Classic Poem

Resume thy tone of wo, immortal Harp!
The song of mirth is past, the Jubilee
Is ended, and the sun begins to fade!
Soon passed, for Happiness counts not the hours;
To her a thousand years seem as a day;
A day, a thousand years to Misery.
Satan is loose, and Violence is heard,
And Riot in the street, and Revelry
Intoxicate, and Murder, and Revenge.
Put on vour armour now, ye righteous: put
The helmet of salvation on, and gird
Your loins about with truth; add righteousness,
And add the shield of faith, and take the sword
Of God—awake and watch!—The day is near,
Great day of God Almighty and the Lamb!
The harvest of the earth is fully ripe;
Vengeance begins to tread the great wine-press
Of fierceness and of wrath; and Mercy pleads,
Mercy that pleaded long, she pleads—no more!
Whence comes that darkness? whence those yells of wo:
What thunderings are these that shake the world?
Why fall the lamps from heaven as blasted figs?
Why tremble righteous men? why angels pale?
Why is all fear? what has become of hope?
God comes! God, in his car of vengeance, comes!—
Hark! louder on the blast, come hollow shrieks
Of dissolution! In the fitful scowl
Of night, near and more near, angels of death
Incessant flap their deadly wings, and roar
Through all the fevered air! the mountains rock,
The moon is sick, and all the stars of heaven
Turn feebly! oft and sudden gleams of fire,
Revealing awfully the brow of Wrath!
The Thunder long and loud, utters his voice,
Responsive to the Ocean's troubled growl!
Night comes, last night, the long, dark, dark, dark, night,
That has no morn beyond it, and no star!
No eye of man hath seen a night like this!
Heaven's trampled Justice girds itself for fight!
Earth, to thy knees, and cry for mercy! cry
With earnest heart, for thou art growing old
And hoary, unrepented, unforgiven!
And all thy glory mourns! The vintage mourns!
Bashan and Carmel, mourn and weep! and mourn,
Thou Lebanon! with all thy cedars, mourn.
Sun! glorying in thy strength from age to age,
So long observant of thy hour, put on
Thy weeds of wo, and tell the Moon to weep:
Utter thy grief at mid-day, morn, and even;
Tell all the nations, tell the clouds that sit
About the portals of the east and west,
And wanton with thy golden locks, to wait
Thee not to-morrow, for no morrow comes!
Tell men and women, tell the new-born child,
And every eye that sees, to come and see
Thee set behind Eternity, for thou
Shalt go to bed to night, and ne'er awake!
Stars! walking on the pavement of the sky,
Out-sentinels of heaven, watching the earth,
Cease dancing now; your lamps are growing dim,
Your graves are dug among the dismal clouds,
And angels are assembling round your bier!
Orlon, mourn! and Mazzaroth, and thou,
Arcturus! mourn, with all thy northern sons,
Daughters of Pleiades! that nightly shed
Sweet influence, and thou, fairest of stars!
Eve of the morning, weep! and weep at eve!
Weep setting, now to rise no more, “and flame
On forehead of the dawn,”—as sung the bard,
Great bard! who used on Earth a seraph's lyre,
Whose numbers wandered through eternity,
And gave sweet foretaste of the heavenly harps!
Minstrel of sorrow! native of the dark,
Shrub loving Philomel, that wooed the Dews,
At midnight from their starry beds, and, charmed,
Held them around thy song till dawn awoke,
Sad bird! pour through the gloom thy weeping song,
Pour all thy dying melody of grief,
And with the turtle spread the wave of wo!
Spare not thy reed, for thou shalt sing no more!
Ye holy hards!—if yet a holy bard
Remain,—what chord shall serve you now! what harp
What harp shall sing the dying Sun asleep,
And mourn behind the funeral of the Moon!
What harp of boundless, deep, exhaustless wo,
Shall utter forth the groanings of the damned!
And sing the obsequies of wicked souls!
And wail their plunge in the eternal fire!—
Hold, hold your hands!—hold, angels!—God laments,
And draws a cloud of mourning round his throne!
The Organ of Eternity is mute!
And there is silence in the Heaven of Heavens!
Daughters of beauty! choice of beings made;
Much praised, much blamed, much loved; but fairer far
Than aught beheld, than aught imagined else
Fairest, and dearer than all else most dear;
Light of the darksome wilderness! to Time
As stars to night, whose eves were spells that held
The passenger forgetful of his way,
Whose steps were majesty, whose words were song,
Whose smiles were hope, whose actions, perfect grace,
Whose love, the solace, glory, and delight
Of man, his beast, his riches, his renown;
When found, sufficient bliss! when lost, despair!
Stars of creation! images of love!
Break up the fountains of your tears, your tears,
More eloquent than learned tongue, or lyre
Of purest note! your sunny raiment stain,
Put dust upon your heads, lament and weep,
And utter all your minstreisy of wo!
Go to, ye wicked, weep and howl; for all
That God hath written against you is at hand.
The cry of Violence hath reached his ear,
Hell is prepared, and Justice whets his sword.
