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Created might, unpunished, bind or touch; Unbound, save by the eternal laws of God, And unamenable to all below.

Thus did the uncircumcised potentates
Of earth debase religion in the sight

Of those they ruled-who, looking up, beheld
The fair celestial gift despised, enslaved;
And, mimicking the folly of the great,
With prompt docility despised her too.

The prince or magistrate, however named Or praised, who, knowing better, acted thus, Was wicked, and received, as he deserved, Damnation. But the unfaithful priest, what tongue

Enough shall execrate? His doctrine may
Be passed, though mixed with most unhallowed
leaven,

That proved to those who foolishly partook,
Eternal bitterness:-but this was still
His sin-beneath what cloak soever veiled,
His ever growing and perpetual sin,

First, last, and middle thought, whence every wish,

Whence every action rose, and ended both-
To mount to place, and power of worldly sort;
To ape the gaudy pomp and equipage
Of earthly state, and on his mitred brow
To place a royal crown: for this he sold
The sacred truth to him who most would give
Of titles, benefices, honours, names:
For this betrayed his Master; and for this
Made merchandise of the immortal souls
Committed to his care-this was his sin.

Of all who office held unfairly, none
Could plead excuse; he least, and last of all.
By solemn, awful ceremony, he
Was set apart to speak the truth entire,
By action, and by word; and round him stood
The people, from his lips expecting knowledge:
One day in seven, the Holy Sabbath termed,
They stood; for he had sworn in face of God
And man, to deal sincerely with their souls;
To preach the gospel for the gospel's sake;
Had sworn to hate and put away all pride,
All vanity, all love of earthly pomp;

To seek all mercy, meekness, truth, and grace;
And being so endowed himself, and taught
In them like works of holiness to move;
Dividing faithfully the word of life.
And oft indeed the word of life he taught;
But practising, as thou hast heard, who could
Believe? Thus was religion wounded sore
At her own altars, and among her friends.
The people went away, and, like the priest,
Fulfilling what the prophet spoke before,
For honour strove, and wealth, and place, as if
The preacher had rehearsed an idle tale.
The enemies of God rejoiced, and loud
The unbeliever laughed, boasting a life
Of fairer character than his, who owned,
For king and guide, the undefiled One.
Most guilty, villanous, dishonest man!
Wolf in the clothing of the gentle lamb!
Dark traitor in Messiah's holy camp!

Leper in saintly garb-assassin masked
In Virtue's robe! vile hypocrite accursed!
I strive in vain to set his evil forth.
The words that should sufficiently accurse,
And execrate such reprobate, had need
Come glowing from the lips of eldest hell.
Among the saddest in the den of woe,
Thou saw'st him saddest, 'mong the damned,
most damned.

But why should I with indignation burn, Not with beseeming here, and long forgot? Or why one censure for another's sin? Each had his conscience, each his reason, will, And understanding, for himself to search, To choose, reject, believe, consider, act: And God proclaimed from heaven, and by an oath Confirmed, that each should answer for himself And as his own peculiar work should be, Done by his proper self, should live, or die. But sin, deceitful and deceiving still, Had gained the heart, and reason led astray.

A strange belief, that leaned its idiot back
On folly's topmost twig-belief that God,
Most wise, had made a world, had creatures
made,

Beneath his care to govern, and protect,-
Devoured its thousands. Reason, not the true,
Learned, deep, sober, comprehensive, sound;
But bigoted, one-eyed, short-sighted Reason,
Most zealous, and sometimes, no doubt, sincere-
Devoured its thousands. Vanity to be
Renowned for creed eccentrical-devoured
Its thousands: but a lazy, corpulent,
And over-credulous faith, that leaned on all
It met, nor asked if 'twas a reed or oak;
Stepped on, but never earnestly inquired
Whether to heaven or hell the journey led-
Devoured its tens of thousands, and its hands
Made reddest in the precious blood of souls.

