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hate,

      And soar beyond the storm with upright eye elate!

      Ye woods! that wave o’er Avon’s rocky steep,

      To Fancy’s ear sweet is your murmuring deep! 115

      For here she loves the cypress wreath to weave;

      Watching with wistful eye, the saddening tints of eve.

      Here, far from men, amid this pathless grove,

      In solemn thought the Minstrel wont to rove,

      Like star-beam on the slow sequester’d tide 120

      Lone-glittering, through the high tree branching wide.

      And here, in Inspiration’s eager hour,

      When most the big soul feels the mastering power,

       These wilds, these caverns roaming o’er,

       Round which the screaming sea-gulls soar, 125

      With wild unequal steps he pass’d along,

      Oft pouring on the winds a broken song:

      Anon, upon some rough rock’s fearful brow

      Would pause abrupt — and gaze upon the waves below.

      Poor Chatterton! he sorrows for thy fate 130

      Who would have prais’d and lov’d thee, ere too late.

      Poor Chatterton! farewell! of darkest hues

      This chaplet cast I on thy unshaped tomb;

      But dare no longer on the sad theme muse,

      Lest kindred woes persuade a kindred doom: 135

      For oh! big gall-drops, shook from Folly’s wing,

      Have blacken’d the fair promise of my spring;

      And the stern Fate transpierc’d with viewless dart

      The last pale Hope that shiver’d at my heart!

      Hence, gloomy thoughts! no more my soul shall dwell 140

      On joys that were! no more endure to weigh

      The shame and anguish of the evil day,

      Wisely forgetful! O’er the ocean swell

      Sublime of Hope I seek the cottag’d dell

      Where Virtue calm with careless step may stray; 145

      And, dancing to the moonlight roundelay,

      The wizard Passions weave an holy spell!

      O Chatterton! that thou wert yet alive!

      Sure thou would’st spread the canvass to the gale,

      And love with us the tinkling team to drive 150

      O’er peaceful Freedom’s undivided dale;

      And we, at sober eve, would round thee throng,

      Would hang, enraptur’d, on thy stately song,

      And greet with smiles the young-eyed Poesy

      All deftly mask’d as hoar Antiquity. 155

      Alas, vain Phantasies! the fleeting brood

      Of Woe self-solac’d in her dreamy mood!

      Yet will I love to follow the sweet dream,

      Where Susquehannah pours his untamed stream;

      And on some hill, whose forest-frowning side 160

      Waves o’er the murmurs of his calmer tide,

      Will raise a solemn Cenotaph to thee,

      Sweet Harper of time-shrouded Minstrelsy!

      And there, sooth’d sadly by the dirgeful wind,

      Muse on the sore ills I had left behind. 165

1796

       THE DESTINY OF NATIONS: A VISION

       Table of Contents

      Auspicious Reverence! Hush all meaner song,

      Ere we the deep preluding strain have poured

      To the Great Father, only Rightful King,

      Eternal Father! King Omnipotent!

      To the Will Absolute, the One, the Good! 5

      The I AM, the Word, the Life, the Living God!

      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 10

      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 15

      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 20

      Placed with our backs to bright Reality,

      That we may learn with young unwounded ken

      The substance from its shadow. Infinite Love,

      Whose latence is the plenitude of All,

      Thou with retracted beams, and self-eclipse 25

      Veiling, revealest thine eternal Sun.

      But some there are who deem themselves most free

      When they within this gross and visible sphere

      Chain down the wingéd thought, scoffing ascent,

      Proud in their meanness: and themselves they cheat 30

      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. 35

      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

      That as one body seems the aggregate 40

      Of atoms numberless, each organized;

      So by a strange and dim similitude

      Infinite myriads of selfconscious minds

      Are one all-conscious Spirit, which informs

      With absolute ubiquity of thought 45

      (His one eternal self-affirming act!)

      All his involvéd 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; 50

      Some roll the genial juices through the oak;

      Some drive the mutinous clouds to clash in air,

      And rushing on the storm with whirlwind speed,

      Yoke the red lightnings to their volleying car.

      Thus these pursue their never-varying course, 55

      No

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