In all of life, nor yet of life alone,
In all beyond, this mighty power we own.
We would unclasp the mystic book of fate,
And trace the paths of all we love and hate;
The father's heart would learn his children's
doom,
Even when that heart is crumbling in the tomb;
If they must sink in guilt, or soar to fame,
And leave a hated or a hallow'd name;
By hope elated, or depress'd by doubt,
Even in the death-pang he would find it out.
What boots it to your dust, your son were born
An empire's idol or a rabble's scorn?
Think ye the franchised spirit shall return,
To share his triumph, his disgrace to mourn?
Ah, Curiosity! by thee inspired,
This truth to know how oft has man inquired!
And is it fancy all? can reason say
Earth's loves must moulder with earth's mouldering clay?
That death can chill the father's sacred glow,
And hush the throb that none but mothers know?
Must we believe those tones of dear delight,
The morning welcome and the sweet good-night,
The kind monition and the well-earn'd praise,
That won and warm'd us in our earlier days,
Turn'd, as they fell, to cold and common air?--
Speak, proud Philosophy! the truth declare!
Yet, no, the fond delusion, if no more,
We would not yield for wisdom's cheerless lore;
A tender creed they hold, who dare believe
The dead return, with them to joy or grieve.
How sweet, while lingering slow on shore or hill,
When all the pleasant sounds of earth are still,
When the round moon rolls through the unpillar'd
skies,
And stars look down as they were angels' eyes,
How sweet to deem our lost, adored ones nigh,
And hear their voices in the night-winds sigh.
Full many an idle dream that hope had broke,
And the awed heart to holy goodness woke ;
Full many a felon's guilt in thought had died,
Fear'd he his father's spirit by his side;—
Then let that fear, that hope, control the mind;
Still let us question, still no answer find;
Let Curiosity of Heaven inquire,
Nor earth's cold dogmas quench the ethereal fire.
Nor even to life, nor death, nor time confined—
The dread hereafter fills the exploring mind;
We burst the grave, profane the coffin's lid,
Unwisely ask of all so wisely hid;
Eternity's dark record we would read,
Mysteries, unravell'd yet by mortal creed;
Of life to come, unending joy and wo,
And all that holy wranglers dream below;
To find their jarring dogmas out we long,
Or which is right, or whether all be wrong;
Things of an hour, we would invade His throne,
And find out Him, the Everlasting One!
Faith we may boast, undarken'd by a doubt,
We thirst to find each awful secret out;
Hope may sustain, and innocence impart
Her sweet specific to the fearless heart;
The inquiring spirit will not be controll❜d,
We would make certain all, and all behold.
Unfathom'd well-head of the boundless soul! Whose living waters lure us as they roll, From thy pure wave one cheering hope we drawMan, man at least shall spurn proud Nature's law. All that have breath, but he, lie down content, Life's purpose served, indeed, when life is spent ; All as in Paradise the same are found;
The beast, whose footstep shakes the solid ground,
The insect living on a summer spire,
The bird, whose pinion courts the sunbeam's fire;
In lair and nest, in way and want, the same
As when their sires sought Adam for a name :
Their be-all and their end-all here below,
They nothing need beyond, nor need to know;
Earth and her hoards their every want supply,
They revel, rest, then, fearless, hopeless, die.
But Man, his Maker's likeness, lord of earth,
Who owes to Nature little but his birth,
Shakes down her puny chains, her wants, and woes,
One world subdues, and for another glows.
See him, the feeblest, in his cradle laid;
See him, the mightiest, in his mind array'd!
How wide the gulf he clears, how bold the flight
That bears him upward to the realms of light!
