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 SATAN. 
 
 poem. 
 
 ROBERT MONTGOMERY. 
 
 " Whence comest thou? From going to and fro in the Earth, and 
 
 from walking up and down in it." JOB, chap, i., v. 7. 
 
 . " Devils also believe, and tremble." ST. JAMES, chap, ii., v. 19. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED FOR SAMUEL MAUNDER, 
 
 NEWGATE STREET.' 
 
 MDCCCXXX.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES, 
 Stamford-street.
 
 
 TO MY FRIEND. 
 
 i/ 
 
 A 3
 
 TO MY FRIEND. 
 
 THERE is a sadness in my soul, 
 
 But whence, and why, I cannot tell ; 
 
 As though a Spirit's dark control 
 Had bound it with a deadening spell. 
 
 The sun wears not that glorious brow 
 Poetic morns were wont to bring ; 
 
 And many a wind that mourneth now, 
 A song of rapture used to sing. 
 
 A4
 
 There was a time when dream-form'd lands 
 Grew bright upon my inward gaze, 
 
 And glittering seas with golden sands 
 Appear'd in paradisal rays. 
 
 But all that summer glow of thought 
 Hath sadden'd into wintry gloom ; 
 
 And all that Fancy shaped and sought 
 Is buried in oblivion's tomb : 
 
 Of graves and lonely haunts I think, 
 
 Where yew-trees wave, and night-winds yell ; 
 
 And often o'er my soul there sink 
 The voices that have said, farewell ! 
 
 The bloom of life, the bright deceit, 
 The heavenliness of youth is o'er, 
 And joys that blossom'd once so sweet, 
 
 g 
 
 Array them in their spring no more.
 
 5 
 
 Yet, dream not that I nurse a grief 
 That discontented moments bring ; 
 
 Or sullen gloom, whose sole relief 
 Comes flowing from a bitter spring. 
 
 For htunan hearts, where'er they breathe, 
 Have still their human charm for me ; 
 
 I would not bind a selfish wreath, 
 Without one bud of sympathy. 
 
 Then let me not a mournfulness 
 
 From clouds of hidden sorrow steal ; 
 
 Nor wring from thee a vain distress 
 A bosom soft as thine would feel ; 
 
 But may the homage of my song 
 Be welcom'd with consenting eye, 
 
 And, as it wildly flows along, 
 Not unawake thy gentle sigh.
 
 A scene of sunshine and of gloom, 
 Lake human life, my page will be, 
 
 And, mutter'd o'er our mortal doom, 
 Will sound a dark soliloquy ! 
 
 Thou wilt not deem such verse supplied 
 By Superstition's haggard gaze ; 
 
 Nor think that Fancy's wing hath tried 
 To wander in forbidden ways. 
 
 Who paints His bounty on the cloud, 
 Or smileth on the breezy shore, 
 
 Or wraps Him in a whirlwind shroud, 
 Or speaketh in the thunder roar ! 
 
 That Power, the visionless and dread, 
 In words where Inspirations dwell, 
 
 By His almightiness hath said, 
 
 Earth wears a shadow cast from Hell
 
 The Spirit and the Powers of air, 
 In myst'ry and in might they roam ; 
 
 Unseen they act, unknown they dare, 
 And make the evil heart their home. 
 
 And One, their centre and their Soul 
 There is, the demon-god of sin, 
 
 Who o'er the wicked hath control, 
 And fires the hell we feel within ! 
 
 And such, a wand'rer o'er the earth, 
 The viewless Power I 've dared to draw, 
 
 And humanly have given birth 
 To all he FELT, and all he SAW, 
 
 To each avenging flash of thought 
 That might so dread a spirit thrill, 
 
 With hateful ruin ever fraught, 
 Yet blasted, and believing still !
 
 s 
 
 Tims, virtues are as Heaven reveal'd, 
 And Love and Truth eternal shown ; 
 
 While whatsoe'er the Tempter wield, 
 Is darkly hued, and stainp'd his own. 
 
 Nor marvel thou, if scenery bright, 
 And beautiful by nature made ; 
 
 If sight and sound that yield delight, 
 Are in elysian charm array'd : 
 
 For who can bliss or beauty know, 
 Like him, a Rebel from the skies ? 
 
 Who, though his doom be endless woe, 
 Hath witness'd all pure Angels prize.- 
 
 And such the matter of my verse, 
 Whate'er its fate, or force, may be ; 
 
 Inwoven with the primal curse, 
 But hailing immortality.
 
 An awful maze for human mind ! 
 
 And enter'd with a holy fear ; 
 God of my sires ! where I am blind, 
 
 Descend, and make Thy glory clear. 
 
 Oh Thou, whose judgment weighs the heart, 
 
 If ever with presuming eye 
 I dare to dream Thee as Thou art, 
 
 And faintly shadow The Most High ; 
 
 Repentant at thy throne I fall, 
 
 To sue forgiveness for a Soul 
 That felt Thee, saw Thee, spread o'er All, 
 
 But could not all it felt control : 
 
 But, if in meekness it hath soar'd, 
 To bow in wonder at Thy throne ; 
 
 If Rapture there Thy name adored, 
 And made her inmost ardor known ;
 
 10 
 
 On THEE my Spirit still shall gaze, 
 Thy light alone shall lead me on, 
 
 And prove it more than mortal praise 
 Thine awfulness to muse upon . 
 
 How darkly bound this scene of life, 
 How dread the mysteries of time, 
 
 And all our being's passion-strife 
 With things unholy and sublime, 
 
 I ever felt. And deeply now, 
 As o'er the page my fancies steal, 
 
 My spirit seems in awe to bow 
 Beneath a sense the bravest feel. 
 
 The wings of Darkness are unfurl'd, 
 The Earth lies hush'd, as in her grave, 
 
 And all the sound that thrills the world, 
 The rocking of the midnight wave !
 
 il 
 
 Who hath not ovvn'd the midnight hour, 
 The sadness and the dream it brings ? 
 
 Solemnity and spirit-power 
 
 Reflected from eternal tilings ? 
 
 O'er Time and Destiny we weave 
 Our inward fancies, thick and fast ; 
 
 And start to see, how moments leave 
 The present, to begin the past! 
 
 And we, my friend ! howe'er our doom 
 Of life and years may varied be, 
 
 Must pierce the dampness of the tomb, 
 And mingle with eternity ! 
 
 And what art Thou ? the dark Unknown 
 Thy name to mortals bound and blind; 
 
 Yet, like a faint-heard mystic tone, 
 Thy meaning hovers-so'er my mind.
 
 12 
 
 I sec tliee in the vigil star, 
 
 I hear tliee in the thundrous deep, 
 
 And like a feeling from afar 
 Thy shadow riseth o'er ray sleep : 
 
 Thou* comest where the witching power 
 Of festive hearts alone should be, 
 
 Till Life itself appears an hour 
 That flutters o'er eternity ! 
 
 Then take, oh ! take, th' unfinish'd strain, 
 Which riper years may chance complete, 
 
 Should glowing hours arise again, 
 
 And this lone heart be doom'd to beat. 
 
 When fades this fleeting world away 
 
 In worlds of far diviner hue, 
 And on thy spirit falls a ray 
 
 Of sadness, soft as virgia dew, 
 
 * " Mi figure il sepolchro in ogni loco." SALVAT. BASIL.
 
 13 
 
 V; ' 
 
 In such a mood of dreaming calm, 
 
 Perchance a thought of mine may please ; 
 
 And o'er thee breathe a holy balm 
 From pages uninspired as these : 
 
 Approving smiles from such as thee, 
 Would be the sunshine of my fame ; 
 
 What brighter wreath can Glory see, 
 Than that entwined in Virtue's name ? 
 
 One heavenward thought, one high desire, 
 If such have felt my fancy's aid, 
 
 Howe'er the cold may scorn my lyre, 
 It's darkest woes are all repaid. 
 
 The words that many a heart have wrung, 
 The vengeance of the dull and vain, 
 
 The arrows of each lying tongue, 
 They shall not reach my heart again.
 
 14 
 
 Away with these ! and may I feel, 
 Whatever cloud o'erhang my lot, 
 
 There is a joy Time cannot steal, 
 
 There blooms a flower that fadeth not. 
 
 And might I doom my future days, 
 Like thee, I 'd seek some calm retreat, 
 
 Unhaunted by the public gaze, 
 And only to the pensive sweet. 
 
 For nobler far thy noiseless life 
 Than all the gayer world can give ; 
 
 Whose best reward's a wretched strife 
 'Tween fear to die, and hate to live. 
 
 I see thee oft, my guardian friend ! 
 
 Companion of the mead and bovver ; 
 What glories from the hills descend, 
 
 What meekness flows from every flower !
 
 15 
 
 To tliee, the hymn of winds and brooks, 
 The waving joy of wood and field, 
 
 With all fresh Nature's thousand looks, 
 A love and holy feeling yield. 
 
 And long be thine th' unruffled hour 
 That leaves thee guiltless as thou art ; 
 
 And never may one evil power 
 
 Profane the heaven within thy heart ! 
 
 Thus, blooming shall thy pleasures last, 
 And crown thee grateful, calm, and sage ; 
 
 While mem'ry, smiling o'er the past, 
 Shall be the brightest hope of Age. 
 
 And when uneasy life is o'er, 
 
 And this tried soul no longer mine, 
 
 Oh, may it reach the destin'd Shore 
 As placid and as pure as thine I 
 
 PPeymouth, 1829.
 
 SATAN. 
 
 BOOK I.
 
 SATAN. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 Earth's kingdoms and their glory. MILTON. 
 
 AWAKE, ye thunders ! let your living roar 
 Exult around me, and a darkness shroud 
 The air, as once again the world I greet, 
 Here on this haughty mountain-head, Avhere HE 
 Of old, now palaced in the Heaven of Heavens, 
 The Virgin-born, by Prophets vision'd forth, 
 Was tempted, and withstood me ! 
 
 B 2
 
 20 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 Is the Earth 
 Appali'd, or agonizing in the wrack 
 
 
 
 Of elements ? like Spirits that are lost, 
 
 Wailing and howling, sweep the orphan winds, 
 
 While Nature trembles with prophetic fear, 
 
 As though a Chaos were to crown the storm ! 
 
 Lo ! how it glooms, and what a fiery gash 
 
 Deal the red lightnings through yon darken'd Sky, 
 
 All echo with the chorus of her clouds ! 
 
 And well Earth answers to the voice of Heaven. 
 Hark to the crash of riven forest-boughs 
 In yonder waste, the home of hurricanes, 
 That catch the bowlings of the cavern' d brutes, 
 And wing them onwards to Arabia's wild, 
 O'ercanopied with flying waves of sand,
 
 KOOK I/] SATAN. 21 
 
 Like a dread ocean whirling through the skies ! 
 But Thou, alone eternally sublime, 
 Thou rolling mystery of Might and Power ! 
 Rocking the tempest on thy breast of waves, 
 Or spread in breezy rapture to the Sun, 
 Thou daring Ocean ! that couldst deluge worlds, 
 And yet rush on, I hear thy swell of wrath 
 In liquid thunder laughing at the winds 
 
 Resoundingly, and from afar behold 
 
 % 
 Thine armed billows, heaving as they roar, 
 
 And the wing'd sea-foam shiver on the gales. 
 
 Swell on, ye waves, and whirlwinds, sweep along, 
 Like the full breathing of Almighty ire, 
 Whose sound is desolation ! where the sail 
 Of yon lone vessel, as a shatter'd cloud,
 
 22 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 Is moving, let the surges mount on high 
 
 Their huge magnificence, and lift their heads, 
 
 And, like Titanic creatures, tempest-born, 
 
 In life and fury march upon the main ! 
 
 Rave on, thou Tempest, on thy reckless wings ; 
 
 To me thy warring mood is fearful joy, 
 
 A faint memento of that mighty day, 
 
 When proud rebellion shook the walls of Heaven, 
 
 Till, charioted by Thunder, forth He came, 
 
 The Lightning of the Lord, and blazed revenge, 
 
 Hurling us downward to the deep of Hell, 
 
 That madden' d wild as billows in the storm, 
 
 When rushingly we met her roaring flames ! 
 
 The Tempest dies, the winds have tamed their ire, 
 The sea-birds hover on enchanted wing ;
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 23 
 
 And, save a throb of thunder, faintly heard, 
 And ebbing knell-like o'er yon western deep, 
 That now lies panting with a weary swell, 
 Like a worn monster at his giant length 
 Gasping, with foam upon his troubled mane, 
 No sound of elemental wrath is heard ; 
 The Sun is up ! look, where he proudly comes, 
 In blazing triumph wheeling o'er the earth, 
 A victor in full glory ! At his gaze 
 The heavens magnificently smile, and beam 
 With many a sailing cloud-isle sprinkled o'er, 
 In sumptuous array. Yes, land, and air 
 Whose winged fulness freshens tree and flower, 
 Own thee, thou shining Monarch of the skies ! 
 Now hills are glaring, rich the mountains glow, 
 The streams run gladness, yellow meads appear,
 
 24 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 And palm-woods glitter on Judea's plain ; 
 Beauty and brightness shed their soul abroad ; 
 Then waken, Spirit, whom no space can bound, 
 And with thy vision let me span the world. 
 
 Why, what a stately World is this ! how wide 
 Her range, how wonderful her scenes, what sAvay 
 Of elements, what pride of power ! the grace 
 And crown, the glory of the universe ! 
 And thou, for whom such energies exist 
 In toiling majesty, thy shaping hand 
 Hath from thy soul a second nature dealt, 
 And made it half a new creation seem ! 
 
 A mass of kingdoms, continents, and isles ! 
 Oceans, those royal elements, outspread,
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 25 
 
 Heaving and wild, monotonously vast ! 
 Terrific mountains, where the fire-floods dwell, 
 Or snows in cold eternity congeal ; 
 And haggard rocks uplifted, huge and bare, 
 The hoary frame-work of a ruined world ; 
 And rivers deep, exulting as they glide, 
 And forests high, and brownly- wooded dales, 
 With meadows greenly bright, and champaigns broad, 
 And flowers, whose beauty blush'd in Paradise, 
 By streams that murmur of their mountain birth ; 
 With high-domed cities, crown'd with airy clouds, 
 And shadow' d interchange of hamlets lone, 
 Dark slumb'ring in the lap of winding vales, 
 Before me, like a panorama, spread ! 
 Wherever Earth by Nature's seal is stamp'd, 
 Far as the ice-clad North hath bared her brow, 
 
 B 5
 
 26 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 To where the burning South extends from East 
 To West, the theatre of Man I view. 
 
 Jerusalem, forlorn Judean Queen ! 
 Girt with the grandeur of eternal hills, 
 How art thou fallen from thy sacred height 
 Of splendor and renown ! Unhallow'd now, 
 Save by the tombs and memory of the past : 
 Hush'd are thy trumpets, that enrapt the air 
 With Jubilee *, when fell the Captive's chains 
 To freedom, heart with heart embraced, and eye 
 To eye beam'd fellowship ; while not an ear 
 But feasted on that soul- awaking sound ! 
 The Temple vast, whose architect was God 
 
 * The Jubilee was proclaimed by the sound of a trumpet throughout 
 the whole land. JENNINGS'S Jewish Antiquities.
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 27 
 
 Himself, when first the giant fabric grew, 
 That matchless pile, on which Religion gazed 
 With haughty glance, where Glory dwelt enshrin'd ; 
 Where is it now ? Dead as the Roman dust, 
 That erst, with living valour fired, uncrown'd 
 Thy queenly pride, and palsied thy hewn walls, 
 Strewing the plains with atoms of thy strength ! 
 And yet, where yonder marbled courts, and mosques, 
 With sun-gilt minarets, like glitt'ring peaks 
 Of mountain tops, are seen, a Prophet stood, 
 And in a vision saw predestined Time 
 Advancing, with dark Ruin on his wings, 
 To shatter thee, and sprinkle the wide earth 
 With orphans of thy race. How scornful rang 
 Thy laughter, when such vision was unroll'd ! 
 But when thy hills were echoed with the cries
 
 28 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 Of Desolation, howling her despair, 
 Many a demon on the viewless winds 
 Exulted, shouting with revengeful joy, 
 " Thus sink the glories of great Palestine !" 
 
 Alas, for human grandeur ! in the pomp 
 Of temples, and the stony wonders, rear'd 
 In rebel majesty against the might 
 Of ages, let Ambition learn her doom. 
 Bagdad, o'er famed Chaldea proudly raised 
 In blooming splendor by the Tigris' banks ; 
 And hoary Smyrna, of Mseonic fame, 
 All beautiful in ruins, where the fruits */; 
 And flowers yet flourish o'er deserted Art, 
 And streams leap laughingly at Nature's call ; 
 With Tyre and Sidon, where gay Commerce ruled,
 
 BOOK I.} SATAN. 29 
 
 Showering her treasures o'er the sunny East ; 
 
 And rich Damascus, whose delicious plains 
 
 Of verdure, striped with water's radiant flow, 
 
 Shine green as ever, in your wrinkled piles 
 
 Are lessors for the loftiest eyes to read, 
 
 That mark ye now, and dream your by-gone might, 
 
 When Merchants tower'd o'er Kings ! But, far o'er all, 
 
 Where yonder mountain mingles with the plain 
 
 Of billowy sand, gigantic, dark, and lone, 
 
 Great Heliopolis in ruin mourns, 
 
 How dimly vast, how dreadfully sublime ! 
 
 And next, yon ancient desert Queen behold,. 
 
 The blasted Genius of the wilderness, 
 
 Palmyra I pillar'd yet in temple pride, 
 
 Superbly arch'd, and sumptuous in decay, 
 
 But wither'd down from her Zenobian pomp,
 
 30 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 When, crown'd the heart and centre of the East, 
 The Sun gazed proudly on his worship there, 
 And Grandeur calTd the streets her own, and now, 
 Let Solomon arise, and read his fate ! 
 
 But, sadder yet, beyond the Libyan wild, 
 Where hot suffusion suffocates the winds, 
 Lo, wond'rous Egypt lies ! Come, royal heirs 
 Of Ptolemy, and patriarchal kings, 
 And see the shadow of your once sublime 
 And storied Egypt ! True, her fostering Nile, 
 That flowing wand'rer of mysterious birth, 
 Her annual life-flood generously yields ; 
 But where the soul of Science ? where the fount 
 Of Wisdom, from whose deep and dateless spring 
 The Greek and Roman drank ? Colossal Thebes,
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 31 
 
 How lonely sleep thy ruins, where of yore, 
 Like billows trooping at the whirlwind's call, 
 Forth from thy hundred gates the battle-cars 
 Were roll'd ! Thy tombs and arches, temples huge 
 As mountain-sculpture, darkling yet remain, 
 But sadness broods o'er all : and ye august, 
 In blacken'd, blighted majesty uprear'd, 
 Ye Pyramids ! that point your heads to Heaven, 
 As pillars that could prop the mighty spheres, 
 And pierce beyond the bounds of time, the day 
 Is coming, when you moulder into dust a , 
 And melt away, like dew upon the wind ! 
 
 So sink the monuments of ancient might, 
 So fade the gauds and splendors of the world ; 
 Her empires brighten, blaze, and pass away
 
 32 SATAN. [BOOK z. 
 
 And trophied fanes, and adamantine domes* 
 
 That threaten'd an eternity, depart. 
 
 Amid the dying change, or lapse of things, 
 
 Enthroned o'er all, a desolation frowns, 
 
 Save mind, omnipotent, surpassing mind I 
 
 One scintillation of a soul inspired, 
 
 Though kindled in an atmosphere of gloom 
 
 Or loneliness, will strengthen, glow, and live. 
 
 And burn from age to age, till it become 
 
 The sun and glory of a thinking world. 
 
 When thrones are shatter'd, and their kings forgot I 
 
 i V 
 
 The revolution and the wrath of Time, 
 Rolling his years with an avenging flow 
 Alike o'er all, hath been a thread-worn theme 
 To tune the sentiment of many an age.
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 33 
 
 And thus, the musing lover of the Past, 
 Romancing idly o'er the name of Time, 
 Untombing empires, and re-crowning kings, 
 In sighing wonder ends his moral strain ! 
 Thou fool ! and martyr to a feeble word ; 
 Why, what is time, unmeasured by the deeds 
 That stain'd its flow, or chronicled its course ? 
 'Tis human actions stamp the chart of Time, 
 And wrap a shadow round departed years ; 
 And he who marks mere havoc, not the tides 
 Of passion, and inclining will, but prates, 
 
 Drowning his moral in a dream of words ! 
 
 
 
 Let him who muses on the awful wreck 
 Of empires, wailing in the dust, of thrones 
 Reversed, or titles ruinously vast, 
 Where Silence and the solemn feelings dwell,
 
 34 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 Dive deeper, till he stretch a thought to me ! 
 
 Ere man was fashion'd from his fellow dust, 
 
 I was, and since the sound of human voice 
 
 Has echoed in the air, my darksome power 
 
 Hath compass' d him in mystery, and in might : 
 
 Upon the soul of sage Philosophy 
 
 And Wisdom, templed in the shrines of old, 
 
 Faint shadows of my being fell b ; a sense 
 
 Of me thus deepen' d through the onward flood 
 
 Of ages, till substantial thought it grew ; 
 
 A certainty sublime, in that great soul, 
 
 The epic God of ancient song, who down 
 
 The infinite abyss could dare to gaze, 
 
 And show imagination shapes of Hell ! 
 
 And in that Book, where Heaven lies half reveal'd,
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 35 
 
 By words terrific as the herald flash 
 
 That hints the lightning-vengeance of the storm, 
 
 Am / not vision'd ? as the Prince of Air, 
 
 A Spirit that would crush the Universe, 
 
 And battle with Eternity ! Yet Truth, 
 
 So unrelenting in her solemn task, 
 
 A chilling welcome in the eyes of men 
 
 Hath found, denying what they dread to feel. 
 
 Kind Infidelity ! I thank thy power ; 
 
 Friend of the guilty, solace of the vile, 
 
 And teacher of the vain, instruct mankind, 
 
 And make the world thine own. Oh ! few believe, 
 
 When condemnation stares the Spirit back ! 
 
 Save hearts, where all amenities of faith 
 
 And love abound, while Hell is awed away ; 
 
 Or they, self-damned, who at midnight dream
 
 36 SATAN. [jBOOK J. 
 
 Of oceans foaming with eternal fires, 
 
 Or ghastly air-fiends, writhing as they howl F 
 
 Save unto these, and souls of kindred hue, 
 
 The " POWERS OF DARKNESS" are a wordy cheat, 
 
 Attuned to inauspicious minds alone. 
 
 Yet, oft they frown upon the mocker's path. 
 
 And feel they could, did Nature not prevail, 
 
 Burst into life, and blast him with a gaze I 
 
 " What Understanding cannot grasp, Belief 
 Can never claim," a wisdom most divine I 
 
 Why, all around him, from the race of flowers, 
 
 i 
 That AVOO his unadoring gaze, to hosts 
 
 Of sphery wonders that pervade the sky, 
 Is Myst'ry, robed in her material pomp , 
 Then why should mysteries of awe within-
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 37 
 
 Resolve themselves, to charm a sceptic mind ? 
 Religion proves but is not all explain'd ? 
 The beatings of the heart resemble this, 
 And men may wonder, but it still beats on ! 
 
 But when the balance of sublunar things 
 Is tried, amended, and for ever fix'd, 
 Belief for unbelief shall then atone, 
 By sad conviction ! then shall it be proved, 
 The curse that violated and deform' d 
 The World, and all her harmonies profaned, % ; 
 In dread similitude to mind o'erthrow r n, 
 Hath been the evil which my power hath fed, 
 By dark communion with this mortal scene. 
 No ! not a havoc over Nature dealt, 
 No sound of ocean, when her wings rise plumed
 
 38 SATAN. [BOOK r. 
 
 With wrath ; no madness bosom'd in the winds, 
 Those viewless pirates that do plunder land 
 And sea ; no terror in the moody reign 
 Of elements, that lord it so sublime, 
 But imageth that dreadful Curse I reap'd 
 For Nature and for Man ! And ye, dead Climes ! 
 Where high of old my bloody altars blazed, 
 Where oracles from cave or temple breathed, 
 And monsters, vision'd out of monstrous thought, 
 With stock and stone idolatries, were bred, 
 My hand was on ye, and your heathen soul ! 
 And now, Ambition, trampling out the heart 
 Of earth, the demi-gods of false renown, 
 And all the giants of heroic crime, 
 Are demons of my will, and by their doom 
 Shall testify the Spirit whence they spring.
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 31 
 
 Might vanish'd ages be renew'd, and built 
 Again the empires which have been, 
 From that huge one the haughty Ninus rear'd, 
 And great Cambyses crush'd, to Rome, and Greece, 
 The paragons of empire, what a scene 
 Would Time reveal ! Who bow'd them into gloom ? 
 They fear'd me not ; but, from the primal stone 
 That mark'd the birthday of their city-queens, 
 I mingled with them, and beheld them rise ; 
 From dim obscurity my minions watch'd 
 Their growth to greatness, and imperial sway 
 That overshadow' d the far isles. The sea 
 Beneath them, like a suppliant crouch'd ; the wind 
 Sang Victory ! where th' exulting banners waved ; 
 And History wreath'd her laurels at the sound. 
 But now, uplifted to a fearful height,
 
 40 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 They courted vilely-enervating arts, 
 Unthroned the Virtues, let the Passions loose, 
 And pour'd corruption through their wide domain : 
 Then came an hour of vengeance ! then the wrath 
 Of Desolation ! the decree of Heaven. 
 
 But see, where Persia's beauteous clime ex- 
 tends, 
 
 How gloriously diluvian Ararat 
 Hath pinnacled his rocky peak in clouds ! 
 He thrones a Winter on his awful head, 
 And lays the Summer laughing at his feet c . 
 Time cannot mar his glory ; grand he swells, 
 As when the Ark was balanced on his brow, 
 That saw the flashing of the far-off flood 
 Beneath, and heard the Deluge die away !
 
 BOOK 1.] SATAN. 41 
 
 But here, as in her day of mightiness, 
 Ascendant Nature proves the God of souls 
 Who deify her elements, and dream 
 Them symbols of their Maker. On the peak 
 Of mountains, the Chaldean hail'd the sun 
 in the brightness of his morning birth, 
 
 Bowing his forehead to the flaming east : 
 
 The Night, ennobled with her worlds, pour'd awe 
 
 And worship into hearts, that from the fields 
 
 Beheld their starry glitter as the glow 
 
 Of prophets, bright with their intelligence! 
 
 Thus still upon the Guebir's fateful eye 
 
 The fire darts gleaming magic, and his mind 
 
 Through Nature darkly struggles on to God *. 
 
 * See Herodotus, Gibbon, &c. &c.
 
 42 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 A mightier scene upon the map of Earth ! 
 Forests immense, and pine-wastes fiercely wild, 
 And ice-rocks, rear'd upon a dead-white sea, 
 Far to the North, where hoary deserts gleam, 
 Dawn on my view in all their Arctic gloom ! 
 But not Siberia, desolately grand, 
 Nor Dneiper, thunder' d on by cataracts, 
 That whiten o'er her howling waves, can charm 
 So wildly as those battle-hosts that pour, 
 Like rivers, swelling from their deep abodes, 
 Precipitately o'er the regions round. 
 A King hath spoken ! and the trump of war 
 Hath sounded, like a herald, through the land, 
 " Awake ! great Peter is alive again." 
 
 A word of Kings, what thunder in the sound !
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 43 
 
 These delegates of God yea, gods themselves, 
 Upon whose lips the fate of empire hangs, 
 Tremendous is their charge : one speaks, and lo ! 
 Up springs infernal War, and stalks abroad, 
 Unrolls his blood-red banner on the wind ; 
 And in the groan of widow'd nations hails 
 The music of his fame ! Another speaks, 
 And Peace, with olive in her radiant hand, 
 Glides like an angel through the world, and prints 
 A trace of glory wheresoe'er she tread ! 
 So great are Kings, that did the royal heirs, 
 Or despots, who have waded seas of blood 
 To wield a sceptre, know the awful weight 
 Of duty on a monarch's shoulder hung, 
 How few would battle for the throne of kings, 
 Or risk Eternity, to wear a crown ! 
 
 C2
 
 44 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 / 
 
 And who could ponder on this war-doom'd scene, 
 Nor dream thy shadow swelling into life ! 
 Napoleon ! on the island rock thou sleep'st ; 
 But such a storm thy spirit raised, so full 
 The swell of feeling born of thee, that Time 
 Must lend his magic to allay the rush 
 And tempest of opinion into truth, 
 That, taming wonder, stamps thee as thou wert, 
 A Tyrant d ! in whose passion for a power 
 Enthroned above all liberty and law, 
 Thou stand'st alone, unparagon'd ; thy pride 
 Of domination tow'ring far o'er heights 
 Of monarchy, a shadow of mine own, 
 That scorn' d an equal, though he proved a God ! 
 
 And therefore did I hail thee, Kingly One !
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 45 
 
 But strange the tide of human sympathy ; 
 Mean crimes are branded with avenging scorn, 
 While great ones, that should water Earth with 
 
 tears, 
 
 Oft dazzle condemnation into praise, 
 And praise to pity, when their greatness fails : 
 The throneless, in the heart a throne acquires, 
 And Admiration in his sigh can drown 
 The wail of millions, haunting each red field 
 Of havoc, where their Desolator trod ! 
 The wish is hated, but the deed caress' d, 
 Of mad Ambition ; Glory heals the wound. 
 
 Oh ! what a cloud on Liberty was thrown, 
 How deep a gash her dreadless form profaned,
 
 46 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 When thy ambition march' d upon the world, 
 Till Europe quail'd beneath thy scepter'd arm ! 
 Then perish' d hopes that cent'ries will not raise 
 Again ; then god-like spirits felt a pang, 
 That now, when all thy battle-roar is hush'd, 
 And Peace sits musing on the tomb of War, 
 Is felt, an agony, too deep for words 
 To fathom, too sublime for slaves to feel ! 
 
 Lo ! where the Tyrant felt a flood of wrath 
 From Heaven pour'd down upon his guilty head, 
 Where first he knew himself a MAN ! Yon spires, 
 With golden pinnacles that pierce the clouds, 
 And river, winding by the pallid walls, 
 Proclaim where unforgotten Moscow stands :
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 47 
 
 There raged a scene * that proved my fellowship 
 
 With this usurping world : for what an hour 
 
 Was that, when, wildly through the unbarr'd gates, 
 
 Like savage war-fiends, his marauders swept, 
 
 And saw the city billow'd into flames, 
 
 Like a far ocean blazing through the storm ! 
 
 Then Havoc started with a hideous howl ; 
 
 The shriek of violated maids, the curse 
 
 Of dying mothers, and despairing sires, 
 
 And dash of corpses, torn from royal tombs, 
 
 And plunged amid devouring flame, were heard 
 
 Terrific ! Moscow seem'd a madd'ning Hell ! 
 
 But who, when Rapine could not pillage more, 
 
 * See Relat. Comp. de la Campagne de Russie, en 1812 ; par E. 
 Labaume. Paris, 8vo. .Segur, &c.
 
 48 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 While cannon-thunder chased the daunted winds, 
 
 Paused on a desert heath, in speechless ire, 
 
 And mark'd the remnant of a ruin'd host 
 
 Flying, and pale as phantoms of Despair ? 
 
 Napoleon ! in the tempest of thy soul, 
 
 The Elements were reaping vengeance then ! 
 
 When Slaughter turn'd the tide of Victory, 
 
 And roll'd it back upon thy powerless host 
 
 Of famish'd warriors, freezing as they died ! 
 
 The agony of that dread hour, the burning sense 
 
 Of danger and defeat, the broken spell 
 
 That blasted all thy triumphs into shame, 
 
 Sublimed thy spirit with so proud a pang, 
 
 It long'd to swell into a million souls, 
 
 And shake "the universe to save a throne !
 
 BOOK I.J SATAN. 49 
 
 Thy race is o'er ; and in the rocky isle 
 Of Ocean, canopied with willow shade, 
 In death's undreaming calm thou restest now ; 
 But all the splendid infamy of War, 
 The fame of blood and bravery is thine : 
 Thy name hath havoc in its sound ! and Time 
 Shall read it while his ages roll, 'twill live 
 When Time and Nature are forgotten words L 
 For, as a noble fame can never die, 
 But proudly passeth on from Earth to Heaven, 
 There to be hymn'd by angels, and to crown 
 With bright pre-eminence the gifted mind 
 That won it gloriously ; so evil fame, 
 A fiery torment to the soul must be 
 For ever : let Ambition think of this ! 
 Who murders kings, to make her heroes gods. 
 
 c 5
 
 50 SATAN. BOOK r. 
 
 In contrast wilder than the rude-faced globe, 
 Appear the workings of immortal mind : 
 Russia, through each great limb of empire, feels . 
 Proud animation play ; a panting wish 
 For high dominion, and sublimer rule 
 Than Nature's vastness yields. But thou, 
 Of immemorial birth, whose massy wall 
 Of ages, with her thousand war-towers flank'd, 
 Meanders, river-like, o'er many a hill 
 And mountain, China ! thou art motionless, 
 Or, like the Dead Sea, sullenly reposed 
 Amid the swelling spirit of the times. 
 Those burden'd waters, whereon breed and die 
 Thy generations, fancy-mountains, topp'd 
 With temples, and pagodas, gaily deck'd, 
 And artful wonders by the hand or tongue
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 51 
 
 Completed, such are glories form'd for thine 
 Ascendancy! Thus bulwark' d in with pride 
 And baseness, virtues, arts, and vices flow 
 From year to year, undaring and unchanged. 
 Antiquity, the childhood of the world, 
 Broods like a torpid vapour o'er thy clime, 
 Dulling its vigour into drowsy calm : 
 So let it sleep ! till Revolution rise, 
 And fire a spirit that shall sound reform. 
 
 Lo, in the East ! enormously uprear'd, 
 What ice-peak'd mountains point their roseate heads 
 Amid the richness of their Indian sky, 
 Soundless and solemn, as cathedral towers 
 Made dim and spectral by the wintry moon. 
 Hills of the North! not all your Greenland pomp
 
 52 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 Can more sublimely scale the clouds. And where, 
 O Ganges ! mountain-born, careers the flood 
 That matches thee ? The vassal rivers mix 
 Their spirit with thine own ; the rock-hewn caves 
 Shake as they hear thee sounding through their depths ; 
 Then upward springing with a glorious swell, 
 And glitter on thy waves, to course green plain 
 And valley, like a charger in his pride 
 Let loose, to lord it o'er surrounding mead ! 
 Monarch of rivers ! thy redeeming flow- 
 Is life and beauty to the sun-brown lands 
 That border thy rich banks, but on thy stream 
 How Superstition glasses her dull creed ! 
 Religion ! why, the undiscerning brute 
 Hath more divineness than the vaunting slave, 
 Who, spirit-darken' d, oft blasphemes her name :
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 53 
 
 For sun and shower are not unthank'd by him; 
 
 He bathes his forehead in the fresh' ning gale, 
 
 And, by enjoyment, pays the gift of life. 
 
 But how I wilder self-exalting MAN, 
 
 "When hell-rites are religion ! while he chants 
 
 Of mercy, mantling his Creator's works, 
 
 So dark a fanatic, to dream the groan 
 
 Of burning widows, gasping forth their souls, 
 
 And drowning babes, is rapture to his God 1 
 
 O, Wisdom ! when wilt thou the heart redeem, 
 
 And cast the cloud from Superstition's eye ? 
 
 Another gaze, bright Hindostanic clime ! 
 How beautifully wild, with horn-wreath'd heads, 
 Thy antelopes abound ; and, thick as clouds 
 Paving the pathway of the western heaven,
 
 54 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 On wings enamell'd with a radiant dye, 
 
 Thy birds expand their plumage to the breeze, 
 
 And glitter into air ! Primeval woods, 
 
 And chieftain wonder-trees, and forest haunts, 
 
 Where frequent rolls the stormy lion roar ; 
 
 And deserts, spotted with their verdant isles, 
 
 And fruits, with showers of sunbeams on their heads, 
 
 Are mingled there in magical excess ; 
 
 The grand and beautiful, their glowing spell 
 
 Combine ; Creation makes one mighty charm ! 
 
 But let it pass : again the voice of waves ! 
 Faint as the rush of rapid spirit-wings. 
 An ocean, dreadful to the gazing eye, 
 As is infinity to human thought, 
 Atlantic ! where the whirlwinds are the scoff
 
 .BOOK I.] SATAN. 55 
 
 Of billows, rocking with eternal roar, 
 Thou art a wonder e'en to me, whose eye 
 Hath fathom'd Chaos ! 
 
 Thou astounding main, 
 Time never felt so awful since his birth, 
 Angels and demons o'er thy terrors hung, 
 When, visioning afar his nameless world, 
 On thine immensity Columbus launch'd. 
 Yet thou wert well avenged ! for Storm and Doubt, 
 Despair and Madness, on the billows rode, 
 And made the Ocean one dark agony ! 
 Dismal as thunder-clouds, the fated hours 
 Toil'd on ; a living solitude still howl'd 
 And heaved, in dread monotony around ; 
 Yet hope was quenchless ; and, when daylight closed,
 
 56 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 The ocean-wand' rers, in the wooing glow 
 
 Of sunset, gladd'ning their despondent brows, 
 
 Hymn'd o'er the mellow wave their vesper-song ; 
 
 Ave Maria ! mingling with the choirs 
 
 Of billows, and the chant of evening winds. 
 
