Poor Stumbler on the rocky coast of Woe, Tutor'd by Pain each source of Pain to know! Alike the foodful fruit and scorching fire Awake thy eager grasp and young desire; Alike the Good, the Ill offend thy sight, And rouse the stormy sense of shrill affright! Untauglıt, yet wise! 'mid all thy brief alarms Thou closely clingest to thy Mother's arms, Nestling thy little face in that fond breast Whose anxious heavings lull thee to thy rest! Man's breathing Miniature! thou makest me sigh- A Babe art thou-and such a thing am I! To anger rapid and as soon appeased,
For trifles mourning and by trifles pleased, Break Friendship's Mirror with a tetchy blow, Yet snatch what coals of fire on Pleasure's altar glow!
You roused each gentler sense As, sighing o'er the Blossom's bloom, Meek Evening wakes its soft perfume With viewless influence.
And hark, my Love! The sea-breeze moans Through yon reft house! O'er rolling stones In bold ambitious sweep The onward-surging tides supply The silence of the cloudless sky With mimic thunders deep.
Dark reddening from the channell'd Isle1 (Where stands one solitary pile
Unslated by the blast)
The Watchfire, like a sullen star Twinkles to many a dozing Tar
Rude cradled on the mast.
Even there-beneath that light-house tower
In the tumultuous evil hour
Ere Peace with Sara came,
Time was, I should have thought it sweet
To count the echoings of my feet,
And watch the storm-vex'd flame.
And there in black soul-jaundiced fit A sad gloom-pamper'd Man to sit, And listen to the roar:
When Mountain Surges bellowing deep With an uncouth monster leap
Plunged foaming on the shore.
Then by the Lightning's blaze to mark Some toiling tempest-shattered bark; Her vain distress-guns hear; And when a second sheet of light Flash'd o'er the blackness of the night- To see no Vessel there!
But Fancy now more gaily sings;
Or if awhile she droop her wings,
As sky-larks 'mid the corn,
On summer fields she grounds her breast:
The oblivious Poppy o'er her nest
Nods, till returning morn.
O mark those smiling tears, that swell The open'd Rose! From heaven they fell, And with the sun-beam blend.
Bless'd visitations from above, Such are the tender woes of Love Fostering the heart, they bend!
When stormy Midnight howling round Beats on our roof with clattering sound,
To me your arms you 'll stretch: Great God! you 'll say-To us so kind, O shelter from this loud bleak wind
The houseless, friendless wretch!
The tears that tremble down your cheek, Shall bathe my kisses chaste and meek
The Holmes, in the Bristol Channel.
Despised Galilæan! For the Great
Invisible (by symbols only seen)
With a peculiar and surpassing light Shines from the visage of the oppress'd good Man, When heedless of himself the scourged Saint Mourns for the Oppressor. Fair the vernal Mead, Fair the high Grove, the Sea, the Sun, the Stars; True impress each of their creating Sire! Yet nor high Grove, nor many-colour'd Mead, Nor the green Ocean with his thousand Isles, Nor the starred Azure, nor the sovran Sun, E'er with such majesty of portraiture Imaged the supreme beauty uncreate, As thou, meek Saviour! at the fearful hour When thy insulted Anguish wing'd the prayer Harp'd by Archangels, when they sing of Mercy! Which when the Almighty heard from forth his Throne Diviner light fill'd Heaven with ecstasy!
Heaven's hymnings paused: and Hell her yawning mouth
Of Him whose life was love! Holy with power He on the thought-benighted sceptic beam'd Manifest Godhead, melting into day What floating mists of dark Idolatry Broke and misshaped the Omnipresent Sire: And first by Fear uncharmed the droused Soul. Till of its nobler nature it 'gan feel Dim recollections: and thence soared to Hope, Strong to believe whate'er of mystic good The Eternal dooms for his immortal Sons. From Hope and firmer Faith to perfect Love Attracted and absorb'd: and centred there God only to behold, and know, and feel, Till by exclusive Consciousness of God All self-annihilated it shall make God its Identity: God all in all! We and our Father one!
