LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
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 Chap. 
 
 Shelf 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 

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 THE IMMORTALS; 
 
 GLIMPSES OP PARADISE. 
 
THE IMMORTALS: 
 
 GLIMPSES OF PARADISE 
 
 % f «m, 
 
 NICHOLAS MICHELL, 
 
 AUTHOR OP 
 
 'Famous Women and Heroes," "The Poetry op Creation," "Pleasure, 
 " Ruins of Many lands," &c. 
 
 THE CHEAP EDITION. 
 
 LONDON : 
 WILLIAM TEGG, PANCRAS LANE, CHEAPSIDK 
 
 1871. 
 
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 I 9234 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BY C. WHITING, 
 
 DUKE STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 To escape awhile from the engrossing cares of 
 life and the petty scenes which surround us, in order 
 to visit in thought the Land of the Immortals, and 
 range in imagination ampler and brighter fields of 
 existence, ought to fill the well-constituted mind 
 with pleasure — ought to be regarded even as a duty, 
 if we believe ourselves beings destined to survive the 
 joys and sorrows of the present state. 
 
 I would invite, then, in a trustful and reverential 
 spirit, the thoughtless as well as the contemplative ; 
 the sincere believer in a written revelation from God, 
 
11. PREFACE. 
 
 as well as the incredulous man tossed to and fro on 
 the restless ocean of doubt, to accompany me for a 
 brief time into the regions, not of fear, though of 
 mystery, not of gloom, but wonder and beauty. 
 
 The poem of " The Immortals " has occupied the 
 writer for some considerable time, demanding from 
 its nature much careful reflection. The subject is 
 one on which many and conflicting opinions will 
 necessarily exist. Also it offers, there can be no 
 doubt, a wide and an alluring field for the exercise 
 of fancy and imagination ; but while fancy must, on 
 some occasions, in these pages, be indulged in, truth, 
 as regards the principal topic considered, is earnestly 
 sought. 
 
 The Sacred Kecord is the foundation on which the 
 following contemplations must rest; at the same 
 time the discoveries of modern science have so 
 greatly enlarged and advanced human knowledge, that 
 none of us need hesitate to embrace opinions, and 
 give utterance to many sentiments, which would have 
 
PREFACE. 111.. 
 
 startled our forefathers. We must, then, regard 
 
 freed human spirits and angelic intelligences, not in 
 
 the light men were wont to regard them two or three 
 
 centuries ago, but as an essential portion of God's 
 
 creation, drawing exhaustless delight from the 
 
 universe of beauty and grandeur, and for whom, 
 
 among other high purposes, that material universe 
 
 Was created, seeing that the mortal must all merge 
 
 in the immortal at last, and spirits alone live to 
 
 contemplate and admire the works of Omnipotence. 
 
 • The late Sir David Brewster, in his very pleasing 
 
 and able work, " More Worlds than One," written as a 
 
 reply to the book entitled " Of a Plurality of Worlds," 
 
 has strongly expressed his opinion in regard to the 
 
 probability, almost the certainty, that God has created 
 
 no world without its rational inhabitants. Otherwise 
 
 we must conclude that the Almighty Architect has 
 
 built innumerable superb palaces capable of lodging 
 
 human beings — built them only to remain empty. 
 
 In accordance with Sir David Brewster's views, I 
 a 2 
 
IV. PREFACE. 
 
 believe that not only every planet of our own Solar 
 System, "with perhaps one exception, is peopled, but 
 that every planet, invisible to us, which must, from 
 analogy, revolve around every sun nightly adorning 
 our firmament, has its rational human population 
 — beings endowed like ourselves with an immortal 
 principle ; for who shall daringly take upon himself 
 to affirm that the Almighty has granted this principle 
 to the inhabitants of our small globe, but denied it to 
 the rational beings of all other worlds ? 
 
 One of the greatest and most astounding dis- 
 coveries in the physical universe, since that of 
 universal gravitation by Newton, is undoubtedly the 
 discovery of a central sun. It is now proved, almost 
 with mathematical certainty, that a central world 
 exists, occupying the point around which, obedient 
 to the laws of gravitation, our Solar System, and 
 the innumerable suns and systems composing the 
 Milky Way, are revolving. 
 
 That our sun, and the stars erroneously called 
 
PREFACE. V. 
 
 " fixed," have a proper motion in space, Sir William 
 Herschel with some caution announced ; but it was 
 left for Argelander, Struve, Maedlar, and other modern 
 astronomers, to remove every doubt on this subject, 
 and to demonstrate, from close and lengthened ob- 
 servations, that all the visible universe is in motion. 
 This result seems to follow of necessity from the 
 known powers of an infinitely diffused attraction. 
 The very stability and well-being of Creation demand 
 it ; for did the suns possess no motion around some 
 common centre, they would, however distantly si- 
 tuated from each other, be inevitably drawn together 
 in the lapse of ages, and then confusion, wreck, and 
 universal chaos, would be substituted for the order 
 and beauty now prevailing. 
 
 Professor Maedlar and others, after a laborious 
 series of investigations, have come to the conclusion 
 that the bright star Alcyone, the principal member 
 of the Pleiad-group, is that important and wonderful 
 world which occupies the central point in space, and 
 
VI. PREFACE. 
 
 to which, whatever its magnitude may be, all other 
 worlds do homage.* 
 
 They who read this poem must keep in view the 
 great astronomical fact above named, for on it the 
 hypothesis, or the chief theory propounded, is based 
 — a theory which, though it may at first with 
 difficulty gain credence with those unaccustomed to 
 contemplate the magnificent works of the Creator, 
 will not, I think, when the sublime astronomical 
 wonder is calmly and reverently considered, be 
 charged with outraging probability. On the con- 
 trary, it will be found to contain, it is sincerely 
 hoped, a truth most precious to man — a truth cal- 
 culated to inspire confidence, and fill the mind with 
 bright anticipations ; while it will invest one world 
 and its group of suns, shining nightly in our heavens, 
 with a peculiar interest and glory. 
 
 * Some remarks on the interesting subject of a Central Sun 
 will be found in the Appendix at the close of this volume. 
 
THE IIMOKTALS 
 
 OR, 
 
 GLIMPSES OF PAKADISE. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
THE IMMOETALS; 
 
 OK, 
 
 GLIMPSES OF PARADISE. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 Where dwell bright spirits ? — o'er the misty hill, 
 
 Through the long-vista'd vale, we cast our eyes, 
 
 Then up the wide expanse of vacant air, 
 
 To those illimitable ether-gulfs, 
 
 But nothing meets our anxious, asking sight. 
 
 Thus, swayed by erring sense, we wrongly deem 
 
 No spirits haunt our globe, no angel-forms 
 
 Move through the trackless infinite of calm, 
 
 But think yon far-spread regions lifeless space, 
 
 An azure wilderness of solitude, 
 
 Where cold and silence reign for evermore. 
 
10 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Are worlds thick-peopled ? is the forest-leaf, 
 The water-drop, with countless beings stored, 
 While nought exists thro' all those mighty depths ? 
 Must they alone be naked ? must no life 
 Exulting pass the wide cerulean plains, 
 Where all is freedom, purity, and light ? 
 The globes were formed as nursing-bowers for soul 
 Cradled in matter here ; matured and ripe, 
 She casts her swaddling clothes of fragile clay, 
 And issues forth to claim, for endless years, 
 Those skyey mansions, her congenial home. 
 Nay, 'tis no fable telling us wide heaven, 
 Though arched so still, so seeming void of life, 
 Teems with immortals, countless as the sparks 
 Which fly from Nature's anvil, when she moulds, 
 From fiery vapours, some new giant sun. 
 
 No human sense can pierce the curtained scene, 
 But brightly opened were the eyes of soul, 
 A glorious spectacle might 'round us blaze ; 
 Then should we see each mountain-top alive 
 With rainbow-wing'd, and swift- descending forms ; 
 Spirits would fill the vale each balmy morn,. 
 Or glide at eve above the unbending woods, 
 
THE IMMOKTALS. ■ 11 
 
 And walk the silver of the moon-lit sea. 
 Around us, too, would guardian-angels float, 
 A brilliant multitude, and wake no fear, 
 For brows so gentle, eyes so sweetly-rayed, 
 Could not inspire a terror, pity's beams 
 Softening their looks, and robing each with light, 
 Making more heavenly that which came from heaven, 
 More beautiful their immortality. 
 
 Angels are ministers of love to man ; 
 They watch the infant's cradle ; they protect 
 Beauty and trusting Innocence from ill ; 
 The Guardian-angel oft, in battle's hour, 
 Wards the fierce thrust, and turns the ball aside ; 
 She finds the dungeon of the wrong' d, oppress'd, 
 Soothes his sad heart, and from the cold, dark cell, 
 Points him again to liberty and light ; 
 She enters poor Starvation's squalid home, 
 And, smiling on the haggard, sleeping wretch, 
 Cheers him with dreams of plenty, till his soul 
 Leaps high with hope, and overflows with joy. 
 
 But not our globe alone Immortals seek, 
 For all the beauteous planets — Venus, Mars, 
 
12 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 And mountain'd Jove, and Saturn's belted sphere, 
 
 Their legions haply roam in fond delight. 
 
 They haunt each silvery moon, they haunt the sun, 
 
 Pass and repass on beams, like bridges thrown 
 
 Across the blue, from luminous star to star. 
 
 Ay, radiant forms, outnumbering all the leaves 
 
 Which fledge earth's forests, glide through ether's 
 
 depths — 
 Spirits once linked to clay, and those that ne'er 
 Wore the dull fetters of mortality, 
 The gentle and the beautiful that flashed 
 From God their source, like showers of amber light, 
 And every beam a sinless, deathless soul. 
 There shines no globe, but spirits round it wing, 
 There spreads no space, but spirits wander there ; 
 As hives with bees, as sleepless brain with thought, 
 Filled is the universe with active Mind. 
 
 Are they in heaven ? no ; but every spot, 
 Smiled on by God, they deem most holy, blest. 
 What though God's Eden-Land be far away, 
 He sends them thus to all the peopled worlds f 1 ) 
 On mercy-errands, and to draw delight 
 From wells of loveliness — his wondrous works. 
 
WHAT IS SOUL OR SPIRIT ? 13 
 
 And what is human spirit ? false they teach 
 Who judge it void of substance, parts, or form, 
 A vaporous shade, a disembodied thought, 
 That shims all converse with material scenes ; 
 That views uncharmed the majesty and pomp 
 Of green-robed worlds; that, naked and forlorn, 
 Frequents no home of beauty it might love, 
 But vaguely dwells in heaven's vague, empty blue ; 
 Or, an unquiet, melancholy thing, 
 Courts the dun shades of ebon-lidded Night, 
 And cheerless roams beneath the freezing moon. 
 