Weep all of every name! Begin the wo,
Ye woods, and tell it to the doleful winds;
And doleful winds, wail to the howling hills;
And howling hills, mourn to the dismal vales;
And dismal vales, sigh to the sorrowing brooks;
And sorrowing brooks, weep to the weeping stream?
And weeping stream, awake the groaning deep;
And let the instrument take up the song,
Responsive to the voice, harmonious wo!
Ye Heavens, great arch way of the universe,
Put sackcloth on; and Ocean, clothe thyself
In garb of widowhood, and gather all
Thy waves into a groan, and utter it,
Long, loud, deep, piercing, dolorous, immense:
The occasion asks it!—Nature dies, and God
And angels come to lay her in the grave!
But we have overleaped our theme; behind,
A little season waits a verse or two,
The years that followed the millennial rest.
Bad years they were; and first, a signal sure,
That at the core religion was diseased,
The sons of Levi strove again for place,
And eminence, and names of swelling pomp;
Setting their feet upon the people's neck,
And slumbering in the lap of civil power,
Of civil power again tyrannical;
And second sign, sure sign, whenever seen,
That holiness was dying in a land,
The Sabbath was profaned and set at naught;
The honest seer, who spoke the truth of God
Plainly, was left with empty walls; and round
The frothy orator, who busked his tales
In quackish pomp of noisy words, the ear
Tickling, but leaving still the heart unprohed,
The judgment uninformed,—numbers immense
Flocked, gaping wide, with passions high inflamed;
And on the way returning, heated, home,
Of eloquence, and not of truth, conversed—
Mean eloquence that wanted sacred truth.
Two principles from the beginning strove
In human nature, still dividing man,—
Sloth and activity; the lust of praise,
And indolence that rather wished to sleep.
And not unfrequently in the same mind
They dubious contest held; one gaining now,
And now the other crowned, and both again
Keeping the field, with equal combat fought.
Much different was their voice. Ambition called
To action, Sloth invited to repose.
Ambition early rose, and, being up,
Toiled ardently, and late retired to rest;
Sloth lay till mid-day, turning on his couch,
Like ponderous door upon its weary hinge,
And, having rolled him out with much ado,
And many a dismal sigh, and vain attempt,
He sauntered out, accoutred carelessly,
With half-oped, misty, unobservant eye,
Somniferous, that weighed the object down
On which its burden fell,—an hour or two,
Then with a groan retired to rest again.
The one, whatever deed had been achieved,
Thought it too little, and too small the praise;
The other tried to think,—for thinking so
Answered his purpose best,—that what of great
Mankind could do had been already done;
And therefore laid him calmly down to sleep.
Different in mode, destructive both alike.
Destructive always indolence; and love
Of fame destructive always too, if less
Than praise of God it sought, content with less:
Even then not current, if it sought his praise
From other motive than resistless love;
Though base, main-spring of action in the world;
And, under name of vanity and pride,
Was greatly practised on by cunning men.
It opened the niggard's purse, clothed nakedness,
Gave beggars food, and threw the Pharisee
Upon his knees, and kept him long in act
Of prayer; it spread the lace upon the fop,
His language trimmed, and planned his curious gait;
It stuck the feather on the gay coquette,
And on her finger laid the heavy-load
Of jewellery; it did—what did it not?
The gospel preached, the gospel paid, and sent
The gospel; conquered nations, cities built,
Measured the furrow of the field with nice
Directed share, shaped bulls, and cows, and rams,
And threw the ponderous stone; and, pitiful,
Indeed, and much against the grain, it dragged
The stagnant, dull, predestinated fool,
Through learning's halls, and made him labour much
Abortively, though sometimes not unpraised
He left the sage's chair, and home returned,
Making his simple mother think that she
Had borne a man. In schools, designed to root
Sin up, and plant the seeds of holiness
In youthful minds, it held a signal place.
The little infant man; by nature proud,
Was taught the Scriptures by the love of praise,
And grew religious as he grew in fame.
And thus the principle, which out of heaven
The devil threw, and threw him down to hell,
And keeps him there, was made an instrument
To moralize and sanctify mankind,
And in their hearts beget humility;
With what success it needs not now to say.
Destructive both we said, activity
And sloth: behold the last exemplified,
In literary man. Not all at once,
He yielded to the soothing voice of sleep;
But, having seen a bough of laurel wave,
He effort made to climb; and friends, and even
Himself talked of his greatness, as at hand,
And, prophesying, drew his future life.
Vain prophecy! his fancy, taught by sloth,
Saw, in the very threshold of pursuit,
A thousand obstacles; he halted first,
And while he halted, saw his burning hopes
Grow dim and dimmer still; ambition's self,
The advocate of loudest tongue, decayed;
His purposes, made daily, daily broken,
Like plant uprooted oft, and set again,
More sickly grew, and daily wavered more;
Till at the last, decision, quite worn out,
Decision, fulcrum of the mental powers,
Resigned the blasted soul to staggering chance;
Sleep gathered fast, and weighed him downward still;
His eye fell heavy from the mount of fame:
His young resolves to benefit the world
Perished and were forgotten; he shut his ear
Against the painful news of rising worth;
And drank with desperate thirst the poppy's juice;
A deep and mortal slumber settled down
Upon his weary faculties oppressed;
He rolled from side to side, and rolled again;
And snored, and groaned, and withered, and expired,
And rotted on the spot, leaving no name.