 But he was destined ; and his lightning glance 
 Shot o'er the deep, and darted on thy world, 
 America ! Then, mighty, long, and loud, 
 From swelling hearts, the Hallelujahs rang, 
 And charm'd to music the Atlantic gales ; 
 While, silent as the Sun above him throned, 
 Columbus look'd a rapture to the skies, 
 And gave his glory to the God of Heaven ! 
 
 Thou hugest region of the quarter'd globe,
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 57 
 
 Where all the climates dwell, and Nature moves 
 
 In majesty, hereafter, when the tides 
 
 Of circumstance have roll'd their changing years, 
 
 What Empires may be born of thee ! thy ships 
 
 By thousands, dancing o'er the isle-strewn deep ; 
 
 Thy banners waved in every land. E'en now 
 
 Defiance flashes from thy fearless eye, 
 
 While Nature tells thee, greatness is thine own. 
 
 Who on those dreadful giants of the South, 
 
 Those pyramids, by thy Creator rear'd, 
 
 Thine Andes, girdled with the storms, can gaze ; 
 
 Or hear Niagara's unearthly might 
 
 Leap downward in a dash of proud despair, 
 
 Mocking the thunder with impassion'd sound, 
 
 Nor think the Spirit of Ambition wakes 
 
 From each free glory ? What a grandeur lives
 
 58 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 Through each stern scene ! in yon Canadian woods, 
 Whose stately poplars clothe their heads with 
 
 clouds, 
 
 And dignify Creation as they stand ; 
 Or in the rain-floods, rivers where they fall ! 
 Or Hurricanes, that howl themselves along, 
 Life-winged monsters, ravenously wild, 
 Sublimity o'er ah 1 her soul hath breath'd, 
 And yet, a curse is on thee ! 'tis the curse 
 Of havoc e , which the violators reap'd 
 For thy young destiny, when first amid 
 Thy wilds the cannon pour'd its thundering awe, 
 Shaking the trees that never yet had bow'd, 
 Save to the storminess of Nature's ire. 
 
 Hath Gentleness redeem' d the guilt of old ?
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 59 
 
 Hath Freedom heal'd the wounds of War, and 
 
 paid 
 
 Her ransom to the nameless and unknown, 
 The unremember'd, but the soul-immortal still, 
 The dead, whose birthright was sublime as Kings' ? 
 Approach, and answer me, dejected one ! 
 Art thou the remnant of a free-born race, 
 Majestic lords of Nature's majesty ? 
 Of them, Avhose brows were bold as heaven, whose 
 
 hands 
 
 Oft tamed the woods, whose feet outfled the winds, 
 Who faced the lightning with undazzled gaze, 
 And dream'd the thunder language of their God? 
 The Earth and Sky 'twas Freedom's and their own. 
 But thou the SUN hath written on thee, SLAVED 
 A branded limb and a degraded mind
 
 60 SATAN. [BOOK i, 
 
 The tyrants give thee for eternal toil, 
 
 And tears ; or lash thy labour out in blood ! 
 
 And some are Britons, who enslave the free ; 
 Then boast not, England ! while a Briton links 
 The chain of thraldom, glory can be thine. 
 "Vain are thy vows, thy temples, and thy truths 
 That hallow them, while yet a slave exists 
 Who curses thee : each curse in Heaven is heard ; 
 'Tis seal'd, and answer'd in the depths below ! 
 
 From dungeon and from den there comes a voice 
 That supplicates for Freedom ; from the tomb 
 Of Martyrs her transcendancy is told, 
 And dimm'd she may, but cannot be destroy'd. 
 Who bends the spirit from its high domain,
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 61 
 
 A 
 
 On God himself a sacrilege commits ; 
 For soul doth share in His supremacy ; 
 To crush it, is to violate His power, 
 And grasp the sceptre an Almighty wields ! 
 
 For freedom, such as proud Ambition call'd 
 A freedom, I lost Heaven, and therefore, slaves 
 On earth, are victims that I scorn to see. 
 No ! let them in their liberty be mine ; 
 Or, what if foul Oppression fill the cup 
 Of crime, that Hell may have a deeper draught ? 
 My kingdom is of evil, and the crowns 
 Of many an earth-born despot glitter there. 
 Then let the pangless hearts of tyrants beat 
 Unblasted, till, from deepest agony,
 
 62 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 & 
 
 With the proud wrath of ages in her soul, 
 Freedom arise, and vindicate her name ! 
 
 Sceptres are mighty wands, and few there be 
 With strength to wield them ; yet, how many dare ! 
 And kingdoms are the agonies of thrones, 
 Yet men will die to face them ! thus the heart 
 Exceeds itself, nor calls the madness vain. 
 But, were it mine, from kingliness to take 
 The tyrant witchery, I'd bid the young 
 Idolater of throne-exalted power, 
 In the deep midnight, when the world lies hush'd 
 In her humility of sleep, to stand and gaze 
 Upon a prince's couch. The glow and pomp 
 Of palace-chambers round him, mingling lie,
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 63 
 
 But on his cheek the royal spirit marks 
 
 A weariness, that mocks this outward show 
 
 Of kings, a prison would have graced it more ! 
 
 A sad rehearsal of unhonour'd youth, 
 
 When years went reckless as the rolling waves, 
 
 Till passion grew satiety ; a proud 
 
 Regret for trait'rous hearts, and that keen sense 
 
 Untold, which monarchs more than subjects feel 
 
 Of slavery ; for servile is the pomp 
 
 Of kings, though gorgeously it dare the eye ; 
 
 With a dim haunting of the dreary tomb, 
 
 That often through the banquet-splendor gapes, 
 
 A darkness that defies a sun ! such dream 
 
 From out his slumber that calm Beauty steals, 
 
 That Innocence delights to wear. Then watch 
 
 His features, till a deep'ning flush of soul
 
 64 SATAN. [BOOK i, 
 
 Array them with a spirit eloquence, 
 
 That speaks of Judgment ! in her cloudy blaze 
 
 Of terror ; monarchs cited, and the vast 
 
 Accompt of scepter'd kingdoms render'd up ; 
 
 Did ENVY listen to his waking groan, 
 
 How poor, how perilous, the state of kings ! 
 
 Away with this ; transcendently endow' d, 
 And in her mass of mind concent' ring more 
 Of awfulness, than Nature in her might 
 Of rock or mountain feels, lo, Europe spreads 
 Her living map before me now ! What hearts 
 And souls commune ! what countless tides of thought 
 And feeling, in electric flow, from breast 
 To breast, from clime to clime, prevailing here ! 
 Here is the throne of Mind ; th' arena vast,
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 65 
 
 Where principles and passions have their play, 
 Where Men and Angels, Heaven and Hell, are met, 
 And Life flings shadows o'er Eternity ! 
 
 Region of wonders 1 who thy scenes can trace ? 
 Or, on thy many-featured visage mark 
 The motion of thy Spirit, in her rush 
 Sublime, of impulse, and creative power? 
 There is an ocean, darken'd by the wings 
 Of vessels, leaping like the waves they front, 
 While thund'ring to and fro their countiy's wrath, 
 And sending up loud incense to the skies ! 
 And there, a river, like a liquid sweep 
 Of light, where Commerce, welcomed by the gale, 
 Sails onward in the sun : but here, a scene 
 Of battle, with a death-sound in its roar ; 
 
 D
 
 66 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 Banners are playing, rich as unroll'd clouds 
 
 Hung loose upon mid-air ; the gleam of arms 
 
 Incessant, flashes through the misty fray, 
 
 Fierce as the lightnings when they flutter wild : 
 
 While mute and sad, a city waits afar, 
 
 With Doubt and Anguish in her desert streets, 
 
 Who catch the war-notes from the travell'd wind, 
 
 And roll their meaning through her mighty heart ! 
 
 In dream-like contrast, 'mid the hush of noon, 
 
 How meekly yon romantic village lies, 
 
 Beneath a canopy of cloudless .blue ! 
 
 Her elm-trees twinkling as they wave, her meads 
 
 Made golden for the harvest, and her spire 
 
 In peaceful beauty pointing to the heavens. 
 
 Sprinkled with mountains, and with cloud-topp'd hills,
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 67 
 
 Helvetia swells majestic on my view, 
 
 In her primeval glory. Free-soul'd land ! 
 
 Summer and AVinter for thy smile contend ; 
 
 Witching thy prospects into fairy pomp 
 
 With beautiful abruptness ; meadow'd, green, 
 
 And glowingly, thy undulating vales 
 
 Extend, while fawning vines the hills embrace, 
 
 And landscapes, laughing o'er the clouds, may hear 
 
 The tempest-howl in cavern gloom below. 
 
 And Winter hath his triumph ; let the rush 
 
 And roar of cataracts, the darksome lakes 
 Convulsive rolling in the midnight storm, 
 
 The glaciers, billow' d into craggy ice, 
 
 And, chief o'er all, the silent Alp-king, rear'd 
 
 Like something risen from eternity ! 
 
 Let these declare thee for a land sublime, 
 
 D 2.
 
 68 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 Home of the dauntless ! on thy patriot soul 
 While sternness of simplicity can breathe 
 A Roman vigour, and the name of Tell 
 Haunts, like a hallowing spirit, every vale 
 And mountain-hollow, Time shall honour thee, 
 When many an empire shall have pass'd away, 
 And forests wave where Capitals are seen ! 
 
 Southward of thee, where shining rocks ascend, 
 Pointing their cannon to the broad blue main 
 Defyingly, what region of the sun 
 Is that, with green-dyed olive-groves, and fruits 
 Whose ripeness glitters on the laden boughs ? 
 Tis Spain ! the glowing clime of Luxury, 
 Of Chivalry, and gray Romance : her hills, 
 Where aromatic odours scent the skies, 
 And bright-hued flowers, that in the mountain breeze
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 69 
 
 Of freshness, dance their beauteous heads ; 
 
 Her dark-eyed dames, and stately cavaliers, 
 
 Whose brows are haughty with the dreams of eld ; 
 
 Her pomp of palaces, her fountain-walks, 
 
 And many-templed capitals, betray 
 
 Her form'd for Pleasure's undisputed reign. 
 
 And yet, on Hist'ry's most heroic page, 
 
 Hath Andalusia an undying seal, 
 
 And Arragon a print of fame : her deeds 
 
 Of blood, and Inquisition's hellish rack, 
 
 For Vengeance, when the world's arraignment sounds, 
 
 Will rise ; and woe for Tyrants when it comes ! 
 
 Here, too, the Passions are despotic slaves 
 For me ; and prove how features can reveal 
 The flash of mind, in magical array.
 
 70 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 The languor of luxurious eyes, for Love, 
 Abounds ; for Jealousy, the livid gaze, 
 That looks a murder where its meaning falls ; 
 And for Revenge, an aspect darkly still, 
 Like savage thunder sleeping in a cloud ! 
 And midnight is the mantle for them all. 
 
 Nations arraign each other ; but the scales 
 Of Judgment by their prejudice are weigh'd. 
 Thus, Spain the proud is deem'd ; yet where, oh Earth ! 
 In thy dominions, hath not Pride a throne, 
 Which none but Deity itself can shake ? 
 'Twas by her spirit Hell was fired, she reigns 
 The monarch passion of the human breast : 
 And yet so dread, that e'en by Intellect inspired, 
 Or from the pureness of a perfect heart
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 71 
 
 Derived, too daringly a sense of worth 
 
 Indulged, for Wisdom to embrace her own. 
 
 But rank, whose patent was a paltry soul, 
 
 Can make a being proud ; an affluent lot, 
 
 Where Folly may pre-eminently shine, 
 
 Breeds Pride ; some, arrogant with beauty, move 
 
 As though the air grew lovely in the light 
 
 Of perfect feature, and majestic form ; 
 
 While others their renowned birth display, 
 
 Untombing honour from ancestral dust 
 
 To dignify their own : and Time hath breathed 
 
 A sanction o'er such artificial rank, 
 
 To season Life, and harmonise her laws. 
 
 So, where the heart beats glorious, and is link'd ir" 
 
 By ages of nobility, to minds 
 
 Of fame, high ancestry a virtue proves : 
 
 \
 
 72 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 But little souls, with mighty titles graced, 
 Like beggars, trick' d in robes of royalty, 
 Are burden' d with a pomp they cannot bear, 
 And lend to meanness but a brighter shame. 
 
 Enchanting as thou art, romantic Spain, 
 The home of Beauty, and the queen of climes, 
 Loved Italy, whose oriental heavens 
 Are rich enough o'er Paradise to hang, 
 Outdazzles thee in splendor. 'Tis the hour 
 When noon-shine, dying into sun-set glow, 
 Suffuses, like a gorgeous wing outspread 
 In wanton glory, gleams of magic hue : 
 How radiantly adown those heaven-bright hills 
 The young streams tremble ! Arno, mountain-born, 
 In mazy brightness glitters through his vale,
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 73 
 
 And groves and gardens on the cool wind shake 
 Their fragrance, while around the swarthy meads 
 Are shining, and the corn-fields' twinkling stir 
 Moves playsome in the breeze. But near yon lake,. 
 Lo, sea-throned Venice, in her island pride, 
 Resentful dares the Adriatic roar ! 
 And o'er the river, by gondolas dimm'd, 
 And palaces, that frown a ducal pomp, 
 Out arches her Rialto : she hath reign'd 
 Her day ; the many tyrants are no more, 
 And blighted fabrics but reveal her fame ! 
 
 But what is Venice, to the wreck of Rome * ? 
 That giantess of Empire ! blacken'd, bow'd, 
 
 * This is the rejoicing city that dwelt carelessly, that said in her 
 heart, I am, and there is none beside me : how is she become a deso- 
 lation! ZEPHANIAH, chap. ii. 15. 
 
 D 5
 
 74 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 And desolated, on her seven-hill'd throne 
 Behold her seated, by worn Tiber's banks ! 
 Colossal ruin, like a noble mind, 
 In desolation, thou art glorious still! 
 Though Time hath conquer'd, can he equal thee ? 
 Thy temples tow' ring to the blue-domed sky, 
 The trophied porches, vasty theatres 
 That heard the beating of ten thousand hearts ; 
 And fane sublime, on that Tarpeian rock, 
 Where vengeance was eternity ! when Rome 
 Could trample kingdoms, and o'erawe the world, 
 What grandeur rivall'd these ? their very shades 
 Are solemn : but around them, when the rush 
 Of life was heard ; when chariots, bright as those 
 That wheel the morning sun, victorious came, 
 Amid the tramp of war-steeds, and the shout
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 75 
 
 Of millions, swelling with their country's fame, 
 
 Thy glory was a terror, and thine arm 
 
 Omnipotence ! through the wide universe 
 
 The throbbing of thy faintest passion thrill'd, 
 
 And when thou frown'dst, what nation dared be free ? 
 
 Men look on thee, as I have gazed on God, 
 With silent rapture solemnized to awe ; 
 For cent'ries rush in glory on their souls ! 
 Heroes and sages start beneath their feet ; 
 The shadowy past in spectral pomp appears ; 
 Their eyes are dazzled with a starry dream 
 Of old renown ; and, like thy vassal states, 
 They deify thy name. And I forgive 
 The weakness of their worship, when the sun's 
 Bright mock'ry plays along thy mould'ring piles ;
 
 76 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 Or when the moonbeam, through the cypress-tree, 
 Sheds rays of sorrow on thy weed-tress'd walls, 
 And dead-worn monuments : from thy young dawn 
 Of being, ere thy roofless domes were piled, 
 To the proud noon of greatness, thou hast proved 
 A theme of wonder in the world unseen. 
 Half demons, and half gods, thy heroes Avere ; 
 And thy hoar sages, are they not still felt 
 And follow'd ? deities of mind, whose words 
 Are wings of knowledge to the daring ! Rome 
 Is dead, but Roman MIND is reigning still, 
 In wider conquest than her eagles "won. 
 
 And may it reign so ! that a fiery love 
 Of fame and battle, that defeatures Earth 
 With scars Eternity shall fail to heal,
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 
 
 May live by inspiration fierce as thine. 
 Many a hero hath been born of thee ; 
 Many a Caesar yet will come, to chain 
 The world, or fool it with disastrous fame : 
 Yea, at this moment, in tyrannic hearts 
 Ambition hath a mass of burning thought 
 In secret kindling, like volcanic ire, 
 Awake it, Time ! and rear thy second Rome. 
 
 Few years have fleeted o'er this tomb-like haunt 
 Of ruin, since a Spirit, who appall'd 
 The world, by giving thoughts a thunder-tone, 
 And feeling, that terrific lightning-flash, 
 That show'd the storming of the soul within ! 
 Who poured himself in passion o'er mankind, 
 Making each heart to quiver with delight,
 
 78 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 Like water thrill'd by an electric sound, 
 Amid thy canker'd fanes, and crumbling halls, 
 Mused in the deadness of the midnight hour. 
 
 It was a haggard night ; when mortals dream 
 Eternal Nature in her sadness pines, 
 As though the elements were all diseased : 
 The moon hung rayless, and the few faint stars 
 Gleam' d pale and glassy as the eye of death ; 
 Alone, the victim of his darkest mood, 
 Among the limbs of levell'd palaces, 
 And monuments, in earthy slumber laid, 
 The wand'rer roam'd ; and when some sickly break 
 Of moonlight lit his features into play, 
 With all their lines of passionate excess, 
 The haunting Genius of the spot he seem'd,
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 79 
 
 Lost in the workings of a wilder' d mind ! 
 
 He sigh'd, and mused, and then from earth to heaven 
 
 His eye was raised, but moisten'd with a tear 
 
 Of tenderness, wherein the pride of years 
 
 Had melted out, like essence from a soul 
 
 Most haughty in abasement : blighted man ! 
 
 His nature was a whirlpool of desires, 
 
 And mighty passions, perilously mix'd, 
 
 That with the darkness of the demon world 
 
 Had something of the light of Heaven ! He breathed 
 
 The sighs that after ages will repeat ; 
 
 The selfish eloquence of tortured thought, 
 
 In words that gloAV with agony ! yet far 
 
 From him, that deeper sadness of the mind, 
 
 Which, gather'd from the gloom of mortal things 
 
 In moments of mysterious power, o'erclouds
 
 80 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 The Spirit, and subdues it into thought 
 Sublime, and shadow'd -with Eternity. 
 
 So worshipp'd, and so sad ! Oh, were not Wbpes- 
 Destroy'd, the living prospect which I love 
 To see, the idols of this world might win 
 My pity, for their portion. How deceived, 
 And how deceiving, is the race they run ! 
 The King and Hero, Bard and Sage, with all 
 Who in the storehouse of departed time 
 Have heap'd such treasure, as great deeds and words 
 Beget, what proud delusions have they been 1 
 
 To the vast silence of primeval gloom 
 On wings of Mystery may Spirit roam, 
 And meditate on wordless things, whence comes
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 81 
 
 A glorious panting for a purer state. 
 
 True sadness is the soul of holy joy ; 
 
 And such feel they, who fashion brighter worlds : 
 
 But martyrs to diseased thought abound, 
 
 Who out of earthly elements have sought 
 
 To reap a happiness, whose home is heaven, 
 
 And failing, sunk to profitless despair. 
 
 Thus Learning, Luxury, and Fame, these three 
 
 Vain phantoms, what a worship have they won ! 
 
 The first, a shallow excellence ; the next, 
 
 A malady of brutish growth, debased 
 
 And most debasing, turning soul to sense, 
 
 Till Nature seems unspirited ; the last, 
 
 Magnificent betrayer ! while afar 
 
 Beheld, the crown of heaven itself is thine ; 
 
 When won, oft unavailingly enjoyed.
 
 82 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 Oh ! many an eye, that in the glow of youth 
 Hath brighten' d as it gazed on pictured worth, 
 Or linger'd in the lone and princely fanes 
 Where tombs have tongues, by monumental piles, 
 Where great inheritors of glory sleep, 
 Hath wept the laurels that it once adored ! 
 
 The atmosphere that circleth gifted minds 
 Is from a deep intensity derived, 
 An element of thought, where feelings shape 
 Themselves to fancies, an electric world, 
 Too exquisitely toned for common life, 
 Which they of coarser metal cannot dream : 
 And hence, those beautifying powers of soul 
 That arch the heavens more glorious, and create 
 An Eden wheresoe'er their magic light
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 83 
 
 Upon the rack of quick excitement lives ; 
 
 Their joy, the essence of an agony, 
 
 And that, the throbbing of the fires within ! 
 
 And thus, while Fame's heart-echoing clarions ring 
 For glory, all the rapture of renown 
 In one vile whisper may lie hush'd and dead ; 
 Made mighty by its littleness, a word 
 Of envy drowns the thunder which delight 
 Hath voiced ; as oft the phantom of a cloud 
 In single darkness cowering on the air 
 Looks fiercer for the frownless heaven around g ! 
 So Fame is murder' d, that the dull may live, 
 Or to herself grows false ; then hideous dreams, 
 And tomb-like shadows, thicken round the mind, 
 Till, plunging into dread infinity,
 
 84 SATAX. [BOOK i. 
 
 It rides upon the billows which Despair 
 
 Hath lash'd from out the stormy gloom of thought ! 
 
 Dark victim, thus so ruinously famed, 
 
 What mis'ry in thy smile of happiness ! 
 
 Beneath the mountain of thy vast renown 
 
 There blooms a Mortal, unendow'd by aught 
 
 That Learning, Luxury, or Fame can yield, 
 
 And yet, a Croesus in his store of joy 
 
 Compared with thine, the man whom Earth 
 
 Enslaves not, on whose soul the truth hath smiled 1 
 
 A model first, and then the captive made, 
 Of desolating Rome, the land divine 
 Of ancient Greece, beside yon full-waved sea, 
 Laugns in the bright unbreathing air of noon. 
 Antiquity reigns here ; see ! on her throne
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 85 
 
 Of Athos, whence the giant shadow sweeps, 
 
 As new-alighted from a cloud she stands, 
 
 Waving her wand triumphant o'er her scenes ; 
 
 To hoar Parnassus, where the fabled spring 
 
 Of Castaly still flows, to time-awed wilds, 
 
 To mountain pass, and Marathonian plain, 
 
 To every haunt heroic feet have trod, 
 
 Her wand is pointed, till the past untombs 
 
 Her treasure ; Athens is revived again, 
 
 The slave-isles hurl their shackles o'er the sea, 
 
 And Greece awakes to glorify the world ! 
 
 Surpassing clime ! though man thy home profane, 
 Nature bedecks thee for her idol still. 
 When moon-tints tremble on the Adrian waves, 
 What sea so beautiful ? what sun so bright,
 
 86 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 Glassing the air to richness ? Still thy skies 
 Are canopies cerulean hung ; thy flowers 
 Ope radiant as the fairy wings of birds, 
 And fruit and tree wave luscious in the wind. 
 
 Again, thou upstart World, behold thy doom ! 
 Where Valour with the sword of Freedom slew ; 
 Where Art and Science, in perfection throned, 
 Shot rays that yet the gloom of age defy ; 
 Where Eloquence her spirit vollied forth 
 In words that soul'd an empire with their sound, 
 As Thunder tones his terror through the storm ! 
 Where Poetry, by stirring Passion bred, ' " 
 
 From Nature's heart her magic numbers drew, 
 While heavenly Wisdom to the soaring eye 
 Of sages, half reveal'd her perfect form,
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 87 
 
 There in that land magnificently crown' d 
 With all that beauty, wealth, and art bestow, 
 Corruption in her darkest spirit dwells. 
 Then learn, thou proud adorer of the past, 
 Learn at the tomb of Glory laid in dust, 
 How human passions wither while they sway ; 
 The curse is living ! think of my revenge ! 
 
 Northward of Greece, behold renowned Gaul, 
 Britannia's rival, gaily doth outspread 
 Her scenery, and blooming flush of life. 
 She too hath beauty ; and her sun-warm hills 
 That bare their bosoms to the mellowing sky, 
 With vine and fruitage bountifully glow, 
 While rivers of romance, by wood and vale, 
 And bord'ring town, their shining waters lead.
 
 88 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 Young, fresh, and gay, elastic as the breeze, 
 All spring and sunshine, her full spirit bounds ; 
 Here, vanity is victue ; out of hearts 
 That seem to echo but to woman's sigh, 
 Awaking valour, prompt to dare, and proud 
 To die. And yet, true nobleness of mind 
 Is faintly seen ; sincerity, too harsh 
 To please, is polish'd into smoothing lies, 
 The frothy incense of a faithless soul. 
 
 Once, France and Freedom were a mingled name ; 
 And now, when all their wrathful clouds are roll'd 
 Away, the shadows which they cast, endure, 
 Clothing the soul of Memory with fear. 
 Her Revolution, who that saw, forgets ? 
 Or who that felt, and does not feel ? The storm
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 89 
 
 That makes a midnight of convulsed day, 
 
 Is weak, to that rebellion of despair, 
 
 When buried passions, like an earthquake, burst 
 
 From out an injured Nation's heart ! And such 
 
 Was thine, afflicted France! the far-off thrones 
 
 Of tyrants stagger'd, distant empires quail'd, 
 
 When like th' embodied spirit of thy wrongs 
 
 The Revolution darken'd on the world, 
 
 Ringing a peal that echoed Europe round, 
 
 And died in thunder o'er the Atlantic deep ! 
 
 But thou wert too unholy to be free, 
 
 Too grasping to be great ; and when thy thirst 
 
 For havoc brutalized the scene of blood, 
 
 As though re-action for all human wrong 
 
 Were centred in it for one dire revenge, 
 
 I heard Heaven curse thee, and exulting hail'd 
 
 The cry of Freedom, for the voice of Hell ! 
 
 E
 
 90 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 Fronting the wave-environ'd shore of France, 
 And bulwark'd with her everlasting main, 
 O'er which the cloud-white cliffs sublimely gaze 
 Like genii, rear'd for her defence, behold 
 The Isle-queen ! every billow sounds her fame ! 
 The ocean is her proud triumphal car 
 Whereon she rideth, and the rolling waves 
 The vassals which secure her victory ; 
 Alone, and matchless in her sceptred might, 
 She dares the world. The spirit of the brave 
 Burns in her ; laws are liberty ; and kings 
 Wear crowns that glitter with a people's love, 
 And, while undimm'd, their glory aye endures ; 
 But once dishonour'd, and the sceptre falls, 
 The throne is shaken, patriot voices rise, 
 And, like storm'd billows by the tyrant gale, 
 Awaken, loud and haughty is their roar '
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 91 
 
 Heaven-favour' d land ! of grandeur, and of gloom, 
 
 Of mountain pomp, and majesty of hills, 
 
 Though other climates boast, in thee supreme 
 
 A beauty and a gentleness abound ; 
 
 Here all that can soft worship claim, or tone 
 
 The sweet sobriety of tender thought, 
 
 Is thine : the sky of blue intensity, 
 
 Or charm'd by sunshine into picture-clouds, 
 
 That make bright landscapes when they blush abroad, 
 
 The dingle grey, and wooded copse, with hut 
 
 And hamlet, nestling in the bosky vale, 
 
 And spires brown peeping o'er the ancient elms, 
 
 And steepled cities, faint and far away, 
 
 With all that bird and meadow, brook and gale 
 
 Impart, are mingled for admiring eyes 
 
 That love to banquet on thy blissful scene. 
 
 E2
 
 92 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 But Ocean is thy glory ; and methinks 
 Some musing wand'rer by the shore I see, 
 Weaving his island fancies. Round him, rock 
 And cliff, \vhose grey trees mutter to the wind, 
 And streams down rushing with a torrent ire : 
 The sky seems craggy, with her cloud-piles hung, 
 Deep-mass'd, as though embodied thunder lay 
 And darken'd in a dream of havoc there ! 
 Before him, Ocean, yelling in the blast, 
 Wild as the death-wail of a drowning host : 
 The surges, be they tempests as they roll, 
 Lashing their fury into living foam, 
 Yon war-ship shall outbrave them all ! her sails 
 Resent the winds, and their remorseless howl ; 
 And when she ventures the abyss of waves, 
 Remounts, expands her wings, and then away ! 
 Proud as an eagle dashing through the clouds.
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 93 
 
 And well, brave scion of the empress Isle, 
 Thy spirit mingles with the mighty scene, 
 Hailing thy country on her ocean-throne. 
 But she hath dread atonements to complete. 
 And bloody tears to shed. Thy lofty dreams r 
 O England ! may be humbled yet ; behold ! 
 The war-clouds rise, beware ! for in thine own 
 Great heart the darkness of Rebellion breeds, 
 And frowns of Heaven hang awful o'er thy doom !' 
 
 And now, the World before my view hath pass'd , 
 With her magnificent array of pomp 
 And power, of Kingdom, Plain, and Desert rude, 
 Of Oceans garnish'd with their glittering isles, 
 And the vast wonder that o'erarcheth all ! 
 How Destiny, and the corrupting tides
 
 94 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 Of Sin, the fortunes of this Earth have changed ! 
 
 The present still is echo to the past; 
 
 Of both the future will an echo prove ; 
 
 A rise and fall, a fall and rise, the doom 
 
 Of men and empires, thus gone Ages tell. 
 
 And what of this proud Age, whose wings unfold 
 In bright expansion ? Is she Wisdom's child ? 
 From the dark catalogue of sin and shame 
 Is aught erased ? Are passions more subdued, 
 The virtues laurell'd, and the vices dead ? 
 The same in SPIRIT doth the earth exist ? 
 If so, then, Time, I hail thee ! and the Curse 
 Shall multiply ; new thrones and dynasties 
 May come, but Desolation shall foredoom 
 Their fate, though haughty be the aspect worn.
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 95 
 
 And, as among the myriads who have felt, 
 So from the myriads in this first grand step 
 Of being, onward marching through a round 
 Of endless changes, few shall overcome 
 The world, or make Eternity to smile 
 With bright reflection from a soul redeem'd ! 
 
 But lo ! the day declines, and to his throne 
 The sun is wheeling. What a world of pomp 
 The heavens put on in homage to his power ! 
 Romance hath never hung a richer sky, 
 Or sea of sunshine, o'er whose aureate deep 
 Triumphal barks of beauteous foam career, 
 As though the clouds held festival, to hail 
 Their god of glory to his western home. 
 And now the earth is mirror' d on the skies !
 
 96 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 While lakes and valleys, drown'd in dewy light, 
 And rich delusions, dazzlingly array 'd, 
 Form, float, and die in all their phantom joy. 
 At length the Sun is throned ; but from his face 
 A flush of beauty o'er Creation flows, 
 That brightens into rapturous farewell ! 
 Then faints to paleness ; for the day hath sunk 
 Beneath the waters, dash'd with ruby dyes, 
 And Twilight in her nun-like meekness comes ; 
 The air is fragrant with the soul of flowers, 
 The breeze comes panting like a child at play, 
 While birds, day-worn, are couch'd in leafy bowers, 
 And, calm as clouds, the sunken billows sleep : 
 The dimness of a dr.eam o'er Nature steals, 
 Yet hallows it ; a hush'd enchantment reigns ; 
 The mountains to a mass of mellowing shade
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 97 
 
 Are turn'd, and stand like temples of the night ; 
 While field and forest, fading into gloom, 
 Depart, and rivers whisper sounds of fear. 
 A dying pause, as if th' Almighty moved 
 In shadow o'er his works, hath solemnized 
 The world ! 
 
 But that hath pass'd ; the herald stars 
 In timid lustre twinkling into life, 
 Advance ; and, faint as Music's rising swell, 
 The moon is rounding as she dawns. Fair orb 1 
 The sun glares like a warrior o'er his plain 
 Of morning sky ; but thou, so wan and meek, 
 Appear' st a maiden of romance, who walks 
 In musing sorrow, beautifully pale. 
 Behold thy power ! on tree and meadow falls 
 
 5
 
 98 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 The loveliness of thine arraying smile. 
 
 How silverly the sleeping air is robed 
 
 Around me ! Clouds above, like plats of snow 
 
 That linger on the hills, and laugh the sun 
 
 Away with their white beauty, yet remain ; V 
 
 And now they vanish, and the soundless heaven 
 
 Hangs one deep mass of azure, where the stars, 
 
 Bright pilgrims voyaging an unwaved sea, 
 
 Are strewn, and sparkle with incessant rays 
 
 Of mystery .and meaning. Yet not heaven 
 
 When islanded with all those lustrous worlds, 
 
 Nor cradled Ocean with her waves uproll'd, 
 
 Nor moonlight in a shrouding wanness laid, 
 
 Is so enchanting, as that stillness felt, 
 
 And living with luxurious spell, through all, 
 
 Silent as though a sound had never been ;
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 99 
 
 Or, angels o'er her slumber spread their wings, 
 And breathed a Sabbath into Nature's soul ! 
 
 ..&&.* n ,- , .;;,.., ,. / 
 
 No wonder moonlight made idolaters, 
 That their Creator in creation merged 
 As one surpassing whole : for even I, 
 I who have look'd with archangelic love 
 On all the beauty and the blaze of Heaven, 
 E'en I, the burning of my soul can feel 
 Allay' d, when Nature grows so near divine. 
 And Man, when in the loneliness of night, 
 With adoration in his eye and heart, 
 He walks abroad, and measures at a gaze 
 The starr'd immensity above, becomes 
 Sublime ; a shade of his primeval soul 
 Returns upon him ; pure as ere it fell,
 
 100 SATAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 He feels the spirit swelling up to Heaven, 
 
 Surveying Angels in their halls of light, 
 
 And joining in their chorus round The Throne ! 
 
 Sublime, but impotent, he then appears ; 
 
 The fathomless, oh ! who shall fathom ? Time, 
 
 Eternity, and Truth, three awful words 
 
 That make one myst'ry ; in the midst is God ! 
 
 END OF BOOK THE FIRST.
 
 NOTES TO BOOK I.
 
 NOTES 
 
 NOTE, page 31. 
 
 The day is coming, when you moulder into dust, 
 And melt away, like dew upon the wind. 
 
 " The sands of those deserts which lie to the westward of 
 Egypt are encroaching on and narrowing, by a constant and 
 irresistible inroad, the valley of the Nile of Egypt. We see the 
 pyramids gradually diminishing in height, particularly on their 
 western sides ; and we read of towns and villages which have 
 been buried in the desert, but which once stood in fertile soils, 
 some of whose minarets were still visible a few years ago, attest- 
 ing the powers of the invading sand. * * * Advancing, I 
 repeat, to the annihilation of Egypt and all her glories, with 
 the silence, but with the certainty too, of all-devouring time" 
 Sir RUFANE DONKIN'S Course, &c, of the Niger. 
 
 NOTE, page 34. 
 
 Upon the soul of sage Philosophy 
 
 And Wisdom, templed in the shrines of old, 
 
 Faint shadows of my being fell. 
 
 " If we consult the most authentic monuments of antiquity, 
 we find all nations under the sun, in the earliest ages, however 
 differing in other points, agreeing in the belief of evil as well as 
 good Spirits. The Persian Magi and the Chaldeans distin- 
 guished the Devil by the name of Arimanus ; the Egyptians 
 under that of Typhon. The Greeks and Romans admitted both 
 wicked and good Demons" SEED.
 
 104 SATAN. [NOTES. 
 
 NOTE, page 40. 
 
 Who thrones a Winter on his awful head, 
 And lays the Summer laughing at his feet. 
 
 " Lebanon ; 
 
 Whose head in wintry grandeur towers, 
 
 And whitens with eternal sleet, 
 While summer, in a vale of flowers, 
 
 Is sleeping rosy at his feet." MOORE. 
 
 NOTE, page 44. 
 
 A Tyrant ! in whose passion for a power, 
 Enthroned above all liberty and law. 
 
 " We close our view of Bonaparte's character, by saying, that 
 his original propensities, released from restraint, and pampered 
 by indulgence, to a degree seldom allowed to mortals, grew up 
 into a spirit of despotism as stern and absolute as ever usurped 
 the human heart. The love of power and supremacy absorbed, 
 consumed him. No other passion, no domestic attachment, no 
 private friendship, no love of pleasure, no relish for letters or the 
 arts, no human sympathy, no human weakness, divided his mind 
 with the passion for dominion and for dazzling manifestations of 
 his power. Before this, duty, honour, love, humanity fell pros- 
 trate. Josephine, we are told, was dear to him ; but the devoted 
 wife, who had stood firm and faithful in the day of his doubtful 
 fortunes, was cast off in his prosperity, to make room for a 
 stranger, who might be more subservient to his power. He was 
 affectionate, we are told, to his brothers and mother ; but his 
 brothers, the moment they ceased to be his tools, were disgraced ; 
 and his mother, it is said, was not allowed to sit in the presence
 
 BOOK I.] SATAN. 105 
 
 of her imperial son. He was sometimes softened, we are told, 
 by the sight of the field of battle strown with the wounded and 
 dead. But if the Moloch of his ambition claimed new heaps of 
 slain to-morrow, it was never denied. With all his sensibility, 
 he gave millions to the sword, with as little compunction as he 
 would have brushed away so many insects, which had infested 
 his march." CHANNING. 
 
 NOTE, page 58. 
 
 And yet a curse is on thee ! 'tis the curse 
 Of havoc. 
 
 " The Spaniards conquered the islands, and a great part of 
 the continent of America. Stimulated by the thirst of gold, 
 which the New World offered to them in abundance, they com- 
 mitted crimes and barbarities which make humanity shudder. 
 Millions of the unfortunates were either massacred or buried in 
 the sea." C. KOCH'S Revolution, translated by Crichton. 
 
 " In no period does human nature appear with more shock- 
 ing features than in the Spanish conquest of South America," 
 MICKLE'S Lusiad. 
 
