Ring out, ye crystal spheres, Once bless our human ears, If ye have power to touch our senses so; And let your silver chime Move in melodious time; And let the bass of Heaven's deep organ blow; And, with your ninefold harmony, Make up full concert to the angelic symphony. For if such holy song Enwrap our fancy long, Time will run back and fetch the age of gold; And speckled vanity Will sicken soon and die, And leprous sin will melt from earthly mould; And hell itself will pass away, And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day. Yea, truth and justice then Will down return to men, Orb'd in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing, Mercy will sit between, Throned in celestial sheen, With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering; And heaven, as at some festival, Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall. But wisest Fate says No, This must not yet be so, The babe yet lies in smiling infancy, That on the bitter cross Must redeem our loss; So both himself and us to glorify; Yet first to those enchain'd in sleep, The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep; With such a horrid clang As on Mount Sinai rang, While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake : The aged earth aghast With terror of that blast, Shall from the surface to the centre shake; When at the world's last session, The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne. And then at last our bliss Full and perfect is, But now begins; for, from this happy day, The old Dragon, under ground In straiter limits bound, Not half so far casts his usurped sway; And, wroth to see his kingdom fail, Swindges the scaly horror of his folded tail. The oracles are dumb, No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No nightly trance, or breathed spell, Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell. The lonely mountains o'er, And the resounding shore, A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; From haunted spring and dale, Edged with poplar pale, The parting genius is with sighing sent; With flower-inwoven tresses torn, The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn. In consecrated earth, And on the holy hearth, The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint; In urns, and altars round, A drear and dying sound Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint; And the chill marble seems to sweat, While each peculiar power foregoes his wonted seat. Peor and Bäalim Forsake their temples dim, With that twice-batter'd god of Palestine; And mooned Ashtaroth, Heaven's queen and mother both, Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine; The Libyc Hammon shrinks his horn; In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn. And sullen Moloch, fled, Hath left in shadows dread His burning idol all of blackest hue; In vain with cymbals' ring, They call the grisly king, In dismal dance about the furnace blue; The brutish gods of Nile as fast, Isis and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste. Nor is Osiris seen In Memphian grove or green, Trampling the unshower'd grass with lowings loud: Nor can he be at rest Within his sacred chest ; Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud; In vain with timbrel'd anthems dark The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipp'd ark. He feels from Judah's land The dreaded Infant's hand; The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn; Nor all the gods beside Longer dare abide, Nor Typhon huge ending in snaky twine: Our Babe, to show his Godhead true, Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew. So, when the sun in bed, Curtain'd with cloudy red, Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, The flocking shadows pale Troop to the infernal jail ; Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave; And the yellow-skirted fayes Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze. But see, the Virgin blest Hath laid her Babe to rest; Time is, our tedious song should here have ending : Heaven's youngest-teemed star Hath fix'd her polish'd car, Her sleeping Lord, with handmaid lamp, attending; And all about the courtly stable Bright harness'd angels sit in order serviceable. HUMAN LIFE. A passage from ROGERS. THE lark has sung his carol in the sky, Now, glad at heart, the gossips breathe their prayer, A few short years-and then these sounds shall hail Then the huge ox shall yield the broad sirloin ; And soon again shall music swell the breeze; And once, alas! nor in a distant hour, He rests in holy earth with them that went before. And such is human Life; so gliding on, To minstrel-harps at midnight's witching hour! THE TWO ANGELS. The following, by Professor LONGFELLOW, appeared in Bentley's Miscellany. Two angels, one of Life and one of Death, Pass'd o'er the village as the morning broke; The dawn was on their faces, and beneath, The sombre houses hearsed with plumes of smoke. Their attitude and aspect were the same, Alike their features and their robes of white; I saw them pause on their celestial way; And he, who wore the crown of asphodels, I recognised the nameless agony, The terror, and the tremor, and the pain, That oft before had fill'd and haunted me, And now return'd with threefold strength again. The door I open'd to my heavenly guest, And listen'd, for I thought I heard God's voice; |