The hero best example gives of toil
Unsanctfied. One word his history writes.
“He was a murderer above the laws,
And greatly praised for doing murderous deeds.”
And now he grew, and reached his perfect growth;
And also now the sluggard soundest slept,
And by him ray the uninterred corpse.
Of every order, sin and wickedness,
Deliberate, cool, malicious villany,
This age, attained maturity, unknown
Before; and seemed in travail to bring forth
Some last, enormous, monstrous deed of guilt,
Original, unprecedented guilt.
That might obliterate the memory
Of what had hitherto been done most vile.
Inventive men were paid, at public cost,
To plan new modes of sin; the holy Word
Of God was burned, with acclumations loud;
New tortures were invented for the good;—
For still some good remained, as whiles through sky
Of thickest clouds, a wandering star appeared;—
New oaths of blasphemy were framed and sworn;
And men in reputation grew, as grew
The stature of their crimes. Faith was not found.
Truth was not found, truth always scarce, so scarce
That half the misery which groaned on earth,
In ordinary times, was progeny
Of disappointment, daily coming forth
From broken promises, that might have ne'er
Been made, or, being made, might have been kept;
Justice and mercy too, were rare, obscured
In cottage garb: before the palace door,
The beggar rotted, starving in his rags;
And on the threshold of luxurious domes,
The orphan child laid down his head, and died;
Nor unamusing was his piteous cry
To women, who had now laid tenderness
Aside, best pleased with sights of cruelty;
Flocking, when fouter justs would give them time,
To horrid spectacies of blood, where men,
Or guiltless beasts, that seemed to look to heaven
With eye imploring vengeance on the earth,
Were tortured for the meriment of kings.
The advocate for him who offered most,
Pleaded; the scribe, according to the hire,
Worded the lie, adding for every piece,
An oath of confirmation; judges raised
One hand to intimate the sentence, death,
Imprisonment, or fine, or loss of goods,
And in the other held a lusty bribe,
Which they had taken to give the sentence wrong;
So managing the scale of justice still,
That he was wanting found who poorest seemed.
But laymen, most renowned for devilish deeds,
Laboured at distance still behind the priest;
He shore his sheep, and having packed the wool,
Sent them unguarded to the hill of wolves;
And to the bowl deliberately sat down,
And with his mistress mocked at sacred things.
The theatre was, from the very first,
The favourite haunt of Sin, though honest men,
Some very honest, wise, and worthy men,
Maintained it might be turned to good account;
And so perhaps it might, but never was.
From first to last it was an evil place:
And now such things were acted there, as made
The devils blush; and from the neighbourhood:
Angels and holy men, trembling, retired,
And what with dreadful aggravation crowned
This dreary time, was sin against the light.
All men knew God, and, knowing, disobeyed;
And gloried to insult him to his face.
Another feature only we shall mark.
It was withal a highly polished age,
And scrupulous in ceremonious rite.
When stranger stranger met upon the way,
First, each to each bowed most respectfully,
And large profession made of humble service,
And then the stronger took the other's purse;
And he that stabbed his neighbour to the heart,
Stabbed him politely, and returned the blade
Reeking into its sheath with graceful air.
Meantime the earth gave symptoms of her end;
And all the scenery above proclaimed,
That the great last catastrophe was near.
The Sun at rising staggered and fell back,
As one too early up, after a night
Of late debauch; then rose, and shone again,
Brighter than wont; and sickened again, and paused
In zenith altitude, as one fatigued;
And shed a feeble twilight ray at noon,
Rousing the wolf before his time to chase
The shepherd and his sheep, that sought for light,
And darkness found, astonished, terrified;
Then, out of course, rolled furious down the west,
As chariot reined by awkward charioteer;
And, waiting at the gate, he on the earth
Gazed, as he thought he ne'er might see't again.
The bow of mercy heretofore so fair,
Ribbed with the native hues of heavenly love.
Disastrous colours showed, unseen till now;
Changing upon the watery gulf, from pale
To fiery red, and back again to pale;
And o'er it hovered wings of wrath. The Moon
Swaggered in midst of heaven, grew black, and dark,
Unclouded, uneclipsed. The Stars fell down,
Tumbling from off their towers like drunken men,
Or seemed to fall; and glimmered now, and now
Sprang out in sudden blaze and dimmed again,
As lamp of foolsh virgin lacking oll.
The heavens, this moment, looked serene; the next,
Glowed like an oven with God's displeasure hot.
Nor less, below, was intimation given,
Of some disaster great and ultimate.
The tree that bloomed, or hung with clustering fruit,
Untouched by visible calamity
Of frost or tempest, died and came again;
The flower and herb fell down as sick; then rose
And fell again. The fowls of every hue,
Crowding together, sailed on weary w