 No, it is progress in high Being's march, 
 Aspiring still, and reaching nearer God. 
 It hath more searching ken, boasts larger powers, 
 Than when pent, chained, in mortal prison here ; 
 And oh ! not saddened when Death cries — away ! 
 Spirit, if clothed with virtue's vest of beams, 
 Flings its slave-irons back upon the world, 
 And plunges into liberty and joy. 
 Joy is the burning basis of its life, 
 The ambrosial aliment on which it feeds ; 
 Joy welcomes it to proud, immortal days, 
 And sounds sweet peans round its airy course, 
 
14 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 From living Nature's universal lyre ; 
 
 For where no mists of crime make dark and sad, 
 
 Creation's face is one broad smile of joy. 
 
 Spirit is substance, or material things 
 Would bow not to its power ; ( 2 ) it could not view 
 The palpable, wide universe of God, 
 Or whisper prayer, or anthem forth His praise. 
 Most subtile the soul's element may be, 
 Yet is it more than shadow, dreams, or thought. 
 The soul is God-breathed life once veiled in flesh, 
 Now freed, expanded, essence still the same, 
 Feelings and wishes, hopes and love, unchanged ; 
 'Twas linked to dust by some mysterious law, 
 Known but to God, immortal, mortal, joined ; 
 And as the Almighty raised earth's eldest born, 
 A faint, dim image, reflex of Himself, 
 That form may truly type all heavenly forms, 
 Each angel shaped like mortal beauty here ; 
 Yet its irradiate, all harmonious frame, 
 While quickening with each burning energy, 
 Shares nothing of our darkened, grosser clay, 
 But, moulded of the ethereal ne'er to change, 
 Hath self-support, and quenchless inward life, 
 
ANGELS. 15 
 
 Impowered to brave all accidents, all time, 
 
 And bloom and brighten, e'en when worlds decay. 
 
 Too coarse our earthly organs to behold 
 The fine -knit glancing spirit, yet, proud dust ! 
 Deny not soul exists, substantial formed. 
 Canst thou behold the air ? yet air has weight ; 
 Canst thou behold attraction ? yet its power, 
 Tremendous, draws a planet from its course. 
 By keen-eyed souls alone are souls perceived ; 
 Thus since frail man first mourned the lost below, 
 His longing vision hath not caught a glimpse 
 Of friend departed, though that friend may move 
 Still fondly near him, sigh back all his sighs, 
 Smile when he smiles, and weep when fall his tears, 
 And, on his stricken bosom, lean in love. 
 
 It is not fancy that hath bound bright wings, 
 Like rainbows set on alabaster hills, 
 Upon the angel's shoulder. Through all depths 
 Stretches the ethery ocean, yet so rare, 
 Comets alone the viewless medium feel. 
 Our air birds sail ; a million times refined, 
 The blue abyss is swept by angel-plumes, ( 3 ) 
 
16 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Dashing aside the long, long ether-waves, 
 In phosphorescent undulations bright, 
 And keeping pace with beams that cross the void 
 From distant blazing stars ; and ne'er fatigue 
 The angels feel, thus travelling liquid plains ; 
 Their arching wings exultant waft them on : 
 Though haply, Vheeling near some fairer globe, 
 They light at times upon its verdant hills, 
 Soothe their fine senses in its rosy air, 
 And feast their eyes on some new Eden's bloom, 
 Then urge again their journey, springing up 
 Heaven's shining slopes, like creatures wing'd 
 thought. 
 
 Deem not our world alone sends spirits forth, 
 To bask in bliss, or drink the cup of woe ; 
 Deem not our sun the eldest born of suns : 
 No, as new globes God mouldeth still in space, 
 Worlds sprang to burning being, stored with life, 
 Thousands of ages ere our planet rolled 
 From out its torpid chrysalis of chaos,* 
 
 * That there are suns in the universe which arose at God's 
 fiat previously to the creation of our own luminary, is an 
 
SPIRITS OF EXTINGUISHED STARS. 17 
 
 When, loveliest of the lovely orbs of God, 
 It rode a thing of beauty on the sky, 
 And swept rejoicing on its sunny path, 
 With emerald hills and silver-surfaced seas, 
 Mid shouts and songs of wondering cherubim. 
 
 Blest souls exist that walked in mortal bonds, 
 Where Sirius or the Polar glories blaze, 
 Long ere our parents opened ravished eyes 
 In paradisal bowers ! The Hebrew sage 
 Hath nothing writ to shake this lofty faith. — 
 Are such now old, bowed low their angel-heads ? 
 
 hypothesis which by no means contradicts the Genesis of Moses. 
 The expressions — " He made the stars also. — And God set them 
 in the firmament of the heaven," do not fix any precise period 
 when they first shone in space ; and therefore, in strict accordance 
 with the sacred narrative, we may believe that man}' of the 
 larger suns, such as Sirius, Arcturus, and others, the first of 
 which much exceeds in magnitude our own sun, were distinguished 
 by an earlier existence in the history of eternity. That new 
 stars have, from time to time, been discovered where no star 
 before existed, their appearance being totally unassignable to 
 orbital motion, is also a fact which offers a strong argument 
 against the doctrine of simultaneous creation. 
 B 
 
18" THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Are their eyes dim with viewing new suns flame, 
 
 And old ones wane to darkness ? ( 4 ) Do they crave, 
 
 "Worn out by an eternity of pomp, 
 
 Release from Being's long monotony, 
 
 And sigh to lay their aching grandeur down, 
 
 Where dumb oblivion, and undreaming peace, 
 
 May flood their essence with unconsciousness, 
 
 And tomb their wearied immortality ? — 
 
 No — see that form on yon high mountain-top, 
 
 Where shines the oldest of the Pleiad orbs ! 
 
 -His limbs of grace — his locks like twisted beams 
 
 Robbed from some golden sunset — godlike eyes, 
 
 Bright with heaven-climbing thought, and soft with love, 
 
 Intelligence, and rapture, like a crown 
 
 Of arrowy glory on his smooth, white brow — 
 
 Is this the child of some extinguished star, 
 
 Its light e'en quenched before our system rose ? 
 
 Is this a soul once shrined in dying clay, 
 
 Who bowed like us, all weakness, sighed and wept, 
 
 Now smiling on a million slow-paced years, 
 
 And young in feeling still, as young in frame, 
 
 Gathering a bliss as keen from God's great works, 
 
 As when at first intoxicated sense 
 
 Drank wonder-draughts of rich Creation's wine ? 
 
CREATION OF THE ANGELS. 19 2 
 
 But there are spirits who have never lived 
 In tenements of flesh ; who sprang at once 
 Brightly as stars from evening's procreant blue, 
 And pure and holy as high thoughts from God, 
 To loftiest life, and beauty passing dreams. 
 No human woe, no darkening taint of sin, 
 E'er cast eclipsing shadow on their brows ; 
 They never felt infirmity or pain, 
 Nor wept a parting with a dear beloved, 
 Nor bowed in misery o'er a new-made grave. 
 glorious, God-loved creatures ! life's first heirs ! 
 Unfallen spirits ! favored, blissful souls ! 
 
 Creation of the angels — time there was 
 When no intelligence of finite power, 
 Seraph or demon, lived in gulfs of space :.* 
 No silvery wing its trail of radiance left 
 Along the lifeless wilderness of sky ; 
 
 * From the whole tenor of the Hebrew Scriptures, we are led 
 to conceive that angels existed prior to the formation of worlds ; 
 that they were not, however, from eternity, seems sufficiently 
 evident, having been summoned into existence at some remote 
 epoch by Him who had no beginning. 
 
 b2 
 
I 
 
 20 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 No brow beamed love and rapture ; no rich locks 
 Waved in the light their streams of restless gold ; 
 No lips immortal, touched with music-fire, 
 Thrilled listening ether with a song of joy, 
 Or voiced an anthem through the calm to God. 
 Silence, close-guarded by black-vestured Night, 
 And ceaseless watched by jealous Solitude, 
 Sat on her ancient, melancholy throne, 
 And cast her eyes dim, rayless, through the vault, 
 And drooped her hands that hushed the infinite. 
 
 Yet still, still the great Triune was there, 
 Veiled in heaven's depths of holiness and calm, 
 But each bright attribute, of Mercy born, 
 Locked in His essence, like most precious gold 
 Now buried deep in some colossal globe. 
 Beneficence no object found to bless ; 
 No channel opened, through whose smiling banks 
 Warm love could pour its affluent, holy tide. 
 Bliss, if unshared below, scarce seemeth bliss, 
 For happiness grows more the more it gives, 
 And, giving nothing, still becometh less, 
 And withers into weariness and gloom. 
 But, not like mortals, God in His full self 
 
CREATION OF THE ANGELS. 21 
 
 Hath springs of bliss exhaustless as His power. 
 Yet now strong love would summon 'round His throne, 
 Creatures of reason dowered with endless life, 
 Souls He would fill with joy, with wisdom crown, 
 While beauty, a new glory, should light up 
 The desolate spaces of unpeopled sky, 
 
 What means the unwonted burst of torrid beams, 
 Arrowing in coruscations swift and bright, 
 From the veiled centre of the universe ? 
 The shafts fly silverly across the gloom ; 
 They reach grim Darkness in his farthest seat, 
 And startle Desolation. Ether glows 
 With rosy tints, foretelling earth-born flowers, 
 Its depths all trem'lous as with ecstasy. 
 Soft shine the vaporous sides of forming globes ; 
 Harmonious sounds go pulsing thro' the void, 
 Sweet yet supernal music, from the source 
 Whence music afterwards gushed richly down 
 To ravish new-made worlds. A something strange, 
 That ne'er before had stirred the unliving depths ; 
 A movement of the Almighty's presence, felt 
 Like breath of being through the shining vast, 
 Proclaimed that life and intellect, enshrined 
 
22 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 In forms immortal, were about to burst 
 From the dim gulf of nothing. 
 
 Softly pure, 
 There shone a circle of white, stainless rays ; 
 That circle swept a million, million miles, 
 And girt the Ancient Throne, and now it glowed 
 A deeper flame, as if its hues were caught 
 From amethysts and rubies. One vast iris 
 Seemed ringing the great central gulf of space ; 
 Or it was like the belt, though mightier far, 
 Bathed in some blood-red sunset, girding now 
 The tinted orb of Saturn. — Eay by ray, 
 The circle blazed more grandly ; ray by ray, 
 It flashed intolerably, blinding-bright, 
 And, quivering into motion, seemed to live. 
 
 There was a sparkling of innumerous eyes, 
 A spreading of a luminous cloud of wings, 
 There was a burst — a long, wild burst of joy. 
 Uprose a host of fair, ethereal forms, 
 Complete their dazzling beauty, feeling, sense, 
 Complete their keen and lofty intellects. 
 Trembling in holy rapture, thick they stood, 
 
CREATION OF THE ANGELS. 23 
 
 As flowers on some wide wilderness in Spring, 
 Stirred by the fondling gales ; as stars that rush, 
 When night comes down, in legions o'er the sky,, 
 Till all the bine, one radiant battle-field, 
 Doth burn and glitter with their golden arms. 
 