In Time's pursuits men ran till out of breath. The astronomer soared up, and counted stars, And gazed, and gazed upon the Heaven's brigh face,

Till he dropt down dim-eyed into the grave:
The numerist in calculations deep
Grew gray: the merchant at his desk expired:
The statesman hunted for another place,
Till death o'ertook him, and made him his prey:
The miser spent his eldest energy,
In grasping for another mite: the scribe
Rubbed pensively his old and withered brow,
Devising new impediments to hold

In doubt the suit that threatened to end too soon:
The priest collected tithes, and pleaded rights
Of decimation to the very last.

In science, learning, all philosophy,

Men laboured all their days, and laboured hard,
And dying, sighed how little they had done:
But in religion they at once grew wise.
A creed in print, though never understood;
A theologic system on the shelf,

Was spiritual lore enough, and served their turn:
But served it ill. They sinned, and never knew
For what the Bible said of good and bad,
Of holiness and sin, they never asked.

THE COURSE OF TIME.

Absurd-prodigiously absurd, to think
That man's minute and feeble faculties,
Even in the very childhood of his being,
With mortal shadows dimmed, and wrapt around,
Could comprehend at once the mighty scheme,
Where rolled the ocean of eternal love;
Where wisdom infinite its master stroke
Displayed; and where omnipotence, opprest,
Did travel in the greatness of its strength;
And everlasting justice lifted up

The sword to smite the guiltless Son of God;
And mercy, smiling, bade the sinner go!
Redemption is the science, and the song
Of all eternity: archangels day

And night into its glories look: the saints,
The elders round the throne, old in the years
Of heaven, examine it perpetually;
And every hour, get clearer, ampler views
Of right and wrong-see virtue's beauty more;
See vice more utterly depraved, and vile;
And this with a more perfect hatred hate;
That daily love with a more perfect love.

But whether I for man's perdition blame Office administered amiss; pursuit Of pleasure false; perverted reason blind; Or indolence that ne'er inquired-I blame Effect and consequence; the branch, the leaf. Who finds the fount and bitter root, the first And guiltiest cause whence sprung this endless

woe,

Must deep descend into the human heart,

And in the madness of his pride he bade His God farewell, and turned away to be A god himself; resolving to rely, Whatever came, upon his own right hand.

.105

O desperate frenzy! madness of the will! And drunkenness of the heart! that nought could quench

But floods of woe, poured from the sea of wrath,
Behind which mercy set. To think to turn
The back on life original, and live—
The creature to set up a rival throne
In the Creator's realm-to deify

A worm-and in the sight of God be proud-
To lift an arm of flesh against the shafts
Of the Omnipotent, and midst his wrath
To seek for happiness-insanity

Most mad! guilt most complete! Seest thou those worlds

That roll at various distance round the throne
Of God, innumerous, and fill the calm
Of heaven with sweetest harmony, when saints
And angels sleep-as one of these, from love
Centripetal withdrawing, and from light,
And heat, and nourishment cut off, should rush
Abandoned o'er the line that runs between
Create and increate; from ruin driven
To ruin still, through the abortive waste;
So pride from God drew off the bad; and so
Forsaken of him, he lets them ever try
Their single arm against the second death;
Amidst vindictive thunders lets them try

And find it there. Dread passion! making men The stoutness of their hearts; and lets them try

On earth, and even in hell, if Mercy yet
Would stoop so low, unwilling to be saved,
if saved by grace of God.-Hear then, in brief,
What peopled hell, what holds its prisoners there.

Pride, self-adoring pride, was primal cause
Of all sin past, all pain, all woe to come.
Unconquerable pride! first, eldest sin;
Great fountain-head of evil; highest source,
Whence flowed rebellion 'gainst the Omnipotent,

