GREENLAND, 

AND 

OTHER POEMS. 

Jv /- 

BY JAMES MONTGOMERY. 



Oft var ek dasa, dur ek dro thilc." 
Oft was I weary when I drew thee." 



Page 68. 



SECOND EDITION. 

LONDON: 

Printed by Strahan and Spottiswoode, Printers- Street ; 
FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, 

PATERNOSTER-ROW. 
1819. 





(U 



PREFACE. 



IN the leading Poem of this Collection, the 
Author frankly acknowledges that he has so far 
failed, as to be under the necessity of sending it 
forth incomplete, or suppressing it altogether. 
Why he has not done the latter is of little im- 
portance to the Public, which will assuredly 
award him no more credit than his performance, 
taken as it is, can command ; while the conse- 
quences of his temerity, or his misfortune, must 
remain wholly with himself. 

The original plan was intended to embrace 
the most prominent events in the annals of 
A 2 



iv PREFACE. 

ancient and modern Greenland; incidental 
descriptions of whatever is sublime or pic- 
turesque in the seasons and scenery, or peculiar 
in the superstitions, manners, and character of 
the natives ; with a rapid retrospect of that 
moral revolution, which the gospel has wrought 
among these people, by reclaiming them, almost 
universally, from idolatry and barbarism. 

Of that part of the projected Poem which is 
here exhibited, the first three Cantos contain a 
sketch of the history of the ancient Moravian 
Church, the origin of the missions by that 
people to Greenland, and the voyage of the 
first three brethren who went thither in 1733. 
The fourth Canto refers principally to traditions 
concerning the Norwegian colonies, which are 
said to have existed on both shores of Green- 
land, from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries. 
In the fifth Canto the Author has attempted, in 
a series of episodes, to sum up and exemplify 
the chief causes of the extinction of those 
colonies, and the abandonment of Greenland, 



PREFACE. v 

for several centuries, by European voyagers. 
Although this Canto is entirely a work of ima- 
gination, the fiction has not been adopted 
merely as a substitute for lost facts, but as a 
vehicle for illustrating many of the most splen- 
did and striking phenomena of the climate, for 
which a more appropriate place might not have 
been found, even if the Poem had been carried 
on to a successful conclusion. But having pro- 
ceeded thus far, personal circumstances, and 
considerations which it would be impertinent to 
particularise here, compelled the Author to 
relinquish his enterprise. Whether he may 
ever have courage or opportunity to resume it, 
must depend on contingencies utterly beyond 
his power. 

The principal subjects introduced in the 
course of the Poem, will be found in Crantz's 
Histories of the Brethren and of Greenland, or 
in Rislrfs Select Narratives, extracted from the 
records of the ancient Unitas Fra^-urn, or 
United Brethren. To the accounts of Iceland, 



vi PREFACE. 

by various travellers, the Author is also much 
indebted. 

Among the minor pieces that complete the 
present volume, a few will be found of a more 
religious character than compositions, which aim 
at the honours of poetry, generally assume. 
Though these may not be acceptable to all 
readers, no apology can be necessary for their 
insertion ; and the writer ventures to cast them, 
with their companions, upon the liberality of 
that Public, whose final judgement will be 
unerring and irreversible. 

Sheffield, March 27. 1819. 



CONTENTS. 



GREENLAND : Page 

Canto I l 

Canto II 23 

Canto III 45 

Canto IV 67 

Canto V 88 

Appendix to Greenland 127 

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

HOPE 149 

A MOTHER'S LOVE 153 

THE TIME-PIECE 158 

STANZAS to the Memory of the Rev. T. SPENCER 162 

ISRAEL IN CAPTIVITY 168 

HUMAN LIFE 170 

THE CHRISTIAN ISRAEL 172 

THE VISIBLE CREATION 175 



viii CONTENTS. 

Page 

SONNET 178 

SONNET 179 

SONNET: THE CRUCIFIXION 180 

CHRIST'S PASSION 182 

CHRIST'S TRIUMPH 184 

SAINTS IN HEAVEN 186 

THE BIBLE 188 

INSTRUCTION 190 

THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER 192 

ON THE ROYAL INFANT 196 

A MIDNIGHT THOUGHT 198 

A NIGHT IN A STAGE-COACH 200 

THE REIGN OF SPRING 206 

THE REIGN OF SUMMER 212 

INCOGNITA 229 

THE LITTLE CLOUD 236 

To BRITAIN 246 



GREENLAND. 



CANTO I. 

The three Jirst Moravian Missionaries are represented as 
on their Voyage to Greenland, in the year 1733. 
Sketch of the descent , establishment, persecutions, 
extinction and revival of the Church of the United 
Brethren from the tenth to the beginning of the 
eighteenth century. The origin of their Missions to 
the West Indies and to Greenland, 



THE moon is watching in the sky ; the stars 
Are swiftly wheeling on their golden cars ; 
Ocean, outstretcht with infinite expanse. 
Serenely slumbers in a glorious trance ; 
The tide, o'er which no troubling spirits breathe, 
Reflects a cloudless firmament beneath ; 
Where, poised as in the centre of a sphere, 
A ship above and ship below appear ; 



. GREENLAND. CANTO i. 

A double image, pictured on the deep, 

The vessel o'er its shadow seems to sleep ; 

Yet, like the host of heaven, that never rest, 

With evanescent motion to the west, 

The pageant glides through loneliness and night, 

And leaves behind a rippling wake of light. 

Hark ! through the calm and silence of the scene, 
Slow, solemn, sweet, with many a pause between, 
Celestial music swells along the air ! 
No ; 'tis the evening hymn of praise and prayer 
From yonder deck ; where, on the stern retired, 
Three humble voyagers, with looks inspired, 
And hearts enkindled with a holier flame 
Than ever lit to empire or to fame, 
Devoutly stand : their choral accents rise 
On wings of harmony beyond the skies ; 
And 'midst the songs, that Seraph-Minstrels sing, 
Day without night, to their immortal King, 
These simple strains, which erst Bohemian hills 
Echoed to pathless woods and desert rills ; 



CANTO i. GREENLAND. 3 

Now heard from Shetland's azure bound, are 

known 

In heaven ; and He, who sits upon the throne 
In human form, with mediatorial power, 
Remembers Calvary, and hails the hour, 
When, by the' Almighty Father's high decree, 
The utmost north to Him shall bow the knee, 
And, won by love, an untamed rebel-race 
Kiss the victorious Sceptre of His grace. 
Then to His eye, whose instant glance pervades 
Heaven's heights, Earth's circle, Hell's profoundest 

shades, 

Is there a groupe more lovely than those three 
Night-watching Pilgrims on the lonely sea ? 
Or to His ear, that gathers in one sound 
The voices of adoring worlds around, 
Comes there a breath of more delightful praise 
Than the faint notes his poor disciples raise, 
Ere on the treacherous main they sink to rest, 
Secure as leaning on their Master's breast ? 
B 2 



4 GREENLAND. CANTO i. 

They sleep; but memory wakes; and dreams 

array 

Night in a lively masquerade of day ; 
The land they seek, the land they leave behind, 
Meet on mid-ocean in the plastic mind ; 
One brings forsaken home and friends so nigh, 
That tears in slumber swell the* unconscious eye ; 
The other opens, with prophetic view, 
Perils, which e'en their fathers never knew, 
(Though school'd by suffering, long inured to toil, 
Outcasts and exiles from their natal soil ;) 
Strange scenes, strange men ; untold, untried 

distress ; 

Pain, hardships, famine, cold, and nakedness, 
Diseases ; death in every hideous form, 
On shore, at sea, by fire, by flood, by storm ; 
Wild beasts and wilder men : unmoved with fear, 
Health, comfort, safety, life, they count not dear, 
May they but hope a Saviour's love to shew, 
And warn one spirit from eternal woe ; 






CANTO i. GREENLAND. 

Nor will they faint ; nor can they strive in vain, 
Since thus to live is Christ, to die is gain. 

'Tis morn : the bathing moon her lustre shrouds ; 
Wide o'er the east impends an arch of clouds, 
That spans the ocean ; while the infant dawn 
Peeps through the portal o'er the liquid lawn, 
That ruffled by an April gale appears, 
Between the gloom and splendour of the spheres, 
Dark-purple as the moorland-heath, when rain 
Hangs in low vapours o'er the* autumnal plain : 
Till the full Sun, resurgent from the flood, 
Looks on the waves, and turns them into blood ; 
But quickly kindling, as his beams aspire, 
The lambent billows play in forms of fire. 
Where is the Vessel? Shining through the 

light, 

Like the white sea-fowl's horizontal flight, 
Yonder she wings, and skims, and cleaves her way 
Through refluent foam and iridescent spray. 
B 3 



GREENLAND. CANTO i. 

Lo ! on the deck, with patriarchal grace, 
Heaven in his bosom opening o'er his face, 
Stands CHRISTIAN DAVID; venerable name! 
Bright in the records of celestial fame, 
On earth obscure ; like some sequester'd star, 
That rolls in its Creator's beams afar, 
Unseen by man ; till telescopic eye, 
Sounding the blue abysses of the sky, 
Draws forth its hidden beauty into light, 
And adds a jewel to the crown of night. 
Though hoary with the multitude of years, 
Unshorn of strength, between his young compeers, 
He towers; with faith, whose boundless glance 

can see 

Time's shadows brightening through eternity; 
Love, God's own love in his pure breast enshrined ; 
Love, love to man the magnet of his mind ; 
Sublimer schemes maturing in his thought 
Than ever statesman plann'd, or warrior wrought ; 



CANTO i. GREENLAND. 

While, with rejoicing tears, and rapturous sighs, 
To heaven ascends their morning sacrifice, (a) 
Whence are the pilgrims ? whither would they 

roam? 

Greenland their port ; Moravia was their home. 
Sprung from a race of martyrs ; men who bore 
The cross on many a Golgotha, of yore ; 
When first Sclavonian tribes the truth received, 
And princes at the price of thrones believed ; (6) 



(a) The names of the three first Moravian Missionaries to 
Greenland were Christian David , Matthew Stack, and Christian 
Stack. 

(6) The Church of the United Brethren (first established under 
that name about the year 1460) traces its descent from the 
Sclavonian branch of the Greek Church, which was spread 
throughout Bohemia and Moravia, as well as the ancient Dal- 
matia. The Bulgarians were once the most powerful tribe of 
the Sclavic nations ; and among them the gospel was introduced 
in the ninth century. See additional Note (A.) in the Ap- 
pendix. 

B 4 



GREENLAND. CANTO i. 

When WALDO i flying from the' apostate west, (c) 
In German wilds his righteous cause confessed : 

When WICKLIFFE, like a rescuing Angel, found 
The dungeon, where the word of God lay bound, 
Unloosed its chains, and led it by the hand, 

In its own sunshine, through his native land : (d) 

When Huss, the victim of perfidious foes, 
To heaven upon a fiery chariot rose ; 



(c) With the Waldenses, the Bohemian and Moravian Churches, 
which never properly submitted to the authority of the Pope, held 
intimate communion for ages: and from Stephen, the last Bishop 
of the Waldenses, in 1467, the United Brethren received their 
episcopacy. Almost immediately afterwards, those ancient con- 
fessors of the truth were dispersed by a cruel persecution, and 
Stephen himself suffered martyrdom, being burnt as a heretic at 
Vienna. 

(d) Wickliffes writings were early translated into the Bohemian 
tongue, and eagerly read by the devout and persecuted people, 
who never had given up the Bible in their own language, nor 
consented to perform their church service in Latin. Archbishop 
Sbinek; of Prague, ordered the works of Wickliffe to be burnt 
by the hands of the hangman. He himself could scarcely read ! 



CANTO i. GREENLAND. 

And ere he vanish'd, with a prophet's breath, 
Foretold the* immortal triumphs of his death : (e) 
When ZISKA, burning with fanatic zeal, 
Exchanged the Spirit's sword for patriot steel, 
And through the heart of Austria's thick array 
To Tabor's summit stabb'd resistless way ; 
But there, (as if transfigured on the spot 
The world's Redeemer stood,) his rage forgot ; 
Deposed his arms and trophies in the dust, 
Wept like a babe, and placed in God his 
trust, 



(e) It is well known that John Huss (who might be called a 
disciple of our Wickliffe)> though furnished with a safe*conduct 
by the emperor Sigismund, was burnt by a decree of the 
council of Constance. Several sayings, predictive of retribution 
to the priests, and reformation in the Church, are recorded, as 
being uttered by him in his last hours. Among others ; " A 
hundred years hence," said he, addressing his judges, " ye shall 
render an account of your doings to God and to me." Luther 
appeared at the period thus indicated. 

B5 



10 GREENLAND. CANTO i. 

While prostrate warriors kiss'd the hallow'd ground, 

And lay, like slain, in silent ranks around : (/) 

When mild GREGORIUS, in a lowlier field, 

As brave a witness, as unwont to yield 

As ZISKA'S self, with patient footsteps trod 

A path of suffering, like the Son of God, 

And nobler palms, by meek endurance won, 

Than if his sword had blazed from sun to sun : (g) 

Though nature fail'd him on the racking wheel, 

He felt the joys which parted spirits feel ; 



(/) After the martyrdom of John Huss, his followers and 
countrymen took up arms for the maintenance of their civil and 
religious liberties. The first and most distinguished of their leaders 
was John Ziska. He seized possession of a high mountain, which 
he fortified, and called Tabor. Here he and his people (who were 
hence called Taborites) worshipped God according to their con- 
sciences and his holy word ; while in the plains they fought and 
conquered their persecutors and enemies. 

(g) See Note (B.) in the Appendix, for a brief account of this 
Gregory ) and an illustration of the lines that follow concerning his 
trance and vision while he lay upon the rack. 



CANTO i. GREENLAND. 1 1 

Rapt into bliss from exstacy of pain, 
Imagination wander'd o'er a plain : 
Fair in the midst, beneath a morning sky, 
A Tree its ample branches bore on high, 
With fragrant bloom, and fruit delicious hung, 
While birds beneath the foliage fed and sung ; 
All glittering to the sun with diamond dew, 
O'er sheep and kine a breezy shade it threw ; 
A lovely boy, the child of hope and prayer, 
With crook and shepherd's pipe, was watching there ; 
At hand three venerable forms were seen, 
In simple garb, with apostolic mien, 
Who mark'd the distant fields convulsed with strife, 
The guardian Cherubs of that Tree of Life ; 
Not arm'd like Eden's host, with flaming brands, 
Alike to friends and foes they stretch'd their hands, 
In sign of peace ; and while Destruction spread 
His path with carnage, welcomed all who fled : 
When poor COMENIUS, with his little flock, 
Escaped the wolves, and from the boundary rock, . 
16 



12 s GREENLAND. CANTO i. 

Cast o'er Moravian hills a look of woe, 

Saw the green vales expand, the waters flow, 

And happier years revolving in his mind, 

Caught every sound that murmur'd on the wind ; 

As if his eye could never thence depart, 

As if his ear were seated in his heart, 

And his full soul would thence a passage break, 

To leave the body, for his country's sake ; 

While on his knees he pour'd the fervent prayer, 

That God would make that martyr-land his care, 

And nourish in its ravaged soil a root 

Of GREGOR'S Tree, to bear perennial fruit, (h) 



(fi) John Amos Comenius, one of the most learned as well as 
pious men of his age, was minister of the Brethren's congregation 
at Fulneck, in Moravia, from 1618 to 1627, when the Protestant 
nobility and clergy being expatriated, he fled with a part of his people 
through Silesia into Poland. On the summit of the mountains form- 
ing the boundary, he turned his sorrowful eyes towards Bohemia and 
Moravia, and kneeling down with his brethren there, implored God, 
with many tears, that he would not take away the light of his holy 
word from those two provinces, but preserve in them a remnant for 
Himself. A remnant was saved. See Appendix , Note (C.) 



CANTO i. GREENLAND. 13 

His prayer was heard: that Church, through ages 

past, 

Assail'd and rent by persecution's blast ; 
Whose sons no yoke could crush, no burthen tire, 
Unawed by dungeons, tortures, sword, and fire, 
(Less proof against the world's alluring wiles, 
Whose frowns have weaker terrors than its smiles ;) 
That Church o'erthrown, dispersed, unpeopled, 

dead, 

Oft from the dust of ruin raised her head, 
And rallying round her feet, as from their graves, 
Her exiled orphans, hid in forest-caves ; 
Where, midst the fastnesses of rocks and glens, 
Banded like robbers, stealing from their dens, 
By night they met, their holiest vows to pay, 
As if their deeds were dark, and shunn'd the day ; 
While Christ's revilers, in his seamless robe, 
And parted garments, flaunted round the globe ; 
From east to west while priestcraft's banners flew, 
And harness'd kings his iron chariot drew : 



14 GREENLAND. CANTO i. 

That Church advanced, triumphant, o'er the 

ground, 

Where all her conquering martyrs had been crown'd, 
Fearless her foe's whole malice to defy, 
And worship God in liberty, or die : 
For truth and conscience oft she pour'd her blood, 
And firmest in the fiercest conflicts stood, 
Wresting from bigotry the proud controul 
Claim'd o'er the sacred empire of the soul, 
Where God, the judge of all, should fill the 

throne, 
And reign, as in his universe, alone, (i) 

'Twas thus through centuries she rose and fell ; 
At length victorious seem'd the gates of hell ; 
But founded on a rock, which cannot move 
The' eternal rock of her Redeemer's love 
That Church, which Satan's legions thought destroy'd, 
Her name extinct, her place for ever void, 

(i) See Note (D.) in the Appendix. 



CANTO i. GREENLAND. 15 

Alive once more, respired her native air, 

But found no freedom for the voice of prayer : 

Again the cowl'd oppressor clank'd his chains, 

Flourish'd his scourge, and threatened bonds and pains, 

(His arm enfeebled could no longer kill, 

But in his heart he was a murderer still :) 

Then CHRISTIAN DAVID, strengtheri'd from above, 

Wise as the serpent, harmless as the dove ; 

Bold as a lion on his Master's part, 

In zeal a seraph, and a child in heart ; 

PluckM from the gripe of antiquated laws, 

( Even as a mother from the felon-jaws 

Of a lean wolf, that bears her babe away, 

With courage beyond nature, rends the prey,) 

The little remnant of that ancient race : 

Far in Lusatian woods they found a place ; 

There, where the sparrow builds her busy nest, 

And the clime-changing swallow loves to rest, 

Thine altar, God of Hosts ! there still appear 

The tribes to worship, unassail'd by fear ; 



16 GREENLAND. CANTO i. 

Not like their fathers, vex'd from age to age 

By blatant Bigotry's insensate rage, 

Abroad in every place, in every hour 

Awake, alert, and ramping to devour. 

No ; peaceful as the spot where Jacob slept, 

And guard all night the journeying angels kept, 

Herrnhut yet stands amidst her sheltered bowers ; 

The Lord hath set his watch upon her towers, (j) 

Soon, homes of humble form, and structure rude, 
Raised sweet society in solitude : 



(j) In 1721, (ninety -four years after the flight of Comenius) 
the Church of the United Brethren was revived by the persecuted 
refugees from Moravia (descendants of the old confessors of that 
namej, who were led from time to time by Christian David, 
(himself a Moravian, but educated in the Lutheran persuasion,) 
to settle on an uncultivated piece of land, on an estate belonging 
to Count Zinzendorf, in Lusatia. Christian David, who was 
a carpenter, began the work of building a church in this wilder- 
ness, by striking his axe into a tree, and exclaiming " Here hath 
the sparrow found an house, and the swaUow a nest for herself i 
even thine altars, Lord God of Hosts!" They named the 
settlement Herrnhut, or The Lord's Watch. See Appendix, 
Note (E.) 



CANTO i. GREENLAND. 17 

And the lorn traveller there, at fall of night, 
Could trace from distant hills the spangled light, 
Which now from many a cottage window streamed, 
Or in full glory round the chapel beam'd ; 
While hymning voices, in the silent shade, 
Music of all his soul's affections made : 
Where through the trackless wilderness erewhile, 
No hospitable ray was known to smile ; 
Or if a sudden splendor kindled joy, 
Twas but a meteor dazzling to destroy : 
While the wood echoed to the hollow owl, 
The fox's cry, or wolf's lugubrious howl. 

Unwearied as the camel, day by day, 
Tracks through unwater'd wilds his doleful way, 
Yet in his breast a cherish'd draught retains, 
To cool the fervid current in his veins, 
While from the sun's meridian realms he brings 
The gold and gems of Ethiopian Kings : 
So CHRISTIAN DAVID, spending yet unspent, 
On many a pilgrimage of mercy went ; 



18 GREENLAND. CANTO i. 

Through all their haunts his suffering brethren sought, 

And safely to that land of promise brought ; 

While in his bosom, on the toilsome road, 

A secret well of consolation flow'd, 

Fed from the fountain near the* eternal throne, 

Bliss to the world unyielded and unknown. 
In stillness thus the little Zion rose ; 

But scarcely found those fugitives repose, 
Ere to the west with pitying eyes they turn'd ; 
Their love to Christ beyond the' Atlantic burn'd. 
Forth sped their messengers, content to be 
Captives themselves, to cheer captivity ; 
Soothe the poor Negro with fraternal smiles, 
And preach deliverance in those prison-isles, 
Where man's most hateful forms of being meet, 

The tyrant and the slave that licks his feet. (A:) 



() In 1732, when the congregation at Herrnhut consisted of 
about six hundred persons, including children, the two first mission- 
aries sailed for the Danish island of St. Thomas, to preach the 
gospel to the negroes ; and such was their devotion to the good 



CANTO i. GREENLAND. 19 

O'er Greenland next two youths in secret wept: 
And where the sabbath of the dead was kept, 
With pious forethought, while their hands prepare 
Beds which the living and unborn shall share, 
(For man so surely to the dust is brought, 
His grave before his cradle may be wrought,) 
They told their purpose, each o'erjoyM to find 
His own idea in his brother's mind. 
For counsel in simplicity they pray'd, 
And vows of ardent consecration made : 
Vows heard in heaven ; from that accepted hour, 
Their souls were clothed with confidence and power, (I) 



work, that being told that they could not have intercourse other- 
wise with the objects of their Christian compassion, they deter- 
mined to sell themselves for slaves on their arrival, and work with 
die blacks in the plantations. But this sacrifice was not required. 
Many thousand negroes have since been truly converted in the 
West Indies. 

(0 Matthew Stack and Frederick Boenisch, two young men, 
being at work together, preparing a piece of ground for a burial- 
place at Herrnhut, disclosed to each other their distinct desires 



20 GREENLAND. CANTO i. 

Nor hope deferred could quell their heart's 

desire ; 

The bush once kindled grew amidst the fire ; 
But ere its shoots a tree of life became, 
Congenial spirits caught the* electric flame ; 
And for that holy service, young and old, 
Their plighted faith and willing names enrolled ; 
Eager to change the rest, so lately found, 
For life-long labours on barbarian ground ; 
To break, through barriers of eternal ice, 
A vista to the gates of Paradise ; 
And light beneath the shadow of the pole 
The tenfold darkness of the human soul ; 



to offer themselves to the congregation as missionaries to Green- 
land. They therefore became joint candidates. Considerable 
delay, however, occurred ; and when it was at length determined 
to attempt the preaching of the gospel there, Frederick Boenisch 
being on a distant journey, Christian David was appointed to 
conduct thither Matthew Stack and his cousin, Christian Stack, 
who sailed from Copenhagen on the 10th of April 1733, and 
landed in Ball's River on the 20th of May following. 



CANTO i. GREENLAND. 21 

To man, a task more hopeless than to bless 
With Indian fruits that arctic wilderness ; 
With God, as possible when unbegun 
As though the destined miracle were done. 

Three chosen candidates at length went forth, 
Heralds of mercy to the frozen north ; 
Like mariners with seal'd instructions sent, 
They went in faith, (as childless Abram went 
To dwell by sufferance in a land, decreed 
The future birthright of his promised seed,) 
Unknowing whither ; unenquiring why 
Their lot was cast beneath so strange a sky, 
Where cloud nor star appearM, to mortal sense 
Pointing the hidden path of Providence, 
And all around was darkness to be felt ; 
Yet in that darkness light eternal dwelt : 
They knew, and 'twas enough for them to know, 
The still small voice that whisper* d them to go ; 
For He, who spake by that mysterious voice, 
Inspired their will, and made His call their choice. 



22 GREENLAND. CANTO i. 

See the swift vessel bounding o'er the tide, 
That wafts, with CHRISTIAN DAVID for their guide, 
Two young Apostles on their joyful way 
To regions in the twilight verge of day ; 
Freely they quit the clime that gave them birth, 
Home, kindred, friendship, all they loved on earth ; 
What things were gain before, accounting loss, 
And glorying in the shame, they bear the cross ; 

Not as the Spaniard, on his flag unfurl'd, 
A bloody omen through a Pagan world : 

Not the vain image, which the Devotee 
Clasps as the God of his idolatry ; 

But in their hearts, to Greenland's western shore, 
That dear memorial of their Lord they bore, 
Amidst the wilderness to lift the sign 
Of wrath appeased by sacrifice divine ; 
And bid a serpent-stung and dying race 
Look on their Healer, and be saved by grace. 



GREENLAND. 



CANTO II. 

and Fears. The Brethren pursue their foyage. 
A digression on Iceland. 



WHAT are thine hopes, Humanity ! thy fears ? 
Poor voyager, upon this flood of years, 
Whose tide, unturning, hurries to the sea 
Of dark unsearchable eternity, 
The fragile skiffs, in which thy children sail 
A day, an hour, a moment, with the gale, 
Then vanish ; gone like eagles on the wind, 
Or fish in waves, that yield and close behind ? 
Thine hopes, lost anchors buried in the deep, 
That rust, through storm and calm, in iron sleep ; 



24 GREENLAND. CANTO n. 

Whose cables, loose aloft and fix'd below, 
Rot with the sea-weed, floating to and fro ! 
Thy Fears are wrecks that strew the fatal surge, 
Whose whirlpools swallow, or whose currents urge 
Adventurous barks on rocks, that lurk at rest, 
Where the blue halcyon builds her foam-light 

nest ; 

Or strand them on illumined shoals, that gleam 
Like drifted gold in summer's cloudless beam. 
Thus would thy race, beneath their parent's eye, 
Live without knowledge, without prospect die. 