 O new-felt life ! gushing bliss of being ! 
 For the first time to cleave the yielding air, 
 For the first time to gaze, to think, to love ! 
 With eye-wide wonder each the other viewed, 
 And, wondering still, they scanned heaven's boundless 
 
 vault, 
 While awe-held myriads silently upturned, 
 Like vassal-flowers to their bright sovereign sun, 
 Adoring brows to that dread, hallowed blaze, 
 Where dwelt the Great Unseen; and then they 
 
 bowed, 
 Folding their hands instinctively in prayer. 
 Bright, sinless creatures, beautiful as good, 
 Whose feelings were all flame, whose lips were praise, 
 Whose every sense was throbbing ecstasy, 
 Their aspirations a pure fire of joy, 
 Kindling each breast, ascending evermore. 
 
24 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 The ring of glory, now all angel-forms, 
 Broke into radiant masses — living stars, 
 That flashed and sparkled in the azure calm — 
 Life-moulded dreams which rilled the mind of God. 
 Cherubs, with lightning-looks that spoke desire 
 To grasp all knowledge, restless wing'd the sky, 
 And rose in spires, and sought to pierce the veil 
 Of myst'ry and of wonder ; worlds ere long 
 Would charm and satisfy their thirsting souls ; 
 Seraphs with seraphs grouped, for theirs to feel 
 A lofty adoration ; and their eyes, 
 Lifted to Deity, displayed pure depths 
 Of holy yearning, and concentred love. 
 Already o'er the host, by strength of mind, 
 More nobly fashioned, and as leaders hailed, 
 Archangels towered, and calm, majestic, looked 
 Embodied dignity, and placid might, 
 Leaning upon the blue, apart and still, 
 Like demigods in meditation sunk. — 
 Heaven doomed not these to fall from seats of bliss ; 
 The rebel angels sprang from other hosts, 
 Called afterwards by God to endless days. 
 
 The light, out-flashing from the centre, shone 
 
CREATION OF THE ANGELS. 25 
 
 On all those wings, till each did seem a flame 
 Starting from shoulders of unmelting snow — 
 A flame anon that softened into roses, 
 As roses bloom on earth when steeped in clew — 
 That softened into living, downy gold. 
 
 A peal of thunder, solemn, deep, proclaimed 
 The first Immortals thus create by God. 
 That thunder rolled — in quivering waves, rolled out, 
 Mighty and wide, along the sea of space ; 
 Unchecked, sublime, its strong vibrations swept, 
 Not slowly, as sound drags its heavy march 
 In our dull air, but hurrying with the speed 
 Of light-shafts from the quiver of the sun. 
 It lessened not, in volumes pealing on, 
 E'en to the confines of those gulfs where soon 
 Would hang the finished worlds. It told pale Silence, 
 It told sad Solitude amidst her gloom, 
 It told Annihilation on her walk, 
 That life now triumphed in the lifeless wastes, 
 That God had raised to being glorious souls, 
 Minds charged with feeling, love, and lofty thought ; 
 Sweet angel-flowers that ne'er would droop or fade, 
 
26 
 
 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Young beauteous forms time could not rob of grace, 
 Bright intellects to suffer no eclipse, 
 Children of immortality and joy. 
 
27 
 
 THE IMMORTALS; 
 
 OK, 
 
 GLIMPSES OF PABABISE. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 Ages, as men count ages, rolled their waves, 
 Myriads on myriads, breaking on the shore 
 Of steadfast Time, and still more ages swept, 
 Leaving but foam upon the shaken sand, 
 And every bubble a long thousand years. 
 Worlds, systems multitudinous as vast, 
 Immense creations, in immenser space, 
 Have poured, from all their nurseries of life, 
 Undying souls into the Spirit-land ; 
 Millions to brood in woe, their just award, 
 Millions to rove in light and endless bliss ; 
 The last e'en trebling the angelic bands 
 That mortal chains ne'er fettered to the dust; 
 
28 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 And though less glory crowns the human soul, 
 It shares with angels Godhead's favoring smile, 
 Drinking with them life's waters sparkling, pure, 
 From rapture's cisterns thro' eternity. 
 
 Oh ! think not spirits, though divorced from clay, 
 No longer hover 'mid material things, 
 No longer love the beauteous works of God ; 
 Yes, they admire the globes their Maker framed, 
 With vales and sounding oceans, stamping deep 
 The seal of beauty on their glorious fronts. 
 Not for frail man alone those worlds arose, 
 But to delight immortals, and to yield, 
 With other raptures burning in high heaven, 
 A joy for ever to angelic hosts. 
 
 Oft angels, from the upper paradise, 
 Descend to view world-Edens blooming still, 
 Those lower gardens beautifying space. 
 Thus do Immortals, down Heaven's azure road, 
 Shod with the sunbeam's brilliancy and speed, 
 Glide to our far small Earth — small, but fair, 
 Clothed with a beauty angels vainly seek 
 In bright-ringed Saturn, or in moony Jove — 
 
EARTH. 29 
 
 A loveliness e'en passing that displayed 
 By grand Orion's train, or worlds that walk 
 Round golden-throned Arcturus. Man, dull Man ! 
 Who sees no charm in God's great handywork, 
 Who thinks to soar by blindly scorning earth, 
 Calling its radiance dark, its beauties vile, 
 And cursed of God, and hurrying to its doom- 
 On ! 'tis his soul, and not the world, immersed 
 In this black shadow of eclipsing ill. 
 
 Earth ! favored Earth ! rich-vestured, bride-like 
 Earth ! 
 That springeth jubilant upon her path, 
 As freshly now, untired, and full of youth, 
 As when first launched upon her rushing way, 
 Singing along the pure, bright air for joy. 
 She hath no mountain, but Archangels' feet 
 Might tread it with admiring, reverent awe ; 
 She hath no vale, but Seraphs there might walk, 
 And lessons learn from beauties decking clay, 
 The humblest flower a teacher eloquent, 
 Preaching of love and God. Great ocean's face, 
 Gathered to frowns, when storms convulse his heart, 
 Or smiling to the stars in peace and calm, 
 
THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Offereth a glorious sight to eyes of soul ; 
 
 While his long waves, deep-booming round his shores, 
 
 Form a sonorous organ, whose grand notes 
 
 May float far out on ether's thrilling paths, 
 
 A solemn anthem e'en in angels' ears. 
 
 Each scene on earth, or wild, or beautiful, 
 Hath spells to charm the travellers of the sky ; 
 Their subtile senses, like their minds, surpass 
 In fineness and acuteness, human powers ; 
 And as the bee from herbs sucks honey-dew 
 No art may gather, so, from all around, 
 They draw pure, sweet delight, to man unknown. 
 
 They love the Spring, for then young Joy, released 
 From Winter's prison, dances fetterless 
 Along the exulting world. Few sights so dear 
 To angel eyes, as wakening throbs of bliss, 
 Pulsing from Nature's heart through all her veins. 
 Now down yon azure troops of glittering forms 
 Dart in bright lines, like shafts of silver sent 
 From Heaven's full quiver. On the breezy hills 
 They stand, immortal graces, wing'd with beams, 
 Viewing the freshened scene, and drinking balm. 
 
ANGEL-VISITANTS . 31 , 
 
 They haunt the woods, though hid from mortal ken; 
 
 Or linger by the cool and crystal wells, 
 
 Types of their own pure nature. Far away, 
 
 In the lone wilderness, Spring's thrilling lip 
 
 Kisses up flowers from rude, uncultured earth ; 
 
 Why bloom they there ? no mortal treads the waste, 
 
 To view their brilliant hues, or breathe their scents ; 
 
 Nor can they charm wild bird, or savage beast ; 
 
 Their beauty springs — for God forms naught in vain — 
 
 To glad the wandering angels. Flashing down, 
 
 The skyey pilgrims, shining groups, alight ; 
 
 And they who, awed and ravished, watched the march 
 
 Of mighty planets thro' unmeasured heaven, 
 
 And listened crashing thunder, feel as rapt, 
 
 And lost in marvel, o'er a tiny flower. 
 
 They scan with curious eyes its growth, its veins, 
 
 Its sappy stem, and gaily-painted leaves, 
 
 Its honied cup for bees to riot in, 
 
 And all its living fabric, tasking skill 
 
 As high and wonderful, as power that orbed 
 
 The glorious sun which warms its musky breast. 
 
 Heaven's gentle children thus most brightly read 
 God's love of beauty on a humble page, 
 
32 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Whose lines and syllables are sun-kissed flowers, 
 And each sweet glowing letter spelling — love. 
 Oh, searching all things fair, through all the worlds, 
 Angels find nothing beautiful as flowers ! 
 
 They love the greenery by long-winding streams, 
 Or the smooth silver of a summer lake, 
 Where, oft inspired by beauty's richest forms, 
 They chant to Nature's God divinest song. 
 sweet, sweet lakes ! there each delightful dream, 
 And gorgeous fancy, finds material shape — 
 The sloping velvet hill, the willow'd bank, 
 The trees that spring more tall, with greener boughs ; 
 The shore's soft undulations — beauty's lines ; 
 The resting waters smoothed to crystal sheets, 
 So that blue skies see other skies below, 
 And in that glass the stars each evening peer, 
 To mark how fair their pearly foreheads shine. 
 We muse in loneliness, yet feel not lone, 
 For birds, and butterflies, and fairy things, 
 Will thickest haunt the bosky banks of lakes. 
 We own the pensiveness that makes not sad, 
 For rapturous Thought sits ever by the lake, 
 Conversing with the outer, inner world. 
 
ANGEL-VISITANTS. 33 
 
 When Summer bares her bosom to the gale, 
 And walks the Southern Alps with beamy eyes, 
 And waves her mantle o'er the singing woods, 
 Dyeing them, by its shadow, living green, 
 Ye meet no lovelier waters than the lake 
 Clasped in the arms of Como's lilied shores. 
 The sun rides high, but pours not fainting heat ; 
 A softly-pulsing air from Alpine peaks 
 Wafts a refreshing coolness. On the banks 
 The idle fisher idly leans his form, 
 His bliss to think of nothing. Bloomy fruit 
 Hangs temptingly in rounding, ripening orbs, 
 From low-depending boughs ; and Bacchic vines 
 Wanton adown the many-coloured rocks. 
 The swans, where bordering chesnuts cast their shade, 
 Cluster to sleep, gold bills beneath their wings ; 
 And frequent from the wave, with silvery sides, 
 The fish updarts, quick circles spreading round ; 
 Circles, like generous love which opens wide, 
 And wider still, to embrace all human kind. 
 Flowers, by the water's edge, bend low their eyes, 
 Each seeming, like that fabled youth of eld, 
 To pine for its own beauty, while it breathes 
 Sighs in delicious scents. The massive woods, 
 c 
 
34 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 That drowse in fragrant gloom along the steeps, 
 
 Hear through their depths the chant of listless birds ; 
 
 While, swinging slow from some grey cloister-tower, 
 
 The voice of Time floats heavily on air, 
 
 Deepening the solitude, till, o'er the hills. 
 
 Dies that small echo from eternity, 
 
 And peace again laps all the blissful scene. 
 