And bless'd are they, Who in this fleshly World, the elect of Heaven, Their strong eye darting through the deeds of Men, Adore with stedfast unpresuming gaze Him Nature's Essence, Mind, and Energy! And gazing, trembling, patiently ascend Treading beneath their feet all visible things As steps, that upward to their Father's Throne Lead gradual-else nor glorified nor loved. They nor Contempt embosom nor Revenge: For they dare know of what may seem deform The Supreme Fair sole Operant: in whose sight All things are pure, his strong controlling Love Alike from all educing perfect good. Theirs too celestial courage, inly armedDwarfing Earth's giant brood, what time they muse On their great Father, great beyond compare! And marching onwards view high o'er their heads His waving Banners of Omnipotence.
Who the Creator love, created might
Dread not: within their tents no terrors walk.
• Το Νοητον διηρηκασιν εις πολλων
For they are holy things before the Lord,
Parts and proportions of one wondrous whole!
Aye unprofaned, though Earth should league with Hell; This fraternizes man, this constitutes
God's Altar grasping with an eager hand
Our charities and bearings. But 't is God
Fear, the wild-visaged, pale, eye-starting wretch,
Sure-refuged hears his hot pursuing fiends
Diffused through all, that doth make all one whole; This the worst superstition, him except
Yell at vain distance. Soon refresh'd from Heaven,
He calms the throb and tempest of his heart. His countenance settles; a soft solemn bliss Swims in his eye-his swimming eye upraised: And Faith's whole armour glitters on his limbs! And thus transfigured with a dreadless awe, A solemn hush of soul, meek he beholds All things of terrible seeming: yea, unmoved Views e'en the immitigable ministers
That shower down vengeance on these latter days. For kindling with intenser Deity
From the celestial Mercy-seat they come,
And at the renovating Wells of Love
Have fill'd their Vials with salutary Wrath,
To sickly Nature more medicinal
Than what soft balm the weeping good man pours Into the lone despoiled traveller's wounds!
Thus from the Elect, regenerate through faith, Pass the dark Passions and what thirsty Cares Drink up the spirit and the dim regards Self-centre. Lo they vanish! or acquire New names, new features-by supernal grace Enrobed with light, and naturalized in Heaven.
As when a shepherd on a vernal morn
Aught to desire, Supreme Reality!
The plenitude and permanence of bliss! O Fiends of Superstition! not that oft The erring Priest hath stain'd with brother's blood Your grisly idols, not for this may wrath Thunder against you from the Holy One! But o'er some plain that steameth to the sun, Peopled with Death; or where more hideous Trade Loud-laughing packs his bales of human anguish: I will raise up a mourning, O ye Fiends! And curse your spells, that film the eye of Faith, Hiding the present God; whose presence lost, The moral world's cohesion, we become An anarchy of Spirits! Toy-bewitch'd, Made blind by lusts, disherited of soul, No common centre Man, no common sire Knoweth! A sordid solitary thing, 'Mid countless brethren with a lonely heart Through courts and cities the smooth Savage roams, Feeling himself, his own low Self the whole; When he by sacred sympathy might make The whole one self! Self, that no alien knows! Self, far diffused as Fancy's wing can travel! Self, spreading still! Oblivious of its own, Yet all of all possessing! This is Faith!
Through some thick fog creeps timorous with slow foot, This the Messiah's destined victory! Darkling he fixes on the immediate road
His downward eye: all else of fairest kind Hid or deform'd. But lo! the bursting Sun! Touch'd by the enchantment of that sudden beam Straight the black vapour melteth, and in globes Of dewy glitter gems each plant and tree; On every leaf, on every blade it hangs! Dance glad the new-born intermingling rays, And wide around the landscape streams with glory!