But when Religion bids her spirit breathe, 
And opens bliss above and woe beneath ; 
When God reveals his march through Nature's night, 
His steps are beauty, and his presence light, 
His voice is life : the dead in conscience start ; 
They feel a new creation in the heart. 
Ah ! then, Humanity, thy hopes, thy fears, 
How changed, how wond'rous ! On this tide of 
years, 



CANTO ii. GREENLAND. 25 

Though the frail barks, in which thine offspring 

sail 

Their day, their hour, their moment, with the gale, 
Must perish ; shipwreck only sets them free ; 
With joys unmeasured as eternity, 
They ply on seas of glass their golden oars, 
And pluck immortal fruits along the shores ; 
Nor shall their cables fail, their anchors rust, 
Who wait the resurrection of the just : 
Moor'd on the rock of ages, though decay 
Moulder the weak terrestrial frame away, 
The trumpet sounds, and lo ! wherever spread, 
Earth, air, and ocean render back their dead, 
And souls with bodies, spiritual and divine, 
In the new heavens, like stars for ever shine. 
These are thine Hopes : thy Fears what tongue 

can tell ? 

Behold them graven on the gates of Hell : 
" The wrath of God abideth here : his breath 
" Kindled the flames : this is the second death." 
c 



2-6 GREENLAND. CANTO 11. 

'Twas Mercy wrote the lines of judgement there ; 
None who from earth can read them may despair ! 
Man ! let the warning strike presumption dumb ; 
Awake, arise, escape the wrath to come ; 
No resurrection from that grave shall be ; 
The worm within is immortality. 

The terrors of Jehovah, and his grace, 
The Brethren bear to earth's remotest race. 
And now, exulting on their swift career, 
The northern waters narrowing in the rear,. 
They rise upon the' Atlantic flood, that rolls 
Shoreless and fathomless between the poles, 
Whose waves the east and western world divide, 
Then gird the globe with one circumfluent tide ; 
For mighty Ocean, by whatever name 
Known to vain man, is every where the same, 
And deems all regions by his gulphs embraced 
But vassal tenures of his sovereign waste. 
Clear shines the sun ; the surge, intensely blue, 
Assumes by day heaven's own aerial hue : 



CANTO n. GREENLAND. 27 

Buoyant and beautiful, as through a sky, 

On balanced wings, behold the vessel fly ; 

Invisibly impelPd, as though it felt 

A soul, within its heart of oak that dwelt, 

Which broke the billows with spontaneous force, 

Ruled the free elements, and chose its course. 

Not so : and yet along the trackless realm, 

A hand unseen directs the* unconscious helm ; 

The Power that sojourn'd in the cloud by day, 

And fire by night, on Israel's desert way ; 

That Power the obedient vessel owns : His 

will, 
Tempest and calm, and death and life fulfil. 

Day following day the current smoothly flows ; 
Labour is but refreshment from repose ; 
Perils are vanish' d ; every fear resign'd ; 
Peace walks the waves, Hope carols on the wind ; 
And Time so sweetly travels o'er the deep, 
They feel his motion like the fall of sleep 
c2 



28 GREENLAND. CANTO n. 

On weary limbs, that, stretched in stillness, seem >. 
To float upon the eddy of a stream, \> 

Then sink, * to wake in some transporting dream. -' 
Thus, while the Brethren far in exile roam, 
Visions of Greenland shew their future home. 

Now a dark speck, but brightening as it flies, 
A vagrant sea-fowl glads their eager eyes : 
How lovely, from the narrow deck to see 

The meanest link of nature's family, 

Which makes us feel, in 'dreariest solitude, 

Affinity with all that breathe renew'd ; 

At once a thousand kind emotions start, 

And the blood warms and mantles round the heart ! 

O'er the ship's lee, the waves in shadow seen, 
Change from deep indigo to beryl green, 

And wreaths of frequent weed, that slowly float, 
Land to the watchful mariner denote : 
Ere long the pulse beats quicker through his breast, 
When, like a range of evening clouds at rest, 



GANTO ii. GREENLAND. 29: 

Iceland's grey cliffs and ragged coast he sees, 
But shuns them, leaning on the southern breeze ; 
And while they vanish far in distance, tells 
Of lakes of fire and necromancers' spells. 
Strange Isle ! a moment to poetic gaze 
Rise in thy majesty of rocks and bays, 
Glens, fountains, caves, that seem not things of earth, 
But the wild shapes of some prodigious birth ; 

As if the kraken, monarnh of the sea, 

*. ,'* 
Wallowing abroad in his immensity, 

By polar storms and lightning shafts assaiPd> 
Wedged with ice-mountains, here had fought and fail'd ; 
Perish'd and in the petrifying blast, 
His hulk became an island rooted fast : (a) 



(a) The most horrible of fabulous sea-monsters is the kraken 
or hafgufa, which many of the Norway fishers pretend to have 
seen in part, but none entire. They say, that when they find a 
place which is at one time 80 or 100 fathoms deep and at another 
only 20 or 30, and also observe a multitude of fishes, allured by a 
delicious exhalation which the kraken emits, they conclude that 
there is one below them. They therefore hasten to secure a 

c3 



30 GREENLAND. CANTO n. 

Rather, from ocean's dark foundation hurl'd, 
Thou art a type of his mysterious world, 
Buoy'd on the desolate abyss, to shew 
What wonders of creation hide below. 

Here Hecla's triple peaks, with meteor lights, 
Nature's own beacons, cheer hybernal nights : 
But when the orient flames in red array, 
Like ghosts the spectral splendours flee the day ; 
Morn at her feet bphnlH* su pin ply spread 
The carcase of the old chimera dead, 
That wont to vomit flames and molten ore, 
Now cleft asunder to the inmost core ; 



large draught of the fry around them ; but as soon as they 
perceive the soundings to grow shallower, they scud away, and 
from a safe distance behold him rising, in a chain of ridges and 
spires, that thicken as they emerge till they resemble the masts 
of innumerable vessels moored on a rocky coast. He then 
riots upon the fish that have been stranded and entangled in the 
forest of spikes upon his back, and having satiated his hunger^ 
plunges into the depths with a violent agitation of the waters. 
See Crantz's Greenland. 



CANTO ii. GREENLAND. 31 

In smouldering heaps, wide wrecks and cinders 

strown, 

Lie like the walls of Sodom overthrown, 
(Ere from the face of blushing Nature swept, 
And where the city stood the Dead Sea slept ;) 
While inaccessible, tradition feigns, 
To human foot the guarded top remains, 
Where birds of hideous shape and doleful note, 
Fate's ministers, in livid vapours float. (6) 

Far off, amidst the placid sunshine, glow 
Mountains with hearts of fire and crests of snow, 
Whose blacken 'd slopes with deep ravines entrench' d, 
Their thunders silenced, and their lightnings quench'd, 
Still the slow heat of spent eruptions breathe, 
While embryo earthquakes swell their wombs beneath. 

Hark ! from yon cauldron -cave, the battle sound 
Of fire and water warring under ground ; 



(6) Hecla is now the ruins of a volcano. The three peaks 
are said to be haunted by evil spirits in ths shape of birds. The 
island abounds with volcanic mountains. 

c4 



32 GREENLAND. CANTO H. 

Rack'd on the wheels of an ebullient tide, 

Here might some spirit, fall'n from bliss, abide, 

Such fitful wailings of intense despair, 

Sucli emanating splendours fill the air. (c) 

He comes, he comes; the' infuriate Geyser 

springs 

Up to the firmament on vapoury wings j 
With breathless awe the mounting glory view ; 
White whirling clouds his steep ascent pursue. 
But lo ! a glimpse ; refulgent to the gale, 
He starts all naked through his riven veil ; 
A fountain-column, terrible and bright, 
A living, breathing, moving form of light : 



(c) The Geysers, or boiling fountains, of Iceland, have been so 
frequently and so happily described, that their phenomena are 
sufficiently familiar to general readers not to require any particular 
illustration here. The Great Geyser, according to Dr. Henderson, 
(the latest traveller who has published an account of Iceland,) is 
seventy-eight/eet in perpendicular depth, and from eight to ten 
feet in diameter: the mouth is a considerable basin, from which 
the column of boiling water is ejaculated to various heights ; some- 
times exceeding 100 feet. 



CANTO ii. GREENLAND. 33 

From central earth to heaven's meridian thrown, 
The mighty apparition towers alone, 
Rising, as though for ever he could rise, 
Storm and resume his palace in the skies. 
All foam, and turbulence, and wrath below ; 
Around him beams the reconciling bow ; 
(Signal of peace, whose radiant girdle binds, 
Till nature's doom, the waters and the winds ;) 
While mist and spray, condensed to sudden dews, 
The air illumine with celestial hues, 
As if the bounteous sun were raining down 
The richest gems of his imperial crown. 
In vain the spirit wrestles to break free, 
Foot-bound to fathomless captivity ; 
A power unseen, by sympathetic spell 
For ever working, to his flinty cell, 
Recalls him from the ramparts of the spheres ; 
He yields, collapses, lessens, disappears ; 
Darkness receives him in her vague abyss, 
Around whose verge light froth and bubbles hiss, 
c5 



34 GREENLAND. CANTO 11. 

While the low murmurs of the refluent tide 
Far into subterranean silence glide, 
The eye still gazing down the dread profound, 
When the bent ear hath wholly lost the sound. 
But is he slain and sepulchred? Again 
The deathless giant sallies from his den, 
Scales with recruited strength the' etherial walls, 
Struggles afresh for liberty, and falls. 
Yes, and for liberty the fight renew'd, 
By day, by night, undaunted, unsubdued, 
He shall maintain, till Iceland's solid base 
Fail, and the mountains vanish from its face. 

And can these fail ? Of Alpine height and mould 
Schapta's unshaken battlements behold ; 
His throne an hundred hills ; his sun-crown'd head 
Resting on clouds ; his robe of shadow spread 
O'er half the isle ; he pours from either hand 
An unexhausted river through the land, 
On whose fair banks, through valleys warm and green, 
Cattle and flocks, and homes, and spires are seen. - 



CANTO II, 



GREENLAND. 35 



Here Nature's earthquake-pangs were never felt ; 
Here in repose hath man for ages dwelt ; 
The everlasting mountain seems to say, 
" I am, and I shall never pass away." 

Yet fifty winters, and with huge uproar, 
Thy pride shall perish ; thou shalt be no more ; 
Amidst chaotic ruins on the plain, 
Those cliffs, these waters shall be sought in vain ! (d~ 
Through the dim vista of unfolding years, 
A pageant of portentous woe appears. 
Yon rosy groupes, with golden locks, at play, 
I see them, few, decrepid, silent, grey; 
Their fathers all at rest beneath the sod, 
Whose flowerless verdure marks the House of God, 



(d) This imaginary prophecy (1733) was fulfilled just fifty years 
afterwards, in 1783. The Schapta, Schaptka, or Skaftar TokuL 
and its adjacencies were the subjects of the most tremendous 
volcanic devastation on record. Two rivers were sunk or evapo- 
rated, and their channels filled up with lava ; many villages were 
utterly destroyed ; and one-fourth part of the island rendered 
nearly uninhabitable. Famine and pestilence followed. 

c6 



36 GREENLAND. CANTO n. 

Home of the living and the dead ; where meet 

Kindred and strangers, in communion sweet, 

When dawns the Sabbath on the block-built pile ; 

The kiss of peace, the welcome, and the smile 

Go round ; till comes the Priest, a father there, 

And the bell knolls his family to prayer ; 

Angels might stoop from thrones in heaven, to be 

Co-worshippers in such a family, 

Whom from their nooks and dells, where'er they roam, 

The Sabbath gathers to their common home. 

Oh ! I would stand a keeper at this gate 

Rather than reign w r ith kings in guilty state ; 

A day in such serene enjoyment spent 

Were worth an age of splendid discontent ! 

But whither am I hurried from my theme? 

Schapta returns on the prophetic dream. 

From eve till morn strange meteors streak the pole ; 
At cloudless noon mysterious thunders roll, 
As if below both shore and ocean hurl'd 
From deep convulsions of the nether world. 



CANTO ii. GREENLAND. 37 

Anon the river, boiling from its bed, 

Shall leap its bounds and o'er the lowlands spread, 

Then waste in exhalation, leaving void 

As its own channel, utterly destroyed, 

Fields, gardens, dwellings, churches and their graves, 

All wreck'd or disappearing with the waves. 

The fugitives that 'scape this instant death 

Inhale slow pestilence with every breath ; 

Mephitic steams from Schapta's smouldering breast 

With livid horror shall the air infest ; 

And day shall glare so foully on the sight, 

Darkness were refuge from the curse of light. 

Lo ! far among the glaciers, wrapt in gloom, 

The red precursors of approaching doom, 

Scattered and solitary founts of fire, 

Unlock' d by hands invisible, aspire ; 

Ere long more rapidly than eye can count, 

Above, beneath, they multiply, they mount, 

Converge, condense, a crimson phalanx form, 

And rage aloft in one unbounded storm j 



38 GREENLAND. CANTO 11. 

From heaven's red roof the fierce reflections throw 

A sea of fluctuating light below. 

Now the whole army of destroyers, fleet 

As whirlwinds, terrible as lightnings, meet ; 

The mountains melt like wax along their course, 

When downward, pouring with resistless force, 

Through the void channel where the river roll'd, 

To ocean's verge their flaming march they hold ; 

While blocks of ice, and crags of granite rent, 

Half-fluid ore, and rugged minerals blent, 

Float on the gulph, till molten or immersed, 

Or in explosive thunderbolts dispersed. 

Thus shall the Schapta, towering on the brink 

Of unknown jeopardy, in ruin sink ; 

And this wild paroxysm of frenzy past, 

At her own work shall Nature stand aghast. 

Look on this desolation : mark yon brow, 
Once adamant, a cone of ashes now : 
Here rivers swampt ; there valleys levelled, plains 
Overwhelm' d ; one black-red wilderness remains, 



CANTO ii. GREENLAND. 39 

One crust of lava, through whose cinder-heat 
The pulse of buried streams is felt to beat ; 
These from the frequent fissures, eddying white, 
Sublimed to vapour, issue forth like light 
Amidst the sulphury fumes, that drear and dun 
1'oison the atmosphere and blind the sun. 
Above, as if the sky had felt the stroke 
Of that volcano, and consumed to smoke, 
One cloud appears in heaven, and one alone, 
Hung round the dark horizon's craggy zone, 
Forming at once the vast encircling wall, 
And the dense roof of some Tartarean hall, 
Propt by a thousand pillars, huge and strange, 
Fantastic forms that every moment change, 
As hissing, surging from the floor beneath, 
Volumes of steam the' imprison'd waters breathe. 
Then should the sun, ere evening gloom ascend, 
Quick from the west the murky curtain rend, 
And pour the beauty of his beams between 
These hideous arches, and light up the scene ; 



40 GREENLAND. CANTO n. 

At the sweet touch of his transforming rays 

With amber lustre all the columns blaze, 

And the thick folds of cumbrous fog aloof 

Change to rich drapery of celestial woof: 

With such enchantment air and earth were fraught, 

Beyond the colouring of the wealthiest thought, 

That Iceland Scalds, transported at the view, 

Might deem the legends of their fathers true, 

And here behold, illumining the waste, 

The palace of immortal Odin placed ; 

Till rapt imagination joy'd to hear 

The neigh of steeds, the clank of armour near, 

And saw, in barbarous state, the tables spread 

With shadowy food, and cornpass'd with the dead, 

Weary from conflicts, still the fierce delight 

Of spectre-warriors, in the daily fight : 

Then while they quaff 'd the mead from sculls of foes, 

By whirlwind gusts the din of battle rose ; 

The strife of tongues, the tournament of words 

Following the shock of shields, the clash of swords ; 



CANTO ii. GREENLAND. 41 

Till, gorged and drunken at the* enormous feast, 
Awhile their revels and their clamours ceased ; 
Ceased to the eye and ear ; yet where they lay, 
Like sleeping lions, surfeited with prey, 
In tawny groupes recumbent through the den, 
In dreams the heroes drank and fought again. 

Away with such Divinities ! their birth 
Man's brain-sick superstition, and their mirth 
Lust, rapine, cruelty 5 their fell employ 
God's works and their own votaries to destroy. 
The Runic Bard to nobler themes shall string 
His ancient harp, and mightier triumphs sing : 
For glorious days are risen on Iceland : clear 
The gospel-trumpet sounds to every ear, 
And deep in many a heart the Spirit's voice 
Bids the believing soul in hope rejoice. 
O'er the stern face of this tempestuous isle, 
Though briefly Spring, and Autumn never, smile, 
Truth walks with naked foot the* unyielding snows, 
And the glad desert blossoms like the rose. 



42 GREENLAND. CANTO n. 

Though earthquakes heave, though torrents drown 

his cot, 

Volcanoes waste his fields, the peasant's lot 
Is blest beyond the destiny of kings : 
Lifting his eyes above sublunar things, 
Like dying Stephen, when he saw in prayer 
Heaven open'cl, and his Saviour beckoning there, 
He cries, and clasps his Bible to his breast, 
" Let the earth perish, here is not my rest." (e} 



(e) One of the finest specimens of Icelandic poetry extant is said 
to be the " Ode to the British and Foreign Bible Society" composed 
by the Rev. John Thorlakson>of Boegisa,the translator of MILTON'S 
Paradise Lost Into his native tongue. Of this Ode there is a Latin 
translation by the learned Iceland Professor, Finn Magnusson. A 
spirited English version has also appeared. Thorlakson is a venerable 
old man, and holds church preferment to the amount of six pounds 
five shillings per annum, out of which he allows a stipend to a curate. 






GREENLAND. 



CANTO III. 

The voyage to Greenland concluded. A fog at sea. 
Ice-f elds. Eclipse of the Sun. The Greenland fable 
of Molina and Aninga. A storm. The ice-blink. 
Northern lights. The Brethren land. 



How speed the faithful witnesses, who bore 
The Bible and its hopes to Greenland's shore ? 
Like Noah's ark, alone upon the wave, 
(Of one lost world the' immeasurable grave,) 
Yonder the ship, a solitary speck, 
Comes bounding from the horizon ; while on deck 
Again imagination rests her wing, 
And smooths her pinions, while the Pilgrims 
sing 



44 GREENLAND. CANTO in, 

Their vesper-oraisons. The Sun retires, 

Not as he wont, with clear and golden fires ; 

Bewilder'd in a labyrinth of haze, 

His orb redoubled, with discolour'd rays, 

Struggles and vanishes ; along the deep, 

With slow array, expanding vapours creep, 

Whose folds, in twilight's yellow glare uncurl'd, 

Present the dreams of an unreal world ; 

Islands in air suspended ; marching ghosts 

Of armies, shapes of castles, winding coasts, 

Navies at anchor, mountains, woods, and streams, 

Where all is strange, and nothing what it seems ; 

Till deep involving gloom, without a spark 

Of star, moon, meteor, desolately dark, 

Seals up the vision : then, the Pilot's fears 

Slacken his arm ; a doubtful course he steers, 

Till morning comes, but conies not clad in light ; 

Uprisen day is but a paler night, 

Revealing not a glimpse of sea or sky ; 

The ship's circumference bounds the sailor's eye. 



CANTO in. GREENLAND. 45 

So cold and dense the* impervious fog extends, 

He might have touch'd the point where being 

ends; 

His bark is all the universe ; so void 
The scene, as though creation were destroyed, 
And he and his few mates, of all their race, 
Were here becalm'd in everlasting space, (a) 

Silent and motionless, above, below, 
The sails all struck, the waves unheard to flow, 
In this drear blank of utter solitude, 
Where life stands still, no faithless fears intrude ; 
Through that impervious veil the Brethren see 
The face of omnipresent Deity : 
Nor Him alone ; whatever his hand hath made ; 
His glory in the firmament displayed ; 
The sun majestic in his course, and sole ; 
The moon and stars rejoicing round the pole ; 



(a) The incidents described in this Canto are founded upon the 
real events of the voyage of the Missionaries, as given in Crantz'i 
History. See the Appendix, Note (F.) 



46 GREENLAND. CANTO in. 

Earth o'er its peopled realms and wastes unknown, 
Clad in the wealth of every varying zone ; 
Ocean through all the' enchantment of his forms, 
From breathing calms to devastating storms ; 
Heaven in the vision of eternal bliss, 
Death's terrors, hell's unsearchable abyss ; 
Though rapt in secrecy from human eye, 
These in the mind's profound sensorium lie, 
And, with their Maker, by a glance of thought, 
Are in a moment to remembrance brought ; 
Then most, when most restrain'd the* imperfect sight, 
God and his works shine forth in his own light. 
Yet clearest through that veil the Pilgrims trace 
Their Father's image in their Saviour's face ; 
A sigh can waft them to his feet in prayer, 
Not Gabriel bends with more acceptance there, 
Nor to the throne from heaven's pure altar rise 
The odours of a sweeter sacrifice, 
Than when before the mercy-seat they kneel, 
And tell Him all they fear, or hope, or feel ; 



CANTO in. GREENLAND. 47 

Perils without, and enemies within, 

Satan, the world, temptation, weakness, sin ; 

Yet rest unshaken on his sure defence, 

Invincible through his omnipotence : 

" Oh.! step by step," they cry, " direct our way, 

And give thy grace, like manna, day by day ; 

The store of yesterday will not suffice, 

To-morrow's sun to us may never rise ; 

Safe only, when our souls are staid on Thee ; 

Rich only, when we know our poverty." 

And step by step the Lord those suppliants led ; 
He gave them daily grace like daily bread ; 
By sea, on shore, through all their pilgrimage, 
In rest and labour, to their latest age, 
Sharp though their trials, and their comforts scant, 
God was their refuge, and they knew not want. 

On rustling pinions, like an unseen bird, 
Among the yards, a stirring breeze is heard ; 
The conscious vessel wakes as from a trance, 
Her colours float, the filling sails advance ; 



48 GREENLAND. CANTO in. 

White from her prow the murmuring surge recedes: 
So the swan, startled from her nest of reeds, 
Swells into beauty, and with curving chest, 
Cleaves the blue lake, with motion soft as rest. 
Light o'er the liquid lawn the pageant glides ; 
Her helm the well-experienced pilot guides, 
And while he threads the mist-enveloped maze, 
Turns to the magnet his enquiring gaze, 
In whose mute oracle, where'er he steers, 
The pointing hand of Providence appears ; 
With this, though months of gloom the main enrobe; 
His keel might plough a furrow round the globe. 

Again the night ascends without a star : 
Low sounds come booming o'er the waves afar, 
As if conflicting navies shook the flood, 
With human thunders, in the strife of blood, 
That slay more victims in one brief campaign, 
Than heaven's own bolts through centuries have slain. 
The seaman hearkens ; colour flies his cheek, 
His stout heart throbs with fears he dare not speak: 



CANTO HI. GREENLAND. 49 

No lightning-splendours streak the 1 unbroken gloom ; 
His bark may shoot the gulph beyond the tomb, 
And he, if e'er it come, may meet a light, 
Which never yet hath dawn'd on living sight. 
Fresher and fresher blows the* insurgent gale ; 
He reefs his tops, he narrows sail by sail, 
Yet feels the ship with swifter impulse sweep, 
O'er mightier billows, the recoiling deep ; 
While still, with doleful omen on his ear, -. 

Come the deaf echoes of those sounds of fear, > 
pistant, yet every volley rolls more near. 

Oh ! in that agony of thought forlorn, 
How longs the* impatient mariner for morn ! 
She wakes, his eyes are wither'd to behold 
The scene which her disastrous beams unfold : 
The fog is vanish'd, but the welkin lowers, 
Sharp hail descends, and sleet in blinding showers ; 
Ocean one bed of foam, with fury tost, 
In undistinguishable whiteness lost, 



50 GREENLAND. CANTO in, 

Save where vast fields of ice their surface shew, 
Buoyant, but many a fathom sunk below : 
Changing his station as the fragments pass, 
Death stands the pilot of each ponderous mass ; 
Gathering his brow into the darkest frown, 
He bolts his raft to run the victim down, 
But shoots astern : the shock the vessel feels, 
A moment in the giddy whirlpool reels, 
Then like an arrow soars, as through the air, 
So high the salient waves their burthen bear. 

Quick skirmishes with floating batteries past, 
Ruin inevitable threats at last : 
Athwart the north, like ships of battle spread, 
Winter's flotilla, by their captain led, 
(Who boasts with these to make his prowess 

known, 

And plant his foot beyond the arctic zone,) 
Islands of ice, so wedged and grappled lie, 
One moving continent appals the eye, 



CANTO in. GREENLAND. 51 

And to the ear renews those notes of doom, 

That brought portentous warnings through the 

gloom ; 

For loud and louder, with explosive shocks, 
Sudden convulsions split the frost-bound rocks, 
And launch loose mountains on the frothing ooze, 
As pirate-barks, on summer seas to cruise. 
In front this perilous array ; behind, 
Borne on the surges, driven by the wind, 
The vessel hurries to the brink of fate ; 
All efforts fail, but prayer is not too late : 
Then, in the imminent and ghastly fall 
Foul on destruction, the disciples call 
On Him, their Master, who, in human form, 
Slept in the lap of the devouring storm ; 
On Him, who in the midnight watch was seen, 
Walking the gulph, ineffably serene, 
At whose rebuke the tempest ceased to roar, 
The winds caress'd the waves, the waves the 

shore : 



52 GREENLAND. CANTO in. 

On Him they call ; their prayer, in faith preferred, 
Amidst the frantic hurricane is heard ; 
He gives the sign, by none in earth or heaven 
Known, but by him to whom the charge is given, 
The Angel of the Waters ; he, whose wrath 
Had hurl'd the vessel on that shipwreck path, 
Becomes a minister of grace ; his breath 
Blows, and the enemies are scatter'd, Death, 
Reft of his quarry, plunges through the wave, 
Buried himself where he had mark'd their grave. 
The line of battle broken, and the chain 
Of that armada, which oppressed the main, 
Snapt hopelessly asunder, quickly all 
The' enormous masses in disruption fall, 
And the weak vessel, through the chaos wild, 
Led by the mighty Angel, as a child, 
Snatch'd from its crib, and in the mother's arms 
Borne through a midnight tumult of alarms, 
Escapes the wrecks ; nor slackens her career, 
Till sink the forms, and cease the sounds of fear, 



CANTO in. GREENLAND. 53 

And He, who rules the universe at will, 
Saith to the reinless elements, " Be still/* 

Then rise sweet hymns of gratulation ; praise 
From hearts and voices, in harmonious lays ; 
So Israel sang deliverance, when he stood 
By the Red Sea, and saw the morning-flood, 
That in its terrible embraces bore 
The slain pursuers and their spoils on shore. 

