Elias: An Epic of the Ages. Whitney Orson Ferguson

        "Not all my ministry to lift the gloom

        Yet hovering o'er this mystic hemisphere.

        List while I tell, for I am one by whom

        Future and past as present shall appear. 380

        In me behold Messiah's Minister,

        Ancient of time and of eternity,

        Spirit of song that moved the Hebrew seer,

        Voice of the stars[7] ere earth's nativity;

      Exile, for ages gone, of mortal minstrelsy.

        "See now my sacred heritage, the prey

        Of ribald rhymesters, sensuous, half obscene;

        Of gloating censors, glad o'er my decay,

        And deeming all but best I ne'er had been!

        The body's bard[8] throned, sceptering the scene, 390

        A groveling worshiper of earth and time.

        Arise! and with thy soul's celestial sheen,

        Shame these false meteors, change the ruling chime;

      My minstrel, I thy muse, sing thou the song sublime!

        "Sing, poet, sing! but not of new—of old,

        Of old and new—eternal truth thy theme,

        That holdeth past and future in her fold,

        That maketh present but a passing dream,

        While time and earth and man as trifles seem;

        That knoweth not of new, or old, or strange; 400

        Whose everduring, all-redemptive scheme,

        Fixt and immutable 'mid worlds of change,

      On, on, from universe to universe doth range.

        "Faint not, nor fear, for all shall fare thy way—

        My way, His way, the Master's, evermore.

        East shall seem West, rethrown the rising ray,

        Shining afar from this most ancient shore[9],

        And man shall rise[10] e'en where man fell before.

        Fools may deride, may jeer at destiny;

        They mock to mourn, oblivion earths them o'er; 410

        While they that champion truth, by truth shall be

      Exalted, e'en in time, to live eternally."

        The ancient paused, and, unperceived till then,

        A wondrous harp his bosom swung before,

        Such harp as played the shepherd psalmist[11] when

        A maddening rage his monarch seized and tore,

        And music's magic quelled satanic power.

        Seated, his form against the crag reclined,

        He waved me to his feet, and forth did pour,

        As pours Niagara on the plaintive wind, 420

      Floods of majestic song, falling from mind to mind.

        Full tale of wonders told, I may not tell,

        Though mind be heir to all of mystery;

        With milk of truth the breasts of wisdom swell,

        Sufficing past and present infancy.

        But matching all the modern eye may see

        With marvels promised to the future sight,

        'Twas as the shrub unto the sheltering tree,

        The floating swan unto the eagle's flight,

      The hillock to the snow-crowned summit, lost in light. 430

        Silent he towered above me, harp in hand,—

        Was it a dream? Could dream so vivid be?—

        And with his mantle's fold my forehead fanned.

        Then leapt to life the flame of poesy!

        Was it a vision of my destiny?

        Upon the mount, as erst, I stood alone,

        And naught was there of muse or minstrelsy;

        Save that afar still trembled that strange tone,

      And something said within: "That harp is now thine own."