Chapter II: Part 2

Let us approach! A form we see,
Fairest beyond comparison;
For such an heavenly purity,
From other eyes, hath never shown;
Nor such a calm, majestic brow
On earth hath ne'er appeared, till now.

Draw nearer. Lo! a voice we hear,
Resonant, soft, pathetic, sweet;
In ringing accents, calm and clear,
He sways the thousands at his feet,
With more than mortal eloquence,
Or man's compassion, in his glance.

Ah! Strange, that such a form should stand
In raiment soiled, and travel stained;
Yes, mark the contour of that hand,
A hand by menial toil profaned.
Can one from such a station reach
All classes by sheer force of speech?

Can eloquence from mortal tongue
Break through the barriers, which divide
The toiling and down-trodden throng
From affluence, and official pride?
Then how can yonder speaker hold
An audience so manifold?

He spake as never orator
Before, or since, with burning thought,
In parable, and metaphor;
Each simple illustration taught
Some sacred truth, some truth which could
By sage, or fool, be understood.

With similes of common things,
The lilies of the field, the salt
Which lost its savour; gently brings
A lesson, from the common fault
Of self-admiring Pharisee,
Of ostentatious piety.

And from the prostrate penitent,
The Publican, who beat his breast,
Remorsefully his garment rent,
And thus, with tears, his sin confessed;
"Lord, Lord, a sinner vile am I,
Be merciful, and hear my cry!"

And from that man, beset by thieves,
And left upon the road, to die;
No aid or comfort he receives
From Priest, or Levite, passing by;
How the despised Samaritan
Proved the true neighbor to that man.

Yes, finished with such fervency
Of gesture, and similitude;
Such depths of love, and purity
His hearers marvelled, as they stood;
Nor through his discourse, was there heard,
Abusive, vain, or idle word.

Who may this wondrous speaker be?
Is he some judge, or orator?
Some one in high authority?
Physician, prince, or conqueror?
Answer, thou ever restless sea,
Who may this wondrous person be?

With echoes soft, the sea replies,
This is a Judge, and Orator;
A Judge, beyond all judges wise,
And eloquent, as none before;
A Judge, majestic, calm, serene;
And yet, an humble Nazarene.

He is a Ruler, whose command
The myriads of the skies obey,
As in the hollow of His hand
He holds all human destiny.
The tempest wild concedes his will,
And calms before His "Peace, be still."

A great Physician, too, is He,
Whose word, the leper purifies;
The mute converse, the blind ones see;
At his command, the dead arise;
He cures the ravages of sin,
And makes the foulest sinner clean.

He is a Prince, a Prince whose power
Knows neither limit nor degree,
Whose glory, not the passing hour,
Nor cycles of futurity,
Can augment, alter, or decrease--
Prince is He, the Prince of Peace.

He is earth's greatest Conqueror,
But conquers not with crimson sword;
Love is the weapon of His war,
Forgiveness, and gentle word;
But, greatest of all victories,
O'er the dark grave, His banner flies.

Go, And Sin No More.

When the poor, erring woman sought
In tears the Master's feet,
Her breast, with deep contrition fraught,
Repentance, full, complete,
Divine compassion filled His eyes,
He spake, says Sacred Lore,--
"O, erring heart, forgiven, rise,
Go, thou, and sin no more."

The tear of contrite sorrow, shed
By penitence, cast down,
Shall flash, when solar rays have fled,
In an eternal crown;
That tear shall scintillate, and shine,
When comets cease to soar;
If thou would'st wear that gem divine,
Go, thou, and sin no more!

Gently Lead Me, Star Divine.

Gently lead me, Star Divine,
Lead with bright unchanging ray;
O'er my lowly pathway shine,
I shall never lose my way;
Though uncertain be my tread,
Pitfalls deep, and mountains high,
Safely shall my feet be led,
By Thy beacon, in the sky.

Long ago, while journeying
Westward, o'er the desert wild,
Sages sought a promised King
In the person of a child;
By Thy bright illuminings,
To that manger, in the fold,
Thou did'st lead those shepherd kings;
Lead me, as Thou lead'st of old.

BEAR CREEK FALLS, UNCOMPAHGRE CAÑON, NEAR OURAY, COLORADO.]

Dying Hymn.

The hour-glass speeds its final sands,
In splendor sinks the golden sun,
So men must yield to death's demands
When human life its course has run.

We view the ruins of the past,
We stand surrounded by decay,
Our transient hours are speeding fast
And, e'er we think, have passed away.

Weep not, nor mourn with idle tear
That hour, inevitable and sure;
We move, our sojourn finished here,
To nobler realms which shall endure.

In Mortem Meditare.

DYING THOUGHTS.

As Life's receding sunset fades And night descends, I calmly watch the gathering shades, As darkness stealthily invades And daylight ends.

Earth's span is drawing to its close, With every breath; My pain-racked brain no respite knows, Yet shrinks it, from the grim repose It feels in death.

The curtain falls on Life's last scene, The end is neared; At last I face death's somber screen, The fleeting joys which intervene Have disappeared.

