No God!-Who fixed the solid ground
On pillars strong, that alter not?
Who spread the curtained skies around?
Who doth the ocean bounds allot?
Who all things to perfection brought
On earth below, in heaven abroad ?—
Go ask the fool of impious thought That dares to say,-"There is no God!"
TO-MORROW!-Mortal, boast not thou
Of time and tide that are not now!
But think, in one revolving day,
How earthly things may pass away!
To-day-while hearts with rapture spring,
The youth to beauty's lip may cling;
To-morrow-and that lip of bliss
May sleep unconscious of his kiss.
To-day-the blooming spouse may press
Her husband in a fond caress;
To-morrow and the hands that pressed,
May wildly strike her widowed breast.
To-day-the clasping babe may drain
The milk-stream from its mother's vein;
To-morrow-like a frozen rill,
That bosom-current may be still.
To-day-the merry heart may feast
On herb and fruit, and bird and beast;
To-morrow-spite of all thy glee,
The hungry worms may feast on thee.
To-morrow!-Mortal, boast not thou
Of time and tide that are not now!
But think, in one revolving day,
That e'en thyself may pass away.
THIS poet was born of a family distinguished in the history of Connecticut, at New Haven, on the 26th of September, 1789. He graduated at Yale College, with a high reputation for abilities and scholarship, in 1808, and afterwards entered upon the business of a merchant. His principal works are "The Vision of Judgment," published in 1812; "Percy's Mosque," published originally while he was on a visit to England, in 1820; "Hadad," which appeared in 1825, and "Demetria," written in 1816, but not printed until it was included in the collection of his works which he gave to the world in 1840, a few months before his death. As a poet, Mr. Hillhouse possessed qualities seldom found united: a masculine strength of mind, and a most delicate perception of the beautiful. With an imagination of the loftiest order-with "the vision and the faculty divine" in its fullest exercise, the wanderings of his fancy were chastened and controlled by exquisite taste. The grand characteristic of his writings is their classical beauty. Every passage is polished to the utmost, yet there is no exuberance, no sacrifice to false and meretricious taste. He threw aside the gaudy and affected brilliancy with which too many set forth their poems, and left his to stand, like the doric column, charming by its simplicity.
CLOSE OF THE VISION OF JUDGMENT.
As, when from some proud capital that crowns
Imperial Ganges, the reviving breeze
Sweeps the dank mist, or hoary river fog
Impervious mantled o'er her highest towers,
Bright on the eye rush Brahma's temples, capped
With spiry tops, gay-trellised minarets,
Pagods of gold, and mosques with burnished domes,
Gilded, and glistening in the morning sun;
So from the hill the cloudy curtains rolled,
And, in the lingering lustre of the eve,
Again the Saviour and his seraphs shone.
Emitted sudden in his rising, flashed
Intenser light, as towards the right-hand host
Mild turning, with a look ineffable,
The invitation he proclaimed in accents
Which on their ravished ears poured thrilling, like
The silver sound of many trumpets heard
Afar in sweetest jubilee; then, swift
Stretching his dreadful sceptre to the left,
That shot forth horrid lightnings, in a voice
Clothed but in half its terrors, yet to them
Seemed like the crush of heaven, pronounced the doom.
The sentence uttered, as with life instinct,
The throne uprose majestically slow;
Each angel spread his wings; in one dread swell
Of triumph mingling as they mounted, trumpets,
And harps, and golden lyres, and timbrels sweet,
And many a strange and deep-toned instrument
Of heavenly minstrelsy unknown on earth,
And angels' voices, and the loud acclaim
Of all the ransomed, like a thunder-shout.
Far through the skies melodious echoes rolled,
And faint hosannas distant climes returned.
Down from the lessening multitude came faint
And fainter still the trumpet's dying peal,
All else in distance lost; when, to receive
Their new inhabitants, the heavens unfolded.
Up gazing, then, with streaming eyes, a glimpse
The wicked caught of Paradise, whence streaks
Of splendor, golden quivering radiance shone,
As when the showery evening sun takes leave,
Breaking a moment o'er the illumined world.
Seen far within, fair forms moved graceful by,
Slow-turning to the light their snowy wings.
A deep-drawn, agonizing groan escaped
The hapless outcasts, when upon the Lord
The glowing portals closed. Undone, they stood
Wistfully gazing on the cold, gray heaven,
As if to catch, alas! a hope not there.
But shades began to gather; night approached
Murky and lowering: round with horror rolled
On one another, their despairing eyes
That glared with anguish: starless, hopeless gloom
Fell on their souls, never to know an end.
Though in the far horizon lingered yet
A lurid gleam, black clouds were mustering there;
Red flashes, followed by low muttering sounds,
Announced the fiery tempest doomed to hurl
The fragments of the earth again to chaos.
Wild gusts swept by, upon whose hollow wing
Unearthly voices, yells, and ghastly peals
Of demon laughter came. Infernal shapes
Flitted along the sulphurous wreaths, or plunged
Their dark, impure abyss, as seafowl dive
Their watery element.-O'erwhelmed with sights
And sounds appalling, I awoke; and found
For gathering storms, and signs of coming wo,
The midnight moon gleaming upon my bed
Serene and peaceful. Gladly I surveyed her
Walking in brightness through the stars of heaven,
And blessed the respite ere the day of doom.
HADAD'S DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY OF JERUSALEM
"Tis so;-the hoary harper sings aright;
How beautiful is Zion!-Like a queen,
Armed with a helm, in virgin loveliness,
Her heaving bosom in a bossy cuiras,
She sits aloft, begirt with battlements
And bulwarks swelling from the rock, to guard
The sacred courts, pavilions, palaces,
Soft gleaming through the umbrage of the woods
Which tuft her summit, and, like raven tresses,
Waved their dark beauty round the tower of David.
Resplendent with a thousand golden bucklers,
The embrasures of alabaster shine;
Hailed by the pilgrims of the desert, bound
To Judah's mart with orient merchandise.
But not, for thou art fair and turret-crowned,
Wet with the choicest dew of heaven, and blessed
With golden fruits, and gales of frankincense,
Dwell I beneath thine ample curtains. Here,
Where saints and prophets teach, where the stern law
Still speaks in thunder, where chief angels watch,
And where the glory hovers, here I war.
EVENING MUSIC OF THE ANGELS.
Low warblings, now, and solitary harps,
Were heard among the angels, touched and tuned
As to an evening hymn, preluding soft
To cherub voices; louder as they swelled,
Deep strings struck in, and hoarser instruments,
Mixed with clear, silver sounds, till concord rose
Full as the harmony of winds to heaven;
Yet sweet as nature's springtide melodies
To some worn pilgrim, first with glistening eyes
Greeting his native valley, whence the sounds
Of rural gladness, herds, and bleating flocks,
The chirp of birds, blithe voices, lowing kine,
The dash of waters, reed, or rustic pipe,
Blent with the dulcet, distance-mellowed bell,
Come, like the echo of his early joys.
In every pause, from spirits in mid air,
Responsive still were golden viols heard,
And heavenly symphonies stole faintly down.
|