THE SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY BY SEA.

Awake a louder and a loftier strain!

Beloved harp, whose tones have oft beguiled

My solitary sorrows, when I left

The scene of happier hours, and wandered far,

A pale and drooping stranger; I have sat

( While evening listened to the convent bell )

On the wild margin of the Rhine, and wooed

Thy sympathies, “a-weary of the world,”

And I have found with thee sad fellowship,

Yet always sweet, whene'er my languid hand

Passed carelessly o'er the responsive wires,

While unambitious of the laurelled meed

That crowns the gifted bard, I only asked

Some stealing melodies, the heart might love,

And a brief sonnet to beguile my tears!

But I had hope that one day I might wake

Thy strings to loftier utterance; and now,

Bidding adieu to glens, and woods, and streams,

And turning where, magnificent and vast,

Main Ocean bursts upon my sight, I strike,—

Rapt in the theme on which I long have mused,—

Strike the loud lyre, and as the blue waves rock,

Swell to their solemn roar the deepening chords.

Lift thy indignant billows high, proclaim

Thy terrors, Spirit of the hoary seas!

I sing thy dread dominion, amid wrecks,

And storms, and howling solitudes, to Man

Submitted: awful shade of Camoens

Bend from the clouds of heaven.

By the bold tones

Of minstrelsy, that o'er the unknown surge

( Where never daring sail before was spread )

Echoed, and startled from his long repose

The indignant Phantomof the stormy Cape;

Oh, let me think that in the winds I hear

Thy animating tones, whilst I pursue

With ardent hopes, like thee, my venturous way,

And bid the seas resound my song! And thou,

Father of Albion's streams, majestic Thames,

Amid the glittering scene, whose long-drawn wave

Goes noiseless, yet with conscious pride, beneath

The thronging vessels’ shadows; nor through scenes

More fair, the yellow Tagus, or the Nile,

That ancient river, winds. THOU to the strain

Shalt haply listen, that records the MIGHT

Of OCEAN, like a giant at thy feet

Vanquished, and yielding to thy gentle state

The ancient sceptre of his dread domain!

All was one waste of waves, that buried deep

Earth and its multitudes: the Ark alone,

High on the cloudy van of Ararat,

Rested; for now the death-commissioned storm

Sinks silent, and the eye of day looks out

Dim through the haze; while short successive gleams

Flit o'er the weltering Deluge as it shrinks,

Or the transparent rain-drops, falling few,

Distinct and larger glisten. So the Ark

Rests upon Ararat; but nought around

Its inmates can behold, save o'er th’ expanse

Of boundless waters, the sun's orient orb

Stretching the hull's long shadow, or the moon

In silence, through the silver-cinctured clouds,

Sailing as she herself were lost, and left

In Nature's loneliness!

But oh, sweet Hope,

Thou bid'st a tear of holy ecstasy

Start to their eye-lids, when at night the Dove,

Weary, returns, and lo! an olive leaf

Wet in her bill: again she is put forth,

When the seventh morn shines on the hoar abyss:—

Due evening comes: her wings are heard no more!

The dawn awakes, not cold and dripping sad,

But cheered with lovelier sunshine; far away

The dark-red mountains slow their naked peaks

Upheave above the waste; Imausgleams;

Fume the huge torrents on his desert sides;

Till at the awful voice of Him who rules

The storm, the ancient Father and his train

On the dry land descend.

Here let us pause.

No noise in the vast circuit of the globe

Is heard; no sound of human stirring: none

Of pasturing herds, or wandering flocks; nor song

Of birds that solace the forsaken woods

From morn till eve; save in that spot that holds

The sacred Ark: there the glad sounds ascend,

And Nature listens to the breath of Life.

The fleet horse bounds, high-neighing to the wind

That lifts his streaming mane; the heifer lows;

Loud sings the lark amid the rainbow's hues;

The lion lifts him muttering; MAN comes forth —

He kneels upon the earth — he kisses it;

And to the GOD who stretched that radiant bow,

He lifts his trembling transports.

From one spot

Alone of earth such sounds ascend. How changed

The human prospect! when from realm to realm,

From shore to shore, from isle to furthest isle,

Flung to the stormy main, man's murmuring race,

Various and countless as the shells that strew

The ocean's winding marge, are spread; from shores

Sinensian, where the passing proas gleam

Innumerous‘ mid the floating villages:

To Acapulco west, where laden deep

With gold and gems rolls the superb galleon,

Shadowing the hoar Pacific: from the North,

Where on some snowy promontory's height

The Lapland wizard beats his drum, and calls

The spirits of the winds, to th’ utmost South,

Where savage Fuego shoots its cold white peaks,

Dreariest of lands, and the poor Pecherais

Shiver and moan along its waste of snows.

