watched ride out the tempest dark,
Rocked in the tossings of the deep,
Whose surges cradle it to sleep,
Sinking, or swelling to the sky,
With waters roaring lullaby;
Like a frail nautilus, that lives,
Through storms, no other ship survives.
His evil eye with anger flashes;
His fangs with wrath and pain he gnashes;
Counting those borne i'the ark away,
More than the myriads of his prey;





DELUGE.


207


As Haman reckoned all his gain,
While Mordecai survived, in vain.
And when the bow broke on his view,
It burned his very bosom through,
Paling the billow-flames of hell,
That ever in the Devil dwell.
Mercy blaspheming, cursing love,
He calls for judgment from above;
Impeaches justice; and, demands
Sin's deserts, at the Sovereign's hands.
But, lo! the sign before his eyes,
Which Constantine saw in the skies!
A radiant cross the heaven spanned;
And, pointing to it was a hand,
Such as, in king Belshazzar's hall,
Inscribed his sentence on the wall!
Blasted by more than lightning's might,
The Devil withered at the sight.
-"Yet, shall the earth," he cried, "be rent
By fires in its bosom pent!"
He plunged, when he had shouted this,
In Hades' dark and deep abyss.










ELEVENTH NIGHT.
14










HISTORY.


211


ELEVENTH NIGHT.
HISTORY.
"1 A thousand years as one day."
My visions, which I now rehearse,
In a near narrative of verse,
Were scattered through my life, and seen
With many intervals between.
My dreams of ruin and of glory
Were chapters of a checkered story;
Which waking after-thought impressed
With wonder and with interest.
And, oft, repose in expectation
Of a new angel-visitation,
I vainly sought; or found a deep
Unvisited and dreamless sleep:





212


ELEVENTH NIGHT.


Till I abandoned the idea,
My angel would again appear.
Yet, afterward, when waking sense
Had known a marked experience,
I found a portal, in the real,
That opened to the dream's ideal.
Thus, since the Deluge, dreamed of last,
When with me many months had passed,
I came, a voyager, to float,
For pastime, in a pleasure-boat,
With mind at ease and thought let loose,
At random, in a summer cruise;
Having no occupation, save
To watch the sparkles of the wave,
And count, my happy time to while,
The stream's "innumerable smile."
There, the bright Genius of the flood
My fancy with his charm subdued;
Yet shaded off the reverie
To vision so insensibly,
That, whether it were dream of day
Or spell of sleep, I cannot say:
Whether, as swords flash from the sheath
My angel rose from deeps beneath,
Spurning the sparkles; or, i'the sky





HISTORY.


213


Down the star-dusty galaxy,
O'er heaven's milky way he came,
In his empyrean form of flame.
His fervid lips he parted, and
Extended me his pearly hand:" What say you, shall we Time pursue,
In courses, many ages through?
His flight is swift, his wings are strong,
His orbit tireless and long;
Yet slow and short, compared with mine,
Impelled by energy divine.
1" Thou canst, with cunning instruments,
Enlarge the visionary sense,
With power, a distant speck resolving
To suns, their centres round revolving;
Each vast as yours, and all as far
Apart, as Earth and Sirius are;
Each genial, joyous sunshine lending
To circling satellites attending,
Scanned only by intelligence,
Which sees beyond the bound of sense.
Thus mind not only multiplies
The range of vision of the eyes,





214


ELEVENTH NIGHT.


By telescopes, but can project
Beyond, by means of intellect.
-Such is a method meet for man,First, learning all the facts he can;
Then, by the way of inference,
Deducing boundless knowledge thence.
And so hath science of the wise
Searched out the secrets of the skies;
Till men have learned the sun to see
A star-mote in the galaxy,An outer atom, that appears
Connected with the starry spheres,
Which one concentric path pursue;
As other kindred clusters do.
And, in its turn this galaxy
With other neighbor-nebulea,
Its grander starry systems join;
Till all creation's orbs combine,
To circle round God's central throne;
With homage, sovereignty to own
Of Him, who made and still maintains
And over every system reigns.
"Though centuries, combined, convey
To earth a distant starry ray;
Yet angels all the spaces can





HISTORY.


215


Pass over, like a thought of man.
But little time, then, shall we need,
Through human ages to proceed;
Redemption's drama to behold
Its plan of pathos deep unfold,A stranger, sadder history
Of love arrayed in heavenly glory,
Such as no other sphere can boast,
Of all the circling orbed host!"
Thus sped we through historic ages,
Glancing, in passing, at the pages:We saw the white dove flutter forth,
Sent from the ark to search the earth;
Returning, when no rest he found,
O'er all the drenched and dreary ground.
-Returning I! as the Spirit flies
From the blue bosom of the skies,
To men the kindly Carrier-dove,
Conveying blessings from above:
Who, when they spurn his offering,
Goes home, aggrieved, on heavenward wing.
We viewed recovered earth again,
Replenished with the race of men;





216


ELEVENTH NIGHT.


Who soon, in greater sin, forgot
The lessons, that the flood had taught.
Now, see them Sodom's city rear!
Where splendor's palaces appear;
Secure within whose circling wall
Mad pleasure holds her carnival,
And selfish ease and pomp and pride
And lust and idleness abide;
And, every one God has forgot,
Except his only servant, Lot!
And then the tent of Abram white,
On Mamre's plain, is pitched in sight 1
Contented, thus, the patriarch rests;
And angels deign to be his guests.
And there the sovereign Lord appears,
And judgment unto Sodom bears,
While prayers of Abram intercede.
-That colloquy 'twere well to heed;
And learn how God will change his plan,
Moved by the pleas of righteous man,
Vouchsafing all the patriarch dares
Desire, accorded to his prayers.
Soon Sodom, in deserved doom,
Heaven's long forbearing fires consume.





HISTORY,


217


Gomorrah's luxury and lust
Lie buried, in oblivious dust iExamples, for all time, to be
Of finished sin's catastrophe 1
I saw the fleecy flocks at large,
Which 3ons of Jacob had in charge;
Dotting the verdure of the hills,
Or led along the crystal rills,
While snowy lambs, in frolic gay,
Beguile the careless hours away.
A fairer lamb than these I note,
Clad in a many-colored coat.
The fathers gift his form arrayed.
I saw the beauteous boy betrayed.
Against hin there the brothers rise,
Regardless of his moving cries;
And sell hin for the same reward,
That Judas 3et upon the Lord.*
Then Isiael, out of Egypt led,
Went forth, with daily manna fed!
Passed scathleis through the whelming flood,
Divided by the power of God;
* Twenty pieces of ilver. It is worth while to notice these coincidences of the Bible, in which early events seem to prefigure that
great consummation, t)ward which all Scripture points.





