And pearly battlements around Looked o'er the immense of Heaven. The magic car no longer moved. Those golden clouds not: The light and crimson mists, Floating to strains of thrilling melody Through that unearthly dwelling, Yielded to every movement of the will. Eternal nature's law. Above, below, around The circling systems formed A wilderness of harmony; Each with undeviating aim, In eloquent silence, through the depths of space Pursued its wondrous way. There was a little light That twinkled in the misty distance: Might ken that rolling orb; And in no other place Upon their passive swell the Spirit But that celestial dwelling, might behold Each action of this earth's inhabitants. But matter, space and time In those aërial mansions cease to act; And all-prevailing wisdom, when it reaps The harvest of its excellence, o'erbounds Those obstacles, of which an earthly soul Fears to attempt the conquest. The Fairy pointed to the earth. The Spirit's intellectual eye Its kindred beings recognised. The thronging thousands, to a passing view, Seemed like an anthill's citizens. That moves the finest nerve, Causes the faintest thought, becomes a link In the great chain of nature. Behold, the Fairy cried, Behold! where grandeur frowned; A melancholy tale, to give An awful warning: soon Oblivion will steal silently The remnant of its fame. Monarchs and conquerors there Proud o'er prostrate millions trod— The earthquakes of the human race; Like them, forgotten when the ruin That marks their shock is past. Beside the eternal Nile, The Pyramids have risen. Nile shall pursue his changeless way: Those pyramids shall fall; Yea! not a stone shall stand to tell The spot whereon they stood! Their very site shall be forgotten, As is their builder's name! Behold yon sterile spot; Of nature and benevolence hath given Of this barbarian nation, which impos ture Recites till terror credits, are pursuing There is a moral desert now: The long and lonely colonnades, Seem like a well-known tune, Where now the wandering Arab's tent Which, in some dear scene we have Flaps in the desert-blast. There once old Salem's haughty fane Reared high to heaven its thousand golden domes, And in the blushing face of day Exposed its shameful glory. Oh! many a widow, many an orphan cursed The building of that fane; and many a father, Worn out with toil and slavery, implored The poor man's God to sweep it from the earth, And spare his children the detested task Of piling stone on stone, and poisoning The choicest days of life, To soothe a dotard's vanity. There an inhuman and uncultured race Howled hideous praises to their DemonGod; They rushed to war, tore from the mother's womb The unborn child,—old age and infancy Promiscuous perished; their victorious arms Left not a soul to breathe. Oh! they were fiends: But what was he who taught them that the God loved to hear, Remembered now in sadness. But, oh! how much more changed, How gloomier is the contrast Of human nature there! Where Socrates expired, a tyrant's slave, A coward and a fool, spreads death around Then, shuddering, meets his own. Where Cicero and Antoninus lived, Spirit! ten thousand years His enemy's blood, and aping Europe's sons, Wakes the unholy song of war, Arose a stately city, Metropolis of the western continent : There, now, the mossy column-stone, Indented by time's unrelaxing grasp, Which once appeared to brave All, save its country's ruin; There the wide forest scene, Rude in the uncultivated loveliness That binds his soul to abjectness, the Her venomous brood to their nocturnal fool Whom courtiers nickname monarch, whilst a slave Even to the basest appetites-that man Heeds not the shriek of penury; he smiles At the deep curses which the destitute Mutter in secret, and a sullen joy Awful Pervades his bloodless heart when thou- Oh! must this last for ever! sands groan death, But for those morsels which his wanton- I wish, yet fear to clasp thee!-Not one The tale of horror, to some ready-made In penury and dungeons? wherefore The drones of the community; they feed They prey like scorpions on the springs of life. There needeth not the hell that bigots On the mechanic's labour: the starved frame To punish those who err: earth in itself How justly to proportion to the fault Is it strange That this poor wretch should pride him in his woe? Take pleasure in his abjectness, and hug The scorpion that consumes him? Is it strange That, placed on a conspicuous throne of thorns, Grasping an iron sceptre, and immured Within a splendid prison, whose stern bounds Shut him from all that's good or dear on earth, His soul asserts not its humanity? not strange. He, like the vulgar, thinks, feels, acts Of earth this thorny wilderness; from Just as his father did; the unconquered Revenge, and murder. . . . And when powers Of precedent and custom interpose Between a king and virtue. Stranger yet, To those who know not nature, nor deduce The future from the present, it may seem, That not one slave, who suffers from the crimes reason's voice, Loud as the voice of nature, shall have waked The nations; and mankind perceive that vice Is discord, war, and misery; that virtue Is peace, and happiness and harmony; When man's maturer nature shall disdain The playthings of its childhood;-kingly glare Of this unnatural being; not one wretch, tial bed ity Is earth's unpitying bosom, rears an arm | Will silently pass by; the gorgeous throne Those gilded flies That, basking in the sunshine of a court, Fatten on its corruption!-what are they? Shall be as hateful and unprofitable As that of truth is now. |