Whence hate of man to man, and all else ill.
Pride at the bottom of the human heart
Lay, and gave root and nourishment to all
That grew above. Great ancestor of vice!
Hate, unbelief, and blasphemy of God;
Envy and slander; malice and revenge;
And murder, and deceit, and every birth
Of damned sort, was progeny of pride.
It was the ever-moving, acting force,
The constant aim, and the most thirsty wish
Of every sinner unrenewed, to be
A god:-in purple or in rags, to have
Himself adored: whatever shape or form
His actions took: whatever phrase he threw
About his thoughts, or mantle o'er his life,
To be the highest, was the inward cause
Of all the purpose of the heart to be
Set up, admired, obeyed. But who would bow
The knee to one who served and was dependent?
Hence man's perpetual struggle, night and day,
To prove he was his own proprietor,
And independent of his God, that what
He had might be esteemed his own, and praised
As such.-He laboured still, and tried to stand
Alone unpropped-to be obliged to none;

To quench their thirst amidst the unfading fire;
And to reap joy where he has sown despair;
To walk alone, unguided, unbemoaned,
Where Evil dwells, and Death, and moral Night;
In utter emptiness to find enough;
In utter dark find light; and find repose
Where God with tempest plagues for evermore :
For so they wished it, so did pride desire.

Rebelliously from God, and led them on
Such was the cause that turned so many off

From vain to vainer still, in endless chase.
And such the cause that made so many cheeks
Pale, and so many knees to shake, when men
Rose from the grave; as thou shalt hear anon.

BOOK III.

ANALYSIS.

IN this book the bard shows that, however man disobeyed the command to love God, truth, and virtue, they still strove to gain happiness; but which could only be gained by obedience to the command; for the attainment of which men pursued many strange and crooked paths, in none of which could it be found; as happiness was indissolubly united to virtue. Yet men pursued the phantom Hope, which danced be. fore them in every path, and ever mocked their grasp, "till the earth, beneath them, broke and wrapt them in the grave."

Strange tracks indeed they took through barrer.

wastes,

Many sought for happiness in the enjoyment of But, erring from the heaven-appointed path, pleasures, but it ever proved vain, in hope, or in possession. Many sought for happiness in the attainment of riches. This also mostly And up the sandy mountain climbing toiled, ended in bitterness and woe. Many pursued the Which, pining, lay beneath the curse of God, phantom Fame, that fame which raised not in And nought produced: yet did the traveller look the resurrection morn, "Earthly fame," but And point his eye before him greedily, all in vain.-Many sought happiness in dissi-As if he saw some verdant spot, where grew pation, in inebriation; "deliberately resolving The heavenly flower, where sprung the well of to be mad;" some in hawking and hunting, life, some in the search after curiosities, and some even in hopeless scepticism sought happiness. And thus mankind followed vanities in despite of wisdom's warning voice; in despite of the teaching of all animated and unanimated nature; in despite of the offers of mercy continually held out to them in spite, even, of the threatenings of death, to "make repentance vain," men rushed on determined, to ruin, and shut their cars to all advice, to all reproof, till death, "the great teacher," convinced each, too late, that Eternity is all."

BEHOLD'ST thou yonder, on the crystal sea,
Beneath the throne of God, an image fair,
And in its hand a mirror large and bright?
'Tis truth, immutable, eternal truth,
In figure emblematical expressed.
Before it Virtue stands, and smiling sees,
Well pleased, in her reflected soul, no spot.
The sons of heaven, archangel, seraph, saint,
There daily read their own essential worth;
And, as they read, take place among the just;
Or high, or low, each as his value seems.
There each his certain interest learns, his true
Capacity; and, going thence, pursues,
Unerringly through all the tracts of thought,
As God ordains, best ends by wisest means.

The Bible held this mirror's place on earth:
But, few would read, or, reading, saw themselves.
The chase was after shadows, phantoms strange,
That in the twilight walked of Time, and mocked
The eager hunt, escaping evermore;
Yet with so many promises and looks
Of gentle sort, that he whose arms returned
Empty a thousand times, still stretched them out,
And, grasping, brought them back again unfilled.

In rapid outline thou hast heard of man;
His death; his offered life; that life by most
Despised; the Star of God-the Bible, scorned,
That else to happiness and heaven had led,
And saved my lyre from narrative of woe.
Hear now more largely of the ways of Time;
The fond pursuits and vanities of men.

Where undisturbed felicity reposed;
Though Wisdom's eye no vestige could discern,
That happiness had ever passed that way.