Light-breathing gales awhile their course propel, 
The billows roll with pleasurable swell, 
Till the seventh dawn ; when o'er the pure expanse 
The sun, like lightning, throws his earliest glance, 
" Land! Land !" exclaims the ship-boy from the mast, 
" Land! Land!" with one electric shock hath pass'd 
From lip to lip, and every eye hath caught 
The cheering glimpse so long, so dearly sought ; 
Yet must imagination half supply 
The doubtful streak, dividing sea and sky ; 
Nor clearly known, till in sublimer day, 
From icy cliffs refracted splendours play, 



54 GREENLAND. CANTO in. 

And clouds of sea- fowl high in ether sweep, 
Or fall like stars through sunshine on the deep. 
'Tis Greenland ! but so desolately bare, 
Amphibious life alone inhabits there ; 
J Tis Greenland ! yet so beautiful the sight, 
The Brethren gaze with undisturbed delight : 
In silence, (as before the Throne,) they stand, 
And pray, in prospect of that promised land, 
That He, who sends them thither may abide 
Through the waste howling wilderness their guide ; 
And the good shepherd seek his straying flocks, 
Lost on those frozen waves and herbless rocks, 
By the still waters of his comforts lead, 
And in the pastures of salvation feed. 

Their faith must yet be tried : the sun at noon 
Shrinks from the shadow of the passing moon, 
Till, ray by ray of all his pomp bereft, 
(Save one slight ring of quivering lustre left,) 
Total eclipse involves his peerless eye : 
Portentous twilight creeps around the sky ; 



CANTO HI. GREENLAND. 55 

The frighted sea-birds to their haunts repair; 

There is a freezing stillness in the air, 

As if the blood through Nature's veins ran cold, 

A prodigy so fearful to behold ; 

A few faint stars gleam through the dread serene, 

Trembling and pale spectators of the scene ; 

While the rude mariners, with stern amaze, 

As on some tragic execution gaze, 

When calm but awful guilt is stretcht to feel 

The torturing fire, or dislocating wheel, 

And life, like light from yonder orb, retires, 

Spark after spark, till the whole man expires. 

Yet may the darken'd sun and mourning skies 

Point to a higher, holier sacrifice ; 

The Brethren's thoughts to Calvary's brow ascend, 

Round the Redeemer's Cross their spirits bend, 

And while heaven frowns, earth shudders, graves 

disclose 
The forms of sleepers, startled from repose, 



56 GREENLAND. CANTO in. 

They catch the blessing of his latest breath, 
Mark his last look, and through the* eclipse of 

death 

See lovelier beams than Tabor's vision shed, 
Wreathe a meek halo round his sacred head. 
To Greenland then, with quick compassion, turn 
Their deepest sympathies ; their bosoms burn, 
To her barbarian race, with tongues of flame, 
His love, his grief, his glory to proclaim. 

O could they view, in this alarming hour, 
Those wretched ones, themselves beneath the power 
Of darkness, while the shadow clips the sun ! 
How to their dens the fierce sea-hunters run, 
Who death in every shape of peril brave, 
By storms and monsters,, on the faithless wave, 
But now in speechless horror lie aghast, 
Till the malignant prodigy be past : 
While bolder females, with tormenting spells, 
Consult their household dogs as oracles, 



CANTO in. GREENLAND. 57 

And by the yelping of their curs divine, 

That still the earth may stand, the sun may shine. 

Then forth they creep, and to their offspring tell 

What fate of old a youth and maid befell : (6) 

How, in the age of night, ere day was born 

On the blue hills of undiscover'd morn ;" 

Where one pale cresset twinkled through the shade, 

MALINA and her gay companions play'd 

A thousand mimic sports, as children wont ; 

They hide, they seek, they shoot, harpoon and hunt ; 

When lo ! ANINGA, passionate and young, 

Keen as a wolf, upon his sister sprung, 

And pounced his victim ; gentler way to woo 

He knew not, or he scorn'd it if he knew : 

MALINA snatch' d her lamp, and in the dark 

Dash'd on his felon-front a hideous mark, 



(6) For the fable of MaUna and Aninga, (the Sifti and the 
Moon,) see Note G. of the Appendix ; which also explains the 
allusions here made to the terror of the men, and the courage and 
spells of the women, during eclipses of the Sun. 

D5 



58 GREENLAND. CANTO in. 

Slipt from his foul embrace, (and laugh' d aloud,) 
Soft as the rainbow melting from the cloud j 
Then shot to heaven, and in her wondrous flight 
Transform'd her image, sparkled into light, 
Became the sun, and through the firmament, 
Forth in the glory of a goddess went. 
ANINGA baffled, madden'd, unsubdued, 
By her own beams the fugitive pursued, 
And when she set, his broad disfigured mien 
As the dim moon among the stars was seen ; 
Thenceforward doom'd his sister's steps to chase, 
But ne'er overtake in heaven's eternal race. 
Yet when his vanished orb might seem to sleep, 
He takes his .monthly pastime on the deep, 
Through storms, o'er cataracts, in his Kayak sails, 
Strikes with unerring dart the polar whales, 
Or o'er ice-mountains, in his dog-drawn car, 
Pursues the rein-deer to the farthest star. 
But when eclipse his baneful disk invades, 
He prowls for prey among the Greenland maids, 



CANTO in. GREENLAND. 59 

Till roaring drums, belabouring sticks, and crie* 
Repel the errant Demon to the skies. 

The sun hath cast aside his veil ; he shines 
With purest splendour till his orb declines ; 
Then landward, marshalling in black array, 
Eruptive vapours drive him from the day ; 
And night again, with premature controul, 
Binds light in chains of darkness o'er the pole ; 
Heaven in one ebon mass of horror scowls : 
Anon a universal whirlwind howls, 
With such precipitation dash'd on high, 
Not from one point, but from the whole dark sky, 
The surges at the onset shrink aghast, 
Borne down beneath the paralyzing blast ; 
But soon the mad tornado slants its course, 
And rolls them into mountains by main force, 
Then utterly embroil'd, through clouds and waves, 
As 'twixt two oceans met in conflict, raves. 
Now to the passive bark, alternate tost, 
Above, below, both sea and sky are lost, 
D 6 



60 GREENLAND. CANTO m- 

All but the giddy summit, where her keel 
Hangs in light balance on the billowy wheel ; 
Then, as the swallow in his windward flight, 
Quivers the wing, returns, and darts downright, 
She plunges through the blind abyss, and o'er 
Her groaning masts the cavern'd waters roar. 
Ruled by the hurricane, no more the helm 
Obeys the pilot ; seas on seas o'erwhelm 
The deck ; where oft embattled currents meet, 
Foam in white whirlpools, flash to spray, retreat, 
And rock the vessel with their huge turmoils, 
Like the cork-float around the fisher's toils. 
Three days of restless agony, that seem 
Of one delirious night the waking dream, 
The mariners in vain their labours ply, 
Or sick at heart in pale despondence lie. 
The Brethren weak, yet firm as when they faced 
Winter's ice-legions on his own bleak waste, 
In patient hope, that utters no complaint, 
Pray without ceasing ; pray, and never faint ; 



CANTO in. GREENLAND. 61 

Assured that He, who from the tempest's neck 
Hath loosed his grasp, still holds it at his beck, 
And with a pulse too deep for mortal sense, 

The secret pulse of his omnipotence, 
That beats through every motion of the storm, 

Can check destruction in its wildest form : 
Bow'd to his will, their lot how truly blest, 
Who live to serve Him, and who die to rest ! 

To live and serve him is their Lord's decree ; 
He curbs the wind, he calms the' infuriate sea ; 
The sea and wind their Maker's yoke obey, 
And waft his servants on their destined way. 
Though many a league by that disaster driven 
'Thwart from their course j with planks and cordage 

riven, 

With hands disabled, and exhausted strength, 
The active crew refit their bark at length ; 
Along the placid gulph, with heaving sails, 
That catch from every point propitious gales, 



62 GREENLAND. CANTO in, 

Led like the moon, from infancy to age, 
Round the wide zodiac of her pilgrimage, 
Onward and smooth their voyage they pursue 
Till Greenland's coast again salutes their view 

'Tis sunset : to the firmament serene, 
The' Atlantic wave reflects a gorgeous scene ; 
Broad in the cloudless west, a belt of gold 
Girds the blue hemisphere ; above unroll' d 
The keen, clear air grows palpable to sight, 
Embodied in a flush of crimson light, 
Through which the evening star, with milder 

gleam, 

Descends to meet her image in the stream. 
Far in the east, what spectacle unknown 
Allures the eye to gaze on it alone ? 
Amidst black rocks, that lift on eithe^hand 
Their countless peaks, and mark receding land ; 
Amidst a tortuous labyrinth of seas, 
That shine around the arctic Cyclades j 



CANTO in. GREENLAND. 63 

Amidst a coast of dreariest continent, 

In many a shapeless promontory rent ; 

O'er rocks, seas, islands, promontories spread, 

The Ice-Blink rears its undulated head (c) 

On which the sun, beyond the' horizon shrined, 

Hath left his richest garniture behind ; 

Piled on a hundred arches, ridge by ridge, 

O'er fix'd and fluid strides the Alpine bridge, 

Whose blocks of sapphire seem to mortal eye 

Hewn from cerulean quarries of the sky ; 

With glacier-battlements, that crowd the spheres, 

The slow creation of six thousand years, 

Amidst immensity it towers sublime, 

Winter's eternal palace, built by Time : 



term 



(c) The term Ice-Blink is generally applied by our mariners 
to the nocturnal illumination in the heavens, which denotes to 
them the proximity of ice mountains. In this place a description 
Is attempted of the most stupendous accumulation of ice in the 
known world, which has been long distinguished by this peculiar 
name by the Danish navigators. 



64 GREENLAND. CANTO in. 

All human structures by his touch are borne 

Down to the dust ; mountains themselves are worn 

With his light footsteps ; here for ever grows, 

Amid the region of unmelting snows, 

A monument ; where every flake that falls, 

Gives adamantine firmness to the walls. 

The sun beholds no mirror, in his race, 

That shews a brighter image of his face ; 

The stars, in their nocturnal vigils, rest 

Like signal fires on its illumined crest ; 

The gliding moon around the ramparts wheels, 

And all its magic lights and shades reveals ; 

Beneath, the tide with idle fury raves 

To undermine it through a thousand caves ; 

Rent from its roof, though thundering fragments oft 

Plunge to the gulph ; immoveable aloft, 

From age to age, in air, o'er sea, on land, 

Its turrets heighten and its piers expand. 

Midnight hath told his hour; the moon yet young, 
Hangs in the argent west her bow unstrung ; 



CANTO in. GREENLAND. 65 

Larger and fairer, as her lustre fades, 

Sparkle the stars amidst the deepening shades : 

Jewels more rich than night's regalia gem 

The distant Ice-Blink's spangled diadem ; 

Like a new morn from orient darkness, there 

Phosphoric splendours kindle in mid air, 

As though from heaven's self-opening portals came 

Legions of spirits in an orb of flame, 

Flame, that from every point an arrow sends, 

Far as the concave firmament extends : 

Spun with the tissue of a million lines, 

Glistening like gossamer the welkin shines : 

The constellations in their pride look pale 

Through the quick trembling brilliance of that veil : 

Then suddenly converged, the meteors rush 

O'er the wide south ; one deep vermilion blush 

O'erspreads Orion glaring on the flood, 

And rabid Sirius foams through tire and blood ; 

Again the circuit of the pole they range, 

Motion and figure every moment change, 



66 GREENLAND. CANTO m. 

Through all the colours of the rainbow run, 
Or blaze like wrecks of a dissolving sun ; 
Wide ether burns with glory, conflict, flight, 
And the glad ocean dances in the light. 

The seaman's jealous eye askance surveys 
This pageantry of evanescent rays, 
While in the horror of misgiving fear 
New storms already thunder on his ear. 
But morning comes, and brings him sweet release; 
Day shines and sets ; at evening all is peace : 
Another and another day is past; 
The fourth appears, the loveliest and the last ; 

The sails are furl'd ; the anchor drags the sand ; 

The boat hath cross' d the creek ; the Brethren land, 



GREENLAND. 



CANTO IV. 

Retrospect of ancient Greenland : The discovery of 
Iceland , of Greenland, of Wineland. The Norwegian 
colonies on the eastern and western coasts of Greenland ; 
the appearance of the Skraellings, or modern Green- 
landers^ in the west, and the destruction of the Norwegian 
settlers in that quarter, 

HERE while in peace the weary Pilgrims rest, 
Turn we our voyage from the new-found west, 
Sail up the current of departed time, 
And seek along its banks that vanished clime, 
By ancient scalds in Runic verse renown'd, 
Now like old Babylon no longer found. 



68 GREENLAND. CANTO iv. 

' Oft was I weary when I toil'd at thee ;" (a) 

This on an oar abandon'd to the sea, 

Some hand had graven : From what founder' d boat 

It fell ; how long on ocean's waves afloat ; 

Who mark'd it with that melancholy line ; 

No record tells: Greenland! such fate was thine ; 

Whatever thou wast, of thee remains no more 
Than a brief legend on a foundling oar ; 
And he, whose song would now revive thy fame, 
Grasps but the shadow of a mighty name. 

From Asia's fertile womb, when Time was young, 
And earth a wreck, the sires of nations sprung ; 
In Shinar's land of rivers, Babel's tower 
Stood the lorn relic of their scatter'd power ; 



(a) About the middle cf the seventeenth century, an oar was 
drifted on the coast of Iceland, bearing this inscription in Runic 
characters : 

" Oft var ek dasa, dur ck dro thik" 

" Oft was I weary when I drew thee." This oar was conjec- 
tured to have been brought from East Greenland, a hundred and 
fifty years after the last ship sailed from Norway for that coast. 






CANTO iv. GREENLAND. 69 

A broken pillar, snapt as from the spheres, 

Slow-wasting through the silent lapse of years, 

While o'er the regions, by the flood destroyed, 

The builders breathed new life throughout the void, 

Soul, passion, intellect ; till blood of man 

Through every artery of Nature ran ; 

O'er eastern islands pour'd its quickening stream, 

Caught the warm crimson of the western beam, 

Beneath the burning line made fountains start 

In the dry wilderness of Afric's heart, 

And through the torpid north, with genial heat, 

Taught love's exhilarating pulse to beat ; 

Till the great sun, in his perennial round, 

Man, of all climes the restless native, found, 

Pursuing folly in his vain career, 

As if existence were immortal here ; 

While on the fathers' graves the sons, untaught 

By their mischance, the same illusions sought, 

By gleams and shadows measured woe and bliss, 

As though unborn for any world but this. 



70 GREENLAND. CANTO iv, 

Five thousand years, unvisited, unknown, 
Greenland lay slumbering in the frozen zone, 
While heaven's resplendent host pursued their 

way 

To light the wolf and eagle to their prey, 
And tempests o'er the main their terrors spread 
To rock Leviathan upon his bed ; 
Ere Ingolf his undaunted flag unfurl* d 
To search the secrets of the polar world. (6) 
'Twas Liberty, that fires the coldest veins, 
And exile, famine, death, prefers to chains ; 



(&) Among numerous incoherent traditions, it is recorded, that 
Iceland was first discovered by one Flokko, a pirate, who being 
bewildered at sea, let fly (as was the custom of the Norwegians in 
such extremities) a raven, which soaring to a great elevation, 
discerned land, and made for it. Flokko followed, and arriving at 
a mountainous coast covered with snow and glaciers, called it 
Iceland. Some time afterwards, about the year 874, Ingolf, a 
Norwegian earl, with his vassals, escaping from the tyranny of 
Harold Harfagar, pursued the same course as Flokko, and by 
the same experiment with a raven, discovered Iceland ; which he 
and his followers peopled, and there he established a common- 
wealth that reflected honour on an age of barbarism. 






CANTO iv. GREENLAND. 71 

'Twas Liberty, through floods unplough'd before, 
That led his gallant crew from Norway's shore ; 
They cut their cable, and in thunder broke, 
With their departing oars, the tyrant's yoke ; 
The deep their country, and their bark their home, 
A floating isle, on which they joy'd to roam 
Amidst immensity ; with waves and wind, 
Now sporting and now wrestling ; unconfined, 
Save by the blue surrounding firmament, 
Full, yet for ever widening, as they went : 
Thus sailed those mariners, unheeding where 
They found a port, if Freedom anchored there. 

By stars that never set, their course they steer'd, 
And northward with indignant impulse veer'd, 
For sloth had lull'd, and luxury o'errun, 
And bondage seized, the realms that loved the sun. 
At length by mountain-ice, with perils strange, 
Menaced, repell'd, and forced their track to change, 
They bade the unimprison'd raven fly, 
A living compass through the chartless sky : 



72 GREENLAND. CANTO iv, 

Up to the zenith, swift as fire, he soar'd, 
Through the clear boundless atmosphere explored 
The dim horizon stretcht beneath his sight ; 
Then to the west full-onward shot his flight : 
Thither they follow ; till from Thule's rocks, 
Around the bird of tempests rose the flocks 
Of screaming sea-fowl, widening ring o'er ring, 
Till heaven grew dark ; then wheeling on the wing 
Landward they whiten all the rocks below, 
Or diving melt into the gulph like snow. 
Pleased with the proud discovery, Ingolf gave 
His lintel and his door-posts to the wave, 
Divining as they drifted to the strand 
The will of destiny, the place to land, (c) 
There on a homeless soil his foot he placed, 
Framed his hut-palace, colonized the waste, 



(c) This device of superstition is borrowed from the tradition 
concerning Ingolf, and probably the same \va^ frequently employed 
by the northern rovers, leaving their native country, and seeking a 
home in strange lands. 



CANTO iv. GREENLAND. 73 

And ruled his horde with patriarchal sway ; 
Where justice reigns, 'tis freedom to obey : 
And there his race, in long succession blest, 
(Like generations in the eagle's nest, 
Upon their own hereditary rock,) 
Flourish'd, invincible to every shock 
Of time, chance, foreign force, or civil rage ; 
A noble dynasty from age to age ; 
And Iceland shone, for generous lore renown'd, 
A northern light, when all was gloom around. 
Ere long by brave adventurers on the tide, 
A new Hesperian region was descried, 
Which fancy deem'd, or fable feign' d so fair, 
Fleets from old Norway pour'd their settlers there, 
Who traced and peopled far that double shore, 
Round whose repelling rocks two oceans roar, 
Till at the southern promontory, tost 
By tempests, each is in its rival lost. 
Thus Greenland, (so that arctic world they named,) 
Was planted, and to utmost Calpe famed 






74 GREENLAND. CANTO iv. 

For wealth exhaustless, which her seas could boast, 

And prodigies of Nature on her coast ; 

Where, in the green recess of every glen, 

The House of Prayer o'ertopt the' abodes of 

men, 

And flocks and cattle grazed by summer-streams, 
That tracked the valleys with meandering gleams : 
While on the mountains ice eternal frown'd, 
And growing glaciers deepen'd tow'rds the ground, 
Year after year, as centuries roll'd away, 
Nor lost one moment till that judgement-day, 
When eastern Greenland from the world was 

rent, 
Irigulph'd, or fix'd one frozen continent, (d) 



(d] The extravagant accounts of the fertility of ancient Greenland 
need not be particularised here. Some of the annals state, that the 
best wheat grew to perfection in the valleys; that the forests were 
extensive and luxuriant ; flocks and herds were numerous, and very 
large and fat, &c. At St. Thomas's Cloister, there was a natural 
fountain of hot water, (o geyser,) which, being conveyed by pipes 
into all the apartments of the monks, ministered to their comfort 



CANTO iv. GREENLAND. 75 

'Twere long and drear}- to recount in rhyme 
The crude traditions of that long-lost clime : 
To sing of wars, by barbarous chieftains waged, 
In which as fierce and noble passions raged, 
Heroes as subtle, bold, remorseless, fought, 
And deeds as dark and terrible were wrought, 
As round Troy-walls became the splendid themes 
Of Homer's song, and Jove's Olympian dreams ; 
When giant-prowess, in the iron field, 
With single arm made phalanx* d legions yield ; 
When battle was but massacre, the strife 
Of murderers, steel to steel, and life to life. 
Who follows Homer takes the field too late ; 
Though stout as Hector, sure of Hector's fate, 
A wound as from Achilles' spear he feels, 
Falls, and adorns the Grecian's chariot-wheels. 



in many ways. Adjoining this cloister there was a richly cultivated 
garden, through which a warm rivulet flowed, and rendered the soil 
so fertile, that it produced the most beautiful flowers, and the most 
delicious fruits. 

B 2 



76 GREENLAND. CANTO iv. 

Nor stay we monkish legends to rehearse ; 
To build their cloister-walls in Gothic verse ; 
Of groves and gardens, wine and music tell ; 
Fresh roses breathing round the hermit's cell, 
And baths, in which Diana's nymphs might lave, 
From earth's self-opening veins the blood-warm 

wave, 

Whose genial streams, amidst disparted ice, 
Made laps of verdure ; like those isles of spice 
In eastern seas ; or rich oases, graced 
With flowers and fountains, in the Lybian waste. 

Rather the muse would stretch a mightier wing, 
Of a new world the earliest dawn to sing ; 
How, long ere Science, in a dream of thought, 
Earth's younger daughter to Columbus brought, 
And sent him, like the Faerie Prince, in quest 
Of that " bright virgin throned in the west:" (e) 



(e) Spenser introduces Prince Arthur as traversing the world 
in search of his mistress GZorzono, whom he had only seen in a 



CANTO iv. GREENLAND. 

Greenland's bold sons, by instinct, sallied forth 
On barks, like ice-bergs drifting from the north, 
Cross'd without magnet undiscover'd seas, 
And, all surrendering to the stream and breeze, 
Touched on the line of that twin-bodied land, 
That stretches forth to either pole a hand, 
From arctic wilds, that see no winter-sun, 
To where the oceans of the world are one, 
And round Magellan's streights, Fuego's shore, 
Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific roar. 

Regions of beauty there these rovers found, 
The flowery hills with emerald woods were crown'd, 
Spread o'er the vast savannahs, buffalo herds, 
Ranged without master ; and the bright-wing'd birds 



dream. The discovery of a region in the west, by the Greenland 
Norwegians, about the year 1000, and intercourse maintained with 
it for 120 years afterwards, may be considered as the most curious 
fact or fable connected with the history of these colonists. The 
reason why it was called Wineland, is given in the sequel. See 
alto Note (H.) in the Appendix. 



E3 



78 GREENLAND. CANTO iv. 

Made gay the sunshine as they glanced along, 
Or turn'd the air to music with their song. 

Here from his mates a German youth had stray'd, 
Where the broad river cleft the forest glade ; 
Swarming with alligator-shoals,, the flood 
Blazed in the sun, or moved in clouds of blood ; 
The wild boar rustled headlong through the brake ; 
Like a live arrow leapt the rattle- snake ; 
The uncouth shadow of the climbing bear 
Crawl'd on the grass, while he aspired in air ; 
Anon with hoofs, like hail, the greenwood rang, 
Among the scattering deer a panther sprang : 
The stripling fear'd not, yet he trod with awe, 
As if enchantment breathed o'er all he saw, 
Till in his path uprose a wilding vine ; 
Then o'er his memory rush'd the noble Rhine ; 
Home and its joys, with fullness of delight, 
So rapt his spirit, so beguiled his sight, 
That in those glens of savage solitude, 
Vineyards and corn-fields, towns and spires he view'd, 



CANTO iv. GREENLAND. 79 

And through the image-chamber of his soul, 
The days of other years like shadows stole ; 
All that he once had been again he grew, 
Through every stage of life he pass'd anew ; 
The playmates of his infancy were there, 
With dimpled cheeks, blue eyes, and flaxen hair ; 
The blithe companions of his riper yuuth, 
And one whose heart was love, whose soul was truth . 
When the quick-mingling pictures of that dream, 
(Like broken scenery on a troubled stream, 
Where sky and landscape, light and darkness, run 
Through widening circles,) harmonized in one ; 
His father's cot appear'd, with vine-leaves drest, 
And clusters pendent round the swallow's nest ; 
In front the little garden, at whose gate, 
Amidst their progeny his parents sate, 
He only absent; but his mother's eye 
Look'd through a tear ; she reach'd him with a sigh : 
Then in a moment vanish'd time and space, 
And with a shout he rush'd to her embrace ; 
E 4 



80 GREENLAND. CANTO iv. 

Round hills and .dales the joyful tidings spread, 
All ran to welcome TYRKER from the dead. 
With bliss inebriate, in that giddy trance, 
He led his waltzing partner through the dance ; 
And while he pluck'd the grapes that blush'd at 

hand, 

Trod the rich wine-press in his native land, 
Quaff d the full flowing goblet, loosed his tongue, 
And songs of vintage, harvest, battle sung. 
At length his shipmates came ; their laughter broke 
The gay delusion ; in alarm he 'woke ; 
Transport to silent melancholy changed ; 
At once from love, and joy, and hope estranged, 
O'er his blank mind, with cold bereaving spell, 
Came that heart-sickness, which no tongue can tell; 
Felt when, in foreign climes, 'midst sounds 

unknown, 

We hear the speech or music of our own, 
Roused to delight from drear abstraction start, 
And feel our country beating at our heart ; 



CANTO iv. GREENLAND. 81 

The rapture of a moment ! in its birth 

It perishes for ever from the earth ; 

And dumb, like shipwrecked mariners, we stand, 

Eyeing by turns the ocean and the land, 

Breathless ; till tears the struggling thought release, 

And the lorn spirit weeps itself to peace. 