 NOTE, page 59. 
 
 But thou the Sun hath written on thee, SLAVE ! 
 
 " A SLAVE-MARKET. A long table was placed in the middle 
 of the street, upon which the negroes were exposed, not one by 
 one, but in families at a time. From this conspicuous station, 
 they were shewn off by two auctioneers, one at each end of the 
 table, who called out the biddings, and egged on the purchasers 
 by chanting the praises of their bargains. The auctioneers 
 having told the names of each, and described their qualifica-
 
 106 SATAN. [NOTES. 
 
 tions, requested the sin-rounding gentlemen to bid. One hun- 
 dred dollars for each member of the family, or five hundred for 
 the whole party, was the first offer. This gradually rose to one 
 hundred and fifty, at which sum they were knocked down! !" 
 BASIL HALL'S America. 
 
 NOTE, page 83. 
 
 a* oft the phantom of a cloud, 
 In single darkness cowering on the air, 
 Looks fiercer for the frownless heaven around : 
 So Fame is murder' d, that the dull may live. 
 
 In the fourth edition of D'lsraeli's " LITEKARY CHARACTER" 
 (the most interesting work of its kind in the language) there is a 
 manuscript note quoted from Lord Byron, singularly illustrative of 
 the sensibility of genius. Disraeli records that, " When Petrarch 
 was passing by his native town, he was received with the honours 
 of his fame ; but when the heads of the town conducted Pe- 
 trarch to the house where the poet was born, and informed him 
 that the proprietor had often wished to make alterations, but that 
 the towns-people had risen to insist that the house which was 
 consecrated by the birth of Petrarch should be preserved un- 
 changed ; this was a triumph more affecting to Petrarch than 
 his coronation at Rome." Vol. ii. p. 286-7. 
 
 To this passage Lord Byron has added the following note 
 " It would have pained me more that ' the proprietor' should 
 have ' often' wished to make alterations, than it could give 
 pleasure that the rest of Arezzo rose against his right (for right 
 he had) ; the deprecation of the lowest of mankind is more 
 painful than the applause of the highest is pleasing ; the sting 
 of a scorpion is more in torture than the possession of anything 
 could be in rapture."
 
 SATAN. 
 
 BOOK II.

 
 SATAN, 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 On man, on Nature, and on human life, 
 Musing in solitude. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 AND such the nature of a noble world. 
 
 Magnificence, and Beauty, Pomp, and Might, 
 
 Together mingling their material power, 
 
 Supremely glorify this living orb, 
 
 The beatings of whose heart are heard in Heaven 
 
 Her roar of seas, the voices of the winds 
 
 In forests plunged, or playing their mild wings
 
 110 SATAN. [BOOK 11. 
 
 Till the tuned air is one harmonious breeze 
 Of joy, Mortality's eternal life 
 And motion, with those passion-tones of Mind, 
 That sound so awful on the sleepless ear 
 Of spirits, watching like pure sentinels 
 O'er human hearts, such fearful stir of things 
 Might well in viewless worlds an echo wake. 
 And may not he, the Monarch of the scene, 
 Swell into glory, when he champions Time, 
 Proclaiming what a vassal he hath been, 
 And how great Nature has his charm obey'd ? 
 The elements he made them servile Powers, 
 Or mix'd their spirit with his own ; the rocks 
 Uprear'd, he scaled them to the clouds ; 
 The ocean thunder'd with her dreadful waves, 
 He braved them, and they bore him like a god !
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. Ill 
 
 Yea, more ; in haunts where Desolation nursed 
 The midnight tempest, howling for his prey, 
 There hath the City piled her myriad domes ; 
 And Life her awing scenery unroll'd. 
 
 So vast his triumph o'er the varied range 
 Of elemental being ! but the SOUL, 
 Which is an essence drawn from The Supreme, 
 In its omnipotence, may flatter most. 
 How darkly wild, how grandly undefined ! 
 Now sunk in dreams of miserable bliss, 
 Now glowing, gasping for Infinity ! 
 Of senses, inlet to unnumber'djoys, 
 And pains, all exquisitely toned and true ; 
 Of feelings, wrapp'd as life-nerves round the heart, 
 That throbs obedient to their lightning-call ;
 
 112 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 And passions, gods or demons as they rule, 
 Humanity may boast beyond decay : 
 While Thought, eternity is not too deep 
 To fathom ! she can sweep immensity, 
 Shaping her worlds, and soaring on the wings 
 Of Awe, till, drooping^like a weary bird, 
 She drop in wonder to the earth again ! 
 
 With god-like attributes, ethereal powers, 
 Develop' d as the living soul directs, 
 
 What grand perfections hath the Earth produced ! 
 
 *. 
 
 Proud of his being, hear some child of clay : 
 
 " A Monarch, holding empires in his grasp, 
 Is one : Philosophers, who fathom depths 
 Of mystery, and plunge their minds in gloom, 
 That ages may grow brighter, are sublime :
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 113 
 
 And Genius, when by inspiration wing'd, 
 How gloriously the earthless way she mounts, 
 Fronting her Maker with undaunted eye, 
 As eagles gaze undazzled on the sun ! 
 Then may she not the crowning laurel wear, 
 The purest of perfections ?" Further yet : 
 Methinks I'm challenged to admire a man 
 Adorn' d with meekness, graced by heavenly love, 
 And in the noiseless vale of humble life 
 Content, and charitably good ; whose name 
 
 Is nobly register'd in realms divine, 
 
 
 
 Though unrenown'd below, for men forget 
 
 Th' obscure on earth are oft the famed in Heaven. 
 
 These proud examples of terrestrial worth 
 Oft deify man's nature, and exalt 
 
 F
 
 114 SATAN. [BOOK 11. 
 
 His dignity to such a seeming height 
 
 Of greatness, that it spurns away 
 
 The dimming mem'ry of a primal fall, 
 
 And magnifies him to his first estate 
 
 Of glory. What am I, then, if the earth 
 
 Hath not been cursed, and clouded ? Not a shape 
 
 Of woe, the prey of agonizing fires ; 
 
 A seraph, with his raiments roll'd in light, 
 
 The hierarchial prince of Heaven ! If man 
 
 Be undegraded, Hell is but a sound 
 
 Of falsehood, dwelling in the soul of Fear. 
 
 
 
 Yet, judge them -by their greatness, what are men ? 
 Of imperfection is their wisdom born, 
 And highest knowledge, ignorance confess' d a . 
 The unknown, when reveal' d, is not the new ; 
 It was, before the eye of Wisdom saw,
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 115 
 
 And soar'd into a certainty ; when seen, 
 
 The blindness of the past is proved, and Pride 
 
 May wonder, but she ought to tremble too ! 
 
 There are, who feel true glory but a ray 
 Of triumph, over imperfection flash' d, 
 That looks the darker when the gleam is o'er. 
 When night hath deepen'd, and the massy earth 
 Lies cover'd with cathedral gloom, abroad 
 The starry watcher roams, and 'mid the far 
 Array of ever-shining worlds, like saints 
 In bright procession marching to the throne 
 Of their Creator, spreads his wand'ring soul, 
 Till, buried in the contemplated God, 
 The man is nothing, and his wisdom dust ! 
 
 F 2
 
 116 SATAN. [BOOK u. 
 
 Nor dare he swell, as if perfection crown'd 
 His being, who can most unearth himself; 
 And from immortal beauty of the mind 
 Reflect the imag'ry of Heaven around, 
 E'en he, whose worship in a sunshine hails 
 The smiles from God's own countenance reveal' d, 
 That flutter round his soul, like faint sweet notes 
 Of music, melting into magic there, 
 Yes ! he is boastless, though he soar aloft, 
 Till Fancy, awe-struck, wait with folded wing 
 Before the blaze of Deity ! And dark 
 To him, the meanness of this common orb, 
 When, breaking from a cloud of holy thought, 
 Wherein he hath been tranced, and held commune 
 With visions of a viewless world, again
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 117 
 
 He hears the rolling waves of life, and sees 
 The gloom and turmoil of created things. 
 
 But if beneath the brightness of the soul 
 A shadoAV of degraded Nature sleep, 
 To make her humble, then how far removed 
 From primal Virtue are the men whom Vice 
 Impregn with her dark spirit ! Well, indeed, 
 Hath Hell with Heaven divided empire won ; 
 How widely, let the sumless Angels b speak ! 
 Who frequent shudder with regretful awe, 
 When glancing through the dark abyss within, 
 To view the waves of passion as they rise, 
 The trance, the stir, and tempest of the mind ! 
 To such, the blackness of the past is known ! 
 Within whose bosom lies entomb'd a mass
 
 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 Of crime, by sinful myriads heap'd ; the curse 
 Lies buried with them, till the trumpet-blast 
 Be sounded, and the sleep of ages burst 
 For retribution ! then will wrath awake ; 
 And I, the doubted One, shall stand reveal'd ! 
 
 > 
 And what a burden of unheeded sin 
 
 Upon the death of each departing hour 
 
 Is borne into eternity! The Past 
 
 Was roughen' d with a stormy wickedness ; 
 
 The Present, with a smoother surface tempts 
 
 The judgment ; 'tis a most diseaseful calm ! 
 
 Beneath it, in their cool, collected power 
 
 The passions glide, all sinuous, but impure : 
 
 But should they dare the world's avenging gaze, 
 
 Why, Evil, then thou art indeed a God !
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 119 
 
 Ohl it is laughter that allays our pangs, 
 
 To see these clay-born upstarts, who were framed 
 
 To beautify our faUen thrones, enslaved, 
 
 And led, unheedful martyrs, to their doom. 
 
 First in my train of ministers, behold 
 Assuming Pride, who lifts her lofty eye 
 To Heaven, as though in scorn of its dread height ; 
 And when she bends it to the earth, surveys 
 All creatures but to dwarf them in a glance 
 Of stern comparison. But nobler far, 
 Appears Ambition, whose o'erwhelming fires 
 Once fed my own proud nature, till it dared 
 To launch the thunders of Divinity ! 
 Of all my tempters, there is no such power, 
 Such mingling of the demon and the god,
 
 120 SATAN. [BOOK 11. 
 
 As that which in Ambition dwells. The soul 
 Of virtue, by her hallowing spirit touch'd, 
 May emulate the seraphs, in her love 
 Divine, through this dark pilgrimage : but rare 
 On earth, is such sublime ambition found, 
 Or seldom would she waft a soul to me ! 
 She haunts the lowliness of life ; there shapes 
 Her phantoms wild, or glittering delights. 
 But oftener she assumes a warrior mien, 
 To make a hero ; stirs him with the sight 
 Of banners, flouting a defiance, plains, 
 And battle-hills with throbbing echoes roll'd, 
 He rides a charger in victorious dreams, 
 And wakes a hero ! let him gash the world ! 
 
 Ambition fires that genius in the mind, 
 Which mortals on a throne of magic seat,
 
 BOOK II.^ SATAN. 121 
 
 Most heavenly-bright, without a shade of earth, 
 Her nature a nobility : the great 
 She magnifies, the mean she can exalt, 
 Lend virtue majesty, and vice a veil, 
 The all-adored creation for her charm ! 
 When weary stars grow twinkless, and depart, 
 Like ghosts that vanish at the dawn of day, 
 She wanders forth, and sees the budding morn 
 To freshen the pale sky, like that young glow 
 Which o'er the cheek of waking Beauty steals ; 
 And night, it is the noon of joy to her, 
 Unutterably glorious ! not a sound 
 Abroad ; the moon, an isle of loveliness ; 
 The stars, hung beautiful, as all new-born, 
 And lavish of their lustre ; she could dream 
 Her spirit wafted into some Elysian orb 
 
 F 5
 
 122 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 Deep in the luxury and bloom of Heaven. 
 All -sights and sounds are meanings to her mind; 
 The seas are mirrors of almightiness, 
 The storm-winds, spirits ocean-born, that prove 
 The life and passion of ten thousand waves, 
 In the rude tempest of their roaring ire ; 
 Whate'er is vision'd, she can make her own, 
 Shaping the world to an enchanted sphere ! 
 
 Yet Genius oft is mad Ambition's wing, 
 In shining motion playing o'er mankind. 
 Alone, she cannot conquer Virtue's height, 
 Nor bask in her elysium ; to the heart 
 One single virtue wins a prouder claim 
 Of eminence, than mighty Genius wears 
 In all her glory : while her dazzling race
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 123 
 
 Are blinded into self-idolatry, 
 Some unobtrusive child of Woe, through want 
 And anguish doom'd to meet his aidless lot, 
 Hath pour'd his spirit into fervent prayer, 
 And clung so faithful to the Cross of Christ, 
 That he is famous in the rolls of Heaven, 
 Where lies a mansion, waiting for his soul! 
 
 A withering, but eternal truth, to me. 
 
 
 
 Next, Avarice and Envy, meaner powers 
 Of evil, aid me in my dark domain. 
 The first, a boundless feeling ; more or less 
 A second nature to the human mind, 
 Whose self-love is the life of thought and deed : 
 But in some bosoms kindling all its fire, 
 And rend' ring Man a hideous slave of Self; 
 Till, dungeon'd in her prison, he unlink
 
 124 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 The chains that bind him to his brother Man, 
 Seeing no' world, but what himself reflects ! 
 Mean wretch ! the more he gets, the less he gives ; 
 For ever greedy, as the hunger 1 d shark 
 That scents the dead among the waves afar. 
 
 Nature is nought to him ; the darken' d soul 
 
 
 
 Hath dimm'd his eye, it glitters but for gold, 
 
 And that shall season his departing hour : 
 For what so grateful to the clammy touch 
 Of dying fingers, as to taste his gold, 
 While, sighing o'er it with a farewell gaze, 
 He mourns the nothing of the wealthless tomb. 
 
 But though in such abasement I exult, 
 A fronting excellence before it towers. 
 How nobly different lives the genial one,
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 125 
 
 Whose heart is large enough to hold the world ! 
 Benevolence is life and breath to him ; 
 He spreads it out like sunshine from the soul, 
 Itself its own reward ; whate'er he views 
 Can waken sympathy : the clouds and streams, 
 The meadows, trees, and family of flowers, 
 For each and all is livingly endow'd, 
 He feels a beauteous love, but gives to Man 
 The throbs and throes of sympathy divine. 
 For buried grief, and those avenging pangs 
 That prey unutter'd on the gentle mind, 
 He hath a healing tone ; and from the joys 
 That shoot and sparkle o'er the stream of life r 
 Who fetches out the flash of bliss, like he ? 
 A hoary parent clasping his brave boy, 
 With eyes all running o'er with ecstacy ;
 
 126 SATAN. BOOK ir. 
 
 A sweet and fairy-featured infant, sat 
 In laughing beauty on its mother's knee, 
 That rocks it into rapture ; or a pair 
 Of lovers, looking in each other's eyes, 
 As though the lustre of far distant years 
 Were in them, beaming with prophetic glow, 
 O'er these, and every sun-burst of delight, 
 Benevolence can wave her angel wings, 
 And find in sympathy the soul of joy. 
 
 To pay me for such pure excess of good, 
 Why, who art thou, with eye of dead-like gaze, 
 And care-worn aspect, on thy haggard cheek 
 The seal of woe, and stamp of agony ? 
 O, there be none in Hell more cursed than thou, 
 And Envy is thy name ! though often crown'd
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 127 
 
 For Emulation, by thy martyr'd slave; 
 But she, proud spirit ! walks a nobler sphere. 
 Whether amid the madness of the storm, 
 When skies are rack'd asunder, and the sea 
 Lies rolling in the rapture of her strength, 
 She longs to be the Lord of Elements, 
 Sublimely o'er a thousand tempests throned ! 
 Or gaze the starry natures, till her own 
 Seems panting to be bright and pure as they ; 
 Or swelling at the sound of monarch names, 
 Would fain outshine the splendor of them all, 
 A generous and god-like thing appears. 
 But thou art unredeem'd ; a burning mass 
 Of self-made mis'ry ; tortured by the Curse 
 Roll'd back in vengeance on thy horrid self, 
 Though breathed for others ; in whose nobleness
 
 128 SATAN. [BOOK u. 
 
 The quality for detestation breeds ; 
 
 And yet, by Hate more beautified, it glows 
 
 To false perfection. What hath framed thy curse ? 
 
 Inferiority unveil'd, and seen, 
 
 Through contrast from surpassing glory shed. 
 
 And hence that scowling eloquence of eye ; 
 
 Hence Beauty, with her fairyness of form, 
 
 And looks of light, like those by angels cast ; 
 
 Hence Wisdom, laurell'd \vith a fadeless wreath 
 
 Well-earn'd, and woven round an aching head, 
 
 Where thoughts have throbb'd like pulses in the brain, 
 
 Each beat a torture ! likewise, Youth and Joy, 
 
 Two sunny phantoms on the wings of Time, 
 
 Are living curses to an envious heart. 
 
 Such Envy makes an unimagined slave ! 
 
 In secret gnawing with its vulture tooth,
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 129 
 
 Or haply, easing its dissembled rage 
 
 In some dark deed of shame, whose hidden guilt 
 
 Is vengeance *. How it haunts the craven wretch ! 
 
 By writhing hell-flames o'er his tortured sleep, 
 
 And building oft the gallows which he dreads ! 
 
 What though he shroud his spirit with a veil 
 
 Of outward gladness ? artificial smiles 
 
 Are smiles of agony ; and when alone 
 
 By some rude shore, Avhere sullen waters roll, 
 
 Like gloomy fancies through a guilty mind ; 
 
 Or, doom'd to hear the sobbing of the wind, 
 
 The melancholy drip of midnight rain, 
 
 And death-tales, faintly knell' d from far-off towers, 
 
 The calm is burst,- the buried thoughts arise, 
 
 * $9v5; S' KfiiivovT 1 O.TO.. Find. Pyth. xi. 83.
 
 130 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 The spirit storms with anguish, and Despair 
 Feels half the Hell it shudders to foresee ! 
 
 Far wider, and more deathful in his reign, 
 Is Lust ; the malady of impure souls, 
 That fills the senses with lascivious fire, 
 O'erheats the fancy, and to dalliant thought 
 Presents all beauty moulded but for shame. 
 And such is Passion, when entitled true, 
 Anatomized, and known. Yet lewd-soul'd men, 
 Romantically vile, decoy the hearts 
 Of virtue, and disease them by a word, 
 Whose smoothness hides the shame its meaning hath. 
 This passion is the poetry of vice, 
 And beautifies corruption. Hence the mind 
 That would have scorn'd its foul sincerity,
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 131 
 
 Enchanted by delusion, melts away 
 In fatal slumber, till the veil is rent, 
 
 N 
 
 And all the daggers of remorse appear ! 
 
 Hail, human demons ! whose devouring lust 
 Hath tainted Nature ; ply your wanton hearts 
 That ruin with a smile ! -and so shall forms, 
 Whose seraph beauty seem'd to breathe divine, 
 Be wither'd, and the tears of woman flow ; 
 While she, who might a lovely home-queen reign, 
 Unsooth'd, and unredeem'd, is frown'd away, 
 The profanation and the blight of ah 1 ! 
 
 Yet Hell cannot deny, on earth there glows 
 A spirit scarcely weaken' d by the Fall, 
 The soul of feeling, and the sun of life,
 
 132 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 Queen of the Passions, all-persuasive Love ! 
 And could I mingle with the bliss of man, 
 I'd share it in the sweetness of her smiles. 
 
 Ethereal essence, interfused through life, 
 Is love. In orbs of glory spirits live 
 On such perfection ; and on earth it feeds 
 And quickens all things with a soul-like ray : 
 The beautiful in its most beauteous sense ; 
 And symbolized by nature c , in her play 
 Of harmonies, her forms, her hues, and sounds ; 
 In each connexion, aptitude, and grace 
 Reside. Thus flow'rs in their infantile bloom 
 Of sympathy, the bend of trees, and boughs, 
 The chime of waters, and caress of winds, 
 Betoken that they all partake a sense
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 133 
 
 Of that sweet principle, that charms the world. 
 Th' omnipotence of this pervading power, 
 By aught of time or destiny opposed, 
 Like God himself may grow consuming fire, 
 Which I can freshen with infernal joy ! 
 Oh, many, gentle as their tide of years, 
 While o'er them dances Love's serening ray, 
 When disappointment clouds them, woo Despair, 
 And riot onward through a wild' ring course, 
 Untemper'd and untamed ; so flows the stream, 
 That ever nurseth its delicious calm, 
 Till wrung by nature into torrent force, 
 And foaming reckless through the wild ! 
 
 And thou, 
 The star of home, who in thy gentleness
 
 134 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 On the harsh nature of usurping man 
 
 i 
 
 Benign enchantment canst so deeply smile,- 
 Soft as a dew-fall from the brow of eve, 
 Or moonlight shedding beauty on the storm, 
 Woman ! when love has wreck'd thy trusting 
 
 heart, 
 
 What port remains to shelter thee ! too fond, 
 Too delicately true, thy nature is, 
 Save for the heart's idolatry ; and then, 
 Thy love is oft a light to virtue's path. 
 It dawns, and with'ring passions die away, 
 Low raptures fade, pure feelings blossom forth, 
 And that which Wisdom's philosophic beam 
 
 
 
 Could never from the wintry heart awake, 
 By love is smiled into celestial birth ! 
 Thus love is Wisdom with a sweeter name.
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 
 
 But such is not for me ! I cannot love ; 
 
 For curses are the essence of each thought, 
 
 i 
 
 Writhing my spirit on a rack of fire. 
 
 O Vengeance ! ere I heard thy thunders roll, 
 
 With what delight I roam'd heaven's bowers among, 
 
 With mighty angels, and Elysian shapes, 
 
 Amid revealings of seraphic love ! 
 
 But here, in low-sphered earth, a shadow dwells 
 
 Of her divinity. In virgin youth, 
 
 When feelings are as foster' d buds of joy, 
 
 And freshness, from the spring of soul within ; 
 
 When the full gush of tenderness awakes 
 
 Like spirit-music in the mind, the heart 
 
 Is tuned to love, and owns her magic true. 
 
 And now, Earth wears the attributes of Heaven ! 
 
 Two hearts are one, two natures are divine :
 
 136 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 What words in looks, what love in every tone ! 
 Moonlight, and azure sleep of cloudless air, 
 Eve-walks, their mildness and romantic hush, 
 How beautiful for lovers' breathed vows ! 
 Then love, enthusiast ! ere the drossy world 
 Corrupt thee ; soon shall sorrow dash thy lot 
 With bitterness ; the spell shall soon unwind, 
 And Evil woo thee to her envious arms. 
 Such love's the revel of a summer ray, 
 The shadow of a heaven-sent dream ; once gone, 
 'Tis gone for ever ! darkness shall invade 
 Thy spirit, and the green delights of youth 
 Drop witheringly into barren age, 
 When love remains a mem'ry, and a tear d . 
 
 Next, Jealousy, the curse of tainted love,
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 137 
 
 Or causeless agony, by selfish thought 
 
 Endured, a minister of evil makes. 
 
 Who haunts unseen some haggard spot, to hear 
 
 The night-air panting with a rueful swell, 
 
 Like sadness from a loaded bosom heaved ? 
 
 Her victim! she hath blister'd his fond heart, 
 
 And through his veins a fiery venom pour'd : 
 
 His mind is torture, and that torture Hell ! 
 
 The world is changed, corrupted, false, and cold 
 
 As Autumn, when her dimming rain-dews fall, 
 
 To his delightless gaze. For damning proof 
 
 All shades of accident are mass'd : he storms 
 
 And doubts, despairs and doubts again, then tames 
 
 His wild suspicion into sullen calm, 
 
 Dark as the stillness of a breeding cloud.
 
 138 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 And what of her, so fatally beloved ? 
 Still beautiful and fair ; but on each charm 
 The profanation of some fancied eye 
 Hath dwelt, that haunts him like a hideous gaze. 
 Thus Jealousy the mind gangrenes, till thoughts 
 Are feverous wounds, that turn the weary day 
 To anguish, and the night the same. How oft 
 He wakes and watches the suspected one, 
 When from her soul the light of slumber breaks, 
 As though it dreamt of sunshine and of flowers ! 
 But, dreams it thus for him ? To-morrow comes, 
 And Jealousy renews her rack again. 
 
 " This World, how fleeting and how vain ! Our joys 
 Are blossoms tonr by each ungentle wind ; 
 Our pleasures, but the painted dreams of air ;
 
 BOOK II.] 8ATAN. 139 
 
 Our hopes, they light us onward to the tomb!" 
 
 Morality, how musical thy tones 
 
 Upon the lip of smooth Hypocrisy ! 
 
 And such a strain, how sweetly does it lull 
 
 The idiot ears of undiscerning men, 
 
 Who worship words, a shadow of pure deeds, 
 
 And think the tongue translates the heart. The world 
 
 Is rank with hypocrites ! a coward race 
 
 Of such ignoble vileness, that they shame 
 
 Temptation, though they track her hell-ward path. 
 
 Who bravely dares the censure of mankind, 
 
 Pays dear for Vice, but reaps her value too, 
 
 In full and free enjoyment : but the slave 
 
 Of hidden sin is ever Torture's fool, 
 
 Proving his own avenger. Many are 
 
 The. man ties which adorn your hypocrite. 
 
 Behold him now,, a most insinuous man, 
 
 G 2
 
 140 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 Smoother than waters sleeping in the sun, 
 
 To common gazers ; now, a courteous shape, 
 
 All delicately civil ; full of words 
 
 Well rounded into compliments, that serve 
 
 Alike to sweeten the sour face of friends, 
 
 And mask a falsehood from a dreaded foe ; 
 
 Or else, benevolently mad, with purse 
 
 In hand ; Misfortune, dip thy finger there ; 
 
 Neglected Want ! for you it opens wide ; 
 
 And oh ! ye soft-lipp'd dealers in applause, 
 
 Resound the dews of Mercy as they fall, 
 
 To crown him famous, Charity's own child ; 
 
 And why ? she pays a penalty for sin, 
 
 And bribes the conscience, while it gilds a name. 
 
 Then mark the hypocrite, of pious mould, 
 For ever putting on unearthly moods,
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 141 
 
 And looking lectures with his awful eyes ; 
 
 A sun-like centre of religious zeal ; 
 
 So pure, he would be better than the best ! 
 
 True virtue is a heavenliness of mind, 
 
 That, in the mercy of a mild reproof, 
 
 Sheds healing sympathy o'er human woe. 
 
 But he is cold, uncharitably good ; 
 
 Dealing the thunderbolts of sacred wrath 
 
 With apostolic vengeance. Mighty Heaven ! 
 
 What lip-work are his pharisaic prayers ! 
 
 And what a monument among the young 
 
 Or gay, when clouded with an envious gloom, 
 
 While death and judgment threaten from his brow, 
 
 He comes, where Youth and Innocence embrace, 
 
 To talk of time and change, how gaping tombs 
 
 Their dead await, to sleep in darkness here ;
 
 142 SATAX. [BOOK n. 
 
 Or, sternly paints some portraiture of sin, 
 But feels himself the model whence he drew ! 
 
 There is another and a fearful slave 
 I love to train, the glory of revenge, 
 A ruin that developes me, and prints 
 The die of Evil in her deepest hue 
 On erring souls, the Atheist ! with his creed 
 Of darkness, brooding on the sunken mind, 
 Till Truth deny her Nature, and the Man 
 Live like a bubble dancing on the stream 
 Of Time, that sparkles, and is seen no more, 
 A nothing with a name ! But since the soul 
 Is effluence divine, the inward rays 
 Of Deity cannot be quenched ; the God 
 Is clouded, yet an indistinct, and dread
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 143 
 
 Religion, in the cowering spirit dwells". 
 
 Since Egypt worshipp'd her material gods, 
 
 Through all the pantheistic gloom of Greek 
 
 And Roman ages, Deity hath reign'd, 
 
 Though hid in fabling wisdom. Where the Mind, 
 
 Untaught, could not to perfect God ascend, 
 
 And see Him as he is, the AWFUL ONE, 
 
 Who wields Eternity, and portions Time, 
 
 Commands a deluge, or dissolves a world ! 
 
 The Passions shadow'd forth fantastic gods, 
 
 As Fear, or Wonder, or the dreaming eye 
 
 Of Luxury, sensualized the soul, 
 
 And moulded Heaven the heaven of each desire. 
 
 An Atheist, he hath never faced an hour, 
 And not belied the name he bore. His doubt f
 
 144 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 Is darkness from the unbelieving Will 
 
 Begot, and oft a parasite to sin 
 
 Too dear to be deserted, for the truth 
 
 That unveils Heaven, and her immortal thrones, 
 
 Uncovers Hell, and awful duties too ! 
 
 Meanwhile, I flatter the surpassing fool, 
 
 And hear him challenge God to bare His brow, 
 
 Unsphere some orb, and shew Him all sublime. 
 
 He challenge Heaven ! an atom against worlds ! 
 
 Why, Angels and Archangels, who have sat 
 
 Within the shadow of His throne, and felt 
 
 The beams of an emitted glory burn 
 
 Around them, cannot comprehend His might, 
 
 Nor fathom His perfections : what is Man ! 
 
 If Nature fail, then reason may despair ;
 
 BOOK, II.] SATAN. 145 
 
 The universe is stamp' d with God ; who sees 
 Creation, and can no Creator view, 
 To him Philosophy will preach in vain * : 
 A blinded nature, and a blasted mind 
 Are his ; Eternity, shall teach the rest ! 
 Yet who the summer, that bright season-queen, 
 Hath hail'd, beheld the march of midnight worldsy 
 The sun in glory, or his skiey realm, 
 When thunder-demons are abroad again, 
 And riding on the chariot roll of clouds ! 
 Who that hath seen the ocean-terrors swell, 
 Or, moonshine rippling o'er the rocking waves 
 In smiles of beauty, all this living might, 
 And motion, grace, and majesty of things, 
 Nor caught some impulse that believing heart 
 Might share, and crown it with a creed sublime ? 
 
 G 5
 
 146 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 But there are others of unheavenly hue ; 
 A mass of creatures, by the earth beloved, 
 Who bear a seemly fame, revere their limbs 
 And senses, smile on Nature when they please, 
 And walk through life, as children by a shore, 
 Who sport and laugh, and reap the sandy toys 
 That glitter on their path yet sometimes pause 
 With museful eye, to mark the awing swell 
 Of Ocean, like a vision, heaving wild. 
 Too mean for Virtue, too polite for Vice, 
 The happy medium which their spirits keep 
 Is fitly toned to temporal joys: they live, 
 As though Eternity were such a life, 
 
 And drown all instincts of diviner growth 
 
 > 
 In plots and plans, whereby the hours are wing'd. 
 
 The one is fearful of the trait' rous winds
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 147 
 
 Wafting a sailing palace o'er the deep ; 
 
 What fancy-shipwreck overwhelms the soul ! 
 
 What billows ever rocking in his brain ! 
 
 Another hath a mountainous ascent 
 
 Of life to vanquish, where a rival blooms : 
 
 Though Angels whisper to his heart, Return ! 
 
 Still must he omvard up to glory climb. 
 
 Then comes the zealot, weeping country's wounds ; 
 
 And yet, with what a pleased prophetic yell, 
 
 As screams the vulture round his future prey, 
 
 His fancy revels o'er a ruin'd land ! 
 
 And thus, blasphemeful of the patriot name, 
 
 He lives on vileness that his tongue creates. 
 
 And such are these, who make the middle class 
 Of creatures, wedded to the dust they tread,
 
 148 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 But doom'd to wrestle with contrasted lots, 
 
 And all the cloudy woes of life. There droops a man, 
 
 Poetic sadness in his pensive eye, 
 
 As haunting tombs, or scenes beyond the dead ; 
 
 And here, a victim of tempestuous thought, 
 
 Wolf-eyed, and glaring out his wilder'd mind 
 
 In glances lit Avith torture ! while- to mock 
 
 Their coward anguish, see a soulless thing 
 
 Appear, whose spirit bubbles out in song : 
 
 And this is life, a sunbeam in a storm ! 
 
 Here dwells my power ; in living things that grasp 
 The Spirit, or that blind it with a blaze 
 Reflected from the scene of earthly show, 
 
 V 
 
 That curtains up Eternity ! No truths 
 Divine, no energies which pant for heaven,
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 149 
 
 Within the depths of such a spirit play ; 
 But he, who from his soul the sensual chain 
 Uncoils, and looks into life's holier things, 
 Wears attributes beyond the reach of Hell. 
 Then Time is no enchanter, though his cup 
 May sparkle, and with brimming sweets be crown'd. 
 The shadows of a far mysterious world 
 He longs to enter, triumph o'er this scene, 
 And gather round him like a girdling spell. 
 
 Not such the earth-adoring million prove. 
 When this world dies, the next begins to live ; 
 Infinity then flashes on the inward eye 
 With fearful sternness, till the mind start back 
 Aghast, like fancy from a hideous dream ! 
 At that deep hour, when dwindling to a blank 
 
 * 
 I
 
 150 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 The earth departs, and those dear sounds of life 
 
 That once prevail'd so eloquently sweet, 
 
 Grow faint and dismal, as the dreary voice 
 
 Of waters, gurgling round a drowning man, 
 
 The solemn meanings of the past are known. 
 
 What spirit warn'd in every funeral knell ! 
 
 How oft the hearse-train, stealing through the rush 
 
 Of sounding pathways with a spectral glide, 
 
 The vision of a dying moment gave ! 
 
 And he, the victim of unvalued hours, 
 
 As home he went from halls of fictious glare, 
 
 The moon night-weary, and the sallow dawn, 
 
 In sickly lustre, o'er the orient spread 
 
 How oft the nothingness of life he felt, 
 
 And dream'd the tragedy Death's acting now ! 
 
 But these are words unwelcomed and unloved ;
 
 BOOK II/J SATAN. 
 
 The sad intrusion of a sober thought ; 
 
 A cloud pass'd o'er the summer of the mind, 
 
 And laugh'd away in lightness, or in joy. 
 
 The dead, the faded, and forgotten dead, 
 
 The progeny of ages, who have breathed 
 
 That breath of life which all the living breathe, 
 
 Have walk'd beneath the same blue sky, and hail'd 
 
 The lord of brightness that illumes their path, 
 
 Inherited the same mysterious dust, 
 
 And form'd like them a link in Nature's chain, 
 
 Have shrunk away, like shadows into gloom, 
 
 And who laments ? Yes ! they, the fair and young, 
 
 In the prime bloom of spousal years, who seem'd 
 
 Too beautiful to die ; and fame's proved race 
 
 Of heroes, o'er whose bier a nation wept ; 
 
 With all that number multiplied, can dream
 
 152 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 Of mindless creatures dancing round their tombs, 
 
 And mocking at eternity ! are plunged 
 
 And buried in the unremember'd past, 
 
 Yet, few dare meditate their dying hour ! 
 
 Oh, did the living but the dead recall 
 
 As often as the dead the living do h , 
 
 The sun would gaze upon a purer world 
 
 Than now ; but let the dead remain the dead * ! 
 
 Thus Pleasure teach thou my philosophy: 
 
 Thy truths are sweet, thy curses all conceal'd. 
 
 May never Wisdom's heaven-communing eye 
 To these, the earthly and the low reveal, 
 
 * Qua? enim potest in vita esse jucunditas, cum dies et noctes cogi- 
 tandum sit, jam jamque esse moriendum ? Tusc. Ques.
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 153 
 
 That sounds of folly pierce the gloom of Hell ; 
 That tongues of torture syllable their names 
 
 In regions where the fiery whirlwinds roar ! 
 
 \ 
 Again to this forsaken orb of life 
 
 Fain would a perish' d father come, to dart 
 
 One glance upon an unbelieving child, 
 
 To breathe one sigh of warning to his soul ! 
 
 May never men of whisp'ring angels learn, 
 
 How Heaven is brighten'd, when the Earth adores ! 
 
 Thus balance mortals in whatever scale 
 They move, whether by triumphs, that are reap'd 
 From fields of glory, or of genius born, 
 I estimate them, from their primal state 
 An awful distance have the rebels sunk ! 
 That primal state ! had evil not prevail'd,
 
 154 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 A heaven in miniature the world had been. ;' 
 
 Her Paradise ! I see it, as it rose 
 
 In youthful splendour on my savage eye ; 
 
 A starry jubilee still rang ; the wings 
 
 Angelical of many a hovering shape 
 
 Still joy'd, and glitter' d in the virgin air 
 
 That seem'd one atmosphere of melody ! 
 
 As yet, no cloud was born ; the sunshine fed 
 
 The flowers with beauty, till the twilight dew ; 
 
 Birds, Eden-sprung, with sky-tints on their plumes, 
 
 And butterflies, bright creatures, rich as they, 
 
 Like showers of blossoms from a tree upwhirPd 
 
 On starry wing hung trembling in the air ! 
 
 More glorious yet ! from Eden's mount I gazed, 
 
 The greenery of whose untrodden hills 
 
 Stirr'd like the laughing hues on plumage seed,
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 155 
 
 And saw two creatures of celestial mould. 
 
 Till these were made, companionless the world 
 
 Appear'd, and as a heart suspended lay, 
 
 All throbbing for the vision that should dawn ! 
 
 And they were fashion'd, breathing shapes of life, 
 
 With radiant limbs, whose robes were innocence, 
 
 And eye that spoke the birth-place of the soul! 
 
 Again the star-chimed hallelujahs rang 
 
 With wonder, Avhile a gush of rapture thrill' d 
 
 Creation to her centre, till each breeze 
 
 Was music, murmur'd out of Nature's heart ! 
 