 He doth not dream who places angels here,, 
 Enamoured of the lovely, bright, and calm ; 
 They hover o'er each leafy steep ; they stand 
 Musing upon each purple promontory. 
 Their widely-glancing, penetrating eyes 
 Pierce to the heart of every beauteous thing, 
 Each bosom feeling gratitude intense 
 To Nature's ruling lord, whose bounty spreads, 
 For them and man, such feast of loveliness. 
 But most the immortal ones, who seek our globe, 
 Love starry Night to adore the God of worlds. 
 mother of sweet fancies, balmy Night ! 
 Her voiceless, holy hour doth breathe a spell 
 That soothes our mortal natures. Midst the hush 
 That seems to hold the listening universe, 
 Memory unlocks her gates, and prying soul 
 
ANGEL-VISITANTS. 35 
 
 Turns searching thought upon her inner self, 
 
 Then mounts from self to scan the vast of heaven, 
 
 The luminous page by God's own finger writ. 
 
 Yet viewing yon blue paradise of stars, 
 
 So tranquil and so stirless, with no smile 
 
 Traced on the everlasting, silent sky, 
 
 Calm, solemn, through the storms and changes here, 
 
 Calm, solemn, through the infinite of ages — 
 
 The feeling presses on us that a grief, 
 
 A sorrow born of far eternal years, 
 
 Lies brooding at Creation's mighty heart. 
 
 Perchance our own vague fancies image this, 
 
 Colouring the worlds, and that no real gloom 
 
 Palls the grand works of Heaven's Artificer : 
 
 We gaze, and muse, and vainly ask to soar 
 
 Above earth's mists to Heaven's bright mountain -top 
 
 We long to end all mystery, and unveil 
 
 The jealous Isis of the dark unknown. 
 
 loving Night ! dreamful, holy Night ! 
 How sweet to watch our fair, abandoned Earth. 
 Like a young babe, asleep ! its recent sobs 
 Of evening breezes, and the merry laugh 
 Of jocund life, all kissed to gentlest peace. 
 c2 
 
36 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 A tear hangs sparkling on its cheek of bloom — 
 
 The dews by fairies sprinkled ; and its hair, 
 
 Not shaking wantonly in thickest curls, 
 
 Falls smooth and glossy from the placid brow, 
 
 For woods are drooping on each mountain's crest, 
 
 The foliage shining 'neath the shining stars, 
 
 Unruffled by the fingers of a wind. 
 
 Yes, Earth, the infant, sleeps, no sound above, 
 
 No strife below, to break its heavenly rest. 
 
 'Tis now that peace- enamoured angels come, 
 
 Walking upon the stars' white sloping beams, 
 
 Folding their wings to glide more stilly on — 
 
 Come from their bowers in distant paradise, 
 
 To watch the world and mortals in repose, 
 
 To bless earth's saddened heart with golden dreams 
 
 Of primal joy and beauty, and to bear 
 
 Freed human spirits up the calm to heaven. 
 
 Thus angels and Intelligences crowd 
 Our lower skies, still bent on acts of love. 
 Nature for them, through all her empire, smiles ; 
 The day, the night, the common walks of life, 
 The umbrageous hill, the flower-clad wilderness, 
 Teem with the forms that visit us from heaven. 
 
THE DYING BEAUTY. 37 
 
 There's nothing lovely but they prize and love ; 
 
 There's nothing grand but bids them glow and thrill, 
 
 Lifting their fervid being up to God. 
 
 Yes, all existent things where beauty shines, 
 
 Fill angel-minds with pleasure — minds that grasp 
 
 Boundlessly great, and infinitely small ; 
 
 Now contemplating God, now dying man, 
 
 Now huge world-systems, now a bead of dew. 
 
 But these are creatures never linked to clay, 
 
 Or stained by crime. The souls through woman born, 
 
 Ere freed from life, and raised to their high state, 
 
 Are but dark-dungeoned, iron-fettered slaves ; 
 
 They crouch behind their bars, and view obscure 
 
 The outer, glorious world ; the gaoler life 
 
 Keeps close the cell, and firmly binds the chain. 
 
 Most spirits grasp their bonds with desperate strength, 
 
 And mourn if told their freedom-hour is nigh ; 
 
 Yet souls exist who long to burst away, 
 
 And wander into liberty and light. 
 
 The young, high-born, the courted of the world, 
 The beautiful, as beauty shineth here, 
 Lay pallid on her pillow. Mind for her 
 Proved all too active, and, with ceaseless play, 
 
38 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Exhausting strength, wore out the wheels of life. 
 She had two loves that halved her fervid soul, 
 Yet seeming blended while they kept apart, 
 Like married colours of the aerial bow — 
 The love of knowledge, and the love of Heaven. 
 Unlike her sex, who reap their richest joy 
 From life's gay fields, and harvests of the heart, 
 She burned to pierce the dim mysterious depths 
 Of mind and God's creation. Nought to her 
 This present busy scene ; she would but know 
 The ancient past, the fateful yet to be, 
 And longed to lift the veil that closely shrouds 
 The unconceptioned, radiant spirit-land. 
 
 Like lilies heavy with the dews of Night, 
 Fair mourners bowed their heads, and shed their tears, 
 Around that couch of death. Ah ! blind to soul, 
 They saw but beauty waning to the tomb, 
 The bright-rayed star eclipsed : their ears but caught 
 The last faint words of music, soon for them 
 To close in endless silence. Death would prove 
 The severer of the bonds they felt so sweet, 
 The quencher of the fire by genius lit ; 
 And so in hopeless bitterness they wept. 
 
THE DYING BEAUTY. 39 
 
 that the beautiful should fade and die ! 
 O cruel law of harsh, unpitying fate ! — 
 Thus cries poor human wisdom. We admire 
 Ashes in loveliness — a glowworm's spark 
 In brightest human wit ; the glimmering light 
 Is trampled out by Death's rude iron foot. 
 Is there a star, high hung in heaven's soft blue, 
 More happy than our own ? where never crime 
 Drew its dire trail o'er stainless human hearts ? 
 Where beauty, as it shineth pure from God, 
 Defies decay- — defies strong time and death, 
 All that was mortal passing up to Heaven, 
 Untouched by the Destroyer, mouldering not 
 In Mother earth, the grave a thing unknown, 
 But swiftly, as life changes, putting on 
 The radiant vestments of eternity ? 
 
 More frail each moment grew the slender link, 
 Binding the ethereal part to meaner clay ; 
 But soul, like some rejoicing tree in Spring 
 Quick-bursting into bloom, put forth its powers ; 
 Memories, late dormant, started from repose, 
 And hope that stream-like crept in doubt's thick shade, 
 Flashed into certainty's bright, cheerful sun. 
 
40 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 The spirit thus, while Nature earthward sank, 
 Seemed to spread eagle-pinions, and assume 
 Its Heaven-born independence. Death gloomed near, 
 "Waiting to cut the quivering thread of life ; 
 But when the hour of spirit's freedom comes, 
 And it shall drop the covering, winging forth 
 From poor mortality's dead chrysalis, 
 Oh ! what shall greet it in that untried state ? 
 Expectant, trembling, shall the stranger stand, 
 Without a home, without a guiding friend ? 
 Or shall it see God's glory fill the sky, 
 Ushered at once to paradisal bowers, 
 The child of life, the heir of endless joy ? 
 
 A shade fell deepening on the face, like Night 
 Dropping on some sweet landscape, yet a flash 
 Broke from the eye, the spirit's last retreat — 
 The eye which soul looks through, ere leaving 
 
 dust, 
 The expresser of its bright divinity, 
 The outlet of all feeling, where the lamp 
 Of consciousness first burns, and last expires. 
 
 'Twas o'er — she ceased to live. Oh ! wondrous change 
 
THE DYING BEAUTY. 41 
 
 A moment worketh in us tow'rd the dead ! 
 
 The beautiful we lately clasped and kissed, 
 
 Though still most beauteous, treasured, and heart-loved, 
 
 Hath turned, we know not why, a thing of fear : 
 
 We gaze, yet solemn, mournful is the spell 
 
 That binds us tremulous to the pale one's side. 
 
 We cannot smile in presence of hushed death; 
 
 And yet we kiss that forehead, smooth and cold, 
 
 While the touch chills us, creeping through each vein ; 
 
 We love, we mourn, but fear doth run through all 
 
 Our gentlest feelings, like a sable snake 
 
 Trailing its volumes 'mid the sweetest flowers. 
 
 We may not talk, but hold our breath in awe, 
 
 Or trembling, kneel and pray. — myst'ry dread ! 
 
 Unsolved by all the anxious, searching ages, 
 
 By all the wisdom, thought, and lore of man — 
 
 The body's dissolution ! — that sharp knife 
 
 Dividing soul from matter — that strong wing 
 
 By which we mount to immortality ; 
 
 That passage, dark and terrible to flesh, 
 
 Which leads through wintry gloom to instant Spring ! 
 
 'Twas o'er ; a quiet atmosphere of grief 
 Now filled that shaded room. As lightning, long 
 
42 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Held captive in the heavy, murky cloud, 
 Leaps, on a sudden, into fiery strength ; 
 So spirit, from the cloud of matter freed, 
 Forth flashes into new and burning life ; 
 Save that the flame of lightning doth return 
 To former sleep, its lambent ardour spent, 
 While quenchless soul sweeps on for evermore. 
 
 No pang — no shock — no terror — but most calm, 
 Most gently, in a moment, spirit passed 
 From human trouble to the land of peace. 
 'Twas as a star occulted by the moon — 
 A star that, lately curtained, issues now 
 Placid and glittering, sailing on the blue, 
 Without a stain or shadow. That young soul, 
 Saved by Christ's love, and pardoned by her God, 
 Is Mind now shaped in a celestial mould, 
 All independent of poor perished clay. 
 
 Hark ! as she rises o'er the mists of earth, 
 The sounds of greeting from immortal lips ; 
 For angel-beings, seut by Heaven to watch 
 The world's inhabitants, and guard their souls, 
 Are hovering thick and dazzling in the air. 
 
THE SOUL. 43 
 
 Music is stealing down the brilliant sky, 
 
 Sweet in its melting cadence, as if poured 
 
 Through golden-opening doors from Paradise. 
 
 The spirit hears the " welcomes " of the blest ; 
 
 Glory is shining round her like a robe ; 
 
 Eapture is steeping every thrilling sense. 
 
 Where is thy fear, thy gloom, conquered Death ? 
 
