Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848. Various
objects in that country fair,
Like summer twilight, when the dew
Is trembling in the fragrant air.
And there is music evermore,
That seemeth sleeping on the breeze.
Like sound of sweet bells from the shore
Lingering along the summer seas.
And there are rivers, bowers, and groves,
And fountains fringed with blossomed weeds,
And all sweet birds that sing their loves
'Mid stately flowers or tasseled reeds.
All that is beautiful of earth,
All that is valued, all that's dear,
All that is pure of mortal birth,
Lives in immortal beauty here.
All tender buds that ever grew
For us on Hope's ephemeral tree,
All loves, all joys, that e'er we knew,
Bloom in that country gloriously.
There is no parting there, no change,
No death, no fading, no decay;
No hand is cold, no voice is strange,
No eye is dark – or turned away.
To us, who daily toil and weep,
How welcome is Night's starry smile,
When in the fairy barge of Sleep
We visit the Enchanted Isle.
All holy hearts that worship Truth,
Though bleak their daily pathway seems,
Find treasure and immortal youth
In that fair isle of happy dreams.
But, if the soul have dwelt with sin,
It landeth on that isle no more,
Though it would give its life to win
One glimpse but of the pleasant shore.
Their joys, which have been thrown away,
Or stained with guilt, can bloom no more,
And o'er the night their vessels stray
Where pale shades weep, and surges roar.
THE CONTINENTS
I had a vision in that solemn hour,
Last of the year sublime,
Whose wave sweeps downward, with its dying power
Rippling the shores of Time!
On the lone margin of that hoary sea
My spirit stood alone,
Watching the gleams of phantom History
Which through the darkness shone:
Then, when the bell of midnight, ghostly hands
Tolled for the dead year's doom,
I saw the spirits of Earth's ancient lands
Stand up amid the gloom!
The crownéd deities, whose reign began
In the forgotten Past,
When first the glad world gave to sovereign Man
Her empires green and vast!
First queenly Asia, from the fallen thrones
Of twice three thousand years,
Came with the wo a grieving goddess owns
Who longs for mortal tears:
The dust of ruin to her mantle clung,
And dimmed her crown of gold,
While the majestic sorrows of her tongue
From Tyre to Indus rolled:
"Mourn with me, sisters, in my realm of wo,
Whose only glory streams
From its lost childhood, like the artic glow
Which sunless Winter dreams!
In the red desert moulders Babylon,
And the wild serpent's hiss
Echoes in Petra's palaces of stone
And waste Persepolis!
Gone are the deities who ruled enshrined
In Elephanta's caves,
And Brahma's wailings fill the odorous wind
That stirs Amboyna's waves!
The ancient gods amid their temples fall,
And shapes of some near doom,
Trembling and waving on the Future's wall,
More fearful make my gloom!"
Then from her seat, amid the palms embowered
That shade the Lion-land,
Swart Africa in dusky aspect towered —
The fetters on her hand!
Backward she saw, from out her drear eclipse,
The mighty Theban years,
And the deep anguish of her mournful lips
Interpreted her tears.
"Wo for my children, whom your gyves have bound
Through centuries of toil;
The bitter wailings of whose bondage sound
From many a stranger-soil!
Leave me but free, though the eternal sand
Be all my kingdom now —
Though the rude splendors of barbaric land
But mock my crownless brow!"
There was a sound, like sudden trumpets blown,
A ringing, as of arms,
When Europe rose, a stately Amazon,
Stern in her mailéd charms.
She brooded long beneath the weary bars
That chafed her soul of flame,
And like a seer, who reads the awful stars,
Her words prophetic came:
"I hear new sounds along the ancient shore,
Whose dull old monotone
Of tides, that broke on many a system hoar,
Wailed through the ages lone!
I see a gleaming, like the crimson morn
Beneath a stormy sky,
And warning throes, my bosom long has borne,
Proclaim the struggle nigh!
"The spirit of a hundred races mounts
To glorious life in one;
New prophet-wands unseal the hidden founts
That leap to meet the sun!
And thunder-voices, answering Freedom's prayer,
In far-off echoes fail,
As some loud trumpet, startling all the air,
Peals down an Alpine vale!"
O radiant-browed, the latest born of Time!
How waned thy sisters old
Before the splendors of thine eye sublime,
And mien, erect and bold!
Pure,