Wineland the glad discoverers call'd that shore, 
And back the tidings of its riches bore ; 
But soon returned with colonizing bands, 
Men that at home would sigh for unknown lands ; 
Men of all weathers, fit for every toil, 
War, commerce, pastime, peace, adventure, spoil ; 
Bold master-spirits, where they touch'd they gain'd 
Ascendance; where they fix'd their foot they reign'd. 
Both coasts they long inherited, though wide 
Dissevered ; stemming to and fro the tide, 
Free as the Syrian dove explores the sky, 
Their helm their hope, their compass in their eye, 
They found at will, where'er they pleased to roam, 
The ports of strangers, or their northern home, 
E 5 






82 GREENLAND. CANTO iv. 

Still 'midst tempestuous seas and zones of ice, 
Loved as their own, their unlost Paradise. 
Yet was their Paradise for ever lost : 
War, famine, pestilence, the power uf frost, 
Their woes combining, wither'd from the earth 
This late creation, like a timeless birth, 
The fruit of age and weakness, forced to light, 
Breathing awhile, relapsing into night. 

Ages had seen the vigourous race, that sprung 
From Norway's stormy forelands, rock'd when young 
In ocean's cradle, hardening as they rose 
Like mountain-pines amidst perennial snows ; 
Ages had seen these sturdiest sons of Time 
Strike root and flourish in that ruffian clime, 
Commerce with lovelier lands and wealthier hold, 
Yet spurn the lures of luxury and gold, 
Beneath the umbrage of the Gallic vine, 
For moonlight snows and cavern-shelter pine, 
Turn from Campanian fields a lofty eye 
To gaze upon the glorious Alps, and sigh, 



CANTO iv. GREENLAND. 63 

Remembering Greenland ; more and more endear'd, 
As far and farther from its shores they steerM ; 
Greenland their world, and all was strange beside ; 
Elsewhere they wanderM ; here they lived and died. 

At length a swarthy tribe, without a name, 
Unknown the point of windward whence they came ; 
The power by which stupendous gulphs they cross'd, 
Or compass'd wilds of everlasting frost, 
Alike mysterious ; found their sudden way 
To Greenland ; pour'd along the western bay 
Their straggling families ; and seized the soil 
For their domain, the ocean for their spoil. 
Skraellings the Normans callM these hordes in scorn, 
That seem'd created on the spot, though born 
In trans-Atlantic climes, and thither brought 
By paths as covert as the birth of thought ; 
They were at once; the swallow-tribes in spring 
Thus daily multiply upon the wing, 
As if the air, their element of flight, 
Brought forth new broods from darkness every night ; 
I 



84 GREENLAND. CANTO iv. 

Slipt from the secret hand of Providence, 

They come we see not how, nor know we whence. (/) 

A stunted, stern, uncouth, amphibious stock, 
Hewn from the living marble of the rock, 
Or sprung from mermaids, and in ocean's bed, 
With ores and seals, in sunless caverns bred, 
They might have held, from unrecorded time, 
Sole patrimony in that hideous clime, 
So lithe their limbs, so fenced their frames to bear 
The intensest rigours of the polar air; 
Nimble, and muscular, and keen to run 
The rein-deer down a circuit of the sun ; 
To climb the slippery cliffs, explore their cells, 
And storm and sack the sea-birds' citadels ; 
In bands, through snows, the mother-bear to trace, 
Slay with their darts the cubs in her embrace, 
And while she lick'd their bleeding wounds, to brave 
Her deadliest vengeance in her inmost cave : 

(/) See Note (I.) of the Appendix. 



CANTO iv. GREENLAND. 85 

Train'd with inimitable skill to float, 

Each, balanced in his bubble of a boat, 

With dexterous paddle steering through the spray, 

With poised harpoon to strike his plunging 

prey, 

As though the skiff, the seaman, oar, and dart 
Were one compacted body, by one heart 
With instinct, motion, pulse empower' d to ride, 
A human Nautilus upon the tide ; 
Or with a fleet of Kayaks to assail 
The desperation of the stranded whale, 
When wedged 'twixt jagged rocks he writhes and 

rolls 

In agony among the ebbing shoals, 
Lashing the waves to foam ; until the flood, 
From wounds, like geysers, seems a bath of blood, 
Echo all night dumb-pealing to his roar ; 
Till morn beholds him slain along the shore. 

Of these, hereafter should the lyre be strung 
To arctic themes, may glorious days be sung ; 



86 GREENLAND. CANTO iv. 

Now be our task the sad reverse to tell, 

How in their march the nobler Normans fell ; (g) 

Whether by dire disease, that turn'd the breath 
Of bounteous heaven to pestilence and death, 

In number, strength, and spirit worn away, 
Their lives became the cool assassin's prey ; 

Or in the battle-field, as Skraellings boast, 
These pigmies put to flight their giant-host, 
When front to front on scowling cliffs they 

stood, 
And shot their barbs athwart the parting flood ; 



(g) The incidents alluded to in this clause are presumed to have 
occasioned the extinction of the Norwegian colonists on the western 
coast of Greenland. Crantz says, that there is a district on Ball's 
river, called Pissiksarbik, or the place of arrows ; where it is 
believed, that the Skraellings and Norwegians fought a battle, in 
which the latter were defeated. The modern Greenlanders affirm, 
that the name is derived from the circumstance of the parties 
having shot their arrows at one another from opposite banks of the 
stream. Many rudera, or ruins of ancient buildings, principally 
supposed to have been churches, are found along the coast from 
Disko Bay to Cape Farewell. 



CANTO iv. GREENLAND. 87 

Arrow smote arrow, dart encounter'd dart, 
From hand to hand, impaling heart for heart ; 
Till spent their missiles ; quick as in a dream 
The images are changed, across the stream, 
The Skraellings rush'd, the precipices scaled ; 

O'erwhelm'd by multitudes the Normans fail'd ; 
A scatter' d remnant to the south retired, 

But one by one along their route expired : 
They perish'd ; History can no more relate 
Of their obscure and unlamented fate ; 
They perish'd ; yet along that western shore, 
Where Commerce spread her colonies of yore, 
Ruins of temples and of homes are traced, 

Steps of magnificence amidst the waste, 
Where Time hath trod, and left those wrecks to 

shew, 
That Life hath been, where all is Death below. 



GREENLAND. 



CANTO V. 

The depopulation of the Norwegian Colonies on the eastern 
coast of Greenland, and the abandonment of intercourse 
with it from Europe, in consequence of the increase 
of the arctic ices, about the beginning of the fifteenth 
century. 



LAUNCH on the gulph, my little Greenland bark ! 
Bear me through scenes unutterably dark ; 
Scenes with the mystery of Nature seal'd, 
Nor till the day of doom to be reveaPd ; 
What though the spirits of the arctic gales 
Freeze round thy prow, or fight against thy sails, 
Safe as Arion, whom the dolphin bore, 
Enamour* d of his music, to the shore, 



CANTO v. GREENLAND. 89 

On thee adventuring o'er an unknown main . 

I raise to warring elements a strain 

Of kindred harmony: O lend your breath, 

Ye tempests ! while I sing this reign of death* 

Utter dark sayings of the days of old, 

In parables upon my harp unfold 

Deeds perish'd from remembrance; truth, array'd, , 

Like heaven by night, in emblematic shade, 

When shines the horoscope, and star on star, 

By what they are not lead to what they are ; 

Atoms, that twinkle in an infant's eye, 

Are worlds, suns, systems in the' unbounded sky : 

Thus the few fabled woes my strains create 

Are hieroglyphics in a book of Fate, 

And while the shadowy symbols I unroll 

Imagination reads a direr scroll. 

Wake, ye wild visions ! o'er the northern deep, 

On clouds and winds, like warrior-spectres sweep; 

Shew by what plagues and hurricanes destroyed, 

A breathing realm became a torpid void. 



90 GREENLAND. CANTO v. 

The floods are raging, and the gales blow high, 
Low as a dungeon-roof impends the sky ; 
Prisoners of hope, between the clouds and waves, 
Six fearless sailors man yon boat, tMt braves 
Peril redoubling upon peril past : 
From childhood nurselings of the wayward blast, 
Aloft as o'er a buoyant arch they go, 
Whose key-stone breaks ; as deep they plunge 

below ; 

Unyielding though the strength of man be vain ; 
Struggling though borne like surf along the main ; 
In front a battlement of rocks; in rear, 
Billow on billow bounding ; near, more near, 
They verge to ruin ; life and death depend 
On the next impulse ; shrieks and prayers ascend ; 
When, like the fish that mounts on drizzling wings, 
Sheer from the gulph the' ejected vessel springs, 
And grounds on inland ice, beyond the track 
Of hissing foam-wreaths, whence the tide roll'd 
back; 



CANTO v. GREENLAND. 91 

Then ere that tide, returning to the charge, 

Swallows the wreck, the captives are at large. 

On either hand steep hills obstruct their path ; 

Behind, the ocean roaring in his wrath, 

Mad as a Lybian wilderness by night, 

With all its lions up, in chace or fight. 

The fugitives right onward shun the beach, 

Nor tarry till the inmost cove they reach, 

Reclucled in the labyrinthine dell, 

Like the last hollow of a spiral shell. 

There with the axe or knife which haste could save, 

They build a house ; perhaps they dig a grave : 

Of solid snow, well-squared, and piled in blocks, 

Brilliant as hewn from alabaster rocks, 

Their palace rises, narrowing to the roof, 

And freezes into marble, tempest-proof; 

Night closing round, within its shade they creep, 

And weary Nature sinks at once to sleep. 

Oh ! could we walk amidst their dreams, and see 
All that they have been, are, or wish to be, 



92 GREENLAND. CANTO v. 

In fancy's world ! each at his own fire-side ; 
One greets a parent ; one a new-made bride ; 
Another clasps his babe with fond embrace, 
A smile in slumber mantling o'er his face ; 
All dangers are forgotten in a kiss, 
Or but remember'd to exalt the bliss. 

One wounded sufferer wakes, with pain opprest ; 
Yet are his thoughts at home among the rest ; 
Then beams his eye, his heart dilated burns, 

Till the dark vigil to a vision turns, 

That vision to reality ; and home 

Is so endear'd, he vows no more to roam. 

Ha ! suddenly he starts ; with trembling lips, 

Salt shower-drops, oozing through the roof he sips ; 

Aware that instant, yet alarm' d too late, 

The sea hath burst its barrier, fix'd their fate ; 
Escape impossible ; the tempests urge 
Through the deep dell the inundating surge ; 
Nor wall nor roof the' impetuous flood controuls. 
Above, around, within, the deluge rolls ; 



CANTO v. GREENLAND. 93 

He calls his comrades ; ere their doom be known, 
Tis past; the snow-house utterly o'erthrown, 
Its inmates vanish ; never to be found, 
Living or dead, on habitable ground. 

There is a beauteous hamlet in the vale ; 
Green are the fields around it ; sweetly sail 
The twilight shadows o'er the darkening scene, 
Earth, air, and ocean, all alike serene. 
Dipt in the hues of sun-set, wreath'd in zones, 
The clouds are resting on their mountain-thrones ; 
One peak alone exalts its glacier crest, 
A golden paradise, above the rest ; 
Thither the day with lingering steps retires. 
And in its own blue element expires ; 
Thus Aaron laid his gorgeous robes aside 
On Horeb's consecrated top, and died. 
The moon, meanwhile, o'er ocean's sombre bed, 
New-risen, a thousand glow-worm lights hath spread ; 
From east to west the wildfire splendours glance, 
And all the billows in her glory dance ; 



94 GREENLAND. CANTO v, 

Till, in mid-heaven, her orb might seem the eye 
Of Providence, wide-watching from the sky, 
While nature slumbers ; emblem of His grace, 
Whose presence fills the infinite of sp?ce. 

The clouds have left the mountains ; coldly bright, 
Their icy summits shed cerulean light ; 
The steep declivities between assume 
A horror of unfathomable gloom : 
The village sleeps ; from house to house, the ear 
Of yonder sentinel no sound can hear : 
A maniac; he, while calmer heads repose, 
Takes his night-round, to tell the stars his woes ; 
Woes, which his noble heart to frenzy stung ; 
He hath no bard, and they remain unsung. 
A warrior once, victorious arms he bore ; 
And bears them still, although his wars are o'er ; 
For 'tis his boast, with shield and sword in hand, 
To be the guardian Angel of the land. 
Mark with what stern solemnity he stalks, 
And to himself as to a legion talks ; 



CANTO v. GREENLAND. 95 

Now deep in council with his chiefs ; anon, 
He starts as at the trumpet, leads them on, 
And wins the day ; his battle-shout alarms 
None but the infant in the nurse's arms ; 
Soon hush'd, but closer to her side, it sleeps ; 
While he abroad his watch in silence keeps. 
At every door he halts, and brings a sigh, 
But leaves a blessing, when he marches by : 
He stops ; from that low roof, a deadly groan 
Hath made unutterable anguish known ; 
A spirit into eternity hath pass'd ; 
A spouse, a father, there hath breathed his last. 
The widow and her little ones weep not ; 
In its excess their misery is forgot, 
One dumb, dark moment; then from all their eyes 
Rain the salt tears, and loud their wailings rise : 
Ah ! little think that family forlorn 
How brief the parting ; they shall meet ere morn ! 
For lo ! the witness of their pangs hath caught 
A sight that startles madness into thought ; 



96 GREENLAND. CANTO v. 

Back from their gate unconsciously he reels ; 
A resurrection of his soul he feels 
There is a motion in the air ; his eye 
Blinks as it fear'd the falling of the sky. 
The splendid peak of adamantine ice, 
At sun-set like an earthly paradise, 
And in the moon of such empyrean hue, 
It seem'd to bring the unseen world to view ; 

That splendid peak, the Power, (which to the 

spheres 

Had piled its turrets through a thousand years,) 
Touches, as lightly as the passing wind, 
And the huge mass, o'erbalanced, undermined, 
And dislocated from its base of snow, 
Slides down the slope, majestically slow, 
Till o'er the precipice, down headlong sent, 
And in ten thousand, thousand spangles rent, 
It piles a hill where spread a vale before : 

From rock to rock the echoes round the 

shore, 



CANTO v. GREENLAND. 97 

Tell with their deep artillery the fate 
Of the whole village crushed beneath its weight. 
The sleepers wake, their homes in ruins hurl'd, 
They wake from death into another world. 
The gazing maniac, palsied into stone, 
Amidst the wreck of ice, survives alone ; 
A sudden interval of reason gleams, 
Steady and clear, amidst his wildering dreams, 
But shews reality in such a shape, 
'Twere rapture back to frenzy to escape ; 
Again the clouds of desolation roll, 
Blotting all old remembrance from his soul ; 
Whate'er his sorrows or his joys have been, 
His spirit grows embodied through this scene ; 
With eyes of agony, and clenching hands, 
Fix'd in recoil, a frozen form he stands, 
And smit with wonder at his people's doom, 
Becomes the monument upon their tomb. 
Behold a scene, magnificent and new ; 
Nor land nor water meet the' excursive view ; 



98 GREENLAND. CANTO v. 

The round horizon girds one frozen plain, 
The mighty tombstone of the buried main, 
Where dark, and silent, and unfelt to flow, 
A dead sea sleeps with all its tribes below. 
But heaven is still itself; the deep blue sky 
Comes down with smiles to meet the glancing eye, 
Though if a keener sight its bound would trace, 
The arch recedes through everlasting space. 
The sun, in morning glory, mounts his throne, 
Nor shines he here in solitude unknown ; 
North, south, and west, by dogs or reindeer drawn, 
Careering sledges cross the' unbroken lawn, 
And bring from bays and forelands round the coast, 
Youth, beauty, valour, Greenland's proudest boast, 
Who thus, in winter's long and social reign, 
Hold feasts and tournaments upon the main, 
When, built of solid floods, his bridge extends 
A highway o'er the gulph to meeting friends, 
Whom rocks impassable, or winds and tide, 
Fickle and false, in summer months divide. 



CANTO v. GREENLAND. 99 

The scene runs round with motion, rings with 

mirth, 

No happier spot upon the peopled earth ; 
The drifted snow to dust the travellers beajt, 
The' uneven ice is flint beneath their feet. 
Here tents, a gay encampment, rise around, 

% 

Where music, song, and revelry resound ; 

There the blue smoke upwreathes a hundred spires, 

Where humbler groupes have lit their pine-wood 

fires. i-Jnijn' 

Ere long they quit the tables ; knights and dames 
Lead the blithe multitude to boisterous games. 
Bears, wolves, and lynxes yonder head the chace ; 

rHere start the harness'd reindeer in the race ; 
Borne without wheels, a flight of rival cars 
Track the ice-firmament, like shooting stars, 
Right to the goal, converging as they run, 
They dwindle through the distance into one. 
Where smoother waves have formM a sea of glass, 
With pantomimic change the skaiters pass ; 
F 2 



100 GREENLAND. CANTO v. 

Now toil like ships 'gainst wind and stream ; then 

wheel 

Like flames blown suddenly asunder ; reel 
Like drunkards ; then dispersed in tangents wide, 
Away with speed invisible they glide. 
Peace in their hearts, death-weapons in their 

hands, 

Fierce in mock-battle meet fraternal bands, 
Whom the same chiefs erewhile to conflict led, 
When friends by friends, by kindred kindred bled. 
Here youthful rings with pipe and drum advance, 
And foot the mazes of the giddy dance ; 
Grey -beard spectators, with illumined eye, 
Lean on their staves, and talk of days gone by ; 
Children, who mimic all, from pipe and drum 
To chace and battle, dream of years to come. 
Those years to come the young shall ne'er behold ; 
The days gone by no more rejoice the old. 

There is a boy, a solitary boy, 
Who takes no part in all this whirl of joy, 



CANTO v. GREENLAND. 101 

Yet in the speechless transport of his soul, ' 

He lives, and moves, and breathes throughout the 

whole : 

Him should destruction spare, the plot of earth, 
That forms his play-ground, gave a poet birth, 
Who on the wings of his immortal lays, 
Thine heroes, Greenland ! to the stars shall raise. 
It must not be : abruptly from the show 
He turns his eyes ; his thoughts are gone below 
To sound the depths of ocean, where his mind 
Creates the wonders which it cannot find. 
Listening, as oft he listens in a shell 
To the mock tide's alternate fall and swell, 
He kneels upon the ice, inclines his ear, 
And hears, or does he only seem to hear? 
A sound, as though the Genius of the deep 
Heaved a long sigh, awaking out of sleep. 
He starts ; 'twas but a pulse within his brain ! 
No ; for he feels it beat through every vein ; 
F 3 



102 GREENLAND. CANTO v. 

Groan following groan, (as from a giant's breast, 

Beneath a burying mountain, ill at rest,) 

With awe ineffable his spirit thrills, 

And rapture fires his blood, while terrc*- chills. 

The keen expression of his eye alarms 

His mother ; she hath caught him in her arms, 

And learn'd the cause; that cause, no sooner 

known, 

From lip to lip, o'er many a league is flown ; 
Voices to voices, prompt as signals, rise 
In shrieks of consternation to the skies : 
Those skies, meanwhile, with gathering darkness 

scowl j 

Hollow and winterly the bleak winds howl. 
From morn till noon had ether smiled serene, 
Save one black-belted cloud, far eastward seen, 
Like a snow-mountain ; there in ambush lay 
The' undreaded tempest, panting for his prey : 
That cloud by stealth hath through the welkin spread, 
And hangs in meteor-twilight over-head ; 



CANTO v. GREENLAND. 103 

At foot, beneath the adamantine floor, 
Loose in their prison-house the surges roar : 
To every eye, ear, heart, the' alarm is given, 
And landward crowds, (like flocks of sea-fowl driven, 
When storms are on the wing,) in wild affright, 
On foot, in sledges, urge their panic flight, 
In hope the refuge of the shore to gain 
Ere the disruption of the struggling main, 
Foretold by many a stroke, like lightning sent 
In thunder, through the' unstable continent, 
Which now, elastic on the swell below, 
Rolls high in undulation to and fro. 
Men, reindeer, dogs the giddy impulse fee., 
And jostling headlong, back and forward reel : 
While snow, sleet, hail, or whirling gusts of wind, 
Exhaust, bewilder, stop the breath, and blind. 
All is dismay and uproar ; some have found 
Death for deliverance, as they leap'd on ground, 
Swept back into the flood : but hope is vain 
Ere half the fugitives the beach can gain ; 
p4 



104 GREENLAND. CANTO v. 

The fix'd ice, severing from the shore, with shocks 
Of earthquake violence, bounds against the rocks, 
Then suddenly, while on the verge they stand, 
The whole recoils for ever from the land, 
And leaves a gulph of foam along the shore, 
In which whoever plunge are seen no more. 

Ocean, meanwhile, abroad hath burst the roof 
That sepulchred his waves ; he bounds aloof. 
In boiling cataracts, as volcanoes spout 
Their fiery fountains, gush the waters out ; 
The frame of ice, with dire explosion rends, 
And down the* abyss the mingled crowd descends. 
Heaven ! from this closing horror hide thy light ; 
Cast thy thick mantle o'er it, gracious Night ! 
These screams of mothers with their infants lost, 
These groans of agony from wretches, tost 
On rocks and whirlpools, in thy storms be drown'd, 
The crash of mountain-ice to atoms ground, 
And rage of elements ! while winds, that yell 
Like demons, peal the universal knell, 



X 
CANTO v. GREENLAND. 105 

The shrouding waves around their limbs shall spread, 
" And Darkness be the burier of the dead." 
Their pangs are o'er : at morn the tempests cease, 
And the freed ocean rolls himself to peace ; 
Broad to the sun his heaving breast expands, 
He holds his mirror to a hundred lands ; 
While cheering gales pursue the eager chase 
Of billows round immeasurable space, (a) 
Where are the multitudes of yesterday ? 
At morn they came ; at eve they pass'd away. 
Yet some survive ; yon castellated pile 
Floats on the surges, like a fairy isle ; 
Pre-eminent upon its peak, behold, 
With walls of amethyst and roofs of gold, 



(a) The principal phenomena described in this disruption of so 
immense a breadth of ice, are introduced on the authority of an 
authentic narrative of a journey on sledges along the coast of 
Labrador, by two Moravian missionaries and a number of Esqui- 
maux, in the year 1782. The first incident in this Canto, the 
destruction of the snow-house, is partly borrowed from the same 
record. 

F 5 



106 GREENLAND. CANTO v. 

The semblance of a city ; towers and spires 
Glance in the firmament with opal fires ; 
Prone from those heights pellucid fountains flow 
O'er pearly meads, through emerald vales below. 
No lovelier pageant moves beneath the sky, (o) 
Nor one so mournful to the nearer eye ; 
Here, when the bitterness of death had pass'd 
O'er others, with their sledge and reindeer 

cast, 

Five wretched ones, in dumb despondence wait 
The lingering issue of a nameless fate ; 



(b) The Ice-bergs, both fixed and floating, present the most 
fantastic and magnificent forms, which an active imagination may 
easily convert into landscape-scenery. Crantz says, that some of 
these look like churches, with pillars, arches, portals, and illumin- 
ated windows ; others like castles, with square and spiral turrets. 
A third class assume the appearance of ships in full sail, to which 
pilots have occasionally gone out, for the purpose of conducting 
them into harbour; many again resemble large islands, with hill 
and dale, as well as villages, and even cities, built upon the margin 
of the sea. Two of these stood for many years in Disco Bay, 
which the Dutch whalers called Amsterdam and Haarlem. 






CANTO v. GREENLAND. 107 

A bridal party : mark yon reverend sage 

In the brown vigour of autumnal age ; 

His daughter in her prime ; the youth, who won 

Her love by miracles of prowess done ; 

With these, two meet companions of their joy, 

Her younger sister, and a gallant boy, 

Who hoped, like him, a gentle heart to gain 

By valourous enterprise on land or main. 

These, when the ocean-pavement fail'd their feet, 

Sought on a glacier's crags a safe retreat, 

But in the shock, from its foundation torn, 

That mass is slowly o'er the waters borne, 

An ice-berg ! on whose verge all day they stand, 

And eye the blank horizon's ring for land. 

All night around a dismal flame they weep ; 

Their sledge, by piecemeal, lights the hoary deep. 

Morn brings no comfort ; at her dawn expire 

The latest embers of their latest fire ; 

For warmth and food the patient reindeer bleeds, 

Happier in death than those he warms and feeds. 

F6 



108 GREENLAND. CANTO v. 

How long, by that precarious raft upbuoy'd, 
They blindly drifted on a shoreless void 

How long they suffer'd, or how soon they found 
Rest in the gulph, or peace on living ground : 

Whether, by hunger, cold, and grief consumed, 
They perish'd miserably and unentomb'd, 
(While on that frigid bier their corses lay,) 
Became the sea-fowl's or the sea-bear's prey ; 

Whether the wasting mound, by swift degrees, 
Exhaled in mist and vanish'd from the seas, 
While they, too weak to struggle even in death, 
Lock'd in each other's arms, resigned their 

breath, 

And their white skeletons, beneath the wave, 
Lie intertwined in one sepulchral cave : 

Or meeting some Norwegian bark at sea, 
They deem'd its deck a world of liberty ; 

Or sunward sailing, on green Erin's sod, 
They kneel'd and worshipp'd a delivering God, 



CANTO v. GREENLAND. 10<> 

Where yet the blood they brought from Greenland 

runs 

Among the noblest of our sister's sons 
Is all unknown ; their ice-berg disappears 
Amidst the flood of unreturning years. 