218


ELEVENTH NIGHT.


Where Pharaoh's oppressive host,
Pursuing, in the waves were lost!
Smoke-mantled Sinai soon I saw,
Where God to Moses gave the law:
The gushing rock, whose smitten side
The fount of Christ's blood typified:
The winding way, God's people fare,
Now onward, now backsliding there,
While through the wilderness they pass,Too like the devious steps, alas 1
The Church still prints on desert-sand,
Proceeding to the promised land!
Moses, on Pisgah, stands, to viev
The land, he long has journeyed to!
-Hear'st thou the prophet-lips repeat
His blessed death-song, swanlike, sveet?
He sees the land of long desire,
In spirit still ascending higher;
While Israel, over Jordan going,
Possess the place with honey flowing.
Now Israel prospers in the land,
Ruled by the righteous Judges' aand,
With prayer prevailing, and the sword,




HISTORY.


219


Wise, valiant soldiers of the Lord!
Behold Judge, Samson, in a day,
His thousands, with a jawbone, slay!
The lion by his hand is rent;
Such strength has God to Samson lent.
Like other men, of form and limb,
They seek where lies the strength in him:
Shorn of his full and flowing hair,
'Tis found, by false Delilah, there.
Then the Philistines make him blind,
And in the prison-house to grind.
In Dagon's temple, next, is he
The crowded myriad's mockery.
He lifts his blind, pathetic eyes,
And inwardly to heaven cries.
He feels, and finds the columns twain,
That crowded temple-roof sustain.
He bows himself; and yields his breath,
His life outdoing in his death!
The Judges, with their just decree,
Administer theocracy;
Till they, whose fathers once preferred
A golden calf, before the Lord,
An earthly king of heaven desire;
And will not wait for the Messiah.





220


ELEVENTH NIGHT.


Then Samuel anointeth Saul,
The son of Kish, of stature tall,
Of shadowed, superstitious mind,
To lawless magic much inclined.
Against him comes Goliath; and
Is slain by sling in David's hand
Young David who, without a sword,
Conquered, by trusting in the Lord!
Sweet David; that, with music-sway,
From Saul's heart charmed the gloom away.
Whose psalms, for every pious breast,
Have praise and prayer to God expressed I
Devoted David! e'en whose sin
A proof of piety has been;
So heartfelt his repentance; so
Sincere his tears of sorrow flow;
So sweet the minor-strain of grief,
In which repentance seeks relief!
Him persecuted Saul: as one,
Named Saul, did David's greater Son.
David was hunted and pursued:
And hid where wild beasts have their brood;
Till, in adversity's hard school
Well taught, he rose to monarch's rule.





HISTORY.


221


And, after him, most wise of men,
A king of greater glory, then:
Whose larger heart and clearer eye
Called wealth and honor, vanity;
Who, when God promised him his prayer,
Chose wisdom as his proper share;
And heaven, pleased at his request,
With wisdom gave him all the rest.
Greater that monarch's glory is,
For such superior wisdom his;
Which, set in splendor, makes display,
Outshining all his rich array;
While, in his crown, gleams every gem
Brighter, for wisdom blent with them.
Thus far, the drama seemed to me
A prophecy of things to be,An overture, to indicate
The epoch of a future date;
Whereto events unfolding grow,
And serve, as emblems, to foreshow.
Its ceremonies symbolize
A grand atoning sacrifice.
The lips of prophets, touched with fire,
Distinctly promise the Messiah;
And sentences mysterious show





222


ELEVENTH NIGHT.


His glory habited in woe.
These Christian prophecies began,
Succeeding soon the fall of man.
For, all the Scriptures Christ contain;
And rites depict the Savior slain,That Sacrifice, which can alone
For each and every sin atone I!
Yet, many generations passed,
Ere time was ripe for it at last:
For, God's work is a growth-the blade
And ear, before the full corn made.
Still, Christ was born in every man,
The soul's light, since the world began;
And, those who loved his bosom-ray,
Longed to behold his human day;
And many died, before he came,
Believers still in Jesus' name.
And those who knew his light within,
And loved it more than lures of sin,
Though knowing naught of Him beside,
Believers still in Jesus, died.
But lo! earth's sun has set; and, ere
It rises, will the Lord be there i
He, who has made full many a sun,





HISTORY.


223


And planet-circled every one,
Still in the midst of them to reign,
And all the host of them sustain,
I'the bosom of his Father's love
And glory, shared with Him above,Behold him lay aside his crown
And kingly glory, to come down,
To one small planet, of a small
Sun-system, when compared with all:
A servants' form on earth to wear,
And lot of life the lowliest share.
O! what an epoch for the earth
The Savior's long expected birth!
A new, strange orb of fairer ray
Appeared, to herald that bright day!
His star, expected by the wise,
Who knew the secrets of the skies!
And, say! what songster's gushing lay
So early ushered in the day?
Though feathered voices have a song,
Sweetest of all to earth belong;
Yet such a melody as that
The shepherds, where they spell-bound sat,
Heard ne'er before, nor more may hear,
Till in his glory Christ appear!





224


ELEVENTH NIGHT.


The wise men seek the child; and, lo!
The morning-star before them go!
In humblest lot, as if in shame,
For sin of man the Savior came;
That mortal never might repine,"Thy lot, Lord, was not hard as mine!"
A babe, a boy, a youth,-how slow
Incarnate years unfolding go;
For children's sake, to teach them, they
By his example should obey
And serve their parents, yet fulfil
The heavenly Father's higher will.
A carpenter he toiled; that he
Might honor patient industry.
-Men often find it hard to wait
The opportunity of fate;
Although developing, each day,
And gaining fitness, by delay.
How infinite His patience, who
In body, not in spirit, grew!
What strength he had to exercise,
To thus restrain his energies!
More might in patience he exspent,
Than when he made the firmament.





HISTORY.


225


Harder for hands, divinely skilled,
As but a carpenter to build,
And cost him, in forbearance, more
Than mansions, he has gone before
To rear in glory; where we may
Dwell with the Lord we love for aye.
And now his hour has come; and he
Fulfils, three years, his ministry.
Satan saw, not indifferent,
The Savior on his mission sent;
Enabled by his incarnation
To sore beset him with temptation.
And this encounter first began
The ministry of Christ with man,The spirit-struggle, which precedes,
In every life, heroic deeds;
The fateful choice, which ushers still
Each life to path of good or ill!
How many thoughtlessly have made
This choice, in heedless youth betrayed!
But Christ omnipotent prepares
By a long lent and lonely prayers.
15





226


ELEVENTH NIGHT.