 They bear her to the land where reigns no night, 
 
 Where flowers ne'er fade, where knowledge growing still, 
 
 And the grand secrets of the universe, 
 
 Will satisfy the ardent thirst of mind, 
 
 Through dateless, unimaginable years. 
 
u 
 
 THE IMMORTALS; 
 
 OK, 
 
 GLIMPSES OF PARADISE. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 Motion is life — the secret of the worlds, 
 The golden harmony of earth and heaven ; 
 Oh ! beautiful, wide-spread, supporting law ! — 
 The infant flower, warm-cradled in the vale, 
 Shoots slowly, and unfolds its breast of sweets, 
 While nectarous sap runs ever through its veins. 
 The oak, a mountain warrior, dares the blast, 
 Tossing its giant, brown-mailed arms abroad ; 
 If screened and still, it sickens, droops, and dies. 
 The air ne'er rests through all its viewless depths ; 
 The buoyant cloud, the chariot of young Health, 
 Races with winds, and skims the plains of sky ; 
 
THE CENTRAL SUN. 45 
 
 The river, folding Plenty in its arms, 
 Sweeps through the laughing land : the ancient Sea, 
 Since poured by God into the mighty gulfs, 
 Covering the world's foundations, hath not known 
 Slumber or pause, but heaved beneath the moon, 
 Rolled in bright waves when calm caressed his brow, 
 Or, speaking thunder, battled with the storm. 
 
 Motion is life ; ere conscious being's flame 
 Lights the brain's marvellous halls, the feeble heart 
 Begins its pulsings — from the birth-hour beats, 
 Throb — throb ; and if but one poor minute cease 
 This wondrous action of a power unseen — 
 This bosom life-clock — this quick-flying wheel, 
 The palsied frame is dust. The mind ne'er rests, 
 Busy awake, and dreaming in repose ; 
 It grasps near objects, flies to scenes remote, 
 Or, passing time, roams vague eternity. 
 Yon maiden Moon ne'er tarries in the sky, 
 To rest her on her weary pilgrimage, 
 But, with bound hair and silver-sandall'd feet, 
 Doth glide for ever 'round her Mistress, Earth. 
 The lady Earth as active walks the blue, 
 And, fixing on the North her loving eye, 
 
46 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Hastes, but majestical and full of grace, 
 With all her mountains and her foaming seas, 
 Her busy, populous continents and isles, 
 Around her lord, the Sun ; one month supine, 
 One week, 'mid ages, staying on her course, 
 And mad Destruction, the fine balance lost, 
 Would draw her reeling to the central fire, 
 And whelm her pride, her beauty, and her bloom. 
 
 Is there a spot in all yon boundless sky, 
 Where motion doth not reign ? where soul might dwell, 
 And cry exulting — rest at last is found ! 
 monarch Sun ! compelling force of heaven ! 
 Chainer of comets ! lord of docile globes ! 
 That on thy throne sit'st mighty, like a grand 
 Embodiment of awful Deity ! 
 Robed in an atmosphere of dazzling fire, 
 Thine everlasting, giant energies, 
 Perplexing while astounding finite mind, 
 Looking at once a glory and a dread, 
 Abroad upon thy slaves, the governed worlds ! 
 Rest surely dwells with thee, thy steadfast power 
 Owning no power stupendous as thine own : 
 Surely thou serv'st no huger body, hung 
 
THE CENTRAL SUN. 47 
 
 In ether's depths by God, thou, only thou, 
 The unchanging mid the changed, as ages march, 
 Firm-fixed in glowing space, as though we viewed 
 Some monstrous bark that rides the blue abyss, 
 Its ponderous anchor cast, down, deeply down, 
 In the broad sea-cayes of immensity. 
 
 No, a link only in the chain of suns, 
 One star-bead mid the crowd of nobler globes, 
 Our radiant king appears — and yet not king, 
 A loftier rules afar. Behold ! he moves ! 
 Obedient to the fiat — nought must rest ; 
 He moves, and serves another ! With swift course, 
 His giant, blazing bulk, ploughs yielding space — 
 He moves, and, at his flaming chariot-wheels, 
 Draws the unconscious earth and planet- throng.* 
 
 We travel 'mid the spangled Milky-Way, 
 Companioned by a million brother-suns ; 
 For they too journey the cerulean waste ; 
 
 * For remarks on the discovery of our sun's proper motion in 
 space, and its presumed revolution around a great Central World, 
 see Appendix at the end of this volume. 
 
48 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 No world of all the hosts adorning heaven, 
 Though seeming fixed, but holdeth on its calm, 
 Eternal march thro' hushed infinitude. 
 And whither tend we on our dazzling course, 
 Sweeping, since Earth was born, among the stars ? 
 Some powerful centre draws us, some great land 
 In mystery veiled, some glory next to God's ; 
 But not one round the rapid sun hath traced 
 Since Adam walked the world. How vast the path ! 
 And yet 'tis Heaven's design, all Nature cries, 
 That, circle upon circle, earth should make, 
 In safety and in splendour, with her lord, 
 Around this distant globe. The flying angels 
 Pass us upon their way from that grand sphere ; 
 They circumnavigate the aerial sea ; 
 They mark new Edens bloom, old Edens fade, 
 World-populations rise, and fall extinct, 
 Then cross our path again, for nought to them 
 The long, long ages mortals shrink to name, 
 Counted by deathless eyes that never sleep, 
 On the great dial of eternity. 
 
 The Milky- Way, amidst whose stellar gems 
 Burns our own sun, thus moves thro' all its mass, 
 
THE CENTRAL SUN. 49 
 
 In concord and in music, watched by God. 
 Yes, motion saves us ; but for motion's law, 
 Suns would attract huge suns, howe'er remote, 
 And systems, in the round of ages, meet 
 Clashing with systems, till one chaos dire 
 Would whelm the lost, depopulated globes. 
 wondrous foresight of Creative Mind ! 
 world-towers built for sempiternal years ! 
 Grand, faultless engineering of the sky ! 
 
 Yet here, e'en here, the Almighty doth not close 
 The awful volume of his works, as done, 
 Doth not exclaim unto Creation's wave — 
 " Dash thou no further !" still the billows roll, 
 O'ervaulting bounds, all, all but infinite.* 
 Look through the windows of the Milky-Way 
 On space beyond — outstretching, yawning space ! 
 Faint on the bosom of the azure Night, 
 Ye ken star-islands — other Milky- Ways, 
 
 * Argue as we mav, we are driven to the conclusion that 
 Nature must have a termination somewhere. That which has a 
 visible commencement must have a close. That which has solid 
 extension and weight cannot be infinite. There are but three 
 infinites — duration, space, and God. 
 D 
 
50 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Complete with all their suns. ( 5 ) There motion, too, 
 
 Marshalls the hosts of life-abounding spheres, 
 
 And sounds the trump of golden harmony. 
 
 Those systems move — 'round what ? — our sparkling mass 
 
 Of older suns, our mightier astral scheme — 
 
 Move in vast orbits thought e'en fails to trace, 
 
 Consuming ages baffling human dreams. 
 
 Thus is gigantic Nature held and swayed, 
 E'en as a steed that scours the level plain, 
 Guided by some strong rider. Balanced all, 
 The shining glories journey, smooth and calm, 
 Seeking some far-off centre. Eeason ne'er 
 May grasp the great conception ; Faith herself, 
 Though science paints the wonder to the soul, 
 Bright as the lightning's flash, recoils and bows 
 Beneath the weight of this tremendous truth. 
 Where is the Central World, the king of worlds ? 
 The capital of Nature's vast domains ? 
 The battlements whence angels may look out, 
 Watching the universe thro' all its bounds ; 
 The royal tower whence heaven's swift heralds fly 
 On missions to far worlds ; the huge, bright sun, 
 Poised at the point where gravitation dwells, 
 
 
PARADISE. 51 
 
 And ruling thus all other subject suns, 
 And lighting, like a glorious torch, the way 
 To God's bright Eden, lying still beyond. 
 
 It is no dream ; to mortal vision plain 
 This monarch globe exists. Keen science points 
 Her truth-revealing wand to Northern skies, 
 And 'mid the Pleiads shows the giant star, 
 Whose power, wide issuing, sways the universe. ( 6 ) 
 Thou blest Alcyone ! thou favoured sphere ! 
 Most beauteous 'mid the beautiful on high, 
 The glory of all glories visible ! 
 Raising within us feelings born of awe, 
 And dreams of power and dread magnificence. 
 
 That globe in hugeness mocks our labouring thought, 
 Tho' dwarfed by™distance to a golden spark. 
 Pale scholar ! lone enthusiast ! worldling ! come ! 
 Meek child of God ! proud bigot ! sceptic ! come ! 
 Searcher for truth, blind error's wandering dupe, 
 Soaring or grovelling spirits ! come, come ! 
 Lift in the midnight's calm no doubting eye ; 
 Though dumb, eternal silence wrap the pole, 
 And no wing'd form, to mortal sense, may glide 
 d2 
 
52 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Down the long beam to tell the secret here, 
 This very world shall greet thee, mirror'd true 
 On thy small dying eye, while neighbouring suns- 
 Add radiance to the scene. gaze, and thrill, 
 Ponder, exult, that near those clustering worlds. 
 Or calm within the circle they infold, 
 Thus in the midst of God's creation placed, 
 As suited unto seats so vast, august, 
 The immortal regions of delight may bloom, 
 The paradise of angels and of souls. ( 7 ) 
 
 There are some secrets never to be told 
 To spirits while on earth. 'Tis God's high will, 
 A veil inpenetrable as the dark 
 Which hides futurity from mortal view, 
 Should shroud the holy mysteries of that state 
 Of full beatitude and perfect peace. 
 The finite cannot grasp, in mortal hour,- 
 The immortal and the infinite ; yet soul, 
 While in its narrow, crumbling house of clay, 
 May reverent ponder, search, conjecture, hope, 
 See by the light Truth's hallowed records lend, 
 Track Nature's laws that point from earth to God, 
 And mount on wings of thought to highest Heaven. 
 
PARADISE. 53 
 
 The Central Sun is but a lamp that lights, 
 With smiles from God, the Eden-land of souls, ( 8 ) 
 And other suns illume the immense abodes, 
 Within those spaces of eternal rest. 
 what a scene of splendour ! suns above, 
 And suns below — no night, no winter there, 
 And one great sun the monarch of the rest — 
 Orbs with more richness, softness in their glow, 
 Than suns shed here, and beaming evermore. 
 But the weak hand that fain would paint in shade 
 One glory-scene, drops paralysed, and still 
 The lip must cry to mysteries unrevealed, 
 How dark is reason, and how frail is dust ! 
 
 Enough for man to know, God's chosen Land, 
 The garden walked by holiness and joy, 
 Lies guarded and surrounded thus by suns, 
 The radiant centre of all spirit-life, 
 In the grand centre of material things — 
 Vast globes of finer matter, for the feet 
 Of forms ethereal, whence keen spirit-eyes 
 May range unchecked Creation's utmost bounds, 
 And drink in rapture from a million worlds. 
 Vast globes of finer matter ; for our God 
 
54 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Hath promised us new bodies clothing soul, 
 
 And these demand a bright material home ; 
 
 Vast globes of finer matter, robed by Heaven 
 
 In vesture more magnificent, sublime, 
 
 More sumptuous than arrays all other globes ; 
 
 Ay, Nature, handmaid of eternity, 
 
 Throws her rich spell o'er all the mighty scene. 
 