And as a panoramic scroll The past unreels; The mocking past, beyond control, Though buried, as a parchment roll, Its tale reveals.

I stand before the dread, unknown, Yet solemn fact; I see the seeds of folly sown In wayward years, maturely grown, Nor can retract.

My weaknesses rise to my sight; And now, too late, I fain would former actions right, Which years have buried in their flight; Now sealed by fate.

My frailties and iniquities I plainly see; Committed acts accusive rise, Omitted duties criticise In mockery.

I feel I have offended oft, E'en at my best Have failed to guide my course aloft; Perhaps in trival hour, have scoffed With idle jest.

Prone to misgiving, prone to doubt, And frail from birth; More light and frivolous than devout; With life's brief candle flickering out, I speed from earth.

Can grief excuse indifference With groan or tear? Can deep remorse and penitence, Or anguish mitigate offense With pang sincere?

Ah! Tears can ne'er unlock the past Which opens not; And what is done is welded fast, Through all eternity to last, Nor change one jot.

Whate'er may lie beyond the veil I calmly face, And sink, as grievous tears bewail My faults and imperfections frail, In death's embrace.

And as I think the matter o'er, Pensive and sad, While its shortcomings I deplore, The fruits which my existence bore Were not all bad.

From all which can rejoice or grieve I shortly go, And now, in life's declining eve I wonder, hope, try to believe-- Soon I shall know!

My spirit flees, as night enwraps, To its reward; The earth recedes, I feel it lapse; I sink as dissolution snaps The silver cord.

O, Thou whose presence I can feel Each hour I live, While passing through death's stern ordeal, Wilt Thou Thy mercy still reveal, And still forgive?

Deprive This Strange and Complex World.

Deprive this strange and complex world
Of all the charms of art;
Deprive it of those sweeter joys
Which music doth impart;
But oh, preserve that smile, which tells
The secret of the heart!

The world may lose its massive piles
Which point their spires above;
May spare the tuneful nightingale
And gently cooing dove;
But woe betide it, if it lose
The sentiment of love!

The Legend of St. Regimund.

St. Regimund, e'er he became a saint, Was much imbued with vulgar earthly taint; E'er he renounced the honors of a Knight And doffed his coat of mail and helmet bright, For sober cassock and monastic hood, Leaving the castle for the cloister rude, And changed the banquet's sumptuous repast For frugal crusts and the ascetic fast; Forsook his charger and equipments for The crucifix and sacerdotal war; While yet with valiant sword and blazoned shield He braved the dangers of the martial field, Or sought the antlered trophies of the chase In forest and sequestered hunting place; Or, tiring of the hunt's exciting sport, Enjoyed the idle pleasures of the court, Whiling away the time with games of chance, With music and the more voluptuous dance, The hollow paths of vanity pursued, Laughed, jested, swore, drank, danced, and even wooed; No tongue more prone to questionable wit, Nor chaste, when time and place demanded it; His basso voice, both voluble and strong, Excelled in wassail mirth and ribald song; He swore with oaths most impious and unblest; Ate much, drank more, on these lines did his best; Caroused by day, caroused by candle light, In fact behaved like any other knight.

This medieval knight (the legend saith) For months would scarcely draw a sober breath; But as his appetite grew more and more Drank each day worse than on the day before; Was drunk all night, all day continued so, Indulged in every vice he chanced to know. But long debauch and riotous excess Reduce their strongest votaries to distress; When nature can the strain no longer stand She chastens with a sure and irate hand, So when the day of reckoning had come, She smote with fever and delirium This valiant knight whom we have tried to paint; A very slim foundation for a saint!

The crisis reached, his fever stricken brain Surrendered reason to excessive pain; Nor moment's respite, comatose and kind, Relieved the raging furnace of his mind; And gruesome spectres, awful and unreal, Through his disordered vagaries would steal; When last his scorching temples sought repose In hasty nap or intermittent doze, His eyes beheld, though starting from his head, A grizzly figure leaning o'er his bed, With aspect foul beyond descriptive word, As one for months in sepulchre interred, Restored again to animated breath, A weird composite type of life and death; With countenance most hideous and vile, Leering with ghastly and unearthly smile; Pointing its shriveled finger, as in scorn, Of mockery and accusation born.

As he beheld in terror and surprise This gruesome shape which mocked before his eyes He could distinguish in its haughty mien A bearing, something as his own had been; Nor had its withered visage quite the look Of vampire, ghoul or evanescent spook; And as the apparition o'er him bent, He saw that every seam or lineament, Contour of feature, prominence of bone, Bore all a striking semblance to his own.

The horror stricken knight essayed to speak, But words responded tremulous and weak, And mustering his dissipated strength, A sitting posture he assumed at length,-- "Whate'er thou art, thou harbinger of gloom, Thou fiend or ghoul, fresh from the new made tomb, Thou vampire, diabolical and fell, Thou stygian shade or denizen of hell, I charge thee, thing of evil, to confess Why thou hast thus disturbed my sore distress. Why hast thou burst my chamber's bolted door Where guest unbidden never trod before? Break this suspense, so horrible and still! Declare thy tidings, be they good or ill, Be thou from Heaven or from the realms below. I charge thee speak, be thou a friend or foe; Break thou thy silence, ominous and deep, Or hence! Pursue thy way and let me sleep!"