Him, fasting forty days and nights,
Satan assails, and scripture cites.
" Art thou indeed Creation's Head?
Command these stones, then, to be bread!"
-Saith Christ,-"Such bread I must refuse;
Nor of my powers make selfish use.
My bread shall be the word of God;
To do his will, my daily food!"
Satan, dissembling still his wrath,
Hovered upon the Savior's path;
With him in company to climb
A mountain, of a view sublime.
There, unseen, Satan with him walked,
And in his meditation talked:"How vast this prospect! Near and far
The many worldly kingdoms are!
Ambition's easy conquest, they
Must needs a power divine obey.
These all are Satan's; and, if thou
Will here to pay him homage bow,
O'er all he'll make thee monarch there.
No thorny crown, then, need'st thou wear;





HISTORY.


227


No hours of darkness shall be thine;
No cross of agony divine;
Nor Nature be convulsed, to see
Her Maker die upon the Tree.
Thus, by this little compromise,
To rule of all men thou shalt rise.
And, thus, the earth thou mayest bring
To own again thy Father king;
And, reconciling good and evil,
Bring God to treaty with the Devil."
"What thoughts are these!" the Savior cries;
"Such specious cheats has compromise!
God's word, my guide on earth I own,
Says, 'Thou shalt worship God alone!'"
Christ leaves the mountain-top sublime,
The temple's pinnacle to climb.
Saith Satan to him,-"I perceive
That by God's word alone you live.
Hath he not said, the angels shall
Sustain thee; and thou canst not fall?
Thy trust to prove, His promise try,
Cast thyself down now from on high!"
"Nay," answered Christ;" for, in His word,





228


ELEVENTH NIGHT.


He says-- Thou shalt not tempt the Lord."
The Devil, foiled in each endeavor,
From his seduction ceased forever,
Declaring open war henceforth
Against the reign of Christ on earth.
Nature, which fell with Adam, knew
The advent of redemption, too.
Spring budded earlier; brighter flowers
Bloomed longer in the summer bowers.
But busy evil Powers, that seek,
The ends of malice here to wreak,
The body bind with evil chain,
And make the mind of man insane:
Yet, such admit the Savior's sway,
And, at his bidding, haste away.
Still fallen man cannot believe;
Nor will his own the Lord receive.
Men scorn love lowly condescending;
From heaven to the humblest bending;
For rags, the robes of glory changing,
And earth, a servant homeless, ranging,
To draw in shame the infant breath,
And die a shameful cruel death!
That cup his wounded hands receive





HISTORY.


229


From those who by his suffrance live;
Content through all his woes to move,
That he may thus teach man to love.
I followed, with admiring view,
When Jesus from the world withdrew.
I saw him muse, upon the mountain,
Or on the bank of Kedron's fountain.
I went with him to Olivet,
I walked the lake Genesaret.
I drank, with listening night, his prayer;
And joined the angels gathered there.
0! how my heart was with Him, when
He suffered for the sins of men!
The beads of bloody agony,
Dropped from his brow, I seemed to see I
His purple robe and crown of thorns,
His stripes and buffeting, and scorns I!
His cross, he found too great a load,
And fell beneath it on the road I
His pierced hands and feet, and blood
That from the blameless Savior flowed I
I felt a thrill through heaven run;
I saw the light flde from the sun;
I heard -  0 God, I always shall!-the cry




230           ELEVENTH NIGHT.
Eloi! lama Sabachthani!
"'Tis finished!" too I hear him say,
Leaving his tenement of clay.
His form I saw him soon resume,
And comfort Mary, at the tomb;
That even sense a proof might see
In Him of immortality.





TWELFTH NIGHT.










COUNTERWORK.


233


TWELFTH NIGHT.
COUNTERWORK,
" The sons of God came to present themselves before the Lordp
and Satan came also among them."
I knew a man, whose mind had sight
For shadow more than for the light.
If on the moon's divided phase,
Half dark, half light, he chanced to gaze,
The shadow his attention drew.
Nay! with the bright orb full in view,
His eye would circle round, and glide
To darkness, on the other side.
The flowing sunbeams he forgot,
Intent upon a solar spot.
Virtue he deemed dissembled sin;
And roses had a worm within.





234


TWELFTH NIGHT.


For beauty sorrow was in wait;
Envy for worth; for love was hate;
And nature ordered in her course
By balance of opposing force.
One day, in argument I strove
To show this man the power of love.
And shaping hand of Providence,
In all the current of events.
Day ends discussion; but my dream
Resumes in phantasy the theme.
A questionable shape I see,
Diffusing evil doubts in me.
But presently his hand was stayed.
My angel, coming to my aid,
Extracted every stinging doubt,
And virus touched with antidote.
The Devil, thwarted thus, appeared
Half red with wrath and half afeard;
Began with bitter words to wrangle,
And make his boast against the angel;
The while he kept a careful eye
And wings half spread, prepared to fly;
As barking curs, in the attack,
Are ever ready to run back.





COUNTERWORK.


235


My angel, on his mission winging,
In every work was always singing;
As busy bees, with cheery hum,
Cull honey and convey it home.
His talk was music, and his tongue
Warbled in words whate'er he sung.
And now, methought, Jehovah's praise
Formed the sweet subject of his lays;
The while his adversary rude
Barked a discordant interlude.
Good Angel: "All good he framed with forming hand."
Devil: "But I have marred the good he
planned."
G. A. "From him the fountain flowed of light."
D. "But I disfigured it with night."
G. A. "And evil He has turned to good:
By night, made starry systems viewed;
Which, else in glory hid, stand forth,
And sing redemption for the earth.
How fit he formed, by work of ages,





236


TWELFTH NIGHT.


Improving in successive stages,
The earth for human habitation I"
D. "But how looks now the fair creation T'"
G. A. "He made man in his image there."
D. "But I have made him mine to bear."
G. A. "Man's sin did the occasion prove
For an almighty work of love,
In which his free will bears a hand.
Delivering Grace divinely planned
A second nature glorious,
From nature's ruin building thus.
And virtue shines, above the sun,
In souls, by love of Jesus won.
These trophies df regeneration,
Impregnable to all temptation,
No more shall sin assail, nor ever
Sorrow o'ershadow them forever!"
D. "But, in this work, redeeming such,
Some souls shall I contrive to clutch;
And Death and Hell shall feed on them,
Imprisoned in my burning realm.





COUNTERWORK.