 If valleys charm the gaze in our small star, 
 
 And live-green woods, and flower-marged crystal 
 
 streams, 
 And mountains that hold converse with the clouds, 
 How must they ravish in that vast abode, 
 Created to yield bliss to perfect Mind ? 
 Where immortality hath brightly passed 
 From Spirit to great Nature ; whose attire 
 Is woven of a web that wears not out ; 
 Whose gorgeous hues, like soul, can never fade ; 
 While beauty's seal, affixed by God's own hand, 
 Glows on each object never touched by Time — 
 Time that will crush all fair sublunar things ; 
 Change and Decay, earth's dark unpitying lords, 
 And iron-footed Euin, there unknown. 
 
 thou supernal seat, beyond this world 
 
PARADISE. 55 
 
 Of crime and suffering ! tost by tempests here, 
 And dreading shipwreck on the rocks of woe, 
 How blest to lift our gaze, and think of thee ! 
 Now as the shades fall round me, and hushed Night 
 Arches the world with clearest crystalline, 
 I'll stand on this hill's slope, and musing watch 
 The Pleiad glories slowly tremble forth ; 
 There, there, they shine ! how beautiful, how pure, 
 In ether's calm ! white finger-posts that point 
 To thee, Elysium ! fretted silver gates 
 Opening from outer worlds, blest seats, to ye ! 
 How the soul leapeth up, to feel, to think, 
 'Tis no vain dream, but haply precious truth, 
 That God has hung yon Pleiad orbs on high, 
 Poised in the depths of his grand universe, 
 To guard and light thee, blessed Eden-home ! 
 How should those stars attract and charm us here, 
 Beyond all others ! ancient, hallowed lights ! 
 Their office how transcendent, how august ! 
 I view their tranquil beauty with strong love, 
 And passionate longing, and heaven-lifting awe. 
 Those stars seem distant Pisgahs looking o'er 
 God's happy promised Eden, reached not yet ; 
 We see their shining tops, shall pass them soon. 
 
56 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 To push this clay aside — why fear ? why shrink ? 
 Then shall we mount, like flying thought, and haste 
 Up yon bright beams — the very beams that join, 
 With silvery bridges, our small world to them. 
 scene beyond ! no pen of fire can paint ! 
 Dear paradise that fill'st our longing dreams ! 
 Rest to the weary, balm-land to the soul, 
 Home of sweet meetings to long-severed hearts ! 
 All soul can do while darkly journeying here, 
 Is still to pray, to hope, to sigh for thee. 
 
57 
 
 THE IMMORTALS; 
 
 OB, 
 
 GLIMPSES OF PARADISE. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 • Crime shadows earth, and crime with hideous front 
 
 May walk some worlds that hang most loyelily, 
 
 Crowned with a glory, in the virgin sky, 
 
 As nought impure could stain their radiant orbs. 
 
 Virtue and vice must hold divided reign, 
 
 And smiles and tears must chequer mortal lots, 
 
 Till the weird ringers of eternity 
 
 Sound out a knell — the knell of perished Time. 
 
 Justice exclaims, with stern, impartial voice, 
 Be there a sphere of bliss, there too must gloom 
 A place of woe for spirits steeped in guilt — 
 Some dolorous, dim, and melancholy land, 
 
58 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Where Falsehood, Cruelty, and ruthless Hate, 
 Impiety, and Murder, shall sit down, 
 And wail in vain, and feel the gnawing tooth 
 Of keen remorse that ever eats their hearts ; 
 And weep, if spirits weep, hot tears in vain, 
 And stretch their hands to Mercy far away, 
 And curse the universe that goodness made, 
 And curse their dreary immortality. 
 
 What varied pictures ancient scholiasts draw 
 Of suffering souls, and that dark realm of pain ! 
 Some threaten penal fire — ethereal fire ; 
 Not earth's gross element, for this could ne'er 
 Touch the fine spirit, which can glide thro' flame, 
 Live on the surface of the torrid sun, 
 And play with red-tongued lightning. Some would 
 
 place 
 Spirits within sealed caverns of the world, 
 And bind them for eternity in chains, 
 Not knowing their quick essence can pervade 
 Material things, and, unresisted, pass 
 Through the dull matter that might hedge them in. 
 Some have deemed fleshly tortures, such as work 
 Our living substance agony, will prove 
 
BEYOND THE WORLDS. 59 
 
 The lot of the condemned in outer gloom ; 
 As if the screw, the rack, could pierce with pain 
 The subtile, airy spirit. Mind, 'tis mind ! 
 There lies the sorrow of the dark undone, 
 There is the seat of pangs unspeakable ; 
 Mind is the rack, fire, torture — mind is hell. 
 
 But where, oh, where may this sad region be ? 
 Is it, as some have thought, around, above, 
 In the deep, beautiful, and tranquil sky, 
 Where walk the worlds in majesty, and float 
 The gold-wing' d angels ? — What ! shall joy be near 
 Suffering and anguish ? must the blest still pass 
 Among the wretched, and behold their pangs, 
 Until they sorrow with the sorrowful, 
 And learn to weep amid their blessedness ? 
 Nay, ether's world-gemm'd region is not hell ; 
 'Tis all too calmly radiant, all too pure 
 For black impurity, too brightly full 
 Of sanctity for fallen, guilty souls, 
 And breathes, through all its holy, spangled depths, 
 Too much of loveliness, too much of God. 
 
 Then where that ebon- shored and doleful realm ? 
 
60 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 No answer comes ; we only dare to dream 
 A God hath placed it far in outer depths, 
 Far from the beauty of glad-peopled worlds, 
 That no black shadow from those gulfs may fall 
 Across the eternal summer of the sky ; 
 No wail may reach to mar the music sweet 
 Of silver- chiming spheres and angel harps. 
 A realm, methinks, where utter darkness reigns, 
 Save when across the abyss wan gleams are cast 
 From the far worlds of cheerfulness and life, 
 And serve by edging faint the sable gloom, 
 To heighten desolation, and to throw 
 A deeper horror over horror's shades. 
 
 Heaven thus a barrier sets between bright worlds 
 And the sad dwellers of those drear domains ; 
 And save the first created, mightier souls, 
 Who fell from glory, and have power to range 
 Star-sprinkled space, none pass the appointed bound. 
 They gaze across the gulf, and faintly see 
 The worlds of light with choicest blessings crowned ; 
 They know what scenes of passing beauty grace 
 The favoured, sunny planets, once their home ; 
 How life goes on, and hope and love smile there ; 
 
THE MEETING OF THE IMMORTALS. 61 
 
 Hope that must never cheer those dark abodes, 
 
 Love that hath turned to fierce and fiery hate. 
 
 Then oft they mark angelic beings sweep 
 
 Far azure fields, on heaven's high missions bent ; 
 
 And they will watch them on their sparkling paths, 
 
 Winging tow'rd suns and beauteous planet-worlds, 
 
 Or rising gorgeous, like rich spires of light, 
 
 Up to the Central Paradise of God. 
 
 Thus gazing, sighing, reft of Mercy's smile, 
 
 Each pierced by torturing thoughts of vanished joy, 
 
 They battle with eternity and woe, 
 
 Yet heaven across the gulf still, still in view — 
 
 And this is mind's sharp suffering, spirit's hell. 
 
 But drop the veil, nor further seek to know ; 
 
 Pray rather, curious mortal, that thy soul, 
 
 Saved by Heaven's love and mercy, ne'er may find 
 
 That country's mournful shore ; but, pardon'd, pass 
 
 Death's sable flood to light, and peace, and joy. 
 
 A gathering of the Immortals. One vast course, 
 Since launched upon their bright, harmonious way, 
 The suns and planets had achieved in space, 
 Bound the grand sun of suns — the Central World ;( 9 ) 
 To celebrate this mighty finished year 
 
62 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Of God's great universe, the angels came : 
 
 They, the created, came to voice the praise 
 
 Of Him the Uncreate, Unborn, Unmade, 
 
 From whom all sprang, in whom all centering live, 
 
 Who, lord of matter, walketh on the stars, 
 
 As they were steps — high steps of ruby fire, 
 
 Piled up the infinite to glory's throne. 
 
 From pathless depths far-journeying myriads flew ; 
 From gorgeous constellations, where their eyes 
 Had peered into the beautiful and strange, 
 Spirits of knowledge gathered. Fields of life, 
 Burning in orbs that edge the Milky- Way, 
 Like drops of gold on Nature's flowing robe, 
 Sent guardian- angels in long glittering troops. 
 Seraphs of love were hurrying on the wing, 
 Their eyes all softness, and their hearts all flame ; 
 And grand Archangels, with their tranquil brows, 
 Moved, like new gods, among the humbler host — 
 Moved to the scene in radiance of their own, 
 Awful in dignity, as great in power, 
 Thoughtful vicegerents of Omnipotence. 
 
 mighty concourse unconceived by clay ! 
 
THE MEETING OF THE IMMORTALS. 63 
 
 Assemblage of the dazzling, holy, pure ! 
 The universe of matter, dim, how dim, 
 To the proud universe of deathless mind ! 
 No earthly image might set forth that scene 
 Of matchless splendour, blinding loveliness. 
 Number beyond all number, mocking thought ! 
 The twilight mass of rustling forest-leaves 
 That shade a continent ; the sands that heap 
 Earth's ocean-shores, all counted into grains ; 
 These were as nought to that immense array 
 Met there in flashing glory. Angels crowned 
 With pristine power and virtue, foremost stood, 
 They who first sprang from nothingness to life, 
 Ne'er humbled by communion with our dust. 
 And myriads, shining myriads, grouped afar, 
 Some proudly thoughtful, others gently fair, 
 Some veiling radiance, some so purely bright, 
 They seemed but fashioned of white, burning beams. 
 Line followed line, on circle circle rose, 
 Far as the eye could sweep the space around, 
 Far as the eye could plunge in depths below, 
 Far as the eye might pierce the blue above. 
 
 Great mass of Spirit-essence ! boundless sea 
 
64 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Heaving with life, and foamed with restless wings, 
 
 Sweeping and melting in the infinite ! 
 
 As sunset paves our ocean-tracts with gold, 
 
 A soft, red splendour lay upon that floor 
 
 Of outspread wings, and as they moved they flashed, 
 
 With every quiver, glories more intense. 
 
 Oh ! thinking, yearning, loving throng of souls ! 
 
 And each undying bosom, in itself, 
 
 A heaven of aspiration, hope, and joy ! 
 
