TIME,

Genius of musings, who, the midnight hour

Wasting in woods or haunted forests wild,

Dost watch Orion in his arctic tower,

Thy dark eye fix'd as in some holy trance;

Or when the vollied lightnings cleave the air,

And Ruin gaunt bestrides the winged storm,

Sitt'st in some lonely watchtower, where thy lamp,

Faint blazing, strikes the fisher's eye from far,

And,‘ mid the howl of elements, unmoved,

Dost ponder on the awful scene, and trace

The vast effect to its superior source,—

Spirit, attend my lowly benison!

For now I strike to themes of import high

The solitary lyre; and, borne by thee

Above this narrow cell, I celebrate

The mysteries of Time!

Him who, august,

Was e'er these worlds were fashion'd,— ere the sun

Sprang from the east, or Lucifer display'd

His glowing cresset in the arch of morn,

Or Vesper gilded the serener eve.

Yea, He had been for an eternity!

Had swept unvarying from eternity

The harp of desolation — ere his tones,

At God's command, assumed a milder strain,

And startled on his watch, in the vast deep,

Chaos's sluggish sentry, and evoked

From the dark void the smiling universe.

Chain'd to the groveling frailties of the flesh,

Mere mortal man, unpurged from earthly dross,

Cannot survey, with fix'd and steady eye,

The dim uncertain gulf, which now the muse,

Adventurous, would explore; but dizzy grown,

He topples down the abyss.— If he would scan

The fearful chasm, and catch a transient glimpse

Of its unfathomable depths, that so

His mind may turn with double joy to God,

His only certainty and resting place;

He must put off awhile this mortal vest,

And learn to follow, without giddiness,

To heights where all is vision, and surprise,

And vague conjecture.— He must waste by night

The studious taper, far from all resort

Of crowds and folly, in some still retreat;

High on the beetling promontory's crest,

Or in the caves of the vast wilderness,

Where, compass'd round with Nature's wildest shapes,

He may be driven to centre all his thoughts

In the great Architect, who lives confess'd

In rocks, and seas, and solitary wastes.

So has divine Philosophy, with voice

Mild as the murmurs of the moonlight wave,

Tutor'd the heart of him, who now awakes,

Touching the chords of solemn minstrelsy,

His faint, neglected song — intent to snatch

Some vagrant blossom from the dangerous steep

Of poesy, a bloom of such a hue,

So sober, as may not unseemly suit

With Truth's severer brow; and one withal

So hardy as shall brave the passing wind

Of many winters,— rearing its meek head

In loveliness, when he who gathered it

Is number'd with the generations gone.

Yet not to me hath God's good providence

Given studious leisure,or unbroken thought,

Such as he owns,— a meditative man;

Who from the blush of morn to quiet eve

Ponders, or turns the page of wisdom o'er,

Far from the busy crowd's tumultuous din:

From noise and wrangling far, and undisturb'd

With Mirth's unholy shouts. For me the day

Hath duties which require the vigorous hand

Of steadfast application, but which leave

No deep improving trace upon the mind.

But be the day another's;— let it pass!

The night's my own!— They cannot steal my night!

When evening lights her folding star on high,

I live and breathe; and in the sacred hours

Of quiet and repose my spirit flies,

Free as the morning, o'er the realms of space.

And mounts the skies, and imps her wing for Heaven.

Hence do I love the sober-suited maid;

Hence Night's my friend, my mistress, and my theme,

And she shall aid me now to magnify

The night of ages,— now when the pale ray

Of starlight penetrates the studious gloom,

And, at my window seated, while mankind

Are lock'd in sleep, I feel the freshening breeze

Of stillness blow, while, in her saddest stole,

Thought, like a wakeful vestal at her shrine,

Assumes her wonted sway.

Behold the world

Rests, and her tired inhabitants have paused

From trouble and turmoil. The widow now

Has ceased to weep, and her twin orphans lie

Lock'd in each arm, partakers of her rest.