Ages are fled ; and Greenland's hour draws nigh ; 
Seal'd is the judgement ; all her race must die ; 
Commerce forsakes the' unvoyageable seas, 
That year by year with keener rigour freeze j 
The' embargoed waves in narrower channels roll 
To blue Spitzbergen and the utmost pole ; 
A hundred colonies, erewhile that lay 
On the green marge of many a sheltered bay, 
Lapse to the wilderness ; their tenants throng 
Where streams in summer, turbulent and strong, 
With molten ice from inland Alps supplied, 
Hold free communion with the breathing tide, 
That from the heart of ocean sends the flood 
Of living water round the world, like blood ; 



110 GREENLAND. CANTO v. 

But Greenland's pulse shall slow and slower beat, 
Till the last spark of genial warmth retreat, 
And, like a palsied limb of Nature's frame, 
Greenland be nothing but a place and name. 
That crisis comes ; the wafted fuel fails, (c) 
The cattle perish ; famine long prevails ; 
With torpid sloth, intenser seasons bind 
The strength of muscle and the spring of mind ; 
Man droops, his spirits waste, his powers decay, 
His generation soon shall pass away. 



(c) Greenland has been supplied with fuel, from time immemo- 
rial, brought by the tide from the northern shores of Asia, and 
other regions, probably even from California, and the coast of 
America towards Behring's Straits. This annual provision, how- 
ever, has gradually been decreasing for some years past, (being 
partly intercepted by the accumulation of ice,) on the shores of 
modern Greenland towards Davis's Straits. Should it fail alto- 
gether, that country (like the east) must become uninhabitable ; 
as the natives themselves employ wood in the construction of their 
houses, their boats, and their implements of fishing, hunting, and 
shooting, and could not find any adequate substitute for it at 
home. 



CANTO v. GREENLAND. 1 1 1 

At moonless midnight, on this naked coast, 
How beautiful in heaven the starry host ! 
With lambent brilliance o'er these cloister-walls, 
Slant from the firmament a meteor falls ; 
A steadier flame from yonder beacon streams, 
To light the vessel, seen in golden dreams 
By many a pining wretch, whose slumbers feign 
The bliss for which he looks at morn in vain. 
Two years are gone, and half expired a third, 
(The nation's heart is sick with hope deferred,) 
Since last for Europe sail'd a Greenland prow, 
Her whole marine, so shorn is Greenland now, 
Though once, like clouds in ether unconnned, 
Her naval wings were spread to every wind. 
The monk, who sits the weary hours to coutit, 
In the lone block-house, on the beacon-mount, 
Watching the east, beholds the morning star 
Eclipsed at rising o'er the waves afar, 
As if, for so would fond expectance think, 
A sail had cross'd it on the horizon's brink. 



1 12 GREENLAND. CANTO v. 

His fervent soul, in ecstacy outdrawn, 
Glows with the shadows kindling through the dawn, 
Till every bird that flashes through the brine 
Appears an arm'd and gallant brigantine ; 
And every sound along the air that comes, 
The voice of clarions and the roll of drums. 
J Tis she ! 'tis she ! the well-known keel at last, 
With Greenland's banner streaming at the mast ; 
The full-swoln sails, the spring-tide, and the breeze, 
Waft on her way the pilgrim of the seas. 
The monks at matins issuing from their cells, 
Spread the glad tidings ; while their convent-bells 
Wake town and country, sea and shore, to bliss 
Unknown for years on any morn but this. 
Men, women, children throng the joyous strand, 
Whose mob of moving shadows o'er the sand 
Lengthen to giants, while the hovering sun 
Lights up a thousand radiant points from one. 
The pilots launch their boats : a race ! a race ! 
The strife of oars is seen in every face ; 



CANTO v. GREENLAND. 1 13 

Arm against arm puts forth its might to reach, 
And guide, the welcome stranger to the beach. 

Shouts from the shore, the cliffs, the boats, arise ;. 
No voice, no signal from the ship replies ; 

Nor on the deck, the yards, the bow, the stem, 

Can keenest eye a human form discern. 

Oh ! that those eyes were open'd, there to see, 

How, in serene and dreadful majesty, 

Sits the destroying Angel at the helm ! 

He, who hath lately march'd from realm to realm, 
And from the palace to the peasant's shed, 

Made all the living kindred to the dead : 
Nor man alone, dumb nature felt his wrath, 
Drought, mildew, murrain, strew' d his carnage-path ; 
Harvest and vintage cast their timeless fruit, 
Forests before him withered from the root. 
To Greenland now, with unexhausted power, 
He comes commission'd ; and in evil hour 
Propitious elements prepare his way ; 
His day of landing is a festal day. 






114 GREENLAND. CANTO v. 

A boat arrives ; to those who scale the deck, 
Of life appears but one disastrous wreck ; 
Fall'n from the rudder, which he fain had grasp'd, 
But stronger Death his wrestling hold unclasp'd, 
The film of darkness freezing o'er his eyes, 
A lukewarm corpse, the brave commander lies ; 
Survivor sole of all his buried crew, 
Whom one by one the rife contagion slew, 
Just when the cliffs of Greenland cheer* d his sight, 
Even from their pinnacle his soul took flight. 
ChilPd at the spectacle, the pilots gaze 
One on another, lost in blank amaze ; 
But from approaching boats, when rivals throng, 
They seize the helm, in silence steer along, 
And cast their anchor, 'midst exulting cries, 
That make the rocks the echoes of the skies, 
Till the mysterious signs of woes to come, 
Circled by whispers, strike the uproar dumb. 
Rumour affirms, that by some heinous spell 
Of Lapland witches, crew and captain fell ; 



CANTO v. GREENLAND. 115 

None guess the secret of perfidious fate, 
Which all shall know too soon, yet know too late. 
The monks, who claim the ship, divide the stores 
Of food and raiment, at their convent-doors. 

A mother, hastening to her cheerless shed, 
Breaks to her little ones untasted bread ; 
Clamorous as nestling birds, the hungry band 
Receive a mortal portion at her hand : 

On each would equal love the best confer, 

Each by distinct affection dear to her; 

One the first pledge that to her spouse she gave, 

And one unborn till he was in his grave ; 

This was his darling, that to her most kind ; 

A fifth was once a twin, the sixth is blind : 

In each she lives ; in each by turns she dies ; 

Smitten by pestilence before her eyes, 

Three days and all are slain ; the heaviest doom 

Is hers ; their ice-barrM cottage is their tomb. 

The wretch, whose limbs are impotent with cold, 
In the warm comfort of a mantle roll'd, 



116 GREENLAND. CANTO v. 

Lies down to slumber on his soul's desire j 
But wakes at morn, as wrapt in flames of fire ; 
Not Hercules, when from his breast he tore 
The cloke envenom'd with the Centaur's gore, 
Felt sharper pangs than he, who, mad with rage, 
Dives in the gulph, or rolis in snow to' assuage 
His quenchless agony ; the rankling dart 
Within him burns till it consumes his heart. 
From vale to vale the' affrighted victims fly, 
But catch or give the plague with every sigh ; 
A touch contaminates the purest veins, 
Till the Black Death through all the region reigns, (d) 
Conies there no ship again to Greenland's shore ? 
There comes another : there shall come no more ; 
Nor this shall reach an haven : What are these 
Stupendous monuments upon the seas? 



(</) The depopulation of Old Greenland is supposed to have 
been greatly accelerated by the introduction of the plague, which 
under the name of the Black Death made dreadful havoc through- 
out Europe towards the close of the fourteenth century. 



CANTO v. GREENLAND. 117 

Works of Omnipotence, in wondrous forms, 

Immoveable as mountains in the storms ? 

Far as Imagination's eye can roll, 

One range of Alpine glaciers to the pole 

Flanks the whole eastern coast; and branching wide, 

Arches o'er many a league the' indignant tide, 

That works and frets, with unavailing flow, 

To mine a passage to the beach below ; 

Thence from its neck that winter-yoke to rend 

And down the gulph the crashing fragments send. 

There lies a vessel in this realm of frost, 

Not wrecked, nor stranded, yet for ever lost ; 

Its keel embedded in the solid mass ; 

Its glistening sails appear expanded glass ; 

The transverse ropes with pearls enormous strung, 

The yards with icicles grotesquely hung. 

Wrapt in the topmast shrouds there rests a boy, 

His old sea-faring father's only joy ; 

Sprung from a race of rovers, ocean-born, 

Nursed at the helm, he trod dry-land with scorn ; 



118 GREENLAND. CANTO v. 

Through fourscore years from port to port he veer'd, 
Quicksand, nor rock, nor foe, nor tempest fear'd ; 
Now cast ashore, though like a hulk he lie, 
His son at sea is ever in his eye, 
And his prophetic thought, from age to age, 
Esteems the waves his offspring's heritage : 
He ne'er shall know, in his Norwegian cot, 
How brief that son's career, how strange his lot ; 
Writhed round the mast, and sepulchred in air, 
Him shall no worm devour, no vulture tear ; 
CongeaPd to adamant his frame shall last, 
Though empires change, till time and tide be past. 

On deck, in groupes embracing as they died, 
Singly, erect, or slumbering side by side, 
Behold the crew ! They sail'd, with hope elate, 
For eastern Greenland ; till, ensnared by fate, 
In toils that mocked their utmost strength and skill, 
They felt, as by a charm, their ship stand still ; 
The madness of the wildest gale that blows, 
Were mercy to that shudder of repose, 



| 



CANTO v. GREENLAND. 119 

When withering horror struck from heart to heart 

The blunt rebound of Death's benumbing dart, 

And each, a petrifaction at his post, 

Looked on yon father, and gave up the ghost ; (e) 

He meekly kneeling, with his hands upraised, 

His beard of driven snow, eyes fix'd and glazed, 

Alone among the dead shall yet survive, 

The' imperishable dead that seem alive ; 

The* immortal dead, whose spirits, breaking free, 

Bore his last words into eternity, 

While with a seraph's zeal, a Christian's love, 

Till his tongue fail'd, he spoke of joys above. 



(<?) The Danish Chronicle says, that the Greenland colonists 
were tributajry to the kings of Norway from the year 1023 ; soon 
after which they embraced Christianity. In its more flourishing 
period this province is stated to have been divided into a hundred 
parishes, under the superintendance of a bishop. From 1120 to 
1408 the succession of seventeen bishops is recorded. In the last- 
mentioned year, Andrew, ordained bishop of Greenland by AskiU, 
archbishop of Drontheim, sailed for his diocese, but whether he 
arrived there, or was cast away, was never known. To his 
imagined fate this episode alludes. 



120 GREENLAND. CANTO v. 

Now motionless, amidst the icy air, 

He breathes from marble lips unutter'd prayer. 

The clouds condensed, with dark, unbroken hue 

Of stormy purple, overhang his view, 

Save in the west, to which he strains his sigut, 

One golden streak, that grows intensely bright, 

Till thence the' emerging sun, with lightning blaze, 

Pours the whole quiver of his arrowy rays ; 

The smitten rocks to instant diamond turn, 

And round the' expiring saint such visions burn, 

As if the gates of Paradise were thrown 

Wide open to receive his soul ; 'tis flown. 

The glory vanishes, and over all 
Cimmerian darkness spreads her funeral pall. 

Morn shall return, and noon, and eve, and night 
Meet here with interchanging shade and light ; 
But from this bark no timber shall decay, 
Of these cold forms no feature pass away ; 
Perennial ice around the' encrusted bow, 
The peopled deck, and full-rigg'd masts shall grow, 



CANTO v. GREENLAND. 121 

Till from the sun himself the whole be hid, 

Or spied beneath a crystal pyramid ; 

As in pure amber, with divergent lines, 

A rugged shell emboss'd with sea-weed shines. 

From age to age increased with annual snow, 

This new Mont Blanc among the clouds may glow, 

Whose conic peak, that earliest greets the dawn, 

And latest from the sun's shut eye withdrawn, 

Shall from the zenith, through incumbent gloom, 

Burn like a lamp upon this naval tomb. 

But when the* archangel's trumpet sounds on high, 

The pile shall burst to atoms through the sky, 

And leave its dead, upstarting, at the call, 

Naked and pale, before the Judge of all. 

Once more to Greenland's long-forsaken beach, 
Which foot of man again shall never reach, 
Imagination wings her flight, explores 
The march of Pestilence along the shores, 
And sees how Famine in his steps hath paced, 
While Winter laid the soil for ever waste. 
G 






122 GREENLAND. CANTO v, 

Dwellings are heaps of fall'n or falling stones, 
The charnel-houses of unburied bones, 
On which obscene and prowling monsters fed, 
But with the ravin in their jaws fell dead. 
Thus while Destruction, blasting youth and age, 
Raged till it wanted victims for its rage ; 
Love, the last feeling that from life retires, 
Blew the faint sparks of his unfuell'd fires. 
In the cold sunshine of yon narrow dell 
Affection lingers ; there two lovers dwell, 
Greenland's whole family ; nor long forlorn, 
There comes a visitant ; a babe is born. 
O'er his meek helplessness the parents smiled ; 
'Twas Hope ; for Hope is every mother's child : 
Then seem'd they, in that world of solitude, 
The Eve and Adam of a race renew'd. 
Brief happiness ! too perilous to last ; 
The moon hath wax'd and waned, and all is past : 
Behold the end : one morn, athwart the wall, 
They mark'd the shadow of a rein-deer fall, 



CANTO v. GREENLAND. 123 

Bounding in tameless freedom o'er the snow ; 
The father track'd him, and with fatal bow 
Smote down the victim ; but before his eyes, 
A rabid she-bear pounced upon the prize ; 
A shaft into the spoiler's flank he sent, 
She turn'd in wrath, and limb from limb had rent 
The hunter ; but his dagger's plunging steel, 
With riven bosom, made the monster reel ; 
Unvanquish'd, both to closer combat flew, 
Assailants each, till each the other slew ; 
Mingling their blood from mutual wounds, they lay 
Stretcht on the carcase of their antler'd prey. 

Meanwhile his partner waits, her heart at rest, 
No burthen but her infant on her breast : 
With him she slumbers, or with him she plays, 
And tells him all her dreams of future days, 
Asks him a thousand questions, feigns replies, 
And reads whate'er she wishes in his eyes. 
Red evening comes; no husband's shadow falls, 
Where fell the rein-deer's, o'er the latticed walls : 



124 GREENLAND. CANTO v. 

"Tis night ; no footstep sounds towards her door ; 
The day returns, but he returns no more. 
In frenzy forth she sallies ; and with cries, 
To which no voice except her own replies 
In frightful echoes, starting all around, 
Where human voice again shall never sound, 
She seeks him, finds him not ; some angel-guide 
In mercy turns her from the corpse aside ; 
Perhaps his own freed spirit, lingering near, 
Who waits to waft her to a happier sphere, 
But leads her first, at evening, to their cot, 
Where lies the little one, all day forgot ; 
Imparadised in sleep she finds him there, 
Kisses his cheek, and breathes a mother's prayer. 
Three days she languishes, nor can she shed 
One tear, between the living and the dead ; 
When her lost spouse comes o'er the widow's thought, 
The pangs of memory are to madness wrought ; 
But when her suckling's eager lips are felt, 
Her heart would fain but oh ! it cannot melt ; 



CANTO v. GREENLAND. 125 

At length it breaks, while on her lap he lies, 
With baby wonder gazing in her eyes. 
Poor orphan ! mine is not a hand to trace 
Thy little story, last of all thy race! 
Not long thy sufferings ; cold and colder grown, 
The arms that clasp thee chill thy limbs to stone. 
J Tis done : from Greenland's coast, the latest sigh 
Bore infant innocence beyond the sky. 



o 3 



APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 



CANTO I. 

(A.) p. 7. 

THE story of the introduction of Christianity among the 
Sclavonic tribes is interesting. The Bulgarians, being bor- 
derers on the Greek empire, frequently made predatory-in- 
cursions on the Imperial territory. On one occasion the 
sister of Bogaris, King of the Bulgarians, was taken pri- 
soner, and carried to Constantinople. Being a , royal 
captive, she was treated with great honour, and diligently- 
instructed in the doctrines of the gospel, of, .the truth of 
which she became so deeply convinced, that she desired to 
be baptised; and when, in 845, .the Emperor Michael III. 
made peace with the Bulgarians, she returned to her 
country a pious and zealous Christian. Being earnestly 
concerned for the conversion of her brother and his peo- 
ple, she wrote to Constantinople for teachers to instruct 
them in the way of righteousness. Two distinguished 
G 4 



128 APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 

bishops of the Greek Church, Cyrillus and Methodius, 
were accordingly sent into Bulgaria. The King Bogaris, 
who heretofore had resisted conviction, conceived a par- 
ticular affection for Methodius, who, being a skilful 
painter, was desired by him, in the spirit of a barbarian, 
to compose a picture exhibiting the most horrible devices. 
Methodius took a happy advantage of this strange request, 
and painted the day of judgment in a style so terrific, and 
explained its scenes to his royal master in language so 
awful and affecting, that Bogaris was awakened, made a 
profession of the true faith, and was baptized by the 
name of Michael, in honour of his benefactor, the Greek 
Emperor. His subjects, according to the fashion of the 
times, some by choice, and others from constrainc, 
adopted their master's religion. To Cyrillus is attributed 
the translation of the Scriptures still in use among the 
descendants of the Sclavonian tribes, which adhere to the 
Greek Church , and this is probably the most ancient 
European version of the Bible in a living tongue. 

But notwithstanding this triumphant introduction of 
Christianity among these fierce nations (including the Bo- 
hemians and Moravians), multitudes adhered to idolatry, 
and among the nobles especially many continued Pagans, 
and in open or secret enmity against the new religion 
and its professors. In Bohemia, Duke Borziwog, having 



APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 129 

embraced the gospel, was expelled by his chieftains, and 
one StoymiruSy who had been thirteen years in exile, and 
who was believed to be a heathen, was chosen by them as 
their prince. He being, however, soon detected in Christ- 
ian worship, was deposed, and Borziwog recalled. The 
latter died soon after his restoration, leaving his widow, 
Ludomitta, regent during the minority of her son Wratit- 
laus, who married a noble lady, named Drahomira. The 
young duchess, to ingratiate herself with her husband and 
her mother-in-law, affected to embrace Christianity, while 
in her heart she remained an implacable enemy to it. Her 
husband dying early, left her with two infant boys. Wen- 
ceslaus, the elder, was taken by his grandmother, the pious 
Ludomilla, and carefully educated in Christian principles ; 
the younger, Bolcslas, was not less carefully educated in 
hostility against them by Drahomira; who, seizing the 
government during the minority of her children, shut up 
the churches, forbade the clergy either to preach or teach 
in schools, and imprisoned, banished, or put to death those 
who disobeyed her edicts against the gospel. But when 
her eldest son,Wenceslaus, became of age, he was persuaded 
by his grandmother and the principal Christian nobles to 
take possession of the government, which was his inherit- 
ance. He did so, and began his reign by removing his 
pagan mother and brother to a distance from the me- 
tropolis. Drahomira, transported with rage, resolved to 
o 5 



130 APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 

rid herself of her mother-in-law, whose influence over 
Wenceslaus was predominant. She found two heathen 
assassins ready for her purpose, who, stealing unperceived 
into Ludomilla's oratory, fell upon her as she entered it 
for evening prayers,; threw a rope round her neck , and 
strangled her. The remorseless Drahomira next plotted 
against Wenceslaus, to deprive him of the government; 
but her intrigues miscarrying, she proposed to her heathen 
son to murder him. An opportunity soon offered. On 
the birth of a son, Boleslas invited his Christian brother to 
visit him, and be present at a pretended ceremony of 
blessing the infant. Wenceslaus attended, and was treated 
with unwonted kindness; but suspecting treachery, he 
could not sleep in his brother's house. He therefore 
went to spend the night in the church. Here, as he lay 
defenceless iu an imagined sanctuary, Holeslas, instigated 
by their unnatural mother, surprised and slew him with 
his sabre. The murderer immediately usurped the sove- 
reignty, and commenced a cruel persecution against the 
Christians, which was terminated by the interference of 
the Roman Emperor Qtto I., who made war upon Boleslas, 
reduced him to the condition of a vassal, and gave peace 
to his persecuted subjects. This happened in the year 
943. 



APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 131 

(B.) page 10. 

The genuine followers of John Huss never approved of 
the war for religion carried on by Ziska, though many of 
them were incidentally involved in it. liokyzan, a Calix- 
tine, having with his party made a compromise with their 
sovereign and the priests, by which they were allowed the 
use of the cup in the sacrament, was made archbishop of 
Prague in the year 1435 j and thenceforward, though he 
had been fully convinced of the truth of the doctrines 
promulgated by Huss, he became a treacherous friend or 
an open enemy of his followers, as it happened to serve 
the purposes of his ambition. The Pope, however, refused 
to confirm him in his new dignity, unless he would re- 
linquish the cup; on which, for a time, he made great 
pretensions of undertaking a thorough reform in the 
church. All who hoped any thing good of him were dis- 
appointed, and none more than his pious nephew Gre- 
gorius, who in vain, on behalf of the peace-loving Hussites, 
besought him to proceed in the work of church-regener- 
ation. He refused peremptorily, at length, after having 
greatly dissimulated and temporized. His refusal was the 
immediate cause of the commencement of the Church of 
the United Brethren, in that form in which it has been re- 
cognized for nearly 400 year?. They were no sooner 
known, however, as " Fratres legis Christi" Brethren ac- 
G 6 



132 APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 

cording to the rule of Christ, than they were persecuted as 
heretics. Among others, Gregorius, who is styled the 
" Patriarch of the Brethren" was apprehended at a pri- 
vate meeting with a number of his people. The judge 
who executed the royal authority, on entering the room, 
used these remarkable words : " It is written, all that ivill 
" live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution ; there- 
" fore follow me, by command of the higher powers" They 
followed, and were sentenced to the torture. On the 
rack, Gregorius fell into a swoon, and all present supposed 
him to be dead. Hereupon his apostate uncle Rokyzan 
hastened to the spot, and falling upon his neck, with tears 
and loud lamentations bewailed him, exclaiming " O, 
" my dear Gregorius ! would God I were where thou art /" 
His nephew, however, revived, and was set at liberty. He 
afterwards, according to tradition, declared that in his 
trance he had seen a vision ; a tree, covered with leaves 
and blossoms and fruits, on which many beautiful birds 
were feeding and melodiously singing. Under it, was a 
shepherd's boy, and near at hand, three venerable old 
men, (as guardians of the tree,) whose habiliments and 
countenances were those of the three persons who, seve- 
ral years afterwards, were consecrated the first bishops of 
the church of the United Brethren, by Stephen, the last 
bishop of the Waldenses. 



APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 133 



(C.) page 12. 

Comenius afterwards visited and resided in various parts 
of Germany, Holland, and England ; every where, on his 
travels, recommending, with earnestness and importunity, 
the case of his oppressed brethren in Bohemia and Mo- 
ravia to men in power. But his appeals were in vain j 
and when, at the peace of Westphalia, in 1648, he found 
that nothing was provided for their protection in the free 
exercise of their religion, he published an affecting repre- 
sentation of the peculiar hardships of their church, in 
which he observed: " We justly, indeed, deserve to 
" bear the wrath of Almighty God ; but will such men 
" (alluding to the Protestant diplomatists and their con- 
" stituent authorities) be able to justify their actions be- 
" fore God, who, forgetting the common cause of all 
" Protestants, and the old covenants amongst us, neglect 
" to assist those who are oppressed in the same engage- 
" ments ? Having made peace for themselves, they never 
" gave it a thought, that the Bohemians and Moravians, 
" who at the first y and for so many centuries, asserted the 
" truth in opposition to Popery, were likewise worthy to 
" be mutually considered by them ; that the light of the 
" gospel, which first was enkindled and put upon the can- 
" dlestick in the Brethren's church, might not now be ex- 
" tinguished, as it appears to be. This afflicted people, 



134? APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 

" therefore, which on account of its faithful adherence to 
" the apostolic doctrines, following the footsteps of the 
" primitive church, and the instructions of the holy fathers, 
" has been so much hated, persecuted, tossed to and fro, 
" and even forsaken by those of its own household, and 
" now finds mercy from no man ; this afflicted people 
" has nothing left, but to cast itself upon the aid of the 
" eternally merciful Lord GoJ, and with the ancient 
" prophet, when his nation was overthrown by its ene- 
" mies, to exclaim * For these things I weep ; mine eye, 
" ' mine eye runneth down with water, because the Com- 
" ' forter that should relieve my soul is far from me.' 
" Lam. i. 16. But Thou, O Lord God ! who abidest for 
" ever and ever, and whose throne is eternal, why wilt 
" Thou forget us, and even forsake us in this extremity ? 
" O bring us, Lord, again to Thyself, that we may return 
" to our homes. Renew our days as of old." In 1649, 
Comenius published a History of the Brethren's Church, 
which he dedicated, as his " last will and testament," to 
the Church of England, to preserve for the successors of 
the brethren in future ages, as to the last hour of his life 
he cherished the hope of their revival and establishment in 
peace and freedom. This work was translated from the 
original Latin, and published in London in 1661 . 



APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 135 

(D.) page 13. 