 Dust may not syllable the mighty hymn 
 That swelled from harps and voices of the blest. 
 They sang the wonders of creative power, 
 When God from gulfs of darkness called each sun, 
 And bade light permeate all the veins of space. 
 They sang His love and mercy that went forth, 
 Like rivers to refresh the thirsting worlds ; 
 That summoned them to consciousness and bliss — 
 Sparks from the fire of His divinity ; 
 The love that fills the globes with joyous life, 
 And clothes the sides of every wandering orb 
 With flowers, sweet Nature's garments. Love that turns 
 Hot vengeance from the worlds where mortals err, 
 And sheds down blessings thick as morning dew ; 
 
THE MEETING OF THE IMMORTALS. 65- 
 
 That giveth life to take it never more, 
 Dowering each soul with wealth of endless daysy 
 And crowning Virtue with a fadeless wreath, 
 Twined by the fingers of immortal joy. — 
 " For this," they cried, " beyond e'en power's display,' 
 Thou great Triune ! let all Creation lift 
 Its Yoice in gratitude, and hymn thy praise ! 
 Sound it around this wide, wide Eden-home ! 
 Sound it in each vast sun, in each small orb ! 
 Sound it throughout the fields of luminous space ! 
 Through the unstarr'd abysses, to the verge 
 Of sorrow's hopeless, melancholy land !" 
 
 It closed — that strain of choiring cherubim, 
 But still the notes swept floating through the blue,, 
 For quiverings e'en of feeble song on earth 
 Cease not, though mortals may believe they cease, 
 Thrilling deep space for ever. ( 10 ) That wide surge 
 Of heavenly music reached the neighbouring globes, 
 And their huge sides threw off vibrations soft : 
 It passed Orion, murmuring through his belt, 
 And lingered 'round Arcturus — brilliant world ! 
 And made his caverns vocal. Angels crossing 
 The pearl-orbed Milky Way, that sweet wave met, 
 And with acute perception drank the notes. 
 
66 
 
 The fiend, emerging from the gloom, which spread 
 Blackening behind the farthest bank of stars, 
 Checked by the sounds seraphic, hung awhile 
 Floating on stirless wing. The music woke 
 Dreams of a sinless past, of peace and bliss, 
 And through that hope-abandoned, blasted soul, 
 Shot arrows of keen torture. 
 
 Swiftly flies 
 The thought-wing'd light ; so sped the music-waves, 
 Till passing Saturn and enchanted Jove, 
 They quivered on our world. In many a vale, 
 Purple with flowers, on many a mountain-top 
 Kissed by the musky lips of wandering winds, 
 Angels, still bound to earth, that music heard : 
 Nought reached man's ear, but spirit's subtile sense 
 Caught every liquid sound and holy word. 
 They knew the aerial chant, the silvery tones 
 Which only lyres of seraphim could pour, 
 And, glowing with strong sympathy, they stood 
 Listening on tiptoe, shining arms outspread, 
 Their radiant faces tow'rd that distant world 
 Whence flowed the strains of sweetness, and their lips 
 Warbling in answer, on the rosy air, 
 The last linked words of that celestial song. 
 
67 
 
 THE IMMORTALS; 
 
 OK, 
 
 GLIMPSES OF PAKADISE, 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 While through the depths that heavenly music floats, 
 And the angelic crowds leave Eden-land, 
 Powers, guardian-angels, governors of suns, 
 Back hastening to the countless, distant worlds, 
 We fain, with hesitating hand, would trace 
 On poor humanity's dim, fleeting page, 
 Some attributes of Him who fashioned each 
 Immortal form, that glorious home of souls, 
 Whatever lives, and feels, exults, and thinks— 
 Great Architect of worlds, and lord of mind, 
 Walking the skies, Proprietor of all. 
 
 Thou who from, the cloud-topped pyramid 
 e2 
 
68 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Of lapsed eternity, look'st down on time 
 Sweeping its restless ages, our long past, 
 And our dark future's closely-curtained night, 
 To Thee one present ! — Conqueror of space ! 
 Unseen but felt thro' wide Creation's bounds ; 
 On earth, and in yon distant pallid star, 
 At the same moment ; moving mighty globes, 
 While passing gentle and harmonious laws, 
 By which the dew-drop rounds in Morning's eye ; 
 Listening the chant of angels swelling forth, 
 Music that fills the immensity of heaven, 
 Yet hearing, in thy mercy, whispered prayer 
 From Virtue in her mud- walled cottage here — 
 awful, yet benign, eternal King ! 
 How can weak clay on earth's low platform placed, 
 The soul within its crumbling house of flesh, 
 Look up to Thee, and dimly hope to know 
 Thy hallowed nature, and high government ? 
 What is our strength but frailty ? what our years 
 But dew-beads sparkling on life's morning grass, 
 Only for time's hot sun to drink them up ? 
 We soar, we hope, but conscious that the whole 
 Of Adam's race, and countless crowds that live 
 In yon star- systems powdering space with worlds, 
 
A SHADOW OF THE SUPREME. 69 
 
 Are in Thine eyes but as the insect-groups 
 
 That chirp in Summer's field. Yet, lord of Heaven ! 
 
 Thy mercy equals thine omnipotence, 
 
 Thy love bright-crowning both, or this poor dust 
 
 Dared not to lisp the glories of Thy name, 
 
 Or wing a thought up such stupendous height, 
 
 To reach the footstool of thy majesty. 
 
 Eternity of being ! how the soul 
 Staggers beneath the Atlantean load 
 Of that o'erwhelming vision ? — Prison'd here, 
 We strive in vain to grasp the limitless, 
 And from our ark of life send dreams abroad, 
 Like seeking doves, across the flood of years — 
 Seeking the olive-branch of deluged truth. 
 Eeason can pierce not the Cimmerian gloom, 
 Palling the dark beginning of our globe, 
 How shall she then, torch-lighted, comprehend 
 That which did ne'er begin? Thought, searching 
 
 Thought ! 
 The brute knows not, but angels share with man ; 
 Thought passes reason in her power of flight ; 
 We hail her as a swift, transcendent thing, 
 And now we send her, on strong eagle-plume, 
 
70 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Back o'er the gulf of great durations past, 
 To reach, if Thought can reach, the shadowy eld 
 Beyond the birth of time, when God alone 
 Looked out on shoreless space, and spake the word 
 In thunder — " I exist !" 
 
 Thought, fire-wing'd, flies, 
 Light's speed but tardy to her rushing course : 
 She hovers o'er the world, when chaos hushed 
 Its storms to calm, and Beauty's morning broke, 
 And man, new-formed, walked Eden's blissful shades,. 
 Eve an embodied sunbeam at his side. 
 She trembles through the depths of epochs gone, 
 Periods we dare not mete ; when brutes immense 
 Roamed, the sole lords of forest-belted earth, 
 And the long mountain-ranges, towering now, 
 Were built by insects labouring in the sea ; 
 And continents — ay, every clod we tread 
 Was animate in turn with wondrous life. 
 Then Deity looked on, and calmly watched 
 The slow progression of Creation's wheels, 
 Rolling adown thy road, Eternity ! 
 
 Again Thought starts upon her backward path ; 
 
A SHADOW OF THE SUPREME. 71 
 
 Beneath her spreads an incandescent world ; 
 Fearful the scene, yet Nature's God is there, 
 And binds the terror by unerring laws. — 
 Thought, still untired, doth urge her wondering way ; 
 She sees the earth, as sages well believe, 
 Diffused in primal elements through space ;* 
 A vapour unillumed, unformed, inert, 
 Ere the Almighty moved those waiting mists, 
 Breathed through their volume quick attraction's life, 
 And orbed the sun, and framed its beauteous train 
 Of lighted and life-bearing planet-spheres. 
 
 Can the winged, heavenly sorceress deeper pierce 
 The abysses of the darkling, awful past ? 
 Feeble, and trembling, and exhausted now, 
 
 * The Mosaic cosmogony will harmonise with all that science 
 intimates, as regards the immense antiquity of our planet, if we 
 admit, as most divines now admit, that the first verse in Genesis 
 allows an indefinite period to elapse between the beginning of all 
 things, and the last re-moulding and beautifying of the earth, 
 after those convulsions which preceded the human period. The 
 Almighty's fiat could have produced, of course, every orb at 
 once in perfect and finished beauty, but the geological history of 
 our own globe plainly indicates that here, at least, He has been 
 pleased to advance Nature to beauty and order slowly, step by step. 
 
72 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 She looks abroad, and, in the infinite, 
 
 Beholds no lamp of light, no forming star, 
 
 For e'en Orion, ancient son of heaven, 
 
 And mighty Sirius, have not yet begun 
 
 To sound their chimings to the stately march 
 
 Of Time, the pilgrim-giant. — One more sweep, 
 
 She sees a column of bright angels flash, 
 
 At God's high word, to life and loveliness, 
 
 And hears the rush of quick-expanding wings, 
 
 And hears their new-raised voices ring through heaven. 
 
 Still backward, and no angels cheer the void ; 
 
 Silence, with blind Duration, darkly walks 
 
 The interminable, lifeless waste of sky ; 
 
 And yet not lifeless, Thou, God ! art there, 
 
 Pervading all those worldless, ether-gulfs, 
 
 With secret power, and self-existent Mind, 
 
 And edging the wide wilderness of dark, 
 
 "With uncreated, everlasting light. 
 
 Thus God's great Being goes for ever back, 
 Dateless, eterne, unborn, and underived, 
 Filling the depths e'en Thought must fail to plumb ; 
 Depths on the brink of which poor Wisdom faints, 
 And bows her head, and in despair expires. 
 
A SHADOW OF THE SUPREME. 73 
 
 Omnipotence — 'tis Deity alone 
 Wields this great attribute. An angel's arm, 
 Though hurling lightning ; Satan's hellish might, 
 Though threatening worlds with ruin, are most frail, 
 Beside a power that, awful and unshared, 
 Admits no limit. Who shall image forth 
 The shadow of this substance ? catch one beam 
 Of this bright sun of all-compelling fire ? 
 Create — annihilate — what wonder there ! 
 It passeth clay to grasp the mighty thought. 
 A whisper thrills the void — " Arise and shine !" 
 And worlds of light and glory sparkle out, 
 And hang stupendous in the embracing air ; 
 Worlds passing changes thro' a million years, 
 Till forests, flowers, and living creatures, spring 
 In beauty from dead dust, obeying laws 
 That down the ages ceaseless music make. 
 O soul-astounding power of Nature's lord ! 
 Whose look lights up the dazzle of the sun, 
 Who reins the comet's wild fire-harness'd steeds, 
 Who guides each circling star, and in his hand 
 Holds the huge Nebulas in outer space, 
 Yet stoopeth to regard frail dying man — 
 Stoopeth to paint the lily of the field, 
 
74 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 And stretch his arm of kind protecting care 
 O'er the small, happy glowworm of the night. 
 
 All this o'erwhelms the finite, wondering mind, 
 And musing, proud Philosophy is dumb ; 
 But doubt not, though weak reason, staggering, reels ; 
 Did not such power exist, man ne'er had breathed, 
 No light had rained white beauty down the sky ; 
 Creation's chords would pour no dulcet notes ; 
 Space had no wandering spirits ; no grand worlds 
 Would sweep, with seas and mountains, 'round the sun, 
 But ancient Night had held eternal reign. 
 