The man of sorrow has forgot his woes;

The outcast that his head is shelterless,

His griefs unshared.— The mother tends no more

Her daughter's dying slumbers, but surprised

With heaviness, and sunk upon her couch,

Dreams of her bridals. Even the hectic, lull'd

On Death's lean arm to rest, in visions wrapp'd,

Crowning with Hope's bland wreath his shuddering nurse,

Poor victim! smiles.— Silence and deep repose

Reign o'er the nations; and the warning voice

Of Nature utters audibly within

The general moral:— tells us that repose,

Deathlike as this, but of far longer span,

Is coming on us — that the weary crowds,

Who now enjoy a temporary calm,

Shall soon taste lasting quiet, wrapp'd around

With grave clothes: and their aching restless heads

Mouldering in holes and corners unobserved,

Till the last trump shall break their sullen sleep.

Who needs a teacher to admonish him

That flesh is grass, that earthly things are mist?

What are our joys but dreams? and what our hopes

But goodly shadows in the summer cloud?

There's not a wind that blows but bears with it

Some rainbow promise:— Not a moment flies

But puts its sickle in the fields of life,

And mows its thousands, with their joys and cares.

‘ T is but as yesterday since on yon stars,

Which now I view, the Chaldee shepherdgazed

In his mid watch observant, and disposed

The twinkling hosts as fancy gave them shape.

Yet in the interim what mighty shocks

Have buffeted mankind — whole nations razed —

Cities made desolate — the polish'd sunk

To barbarism, and once barbaric states

Swaying the wand of science and of arts;

Illustrious deeds and memorable names

Blotted from record, and upon the tongue

Of gray Tradition, voluble no more.

Where are the heroes of the ages past?

Where the brave chieftains, where the mighty ones

Who flourish'd in the infancy of days?

All to the grave gone down. On their fallen fame

Exultant, mocking at the pride of man,

Sits grim Forgetfulness.— The warrior's arm

Lies nerveless on the pillow of its shame;

Hush'd is his stormy voice, and quench'd the blaze

Of his red eyeball.— Yesterday his name

Was mighty on the earth.— To-day —‘ t is what?

The meteor of the night of distant years,

That flash'd unnoticed, save by wrinkled eld,

Musing at midnight upon prophecies,

Who at her lonely lattice saw the gleam

Point to the mist-poised shroud, then quietly

Closed her pale lips, and lock'd the secret up

Safe in the enamel's treasures.

Oh how weak

Is mortal man! how trifling — how confined

His scope of vision! Puff'd with confidence,

His phrase grows big with immortality,

And he, poor insect of a summer's day!

Dreams of eternal honours to his name;

Of endless glory and perennial bays.

He idly reasons of eternity,

As of the train of ages,— when, alas!

Ten thousand thousand of his centuries

Are, in comparison, a little point

Too trivial for account.— O, it is strange,

‘ Tis passing strange, to mark his fallacies;

Behold him proudly view some pompous pile,

Whose high dome swells to emulate the skies,

And smile, and say, My name shall live with this

Till time shall be no more; while at his feet,

Yea, at his very feet, the crumbling dust

Of the fallen fabric of the other day

Preaches the solemn lesson.— He should know

That time must conquer; that the loudest blast

That ever fill'd Renown's obstreperous trump

Fades in the lapse of ages, and expires.

Who lies inhumed in the terrific gloom

Of the gigantic pyramid? or who

Rear'd its huge walls? Oblivion laughs, and says,

The prey is mine.— They sleep, and never more

Their names shall strike upon the ear of man,

Their memory burst its fetters.

Where is Rome?

She lives but in the tale of other times;

Her proud pavilions are the hermit's home,

And her long colonnades, her public walks,

Now faintly echo to the pilgrim's feet,

Who comes to muse in solitude, and trace,

Through the rank moss reveal'd, her honour'd dust.

But not to Rome alone has fate confined

The doom of ruin; cities numberless,

Tyre, Sidon, Carthage, Babylon, and Troy,

And rich Phoenicia — they are blotted out,

Half razed from memory, and their very name

And being in dispute.— Has Athens fallen?

Is polish'd Greece become the savage seat

Of ignorance and sloth? and shall we dare

And empire seeks another hemisphere.

Where now is Britain?— Where her laurel'd names.

Her palaces and halls? Dash'd in the dust.

