Classic Poem

His second coming, who at first appeared
To save the world, but now to judge mankind
According to their works;—the trumpet's sound.—
The dead arising,—the wide world in flames,—
The mansions of the blest, and the dire pit
Of Satan and of woe,——O Muse! unfold.
O Thou! whose eye the future and the past
In one broad view beholdest—from the first
Of days, when o'er this rude unformed mass
Light, first-born of existence, smiling rose,
Down to that latest moment, when thy voice
Shall bid the sun be darkness, when thy hand
Shall blot creation out,—assist my song!
Thou only know'st, who gav'st these orbs to roll
Their destin'd circles, when their course shall set;
When ruin and destruction fierce shall ride
In triumph o'er creation. This is hid,
In kindness unto man. Thou giv'st to know
The event certain: angels know not when.
'Twas on an autumn's eve, serene and calm,
I walked, attendant on the funeral
Of an old swain: around, the village crowd
Loquacious chatted, till we reach'd the place
Where, shrouded up, the sons of other years
Lie silent in the grave. The sexton there
Had digg'd the bed of death, the narrow house,
For all that live, appointed. To the dust
We gave the dead. Then moralizing, home
The swains return'd, to drown in copious bowls
The labours of the day, and thoughts of death.
The sun now trembled at the western gate;
His yellow rays stream'd in the fleecy clouds.
I sat me down upon a broad flat stone;
And much I muséd on the changeful state
Of sublunary things. The joys of life,
How frail, how short, how passing! As the sea,
Now flowing, thunders on the rocky shore;
Now lowly ebbing, leaves a tract of sand,
Waste, wide, and dreary: so, in this vain world,
Through every varying state of life, we toss
In endless fluctuation; till, tir'd out
With sad variety of bad and worse,
We reach life's period, reach the blissful port,
Where change affects not, and the weary rest.
Then sure the sun which lights us to our shroud,
Than that which gave us first to see the light,
Is happier far. As he who, hopeless, long
Hath rode th' Atlantic billow, from the mast,
Skirting the blue horizon, sees the land,
His native land, approach; joy fills his heart,
And swells each throbbing vein: so, here confin'd,
We weary tread life's long, long toilsome maze;
Still hoping, vainly hoping, for relief,
And rest from labour. Ah! mistaken thought:
To seek in life what only death can give.
But what is death? Is it an endless sleep,
Unconscious of the present and the past,
And never to be waken'd? Sleeps the soul;
Nor wakes ev'n in a dream? If it is so,
Happy the sons of pleasure; they have liv'd
And made the most of life: and foolish he,
The sage, who, dreaming of hereafter, grudg'd
Himself the tasting of the sweets of life,
And call'd it temperance; and hop'd for joys
More durable and sweet, beyond the grave.
Vain is the poet's song, the soldier's toil!
Vain is the sculptur'd marble and the bust!
How vain to hope for never-dying fame,
If souls can die! But that they never die,
This thirst of glory whispers. Wherefore gave
The great Creator such a strong desire
He never meant to satisfy? These stones,
Memorials of the dead, with rustic art
And rude inscription cut, declare the soul
Immortal. Man, form'd for eternity,
Abhors annihilation, and the thought
Of dark oblivion. Hence, with ardent wish
And vigorous effort, each would fondly raise
Some lasting monument, to save his name
Safe from the waste of years. Hence Cæsar fought;
Hence Raphael painted; and hence Milton sung.
Thus musing, sleep oppress'd my drowsy sense,
And wrapt me into rest. Before mine eyes,
Fair as the morn, when up the flaming east
The sun ascends, a radiant seraph stood,
Crown'd with a wreath of palm: his golden hair
Wav'd on his shoulders, girt with shining plumes;
From which, down to the ground, loose-floating trail'd,
In graceful negligence, his heavenly robe:
Upon his face, flush'd with immortal youth,
Unfading beauty bloom'd; and thus he spake:
“Well hast thou judged; the soul must be immortal!