237


Thus from their tormcAet heavenly eyes
Shall see the smoke forever rise."
-The angel dropped a tear, and song
Trembled a moment on his tongue.G. A. "How very few shall be the lost,
Compared with his redeemed host!
And they, who obstinately chose
Darkness and sorrows, sin, and woes,
And who, in torment, ne'er repent,
Nor in their suffering relent;
Who yet refuse the Savior there,
And make a blasphemy of prayer,Their lot is still made useful; for
They prove the sanctity of law,
And serve as monuments, to show
From sin what consequences flow.
"In such strong colors grace has been
Contrasted, by the means of sin!
And holy law's integrity
Was kept in human history.
Love ne'er despaired, nor ever failed;
And in the issue still prevailed.
God by the patriarchs was known,




238


TWELFTII NIGHT..D. "And Satan's power in them was shown,
Isaac and Jacob's souls to blight,
If mercy were not infinite!
So Jacob's sons, in evil bold,
For envy, little Joseph sold."
G. A. "When sin brought famine, they found
aid
In Joseph, whom they had betrayed."
D. "When thus in Egypt, for a home,
Famine persuaded them to come,
I was enabled, by and by,
To fetter them with slavery."
G. A. "But God sent Moses, and he led
His people forth and gave them bread."
D. "Not even Moses 'scaped my hand.
I kept him from the promised land.
And, spite of all God's wonders, I
The tribes led in idolatry,
And kept them in the desert-track,
For years, in wavering forth and back,--
Symbolic, since, in every age,
Of a backsliding pilgrimage.





COUNTERWORK.2


239


Thus all but two of that vast host
God's promise, by transgression, lost;
And made their graves in desert-sand,
Not coming to the better land.
And, though their children entered there,
I still persuaded them to spare
Philistine-foes, to plague the nation,
And curse the coming generation."
G. A. "God gave them Judges; and he sent
Prophets to them of his intent."
D. "I made them stone the prophets, too.
Not one of them but Israel slew.
Rather than Judges to prefer
A King, their silly hearts I stir.
And, when the Lord anointed Saul,
The son of Kish, brave, wise and tall,
I shadowed o'er his royal heart,
And led him to the wizard's art,
Forsaking God's sure prophecy,
To pray by power of sorcery."
G.A. "God made the shepherd, David, king,
With matchless skill a psalm to sing,"





240


TWELFTH NIGHT.


D. "A twofold crime I made him do,Adultery, and murder too."
G. A. "God led the monarch to repent,
With heart so humbly penitent,
Poured forth in such a psalmody,
That, in his pardon, men might see,
The atmost sin may be forgiven
By the restoring grace of heaven,
And worst of sinners courage take,
Their sinful courses to forsake.
Thus, from his sorrow, much more good,
Than evil from his sin, accrued."
D. "Why, then, for good I'll credit claim."
G. A. "Nay; for the sin is still the same;
Nor, does it alter the offence,
That God derives a good from thence."
D. "The people, God saw fit to choose,
The very Lord of life refuse.
His own received Him not; for I
Had made them mine by subtlety
The privileges they inherit,
Occasion in them pride of spirit.





COUNTERWORK.


241


The form and letter of the law,
But not the inner sense, they saw;
And when, fulfilling prophecy,
The King came, in humility,
Delivering from sin alone,
Of such a Savior they would none."
G. A. "Yet, in their forms unfeeling, slept
Secure, what God, for others, kept
Deposited and guarded well:
His word survived in Israel.
And all the sins enormous you,
Deceiving men, contrive to do,
Accumulate for observation
Of all intelligent creation,
Extreme necessity to prove,
Imposed upon Almighty Love,
Your powers of mischief to restrain,
And fetter with eternal chain."
D. "What must be, will be. Yet, I've warred
Full many campaigns 'gainst the Lord.
His Church, established just before
A malefactor's cross he bore,Forsook the Saviour, sore afraid;
And one of them the Lord betrayed.
16





242


TWELFTH NIGHT.


And, was there ever such an hour,
To prove triumphant evil power,
As when the heavenly Maker died,
With malefactors crucified?
"When Hell and Chaos heard him cry,
Eloi, lama sabachthani!
While sunbeams into sackcloth shrank,
My welcome ears what music drank 1
'Twas the great moment of my life 1
My spirit, in its constant strife
Of boiling passions, hellish fire
Of hate, revenge and foul desire,
Especially of envy burning,
And sin's recoil, on self returning,
Thought's brood, like vultures, inly feeding,
Attainment only hunger breeding,Yet tasted, in that one transaction,
A moment's perfect satisfaction!"
G. A. "That was indeed an awful hour
And flood-tide of satanic power!
God and good angels veiled the sight,
And nature hid itself in night.
Yet, soon, "'Tis finished!" Jesus said.
Soon death and hell he captive led,





COUNTERWORK.


243


And by his resurrection-might,
Brought immortality to light.
"Thus, by thy wrath's excess, the Son
A victory forever won.
So sin o'ershot the mark, it meant.
For, had you practiced self-restraint,
And prudently forborne to prove,
On Calvary, the power of love,
Hlow would the Lord have found occasion
To make his reconciliation?"
D. "And this is therefore I detest
The King, you call in heaven best!
Why, rain not all his bolts on me,
To blight my being utterly?
Why, when 'twere kindness so to kill,
Prolong my cursed existence still?
And why, with seeming victory, cheat,
And turn my triumph to defeat?
To chase and catch a fancied gain,
And find it loss, is worst of pain!
G. A. "And I will why to you a why;
Which if you answer, I'll reply.
Forgiveness is with God most high;





244


TWELFTH NIGHT.


Why not repent? why will ye die? ".D.-" And seek again the subject-state?
And love the King, whom most I hate?
That hate's the breath of my existence!
To war with Him, my soul's subsistence!
"Repent? Yes! that I e'er was good;
And did not all the harm I could!
My only hope and expectation
Are vengeance, wreaked on his creation!
Rather than love him, I'll consume
With hatred, as my chosen-doom!!"
G. A. "0 'self-cursed Spirit! can you hope
With Heaven's almighty King to cope?"
D. "Let what I have done, answer you!
The Church's history review.
Did ever the disciples meet,
Without a Judas in the seat?
Or sons of God for worship come,
And Satan ever stay at home?
"Besides the peril of false brothers,
ryve harmed the Church with many others.





COUNTERWORK.


245


How oft I've made the martyrs bleed"G. A. "God made their blood the Church's
seed.
D. "But, when my persecution failed,
I changed my tactics, Ind prevailed.
With favor I dissembled hate;
And wed together Church and State;
I let the worldly, like a flood,
Into its bosom, with the good.
These bring their idols with them there,
And soon their images prepare.
The old gods, by another name
Into the sanctuary came;
Until the Church as Pagan grew,
And more, than heathen altar knew.
"In darkness of the Middle Ages,
I quite eclipsed the gospel-pages.
The priest knew little of the book;
And laymen there forbade to look.
"Power is oppression, by my code;
But, help and love, by law of God.
The latter, in my sway complete,





246


TWELFTH NIGHT.


