Children of Wretchedness! More groans must rise,
More blood must stream, or ere your wrongs be full.
Yet is the day of Retribution nigh:

The Lamb of God hath opened the fifth seal:
And upward rush on swiftest wing of fire
The innumerable multitude of wrongs
By man on man inflicted! Rest awhile,
Children of Wretchedness! The hour is nigh;
And lo! the Great, the Rich, the Mighty Men,
The Kings and the Chief Captains of the World,
With all that fix'd on high like stars of Heaven
Shot baleful influence, shall be cast to earth,
Vile and down-trodden, as the untimely fruit
Shook from the fig-tree by a sudden storm.
Even now the storm begins:' each gentle name,
Faith and meek Piety, with fearful joy
Tremble far-off-for lo! the Giant Frenzy,
Uprooting empires with his whirlwind arm,
Mocketh high Heaven; burst hideous from the cell
Where the old Hag, unconquerable, huge,
Creation's eyeless drudge, black Ruin, sits
Nursing the impatient earthquake.

O return!

Pure Faith! meek Piety! The abhorr'd Form
Whose scarlet robe was stiff with earthly pomp,
Who drank iniquity in cups of gold,
Whose names were many and all blasphemous,
Hath met the horrible judgment! Whence that cry?
The mighty army of foul Spirits shriek'd

Disherited of earth! For she hath fallen

On whose black front was written Mystery;
She that reel'd heavily, whose wine was blood;

She that work'd whoredom with the Demon Power,
And from the dark embrace all evil things
Brought forth and nurtured: mitred Atheism :
And patient Folly who on bended knee

Gives back the steel that stabb'd him; and pale Fear
Hunted by ghastlier shapings than surround
Moon-blasted Madness when he yells at midnight!
Return pure Faith! return meek Piety!

The kingdoms of the world are yours: each heart,
Self-govern'd, the vast family of Love
Raised from the common earth by common toil
Enjoy the equal produce. Such delights
As float to earth, permitted visitants!
When in some hour of solemn jubilee
The massy gates of Paradise are thrown
Wide open,
and forth come in fragments wild
Sweet echoes of unearthly melodies,
And odours snatch'd from beds of Amaranth,
And they, that from the crystal river of life
Spring up on freshen'd wing, ambrosial gales!
The favour'd good man in his lonely walk
Perceives them, and his silent spirit drinks
Strange bliss which he shall recognize in heaven.
And such delights, such strange beatitude
Seize on my young anticipating heart
When that blest future rushes on my view!
For in his own and in his Father's might

The Saviour comes! While as the Thousand Years
Lead
up their mystic dance, the Desert shouts!
Old Ocean claps his hands! The mighty Dead
Rise to new life, whoe'er from earliest time

Alluding to the French Revolution.

With conscious zeal had urged Love's wondrous plan,
Coadjutors of God. To Milton's trump
The high Groves of the renovated Earth
Unbosom their glad echoes: inly hush'd,
Adoring Newton his serener eye

Raises to heaven and he of mortal kind
Wisest, he first who mark'd the ideal tribes
Up the fine fibres through the sentient brain.
Lo! Priestley there, Patriot, and Saint, and Sage,
Ilim, full of years, from his loved native land
Statesmen blood-stain'd and Priests idolatrous
By dark lies maddening the blind multitude
Drove with vain hate Calm, pitying he retired,
And mused expectant on these promised years.

O Years! the blest pre-eminence of Saints!
Ye sweep athwart my gaze, so heavenly bright,
The wings that veil the adoring Seraph's eyes,
What time he bends before the Jasper Throne, 2
Reflect no lovelier hues! yet ye depart,
And all beyond is darkness! Heights most strange,
Whence Fancy falls, fluttering her idle wing.
For who of woman born may paint the hour,
When seized in his mid course, the Sun shall wane
Making noon ghastly! Who of woman born
May image in the workings of his thought,
How the black-visaged, red-eyed Fiend outstretch'd 3
Beneath the unsteady feet of Nature groans,
In feverish slumbers-destined then to wake,
When fiery whirlwinds thunder his dread name
And Angels shout, Destruction! How his arm
The last great Spirit lifting high in air
Shall swear by Him, the ever-living One,
Time is no more!

Believe thou, O my soul,
Life is a vision shadowy of Truth;
And vice, and anguish, and the wormy grave,
Shapes of a dream! The veiling clouds retire,
And lo! the Throne of the redeeming God
Forth flashing unimaginable day,

Wraps in one blaze earth, heaven, and deepest hell.

