"See," said the preacher, "Darkness hurries on,
But Man, toil-wearied, grieves not for the Sun;
He knows the light that leaves him shall return,
And hails the night because he trusts the morn!
Believe in God as in the Sun—and, lo!
Along thy soul, morn's youth restored shall glow!
As rests the earth, so rest, O troubled heart,
Rest, till the burthen of the cloud depart;
Rest, till the gradual veil, from Heaven withdrawn,
Renews thy freshness as it yields the dawn!"
Behold the storm-beat wanderer in repose!
He lists the sounds at which the Heavens unclose,
Gleam, through expanding bars, the angel-wings,
And floats the music borne from seraph-strings.
Holy the oldest creed which Nature gives,
Proclaiming God where'er Creation lives;
But there the doubt will come!—the clear design Attests the Maker and suggests the Shrine; But in that visible harmonious plan, What present shows the future world to man? What lore detects, beneath our crumbling clay, A soul exiled, and journeying back to day; What knowledge, in the bones of charnel urns, The etherial spark, the undying thought, discerns? How from the universal war, the prey Of life on life, can love explore the way? Search the material tribes of earth, sea, air, And the fierce Self that strives and slays is there. What but that Self to Man doth Nature teach? Where the charm'd link that binds the all to each? Where the sweet Law—(doth Nature boast its birth)— "Good will to man, and charity to earth?" Not in the world without, but that within, Reveal'd, not instinct—soul from sense can win! And where the Natural halts, where cramp'd, confined, The seen horizon bounds the baffled mind, The Inspired begins—the onward march is given; Bridging all space, nor ending ev'n in Heaven! There, veil'd on earth, we mark divinely clear, Duty and end—the There explains the Here! We see the link that binds the future band, Foeman with foeman gliding hand in hand; And feel that Hate is but an hour's—the son Of earth, to perish when the earth is done— But Love eternal; and we turn below, To hail the brother where we loathed the foe; There, in the soft and beautiful Belief, Flows the true Lethé for the lips of Grief; There, Penury, Hunger, Misery, cast their eyes, How soon the bright Republic of the Skies! There, Love, heart-broken, sees prepared the bower, And hears the bridal step, and waits the nuptial hour! There, smiles the mother we have wept! there bloom Again the buds asleep within the tomb; There, souls regain what hearts had lost before In that fix'd moment call'd the—Evermore!
Refresh'd in that soft baptism, and reborn,
The Indian woke, and on the world was morn!
All things seem'd new—rose-colour'd in the skies
Shone the hoar peaks of the old memories;
No more enshrouded with unbroken gloom
Calantha's injured name and early tomb—
No more with woe (how ill-suppress'd by pride!)
Thought sounds the gulf that parts the promised bride!
Faithful no less to Death, and true to Love,
This blooms again—that shall rejoin, above!
The Stoic courage had the wound conceal'd;
The Christian hope the wound's sharp torture heal'd.
As rude the waste, but now before him shone }
The star;—he rose, and cheerful journey'd on, }
Full of the God most with us when alone! }
III.
'Tis night—a night by fits now foul, now fair,
As speed the cloud-wracks through the gusty air:
At times the wild blast dies—and high and far,
Through chasms of cloud, looks down the solemn star—
Or the majestic moon;—so watchfires mark
Some sleeping War dim-tented in the dark;
Or so, through antique Chaos and the storm
Of Matter, whirl'd and writhing into form,
Pale angels peer'd!
Anon, from brief repose
The winds leap forth, the cloven deeps reclose;
Mass upon mass, the hurtling vapours driven,
As one huge blackness walls the earth from heaven!—
In one of these brief lulls—you see, serene,
The village church spire 'mid its mounds of green,
The scattered roof-tops of the hamlet round,
And the swoll'n rill that girds the holy ground.
A plank that rock'd above the rushing wave,
The dizzy pathway to a wanderer gave;
There, as he paused, from the lone churchyard, slow
Emerged a form the wanderer's eyes should know!
It gains the opposing margent of the stream,
Full on the face shines calm the crescent beam;
It halts upon the bridge! Now, Indian, learn
If in thy soul the heathen yet can yearn!
Swift runs the wave, the instinct and the hour,
The lonely night, when evil thoughts have power,
The foe before thee, and no things that live
To witness vengeance—Canst thou still forgive?
Scarce seen by each the face of each—when, deep
O'er the lost moon, the cloud's loud surges sweep;
Yea, as a sea devours the fated bark,
Vanish'd the heaven, and closed the abyss of dark!
You heard the roaring of the mighty blast,
The groaning trees uprooted as it pass'd
The wrath and madness of the starless rill,
Swell'd by each torrent rushing from the hill.
The slight plank creaks—high mount the waves and high,
Hark! with the tempest's shrieks the human cry!
Upon the bridge but one man now!—below, The night of waters and the drowning foe! The Indian heard the death-cry and the fall; Still o'er the wild scene hung the funeral pall! What eye can pierce the darkness of the wave? } What hand guide rescue through the roaring grave? } Not for such craven questions pause the brave! } Again the moon!—again the churchyard's green, Spire, hamlet, mead, and rill distinct are seen; But on the bridge no form, no life! The beam Shoots wan and broken on the tortured stream; Vague, indistinct, what yonder moveth o'er The troubled tide, and struggles to the shore? Hark, where the sere bough of the tossing tree Snaps in the grasp of some strong agony, And the dull plunge, and stifled cry betray Where the grim water-fiend reclasps his prey!
Still shines the moon—still halts the panting storm,
It moves again—the shadow shapes to form,
Lo! where yon bank shelves gradual, and the ray
Silvers the reed, it cleaves its vigorous way!—
Saved from the deep, but happier far to save,
The foeman wrests the foeman from the grave!
Still shines the moon—still halts the storm!—above
His sons, looks down divine the Father-Love!