And that it is, this awful day declares;
This day, the last that e'er the sun shall gild:
Arrested by Omnipotence, no more
Shall he describe the year: the moon no more
Shall shed her borrow'd light. This is the day
Seal'd in the rolls of Fate, when o'er the dead
Almighty Power shall wake and raise to life
The sleeping myriads. Now shall be approv'd
The ways of God to man, and all the clouds
Of Providence be clear'd: now shall be disclos'd
Why vice in purple oft upon a throne
Exalted sat, and shook her iron scourge
O'er virtue, lowly seated on the ground:
Now deeds committed in the sable shade
Of eyeless darkness, shall be brought to light;
And every act shall meet its just reward.”
As thus he spake, the morn arose; and sure
Methought ne'er rose a fairer. Not a cloud
Spotted the blue expanse; and not a gale
Breath'd o'er the surface of the dewy earth.
Twinkling with yellow lustre, the gay birds
On every blooming spray sung their sweet lays,
And praised their great Creator: through the fields
The lowing cattle graz'd; and all around
Was beauty, happiness, and mirth, and love.—
“All these thou seest (resum'd the angelic power)
No more shall give thee pleasure. Thou must leave
This world; of which now come and see the end.”
This said, he touch'd me, and such strength infus'd,
That as he soared up the pathless air,
I lightly followed. On the awful peak
Of an eternal rock, against whose base
The sounding billows beat, he set me down.
I heard a noise, loud as a rushing stream,
When o'er the rugged precipice it roars,
And foaming, thunders on the rocks below.
Astonished, I gaz'd around; when lo!
I saw an angel down from Heaven descend.
His face was as the sun; his dreadful height
Such as the statue, by the Grecian plan'd,
Of Philip's son, Athos, with all his rocks,
Moulded into a man: One foot on earth,
And one upon the rolling sea, he fix'd.
As when, at setting sun, the rainbow shines
Refulgent, meting out the half of Heav'n—
So stood he; and, in act to speak he rais'd
His shining hand. His voice was as the sound
Of many waters, or the deep-mouth'd roar
Of thunder, when it bursts the riven cloud,
And bellows through the ether. Nature stood
Silent, in all her works: while thus he spake:—
“Hear, thou that roll'st above, thou radiant sun!
Ye heavens and earth, attend! while I declare
The will of the Eternal. By His name
Who lives, and shall for ever live, I swear
That time shall be no longer.”
He disappear'd. Fix'd in deep thought I stood,
At what would follow. Straight another sound;
To which the Nile, o'er Ethiopia's rocks
Rushing in one broad cataract, were nought.
It seem'd as if the pillars that upheld
The universe had fall'n; and all its worlds,
Unhing'd, had strove together for the way,
In cumbrous crashing ruin. Such the roar!
A sound that might be felt! It pierc'd beyond
The limits of creation. Chaos roar'd;
And heav'n and earth return'd the mighty noise.—
“Thou hear'st,” said then my heav'nly guide, “the sound
Of the last trumpet. See, where from the clouds
Th' archangel Michael, one of the seven
That minister before the throne of God,
Leans forward; and the sonorous tube inspires
With breath immortal. By his side the sword
Which, like a meteor, o'er the vanquished head
Of Satan hung, when he rebellious rais'd
War, and embroil'd the happy fields above.”
A pause ensued. The fainting sun grew pale,
And seem'd to struggle through a sky of blood;
While dim eclipse impair'd his beam: the earth
Shook to her deepest centre; Ocean rag'd,
And dash'd his billows on the frighted shore.
All was confusion. Heartless, helpless, wild,
As flocks of timid sheep, or driven deer,
Wandering, th' inhabitants of earth appear'd:
Terror in every look, and pale affright
Sat in each eye; amazed at the past,
And for the future trembling. All call'd great,
Or deem'd illustrious, by erring man,
Was now no more. The hero and the prince,
Their grandeur lost, now mingled with the crowd;
And all distinctions, those except from faith
And virtue flowing: these upheld the soul,
As ribb'd with triple steel. All else were lost!