By restless Curiosity inspired,
Through all his subject world he roves untired:
Looks back and scans the infant days of yore,
On to the time when time shall be no more;
Even in life's parting throb its spirit burns,
And, shut from earth, to heaven more warmly
Shall he alone, of mortal dwellers here, Thus soar aloft to sink in mid-career! Less favour'd than a worm, shall his stern doom Lock up these seraph longings in the tomb ?— O Thou, whose fingers raised us from the dust, Till there we sleep again, be this our trust: This sacred hunger marks the immortal mind, By Thee't was given, for Thee, for heaven design d; There the rapt spirit, from earth's grossness freed, Shall see, and know, and be like Thee indeed. Here let me pause-no further I rehearse What claims a loftier soul, a nobler verse; The mountain's foot I have but loiter'd round, Not dared to scale its highest, holiest ground; But ventured on the pebbly shore to stray, While the broad ocean all before me lay ;How bright the boundless prospect there on high! How rich the pearls that here all hidden lie! But not for me to life's coarse service sold, Where thought lies barren and naught breeds but
"Tis yours, ye favour'd ones, at whose command From the cold world I ventured, here to stand: Ye who were lapp'd in Wisdom's murmuring bowers,
Who still to bright improvement yield your hours;
To you the privilege and the power belong,
To give my theme the grace of living song;
Yours be the flapping of the eagle's wing,
To dare the loftiest crag, and heavenward spring;
Mine the light task to hop from spray to spray,
Bless'd if I charm one summer hour away.
One summer hour-its golden sands have run,
And the poor labour of the bard is done.-
Yet, ere I fling aside my humble lyre,
Let one fond wish its trembling strings inspire;
Fancy the task to Feeling shall resign,
And the heart prompt the warm, untutor'd line.
Peace to this ancient spot! here, as of old,
May Learning dwell, and all her stores unfold;
Still may her priests around these altars stand,
And train to truth the children of the land;
Bright be their paths, within these shades who rest,
These brother-bands-beneath his guidance bless'd,
Who, with their fathers, here turn'd wisdom's page,
Who comes to them the statesman and the sage.
Praise be his portion in his labours here,
The praise that cheer'da KIRKLAND's mild career;
The love that finds in every breast a shrine,
When zeal and gentleness with wisdom join.
Here may he sit, while race succeeding race
Go proudly forth his parent care to grace;
In head and heart by him prepared to rise,
To take their stations with the good and wise:
This crowning recompense to him be given,
To see them guard on earth and guide to heaven;
Thus, in their talents, in their virtues bless'd,
O be his ripest years his happiest and his best!
GOD of the glorious lyre!
Whose notes of old on lofty Pindus rang,
While JovE's exulting choir
Caught the glad echoes and responsive sang-
Come! bless the service and the shrine
We consecrate to thee and thine.
Fierce from the frozen north,
When Havoc led his legions forth,
O'er Learning's sunny groves the dark destroyer spread :
In dust the sacred statue slept,
Fair Science round her altars wept,
And Wisdom cowl'd his head.
At length, Olympian lord of morn,
The raven veil of night was torn,
When, through golden clouds descending,
Thou didst hold thy radiant flight,
O'er Nature's lovely pageant bending,
Till Avon rolled, all sparkling to thy sight!
There, on its bank, beneath the mulberry's shade, Wrapp'd in young dreams, a wild-eyed minstrel stray'd.
Lighting there and lingering long,
Thou didst teach the bard his song;
Thy fingers strung his sleeping shell,
And round his brows a garland curl'd;
On his lips thy spirit fell,
And bade him wake and warm the world!
Then SHAKSPEARE rose!
Across the trembling strings
His daring hand he flings,
And, lo! a new creation glows!
Delivered in the Boston Theatre, in 1823, at the exhibition of a pageant in honour of SHAKSPEARE.
There, clustering round, submissive to his will, Fate's vassal train his high commands fulfil. Madness, with his frightful scream,
Vengeance, leaning on his lance, Avarice, with his blade and beam, Hatred, blasting with a glance; Remorse, that weeps, and Rage, that roars, And Jealousy, that dotes, but dooms, and murders, yet adores.
Mirth, his face with sun-beams lit, Waking laughter's merry swell, Arm in arm with fresh-eyed Wit, That waves his tingling lash, while Folly shakes his bell.
Despair, that haunts the gurgling stream,
Kiss'd by the virgin moon's cold beam,
Where some lost maid wild chaplets wreathes,
And, swan-like, there her own dirge breathes,
Then, broken-hearted, sinks to rest,
Beneath the bubbling wave, that shrouds her maniac breast.
Young Love, with eye of tender gloom,
Now drooping o'er the hallow'd tomb
Where his plighted victims lie—
Where they met, but met to die:
And now, when crimson buds are sleeping,
Through the dewy arbour peeping,
Where Beauty's child, the frowning world
To youth's devoted tale is listening,
Rapture on her dark lash glistening,
While fairies leave their cowslip cells and guard the happy spot.