The grizzly spectre, still more ghastly grown, Surveyed with visage obdurate as stone, Then smiled with grimace of derisive craft, And in a most repugnant manner, laughed, But all the knight discerned with eye and ear, Was his own maudlin laugh and drunken leer. "Breathe thou thy message," shrieked the frantic knight "Discharge thy purpose, though it blast and blight, I charge thee, speak, by all that is most fair. By all most foul, I charge thee to declare; By my bright armor and my trusty sword; I charge thee, speak, by Holy Rood and Word!" He sank exhausted, in such pallid fright The snowy sheets looked dark beside such white. The spectre paused in silence for awhile, Then broke into a most repulsive smile, And answered in a weird and hollow tone, Enough to freeze the marrow in the bone: "I am thy blasted spirit's counterpart, A body fit for thy most evil heart, I am thy life, its psychic image sent To bear thee company, till thou repent."

'Tis said, for forty days the spectre stayed. For forty days the knight incessant prayed; With scourge, with vigil and ascetic rite, With fast, with groan remorseful and contrite, He cleansed his blackened spirit by degrees, And purified it from its vanities; And as he prayed, the spectre's gruesome scowl Grew day by day less hideous and foul, As he waxed holy, it became more bright; And after forty days, arrayed in white It spread its spotless arms, devoid of taint Above this erstwhile knight and henceforth saint In benediction, as he knelt in prayer,-- Then vanished instantly to empty air.

Such is the tale, embellished by the Muse, 'Tis true or false, believe it as you choose; Some folks accept the story out and out, While some prefer to entertain a doubt. But if it be fictitious and unreal, 'Tis not subscribed and sworn, and bears no seal; It points a moral, as the legend old, If it conveys it, 'twas not vainly told, For should I such an apparition see-- I think t'would almost make a monk of me.

As The Indian.

_Lo, the poor Indian, whose untutored mind Sees God in the clouds and hears Him in the wind. --Pope._

Within the wind, my untaught ear
The voice of Deity can hear,
And in the fleeting cloud discern
His movements, vast and taciturn;
For in the universe I trace
The wondrous grandeur of His face.

I see him in each blade of grass,
Each towering peak and mountain pass;
Each forest, river, lake and fen
Reveals the God of worlds and men;
His works of wisdom prove to me,
A wise, creative Deity.

The Fragrant Perfume of the Flowers.

The fragrant perfume of the flowers, Exuding in the summer hours, E'en as the altar's incense rare Disseminated through the air, May never reach the azure skies, Yet can the earth aromatize.

And so the voice of secret prayer, Ascending on the wings of air, Though it should reach no listening ear, Of Deity inclined to hear, Still soothes the anguish of the mind, And leaves a tranquil peace behind.

An Answer.

When passing years have streaked with frost
These tresses now as jet,
When life's meridian is crossed
And beauty's sun has set,
When youth's last fleeting charm is lost,
Wilt thou be constant yet,
Nor time thy sentiment exhaust
And cause thee to forget?
If so--
My answer, I confess,
Shall be a calm, decided "Yes";
But otherwise a "No"!

Fame.

There is a cliff, no matter where,
Which softened by the agencies
Of rain, exposure to the air,
And alternating thaw and freeze,
Most readily admits the edge
Of chisel, or the sharpened wedge.

The travelers, while passing by,
Within its shade find welcome rest;
And one of them mechanically,
As is a custom in the west,
Upon its surface stern and gray
Carved out his name, and went his way.

Though inartistic and uncouth,
That effort of a novice hand
Exemplifies a striking truth,
And may Time's ravages withstand,
To be by future ages read,
When years and centuries have fled.

So on life's mighty thoroughfare,
The multitude of every class
Leave no inscriptions chiseled, where
Their transient footsteps chanced to pass,
And waft to each succeeding age
No echoes from their pilgrimage.

Though many pass, yet few record
Their names in characters sublime,
By grand achievement, work or word
Upon the monolith of Time;
But few inscribe a lasting name
On the eternal cliffs of Fame.

The First Storm.

The leafless branch and meadow sere, The dull and leaden skies, Join with the mournful wind and drear In dirges for the passing year, Which unreturning flies.

The night in starless gloom descends, Nor can the pale moonshine Break through the clouds whose veil extends In boundless form, and darkly blends With the horizon's line.

Fond nature, in a playful mood, In cover of the night, Arrays the plain and forest rude, The city and the solitude, In robe of spotless white.

Thoughts.

I dug a grave, one smiling April day,
A grave whose small proportions testified
To empty arms, and playthings put away,
To ears which heard, when only fancy cried;
I wondered, as I shaped that little mound,
If in my home such grief should e'er be found.

I dug a grave, 'twas in the month of June;
A grave for one who at his zenith died;
When, on that mound with floral tributes strewn,
The tear-drops fell of one but late his bride,
I wondered if upon my silent bier
Should rest the moist impression of a tear.