Contemplant Spirits! ye that hover o'er
With untired gaze the immeasurable fount
Ebullient with creative Deity!
And ye of plastic power, that interfused
Roll through the grosser and material mass
In organizing surge! Holies of God!
(And what if Monads of the infinite mind)
I haply journeying my immortal course
Shall sometime join your mystic choir? Till then
I discipline my young noviciate thought
In ministries of heart-stirring song,
And aye on Meditation's heaven-ward wing
Soaring aloft I breathe the empyreal air
Of Love, omnific, omnipresent Love,
Whose day-spring rises glorious in my soul
As the great Sun, when he his influence
Sheds on the frost-bound waters-The glad stream
Flows to the ray, and warbles as it flows.

THE DESTINY OF NATIONS.

A VISION.

AUSPICIOUS Reverence! Hush all meaner song,
Ere we the deep preluding strain have pour'd
To the Great Father, only Rightful King,
Eternal Father! King Omnipotent!

The Will, the Word, the Breath,—the Living God.

Such symphony requires best instrument.
Seize, then, my soul! from Freedom's trophied dome,
The Harp which hangeth high between the Shields
Of Brutus and Leonidas! With that

Strong music, that soliciting spell, force back
Earth's free and stirring spirit that lies entranced.

For what is Freedom, but the unfetter'd use
Of all the powers which God for use had given?
But chiefly this, him First, him Last to View
Through meaner powers and secondary things
Effulgent, as through clouds that veil his blaze.
For all that meets the bodily sense I deem
Symbolical, one mighty alphabet
For infant minds; and we in this low world
Placed with our backs to bright Reality,
That we may learn with young unwounded ken
The substance from its shadow. Infinite Love,

| Whose latence is the plenitude of All,
Thou with retracted Beams, and Self-eclipse
Veiling, revealest thine eternal Sun.

But some there are who deem themselves most free When they within this gross and visible sphere Chain down the winged thought, scoffing ascent, Proud in their meanness: and themselves they cheat With noisy emptiness of learned phrase, Their subtle fluids, impacts, essences,

| Self-working tools, uncaused effects, and all Those blind Omniscients, those Almighty Slaves, Untenanting creation of its God.

But properties are God: the naked mass (If mass there be, fantastic Guess or Ghost) Acts only by its inactivity.

Here we pause humbly. Others boldlier think
That as one body seems the aggregate
Of Atoms numberless, each organized;
So, by a strange and dim similitude,
Infinite myriads of self-conscious minds

Are one all-conscious Spirit, which informs
With absolute ubiquity of thought
(His one eternal self-affirming Act!)
All his involved Monads, that yet seem
With various province and apt agency
Each to pursue its own self-centering end.
Some nurse the infant diamond in the mine;
Some roll the genial juices through the oak;
Some drive the mutinous clouds to clash in air,
| And rushing on the storm with whirlwind speed,
Yoke the red lightning to their volleying car.
Thus these pursue their never-varying course,
No eddy in their stream. Others, more wild,
With complex interests weaving human fates,
Duteous or proud, alike obedient all,
Evolve the process of eternal good.

And what if some rebellious, o'er dark realms
Arrogate power? yet these train up to God,
And on the rude eye, unconfirm'd for day,
Flash meteor-lights better than total gloom.
As ere from Lieule-Oaive's vapoury head
The Laplander beholds the far-off Sun
Dart his slant beam on unobeying snows,
While yet the stern and solitary Night
Brooks no alternate sway, the Boreal Morn
With mimic lustre substitutes its gleam,
Guiding his course or by Niemi lake
Or Balda-Zhiok, or the mossy stone
Of Solfar-kapper, while the snowy blast
Drifts arrowy by, or eddies round his sledge,
Making the poor babe at its mother's back 3
Scream in its scanty cradle: he the while
Wins gentle solace as with upward eye
He marks the streamy banners of the North,
Thinking himself those happy spirits shall join
Who there in floating robes of rosy light
Dance sportively. For Fancy is the Power
That first unsensualizes the dark mind,
Giving it new delights; and bids it swell
With wild activity; and peopling air,
By obscure fears of Beings invisible,
Emancipates it from the grosser thrall

Of the present impulse, teaching Self-control,
Till Superstition with unconscious hand

Seat Reason on her throne. Wherefore not vain,
Nor yet without permitted power impress'd,

