Feeling the horror of the tyrant's deeds, And unrestrain'd but by the arm of power, That knows and dreads his enmity.

Should urge him to perform instinctively,
Are bought and sold as in a public mart
Of undisguising selfishness, that sets
On each its price, the stamp-mark of her reign.
Even love is sold ; (9) the solace of all woe
Is turn'd to deadliest agony, old age
Shivers in selfish beauty's loathing arms,
And youth's corrupted impulses prepare
A life of horror from the blighting bane
Of commerce; whilst the pestilence that springs
From unenjoying sensualism, has filla
All human life with hydra-headed woes.

The iron rod of penury still compels
Her wretched slave to bow the knee to wealth,
And poison, with unprofitable toil,
A life too void of solace to confirm
The
very

chains that bind him to his doom.
Nature, impartial in munificence,
Has gifted man with all-subduing will:
Matter, with all its transitory shapes,
Lies subjected and plastic at his feet,
That, weak from bondage, tremble as they tread.
How many a rustic Milton has past by,
Stitling the speechless longings of his heart,
In unremitting drudgery and care!
How many a vulgar Cato has compella
His energies, no longer tameless then,
To mould a pin, or fabricate a nail!
How many a Newton, to whose passive ken
Those mighty spheres that gem infinity
Were only specks of tinsel, 6x'd in heaven
To light the midnights of his native town!

Falsehood demands but gold to pay

the

pangs Of outraged conscience; for the slavish priest Sets no great value on his bireling faith : A little passing pomp, some servile souls, Whom cowardice itself mite safely chain, Or the spare mite of avarice could bribe To deck the triumph of their languid zeal, Can make him minister to tyranny. More daring crime requires a loftier meed: Without a shudder, the slave-soldier Jends His arm to murderous deeds, and steels his heart, When the dread eloquence of dying men, Low mingling on the lonely field of fame, Assails that nature, whose applause he sells For the gross blessings of a patriot mob, For the vile gratitude of heartless kings, And for a cold world's good word, -viler still!

Yet every heart contains perfection's germ:
The wisest of the sages of the earth,
That ever from the stores of reason drew
Science and truth, and virtue's dreadless tone,
Were but a weak and inexperienced boy,
Proud, sensual, unimpassion'd, unimbucd
With

pure desire and universal love,
Compared to that high being, of cloudless brain,
Untainted passion, elevated will,
Which death (who even would linger long in awe
Within his noble presence, and bencath
His changeless eyebeam), might alone subdue.
Him, every slave now dragging through the filth
Of some corrupted city bis sad life,
Pining with famine, swoln with luxury,
Blunting the keenness of his spiritual sense
With narrow schemings and unworthy cares,
Or madly rushing through all violent crime,
To move the deep stagnation of his soul,
Might imitate and equal.

There is a nobler glory, which survives
Until our being fades, and, solacing
All human care, accompanies its change;
Deserts not virtue in the dungeon's gloom,
And, in the precincis of the palace, guides
Jis footsteps through that labyrinth of crime;
Imbues his lineaments with dauntlessness,
Even when, from power's avenging hand, he takes
Its sweetest, last and noblest title-death;

– The consciousness of good, which neither gold,
Nor sordid fame, nor hope of heavenly bliss,
Can purchase; but a life of resolute good,
Unalterable will, quenchless desire
Of universal happiness, the heart
That beals with it in unison, the brain,
Whose ever wakeful wisdoin toils to change
Reason's rich stores for its eternal weal.

But mean lust Has bound its chains so tight around the earth, That all within it but the virtuous man Is venal: gold or fame will surely reach The price prefix'd by selfishness, to all But him of resolute and unchanging will; Whom, nor the plaudits of a servile crowd, Nor the vile joys of tainting luxury, Can bribe to yield his elevated soul To tyranny or falsehood, though they wield With blood-red hand the sceptre of the world.

All things are sold: the very light of heaven
Is venal; carth's unsparing gifts of love,
The smallest and most despicable things
That lurk in the abysses of the deep,
All objects of our life, even life itself,
And the poor pittance which the laws allow
Of liberty, the fellowship of man,
Those duties which his heart of human love

Pining regrets, and vain repentances, Disease, disgust, and lassitude, pervade Their valueless and miserable lives.

of joy,

But hoary-headed selfishness has felt
Its death-blow, and is tottering to the

grave: A brighter morn awaits the human day, When

every transfer of earth's natural gifts Shall be a commerce of good words and works; When poverty and wealth), the thirst of fame, The fear of infamy, disease and woe, War with its million horrors, and fierce hell Shall live but in the memory of time, Who, like a penitent libertine, shall start, Look back, and shudder at his younger years.

