But oh! let this my son, mine only son,
Whom thus I dedicate to Thee ;-let him,
Let him be taught thy will, and choose
Obedience to it ;-may he fear thy power,
Walk in thy light, now dawning out of darkness:
And oh my last, last prayer,--to him reveal
The unutterable secret of thy name!"
He paused; then with the transport of a seer
Went on :-"That Name may all my nation know;
And all that hear it worship at the sound,
When Thou shalt with a voice from heaven proclaim it; And so it surely shall be."
And if Thou art, Thou must be good!" exclaim'd
The child, yet panting with the breath of prayer,
They ceased; then went rejoicing down the mountains,
Through the cool glen, where not a sound was heard, Amidst the dark solemnity of eve,
But the loud purling of the little brook,
And the low murmur of the distant ocean.
Thence to their home beyond the hills in peace
They walk'd; and when they reach'd their humble threshold,
The glittering firmament was full of stars.
-He died that night; his grandchild lived to see
The Patriarch's prayer and prophecy fulfill'd.
Here end my song: here ended not the vision:
I heard seven thunders uttering their voices,
And wrote what they did utter; but 'tis seal'd
Within the volume of my heart, where thoughts,
Unbodied yet in vocal words, await
The quickening warmth of poesy, to bring
Their forms to light,-like secret characters,
Invisible till open'd to the fire;
Or like the potter's paintings, colourless
Till they have pass❜d to glory through the flames.
Changes more wonderful than those gone by,
More beautiful, transporting, and sublime,
To all the frail affections of our nature,
To all the immortal faculties of man;
Such changes did I witness; not alone
In one poor Pelican Island, nor one
Barbarian continent, where man himself
Could scarcely soar above the Pelican:
-The world as it hath been in ages past,
The world as now it is, the world to come,
Far as the eye of prophecy can pierce ;—
These I beheld, and still in memory's rolls
They have their pages and their pictures; these,
Another day, a nobler song may show.
Vain boast! another day may not be given; This song may be my last; for I have reach'd That slippery descent, whence man looks back With melancholy joy on all he cherish'd;
Around, with love unfeign'd, on all he's losing; Forward, with hope that trembles while it turns To the dim point where all our knowledge ends. am but one among the living; one
mong the dead I soon shall be; and one mong unnumber'd millions yet unborn
he sum of Adam's mortal progeny,
From Nature's birth-day to her dissolution;
-Lost in infinitude, my atom-life
Seems but a sparkle of the smallest star
Amidst the scintillations of ten thousand
Twinkling incessantly; no ray returning
To shine a second moment, where it shone
Once, and no more for ever :-so I pass.
The world grows darker, lonelier, and more silent,
As I go down into the vale of years;
For the grave's shadows lengthen in advance,
And the grave's loneliness appals my spirit,
And the grave's silence sinks into my heart,
Till I forget existence in the thought
Of non-existence, buried for a while
In the still sepulchre of my own mind,
Itself imperishable :-ah! that word,
Like the archangel's trumpet, wakes me up
To deathless resurrection. Heaven and earth
Shall pass away, but that which thinks within me
Must think for ever; that which feels must feel:
-I am, and 1 can never cease to be.
O thou that readest! take this parable
Home to thy bosom; think as I have thought,
And feel as I have felt, through all the changes,
Which Time, Life, Death, the world's great actors,
wrought,
While centuries swept like morning dreams before me
And thou shalt find this moral to my song:
-Thou art, and thou canst never cease to be: What then are time, life, death, the world to thee? I may not answer; ask eternity.
THE mountains of this glorious land
Are conscious beings to mine eye,
When at the break of day they stand
Like giants, looking through the sky,
To hail the sun's unrisen car,
That gilds their diadems of snow;
While one by one, as star by star,
Their peaks in ether glow.
Their silent presence fills my soul,
When to the horizontal ray
The many-tinctured vapours roll,
In evanescent wreaths away,
And leave them naked on the scene,
The emblems of eternity,
The same as they have ever been,
And shall for ever be.
Yet through the valley while I range,
Their cliffs, like images in dreams,
Colour and shape, and station change;
Here crags and caverns, woods and streams,
And seas of adamantine ice,
With gardens, vineyards, fields embraced,
Open a way to Paradise,
Through all the splendid waste.
The goats are hanging on the rocks,
Wide through their pastures roam the herds;
Peace on the uplands feeds her flocks,
Till suddenly the king of birds
Pouncing a lamb, they start for fear;
He bears his bleating prize on high;
The well-known plaint his nestlings hear,
And raise a ravening cry.
The sun in morning freshness shines;
At noon behold his orb o'ercast;
Hollow and dreary o'er the pines,
Like distant ocean, moans the blast;
The mountains darken at the sound,
Put on their armour, and anon,
In panoply of clouds wrapt round,
Their forms from sight are gone.
Hark! war in heaven!-the battle-shout
Of thunder rends the echoing air;
Lo! war in heaven!-thick-flashing out
Through torrent-rains, red lightnings glare :
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