And what if some rebellious, o'er dark realms

Arrogate power? yet these train up to God,
THE DESTINY OF NATIONS.

And on the rude eye, unconfirm’d for day,

Flash meteor-lights better than total gloom
A VISION

As ere from Lieule-Oaive's vapory head

The Laplander beholds the far-off Sun
AUSPICIOUS Reverence! Hush all meaner song, Dart his slant beam on unobeying snows,
Ere we the deep preluding strain have pour'd While yet the stern and solitary Night
so the Great Father, only Rightful King,

Brooks no alternate sway, the Boreal Morn
Eternal Father! King Omnipotent!

With mimic lustre substitutes its gleam,
The Will, the Word, the Breath,—the Living God. Guiding his course or by Niemi lake

Or Balda-Zhiok,* or the mossy stone
Such symphony requires best instrument. Of Solfar-kapper,t while the snowy blast
Seize, then! my soul! from Freedom's trophied dome, Drifts arrowy by, or eddies round his sledge,
The Harp which hangeth high between the Shields Making the poor babe at its mother's backt
Of Brutus and Leonidas! With that

Scream in its scanty cradle: he the while
Strong music, that soliciting spell, force back

Wins gentle solace as with upward eye Earth's free and stirring spirit that lies entranc'd He marks the streamy banners of the North,

| Thinking himself those happy spirits shall join

Who there in floating robes of rosy light
For what is Freedom, but the unfetter'd use
Of all the powers which God for use had given?

Dance sportively. For Fancy is the Power

That first unsensualizes the dark mind,
But chiefly this, him First, him Last to view
Through meaner powers and secondary things

Giving it new delights; and bids it swell
Effulgent, as through clouds that veil his blaze.

With wild activity ; and peopling air, For all that meets the bodily sense I deem

By obscure fears of Beings invisible,

Emancipates it from the grosser thrall Symbolical, one mighty alphabet

of the present impulse, teaching Self-control, For infant minds; and we in this low world Placed with our backs to bright Reality,

Till Superstition with unconscious hand

Seat Reason on her throne. Wherefore not vain, l'hat we may learn with young unwounded ken The substance from its shadow. Infinite Love,

Nor yet without permitted power impress'd, Whose latence is the plenitude of All,

I deem'd those legends terrible, with which Thou with retracted Beams, and Self-eclipse

The polar ancient thrills his uncouth throng;

Whether of pitying Spirits that make their moan Veiling, revealest thine eternal Son.

O'er slaughter'd infants, or that Giant Bird

Vuokho, of whose rushing wings the noise But some there are who deem themselves most free Is Tempest, when the unutterable shapey When they within this gross and visible sphere Speeds from the mother of Death, and utters once Chain down the winged thought, scoffing ascent, That shriek, which never Murderer heard and lived Proud in their meanness: and themselves they cheat Or if the Greenland Wizard in strange trance With noisy emptiness of learned phrase,

Pierces the untraveli'd realms of Ocean's bed Their subtle fluids, impacts, essences,

(Where live the innocent, as far from carts Self-working tools, uncaus'd effects, and all

As from the storms and overwhelming waves Those blird Omniscients, those Almighty Slaves, Dark tumbling on the surface of the deep), Entenanting creation of its God.

Over the abysm, even to that uttermost cave

By misshaped prodigies beleaguer'd, such But properties are God: the naked

As Earth ne'er bred, nor Air, nor the upper Sea. df mass there be, fantastic Guess or Ghost)

There dwells the Fury Form, whose unheard Acts unly by its inactivity.

name Here we parise humbly. Others boldlier think

With eager eye, pale cheek, suspended breath, That as one body seems the aggregate Of Atoms numberless, each organized; So, by a strange and dim similitude,

• Balda Zhiok ; i.e. mons altitudinis, the highest mountain Infinite myriads of self-conscious minds

in Lapland. Arc one all-conscious Spirit, which informs

† Solfar Kapper; capitium Solfar, hic locus omnium quot

quot veterum Lapponum superstitio sacrificiis religiosoque culWith absolute ubiquity of thought

tui dedicavit, celebratissimus erat, in parte sinus australis situs His one eternal self-affirming Act !)