Spirit! on yonder eartlı,
Falsehood now triumphs; deadly power
Has fix'd its seal upon the lip of truth!

Madness and misery are there !
The happiest is most wretched ! Yet confide,
Until pure health-drops, from the cup
Fall like a dew of balm upon the world.
Now, to the scene I show, in silence turn,
And read the blood-stain's charter of all woe,
Which nature soon, with recreating hand,
Will blot in mercy from the book of earth.
How bold the flight of passion's wandering wing,
How swift the step of reason’s firmer tread,
How calm and sweet the victories of life,
How terrorless the triumph of the grave!
How powerless were the mightiest monarch's arm,
Vain his loud threat, and impotent his frown!
How ludicrous the priest's dogmatic roar!
The weight of his exterminating curse
How light! and his affected charity,
To suit the pressure of the changing times,
What palpable deceit!--but for thy aid,
Religion ! but for thec, prolific fiend,
Who peoplest earth with demons, hell with men,
And heaven with slaves !

The Fairy calmly smiled
In comfort, and a kindling gleam of hope

Suffused the Spirit's lineaments,
Oh! rest thec tranquil; chase those fearful doubts,
Which ne'er could rack an everlasting soul,
That sees the chains which bind it to its doom.
Yes! crime and misery are in yonder earth,

Falsehood, mistake, and lust;

But the eternal world Contains at once the evil and the cure. Some eminent in virtue shall start up,

Even in perversest time:
The truths of their pure lips, that never die,
Shall bind the scorpion falsehood with a wreath

Of ever-living flame,
Until the monster sting itself to death.

Thou tain test all thou lookest upon !--the stars,
Which on thy cradle beam'd so brightly sweet,
Were gods to the distemper'd playfulness
Of thy untutor'd infancy: the trees,
The grass, the clouds, the mountains, and the sea,
All living things that walk, swim, creep, or fly,
Were gods: the sun had homage, and the moon
Her worshipper. Then thou becamest, a boy,
More daring in thy frenzies : every shape,
Monstrous or vast, or beautifully wild,
Which, from sensation's relics, fancy culls;
The spirits of the air, the shuddering ghost,
The genii of the elements, the powers
That give a shape to nature's varied works,
Had life and place in the corrupt belief
Of thy blind heart: yet still thy youthful hands
Were pure of human blood. Then manhood gave
Jis strength and ardour to thy frenzied brain;
Thine eager gaze scann'd the stupendous scene,
Whose wonders mock'd the knowledge of thy pride:
Their everlasting and unchanging laws
Reproach'd thine ignorance. Awhile thou stoodst
Baffled and gloomy; then thou didst sum up
The elements of all that thou didst know;
The changing seasons, winter's leaflcss reign,
The budding of the heaven-breathing trees,
The eternal orbs that beautify the night,
The sun-rise, and the setting of the moon,
Earthquakes and wars, and poisons and disease,
And all their causes, to an abstract point,
Converging, thou didst bend, and call it God!
The self-sufficing, the omnipotent,
The merciful, and the avenging God!
Who, prototype of human misrule, sits
High in heaven's realm, upon a golden thrope,
Even like an earthly king; and whose dread work,
Hell, gapes for ever for the unhappy slaves
Of fate, whom he created in his sport,
To triumph in their torments when they fell!
Earth heard the name; earth trembled, as the smoke

How sweet a scene will carth become!
Of purest spirits, a pure dwelling-place,
Symphonious with the planetary spheres;
When man, with changeless nature coalescing,
Will undertake regeneration's work,
When its ungenial poles no longer point

To the red and baleful sun
That faintly twinkles there. (10)

Of his revenge ascended up to heaven,
Blotting the constellations; and the cries
Of millions, butcher'd in sweet confidence
And unsuspecting peace, even when the bonds
Of safety were confirm'd by wordy oaths
Sworn in his dreadful name, rung through the land;
Whilst innocent babes writhed on thy stubborn spear,
And thou didst laugh to hear the mother's shriek
Of maniac gladness, as the sacred steel
Felt cold in her torn entrails !