So stirs the earth; and for the Ark that passed

Alone and darkling o'er the dread abyss,

Ten thousand and ten thousand barks are seen

Fervent and glancing on the friths and sounds;

From the Bermudian that, with masts inclined,

Shoots like a dart along; to the tall ship

That, like a stately swan, in conscious pride

Breasts beautiful the rising surge, and throws

The gathered waters back, and seems to move

A living thing, along her lucid way

Streaming in white-winged glory to the sun!

Some waft the treasures of the east; some bear

Their country's dark artillery o'er the surge

Frowning; some in the southern solitudes,

Bound on discovery of new regions, spread,

‘ Mid rocks of driving ice, that crash around,

Their weather-beaten mainsail; or explore

Their perilous way from isle to isle, and wind

The tender social tie; connecting man,

Wherever scattered, with his fellow-man.

How many ages rolled away ere thus,

From NATURE'S GENERAL WRECK, the world's great scene

Was tenanted! See from their sad abode,

At Heaven's dread voice, heard from the solitude,

As in the dayspring of created things,

The sad survivors of a buried world

Come forth; on them, though desolate their seat,

The sky looks down with smiles; for the broad sun,

That to the west slopes his untired career,

Hangs o'er the water's brim. The aged sire,

Now rising from his evening sacrifice,

Amid his offspring stands, and lifts his eyes,

Moist with a tear, to the bright bow: the fire

Yet on the altar burns, whose trailing fume

Goes slowly up, and marks the lucid cope

Of the soft sky, where distant clouds hang still

And beautiful. So placid Evening steals

After the lurid storm, like a sweet form

Of fairy following a perturbed shape

Of giant terror, that in darkness strode.

Slow sinks the lord of day; the clustering clouds

More ardent burn; confusion of rich hues,

Crimson, and gold, and purple, bright, inlay

Their varied edges; till before the eye,

As their last lustre fades, small silver stars

Succeed; and twinkling each in its own sphere,

Thick as the frost's unnumbered spangles, strew

The slowly-paling heavens. Tired Nature seems

Like one who, struggling long for life, had beat

The billows, and scarce gained a desert crag,

O'er-spent, to sink to rest: the tranquil airs

Whisper repose. Now sunk in sleep reclines

The Father of the world; then the sole moon

Mounts high in shadowy beauty; every cloud

Retires, as in the blue space she moves on

Amid the fulgent orbs supreme, and looks

The queen of heaven and earth. Stilly the streams

Retiring sound; midnight's high hollow vault

Faint echoes; stilly sound the distant streams.

When, hark! a strange and mingled wail, and cries

As of ten thousand thousand perishing!

A phantom,‘ mid the shadows of the dead,

Before the holy Patriarch, as he slept,

Stood terrible:— Dark as a storm it stood

Of thunder and of winds, like hollow seas

Remote; meantime a voice was heard: Behold,

Noah, the foe of thy weak race! my name

Destruction, whom thy sons in yonder plains

Shall worship, and all grim, with mooned horns

Paint fabling: when the flood from off the earth

Before it swept the living multitudes,

I rode amid the hurricane; I heard

The universal shriek of all that lived.

In vain they climbed the rocky heights: I struck

The adamantine mountains, and like dust

They crumbled in the billowy foam. My hall,

Deep in the centre of the seas, received

The victims as they sank! Then, with dark joy,

I sat amid ten thousand carcases,

That weltered at my feet! But THOU and THINE

Have braved my utmost fury: what remains

But vengeance, vengeance on thy hated race;—

And be that sheltering shrine the instrument!

Thence, taught to stem the wild sea when it roars,

In after-times to lands remote, where roamed

The naked man and his wan progeny,

They, more instructed in the fatal use

Of arts and arms, shall ply their way; and thou

Wouldst bid the great deep cover thee to see

The sorrows of thy miserable sons:

But turn, and view in part the truths I speak.

He said, and vanished with a dismal sound

Of lamentation from his grisly troop.

Then saw the just man in his dream what seemed

A new and savage land: huge forests stretched

Their world of wood, shading like night the banks

Of torrent-foaming rivers, many a league

Wandering and lost in solitudes; green isles

Here shone, and scattered huts beneath the shade

Of branching palms were seen; whilst in the sun

A naked infant playing, stretched his hand

To reach a speckled snake, that through the leaves

Oft darted, or its shining volumes rolled

Erratic.

From the woods a sable man

Came, as from hunting; in his arms he took

The smiling child, that with the feathers played

Which nodded on his brow; the sheltering hut

Received them, and the cheerful smoke went up

Above the silent woods.