Previous to the Reformation, for about fifty years, the 
prisons ^rr Bohemia, and especially at Prague, were filled, 
from time to tune, in consequence of special decrees, with 
members .of the Brethren's Church. Michael, one of their 
first bishops, was long under rigorous confinement. Many 
perished in deep dungeons, with cold and hunger ; others 
were cruelly tortured. The remainder were obliged to 
seek refuge in thick forests, and to hide themselves by day 
in caverns and recesses among the rocks. Fearing to be 
betrayed in the day-time by the smoke, they kindled their 
fires only at night, around which they employed their time 
in reading the Scriptures, and in prayer. If they were 
under the necessity of going out in the snow, either to 
seek provisions or to visit their neighbours, they always 
walked behind one another, each in his turn treading in the 
footsteps of the first, and the last dragging a piece of 
brushwood after him, to obliterate the track, or to make it 
appear as if some poor peasant had been to the woods to 
fetch a bundle of sticks. With the Reformers, Luther, 
Calvin, Zuing/ius, Melanchlon, Bucer, and Capita, the 
Brethren held the most friendly correspondence, and by all 
were acknowledged to be a true apostolical church. The 
strictness of their church-discipline, however, and the dif- 
ference which subsisted among these great men themselves 
on that general subject, as well as the insulated locality of 



136 APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 

the Brethren, probably were the causes why they remained 
still totally distinct from any of the new Christian socie- 
ties which were then instituted. After the Reformation, 
especially about the beginning and till the middle of the 
seventeenth century, they were exposed to the same kind 
of persecutions and proscriptions which their ancestors had 
suffered. After the death of the Emperor Rudolph, in 1612, 
the resolutions of the Council of Trent were decreed to be 
put in force against all Protestants in Bohemia. This oc- 
casioned a civil war, like that of the Hussites. The 
Brethren, though they are understood to have taken very 
little share in this defence of the truth, by weapons of 
carnal warfare, were nevertheless exposed to all the vin- 
dictive cruelty, by which the Protestants in Bohemia were 
nearly extirpated, after their defeat by the Imperialists, on 
the White Mountain, near Prague, in 1620. On the 21st 
June 1621, no less than twenty-seven of the Patrons (De- 
fensores] of the Protestant cause, principally nobles and 
men of distinction, were beheaded, who all died as faith- 
ful witnesses and martyrs to the religion of Christ. This 
execution was followed by a decree of banishment against 
all ministers of the Brethren's Churches in Bohemia and 
Moravia. Many hundred families, both noble and ple- 
beian, fled into the neighbouring provinces. Emigration, 
however, was rendered as difficult as possible to the 
common people, who were strictly watched by the emis- 



APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 137 

saries of persecution. Many thousands, notwithstanding, 
gradually made their escape, and joined their ministers in 
exile ; others, who from age, infirmity, or the burthen of 
large families, could not do the same, remained in their 
country, but were compelled to worship God, after the 
manner of their forefathers, in secret only ; for thence- 
forward neither churches nor schools for Protestants were 
allowed to exist in Bohemia and Moravia. Search was 
made for their Bibles and religious books, which were 
burnt in piles, and in some places under the gallows. 

(E.) page 1C. 

After the lapse of nearly a century, during which the 
refugees of the Brethren's churches, in Saxony, Poland^ 
and Prussia, were nearly lost among the people with whom 
they associated, and the small remnant that continued in 
Moravia kept up the fire on their family-altars, while in 
their churches it was utterly extinct, a new persecution 
against this small remnant drove many of them from their 
homes, who, under the conduct of Christian David, finding 
an asylum on the estates of Count Zinzendorf, founded 
near Bertholsdorf the first congregation of the revived 
church of the United Brethren. On the 8th of June 1 722, 
Christian David, with four of the first fugitives that arrived 
in Lusatia, were presented to Count Zinzcndorfs grand- 
mother, who instantly gave them protection, and promised 



138 APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 

to furnish them with the means of establishing themselves 
on one of her family-estates. Count Zinzendorf himself 
gives the following account of the circumstances under 
which he fixed upon the situation for these settlers. He 
proposed a district called the Hutberg, near the high road 
to Zittau. It was objected, by some who knew the place, 
that there was no water there: he answered, " God is 
able to help ;" and the following morning early he repaired 
thither to observe the rising of the vapours, that he might 
determine where a well might be dug. The next morning 
he again visited the place alone, and satisfied himself of its 
eligibility for a settlement. He adds, " I laid the misery 
" and desire of these people before God with many tears; 
" beseeching Him, that his hand might be with me and frus- 
" trate my measures, if they were in any way displeasing to 
" Him. I said further to the Lord : Upon this spot I will, 
" in thy name, build the first house for them . In th e meantime 
" the Moravians returned to the farm-house, (where they 
<{ had been previously lodged,) having brought their fami- 
" lies thither out of their native country. These I assisted 
" to the best of my power, and then went to Hetmersdorfto 
" acquaint my lady (his grandmother aforementioned) with 
" the resolution I had taken. She made no objection, and 
" immediately sent the poor strangers a cow, that they might 
" be furnished with milk for their little children; and she 
" ordered me to shew them.. the 'trees to be cut down for 
" their building." 



APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. ] 39 



CANTO III. 

(F.) page 45. 

Crantz says : " On the 10th of April the Brethren went 
" on board the king's ship Caritas, Captain HUdebrand, 
" accompanied with many sincere wishes for blessing from 
" the court (of Denmark) and all benevolent minds. The 
" congregation at Herrnhut had a custom, from the year 
" 1729, before the commencement of a year, to compile a 
" little manual, containing a text of Holy Scripture for 
" every day in the same, and each illustrated or applied 
" by a verse annexed, out of the hymn-book. This text 
" was called the word of the day ; it was given to be the 
u subject of meditation with each member of the church 
" in private, and of discourse by the ministers in the public 
" meeting. Many a time it has been found that the word 
" of the day, on which some peculiar event occurred, has 
" remarkably coincided with it. Thus on this 10th of 
" April, when our brethren set sail (from Copenhagen) on 
" a mission, which often afterwards seemed to baffle all 
" hope, the word was (Heb. xi. 1.) ' Faith is the substance 
" ' of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.' 

" ' We view Him, whom no eye can see, 
" * With faith's perspective stedfast'i/: 



14O APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 

" In this confidence they set sail, nor did they suffer them- 
" selves to be confounded by any of the unspeakable diffi- 
" culties of the following years, till they and we at last 
" beheld the completion of what they hoped for by faith. 
" They had a speedy, and, excepting some storms, a com- 
" modious voyage. They sailed by Shetland April 22d, 
" passing there out of the North into the West Sea, or 
" long reach, and entered Davis's Straits about the begin- 
" ning of May. On the 6th they fell among some floating 
" ice, in a thick fog, and the next day were assailed by a 
" terrible tempest, but this very tempest drove the ice so 
" far asunder, that it also dissipated their fears. The 15th 
" they descried land, but on the same day, after a total 
" eclipse of the sun, there arose a violent storm, that 
" lasted four days and nights, and drove them sixty leagues 
" back. May the 20th they entered Ball's River, after a 
" voyage of six weeks. The word of the day was, ' The 
11 f peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your 
" ' hearts and minds through Jesus Christ? By this they 
" were frequently encouraged in the first years ensuing, 
" amidst all the opposition which they encountered, and 
" the small prospect of the conversion of the heathens." 



APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 141 

(G.) page 56. 

The Greenlanders believe that the sun and moon are 
sister and brother. They, with other children, were once 
playing together in the dark, when Aninga behaving rudely 
to his sister Molina, she rubbed her hands in the soot 
about the extinguished lamp, and smeared his face, that 
she might discover by day-light who was her tormentor ; 
and thus the dusky spots on the moon had their origin ; 
for she, struggling to escape, slipped out of his arms, soared 
aloft, and became the sun. He followed up into the firma- 
ment, and was transformed into the moon ; but as he has 
never been able to rise so high as she, he continues running 
after her, with the vain hope of overtaking her. When he 
is tired and hungry, in his last quarter, he sets out from 
his house a seal-hunting, on a sledge drawn by four great 
dogs, and stays several days abroad to recruit and fatten ; 
and this produces the full moon. He rejoices when the 
women die, and Malina y in revenge, rejoices when the 
men die : therefore the men keep at home during an eclipse 
of the sun, and the women during an eclipse of the moon. 
When he is in eclipse, Aninga prowls about the dwellings 
of the Greenlanders, to plague the females, and steal pro- 
visions and skins, nay even to kill those persons who have 
not duly observed the laws of temperance. At these times 
they hide their most precious goods; and the men carry 



142 APPENDIX TO GREENLAND, 

kettles and chests to the tops of their houses, and rattle 
upon them with cudgels to frighten away the moon, and 
make him return to his place in the sky. During an 
eclipse of the sun, the men skulk in terror into the darkest 
corners, while the women pinch the ears of their dogs ; 
and if these cry out, it is a sure omen that the end of the 
world is not yet come; for as dogs existed before men, 
according to Greenland logic, they must have a quicker 
foresight into futurity. Should the dogs be mute, (which 
of course they never are, under such ill treatment,) then 
the dissolution of all things must be at hand. See 
Crantz. 



CANTO IV. 

(H.) page 76. 

An Icelander, named Biotrn, in the year 1001, follow- 
ing his father, who had emigrated to Greenland, is said 
to have been driven by a storm to the south-west, where 
he discovered a fine champaign country covered with 
forests. He did not tarry long there, but made the best of 
his way back again, north-east, for Greenland, which he 
reached in safety. The tidings of his adventure being 
rumoured abroad there, one Leif, the son of Eric the 



APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 143 

Red, a famous navigator, being ambitious of acquiring 
fame by discovering and planting new lands, fitted out a 
vessel, with thirty-five men, and sailed with Bioern on 
boerd, in search of the south-west country. They arrived, 
in due time, at a low woody coast, and sailed up a river 
to a spacious lake, which communicated by it with the 
sea. The soil was exceedingly fruitful, the waters abounded 
with fish, particularly salmon, and the climate was mild. 
Leif and his party wintered there, and observed that on 
the shortest day the sun rose about eight o'clock, which 
may correspond with the forty-ninth degree of latitude, 
and denotes the situation of Newfoundland, or the river 
St. Laurence in Canada. When they had built their 
huts, after landing, they one day missed a German mariner 
named Tyrker, whom, after a long search, they found in 
the woods, dancing with delight. On being asked what 
made him so merry, he answered, that he had been eating 
such grapes of which wine was made in his native country. 
When Leif saw and tasted the fruit himself, he called the 
new region Viinland, or Wineland. Crantz, who gives 
this account, on various authorities, adds in a note, that 
" well-flavoured wild grapes are known to grow in the 
" forests of Canada, but no good wine has been produced 
" from them." After the return of Leif to Greenland, 
many voyages were undertaken to Wineland, and some 
colonies established there. One Thorfin, an Icelander, 



144 APPENDIX TO GREENLAND, 

who had married a Greenland heiress, Gudrid, the widow 
of the third son of Eric the Red, by whom he obtained the 
inheritance of Wineland, ventured thither with sixty-five 
men and five women; taking cattle and implements of 
husbandry with them, for the purpose of building and 
planting. The natives (probably the Esquimaux) found 
them thus settled, and were glad to barter with their furs 
and skins in exchange for iron instruments, &c. One of 
these barbarians, however, having stolen an axe, was dolt 
enough to try its edge on his companion's skull, which 
cost the poor wretch his life; whereupon a third, wiser 
than either, threw the murderous weapon into the sea. 
Commerce with Wineland is reported to have been carried 
on for upwards of an hundred years afterwards. 

(I.) page 83. 

The ancestors of the modern inhabitants first appeared 
on the western coast of Greenland in the fourteenth cen- 
tury, and are generally supposed to have overpowered the 
few Norwegians scattered in that quarter. They were 
called Skraellings, a word of uncertain etymology, but most 
probably a corruption of Karallit or People, by which they 
designated themselves. Of their origin nothing can be 
ascertained. It seems on the whole not incredible (from 
evidence and arguments which need not be quoted here), 
that they are the descendants of Tartarean rovers, gra- 



APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 14:5 

dually emigrating from the heart of Asia, crossing over 
into West. America, traversing the northern latitudes of 
that continent, and settling or wandering, as suited their 
convenience, till the foremost hordes reached Canada and 
Labrador; from whence the first Skraellings may have 
found a passage, by land or sea, to Greenland. That the 
Greenlanders are of the same stock with the Esquimaux, 
is obvious from the remarkable correspondence between 
their persons, dress, habitations, boats, and implements 
of hunting and fishing, as well as the similarity of man- 
ners, customs, superstitions, and language. Of these 
more may be said hereafter, should the poem of Green- 
land ever be completed. Meanwhile the slight sketch 
given in the context may suffice. The following descrip 
tion of a Greenlander's fishing-boat, or kayak, will, how- 
ever, be useful to illustrate the passage. The kayak is 
six yards in length, pointed at the head and stern, and 
shaped like a weaver's shuttle; it is at the same time 
scarcely a foot and a half broad over the middle, and not 
more than a foot deep. It is built of a slender skeleton of 
wood, consisting of a keel, and long side-laths, with cross- 
ribs, like hoops, but not quite round. The whole is 
covered with seal's skin. In the middle of this covering 
there is a round aperture, supported with a strong rim of 
wood or bone. The Greenlander slips into the cavity 
with his feet, and sits down upon a board covered with 
H 



146 APPENDIX TO GREENLAND. 

soft skin; he then tucks his water-pelt, or great coat, so 
tight about him, (the rim of the opening forming a girdle 
round his loins,) that no water can penetrate into his little 
skiff. His lance, harpoon, and fishing tackle are all ar- 
ranged in due order before him. His pautik t or oar, 
(made of red deal, and strengthened with bone inlaid,) he 
uses with admirable dexterity. This, except when he is 
using his weapons, he grasps with both hands in the 
middle, striking the water on either side alternately, by 
which means he can sail at the rate of twenty or even 
twenty-four leagues a day. In his kayak the Greenlander 
fears no storm, so long as he can keep his oar, which 
enables him to sit upright among the roughest breakers, 
or if overturned, while the head is downward under water, 
with one stroke he can recover himself; but if he loses his 
oar, in a high sea, he loses all. No European has ever 
yet been able to learn to manage a kayak except in calm 
weather, and when he had nothing to do but to row : to 
fish in it has been found impracticable to any but the 
natives themselves, trained from their infancy to all the 
hardy exercises, which constituted, before the introduc- 
tion of Christianity, the whole education of the poor 
barbarians. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 






H 2 



HOPE. 

Imitated from the Italian of SEBAFTNO AQUILANO. 

HOPE, unyielding to Despair, 
Springs for ever fresh and fair ; 
Earth's serenest prospects fly, 
- Hope's enchantments never die. 

At Fortune's frown, in evil hour, 
Though honour, wealth, and friends depart, 
She cannot drive, with all her power, 
This lonely solace from the heart : 

And while this the soul sustains, 

Fortune still unchanged remains ; 

Wheresoe'er her wheel she guides, 

Hope upon the circle rides. 
H 3 



150 HOPE. 

The Syrens, deep in ocean's caves, 
Sing while abroad the tempests roar, 
Expecting soon the frantic waves 
To ripple on a smiling shore : 

In the whirlwind, o'er the spray, 
They behold the halcyon play ; 
And through midnight clouds afar, 
Hope lights up the morning star. 

This pledge of bliss in future years 

Makes smooth and easy every toil ; 

The swain, who sows the waste with tears, 

In fancy reaps a teeming soil : 

What though mildew blight his joy, 
Frost or flood his crops destroy, 
War compel his feet to roam, 
Hope still carols Harvest Home ! 



HOPE. 151 

The monarch exiled from his realm, 
The slave in fetters at the oar, 
The seaman sinking by the helm, 
The captive on his dungeon floor ; 

All through peril, pain, and death, 

Fondly cling to parting breath ; 

Glory, freedom, power, are past, 

But the dream of Hope will last. 

Weary and faint, with sickness worn, 
Blind, lame, and deaf, and bent with age, 
By man the load of life is borne 

To his last step of pilgrimage : 

I 
Though the branch no longer shoot, 

Vigour lingers at the root, 
And in Winter's dreariest day, 
Hope foretells returning May. 



H 4 



152 HOPE. 

When, wrung with guilt, the wretch would end 
His gloomy days in sudden night, 
Hope comes, an unexpected friend, 
To win him back to hated light : 

" Hold !" she cries ; and from his hand 

Plucks the suicidal brand ; 

" Now await a happier doom, 

" Hope will cheer thee to the tomb/* 

When virtue droops, as comforts fail, 
And sore afflictions press the mind, 
Sweet Hope prolongs her pleasing tale, 
Till all the world again looks kind : 

Round the good man's dying bed, 

Were the wreck of Nature spreadj 

Hope would set his spirit ffee^ 

Crying " Immortality '* 



A MOTHER'S LOVE. 



A MOTHER'S Love, how sweet the name ! 

What is a Mother's love ? 
A noble, pure, and tender flame, 

Enkindled from above, 
To bless a heart of earthly mould ; 
The warmest love that can grow cold ; 

This is a Mother's Love. 

To bring a helpless babe to light, 

Then while it lies forlorn, 
To gaze upon that dearest sight, 

And feel herself new-born, 

H 5 



154 A MOTHER'S LOVE. 

In its existence lose her own, 
And live and breathe in it alone ; 
This is a Mother's Love. 

Its weakness in her arms to bear ; 

To cherish on her breast, 
Feed it from Love's own fountain there, 

And lull it there to rest ; 
Then while it slumbers watch its breath, 
As if to guard from instant death ; 

This is a Mother's Love. 

To mark its growth from day to day, 
Its opening charms admire, 

Catch from its eye the earliest ray 
Of intellectual fire ; 

To smile and listen while it talks, 

And lend a finger when it walks ; 
This is a Mother's Love. 



A MOTHER'S LOVE. 155 

And can a Mother's Love grow cold ? 

Can she forget her boy ? 
His pleading innocence behold, 

Nor weep for grief for joy ? 
A Mother may forget her child, 
While wolves devour it on the wild ; 

Is this a Mother's Love ? 

Ten thousand voices answer " No !" 

Ye clasp your babes and kiss ; 
Your bosoms yearn, your eyes overflow ; 

Yet ah ! remember this ; 
The infant, rear'd alone for earth, 
May live, may die, to curse his birth ; 

Is this a Mother's Love ? 

A parent's heart may prove a snare ; 

The child she loves so well, 
Her hand may lead, with gentlest care, 

Down the smooth road to hell ; 
H 6 



156 A MOTHER'S LOVE. 

Nourish its frame, destroy its mind : 
Thus do the blind mislead the blind, 
Even with a Mother's Love. 

Blest infant ! whom his mother taught 

Early to seek the Lord, 
And pour'd upon his dawning thought 

The day-spring of the word ; 
This was the lesson to her son, 
Time is Eternity begun : 

Behold that Mother's Love, (a) 

Blest Mother ! who, in wisdom's path, 

By her own parent trod, 
Thus taught her son to flee the wrath, 

And know the fear of God : 
Ah ! youth, like him enjoy your prime, 
Begin Eternity in time, 

Taught by that Mother's Love* 

(a) 2 Tim. c. i. v. 5., and c. iii. v. 14, 15. 



A MOTHER'S LOVE. 157 

That Mother's Love ! how sweet the name ! 

What ivas that Mother's Love ? 
The noblest, purest, tenderest flame, 

That kindles from above 
Within a heart of earthly mould, 
As much of heaven as heart can hold, 
Nor through eternity grows cold : 

This was that Mother's Love. 



THE TIME-PIECE. 



is He, so swiftly flying, 
His career no eye can see ? 
Who are They, so early dying, 
From their birth they cease to be ? 
Time : behold his pictured face ! 
Moments : can you count their race ? 

Though, with aspect deep-dissembling, 
Here he feigns unconscious sleep, 
Round and round this circle trembling, 
Day and night his symbols creep, 
While unseen, through earth and sky, 
His unwearying pinions ply. 



THE TIME-PIECE. 159 

Hark ! what petty pulses, beating, 
Spring new moments into light ; 
Every pulse, its stroke repeating, 
Sends its moment back to night ; 
Yet not one of all the train 
Comes uncall'd, or flits in vain. 

e 

In the highest realms of glory, 
Spirits trace, before the throne, 
On eternal scrolls, the story 
Of each little moment flown ; 
Every deed, and word, and thought, 
Through the whole creation wrought. 

Were the volume of a minute 
Thus to mortal sight unroll'd, 
More of sin and sorrow in it, 
More of man, might we behold, 
Than on History's broadest page 
In the reliques of an age. 



160 THE TIME-PIECE. 

Who could bear the revelation ? 
Who abide the sudden test ? 
With instinctive consternation, 
Hands would cover every breast, 
Loudest tongues at once be hush'd, 
Pride in all its writhings crush'd. 

Who, with leer malign exploring, 
On his neighbour's shame durst look ? 
Would not each, intensely poring 
On that record in the book, 
Which his inmost soul reveal'd, 
Wish its leaves for ever seal'd ? 

Seal'd they are for years, and ages, 
Till, the earth's last circuit run, 
Empire changed through all its stages, 
Risen and set the latest sun, 
On the sea and on the land, 
Shall a midnight Angel stand : 



THE TIME-PIECE. 161 

Stand ; and, while the' abysses tremble, 
Swear that Time shall be no more : 
Quick and Dead shall then assemble, 
Men and Demons range before 
That tremendous judgement-seat, 
Where both worlds at issue meet. 

Time himself, with all his legions, 

Days, Months, Years, since Nature's birth, 

Shall revive, and from all regions, 

Singling out the sons of earth, 

With their glory or disgrace, 

Charge their spenders face to face. 

Every moment of my being 

Then shall pass before mine eyes : 

God, all-searching ! God, all-seeing ! 

Oh ! appease them, ere they rise ; 

Warn'd I fly, I fly to Thee : 

God, be merciful to me ! 



STANZAS 



TO THE 

MEMORY OF THE REV. THOMAS SPENCER, 
OF LIVERPOOL, 

WHO WAS BROWNED, WHILE BATHING IN THE TIDE, CII THE 5lH 
OF AUGUST, 1811, IN HIS 21ST YEAR. 



Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters j 
'' and thy footsteps are not known." PSALM Ixxvii. 19. 



I WILL not sing a mortal's praise; 
To Thee I consecrate my lays, 

To whom my powers belong ; 
These gifts, upon thine altar strown, 
O GOD ! accept ; accept thine own ; 
My gifts are Thine, be Thine alone 

The glory of my song. 



STANZAS, &c. 163 

In earth and ocean, sky and air, 
All that is excellent and fair, 

Seen, felt, or understood, 
From one eternal cause descends, 
To one eternal centre tends, 
With GOD begins, continues, ends, 

The source and stream of good. 

I worship not the Sun at noon, 

The wandering Stars, the changing Moon, 

The Wind, the Flood, the Flame ; 
I will not bow the votive knee 
To Wisdom, Virtue, Liberty ; 
" There is no.God but GOD," for me ; 

Jehovah is his name. 

Him through all nature I explore, 
Him in his creatures I adore, 
Around, beneath, above ; 



164- TO THE MEMORY OF 

But, clearest in the human mind, 
His bright resemblance when I find, 
Grandeur with purity combined, 
I most admire and love. 

Oh ! there was ONE, on earth a while 
He dwelt; but transient as a smile 

That turns into a tear, 
His beauteous image pass'd us by ; 
He came, like lightning from the sky, 
He seem'd as dazzling to the eye, 

As prompt to disappear. 

Mild, in his undissembling mien, 
Were genius, candour, meekness seen ; 

The lips, that loved the truth ; 
The single eye, whose glance sublime 
Look'd to eternity through time ; 
The soul, whose hopes were wont to climb 

Above the joys of youth. 



THE REV. T. SPENCER. 165 

Of old, before the lamp grew dark, 
Reposing near the curtain'd ark, 

The child of Hannah's prayer 
Heard, through the temple's silent round, 
A living voice, nor knew the sound, 
That thrice alarm'd him, ere he found 

The Lord, who chose him there. * 

Thus early call'd, and strongly moved, 
A prophet from a child, approved, 

SPENCER his course began ; 
From strength to strength, from grace to grace, 
Swiftest and foremost in the race, 
He carried victory in his face ; 

He triumph'd as he ran. 

How short his day ! the glorious prize, 
To our slow hearts and failing eyes, 
Appear'd too quickly won : 

* 1 Sam. chap. iii. 



166 TO THE MEMORY OF 

The warrior rush'd into the field, 
With arm invincible to wield 
The Spirit's sword, the Spirit's shield, 
When lo ! the fight was done. 

The loveliest star of evening's train 
Sets early in the western main, 

And leaves the world in night; 
The brightest star of morning's host, 
Scarce-risen, in brighter beams is lost ; 
Thus sunk his form on ocean's coast, 

Thus sprang his soul to light. 

Who shall forbid the eye to weep, 
That saw him, from the ravening deep, 

Pluck'd like the lion's prey ? 
For ever bow'd his honour'd head, 
The spirit in a moment fled, 
The heart of friendship cold and dead, 

The limbs a wreath of clay ! 



THE REV. T. SPENCER. 167 

Revolving his mysterious lot, 

I mourn him, but I praise him not ; 

Glory to God be given, 
Who sent him, like the radiant bow, 
His covenant of peace to show ; 
Athwart the breaking storm to glow, 

Then vanish into heaven. 

O Church ! to whom that youth was dear, 
The Angel of thy mercies here, 

Behold the path he trod, 
" A milky way" through midnight skies ! 
Behold the grave in which he lies, 
Even from this dust thy prophet cries, 

" Prepare to meet thy GOD" 



ISRAEL IN CAPTIVITY. 



Psalm cxxxvii- 



\VHERE Babylon's proud waters roll, 
In exile we sate down to weep ; 
For thoughts of Zion, o'er our soul, 
Came like departed joys in sleep, 
Whose forms to sad remembrance rise, 
Though lost for ever from our eyes. 

Our harps upon the willows hung, 
Where worn with toil our limbs reclined ; 
The chords, untuned and trembling, rung 
With mournful music on the wind ; 
While foes, insulting o'er our wrongs, 
Cried, " Sing us one of Zion's songs." 



ISRAEL IN CAPTIVITY. 169 

How can we sing the songs we love, 

Far from our own delightful land ? 

If I prefer thee not above 

My chief est joy, may this right hand, 

Jerusalem ! forget her skill, 

My tongue lie mute, my pulse be still. 



HUMAN LIFE. 



Job, chap. xiv. 



How few and evil are thy days, 

Man, of a woman born ! 

Trouble and peril haunt thy ways : 

Forth like a flower at morn, 
The tender infant springs to light, 
Youth blossoms with the breeze, 
Age, withering age, is cropt ere night ; 

Man like a shadow flees. 

And dost Thou look on such an one ? 
Will God to judgement call 
A worm, for what a worm hath done 
Against the Lord of all ? 



HUMAN LIFE. 171 

As fail the waters from the deep, 

As summer brooks run dry, 

Man lieth down in dreamless sleep ; 

Our life is vanity. 

Man lieth down, no more to wake, 
Till yonder arching sphere 
Shall with a roll of thunder break, 
And nature disappear. 

