った

THE DESTINY OF NATIONS

Infinite myriads of self-conscious minds
Are one all-conscious Spirit, which in-
forms

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;

71

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
457

power

That first unsensualizes the dark mind, 86; Some roll the genial juices through the Giving it new delights; and bids it

in air,

50

swell

oak;
Some drive the mutinous clouds to clash With wild activity; and peopling air,
By obscure fears of beings invisible,
And rushing on the storm with whirl- Emancipates it from the grosser thrall
Of the present impulse, teaching Self-

wind speed,

Yoke the red lightnings to their volley

ing car.

Thus these pursue their never-varying

course,

No eddy in their stream. Others, more wild,

control,

Till Superstition with unconscious hand
Seat Reason on her throne. Wherefore

not vain,

Nor yet without permitted power im-
pressed,

With complex interests weaving human I deemed those legends terrible, with

By mis-shaped prodigies beleaguered, Held commune with that warrior-maid
such
of France

As earth ne'er bred, nor air, nor the Who scourged the Invader. From her

And such, perhaps, the Spirit, who (if Had shrunk or paled. Her front sub

And her full eye, now bright, now un

Shouts to himself, there first the Abbeylights

illumed, Spake more than Woman's thought; Seen in Neufchâtel's vale; now slopes

and all her face

160

Was moulded to such features as

declared

adown

The winding sheep-track vale-ward: when, behold

That pity there had oft and strongly In the first entrance of the level road An unattended team! The foremost horse

worked,

And sometimes indignation.

mien,

Bold her

190

Lay with stretched limbs; the others, yet alive

But stiff and cold, stood motionless,
their manes

Hoar with the frozen night-dews.
Dismally

The dark-red dawn now glimmered;
but its gleams

Disclosed no face of man. The maiden paused,

Then hailed who might be near. No voice replied.

In this bad World, as in a place of From the thwart wain at length there tombs,

170

And touched not the pollutions of the dead.

reached her ear

A sound so feeble that it almost seemed Distant and feebly, with slow effort pushed,

'Twas the cold season when the rustic's A miserable man crept forth his limbs The silent frost had eat, scathing like

eye From the drear desolate whiteness of his fields

Rolls for relief to watch the skiey tints And clouds slow-varying their huge imagery;

When now, as she was wont, the health

ful Maid

Had left her pallet ere one beam of day Slanted the fog-smoke. She went forth alone

Urged by the indwelling angel - guide,
that oft,

With dim inexplicable sympathies
Disquieting the heart, shapes out Man's

course

To the predoomed adventure. Now the ascent

She climbs of that steep upland, on

whose top

The Pilgrim-man, who long since eve had watched

The alien shine of unconcerning stars,

The drowsy calm that steals on worn- They closed their eyes in sleep, nor

The rustic bands, with difficulty and Then hopeless, strengthless, sick for lack

Anxiously tends him she with healing Till wakened by the maiden.—Such his

His voice had faltered out this simple Of misery fancy-crazed! and now once

Thou seest; foul missionaries of foul The winds breathe hollow, deemed the

Even so (the exulting Maiden said) The sainted heralds of Good Tidings fell, Fierce Hate and gloomy Hope, a Dream And thus they witnessed God! But now