That in an April sunbeam's flecting glow
Fulfils ils destined, though invisible work,
The universal Spirit guides; nor less
When merciless ambition, or mad zeal,
Has led two hosts of dupes to battle-field,
That, blind, they there may dig each other's graves,
And call the sad work glory, does it rule
All passions: not a thought, a will, an act,
No working of the tyrant's moody mind,
Nor one misgiving of the slaves who boast
Thicir servitude, to hide the shame they feel,
Nor the events enchaining every will,
That from the depths of unrecorded time
Have drawn all-intluencing virtue, pass
Unrecognised, or unforeseen by thee,
Soul of the Universe! eternal spring
Of life and death, of happiness and woe,
Of all that chequers the plantasmal scene
That floats before our eyes in wavering light,
Which gleams but on the darkness of our prison,

Whose chains and massy walls
We feel, but cannot see.

Religion ! thou wert then in manhood's prime:
But age crept on: one God would not suflice
For senile puerility; thou framedst
A tale to suit thy dotage, and to glut
Thy misery-thirsting soul, that the mad fiend
Thy wickedness had pictured, might afford
A plea for sating the unnatural thirst
For murder, rapine, violence, and crime,
That still consumed thy being, even when
Thou heardst the step of fate;—that flames might liglit
Thy funeral scene, and the shrill horrent shrieks
Of parents dying on the pile that burnd
To light their children to thy paths, the roar
Of the encircling flames, the exulting cries
Of thine apostles, loud commingling there,

Might sate thine hungry ear
Even on the bed of death!

But now contempt is mocking thy grey bairs;
Thou art descending to the darksome grave,
Unhonour'd and unpitied, but by those
Whose pride is passing by like thine, and sheds,
Like thine, a glare that fades before the sun
Of truth, and shines but in the dreadful night
That long has lower'd above the ruin'd world.

Spirit of Nature! all-sufficing Power,
Necessity! thou mother of the world! (12)
Unlike the God of human crror, thou
Requirest no prayers or praises; the caprice
Of man's weak will belongs no more to thee
Than do the changeful passions of his breast
To thy unvarying harmony: the slave,
Whose horrible lusts spread misery o'er the world,
And the good man, who lifts, with virtuous pride,
His being, in the sight of happiness,
That springs from his own works; the poison-tree,
Beneath whose shade all life is wither'd up,
And the fair oak, whose leafy dome affords
A temple where the vows of happy love
Are register'd, are equal in thy sight:
No love, no hate thou cherishest; revenge
And favoritism, and worst desire of fame,
Thou knowest not: all that the wide world contains
Are but thy passive instruments, and thou
Regard'st them all with an impartial eye,
Whose joy or pain thy nature cannot feel,

Because thou hast not human sense,
Because thou art not human mind.

Throughout these infinite orbs of mingling light,
Of which yon carth is one,

is wide diffused
A spirit of activity and life,
That knows no term, cessation, or decay;
That fades not when the lamp of earthly life,
Extinguish'd in the dampness of the grave,
Awhile there slumbers, more than when the babe
In the dim newness of its being feels
The impulses of sublunary things,
And all is wonder to unpractised sense:
But, active, stedfast, and eternal, still,
Guides the fierce whirlwind, in the tempest roars,
Cheers in the day, breathes in the balmy groves,
Strengthens in health, and poisons in discase ;
And in the storm of change, that ceaselessly
Rolls round th' eternal universe, and shakes
Its undecaying battlement, presides,
Apportioning with irresistible law .
The place each spring of its machine shall fill;
So that, when waves on waves tumultuous heap
Confusion to the clouds, and fiercely driven
Heaven's lightnings scorch th' uprooted ocean-fords,
Whilst, to the eye of shipwreck'd mariner,
Lone sitting on the bare and shuddering rock,
All seems uplink'd contingency and chance:
No atom of this turbulence fulfils
A vague and unnecessitated task,
Or acts but as it must and ought to act.(u)
Even the minutest molecule of light,

Yes! when the sweeping storm of time
Has sung its death-dirge o'er the ruin'd fanes
And broken altars of th' almighty fiend,
Whose name usurps thy honours, and the blood
Throuch centuries clotted there, has floated down
The tainted flood of ages, shalt thou live
Unchangeable! A shrine is raised to thee,

Which, nor the tempest breath of time,
Nor the interminable flood,
Over carth's ight pageant rolling,

Availeth to destroy, —
The sensitive extension of the world.

That wonderous and eternal fane,
Where pain and pleasure, good and evil join,
To do thic will of strong necessity,

And life, in multitudinous shapes,
Still pressing forward where no term can be,

Like hungry and unresting flame
Curls round the eternal columns of its strength.