 And thus they dawn'd, the new-created pair ; 
 In loveliness complete, with forms of light 
 Reflecting glory wheresoe'er they moved. 
 The one did glance the blue immensity
 
 156 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 Above, with a majestic gaze, and eye 
 
 The sun, as though he felt himself akin 
 
 To his pre-eminence, and throned state : 
 
 The other, in her fair perfection seem'd 
 
 A~shape apparell'd by her own pure smiles, 
 
 Surpassing beauty, and subduing love ; 
 
 While ever as she moved, the blush of flowers, 
 
 O'erveiPd her, and a breezy host of sounds, 
 
 Like magic birds, embosom'd in the air 
 
 In sweet attendance caroll'd round her path. 
 
 Never hath sunny mood, or shaping dream, 
 
 Divined the vision Avhich in Eden lay, 
 
 Each sound was music, and each sight a heaven ! 
 
 Such, could I see, nor madden as I gazed ? 
 Obedient, and they vanquished me ; my doom
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 157 
 
 Of darkness would have set, without one gleam 
 Of vengeance, for the living pangs I feel. 
 I plotted, tempted, and the earth-born sunk 
 From Heaven's embrace into the arms of Hell, 
 Henceforward to enclasp a world of souls ! 
 Then, what a withering the elements 
 Of mighty being felt ! Corruption pass'd 
 Through human into natural things ; the Earth 
 Was barren-struck ; the enchanting Sun 
 A thund'ry visor wore ; the rivers howl'd ; 
 And deep o'er all one blast of Desolation blew : 
 A curse came down, and Eden was no more ! 
 
 And now, from his primeval state dethroned, 
 His very form o'ershadow'd by the Sin 
 That, like a breath-stain on a mirror cast,
 
 158 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 The beauty of his god-like mien eclips'd 
 I look'd on man, a remnant of despair, 
 But gloried as I gazed ! for then, the tongue, 
 That tameless member that o'ermastereth all, 
 E'en in an atmosphere of God himself, 
 The grand deceit of erring souls began, 
 Whereby, temptation not the sin arraign' d, 
 The guilt is flatter'd, and the heart secure. 
 
 Creation shudder'd ! for mankind were lost, 
 Till God the seal of mystery should break 
 In Him foredoom'd to bruise the Serpent's head, 
 And re-awake the hymns of Paradise. 
 Meanwhile, the Evil triumph'd o'er the Good ; 
 And, exiled from their Eden home, begirt 
 And guarded with an ever-living flame,
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 159 
 
 Two fallen creatures on the race of life 
 
 In sorrowing loneliness appear'd. Time lash'd 
 
 His years along ; but Evil with them roll'd, 
 
 Till Death in fratricidal fury came ! 
 
 How Life hung shudd'ring o'er his glazing eye ; 
 
 When pale, and dash'd with many a bloody hue, 
 
 The prostrate Abel in the gasp of death 
 
 Lay stretch'd ; while Cain, a maniac child of Hell, 
 
 With lines of anguish working on his face, 
 
 Stood by, and knew himself th' embodied Curse ! 
 
 Crime revelled on, the peopled earth sank deep 
 In ruin, till the great Avenger woke ; 
 Then came a flood, a desolating swell, 
 That deluged sixteen hundred years of Sin ! 
 Methinks I hear it now ! so fiercely howi'd
 
 160 SATAN. [BOOK u. 
 
 The waves and whirlwinds of that dreadful hour. 
 
 Dark prodigies, disasters in the sky 
 
 Announced it, yet scarce one these heralds knew : 
 
 Still Blasphemy went hooting at the heavens 
 
 While they did gape, like caverns in the clouds, 
 
 Mocking the elements with impious joy. 
 
 The Sun went down in sorrow ; and the Moon 
 
 Rose pale and icy, as an orb congeal'd ; 
 
 While, ever and anon, there came a swell 
 
 Of melancholy meaning o'er the wind; 
 
 The sadness of a thousand spirit-lyres 
 
 Seem'd waking into wildness there : but Hell 
 
 Prevail'd, save o'er the sacred few. And one 
 
 The wicked counsell'd, glorious, and as^good ; 
 
 A hoary patriarch, who would haunt the shore, 
 
 And hear a prophet speaking in the wind,
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 161 
 
 And prescient terror in the sound of waves, 
 A myst'ry, mutter' d into Nature's ear ; 
 Then darkly muse on some high-gazing rock, 
 And shape out immortality ! But when 
 The skies were blacken'd to a cloudy sea, 
 Whose rage came down in cataracts, Despair, 
 The racking universe was all thine own ! 
 
 And never were such horrid shadows frown'd 
 Upon the waters, as thy victims threw, 
 When, all aghast, in their avenging ire, 
 They heard them ravenously sweep along 
 As roaring for their prey ! Such sounds 
 Of woe, such shrieks of madness never rang, 
 Such eyes were never to a God upturn'd, 
 As mark'd this dread, unutterable hour ! 
 
 H
 
 162 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 A palpitation in the womb of Earth 
 
 Began, then upward burst a buried sea *, 
 
 That whirl'd the mountains on her waves, and heaved 
 
 The rocks, and shook the rooted hills abroad, 
 
 Till darkness and a deluge covered All! 
 
 Save that which in the ocean wilderness 
 
 Triumphant o'er a welt'ring chaos rode, 
 
 And bore aloft the burden of a world ! 
 
 Yea ! these were dread catastrophes of old, 
 Loading with awfulness the tongue of Time ; 
 Unparagon'd as yet : but, 'tis decreed, 
 Another day of unimagined doom 
 Shall come, a dehige of devouring fire, 
 
 * See Burnett's Chapter on the Deluge.
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 163 
 
 That now is redd'ning in the cavern depths 
 Which eye hath pierced not, ravenous for the hour 
 When Earth shall wither into shapeless dust ! 
 And I, no matter, there are years to face, 
 And souls to gather, ere my sun can set. 
 
 So fierce the sway of Evil, and the power 
 Of Will, o'er Reason, and Religion's voice, 
 That though a thousand deluges had been, 
 Still on the earth my sceptre would command. 
 Unroll the teeming volume of the past, 
 And from each page what lesson may be reap'd ? 
 A moral balance rules the tide of things *, 
 Guiding them on to their eternal goal. 
 From evil, evil, and from good, a good 
 Is born, each one a payment in itself, 
 
 H 2
 
 164 SATAN. [BOOK u. 
 
 Its own avenger, or its own reward. 
 I thank thee, Passion ! blinded by Desire, 
 Thou seest it not, through every track which years 
 Have furrow'd on the travell'd sea of Time. 
 By tears of torture, wrung from out the soul 
 Of Penitence ; by arrows of Remorse ; 
 
 The inward hell in guilty bosoms found ; 
 
 By retributions in the wrathful shape 
 
 Of elements, and dangers wing'd by death ; 
 
 By madd'ning glory, that will venture on 
 
 Till dash'd to ruin by her own renown ; 
 
 By each and all of such avengers, Crime 
 
 Hath paid atonement to the law of Life, 
 
 And agonized o'er that which is to come. 
 
 E'en Nature, in her elemental round
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 165 
 
 Of living wonders, a re-action shews, 
 In semblance to the moral law reveal' d 
 By human destinies. The poise of worlds 
 That make infinity a beauteous thought ; 
 The ocean, panting as the tide-queen wills, 
 In ebb and flow of everlasting waves j" 
 And that communion of the earth and sky, 
 By heat exhaling water into clouds, 
 And clouds returning in the showery rain ; 
 All teach a balance of prevailing power. 
 But thou, Reviver of departed days, 
 By whom, a beacon light for unborn time 
 The past might well have risen, hast forgot 
 The law of retribution in thy love 
 Of fame, and adoration to the dead. 
 A war awakes ! what poetry is here
 
 166 SATAN. [BOOK 11. 
 
 For History to picture into life ! 
 
 The armies rally, vast machines of mind 
 
 Half demonized, with one concent' ring heart 
 
 To animate and harmonize the whole ; 
 
 The clarions ring, the banners chafe the breeze, 
 
 Earth trembles to the haughty-footed steeds, 
 
 And cannons thunder, till the clouds are thrill' d ! 
 
 Then comes your hero sprinkled with a shower 
 
 Of blood, how gloriously sublime he seems ! 
 
 Yet kingdoms mourn, and trodden myriads lie 
 
 All dead, and stiffening in the moonless air. 
 
 But, should re-action for heroic crime, 
 Or lavish conquest, smite a tyrant soul, 
 A human vengeance, not a Hand Supreme, 
 Is traced ; and retribution reason'd down
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 167 
 
 As though Life circled on the wheels of chance. 
 Thus, when a despot, weary of renown, 
 Descends in sorrow to a throneless gloom, 
 How Hist'ry flutters round his agonies, 
 And so the living, in the dead forgot, 
 Are written into sympathy with shame ; 
 While they, whose words are wisdom to the pure, 
 Rise dimly vision'd on th' historic page, 
 Where infamy in glowing language lives k . 
 
 So may it ever be ! let ages gone, 
 Whence monuments, by sad experience piled 
 Might frown a warning o'er unheedful days, 
 Like buried lumber in oblivion sleep ; 
 
 Experience is the sternest foe of Hell. 
 \ 
 
 And though progression be the native soul
 
 1G8 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 Of all things, human or divine, while Pride 
 
 Can hear no prophets breathing through the past, 
 
 Progression will be lame, and Nature slow 
 
 In her advancement to Millennial bloom : 
 
 While frequently, an earthquake shock will come, 
 
 Forcing the world a cent'ry back again 
 
 In vice, and gloom !-^-such as of old o'erthrew 
 
 The Roman empire, and her regal isles. 
 
 I know the haughtiness that now exults 
 Upon the forehead of these fearless times. 
 But let the modern in his pride beware ! 
 Corruption is the strongest in the best, 
 And knowledge wasted, worse than ign'rance proved. 
 A moral, not an intellectual bloom, 
 Yields life and vigour of unerring power,
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 169 
 
 And so taught He, that co-eternal One 
 On high, when, leaving his Elysian throne,. 
 He mingled his bright nature with the clay 
 Of dim mortality, and unbarr'd Heaven, 
 Whose gates of glory now expanded shine. 
 Philosophy, benighted in the gloom 
 Of Pagan wisdom, fondly charming oft 
 The shady luxury of Attic grove, 
 How failing in her eagle flights ! To clear 
 The clouded intellect was her prime aim : 
 The heart, the essence and the spring of life, 
 Rank'd second in her grand array of thought : 
 And thus, her wisdom in a weedy soil 
 Was sown ; and perish' d in its thirst 
 For feelings, that refresh the soul, 
 As spring-dews foster the awaking flowers. 
 
 H5
 
 170 SATAN. [BOOK 11. 
 
 But Christianity, the child of Truth, 
 With moral light the inward nature clear'd, 
 And by a conscience, rooted in the soul, 
 And fears, of which unfading hopes are born, 
 And faculties of faith, which all possess, 
 Awoke the mind to wisdom, deep as heaven. 
 Spirit of Vengeance ! would that I could prove 
 That Ages which have hallow'd ancient time, 
 A revelation pure as this, proclaim'd. 
 One living God, surpassingly supreme, 
 Parent of mighty worlds, pervading each, 
 The First and Last, Immortal, and the True : 
 The Son of His eternity, from Heaven 
 Sent down, embodied in a human mould ; 
 The same hung crucified upon the Cross, 
 Incarnadined with His redeeming blood,
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 171 
 
 For fallen nature flowing, till the Earth 
 As in an agony did rock and heave, 
 While bowing angels worshipp'd in amaze, 
 And Hell grew darker with despair ; a life 
 Unending, shared by an existent soul ; 
 A Resurrection, when the dead are reap'd ; 
 And, crowning all, the doomsday of the world, 
 When every eye must see HIM in the clouds, 
 And Time be swallow' d in Eternity, 
 Would that a scheme of wisdom by the sage 
 Reveal'd, some pageantry of thought sublime 
 Enough to darken this dread pomp, were feign'd, 
 Which Devils read, yet tremble to unroll ! 
 
 But thanks to man, man's most inveterate foe, 
 How oft, perverted, hath Religion proved
 
 172 SATAN. [BOOK'II, 
 
 That curse she came to cancel and destroy ! 
 By bigotry, insatiate for the blood 
 Of martyrs, by the shadows and the clouds 
 That dream-eyed Innovation form'd and fed, 
 The clash of evil with the growth of good 
 Hath half repaid me for the realm I lost, 
 When dawn'd Salvation on the sinking world. 
 
 And now, there is an animating throb, 
 An energy, and daringness of thought, 
 Awaken'd like one mighty pulse, through lands 
 And isles, remotely set in ocean gloom '. 
 But if the HEART uncultivated lie 
 Amid the flush of intellectual power, . 
 Though, basking in the sunshine of her hope, 
 Philosophy of perfect minds may dream,
 
 BOOK II,] SATAN. 173 
 
 She builds a vision baseless, proud and vain, 
 
 As ever revell'd on the eye of sleep : 
 
 For o'er the heart a victim's mind shall rule, 
 
 And poison each aspiring germ of thought, 
 
 Till talent prove but infamy sublimed, 
 
 In dreadful darkness tow'ring o'er mankind. 
 
 So be it ; Hell shall blaze a bright applause, 
 
 No, not till spirit over sense prevail, 
 And mortals to the awfulness of life 
 Advance, will Earth a brighter visage wear. 
 And such, methinks, Creation might reveal. 
 A sea, for ever sounding with his voice 
 Of billows, " Might and majesty are here, 
 And in eternity my Avaves have roll'd :"
 
 SATAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 A sky of living glory, when the storm 
 
 Hath foam'd into an ocean-waste of cloud, >, i r'j 
 
 Or arch'd in beauty, shadowless and blue : 
 
 With all the wonders, swarming on each spot 
 
 Of being, hint they not an awful shade 
 
 Of myst'ry, unreveal'd, yet claiming dreams 
 
 Of reverential hue m ? And then, as hours depart, 
 
 Myriads of spirits passing to and fro 
 
 From life and darkness, from the womb 
 
 Of silence, to this loud sublunar world ; 
 
 While feelings, words, and deeds, whatever mind 
 
 Betray of good or bad in her free pulse 
 
 Of action, register'd above, remain 
 
 For judgment, bear they not, as on they roll, 
 
 A burden, and a meaning most sublime ?
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 175 
 
 Yet who in nature or in time reveres 
 A sense and shadow of diviner things * ? 
 
 * if *4 S trf r < '' s~ 
 
 A spectacle to Angels and to God ! 
 Thus hath the soul of inspiration breathed : 
 And what a grandeur centred in the thought ! 
 Around, above, beneath, where'er man lives 
 And moves, unvision'd natures overhang 
 His path, and chronicle his history. 
 But o'er this pomp external, and the life 
 Of sense, such beautifying veils are thrown, 
 That men become idolaters to sight, 
 Naming all else the nothingness of dreams n : 
 A wisdom worthy an infernal crown ! 
 
 * For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world, 
 are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.St. 
 PAUL'S Epist., Rom. i. 20.
 
 SATAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 Why, if a bead of water in its round 
 Of compass, hath contain'd a countless host 
 Of beings, limb'd, and full of perfect life ; 
 If not a leaf that flutters on the tree, 
 But is empeopled with an insect swarm ; 
 If not a flower by fairy sunrise charm'd, 
 But in the palace of its dew-drop dwell 
 Unnumber'd beings, that in joyance live * ; 
 Then why not, oh ye self-adoring wise, 
 A world of spirit-natures, though unseen, 
 In number rivalling that creation yields ? 
 And vacancy, that hueless void of air 
 Which men unanimated space define, 
 Be pregnant with aerial shapes of life ? 
 
 * See St. Pierre's " Studies of Nature," for some beautiful illustra- 
 tions of this fact.
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 177 
 
 Yet better is such blindness for the cause 
 Of evil ; would it might eclipse the race 
 Entire, of all who have a soul to save ! 
 For some can dare the prison'd mind unbar, 
 And glance unearthliness behind the veil 
 That mantles their mortality. And such, 
 The pale enchantment of a moonlight hour 
 When the far skies are fleck'd with silky clouds, 
 Like shapes of beauty floating on the breath 
 Of Heaven, and stars in their sweet flush appear 
 The bright mementos of eternity, 
 For high communion with celestial things 
 Employ : such spirits never in their clay 
 Are dungeon'd ; but in demi-paradise 
 Do wander, reaping holiness and love. 
 And Guilt too hath her hour, when spectres come,
 
 178 SATAX. [BOOK n. 
 
 Array'd in fury, till the air grow dark 
 
 With demon-wings, and Terror shriek my name ! 
 
 But this deep sense of something unavow'd 
 Pervading nature, which the purer mind 
 May in some beauteous trance of holy thought 
 Perceive, and which the ghastliness of guilt 
 Oft tortures into life, o'er few prevails : 
 In vain have heaven-taught seers the coming world 
 Foreshadow'd : visions of unearthly blaze, 
 And princely seraphs over empires throned *, 
 And dreams which were the delegates of God, 
 Of such past wonders do the Prophets tell. 
 And now, in modern days, when men have crown' d 
 Themselves with false perfection, not an hour 
 * See Daniel.
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 179 
 
 But hints a spirit nature to the soul, 
 
 Hovve'er unhallow'd. Whence that cloudy sense 
 
 Of peril doom'd to come ? those guiding thoughts 
 
 That helm the fancy with mysterious sway ? 
 
 The heaven of feeling when a God descends ? 
 
 Or that sweet sun-thaw, which melodious strains, 
 
 Wherein the spirits of the dead revive, 
 
 And home and childhood have a dawning life, 
 
 Can often o'er a gentle nature bring ? 
 
 With all that sound and scenery awake 
 
 Of purity and power ? Kind infidel ! 
 
 I hail the doubt which thy stern answer proves ; 
 
 Yet angels are there, watching o'er mankind 
 
 With tenderness and eyes of heavenly love. 
 
 The same who, when the world-awakening trump
 
 180 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 Is sounded, shall untomb her treasured dead, 
 And bid the plunder'd Universe to blaze ! 
 
 These agencies divine, howe'er men veil 
 Their influence amid the thralling cares 
 Below, are often in their glorious range 
 Of wisdom, by the viewless Evil powers 
 Encounter'd with Defiance and Despair ! 
 Visions of sunshine and of music made, 
 Where the full soul, embathed in melody, 
 Communes with seraph watchers, are of Heaven. 
 But whence that fancy-roll of billows, heard 
 In darkness, deluging the wilder'd brain 
 With hideous murmur ? or those formless things 
 That hang and blacken o'er the shudd'ring frame ? 
 Or whence that tongueless blasphemy of mind,
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 181 
 
 Making the heart to shiver, and the eye 
 
 To gaze behind, as though a prompting shape 
 
 Of evil stood there, muttering hell-framed words. 
 
 The fire, the fury of appalling dreams, 
 
 Whence is it ? rend the veil, and ye would know, 
 
 Proud victims of an unbelieving heart, 
 
 That these are demon-haunters of the earth p , 
 
 Who horrify the vision'd world of sleep, 
 
 And pall her midnight with infernal gloom. 
 
 Who wonders the dark mysteries of life 
 And hidden beings of unearthly power 
 Are smiled^away for superstitious creed, 
 When He, the Ransomer of lost mankind, 
 Whose name a starry herald to the sage
 
 182 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 Reveal' d, whose birth brought glory from the skies, 
 A blaze and chorus of seraphic joy, 
 Who lived and bled upon this mortal scene, 
 To millions, less than many a hero seems ; 
 A mockery whom none but fools adore ! 
 
 The Saviour, Son of the Most High, enthroned 
 Amid the Hallelujahs of the blest, 
 I saw Him ere the universe began ; 
 When space was worldless, luminously fill'd 
 With emanations of vast Deity ; 
 I saw Him when immensity His voice 
 Obey'd, and NOTHING startled into worlds * ! 
 
 * His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things ; by whom 
 also He made the worlds. HEB. i. 2.
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 183 
 
 And did I not, be witness, Powers inferne ! 
 
 Bear on my brow the lightnings that he wreak'd, 
 
 Because I would not to His Godhead bend ? 
 
 Without Him, and this withering Earth had sunk 
 
 To Hell, for ever blasted by that word 
 
 Of vengeance which her frowning Maker spoke, 
 
 Who cannot His eternal nature change : 
 
 Immutable in majesty, the same 
 
 In sanction, the unalterably True. 
 
 And therefore by His attributes, the Law 
 
 When broken, should to violated Heaven 
 
 Atonement offer ; where the Sacrifice ? 
 
 Till God for God, and Man for Man, appear'd. 
 
 In wondrous union of incarnate power, 
 
 Hung on the cross, and saved a guilty world !
 
 184 SATAN. [BOOK ir. 
 
 I hate Him, and His everlasting cause, 
 The Church, upon the rock of ages rear'd, 
 His word, His truth, and heaven-directing sway ; 
 And soul by soul, and heart by heart, through light 
 And gloom, by land and isle, through life and 
 
 death, 
 
 'Mid all the legions of innumerous Powers 
 That on His ministry attend, and war * 
 For holiness my hate shall dare Him still ; 
 Though Truth may vanquish, and the thrones 
 Of Darkness tremble with their last despair ! 
 
 Too deep the vengeance of atoning blood 
 
 * Vide Chalmers' admirable "Discourse on the Contest for an 
 Ascendancy over Man, amongst the Higher Orders of Intelligence."
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 185 
 
 On me shall come, for him to be forgot ! 
 I hate Him for the ruin'd world he saved ; 
 And yet His glorious pilgrimage confess. 
 Sublime of martyrs ! in that dread career 
 What wonders hallow His remember' d way ! 
 The blind awaken'd to the bliss of light, 
 The deaf and lame, the dying and the dead, 
 All yielding up infirmity to Him, 
 And putting on young attributes of life, 
 Vain mortals, read and tremble ! Once the Sea, 
 That god and glory of the elements, 
 Obey'd His fiat, when a tempest rose, 
 Till waves, like living mountains leapt 
 In the wild majesty of midnight storm, 
 Mocking the haggard lightnings as they streak'd 
 The waters, in the fury of their flash ! 
 
 I
 
 186 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 Each billow was a tempest ; and the ship 
 Groan'd like a mariner at his last gasp ; 
 Up rose He in almightiness ! and bade 
 The whirlwinds into silence, and rebuked 
 The ocean, calming at his fearful glance ! 
 
 And then His Passion, that tremendous scene 
 When Nature wrestled with her God ! And last, 
 The tragedy that made this Earth to quake ! 
 Men wonder if to angry overflow 
 The dark floods rise, if hurricanes be heard, 
 , Or if the throbbing of an earthquake thrill 
 
 Their walls : the sun in blackness, and the gloom, 
 The midnight awfulness o'er Calvary 
 Brooding, coward Fancy should have seen ; 
 Have heard the cloven rock-piles as they burst,
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 181 
 
 The tombs unlock, and mark'd the solemn dead 
 In pallid stillness gliding through the town, 
 Like moon-clouds sailing o'er a midnight sky ! 
 
 This grand array of miracles, this might 
 And majesty of preternatural things, 
 Reveal' d in mercy, to arouse the World 
 To all her sanctities of word and deed, 
 Have, hear it, demons ! with exulting shout, 
 Fail'd ! Long may Nature turn her slighting ear 
 To that true voice, which, since her reign began,^ 
 By lips divine, and that deep eloquence 
 Of life, when holiness the heart inspires, 
 Hath testified that Virtue is supreme 
 Alone ; and Vice the venom of the soul, 
 In every mood and temper of the time. 
 
 12
 
 188 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 How strange, and yet how glorious 'tis to see, 
 That Evil charmeth with her sensual tone, 
 Though Mercy, like a sun-beam from the skies, 
 Her guiding ray is ever shedding down 
 On man's dim path, to lead him into good. 
 Why, what a host of unrepentant fools ! 
 Who, flush in May-warm youth, begin 
 And end their days, in one self-wove deceit, 
 And consummate no dignity of soul ; 
 But like the brutes, by whom the ministries 
 Of sky and air can only be adored, 
 Are epicures in outward bliss alone. 
 A royal race, true monarchs over time, 
 They crown themselves ; and may such race endure ! 
 By sense o'erwhelm'd, these dreamers have not 
 learn'd
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 189 
 
 From earthly soil no flowers of inward bliss 
 Perennial bloom ; they flourish in the mind 
 Alone ; itself its own true happiness. 
 Of fancy and of fading vision born, 
 Such intellectual creed I call ; yet know, 
 The man of pleasure is the man of pain, 
 When parallel' d with him, whose watchful heart, 
 While true to Earth, is dedicate to Heaven. 
 
 Delusion is the soul of young desire. 
 Behold a vessel that has never braved 
 A sea : before her gallant bosom swells 
 A bright luxuriance of unbounded waves, 
 All sunny-crested, glowing like the noon. 
 No stormy menace in the welkin frowns,
 
 190 SATAN. fnOOK II. 
 
 I L 
 
 Sea, shore, and sky, are in one mingled calm, 
 Loud, deep and full the voice of welcome rings, 
 Away she* flies in glory o'er the deep, 
 Exulting in the wind! And this is Youth. 
 So bright the promise of Life's onward way : 
 Beneath the sunshine of fond hope awhile 
 The victim basks, drinks deep of every cup 
 Enchanting, feasts each faculty of sense, 
 And hails each hour the herald of new joy : 
 Thus on ! as though unfading bliss were found, 
 Till weariness awake, the wing, of joy 
 No longer o'er his soul a freshness wave, 
 And like the moody air, he often breathe 
 A sigh of sullenness around his path. 
 And now, the verdure of delight no more,
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 191 
 
 The heart uneasy, and the soul unsaved ; 
 With that dark fever of condemning thought, 
 Which conscience frets from out the sated mind, 
 As here the brute, and there the man, prevails, 
 Behold your slave of pleasure rot from year 
 To year ; obeying sin, yet feeling guilt, 
 The present darkness, and the past despair ! 
 
 Of finer mould, and far sublimer view, 
 Whate'er his lot, on Fortune's envied mount 
 High-throned, or lost in the secluded vales 
 Of lowliness, is he whose hopes are built 
 In Heaven ; the hateful, but triumphant still ! 
 Not all the pomp and pageantry of worlds 
 Reflect siich glory on the eye supreme, 
 As the meek virtues of one holy man :
 
 192 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 For ever doth his Angel from the face 
 
 Divine, beatitude and wisdom draw : 
 
 And in his prayer, what privilege adored ! 
 
 Mounting the heavens, and claiming audience there* 
 
 Yes ! there, amid a high immortal host 
 
 Of seraphs, hymning in eternal choir, 
 
 A lip of clay its orisons can send, 
 
 In temple, or in solitude, outbreathed. 
 
 And what the nature of such nobleness ? 
 One universal love, the source and end 
 Of true philosophy, within such heart 
 Must dwell, making the atmosphere of mind 
 All sympathy, wherein a good man breathes ; 
 A tear for sorrow, and a smile for joy, 
 Are ever his ; and thus existence spans
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 193 
 
 A wider realm than the self-loving fill, 
 
 Whose region is their narrow selves. Not Man 
 
 Alone, the empire of his heart contains 
 
 In its free compass of embracing thought ' r 
 
 E'en gentle nature wins a share of love ; 
 
 From the frail being of a lonely floAver 
 
 By Earth forgot, in beautiful ascent 
 
 Up to the very clouds, that in the shine 
 
 Of Heaven eem bathing with voluptuous joy- 
 
 And here I face the triumph of a soul 
 
 In such fine overflow of sympathy, 
 
 However spread, 'tis unpolluted still : 
 
 As sunshine in its beaming intercourse 
 
 With Earth, shines pure upon corrupted clayw 
 
 Then Virtue hath a loveliness, a calm 
 
 I &
 
 194 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 So fresh and full, a blessing and a hope, 
 And such elysium of contented thought, 
 Rejoice I may, but ever wonder more, 
 To see her so forsaken. Her delights 
 Endure as rich above the hectic joys 
 The wicked and the worldly reap, as hues 
 Of Nature on the orient cheek of Youth, 
 Outbloom the artificial blush of Age : 
 They blossom in the wintry gloom of life 
 Unfadingly sincere. Another source 
 Of Heaven, there opens on the virtuous mind, 
 That daunts me with a deep excess of good, 
 That fellowship, which makes the past its own, 
 By following where the great and glorious dead 
 In bright precedence, charm'd the way. Whate'er 
 Is excellent and pure, such bliss creates ;
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 195 
 
 Art, Love, and Wisdom, Nature and her scenes. 
 When in the coolness of declining day 
 As o'er the hilly woods brown Evening falls, 
 In haunts where Solitude hath breathed a soul 
 By Thought companion'd, oft the wand'rer feels 
 Such sympathy, the "while of good and great 
 He thinks, who loved like him the lonely hour, 
 Still walks, and dreams, and meditative joy. 
 And that prime bliss, perfection of delight, 
 Which is to ear what beauty is to thought, 
 Sweet melody, methinks 'tis only toned 
 In its true heavenliness, to hallow'd minds * : 
 There how refreshingly must music flow, 
 
 * Plato says that music accustoms the mind to order, and thereby 
 allures it to the love of virtue, which is nothing but moral order.
 
 196 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 And faint into the soul ! as dewy sleep 
 Melts o'er the eyelids of a' weary man. 
 
 These holy, yet another triumph crowns. 
 In woes, that blacken o'er the brightest lot, 
 How loftily above the bad they tower ! 
 On whom, nor Faith, nor Resignation smiles : 
 Resourceless all, they madden, or despair ; 
 Save when gay thoughts from gloomy moments spring, 
 As bright-leaved flowers that in the sunshine bloom, 
 Have out of damp and earthy darkness sprung. 
 And such a life the virtuous seem to boast, 
 With gladness lighted, or by sorrow gloom'd, 
 Still wearing a contented smile, to meet 
 The Great Approver : like a placid stream
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 197 
 
 That in its meadowy pilgrimage still wears 
 
 The aspect of a full and gentle thing, 
 
 Alike where sun-beams laugh, or shadows frown. 
 
 And when the summons to a future state 
 
 Is heard, those hell-black shapings of despair, 
 
 Those clouds of horror which the wicked dread, 
 
 Melt in the brightness of a better world : 
 
 Thus, arm'd with faith in Him who vanquish' d death, 
 
 A wafting to the home, a union there 
 
 With angels bright, and beatific souls 
 
 Who erst have battled in the war of life, 
 
 Death comes, a herald from the waiting skies. 
 
 And such is Truth ! in Heaven and Hell the same. 
 Yea ! Hate herself in agony avows, 
 That Virtue is triumphant, and the best :
 
 198 SATAN. [BOOK ir. 
 
 Her glories are my tortures ; but they shine 
 Upon me, blasting with victorious light 
 The envy which I bear them, when I scan 
 The mazes of mortality. How kind 
 
 In men, to aid the darkness that I bring 
 
 
 On fallen Nature ! heedful of the vile, 
 
 And damning all, I'd fain destroy. Thus Vice 
 
 X 
 
 In splendor will appear, while Virtue droops, 
 Like a lone shadow pining in the sun. 
 And never shall the Good the Bad exceed, 
 While Sin can put enchantment in her smile, 
 
 While Passions are the tyrants of the soul ! 
 
 j 
 
 Thou dread Avenger ! ever-living One ! 
 Lone Arbiter ! Eternal, Vast and True ; 
 The soul and centre of created things
 
 BOOK I!.} SATAN. 199 
 
 In atoms or in worlds ; around whose throne 
 Eternity is wheel'd ; who look'st and life 
 Appears ; who frown' st and life hath pass'd 
 
 away! 
 
 Thou God ! I feel Thine everlasting Curse, 
 Yet wither not : the lightnings of Thy wrath 
 Bum in my spirit, yet it shall endure 
 
 Unblasted, that which cannot be extinct. 
 
 f 
 
 Thou sole Transcendency, and deep Abyss 
 From whence the universe of life was drawn ! 
 Unutter'd is Thy nature ; to Thyself alone 
 The fathom'd, proved, and comprehended God ; 
 Though once the steep of Thine Almightiness 
 This haught, unbowing spirit would have climbed, 
 And sat beside thee, God with God enthroned,
 
 200 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 And vanquish'd, fell Thy Might I'll not disclaim. 
 
 Immutable ! Omnipotence is Thine ; 
 
 Perfections, Powers, and Attributes unnamed 
 
 Attend Thee ; Thou art All, and oh, how great 
 
 That consummation ! Worlds to worlds 
 
 Repeat it, angels and archangels veil 
 
 Their wings, and shine more glorious at the sound : 
 
 Thus, Infinite and fathomless, Thou wert, 
 
 And art, and wilt be. In Thine awful blaze 
 
 Of majesty, amid empyreal pomp 
 
 Of Sanctities, chief Hierarch, I stood 
 
 Before Thy throne terrifically bright, 
 
 And heard the hymning thunders voice thy name, 
 
 While bow'd the Heavens, and echoed Deity ! 
 
 Then heaved a dark and dreadless swell of pride
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 201 
 
 Within me ; an ambition, huge and high 
 
 Enough to overshadow The Supreme, 
 
 In full intensity before me tower'd, 
 
 And fronted pride against Omnipotence ! 
 
 Thus rose the anarchy, the hell of war 
 
 Amid the skies ; then frown' d embattled hosts, 
 
 In unimaginable arms divine, 
 
 But why recount it ? we were disarray 'd, 
 
 And sent in flaming whirlwinds to the deep 
 
 Tartarean, where my never-ending doom 
 
 Is Hell ! but Thou art Heaven, and Heaven is God. 
 
 And yet divided empire have I won. 
 Behold the havoc in Thy beauteous world ! 
 And have I not, recount it, Space and Time ! 
 Thy master-piece, creation's god of clay,
 
 202 SATAN. [BOOK n. 
 
 Dethroned from that high excellence he proved, 
 When first man walk'd a shadow of Thyself ? 
 Prostration vile, an alienate from Thee, 
 Man is ; and shall his fallen nature rise, 
 Regain her height, and fill ethereal thrones ? 
 Many a cloud of evil shall be burst 
 Ere that day come ; severe and dread the strife 
 Of sullied nature with the soul of man ! 
 Wherever localized, whate'er his creed, 
 Temptation, like a spirit, tracks his path, 
 Though every pang by sin produced, increase 
 The agonized Eternity I bear. 
 A doleful midnight to cerulean day 
 Is not more opposite, than I to Thee : 
 Thou art the Glorious, I the Evil One ; 
 Thou reign'st above ; my Kingdom is below ;
 
 BOOK II.3 SATAN. 203 
 
 On earth, 'tis thine to succour and adorn 
 The soul, through Him the interceding Judge, 
 By thoughts divine, and agencies direct ; 
 To cheer the gentle, and reward the good, 
 And o'er the many waves and woes of life 
 To pour the sunshine of Almighty love : 
 'Tis mine to darken, wither, and destroy 
 Creation and her hopes, to make them hell. 
 
 Then roll thee on, thou high and haughty World 
 And queen it bravely o'er the universe I 
 Still be thy sun as bright, thy sea as loud 
 In her sublimity, thy floods and winds 
 As potent, and thy lording elements 
 As vast in their creative range of power, 
 As each and all have ever been : build thrones,
 
 204 SATAN. [BOOK u. 
 
 And empires, heap the mountain of thy crimes, 
 
 Be mean or mighty, wise or worthless still, 
 
 Yet I am with thee ! and my power shall reign 
 
 Until the trumpet of thy doom be heard, 
 
 Thine ocean vanish'd, and thy heavens no more ! 
 
 Till thou be tenantless, a welt'ring mass 
 
 Of fire, a dying and dissolving world : 
 
 And then, Thy hidden lightnings are unsheath'd, 
 
 O God ! the thunders of Despair shall roll ; 
 
 Mine hour is come, and I am wreck' d of all, 
 
 All, save Eternity, and that is mine. 
 
 END OF BOOK THE SECOND.
 
 NOTES TO BOOK II.
 
 NOTES. 
 
 NOTE, page 114. 
 
 Of imperfection is their wisdom born, 
 And highest knowledge, ignorance confessed. 
 
 It is to the imperfection of our faculties, then, as forcing us 
 to guess and explore what is half concealed from us, that we 
 owe our laborious experiments and reasoning, and consequently 
 all the science which is the result of these ; and the proudest 
 discoveries which we make, thus, in one point of view, what- 
 ever dignity they may give to a few moments of our life, may 
 be considered as proofs and memorials of our general weak- 
 ness. BROWN'S Philosophy : Lecture XI. 
 
 NOTE, page 117. 
 How widely, let the sumless Angels speak ! 
 
 Having, in several parts of this Poem, alluded to spiritual 
 agencies and ministeries, the author begs leave to offer the fol- 
 lowing body of evidence, which has been collected with some
 
 208 SATAN. [NOTES. 
 
 care and research, from the pages of our early divines, down to 
 the most distinguished theologians of the present era. Consi- 
 dered of themselves, without a reference to the Scriptural 
 authority for their active influence over human affairs, a be- 
 lief in Guardian and Evil Angels seems peculiarly adapted to 
 adorn and solemnize a poetical creed.* But, authorized by the 
 relations of the inspired volume, the subject advances to some- 
 thing beyond the mere romance of poetry. And it is in this latter 
 view the passages about to be quoted were written. And let it be 
 remembered that they are the opinions of no shallow thinkers, 
 or impertinent dabblers ; but the solemn convictions of great 
 minds and comprehensive understandings ; and are drawn from 
 the true and only authority for such matters, The Bible. 
 
