Selected Poems of Bernard Barton, the 'Quaker Poet'. Christopher Stokes W.
and mother
Of knowledge and of feeling? Look around!
Mark how one being differs from another;
Yet the world’s book is spread before each human brother.
Was this world, then, the parent and the nurse 10
Of him whose mental eye outliv’d the sight
Of all its beauties?—Him who sang the curse
Of that forbidden fruit, which did invite
Our first progenitors, whom that foul sprite,
In serpent-form, seduc’d from innocence, 15
By specious promises, that wrong and right,
Evil and good, when they had gather’d thence,
Should be distinctly seen, as by diviner sense?
They pluck’d, and paid the awful penalty
Of disobedience: yet man will not learn 20
To be content with knowledge that is free
To all. There are, whose soaring spirits spurn
At humble lore, and, still insatiate, turn
From living fountains to forbidden springs;
Whence having proudly quaff’d, their bosoms burn 25
With visions of unutterable things,
Which restless fancy’s spell in shadowy glory brings.
Delicious the delirious bliss, while new;
Unreal phantoms of wise, good, and fair,
Hover around, in every vivid hue 30
Of glowing beauty; these dissolve in air,
And leave the barren spirit bleak and bare
As alpine summits: it remains to try
The hopeless task (of which themselves despair)
Of bringing back those feelings, now gone by, 35
By making their own dreams the code of all society.
“All fear, none aid them, and few comprehend;”
And then comes disappointment, and the blight
Of hopes, that might have bless’d mankind, but end
In stoic apathy, or starless night: 40
And thus hath many a spirit, pure and bright,
Lost that effulgent and ethereal ray,
Which, had religion nourish’d it, still might
Have shone on, peerless, to that perfect day,
When death’s veil shall be rent, and darkness dash’d away. 45
Ere it shall prove too late, thy steps retrace:
The heights thy muse has scal’d, can never be
Her loveliest, or her safest dwelling-place.
In the deep valley of humility,
The river of immortal life flows free 50
For thee—for all. Oh! taste its limpid wave,
As it rolls murmuring by, and thou shalt see
Nothing in death the Christian dares not brave,
Whom faith in God has given a world beyond the grave!
Midnight has stol’n upon me! sound is none,
Save when light, tinkling cinders, one by one,
Fall from my fire; or its low, fluttering blaze,
A faint and fitful noise at times betrays;
Or distant baying of the watch-dog, caught 5
At intervals. It is the hour of thought!
Canst thou then marvel, now that thought is free,
Memory should wake, and Fancy fly to thee?—
That she should paint thee, wrapp’d in peaceful sleep?
While round thy happy pillow spirits keep 10
Their post unseen: those watchers of the night,
Who, o’er the innocent, with fond delight
Stand centinels, and, by their guardian power,
Preserve from evil, Virtue’s slumbering hour.
Calm, healthful, and refreshing be thy rest! 15
And be thy dreams as blissful, as e’er blest,
In Fancy’s sweetest, purest, loveliest mood,
The hours of stillness and of solitude!
Thou hast thy beauties: sterner ones, I own,
Than those of thy precursors; yet to thee
Belong the charms of solemn majesty
And naked grandeur. Awful is the tone
Of thy tempestuous nights, when clouds are blown 5
By hurrying winds across the troubled sky;
Pensive, when softer breezes faintly sigh
Through leafless boughs, with ivy overgrown.
Thou hast thy decorations too; although
Thou art austere: thy studded mantle, gay 10
With icy brilliants, which as proudly glow
As erst Golconda’s; and thy pure array
Of regal ermine, when the drifted snow
Envelopes nature; till her features seem
Like pale, but lovely ones, seen when we dream. 15
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