semimilliaris spatio a mari distans. Ipse locus, quem curiositatis All his involved Monads, that yet seem

gratia aliquando me invisisse memini, duabus prealtis lapidibus, With various province and apt agency

sibi invicem oppositis, quorum alter musco circumdatus erat,

constabat.--Leemius De Lapponibus. Each to pursue its own self-centering end.

ass

And lips half-opening with the dread of sound, Was moulded to such features as declared
Unsleeping Silence guards, worn out with fear, That Pity there had oft and strongly work'd,
Lest, haply escaping on some treacherous blast, And sometimes Indignation. Bold her mien
The fateful word let slip the Elements,

And like a haughty Huntress of the woods
And frenzy Nature. Yet the wizard her,

She mov'd: yet sure she was a gentle maid ! Arm'd with Torngarsuck’s* power, the Spirit of And in each motion her most innocent soul Good,

Beam'd forth so brightly, that who saw would say Forces to unchain the foodful progeny

Guilt was a thing impossible in her! of the Ocean's stream.—Wild phantasies! yet wise, Nor idly would have said—for she had lived On the victorious goodness of High God

In this bad World as in a place of Tornbs, 'Teaching Reliance, and Medicinal Hope,

And touch'd not the pollutions of the Dead.
Till from Bethabra northward, heavenly Truth,
With gradual steps winning her difficult way,

"T was the cold season, when the Rustic's eye Transfer their rude Faith perfected and pure.

From the drear desolate whiteness of his fields

Rolls for relief to watch the skiey tints
If there be Beings of higher class than Man,
I deem no nobler province they possess,

And clouds slow varying their huge imagery;

When now, as she was wont, the healthful Maid Than by disposal of apt circumstance

Had left her pallet ere one beam of day
To rear up Kingdoms: and the deeds they prompt,
Distinguishing from mortal agency,

Slanted the fog-smoke. She went forth alone.
They choose their human ministers from such states Urged by the indwelling angel-guide, that oft,
As still the Epic song half fears to name,

With dim inexplicable sympathies Repell’d from all the Minstrelsies that strike

Disquieting the Heart, shapes out Man's course The Palace-roof and soothe the Monarch's pride.

To the predoom'd adventure. Now the ascent

She climbs of that steep upland, on whose top And such, perhaps, the Spirit, who (if words

The Pilgrim-Man, who long since eve had watch d

The alien shine of unconcerning Stars, Witness'd by answering deeds may claim our Faith)

Shouts to himself, there first the Abbey-lights Held commune with that warrior-maid of France Who scourged the Invader. From her infant days. The winding sheep-track vale-ward: when, behold

Seen in Neufchatel's vale; now slopes adown With Wisdom, Mother of retired Thoughts,

In the first entrance of the level road
Her soul had dwelt; and she was quick to mark

An unattended Team! The foremost horse
The good and evil thing, in human lore
Undisciplined. For lowly was her Birth,

Lay with stretch'd limbs; the others, yet alive,

But stiff and cold, stood motionless, their manes And Heaven had doom'd her early years to Toil,

Hoar with the frozen night-dews. Dismally That pure from Tyranny's least deed, herself

The dark-red down now glimmerd; but its gleams Unsear'd by Fellow-natures, she might wait

Disclosed no face of man. The Maiden paused, On the poor Laboring man with kindly looks, And minister refreshment to the tired

Then hail'd who might be near No voice replied Way-wanderer, when along the rough-hewn Bench From the thwart wain at length there reachd he: The sweltry man had stretch'd him, and aloft

A sound so feeble that it almost seem'd
Vacantly watch'd the rudely pictured board
Which on the Mulberry-bough with welcome creak

Distant: and feebly, with slow effort push'do
Swung to the pleasant breeze. Here, too, the Maid

A miserable man crept forth : his limbs
Learnt more than Schools could teach: Man's shift- Faint on the shafts he rested. She, meantime,

The silent frost had eat, scathing like fire.
ing mind,

Saw crowded close beneath the coverture
His Vices and his Sorrows! And full oft

A mother and her children-lifeless all,
At Tales of cruel Wrong and strange Distress
Had wept and shiver'd. To the tottering Eld

Yet lovely! not a lineament was marrid

Death had put on so slumber-like a form!
Still as a Daughter would she run: she placed
His cold Limbs at the sunny Door, and loved

It was a piteous sight; and one, a babe,

The crisp milk frozen on its innocent lips, To hear him story, in his garrulous sort, of his eventful years, all come and gone.