I dug a grave by Autumn's sober light,
A grave of full dimensions; 'twas for one
Whose hair had changed its raven hue to white,
Whose course had finished with the setting sun;
I wondered, as I toiled with pick and spade,
Where, and by whom, would my last home be made.

From A Saxon Legend.

Within a vale in distant Saxony,
In time uncertain, though 'twas long ago.
There dwelt a woman, most unhappily,
From borrowed trouble, and imagined woe.

Hers was a husband generous, and kind,
Her children, three, were not of uncouth mold;
Hers was a thatch which mocked at rain and wind;
Within her secret purse were coins of gold.

The drouth had ne'er descended on her field,
Nor had distemper sore distressed her kine;
The vine had given its accustomed yield,
So that her casks were filled with ruddy wine.

Her sheep and goats waxed fat, and ample fleece
Rewarded every harvest of the shear;
Her lambs all bleated in sequestered peace,
Nor prowling wolf occasioned nightly fear.

With all she fretted, pined, and brooded sore,
Harbored each slight vexation, courted grief,
Shut out the smiling sunshine from her door,
And magnified each care to bas relief.

Still waxed her grievous burden more and more,
Till, with a resolution, rash and blind,
At dead of night she fled her humble door,
As if to leave her grievous load behind.

She journeyed as the night wore slowly on,
Unmindful of the tuneful nightingale,
Till in due time her footsteps fell upon
A hill, the demarcation of the vale.

As Lot's wife, in her flight, could not refrain
From viewing foul Gomorrah's funeral pyre,
From one last glance across that ancient plain,
At guilty Sodom wreathed in vengeful fire;

So when this woman reached the summit's crest,
She turned her eyes in one last farewell look,
The fruitful vale lay stretched in placid rest,
And all was silent save the breeze and brook.

The moon in partial fullness, mild, serene,
Flooding the landscape with her mellow light,
Illumined every old familiar scene,
Brought their associations to her sight.

When, lo! as if by touch of magic wand,
On every roof, of tile, of thatch or wood,
As instantly as magic doth respond,
A cross, of various size and form there stood.

O'er homes unknown to frown or grievous word,
O'er homes where laughter hid the silent wail,
O'er homes where discontent was never heard,
Huge crosses glistened in the moonlight pale.

A cross o'er every habitation rose,
O'er ducal palace, and the cottage small
Where slept the husbandman in deep repose;
And, lo, her cross was smallest of them all!

Christmas Chimes.

Once more the merry Christmas bells,
Are ringing far and wide;
Their chime in rhythmic chorus swells,
While every brazen throat foretells,
A joyous Christmastide.

What is the burden of your chime,
Ye bells of Christmastide?
What tidings in your clangorous rhyme,
What message would your tongues sublime
To human hearts confide?

Our chime is of salvation's plan,
And every Christmastide
Since Christmas bells to chime, began
We've caroled Heaven's gift to man,
A Saviour crucified.

The Unknowable.

O! Sun, resplendent in the smiling morn, As thou dost view the wastes of earth and sky, Canst thou behold the realms of the Unborn, Canst thou behold the realms of those who die? Where dwells the spirit e'er its mortal birth, E'er yet it suffereth The pain and sorrow incident to earth? Where after death? The Sun gave answer, with refulgent glow: Child of a fleeting hour, thou too must die to know.

Canst tell, thou jeweled canopy of space, Bewildering, and boundless to the eyes, Knowest thou the unborn spirits' dwelling place? Knowest thou the distant regions of the skies Where rest the spirits freed from mundane strife, From mortal grief and care? Knowest thou the secret of the future life? Canst thou tell where? From Space infinite echoed the reply: Child of a transient day, thou too, to know, must die.

Ye Winds who blow and cleave the formless skies, Ye Winds who blow with desolating breath, Can ye reveal pre-natal mysteries, And can ye solve the mystery of death? Within thy ambient and viewless folds Imprisoned in the air, May not the spirits wait their earthly moulds? Then tell ye where. The answer came invisible and low: Frail child of earthly clay, thou too must die to know.

What are your tidings, O ye raging Seas? Do your waves wash the islands of the blest, Or view the Gardens of Hesperides? Know you the unborn spirits' place of rest? And do your waters lave that unknown shore? And when the night is gone, Shall the freed spirit, tired and faint no more, Behold the dawn? The sad sea murmured, as its waves rolled high: As all those gone before, thou, too, to know, must die.

The Suicide.

What anguish rankled 'neath that silent breast?
What spectral figures mocked those staring eyes,
Luring them on to Stygian mysteries?
What overpowering sense of grief distressed?

What desperation nerved that rigid hand
To pull the trigger with such deadly aim?
What deep remorse, or terror, overcame
The dread inherent, of death's shadowy strand?

Perhaps the hand of unrelenting fate
Fell with such tragic pressure, that the mind
In frenzy, uncontrollable and blind,
Sought but the darkness, black and desolate.

Perhaps 'twas some misfortune's stunning blight,
Perhaps unmerited, though deep disgrace,
Or vision of a wronged accusing face
Pictured indelibly before the sight.