There is one Mind, one omnipresent Mind, Omnific. His most holy name is Love. Truth of subliming import! with the which Who feeds and saturates his constant soul, He from his small particular orbit flies With bless'd outstarting! From Himself he flies, Stands in the Sun, and with no partial gaze Views all creation; and he loves it all, And blesses it, and calls it very good! This is indeed to dwell with the Most High! Cherubs and rapture-trembling Seraphim Can press no nearer to the Almighty's Throne. But that we roam unconscious, or with hearts Unfeeling of our universal Sire, And that in his vast family no Cain Injures uninjured (in her best-aim'd blow Victorious Murder a blind Suicide), Haply for this some younger Angel now Looks down on Human Nature and, behold! A sea of blood bestrew'd with wrecks, where mad Embattling Interests on each other rush
'T is the sublime of man, Our noontide Majesty, to know ourselves
But first offences needs must come! Even now1 (Black Hell laughs horrible-to hear the scoff!) Thee to defend, meek Galilean! Thee And thy mild laws of love unutterable, Mistrust and Enmity have burst the bands Of social Peace; and listening Treachery lurks With pious fraud to snare a brother's life; And childless widows o'er the groaning land Wail numberless; and orphans weep for bread; Thee to defend, dear Saviour of Mankind! Thee, Lamb of God! Thee, blameless Prince of Peace! From all sides rush the thirsty brood of War ? Austria, and that foul Woman of the North, The lustful Murderess of her wedded Lord! And he, connatural Mind! whom (in their songs So bards of elder time had haply feign'd) Some Fury fondled in her hate to man, Bidding her serpent hair in mazy surge Lick his young face, and at his mouth inbreathe Horrible sympathy! And leagued with these Each petty German princeling, nursed in gore! Soul-harden'd barterers of human blood!
1 January 21st, 1794, in the debate on the Address to his Majesty, on the speech from the Throne, the Earl of Guildford moved an Amendment to the following effect:-That the House hoped his Majesty would seize the earliest opportunity to conclude a peace with France, etc. This motion was opposed by the Duke of Portland, who considered the war to be merely grounded on one principle-the preservation of the Christian Religion." May 30th, 1794, the Duke of Bedford moved a number of Resolutions, with a view to the Establishment of a Peace with France. He was opposed (among others) by Lord Abingdon in these remarkable words: The best road to Peace, my Lords, is War! and War carried on in the same manner in which weare taught to worship our Creator, namely, with all our souls, and with all our minds, and with all our hearts, and with all our strength."
Death's prime Slave-merchants! Scorpion-whips of Fate! When, stung to rage by Pity, eloquent men
Nor least in savagery of holy zeal,
Apt for the yoke, the race degenerate, Whom Britain erst had blush'd to call her sons! Thee to defend the Moloch Priest prefers The prayer of hate, and bellows to the herd That Deity, Accomplice Deity
In the fierce jealousy of waken'd wrath Will go forth with our armies and our fleets, To scatter the red ruin on their foes? O blasphemy! to mingle fiendish deeds With blessedness!
Lord of unsleeping Love,1
From everlasting Thou! We shall not die. These, even these, in mercy didst thou form, Teachers of Good through Evil, by brief wrong Making Truth lovely, and her future might Magnetic o'er the fix'd untrembling heart.
In the primeval age a dateless while
The vacant Shepherd wander'd with his flock, Pitching his tent where'er the green grass waved. But soon Imagination conjured up An host of new desires: with busy aim,
Each for himself, Earth's eager children toil'd. So Property began, twy-streaming fount, Whence Vice and Virtue flow, honey and gall. Hence the soft couch, and many-colour'd robe, The timbrel, and arch'd dome and costly feast, With all the inventive arts, that nursed the soul To forms of beauty, and by sensual wants Unsensualized the mind, which in the means Learnt to forget the grossness of the end, Best pleasured with its own activity.
And hence Disease that withers manhood's arm, The dagger'd Envy, spirit-quenching Want, Warriors, and Lords, and Priests-all the sore ills That vex and desolate our mortal life. Wide-wasting ills! yet each the immediate source Of mightier good. Their keen necessities To ceaseless action goading human thought Have made Earth's reasoning animal her Lord; And the pale-featured Sage's trembling hand Strong as an host of arm'd Deities,
Such as the blind Ionian fabled erst.