I was an infant when my mother went
To see an atheist burn'd. She took me there :
The dark-robed priests were met around the pile;
The multitude was gazing silently;
And as the culprit pass'd with dauntless mien,
Temper'd disdain in his unaltering eye,
Mix'd with a quict smile, shone calmly forth :
The thirsty fire crept round his manly limbs;
His resolute eyes were scorch'd to blindness soon ;
llis deathi-pang rent my heart! the insensate mob
Utter'd a cry of triumph, and I wept.
Weep not, child! cried my mother, for that man
Has said, There is no God. (13)

These are my empire, for to me is given
The wonders of the human world to keep,
And fancy's thin creations to endow
With manner, being, and reality;
Therefore a wondrous phantom, from the dreams
Of human error's dense and purblind faith,
I will evoke, to nicel thy questioning.

Ahasuerus, rise! (14)

A strange and woe-worn wight Arose beside the battlement,

And stood unmoving there. His inessential figure cast no shade

Upon the golden floor; His port and mien bore mark of many years, And chronicles of untold ancientness Were legible within his beamless eye:

Yet bis cheek bore the mark of youth; Freshness and vigor knit bis manly frame; The wisdom of old age was mingled there With youth's primeval dauntlessness ;

And inexpressible woe,
Chasten'd by fearless resignation, gave
An awful grace to his all-speaking brow.

FAIRY

There is no God! Nature confirms the faith his death-groan seald : Let heaven and earth, let mau's revolving race, His ceaseless generations tell their tale; Let every part depending on the chain That links it to the whole, point to the hand That grasps its term! let every seed that falls In silent eloquence unfold its store Of argument: infinity within, Infinity without, belie creation ; The exterminable spirit it contains Is nature's only God; but human pride Is skilful to invent most serious names To hide its ignorance.

SPIRIT.

Is there a God?

AHASUERUS

The name of God
las fenced about all crime with holiness,
Ilimself the creature of his worshippers,
Whose names and attributes and passions change,
Seeva, Buddh, Foh, Jehovah, God, or Lord,
Even with the human dupes who build his shrines,
Still serving o'er the war-polluted world
For desolation's watch-word; whether hosts
Stain his death-blushing chariot wheels, as on
Triumphantly they roll, whilst Brahmins raise
A sacred hymn to mingle with the groans;
Or countless partners of his power divide
His tyranny to weakness; or the smoke
Of burning towns, the cries of female helplessness,
Unarm’d old age,

and youth, and infancy,
Horribly massacred, ascend to heaven
In honour of his name; or, last and worst,
Earth groans beneath religion's iron age,
And priests dare babble of a God of

peace,
Even whilst their hands are red with guiltless blood,
Murdering the wbile, uprooting every germ
Of truth, exterminating, spoiling all,
Making the earth a slaughter-house!

Is there a God!-aye, an almighty God,
And vengeful as almighty! Once his voice
Was heard on earth : earth shudder'd at the sound;
The fiery-visaged firmament express'd
Abhorrence, aud the grave of nature yawn'd
To swallow all the dauntless and the good
That dared to hurl defiance at his throne,
Girt as it was with power. None but slaves
Survived,-cold-blooded slaves, who did the work
Of tyrannous omnipotence; whose souls
No honest indignation ever urged
To elevated daring, to one deed
Which gross and sensual self did not pollute.
These slaves built temples for the omnipotent fiend,
Gorgeous and vast : the costly altars smoked
With human blood, and hideous pæans rung
Through all the long-drawn aisles. A murderer heard
His voice in Egypt, one whose gifts and arts
llad raised him to his eminence in power,
Accomplice of omnipotence in crime,
And confidant of the all-knowing one.

These were Jehovah's words.

O Spirit! through the sense
By which thy inner nature was apprised

Of outward shows, vague dreams have rolld,
And varied reminiscences have waked

Tablets that never fade;
All things bave been imprinted there,
The stars, the sea, the earth, the sky,
Even the unshapeliest lineaments

Of wild and fleeting visions

From an eternity of idleness
I, God, awoke; in seven days' toil made earth
From nothing; rested, and created man:

placed him in a paradise, and there
Planted the tree of evil, so that he
Might eat and perish, and my soul procure
Wherewith to sate its malice, and to turn,
Even like a heartless conqueror of the earth,
All misery to my fame. The race of men
Chosen to my honour, with impunity
May sate the lusts I planted in their heart.