Perhaps the gnawing of some secret sin,
Some aberration fraught with morbid gloom,
A buried hope which ever burst its tomb,
Despondency, disaster, or chagrin.

That heart which throbbed in pain and discontent
Is silent as the grave for which it yearned;
That brain, which once with proud ambition burned,
Now oozes through the bullet's ghastly rent.

Those eyes, transfixed with such a gruesome stare,
Once beamed with laughter, innocent and bright;
The morning gave no presage of the night;
A smile may be the prelude of despair.

Whate'er his secret, it remains untold,
For why to human anguish add one groan?
Is grief the deeper grief because unknown?
So let the grave his form and burden hold.

Ye who have felt no crushing weight of care,
From blame profuse, in charity refrain;
Some depths of sorrow overwhelm the brain,
Some loads too great for human strength to bear.

I Think When I Stand in the Presence of Death.

I think when I stand in the presence of Death,
How futile is earthy endeavor,
If it be, with the flight of the last labored breath,
The tongue has been silenced forever.

For no message is flashed from the lustreless eyes,
When clos-ed so languid and weary,
And no voice from the darkness re-echoes our cries,
In response to the agonized query!

We gaze at the solemn mysterious shroud
With a vague and insatiate yearning,
And perceive but the sombre exterior cloud,
With our vision of no discerning.

Not a whispering sound, not a glimmer of light,
From that shadowy strand uncertain;
But He who ordained the day and night,
Framed also Death's silent curtain.

Hope.

Hope is the shadowy essence of a wish, A fond desire which floats before our eyes; With lurid aberration, feverish,-- We clutch the shadow which elusive, flies; Though at our grasp the mocking fancy flees, Hope still pursues and soothes realities.

Hope, as a mirage on the desert waste, Lures the lost traveler, by a vision fair Of gushing fountains which he may not taste, Of streamlets cool depicted on the air; With tongue outstretched and parched he onward speeds, But as he moves the phantom scene recedes.

In the foul dungeon or the narrow cell, The prisoner doth pace his lonely beat, And as he treads, his shackles clank a knell Responsive to each movement of his feet; Yet through his grated window, he discerns The star of hope which ever brightly burns.

A noble ship her ponderous anchor weighs, Glides from the harbor and is lost to sight; A young wife waves farewell. As many days In passing turn her golden tresses white, She scans the horizon through a mist of tears, Hopes for that vanished sail which ne'er appears.

A galley slave in age and clime remote, Chained to his seat, unwilling plies the oar; Before his eyes fond dreams of freedom float, He hopes amid the battle's crash and roar; And as the waves the imprisoned wretches drown, Hopes, as his fetters draw him swiftly down.

A mighty host in force of arms we see, With march invasive, cross a boundary line; At its approach no freemen turn and flee, Each with his life defends his family shrine; As burning homes illuminate the sky With ghastly light, they hope and fight and die.

Beside the bed where rests the pallid form, Of loved one stricken with the fever's breath, E'en when the loving hands, no longer warm, Portend the sure and swift approach of Death, Hope holds the spirit in its house of clay, And with that spirit only, soars away.

The guilty wretch, for murder doomed to die, Hoped, in his dungeon as the death watch paced, Hoped, as the death cap veiled his evil eye, Hoped, as the noose around his neck was placed, Hoped, as the chaplain read his final prayer, Hoped, as he struggled in the viewless air.

In the glad sunshine of life's vernal spring, Hope buoys the spirit with expectancy; Hope with her dulcet voice and fluttering wing, Sings of life's goal with siren harmony; When silvered temples tell that life declines, That goal, though yet unreached, still brightly shines.

Yes! As through failure and vicissitude, We sail along with many an adverse wind, Hope plants her beacon in the tempest rude, And leads with generous radiance unconfined; And when the yawning grave receives its prey, Hope speeds the spirit on its astral way.

Metabole.

AN APOSTROPHE TO THE MOON.

O, silvery moon, fair mistress of the night, Thou mellow, ever vaccilating orb, How many eons of unmeasured time Hast thou, observant from thy astral poise, Thy ever-changing station in the skies, Beheld the wastes of earth, of air and space-- Ruling the waters, and the sombre night?

Pale queen of night, fair coquette of the skies, Thou, who with fickle, sweet inconstancy Receives the smile from the admiring sun, And straight transmits it to the sordid earth,-- How many cycles of the silent past Hast thou beheld the rise and fall of man, His proud ascendency and swift decline; His zenith and his pitiful decay; E'er he emerged from out the dismal cave, His habitation rude and primitive; E'er yet the forest trembled at his stroke, E'er his indenting chisel cleaved the stones And framed the first crude human domicile?

As time rolled on and human skill advanced By almost imperceptible degrees Of slow, experimental tutorage, Along a nobler, more artistic plane, He hewed the stones in form of ornament, Sculptured device of various design, Embellishment of cunning symmetry, Man's first attempt to scale the realms of art.

Thou hast beheld him on his suppliant kneel, Engaged in worship, audible or mute, Invoking thy protection and thy aid, Thy gracious favor and beatitude; With arms outstretched in reverential awe, Propitiating thee, with fervent prayer For the remission of thy baleful stroke. Thou hast beheld his superstitious fear And heard his curses, and his solemn prayers As thy dark form eclipsed the smiling sun.

