Nor even to life, nor death, nor time confined -
The dread Hereafter fills the exploring mind;
We burst the grave, profane the coffin's lid,
Unwisely ask of all so wisely hid;
Eternity's dark record we would read,
Mysteries, unravelled yet by mortal creed;
Of life to come, unending joy and woe,
And all that holy wranglers dream below;
To find their jarring dogmas out we long,
Or which is right, or whether all be wrong;
Things of an hour, we would invade His throne,
And find out Him, the Everlasting One!
Faith we may boast, undarkened by a doubt,
We thirst to find each awful secret out;
Hope may sustain, and innocence impart
Her sweet specific to the fearless heart,
The inquiring spirit will not be controlled,
We would make certain all, and all behold.
Unfathomed well-head of the boundless soul!
Whose living waters lure us as they roll,
From thy pure wave one cheering hope we draw -
Man, man, at least, shall spurn proud Nature's law.
All that have breath, but he, lie down content,
Life's purpose served, indeed, when life is spent ;
All as in Paradise the same are found;
The beast, whose footstep shakes the solid ground,
The insect, living on a summer spire,
The bird, whose pinion courts the sunbeam's fire;
In lair and nest, in way and want, the same
As when their sires sought Adam for a name;
Their be-all and their end-all here below,
They nothing need beyond, nor need to know;
Earth and her hoards their every want supply,
They revel, rest, then fearless, hopeless, die.
But Man, his Maker's likeness, lord of earth,
Who owes to Nature little but his birth,
Shakes down her puny chains, her wants, and woes,
One world subdues, and for another glows.
See him, the feeblest, in his cradle laid;
See him, the mightiest, in his mind arrayed!
How wide the gulf he clears, how bold the flight
That bears him upward to the realms of light!
By restless Curiosity inspired,
Through all his subject world he roves untired;
Looks back and scans the infant days of yore,
On to the time when time shall be no more;
Even in life's parting throb its spirit burns,
And, shut from earth, to heaven more warmly turns.
Shall he alone, of mortal dwellers here,
Thus soar aloft, to sink in mid-career?
Less favored than a worm, shall his stern doom
Lock up these seraph longings in the tomb? —
O Thou, whose fingers raised us from the dust,
Till there we sleep again, be this our trust:
This sacred hunger marks the immortal mind;
By Thee 'twas given, for Thee, for Heaven designed:
There the rapt spirit, from earth's grossness freed,
Shall see, and know, and be like Thee indeed.
What claims a loftier soul, a nobler verse;
The mountain's foot I have but loitered round,
Not dared to scale its highest, holiest ground;
But ventured on the pebbly shore to stray,
While the broad ocean all before me lay;·
How bright the boundless prospect there on high!
How rich the pearls that here all hidden lie!
to life's coarse service sold,
But not for me Where thought lies barren, and nought breeds but gold 'Tis yours, ye favored ones, at whose command,
From the cold world I ventured, here to stand:
Ye who were lapped in Wisdom's murmuring bowers,
Who still to bright improvement yield your hours;
To you the privilege and the power belong
To give my theme the grace of living song;
Yours be the flapping of the eagle's wing,
To dare the loftiest crag, and heavenward spring;
Mine the light task to hop from spray to spray,
Blest if I charm one summer hour away.
One summer hour its golden sands have run,
And the poor labor of the bard is done
Yet, ere I fling aside my humble lyre,
Let one fond wish its trembling strings inspire;
Fancy the task to Feeling shall resign,
And the heart prompt the warm, untutored line.
Peace to this ancient spot! here, as of old,
May Learning dwell, and all her stores unfold;
Still may her priests around these altars stand,
And train to truth the children of the land;
Bright be their paths, within these shades who rest,
These brother-bands- beneath his guidance blessed,
Who, with their fathers, here turned wisdom's page,
Who comes to them the Statesman and the Sage.
Praise be his portion in his labors here,
The praise that cheered a Kirkland's mild career;
The love that finds in every breast a shrine,
When zeal and gentleness with wisdom join.
Here may he sit, while race succeeding race
Go proudly forth his parent care to grace;
In head and heart by him prepared to rise,
To take their stations with the good and wise:
This crowning recompense to him be given,
To see them guard on earth and guide to heaven.
Thus in their talents, in their virtues blessed,
O be his ripest years his happiest and his best!
Delivered at the Boston Theatre in 1823, at the Exhibition of a Pageant in Honor of Shakspeare.
GOD of the glorious Lyre!
Whose notes of old on lofty Pindus rang,
While Jove's exulting choir
Caught the glad echoes and responsive sang-
Come! bless the service and the shrine
We consecrate to thee and thine.
Fierce from the frozen north,
When Havoc led his legions forth,
O'er Learning's sunny groves the dark destroyers spread; In dust the sacred statue slept,
Fair Science round her altars wept,
And Wisdom cowled his head.
At length, Olympian lord of morn,
The raven veil of night was torn,
When, through golden clouds descending,
Thou didst hold thy radiant flight,
O'er Nature's lovely pageant bending,
Till Avon rolled, all-sparkling, to thy sight!
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