Lay on the woman's arm, its liule hand

Stretch'd on her bosom.
So twenty seasons past. The Virgin's Form,
Active and tall, nor Sloth nor Luxury

Mutely questioning,
Had shrunk or paled. Her front sublime and broad, The Maid gazed wildly at the living wretch.
Her flexile eye-brows wildly hair’d and low, He, his head feebly turning, on the group
And her full eye, now bright, now unillum'd, Look'd with a vacant stare, and his eye spoke
Spake more than Woman's Thought; and all her The drowsy pang that steals on worn-out anguish
face

She shudder'd: but, each vainer pang subdued,

Quick disentangling from the foremost horse * They call the Good Spirit Torngarsuck. The other great The rustic bands, with difficulty and toil but malignant spirit is a nameless Female: she dwells under The stiff cramp'd team forced homeward. There the sea in a great house, where she can detain in captivity all

arrived, the animals of the ocean by her magic power. When a dearth befalls the Grcenlanders, an Angekok or magician must under- Anxiously tends him she with healing herbs, take a journey thither. He passes through the kingdom of And weeps and prays-but the numb power of Death wouls, over an horrible abyss into the Palace of this phantom, Spreads o'er his limbs; and ere the noontide hous .nd by his enchantments causes the captive creatures to ascend The hovering spirits of his Wife and Babes directly to the surface of the ocean. -Sce Crantz' Hist. pf

Hail him immortal! Yet amid his pangs, Greenland, vol. 1. 206.

ear

With interruptions long from ghastly throes, Sent forth, when she the Protoplast beheld
His voice had falter'd out this simple tale. Stand beauteous on Confusion's charmed wave.

Moaning she fled, and entered the Profound
The Village, where he dwelt an Husbandman, That leads with downward windings to the Cave
By sudden inroad had been seized and fired Of darkness palpable, Desert of Death
Late on the yester-evening. With his wife Sunk deep beneath Gehenna's massy roots.
And little ones he hurried his escape.

There many a dateless age the Beldame lurk'd They saw the neighboring Hamlets flame, they And trembled ; till engender'd by fierce Hate, heard

Fierce Hate and gloomy Hope, a Dream arose, Uproar and shrieks! and terror-struck drove on Shaped like a black cloud mark'd with streaks of Through unfrequented roads, a weary way!

fire. But saw nor house nor cottage. All had quench'd It roused the Hell-Hag : she the dew damp wiped Their evening hearth-fire : for the alarm had spread. From off her brow, and through the uncouth maze The air clipt keen, the night was fang'd with frost, Retraced her steps; but ere she reach'd the mouth And they provisionless! The weeping wife

Of that drear labyrinth, shuddering she paused, Il hush'd her children's moans; and still they Nor dared re-enter the diminish'd Gulf. moan'd,

As through the dark vaults of some moulder'd Till Fright and Cold and Hunger drank their life.

Tower They closed their eyes in sleep, nor knew 't was (Which, fearful to approach, the evening Hind Death.

Circles at distance in his homeward way) He only, lashing his o’er-wearied team,

The winds breathe hollow, deer'd the plaining groan Gain'd a sad respite, till beside the base

Of prison'd spirits; with such fearful voice Of the high hill his foremost horse dropp'd dead. Night murmur'd, and the sound through Chaos went Then hopeless, strengthless, sick for lack of food, Leap'd at her call her hideous-fronted brood ! Hle crept beneath the coverture, entranced, A dark behest they heard, and rush'd on earth; hill waken'd by the maiden.—Such his tale.