Some second Vandal hath reduced her pride,

And with one big recoil hath thrown her back

To primitive barbarity.—— Again,

Through her depopulated vales, the scream

Of bloody Superstition hollow rings,

And the scared native to the tempest howls

The yell of deprecation. O'er her marts,

Her crowded ports, broods Silence; and the cry

Of the low curlew, and the pensive dash

Of distant billows, breaks alone the void;

Even as the savage sits upon the stone

That marks where stood her capitols, and hears

The bittern booming in the weeds, he shrinks

From the dismaying solitude.— Her bards

Sing in a language that hath perished;

And their wild harps suspended o'er their graves,

Sigh to the desert winds a dying strain.

Meanwhile the Arts, in second infancy,

Rise in some distant clime, and then, perchance,

Some bold adventurer, fill'd with golden dreams,

Steering his bark through trackless solitudes,

Where, to his wandering thoughts, no daring prow

Hath ever ploughed before,— espies the cliffs

Of fallen Albion.— To the land unknown

He journeys joyful; and perhaps descries

Some vestige of her ancient stateliness:

Then he, with vain conjecture, fills his mind

Of the unheard-of race, which had arrived

At science in that solitary nook,

Far from the civil world; and sagely sighs,

And moralizes on the state of man.

Still on its march, unnoticed and unfelt,

Moves on our being. We do live and breathe,

And we are gone. The spoiler heeds us not.

We have our springtime and our rottenness;

And as we fall, another race succeeds,

To perish likewise.— Meanwhile Nature smiles —

The seasons run their round — The Sun fulfils

His annual course — and heaven and earth remain

Still changing, yet unchanged — still doom'd to feel

Endless mutation in perpetual rest.

Where are conceal'd the days which have elapsed?

Hid in the mighty cavern of the past,

They rise upon us only to appall,

By indistinct and half-glimpsed images,

Misty, gigantic, huge, obscure, remote.

Oh, it is fearful, on the midnight couch,

When the rude rushing winds forget to rave,

And the pale moon, that through the casement high

Surveys the sleepless muser, stamps the hour

Of utter silence, it is fearful then

To steer the mind, in deadly solitude.

Up the vague stream of probability;

To wind the mighty secrets of the past,

And turn the key of time!— Oh! who can strive

To comprehend the vast, the awful truth,

Of the eternity that hath gone by,

And not recoil from the dismaying sense

Of human impotence? The life of man

Is summ'd in birthdays and in sepulchres;

But the Eternal God had no beginning;

He hath no end. Time had been with him

For everlasting, ere the dredal world

Rose from the gulf in loveliness.— Like him

It knew no source, like him,‘ t was uncreate.

What is it then? The past Eternity!

We comprehend a future without end;

We feel it possible that even yon sun

May roll for ever: but we shrink amazed —

We stand aghast, when we reflect that time

Knew no commencement.— That heap age on age,

And million upon million, without end,

And we shall never span the void of days

That were and are not but in retrospect.

The Past is an unfathomable depth,

Beyond the span of thought;‘ tis an elapse

Which hath no mensuration, but hath been

For ever and for ever.

Change of days

To us is sensible; and each revolve

Of the recording sun conducts us on

Further in life, and nearer to our goal.

Not so with Time,— mysterious chronicler,

He knoweth not mutation;— centuries

Are to his being as a day, and days

As centuries.— Time past, and Time to come,

Are always equal; when the world began

God had existed from eternity.

Now look on man

Myriads of ages hence.— Hath time elapsed?

Is he not standing in the selfsame place

Where once we stood?— The same eternity

Hath gone before him, and is yet to come;

His past is not of longer span than ours,

Though myriads of ages intervened;

For who can add to what has neither sum,

Nor bound, nor source, nor estimate, nor end?

Oh, who can compass the Almighty mind?

Who can unlock the secrets of the high?

In speculations of an altitude

Sublime as this, our reason stands confess'd

Foolish, and insignificant, and mean.

Who can apply the futile argument

Of finite beings to infinity?

He might as well compress the universe

Into the hollow compass of a gourd,

Scoop'd out by human art; or bid the whale

Drink up the sea it swims in!— Can the less

Contain the greater? or the dark obscure

Infold the glories of meridian day?

What does philosophy impart to man

But undiscovered wonders?— Let her soar

Even to her proudest heights — to where she caught

The soul of Newton and of Socrates,

She but extends the scope of wild amaze

And admiration. All her lessons end

In wider views of God's unfathom'd depths.

