Beneath the unsteady feet of Nature groans, Believe thou, O my soul, Life is a vision shadowy of Truth ; And vice, and anguish, and the wormy grave, Wraps in one blaze earth, heaven, and deepest hell. Contemplant Spirits! ye that hover o'er 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) Shall sometime join your mystic choir. Till then Whose day-spring rises glorious in my soul THE DESTINY OF NATIONS. A VISION. AUSPICIOUS Reverence! Hush all meaner song, To the Will Absolute, the One, the Good! 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 Man's free and stirring spirit that lies entranced. For what is freedom, but the unfettered 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 That we may learn with young unwounded ken Infinite Love, Whose latence is the plenitude of all, Thou with retracted beams, and self-eclipse 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 With various province and apt agency And what if some rebellious o'er dark realms Arrogate power? yet these train up to God, And on the rude eye, unconfirmed 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,1 or the mossy stone Of Solfar-kapper, while the snowy blast 1 Balda Zhiok; i. e. mons altitudinis, the highest moun tain in Lapland. 2 Solfar Kapper; capitium Solfar, hic locus omnium quotquot veterum Lapponum superstitio sacrificiis religi Drifts arrowy by, or eddies round his sledge, osoque 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.---Leemius de Lapponibus. 1 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 breathe through.---Mirandum prorsus est et vix credibile nisi cui vidisse contigit. Lappones hyeme iter facientes per vastos 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 hoc infans pannis et pellibus convolutus colligatus jacet.---Leemius de Lupponibus. |