Became in practice obsolete.
Thus men the weaker sex degrade;
And prisoners are bondmen made.
Power's incubus has crushing weight,
And, not love's might, to elevate."
G. A. "'Tis darkest, just before the day.
And, so, the utmost of your sway
Betokened, by its human night,
The nearness of relieving light.
But, even darkness -had one ray
Of unextinguished Christian day.
The poor and sick found charity,
In more than one monastery.
-The hospital no heathen nation
Contributed to civilization,
In all the classic days of art.
'Twas founded by the Christian heart.
"And next appeared, for woman's aid,
The errant Knight in his crusade."D. "But I perverted gallantry
To lady-love idolatry."
G. A. "Progress, beyond the centre going,





COUNTERWORK.


247


Makes oft a movement counter-flowing.
When, like a pendulum, it swings
Too far, reaction backward flings.
"Yet, day was near! The blessed Book
In glory from its prison broke,
Unrolled to all men's observation,
By power of the Reformation.
Then, that men might no more imprison
The Gospel, in effulgence risen,
God taught the art of printing, and
Scattered the Bible o'er the land."
D. "Yet, with the Gospel in the field,
How much more influence I wield!
With worldliness the heart I close
Against it, and to truth oppose.
And those, who give in their adherence,
Are not beyond my interference;
For, Christians I divide with schism,
Or bury deep in formalism.
The different sects, that should combine,
As branches of a common Vine,
I thus array against each other;
And brother is opposed to brother;
While, in their controversy met,





248


TWELFTH NIGHT.


Their common foe they quite forget."
G. A. "Yet Christian progress ever tendr
To bring disciples to be friends.
While knowledge is imperfect, and
Doctrine is hard to understand,
Truth differently the mind may strike;
Nor Christians always think alike:
Yet, in the effort and the aim,
They may, and ought to be, the same.
And, when they thus unite, 'twill be,
Satan, a dreadful day for thee I
And many signs already are,
That happy day cannot be far."
D. "What are the signs? At least, I'm sure,
You see them not in literature.
The best of intellects divide;
And many are on Satan's side.
The world holds not a writer smart,
Who shows he has a Christian heart.
While those they men of genius call,
Witty, acute, original,
Who some forgotten error give
Another lease of life to live.
In poetry, perverted passion,





COUNTERWORK. 4O


24D


In prose, the sceptic is in fashion;
And infidelity they call
Ingenious, bold, original."
G. A. "Such intellectual folly can
Not long mislead the mind of man.
'T will soon be seen, that truth must be
Stamped with -a'kindred unity,
In progress still the past employing,
Developing and not destroying.
Rich fruits, already, you may see
In books of Christianity.
The style of later literature
Is elevated, chaste and pure;
And many volumes might be quoted,
To ends of piety devoted."
D. "It may be well admitted, you
Take of these things a hopeful view.
You find a proof, in present ill,
That good is coming of it, still;
While logic, in the common course,
From bad proceeds to argue worse."
G. A. "I know God's' counsel. cannot fail;
Adgood must, in the end. prevail."





250


TWELFTH NIGHT.


D. "Before the end, may intervene
A mighty interval, between.
E'en, when it seemeth to be near,
Reaction makes my power appear.
"For instance; in America,
What boast and brag of progress were!
'T was said to give a demonstration
Of liberty, for every nation;
That war would never rage again
Among enlightened Christian men,Few in their sober senses, viewing.
The mischief, I was busy brewing.
But, in my sleeve, I laughed, to see
The baleful spread of slavery;
While they bragged on, and let it grow,
Till strong to freedom overthrow.
And then the Great Rebellion came,
Waged openly in Slavery's name;
To sever, first in twain, the nation,
And shatter in disintegration
The whole inheritance, at last,
And every hope of freedom blast!"
G. A. "Dost thou then fancy, cruel Fiend,
That this will be the bitter end?"





COUNTERWORK.


251


D. "I doubt it not."
G. A. Why, then, thou art
As blind of mind as bad of heart!
See'st thou, how many righteous are
In that wide land, America,--
Servants of God, who send salvation
Abroad to every heathen nation;
And, with home-missionary care,
In every State the Gospel bear;
While Churches, in co-operation,
Forget, for Christ, denomination;
And Zion purifies herself
From ostentation, pride and pelf;
The vile and sinful seeks to save,
And prays and labors for the slave;
On her blest banner Temperance writes,
And in benevolence delights?"
D. "Hold there! This has not long been so:
Missions date fifty years ago;
And, recently, the Church of God
Such anti-slavery disavowed,
The theme permitting not to preach,
Nor cause of temperance to teach;
So many sleek retainers I





252


TWELFTH NIGHT.


Numbered among the laity!"
G. A. "How marked the progress, then, appears,
Made by the Church, in recent years!
"Behold inventions, too, which God,
To aid this progress, has bestowed,
That men may Christian brothers be!
Steam wings the spaces of the sea;
And railroads, with their iron bands,
Bring near and bind together lands,
Securing thus communication,
With intercourse and information;
While printing-presses everywhere
The truth among the nations bear;
And the electric wires diffuse,
On lightning-wing, the latest news!"
D. "The printing-press, do you pretend,
Serves not as well for Satan's end?
That instrument has spread abroad
My books against the cause of God,Light reading, infidel, impure
And a corrupted literature."





COUNTERWORK.


253


G. A. "Thus evil, brought before the light,
Must yield to truth's immortal might,
And perish out of literature;
While only good books can endure."
D. "Yet, evil, now, the press gives birth,
Like every agency on earth.
No good from anything has grown,
But tares spring with it, I have sown."
G. A. " Thus put to proof and fully tried
Are good and evil, side by side;
The issue full in observation
Of all intolligent creation:
And, when the lesson has been learned,
The tares shall be forever burned.
" Why look you not before you, Fiend?
Why madly meet your evil end?
This way and that way, still you glance
Backward, obliquely and askance,
But never fix a single eye,
The scenes before you to descry I"
D. "The present and the past are real:
The future but a dim ideal,





254


TWELFTH NIGHT.


An unsubstantial shadow,-such
As only fools can think of much."
G. A   "This is the strength of your delusion,
Avoiding always the conclusion!
For, what sane man would ever be
Forbidden pleasure's devotee,
Did he discern, from the beginning,
The miserable end of sinning;
Which our Preserver, God, foresaw,
And framed, for safeguard, righteous law!
Let me prevail, for once, on you,
To take of future things a view."
The Devil's eyes, by long abuse,
Had so conformed to his misuse,
That, like a bird's eye, they were turned,
And only right and left discerned.
Now, as he sideways bent his sight,
And gazed a moment at the light,
Bedazzled, like a blinking owl,
He uttered a terrific howl,
Smitten with pain and rage; and flew,
Till darkness hid him from the view.