Oh ! hide me, till thy wrath be past, 
Thou, who canst kill or save ; 

Hide me, where hope may anchor fust, 
In my Redeemer's grave. 



I 2 



THE CHRISTIAN ISRAEL. 



THUS far on Life's perplexing path, 
Thus far the Lord our steps hath led ; 
Safe from the world's pursuing wrath, 
Unharm'd through floods hung o'er our head 
Here then we pause, look back, adore, 
Like ransom'd Israel from the shore. 

Strangers and pilgrims here below, 
As all our fathers in their day, 
We to a Land of Promise go, 
Lord ! by thine own appointed way ; 
Still guide, illumine, cheer our flight, 
In cloud by day, in fire by night. 



THE CHRISTIAN ISRAEL. 173 

Protect us through this wilderness 
From serpent plague, and hostile rage ; 
With bread from heaven our table bless, 
With living streams our thirst assuage ; 
Nor let our rebel-hearts repine, 
Or follow any voice but Thine. 

Thy righteous laws to us proclaim, 
But not from Sinai's top alone ; 
Hid in the rock-clift, be thy name, 
Thy power, and all thy goodness shewn ; 
And may we never bow the knee 
To any other gods but Thee. 

Thy presence with us move or rest ; 

And as the eagle, o'er her brood, 
Flutters her pinions, stirs the nest, 
Covers, defends, provides them food, 
Bears on her wings, instructs to fly ; 

Thus, thus prepare us for the sky. 

i 3 



174 THE CHRISTIAN ISRAEL. 

When we have number'd all our years, 
And stand at length on Jordan's brink, 
Though the flesh fail with human fears, 
Oh ! let not then the spirit shrink, 
But strong in faith, and hope, and love, 
Plunge through the stream, to rise above. 



THE VISIBLE CREATION. 



THE God of Nature and of Grace 
In all his works appears ; 
His goodness through the earth we trace, 
His grandeur in the spheres. 

Behold this fair and fertile globe, 
By Him in wisdom plann'd ; 
'Twas He, who girded, like a robe, 

4 

The ocean round the land. 

Lift to the firmament your eye ; 
Thither his path pursue ; 
His glory, boundless as the sky, 
O'erwhelms the wondering view, 
i 4, 



176 THE VISIBLE CREATION. 

He bows the heavens the mountains stand 

A high-way for their God ; 

He walks amidst the desert land, 

'Tis Eden where He trod. 

The forests in his strength rejoice ; 
Hark ! on the evening breeze, 
As once of old, the Lord God's voice 
Is heard among the trees. 

Here on the hills He feeds his herds, 
His flocks on yonder plains ; 
His praise is warbled by the birds ; 
O could we catch their strains ! 

Mount with the lark, and bear our song 

Up to the gates of light, 

Or with the nightingale prolong 

Our numbers through the night ! 



THE VISIBLE CREATION. 177 

In every stream his bounty flows, 
Diffusing joy and wealth ; 
In every breeze his spirit blows, 
The breath of life and health. 

His blessings fall in plenteous showers 
Upon the lap of earth, 

That teems with foliage, fruit, and flowers, | 
And rings with infant mirth. 

If God hath made this world so fair, 
Where sin and death abound ; 
How beautiful beyond compare 
Will Paradise be found ! 



I 6 



SONNET. 

Imitated from the Italian of GAETANA PASSERINI. 



IF in the field I meet a smiling flower, 

Methinks it whispers, " God created me, 

" And I to Him devote my little hour, 

" In lonely sweetness and humility." 

If, where the forest's darkest shadows lower, 

A serpent quick and venomous I see, 

It seems to say, " I, too, extol the power 

" Of Him, who caused me, at his will, to be." 

The fountain purling, and the river strong, 
The rocks, the trees, the mountains raise one song ; 
" Glory to God !" re-echoes in mine ear : 
Faithless were I, in wilful error blind, 
Did I not Him in all his creatures find, 
His voice through heaven, and earth, and ocean hear. 



SONNET. 

Imitated from the Italian of GIAMBATTISTA COTTA. 

I SAW the* eternal God, in robes of light, 
Rise from his throne, to judgement forth He came; 
His presence pass'd before me, like the flame 
That fires the forest in the depth of night ; 
Whirlwind and storm, amazement and affright, 
Compass'd his path, and shook all Nature's frame, 
When from the heaven of heavens, with loud acclaim, 
To earth he wing'd his instantaneous flight. 

As some triumphal oak, whose boughs have spread 
Their changing foliage through a thousand years, 
Bows to the rushing wind its glorious head, 
The universal arch of yonder spheres 
Sunk with the pressure of its Maker's tread, 
And earth's foundations quaked with mortal fears. 
I 6 



SONNET. 
THE CRUCIFIXION. 



Imitated from the Italian of CRESCEMBINI. 



I ASK'D the Heavens; " What foe to God hath 

done 

" This unexampled deed ?" The Heavens exclaim, 
" 'Twas Man ; and we in horror snatch'd the sun 
" From such a spectacle of guilt and shame." 

I ask'd the Sea ; the Sea in fury boil'd, 

And answer'd with his voice of storms, " 'Twas 

Man; 

" My waves in panic at his crime recoil'd, 
" Disclosed the abyss, and from the centre ran." 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 181 

I ask'd the Earth ; the Earth replied aghast, 
" 'Twas Man ; and such strange pangs my bosom 

rent, 

" That still I groan and shudder at the past." 
To Man, gay, smiling, thoughtless Man, I went, 
And ask'd him next : He turn'd a scornful eye, 
Shook his proud head, and deign'd me no reply. 



CHRIST'S PASSION. 



THE morning dawns upon the place, 
Where Jesus spent the night in prayer ; 
Through brightening glooms behold his face, 
No form nor comeliness is there. 
Last eve, by those He call'd his own. 
Betray'd, forsaken, or denied, 
He met his enemies alone, 
In all their malice, rage, and pride. 

Brought forth to judgement now he stands, 
Arraign'd, condemn'd, at Pilate's bar ; 
Here spurn'd by fierce Praetorian bands, 
There mock'd by Herod's men of war : 
He bears their buffetting and scorn, 
Feign'd homage of the lip, the knee, 
The purple robe, the crown of thorn, 
The scourge, the nail, the' accursed tree. 



CHRIST'S PASSION. 183 

No guile within his mouth is found, 
He neither threatens nor complains ; 
Meek as a lamb for slaughter bound, 
Dumb midst his murderers He remains : 
But hark ! He prays ; 'tis for his foes ; 
He speaks ; 'tis comfort to his friends ; 
Answers ; and Paradise bestows ; 
" Tis fmish'd!" here the conflict ends. 

He dies ; the veil is rent in twain ; 
Darkness o'er all the land is spread, 
High, without tempest, rolls the main, 
Earth trembles, graves give up their dead : 
" Truly this ivas the Son of God !" 
Though in a servant's mean disguise, 
And bruised beneath the Father's rod, 
Not for Himself, for Man He dies. 



CHRIST'S TRIUMPH. 



HARK ! the song of Jubilee, 
Loud as mighty thunders roar, 
Or the fulness of the sea, 
When it breaks upon the shore : 
Hallelujah ! for the Lord, 
God Omnipotent, shall reign ; 
Hallelujah ! let the word 
Echo round the earth and main. 

Hallelujah ! hark ! the sound, 

From the' abysses to the skies, 

Wakes above, beneath, around, 

All Creation's harmonies : 

See Jehovah's banner furl'd, 

Sheathed his sword: He speaks, 'tis done ; 

And the kingdoms of this world 

Are the kingdoms of his Son. 



CHRIST'S TRIUMPH. 185 

He shall reign from pole to pole, 
With illimitable sway ; 
He shall reign, when, like a scroll, 
Yonder heavens have pass'd away : 
Then the end : beneath his rod, 
Man's last enemy shall fall ; 
Hallelujah! Christ in God, 
God in Christ, is All in All. 



SAINTS IN HEAVEN. 



\VHAT are these in bright array? 
This innumerable throng, 
Round the altar, night and day, 
Tuning their triumphant song ? 
" Worthy is the Lamb once slain, 
Blessing, honour, glory, power, 
Wisdom, riches, to obtain ; 
New dominion, every hour." 

These through fiery trials trod ; 
These from great affliction came ; 
Now before the throne of God, 
Seal'd with his eternal name ; 



SAINTS IN HEAVEN. 187 

Clad in raiment pure and white, 
Victor-palms in every hand, 
Through their great Redeemer's might, 
More than conquerors they stand. 

Hunger, thirst, disease, unknown, 
On immortal fruits they feed ; 
Them the Lamb, amidst the throne, 
Shall to living fountains lead ; 
Joy and gladness banish sighs, 
Perfect love dispels their fears, 
And for ever from their eyes 
God shall wipe away all tears. 



THE BIBLE. 



\VHAT is the world? A wildering maze, 
Where Sin hath track'd ten thousand ways, 

Her victims to ensnare ; 
All broad, and winding, and aslope, 
All tempting with perfidious hope, 

All ending in despair. 

Millions of pilgrims throng those roads, 
Bearing their baubles, or their loads, 

Down to eternal night : 
One humble path, that never bends. 
Narrow, and rough, and steep, ascends 

From darkness into light. 



THE BIBLE. 189 

Is there a Guide to shew that path ? 
The Bible : He alone, who hath 

The Bible, need not stray : 
Yet he who hath, and will not give 
That heavenly Guide to all that live, 

Himself shall lose the way. 



INSTRUCTION. 



FROM heaven descend the drops of dew, 
From heaven the gracious showers, 
Earth's winter-aspect to renew, 
And clothe the spring with flowers ; 
From heaven the beams of morning flow, 
That melt the gloom of night ; 
From heaven the evening breezes blow, 
Health, fragrance, and delight. 

Like genial dew, like fertile showers, 

The words of wisdom fall, 

Awaken man's unconscious powers, 

Strength out of weakness call : 

Like morning beams they strike the mind, 

Its loveliness reveal ; 

And softer than the evening wind, 

The wounded spirit heal. 



INSTRUCTION. 191 

As dew and rain, as light and air, 

From heaven Instruction came ; 

The waste of Nature to repair, 

Kindle a sacred flame ; 

A flame to purify the earth, 

Exalt her sons on high, 

And train them for their second birth, 

Their birth beyond the sky. 

, ALBION ! on every human soul, 
By thee be knowledge shed, 
Far as the ocean-waters roll, 
Wide as the shores are spread : 
Truth makes thy children free at home ; 
Oh ! that thy flag, unfurl'd, 
Might shine, where'er thy children roam, 
Truth's banner round the world. 



THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER. 



OCCASIONED BY THE SUDDEN DEATH OF THE 

REV. THOMAS TAYLOR; 

After having declared , in his last Sermon, on a preceding evening, 
that he hoped to die as an old soldier of fesus Christ, with hit 
sword in his hand. 



" SERVANT of God ! well done ; 

Rest from thy loved employ ; 

The battle fought, the victory won, 

Enter thy Master's joy." 

The voice at midnight came ; 

He started up to hear, 

A mortal arrow pierced his frame : 

He fell, but felt no fear. 



THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER. 193 

Tranquil amidst alarms, 
It found him in the field, 
A veteran slumbering on his arms, 
Beneath his red-cross shield : 
His sword was in his hand, 
Still warm with recent fight ; 
Ready that moment at command, 
Through rock and steel to smite. 

It was a two-edged blade, 
Of heavenly temper keen ; 
And double were the wounds it made, 
Where'er it smote between : 
'Twas death to sin ; 'twas life 
To all that mourn'd for sin ; 
It kindled and it silenced strife, 
Made war and peace within. 

Oft with its fiery force, 
His arm had quell'd the foe, 
K 



THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER. 

And laid, resistless in his course, 
The alien-armies low. 
Bent on such glorious toils, 
The world to him was loss ; 
Yet all his trophies, all his spoils, 
He hung upon the cross. 

At midnight came the cry, 

" To meet thy God prepare !" 

He woke, and caught his Captain's eye ; 

Then, strong in faith and prayer, 

His spirit, with a bound, 

Burst its encumbering clay ; 

His tent, at sun-rise, on the ground, 

A darken'd ruin lay. 

The pains of death are past, 
Labour and sorrow cease, 
And life's long warfare closed at last, 
His soul is found in peace. 



THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER. 195 

Soldier of Christ ! well done ; 
Praise be thy new employ ; 
And while eternal ages run, 
Rest in thy Saviour's joy. 



ON THE ROYAL INFANT, 

Still-bom, Nov. 5. 1817. 



A THRONE on earth awaited thee ; 
A nation long'd to see thy face, 
Heir to a glorious ancestry, 
And father of a mightier race. 

Vain hope I that throne thou must not fill ; 
Thee may that nation ne'er behold ; 
Thine ancient house is heirless still, 
Thy line shall never be unroll'd. 

Yet while we mourn thy flight from earth, 
Thine was a destiny sublime ; 
Caught up to Paradise in birth, 
Pluck'd by Eternity from Time. 



ON THE ROYAL INFANT. 197 

The Mother knew her offspring dead : 
Oh ! was it grief, or was it love 
That broke her heart ? The spirit fled 
To seek her nameless child above. 

Led by his natal star, she trod 
The path to heaven : the meeting there, 
And how they stood before their God, 
The day of judgement shall declare. 



A MIDNIGHT THOUGHT. 



IN a land of strange delight, 
My transported spirit stray'd, 
1 awake where all is night, 
Silence, solitude, and shade. 

Is the dream of Nature flown ? 
Is the universe destroyed, 
Man, extinct, and I alone 
Breathing through the formless void ? 

No : my soul, in God rejoice ; 
Through the gloom his light I see, 
In the silence hear his voice, 
And his hand is over me. 



A MIDNIGHT THOUGHT. 199 

When I slumber in the tomb, 
He will guard my resting-place ; 
Fearless in the day of doom, 
May I stand before his face ! 



A NIGHT IN A STAGE-COACH. 

BEING A 

MEDITATION ON THE WAY BETWEEN LONDON AND BRISTOL, 
SEPT. 23. 1815. 



I TRAVEL all the irksome night, 

By ways to me unknown ; 
I travel, like a bird in flight, 

Onward, and all alone. 

In vain I close my weary eyes, 

They will not, cannot sleep, 
But, like the watchers of the skies, 

Their twinkling vigils keep. 

My thoughts are wandering wild and far : 
From earth to heaven they dart ; 

Now wing their flight from star to star, 
Now dive into my heart. 



A NIGHT IN A STAGE-COACH. 201 

Backward they roll the tide of time, 
And live through vanish' d years ; 

Or hold their " colloquy sublime" 
With future hopes and fears ; 

Then passing joys and present woes 
Chase through my troubled mind ; 

Repose still seeking, but repose 
Not for a moment find. 

So yonder lone and lovely moon 

Gleams on the clouds gone by, 
Illumines those around her noon, 

Yet westward points her eye. 

Nor wind nor flood her course delay, 

Through heaven I see her glide ; 
She never pauses on her way, 

She never turns aside. 
K 5 



202 A NIGHT IN A STAGE-COACH. 

With anxious heart and throbbing brain, 
Strength, patience, spirits gone, 

Pulses of fire in every vein, 
Thus, thus I journey on. 

But soft ! in Nature's failing hour, 
Up springs a breeze, I feel 

Its balmy breath, its cordial power, 
A power to soothe and heal. 

Lo ! grey, and gold, and crimson streaks 

The gorgeous east adorn, 
While o'er the' empurpled mountain breaks 

The glory of the morn. 

Insensibly the stars retire, 

Exhaled like drops of dew ; 
Now through an arch of living fire, 

The sun comes forth to view. 



A NIGHT IN A STAGE-COACH. 203 

The hills, the vales, the waters burn 

With his enkindling rays, 
No sooner touch'd than they return 

A tributary blaze. 

His quickening light on me descends, 

His cheering warmth I own ; 
Upward to him my spirit tends, 

But worships GOD alone. 

Oh ! that on me, with beams benign, 

His countenance would turn : 
I too should then arise and shine, 

Arise, and shine, and burn. 

Slowly I raise my languid head ; 

Pain and soul-sickness cease, 
The phantoms of dismay are fled, 

And health returns, and peace. 
K 6 



204 A NIGHT IN A STAGE-COACH. 

Where is the beauty of the scene, 
Which silent night display'd ? 

The clouds, the stars, the blue serene, 
The moving light and shade T 

All gone ! the moon, erewhile so bright, 

Veil'd with a dusky shroud, 
Seems, in the sun's o'erpowering light, 

The fragment of a cloud. 

At length, I reach my journey's end ; 

Welcome that well-known face ! 
I meet a brother and a friend ; 

I find a resting-place. 

Just such a pilgrimage is life ; 

Hurried from stage to stage, 
Our wishes with our lot at strife, 

Through childhood to old age. 



A NIGHT IN A STAGE-COACH. 205 

The world is seldom what it seems ; 

To man, who dimly sees, 
Realities appear as dreams, 

And dreams realities. 

The Christian's years, though slow their flight, 

When he is call'd away ; 
Are but the watches of a night, 

And Death the dawn of day. 



THE REIGN OF SPRING. 



loves not Spring's voluptuous hours, 
The carnival of birds and flowers ? 
Yet who would chuse, however dear, 
That Spring should revel all the year ? 

Who loves not Summer's splendid reign, 
The bridal of the earth and main ? 

Yet who would chuse, however bright, 
A Dog-day noon without a night ? 

Who loves not Autumn's joyous round, 
When corn, and wine, and oil abound ? 
Yet who would chuse, however gay, 

A year of unrenew'd decay ? 

Who loves not Winter's aweful form ? 
The sphere-born music of the storm ? 



THE REIGN OF SPRING. 207 

Yet who would chuse, how grand so ever, 
The shortest day to last for ever ? 

'Twas in that age renown'd, remote, 
When all was true that Esop wrote ; 
And in that land of fair Ideal, 
Where all that poets dream is real ; 
Upon a day of annual state, 
The Seasons met in high debate. 
There blush'd young Spring in maiden-pride, 
Blithe Summer look'd a gorgeous bride, 
Staid Autumn moved with matron-grace, 
And beldame Winter pursed her face. 
Dispute grew wild ; all talk'd together ; 
The four at once made wondrous weather ; 
Nor one, (whate'er the rest had shewn,) 
Heard any reason but her own, 
While each, (for nothing else was clear,) 
Claim'd the whole circle of the year. 

Spring, in possession of the field, 
Compell'd her sisters soon to yield ; 



208 THE REIGN OF SPRING. 

They part, resolved elsewhere to try 
A twelvemonth's empire of the sky ; 
And calling off their airy legions, 
Alighted in adjacent regions. 
Spring o'er the eastern champaign smiled, 
Fell Winter ruled the northern wild ; 
Summer pursued the sun's red car, 
But Autumn loved the twilight star. 

As Spring parades her new domain, 
Love, Beauty, Pleasure, hold her train ; 
Her footsteps wake the flowers beneath, 
That start, and blush, and sweetly breathe 
Her gales on nimble pinions rove, 
And shake to foliage every grove ; 
Her voice, in dell and thicket heard, 
Cheers on the nest the mother-bird ; 
The ice-lock'd streams, as if they felt 
Her touch, to liquid diamond melt ; 
The lambs around her bleat and play ; 
The serpent flings his slough away, 



THE REIGN OF SPRING. 209 

And shines in orient colours cUght, 

A flexile ray of living light. 

Nature unbinds her wintry shroud, 

(As the soft sunslu'ne melts the cloud,) 

With infant gambols sports along, 

Bounds into youth, and soars in song. 

The morn impearls her locks with dew ; 

Noon spreads a sky of boundless blue ; 

The rainbow spans the evening scene, 

The night is silent and serene, 
Save when her lonely minstrel wrings 
The heart with sweetness, while he sings. 
Who would not wish, unrivall'd here, 
That Spring might frolic all the year ? 

Three months are fled, and still she reigns, 
Exulting queen o'er hills and plains ; 
The birds renew their nuptial vow, 
Nestlings themselves are lovers now ; 
Fresh broods each bending bough receives, 
Till feathers for outnumber leaves ; 



210 THE REIGN OF SPRING. 

But kites in circles swim the air, 

And sadden music to despair. 

The stagnant pools, the quaking bogs, 

Teem, croak, and crawl with hordes of frogs ; 

The matted woods, the' infected earth, 

Are venomous with reptile-birth ; 

Armies of locusts cloud the skies ; 

With beetles hornets, gnats with flies, 

Interminable warfare wage, 

And madden heaven with insect-rage. 
The flowers are wither'd ; sun nor dew 

Their fallen glories shall renew ; 

The flowers are wither'd ; germ nor seed 

Ripen in garden, wild, or mead : 

The corn-fields shoot ; their blades, alas ! 

Run riot in luxuriant grass. 

The tainted flocks, the drooping kine, 

In famine of abundance pine, 

Where vegetation, sour, unsound, 

And loathsome, rots, and rankles round ; 



THE REIGN OF SPRING. 211 

Nature with nature seems at strife ; 
Nothing can live but monstrous life, 
By death engender'd ; food and breath 
Are turn'd to elements of death ; 
And where the soil his victims strew, 
Corruption quickens them anew. 

But ere the year was half expired, 
Spring saw her folly, and retired ; 
Yoked her light chariot to a breeze, 
And mounted to the Pleiades ; 
Content with them to rest or play 
Along the calm nocturnal way ; 
Till heaven's remaining circuit run, 
They meet the pale hybernal sun, 
And gaily mingling in his blaze, 
Hail the true dawn of vernal days. 



THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 



THE hurricanes are fled ; the rains, 

That ploughed the mountains, wreck'd the plains, 

Have pass'd away before the wind, 

And left a wilderness behind, 

As if an ocean had been there 

Exhaled, and left its channels bare. 

But, with a new and sudden birth, 

Nature replenishes the earth ; 

Plants, flowers, and shrubs, o'er all the land, 

So promptly rise, so thickly stand, 

As if they heard a voice, and came, 

Each at the calling of its name. 

The tree, by tempests stript and rent, 

Expands its verdure like a tent, 



THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 213 

Beneath whose shade, in weary length, 

The* enormous lion rests his strength, 

For blood, in dreams of hunting, burns, 

Or, chased himself, to fight returns ; 

Growls in his sleep, a dreary sound, 

Grinds his wedged teeth, and spurns the ground ; 

While monkeys, in grotesque amaze, 

Down from their bending perches gaze, 

But when he lifts his eye of fire, 

Quick to the topmost boughs retire. 

Loud o'er the mountains bleat the flocks ; 
The goat is bounding on the rocks ; 
Far in the valleys range the herds ; 
The welkin gleams with flitting birds, 
Whose plumes such gorgeous tints adorn, 
They seem the offspring of the morn. 
From nectar'd flowers and groves of spice, 
Earth breathes the air of Paradise ; 
Her mines their hidden wealth betray, 
Treasures of darkness burst to-day ; 



4 THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 

O'er golden sands the rivers glide, 
And pearls and amber track the tide. 
Of every sensual bliss possest, 
Man riots here ; but is he blest? 
And would he chuse, for ever bright, 
This Summer-day without a night ? 
For here hath Summer fix'd her throne, 
Intent to reign, and reign alone. 

Daily the sun, in his career, 
Hotter and higher, climbs the sphere, 
Till from the zenith, in his rays, 
Without a cloud or shadow, blaze 
The realms beneath him : in his march, 
On the blue key-stone of heaven's arch, 
He stands : air, earth, and ocean lie 
Within the presence of his eye. 
The wheel of Nature seems to rest, 
Nor rolls him onward to the west, 
Till thrice three days of noon unchanged 
That torrid clime have so deranged, 



THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 215 

Nine years may not the wrong repair ; 
But Summer checks the ravage there ; 
Yet still enjoins the sun to steer 
By the stern Dog-star round the year, 
With dire extremes of day and night, 
Tartarean gloom, celestial light. 

In vain the gaudy season shines, 
Her beauty fades, her power declines ; 

Then first her bosom felt a care ; 

No healing breeze embalm'd the air, 

No mist the mountain-tops bedew'd, 

Nor shower the arid vale renew* d ; 

The herbage shrunk ; the ploughman's toil 

Scatter'd to dust the crumbling soil ; 

Blossoms were shed ; the' umbrageous wood, 

Laden with sapless foliage, stood ; 

The streams, impoverish'd day by day, 

Lessen' d insensibly away ; 

Where cattle sought, with piteous moans, 

The vanish'd lymph, midst burning stones, 



216 THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 

And tufts of wither'd reeds, that fill 

The wonted channel of the rill ; 

Till, stung with hornets, mad with thirst, 

In sudden rout, away they burst, 

Nor rest, till where some channel deep 

Gleams in small pools, whose waters sleep ; 

There with huge draught and eager eye 

Drink for existence, drink and die ! 

But direr evils soon arose, 
Hopeless, unmitigable woes ; 
Man proves the shock ; through all his veins, 
The frenzy of the season reigns ; 
With pride, lust, rage, ambition blind, 
He burns in every fire of mind, 
Which kindles from insane desire, 
Or fellest hatred can inspire ; 
Reckless whatever ill befall, 
He dares to do and suffer all 
That heart can think, that arm can deal, 
Or out of hell a fury feel. 



THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 217 

There stood in that romantic clime, 
A mountain awefully sublime ; 
O'er many a league the basement spread, 
It tower'd in many an airy head, 
Height over height, now gay, now wild, 
The peak with ice eternal piled ; 
Pure in mid-heaven, that crystal cone 
A diadem of glory shone ; 
Reflecting, in the night-fall'n sky, 
The beams of day's departed eye ; 
Or holding, ere the dawn begun, 
Communion with the' unrisen sun. 
The cultured sides were clothed with woods, 
Vineyards, and fields, or track'd with floods, 
Whose glacier-fountains, hid on high, 
Sent down their rivers from the sky. 
O'er plains, that mark'd its gradual scale, 
On sunny slope, in shelter'd vale, 
Earth's universal tenant, He, 
Who lives wherever life may be, 
L 



218 THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 

Sole, social, fix'd, or free to roam, 
Always and every where at home, 
MAN pitch'd his tents, adorn'd his bowers, 
Built temples, palaces, and towers, 
And made that Alpine world his own, 
The miniature of every zone, 
From brown savannahs parch'd below 
To ridges of cerulean snow. 

