How are you struck with terror and delight,
When angel with archangel copes in fight!
When great Messiah's outspread banner shines,
How does the chariot rattle in his lines!
What sound of brazen wheels, with thunder, scare
And stun the reader with the din of war!
With fear my spirits and my blood retire,
To see the seraphs sunk in clouds of fire :
But when, with eager steps, from hence I rise,
And view the first gay scene of Paradise;
What tongue, what words of rapture, can express
A vision so profuse of pleasantness!
Creative fancy, and inspection keen
Through the deep windings of the human heart,
Is not wild Shakspeare thine and Nature's boast?
Is not each great, each amiable Muse
Of classic ages in thy MILTON met?
A genius universal as his theme;
Astonishing as Chaos; as the bloom
Of blowing Eden fair; as Heaven sublime!
NOR Second He that rode sublime
Upon the seraph-wings of ecstasy;
The secrets of the abyss to spy,
He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time:
The living throne, the sapphire blaze,
Where Angels tremble while they gaze,
He saw; but, blasted with excess of light,
Closed his eyes in endless night.
HIGH On some cliff, to Heaven up-piled,
Of rude access, of prospect wild,
Where, tangled round the jealous steep,
Strange shades o'erbrow the valleys deep,
And holy Genii guard the rock,
Its glooms embrown, its springs unlock;
While on its rich ambitious head
An Eden, like HIS OWN, lies spread;
I view that oak the fancied glades among,
By which, as MILTON lay, his evening ear,
From many a cloud that dropp'd ethereal dew,
Nigh sphered in Heaven, its native strains could
On which that ancient trump he reach'd was
Thither oft his glory greeting,
From Waller's myrtle shades retreating,
With many a vow from Hope's aspiring tongue,
My trembling feet his guiding steps pursue;
In vain : Such bliss to one alone
Of all the sons of Soul was known;
And Heaven and Fancy, kindred Powers,
Have now o'erturn'd the inspiring bowers,
Or curtain'd close such scene from every future
RISE, hallow'd MILTON! rise and say,
How, at thy gloomy close of day;
How, when depress'd by age, beset with wrongs;
When 'fallen on evil days and evil tongues:'
When Darkness, brooding on thy sight,
Exiled the sovereign lamp of light;
Say, what could then one cheering hope diffuse?
What friends were thine, save Memory and the
Hence the rich spoils, thy studious youth Caught from the stores of ancient Truth: Hence all thy busy eye could pleased explore, When Rapture led thee to the Latian shore; Each scene, that Tiber's bank supplied; Each grace, that play'd on Arno's side;
The tepid gales, through Tuscan glades that fly;
The blue serene, that spreads Hesperia's sky;
Were still thine own: thy ample mind
Each charm received, retain'd, combined.
And thence the nightly Visitant,' that came
To touch thy bosom with her sacred flame,
Recall'd the long-lost beams of grace;
That whilom shot from Nature's face,
When God, in Eden, o'er her youthful breast
Spread with his own right hand Perfection's gor-
POET of other times! to thee I bow
With lowliest reverence. Oft thou takest my soul,
And waft'st it by thy potent harmony
To that empyreal mansion, where thine ear
Caught the soft warblings of a seraph's harp,
What time the nightly visitant unlock'd
The gates of Heaven, and to thy mental sight
Display'd celestial scenes. She from thy lyre
With indignation tore the tinkling bells,
And turn'd it to sublimest argument.
AGES elapsed ere Homer's lamp appear'd,
And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard:
To carry Nature lengths unknown before,
To give a MILTON birth, ask'd ages more.
Thus Genius rose and set at order'd times,
And shot a day-spring into distant climes,
Ennobling every region that he chose;
He sunk in Greece, in Italy he rose;
And, tedious years of gothic darkness pass'd,
Emerged all splendor in our isle at last.
Thus lovely halcyons dive into the main,
Then show far off their shining plumes again.
In the pure fountain of eternal love,
Has eyes indeed; and, viewing all she sees
As meant to indicate a God to man,
Gives Him his praise, and forfeits not her own.
Learning has borne such fruit in other days
On all her branches: piety has found
Friends in the friends of science, and true prayer
Has flow'd from lips wet with Castalian dews.
Such was thy wisdom, Newton, childlike sage!
Sagacious reader of the works of God,
And in his word sagacious. Such too thine,
Milton, whose genius had angelic wings,
And fed on manna.
|