Now, vain is greatness! as the morning clouds,
That, rising, promise rain: condens'd they stand,
Till, touch'd by winds, they vanish into air.
The farmer mourns: so mourns the helpless wretch,
Who, cast by fortune from some envied height,
Finds nought within him to support his fall.
High as his hopes had rais'd him, low he sinks
Below his fate, in comfortless despair.——
Who would not laugh at an attempt to build
A lasting structure on the rapid stream
Of foaming Tigris, the foundations laid
Upon the glassy surface? Such the hopes
Of him whose views are bounded to this world:
Immers'd in his own labour'd work, he dreams
Himself secure; when, on a sudden, down,
Torn from its sandy ground, the fabric falls!
He starts, and, waking, finds himself undone.
Not so the man who on religion's base
His hope and virtue founds. Firm on the Rock
Of ages his foundation laid, remains,
Above the frowns of fortune or her smiles;
In every varying state of life, the same.
Nought fears he from the world, and nothing hopes.
With unassuming courage, inward strength
Endu'd, resign'd to Heaven, he leads a life
Superior to the common herd of men,
Whose joys, connected with the changeful flood
Of fickle fortune, ebb and flow with it.
Nor is religion a chimera: Sure
'Tis something real. Virtue cannot live,
Divided from it. As a sever'd branch
It withers, pines, and dies. Who loves not God,
That made him, and preserv'd, nay more—redeem'd,
Is dangerous. Can ever gratitude
Bind him who spurns at these most sacred ties?
Say, can he, in the silent scenes of life,
Be sociable? Can he be a friend?
At best, he must but feign. The worst of brutes
An atheist is; for beasts acknowledge God.
The lion, with the terrors of his mouth,
Pays homage to his Maker; the grim wolf,
At midnight, howling, seeks his meat from God.
Again th' archangel raised his dreadful voice.
Earth trembled at the sound. “Awake, ye dead!
And come to judgment.” At the mighty call,
As armies issue at the trumpet's sound,
So rose the dead. A shaking first I heard,
And bone together came unto his bone,
Though sever'd by wide seas and distant lands.
A spirit liv'd within them. He who made,
Wound up, and set in motion, the machine,
To run unhurt the length of fourscore years,
Who knows the structure of each secret spring;
Can He not join again the sever'd parts,
And join them with advantage? This to man
Hard and impossible may seem; to God
Is easy. Now, through all the darken'd air,
The living atoms flew, each to his place,
And nought was missing in the great account,
Down from the dust of him whom Cain first slew,
To him who yesterday was laid in earth,
And scarce had seen corruption; whether in
The bladed grass they cloth'd the verdant plain,
Or smil'd in opening flowers; or, in the sea,
Became the food of monsters of the Deep,
Or pass'd in transmigrations infinite
Through ev'ry kind of being. None mistakes
His kindred matter; but by sympathy
Combining, rather by Almighty Pow'r
Led on, they closely mingle and unite,
But chang'd: for subject to decay no more,
Or dissolution, deathless as the soul,
The body is; and fitted to enjoy
Eternal bliss, or bear eternal pain.
As when in Spring the sun's prolific beams
Have wak'd to life the insect tribes, that sport
And wanton in his rays at ev'ning mild,
Proud of their new existence, up the air,
In devious circles wheeling, they ascend,
Innumerable; the whole air is dark:
So, by the trumpet rous'd, the sons of men,
In countless numbers, cover'd all the ground,
From frozen Greenland to the southern pole;
All who ere liv'd on earth. See Lapland's sons,
Whose zenith is the pole; a barb'rous race!
Rough as their storms, and savage as their clime,
Unpolish'd as their bears, and but in shape
Distinguish'd from them: Reason's dying lamp
Scarce brighter burns than instinct in their breast.