THIRTEENTH NIGHT.










PERSPECTIVE.


257


THIRTEENTH            NIGHT.
PERSPECTIVE.
"Open thou mine eyes, that I may see wondrous things out of
thy law I"
'Twas a sweet night, when summer balm
And love lent every light a charm.
The one begemmed with smiling dew;
Tne other burnished heaven blue
And crescent moon and starry glance
With softest silver radiance.
The heavenly eyes showered on my sense
A mood of melting influence;
Till thought delicious made me weep,
And pleasant sorrow lulled to sleep.
Hast thou known such a dissipation,17





258


THIRTEENTH NIGHT.


Half actual and half creation
Of fairy fancy, when she stirs
The fount of sentimental tears;
Till, for "imaginative woe,"
The drops ideal overflow?
Then, has the crystal Castaly
A sweetest chalice offered thee 1
Thus, in the dreamy night revolving,
My soul in sympathy dissolving,
With mild, ethereal nature blending,
And swelling to the azure bending,Forth from the brightest star my angel
Came, carolling a sweet evangel.
Delicious melody he uttered;
His feathers, made of starlight, fluttered;
Gay, joyous, lovely, light and strong;
He flew; and greeted me with song.
"Mortal!" he said, "anon immortal!
Canst thou not see the pearly portal,
Which soon shall open up to thee,
Where dreams become reality;
Where truths, no more a happy guess,
Distant and vague, the mind impress,
Strained through the medium of sense,





PERSPECTIVE.


259


A doubtful, dim crepusculence;
But God, the Father, face to face,
Folds in a loving, long embrace?"
4'Sweet seraph! I beseech, that thou
Unfold to me my future now!"
"Rather, my friend," he answered, "look,
rTo find it in the blessed Book."
B"Yet give me the experience,"
Said I, "of disembodied sense,
With spirit-vision, which can find
And read the hidden things of mind."
"I'm fain to gratify thee; for,"
The angel said, "I come no more,
To meet thee in a form revealed;
Though with thee still, from sense concealed,Thy minister of thought, thy leader, and
Thy pilot to the happy land."
He said; and touched my open eye
With finger wet in dew-drop nigh.
"The thoughts of whom would you inspect;





260


THIRTEENTH NIGHT.


And watch the mind within reflect?"
I chose a wise philosopher.
He sped with me, and soon we were.
In a still study, lined with books;
Where one, of meditative looks,
Was seated by a table, and
His forehead leaning on his hand.
Within that brow I looked; and lo!
A scene much like a puppet-show 1
Assembled for deliberation,
Thoughts filled that hall of meditation;
One speaking, while the rest were still,
Checked by the Moderator, Will.
Down came his hammer.-" Our debate
He said, "concerns the Future State."
Now to his feet a member sprang;
And seemed as follows to harangue:--
"After their death, the souls of men
Assume a human form again;
Varied, perhaps, by alteration





PERSPECTIVE.


261


Of name and circumstance and nation.
They live, as child and man, once more;
And travel the old journey o'er:
Till all their race, perfected, come,
At last, to the Millenium."
"Sir," says another, eagerly,"That is not so, it seems to me.
For, else, would memory witness give,
That man did pre-existent live."
"It does, Sir,-let me tell my brother,So testify," replied the other;
"Vaguely, 'tis true, but all we can
Expect from memory of man.
Since his rememberance is so dim
Of what in childhood happed to him,
Still less his ante-state,. should we
Expect to find in memory.
Yet glimmerings of a prior state
He has in his ideas innate.
His pre-existence, proved by these,
Was recognized by Socrates."
At the first pause of this harangue
Another to the rostrum sprang,





262


THIRTEENTH NIGHT.


Of mould aerial, accent clear:"Pray, Mister President, give ear!
And, Fellow Thoughts, my reasons hear 1
4" Our brother's mortal iteration
And oft-renewing incarnation,
Dooming the soul to die again
And lease another life of pain,
Is a disheartening, dreary view,
And should be secret, were it true.
0! let us not to matter cleave,
And only in the sense believe!
Brothers! the spirit is so grand
In faculty to understand,
In sentiment and aspiration,
Insight, reach and exaltation,
So limitless in its expansion,
That matter cannot make its mansion
Too narrow were its utmost round,
The spirits faculty to bound!"
Here spake one less mercurial,
Of aspect astronomical:"The last thought, Mister President,





PERSPECTIVE.


263


In part expressed my sentiment.
A wild vagary, I agree,
The incarnation-view to be,
Making life spiral still in earth,
In death renewing mortal birth.
But, when my brother's temperament,
Too ardent, Mister President,
Induces him, as death's effect,
To mind and matter disconnect,
And suffer ne'er an orb of space
To lend it longer dwelling place,Then, Sir, he makes th' expiring mind
Disperse and scatter to the wind;
A view, opposing common sense
And many weighty arguments.
"What, Sir! when, every starry night,
Our future mansions are in sight,
Where, open to our observation,
They circle in a just gradation,
Alternate satellite and sun,Is it not plain to every one,
That spirits, as they leave the earth,
Have in these other spheres a birth;
The best, perhaps, upon the sun,
The worst in caverns of the moon?





264


THIRTEENTH NIGHT.


"Say! what were soul, deprived of sense
And limbs, to serve as instruments?
If mind of matter were bereft,
There'd be, methinks, but little left."
"How much of sense,' -rejoined the other,"And little soul you show, my Brother I
"Organs of sense and observation
And limbs aid not our meditation.
Besides; what vaster power possesses
The spirit, in its deep recesses,
Seeing with orbs of spirit-sight,
While God affords it inward light 1
"And matter is not half so real
Nor actual as the ideal.
The objects of intelligence
Are better known than things of sense.
Soul is substantial; matter may
Dissolve to vapor, any day."
Now rose a Thought of kindling eye,
Articulating fervently:

"What the last speaker says, is true,





PERSPECTIVE.


265


Yet partial only in the view.
All throbs with mind; and all we see,
Is very Soul of deity.
Matter is spirit; all we are
And see, in objects near or far,
Earth, star and planet, moon and sun
Are substance of the sacred One.
All with his fire celestial shine;
And all compose the Soul divine.
Man,-from the sea as wavelets rise,Emerges; and, we say, he dies,
When, sinking back on the great breast,
From whence he came, he seeks for rest."
Thus spake he, with impressive grace
Of gesture and a handsome face,
With his enthusiasm warm.
Close by him, in the self-same form,
Was one, of aspect hard and grim,
In looks so opposite to him,
A listener of ugly leer,
I wondered that he sat so near.
"Who are that couple?" I inquired,
With curiosity inspired.