Wisdom was right: for still the terms remained
Unchanged, unchangeable; the terms on which
True peace was given to man; unchanged as God,
Who, in his own essential nature, binds
Eternally to virtue happiness;
Nor lets them part through all his Universe.

Philosophy, as thou shalt near, when she
Shall have her praise-her praise and censure too,
Did much, refining and exalting man;

But could not nurse a single plant that bore
True happiness.-From age to age she toiled;
Shed from her eyes the mist that dimmed them

still,

Looked forth on man; explored the wild and

tame,

The savage and polite, the sea and land,
The starry heavens; and then retired far back
To meditation's silent shady seat;

And there sat pale, and thoughtfully; and weighed
With wary, most exact and scrupulous care,
Man's nature, passions, hopes, propensities,
Relations, and pursuits, in reason's scale;
And searched and weighed, and weighed and
searched again,

And many a fair and goodly volume wrote,
That seemed well worded too, wherein were
found

Uncountable receipts, pretending each,
If carefully attended to, to cure

Mankind of folly;-to root out the briers,
And thorns, and weeds that choked the growth
of joy ;-

And showing too, in plain and decent phrase,
Which sounded much like wisdom's, how to
plant,

To shelter, water, culture, prune, and rear
The tree of happiness; and oft their plans
Were tried; but still the fruit was green and sour.

Of all the trees that in Earth's vineyard grew,
And with their clusters tempted man to pull
And eat, one tree, one tree alone, the true
Celestial manna bore, which filled the soul-

Love God, love truth, love virtue, and be The tree of Holiness-of heavenly seed;

happy :

These were the words first uttered in the ear
Of every being rational made, and made
For thought, or word, or deed accountable.
Most men the first forgot, the second none.
Whatever path they took, by hill or vale,
By night or day, the universal wish,
The aim, and sole intent, was happiness:

A native of the skies; though stunted much,
And dwarfed, by Time's cold, damp, ungenial soil,
And chilling winds, yet yielding fruit so pure,
So nourishing and sweet, as, on his way,
Refreshed the pilgrim; and begot desire
Unquenchable to climb the arduous path
To where her sister plants, in their own clime,
Around the fount, and by the stream of lite,

THE COURSE OF TIME.

Blooming beneath the Sun that never sets,-Bear fruit of perfect relish, fully ripe.

To plant this tree, uprooted by the fall, To earth the Son of God descended, shed His precious blood; and on it evermore, From off his living wings, the Spirit shook

107

Earth's freshest verdure seemed but blasted ·leaves,

Praised childhood, youth and manhood, and de nounced

Old age alone as barren of all joy.
Decisive proof that men had left behind
The happiness they sought, and taken a most

The dews of heaven, to nurse and hasten its Erroneous path; since every step they took

growth.

Nor was this care, this infinite expense,

Not needed to secure the holy plant.
To root it out, and wither it from earth,

Hell strove with all its strength, and blew with all
Its blasts; and Sin, with cold, consumptive breath,
Involved it still in clouds of mortal damp.
Yet did it grow, thus kept, protected thus:
And bear the only fruit of true delight;
The only fruit worth plucking under heaven.

But few, alas! the holy plant could see,
For heavy mists that Sin around it threw
Perpetually; and few the sacrifice

Would make by which alone its clusters stooped,
And came within the reach of mortal man.
For this, of him who would approach and eat,
Was rigorously exacted to the full:-
To tread and bruise beneath the foot, the world
Entire; its prides, ambitions, hopes, desires;
Its gold, and all its broidered equipage;
To loose its loves and friendships from the heart,
And cast them off; to shut the ear against
Its praise, and all its flatteries abhor;
And having thus behind him thrown what seemed
So good and fair, then must he lowly kneel,
And with sincerity, in which the Eye
That slumbers not, nor sleeps, could see no lack,
This prayer pray :-"Lord God! thy will be
done;

Thy holy will, howe'er it cross my own."