Since that sad hour, in Camps and Courts adored,

Rebels from God, and Monarchs o'er Mankind !" Ah! suffering to the height of what was suffer'd, Stung with too keen a sympathy, the Maid

From his obscure haunt Brooded with moving lips, mute, startful, dark ! And now her flush'd tumultuous features shot

Shriek'd Fear, of Cruelty the ghastly Dam, Such strange vivacity, as fires the eye

Feverish yet freezing, eager-paced yet slow, Of misery Fancy-crazed! and now once more

As she that creeps from forth her swampy reeds, Naked, and void, and fix'd, and all within

Ague, the biform Hag! when early Spring

Beams on the marsh-bred vapors.
The unquiet silence of confused thought
And shapeless feelings. For a mighty hand
Was strong upon her, till in the heat of soul
To the high hill-top tracing back her steps,

“ Even so" (the exulting Maiden said, Aside the beacon, up whose smoulder'd stones

The sainted Heralds of Good Tidings fell, The tender ivy-trails crept thinly, there,

And thus they witness'd God! But now the clouds Unconscious of the driving element,

Treading, and storms beneath their feet, they soar Yea, swallow'd up in the ominous dream, she sate Higher, and higher soar, and soaring sing Ghastly as broad-eyed Slumber! a dim anguish Loud songs of Triumph! O ye spirits of God, Breathed from her look! and still, with pant and sob, Hover around my mortal agonies !” Inly she toil'd to flee, and still subdued,

She spake, and instantly faint melody Feit an inevitable Presence near.

Melts on her ear, soothing and sad, and slow,

Such Measures, as at calmest midnight heard Thus as she toil'd in troublous ecstasy, By aged Hermit in his holy dream, An horror of great darkness wrapt her round, Foretell and solace death ; and now they rise And a voice uttered forth unearthly tones, Louder, as when with harp and mingled voice Calming her soul,—" 0 Thou of the Most High The white-robed* multitude of slaughter'd saints Chosen, whom all the perfected in Heaven At Heaven's wide-open'd portals gratulant Behold expectant

Receive some martyr'd Patriot. The harmony

Entranced the Maid, till each suspended sense [The following fragments were intended to form part of the Brief slumber seized, and confused ecstasy. Poem when finished.]

At length awakening slow, she gazed around : “ Maid beloved of Heaven!" And through a Mist, the relic of that trance To her the tutelary Power exclaim'd)

Still thinning as she gazed, an Isle appear'd, - Of Chaos the adventurous progeny

Its high, o'er-hanging, white, broad-breasted cliffa, Thou seest; foul missionaries of foul sire, Glass'd on the subject ocean. A vast plain Fierce to regain the losses of that hour

Stretch'd opposite, where ever and anon
When Love rose glittering, and his gorgeous wings
Over the abyss flutter'd with such glad noise,
As what time after long and pestful calms,

The Plow-man, following sad his meagre team, (Victims at once and Executioners),
Turn'd up fresh sculls unstarıled, and the bones The congregated Husbandmen lay waste
Of fierce hate-breathing combatants, who there The Vineyard and the Harvest. As long
All mingled lay beneath the common earth,

The Bothnic coast, or southward of the Line, Death's gloomy reconcilement! O'er the Fields Though hush'd the Winds and cloudless the high Stept a fair form, repairing all she might,

Noon,
Her temples olive-wreathed; and where she trod Yet if Leviathan, weary of ease,
Fresh flowerets rose, and many a foodful herb. In sports unwieldy toss his Island-bulk,
But wan her cheek, her footsteps insecure,

Ocean behind him billows, and before
And anxious pleasure bean'd in her faint eye, A storm of waves breaks foamy on the strand.
As she had newly lest a couch of pain,

And hence, for times and seasons bloody and dark, Pale Convalescent! (yet some time to rule

Short Peace shall skin the wounds of causeless War With power exclusive o'er the willing world, And War, his strained sinews knit anew, That bless'd prophetic mandate then fulfillid, Still violate the unfinish'd works of Peace. Peace be on Earth!) A happy while, but brief, But yonder look! for more demands thy view!" She seemd to wander with assiduous feet, He said: and straightway from the opposite Isle And heald the recent harm of chill and blight, A Vapor sailed, as when a cloud, exhaled And nursed each plant that fair and virtuous grew. From Egypt's fields that steam hot pestilence,

Travels the sky for many a trackless league, But soon a deep precursive sound moan'd hollow: Till o'er some Death-doom'd land, distant in vain,