Lo! the unletter'd hind, who never knew

To raise his mind excursive to the heights

Of abstract contemplation, as he sits

On the green hillock by the hedge-row side,

What time the insect swarms are murmuring,

And marks, in silent thought, the broken clouds

That fringe with loveliest hues the evening sky,

Feels in his soul the hand of Nature rouse

The thrill of gratitude, to him who form'd

The goodly prospect; he beholds the God

Throned in the west, and his reposing ear

Hears sounds angelic in the fitful breeze

That floats through neighbouring copse or fairy brake,

Or lingers playful on the haunted stream.

Go with the cotter to his winter fire,

Where o'er the moors the loud blast whistles shrill,

And the hoarse ban-dog bays the icy moon;

Mark with what awe he lists the wild uproar.

Silent, and big with thought; and hear him bless

The God that rides on the tempestuous clouds,

For his snug hearth, and all his little joys:

Hear him compare his happier lot with his

Who bends his way across the wintry wolds,

A poor night traveller, while the dismal snow

Beats in his face, and, dubious of his path,

He stops, and thinks, in every lengthening blast,

He hears some village mastiff's distant howl,

And sees, far streaming, some lone cottage light;

Then, undeceived, upturns his streaming eyes,

And clasps his shivering hands; or overpowered,

Sinks on the frozen ground, weigh'd down with sleep,

From which the hapless wretch shall never wake.

Thus the poor rustic warms his heart with praise

And glowing gratitude,— he turns to bless,

With honest warmth, his Maker and his God!

And shall it e'er be said, that a poor hind,

Nursed in the lap of Ignorance, and bred

In want and labour, glows with nobler zeal

To laud his Maker's attributes, while he

Whom starry Science in her cradle rock'd,

And Castaly enchasten'd with his dews,

Closes his eyes upon the holy word,

And, blind to all but arrogance and pride,

Dares to declare his infidelity,

And openly contemn the Lord of Hosts?

What is philosophy, if it impart

Irreverence for the Deity, or teach

A mortal man to set his judgment up

Against his Maker's will? The Polygar,

Who kneels to sun or moon, compared with him

Who thus perverts the talents he enjoys,

Is the most bless'd of men! Oh! I would walk

A weary journey, to the furthest verge

Of the big world, to kiss that good man's hand,

Who, in the blaze of wisdom and of art,

Preserves a lowly mind; and to his God,

Feeling the sense of his own littleness,

Is as a child in meek simplicity!

What is the pomp of learning? the parade

Of letters and of tongues? e'en as the mists

Of the gray morn before the rising sun,

That pass away and perish.

Earthly things

Are but the transient pageants of an hour;

And earthly pride is like the passing flower,

That springs to fall, and blossoms but to die.

‘ T is as the tower erected on a cloud,

Baseless and silly as the schoolboy's dream.

Ages and epochs that destroy our pride,

And then record its downfall, what are they

But the poor creatures of man's teeming brain?

Hath Heaven its ages? or doth Heaven preserve

Its stated eras? Doth the Omnipotent

Hear of to-morrows or of yesterdays?

There is to God nor future nor a past;

Throned in his might, all times to him are present;

He hath no lapse, no past, no time to come;

He sees before him one eternal now.

Time moveth not!— our being‘ t is that moves;

And we, swift gliding down life's rapid stream,

Dream of swift ages and revolving years,

Ordain'd to chronicle our passing days:

So the young sailor in the gallant bark,

Scudding before the wind, beholds the coast

Receding from his eyes, and thinks the while,

Struck with amaze, that he is motionless,

And that the land is sailing.

Such, alas!

Are the illusions of this proteus life!

All, all is false: through every phasis still

‘ T is shadowy and deceitful. It assumes

The semblances of things and specious shapes;

But the lost traveller might as soon rely

On the evasive spirit of the marsh,

Whose lantern beams, and vanishes, and flits,

O'er bog, and rock, and pit, and hollow way,

As we on its appearances.

On earth

There is no certainty nor stable hope.

As well the weary mariner, whose bark

Is toss'd beyond Cimmerian Bosphorus,

Where storm and darkness hold their drear domain,

And sunbeams never penetrate, might trust

To expectation of serener skies,

And linger in the very jaws of death,

Because some peevish cloud were opening,

Or the loud storm had bated in its rage;

As we look forward in this vale of tears

To permanent delight — from some slight glimpse

Of shadowy, unsubstantial happiness.