Hard labour this for flesh and blood! too hard
For most it scemed: so, turning, they the tree
Derided, as mere bramble, that could bear
No fruit of special taste; and so set out
Upon ten thousand different routes to seek
What they had left behind; to seek what they
Had lost-for still as something once possest,
And lost, true happiness appeared: all thought
They once were happy; and even while they
smoked

And panted in the chase, believed themselves
More miserable to-day than yesterday-

Was deeper mire. Yet did they onward run, Pursuing Hope that danced before them still, And beckoned them to proceed; and with their hands,

That shook and trembled piteously with age, Grasped at the lying Shade, even till the earth Beneath them broke, and wrapt them in the grave,

Sometimes, indeed, when wisdom in their ear Whispered, and with its disenchanting wand Effectually touched the sorcery of their eyes, Directly pointing to the holy tree,

Where grew the food they sought, they turned, surprised

That they had missed so long what now they found.

As one upon whose mind some new and rare
Idea glances, and retires as quick,

Ere memory have time to write it down;
Stung with the loss, into a thoughtful cast,
He throws his face, and rubs his vexed brow;
Searches each nook and corner of his soul
With frequent care; reflects, and re-reflects,
And tries to touch relations that may start
The fugitive again; and oft is foiled;
Till something like a seeming chance, or flight
Of random fancy, when expected least,
Calls back the wanderer thought-long sought
in vain.

Then does uncommon joy fill all his mind;
And still he wonders, as he holds it fast,
What lay so near he could not sooner find:
So did the man rejoice, when from his eye
The film of folly fell, and what he day
And night, and far and near, had idly searched,
Sprung up before him suddenly displayed;
So wondered why he missed the tree so long.

But, few returned from folly's giddy chase. Few heard the voice of wisdom, or obeyed. Keen was the search, and various, and wide Without, within, along the flowery vale, And up the rugged cliff, and on the top

To-morrow than to-day. When youth com- Of mountains high, and on the ocean wave.

plained,

The ancient signer shook his hoary head,
As if he meant to say: Stop till you come
My length, and then you may have cause to sigh.
At twenty, cried the boy, who now had seen
Some blemish in his joys: How happily
Plays yonder child that busks the mimic babe,
And gathers gently flowers,, and never sighs!
At forty in the fervour of pursuit,
Far on in disappointment's dreary vale,
The grave and sage-like man looked back upon
The stripling youth of plump unseared hope,
Who galloped gay and briskly up behind-
And, moaning, wished himself eighteen again.
And he of threescore years and ten, in whose
Chilled eye, fatigued with gaping after hope,

Keen was the search, and various, and wide,
And ever and anon a shout was heard:
Ho! here's the tree of life; come, eat, and live!
And round the new discoverer quick they flocker
In multitudes, and plucked, and with great haste
Devoured; and sometimes in the lips 'twas sweet,
And promised well; but in the belly, gall.
Yet after him that cried again: Ho! here's
The tree of life; again they run, and pulled,
And chewed again, and found it bitter still.
From disappointment on to disappointment,
Year after year, age after age pursued:
The child, the youth, the hoary headed man,
Alike pursued, and ne'er grew wise: for it
Was folly's most peculiar attribute,
And native act, to make experience void.

But hastily, as pleasures tasted turned To loathing and disgust, they needed not Even such experiment to prove them vain. In hope or in possession, Fear, alike, Boding disaster, stood. Over the flower Of fairest sort, that bloomed beneath the sun, Protected most, and sheltered from the storm, The Spectre, like a dark and thunderous cloud Hung dismally, and threatened, before the hand Of him that wished could pull it to descend, And o'er the desert drive its withered leaves; Or, being pulled, to blast it unenjoyed, While yet he gazed upon its loveliness, And just began to drink its fragrance up.

