Thou winged and cloud-cleaving minister, Whose happy flight is highest into heaven, Well may'st thou swoop so near me-I should be Thy prey, and gorge thine eaglets; thou art gone Where the eye cannot follow thee; but thine Yet pierces downward, onward, or above. With a pervading vision.-Beautiful! How beautiful is all this visible world!.. How glorious in its action and itself! But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we, Half dust, half Deity, alike unfit
To sink or soar, with our mixed essence make A conflict of its elements, and breathe The breath of degradation and of pride, Contending with low wants and lofty will Till our mortality predominates,
And men are what they name not to themselves, And trust not to each other. Hark! the note, The natural music of the mountain reed- For here the patriarchal days are not A pastoral fable-pipes in the liberal air, Mixed with the sweet bells of the sauntering herd; My soul would drink those echoes.-Oh, that I were The viewless spirit of a lovely sound, A living voice, a breathing harmony, A bodiless enjoyment-born and dying With the blest tone that made me!
I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless and pathless, and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; Morn came, and went and came, and brought no day. And men forgot their passions in the dread Of this their desolation; and all hearts Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light: And they did live by watchfires-and the thrones, The palaces of crowned kings-the huts, The habitations of all things which dwell, Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed, And men were gathered round their blazing homes To look once more into each other's face; Happy were those who dwelt within the eye Of the volcanos, and their mountain torch: A fearful hope was all the world contained; Forests were set on fire-but hour by hour. They fell and faded and the crackling trunks Extinguished with a crash-and all was black. The brows of men by the despairing light Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits The flashes fell upon them; some lay down And hid their eyes and wept ; and some did rest Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled; And others hurried to and fro, and fed Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky, The pall of a past world; and then again With curses cast them down upon the dust, And gnashed their teeth and howled: the wild birds
And terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings: the wildest brutes Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawled And twined themselves among the multitude, Hissing, but stingless they were slain for food: And war, which for a moment was no more, Did glut himself again; -a meal was bought With blood, and each sate sullenly apart Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left; All earth was but one thought-and that was death, Immediate and inglorious; and the pang Of famine fed upon all entrails-men Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh; The meagre by the meagre were devoured, Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one, And he was faithful to a corse, and kept The birds and beasts and famished men at bay, Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food, But with a piteous and perpetual moan, And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand Which answered not with a caress-he died. The crowd was famished by degrees; but two Of an enormous city did survive, And they were enemies; they met beside The dying embers of an altar-place, Where had been heaped a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage; they raked up, And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath Blew for a little life, and made a flame Which was a mockery; then they lifted up Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld Each other's aspects-saw, and shrieked, and died- Even of their mutual hideousness they died, Unknowing who he was upon whose brow Famine had written Fiend. The world was void, The populous and the powerful was a lump, Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless- A lump of death-a chaos of hard clay. The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still, And nothing stirred within their silent depths; Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea, And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropped They slept on the abyss without a surge- The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave, The moon their mistress had expired before; The winds were withered in the stagnant air, And the clouds perished; Darkness had no need Of aid from them-She was the universe.
THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB.
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen: Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed on the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!
And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride: And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.
And there lay the rider distorted and pale, With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail; And the tents were all silent, the banners alone, The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.
And the widows of Ashur are laid in their wail, And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal; And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!
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