 ON GOOD AND EVIL ANGELS. 
 
 Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth 
 Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep. 
 
 MILTOX, Par. Lost, B. 4th, 1. 677. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM THE 
 
 Fathers of the Christian Church. 
 
 " Let us consider the whole multitude of his angels, how ready they stand to 
 minister unto his will, as saith the Scripture. ' Thousands of thousands stood 
 before him, and ten thousand times ten thousand ministered unto him and 
 they cryed, saying, Holy ! Holy ! Holy ! is the Lord of Sabaoth the whole 
 earth is full of his glory.' " 
 
 Written about An. Dom. 70, by St. Clement to the Corinthians. 
 
 " For even I myself, though I am in bonds, yet am not therefore able to un- 
 derstand heavenly things, as to the places (orders) of the angels, and the several 
 companies of them under their respective princes. Things visible and invisi- 
 ble but I am in these yet a learner." St. Ignatius' Epistle to the Trallians. 
 
 Ignatius was a disciple of St. John the Evangelist, and by tradition, re- 
 
 * See Dryden's " Discourse ; " where this doctrine is elegantly and powerfully 
 advocated.
 
 BOOK II.] 
 
 SATAN. 
 
 209 
 
 ported to have been the child ourSaviour took into his arms, Matt, xviii. 3, and 
 to have been thence called Theophorus. 
 
 " Take heed therefore lest, falling asleep in our sins, the wicked one getting 
 the dominion over us, stir us up, and shut us out of the kingdom of the Lord." 
 Epistle of St. Barnabas, the companion of St. Paul. 
 
 " Stand fast therefore ye that work righteousness, and continue to do it, that 
 your departure maybe with the holy angels." 
 
 " There are two angels with man, one of righteousness, the other of iniquity." 
 
 The Shepherd of Hermas. 
 
 The following Extract from Bishop Patrick includes many of the Opinions of 
 the Ancient Church : 
 
 " I find it the constant opinion of the world that these angels are assigned to 
 several offices, and preside even over all creatures here below. There being 
 some who are not only I<p/ run &vuv, as Moses speaks, the guardians of the 
 several nations of the world, but TV xatrftixuv fai^tituv, conservators, and 
 keepers of the elements of the world, as Arethas speaks and concludes, from 
 Rev. xiv. 18, where you read of an angel that had power over the ure and from 
 xvi. 5, where you read of an angel of the waters. 
 
 " Hence, he thinks, we have sufficient ground to believe that some have the 
 command over the air, others over the water, others over the earth, and others 
 of the fire, and so proportionably, that some have the care of one species of 
 creatures amongst us, and some of another, nothing doubting but that they have 
 a more special super! ntendency over mankind, the chief of God's works in this 
 inferior world and more particularly take care of those who are good and fear 
 God as the most worthy of all men and the nearest to the Angelical world; 
 and, whatsoever question we may make of the rest of their belief, we cannot 
 doubt if we believe the Holy Scriptures, of the truth of the last part of it, that 
 there are some of those excellent beings are ministers of God for the good of 
 men, and especially of those who believe. This the Christian religion hath 
 above all others assured us of ; we have the word of the blessed apostles for it, 
 that they are ' ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be 
 heirs of salvation." Nay the words of our Lord and Master; that the angels, even 
 of the weakest Christians, behold the face of God in heaven. 
 
 " These high officers of Almighty God, Gregory Nazianzen calls \tt[vffoarr,<ri; 
 Ssj/rs^a; \tiTvayot Tt>; iryavrfi Aajttsr^oTjjTa;, secondary splendours, the mi- 
 nisters and attendants of the First Brightness. 
 
 " They attend upon God to receive his commandments for the good of our
 
 210 SATAN'. [NOTES. 
 
 outward man, being the most noble of all God's visible works upon this earth, 
 but most especially for the good of our spirits, which are far more dear both to 
 Him and to them, as nearer of kin to celestial beings." 
 
 " St. Basil declares that ftwri flViffivxsri n; rov XV(>IM ayyt>.a; -raoibo'vu, 
 &c. To every one who believeth]on the Lord, (that is, every Christian) there is 
 an angel that is his companion, and as one may call him, his assistant genius. 
 
 " If thou hast any good works in thy soul worthy of angelical custody and se- 
 curity, God will give thee this guard, and even wall thee round about with a 
 great many angels, rather than it should be spoiled ; and so he saith upon an- 
 other Psalm, ' to every one of the faithful there is uyytXo; x-xot^tvyftives, 
 an angel yoked together with him, who is worthy to behold the face of God in 
 Heaven : nay, he. quotes these very words in his third Book against Eunomius 
 to prove it, that every faithful person hath an angel for his companion, who is, 
 as it were, his governor, tutor, and keeper, directing and guiding his life, and 
 adds, ou^si: avrsgu, no man gainsays this, being mindful of the words of our 
 Lord, saying, ' despise not one of these little ones, for their angels always be- 
 hold the face of their Father which is in heaven.' And therefore the author of 
 the questions and answers to the Orthodox (under the name of Justin Martyr) 
 asserting this opinion, that every man is attended with a guardian angel, con- 
 fidently adds, xatla; (no. ygK$t!*.ty!t, according as the divine writing tells 
 us : and St. Jerome, upon these words of our Saviour, cries out, Great is the 
 dignity of souls, who have from their birth Angelum de'egatum, a delegate 
 angel, commissioned from heaven for their custody. 
 
 " Now we meet with these two characters of the Devil in Holy Writ, that he 
 is a murderer, and that he is a liar. As he is a murderer, seeking the destruc- 
 tion of men, he doth all the mischief he can both to men's bodies and to their 
 minds. As he is a liar, he seeks only to deceive, abuse, and destroy the mind. 
 For the hurt that this murderer doth to their bodies, it is either in men's private 
 capacities, by troubling the air, bringing diseases and infections, when God per- 
 mits him, raising storms and tempests and such like things : or in their public 
 capacity, stirring up the spirit of ambitious, haughty, covetous, and cruel men 
 to oppress and enslave others, to make unnecessary wars, to fill the world with 
 rapine, slaughter, and blood, to overturn kingdoms, and to turn the world upside 
 down. Then for their minds he doth them no small prejudice, even by those 
 wars and tumults in which one sin is wont to follow upon the neck of another. 
 And besides, we may conceive that he instigates men to all sorts of villanics, 
 according as he finds them inclined. He inflames their brutish desires, he
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 211 
 
 pricks forward their pride and love of dominion, he stimulates their revenge, he 
 heightens their choler and rage, and works upon all their other passions ; so 
 that he is the furtherer of adulteries and all Clthiness, the great provoker to 
 murders, thefts, robberies, violence, deceit, and fraud, and all other wickedness, 
 that if it were possible, there might be a hell above ground, and he might be 
 the God of this world. 
 
 " Then for the other thing, as he is a liar, his business is to cheat and delude 
 men's minds with false opinions, to propagate all the foolish conceits and lewd 
 doctrines that he can invent, to lead men to epicurism and atheistical conclu- 
 sions, or else to abuse and gull their minds with fancies and vain dreams which 
 they shall glory in as the very revelation of Almighty God : from all which I 
 think we may safely draw this inference, that as the Devil and his partakers 
 seek whom in this manner they may devour, so the holy angels seek how they 
 may save and deliver men from these mischiefs. And as I have shown you that 
 they are the preservers of men's bodies, so I shall now make it appear that they 
 are instruments of good to our souls, because they love their welfare, and they 
 are the lovers of truth and piety, and seek the promotion of the faith of Jesus 
 Christ in sincerity. This is one great commendation which St. Peter gives of 
 the gospel revelation, ' that the angels desire to look into these things,' 1 Pet. 
 5. 12. And St. Paul saith, ' it hath pleased God to gather together in ne all 
 things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth.' Eph. i. 10. 
 To make us all that is but one society, under one supreme governor, the Lord's 
 Christ." Bishop Patrick's Sermons, Ed. 1719. 
 
 " La vue des bons Anges (disoit St. Antoine a ses disciples) n'apporte aucuii 
 trouble, leur presence est douce et tranquille; elle comble 1'ame de joie, et lui 
 inspire de la confiance. Ils font concevoir un tel amour des choses divines, 
 qu'on voudroit -quitter la vie pour les suivre dans sa biet\heureuse cternite. Au < 
 contraire, 1'apparition des mauvais Anges remplit de trouble. Us se prcsentent 
 avec bruit ; ils jettent 1'ame dans une confusion depensees, ou dans une frayeur 
 qui la deconcerte. Ils degoutent de la pratique des vertus, et rendent 1'ame in- 
 constante dans ses resolutions." Godescard, Vifde St. Antoine. 
 
 " O how happy wouldest thou most justly think thyself, couldest thou but 
 see with the eyes of thy mind those solemn rejoicings above, wherein the mysti- 
 cal and most magnificent sense of the Psalmist's description ' the princes go 
 before, the instruments follow after, and in the midst are the damsels playing 
 with their instruments.' Then wouldest thou plainly discover and be abun- 
 dantly convinced that there are numbers of those bright spirits which do with 
 
 K2
 
 2] 2 SATAN. [NOTES. 
 
 wondrous watchfulness and satisfaction rejoice with the congregations of good 
 Christians in their praises, and observe their behaviour, and their prayers, and 
 are present with their pious meditations, and keep guard about them in their 
 sleep and solitude, and direct and preserve the governors of our Church in the 
 exercise of their spiritual authority. For this is sure, that the heavenly 
 powers have a very tender regard for their fellow citizens upon earth, and being 
 'all ministering spirits sent out to minister for them who shall be heirs of salva- 
 tion,' we have no cause to doubt that they are very solicitously concerned for 
 the good of their charge, that they conceive a sensible joy at it that they 
 strengthen, instruct, protect, and take all the care they can of them in order to 
 obtain it. In doing so, indeed, they study to promote, not our happiness only, but 
 their own. For they long earnestly for our safe arrival in those blessed regions, 
 as hoping to see the breaches made upon their glorious society repaired, and the 
 numbers of their fallen brethren recruited by the succession of redeemed souls 
 in their places. They delight to hear of good men. They fly upon despatches 
 between God and us, and are the messengers and instruments by which our 
 requests and holy sighs are carried up to God and the graces and blessings he 
 gives in return to those prayers and complaints conveyed down to us." 
 
 St. Bernard's Hook of the Soul, chap. 6. 
 
 " The fall of angels therefore was pride. Since their fall their practices 
 have been the clean contrary unto those before mentioned, for being dispersed, 
 some in the air, some in the earth, some in the water, some among the minerals, 
 dens, and caves that are under the earth, they have by all means laboured to 
 efl'ect an universal rebellion against the laws, and as far as in them lieth, utter 
 destruction of the works of God." Hooker's Ecc. Polity. B. i. 
 
 " How often are men impelled by certain unaccountable persuasions either to 
 do, or to forbear, a thing upon which (as afterwards appeared by the event) the 
 whole fortune of their lives have turned! Unaccountable, I say, must these 
 persuasions be unless we refer them to some higher cause, and to what cause 
 can we better ascribe them than to the suggestions of angels ?" 
 
 Bishop Conybeare's Sermon. 
 
 " The Scripture doctrine of Satan makes it probable, that many of those 
 horrible thoughts which sometimes come with an almost irresistible impetus 
 into the minds of pious persons, are of diabolical original, which is in so*me 
 measure confirmed by what has been observed of the subtlety with which
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 213 
 
 atheistical and sceptical arguments have sometimes been presented to the 
 mind, even beyond the natural genius of the person assaulted by them. 
 
 "There is no greater evidence of the degeneracy which a rational mind, even 
 with great degrees of sagacity and ability, is capable of, than the im placable 
 malice of those wicked spirits, and the obstinate malignity with which they are 
 opposing the course of God in the world, though they are sure that opposition 
 will end in their own confusion and ruin." See Doddrldge's Lectures, 
 
 " As I am not a Sadducee the account you give of the music which enter- 
 tained you on the road, does not put my dependence upon your veracity, or your 
 judgment to any trial. We live \ipon the confines of the invisible world, or ra- 
 ther, perhaps, in the midst of it. That unseen agents have a power of operating 
 upon our minds, at least, upon that mysterious faculty we call the imagination, 
 is with me not merely a point of opinion, or even of faith, but of experience. 
 That evil spirits can, when permitted, disturb, distress, and defile us, I know as 
 well as I know that the fire can burn me ; and though their interposition is per- 
 haps more easily and certainly distinguishable, yet, from analogy, I conclude 
 that good spirits are equally willing and equally able to employ their kind offices 
 for our relief and comfort ; nor have any a right to withhold their assent to what 
 the scriptures teach, and many sober persons declare, of this invisible agency, 
 merely because we cannot answer the questions How ? or Why ? The thing may 
 be certain, though we cannot easily explain it, and there may be just and impor- 
 tant reasons for it, though we should not be able to assign them." 
 
 Rev. John Newton's Letters. 
 
 " To the nature of their (angels') ministry the testimonies are still more ex- 
 plicit and numerous. For greatly do those men wrong the zeal, and greatly do 
 they undervalue the happiness of angels, who dream that the first is suffered to 
 evaporate in incense and adoration and never-ending minstrelsy or that the 
 second consists in luxurious ease alone amid the groves of Paradise, or the 
 splendours of the empyrean. Heaven has, no less than earth, its active duties. 
 The blessedness of heaven is an useful and energetic blessedness and they who 
 are sometimes painted as feasting in the kingdom and enjoying the presence of 
 their Maker, are at others described as engaged in battle with the great dragon 
 and his adherents ; as stopping, in the cause of the saints, the mouths of lions, and 
 subduing the violence of fire ; as keeping guard round the prophets of the Lord, 
 and as bearers of his orders to them ; as ministering to the Son of God after his 
 temptation, and in the hour of his mortal agony consoling and sustaining him | 
 as anxious and exulting witnesses of the progress of his kingdom upon earth
 
 SATAN. [NOTES, 
 
 as calling the Gentile Cornelius to be the first-fruits of Christian adoption ; as 
 smiting with an invisible sword the arrogant and persecuting Herod, and break- 
 ing down before the apostle Peter the chains and gates of his captivity. 
 
 " Of some one or more celestial spirits (if our hearts be right with God) we 
 are assured that we shall obtain the protection : and do not those hearts burn 
 within us when we read of these mighty beings mingling in the converse, assum- 
 ing the forms, and partaking of the hospitality of mortals when we learn that 
 not a sinner repents on earth, but the angels rejoice in Heaven that the celes- 
 tial warriors encamp not only round the houses of the prophets, but around the 
 person and property of every servant of the Almighty that even the weakest 
 and humblest believer is an object of interest to those who are themselves pri- 
 vileged to behold the face of their Heavenly Father, and that the death-bed 
 struggle ended (and who knows how greatly their unseen presence may support 
 us under it ?) it is they who carry the soul of the humblest saint to paradise. 
 
 " All these things are written for our instruction. 
 
 " They are not the minority who devote themselves to the service, and submit 
 themselves to the reproach of their Redeemer. His flock may seem in the world 
 which now is ' a little one," but other sheep there are which are not of this 
 fold' and when the seats are full in the marriage supper of the Lord, and when 
 the new heaven and new earth, in which dwelleth righteousness, have received, 
 in the day of his power, their holy and happy multitude, we shall understand 
 how. few in comparison have been the clamorous adversaries, which in this 
 life disturbed onr repose :* how blind the cowardice which with angels on our side 
 would have turned back, in the day of battle. 
 
 Bishop Heber's Sermon on Good Angels* 
 
 * " When we are speaking of the Devil, we are not to understand any one 
 particular being, or any one particular evil spirit, but the whole aggregate or 
 company of evil spirits, which inhabit round about us in the lower regions of 
 the air. All these are in Jhe Scripture language, and in common speech, called 
 by the name of the Devil. That, nevertheless, there is one person peculiarly 
 and by way of eminence, thus called, as the general of a hostile army is called, 
 4 the enemy,' is plain from St. Matt. xxv. 41, Rev. xii. 9. ' Inter impuros 
 spiritus unum esse qui preesideat et Judaeorum et Apostolorum scripta nos 
 decent. Grotius.' "Note to Sermon IV. 
 
 An extract from Chalmers's Discourse, " On the Contest for an Ascendancy 
 over Man, amongst the Higher Orders of Intelligence," will form an appropriate 
 conclusion to this long, but it is hoped not unimportant or uninteresting, note.
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 215 
 
 "To an infidel ear, all this carries the sound of something wild and visionary along 
 with it. But though only known through the medium of revelation, after it is 
 known, who can fail to recognise its harmony with the great lineaments of 
 human experience ? Who has not felt the workings of a rivalry within him, 
 between the power of conscience and the power of temptation ? Who does not 
 remember those seasons of retirement, when the calculations of eternity had 
 gotten a momentary command over the heart ; and time, with all its interests 
 and all its vexations, had dwindled into insignificancy before them ? And who 
 does not remember, how upon his actual engagement with the objects of time, 
 they resumed a control, as great and omnipotent, as if all the importance of 
 eternity adhered to them how they emitted from them such an impression upon 
 his feelings, as to fix and to fascinate the whole man into a subserviency to their 
 influence ; how in spite of every lesson of their worthlessness brought home to 
 him at every turn by the rapidity of the seasons, and the vicissitudes of life, and 
 the ever-moving progress of his own earthly career, and the visible ravages of 
 death among his acquaintances around him, and the desolations of his family, 
 and the constant breaking up of his system of friendships, and the affecting 
 spectacle of all that lives and is in motion, withering and hastening to the grave : 
 oh ! how comes it that in the face of all this experience, the whole elevation of 
 purpose, conceived in the hour of his better understanding, should be dissipated 
 and forgotten? Whence the might, and whence the mystery of that spell 
 which so binds and so infatuates us to the world ) What prompts us so to em- 
 bark the whole strength of our eagerness and of our desires, in pursuit of 
 interests which we know a few little years will bring to utter annihilation ? 
 Who is it that imparts to them all the charm and all the colour of an unfailing 
 durability .' Who is it that throws such an air of stability over these earthly 
 tabernacles, as makes them look to the fascinated eye of man, like resting-places 
 for eternity ? Who is it that so pictures out the objects of sense, and so mag- 
 nifies the range of their future enjoyment, and so dazzles the fond and deceived 
 imagination, that in looking onward through our earthly career, it appears like 
 the vista, or the perspective of innumerable ages? HK WHO is CALLED TUB 
 
 GOD OF THIS WORLD."
 
 216 SATAN. [NOTES. 
 
 NOTE, page 143. 
 
 An Atheist, he hath never faced an hour, 
 And not belied the name he bore. His doubt 
 It darkness, from the unbelieving Will 
 Begot. 
 
 " Christianity is not a Theory, or a Speculation ; but a Life. 
 Not a Philosophy of Life, but a Life and a living Process. 
 TRY IT. It has been eighteen hundred Years in exist- 
 ence : and has one Individual left a record, like the fol- 
 lowing ? ' I tried it ; and it did not answer. I made the expe- 
 riment faithfully according to the directions ; and the result 
 has been, a conviction of my own credulity.' Have you, in 
 your own experience, met with any one in whose words you 
 could place full confidence, and who has seriously affirmed, ' I 
 have given Christianity a fair trial. I was aware that its pro- 
 mises were made only conditionally ; but my heart bears me 
 witness, that I have to the utmost of my power complied with 
 these conditions. Both outwardly and in the discipline of my 
 inward acts and affections, I have performed the duties which 
 it enjoins, and I have used the means which it prescribes. Yet 
 my Assurance of its truth has received no increase. Its pro- 
 mises have not been fulfilled ; and I repent me of my delusion !' 
 If neither your own experience nor the history of almost two 
 thousand years has presented a single testimony to this pur- 
 port ; and if you have read and heard of many who have lived 
 and died bearing witness to the contrary ; and if you have 
 yourself met with some one, in whom on any other point you 
 would place unqualified trust, who has on his own experience
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN, 217 
 
 made report to you, that ' he is faithful who promised, and 
 what he promised he has proved himself able to perform : ' is 
 it bigotry, if I fear that the Unbelief, which prejudges and 
 prevents the experiment, has its source elsewhere than in the 
 uncorrupted judgment ; that not the strong free Mind, but the 
 enslaved Will, is the true original Infidel in this instance ? 
 It would not be the first time, that a treacherous Bosom-Sin 
 had suborned the Understandings of men to bear false witness 
 against its avowed Enemy, the right though unreceived Owner 
 of the House, who had long warned it out, and waited only fo? 
 its ejection to enter and take possession of the same." 
 
 NOTE, page 145. 
 
 To him, Philosophy will preach in vain. 
 
 " The arguments commonly termed Metaphysical, on this 
 subject, I have always regarded as absolutely void of force, 
 unless in as far as they proceed on a tacit assumption of the 
 
 physical argument The universe is that which shows the 
 
 existence of the Author of the universe. It exhibits a harmony 
 of relations, to perceive which is to perceive design ; that is to 
 say, it is impossible for us to perceive them, without feeling, 
 immediately, that the harmony of parts with parts, and of their 
 results with each other, must have its origin in 'some DESIGN- 
 ING MIND." BROWN'S Philosophy : Lecture XCIII. 
 
 K 5
 
 218 SATAI*. [NOTES. 
 
 NOTE, page 152. 
 
 Oh, did the living but the dead recall 
 As often as the dead the living do, 
 The sun would gaze upon a purer world 
 Than now. 
 
 " It is reasonable to believe that the Saints shall know that 
 they had such and such a relation to one another when they 
 were on earth. The father shall know that such a one was his 
 child ; the husband shall remember that such a one was his 
 wife ; &c. The ground of which assertion is this, that the 
 soul of man is of that nature that it depends not on the body 
 and sense ; and, therefore, being separated, knows all that she 
 knew in the body : and, for the same reason, it is not to be 
 doubted that she arrives in the other world with the same de- 
 signs and inclinations she had here. So that the delights of 
 conversation are still continued in heaven. Friends and rela- 
 tions are familiar with one another, and call to mind 'their 
 former circumstances and concerns in the world, sp far as they 
 may be serviceable to advance their happiness. The truth of 
 what I say, concerning this knowledge and remembrance of 
 things in the state of glory, may receive some confirmation 
 from that history in Matt. xvii. 3, &c. where we read, that in 
 that glorious interview, which was a glimpse of heaven, the 
 Apostles knew Moses and Elias, and these knew them, though 
 none of them had seen one another before. Much more, 
 then, shall those Spirits who were intimately acquainted with
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 219 
 
 one another on Earth, retain their acquaintance and converse 
 in Heaven, and call to mind the passages of their lives. But 
 there is irrefragable proof of this in Luke xvi. 25 : ' Abraham 
 said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy 
 good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things.' And it is as 
 true that Lazarus remembered him at the same time. Whence 
 I gather that the knowledge and memory of things done here 
 remain hereafter. And, particularly, that the damned know 
 and remember that they have relations on earth, is evident 
 from the rich man's being concerned for his father's house and 
 his five brethren; 27th and 28th verse. It is not to be ques- 
 tioned, then, that the blessed, likewise, call to mind those that 
 were related to them, and that they are concerned for their 
 good and welfare ; and when they fneet them in Heaven, greet 
 them most kindly, and hold commerce with them, and recall 
 the passages of their former conversation. All the ancient and 
 pious fathers agree in this. St. Cyprian owns that our parents,, 
 brethren, children, and near relations, expect us in Heaven, 
 and are solicitous for our good. St. Jerome comforts a lady 
 on this account, that we shall see our friends and know them. 
 St. Augustine endeavours to mitigate the sorrow of an Italian 
 widow with this consideration, that she shall be restored to her 
 husband, and behold and know him. And this was an appre- 
 hension that the thinking men among the Pagans had attained 
 to. Socrates, a little before he drank his deadly draught, told 
 his friends how valuable a thing it was to have conference in 
 the other life with Orpheus, Musseus, Homer, Hesiod, and 
 other brave men ; how happy he should be in their society ; 
 and he often wished to depart out of this world, that he might
 
 220 SATAN. [NOTES. 
 
 enjoy (he conversation of those excellent persons." Dr. JOHN 
 EDWARDS'S Theologia Reformata. 
 
 NOTE, page 163. 
 
 A moral balance rules the tide of things, 
 
 In a work * lately published, and which evidences an able 
 mind, that has thought for itself, the momentous and deeply 
 interesting doctrine of a Moral Balance is discussed with great 
 clearness and originality. As few of his readers may have 
 seen this Essay, the author ventures to submit Ihe following 
 paragraphs, and to recommend the whole volume to their 
 perusal : 
 
 " The greatest of all luxuries is that of faith in what may be 
 called a moral balance, even in the affairs of this world. If we 
 add to this the other and still more important faith, as to 
 eternity, we shall pass through life, with no more mental 
 suffering, in our worst days, than may be necessary to wean us 
 from it, and so to make the prospect of death endurable, and 
 with a consciousness of luxury, at other times, far exceeding 
 all other, as to permanence, security, and true elevation. This 
 faith is, that evil produces evil, even in this world, in one shape 
 or other, to those who practise it ; and that good produces 
 good ; no other cases than those of instant dissolution, in either 
 
 * WHAT is LUXURY? By a Lay Observer.
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 221 
 
 practice, being destined to the single retribution of a future 
 state. 
 
 " To explain our meaning by an instance, let it be supposed, 
 that a man, arriving in London from some distant county, finds 
 his way into a room filled with gold coins, the owners of which 
 have suddenly but entirely left the apartment ; that he is aware 
 of this, and also that no other person is so ; that he has a cer- 
 tainty of being personally known to no one, within hundreds of 
 miles ; that his absence from his own home will be imputed to 
 a visit, such as he has been accustomed to make, to some in- 
 termediate place ; and that, after this and other considerations, 
 he feels a perfect assurance of his being able to take away what 
 sums he pleases and to carry them home, without a possibility 
 of discovery by any human being. What we call faith in the 
 moral balance of human affairs, is, that this man, supposing 
 him to forget, for the moment, his eternal interests, shall be 
 fully confident of its being his wisest conduct, his best policy, 
 even as far as regards this world only, to withdraw from the 
 room, without touching the gold, being sure, that, after taking 
 it, the retribution of some preponderating evil would reach him 
 here, and that, not taking it, he will receive some far more than 
 adequate recompense. Of the latter, indeed, he will instantly 
 have some foretaste, in the state of his mind. This is our pro- 
 position, which we have endeavoured ,to make as comprehen- 
 sive as possible, that we may not be encountered by questions 
 as to its extent. 
 
 " The means by which the moral balance operates are, of 
 course, not always visible. We should not be merely human, 
 \ve should not be in a state of probation, if we could see them 
 all ; we should so have no opportunity for faith. Yet, as if to
 
 222 SATAN. [NOTES. 
 
 guide us to this duty, some of these means are rendered per- 
 ceptible. The intenacity of villainy (that phrase being used in 
 want of a better) is well known to be the main security of the 
 worthy part of society ; but it is not always viewed in its true 
 light, as a dispensation of PROVIDENCE ; in other words, as 
 one part of the moral balance. The wicked are as incapable 
 of a permanent union as some physical bodies of meeting, 
 without repelling each other. This is one of their long known 
 predicaments." 
 
 NOTE, page 167. 
 
 H-Tiile they, whose words are wisdom to the pure, 
 Rise dimly vision? d on th? historic page, 
 Where infamy in glowing language lives. 
 
 Biography may too often apply to herself the speech of 
 Bossola, in Webster's DUCHESS OF MALFY, " My trade is to 
 flatter the dead." The " de mortuis nil nisi bonum " is a bad 
 motto, and worse morality. Cowley's remarks might be advan- 
 tageously remembered in historical analyses of human charac- 
 ter " When we fix any infamy on deceased persons, it should 
 not be done out of any hatred to the dead, but out of love and 
 charity to the living." Essays, vol. i.
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 223 
 
 NOTE, page 172. 
 
 And now, there is an animating throb, 
 An energy, and daringness of thought, 
 Awaken 'd like one mighty pulse, through lands 
 And isles, remotely set in ocean gloom. 
 
 " A new state of mind and feeling is obviously coming upon 
 mankind, the effects of which can scarcely yet be calculated. 
 But they will far exceed what took place on the diffusion of the 
 Reformation, and can omy be compared with those which the 
 introduction of Christianity produced." SHARON TURNER. 
 
 NOTE, page 174. 
 
 hint they not an awful shade 
 
 Of mystery unreveal'd, yet claiming dreams 
 Of reverential hue. 
 
 " Horace' looks upon it as the last effort of philosophical for- 
 titude, to- behold, without terror and amazement, this immense 
 and glorious fabric of the Universe : 
 
 ' Hunc solera, et stellas, et decedentia certis 
 Tempora momentis, sunt qui formidine nulla 
 Imbuti spectent.' 
 
 But the Scripture alone can supply ideas answerable to the 
 majesty of this subject." BURKE on the Sublime and Beau- 
 tiful, Sect. 5, Part ii.
 
 224 SATAN. [NOTES. 
 
 NOTE, page 175. 
 
 
 
 men become idolaters to sight, 
 
 Naming all else the nothingness of dreams. 
 
 " We are conversant in the corporeal world from our infancy. 
 Sensible objects make such early, repeated, strong impressions, 
 that it is sometimes difficult to let in, upon a mind already 
 immersed in MATTER, one thought concerning immaterial 
 Beings, through an immoderate fear of SUPERSTITION. For 
 men talk and write, as if THAT were the only evil to be dreaded 
 at present. We run into Sadducism ; and lest we should sup- 
 pose any INVISIBLE BEING immediately concerned, we assign 
 visible causes, which are plainly unequal to the effect pro- 
 duced." SEED. 
 
 NOTE, page 181. 
 
 there are demon-haunters of the earth, 
 
 Who horrify the vision' 'd world of sleep, 
 And pall her midnight with infernal gloom. 
 
 There is a sublime passage on this mysterious subject, in 
 Jeremy Taylor's Funeral Sermon on the Countess of Carbery. 
 After saying that " there are Sicknesses that walk in darkness," 
 he adds, " there are exterminating Angels that fly, wrapt up 
 in the curtains of immateriality and an uncommunicating 
 nature ; whom we cannot see, but we feel their force, and sink 
 under their sword."
 
 BOOK II.] SATAN. 225 
 
 In beautiful contrast to the above, may be quoted the elo- 
 quent Chalmers' passage in his discourse " On the Sympathy 
 that is felt for Man in the distant Places of Creation;" 
 
 " I can say it of the humblest and unworthiest of you all, 
 that the eye of angels is upon him, and that his repentance 
 would, at this moment, send forth a wave of delighted sensi- 
 bility throughout the mighty throng of their innumerable 
 legions."
 
 SATAN. 
 
 BOOK III.
 
 SATAN. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 " This royal throne of kings, this sceptre'd isle, 
 This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, 
 England!" 
 
 How gloriously the festive bells resound ! 
 Pealing their gladness through the azure night, 
 As though the triumph of ten thousand hearts 
 In full-voiced chorus shook the starry air, 
 And made it joyous music ! Now they swell 
 Aloft, in one tempestuous wave of sound,
 
 230 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 Then faintly die, like war-notes on the wind, 
 Then on again ! with an ecstatic roar, 
 Thrilling the empire with a brave delight. 
 
 England hath laid her sceptre on the deep, 
 And with her thunder, chased her ocean-foes 
 Like leaves before the breathing of a blast ! 
 England hath rear'd her banners on the plain 
 Of battle, Victory waved them, and the world 
 Again shall echo with her haughty name. 
 And hence, a stormy rapture shakes the isle ; 
 Hence the loud music of her hollow fanes, 
 Whether in cities emulously tower'd 
 Among the skies, or in lone hamlets seen, 
 Still pouring out the language of the land ; 
 With all those pageantries, and fiery pomps
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 231 
 
 That hang and glitter from her window' d piles, 
 Emblazed with mottoes, and triumphal scenes. 
 
 Not one, to whom the name of country clings 
 With spelling fondness, but this hour adores. 
 The old men feel the sunshine of far youth 
 Returning, fresh as when the hero glow'd. 
 The young, lip, eye, and daring heart, are stirr'd ; 
 Their very blood seems rippled with delight, 
 
 * 
 
 So deep the fulness of this warlike joy. 
 
 Yea, hollow cheeks of Sadness, and the brows 
 
 Of Poverty, and lean-faced Want itself, 
 
 Forget their nature in a share of fame ! 
 
 And yet, most hideous are some human shapes 
 
 That revel near me, by a tow' ring blaze 
 
 Of triumph ; as it flings its glaring life
 
 232 SATAN. FBOOK m. 
 
 
 
 Upon their faces, each one gleams beneath 
 The mock'ry, like a wither' d pile, when Noon 
 In bright derision dances o'er the walls. 
 
 Let Fancy to a distance wing her flight, 
 And learn the glory whence this scene is born. 
 How Sorrow treads upon the heels of Joy ! 
 What puts a smile on some great Empire's cheek, 
 Hath wrung the life-blood from another's heart ; 
 While one is rev'lling with delighted roar, 
 Another waileth to the moan of knells ; 
 So seems the world a round of joy and woe, 
 Alike divided for the doom of things. 
 
 Hither, thou frantic Bacchanal ! whose voice 
 Rings loudest, stand upon the hoof-scarr'd heath,
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 233 
 
 And say if Heaven on such a scene can smile. 
 Here, deep as in thine own exulting land, 
 Night reigns ; but not with noon-like azure crown' d, 
 While starry sympathies, all gaily bright, 
 Look down on gladness : but with sullen calm, 
 Where Weariness hath toned the wind, and stars 
 Are mournful watchers o'er the trodden dead, 
 In tombless havoc weltering on the plain. 
 Each heart that's cold, to other hearts was chain'd, 
 Whose links were out of years of fondness framed. 
 Each eye, now darken'd with eclipsing death, 
 Once beam'd the sun of happiness and home ; 
 Each of the dead hath flung a shade o'er life, 
 Henceforth to be a feast for agony. 
 Mark! where the moon her glimm'ring languor 
 throws, 
 
 L
 
 234 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 What death-romance ! what visions of the slain ! 
 
 One, calmly brow'd, as though his native trees 
 
 Had waved their beauty o'er his dying head ; 
 
 Another, marr'd with agonizing lines, 
 
 And dreams of home, yet ling' ring in his face. 
 
 Now go, and sing the splendor of the war ! 
 
 Go, tell the fortress of the brave and free, 
 
 How beautiful her patriotic roar 
 
 Of Vict'ry, shouting o'er the new-made dead, 
 
 Like Madness, when she hoots a murd'rous joy : 
 
 So shall a war-fame flourish ever green, 
 
 And laurell'd History be trumpet-tongued, 
 
 To fire Ambition with a bloody thirst, 
 
 And keep the world a slaughter-house for man ! 
 
 And this is glory ! such as charms these days,
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 235 
 
 When godly temples stare in every street ; 
 
 When Tenderness, with a bewailing lip, 
 
 For ages of barbaric gloom affects 
 
 A Avontler : how the heart its flatt'ry weaves j 
 
 Of proud Deception, or applauding Thought, 
 
 The victim ever, in its wariest mood. 
 
 To be the bulwark of a land beloved, 
 
 And drive Aggression with avenging sword 
 
 From her indignant shore, doth task renown. 
 
 But say, Thou Centre of created life, 
 
 Who charter' d man, and bade thy heavens to smile 
 
 When from his eye outlook' d the living God ! 
 
 What myriads upon myriads heap'd, to fill 
 
 The circle of ambitious thought, or please 
 
 Some royal dreamer, who would dash a throne 
 
 To hear his trumpets pealing through the world,
 
 236 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 On hill and plain, and ocean's ravening waves, 
 
 The red libation of their hearts have pour'd ! 
 
 But this is kingly ; so let tyrants dream ; 
 
 Nor round their pillows may one death-cry ring ; 
 
 The day, when dust shall give her monarchs back, 
 
 Methinks I see it, and the fiery glance 
 
 Of Judgment, scathing many a royal soul ! 
 
 And then, Eternity, thou sightless home, 
 
 Though silent now, the dead shall be thy voice. 
 
 The night hath drowsed, the revelry is o'er, 
 And Nature woos me. Through the orient heaven 
 A dawn advances, like a shining sea ; 
 Around, in rich transcendency of beams, 
 Enormous fantasies of waking light, . 
 As foam'd from a volcano's fiery lips,
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 237 
 
 Now welter forth, then wanton, and dissolve ; 
 
 For lo ! array'd in clouds of crimson bloom, 
 
 The sun-faced Morn comes gliding o'er the waves, 
 
 That billow dancingly to wear her smile, 
 
 And veils the world with glory ! Rocks and hills 
 
 Salute her with magnificence ; the woods 
 
 And plains are mantled with their greenest pomp r 
 
 And night-tears glisten in her rosy beam. 
 
 But in yon valleys, where from bosom'd cots, 
 
 Like morning incense, wreathy smoke ascends, 
 
 How beautiful the flush of life ! The birds 
 
 Are wing'd for heaven, and steep the air in song, 
 
 While in the gladness of the new-born breeze 
 
 The young leaves flutter, and the flow'rets shake 
 
 Their innocence and bloom. And ye, bright streams, 
 
 Ye woodland vagrants, humming to the wind,
 
 SATAN. [BOOK III. 
 
