she could not heed :
Who knocks so loud, and cannot wait?
Hark! 'tis the neighing of a steed-
And lo! her love is at the gate!
(FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM.)
SPIRIT of Concord! shall it still be thine
To mourn thy sorrows, an unending line?
Shall never Wisdom, in her robes of white,
Chase Ignorance afar, and Error's night?
Shall never War recline his leaden ear,
Nor spareless Phrenzy cast aside the spear?
Must it be thine, despairingly to weep
Bloodshed on shore, and Rapine on the deep?
While seasons hold their course, and heaves the main,
Shall Sin light Misery's watch-towers o'er her reign?
Can Mercy send no star of heavenly birth,
To cheer the aspect of this darken'd earth,
And, with a radiance gloriously sublime,
Illume the footsteps of departing Time?
Say, never shall the strife of Discord cease,
And Man, with Fellow-man, embrace in peace?-
Or, doom d for ever to her scythed car,
Shall fire-eyed Vengeance wield the sword of War;
In ruin mock the lightning and the flood,
And drench her reeking blade in human blood;
Turn, smiling turn, from Life's expiring throe,
And scorn, in mockery wild, the plaint of woe?
No! heavenly light dispels the shapeless gloom,
And Hope presents to Man a brighter doom;
Far through the shadowy mist of years, I see,
Degraded world, thy glorious jubilee !
See from the fetter'd hands the shackles fall,
And Peace appear at Mercy's pleading call ;
See Ignorance and Error take to flight,
And Abdera's new uprise to glad the sight;
See Truth present the scene, by Fancy given,
And open'd to Mankind the gates of heaven;
While glorious on the view the prospects rise
Of cloudless Joy, and blooming Paradise!
As Herod's heart to Mariamne turn'd, Hung o'er her recollected charms, and burn'd, Sorrow'd for frailties past, and fondly swore To love her memory, and to err no more
So shall the devious mind, that hath deplored
Its errors past, to Virtue be restored;
And, as Repentance drops the bitter tears,
Mercy expunge the stains of other years!
While o'er the rolling earth, and heaving main, The voice of strife is heard, and terrors reign; Lo! Friendship gazes with prophetic eye, And, hopeful, reads our future destiny!
"Behold," she says," what clouds of dreary shade,
To wither all its charms, the scene pervade;
Beneath a chilling breeze, a frowning sky,
Droop all the fragrant summer sweets, and die.
Yes! Sin her upas poison breathes around,
And sink her victims writhing to the ground;
Dark is the wilful destiny of man ;
Nature laments her controverted plan:
And where, of yore, emblossom'd Eden smiled,
Peace is o'erthrown, and innocence exiled!
"With cypress coronal, and robes whose dye Exceeds in darkness Zembla's midnight sky, 'Mid yon dim cloudy bowers, from which the day Melts off with baffled and impervient ray,
Sits Superstition, she whose hydra hands
Have bound the rolling world through all its lands,
To lingering death her captive thousands thrust,
And bow'd the laurell'd conqueror to the dust;
As if in scorn corporeal forms to bind,
She wreathes her mystic fetters on the mind;
Degrades celestial Reason from her throne,
Chains Fancy's feet, and makes all sway her own:
'Twas she, amid Dahomey's groves of blood,
That edged the brand, and loosed the purple flood ;
'Twas she, 'mid Brama's wilds of awful gloom,
That gave the widow'd wretch a living tomb;
'Twas she that o'er the necks of erring love,
The wheels of Juggernaut triumphant drove;
'Twas she that sent the banner'd cross afar,
Whose mandate kindled Palestine to war,
That bow'd the crest of Turkey's haughty lord,
That drench'd in Moslem blood the Christian sword,
That gave-ah! record of eternal shame!—
A Ridley to the stake, a Cranmer to the flame!
"And yonder, see, within a trackless maze, The dreadful power that Pyrrho worshipp'd strays; Like midnight skiff, without a magnet, tost, Dubious of wreck, yet certain to be lost;
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