Gold many hunted-sweat and bled for gold; Waked all the night, and laboured all the day. And what was this allurement, dost thou ask? As dust dug from the bowels of the earth, Which, being cast into the fire, came out A shining thing that fools admired, and called A god; and in devout and humble plight Before it kneeled, the greater to the less; And on its altar sacrificed ease, peace, Truth, faith, integrity; good conscience, friends, Love, charity, benevolence, and all The sweet and tender sympathies of life; And, to complete the horrid murderous rite And signalize their folly, offered up Their souls, and an eternity of bliss,

Fools saw another glide, which seemed of more
Intrinsic worth. Pleasure her name-good name
Though ill applied. A thousand forms she took
A thousand garbs she wore; in every ago
And clime changing, as in her votaries changed
Desire: but, inwardly, the same in all.
Her most essential lineaments we trace;
Her general features every where alike.

Of comely form she was, and fair of face; And underneath her eyelids sat a kind Of witching sorcery, that nearer drew Whoever with unguarded look beheld; A dress of gaudy hue loosely attired Her loveliness; her air and manner frank, And seeming free of all disguise; her song Enchanting; and her words, which sweetly dropt. As honey from the comb, most large of promise, Still prophesying days of new delight, And rapturous nights of undecaying joy; And in her hand, where'er she went, she held A radiant cup that seemed of nectar fullAnd by her side danced fair delusive Hope. The fool pursued, enamoured; and the wise Experienced man who reasoned much, and thought,

Was sometimes seen laying his wisdom down, And vying with the stripling in the chase.

Nor wonder thou: for she was really fair;

To gain them-what? an hour of dreaming joy! Decked to the very taste of flesh and blood.
A feverish hour that hasted to be done,
And ended in the bitterness of woe.

Most, for the luxuries it bought the pomp,
The praise, the glitter, fashion, and renown-
This yellow phantom followed and adored.
But there was one in folly farther gone;
With eye awry, incurable and wild,
The laughing-stock of devils and of men,
And by his guardian angel quite given up-
The miser, who with dust inanimate
Held wedded intercourse. Ill guided wretch!
Thou might'st have seen him at the midnight hour,
When good men slept, and in light winged dreams
Ascended up to God,-in wasteful hall,
With vigilance and fasting worn to skin
And bone, and wrapt in most debasing rags,—
Thou might'st have seen him bending o'er his
heaps,

And holding strange communion with his gold;
And as his thievish fancy seemed to hear
The night-man's foot approach, starting alarmed,
And in his old, decrepit, withered hand,
That palsy shook, grasping the yellow earth
To make it sure. Of all God made upright,
And in their nostrils breathed a living soul,
Most fallen, most prone, most earthly, most de-
based.

Of all that sold Eternity for Time,
None bargained on so easy terms with death.
Illustrious fool! nay, most inhuman wretch!
He sat among his bags, and with a look
Which hell might be ashamed of, drove the poor
Away unalmsed; and midst abundance died-
Sorest of evils! died of utter want.

Before this Shadow, in the vales of earth,

And many thought her sound within; and gay
And healthy at the heart; but thought amiss:
For she was full of all disease: her bones
Were rotten; consumption licked her blood, and
drank

Her marrow up; her breath smelled mortally;
And in her bowels plague and fever lurked;
And in her very heart, and reins, and life,
Corruption's worm gnawed greedily unseen.

Many her haunts. Thou might'st have seen her

now

With Indolence, lolling on the mid-day couch,
And whispering drowsy words; and now at dawn,
Loudly and rough, joining the sylvan horn;
Or sauntering in the park, and to the tale
Of slander giving ear; or sitting fierce,
Rude, blasphemous, malicious, raving, mad,
Where fortune to the fickle die was bound.

But chief she loved the scene of deep debauch, Where revelry, and dance, and frantic song, Disturbed the sleep of honest men. And where The drunkard sat, she entered in, well pleased, With eye brimful of wanton mirthfulness, And urged him still to fill another cup.

And at the shadowy twilight-in the dark And gloomy night, I looked, and saw her come Abroad, arrayed in harlot's soft attire ; And walk without in every street, and lio In wait at every corner, full of guile : And, as the unwary youth of simple heart, And void of understanding, passed, she caught And kissed him, and, with lips of lying, said: I have peace-offerings with me; I have paid My vows this day; and therefore came I forth

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