Thus rise the phantom throng,
Obedient to their master's song,
And lead in willing chain the wandering soul along,
For other worlds war's Great One sigh'd in vain-
O'er other worlds see SHAKSPEARE rove and reign!
The rapt magician of his own wild lay,
Earth and her tribes his mystic wand obey.
Old Ocean trembles, Thunder cracks the skies,
Air teems with shapes, and tell-tale spectres rise:
Night's paltering hags their fearful orgies keep,
And faithless Guilt unseals the lip of Sleep:
Time yields his trophies up, and Death restores
The mouldered victims of his voiceless shores.
The fireside legend, and the faded page,
The crime that cursed, the deed that bless'd an
All, all come forth, the good to charm and cheer, To scourge bold Vice, and start the generous
With pictured Folly gazing fools to shame, And guide young Glory's foot along the path of Fame.
Hell's juggling sisters stand, To greet their victim from the fight; Group'd on the blasted heath, They tempt him to the work of death, Then melt in air, and mock his wondering
In midnight's hallow'd hour He seeks the fatal tower, Where the lone raven, perch'd on high, Pours to the sullen gale
Her hoarse, prophetic wail,
And croaks the dreadful moment nigh. See, by the phantom dagger led,
Pale, guilty thing,
Slowly he steals with silent tread,
And grasps his coward steel to smite his sleeping king.
Hark! 't is the signal bell,
Struck by that bold and unsex'd one,
Whose milk is gall, whose heart is stone;
His ear hath caught the knell-
"T is done! 't is done!
Behold him from the chamber rushing,
Where his dead monarch's blood is gushing:
Look, where he trembling stands,
Sad, gazing there,
Life's smoking crimson on his hands,
And in his felon heart the worm of wild despair.
Mark the sceptred traitor slumbering!
There flit the slaves of conscience round, With boding tongues foul murderers numbering;
Sleep's leaden portals catch the sound.
In his dream of blood for mercy quaking,
At his own dull scream behold him waking!
Soon that dream to fate shall turn,
For him the living furies burn;
For him the vulture sits on yonder misty peak,
And chides the lagging night, and whets her hun-
gry beak.
Hark! the trumpet's warning breath
Echoes round the vale of death.
Unhorsed, unhelm'd, disdaining shield,
The panting tyrant scours the field.
Vengeance! he meets thy dooming blade!
The scourge of earth, the scorn of heaven,
He falls unwept and unforgiven,
And all his guilty glories fade.
Like a crush'd reptile in the dust he lies,
And hate's last lightning quivers from his eyes!
Behold yon crownless king
Yon white-lock'd, weeping sireWhere heaven's unpillar'd chambers ring, And burst their streams of flood and fire! He gave them all-the daughters of his love: That recreant pair! they drive him forth to
In such a night of wo,
The cubless regent of the wood
Forgets to bathe her fangs in blood,
And caverns with her foe!
Yet one was ever kind:
Why lingers she behind?
O pity!-view him by her dead form kneeling, Even in wild frenzy holy nature feeling.
His aching eyeballs strain,
To see those curtain'd orbs unfold,
That beauteous bosom heave again:
But all is dark and cold.
In agony the father shakes;
Grief's choking note
Swells in his throat,
Each wither'd heart-string tugs and breaks! Round her pale neck his dying arms he wreathes, And on her marble lips his last, his death-kiss breathes.
Down! trembling wing: shall insect weakness keep
The sun-defying eagle's sweep?
A mortal strike celestial strings,
And feebly echo what a seraph sings?
Who now shall grace the glowing throne,
Where, all unrivall'd, all alone,
Bold SHAKSPEARE sat, and look'd creation through,
The minstrel monarch of the worlds he drew?
That throne is cold-that lyre in death unstrung,
On whose proud note delighted Wonder hung.
Yet old Oblivion, as in wrath he sweeps,
One spot shall spare-the grave where SHAKSPEARE
sleeps.
Rulers and ruled in common gloom may lie,
But Nature's laureate bards shall never die.
Art's chisell'd boast and Glory's trophied shore
Must live in numbers, or can live no more.