Thou hast beheld him fashion and adorn The gorgeous altar and the totem pole; With fervent zeal, and blind simplicity, From base materials of wood or stone, Carve out a God, then kneel and worship it.

Thou, too, hast heard the slave-whip's poignant crack, The sound of avarice and turpitude, As hands unwilling plied their arduous task, Creating monuments to iron will, Human injustice, greed and servitude.

Thou hast beheld him shape the pyramids, Heap up the mound and build the massive wall, Create the castle and the towering spire, The ponderous dome and stately edifice.

* * * * *

From thy observant orbit in the skies, Did'st thou behold that sacrilegious tower, Which reared its massive form on Babel's plain, Built by misguided and presumptuous men, In vain and ineffectual attempt To scale the heavens surreptitiously?

E'er the completion of the impious pile, Thou mayest have heard, with silent nonchalance, That strange catastrophe of human speech, That dire confusion of the languages, Confounding all the tongues and dialects To unknown chaos of peculiar sounds.

Changing the conversation of the day To accents strange and unintelligible, Unlike to common and accepted terms; To tones mysterious and unnatural, Conglomerated forms of utterance Which bore no semblance to the human voice. Some rent the air with unaccustomed words Striving in desperation to converse, With ears which heard, but could not understand.

Some cursed, with oaths unknown to all but them, While some essayed to frame the words of prayer, Or to articulate the stern command, And one, in most supreme authority, Declaimed a ponderous regal ordinance, But heard a sea of unfamiliar sounds, Confused and desultory turbulence, and dissonance of harsh, discordant tones, Instead of due attention and applause; Nor were his words and usual forms of speech Respected by the idle, wondering craft, Which lately comprehended and obeyed.

Workmen addressed each other, but conveyed No sense of meaning in their jargonings; Nor had cognizance from the stammered tones, Answered in turn, in verbal nothingness; The crabbed cynic might no longer rail; Nor those of sober countenance discourse In melancholy and foreboding strains; Nor light and frivolous sons of levity On others perpetrate the humorous jest; Fathers attempted to correct their sons, Who, listening with filial reverence, Heard but unknown and strange garrulity.

Some shrank in terror, as their ears discerned Their own distorted efforts to converse; Some ran in aimless frenzy to and fro, Falling upon the earth with frantic cries; Some stood in gaping wonder, nor perceived The dire calamity, which bound them all In one unbroken chain of misery. Some beat their breasts in paroxysmal woe; Some wore the driveling look of idiocy; Some lost their reason and serenely smiled; Some stalked with features imperturbable, Finding no tear nor vent for their distress; Some groaned, some shrieked, some wept in their despair, Relaxing all attempts at vocal speech; Some recognized the face but not the voice Of some familiar friend, and grasped the hand, Spoke with the eyes, when words no longer served.

* * * * *

Did'st thou behold that temple which arose On Mount Moriah's slope, the proud result Of the endeavors of a noble race, Whose tireless energy and wondrous skill In architecture and the various arts Were famed throughout the world; whose nimble hands Carved out the pillar and the pedestal, The column, polished and cylindrical, The slab and ornamented architrave From Parian marble of unblemished hue; With stately cedars from the sloping sides Of proud but long denuded Lebanon, Erected that superb and marvelous pile Whose wondrous grandeur and imposing form, Correct proportions and true symmetry And perfect uniformity of shape, Beauty of contour and embellishment, Splendor of finish and magnificence, Excelled the proudest edifice of earth-- A fitting tribute to the Deity?

* * * * *

Thou hast beheld the triumphs of his skill Touched by the desolating hand of time, Crumble, disintegrate and pass away-- Resolved to pristine particles of dust.

His strongest castle, bold and insolent, Of warlike aspect and defiant mien, With wall and rampart unassailable, Impregnable to the assaults of man-- Surrender at the mold's insidious tread.

Thou hast beheld His palace and his most exalted courts Bestrewn with fragments of the Peristyle; The broken column, slab and monolith O'erhung with pendant moss and slimy mold; Its dismal haunts and gloomy apertures Become the habitation of the bat, The hissing serpent and the scorpion, The basking lizard dull and indolent, And forms of reptile, foul and venomous.

The throne where ruled the king with iron sway Is vacant as the empty wastes of air, Is ruled by desolation and decay. No more the sceptered voice in stern command Rings through its halls, nor can the dazzling flash Of the tiara and the diadem, The ensign and insignia of power, The emblazoned crest and jeweled coat of arms, Or proud escutcheon of illustrious name Excite with envy or inspire with fear.

The boisterous carousal and the sound Of wassail mirth, inebriate and loud, And midnight revelry, is hushed and still.

Time shifts the scenes-- The haughty prince and the most abject slave, Who cowered and trembled 'neath his austere glance, The fawning and ignoble sycophant, The courtier and the basest serf, have met On equal terms beneath the silent dust.