 In vine-like flexure, how ye rove along 
 By mead and bank, where violets love to dwell 
 In solitude and stillness : all is fresh, 
 And gaysome. Now the peasant, with an eye 
 Bright as the noon-ray sparkling through a shower, 
 Comes forth, and carols in thy warming beam, 
 Thou sky-god ! throned in all thy wealth of light ; 
 Sure airy painters have enrich'd thy sphere 
 With regal pageantry; such cloudy pomps 
 Adorn the heavens, a poet's eye would dream 
 His ancient gods had all return'd again, 
 And hung their palaces around the sun ! 
 
 And this is England, bathed in morning glow : 
 The isle where Freedom bears a lion mien, 
 The land whose echoes thrill the Earth around,
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 239 
 
 The ocean-throned, the ancient battle-famed, 
 The charter'd clime of Heaven ! And in her lap 
 Enchantingly propitious Nature smiles. 
 Her frowns and awfulness are seen afar, 
 Where snow-hills whiten in eternal glare, 
 Or soundless Ocean, lock'd in icy sleep, 
 Deadens the polar world. But here alone, 
 With Summer hymning through her haunted vales, 
 'Tis beauty, bloom, and brightness all ! How rich 
 The wooing luxury of floral meads, 
 Reposing in the noon ; where scented winds 
 Exult, and many a happy brooklet sings ; 
 Sure Admiration might romance it here ! 
 Tall mansions, shadow'd through patrician trees, 
 Those brown-spread farms, grey villages and cots, 
 With castled relics, and cathedral piles
 
 240 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 Where dreaming Solitude may muse and sigh, 
 Enchant dead ages from their tombs, or hear 
 The dark soliloquy of ancient Time, 
 Adorn the landscape, and delight the view : 
 While haggard rocks, and heaven-aspiring hills, 
 Balking the ocean, here and there create 
 A mountain charm, to solemnize the scene. 
 
 Or turn from Nature, in her fresh array 
 Of beauty, to behold the haunts of man 
 In county capitals, or cities huge, 
 In misty grandeur round the island spread. 
 Here spiry fanes, smoke-dimm'd and vast, and streets 
 
 j 
 
 Where sound the life-floods in continuous roar, 
 And Commerce, whom the winds and waves revere, 
 To him whose veins are proud with English blood
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 241 
 
 Suggests a scene that bids a patriot glow. 
 Then, Ocean, listen ! how th' intruding waves 
 With loud resentment trample on the shore, 
 Like pawing steeds, impatient for the war. 
 
 And, such the scenery, the living pomp 
 By Art and Nature o'er this island strewn ; 
 Than which, though cloudy squadrons oft besiege- 
 Her sun, and vapours curtain up the sky, 
 Heaven canopies no lovelier clime. And they, 
 Th' inheritors of her free charms, how proud r 
 And how defyingly, they print the ground, 
 As on they march and look the soul abroad ! 
 Though perfect Beauty from her throne was hurl'd 
 When Sin unmask' d her hideous front, and shades 
 Of Hell rose darkling o'er this human scene ; 
 
 L 5
 
 242 SATAN. 
 
 She still hath reign ; as mind, though overthrown 
 From its young state, shews gleams of glorious prime. 
 And here, methinks, triumphant Beauty dwells 
 These islanders among : the daring eye, 
 Majestic brow, the gallant bloom of health, 
 And dignity of their regardless mien, 
 Denote a power that beautifies the free : . 
 While they who move in loveliness and light, 
 Like memories of vanish' d paradise 
 Around the sternness of ungrateful man, 
 Have beauty such as seraphim adored. 
 
 And yet, of myriads who this matchless isle 
 Enjoy, from day to day, from year to year, 
 Environ'd with her Eden smiles, few dream 
 Or whence, or why, she hath surpass'd the world.
 
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 
 
 * 
 
 Thus hath it ever been, since fateful Time 
 Hath wrestled with that contradiction, Man. 
 Partaken mercies are oblivious wealth ; 
 But Expectation hath a grateful heart, 
 Hailing the smile of Promise from afar : 
 Enjoyment dies into Ingratitude, 
 Till God is buried in the boundless stores 
 Himself created ; eyeless nature knows 
 Him not, for mighty Self absorbeth all. 
 
 Descend the gulph where perish'd ages sleep, 
 And lone, benighted in the savage gloom 
 Of her untravell'd woods and wilds, no light, 
 Save that of Reason, struggling through a cloud 
 Intense, lo ! haughty-featured England lies : 
 An orphan region nursed amid the deep,
 
 244 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 A fameless isle imprison' d by the waves, 
 
 A speck upon the vasty globe ! Who raised 
 
 Her littleness to lofty state ? who bade 
 
 The daring majesty of Caesar's mind 
 
 O'er her rude wilds a Roman spirit breathe, 
 
 Till in the nursing shadow of his throne 
 
 She grew to youthful glory ? Who hath been, 
 
 Through perils, and volcanic bursts of war, 
 
 Earth-shaking tumult, and appalling strife, 
 
 The guardian of her destinies, till now ? 
 
 When Ocean, wreathed around her rocky shore, 
 
 Hath lent his champion billows to defend 
 
 Her fame, while storming dreadful at her foes, 
 
 She spurns them with avenging roar ! Forth steps 
 
 The little greatness of a learned man, 
 
 And on the rapture of presuming thought
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN, 245 
 
 Through the dim valley of departed years 
 Sends down his spirit, and aloud proclaims, 
 The prince, the hero, and aspiring hearts 
 That deal omnipotence round mortal power, 
 Have made, and shall preserve us, as we stand, 
 The mighty and the free ! A proud response, 
 A hell-toned feeling such as I would nurse ; 
 And that which empires have of old indulged, 
 Till, dizzy with renown, they reel'd away 
 Amid the havoc and the whirl of time ! 
 For Power and Greatness are the awful twins 
 Of Destiny, whereby the Earth is moved : 
 The first, a portion of Eternal mind, 
 That, shadow'd o'er the human race, a good 
 Or Evil in its varying course subserves j 
 The second will be judged ! by its own height
 
 246 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 Condemned or absolved. Of England, then, 
 What says the past ? so call'd, for judgment will 
 Annul that name, and make the present all. 
 
 Should I deny thee, angels would declare, 
 That spirits who enrich Eternity 
 Have deck'd thine island clay. Great Kings 
 Who sanctified their sceptres and their thrones ; 
 Patriots sublime, with whom hoar Wisdom dwelt, 
 And tutored ages with advancing thought; 
 With saints and martyrs, heroes of the skies, 
 Approaching, shed their glory on thy name. 
 But of the mighty, see ! the mighty two, 
 Shakspeare and Milton, that surpassing pair ! 
 The one, a mind omnipotently dower'd 
 That multiplied itself through space and time,
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 247 
 
 Passing like nature through the soul of things! 
 Aloft, companion of the Sun he soars 
 Awhile, then travels with the moonless night, 
 Mounts on the wind, or marches with the sea, 
 And, godlike, gives the elements a tone 
 Of grandeur, when his spirit walks abroad ! 
 But Life ! how well he tore thy mask away, 
 The great interpreter of human thought. 
 So royal are his kings, his maids so pure, 
 So grand his heroes, and so vile his knaves, 
 Such feeling smiles, such unaffected tears, 
 So stern and sweet, so melting or sublime, 
 Such life-warm substance in the vast array 
 Of shapes, that live along his moving scene, 
 You'd deem the world were in him when he wrote, 
 And he, the sum and soul of all mankind !
 
 248 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 The last, who lived on earth, but thought in heaven, 
 Beyond compare, the brightest who have scaled 
 The empyrean height, who now the ears 
 Of seraphim with song celestial charms ; 
 The sightless Bard who with undying light 
 Doth glorify his land, how deep he plunged 
 Into the infinite sublime of thought, 
 Flaming with visions of infernal glare ! 
 How high amid the alienated host 
 Of warring angels, he could dare ascend, 
 Look on the lightnings of Almighty wrath, 
 Array the thunders, and reveal the God ! 
 
 These deities of earth thy past sublime,' 
 Yea glowingly, in their triumphant soar 
 And sweep of mind, proclaim the birth
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 249 
 
 And mightiness of an immortal soul. 
 
 But thou too, in the ocean waste of sin 
 
 That since Creation hath expanding swell' d, 
 
 Like darkness breeding while it rolls, has pour'd 
 
 Iniquity ; and for a vast revenge, 
 
 The harvest from all crime and error reap'd, 
 
 My Spirit hath encompass'd Thee ! Thy hosts 
 
 Who in the anarchy, a ruffian stir 
 
 Of civil war, have won the sanguine wreath ; 
 
 Thy lewd-soul' d princes, and voluptuous kings, 
 
 Whose courtly halls were palaces of vice 
 
 That sensualised the land, with buried crimes 
 
 Within thee nursed, and those remorseless deeds 
 
 Of vile aggression, haunting thy great name, 
 
 Yet sully thee, and claim atoning tears; 
 
 Though time hath veil'd them with a mellowing charm.
 
 250 SATAN. [BOOK nr. 
 
 And now reigns England in her noon of might 
 Secure ; the future, with a mast' ring eye 
 Prophetically dooming : distant lands 
 Beneath her sceptre bow, and though her soul 
 Doth gather wisdom from her own domain, 
 In proud neglect of equal climes, there lives 
 No empire on the map of earth, where Fame 
 Hath scatter'd not her mind's nobility. 
 Commerce, the spirit of this bulwark' d isle, 
 Wherein the attributes supremely dwell 
 
 Of all that dignifies, or nurtures power, 
 
 / 
 
 Enthrones her on a peerless height, and works 
 Like inspiration through her mighty heart, 
 And yet, a poison at the core ! . To eyes, 
 Where avarice hath raised a blinding film
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 251 
 
 That flatters, while it bounds the view, her scenes 
 Array'd, and glowing with commercial pomp, 
 More costly than the sun-enchanted skies 
 Appear. Triumphantly outspreads the show 
 Of Trade, of Traffic, and their sumptuous world ! 
 See ! from yon ports what merchant vessels spread, 
 Daunting the winds, and dancing o'er the waves 
 Rich wares and living burden, while the breeze 
 Toys with the flag, and fills the panting sail. 
 Others, from many a tempest-haunted track 
 Return'd, in thunder beat their homeward way, 
 
 And send their spirit wreathing on the gales ! 
 
 i -t 
 
 Then hark ! amid this wilderness of domes, 
 
 Dark lanes, and smoke-roof 'd streets, what mingled 
 
 roar, 
 While Commerce, in her thousand shapes and moods,
 
 252 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 With eager hand and greedy eye, pursues 
 Her round of wonders, and of gain. All arts, 
 All natures, and all elements, are wrung 
 To such obedience by creative Power, 
 That matter quickens into living soul, 
 And works harmonious to the will of man. 
 
 Yet here, methinks, had not one hideous thirst 
 For lucre parch' d all pity from the mind, 
 The hollow cheeks, and livid brow of Toil, 
 That lean, and yellow' d by infectious gloom, 
 Droops o'er his hateful task, might pang 
 The heart of Selfishness, in her most griping hour. 
 Here, too, amid the pestilential glow 
 Of heated chambers, where in sad revenge 
 Art flourishes o'er fading life, are pent
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 253 
 
 The infant young, and friendless orphan poor ; 
 They who should gambol on the lusty meads, 
 While gamesome blood danced beauty through their 
 
 cheeks, 
 
 Thus doom'd to languish in degenerate toils ! 
 Why, what a hell-slave will this Commerce prove, 
 When life and feeling perish for her cause ! 
 
 Already hath an evil spell begun ; 
 Though a proud empire will not see, her heart 
 Is fever' 4 with a fest'ring mass of thought, 
 A lust of gain, that rankles into lies, 
 O'er fraudful means, or knavish arts; while 
 
 Truth, 
 
 Integrity, and Honour, are diseased, 
 And die away in avaricious dreams
 
 SATAN. [BOOK III, 
 
 Of Mammon, that vile despot of the soul. 
 The happy meekness of contented minds 
 Is fretted with ambition ; home and love, 
 The heart-links, and the brotherhood of joy 
 In life, and tomb-companionship in death, 
 Are nothing : Money, God of England seems ! 
 
 There is another, and a nobler scene 
 Of triumph, for dark spirits to survey. 
 For Knowledge, true nobility of mind, 
 When temper'd with a sanctifying tone, 
 Without it, but an ornamental curse, 
 In full omnipotence is reigning now ; 
 Yet haply, with a spirit and a power 
 To breed an earthquake in the boastful heart 
 Of this free Isle. A thunder-charged sky,
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 255 
 
 When clouds float meaningly along the face 
 Of its dread stillness, not more threatening shews, 
 Than England, bloated with ambitious minds 
 That dream in darkness, and await the hour 
 That like a storm-burst will appal the world ! 
 Sooner shall winds be caged, or billows hush'd, 
 Than pride be rooted from one human soul 
 By aught that man's corrective wisdom yields. 
 This rise of dust against vast Deity, 
 Creation in the creature lost ! will swell 
 The mightiest, where religion reigneth least. 
 To vanity a wild'ring charm, to vice 
 A weapon, to the fool a powerless gift, 
 Is Learning. Doth she lift her eyes to heaven, 
 Or downward gaze to idolize her own ?
 
 256 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 The soul of intellect is spread abroad, 
 In whose gay flush men see a flattering bloom ; 
 Yet, vain and unimpressive as the dance 
 Of leaf-shades figured in the dreaming sun, ,<* 
 Are trivial fancies o'er a nation's mind, 
 For ever by inglorious spirits dealt 
 As pictured nature in the rich deceit 
 Of miming art, undignified appears, 
 To the green splendor of her glowing self, 
 So dim the genius of the living day 
 To that which hallow'd the inspired of old. 
 High-soul'd and stern, they charter' d time unborn 
 With heirship of their fame ; th' approving smile, 
 Which low accordance with the bounded view 
 Of spirits levell'd to the dust, procures, 
 Was spurn' d away in their immortal taste
 
 BOOK Til.] SATAN. 257 
 
 For Truth, and her mysterious soar, how few 
 Dare emulate these godlike of the past ! 
 Renown immediate, from the servile lip 
 Of smiling dulness, is the dear reward 
 For which your intellectual pigmies gasp : 
 Hence sickly woes, and sentimental lies, 
 And silly wonders out of shallow brains 
 By Passion woven, to bewilder souls. 
 Romantic panders ! may your kingdom spread ; 
 Let Beauty, Love, and Gentleness, and Thoughts 
 Which ope infinity, and Heaven unveil. 
 In dark imaginings and dreadful gloom 
 Be buried ;- give to crime pathetic grace, 
 And treat the world with new made decalogues ! 
 
 And ye, my chosen crew, especial race, 
 
 M
 
 258 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 \ 
 
 Whose vile artillery of noisy words 
 
 Unceasing rattles in deluded ears 
 
 What ignorance adores, no hell-taught shape 
 
 Among mankind let loose, could blast them more 
 
 Than ye, vicegerents of infernal power % 
 
 By that undreading fool, Philosophy. 
 
 How glorious is the race you run ! Though 
 
 worn, ^ : 
 
 Life-weary, dull, or savagely endow'd ; 
 With eyes, on which the universe hath flash'd 
 No meanings, beautifully link'd to love 
 Or fellowship, with the creative whole ; 
 And hearts where Genius owns no spark divine, 
 That fancy loves, or feeling can adore, 
 Without one impulse of impassion' d truth, 
 Ye sit in judgment on the good and wise,
 
 BOOK III.] 8ATAN. 259 
 
 Supremely charm'd with ignorance, and power. 
 To cloud the bright, and lie away the pure, 
 To wrench, distort, and misapply, to scorn 
 The sacred, or the flippant tongue endow 
 With all that Passion pleads, or Pride admires, 
 Is your high task : and nobly is it done ! 
 Already, see your dreadless Atheist smile, 
 And Honour die a contumelious death. 
 Creator ! what a triumph do we reap, 
 When oracles that fool, or flatter, dull 
 Expounders of a duller creed, those mean 
 Arraigners, shrouded by a saving gloom 
 That wraps them in false glory, as far scenes, 
 In darkness, magnify the truth of day ; 
 When such as these, in life and feeling, heart 
 
 And creed, and elements of thought, can win 
 
 M 2
 
 260 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 A base surrender from a free-born soul, 
 
 Cringeing, or cow' ring, as their wands direct, 
 
 Why, Hell may laugh, and Liberty 's no more : 
 
 Then, free in body, but a slave in soul, 
 
 Is England ; in the dust her spirit walks, 
 
 And right and wrong are blinded from her view. 
 
 Thus perish virtue, thus religion fail, 
 
 And how the cup of Vengeance will o'erflow ! 
 
 So awful is the sway of human mind ; 
 For good, or evil, an enduring charm, 
 Inweaved with ages, silently it works, 
 Reaping uncounted spoils from deeds and words, 
 And thoughts, which spring like blossoms from a ray 
 Of influence, by a ruling spirit cast. 
 There is a stormy greatness, by the sense
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 261 
 
 Of vulgar apprehension hail'd, yet vain 
 When match'd against an all-prevailing mind : 
 A warrior's glory in his banner waves ; 
 The ocean-hero, where the tempest howl'd 
 Outdared the winds ; and echoes of renown 
 Roll mighty round the living head of each ; 
 Yet ebb away to indistinct applause, 
 A dying sound, when Death has call'd them home. 
 
 But he who makes the mind a fame, each thought 
 Eternized, will become a voiceless charm, 
 A thinking power, a still omnipotence, 
 Whence half the heaven on pining earth will bloom. 
 For, what a tale would Time have told, had none 
 Burst through the thraldom of degrading sense, 
 And bade the spirit eloquently tell
 
 262 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 Of Truth, and Beauty, and pervading Love ! 
 Yea, these are such as Darkness would subdue ; 
 They scale the heavens, array the elements 
 With glory, give the herb a greener hue, 
 
 The flower a fresher magic, and the stream 
 
 
 
 A melody that Nature never sang ; 
 
 Thus beautifying all without, by rays within 
 
 From Light's great Source proceeding, they can charm 
 
 Like God Himself reflected round the soul ! 
 
 The dark enchantment of corrupting mind, 
 Not less almighty in its secret course 
 Hath proved. For havoc may be heal'd, and tears 
 And wrongs of desolated kingdoms, change ; 
 But Spirit can outweary vaunting Time, 
 And taint a cent'ry with corrupting thought.
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 263 
 
 Ye prostituted Souls ! when Mind is judged, 
 How ghastly from your slumber will ye wake ! 
 At that dread hour Perversion may not plead, 
 Nor Will deny, what Understanding own'd. 
 The wretched martyrs ! for a vain renown 
 From Unbelief and her heart-blasted crew 
 Derived, they rouse the idiot laugh, in clouds 
 Of falsehood clothe each attribute within, 
 Lend Infidelity a voice, delude 
 The vile with flatteries of impious tone, 
 And fashion doubts to mystify the world. 
 
 For wealth too gasping, for a wise content 
 Too madly fever'd by ambitious thirst, 
 The moral greatness of this mighty land
 
 264 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 Doth charm me with a promise of decay. 
 Her heart is canker' d : I have roam'd unseen 
 Around her ; lightly do her virtues weigh 
 Against the burden of her wickedness. 
 By Fortune fashion'd, what a countless herd 
 Who live to fascinate the palling hours 
 With pleasure, making Life one masquerade ! 
 Refinement is their heaven ; and thus, few crimes 
 Are nourished there ; but lesser sins abound ; 
 
 Revenge and spite, all vanities and hates, 
 
 i 
 
 The virgin whiteness of the soul deform : 
 
 Concealment is a virtue ; virtue oft 
 
 Bare policy ; religion, but a form, 
 
 A taste most delicate for things divine ; 
 
 The truth, convenience ; and a lie, the same.
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 265 
 
 And what a homage doth the tongue present 
 To evil, what alertness of delight 
 Attentive, comes she in whatever shape 
 The turn of accident assume ; in blood, 
 Disaster, or some grand depravity 
 Where passions had their demon play. But tears 
 Of Charity, that language of the soul, 
 Some fine denial of a feeling mind, 
 Some noble act, or heaven-advancing scene, 
 Let such be named, and weariness awakes ; 
 Nothing so dull as virtues that are told : 
 Let Slander, with her false envenom'd lip, 
 Her aping mode, her sly assassin tone, 
 Appear, and eye, and ear, and heart attend, 
 To feed upon the foulness of her tongue ; 
 
 M 5
 
 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 Whether on crooked limb, or character, 
 It fall ; whether she waste it on a foe 
 Successful, or a rival far too good ; 
 Or, graceful drop it o'er a dying friend, 
 Nothing so sweet as slander to the vile. 
 
 But deeper in society are bred 
 The vices ravening on a nation's weal. 
 Philosophy ! darest thou confront me here, 
 Yet arrogant, of time and glory dream ? 
 Descend, and look into degen'rate life : 
 See dark-school'd Vice, with brazen front abroad, 
 And Murder, stalking through her savage round 
 Of midnight blood ; see Theft her felon hand 
 Uprear ; and infamies of heart and tongue ;
 
 BOOK III] SATAN. 267 
 
 And Guilt, with godless triumph on her brow, 
 Mark Hell in miniature ! wherever Crime 
 Depraves, or Poverty allures, and pause ; 
 Millennium is not come, nor Man reclaim'd. 
 
 Thus greedy, worldly, and defiled, how poor 
 The sum of happiness in England's heart ! 
 Like other climes, her thousand children seek 
 A shadow flying from their false embrace, 
 Still adding to the cheat of Time, who thinks 
 Mankind have vow'd them to the lying charm 
 He weaves : for though no happiness secure 
 On earth can bloom ; and in her richest hour 
 There is a longing for more glorious bliss, 
 Immortal as the mind itself; yet joy
 
 268 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 And hope, serenity without, and calm 
 Within, e'en here may visit gentle souls, 
 Who woo them not in scenes of fictions pomp, 
 But in the spirit of a better world. 
 Like food to body, happiness to mind 
 Alone is healthful, when ingredients pure 
 Are mingled to create the charm they bring. 
 
 What numbers, on whose features -the false smile 
 For ever plays ; whose eyes, so brightly charged 
 With happy meaning, quicken envious fire 
 In other hearts, what wretches, gaily-tongued, 
 And scattering words whence emulations spring, 
 Have I beheld, whom Happiness is deem'd 
 With her full heaven to crown ! yet where, oh where,
 
 BOOK III.} SATAN. 269 
 
 Blind mortals, is that priceless gem obtain'd, 
 Which many seek, yet few in life have found ? > 
 
 The Palace ! with her parasitic host 
 Of minions, and that smirking, sinuous race, 
 Who, in the court of princes, lie away 
 Existence, gasping for some golden lot, 
 I've mark'd : the happy do not flourish there. 
 Then look'd I on a mightier scene, wliere men 
 Draw glory from a nation's heart, and voice 
 Their spirit through the quarter'd world ! How vain 
 And valueless this worshipp'd haunt hath proved 
 To such as battle proudly with Despair ! 
 Oh, England ! such as Rome and Athens paid 
 Their architects of greatness, thou hast giv'n
 
 270 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 To many who bequeath thee fame. There live 
 A host, who in the splendor of thy great 
 Do bask and breed, like reptiles in the sun ; 
 Who live in venom, and disease the land 
 With Malice, and her miserable wounds. 
 
 Alas ! Ambition : see yon gifted man, 
 Who in a synod of surpassing minds 
 Stands forth, his being spiritously fired, 
 His brow imperial, in his eye a blaze 
 Of meaning, pour'd from a majestic soul : 
 Borne on the whirlwind of triumphant Thought, 
 Through the wide universe his spirit sweeps ! 
 Thrones, monarchies, and states, he summons each 
 To strict accompt, their victories and kings
 
 BOOR III.] SATAN. 271 
 
 Arraigns, and bids Britannia front them all ! 
 The Senate wonders, Rapture finds a tongue, 
 And Envy sinks abash'd to praise. But go, 
 Young Emulation, when this glowing scene 
 Hath cool'd to common life, and mark him well ! 
 The hero is no hero here ! the mean unknown 
 Have tortured whom a kingdom could not bend : 
 Around him, too regardful, scandal flies ; 
 And words, like gnawing vipers, poison life 
 Away, or rankle in the spirit's core. 
 
 From the proud senate, to a sunnier realm 
 Where Gaiety and her hilarious crew, 
 Like flowers of fancy in a hot-bed rear'd, 
 An artificial life enjoy, I turn'd.
 
 272 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 In such a sphere could Happiness abide ? 
 
 Where Fashion, that great harlequin of life, 
 
 For ever plays the comedy of fools ; 
 
 Where Luxury breathes a pamper'd air ; where Love 
 
 Is venal ; Wealth, a wearisome array ; 
 
 And Time a curse ; the happy do not dwell. 
 
 A false delight, a snatch of fev'rish joy, 
 
 And jading rounds of pleasure, are supplied; 
 
 But oft the heart beats echoless to all, 
 
 Though Custom wear a contradicting smile. 
 
 How such develop their excited mood 
 Amid a Thespian dome, I frequent see. 
 Music and Pomp their mingling spirit shed 
 Around me ; beauties in their cloud-like robes
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 273 
 
 Shine forth, a scenic paradise, it glares 
 Intoxication through the reeling sense 
 Of flush'd enjoyment. In the motley host 
 Three prime gradations may be rank'd : the first, 
 To mount upon the wings of Shakspeare's mind, 
 And win a flash of his Promethean thought, 
 To smile and weep, to shudder, and achiere 
 A round of passionate omnipotence, 
 Attend : the second, are a sensual tribe, 
 Convened to hear romantic harlots sing, 
 On forms to banquet a lascivious gaze, 
 While the bright perfidy of wanton eyes 
 Through brain and spirit darts delicious fire : 
 The last, a throng most pitiful ! who seem, 
 With their corroded figures, rayless glance,
 
 274 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 And death-like struggle of decaying age, 
 
 Like painted skeletons in charnel pomp 
 
 Set forth to satirize the human kind ! 
 
 How fine a prospect for demoniac view ! 
 
 " Creatures, whose souls outbalance worlds, awake!" 
 
 Methinks I hear a pitying Angel cry. 
 
 Another scene where happiness is sought, 
 A festive chamber, with its golden hues, 
 Its dream-like sounds, and languishing delights. 
 Since the far hour when England lay begirt 
 In savage darkness, how divinely raised 
 Art thou, Society ! The polish' d mode, 
 The princely mien, the acquiescing smile 
 Of tutor'd lips, with all that beauty, love,
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 275 
 
 Accomplishment, and sumptuous arts bestow, 
 
 Are thine ; but oh, the hollowness within ! 
 
 One mingled heart Society should be, 
 
 Of glowing words, and gen'rous feelings made, 
 
 And hallow'd by Sincerity ; but hark ! 
 
 The whisper'd malice of the envious vain : 
 
 The shrug of falsehood, and the sly deceit 
 
 Of changing looks ; the hypocritic glance, 
 
 The supple base, and stiff-neck' d proud, behold ! 
 
 From simp'ring youth, e'en down to crabbed age, 
 
 'Tis vapour, vanity, and meanness all ! 
 
 Where honest natures sicken with disgust ; 
 
 While school' d Hypocrisy, with glozing tongue, 
 
 Performs the social serpent of the night : 
 
 A lying atmosphere, a soulless haunt, 
 
 Where fools are pamper'd, and the vile prevail.
 
 276 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 From Fashion moved I to the loftier scenes 
 Where hosts by learning titled, for renown 
 And rank more elevate than kings bestow, 
 Their inward toil pursue, and yet how vain ! 
 There is a craving for some higher gift, 
 A thirst which Fame and Wisdom fail to quench 
 Alone ; the fountain hath a deeper well. 
 And what is Fame ? When Hope, the morning-star 
 Of life, arose, enthusiast ! thou wouldst climb 
 Her steepy height, to hear th' acclaiming roar 
 Of thousands echoing round thee, like a choir 
 Of Ocean, wafted o'er a mountain-head. 
 In the dark womb of some weird solitude 
 Where Destiny delights to colour years ; 
 Or by some gush of beauty, or the glow 
 Of emulation, quicken'd by a mighty name,
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 277 
 
 Did first her music whisper, be thou great ? 
 
 No matter : midnight watchings, gloom and tears, 
 
 Thy heart a fever, and thy brain on fire, 
 
 The wrench and rack of thought, have won the prize ; 
 
 And midmost thou, among the laurell'd tribe 
 
 A paramount art throned j And dear to thee, 
 
 Young hero of the mind, is first renown ; 
 
 Fresh, warm, and pure, as early love, ere Time 
 
 Hath nipt it with his frosty wing. Awhile, 
 
 In Paradise thou dream'st, and seem'st to hear 
 
 The hailing worship of Posterity. 
 
 But now, come down from thy celestial height ! 
 
 Descend, and struggle with Jhe heartless crew 
 
 Who out of others' tears extract their joy. 
 
 The rocky nature of ignoble minds, 
 
 Ambitious Spite, and unrelenting Hate,
 
 278 SATAN. [BOOK HI, 
 
 And all who nibble at each young renown, 
 'Tis thine to wrestle with ; thy spell is o'er, 
 And Glory is a feast for Shame : reproach 
 It not, true happiness it never breathed. 
 
 And thou, Religion, Hell's appalling foe, 
 Yet least prevailing, on whose seraph wing, 
 Far, far away from this benighted orb 
 The spirit mounts, though many temples woo 
 Thy sanctitude, and many tongues thy charm 
 Repeat, how few have found thee as thou art, 
 The LIVING Saviour of mankind ! What hosts 
 Who wear my attributes, or ape my power, 
 Yet carry gospels in their saintly looks ! 
 Ye hypocrites ! how often have I torn 
 Your veils away ! how often have I seen
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN, 279 
 
 A midnight where the world saw day ; 
 Beheld a demon, where they dreamt a God ! 
 
 'Tis not the vileness of hypocrisy 
 From which alone a hellish harvest springs ; 
 But that contempt w r hich on Religion frowns, 
 When hypocrites in unmask' d truth appear ; 
 Then Vice is comforted, and lifts her voice 
 Triumphant ; pleased to have a broken step, 
 However slipp'ry, where to stand and cry, 
 Thank God ! my soul Religion never swell'd. 
 How vain, how pitiably vile, is this ; 
 As well might Painting and her fairy scenes 
 Be scouted, when a daubing mimic fails ; 
 Or Music have her angel soul denied, 
 When a poor screech-owl apes a melody,
 
 280 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 As true Religion have her Heaven disown'd, 
 Because a false professor fools the world. 
 
 Nor dwells that happiness, which mortals seek, 
 With them, fanatically crazed or wild ; 
 Two orders breathe there of this graceless crew : 
 The one, in false unheavenly rapture, soar 
 Full in the face of Deity, and sing 
 And shout, with more than archangelic joy ; 
 And yet, so earthly is excessive love, 
 No heathen to a sensual god e'er raved 
 With more lip-service of degrading rant, 
 Than dark fanatics, when their roar is up. 
 The other, sink as deep as these ascend, 
 And so exult in self-accusing thought, 
 That nought's more proud than their humility.
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 281 
 
 And this is homage for their One Supreme ! 
 Whose palace are th' unutterable Heavens ; 
 Who comes and mountains from his glory flee ; 
 Who speaketh and a universe begins ; 
 Who frowneth and creation is no more ! 
 So awful, that the dazzled Angels shrink 
 In veil'd humility from his dread gaze. 
 To such, these holy maniacs cry, and bid 
 Him bow the heavens in thunder, and appear ! 
 Or, in the vaunting of Devotion's power, 
 Can dare to humanize their Deity : 
 While others, with a superstitious cloud, 
 Array his attributes, conceal his love, 
 And level Mercy to their own despair. 
 
 Nor let them boast, who, in the vile content 
 
 N
 
 282 SATAN. [BOOK III. 
 
 Of worldly meanness, sepulchred in self, 
 
 And worm-like clinging to their genial clay, 
 
 The wisely good and only happy deem 
 
 Their narrow lot : to such earth-loving race 
 
 The seen and felt make all their paradise ; 
 
 Should Hell be vision'd, let it burn away ; 
 
 If Heaven, bombast is thunder'd in their ears ; 
 
 When yawns the tomb, then comes the hour to pray ; 
 
 When Death appears, the awe of future worlds ! 
 
 Most glorious ! could I wither all men down, 
 
 So tame them from their true immortal soar 
 
 To what these are, how demonized the earth 
 
 Would grow ! all feeling curdled into self, 
 
 All nobleness of thought, a dream denounced, 
 
 All bright and beautiful sensations mock'd ; 
 
 The world, a vortex for engulphing heart
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 283 
 
 And soul, one living curse this life would prove ! 
 
 And yet, amid it were I rank'd, with eye 
 
 To view, and heart to feel, around me strewn 
 
 Such glory, pomp, magnificence, and might, 
 
 In visible array, I'd rather be 
 
 Some free-born creature of the stately woods, 
 
 Than not the wooing elements enjoy 
 
 Catch glimpses, meanings, and subliming hopes 
 
 That o'er the unseen fling surpassing hues, 
 
 And tone what is, diviner to the soul. 
 
 Glory, and Pleasure, Learning, Power, and Fame, 
 All idols of deceptive sway, mankind 
 Have crown' d them for the master-spell of life; \ 
 And yet, a mocking destiny they win. 
 How often dwelleth gladness in the smile 
 
 N 2
 
 284 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 They raise, or rapture in the heaven they dream ! 
 
 Unknown, unhonour'd, in the noiseless sphere 
 
 Of humbleness, the happy man I found. 
 
 It was not that the tears, or toils of fate 
 
 Were never his ; or that no stormy rush 
 
 The sober current of his days annoy 'd : 
 
 But in him dwelt that true philosophy 
 
 That flings a sunshine o'er the wintriest hour. 
 
 The proud he envied not ; no splendors craved, 
 
 Nor sigh'd to wear the laurels of renown ; 
 
 But look'd on Greatness with contented eye, 
 
 Then smilingly to his meek path retired : 
 
 Thus o'er the billows of a troublous world, 
 
 As o'er the anarchy of waters moves 
 
 The seaman's bark, in safety did he ride, 
 
 Forgot his woes, and left his wants to Heaven,
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 285 
 
 I envied, tempted ; but could not decoy 
 
 His spirit to the perilous ascent 
 
 Of emulative thought. He look'd around, 
 
 When Glory wooed him with her trait' rous glare, 
 
 On the calm luxuries of humble life. 
 
 There sat the echo of his own pure mind, 
 
 
 
 The peaceful sharer of his love and lot : 
 What beaming fulness in that tender eye, 
 What a bright overflow of spirit shone, 
 When by her sinless babe she mused, who lay 
 In beauty, still and warm as summer air : 
 And what could camp, or court, or palace yield, 
 Of nobler, deeper, more exalted bliss, 
 Than when, as weary daylight sinks to rest, 
 He shut his door upon the noisy world ; 
 And with no harrowing dream of guilty hue
 
 286 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 To mar the witching hours of love and home, 
 Sat by his hearth, adoring and adored ! 
 
 But. far more dareful is the life I'd see ; 
 And few shall flourish in this homely sphere ! 
 Excitement is my great enchanter, whence 
 The wisdom of the worldly fain would reap 
 That blissful nothing which Delusion shapes ; 
 That onward, day by day, from year to year, 
 Through gloom and glory mocks them to the grave ! 
 I thank thee, Britain ! thou hast yet to prove 
 The hell-subduing charm Religion yields : * 
 Whereby, without untuning the sound chords 
 Of social being, man could vision forth 
 A beauty and sublimity of soul, 
 Thou hast not yet pourtray'd. There is a sense,
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 287 
 
 A selfish, innate law of right and wrong, 
 Which makes a heathen moral : such is thine. 
 But this alone shall never exorcise 
 One vice ; or helm the chaos that within 
 Is working, out of ruin'd passions born. 
 Diviner air the Christian breathes, who owns 
 In God, the aim and end of all things merged ; 
 A Power, who not subordinately claims 
 Eternal worship, but the fountain-source 
 Of thought and action, life's prevailing law. 
 Thus glorified, how hateful is the truth 
 That withers me ! and what outweighs the bliss 
 Of faith, and fellowship with the Most High ? 
 Bid colour to enchant the blind ; or sounds 
 Of melody through deafen'd ears to glide ; 
 Or dream of sensibility in stones ;
 
 288 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 But think not, world-slaves ! to imagine all 
 
 That inward longing for immortal life, 
 
 That more than rapture of a heart redeem' d, 
 
 A Christian nurseth ; 'tis the heaven-wove charm 
 
 Which devils hate, but cannot dare destroy, 
 
 While Faith o'erawing rules. Two thousand years 
 
 In glorious witness gather round mankind, 
 
 Attesting it divine ; to wisdom, wealth ; 
 
 To ignorance, beyond what sages teach ; 
 
 And crowning poverty with such high gifts, 
 
 That she may tax the sun and moon for joy, 
 
 Partake the elements, and reap a bliss 
 
 That seats her lofty over ranks and thrones, 
 
 The inward quiet of a grateful mind. 
 
 To such attemper'd, dawns this hallow'd day,
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 289 
 
 Thy Sabbath. Evil owns her darksome power 
 
 To tremble, when her smile salutes the Earth 1 
 
 For, like a freshness out of Eden wing'd, 
 
 Her sainted influence comes : the toils and woes, 
 
 The cankering wear of ever busy life 
 
 In spiritual oblivion smooth'd away, 
 
 On such a dawn, far heavenward should the heart 
 
 Advance ; while deeply glowing, soul with soul 
 
 Might meet, and mingle in delicious calm, 
 
 Like many clouds that into one dissolve. 
 