While sculptured Jove some nameless waste may
claim,
Still roars the Olympic car in PINDAR'S fame:
Troy's doubtful walls, in ashes pass'd away,
Yet frown on Greece in HOMER's deathless lay;
Rome, slowly sinking in her crumbling fanes,
Stands all immortal in her MARO's strains;
So, too, yon giant empress of the isles,
On whose broad sway the sun forever smiles,
To Time's unsparing rage one day must bend,
And all her triumphs in her SHAKSPEARE end!
O thou! to whose creative power
We dedicate the festal hour,
While Grace and Goodness round the altar stand,
Learning's anointed train, and Beauty's rose-lipp'd
band-
Realms yet unborn, in accents now unknown,
Thy song shall learn, and bless it for their own.
Deep in the west, as Independence roves,
His banners planting round the land he loves,
Where Nature sleeps in Eden's infant grace,
In Time's full hour shall spring a glorious race:
Thy name, thy verse, thy language shall they bear,
And deck for thee the vaulted temple there.
Our Roman-hearted fathers broke
Thy parent empire's galling yoke;
But thou, harmonious monarch of the mind,
Around their sons a gentler chain shall bind;
Still o'er our land shall Albion's sceptre wave,
And what her mighty lion lost, her mightier swan
shall save.
WE are but two-the others sleep
Through death's untroubled night;
We are but two-O, let us keep
The link that binds us bright.
Heart leaps to heart-the sacred flood
That warms us is the same;
That good old man-his honest blood
Alike we fondly claim.
We in one mother's arms were lock'd-
Long be her love repaid;
In the same cradle we were rock'd,
Round the same hearth we play'd.
Our boyish sports were all the same,
Each little joy and wo;-
Let manhood keep alive the flame,
Lit up so long ago.
We are but two-be that the band
To hold us till we die;
Shoulder to shoulder let us stand,
Till side by side we lie.
WHEN, from the sacred garden driven,
Man fled before his Maker's wrath,
An angel left her place in heaven,
And cross'd the wanderer's sunless path.
'Twas Art! sweet Art! new radiance broke
Where her light foot flew o'er the ground,
And thus with seraph voice she spoke:
"The curse a blessing shall be found."
She led him through the trackless wild,
Where noontide sunbeam never blazed;
The thistle shrunk, the harvest smiled,
And Nature gladden'd as she gazed. Earth's thousand tribes of living things, At Art's command, to him are given; The village grows, the city springs,
And point their spires of faith to heaven.
He rends the oak-and bids it ride,
To guard the shores its beauty graced;
He smites the rock-upheaved in pride,
See towers of strength and domes of taste.
Earth's teeming caves their wealth reveal,
Fire bears his banner on the wave,
He bids the mortal poison heal,
And leaps triumphant o'er the grave.
He plucks the pearls that stud the deep,
Admiring beauty's lap to fill;
He breaks the stubborn marble's sleep,
And mocks his own Creator's skill.
With thoughts that fill his glowing soul,
He bids the ore illume the page,
And, proudly scorning Time's control,
Commerces with an unborn age.
In fields of air he writes his name,
And treads the chambers of the sky, He reads the stars, and grasps the flame That quivers round the throne on high. In war renown'd, in peace sublime,
He moves in greatness and in grace; His power, subduing space and time,
Links realm to realm, and race to race.
O, IT is life! departed days
Fling back their brightness while I gaze:
'Tis EMMA's self-this brow so fair,
Half-curtain'd in this glossy hair,
These eyes, the very home of love,
The dark twin arches traced above,
These red-ripe lips that almost speak,
The fainter blush of this pure check,
The rose and lily's beauteous strife-
It is ah no!-'tis all but life.
"Tis all but life-art could not save
Thy graces, EMMA, from the grave;
Thy cheek is pale, thy smile is past,
Thy love-lit eyes have look'd their last;
Mouldering beneath the coffin's lid,
All we adored of thee is hid;
Thy heart, where goodness loved to dwell,
Is throbless in the narrow cell;
Thy gentle voice shall charm no more;
Its last, last, joyful note is o'er.
Oft, oft, indeed, it hath been sung,
The requiem of the fair and young;
The theme is old, alas! how old,
Of grief that will not be controll'd,
Of sighs that speak a father's wo,
Of pangs that none but mothers know,
Of friendship, with its bursting heart,
Doom'd from the idol-one to part-
Still its sad debt must feeling pay,
Till feeling, too, shall pass away.