From Avarice thus, from Luxury and War Sprang heavenly Science, and from Science Freedom. O'er waken'd realms Philosophers and Bards Spread in concentric circles: they whose souls, Conscious of their high dignities from God, Brook not Wealth's rivalry! and they who long Enamour'd with the charms of order hate The unseemly disproportion: and whoe'er Turn with mild sorrow from the victor's car And the low puppetry of thrones, to muse On that blest triumph, when the patriot Sage Call'd the red lightnings from the o'er-rushing cloud, And dash'd the beauteous Terrors on the earth Smiling majestic. Such a phalanx ne'er Measured firm paces to the calming sound Of Spartan flute! These on the fated day,
Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord, mine Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, thou hast ordained them for Judgment, etc.-HABAKKUK.
Have roused with pealing voice unnumber'd tribes That toil and groan and bleed, hungry and blind. These hush'd awhile with patient eye serene, Shall watch the mad careering of the storm; Then o'er the wild and wavy chaos rush
And tame the outrageous mass, with plastic might Moulding Confusion to such perfect forms, As erst were wont, bright visions of the day! To float before them, when, the Summer noon, Beneath some arch'd romantic rock reclined They felt the sea breeze lift their youthful locks; Or in the month of blossoms, at mild eve, Wandering with desultory feet inhaled The wafted perfumes, and the rocks and woods And many-tinted streams and setting Sun With all his gorgeous company of clouds Ecstatic gazed! then homeward as they stray'd Cast the sad eye to earth, and inly mused Why there was Misery in a world so fair. Ah far removed from all that glads the sense, From all that softens or ennobles Man, The wretched Many! Bent beneath their loads They gape at pageant Power, nor recognize Their cots' transmuted plunder! From the tree Of Knowledge, ere the vernal sap had risen Rudely disbranch'd! Blessed Society! Fitliest depictured by some sun-scorch'd waste, Where oft majestic through the tainted noon The Simoom sails, before whose purple pomp Who falls not prostrate dies! And where by night, Fast by each precious fountain on green herbs The lion couches; or hyæna dips Deep in the lucid stream his bloody jaws; Or serpent plants his vast moon-glittering bulk, Caught in whose monstrous twine Behemoth yells, His bones loud-crashing!
Whom foul Oppression's ruffian gluttony Drives from life's plenteous feast! O thou poor wretch, Who nursed in darkness and made wild by want, Roamest for prey, yea thy unnatural hand Dost lift to deeds of blood! O pale-eyed form, The victim of seduction, doom'd to know Polluted nights and days of blasphemy; Who in loathed orgies with lewd wassailers Must gaily laugh, while thy remember'd home Gnaws like a viper at thy secret heart! O aged Women! ye who weekly catch The morsel toss'd by law-forced Charity, And die so slowly, that none call it murder! O loathly Suppliants! ye, that unreceived Totter heart-broken from the closing gates Of the full Lazar-house: or, gazing, stand Sick with despair! O ye to Glory's field Forced or ensnared, who, as ye gasp in death, Bleed with new wounds beneath the Vulture's beak! O thou poor Widow, who in dreams dost view Thy Husband's mangled corse, and from short doze Start'st with a shriek; or in thy half-thatch'd cot Waked by the wintry night-storm, wet and cold, Cow'rst o'er thy screaming baby! Rest awhile
1 Behemoth, in Hebrew, signifies wild beasts in general. Some believe it is the elephant, some the hippopotamus; some affirm it is the wild bull. Poetically, it designates any large quadruped.
Children of Wretchedness! More groans must rise, More blood must stream, or ere your wrongs be full. Yet is the day of Retribution nigh: The Lamb of God hath opened the fifth seal: And upward rush on swiftest wing of fire The innumerable multitude of wrongs By man on man inflicted! Rest awhile, Children of Wretchedness! The hour is nigh; And lo! the Great, the Rich, the Mighty Men, The Kings and the Chief Captains of the World, With all that fix'd on high like stars of Heaven Shot baleful influence, shall be cast to earth, Vile and down-trodden, as the untimely fruit Shook from the fig-tree by a sudden storm. Even now the storm begins: each gentle name, Faith and meek Piety, with fearful joy Tremble far-off-for lo! the Giant Frenzy, Uprooting empires with his whirlwind arm, Mocketh high Heaven; burst hideous from the cell Where the old Hag, unconquerable, huge, Creation's eyeless drudge, black Ruin, sits Nursing the impatient earthquake.
