With Nature in her young excess of bloom
Array'd, and with a breeze-like sense of joy
Alive upon the verdant face of things,
How exquisite must Earth's primeval state
Have been, how tinted with the hues of heaven!
And when amid it from unbreathing dust
A living shape of godlike beauty rose,
Alas! that e'er on such transcendent scene
A shade of guilt could fall! that clouds advanced
In wrath and darkness o'er offending Earth,
No longer bright with angel steps, but sad
And stricken, trembling at her God!-
When Man as monarch of the globe was placed
Where lavish Eden waved and smiled, sublime
He stood, but to his Maker homage due
By test of one supreme command was tried :-
Of every tree which in the garden grows
All freely eat, save THAT, wherein of Good
And Evil the forbidden knowledge lies;
Whereof the day thou eatest,-thou shalt die1!'
A Tempter came, the interdicted fruit
Man dared to eat, and from his high estate
Of glory, into disobedience fell!
In this dark hour when evil doom prevails,
Shall finite teach the Infinite His ways,
Or shape the path Omnipotence should tread ?-
Shall man in dreams of wild presumption dare
The universe condemn, or blindly call
His fate unjust? Shall fancy, in her flight
Insane, beyond the empyrean soar,
The God unthrone, His attributes affect,
And fashion worlds to prove His wisdom wrong?-
Alas! for doubt, that still no answer finds
When dust would fathom Deity, and cite
From darkness of eternal depth, the truths
Whose myst'ry makes the awfulness of time :-
Let Nature hope, and while her blessings thrive,
To secret Heaven resign the vast unknown 2.
The Mind was grander than the universe,
And when it fell, convulsed a world!-Then face
To face the creature and Creator met,
And Man, with sinking brow and shudd'ring frame,
Till reel'd the ground whereon the trembler trod,
Heard the deep judgment,—wither, toil, and die!
Pale in the gloom of that departed cloud*,
Whose shadow, like a lightning-track, had scathed
The bowers of Paradise, when Adam stood
With eyes aghast, and view'd the blighted world
Grow dark around him, while his fancy heard
The Curse still rolling on the awe-struck wind!
* The cloud of glory, which betokened the Divine Presence.
The dimness and the agony of doubt
How terribly his fallen soul endured! 20 yout
For what forbade, but in the hour he sinn'd,,sole svil By one annihilating word consumed,
That earth should perish in the pangs of hell? # Oh! ye, who in the choir of Cherubim
Divinely shaped, upon your sapphire thrones, d
That in the palace of Jehovah blaze, m
One anthem of seraphic bliss prolong;
Attune my lyre, triumphantly to sing,
Who, sun-like, dawn'd upon the gloom of death,
The majesty of dreadful Justice saved,
And roll'd away God's thunders from the world!
But say, hath ever hymn by angel sung,"
Hath thought divined, or human voice express'd 20 This miracle of miracles profound,
A world redeem'd, and Christ redemption's Lord ?bnog
I've seen the sun, creation's paramount,
Rise o'er the waves, and lead the march of day; ut
Alone have mused, when tempest roof'd the heavens
With blackness, and the tragic main revered
Till every wave drew worship from my soul
The dark sublimity of deepest night
Hath girdled, and the glories of her sky
O'erwhelm'd me: in humbleness and awe
Before the majesty of human worth
I've bow'd, and felt how lovely virtue is*;-
But poor and powerless, dim and undefined
The adoration born of scenes or hours
Below, to that which o'er the spirit comes,
When silent, Lord! it thinks alone of Thee,
And looks Perfection in her godlike face,
As on she moves in mercy o'er the world,
To shed the music of salvation round!
In Christ all revelation lives; His voice
With man in Eden dread communion held3,
To teach him morning vow, or evening prayer,
Or sacrifice divine; the shadowy type,
The mystic law, and ceremonious powers,
To Him relate; and when thy desert rang,
O Sinai! with the battle-hymns of old,
While Judah's banners in victorious play
Spread glory on the wind!-the Lord o'erhung
The travell'd wilderness; the signal cloud
By day and night His awful guidance led ;~
And Horeb heard Him! when, in lightning veil'd,
Her giant form beneath His thunders bow'd,
As high o'er all the dreadful, trumpet clang'd
With heaven-toned music, till the Desert shook!
That wilderness !-oh, when hath mind conceived
* How awful goodness is.—MILTON,
Magnificence beyond a midnight there,
When Israel camp'd, and o'er her tented host
The moonlight lay ?-On yonder palmy mount,
Lo! sleeping myriads in the dewy hush
Of night repose; around in squared array,
The camps are set; and in the midst, apart,
The curtain'd shrine, where mystically dwells
Jehovah's presence!-through the soundless air
A cloudy pillar, robed in burning light,
Appears concenter'd as one mighty heart,
A million* lie, in mutest slumber bound,
Or, panting like the ocean, when a dream
Of storm awakes her: Heaven and Earth are still;
In radiant loveliness the stars pursue
Their pilgrimage, while moonlight's wizard hand
Throws beauty, like a spectre-light, on all.
At Judah's tent the lion-banner stands
Upfolded, and the pacing sentinels,—
What awe pervades them, when the dusky groves,
The rocks Titanian, by the moonshine made
Unearthly, or yon mountains vast†, they view!
But soon as morning bids the sky exult,
As earth from nothing, so that countless host
From slumber and from silence will awake
To mighty being! while the forest-birds
Rush into song, the matin breezes play,
*Lamey's Account of the host and camps of Israel.
† Horeb and Sinai.
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