It broods incumbent. Forthwith from the Plain, Black rose the clouds, and now (as in a dream) Their reddening shapes, transformed to Warrior- Facing the Isle, a brighter cloud arose,

And steer'd its course which way the Vapor weni. hosts, Coursed o'er the Sky, and battled in mid-air. The Maiden paused, musing what this might mean. Nor did not the large blood-drops fall from Heaven Bui long time pass'd not, ere that brighter cloud Portentous ! while aloft were seen to float, Return’d more bright; along the plain it swept : Like hideous features booming on the mist, And soon from forth its bursuing sides emerged Wan Stains of ominous Light! Resign'd, yet sad, A dazzling form, broad-bosom'd, bold of eye, The fair Form bowed her olive-crowned Brow, And wild her hair, save where with laurels bound. Then o'er the plain with oft-reverted eye

Not more majestic stood the healing God, Fled till a Place of Tombs she reach'd, and there When from his bow the arrow sped that slew Within a ruined Sepulchre obscure

Huge Python. Shriek'd Ambition's giant throng, Found Hiding-place.

And with them hissd the Locust-tiends that crawld

And glitter'd in Corruption's slimy track.
The delegated Maid

Great was their wrath, for short they knew their Gazed through her tears, then in sad tones exclaim'd,

reign; Thou mild-eyed Form! wherefore, ah! wherefore And such commotion made they, and uproar, fled ?

As when the mad Tornado bellows through The power of Justice, like a name all Light,

The guilty islands of the western main,
Shone from thy brow; but all they, who unblamed What time departing from their native shores,
Dwelt in thy dwellings, call thee Happiness.

Eboe, or Koromantyn's* plain of Palms,
Ah! why, uninjured and unprofited,
Should multitudes against their brethren rush?

The slaves in the West-Indies consider death as a passport Why sow they guilt, still reaping Misery?

to their native country. This sentiment is thus expressed in Lenient of care, thy songs, O Peace! are sweet, the introduction to a Greek Prize-Ode on the Slave-Trade, of As after showers the perfumed gale of eve,

which the ideas are better than the language in which they That Alings the cool drops on a feverous cheek:

are conveyed. And gay the grassy altar piled with fruits.

Ω σκοτου πυλας, θανατε, προλειπων But boasts the shrine of Dæmon War one charm,

Ες γενος σπευδοις υποζευχθεν Ατα: Save that with many an orgie strange and foul,

Ου ξενισθη στη γενυων σπαραγμοι; ; Dancing around with interwoven arms,

Ουδ' ολολυγμω, ,
The Maniac Suicide and Giant Murder

Αλλα και κυκλοισι χοροι τυποισι
Exult in their fierce union? I am sad,
And know not why the simple Peasants crowd

Κ’ ασματων χαρα φοβερος μεν εσσι
Beneath the Chieftains' standard !” Thus the Maid.

Αλλ' ομως Ελευθερια συνοικείς, ,

Στυγνε Τυραννε!

Δασκιοις επει πτερυγίσσι σησ To her the tutelary Spirit replied :

Α! θαλασσιον καθορωντες οισμα When Luxury and Lust's exhausted stores

Αιθεροπλαγτοις υπο ποσσ' ' No more can rouse the appetites of Kings;

Πατριδ επ' αιαν. When the low flattery of their reptile Lords

Ενθα Falls flat and heavy on the accustom'd ear;

μαν Ερασαι Ερωμενησιν When Eunuchs sing, and Fools busToonery make,

Αμφι πηγησιν κιτρινων υπ' αλσων, And Dancers writhe their harlot-limbs in vain;

Οσσ'υπο βρoτοις επαθον βροτσι, τα
Then War and all its dread vicissitudes

Δεινα λεγοναι. .
Pleasingly agitate their stagnant Hearts ;
Its hopes, its fears, its victories, its defeats,

LITERAL TRANSLATION.
Insipid Royalty's keen condiment !

