MANY a year hath passed away,
Many a dark and dismal year,
Since last I roamed in the lights of day,
Or mingled my own with another's tear:
Woe to the daughters and sons of men-
Woe to them all when I roam again!
Here have I watched in this dungeon cell,
Longer than memory's tongue can tell;
Here have I shrieked in my wild despair,
When the damnéd fiends from their prison came, Sported and gamboled, and mocked me here,
With their eyes of fire, and their tongues of flame
Shouting for ever and aye my name!
Woe to the daughters and sons of men-
Woe to them all when I roam again!
How long I have been in this dungeon here,
Little I know, and nothing I care:
What to me is the day, or night,
Summer's heat or autumn sere,
Springtide flowers, or winter's blight, Pleasure's smile, or sorrow's tear?
Time! what care I for thy flight?
Joy! I spurn thee with disdain:
Nothing love I but this clanking chain.
Once I broke from its iron hold:
Nothing I said, but silent and bold,
Like the shepherd that watches his gentle fold,
Like the tiger that crouches in mountain lair,
Hours upon hours, so watched I here;
Till one of the fiends that had come to bring
Herbs from the valley, and drink from the spring,
Stalked through my dungeon entrance in!
Ha! how he shrieked to see me free!
Ho! how he trembled and knelt to me,
He who had mocked me many a day,
And barred me out from its cheerful ray!
Gods! how I shouted to see him pray!
I wreathed my hand in the demon's hair,
And choked his breath in its muttered prayer,
And danced I then in wild delight,
To see the trembling wretch's fright.
Gods! how I crushed his hated bones
'Gainst the jagged wall, and the dungeon stones;
And plunged my arm a-down his throat,
And dragged to life his beating heart,
And held it up that I might gloat
To see its quivering fibers start!
Ho! how I drank of the purple flood,
I quafféd and quaffed again of blood,
Till my brain grew dark, and I knew no more,
Till I found myself on this dungeon floor,
Fettered and held by this iron chain!
Ho! when I break its links again,
Ha! when I break its links again,
Woe to the daughters and sons of men!
My frame is shrunk, and my soul is sad,
And devils mock and call me mad.
Many a dark and fearful sight
Haunts me here in the gloom of night:
Mortal smile or human tear
Never cheers or soothes me here:
The spider shrinks from my grasp away,
Though he's known my form for many a day;
The slimy toad, with her diamond eye,
Watches afar, but comes not nigh:
The craven rat, with his filthy brood,
Pilfers and gnaws my scanty food;
But when I strive to make her play,
Snaps at my hands, and flees away:
Light of day, or ray of sun,
Friend or hope, I've none-I've none !
They called me mad: they left me here
To my burning thoughts, and the fiend's despair,
Never, ah! never to see again,
Earth, or sky, or sea, or plain;
Doomed through life, if life it be,
To helpless, hopeless misery.
Oh, if a single ray of light
Had pierced the gloom of this endless night;
If the cheerful tones of a single voice
Had made the depths of my heart rejoice;
If a single thing had loved me here,
I ne'er had crouched to that fiend's despair!
They come again! They tear my brain!
They tumble and dart through every vein!
Ho! could I burst this clanking chain,
Then might I spring in the hellish ring,
And scatter them back to their den again!
Ho! when I break its links again,
Ha! when I break its links again,
Woe to the daughters and sons of men!
FLOW on for ever, in thy glorious robe
Of terror and of beauty! Yea, flow on
Unfathomed and resistless! God hath set
His rainbow on thy forehead: and the cloud
Mantled around thy feet. And he doth give
Thy voice of thunder, power to speak of Him
Eternally,--bidding the lip of man
Keep silence, and upon thy rocky altar pour
Incense of awe-struck praise.
Ah! who can dare
To lift the insect-trump of earthly hope,
Or love, or sorrow, 'mid the peal sublime
Of thy tremendous hymn? Even ocean shrinks
Back from thy brotherhood; and all his waves
Retire abashed. For he doth sometimes seem
To sleep like a spent laborer, and recall
His wearied billows from their vexing play,
And lull them to a cradle calm; but thou
With everlasting, undecaying tide,
Dost rest not, night or day. The morning stars,
When first they sang o'er young creation's birth,
Heard thy deep anthem; and those wrecking fires
That wait the archangel's signal to dissolve
This solid earth, shall find Jehovah's name
Graven, as with a thousand diamond spears,
On thine unending volume.
Every leaf,
That lifts itself within thy wide domain,
Doth gather greenness from thy living spray,
Yet tremble at the baptism. Lo!-yon birds
Do boldly venture near, and bathe their wings
Amid thy mist and foam. 'Tis meet for them
To touch thy garment's hem, and lightly stir
The snowy leaflets of thy vapor wreath,
For they may sport unharmed amid the cloud,
Or listen at the echoing gate of heaven,
Without reproof. But as for us, it seems
Scarce lawful, with our broken tones, to speak
Familiarly of thee. Methinks to tint
Thy glorious features with our pencil's point,
Or woo thee to the tablet of a song,
Were profanation.
Thou dost make the soul
A wondering witness of thy majesty;
But as it presses with delirious joy
To pierce thy vestibule, dost chain its step,
And tame its rapture with the humbling view
Of its own nothingness; bidding it stand
In the dread presence of the Invisible,
As if to answer to its God through thee.
WHEN, from the sacred garden driven,
Man fled before his Maker's wrath,
An angel left her place in heaven,
And crossed the wanderer's sunless path. 'Twas Art! sweet Art! new radiance broke Where her light foot flew o'er the ground;
And thus with seraph voice she spoke,"The curse a blessing shall be found."
She led him through the trackless wild,
Where noontide sunbeam never blazed;
The thistle shrunk, the harvest smiled,
And Nature gladdened, as she gazed.
Earth's thousand tribes of living things,
At Art's command, to him are given;
The village grows, the city springs,
And point their spires of faith to heaven.
He rends the oak,-and bids it ride,
To guard the shores its beauty graced;
He smites the rock,-upheaved in pride,
See towers of strength and domes of taste.
Earth's teaming caves their wealth reveal,
Fire bears his banner on the wave,
He bids the mortal poison heal,
And leaps triumphant o'er the grave.
He plucks the pearls that stud the deep,
Admiring beauty's lap to fill;
He breaks the stubborn marble's sleep,
And mocks his own Creator's skill.
With thoughts that swell his glowing soul,
He bids the ore illume the page,
And proudly scorning time's control,
Commerces with an unborn age.
In fields of air he writes his name,
And treads the chambers of the sky; He reads the stars, and grasps the flame That quivers round the Throne on high. In war renowned, in peace sublime,
He moves in greatness and in grace; His power, subduing space and time, Links realm to realm, and race to race.
Ex. LXXXV.-THE MODERN BELLE.
SHE sits in a fashionable parlor,
And rocks in her easy chair;
She is clad in silks and satins,
And jewels are in her hair;
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