With wand'ring Russians, and all those who dwelt
In Scandinavia, by the Baltic Sea;
The rugged Pole, with Prussia's warlike race:
Germania pours her numbers, where the Rhine
And mighty Danube pour their flowing urns.
Behold thy children, Britain! hail the light:
A manly race, whose business was arms,
And long uncivilised; yet, train'd to deeds
Of virtue, they withstood the Roman power,
And made their eagles droop. On Morven's coast
A race of heroes and of bards arise,
The mighty Fingal, and his mighty son,
Who launch'd the spear, and touch'd the tuneful harp;
With Scotia's chiefs, the sons of later years,
Her Kenneths and her Malcolms, warriors fam'd;
Her generous Wallace, and her gallant Bruce.
See, in her pathless wilds, where the grey stones
Are raised in memory of the mighty dead,
Armies arise of English, Scots, and Picts;
And giant Danes, who, from bleak Norway's coast,
Ambitious, came to conquer her fair fields,
And chain her sons: But Scotia gave them graves!—
Behold the kings that fill'd the English throne!
Edwards and Henries, names of deathless fame,
Start from the tomb. Immortal William! see,
Surrounding angels point him from the rest,
Who saved the State from tyranny and Rome.
Behold her poets! Shakespeare, fancy's child;
Spencer, who, through his smooth and moral tale,
Y-points fair virtue out; with him who sung
Of man's first disobedience. Young lifts up
His awful head, and joys to see the day,
The great, th' important day, of which he sung.
See where imperial Rome exalts her height!
Her senators and gowned fathers rise;
Her consuls, who, as ants without a king,
Went forth to conquer kings; and at their wheels
In triumph led the chiefs of distant lands.
Behold, in Cannæ's field, what hostile swarms
Burst from th' ensanguin'd ground, where Hannibal
Shook Rome through all her legions: Italy
Trembled unto the Capitol. If fate
Had not withstood th' attempt, she now had bow'd
Her head to Carthage. See, Pharsalia pours
Her murder'd thousands! who, in the last strife
Of Rome for dying liberty, were slain,
To make a man the master of the world.
All Europe's sons throng forward; numbers vast!
Imagination fails beneath the weight.
What numbers yet remain! Th' enervate race
Of Asia, from where Tanais rolls
O'er rocks and dreary wastes his foaming stream,
To where the Eastern Ocean thunders round
The spicy Java; with the tawny race
That dwelt in Afric, from the Red Sea, north,
To the Cape, south, where the rude Hottentot
Sinks into brute; with those, who long unknown
Till by Columbus found, a naked race!
And only skill'd to urge the sylvan war,
That peopled the wide continent that spreads
From rocky Zembla, whiten'd with the snow
Of twice three thousand years, south to the Straits
Nam'd from Magellan, where the ocean roars
Round earth's remotest bounds. Now, had not He,
The great Creator of the universe,
Enlarg'd the wide foundations of the world,
Room had been wanting to the mighty crowds
That pour'd from every quarter. At His word,
Obedient angels stretch'd an ample plain,
Where dwelt His people in the Holy Land,
Fit to contain the whole of human race——
As when the autumn, yellow on the fields,
Invites the sickle, forth the farmer sends
His servants to cut down and gather in
The bearded grain: so, by Jehovah sent,
His angels, from all corners of the world,
Led on the living and awaken'd dead
To judgment; as, in th' Apocalypse,
John gather'd, saw the people of the earth,
And kings, to Armageddon.——Now look round
Thou whose ambitious heart for glory beats!
See all the wretched things on earth call'd great,
And lifted up to gods! How little now
Seems all their grandeur! See the conqueror,
Mad Alexander, who his victor arms
Bore o'er the then known globe, then sat him down
And wept, because he had no other world
To give to desolation; how he droops!
He knew not, hapless wretch! he never learn'd
The harder conquest—to subdue himself.
Now is the Christian's triumph, now he lifts
His head on high; while down the dying hearts
Of sinners helpless sink: bl