XXI.

Not yet not yet—not yet Heaven's sunlight darts
Through Error's clouds, and Ignorance's night;
Wide are the realms that, in their cheerless blight,
Pine darkling, with forlorn and sullied hearts.—
'Neath priesthood bigotry, 'neath tyrant thrall,

The wavering tremble, and the bold are mute,
Prone to the dust, o'erawed, Earth's thousands fall,
At the proud tramp of Superstition's foot:

Gleams the keen axe; outgushes the bright flood;
And Moloch's monstrous shrines are dewed with human blood.

XXII.

And these know not the name of Liberty;
And those the boon of Reason cast aside;
Time is to both a dark predestined tide,
Floating their shallops to Oblivion's sea;
Pines in its prison unregarded Thought;

The immortal soul is sullied and debased;
A worthless gift is conscience, given for nought;
From man the Maker's stamp is quite erased;
Like autumn leaf, or fly in summer's ray,
He shines his little hour, and vanisheth away!

XXIII.

Then spake the Spirit-Turn thee to the West,
And see what lies before thee.'—It was dim,
For clouds on the blue air, with shadowy skim,
Were rolling their faint billows; and my breast
Tumultuously heaved, as forth I gazed

Upon that prospect's wild immensity ;

For shadows shewed themselves, and then, erased,
Left not a trace on that decayless sky:

Bright forms, some fair like Hope, and some like Fear,
With spectral front sublime, stern, desolate. and drear.

XXIV.

Now 'twas Elysian, bright, and beautiful,

And now a chaos; though, sometimes, a star,
With momentary glitter, shone afar
Through tempest-clouds that made its lustre dull :
All was a mystery, till the Spirit's touch

Opened my eyelids; then the waste arrayed
Its scenes in majesty, whose glow was such,

That dim seemed that which erst I had surveyed;

And such a scope was to that vista given,

That almost I could see the golden gates of Heaven.

XXV.

Beneath 'twas peace and purity; the sword
Was beat into the sickle; and mankind
(As if 'twere daylight poured upon the blind)
The crooked paths of error quite abhorred :
Man's heart was changed; a renovated life

Throbbed in his veins, and turned his thoughts to joy;

Sickening he shrank from blood, and warlike strife,
Loathing the ire that led him to destroy;

Nations were linked in brotherhood; and Crime
Was heard of but as what had stained departed Time.

XXVI.

Then I saw Angels coming down from Heaven,
And mingling with mankind, almost as pure;
For, through the atonement of the Cross, a sure
And marvellous redemption had been given:
All ends of the earth obeyed it ;-East and West,
And South and North, responsive echo gave.

The mighty sea of discord, lulled to rest,

Was heard no more; Sin's storm was in its grave;

Religion's mandate bade the tumult cease;

And o'er each mountain-top the banners streamed of peace.

XXVII.

In the same lair the tame beast and the wild
Together caved; the lion and the kid,

Half by the palm-tree's noontide shadow hid,
Rolled mid the wild-flowers with the fearless child ;-
When sudden darkness fell: the crackling skies

Together rushed as 'twere a folding scroll;

I knew the end of human destinies,

And speechless awe oppressed my shrinking soul : When stood an Angel earths unburied o'er,

And swore by HIM that lives, that Time should be no more.'

XXVIII.

This was the end of all things, and I turned

Around, but there lay darkness-and a void-
Creation's map, dim, blotted, and destroyed-

The sun, the moon, the stars, no longer burned.
Earth was not now, nor seemed to have ever been-

Nor wind-nor wave-nor cloud-nor storm-nor shineWide, universal chaos wrapped the scene,

And hid the Almighty's countenance divine:

Then died my heart within me; I awoke,

And brightly on mine eyes the silver moonshine broke.

XXIX.

I knew the trees above me-heard the rills

That o'er their pebbles gently murmuring ran;
And saw the wild-blooms, bathed in lustre wan;

And far away the azure-shouldered hills;

Then up I rose :-but, graven, long shall last

On Memory's page the marvels sleep hath shewn,

With wonders spotted the receding past;

With mysteries manifold the future strewn; The mouldering castle of the spoiler Time;

And Heaven's o'erarching dome eternal and sublime!

THE INFLUENCE OF NATURE AND POETRY

ON NATIONAL SPIRIT;

An Entroductory Poem

FOR THE THIRTEENTH VOLUME OF TIME'S TELESCOPE, BY WILLIAM HOWITT,

Author of the Forest Minstrel and other Poems.

THERE walks a power amongst us-a magician
Subtle and cruel; potent in the lore

Of realm-consuming Time ;—each dread transition
of states which rose, reigned, passed, and are no more.
And now he sojourns, not as wont of yore

Sly Archimage in deserts for lost knight;

But, where tow'rs rise, amidst the peopled roar, Where passions glow, all strange desires alight, There stalks the smiling fiend-there glories in his might.

"Tis GAIN!-insatiate Gain!-the shrewdest, worst Spirit which from our weakness and our need

Draws life; and with his sorceries accurst

All soul and sense, each thought and act can knead
Unto his will; make hope, ambition lead

His victims on; hot emulation wage

War on our sloth, still pointing to the meed
Of halls, lands, honours, glittering equipage,

Till e'en the wise grow mad with his Tartarean rage.

III.

For this, he coops us in his walled towns, Where the blest spirit of the heavens and earth May never cope with his, which stuns and drowns Each nobler thought and feeling in its birth: For this, the wizard has his pomp and mirth; For this, the palace shines, the rich man's door Swings wide with lordly echoes; wisdom, worth, Learning, and star-eyed beauty, there adore; Each grace divinely smiles, and pleasure's cup runs o'er.

IV.

For this, the poor,-aye, where abideth he?
Not in his woodbined cottage; not below
The breezy hill, or health-distilling tree;
But, where the toiling mass must ever go,
In close-wedged allies, tenements of woe
And pestilential filth, where the blue sky
Sheds down no heavenly influence, nor the blow
Of perfumed zephyr visits, but where hie
Crime, ignorance, and scorn, to haunt him till he die.

V.

Oh, false and cruel witchcraft! they who speed
Most in their sordid wishes, what reward

Is theirs? Thirst, inextinguishable thirst to feed;
To writhe in hot desires; to freeze in fraud;
To sear the spirit to a thing abhorred,
A joyless, loveless, merciless compound
Of misery and meanness, which, unawed
By voice of past or future, clasps the ground

Till the grave opens-shuts—and the worm is not found.