Watch, well its course—explore with anxious eye

Each little cloud that floats along the sky—

Is the hlue canopy serenely fair?

Yet may the thunderbolt unseen be there,

And the bark sink, when peace and sunshine sleep

On the smooth bosom of the waveless deep!

Yes I ere a sound, a sign, announce thy fate,

May the blow fall which makes thee desolate!

Not always Heaven's destroying angel shrouds

His awful form in tempests and in clouds;

He fills the summer air with latent power,

He hides his venom in the scented flower,

He steals upon thee in the Zephyr's breath,

And festal garlands veil the shafts of death!

Where art thou then, who thus didst rashly cast Thine all upon the mercy of the blast, And vainly hope the tree of life to find Rooted in sands that flit before the wind? Is not that earth thy spirit loved so well It wish'd not in a brighter sphere to dwell, Become a desert now, a vale of gloom, O'ershadow'd with the midnight of the tomb? Where shalt thou turn?—it is not thine to raise To yon pure heaven thy calm confiding gaze, No gleam reflected from that realm of rest Steals on the darkness of thy troubled breast; Not for thine eye shall Faith divinely shed Her glory round the image of the dead; And if, wben slumber's lonely couch, is prest, The form departed be thy spirit's guest, It bears no light from purer worlds to this; Thy future lends not e'en a dream of bliss.

But who shall dare the gate of life to close, Or say, thus far the stream of mercy flows? That fount unseal'd, whose boundless waves embrace Each distant isle, and visit every race, Pours from the throne of God its current free, Nor yet denies th' immortal draught to thee. O! while the doom impends, not yet decreed, While yet th' Atoner hath not ceased to plead, While still, suspended by a single hair, The sharp bright sword hangs quivering in the air, Bow down thy heart to Him who will not break The bruised reed; e'en yet, awake, awake! Patient, because Eternal,1 He may hear Thy prayer of agony with pitying ear, And send his chastening Spirit from above, O'er the deep chaos of thy soul to move.

But seek thou mercy through His name alone, To whose unequall'd sorrows none was shown. Through Him, who here in mortal garb abode, As man to suffer, and to heal as God; And, born the sons of utmost time to bless, Endured all scorn, and aided all distress.

Call thou on Him—for He, in human form, Hath walk'd the waves of life, and still'd the storm. He, when her hour of lingering grace was past, O'er Salem wept, relenting to the last, Wept with such tears as Judah's monarch pour'd O'er his lost child, ungrateful, yet deplored; And, offering guiltless blood that guilt might live, Taught from his Cross the lesson—to forgive!

Call thou on Him—his prayer e'en then arose, Breathed in unpitied anguish for his foes. And haste!—ere bursts the lightning from on high, Fly to the City of thy Refuge, fly!2 So shall th' Avenger turn his steps away, And sheath his falchion, baffled of its prey.

Yet must long days roll on, ere peace shall brood, As the soft halcyon, o'er thy heart subdued; Ere yet the dove of Heaven descend, to shed Inspiring influence o'er thy fallen head. —He, who hath pined in dungeons, 'midst the shade Of such deep night as man for man hath made, Through lingering years; if calTd at length to be, Once more, by nature's boundless charter, free, Shrinks feebly back, the blaze of noon to shun, Fainting at day, and blasted by the sun.

Thus, when the captive soul hath long remain'd In its own dread abyss of darkness chain'd, If the Deliverer, in his might, at last, Its fetters, born of earth, to earth should cast, The beam of truth o'erpowers its dazzled sight, Trembling it sinks, and finds no joy in light But this will pass away—that spark of mind, Within thy frame unquenchably enshrined, Shall live to triumph in its bright'ning ray, Born to be foster'd with ethereal day. Then wilt thou bless the hour, when o'er thee pass'd, On wing of flame, the purifying blast, And sorrow's voice, through paths before untrod, Like Sinai's trumpet, call'd thee to thy God 1

But hopest thou, in thy panoply of pride, Heaven's messenger, affliction, to deride? In thine own strength unaided to defy, With Stoic smile, the arrows of the sky? Torn hy the vulture, fetter'd to the rock, Still, demigod! the tempest wilt thou mock? Alas! the tower that crests the mountain's brow A thousand years may awe the vale below, Yet not the less be shatter'd on its height, By one dread moment of the earthquake's might! A thousand pangs thy bosom may have borne, In silent fortitude, or haughty scorn, Till comes the one, the master-anguish, sent To break the mighty heart that ne'er was bent.

Oh! what is nature's strength? the vacant eye,
By mind deserted, hath a dread reply!
The wild delirious laughter of despair,
The mirth of frenzy—seek an answer there!
Turn not away, though pity's cheek grow pale,
Close not thine ear against their awful tale.
They tell thee, Reason, wandering from the ray
Of Faith, the blazing pillar of her way,
In the mid-darkness of the stormy wave,
Forsook the struggling soul she could not save!
Weep not, sad moralist! o'er desert plains,
Strew'd with the wrecks of grandeur—mouldering
fanes,

Arches of triumph, long with weeds o'ergrown,
And regal cities, now the serpent's own:
Earth has more awful ruins—one lost mind,
Whose star is quench'd, hath lessons for mankind,
Of deeper import than each prostrate dome,
Mingling its marble with the dust of Rome.

But who, with eye unshrinking, shall explore
That waste, illumed by reason's beam no more?
Who pierce the deep, mysterious clouds that roll
Around the shatter'd temple of the soul,
Curtain'd with midnight ?—low its columns lie,
And dark the chambers of its imag'ry,3
Sunk are its idols now—and God alone
May rear the fabric, by their fall overthrown!
Yet, from its inmost shrine, by storms laid bare,
Is heard an oracle that cries—" Beware!
Child of the dust! but ransomed of the skies!
One breath of Heaven—and thus thy glory dies I
Haste, ere the hour of doom—draw nigh to him
Who dwells above between the cherubim!"

Spirit dethroned! and check'd in mid career, Son of the morning! exiled from thy sphere, Tell us thy tale !—Perchance thy race was run With science, in the chariot of the sun; Free as the winds the paths of space to sweep, Traverse the untrodden kingdoms of the deep, And search the laws that Nature's springs control, There tracing all — save Him who guides the whole!

Haply thine eye its ardent glance had cast Through the dim shades, the portals of the past; By the bright lamp of thought thy care had fed From the far beacon-lights of ages fled,