Leaving the Gates of Darkness, O Death! hasten thou to a Therefore uninjured and unprofited

Race yoked with Misery! Thou wilt not be received with

ανέισι

The infuriate spirits of the Murder'd make Thus saying, from the answering Maid he pass'd,
Fierce merriment, and vengeance ask of Heaven. And with him disappear'd the Heavenly Vision.
Warmd with new influence, the unwholesome plain
Sent up its foulest fogs to meet the Morn :

Glory to Thee, Father of Earth and Heaven' The Sun that rose on Freedom, rose in blood!

All-conscious Presence of the Universe !

Nature's vast Ever-acting Energy! * Maiden beloved, and Delegate of Heaven !"

In Will, in Deed, Impulse of All to All! To her the tutelary Spirit said)

Whether thy love with unrefracted ray Soon shall the Morning struggle into Day,

Beam on the Prophet's purged eye, or if

Diseasing realms the enthusiast, wild of thought The stormy Morning into cloudless Noon. Much hast thou seen, nor all canst understand

Scatler new frenzies on the infected throng,
But this be thy best Omen—Save thy Country!”

Thou both inspiring and predooming both,
Fit instruments and best, of perfect end :

Glory to Thee, Father of Earth and Heaven!” lacerations of cheeks, nor with funeral ululation-but with cheling dances and the joy of songs. Thou art terrible indeed,

And first a landscape rose, get thou dwellest with Liberty, stern Genius! Borne on thy More wild and waste and desolate than where dark pinions over the swelling of ocean, they return to their satire country. There, by the side of Fountains beneath The white bear, drifting on a field of ice, Citroo-groves, the lovers tell to their beloved what horrors, Howls to her sunder'd cubs with piteous rage being Men, they had endured from Men.

And savage agony.

Sibylline Leaves.

I POEMS OCCASIONED BY POLITICAL may appear to mortals. The second Strophe calls EVENTS OR FEELINGS CONNECTED on men to suspend their private joys and sorrows.

and devote them for a while to the cause of humar, WITH THEM.

nature in general. The first Epode speaks of the Empress of Russia, who died of an apoplexy on the

17th of November, 1796; having just concluded a When I have borne in memory wbat has tamed subsidiary treaty with the Kings combined against Great nations, how ennobling thoughts depart France. The first and second Antistrophe describe When men change swords for legers, and desert

the Image of the Departing Year, etc. as in a vision The student's bower for gold, some fears unnamed I had, my country! Am I to be blamed ?

The second Epode prophesies, in anguish of spirit. But, when I think of Thee, and what Thou art,

the downfall of this country. Verily, in the bottom of my heart, or those unfilial fears I am ashamed. But dearly must we prize thee; we who find

I. la thee a bulwark of the cause of men ;

SPIRIT who sweepest the wild Harp of Time! And I by my affection was beguiled.

It is most hard, with an untroubled ear
What wonder if a poet, now and then,

Thy dark inwoven harmonies to hear!
Among the many movements of his mind,
Fel for thee as a Lover or a Child.

Yet, mine eye fix'd on Heaven's unchanging clime.
Wordsworth. Long when I listen'd, free from mortal fear,

With inward stillness, and submitted mind; ODE TO THE DEPARTING YEAR.*

When lo! its folds far waving on the wind,

I saw the train of the DEPARTING YEAR! loù, low, o kará.

Starting from my silent sadness, Υπ' αυ με δεινός ορθομαντείας πόνος

Then with no unholy madness, Στροβεί, ταράσσων φροιμίοις εφημίοις.

Ere yet the enter'd clond foreclosed my sight,

I raised the impetuous song, and solemnized his Το μέλλον ήξει. Και συ μην πάχει παρών

flight.
'Αγαν γ' αληθήμαντιν μ' έρείς.
AESCHYL. Agam. 1225.

II.
Hither, from the recent tomb.

From the prison's direr gloom,
ARGUMENT.

From Distemper's midnight anguish;
The Ode commences with an Address to the Divine And thence, where Poverty doth waste and languish,
Providence, that regulates into one vast harmony all

Or where, his two bright torches blending,

Love illumines manhood's maze ; the events of time, however calamitous some of them

Or where, o'er cradled infants bending,

Hope has fix'd her wishful gaze,
* This Ode was composed on the 24th, 25th, and 26th days
af December, 1796: and was first published on the last day of

Hither, in perplexed dance,
Ye Woes! ye young-eyed Joys! advance!