I deem'd those legends terrible, with which
The polar ancient thrills his uncouth throng;
Whether of pitying Spirits that make their moan
O'er slaughter'd infants, or that Giant Bird
Vuokho, of whose rushing wings the noise
Is Tempest, when the unutterable shape 4
Speeds from the mother of Death, and utters once
That shriek, which never Murderer heard and lived.
Or if the Greenland Wizard in strange trance
Pierces the untravell'd realms of Ocean's bed
(Where live the innocent, as far from cares
As from the storms and overwhelming waves
Dark tumbling on the surface of the deep),
Over the abysm, even to that uttermost cave
By mis-shaped prodigies beleaguer'd, such
As Earth ne'er bred, nor Air, nor the upper Sea.

There dwells the Fury Form, whose unheard name With eager eye, pale check, suspended breath,

'Balda Zhiok; i. e. mons altitudinis, the highest mountain in Lapland.

2 Solfar Kapper; capitium Solfar, hic locus omnium quotquot veterum Lapponum superstitio sacrificiis religiosoque cultui dedicavit, celebratissimus erat, in parte sinus australis situs semimilliaris spatio a mari distans. Ipse locus, quem curiositatis gratia aliquando me invisisse memini, duabus prealtis lapidibus, sibi invicem oppositis, quorum alter musco circumdatus erat, constabat,-LEEMICS De Lapponibus.

3 The Lapland Women carry their infants at their back in a piece of excavated wood, which serves them for a cradle. Opposite to the infant's mouth there is a hole for it to breath through.-Mirandum prorsus est et vix credibile nisi cui vidisset contigit. Lappones byeme iter facientes per vastas montes, perque horrida et invia tesqua, eo presertim tempore quo omnia perpetuis nivibus obtecta sunt et nives ventis agitantur et in gyros aguntur, viam ad destinata loca absque errore invenire posse, lactantem autem infantem si quem habeat, ipsa mater in dorso bajulat, in excavato ligno (Gieed'k ipsi vocant) quod pro cunis utuntur: in hoe infans pannis et pelliLus convolutus colligatus jacet.-LEEMICS De Lapponibus.

4 Jaibme Aibmo.

With interruptions long from ghastly throes, His voice had falter'd out this simple tale.

The Village, where he dwelt an Husbandman,
By sudden inroad had been seized and fired
Late on the yester-evening. With his wife
And little ones he hurried his escape.

They saw the neighbouring Hamlets flame, they heard
Uproar and shrieks! and terror-struck drove on
Through unfrequented roads, a weary way!
But saw nor house nor cottage. All had quench'd
Their evening hearth-fire: for the alarm had spread.
The air clipt keen, the night was fang'd with frost,
And they provisionless! The weeping wife

Ill hush'd her children's moans; and still they moan'd,
Till Fright and Cold and Hunger drank their life.
They closed their eyes in sleep, nor knew 't was Death.
He only, lashing his o'er-wearied team,
Gain'd a sad respite, till beside the base

Of the high hill his foremost horse dropped dead.
Then hopeless, strengthless, sick for lack of food,
He crept beneath the coverture, entranced,
Till waken'd by the maiden.-Such his tale.

Ah! suffering to the height of what was suffer'd,
Stung with too keen a sympathy, the Maid
Brooded with moving lips, mute, startful, dark!
And now her flush'd tumultuous features shot
Such strange vivacity, as fires the eye

Of misery Fancy-crazed! and now once more
Naked, and void, and fix'd, and all within
The unquiet silence of confused thought
And shapeless feelings. For a mighty hand
Was strong upon her, till in the heat of soul
To the high hill-top tracing back her steps,
Aside the beacon, up whose smoulder'd stones
The tender ivy-trails crept thinly, there,
Unconscious of the driving element,
Yea, swallow'd up in the ominous dream, she sate
Ghastly as broad-eyed Slumber! a dim anguish
Breathed from her look! and still, with pant and sob,
Inly she toil'd to flee, and still subdued,
Felt an inevitable Presence near.