Those high-lands form'd a last retreat 
From rabid Summer's fatal heat ; 
Though not unfelt her fervours there, 
Vernal and cool the middle air ; 
While from the icy pyramid 
Streams of unfailing freshness slid, 
That long had slaked the thirsty land, 
Till avarice, with insatiate hand, 
Their currents check'd ; in sunless caves, 
And rock-bound dells, ingulph'd the waves, 
And thence in scanty measures doled, 
Or turn'd heaven's bounty into gold. 



THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 219 

Ere long the dwellers on the plain 
Murmur'd ; their murmurs were in vain ; 
Petition'd, but their prayers were spurn'd ; 
Threatened, defiance was return'd ; 
Then rang both regions with alarms ; 
Blood-kindling trumpets blew to arms ; 
The maddening drum and deafening fife 
Marshall'd the elements of strife : 
Sternly the mountaineers maintain 
Their rights against the' insurgent plain ; 
The plain's indignant myriads rose 
To wrest the mountain from their foes, 
Resolved its blessings to enjoy 
By dint of valour ; or destroy. 
The legions met in war-array ; 
The mountaineers brook'd no delay, 
Aside their missile weapons threw, 
From holds impregnable withdrew, 
And, rashly brave, with sword and shield, 
Rush'd headlong to the open field. 
L 2 



220 THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 

Their foes the' auspicious omen took, 

And raised a battle-shout, that shook 

The champaign ; staunch and keen for blood, 

Front threatening front, the columns stood, 

But, while like thunder-clouds they frown, 

In tropic haste the sun went down ; 

Night o'er both armies stretch'd her tent, 

The star-bespangled firmament, 

Whose placid host, revolving slow, 

Smile on the' impatient hordes below, 

That chafe and fret the hours away, 

Curse the dull gloom, and long for day, 

Though destined by their own decree 

No other day nor night to see. 

That night is past, that day begun, 

Swift as he sunk ascends the sun, 

And from the red horizon springs 

Upward, as borne on eagle -wings ; 

Aslant each army's lengthen' d lines, 

O'er shields and helms he proudly shines, 



THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 221 

While spears, that catch his lightnings keen, 
Flash them athwart the space between. 
Before the battle-shock, when breath 
And pulse are still, awaiting death ; 
In that cold pause, which seems to be 
The prelude to eternity, 
When fear, ere yet a blow is dealt, 
Betray'd by none, by all is felt ; 
While, moved beneath their feet, the tomb 
Widens her lap to make them room ; 
Till, in the onset of the fray, 
Fear, feeling, thought are cast away, 
And foaming, raging, mingling foes, 
Like billows dash'd in conflict, close, 
Charge, strike, repel, wound, struggle, fly, 
Gloriously win, unconquer'd die ; 
Here, in dread silence, while they stand, 
Each with a death-stroke in his hand, 
His eye fix'd forward, and his ear 
Tingling the signal blast to hear ; 
L 3 



222 THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 

The trumpet sounds ; one note, no more ; 
The field, the fight, the war is o'er ; 
An earthquake rent the void between ; 
A moment shew'd, and shut the scene ; 
Men, chariots, steeds, of either host, 
The flower, the pride, the strength were lost : 
A solitude remains ; the dead 
Are buried there ; the living fled. 

Nor yet the reign of Summer closed : 
At night in their own homes reposed 
The fugitives, on either side, 
Who 'scaped the death their comrades died ; 
When lo ! with many a giddy shock, 
The mountain-cliffs began to rock, 
And deep below the hollow ground 
Ran a strange mystery of sound, 
As if, in chains and torments there, 
Spirits were venting their despair. 
That sound, those shocks the sleepers woke ; 
In trembling consternation, broke 



THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 223 

Forth from their dwellings, young and old ; 

Nothing abroad their eyes behold 

But darkness so intensely wrought, 

Twas blindness in themselves they thought. 

Anon, aloof, with sudden rays, 

Issued so fierce, so broad a blaze, 

That darkness started into light, 

And every eye, restored to sight, 

Gazed on the glittering crest of snows, 

Whence the bright conflagration rose, 

Whose flames condensed at once aspire, 

A pillar of celestial fire, 

Alone amidst infernal shade, 

In glorious majesty display'd : 

Beneath, from rifted caverns broke 

Volumes of suffocating smoke, 

That roll'd in surges, like a flood, 

By the red radiance turn'd to blood. 

Morn look'd aghast upon the scene, 

Nor could a sun-beam pierce between 
L 4 



224 THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 

The panoply of vapours, spread 
Above, around the mountain's head. 

In distant fields, with drought consumed, 
Joy swell'd all hearts, all eyes illumed, 
When from that peak, through lowering skies, 
Thick curling clouds were seen to rise, 
And hang o'er all the darken'd plain, 
The presage of descending rain. 
The' exulting cattle bound along, 
The tuneless birds attempt a song, 
The swain, amidst his sterile lands, 
With outstretcht arms of rapture stands. 
But, fraught with plague and curses, came 
The' insidious progeny of flame : 
Ah ! then, for fertilizing showers, 
The pledge of herbage, fruits, and flowers, 
Words cannot paint, how every eye, 
(Blood-shot and dim with agony,) 
Was glazed, as by a palsying spell, 
When light sulphureous ashes fell, 



THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 225 

Dazzling, and eddying to and fro, 
Like wildering sleet or feathery snow : 
Strewn with grey pumice Nature lies, 
At every motion quick to rise, 
Tainting with livid fumes the air ; 
Then hope lies down in prone despair, 
And man and beast, with misery dumb, 
Sullenly brood on woes to come. 

The mountain now, like living earth, 
Pregnant with some stupendous birth, 
Heaved, in the anguish of its throes, 
Sheer from its crest the' incumbent snows ; 
And where of old they chill'd the sky, 
Beneath the sun's meridian eye, 
Or, purpling in the golden west, 
Appear'd his evening throne of rest, 
There, black and bottomless and wide, 
A cauldron rent from side to side, 
Simmer'd and hiss'd with huge turmoil ; 
Earth's disembowell'd minerals boil, 
L 5 



226 THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 

And thence in molten torrents rush : 

Water and fire, like sisters, gush 
From the same source ; the double stream 
Meets, battles, and explodes in steam ; 
Then fire prevails ; and broad and deep 
Red lava roars from steep to steep ; 
While rocks unseated, woods upriven, 
Are headlong down the current driven ; 
Columnar flames are rapt aloof, 

In whirlwind forms, to heaven's high roof, 
And there, amidst transcendent gloom, 
Image the wrath beyond the tomb. 

The mountaineers, in wild affright, 
Too late for safety, urge their flight ; 
Women, made childless in the fray, 
Women, made mothers yesterday, 
The sick, the aged, and the blind ; 

None but the dead are left behind. 
Painful their journey, toilsome, slow, 
Beneath their feet quick embers glow, 



THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 227 

And hurtle round in dreadful hail ; 
Their limbs, their hearts, their senses fail, 
While many a victim, by the way, 
Buried alive in ashes lay, 
Or perish'd by the lightning's stroke, 
Before the slower thunder broke. 
A few the open field explore ; 
The throng seek refuge on the shore, 
Between two burning rivers hemm'd, 
Whose rage nor mounds nor hollows stemm'd ; 
Driven like a herd of deer, they reach 
The lonely, dark, and silent beach, 
Where, calm as innocence in sleep, 
Expanded lies the' unconscious deep. 
Awhile the fugitives respire, 
And watch those cataracts of fire, 
(That bar escape on either hand,) 
Rush on the ocean from the strand ; 
Back from the onset rolls the tide, 
But instant clouds the conflict hide ; 
L 6 



228 THE REIGN OF SUMMER. 

The lavas plunge to gulphs unknown, 
And as they plunge, relapse to stone. 

Meanwhile the mad volcano grew 
Tenfold more terrible to view ; 
And thunders, such as shall be hurl'd 
At the death-sentence of the world ; 
And lightnings, such as shall consume 
Creation, and creation's tomb, 
Nor leave, amidst the' eternal void, 
One trembling atom undestroy'd ; 
Such thunders crash'd, such lightnings glared 
Another fate those outcasts shared, 
When, with one desolating sweep, 
An earthquake seem'd to' ingulph the deep, 
Then threw it back, and from its bed 
Hung a whole ocean overhead ; 
The victims shriek'd beneath the wave, 
And in a moment found one grave ; 
Down to the' abyss the flood returned : 
Alone, unseen, the mountain burn'd. 



INCOGNITA : 

WRITTEN AT LEAMINGTON, IN 1817j 

ON VIEWING THE PICTURE OF AN UNKNOWN LADY. 

" She was a phantom of delight." WORDSWORTH. 



IMAGE of One, who lived of yore ! 

Hail to that lovely mien, 
Once quick and conscious ; now no more 

On land or ocean seen ! 
Were all earth's breathing forms to pass 
Before me in Agrippa's glass *, 
Many as fair as Thou might be, 
But oh ! not one, not one like Thee. 



* Henry Cornelius Agrippa, of Nettesheim, counsellor 
to Charles V. Emperor of Germany, the author of Oc- 
cult Philosophy -, and other profound works, is said to 
have shewn to the Earl of Surrey the image of his mistress 
Geraldinc, in a magical mirror. 



230 INCOGNITA. 

Thou art no Child of Fancy ; Thou 

The very look dost wear, 
That gave enchantment to a brow, 

Wreathed with luxuriant hair ; 
Lips of the morn embathed in dew, 
And eyes of evening's starry blue ; 
Of all who e'er enjoy'd the sun, 
Thou art the image of but One. 

And who was she, in virgin prime, 

And May of womanhood, 
Whose roses here, unpluck'd by Time, 

In shadowy tints have stood ; 
While many a winter's withering blast 
Hath o'er the dark cold chamber pass'd, 
In which her once-resplendent form 
Slumber'd to dust beneath the storm ? 

Of gentle blood ; upon her birth, 
Consenting planets smiled, 



INCOGNITA. 231 

And she had seen those days of mirth, 

That frolic round the child ; 
To bridal bloom her strength had sprung, 
Behold her beautiful and young ! 
Lives there a record, which hath told, 
That she was wedded, widow'd, old ? 

How long her date, 'twere vain to guess : 

The pencil's cunning art 
Can but a single glance express, 

One motion of the heart ; 
A smile, a blush, a transient grace 
Of air, and attitude, and face ; 
One passion's changing colour mix ; 
One moment's flight for ages fix. 

Her joys and griefs, alike in vain, 

Would fancy here recall ; 
Her throbs of ecstacy or pain 

Lull'd in oblivion all ; 



232 INCOGNITA. 

With her, methinks, life's little hour 
Pass'd like the fragrance of a flower, 
That leaves upon the vernal wind 
Sweetness we ne'er again may find. 

Where dwelt she? Ask yon aged tree, 
Whose boughs embower the lawn, 

Whether the birds' wild minstrelsy 
Awoke her here at dawn ; 

Whether beneath its youthful shade, 

At noon, in infancy she play'd ; 

If from the oak no answer come, 

Of her all oracles are dumb. 

The Dead are like the stars by day ; 

Withdrawn from mortal eye, 
But not extinct, they hold their way, 

In glory through the sky : 
Spirits, from bondage thus set free, 
Vanish amidst immensity, 






INCOGNITA. 233 

Where human thought, like human sight, 
Fails to pursue their trackless flight. 

Somewhere within created space, 

Could I explore that round, 
In bliss, or woe, there is a place, 

Where she might still be found ; 
And oh ! unless those eyes deceive, 
I may, I must, I will believe, 
That she, whose charms so meekly glow, 
/* what she only seem'd below ; 

An angel in that glorious realm, 

Where God himself is King : 
But awe and fear, that overwhelm 

Presumption, check my wing ; 
Nor dare imagination look 
Upon the symbols of that book, 
Wherein eternity enrolls 
The judgements on departed souls. 



234 INCOGNITA. 

Of Her of whom these pictured lines 

A faint resemblance form ; 
Fair as the second rainbow shines 

Aloof amid the storm ; 
Of Her, this " shadow of a shade," 
Like its original must fade, 
And She, forgotten when unseen, 
Shall be as if she ne'er had been. 

Ah ! then, perchance, this dreaming strain, 

Of all that e'er I sung, 
A lorn memorial may remain, 

When silent lies my tongue ; 
When shot the meteor of my fame, 
Lost the vain echo of my name, 
This leaf, this fallen leaf, may be 
The only trace of her and me. 

With One who lived of old, my song 
In lowly cadence rose ; 



INCOGNITA. 235 

To One who is unborn, belong 

The accents of its close : 
Ages to come, with courteous ear, 
Some youth my warning voice may hear ; 
And voices from the dead should be 
The warnings of eternity. 

When these weak lines thy presence greet, 

Reader ! if I am blest, 
Again, as spirits, may we meet 

In glory and in rest : 
If not, and / have lost my way, 
Here part we ; go not Thou astray ; 
No tomb, no verse my story tell ! 
Once, and for ever, Fare Thee well. 



THE LITTLE CLOUD, 

Seen in a Country Excursion, June 30. 1818. 



THE summer s,un was in the west, 
Yet far above his evening rest ; 
A thousand clouds in air display'd 
Their floating isles of light and shade, 
The sky, like ocean's channels, seen 
In long meandering streaks between. 

Cultured and waste, the landscape lay ; 
Woods, mountains, valleys stretch'd away, 
And throng'd the' immense horizon round, 
With heaven's eternal girdle bound : 
From inland towns, eclipsed with smoke, 
Steeples in lonely grandeur broke ; 



THE LITTLE CLOUD. 237 



Hamlets, and cottages, and streams 

By glimpses caught the casual gleams, 

Or blazed in lustre broad and strong, 

Beyond the picturing powers of song : 

O'er all the eye enchanted ranged, 

While colours, forms, proportions changed, 

Or sunk in distance undefined, 

Still as our devious course inclined ; 

And oft we paused, and look'd behind. 

One little cloud, and only one, 
Seem'd the pure offspring of the sun, 
Flung from his orb to shew us here 
What clouds adorn his hemisphere ; 
Unmoved, unchanging, in the gale, 
That bore the rest o'er hill and dale, 
Whose shadowy shapes, with lights around, 
Like living motions, swept the ground. 
This little cloud, and this alone, 
Long in the highest ether shone ; 



i 



238 THE LITTLE CLOUD. 

Gay as a warrior's banner spread, 
Its sunward margin ruby-red, 
Green, purple, gold, and every hue, 
That glitters in the morning dew, 
Or glows along the rainbow's form, 
The apparition of the storm. 
Deep in its bosom, diamond-bright, 
Behind a fleece of pearly white, 
It seem'd a secret glory dwelt, 
Whose presence, while unseen, was felt ; 
Like Beauty's eye, in slumber hid 
Beneath a half-transparent lid, 
From whence a sound, a touch, a breath, 
Might startle it, as life from death. 
Looks, words, emotions of surprize 
Welcomed the stranger to our eyes : 
Was it the phoenix, that from earth 
In flames of incense sprang to birth ? 
Had ocean from his lap let fly 
His loveliest halcyon through the sky ? 



THE LITTLE CLOUD. 239 

No : while we gazed, the pageant grew 

A nobler object to our view; 

We deem'd, if heaven with earth would hold 

Communion, as in days of old, 

Such, on his journey down the sphere, 

Benignant RAPHAEL might appear, 

In splendid mystery conceal'd, 

Yet by his rich disguise reveal'd : 

That buoyant vapour, in mid-air, 

An angel in its folds might bear, 

Who, through the curtain of his shrine, 

Betray'd his lineaments divine. 

The wild, the warm illusion stole, 

Like inspiration, o'er the soul, 

Till thought was rapture, language hung, 

Silent but trembling on the tongue ; 

And fancy almost hoped to hail 

The seraph rushing through his veil, 

Or hear an awful voice proclaim 

The embassy on which he came. 



240 THE LITTLE CLOUD. 

But ah ! no minister of grace 
Shew'd from the firmament his face, 
Nor, borne aloof on balanced wings, 
Reveal'd unutterable things. 
The sun went down : the vision pass'd ; 
The cloud was but a cloud at last ; 
Yet when its brilliancy decay'd, 
The eye still linger'd on the shade, 
And watching, till no longer, seen, 
Loved it for what it once had been. 

That cloud was beautiful, was one 
Among a thousand round the sun ; 
The thousand shared the common lot ; 
They came, they went, they were forgot ; 
This fairy-form alone impressed 
Its perfect image in my breast, 
And shines as richly blazon'd there 
As in its element of air. 

The day on which that cloud appear'd, 
Exhilarating scenes endear'd : 



THE LITTLE CLOUD. 241 

The sunshine on the hills, the floods ; 
The breeze, the twilight of the woods ; 
Nature in every change of green, 
Heaven in unnumbered aspects seen : 
Health, spirits, exercise, release 

From noise and smoke ; twelve hours of peace ; 
No fears to haunt, no cares to vex ; 
Friends, young and old, of either sex ; 
Converse familiar, sportive, kind, 
Where heart meets heart, mind quickens mind, 
And words and thoughts are all at play, 
Like children on a holiday ; 

Till themes celestial rapt the soul 
In adoration o'er the pole, 

Where stars are darkness in His sight, 

Who reigns invisible in light, 

High above all created things, 

The Lord of Lords, the King of Kings ; 

Faith, which could thus on wing sublime 

Outsoar the bounded flight of time ; 

M 



242 THE LITTLE CLOUD. 

Hope full of immortality, 

And God in all the eye could see ; 

These, these endear'd that day to me, 
And made it, in a thousand ways, 

A day among a thousand days, 
That share with clouds the common lot ; 
They come, they go, they are forgot : 
This, like that plaything of the sun, 

The little, lonely, lovely one, 
This lives within me ; this shall be 
A part of my eternity. 

Amidst the cares, the toils, the strife, 
The weariness and waste of life, 
That day shall memory oft restore, 
And in a moment live it o'er, 
When, with a lightning-flash of thought, 
Morn, noon, and eve at once are brought, 
(As through the vision of a trance,) 
All in the compass of a glance. 

Oh ! should I reach a world above, 
And sometimes think of those I love, 



i 



THE LITTLE CLOUD. 243 

Of things on earth too dearly prized, 
(Nor yet by saints in heaven despised,) 
Though Spirits made perfect may lament 
Life's holier hours as half-mis-spent, 
Methinks I could not turn away 
The fond remembrance of that day, 
The bright idea of that cloud, 
(Survivor of a countless crowd,) 
Without a pause, perhaps a sigh, 
To think such loveliness should die, 
And clouds and days of storm and gloom 
Scowl on Man's passage to the tomb. 
Not so : I feel I have a heart 
Blessings to share, improve, impart, 
In blithe, severe, or pensive mood, 
At home, abroad, in solitude, 
Whatever clouds are on the wing, 
Whatever day the seasons bring. 
That is true happiness below, 
Which conscience cannot turn to woe ; 
M 2 



4 THE LITTLE CLOUD. 

And though such happiness depends 
Neither on clouds, nor days, nor friends, 
When friends, and days, and clouds unite, 
And kindred chords are tuned aright, 
The harmonies of heaven and earth, 
Through eye, ear, intellect, give birth 
To joys too exquisite to last, , 

And yet more exquisite when past ! 
When the soul summons by a spell 
The ghosts of pleasures round her cell, 
In saintlier forms than erst they wore, 
And smiles benigner than before ; 
Each loved, lamented scene renews 
With warmer touches, tenderer hues ; 
Recalls kind words for ever flown, 
But echoing in a soften'd tone ; 
Wakes, with new pulses in the breast, 
Feelings forgotten or at rest ; 

The thought how fugitive and fair, 
How dear and precious such things were ! 



THE LITTLE CLOUD. 245 

That thought, with gladness more refined, 
Deep and transporting, thrills the mind, 
Than all those pleasures of an hour, 
When most the soul confess'd their power. 

Bliss in possession will not last ; 
Remember'd joys are never past ; 
At once the fountain, stream, and sea, 
They were, they are, they yet shall be. 



M 3 



TO BRITAIN. 



The following Address was the concluding Part of a Poem, 
entitled " THOUGHTS ON WHEELS," annexed to a Work, 
ivritten by a friend of the Author, to expose the evils of 
the STATE LOTTERY. * 



I LOVE Thee, O my native Isle ! 
Dear as my mother's earliest smile ; 
Sweet as my father's voice to me 
Is all I hear, and all I see, 
When, glancing o'er thy beauteous land, 
In view thy Public Virtues stand, 
The guardian angels of thy coast, 
Who watch the dear domestic Host, 

* The STATE LOTTERY, A Dream ; by Samuel Roberts : 
Also, THOUGHTS ON WHEELS, a Poem, in Five Parts, 
by J. M. 



TO BRITAIN. 247 

The Heart's Affections, pleased to roam 
Around the quiet haven of home. 

I love Thee, when I mark thy soil 
Flourish beneath the peasant's toil, 
And from its lap of verdure throw 
Treasures, which neither Indies know. 

I love Thee, when I hear around 
Thy looms, and wheels, and anvils sound, 
Thine engines heaving all their force, 
Thy waters labpuring on their course, 
And arts, and industry, and wealth 
Exulting in the joys of health. 

I love Thee, when I trace thy tale 
To the dim point where records fail ; 
Thy deeds of old renown inspire 
My bosom with our fathers' fire ; 
A proud inheritance I claim 
In all their sufferings, all their fame ; 
Nor less delighted when I stray 
Down history's lengthening, widening way, 



248 TO BRITAIN. 

And hail Thee in thy present hour, 
From the meridian arch of power, 
Shedding the lustre of thy reign, 
Like sunshine, over land and main. 

I love Thee, when I read the lays 
Of British bards in elder days, 
Till, rapt on visionary wings, 
High o'er thy cliffs my spirit sings ; 
For I, among thy living choir, 
I, too, can touch the sacred lyre. 

I love Thee, when I contemplate 
The full-orb'd grandeur of thy state ; 
Thy laws and liberties, that rise, 
Man's noblest works beneath the skies, 
To which the pyramids were tame, 
And Grecian temples bow their fame : 
These, thine immortal sages wrought 
Out of the deepest minds of thought; 
These, on the scaffold, in the field, 
Thy warriors won, thy patriots seal'd ; 



TO BRITAIN, 24-9 

These, at the parricidal pyre, 

Thy martyrs sanctified in fire, 

And, with the generous blood they spilt, 

Wash'd from thy soil their murderers' guilt, 

Cancell'd the curse which vengeance sped, 

And left a blessing in its stead. 

Can words, can numbers count the price, 

Paid for this little paradise ? 

Never, oh ! never be it lost ; 

The land is worth the price it cost. 

I love Thee, when thy sabbath dawns 
O'er woods and mountains, dales and lawns, 
And streams, that sparkle while they run, 
As if their fountain were the sun : 
When, hand in hand, thy tribes repair, 
Each to their chosen house of prayer, 
And all in peace and freedom call 
On Him, who is the Lord of all. 

I love Thee, when my soul can feel 
The seraph-ardours of thy zeal : 



250 TO BRITAIN. 

Thy charities, to none confined, 
Bless, like the sun, the rain, the wind ; 
. Thy schools the human brute shall raise, 
Guide erring youth in wisdom's ways, 
And leave, when we are turn'd to dust, 
A generation of the just. 

I love Thee, when I see Thee stand 
The hope of every other land ; 
A sea-mark in the tide of time, 
Rearing to heaven thy brow sublime ; 
Whence beams of gospel-splendour shed 
A sacred halo round thine head ; 
And gentiles from afar behold, 
(Not as on Sinai's rocks of old,) 
GOD, from eternity conceal'd, 
In his own light, on Thee reveal'd. 

I love Thee, when I hear thy voice 
Bid a despairing world rejoice, 
And loud from shore to shore proclaim, 
In every tongue, Messiah's name ; 



TO BRITAIN. 251 

That name, at which, from sea to sea, 
All nations yet shall bow the knee. 

I love Thee : next to heaven above, 
Land of my fathers ! Thee I love ; 
And, rail thy slanderers as they will, 
" With all thy faults I love Thee" still : 
For faults Thou hast, of heinous size ; 
Repent, renounce them, ere they rise 
In judgment; lest thine ocean-wall 
With boundless ruin round Thee fall, 

And that, which was thy mightiest stay, 

Sweep all thy rocks like sand away. 
Yes, Thou hast faults of heinous size, 

From which I turn with weeping eyes ; 

On these let them that hate Thee dwell : 

Yet one I spare not, one I tell, 

Tell with a whisper in thine ear ; 

Oh ! might it wring thine heart with fear ! 

Oh ! that my weakest word might roll, 

Like heaven's own thunder, through thy soul ! 



252 TO BRITAIN. 

There is a Lie in thy right hand : 
A Bribe, corrupting all the land ; 
There is within thy gates a pest, 
Gold and a Babylonish vest ; 
Not hid in shame-concealing shade, 
But broad against the sun display'd. 
These, tell it not, it must be told : 
These from thy LOTTERY-WHEELS are sold; 
Sold, and thy children, train* d to sin, 
Hazard both worlds these plagues to win ; 
Nay, thy deluded statesmen stake 
Thyself, and lose Thee for their sake ! 
Lose Thee ? They shall not ; He, whose will 
Is Nature's law, preserves Thee still ; 
And while the' uplifted bolt impends, 
One warning more his mercy sends. 

O BRITAIN ! O my country ! bring 
Forth from thy camp the' accursed thing ; 
Consign it to remorseless fire, 
Watch till the latest spark expire, 



TO BRITAIN. 253 

Then cast the ashes on the wind, 
Nor leave one atom-wreck behind. 

So may thy wealth and power increase, 
So may thy people dwell in peace ; 
On Thee the* ALMIGHTY'S glory rest, 
And all the world in Thee be blest. 



FINIS. 



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