 How calmly beautiful this blessed morn ! 
 The sky all azure, not a cloud abroad, 
 A sunny languor in the air, the breeze 
 Gentle enough to fan an Angel's brow ; 
 
 N5
 
 290 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 And thou, the lord of beauty and of light 
 Enthroned, how oriently thy splendors shine, 
 And make a loveliness where'er they fall ! 
 
 Hark ! on the stillness of the Sabbath air, 
 From tower and steeple floats the mellow chime 
 Of matin bells ; how sweetly solemn mounts 
 The pealing incense ! up to Heaven it glides, 
 As though it heralded a people's prayer. 
 Their ebbing music, all uncharm'd, some feel ; 
 While others, in its wafting decadence, 
 Hear dream-like echoes from the far-off shore 
 Of childhood, where a twilight sadness woos. 
 
 And now, from England's countless domes and 
 streets,
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 291 
 
 In motley garb, the trooping myriads come, 
 To kneel in temples where their fathers knelt. 
 Among them, there are heaven-toned spirits found, 
 Hailing their Sabbath as a blissful type 
 Of that which in Eternity shall smile ; 
 Others, whom Custom's all-resistless sway 
 . Beguileth, in their pompous robes appear, 
 And use them for religion ; many speed, 
 For the loud wheels of common life stand still ! 
 And round it an unwholesome quiet reigns ; 
 The show and music of the templed pomp 
 Will o'er the heart some fascination fling, 
 For what more weary than to worship God ! 
 Thrice noble Christians ! why should awing fear, 
 And homage, pure as sainted martyrs paid, 
 Seek Heaven, when Idleness can do as well ?
 
 292 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 But now for Country, and her chaster scenes ! 
 The melody of Summer winds, the wave 
 Of herbage, in a bloomy radiance clad, 
 And chant of trees, that languishingly bend 
 As gazing on their shadows, meet around 
 This charmed haunt of Nature's sanctitude. 
 How meekly piled, how venerably graced 
 This hamlet fane ! by mellowing age imbrown'd, ^ 
 And freckled like a rock of sea-worn hue. 
 No marble tombs of agonizing pomp 
 Are here ; but turf-graves of unfading green, 
 Where loved, yet lowly, generations sleep : 
 And o'er them many a Sabbath sigh is heaved 
 From hearts that live on sadness from the tomb.- 
 
 And such is thine, lone muser ! by yon grave
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 293 
 
 Now ling' ring, with a soul-expressive eye 
 
 Of sorrow. Corn-fields glowing brown, and 
 
 bright 
 
 With promise, sumptuous in the noon-glare seen ; 
 The meadows, speckled with a homeward tribe 
 Of village matrons, sons, and holy sires, 
 The hymning birds, all music as they soar, 
 And those twin brooks, so beautifully glad, 
 That whisper happy secrets to the wind, 
 Such life and beauty by the landscape breathed, 
 And yet, a tomb-shade overclouds it all ! 
 Eternity is on thee ; is thy soul secure ? 
 
 A churchyard ! 'tis a homely word, yet full 
 Of feeling ; and a sound that o'er the heart 
 Might shed religion. In the gloom of graves
 
 294 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 I read the curse primeval, and the Voice 
 
 That wreak' d it, seems to whisper by these tombs 
 
 Of village quiet, that around me lie 
 
 In green humility : can Life, the dead 
 
 Among, be musing, nor to me advance 
 
 The spirit of her thought ? True, Nature wears 
 
 No rustic mourning here : in golden play 
 
 Her sprightly grass-flowers wave ; the random breeze 
 
 Hums in the noon, or with yon froward boughs 
 
 A murm'ring quarrel wakes : and yet how oft 
 
 In such a haunt, the insuppressive sigh 
 
 Is heard, while feelings that may pilot years 
 
 To glory, spring from out a minute's gloom ! 
 
 Mind overcomes me here. Amid the hush 
 Of stately tombs, of dim sepulchral pomp,
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 295 
 
 And monumental falsehoods piled o'er men 
 
 Whose only worth is in their epitaphs, 
 
 I fear thee not, thou meditating one ! 
 
 Infinity may blacken round thy dream 
 
 Perchance, and words inaudible thy mind 
 
 With shadowy bodements fill ; but worldly gauds 
 
 Entice thee ; whisper'd vanities of thought 
 
 Arise, and though life lose her glare awhile, 
 
 Ambition tints the moral of the tomb. 
 
 'Tis not so here : th' uncheated eye can dwell 
 
 On few distinctions, save of diff'ring age ; 
 
 The heart is free to ponder, and the soul 
 
 To be acquainted with herself alone. 
 
 And more development of Man is found 
 
 In such calm scene, than in the warring rush
 
 296 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 Of life. I watch him thus, and mark 
 
 The swelling pomp of immortality 
 
 That lifts the soul, and makes Hereafter plain ! 
 
 Or, darkness from the unapparent dead 
 
 That whelms the spirit with a cold despair. 
 
 Nature begins ; and in the white-roll'd shroud 
 The ghastly nothingness of Death appears. 
 And then, a knell, Time's world-awaking tongue, 
 Rings in the soul, and by a new-turn'd grave 
 He paints a mourning vision 5 sees the tears 
 Telling of many a day's remember' d joys 
 Down cheeks of anguish dropping ; and can hear 
 The careless mutter of the broken clod 
 Upon his coffin echo. Then, the dream !
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 297 
 
 The solemn dream ! of where a spirit-home 
 May be, and what is an Eternal World.- 
 O, mortal ! ask th' interminated sky, 
 The mystic wind, the ever-murm'ring deep, 
 And all that night and day around thee dwells 
 Doth nought reply ? The Elements all dumb ? 
 Then ask thy soul, and God himself replies ! 
 
 I thank thee, Life, and all thy sceneful realm, 
 Wherein such vassalage of mind abounds, 
 That thoughts of death are exiled from the heart 
 Of many, till the hungry tomb doth gape. 
 Still onward fool mankind, and thus become 
 The sole omnipotent that sense obeys. 
 And ever, when thou hear*st some true divine
 
 298 SATAN. [BOOK m. 
 
 Of Nature's teaching, of Hereafter tell, 
 Then crown him, darkly spiritless, and cold. 
 Oh ! THINK not, Worldling, or thy soul would say, 
 The man who hangs on every smiling hour 
 A coward proves to questionings of thought ; 
 While he who dares with an undreading eye 
 To fathom his own nature, in the grave 
 Descend, Eternity's deep gates unbar, 
 May, faith-arm'd, look in the Almighty face, 
 And grow familiar with an Angel's smile ? 
 
 England is blest in all that Nature lends r 
 No fields spread greener magic to the gaze, 
 No streams of purer freshness flow, no winds 
 In richer harmony their wings unfold,
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 299 
 
 Than hers : and though invading Splendor frown 
 A stately contrast o'er a ruin'd scene ; 
 Though petty tyrant, and domestic lord, 
 That elevating charm have long eclipsed 
 Of happy peasantry, with honest hearts 
 For country glowing, and for God prepared ; 
 Though wither' d all that pastoral poets sang, 
 Enough for homage, or refreshing thought, 
 Doth consecrate her yet. And thus, methinks, 
 Sweet Country might imparadise my soul 
 Of fine perceptions and delightsome moods b , 
 Grey towers, and streets all surfeited with throngs 
 Of worldlings, greedy-eyed, and stale of heart, 
 As the dead air around them, who should deem 
 Enchantment, while a lovelier world is free ? 
 From dusky cities, where forced Nature grieves
 
 300 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 To wear the meanness of surrounding men, 
 
 On wings of gladness might her lovers fly 
 
 To haunts divine as these. Lo ! how she laughs 
 
 In sunshine, tinting with her bright romance 
 
 Hill, wood, and valley, rock and wayward stream ; 
 
 What blue deliciousness of arched sky ! 
 
 What flow'ry hues, what odorous delights, 
 
 And, as her gales in sounding glory come, 
 
 What ocean-mock' ry from her voiceful trees 
 
 Is heard, in rapture echoing the winds ! 
 
 Yet well for me, that Town's eventful sphere 
 Enchants the many, more than nature can. 
 No sound melodious as the roar of streets, 
 No sky delightful as the smoky mass 
 Above them, like a misty ocean hung ;
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 301 
 
 No joy prevailing as the selfish stir 
 
 That int'rest, craft, or petty wants produce, 
 
 And on Life's stream those fleeting bubbles raise, 
 
 In bursting which, their day-born wisdom lies. 
 
 Why, this is taste Corruption should enjoy ! 
 
 She cannot fancy what she never felt. 
 
 There is an outward and an inward eye, 
 
 Dependency endow' d ; when that which sees 
 
 Within is dimmed, the eye of outward sense 
 
 Is darken'd too ; Creation wears a cloud, 
 
 And Life a veil ; when both are bright and 
 
 free, 
 
 The Universe, and all within her, shows 
 The happy meaning, and the human charm. 
 
 Both form and mind a fellow magic steal,
 
 SATAN. [BOOK III. 
 
 Where the free visitings of nature act. 
 
 As the fresh lustre of a healthful morn 
 
 The languor of a dying eve outblooms, 
 
 So doth the beauty of this country girl 
 
 Surpass the city maiden in her charm : 
 
 The rich enamel of the rosy blood 
 
 Is painted on her cheek ; and her glad eye, 
 
 The full joy and glory of the meads, 
 
 The freedom of the woods and waterfalls, 
 
 And the proud spirit of her village hills, 
 
 Its glances come ! her step is like the breeze ; 
 
 Her forehead arch'd, to face the skies ; her form, 
 
 Perfection out of Nature's hand; and words, 
 
 The native breathings of a happy soul. 
 
 Nor less in contrast to the bolder mien
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 303 
 
 Of city manner, is thine artless air, 
 
 Whom now a wand'rer in the fields I view, 
 
 With sunshine lovingly around thee thrown. 
 
 A sweet unwillingness to be observed 
 
 Dwells in that maiden glance, and oft away 
 
 From the bright homage of adoring eyes 
 
 In delicate timidity thou glidest ; 
 
 Like a coy stream, that from fond daylight speeds 
 
 To hide its beauty in sequester'd bowers. 
 
 Yet Fashion does, what feeling would deny ; 
 Making a charm where none is found : thus, hills 
 And lakes, the mountain-winds, and sea-fresh gales, 
 The idle from the town retreats allure, 
 When the spring-glories smile. And some there are 
 Among them, of that undetermined race, 
 
 4 '
 
 304 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 O'er whom the earthly and the heavenly sway 
 With fitful interchange, mere epicenes 
 In mind. Worn by the hot and feverish stir 
 Of city life, her many-mansion' d views, 
 Her pathways bleaching in the glare of noon, 
 And the fierce clatter of conflicting wheels, 
 A wearied heart romantically sighs ; 
 " O for the luxury of living gales, 
 
 And wafted music of ten thousand trees, 
 
 . .' i 
 
 Whose young leaves dance like ringlets on a brow 
 
 Of joy, and glitter gaily to the sun ! 
 
 O for some deep-valed haunt, where all alone, 
 
 Saving the mute companionship of hills, 
 
 My feet may wander, and mine eye exult !" 
 
 So wish'd a Worldling ; and behold him come,
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 305 
 
 And, soul'd with new enchantment, thus exclaim : 
 " Again thine own, my heart I give to thee, 
 Sweet Nature ; once again thy fondling breath, 
 Air-music, plays around my faded brow, 
 Pure as a father's blessing, o'er a child 
 Forgiven, gently murmur' d .Let me feed, 
 With sateless eye, on this thy glorious scene. 
 Dilated, as with gladness, glows the blue 
 O'erhanging sky, untinctured with a cloud : 
 Around me, hills on hills are greenly piled, 
 Each crowning each in billowy ascent, 
 And beautiful array : a breeze is up, 
 In bird-like motion winging the bright air ; 
 Or by the flow'rets, giddy with delight, 
 And dancing golden in the meadow pomp. 
 Nor am I lonesome in this hour of bliss : 
 
 O
 
 306 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 The shining flocks that speckle the glad fields, 
 The larks, and butterflies that tint their path 
 With beauty, and yon group of happy babes, 
 Fit company for sunbeams and for flowers, 
 So brightly innocent they seem, partake 
 The heavenliness of this romantic hour. 
 And thou, beneath me in thy waveless mood 
 Luxuriant spread, with ripples twinkling gay : .'' -..- 
 As insect wings that flutter in the sun, 
 Calm Ocean ! often has thy phantom swell' d 
 Upon me, in the rush of busy life, 
 With smile as glorious as thou wearest now." 
 And canst thou, with a mind thus deeply toned 
 To all that Nature for communing hearts 
 Provides, again be mingled in the mass 
 Of vulgar spirits, and their vain employ ?
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 307 
 
 Yes ! worldliness shall woo thee back again ; 
 For impulse, not reflection, is the power 
 Thou serv'st, and that alone no heart secures. 
 
 A flash of feeling, not a flow of mind 
 Above the dark rebellion of the sense, 
 Or passion, is that soul-refreshing trait 
 Of human character, that charmeth most, 
 But least prevails ; a flick'ring light, that none 
 Can trust, \vho more substantial moods enjoy ; 
 Since impulse, unto good or bad alike 
 May lead, the vassal of each tempting hour. 
 And thus, man's finer nature oft profaned 
 By fits and starts of ill-directed mind, 
 No marvel, when by worldly rust decay'd 
 
 In each perception of ethereal growth, 
 
 o 2
 
 308 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 The many should have crown'd as vain, all bliss 
 That neither in, nor for the world, doth bloom, 
 And named Romance, the sin of tender souls. 
 How little do these menials of the mind 
 From their blind prison-house of earth perceive, 
 That moods predictive of diviner scenes 
 Come oft inspired, and, though morosely scorn'd, 
 Are shadowy foretaste of the unreveal'd b . 
 And such may dawn, when life is dream'd away; 
 Or, in a waste of thought the heart expands, 
 And 'mid the quiet of remember' d things 
 Luxuriates, hallowing stillness into Heaven. 
 
 But this enchantment of reposing thought, 
 When Solitude falls heaven-like on the soul 
 Reflective, far above that aimless gloom
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 309 
 
 Where life is fever'd into sickly woe, 
 
 Ascends ; though frequent merged in thy soft name, 
 
 Retirement ! By his kind, unloved, unwooed, 
 
 Or souring all things with sarcastic joy, 
 
 Deflow'ring Happiness of her young bloom, 
 
 And making winter where the summer glows, 
 
 The misanthrope to his dull haunt retires 
 
 For saturnine felicity in vain. 
 
 For as the deep, unvisited by winds 
 
 And elemental stir, corrupted grows 
 
 Through uncongenial calm ; so turns the heart, 
 
 When stagnant left, to all impure conceits, 
 
 Unholy fancies, and unhealthful thoughts : 
 
 The world must wake it, as the Angel stirr'd 
 
 The healing waters, into glorious life 
 
 And motion, making them to bless mankind.
 
 310 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 Oh ! I am with these eremites, these mock 
 Philosophers, most elegantly sad, 
 Because outrageously befool'd. The man 
 Who battles nobly with his lot, and starves 
 Without a tear, hath more philosophy 
 In his true nature, than your sages dream, 
 Who mope, for want of sterling misery ! 
 
 But lo ! a vision fair as fancy sees. 
 Beside the deep, emboss'd with beauteous waves, 
 An infant stands, and views the living awe 
 Of its immensity, with lips apart 
 Like a cleft rose hung radiant in the sun, 
 Hush'd into sweetest wonder. How divine 
 The innocence of Childhood ! Did it bloom 
 Unwither'd through the scorching waste of years,
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 311 
 
 Men would be angels, and my realm destroy'd ! 
 
 With eyes whose blueness is a summer heaven, 
 
 And cheeks where cherubim might print a kiss, 
 
 And forehead fair as moonlit snow, thy form 
 
 Might be encradled in the rosy clouds 
 
 Of eve, that dream around their dying sun, 
 
 So gentle and so glowing thou appear' st. 
 
 And heavenly is it for maternal eyes 
 
 In their fond light to mark thee growing, day 
 
 By day, with a warm atmosphere of love 
 
 Around thee circled with unceasing spell, 
 
 While, like a ray from her own spirit shed, 
 
 Thy mind shines forth in words of sweeter sound 
 
 Than all the music of thy manhood brings. 
 
 'Tis now the poetry of life to thee ! 
 
 With fancies fresh and innocent as flowers,
 
 312 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 And manner sportive as the free-wing' d air, 
 Thou seest a friend in every smile ; thy days r 
 Like singing birds, in gladness speed along, 
 And not a tear that trembles on thy lids 
 But shines away, and sparkles into joy ! 
 
 Yet Time shall envy such a dream as this ; 
 And when I see thee in thine after years, 
 As far as Satan from his primal height 
 Is fallen, will thy tarnish'd nature be, 
 From that which blasts me with its pureness now ! 
 
 But need I travel into years unborn 
 To gather misery ? behold it here ! 
 Here, where a childless mother by the tomb 
 Of her dead offspring, wan and wither'd sits
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 313 
 
 In the dull stupor of despairing grief; 
 
 Her brow is bent, her visage thin and worn, 
 
 Her garments fading like neglected flowers, 
 
 And not a glance, but speaks an agony ! 
 
 Oh, wretch ! whose sorrow all thy virtue proves > 
 
 For she who perish'd in a timeless grave, 
 
 Though beautiful as ever sunshine knew, 
 
 In love and truth most tenderly endow'd, 
 
 When living, was a curse to thee ! Thy hate 
 
 Pursued her, and thy blighting envy frown'd 
 
 Like a dark hell-shade on her youthful path : 
 
 Oft in the midnight thou would' st mutt' ring wake. 
 
 And bid the grave to open on thy child ! 
 
 Yet when her dwelling was the loathsome tomb, 
 
 And hateful envy had no charms to dread, 
 
 When that was dust which once an angel glow'd, 
 
 5
 
 314 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 The mother's heart return'd again, and grief, 
 Too late, then rack'd thy being to remorse, 
 Making thee all that demons could desire. 
 For hope, nor faith, one reconciling beam 
 Impart, to brighten thy dark woes ; unwatch'd, 
 Unseen, thou visitest a grassy haunt 
 Of death, and in the muteness of despair 
 Beneath a pining yew-tree lonely sitt'st, 
 To feast thine anguish on a daughter's tomb ! 
 
 And many sad as thee, have I beheld 
 In my deep wand'ring through this ancient isle. 
 A tree by lightning blasted to the ground, 
 And those proud branches which the seasons loved 
 To beautify, in leafless ruin laid ; 
 A wreck upon the buxom waters toss'd,
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 315 
 
 And darkly hinting a terrific tale ! 
 
 Or grey-wall'd castle, where of old were seen 
 
 The banner' d triumph and baronial pomp, 
 
 But now, the prey of melancholy winds, 
 
 For each, how oft a meditative sigh, 
 
 Or tear, awakes ; yet what so sad, 
 
 As living ruin in a wretched soul, 
 
 As human sorrow by no hope assuaged ? 
 
 My God ! it is a miserable world ! 
 
 May'st thou, the wretched, cry. From faded years 
 
 No flower to rescue for rememb'ring love, 
 
 Or blissful woe ; the future but a dead 
 
 , \ 
 
 Unknown ; the present all a blacken'd scene ; 
 By friends unloved, or in the tomb, forgot, 
 How desolate thy doom must be ! Abroad, 
 The sunshine mocks thee with a cruel glare ;
 
 316 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 And in the smile of the unthinking crowd 
 No bright reflection for thy heart is found ; 
 At home, blank weariness of soul awaits 
 Thee there, and turns it into dismal thought ! 
 Or haply, when the sallow evening shrouds 
 The echoing city, at thy windoAV placed, 
 With vacant eye thou view'st the yielding glow 
 Of day ; or sighing, hear'st the steeple-bells 
 With mournful music spiriting the night. 
 
 But now, a sunset, with impassion'd hues 
 Of splendor deepens round yon arched bay ; 
 'Tis evening hour ; the hour when Heaven descends 
 In dream-like radiance on the calmed earth. 
 Hither ! thou victim of luxurious halls, 
 The glory of these west'ring clouds behold,
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 317 
 
 That, rich as eastern fancies, float the skies 
 Along : and hark ! the revelry of waves ; 
 Now, like the whirling of unnumber'd wheels 
 In faint advance, now wild as battle-roar 
 In shatter'd echoes voyaging the wind ; 
 Then, snake-like hissing, they enring the shore, 
 Dissolve, and flower the shelly beach with foam. 
 
 Brief as a fancy, and as brightly vain, 
 The sky-pomp fades ; and in his sumptuous robe 
 Of cloudy sheen, the great high-priest of Earth 
 Hath bosom'd him beyond the ocean bound. 
 Like weary eyelids, flowers are closing up 
 Their beauty ; faint as rain-falls sound the leaves, 
 When ruffled by the dying breath of day ; 
 And Twilight, that true hour for mellow dream,
 
 318 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 Or tender thought, now dimly o'er the wave 
 His halcyon wing unfolds ; in spectral gloom 
 The cloud-peak'd hills depart, and all the shore 
 Lies calm, where nothing mars its pebbly sleep, 
 Save when the step of yon lone wand'rer moves, 
 Watching the boats in sailless pomp reposed ; 
 Or, mournful listening to the curfew sound 
 Of eve-bells, hymning from their distant spires. 
 
 
 
 And who art thou, of grief-full aspect there, 
 Whose slow faint footfalls sound of misery ? 
 Consuming want thy lot hath never been ; 
 But thou art one, from out whose by-gone days 
 No mem'ries breathe for retrospective moods 
 To welcome ; the true dignity of life 
 Thy consecrated powers hath ne'er employed,
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 319 
 
 The past is but the blackness of the tomb ! 
 That frowneth with condemning gaze, when, lone 
 And pleasureless, thy meditations rise. 
 The moonlight, paving with a glassy shore 
 Of wrinkled lustre all yon desert main, 
 The night's sad umbrage, and her mystic hush, 
 O'erwhelmingly becalm thee ; thou would'st fain 
 Again be flatter'd with the gorgeous day, 
 To melt thy sadness in her fawning smile. 
 
 v V 
 
 Thus ever proves a stilly hour, when thought 
 Hath long aloof from mortal bosoms dwelt ; 
 In vengeance and convicting truth it comes, 
 With the dread quickness of a lightning-glance 
 Detecting all the danger of the soul, 
 Till conscience tremble ! and the summon'd Past
 
 320 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 Is past no more ! but present, with a fire 
 And force, concentred for terrific sway : 
 I AM the motto of Eternity, 
 Is heard, and fearful sounds the truth therein ! 
 But oh, how bounded would my kingdom be, 
 If what is life in common language deem'd, 
 Which unreflectively hath flow'd away, 
 Were all the law of Being did require ! 
 Yet is there life, where no reflection lives ? 
 Was spirit with divinity impregn'd, 
 To be the pris'ner of the sense ? How well 
 For many, had they brute enjoyers been 
 Of homely nature, or, as trees and flowers, 
 Than, chartered with undying mind, to live 
 Mere breath and blood, without a spirit train'd 
 To pure advancement in the destined walks
 
 BOOK III.]] SATAN. 321 
 
 Of Reason, and magnetically sway'd 
 
 By truths that up to heaven and glory lead. 
 
 He lives the longest who has thought the most ; 
 
 And by sublime anticipation felt, 
 
 That what's immortal must progressive prove, 
 
 Or, downward darken to avenging night. 
 
 But hail ! thou city-giant of the world ! 
 Thou that dost scorn a canopy of clouds, 
 But in the dimness of eternal smoke 
 For ever rising like an ocean-steam, 
 Dost mantle thine immensity, how vast 
 And wide thy wonderful array of domes, 
 In dusky masses staring at the skies ! 
 Time was, and dreary solitude was here ; 
 When night-black woods, unvisited by man
 
 322 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 In howling conflict wrestled with the winds. 
 
 But now, the storm-roll of immingled life 
 
 Is heard, and, like a roaring furnace, fills 
 
 With living sound the airy reach of miles ! 
 
 Thou more than Rome ! for never from her heart 
 
 Such universe-awaking spirit pour'd, 
 
 As emanates from thine. The mighty globe 
 
 Is fever' d by thy name ; a thousand years, 
 
 And silence hath not known thee ! What a weight 
 
 Of awfulness will doomsday from thy scene 
 
 Derive ; and when the blasting trumpet smites 
 
 All cities to destruction, who will sink 
 
 Sublime, with such a thunder-crash as thou ! 
 
 Myriads of domes, and temples huge, or high, 
 And thickly wedded, like the ancient trees
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 323 
 
 That in unviolated forests frown ; 
 
 Myriad of streets, whose river-windings flow 
 
 With viewless billows of unweary sound ; 
 
 Myriads of hearts in full commotion mix'd, 
 
 From morn to noon, from noon to night again, 
 
 Through the wide realm of whirling passion borne, 
 
 And there is London ! England's heart and soul. 
 
 By the proud flowing of her famous Thames 
 
 She circulates through countless lands and isles 
 
 Her greatness ; gloriously she rules, 
 
 At once the awe and sceptre of the world ! 
 
 Angels and demons ! to your watching eyes 
 The rounded earth nought so tremendous shows 
 As this vast city, in whose roar I stand, 
 Unseen, yet seeing all. The lifeless gloom
 
 324 SATAN. [BOOK HI. 
 
 Of everlasting hills, the solitudes 
 
 Untrod, the deep gaze of thy dazzling orbs 
 
 That decorate the purple noon of night, 
 
 Oh Nature ! no such majesty supply. 
 
 Creation's queen, almightily endow'd, 
 
 Upon the throne of Elements thou sitt'st: 
 
 But in the beating of one single heart, 
 
 There is that more than rivals thee ! and here, 
 
 The swellings of innum'rous hearts abound ; 
 
 And not a day, but ere it die, contains 
 
 A hist'ry, that unroll'd, will awe the heavens 
 
 To wonder, and the listening earth with fear. 
 
 In capitals of such gigantic sweep, 
 And bosoming for a momentous sway 
 Materials, which, by word or deed, create
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 325 
 
 An impulse throbbing through the region'd world, 
 Spirits of Darkness ! how hath Vice prevail'd ; 
 Though scornfully, as now, your victims mock 
 The name of Satan with triumphant sneer. 
 Obliging creatures ! did their race abhorr'd, 
 What blighting sense we have of Virtue's power, 
 And all those living elements of love 
 And glory, that around them move and dwell, 
 Imagine, they would learn to guard them more. 
 But, no! so blindly fool'd, and fed they are 
 With arrogance, or deifying self, 
 That when most fetter'd, they appear most free. 
 How devils laugh to see such wisdom bound ! 
 
 An awful kingdom must thy Passions sway,
 
 326 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 Thou English Babylon ! The Book of Life 
 With records that have made the angels weep, 
 Each daring moment thou dost darkly fill : 
 For whatsoe'er the Spirit can reveal 
 Of fallen nature, in her varying realm 
 Of sinfulness, is ever shewn by thee. 
 Here, Fraud and Murder on their thrones erect 
 Infernal standards, and around them swarm 
 Such progenies, as Vileness, Want, and Woe 
 Beget, to live, like cannibals, on blood ; 
 Or move as crawling vipers in the path 
 Of infamy, foul lewdness, or despair. 
 v Here, Misery betrays her wildest form, 
 
 And sheds her hottest tear. See ! as they rush, 
 Thy million sons, along the sounding streets,
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 327 
 
 Upon them how she turns her haggard gaze, 
 
 Lifts her shrunk hand, and with heart-piercing wail, 
 
 A boon in God's name asks : but let her die, 
 
 And be her death-couch the remorseless stones ! 
 
 For when the hungry winter blast shall pause 
 
 To list the wailing of a lonely tree, 
 
 Thy crowds will stop, and pity her despair ! 
 
 Here Pride, in her most vulgar glory struts ; 
 
 And Envy all her vip'rous offspring breeds, 
 
 To scatter poison with a hand unseen. 
 
 But, Mammon ! thou almighty friend of Hell, 
 
 Sure London is thy ever-royal seat, 
 
 Thy chosen capital, thy matchless home ! 
 
 Where rank idolaters, of every lot 
 
 And land, do bow them to the basest dust 
 
 That Falsehood, Flattery, or Cunning treads,
 
 328 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 From dawn to eve, and serve thee with as true 
 
 A love, as ever Angel served his God ! 
 
 See ! how the hard and greedy worldlings crowd, 
 
 With toiling motion, through the foot-worn ways ; 
 
 The sour and sullen, wretched, rack'd and wild, 
 
 The whole vile circle of uneasy slaves. 
 
 Mark one, with features of ferocious hue ; 
 
 Another, carved by Villany's own hand 
 
 A visage wears, and through the trait' rous blood 
 
 The spirit works, like venom from the soul ! 
 
 What rush and roar unceasing ! and how strange 
 A mass of objects, as I move along 
 Invisible, amid these floods of life 
 I see ; a chaos of unnumber'd hearts, 
 Beating and bounding, charged with great design,
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 329 
 
 And making Fate, at every pulse, to feel, 
 Before me acts its mighty tragedy ! 
 Planted amid it, rise those aged piles 
 Whose dim-worn walls a cent'ry's meaning speak, 
 Where Truth is worshipp'd, and whose spiry towers 
 Are frequent mutt'ring how the hours depart, 
 With unregarded wisdom ; or, with moan 
 Funereal, wailing for some vanish'd soul. 
 But hail ! thou monument to Hell ! yon pile 
 Whose massiness a mournful shadow frowns, 
 Where felon captives, for their crimes, await 
 The vengeance due to violated law. 
 A day restored, and in thy dungeon wept 
 A victim, whom a darker prison holds 
 Than ever human horror shaped ! Had Crime 
 Beheld him, more than fun'ral sermons teach, 
 
 P
 
 330 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 His glance of agony had taught ! How oft, 
 When gaily passing, ominously came 
 A chill of terror from these prison-walls ! 
 And when he enter'd their sepulchral gloom, 
 Like memory, that chill return'd. To die 
 A malefactor's death, to be the gaze, 
 The damned, hideous, and detested gaze 
 Of thousands, staring out their hungry eyes 
 To glut their wonder, while on tiptoe placed, 
 To see the spirit gasping from his throat, 
 And chronicle his agony ; to live 
 A ballad-hero, in the creaking rhymes 
 Of vagabonds, and have his felon name 
 From lip to lip thus vilely bandied out, 
 For vulgar warning, oh ! ye sinless days 
 Of childhood ; oh ! ye hours of love and home,
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 331 
 
 And summer dreams, by haunted wood or wild, 
 And blessings nightly murmur'd from the lip 
 Of parents, glory of remember'd days ! 
 Is this your ending, and his dreadful fate, 
 For whom old Age did prophesy renown, 
 And Fondness built her palaces ? A sire, 
 Who dream'd th' heroic grandeur of his race 
 In him revived, and in his youthful ear 
 Did oft unroll his famed ancestry, 
 To mount the blood, and keep the spirit pure ; 
 A mother, made of tenderness, who watch'd 
 His cradle-slumber, and when manhood came, 
 Still breathed her spirit round his onward way : 
 Oh! these would shudder in their sacred tombs, /. 
 And on his name the kindless world expend 
 The infamy that to a gallov\N i. tings, 
 
 P 2
 
 332 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 
 If Law should wreak her vengeance. But one drop 
 
 Of poison, and this ignominious show 
 
 Was saved ! a tremor of despair, a tide 
 
 Of anguish, burning through his blood and brain, 
 
 With the fierce whirling of imagined fires, 
 
 And shrunk, and ghastly, lay a Suicide ! 
 
 Huge, high, and solemn, sanctified by time, 
 And gazing skyward in the towery gloom 
 Of temple majesty, another pile 
 Behold ! in mid-air ponderously rear'd. 
 How dread a power pervadeth things, this mass 
 Of ancient glory tells. Whereon it stands, 
 The vacant winds did trifle, and the laugh 
 Of sunshine sported in bright freedom there : 
 It rose, and lo ! there is a spirit-awe
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 333 
 
 Around it dwelling ; with suspended heart 
 'Tis enter'd, where a cold, sepulchral hush, 
 The holiness of its immensity, 
 The heaven-like vastness of the vaulted aisles, 
 The faded banners, and the trophied tombs, 
 And look of monumental melanch'ly, 
 With aching sadness overcloud the soul 
 Of mortals, as they walk the reverend gloom 
 Of arch and nave, immersed in dreams of death. 
 
 Methinks, Ambition might grow humble here : 
 Though, blazon'd high, the mausoleums rise, 
 And from stain'd windows rosy light-shades fall 
 On armoury, and crests of costly hue, 
 Heraldic glare, and sculptured canopies 
 To grace the dust of hero, sage, or king,
 
 334 SATAN. [ROOK ITT. 
 
 The sense, that rankling clay beneath such pomp 
 
 Alone remains, humiliates, and chills 
 
 The passion for proud greatness. But her eye 
 
 More frequent to yon lonely transept turns, 
 
 Where worshipp'd heroes of the heart repose, 
 
 And on it gazeth, with a deeper awe 
 
 Than ever high-raised tomb of monarchs won. 
 
 No matter ! bard or king, the Curse decrees 
 
 For all, re-union with their fellow clay. 
 
 Echoes on echoes roll'd, and reproduced ! 
 As though invisibly with rushing flame 
 O'erwhelm'd, the music-waken temple sounds. 
 Hark ! peal on peal, and burst on burst, sublime 
 The prelude comes, ascendeth loudly full, 
 And in a whirl of rapture rolls away !
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 335 
 
 But ere it died, a thousand faces shone 
 With ecstasy; as sunshine, in a sweep 
 Of gladness over hill and meadow shot, 
 Doth waken tints of glory from the scene, 
 So drew the music, in its sweeping flow 
 O'er mortal features, flashes from the soul, 
 Bright hues, and meanings passionately mixt. 
 
 The heaven of music ! how it wafts and waves 
 Itself, in all the poetry of sound, 
 Amid an atmosphere of human heart 
 Suffused, so full the homage here outbreathed : 
 Now throbbing like a happy thing of air, 
 Then dying a voluptuous death, as lost 
 In its own lux'ry, now alive again 
 In sweetness, wafted like a vocal cloud
 
 336 SATAX. [BOOK m, 
 
 Mellifluously breaking, seems the strain ! 
 
 And what a play of magic on each face 
 
 Of feeling ! Dark and thund'ry when it rolls, 
 
 The eyes turn inward with a dream profound ; 
 
 When festive, such as storms a hero's mind, 
 
 A spirit revels in the raptured face ! 
 
 But when, from faint and feeble ecstasy 
 
 Of tune, into a melancholy tone 
 
 That pierces, ray-like, through the gloom of years, 
 
 The music dies, then, icy thrills the blood, 
 
 And glitt'ring sadness on each eye-ball spreads, 
 
 Like dewy rapture from the soul distill'd. 
 
 All music is the mystery of sound, 
 Whose soul lies sleeping in the air, till roused, 
 And lo, it pulses into melody !
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 337 
 
 Deep, low, or wild, obedient to the throb 
 Of instrumental magic : on its wings 
 Are visions, too, of tenderness and love, 
 Beatitude and joy. Thus, over waves 
 Of beauty, landscapes in their loveliest glow, 
 And the warm languish of their summer streams, 
 A list'ning soul is borne ; while Home renews 
 Her paradise, beneath the moonlight veil 
 That mantles o'er the past, till unshed tears 
 Gleam in the eye of memory. But when 
 Some harmony of preternatural swell 
 Begins, then, awful-wing'd, the spirit soars 
 Away, and mingles with immensity ! 
 
 Such sorcery in music dwells : if they, 
 Now doom'd awhile to walk this heaven-roof 'd world, 
 
 P 5
 
 338 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 Might hear the melodies that I have heard, 
 
 When Heaven, complexion' d by Almightiness, 
 
 In glory, sounded with the choral hymn 
 
 Of Princedoms high, and Dominations grand, 
 
 Of thousand Saints, of thousand Cherubim, 
 
 And Angel numbers who outmillion'd far 
 
 Bright worlds, that in the blue and waveless deep 
 
 Of night, innumerable hang, if men 
 
 Might hear it, 'twould absorb their souls away ! 
 
 Yet such I heard : oh ! what a sea of sound 
 
 Went billowing with ecstatical delight 
 
 Through fathomless immensity, when hosts 
 
 Divine, their Holy, Holy, Holy, sung, 
 
 While loud Hosanriahs to the living God 
 
 Commingled, making Heaven more heavenly glow !
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 339 
 
 That hour is gone, that strain is hush'd, to me ; 
 For, listen, Angels, how the hell-choirs hymn ! 
 
 Another triumph of exhaustless mind ! 
 Which Love and Wisdom, Beauty and fair Truth, 
 That bright quaternion of immortal power, 
 Tempt as I may, enchantingly sublime. 
 Visions of holiness, and lofty dreams 
 Of lofty spirits, glorify the walls 
 Of this vast dome, revealings of the soul 
 Intense, and passions of pictorial spell. 
 Painters are silent poets ; in their hues 
 A language glows, whose words are magic tints 
 Of meaning, which both eye and soul perceive : 
 Theirs is a Victor Art ! for Time attends 
 With ages on his wing, and Seasons wait
 
 340 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 Her godlike call ; while Glory, Love, and Grace, 
 And the deep harmonies of human Thought, 
 Live at the waving of her mighty wand ! 
 
