When did he look upon the lofty sky,
Or hear the breezes round his temples hymn,
And glory in his being? When did Morn
Arise to re-awake the world, or Night
Descend to beautify her brow with stars,
And he admire them?-though the dreadful Deep
Should thunder all her waves to foam,-or Plagues,
Like noiseless whirlwinds, sweep half earth away!
Still, tomb'd within himself, he would not weep,
Or wonder; what to him were Nature's pranks?
Not Genius, crown'd with her celestial light,
Not rival Art, nor Beauty darting out
The radiant magic of her meaning eye,—
Could plant one noble passion in his soul :
No renegade was he! for when the ray
Of life was languishing in death, and hell
Before him sounding like a coming blast,-
A thought look'd back, and wept the world behind!
Such were a few of all the cited damn'd;
Among them, millions who had blazed, when Time
Stalk'd o'er the earth, as demigods of fame,
Were found: philosophers,-whose rebel doubts
Would, Titan-like, have disenthroned THE GOD
Of heaven, were here! and hosts of every shade
Of sin, from visor'd crime, to daring vice;
And those, whose coward virtues only shone,
Untried, when happiness around them smiled ;—
Unlike the truly good, whose virtues were
As stars, unnoticed in the haughty glare
Of day, but in their full effulgence seen
And felt, when darkness overshrouds the world :
Not least in number were of middle stamp,
Nor good, nor bad, and yet too base for heaven,— Triflers, who bravely pass'd from life to death,
Like full-wing'd vessels o'er a gallant sea!
And did not meek-eyed Mercy stoop to save ?
She beckon❜d every breathing soul to Heaven!
By day and night she whisper'd to the heart,-
"A GOD! ETERNITY! A DAY OF DOOM!"
By funeral knells, and swiftly dying friends,
In solemn hours, and serious moods, by pangs
Within, and perils from without,-by all
The eloquence of love and truth divine,
She summon'd man to worship, and be saved!—
In vain! unebbing flow'd the tides of joy,
And gaily tript the fairy Hours along :
Eternity was but in name, a Heaven
The bright creation of a poet's dream,
And Hell-but burning in a priestly brain!
Men died; and could they have resumed their
With one terrific groan they would have thrill'd
Creation round,-" There is, there is a Hell!"
Corrupting pleasures, and degraded joys;
The sabbaths broken, and the God blasphemed
All in one mingling, burning mass of sin
And memory, round the guilty soul revolve,
Whose self-conviction forms the fiercest hell!
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