Thus as she toiled in troublous ecstasy, An horror of great darkness wrapt her round, And a voice uttered forth unearthly tones, Calming her soul,— « O Thou of the Most High Chosen, whom all the perfected in Heaven Behold expectant——

Sent forth, when she the Protoplast beheld
Stand beauteous on Confusion's charmed wave.
Moaning she fled, and entered the Profound
That leads with downward windings to the Cave
Of darkness palpable, Desert of Death
Sunk deep beneath Gehenna's massy roots.
There many a
dateless age the Beldame lurk'd
And trembled; till engender'd by fierce Hate,
Fierce Hate and gloomy Hope, a Dream arose,
Shaped like a black cloud marked with streaks of fire.
It roused the Hell-Hag: she the dew damp wiped
From off her brow, and through the uncouth maze
Retraced her steps; but ere she reach'd the mouth
Of that drear labyrinth, shuddering she paused,
Nor dared re-enter the diminished Gulf.

As through the dark vaults of some moulder'd Tower
(Which, fearful to approach, the evening Hind
Circles at distance in his homeward way)
The winds breathe hollow, deem'd the plaining groan
Of prison'd spirits; with such fearful voice
Night murmur'd, and the sound through Chaos went.
Leap'd at her call her hideous-fronted brood!
A dark behest they heard, and rush'd on earth;
Since that sad hour, in Camps and Courts adored,
Rebels from God, and Monarchs o'er Mankind!»

From his obscure haunt Shriek'd Fear, of Cruelty the ghastly Dam, Feverish yet freezing, eager-paced yet slow, As she that creeps from forth her swampy reeds, Ague, the biform Hag! when early Spring Beams on the marsh-bred vapours.

« Even so» (the exulting Maiden said)

<< The sainted Heralds of Good Tidings fell,
And thus they witnessed God! But now the clouds
Treading, and storms beneath their feet, they soar
Higher, and higher soar, and soaring sing
Loud

songs of Triumph! O ye spirits of God,
Hover around my mortal agonies !»
She spake, and instantly faint melody
Melts on her ear, soothing and sad, and slow,-
Such Measures, as at calmest midnight heard
By aged Hermit in his holy dream,
Foretell and solace death; and now they rise
Louder, as when with harp and mingled voice
The white-robed multitude of slaughter'd saints
At Heaven's wide-opened portals gratulant
Receive some martyr'd Patriot. The harmony
Entranced the Maid, till each suspended sense

Maid beloved of Heaven!.

To her the tutelary Power exclaimed)
« Of Chaos the adventurous progeny
Thou seest; foul missionaries of foul sire,
Fierce to regain the losses of that hour
When love rose glittering, and his gorgeous wings
Over the abyss flutter'd with such glad noise,
As what time after long and pestful calms,
With slimy shapes and miscreated life
Poisoning the vast Pacific, the fresh breeze
Wakens the merchant-sail uprising. Night
A heavy unimaginable moan

At length awakening slow, she gazed around:
And through a Mist, the relick of that trance
Still thinning as she gazed, an Isle appear'd,
Its high, o'er-hanging, white, broad-breasted cliffs,
Glass'd on the subject ocean. A vast plain
Stretch'd opposite, where ever and anon

Revel. vi, 9, 11. And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held. And white robes were given anto every one of them, and it was said unto them that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.

The Plough-man, following sad his meagre team,
Turn'd up fresh sculls unstartled, and the bones
Of fierce hate-breathing combatants, who there
All mingled lay beneath the common earth,
Death's gloomy reconcilement! O'er the Fields
Stept a fair form, repairing all she might,
Her temples olive-wreathed; and where she trod
Fresh flowerets rose, and many a foodful herb.
But wan her cheek, her footsteps insecure,
And anxious pleasure beam'd in her faint eye,
As she had newly left a couch of pain,
Pale Convalescent! (yet some time to rule
With
power exclusive o'er the willing world,
That bless'd prophetic mandate then fulfill'd,
Peace be on Earth!) A happy while, but brief,
She seem'd to wander with assiduous feet,
And heal'd the recent harm of chill and blight,
And nursed each plant that fair and virtuous grew.

But soon a deep precursive sound moan'd hollow:
Black rose the clouds, and now (as in a dream)
Their reddening shapes, transformed to Warrior-hosts,
Coursed o'er the Sky, and battled in mid-air.
Nor did not the large blood-drops fall from Heaven
Portentous! while aloft were seen to float,
Like hideous features booming on the mist,
Wan Stains of ominous Light! Resign'd, yet sad,
The fair Form bowed her olive-crowned Brow,
Then o'er the plain with oft-reverted eye

Fled till a Place of Tombs she reach'd, and there
Within a ruined Sepulchre obscure
Found Hiding-place.