Anon was heard

The sound as of strange thunder, from the mouths

Of hollow engines, as, with white sails spread,

Tall vessels, hulled like the great Ark, approached

The verdant shores: they, in a woody cove

Safe-stationed, hang their pennants motionless

Beneath the palms. Meantime, with shouts and song,

The boat rows hurrying to the land; nor long

Ere the great sea for many a league is tinged,

While corpse on corpse, down the red torrent rolled,

Floats, and the inmost forests murmur — Blood.

Now vast savannahs meet the view, where high

Above the arid grass the serpent lifts

His tawny crest:— Not far a vessel rides

Upon the sunny main, and to the shore

Black savage tribes a mournful captive urge,

Who looks to heaven with anguish. Him they cast

Bound in the rank hold of the prison-ship,

With many a sad associate in despair,

Each panting chained to his allotted space;

And moaning, whilst their wasted eye-balls roll.

Another scene appears: the naked slave

Writhes to the bloody lash; but more to view

Nature forbad, for starting from his dream

The just Man woke. Shuddering he gazed around;

He saw the earliest beam of morning shine

Slant on the hills without; he heard the breath

Of placid kine, but troubled thoughts and sad

Arose. He wandered forth; and now far on,

By heavy musings led, reached a ravine

Most mild amid the tempest-riven rocks,

Through whose dark pass he saw the flood remote

Gray-spreading, while the mists of morn went up.

He paused; when on his lonely pathway flashed

A light, and sounds as of approaching wings

Instant were heard. A radiant form appeared,

Celestial, and with heavenly accent said:

Noah, I come commissioned from above,

Where angels move before th’ eternal throne

Of heaven's great King in glory, to dispel

The mists of darkness from thy sight; for know,

Not unpermitted of th’ Eternal One

The shadows of thy melancholy dream

Hung o'er thee slumbering: Mine the task to show

Futurity's faint scene;— now follow me.

He said; and up to the unclouded height

Of that great Eastern mountain,that surveys

Dim Asia, they ascended. Then his brow

The Angel touched, and cleared with whispered charm

The mortal mist before his eyes.— At once

( As in the skiey mirage, when the seer

From lonely Kilda's western summit sees

A wondrous scene in shadowy vision rise )

The NETHER WORLD, with seas and shores, appeared

Submitted to his view: but not as then,

A melancholy waste, deform and sad;

But fair as now the green earth spreads, with woods,

Champaign, and hills, and many winding streams

Robed, the magnificent illusion rose.

He saw in mazy longitude devolved

The mighty Brahma-Pooter; to the East

Thibet and China, and the shining sea

That sweeps the inlets of Japan, and winds

Amid the Curile and Aleutian isles,

Pale to the north. Siberia's snowy scenes

Are spread; Jenisca and the freezing Ob

Appear, and many a forest's shady track

Far as the Baltic, and the utmost bounds

Of Scandinavia; thence the eye returns:

And lo! great Lebanon — abrupt and dark

With pines, and airy Carmel, rising slow

Above the midland main, where hang the capes

Of Italy and Greece; swart Africa,

Beneath the parching sun, her long domain

Reveals, the mountains of the Moon, the source

Of Nile, the wild mysterious Niger, lost

Amid the torrid sands; and to the south

Her stormy cape. Beyond the misty main

The weary eye scarce wanders, when behold

Plata, through vaster territory poured;

And Andes, sweeping the horizon's tract,

Mightiest of mountains! whose eternal snows

Feel not the nearer sun; whose umbrage chills

The murmuring ocean; whose volcanic fires

A thousand nations view, hung like the moon

High in the middle waste of heaven; thy range,

Shading far off the Southern hemisphere,

A dusky file Titanic.

So spread

Before our great forefather's view the globe

Appeared; with seas, and shady continents,

And verdant isles, and mountains lifting dark

Their forests, and indenting rivers, poured

In silvery maze. And, Lo! the Angel said,

These scenes, O Noah, thy posterity

Shall people; but remote and scattered wide,

They shall forget their GOD, and see no trace,

Save dimly, of their Great Original.

Rude caves shall be their dwellings: till, with noise

Of multitudes, imperial cities rise.

But the Arch Fiend, the foe of GOD and man,

Shall fling his spells; and,‘ mid illusions drear,

Blear Superstition shall arise, the earth

Eclipsing.— Deep in caves,vault within vault

Far winding; or in night of thickest woods,

Where no bird sings; or‘ mid huge circles gray

Of uncouth stone, her aspect wild, and pale

As the terrific flame that near her burns,

She her mysterious rites,‘ mid hymns and cries,

Shall wake, and to her shapeless idols, vast

And smeared with blood, or shrines of lust, shall lead

Her votaries, maddening as she waves her torch,

With visage more expanded, to the groans

Of human sacrifice.