Pure Faith! meek Piety! The abhorr'd Form Whose scarlet robe was stiff with earthly pomp, Who drank iniquity in cups of gold, Whose names were many and all blasphemous, Hath met the horrible judgment! Whence that cry? The mighty army of foul Spirits shriek'd Disherited of earth! For she hath fallen
On whose black front was written Mystery; She that reel'd heavily, whose wine was blood; She that work'd whoredom with the Demon Power, And from the dark embrace all evil things Brought forth and nurtured: mitred Atheism: And patient Folly who on bended knee Gives back the steel that stabb'd him; and pale Fear Hunted by ghastlier shapings than surround Moon-blasted Madness when he yells at midnight! Return pure Faith! return meek Piety!
The kingdoms of the world are yours: each heart, Self-govern'd, the vast family of Love Raised from the common earth by common toil Enjoy the equal produce. Such delights As float to earth, permitted visitants! When in some hour of solemn jubilee The massy gates of Paradise are thrown Wide open, and forth come in fragments wild Sweet echoes of unearthly melodies,
And odours snatch'd from beds of Amaranth, And they, that from the crystal river of life Spring up on freshen'd wing, ambrosial gales! The favour'd good man in his lonely walk Perceives them, and his silent spirit drinks Strange bliss which he shall recognize in heaven. And such delights, such strange beatitude Seize on my young anticipating heart When that blest future rushes on my view! For in his own and in his Father's might The Saviour comes! While as the Thousand Years Lead up their mystic dance, the Desert shouts! Old Ocean claps his hands! The mighty Dead Rise to new life, whoe'er from earliest time
1 Alluding to the French Revolution.
With conscious zeal had urged Love's wondrous plan, Coadjutors of God. To Milton's trump The high Groves of the renovated Earth Unbosom their glad echoes: inly hush'd, Adoring Newton his serener eye Raises to heaven and he of mortal kind Wisest, he first who mark'd the ideal tribes Up the fine fibres through the sentient brain. Lo! Priestley there, Patriot, and Saint, and Sage, Him, full of years, from his loved native land Statesmen blood-stain'd and Priests idolatrous By dark lies maddening the blind multitude Drove with vain hate Calm, pitying he retired, And mused expectant on these promised years.
O Years! the blest pre-eminence of Saints! Ye sweep athwart my gaze, so heavenly bright, The wings that veil the adoring Seraph's eyes, What time he bends before the Jasper Throne, 2 Reflect no lovelier hues! yet ye depart, And all beyond is darkness! Heights most strange, Whence Fancy falls, fluttering her idle wing. For who of woman born may paint the hour, When seized in his mid course, the Sun shall wane Making noon ghastly! Who of woman born May image in the workings of his thought, How the black-visaged, red-eyed Fiend outstretch'd 3 Beneath the unsteady feet of Nature groans, In feverish slumbers-destined then to wake, When fiery whirlwinds thunder his dread name And Angels shout, Destruction! How his arm The last great Spirit lifting high in air Shall swear by Him, the ever-living One, Time is no more!
Believe thou, O my soul,
Life is a vision shadowy of Truth; And vice, and anguish, and the wormy grave, Shapes of a dream! The veiling clouds retire, And lo! the Throne of the redeeming God Forth flashing unimaginable day,
Wraps in one blaze earth, heaven, and deepest hell.
Contemplant Spirits! ye that hover o'er With untired gaze the immeasurable fount Ebullient with creative Deity!
And ye of plastic power, that interfused Roll through the grosser and material mass In organizing surge! Holies of God! (And what if Monads of the infinite mind) I haply journeying my immortal course Shall sometime join your mystic choir? Till then I discipline my young noviciate thought In ministries of heart-stirring song,
And aye on Meditation's heaven-ward wing Soaring aloft I breathe the empyreal air Of Love, omnific, omnipresent Love, Whose day-spring rises glorious in my soul As the great Sun, when he his influence Sheds on the frost-bound waters-The glad stream Flows to the ray, and warbles as it flows.
2 Rev. Chap. iv, v. a and 3. And immediately I was in the Spirit and behold, a Throne was set in Heaven, and one sat on the Throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and sardine stone, etc.
The final Destruction impersonated.
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