And o'er the conqueror and the conquered draws
His cold and bloody shroud.
Whom day's departing beam saw blooming there,
In proud and vigorous health; of all the hearts
That beat with anxious life at sunset there;
How few survive, how few are beating now!
All is deep silence, like the fearful calm
That slumbers in the storm's portentous pause;
Save when the frantic wail of widowed love
Comes shuddering on the blast, or the faint moan,
With which some soul bursts from the frame of clay,
Wrapt round its struggling powers.
Dawns on the mournful scene. The sulphurous smoke
Before the icy wind slow rolls away;
And the bright beams of frosty morning dance
Along the spangling snow. There, tracks of blood
Even to the forest's depth, and scattered arms,
And lifeless warriors, whose hard lineaments
Death's self could change not, mark the dreadful path
Of the outstanding victors. Far behind,
Black ashes note where their proud city stood.
Within yon forest is a gloomy glen;
Each tree, which guards its darkness from the day,
Waves o'er a warrior's tomb.
CXXXIX.-TEACHINGS OF NATURE.
IN Pollok's "Course of Time," from which this extract is taken, the speaker, once an inhabitant of earth, is supposed to be describing to an angel what had happened in this world in ages long past.
THE seasons came and went, and went and came,
To teach men gratitude; and, as they passed,
Gave warning of the lapse of time, that else
Had stolen unheeded by: the gentle flowers
Retired, and, stooping o'er the wilderness,
Talked of humility, and peace, and love.
The dews came down unseen at evening tide,
And silently their bounties shed, to teach
Mankind unostentatious charity.
With arm in arm the forest rose on high,
And lesson gave of brotherly regard,
And on the rugged mountain brow exposed,
Bearing the blast alone, the ancient oak
Stood, lifting high his mighty arm, and still
To courage in distress exhorted loud.
The flocks, the herds, the birds, the streams, the breeze,
Attuned the heart to melody and love.
Mercy stood in the cloud, with eye that wept
Essential love; and, from her glorious brow,
Bending to kiss the earth in token of peace,
With her own lips, her gracious lips, which God
Of sweetest accent made, she whispered still,
She whispered to Revenge! Forgive, forgive!
The Sun, rejoicing round the earth, announced
Daily the wisdom, power, and love of God.
The Moon awoke, and from her maiden face
Shedding her cloudy locks, looked meekly forth,
And with her virgin stars walked in the heavens,
Walked nightly there, conversing as she walked
Of purity, and holiness, and God.
In dreams and visions, sleep instructed much.
Day uttered speech to day, and night to night
Taught knowledge: silence had a tongue: the grave,
The darkness, and the lonely waste, had each
A tongue, that ever said; Man! think of God!
Think of thyself! think of eternity!
Fear God, the thunders said; fear God, the waves;
Fear God, the lightning of the storm replied;
Fear God, deep loudly answered back to deep.
And, in the temples of the Holy One,
Messiah's messengers, the faithful few,
Faithful 'mong many false, the Bible opened,
And cried: Repent! repent, ye Sons of Men!
Believe, be saved.
LORD of the winds! I feel thee nigh,
I know thy breath in the burning sky,
And I wait, with a thrill in every vein,
For the coming of the hurricane!
And, lo! on the wing of the heavy gales,
Through the boundless arch of heaven he sails.
Silent and slow, and terribly strong,
The mighty shadow is borne along,
Like the dark eternity to come;
While the world below, dismayed and dumb,
Through the calm of the thick, hot atmosphere,
Looks up at its gloomy folds with fear.
They darken fast; and the golden blaze
Of the sun is quenched in the lurid haze,
And he sends through the shade a funeral ray,
A glare that is neither night nor day,
A beam that touches with hues of death
The clouds above and the earth beneath.
To its covert glides the silent bird,
While the hurricane's distant voice is heard,
Uplifted among the mountains round;
And the forests hear and answer the sound.
He is come! he is come! do ye not behold
His ample robes on the wind unrolled?
Giant of air! we bid thee hail!
How his gray skirts toss in the whirling gale!
How his huge and writhing arms are bent,
To clasp the zone of the firmament,
And fold, at length, in their dark embrace,
From mountain to mountain, the visible space!
Darker! still darker! the whirlwinds bear
The dust of the plains to the middle air:
And hark to the crashing, long and loud,
Of the chariot of God in the thunder-cloud!
You may trace its path by the flashes that start
From the rapid wheels wherever they dart,
As the fire-bolts leap to the world below,
And flood the skies with a lurid glow.
What roar is that? 'Tis the rain that breaks
In torrents away from the airy lakes,
Heavily poured on the shuddering ground,
And shedding a nameless horror round.
Ah! well-known woods, and mountains, and skies,
With the very clouds, ye are lost to my eyes.
I seek ye vainly, and see in your place
The shadowy tempest that sweeps through space:
A whirling ocean now fills the wall
Of the crystal heaven, and buries all;
And I, cut off from the world, remain
Alone with the terrible hurricane.
ALL-CONQUERING Heat, oh, intermit thy wrath!
And on my throbbing temples, potent thus
Beam not so fierce! Incessant still you flow,
And still another fervent flood succeeds,
Poured on the head profuse. In vain I sigh,
And restless turn, and look around for night;
Night is far off; and hotter hours approach.
Thrice happy he, who, on the sunless side
Of a romantic mountain, forest-crowned,
Beneath the whole-collected shade reclines;
Or in the gelid caverns, woodbine-wrought,
And fresh bedewed with ever-spouting streams,
Sits coolly calm; while all the world without,
Unsatisfied, and sick, tosses in noon.
Emblem, instructive of the virtuous man,
Who keeps his tempered mind, serene and pure,
And every passion, aptly harmonized,
Amid a jarring world with vice inflamed.
Welcome, ye shades! ye bowery thickets, hail!
Ye lofty pines! ye venerable oaks!
Ye ashes wild, resounding o'er the steep!
Delicious is your shelter to the soul,
As to the hunted hart the sallying spring,
Or stream, full flowing, that his swelling sides
Laves, as he floats along the herbaged brink.
Cool, through the nerves, your pleasing comfort glides; The heart beats glad; the fresh expanded eye
And ear resume their watch; the sinews knit;
And life shoots swift through all the lightened limbs. FROM THOMSON.
No sun, no moon,
No morn, no noon,
No dawn, no dusk, no proper time of day,
No sky, no earthly view,
No distance, looking blue,
No road, no street, no "t' other side the way,"
No end to any Row,
No indications where the Crescents go.
No top to any steeple,
No recognitions of familiar people,
No courtesies for showing 'em,
No knowing 'em,
No traveling at all, no locomotion,
No inkling of the way, no notion,
"No go," by land or ocean,
No mail, no post,
No news from any foreign coast.
No park, no ring, no afternoon gentility,
No company, no nobility,
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member.
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,
No-vember!
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