Nor think that love

And happiness shall dwell in vales remote:

The naked man shall see the glorious sun,

And think it but enlightens his poor isle,

Hid in the watery waste; cold on his limbs

The ocean-spray shall beat; his Deities

Shall be the stars, the thunder, and the winds;

And if a stranger on his rugged shores

Be cast, his offered blood shall stain the strand.

O wretched man! who then shall raise thee up

From this thy dark estate, forlorn and lost?

The Patriarch said.

The Angel answered mild,

His God, who destined him to noblest ends!

But mutual intercourse shall stir at first

The sunk and grovelling spirit, and from sleep

The sullen energies of man rouse up,

As of a slumbering giant. He shall walk

Sublime amid the works of GOD: the earth

Shall own his wide dominion; the great sea

Shall toss in vain its roaring waves; his eye

Shall scan the bright orbs as they roll above

Glorious, and his expanding heart shall burn,

As wide and wider in magnificence

The vast scene opens; in the winds and clouds,

The seas, and circling planets, he shall see

The shadow of a dread Almighty move.

Then shall the Dayspring rise, before whose beam

The darkness of the world is past:— For, hark!

Seraphs and angel-choirs with symphonies

Acclaiming of ten thousand golden harps,

Amid the bursting clouds of heaven revealed,

At once, in glory jubilant, they sing —

God the Redeemer liveth! He who took

Man's nature on him, and in human shroud

Veiled his immortal glory! He is risen!

God the Redeemer liveth! And behold!

The gates of life and immortality

Open to all that breathe!

Oh, might the strains

But win the world to love; meek Charity

Should lift her looks and smile; and with faint voice

The weary pilgrim of the earth exclaim,

As close his eye-lids — Death, where is thy sting?

O Grave, where is thy victory?

And ye,

Whom ocean's melancholy wastes divide,

Who slumber to the sullen surge, awake,

Break forth into thanksgiving, for the bark

That rolled upon the desert deep, shall bear

The tidings of great joy to all that live,

Tidings of life and light.

Oh, were those men,

( The Patriarch raised his drooping looks, and said )

Such in my dream I saw, who to the isles

And peaceful sylvan scenes o'er the wide seas

Came tilting; then their murderous instruments

Lifted, that flashed to the indignant sun,

Whilst the poor native died:— Oh, were those men

Instructed in the laws of holier love,

Thou hast displayed?

The Angel meek replied —

Call rather fiends of hell those who abuse

The mercies they receive: that such, indeed,

On whom the light of clearer knowledge beams,

Should wander forth, and for the tender voice

Of charity should scatter crimes and woe,

And drench, where'er they pass, the earth with blood,

Might make ev'n angels weep:

But the poor tribes

That groaned and died, deem not them innocent

As injured; more ensanguined rites and deeds

Of deepest stain were theirs; and what if God,

So to approve his justice, and exact

Most even retribution, blood for blood,

Bid forth the Angel of the storm of death!

Thou saw'st, indeed, the seeming innocence

Of man the savage; but thou saw'st not all.

Behold the scene more near! hear the shrill whoop

Of murderous war! See tribes on neighbour tribes

Rush howling, their red hatchets wielding high,

And shouting to their barbarous gods! Behold

The captive bound, yet vaunting direst hate,

And mocking his tormentors, while they gash

His flesh unshrinking, tear his eyeballs, burn

His beating breast! Hear the dark temples ring

To groans and hymns of murderous sacrifice;

While the stern priest, the rites of horror done,

With hollow-echoing chaunt lifts up the heart

Of the last victim‘ mid the yelling throng,

Quivering, and red, and reeking to the sun!

Reclaimed by gradual intercourse, his heart

Warmed with new sympathies, the forest-chief

Shall cast the bleeding hatchet to his gods

Of darkness, and one Lord of all adore —

Maker of heaven and earth.

Let it suffice,

He hath permitted EVIL for a while

To mingle its deep hues and sable shades

Amid life's fair perspective, as thou saw'st

Of late the blackening clouds; but in the end

All these shall roll away, and evening still

Come smilingly, while the great sun looks down

On the illumined scene. So Charity

Shall smile on all the earth, and Nature's God

Look down upon his works; and while far off

The shrieking night-fiends fly, one voice shall rise

From shore to shore, from isle to furthest isle —

Glory to God on high, and on earth peace,

Peace and good-will to men!

Thou rest in hope,

And Him with meekness and with trust adore!

He said, and spreading bright his ampler wing,

Flew to the heaven of heavens; the meek man bowed

Adoring, and, with pensive thoughts resigned,

Bent from the aching height his lonely way.