From thy celestial 'minions thou hast seen His proudest temples sink into decay, Grim desolation and desuetude; The silent hush succeed the plaintive hymn, The anthem cease to swell in rhythmic praise, Or vaulted dome re-echo with the sound Of pipe, of organ, harp and dulcimer; The voice of sacerdotal eloquence Become as silent as the unborn thought; The fragrant perfume of the frankincense, The scent of swinging censor and of myrrh, Supplanted by foul odors of decay; The sacred flame extinguished and forgot, Its votaries and congregations fled; The forms who ministered and forms who knelt, The burnished altar and the hoary priest, Commingling their atoms in the dust.

* * * * *

Thou, too, hast heard the clash of hostile arms, The blast of trumpet and the martial tread, The neigh of charger anxious for the fray, The din and the confusion of the fight, The noise and turmoil of contending hosts, The crunch of breaking bones and shrieks of pain; The angry challenge and defiant taunt, The cries of rage and curses of despair, The dying groan and gnash of clench-ed teeth, The plea for mercy, with uplifted arms, As through the bosom plunged the ruthless steel; The clank of shackles and the captives groan, As marched the vanquished forth to servitude, To ceaseless toil rewarded by the scourge; To stand within the slave marts and endure The taunts and bear the chains of slavery.

Did'st thou look down with neutral radiance On that incursion from the Scythian plain, A surging multitude beyond the power Of mental computation and which seemed A seething mass of spears and shapes of war, A sea of bellicose barbarity, O'erwhelming helpless and ill-fated Tyre With a resistless deluge of the sword?

Or when that vast and uncomputed horde Swept westward from the steppes of Tartary With stern Atilla riding at its head, Leaving in ruthless Mongol truculence, Awake, both red and blackened by the torch; The scourge[F], perhaps of God, perhaps of Hell!

Did'st thou not flinch when t'ward the Christian west The fell invasion of the Saracen Headed its course with crimson scimitar; Supplanting the mild precepts of the Cross With those of lust, of hate and bigotry?

* * * * *

Did'st thou not weep when proud Atlantis sunk Beneath the surging and engulfing waves, The aftermath of Earth's most tragic shock; Or when the ark, upon that greatest flood, Which from the black and pregnant heavens fell. For forty days and forty weary nights, Above the ruins of a deluged world, Floated in safety with its living freight?

Did'st Thou look down in idle apathy, When grim Vesuvius, from his dormant rest Awoke, in molten fury, and o'ercame With liquid flood and scoriaceous hail The sleeping cities which beneath him lay; Interring with such fiery burial That neither remnant nor inhabitant Escaped from that both grave and funeral pyre; Nor vestige of their proud magnificence Rose from the scene with charred and blackened form; And rolling centuries, in passing, left But dim remembrance in the minds of men?

Did'st thou, in age more ancient and remote, Gaze from thy poise with cold complacency Upon the guilty cities[G] of the plain, Surcharged with lust and the extremes of sin, Which Holy Writ avers, when 'neath the shower Of well deserved combustion from the skies, They sunk in conflagration with their vice; And perishing, to ages yet to come Bequeathed a foul and blasted heritage, An infamous and execrated name?

* * * * *

Art thou to human anguish so inured That thou hast neither sentiment of grief Nor sense of pity for terrestrial ills? Can agonizing and heart-rending scenes Relax thy obdurate and placid face To semblance of emotion? Can man's woes Excite thy tranquil immobility To the pathetic look of tenderness, Or touch thy bosom's calm indifference With profuse throbs of sympathetic ruth? Can'st thou unmoved behold the widow's tears, Or those of orphaned childish innocence, Or those which wondering infant eyes have shed On unresponsive breasts, which nevermore Throb with maternal warmth and suckle them? Can'st thou with cold, unsympathizing light Illuminate the ruined maid's despair Without the echo of a lunar groan? Hast thou no pang of sorrow or regret For guilty man, nor tear for his distress, Or are the tides within thy moist control The copious weepings of thy mellow lids-- Thy sea of teardrops shed for human woes?

* * * * *

Did'st thou behold, when that most favored star, Transcending in refulgence all the orbs Of boundless and bejewelled firmament, With flash of overwhelming brilliancy Plunged through the wondering heavens, whose pale spheres In contrast dimmed to insignificance, And gliding through the twinkling realms of space, Burst with such splendor as the envious stars Had never witnessed since the heavens stood; Halting in glory o'er Judea's plain?

Halted and burned in stellar reverence, Above a fold where wrapped in swaddling clothes A new-born infant in a manger lay; In humble contrast to the throne of light, He left to tread the thorny paths of earth; In undefiled and stainless innocence, Which earth with all her foul iniquities Might never tarnish nor pollute with sin.

Perhaps upon that sage triumvirate Which journeyed from the famed and affluent East, In regal pomp and rich munificence, To lay their costly presents at His feet And worship at that new-born infant's shrine, Thou shed'st thy mellow rays and lit the way O'er deserts to the hills of Bethlehem; Dividing honors with that prince of stars.