The good man's hope is laid far, far beyond

The sway of tempests, or the furious sweep

Of mortal desolation.— He beholds

Unapprehensive, the gigantic stride

Of rampant Ruin, or the unstable waves

Of dark Vicissitude.— Even in death,—

In that dread hour, when, with a giant pang,

Tearing the tender fibres of the heart,

The immortal spirit struggles to be free,

Then, even then, that hope forsakes him not,

For it exists beyond the narrow verge

Of the cold sepulchre. The petty joys

Of fleeting life indignantly it spurn'd,

And rested on the bosom of its God.

This is man's only reasonable hope;

And‘ t is a hope which, cherish'd in the breast,

Shall not be disappointed. Even he,

The Holy One — Almighty — who elanced

The rolling world along its airy way,

Even He will deign to smile upon the good,

And welcome him to these celestial seats,

Where joy and gladness hold their changeless reign.

Thou, proud man, look upon yon starry vault,

Survey the countless gems which richly stud

The night's imperial chariot;— Telescopes

Will show thee myriads more innumerous

Than the sea sand;— each of those little lamps

Is the great source of light, the central sun

Round which some other mighty sisterhood

Of planets travel, every planet stock'd

With Hying beings impotent as thee.

Now, proud man! now, where is thy greatness fled?

What art thou in the scale of universe?

Less, less than nothing!— Yet of thee the God

Who built this wondrous frame of worlds is careful,

As well as of the mendicant who begs

The leavings of thy table. And shalt thou

Lift up thy thankless spirit, and contemn

His heavenly providence! Deluded fool,

Even now the thunderbolt is wing'd with death,

Even now thou totterest on the brink of hell.

How insignificant is mortal man,

Bound to the hasty pinions of an hour!

How poor, how trivial in the vast conceit

Of infinite duration, boundless space!

God of the universe! Almighty One!

Thou who dost walk upon the winged winds,

Or with the storm, thy rugged charioteer,

Swift and impetuous as the northern blast,

Ridest from pole to pole; Thou who dost hold

The forked lightnings in thine awful grasp,

And reignest in the earthquake, when thy wrath

Goes down towards erring man, I would address

To thee my parting pæan; for of Thee,

Great beyond comprehension, who thyself

Art Time and Space, sublime Infinitude,

Of Thee has been my song!— With awe I kneel

Trembling before the footstool of thy state,

My God!— my Father!— I will sing to thee

A hymn of laud, a solemn canticle,

Ere on the cypress wreath, which overshades

The throne of Death, I hang my mournful lyre,

And give its wild strings to the desert gale.

Rise, Son of Salem! rise, and join the strain,

Sweep to accordant tones thy tuneful harp,

And, leaving vain laments, arouse thy soul

To exultation. Sing hosanna, sing,

And halleluiah, for the Lord is great,

And full of mercy! He has thought of man;

Yea, compass'd round with countless worlds, has thought

Of us poor worms, that batten in the dews

Of morn, and perish ere the noonday sun.

Sing to the Lord, for he is merciful:

He gave the Nubian lion but to live,

To rage its hour, and perish; but on man

He lavish'd immortality and Heaven.

The eagle falls from her aërial tower,

And mingles with irrevocable dust:

But man from death springs joyful,

Springs up to life and to eternity.

Oh, that, insensate of the favouring boon,

The great exclusive privilege bestow'd

On us unworthy trifles, men should dare

To treat with slight regard the proffer'd Heaven,

And urge the lenient, but All-Just, to swear

In wrath, “They shall not enter in my rest.”

Might I address the supplicative strain

To thy high footstool, I would pray that thou

Wouldst pity the deluded wanderers,

And fold them, ere they perish, in thy flock.

Yea, I would bid thee pity them, through Him,

Thy well beloved, who, upon the cross,

Bled a dread sacrifice for human sin,

And paid, with bitter agony, the debt

Of primitive transgression.

Oh! I shrink,

My very soul doth shrink, when I reflect

That the time hastens, when, in vengeance clothed,

Thou shalt come down to stamp the seal of fate

On erring mortal man. Thy chariot wheels

Then shall rebound to earth's remotest caves,

And stormy Ocean from his bed shall start

At the appalling summons. Oh I how dread,

On the dark eye of miserable man,

Chasing his sins in secrecy and gloom,

Will burst the effulgence of the opening Heaven;

When to the brazen trumpet's deafening roar

Thou and thy dazzling cohorts shall descend,

Proclaiming the fulfilment of the word!