 Then let me look on this ethereal show 
 Wherein the painter hath a mind transfused, 
 Turning his thoughts to colours. What a thirst 
 For beauty, in his longing soul must burn, 
 Who vision'd this, a landscape gods might tread ! 
 The sky hangs glorious, and the yellow smiles 
 Of summer, on a faintly-writhed stream 
 Are dallying with a bright exultance ; trees 
 Unpruned, and bowing graceful, as the wind 
 In wooing fondness weaves its melody 
 Among them ; over rocks of cloudy shape 
 The green enchantment of declining boughs
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 341 
 
 Is flushing, whence a vein of water flows, 
 
 And frolics on in many a shining trail 
 
 Of sinuous revelry; till margin-flowers 
 
 Beside it bloom, and shadow the young waves ; 
 
 But there the beautiful perfection smiles ! 
 
 An Eve-like form beside a dimpled lake 
 
 Is standing ; in her eye, a heaven of soul, 
 
 And, o'er her figure, the fair luxury 
 
 Of youth, and symmetry, divinely graced. 
 
 That moon-like glowing of her loveliness, 
 
 Those limbs of light, and that seraphic air, 
 
 Whence sprung it all, but from that haunting thirst 
 
 For beauty that is not, the fine excess 
 
 Of feeling, that in high-toned spirits works, 
 
 And overflows in visionary joy.
 
 342 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 Here is a sunset, in that golden calm 
 Appearing, when the regnant King of day 
 Awhile in bright complacence views the world 
 Which he hath glorified ; so Godhead look'd 
 On infant Nature, when she lay complete, 
 Beneath the full reflection of His smile ! 
 And near, a Night is pictured, in her dead 
 Of noon : the canopy of azure pomp 
 Hung starless, but the Queen of Heaven is there, 
 In rounded glory ; and her slumb'rous veil 
 Hath shadow'd Earth, and on blue Ocean lies 
 In rolls of silver : by the sallow beach 
 Two maidens in their girlhood stand, and seem 
 Enrapt to watch how delicately bright 
 The moon's pale fancies tint yon fleeting waves ;
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 343 
 
 Or, listen to the faint sweet undersong 
 Of dream-like waters, dying on the shore. 
 
 But, what is this ! the Deluge that devour'd 
 A living world ! a sunless, moonless waste, 
 The globe into a chaos of wild sea 
 Dissolved ! Her hour of agony is o'er ; 
 But yet, the fierceness of disaster'd skies 
 Frowns dreadful, where unnat'ral clouds, 
 Like dying monsters welt'ring on the deep, 
 Float awful in the gloom. How dead and mute 
 The vasty ruin ! Not a look of life 
 Dwells there, the carcase of a guilty world ! 
 All green delightfulness, all glowing pomp, . 
 The Seasons' young magnificence of bloom, 
 And promise, with the godlike shapes of men
 
 344 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 Have perish'd. By the rocky darkness, crags, 
 And mountain-skeletons by billows wash'd, 
 The oozy branches, where lank serpents coil, 
 And in the deadness of two paly forms 
 Foam'd from the deep, and dash'd upon the shore 
 In solitude, a mortal may be awed, 
 And dream, until he hear the deluge roar ! 
 
 But let it pass : for lo ! the dark sublime, 
 The midnight and immensity of art 
 I -see ; as though his eye had seen the hour 
 When down in thunder through the yawning skies 
 A whirlwind of rebellious angels came ! 
 The painter hath infernal pomp reveal'd. 
 That second Milton, whose creative soul 
 Doth shadow visions to such awful life,
 
 BOOK 111.] SATAN. 345 
 
 That men behold them with suspended breath, 
 And grow ethereal at a gaze c . How high 
 And earthless hath his daring spirit soar'd, 
 To paint the Hell that kindled up the skies, 
 And wield the lightnings that his Maker hurl'd ! 
 
 These Arts are revelations which unfold 
 How Mind, disdainful of material bounds, 
 In spiritual romance delights to dream ; 
 Through heavens of her creation to expand 
 Her wings, and wanton in celestial light ; 
 As soars the lark from her low nest of dew, 
 To sing and revel in the boundless air. 
 The fallen myriads, in whose dimless gaze 
 Eternity of glory shines, may look 
 With something of ambitious sympathy,
 
 346 SATAN. [BOOK m. 
 
 On this proud struggle of the soul with sense, 
 
 This warfare of the visible with things 
 
 Of viewless essence, yet prevailing power. 
 
 A haughty captive fetter'd in his clay, 
 
 Man's Nature, peering through her prison-house, 
 
 Doth catch a shadow, and a dim advance 
 
 Of something purer, brighter, yet to be. 
 
 And what is Genius ? but the glowing mind 
 
 Half disembodied, flutt'ring in a realm 
 
 Of magic, dreaming, dazzled, and inspired. 
 
 How dark a contrast hath a moment made 
 In this world's promise! here, the shame of Art 
 Confronts me ; and might Pity deaden Hate, 
 My love for ruin should be lessen' d now. 
 In a lone chamber, on a tatter' d couch
 
 BOOK III.} SATAN. 347 
 
 A dying painter lies. His brow shows young 
 
 And noble ; lines of beauty on his face 
 
 Yet linger ; in his eye of passion gleams 
 
 A soul, and on his cheek a spirit-light 
 
 Is playing, with that proud sublimity 
 
 Of thought, that yields to death, but gives to Time 
 
 A Fame that will avenge his wrongs, and write 
 
 Their hist'ry in her canonized roll 
 
 Of martyrs : be it for his epitaph, 
 
 He lived for genius, and for genius died ! 
 
 So sad and lone ! wall'd in by misery, 
 
 With none to smoothe his couch, or shed the tear 
 
 That softens pain, uncheer'd, unwept, unknown, 
 
 And famish'd by the want of many days, 
 
 
 
 Hither ! Ambition ; wisdom breathes in woe.
 
 348 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 There are, to whom this elemental frame 
 Of wonders seemeth but an outward show, 
 To look upon, and aid the life of things : 
 But some in more ethereal mould are cast, 
 Who from the imagery of nature cull 
 Fair meanings, and magnificent delights ; 
 Extracting glory from whate'er they view, 
 Making th' unbodied air a blessing, light 
 A joy, and sov'reign attributes of Earth 
 Enchanting ministers to sense and soul. 
 And such was he. An orphan of the woods, 
 With Nature, in her ancientness of gloom 
 And cavern, dark-peak'd hill, and wild, 
 Whose boughs waved midnight in the eye of Day, 
 He dwelt ; until he hung the wizard sky
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 349 
 
 With fancies, and with earth incorporate grew ! 
 Nature and he, in one communion glow'd : 
 With all her moods, majestic, calm, or wild, 
 He sympathized. In glory did he hear 
 Ecstatic thunders antheming the storm ! 
 And when the winds fled by him, he would take 
 Their dauntless wings, and travel in their roar ! 
 He worshipp'd the great Sea ; when rocking wild, 
 Making the waters blossom into foam 
 With her loud wrath ; or savagely reposed, 
 Like a dark monster dreaming in his lair. 
 
 No wonder then, by Nature thus sublimed, 
 With all her forms and features at his soul, 
 The brain should teem with visions, and his hand 
 A glorious mimicry of Earth and Heaven
 
 350 SATAN. [BOOK HI. 
 
 Perform ! till lakes and clouds, and famish'd woods 
 In wintry loneness, crags and eagle-haunts, 
 And torrents in their mountain-rapture seen, 
 All dread, all high, all melancholy things, 
 Full on his canvass started into life, 
 And look'd Creation ! To the capital 
 A parentless and unacquainted youth 
 He came, while many a prophecy still hung 
 About his heart, and made his bosom heave 
 With young expectancy. Romantic fool ! 
 To fancy genius and success were twins, 
 In such a sphere : how soon the dream was o'er ! 
 Here Envy dogg'd him, Av'rice trampled down 
 His worth, and in the gloom of aidless want 
 His spirit bow'd, but never Avas enslaved ! 
 There was that haughtiness of proud despair,
 
 BOOK III,] SATAN. 351 
 
 That forward looking to avenging years 
 
 Which plucks the thorn from present woe, and drives 
 
 Adversity from out her darkest mood, 
 
 To cheer him on, and buoy the spirit o'er 
 
 The indirection of opinion's tide : 
 
 He felt, as all the mighty ever feel, 
 
 True greatness must o'erlook the living hour, 
 
 And task the future with her fame, alone. 
 
 Thus cherish'd he self-rev' rence ; and the heart 
 
 Was faithful : from the hand, or voice of men, 
 
 No comfort came ; but Nature was his own, 
 
 As ever ! When the jarring city-roar 
 
 Woke round him, he could hush it in the calm 
 
 Of memory, and azure solitude 
 
 Of native skies : the weird-like tempest sound 
 
 O'er his dark chamber mutter'd, bade him dream
 
 352 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 Of wilds, and whirlwinds havocking the night 
 
 Afar ; and when a pilgrim sunset ray 
 
 Sat at his window, like a smile from home, 
 
 He scorn'd the present, and would think, how once 
 
 He loved to watch the bright farewell of day 
 
 Reflected o'er the roll of ocean-waves, 
 
 Like sea-clovtds rising in a gorgeous swell. 
 
 Thus lived the victim of an art adored, 
 
 And perish'd in his passion ! On his name 
 
 A veil is hung ; and his achievements lie 
 
 Forgotten ; but a fame awaits them still ! 
 
 Eternity will take a hue from Time, 
 
 And Life, a shade of the immortal doom 
 
 Hereafter, is. But even this false world 
 
 Shall on his honour' d tomb a death-wreath hang, 
 
 Lament, and season ages with his woe.
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 353 
 
 \ 
 
 And thus the world turns round ! Then who are 
 
 they 
 
 Who, wing'd by Fortune's onward gales, exult 
 In blooming greatness, with a golden lot 
 Endow'd, and smiled upon by vassal eyes 
 That hunt for favour ? Are they lofty ones, 
 Th' unbending pure, within whose natures lodge 
 All feelings that ennoble man ? Does Worth, 
 Or Wisdom, glorious exaltation win ? 
 Why, no ! too much with evil is the Earth 
 Impregn'd, for life-illuming smiles to fall 
 Where merit would adorn them. 'Tis the base, 
 The sly, insinuating serpent-souls, 
 That wind about the meanness of mankind ; 
 'Tis they, with lying blandness on the lip, 
 Whose tuneful flattery, that cloyless sweet ! 
 
 Q
 
 SATAN. [BOOK III. 
 
 Can still the gusty tempers of the proud 
 
 To fond subjection, and the vain enchant 
 
 To patrons blind, yet most benevolent. 
 
 Yes ! these are they who glitter with the crown 
 
 Of fortune, sit upon the world's high thrones, 
 
 And on the toiling majesty of Worth 
 
 Beneath, look down, and laugh at virtuous woe ! 
 
 But there are other miracles of mind 
 In this Queen-city : whatsoe'er the hand 
 Can shape, or inward organ prove ; whate'er 
 Applying Art can from the soul translate 
 To sense or vision, for the world's free gaze, 
 Is here produced. Thus, London is a sun 
 Of inspiration to the parent isle : 
 Within the circle of a minute act
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 355 
 
 Uncounted minds, of multiplying power 
 To times and generations. But a trace 
 Of ME, Humanity ! thou dost not lose, 
 However lofty thy victorious march ; 
 For in this region of the learn'd and wise 
 The pettiness and pride of Nature dwell. 
 Then what is Wisdom, with a heart unsound ? 
 One noble action doth outweigh it all, 
 Though ages be its burden. Meek and pure, 
 Who lives in humble earnestness, partakes 
 His lot with cheerful eye, and loving heart, 
 And sees a brotherhood in all mankind ; 
 Whose teachers are the elements, whose lore, 
 A bible on the soul impress'd, that man, 
 Howe'er undignified his earthly doom 
 Appear, is far more glorious in the eye 
 
 Q2
 
 356 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 Of angels, than the spirit-ruling host 
 
 Of learning, who have never learnt the way 
 
 To virtue, and the heart's true nobleness. 
 
 But this, I would not that the earth would prove : 
 
 Corruption is the rankling seed I sow, 
 
 And aye abundant may the harvest bloom ! 
 
 That mighty lever that has moved the world, 
 The Press of England, from her dreadless source 
 Of living action, here begins to shake 
 The far-off isles, and awe the utmost globe ! 
 She is a passion, pour'd into mankind, 
 Dark, deep, and silent oft, but ever felt; 
 Mixed with the mind, and feeding with a food 
 Of thought, the moral being of a soul ; 
 Or, shaping solemn destinies for Time,
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 357 
 
 And dread Eternity. Terrific Power ! 
 
 Thou mightst have half annihilated Hell, 
 
 And her great denizens, by glorious sway : 
 
 But now, so false, so abject, and so foul d 
 
 Become, no blasting Pestilence e'er shed 
 
 Such ruin from her tainted wings, as thou 
 
 May'st carry in thy circulating floods 
 
 Of thought and feeling, into human hearts. 
 
 One wrecks the body, thou dost havoc souls, 
 
 And who shall heal them ? Let thy temples rise, 
 
 Britannia ! they are but satiric piles 
 
 Of sanctity, while poison in thy press 
 
 Is pour'd, and on its lying magic live 
 
 Thy thousand vulgar, who heart-famish'd seem, 
 
 When Slander feeds not with her foul excess 
 
 Their appetite for infamy. The sun
 
 358 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 Not surer where his hot intenseness falls 
 The spirit of his burning nature proves, 
 Than masses of pollution, roll'd from day 
 To day, across an Empire's heart, awake 
 A tinge of sentiment and hue of thought 
 In many, till they act the crimes they read. 
 
 E'en now mine eye is on a dismal wretch, 
 By Fate, or fortune, for a villain doom'd ; 
 In whom is summ'd up all that can profane 
 The name of man ; ignoble as the dust, 
 And rocky-hearted as a wretch can be ; 
 E'en such a one, exultingly I view 
 Heap lie on lie with such remorseless speed, 
 And so envenom with his viper touch 
 The good and glorious, that all Virtue seems
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 359 
 
 To wither, and all wisdom to be dead 
 Awhile, beneath the blackness of his taint ; 
 Yea ! such a monster do I see destroy 
 The healthful nature of the noblest mind, 
 And yet live on his execrable life, 
 And like a plague-spot spread his soul abroad, 
 Till millions turn as tainted as his own ! 
 
 How false, and yet how fair, are scenes of man ! 
 Between what is, and that which seems to be, 
 How dark a gap of untold diff 'rence frowns ! 
 There is a hollowness in human things 
 Of pride or pleasure born, which none confess, 
 Yet all must feel. The moments tuned 
 To highest happiness, have strings that jar 
 Upon some inward sense ; the sweetest cup
 
 360 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 Enchanted Ecstasy can drink, will leave 
 A humbling dreg of bitterness behind. 
 But this sad victory of unrestful thought, 
 This cloud-tint on the brightest firmament 
 Of joy, this deep abyss of discontent 
 Beyond a universe to fill ! though felt, 
 Is rarely owned ; for Pride steps in, and puts 
 A smile upon the cheek, and in the eye, 
 Delusion ; making Love, or Wealth, or Fame, 
 The seeming aspect of perfection wear : 
 And thus, deceiving each, and each deceived, 
 Men gild the hour, and call it happiness ! 
 
 A proof is here ! a chamber long and large, 
 Of kingly air, and with o'erbranching lights, 
 From the high ceiling pouring down a noon
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 361 
 
 Of lustre, that doth goldenly bedeck 
 
 The costliness around. Amid it, group'd 
 
 For converse, shine a host of either sex ; 
 
 And who are they ? the race Ambition bred, 
 
 And madden'd, till they won her wizard wreath. 
 
 Oh ! what a demon-fire, what parching heat 
 
 Through blood and spirit, is the lust of fame ; 
 
 No tiger passion tearing at the soul 
 
 So dreadful, as the ever-gnawing wish 
 
 For Reputation ! How it ljurns the heart 
 
 Away, and blisters up the health of life ! 
 
 Yet, such have many in this chamber 1 d host 
 
 Endured ; but now, as high and dominant 
 
 As potentates, and intellectual lords, 
 
 They reign upon their thrones of mind, and live y^' 
 
 The worshipp'd of the land. But are they blest 
 
 Q5
 
 362 SATAN. [BOOK nt. 
 
 With such a madding fulness of delight, 
 
 As once the far-off shadow of Renown 
 
 Did promise, wooing them to his fond arms ? 
 
 O thou, that hunger' st for bewild'ring fame, 
 
 Come here, and prove what rottenness of heart, 
 
 What fev'rous envy, what corrosive sense 
 
 Of emulation, in these glorious dwell, 
 
 What under-currents in this scene of joy ! 
 
 Smiles in the surface, but a coward tide 
 
 Of jealousy beneath. Hark ! to the gibe, 
 
 O Hate, the tart dissent, the damning sneer, 
 
 To such a littleness the mighty fall ! 
 
 Behold it, Ignorance ! redeem thy blush, 
 
 And take a happier name. But what a feast 
 
 Of 'Vengeance doth my gloomy nature hail 
 
 In this false scene, where they who write so fine,
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 363 
 
 And think so free, whose spirits are abroad 
 
 In this great world, on such grand tones of thought, 
 
 Beneath the shadow of almighty wings 
 
 The simple think they mused sublime, betray 
 
 The more than weakness of unworthy man, 
 
 When Nature's venom quickens at the heart, 
 
 Or, full reality the feeling tries. 
 
 And thou ! just gilded with a public smile, 
 Thy mind is dandng on a sea of thoughts 
 That billow onward with delirious joy : 
 For now, the hackney 'd wonder of the night 
 Thou art, and by the music of fair tongues 
 Enchanted ; flatt'rers feed thine ears with praise, 
 And clog it into deafness. Hear' st thou not, 
 How Envy whispers off thy bloom of fame,
 
 364 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 Till Meanness in her robe arrayeth thee ? 
 
 Thou fool of Flattery ! this the glorious doom 
 
 Ambition sought ? Is Greatness only great, 
 
 When flatter'd, known, and seen ? Canst thou so bend, 
 
 And be so derogate ? Canst thou, whose eye 
 
 Can read the stars, and commune with the clouds, 
 
 Who feel'st the fibres of Creation's heart 
 
 Harmonious trembling to thine own, descend, 
 
 To lose thy loftiness in this dull scene ? 
 
 Back to thy haunts ! the ocean and the winds 
 
 Attend thee ; Nature is thy temple ; kneel, 
 
 And worship in her mighty solitude. 
 
 Look up ! and learn a lesson of the sun, 
 
 That bright almighty moving through the heavens ! 
 
 Lonely and lofty, in his sphere sublime, 
 
 But acting ever; such is noble fame !
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 365 
 
 Some gracious, grand, and most accomplish'd few, 
 Each with a little kingdom in his brain, 
 Who club together to recast the world, 
 And love so many, that they care for none ; 
 These have I witness'd, laughing at their realms 
 Of airy texture, by Ambition wove : 
 But here is madness, far outfooling this. 
 For lo ! the den whence oracles proceed, 
 Like exhalations from the noisome earth, 
 That once inbreathed, are death ! This wonderful 
 Perfection of the vile, surpasseth all 
 Temptation in her darkest mood employs ! 
 Yes, here are spirits, such as hell-thrones grace, 
 Convened to disinherit God of souls, 
 And on the blasphemous attempt of pride 
 Erect a dynasty of Sense supreme ;
 
 366 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 Each man a god unto himself, let loose 
 In all the blinding wantonness of Will. 
 And this is freedom, dignified for Man, 
 When having fed the agonies of life 
 By years of being, weary, worn, and sad, 
 To close existence in the clay he treads, 
 A soulless, dreamless, unimagined Nought ! 
 
 Where sleep the thunders of convicting Wrath ? 
 Devils believe, and tremble ; men deny, 
 And laugh ! How enviably endow'd they are ! 
 We, bow'd and blasted by opposeless Heaven, 
 Abhor the Godhead, but his name confess ; 
 But things of Earth, infatuated vile, 
 Too darken'd to dissect a flower, or tell 
 The meaning of an atom that they tread,
 
 ROOK III.] SATAN. 367 
 
 Would dare annihilate the living God 
 Above, and mock the miseries of Hell below ! 
 Oh ! all, and more than Satan could desire, 
 Blind teachers of the blind, might this world sink 
 To wallow in the darkness that ye breed ; 
 To such the heathen would be heavenly-wise. 
 For they, though Revelation ne'er unroll'd 
 Her banner, where the charmed words abound, 
 From their unaided gloom, above the sense 
 Did climb ; and in the vaulty skies, their gods 
 Enthroned, or, heard them in the voiceful deep, 
 Or in the howling of the homeless winds. 
 A cloud was on them ; but a spark within 
 Yet lived, and saved them from eclipse of soul. 
 But, Admiration must be felt, while POWER 
 Existeth ; on it man will gaze, and prove
 
 368 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 The vast dependance for his lot ordain'd : 
 
 A visible, substantial Deity 
 
 Moves round him ; in the march of Elements 
 
 His steps are traced, and Truth is ever by, 
 
 To tread them deep, and track them on to God. 
 
 And hence, these murd'rers of the soul are weak 
 In process ; too infernal is the creed 
 They fashion, far too poor in its exchange 
 For that divineness of Redeeming Love 
 They combat ; for, with freedom they are free, 
 As billows toss'd upon the giant main, 
 As feathers on the travell'd whirlwind borne, 
 Are free ! : No, rather some corruptive arts 
 Of saintly mixture, on the glozing tongue 
 Of hypocrites, with innovating clouds
 
 t 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 369 
 
 Of Doctrine, would I at their work behold, 
 
 % ' 
 Than the rash vileness of unheavenly fools ; 
 
 A few they poison, but re-action wakes ! 
 For one they ruin, thousands are sublimed 
 To holy vengeance, which to Hell may prove, 
 Excess of evil is the source of good. 
 
 But lo ! again the magic sunset woos : 
 The heavens are flow' ring with a rosy mass 
 Of splendor, richly hued ; and, floating on, 
 It deepens round the dying sun, who glares 
 With fierce redundancy awhile, then sinks 
 Away, like glory from Ambition's eye. 
 Behind him many a cloud-idolater 
 Will say, what rocks, and hills, and waves of light ! 
 Magnificent confusion ! such as beam'd
 
 370 SATAN. [BOOK m. 
 
 When the rash boy-god charioted the skies, 
 And made a burning chaos of the clouds ! 
 But this hath pass'd : a sea of stillness glows 
 
 In the far west, where Melancholy loves 
 
 \ 
 To bathe her fancies, while a soundless calm, 
 
 As though Eternity were closing up 
 
 
 
 The world, to let it faint in light away, 
 And for some beautiful unvision'd state 
 Of ante-life, her exiled spirit long'd *, 
 Comes round her, like a slumber shed on air. 
 
 And well, lone pilgrim, at the shaded hour 
 Of twilight, when a golden stillness reigns, 
 Like lustre fronra far-off angel host 
 Reflected ; and the unoffending breeze 
 
 * Hi* <KW '/iftav h 4'V^n ffiv iv ruli ty a&poxiia/ SI&H lyiviffSeti. Plat. Phffid,
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 371 
 
 Hath music that the day-wind seldom weaves, 
 May sadness creep upon thee, and thy heart, 
 Unspeakably, with yearning fancies glow. 
 Of life, a living vision, and the hour 
 That ends it, like a cloudy dream of air 
 That vanisheth to some allotted world ; 
 
 * 
 
 Of faded youth, and unforgotten friends 
 Whose tombstones over life a shadow fling, 
 No sunshine can efface ; of all that makes 
 The lone heart wander to a dream-like home 
 Of sadness, mortal ! thou didst ponder ought. 
 
 Such will not ever be : thy death-gloom pierced, 
 And awful on the unimprison'd soul 
 Will blaze a sun-burst of revealing truth ! 
 Wherein these mysteries of sight and sense
 
 372 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 Shall all unravell'd lie. The wizard Night 
 
 In cavern darkness robed ; the lone sweet star, 
 
 Oft worshipp'd for a beatific orb 
 
 Where bright Immortals dwell ; the moon's romance, 
 
 The sun's enchantment, when he wakes to smile 
 
 The day abroad, or visioneth departing Life 
 
 By his deep setting ; with the spirit-tone 
 
 Of winds, the ocean's ever mutt'ring choir 
 
 Of billows, weaving her mysterious spell,- 
 
 And all that thus predominantly awes 
 
 Or saddens feeling, shall itself resolve 
 
 In spiritual completion. Then, thy tear 
 
 Ecstatic, radiant with adoring thought ; 
 
 The rapture, thrilling like a viewless chain 
 
 From Heaven let down, and link'd around the soul, 
 
 Shall be translated by unbodied mind.
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 373 
 
 Meanwhile, be mine to veil thee with a show 
 Of outward things ; to monarchise the Will,' 
 And crown it thus the wisdom of the sense, 
 Whose promptings, more than spirit, men obey. 
 
 Now hath dead midnight hush'd the world : it lies 
 Suffused with freshness, like a meadow steep'd 
 In verdant quiet, when the flood hath pass'd. 
 All deeply pure, impalpably divine, 
 A something o'er this hour prevails, which men 
 Call awe, that doth not in their day-life reign ; 
 For then, a flush'd existence, and a false 
 Enchantment gathers round the rising hours 
 To hue their destiny. But midnight cools 
 The spirit into thinking calm ; then sounds 
 Come o'er it with a deeper thrill ; and scenes
 
 374 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 That in the day a common gladness wore, 
 Grow solemn ; then the leaf-notes mourn, 
 And boughs, like hearse-plumes, wave their shadowy 
 
 pomp. 
 
 By day, the Present, but at night, the Past 
 Prevails ; a moonlight tenderness o'er things 
 Departed, flings a fond regretful gloom ; 
 And then, Life takes a feeling from the soul, 
 And, in Earth's tints of paradise, can trace 
 A beauty that unkinder hours deny, 
 The harp is shatter'd, but the sounds remain e ! 
 
 Yet, 'tis not that the tenderness of tears 
 Awakes ; that Childhood smiles upon the thought, 
 As looks an Angel through the veil of dreams ; 
 It is not that the heart-remember' d rise
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 375 
 
 From early tombs, to be once more beloved, 
 
 And featured, till the deadness of the dead 
 
 In mem'ry's vision-life is half forgot : 
 
 'Tis not such charm alone : nor that which frowns 
 
 From temple, dome, or everlasting hill 
 
 Which darkness hath sublimed. But that deep sense 
 
 Which he who pierces through the lonesome air 
 
 Far o'er the mute immeasurable sky 
 
 Where radiate worlds, for adoration feels, 
 
 Making the midnight holy ! Worshipp'd orbs, 
 
 On ME no mystic awfulness ye shed ; 
 
 For, when unblasted, I beheld ye rise 
 
 And glitter into being, bright and pure, 
 
 The shining trophies of Almighty Will ! 
 
 But Mortals, dimly aided by their dreams, 
 
 Behold ye, nursing the unutter'd thought, **
 
 376 SATAN, [BOOK in. 
 
 With pondering hope, and apprehensive a\ve. 
 They wonder, if the unearth' d Spirit dwells 
 Among ye ? where the seraph-mansions blaze, 
 And who amid them are the bright and blest ? 
 
 Then, is there not a Spirit-world ? The blind 
 May question, and the mocking idiot laugh, 
 But in her, round her, wheresoe'er she move, 
 Mortality might reap immortal faith, 
 And feel what cannot in the flesh be known. 
 In the wild mystery of Earth and Air, 
 Sun, Moon, and Star, and the unslumb'ring sea, 
 There is a meaning and a power, commixt 
 For thought, and for undying fancy tuned. 
 And by thy panting for the unattain'd 
 On earth ; by longings which no language speak ;
 
 BOOK Til.] SATAN. 377 
 
 By the dread torture of o'ermast'ring doubt ; 
 By thirst for Beauty, such as eye ne'er saw, 
 And yet, is ever mirror' d on the mind ; 
 By Love, in her rich heavenliness array'd ; 
 By Guilt and Conscience, that terrific pair 
 Who make the dead to mutter from their tombs, 
 Or colour Nature with the hues of Hell, 
 By all the fire and frenzy of the soul, 
 And REVELATION'S everlasting voice, Oh Man ! 
 Thou art immortal as thy Maker is ! 
 
 Now is mine hour, the hour of conflict, come, 
 When the dark future over Nature frowns 
 Like destiny ; now Spirit is Herself 
 Again, and Thought, within her cell retired, 
 Doth hold dim converse with eternal things.
 
 378 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 Many are musing now ! and sighs are born 
 In slow succession, like unwilling tears, 
 Prophetic and profound. The Worldling sees 
 In darkness, what the day could not reveal, 
 Himself! and sorrows at the faithful view. 
 " Another day eternal made ! Oh, Time 
 And Destiny, how swift ye roll the world 
 Along, to which such eager myriads cling 
 In duty, fondness, or despair ! Alas ! 
 Too much we make, yet far too little think 
 Of Time : but O, at this untroubled hour 
 How awfully the inward visions rise ! 
 Infinity is round me ; and I feel 
 A dampness on my spirit, and a dark 
 Unearthliness of thought : the dead awake, 
 Unlock then- tombs, and tell me I must die !"
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 379 
 
 What sadness here ; and what a wounded soul ; 
 And yet, the World shall his physician be ! 
 
 But, hark ! the meanings of the deep-mouth'd bells 
 Herald the Midnight o'er the drowsy world. 
 Now Earth is one day older ; time itself 
 More hallow' d, for the past is further proved ; 
 Earth, Heaven, and Hell have felt this fleeted day, 
 That now is chronicled for Judgment ! Morn 
 Hath look'd on many with her radiant eye, 
 Whose brows shall never meet her beam again ! 
 Another Sun, another System works 
 Around them ; they who dwelt in distant climes, 
 And diff'rent natures wore, the friend and foe, 
 The loveless and the loving, all who once 
 Through time, or circumstance, estranged and far 
 
 R2
 
 380 SATAN, [BOOK m. 
 
 Existed, now are met, where nothing more 
 
 Is alien, but one Darkness, or one Light, 
 
 As Vice or Virtue doom'd them. Oh ! ye sad 
 
 And discontented, weary, worn, and grey ; 
 
 Thou wooer of the melancholy hour, 
 
 Loving the silence for the dream it gave, 
 
 Sick of the world, and sighing for a tomb ; 
 
 And ye, on whom this Life a burden lay, 
 
 Yet often loosed it, when the dying bell 
 
 Of midnight, like a warning from the grave 
 
 Went in its sadness through the soul, your gaze 
 
 Doth witness, what your nature never dreamt ; 
 
 The veil is torn, the mystery unseal'd, 
 
 And ye are men no more ! Methinks a Voice 
 
 From many, would revisit this far world !
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 381 
 
 But no ; the Dust is faithful to her dead, 
 And they are silent, till the trumpet speak ! 
 
 And now, my wand' ring dark in this free Isle ! 
 Is o'er ; through town and village, house and street, 
 By virtue of my nature, have I roam'd, 
 
 'r* v ' 
 
 A sightless Presence, an unshadow'd Power, 
 An undream'd watcher, moving round the hearts 
 Of men, and looking into depths of soul, 
 Where none but Hell, and the Immortals gaze. 
 The sights that none have seen ; the voices none 
 Have heard, with all the agony and glow, 
 The longings, workings, and unquenched heat 
 Of passion, mingled in the sleepless mind, 
 And fever'd into what a life is named, 
 These have I witness'd ; and on what thou art,
 
 382 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 And wert, and might' st have been, heaven-favour'd 
 
 land ! ' 
 
 Reflected, weighing thee for future worlds. 
 The future Worlds ! each day and hour, thy dead 
 Are there ; each moment is a Hell or Heaven 
 To many of thy dust. Thou bear'st the awe 
 Of destiny; as on the Earth thy Power 
 Hath stamp'd her mightiness on every realm, 
 Printing the roll of Time with many a track 
 Of gloom and glory, havoc or renown ; 
 So, when the Universe is roll'd away 
 Beneath the shadow of th' Almighty frown ! 
 Eternity shall chronicle thy name 
 
 For wonder; it will be a sign in Heaven. 
 
 - / 
 
 Then speed thee onward in thy vaunting course
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 383 
 
 Of empire ; let no dream of Judgment shade 
 Thy soul, or touch thee with a solemn fear : 
 Plunge in the Future ! let the Past be dead 
 To thee, for when shall ENGLAND'S sceptre fail ? 
 Thus think, and do, and perish in thy dream ! 
 Empires of old, that champion'd ages, what 
 Are ye ? a tongueless gloom ! Yet once I mark'd 
 Your palmy greatness : sea-famed Tyre I saw, 
 When Ocean cower'd beneath her vassal ships, 
 And hoar Chaldea's hundred-gated Queen, 
 In high- wall' d glory ! tell me, what are they ! 
 And she, Earth's ancient tyranness, vast Rome, 
 The rolling of her battle-cars, the voice 
 Of Scipio, and the sound of Caesar's march, 
 Did I not hear, when Kingdoms were her slaves ? 
 And thou, the fairy-isled, forsaken Greece !
 
 384 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 When Sage and Bard, and battle-wreaths were 
 
 thine, 
 
 When all that cent'ries glorified could yield 
 Was mass'd and mingled for thy one renown, 
 I walk'd thy streets, and prophesied thy doom ! 
 Thus fell the mighty ; shall not Britain fall ? 
 
 But lo ! the heavens are ominously gloom' d, 
 
 'r.'V 
 
 Methinks, as though they frown'd a dark response. 
 Erewhile, and star-troops in their island glow 
 Around the wan enchantress of the skies 
 Appear'd, while lovingly the azure lay 
 Between them, softer than the lid of sleep. 
 But now, all pregnant with unbursted ire 
 They threaten, muffling up the pomp of night. 
 There is a gasping in the heated air,
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 385 
 
 A wing-like flutter in the tim'rous boughs, 
 
 And sigh, and sound, from out the heart of things 
 
 Invisible, breathed forth ; the Storm awakes ! 
 
 A thousand thunder-wombs the sky oppress, 
 
 The lightnings lance the clouds, and North to South, 
 
 And East to West, a tale of darkness tells ! 
 
 Hark ! as the wearied echoes howl themselves 
 
 Away, the roaring of the midnight sea, 
 
 Beneath the cliff, doth take a sounding life, 
 
 For she is waved with glory ! billows heave 
 
 Their blackness in the wind, and, bounding on 
 
 In vaulting madness, beat the rocky shore 
 
 Incessant, flaking it with plumy foam. 
 
 I love this passion of the elements, 
 This mimicry of Chaos in their might
 
 386 SATAN. [BOOK in. 
 
 Of storm ! and here, in its lone awfulness, 
 When ev'ry cloud is at his thunder-hymn, 
 Earth throbs, and nature in convulsion reels, 
 Farewell to ENGLAND ! Into other climes 
 Where mountain-awe, and ocean majesty 
 Prevaileth, and where Time hath wreck'd the world, 
 I wing my flight, but on her leave the spell 
 I weave for Nations, till her hour be come. 
 And come it shall ! When on this guardian cliff 
 Again I stand, the whirlwind and the wrath 
 Of Desolation will have swept her throne 
 Away ! A darkness, as of old, will reign, 
 The Woods be standing where her Cities tower, 
 And Ocean wailing for his desert Isle !
 
 NOTES TO BOOK III.
 
 NOTES. 
 
 NOTE, page 258. 
 
 Than ye, vicegerent! of infernal power, 
 By that undreadingfool, Philosophy. 
 
 " The press has long been actively employed, and never so 
 actively as now, in undermining the foundations of faith, and 
 effacing all respect for religious institutions, and for religion 
 itself." SOUTHEY'S Colloquies. 
 
 NOTE, page 299. 
 Sweet Country would imparadise the soul. 
 
 Perhaps, one of the most beautiful passages in Pope's Letters 
 is on this subject. " I am growing fit, I hope, for a better 
 world, of which the light of the sun is but a shadow : for I 
 doubt not but God's works here, are what come nearest to his 
 works there ; and that a true relish for the beauties of Nature 
 is the most easy preparation and gentlest transition to an en- 
 
 S
 
 390 SATAN. [NOTES. 
 
 joyment of those in heaven ; as on the contrary, a true town 
 life of hurry, confusion, noise, slander, and dissension, is a sort 
 of apprenticeship to hell and its perils." 
 
 NOTE, page 344. 
 
 That second Milton, whose creative soul 
 Doth shadow visions to such awful life, 
 That men behold them with suspended breath, 
 And grow ethereal at a gaze ! 
 
 To whom can this eulogium apply, but to the sublime painter 
 of " Belshazzar's Feast," " The Deluge," " Fall of Nineveh,'' 
 &c. &c. ? Long may he live to adorn his age and country ! 
 
 NOTE, page 357. 
 But now so false, so abject, and so foul. 
 
 Of course, with some honorable exceptions. 
 
 NOTE, page 374. 
 The harp is shatter d, but the sounds remain. 
 
 " I have been just taking a solitary walk by moonshine, full of 
 reflections on the transitory nature of all human delights ; and 
 giving my thoughts a loose in the contemplation of those satis-
 
 BOOK III.] SATAN. 391 
 
 factions which probably we may hereafter taste in the company 
 of separate spirits, when we shall range the walks above, and 
 perhaps gaze on this world at as vast a distance as we now do 
 on those worlds. The pleasures we are to enjoy in that conver- 
 sation must undoubtedly be of a nobler kind, and (not unlikely) 
 may proceed from the discoveries each shall communicate to 
 another, of God and of Nature ; for the happiness of minds can 
 surely be nothing but knowledge." POPE'S Letters. 
 
 THE END.
 
 LONDON: 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES, 
 
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