266


THIRTEENTH NIGHT.


"The brothers Ism there you scan:
One prenamed Athe, the other, Pan."
" Good Angel 1 how unlike they are I
For, Athe is hideous as Voltaire,
With wide-slit mouth and wiry face
And gesture like a mad grimace,
Sharp eyes, sour features, awkward limb,While Pan, the opposite of him,
Is beautiful, of face refined,
Marked with an elevated mind!
"Still, opposites, you know, may meet;
And so they sit in the same seat.
'Tis but a step from the abysm
Of shoreless Pan to Atheism.
One is the sure way to the other;
And ugly Athe is Pan's own brother."
Pan now had finished his fine speech;
And Atheism 'gan to screech,
Clearing his throat, with horrid sound,
And looking blasphemous around.
But, not another Thought would hear;
Each put a finger in the ear:
So Moderator Will no more





PERSPECTIVE.


267


Let Atheism have the floor.
Now spake a Thought of pleasant mien,
One of the fairest I had seen;
With such a sweet expressive grace
Of animation, in his face,
And sparkle of his soul-filled eye,
While he was talking fervently,
So coinciding with his word,
That, whether I his meaning heard,
Or in his face read, scarce I knew,
While thus I gazed and listened, too.
"These Thoughts, acute, original,"He said,-" conjectures. we must call.
We own their ingenuity,
But cannot, trust their verity:
For incommensurate they be,
As drinking cups to hold the sea.
A drop may each of truth contain;
But all are little, to the main,A nutshell only, in dimension,
And equal only in pretension,
Clamor of contradiction warm,
And prone, still more, perhaps, to storm.





268


THIRTEENTH NIGHT.


"If we would fatal error shun,
The heart and mind must work as one.
Thus, must we love, in learning, and,
By faith, true wisdom understand.
The heart, enlightened by the mind,
The key of nature comes to find
In great things mirrored by the small;
And each made miniature of all;
While higher truth religion teaches,
Which man by revelation reaches."
Philosopher now raised his head;
Shook meditation off; and said,"These reveries will be my ruin.
I've thought enough; I'll up and doing!"Now said the angel to me,--"Come,
And look at the Millenium.
What you deem future, dawns to sight,
In precincts of celestial light."He spake; and, bearing me, he flew
Low, leisurely, the earth to view,
In its recovered glory clad,
And in regeneration glad.





PERSPECTIVE.


269


Everything charmed me. Here, I saw,
Love was the universal law.
Its beauty beamed from every face,
And lent each form expressive grace;
While strength of head and heart allied,
Miraculously multiplied,
In grandeur of results made known
The might of all combined as one.
No prison in the earth I saw,
Nor force, to execute the law;
No arms, nor martial preparation:
For, all the world was now one nation,
And Love had power to constrain
With gentle, voluntary reign.
Howpopulous was earth!-I traced
No useless field nor houseless waste;
But all a garden and a village
Of densely populated tillage.
Love had accomplished here, I saw,
The purpose of agrarian law.
None were in want; and none possessed
Or wished for wealth above the rest.


Activity struck observation,





270


THIRTEENTH NIGHT.


In channels of communication
And social intercourse, revealing
The hearty flow of fellow-feeling.
Earth seemed one village,-all as near
And neighbors of each other here.
Distance was gone of heart to heart;
And space no longer kept apart.
Love brought the souls together, and
Invention neared the sea and land;
Till each was made as near to each
As ordinary range of speech,
By the facilities, which wrought
A rapid interchange of thought.
These means of intercourse subserve
As vein and artery and nerve;
Making one body of mankind,
In sentiment and heart and mind.
For, what in any part transpires,
Like nerves, the telegraphic wires
Transmitting, every member make
Enjoy or suffer, for its sake.
And steam communication rushes,
Just as the vital current gushes,Distributing, like circling blood,
Nutrition and supplies of food;
With flow and reflow, everywhere





PERSPECTIVE.


271


The tides of common life to bear
From centre to extremity,Glad pulses of activity,
Making one body of the whole;
As Christ had made men one of soul.
No violator of the law
Nor idler anywhere I saw.
And, yet, not one at labor, though,
Intent and busy, to and fro
They move in mart and factory
And field, with willing industry.
And, yet, they toil not; rather they,
Like children, make of work a play.
Though all they do, is useful, yet
No task for them, it seems, is set,
And each one to his work applies;
Like a spontaneous exercise,
Glad to do good, and his painstaking
Enjoying, as a merrymaking,
With song and sunshine and a smile
Of heart o'erflowing all the while.
Who ever calls it labor, when
The blithe birds build their nest again,
Brood long and feed the wide-mouthed young,
Or pour themselves all out in song?





272


THIRTEENTH NIGHT.


This is not labor, you will say;
For birds, it is a holiday.
And such the labor man engages,
Who works for love and has love's wages I
The earth with Eden I compare,
While Adam was the tenant there.
And far more beautiful it seemed
Than ever Eden I had dreamed,
With the same faultlessness of feature,
A'change was on the face of nature.
A different character of flowers
Sheds fragrance in the bloomy bowers:
For, these the charms of Grace dispense;
While Eden's spake but innocence,
Unsullied still in sin's exemption:
These breathed the beauties of redemption.
Eden's were like a snow-rose bud;
These tinged with baptism of blood.
Eden's were as a chart of white,
On which experience may write;
These love-inscribed, to never bear
Aught but the name of Jesus there.
These stand for virtue purified;
And those for innocence untried.
-Thus legible the blossoms are,





PERSPECTIVE.


273


As easy-read vernacular.
Nature, with less luxuriance,
Shows well matched art her charms enhance;
Trimmed with man's culture, as 'designed,--
Heaven's lore, with human interlined;
The perfect man and perfect God
Inscribed together on the sod;
The word divine with commentary
And key of man's vocabulary;
Fairly harmonious, and delighting
With the relation, thus uniting
The loyal man and loving Father,
Linking by Christ the Elder Brother.
And, man!-How beautiful his stature!
How noble his recovered nature!
Adam was faultless, while he walked,
And, God and man, in Eden, talked.
Yet he was like a work of art,
In which the creature has no part;
While Man Restored, some humble share
In his new nature made to bear,
Does God more honor; since he shows
The power redeeming Grace bestows,
Enabling ruined man to be
18





214


THIRTEENTH NIGHT.