The dead shall start astonish'd from their sleep!

The sepulchres shall groan and yield their prey,

The bellowing floods shall disembogue their charge

Of human victims. From the farthest nook

Of the wide world shall troop the risen souls,

From him whose bones are bleaching in the waste

Of polar solitudes, or him whose corpse,

Whelm'd in the loud Atlantic's vexed tides,

Is wash'd on some Caribbean prominence,

To the lone tenant of some secret cell

In the Pacific's vast... realm,

Where never plummet's sound was heard to part

The wilderness of water; they shall come

To greet the solemn advent of the Judge.

Thou first shalt summon the elected saints

To their apportion'd Heaven! and thy Son,

At thy right hand, shall smile with conscious joy

On all his past distresses, when for them

He bore humanity's severest pangs.

Then shalt thou seize the avenging scimitar,

And, with a roar as loud and horrible

As the stern earthquake's monitory voice,

The wicked shall be driven to their abode,

Down the immitigable gulf, to wail

And gnash their teeth in endless agony.

Rear thou aloft thy standard.— Spirit, rear

Thy flag on high!— Invincible, and throned

In unparticipated might. Behold

Earth's proudest boasts, beneath thy silent sway,

Sweep headlong to destruction, thou the while,

Unmoved and heedless, thou dost hear the rush

Of mighty generations, as they pass

To the broad gulf of ruin, and dost stamp

Thy signet on them, and they rise no more.

Who shall contend with Time — unvanquish'd Time,

The conqueror of conquerors, and lord

Of desolation?— Lo! the shadows fly,

The hours and days, and years and centuries,

They fly, they fly, and nations rise and fall,

The young are old, the old are in their graves.

Heard'st thou that shout? It rent the vaulted skies;

It was the voice of people,— mighty crowds,—

Again!‘ t is hushed — Time speaks, and all is hush'd;

In the vast multitude now reigns alone

Unruffled solitude. They all are still;

All — yea, the whole — the incalculable mass,

Still as the ground that clasps their cold remains.

Rear thou aloft thy standard.— Spirit, rear

Thy flag on high, and glory in thy strength.

But do thou know the season yet shall come,

When from its base thine adamantine throne

Shall tumble; when thine arm shall cease to strike,

Thy voice forget its petrifying power;

When saints shall shout, and Time shall be no more.

Yea, he doth come — the mighty champion comes,

Whose potent spear shall give thee thy death wound,

Shall crush the conqueror of conquerors,

And desolate stern Desolation's lord.

Lo! where he cometh! the Messiah comes!

The King! the Comforter! the Christ!— He comes

To burst the bonds of Death, and overturn

The power of Time.— Hark! the trumpet's blast

Rings o'er the heavens! They rise, the myriads rise —

Even from their graves they spring, and burst the chains

Of torpor,— He has ransom'd them,...

Forgotten generations live again,

Assume the bodily shapes they own'd of old,

Beyond the flood:— the righteous of their times

Embrace and weep, they weep the tears of joy.

The sainted mother wakes, and in her lap

Clasps her dear babe, the partner of her grave,

And heritor with her of Heaven,— a flower,

Wash'd by the blood of Jesus from the stain

Of native guilt, even in its early bud.

And, hark! those strains, how solemnly serene

They fall, as from the skies — at distance fall —

Again more loud — the halleluiahs swell;

The newly risen catch the joyful sound;

They glow, they burn; and now with one accord

Bursts forth sublime from every mouth the song

Of praise to God on high, and to the Lamb

Who bled for mortals.

Yet there is peace for man.— Yea, there is peace

Even in this noisy, this unsettled scene;

When from the crowd, and from the city far,

Haply he may be set ( in his late walk

O'ertaken with deep thought ) beneath the boughs

Of honeysuckle, when the sun is gone,

And with fix'd eye, and wistful, he surveys

The solemn shadows of the Heavens sail,

And thinks the season yet shall come, when Time

Will waft him to repose, to deep repose,

Far from the unquietness of life — from noise

And tumult far — beyond the flying clouds,

Beyond the stars, and all this passing scene,

Where change shall cease, and Time shall be no more.