Wert thou a witness on that selfsame night When humble shepherds on Judea's hills, Watching their flocks with all attentive care, Beheld unwonted grandeur in the skies? The ordinary stars were glittering In unaccustomed glory, and the orbs Which twinkle in that pale celestial train Which cleaves in twain the ambient universe, Had changed their milky hue to that of gold; But all the forms of stellar brilliancy Made way for that most bright and luminous Which glowed with holy radiance, which might Not emanate from aught but sacred star; Dispensing such serene magnificence That e'en the admiring heavens stood abashed.

At such a sight, Though savoring more of blessing than of curse, Small marvel 'twas their unenlightened minds Were seized with sudden and peculiar fear, So that their trembling knees together smote. And as they stood In awestruck trepidation and alarm The heavens as the bifurcated door Of some familiar, hospitable tent, Parted their gorgeous curtains and disclosed A multitude of the celestial host, Numerous beyond all efforts to compute, Solemn of countenance, yet beautiful Beyond the comprehension of the eye, Surging in such immaculate array Of various raiment as the stainless white Of snows which countless centuries have placed On rugged Ararat's tremendous heights, Were blended in an essence!

Then for a moment's time The heavens were silent as those forms were fair; Then instantly throughout the realms of light Was heard a crash in sacred unison, As all the trumpets and the harps of heaven And all the varied instruments of earth Had burst in one grand, detonating chord; Now rose the quavering, vibratory tones Of flageolet and solitary reed; Now as a blending of all instruments In echoing harmonics, sweet and low, In soft reverberating resonance; The voice of cornet and sonorous horn Blent with the warbling accents of the flute And chime of mellow bells, unknown to earth; Pæan of dulcimer and harpsichord In combination of concordant tone, Melting the stars with dulcet symphony.

But sweeter than those instruments of joy, Tuned by angelic fingers, rose the strains Of vocal concord and mellifluence, As swelled in chorus those seraphic throats In falling cadence and ecstatic flight, Surpassing heaven's grandest melody In all that appertains to choral song! The acme of celestial harmony Which angel ears discerned with glad surprise; But sweeter than that song, the glad refrain Wafted from angel tongues innumerable, To earth and the inhabitants thereof, "Peace! Peace on Earth, the Deity's Good Will!"

* * * * *

Didst thou not shrink, when on Golgotha's crest Three crosses as three grizzly spectres rose, Spreading their ghastly arms protestingly, In silent malediction o'er the scene, And even nature paused and stood aghast In shuddering horror at the awful sight, Relaxing with the trembling earthquake shock Her sympathetic tension? And when the lightning rent the canopy Of black sepulchral clouds, which like a shroud Enveloped earth on that terrific night, They lit a face compassionate and pure, E'en from beneath the cruel crown of thorns Glancing in pity, kindled not with wrath At his tormentors, those who loved him not-- The multitude which surged about the cross Cursing with accents vile and crying loud, Crucify Him! Crucify Him!

"Rejected and despised of men--" Earth, which hath ever slain her noblest sons, Slays also her Redeemer!

* * * * *

Creation is but systematized decay, And _Change_ is blazoned on the very skies, As in ephemeral telluric scenes, And through the whole cosmogony of worlds, Is written and rewritten!

Thou who hast seen the stately mastodon Roam at his will o'er earth's prolific plains, And the unwieldy megatherium Dragging his cumbrous, disproportioned weight Through quaternary marsh and stagnant fen; Or watched the ichthyosaurus plow the seas, Churning the waters till the glistening foam Rode on the greenish undulating waves; And huge saurian and reptilian shapes Amphibious and pelagic, swim and crawl, Cleaving the waters with tremendous strokes, Writhing with foul contortions in disport, Splashing and laving in the thermal seas Of the remote and prehistoric past; Thou who hast seen them fail and pass away Shalt also shine when man has disappeared.

Thou who hast seen the rank luxuriance Of vegetation flourish and decay, Vanish and pass away insensibly, Perish from off the earth which nourished it, And time supplant its rich exuberance With arid wastes of bleak sterility; Wilt thou look down in silent unconcern When countless eons of denuding time Have rendered earth as barren as thyself, Bereft of verdure's last habiliment; When men, with all their passions and desires, Their strange combines of evil and of good, Their proud achievements and exalted aims Have passed away forever?

The universe is but a sepulcher For worlds defunct, as earth for living forms! And thou, O Moon, who hast surveyed all this Thyself shalt be consumed with fervent heat, For e'en the firmament shall pass away.

* * * * *

Supreme Intelligence, Thou who createst worlds and satellites, (And Who canst estimate the universe) Weighing the heavens in Thy balances, Who hast ordained the laws of cosmic space To guide aright the planetary spheres; Thou Ruler of the infinite and great, Alike of vast and infinitesimal; Thou fundamental cause of all that is, In process of creation and decay, In the mutation and the ravages Sequent of constant lapse and flight of time Reveal Thy laws that we may follow them: Help us to recognize in all Thy works, Whether of atom or stupendous mass, The hand of Deity.

FOOTNOTES:

[F] Atilla was believed by the early Christians to have been a scourge sent direct from God, and some historians aver that he himself encouraged the belief.

[G] Sodom and Gommorah.

FINIS.