Shattered the crust of this young world,
Into the seas its mountains hurl'd,
And upon boisterous surges strong
Bore the broad ruins far along
To pave old ocean's shingly bed,
While bursting upward in their stead
The lowest granites towering rose
To pierce the clouds with crested snows,
Where future Apenine or Alp
Bared to high heaven its icy scalp.
Look on these coins of kingdoms old,
These medals of a broken mould;
These corals in the green hill-side,
These fruits and flowers beneath the tide,
These struggling flies, in amber found,
These huge pine-forests under ground,
These flint sea-eggs, with curious bosses,
These fibered ferns, and fruited mosses
Lying as in water spread,
And stone-struck by some Gorgon's head.
The chambers of this graceful shell,
So delicately formed-so well,
None can declare what years have past
Since life hath tenanted it last.
What countless centuries have flown
Since age hath made the shell a stone:
Gaze with me on those jointed stems,
A living plant of starry gems,
And on that sea-flower, light and fair,
Which shoots its leaves in agate there;
Behold these giant ribs in stone
Of mighty monsters, long unknown,
That in some ante-mundane flood
Wallow'd on continents of mud,
A lizard race, but well for man,
Dead long before his day began,
Monsters, through Providence extinct,
That crocodiles to fishes link'd;
And shreds of other forms beside
That sported in the yeasty tide,
Or flapping far with dragon-wing
On the slow tortoise wont to spring,
Or ambush'd in the rushes rank
Watch'd the dull mammoth on the bank,
Or loved the green and silent deep,
Or on the coral-bank to sleep,
Where many a rood, in passive strength,
The scaly reptiles lay at length.
For there are wonders, wondrous strange,
To those who will through nature range,
And use the mind, and clear the eye,
And let instruction not pass by:
There are deep thoughts of tranquil joy
For those who thus their hearts employ,
And trace the wise design that lurks
In holy nature's meanest works,
And by the torch of truth discern
The happy lessons good men learn;
O, there are pleasures, sweet and new,
To those who thus creation view,
And as on this wide world they look,
Regard it as one mighty book,
Inscribed within, before, behind,
With workings of the Master-mind;
Ray'd with that wisdom which excels
In framing worlds or fretting shells-
Filled with that mercy, which delights
In blessing men or guiding mites-
With silent deep benevolence,
With hidden mild Omnipotence,
With order's everlasting laws,
With seen effect, and secret cause,
Justice and truth in all things rife,
Filling the world with love and life,
And teaching from creation round
How good the God of all is found,
His handiwork how vast, how kind,
How pre-arranged by clearest mind,
How glorious in his own estate,
And in his smallest works how GREAT!
A BALLAD; FOUNDED ON AN ANECDOTE HERE DETAILED.
NINE years the good ship's gallant mast
Encountered storm and battle,
Stood firm and fast against the blast,
And grape-shots' iron rattle:
And still, though lightning, ball, and pike,
Had stricken oft, and scored her,
The Victory could never strike-
For Nelson was aboard her!
High in the air waved proudly there
Old England's flag of glory-
While, see! below the broad decks flow,
With streaming slaughter gory;
Each thundering gun is robed in dun,
That broadside was a beauty-
Hip, hip, hurrah! the battle's won,
Hip, hip hurrah! each man has done
This day a sailor's duty.
But, wosome lot! a coward shot
Struck Nelson as he vanquish'd,
And Britain in her griefs forgot
Her glories, where her son was not-
Her lion heart was anguish'd.
For, hit at last, against that mast
The hero faintly lying,
Felt the cold breath of nearing death,
And knew that he was dying.
AND passed is many a weary day,
Since that dark glorious hour,
And half the mast was stow'd away
In Windsor's royal tower;
But three feet good of that old wood
So scarr'd in war, and rotten,
Was thrown aside, unknown its pride,
Its honours all forgotten:
When, as in shade the block was laid,
Two robins, perching on it,
Thought that place best to build a nest,
They plann'd it, and have done it;
The splintered spot which lodged a shot
Is lined with moss and feather,
And chirping loud a callow brood
Are nestling up together;
How full of bliss-how peaceful is
That spot the soft nest caging,
Where war's alarms, and blood-stained arms
Were once around it raging!
AN INQUIRY CONCERNING THE SOULS OF BRUTES.
"INCERTUS ERRO PER LOCA DEVIA."-HOR.
ARE these then made in vain? is man alone
Of all the marvels of creative love
Blest with a scintillation of His essence,
The heavenly spark of reasonable soul?
And hath not yon sagacious dog, that finds
A meaning in the shepherd's idiot face,
Or the huge elephant, that lends his strength
To drag the stranded galley to the shore,
And strives with emulative pride to excel
The mindless crowd of slaves that toil beside him,
Or the young generous war-horse, when he sniffs
The distant field of blood, and quick and shrill
Neighing for joy, instils a desperate courage
Into the veteran trooper's quailing heart—
Have they not all an evidence of soul
(Of soul, the proper attribute of man),
The same in kind, though meaner in degree?
Why should not that which hath been-be for ever?
And death-O can it be annihilation?
No-though the stolid atheist fondly clings
To that last hope, how kindred to despair!
No 'tis the struggling spirit's hour of joy,
The glad emancipation of the soul,
The moment when the cumbrous fetters drop,
And the bright spirit wings its way to heaven!
To say that God annihilated aught,
Were to declare that in an unwise hour
He plann'd and made somewhat superfluous:
Why should not the mysterious life, that dwells
In reptiles as in man, and shows itself
In memory, gratitude, love, hate, and pride,
Still energize, and be, though death may crush
Yon frugal ant or thoughtless butterfly,
Or with the simoom's pestilential gale
Strike down the patient camel in the desert?
|