Born to divine nativity,
Through Christ adopted as a son,
And not God's image, now, alone.
Adam, whose faultless beauty charmed,
Naked in Eden and unarmed,
Encountered fiery darts of Death,
Without the quenching shield of faith;
And with the adversary warred,
Without the Spirit's flaming sword.
But, the new Adam, Satan never
Shall venture to assail forever!
Love's panoply has made him able,
Baptized in blood invulnerable,
Without a spot left, where a dart
Can penetrate in any part,
In virtue-proof to victor stand,
And bear a palm at God's right hand!
And here, too, heavenly beings walked
And face to face with mortals talked,For, bodies pure, although terrestrial,
Could clasp the hand of forms celestial;
And human souls, through sinless eyes,
The shapes of heaven recognize:
And thus the assembly of the just





PERSPECTIVE.


215


Made perfect putting off the dust,
Cherubs sublime and seraphs high
Mingle in man's society.
And man, in conscious worship there,
Blent with the angels' praise and prayer;
While human choirs in concert hymn
The harmonies of cherubim;
And seraphs' voices sweetly chord
With man, in music to the Lord.
-0! how soul-stirring the emotion
Of this so multiplied devotion,
Where in one concourse all the good,
Created and redeemed by blood,
In blended worship, power impart
Of all the host to every heart!
And lo! once more the Artizan,
Maker and Savior, Son of man!
Now King, his crown in triumph wearing,
And royal honors meekly bearing;
While gentleness still makes him great
And lovely, in, his high estate!
All in his triumph have a share;
And all his robes of glory wear;
And all reign with him on his throne;
And all his wealth and splendor own.





276


THIRTEENTH NIGHT.


Such is his will: possession's gem,
With him, is power to give to them.
He prizes all he has for this;
They prize it, that it still is his.
And what he gives, they will not take,
Except still his and for his sake:
Since he is theirs and they are his,
In such sweet interchange of bliss!
SCan Death be here?" I asked, in thought:
And carefully his shadow sought,
Whose form invisible can throw
A darkness over all below,
And prove, by haunt of horror grim,
The presence, else unseen, of him.
That spectral shade I nowhere saw,
Nor aught that owned his deadly law,No blade, nor leaf, nor blossom sere,
Nor life, untimely shattered, here.
I found, instead, a transformation,
Developing to higher station,
As life to higher life ascended,
While never death the change attended,Not rudely doffed the old attire,
But worked up in the figure higher;
Applied, by process gradual,





PERSPECTIVE.


To making new material
The forms of men showed growth in grace,
And with the soul kept even pace;
Waxing ether'eal and resplendent,
And less on matter's law dependent:
Till, by sublime transfiguration
And victory of gravitation,
The body, subject to the soul,
Was loyal to the mind's control;
Where'er the spirit would, to run,
From sphere to sphere, from sun to sun.
So, swift as thought, I saw men go
Through starry systems, to and fro.
Thus by a force elastic springs
The body, with no need of wings.
-We have, already, power in us,
Initially, of moving thus;
O'ercoming, by the force of mind,
Those ties, to earth the body bind.
Man calls it muscle; and he tries
To make it grow by exercise:
Yet, with a partial eye, intent
Only upon the instrument,
Forgets to train the agent, too,




278


THIRTEENTH NIGHT.


The will, that makes the body do;
Nor knows, the strong mind and pure heart
Can to the body power impart.
Jesus, by force of spirit, thus
His body renders glorious;
And, with Elias met and Moses,
To his disciples he discloses.
Thus, when he tasted death for all,
He frees it from corruption's thrall,
Transmuting his pure form, to be
Fitted for immortality.
I wondered, looking all around,
To see no shadow on the ground.
The dark phase, twin of light, was gone.
With night and all of darkness born.
Storm-breeding ocean was no more,
To scale the sky or scourge the shore.
The budding light auroral bathed
The earth; and, like a mantle, swathed,
Sunny and sweet, with the soft balm
Of quiet, giving night a charm;
Bedazzling not, with pleasant ray;
And showing all the stars by day,
With beams to cherish and to cheer,





PERSPECTIVE.


279


And not a leaf or blossom sere.
Earth broidered o'er the pearly rill;
And, soft clear airs the dew distil:
Permitting not a plant to wither,
And beading brightly all the heather;
While morning glories ope the, flower,
And fade not, in the balmy bower.
Bell-blossoms ring a matin-chime,
Hushed never by a chilly rime,--
A glad song, and, without a whisper
Of day-dreams, dying in the vesper.
Thus, in recovered earth, we walk,
And hand in hand together talk,
Mid crowds of men and spirit-throngs,
Singing, as warblers mingle songs.
Their voices, like the vernal bird,
At once without confusion heard,
In rhythmic converse, each with each,
Make music, as a means of speech.
--" Good angel! what a crowd," I criec7
"Of men and spirits, side by side!"
"Beings," said he, "from every sphere
Resort, in frequent visits, here;





280


THIRTEENTH NIGHT.


For, earth has made redeeming grace
A famous and historic place."
--"Yet, other scenes, I'm sure, there are,"
I said, "in satellite or star,
More beautifully made than earth."
-"But here alone the second birth,
A ruined soul again restoring,
You'd find, the universe exploring;
Nor else the heavenly incarnation.
Historical association
Draws hither loving spirits, who
Desire the mystery to view."
"-And yet," I said, "few traces here
Of the sad drama still appear,That long and seeming-doubtful strife
Of hell and heaven, death and life."
-"You err," he answered; "angels see
Through stereoscope of memory;
Which all is able to renew
And represent again to view,
Oft as the scenes to mind recur
Of this terrestrial theater."





PERSPECTIVE.


281


--"If not too much to ask of you,"
I said, "please lend me such a view."
He answered,-" Cast your eyes behind
In retrospection of the mind."
As I complied, I wondered not
That earth was such a favorite spot.
The triumphs of redemption lend her
Such lovely, mild and mellow splendor,
Such charms of contrast, made by light
On the dark canvas of the night!
The triumph of redemption's story
Was like the sinking sun in glory;
Which, as it sets, we see to rise,
And make the morn of other skies.
Thus sorrow silver-lining showed;
And glory mantled every cloud.
I saw the gain achieved by loss,
As Jesus, lifted on the cross,
And all the martyrs' tribulation
That share his reconciliation,
More beautiful than all, endued
With glory the redeeming rood.
Nor anywhere did love appear
Heart-moving, as I saw it here.





282


THIRTEENTH NIGHT.


-But now the climax of my dream,
Too strong for vision in its theme,
The slender ties of slumber broke,
And, in broad daylight, I awoke.
At first it disappointed me,
To look upon reality.
Life showed so common, plain and dull,
Compared with visions beautiful;
Till, like a matin-chime, my ear,
A music-solace, seems to hear,
These sweet words from the sacred Book--
EYE CANNOT ON THE GLORY LOOK,
NOR HEART'S WISH REACH THE HEIGHT OF LOVE,
WHIiC GOD REFRVER FOR AAIMTS ABOVEl


FINIS.