O say, why age, and grief, and pain
Shall long to go, but long in vain;
Why vice is left to mock at time,
And, gray in years, grow gray in crime;
While youth, that every eye makes glad,
And beauty, all in radiance clad,
And goodness, cheering every heart,
Come, but come only to depart;
Sunbeams, to cheer life's wintry day,
Sunbeams, to flash, then fade away.
"Tis darkness all! black banners wave
Round the cold borders of the grave;
There, when in agony we bend
O'er the fresh sod that hides a friend,
One only comfort then we know-
We, too, shall quit this world of wo;
We, too, shall find a quiet place
With the dear lost ones of our race;
Our crumbling bones with theirs shall blend,
And life's sad story find an end.
And is this all-this mournful doom?
Beams no glad light beyond the tomb?
Mark how yon clouds in darkness ride,
They do not quench the orb they hide,
Still there it wheels-the tempest o'er,
In a bright sky to burn once more;
So, far above the clouds of time,
Faith can behold a world sublime-
There, when the storms of life are past,
The light beyond shall break at last.
Behold! they come-those sainted forms,
Unshaken through the strife of storms;
Heaven's winter cloud hangs coldly down,
And earth puts on its rudest frown;
But colder, ruder was the hand
That drove them from their own fair land;
Their own fair land-refinement's chosen seat,
Art's trophied dwelling, Learning's green retreat;
By valour guarded, and by victory crown'd,
For all, but gentle charity renown'd.
With streaming eye, yet steadfast heart,
Even from that land they dared to part,
And burst each tender tie;
Haunts, where their sunny youth was pass'd,
Homes, where they fondly hoped at last
In peaceful age to die.
Friends, kindred, comfort, all they spurn'd;
Their fathers' hallow'd graves;
And to a world of darkness turn'd,
Beyond a world of waves.
When ISRAEL's race from bondage fled,
Signs from on high the wanderers led;
But here-Heaven hung no symbol here,
Their steps to guide, their souls to cheer;
They saw, through sorrow's lengthening night,
Naught but the fagot's guilty light;
The cloud they gazed at was the smoke
That round their murder'd brethren broke.
Nor
power above, nor power below Sustain'd them in their hour of wo;
A fearful path they trod,
And dared a fearful doom;
To build an altar to their Gon,
And find a quiet tomb.
Pronounced at the Centennial Celebration of the Settlement of Boston, September, 1830.
But not alone, not all unbless'd,
The exile sought a place of rest;
ONE dared with him to burst the knot
That bound her to her native spot;
Her low, sweet voice in comfort spoke,
As round their bark the billows broke;
She through the midnight watch was there,
With him to bend her knees in prayer;
She trod the shore with girded heart,
Through good and ill to claim her part;
In life, in death, with him to seal
Her kindred love, her kindred zeal.
They come;-that coming who shall tell?
The eye may weep, the heart may swell,
But the poor tongue in vain essays
A fitting note for them to raise.
We hear the after-shout that rings
For them who smote the power of kings;
The swelling triumph all would share,
But who the dark defeat would dare,
And boldly meet the wrath and wo
That wait the unsuccessful blow?
It were an envied fate, we deem,
To live a land's recorded theme,
When we are in the tomb;
We, too, might yield the joys of home,
And waves of winter darkness roam,
And tread a shore of gloom-
Knew we those waves, through coming time,
Should roll our names to every clime;
Felt we that millions on that shore
Should stand, our memory to adore.
But no glad vision burst in light
Upon the Pilgrims' aching sight;
Their hearts no proud hereafter swell'd;
Deep shadows veil'd the way they held;
The yell of vengeance was their trump of fame, Their monument, a grave without a name.
Yet, strong in weakness, there they stand, On yonder ice-bound rock,
Stern and resolved, that faithful band,
To meet fate's rudest shock. Though anguish rends the father's breast, For them, his dearest and his best,
With him the waste who trodThough tears that freeze, the mother sheds Upon her children's houseless heads-The Christian turns to GOD!
In grateful adoration now,
Upon the barren sands they bow.
What tongue of joy e'er woke such prayer
As bursts in desolation there?
What arm of strength e'er wrought such power
As waits to crown that feeble hour?
There into life an infant empire springs!
There falls the iron from the soul;
There Liberty's young accents roll
Up to the King of kings!
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