The delegated Maid

Gazed through her tears, then in sad tones exclaim'd,
Thou mild-eyed Form! wherefore, ah! wherefore fled?
The Power of Justice, like a name all Light,
Shone from thy brow; but all they, who unblamed
Dwelt in thy dwellings, call thee Happiness.
Ah! why, uninjured and unprofited,
Should multitudes against their brethren rush?
Why sow they guilt, still reaping Misery?
Lenient of care, thy songs, O Peace! are sweet,
As after showers the perfumed gale of eve,
That flings the cool drops on a feverous cheek:
And gay thy grassy altar piled with fruits.

But boasts the shrine of Dæmon War one charm,
Save that with many an orgie strange and foul,
Dancing around with interwoven arms,
The Maniac Suicide and Giant Murder
Exult in their fierce union? I am sad,
And know not why the simple Peasants crowd
Beneath the Chieftains' standard!. Thus the Maid.

To her the tutelary Spirit replied:

« When Luxury and Lust's exhausted stores
No more can rouse the appetites of Kings;
When the low flattery of their reptile Lords
Falls flat and heavy on the accustom'd ear;
When Eunuchs sing, and Fools buffoonery make,
And Dancers writhe their harlot-limbs in vain;
Then War and all its dread vicissitudes
Pleasingly agitate their stagnant Hearts;
Its hopes, its fears, its victories, its defeats,
Insipid Royalty's keen condiment!
Therefore uninjured and unprofited

(Victims at once and Executioners),

The congregated Husbandmen lay waste
The Vineyard and the Harvest. As along
The Bothnic coast, or southward of the Line,
Though hush'd the Winds and cloudless the high Noon,
Yet if Leviathan, weary of ease,

In sports unwieldy toss his Island-bulk,
Ocean behind him billows, and before

A storm of waves breaks foamy on the strand.
And hence, for times and seasons bloody and dark,
Short Peace shall skin the wounds of causeless War,
And War, his strained sinews knit anew,
Still violate the unfinish'd works of Peace.
But yonder look! for more demands thy view!»
He said: and straightway from the opposite Isle
A vapour sailed, as when a cloud, exhaled
From Egypt's fields that steam hot pestilence,
Travels the sky for many a trackless league,
Till o'er some Death-doom'd land, distant in vain,
It broods incumbent. Forthwith from the Plain,
Facing the Isle, a brighter cloud arose,

And steer'd its course which way the Vapour went.

The Maiden paused, musing what this might mean.
But long time pass'd not, ere that brighter cloud
Return'd more bright; along the plain it swept;
And soon from forth its bursting sides emerged
A dazzling form, broad-bosom'd, bold of eye,
And wild her hair, save where with laurels bound.
Not more majestic stood the healing God,
When from his bow the arrow sped that slew
Huge Python. Shriek'd Ambition's giant throng,
And with them hiss'd the Locust-fiends that crawl'd

And glitter'd in Corruption's slimy track.

Great was their wrath, for short they knew their reign;
And such commotion made they, and uproar,
As when the mad Tornado bellows through
The guilty islands of the western main,
What time departing from their native shores,
Eboe, or Koromantyn's plain of Palms,

The Slaves in the West-Indies consider death as a passport to their native country. This sentiment is thus expressed in the introduction to a Greek Prize-Ode on the Slave-Trade, of which the ideas are better than the language in which they are conveyed. Ω σκότου πύλας, Θάνατε, προλείπων Ες γενος σπευδοις υποζευχθεν Ατα Ου ξενισθή τη γεννων σπαραγμοί; Ουδ' ολολυγμω,

Αλλα και κυκλοισι χοροιτυποισι
Κ' ασματων χαρα φοβερος μεν εσσι
Αλλ' όμως Ελευθερια συνοικεῖς,
Στυγνέ Τυραννε!

Δασκίοις έπει πτερύγεσσι σησι
Α ! θαλασσιον καθορώντες οιόμα
Αιθερόπλαντοις υπό ποσσ' άνεισι
Πατριδ ̓ ἐπ' αιαν.

Ενθα μαν Εραται Ερωμένησιν
Αμφι πήγησιν κιτρινων υπ' άλσων,
Οσσ' υπό βροτοις επαθον βροτοι, τα
Δεινα λέγοναι.

LITERAL TRANSLATION.

Leaving the Gates of Darkness, O Death! hasten thou to a Race yoked with Misery! Thou wilt not be received with lacerations of