 Omnipotence ! behold the earth we tread, 
 Mighty to us — to Thee a puny thing 
 Thy finger could arrest, thy breath blot out 
 From Glory's golden writing of the sky ! 
 Protect it — guide it on its solar road ! 
 Swathe it, Creation's babe, in fairest robes ! 
 'Tis all unworthy thy peculiar love, 
 Yet bless it with thy brightest mercy-smile, 
 Through the far waiting ages, yet to sweep, 
 And billow o'er its beauty. — Father ! God ! 
 Kegard us lowly creatures of its dust — 
 
 
A SHADOW OF THE SUPREME. 75 
 
 Lowly, yet shrining a mysterious fire, 
 
 More durable than that whose brilliance streams 
 
 From flame-encircled suns ; the last may fade 
 
 To cold dead ashes, as hoar, darkening Time 
 
 Breathes winter through creation, but the soul, 
 
 The spirit-essence, brightening, drinketh still 
 
 Beams from the uncreated fount of beams, 
 
 Dews from the morning of eternity, 
 
 That still is morn, and never climbs to day, 
 
 Nor fears the shadow of a coming Eve. 
 
 Omnipotence ! blest power to mercy linked, 
 The pillar of the resting universe ! 
 Oh ! what a solace to frail human hearts, 
 To turn from weakness, and repose on Thee ! 
 To know, when stricken down by vaunting death, 
 Thine arm of might can lift the spirit up, 
 Unwrecked amid the wreck of crushing years ; 
 Can gather, too, the fragments of the frame, 
 Though all dissolved, and mingled with the sod, 
 Or scattered to the vagrant winds of heaven ; 
 Joining once more, to that remoulded clay, 
 The undying, thinking, memoried, blissful soul. 
 
76 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Can God be every where ? the doubter cries ; 
 And as he views the rock-ribbed, ancient hills, 
 And travels with his eye the boundless heavens, 
 Silent as death through all their gulfs of blue, 
 He marketh nothing palpable to sense, 
 That speaks the mighty Ruler's presence there. 
 Does God then fill these seeming empty depths, 
 This dumb infinitude ? — he knows not how 
 A Being, though a spirit, can be here, 
 And in yon planet at the self-same hour, 
 Dividing thus the great eternal Mind, 
 And yet nor spent, nor weakened. Say, proud sage, 
 Dwell there not mysteries in the solid earth, 
 The dire volcano, the electric flash, 
 The ambient air, the palpitating sea, 
 And every painted flower that decks the Spring, 
 Thy reason cannot solve ? then wherefore doubt ? 
 Why disbelieve because frail, darkened soul 
 Can grasp not this exalted, wondrous truth — 
 God's ceaseless presence in his countless worlds ? 
 Let Deity forsake our smiling globe, 
 Guiding no more Creation's rushing wheels, 
 Those wheels would stop, and Beauty ne'er again 
 Bare her white bosom to the universe : 
 
A SHADOW OF THE SUPREME. / 
 
 Melodious Order would unstring her lyre ; 
 While Buin, with a loose, ungoverned rein, 
 Would lash his steeds, and drive his iron car, 
 Mid desolated worlds, till Chaos sat 
 Lord of infinitude, and not a God. 
 
 Mortal ! survey yon sun — consider well 
 Its strong attractive power diffused through space y 
 Unseen, yet every where, pervading globes, 
 Drawing, supporting, and controlling all — 
 Behold resemblance here, though weak and faint, 
 To God's great presence, like an influence, spread 
 Through all the realms of matter and of life — 
 A searching presence nothing can escape, 
 Filling high heaven, while reaching humble earth, 
 Voiced by the thunder, whispered by the breeze, 
 Glassed on the ocean, and impressed on flowers ; 
 In widest spaces, and in narrowest homes, 
 Amidst the angels in far, dazzling depths — 
 Cathedrals of the ancient, holy sky — 
 And in the dungeon where no sun can shine, 
 And Woe her galling fetters bathes with tears. 
 
 The grateful Seasons, in their varied round, 
 
78 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Proclaim in music some supporting power 
 
 Presiding o'er their changes. Doth not Spring 
 
 Don her green forest-robes, and on her hair 
 
 Mount her bright diadem of jewel-flowers, 
 
 And walk rejoicing the dew'd mountain-tops, 
 
 Because Divinity's reviving smile 
 
 Is glowing on the world ? — Warm Summer faints, 
 
 But all her rills in coolest crystal run, 
 
 And all her woods their gayest livery wear, 
 
 And all her birds sing happy jubilee, 
 
 As conscious God is near to bless his works. 
 
 Bland Autumn, with her bounteous, mellow store, 
 
 Sits on the russet steep, and joyous shakes 
 
 Her tresses o'er the plains of ripened gold, 
 
 And, with a rich-voiced eloquence, attests 
 
 The Giver of all good is present there. 
 
 E'en Winter, with his gelid, torpid streams, 
 
 And feathery snows that cloak the shivering waste, 
 
 Each tree a skeleton, gay flowers in dust, 
 
 Cries, God alone could plan such happy rest 
 
 For worn Creation's heart, His tireless care, 
 
 And fostering spirit, watching all the scene. 
 
 Wide Nature too, through all her conscious bounds, 
 
 
A SHADOW OF THE SUPKEME. 79 
 
 Thrilling, exultant, weareth for her God 
 
 Aspects sublime, or brightly beautiful. 
 
 It is not fancy that proud Ocean spreads 
 
 Its azure bosom to the bending sky, 
 
 And sounds its trumpet of hoarse-booming waves, 
 
 Its everlasting trumpet blown by storms, 
 
 In praise of its Creator — fruitless praise, 
 
 If that pervading Spirit were not near, 
 
 Nor heeded its resounding, billowy hymn, 
 
 Nor gazed, well-pleased, upon its mighty face. 
 
 The valley, like a dimple, laughs on earth, 
 
 Or, stealing out from shadow, coyly opes 
 
 Its many- coloured mantle to the sun — 
 
 Mantle wove deftly by the cunning hand 
 
 Of Nature, sweet embroiderer, all inlaid 
 
 With golden flowers, and edged with silver rills. 
 
 The living forest clothes the mountain's slope, 
 
 Crowns the rough crag with beauty, and makes green 
 
 The horror of the dizzy precipice — 
 
 These put on loveliness, and solemn pomp, 
 
 Beneath the wide-beholding eye of God. 
 
 Eiver, and rill, bright lake, and heathy steep, 
 
 Reflect the smiles He sheds upon our world ; 
 
 And if Divinity can draw a joy, 
 
80 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 And angels joy, from such enchanting scenes, 
 Shall He not bless them still, and still be there ? 
 
 When sunset, with warm waves of glory, floods 
 The Western ridges, and darts scarlet lines 
 From a hot centre, out on every side, 
 And, beautifully artful, hangs with fringe, 
 Torridly brilliant, every nearer cloud, 
 And every far one tips with orange light, 
 And turns the greenest groves, the bluest streams, 
 To waving amber, and to running flame, 
 Earth, heaven, the while, one blended, grand display 
 Of indescribable and crimson pomp ; 
 None but a God from light's pure fount could call 
 Such hues of wondrous splendour — hues that spread 
 For Nature's lord their gorgeous paradise ; 
 And all the West seems conscious, with its wealth 
 Of opals, rubies, and its melted gold, 
 That Deity, though present in all worlds, 
 Now, with peculiar glory, walks our own. 
 
 But wait Night's solemn coming ; mark yon dome, 
 To human vision built above our globe, 
 Adorned with chequer-work of palest gems ; 
 
A SHADOW OF THE SUPREME. 81 
 
 There science sees one boundless field of life, 
 
 Of glowing matter, and of active mind. 
 
 Do not yon moving, multitudinous hosts, 
 
 Like seraphs with their harps, whose strings are fire, 
 
 Pour thro' the liquid calm a holy hymn 
 
 To Deity who treads the azure paths, 
 
 Around them and among them ? — Eeel they not, 
 
 In all their luminous and wide- spread choir, 
 
 A rapture at His presence, lighting up 
 
 Their lamps of silver, quenchless, soft and pure, 
 
 To grace the hallowed festival of Him, 
 
 The eternal Bridegroom of the Universe ? 
 
 Whose glory, flashing through the skyey halls, 
 
 Illumes, and is reflected from their brows, 
 
 Himself ubiquity, Himself their life, 
 
 Himself distinct, yet every where diffused, 
 
 Ruling their spangled legions evermore. 
 
 The closing Attribute that lifteth high, 
 And crowns with splendor e'en Divinity, 
 Amid whose rays all others shrink and pale, 
 As stars, though still existent, flee before 
 The bright, ascending sun ; an attribute 
 
82 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 That yields to earth all blessings earth can crave, 
 
 And smiles on all existence in all worlds, 
 
 But chiefly pours warm showers of mercy down 
 
 On that waste wilderness — the heart of man ; 
 
 This Attribute — this holy, issuing fire, 
 
 "Which burns, but ne'er consumes, is boundless love ! 
 
 There are who, narrow'd by a narrow creed, 
 View all things through a cloud of sullen gloom, 
 Till beauty grows deformity, and light 
 Seems darkness to their mental jaundiced eye. 
 Mistaking Heaven's high Eecord breathing hope, 
 And Christ's pure, gentle teachings full of love, 
 They image God a stern, remorseless king, 
 Who, frowning on the universe He made, 
 Permitteth evil to prevail o'er good. — 
 Come, pale-eyed trembler ! who dost shrink and 
 
 mourn, 
 Deeming it true philosophy to sigh ; 
 come, and ponder well God's beauteous works, 
 Love's emanations, and reflecting full 
 The Eternal Mind in their unerring glass — 
 And say if thou canst read, imprinted there 
 Terror, and wrath, and dire austerity ; 
 
A SHADOW OF THE SUPREME. 83 
 
 And say if man must bend in abject dread, 
 Weave 'round his spirit, like the reptile worm, 
 A web of torpid gloom, and hug despair. 
 
 A Summer landscape — 'mid the hush of noon 
 Sunshine is clothing, with a vest of beams, 
 Listless, reposing Nature ; quiet's spell 
 Soothes her great heart, as though it scarcely beat, 
 Full of luxurious, dreamy happiness. 
 Deepening that quiet, softest rustlings float 
 From the near forest's dark-green, twinkling leaves ; 
 You hear the drip of rills that slide and play 
 From stone to stone, adown the mountain's side, 
 Scattering themselves in foam through very joy, 
 And eager haste to reach the glen below, 
 To kiss the waiting flowers ; while sleepy birds 
 Low chirp in shady coverts, and the bees 
 Hum slumbrous music-language, as they drowse 
 From flower to flower, and sip their nectar-wine. 
 Nature, all living things, seem wed to bliss, 
 Half fainting with the happiness they feel : 
 And e'en the clouds that whitely fleck the blue, 
 Linger, entranced and calm, above the hills., 
 As if they shared the general peace and joy. 
 f2 
 
84 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 'Tis here conviction presses on the soul 
 That no malignant, no stern, cruel power 
 Doth sway the jewelled sceptre of the world; 
 But earth and heaven, through all their width and depth, 
 Cry with a trumpet-voice, high-raised and sweet, 
 That God is love, surveys His works in love, 
 He the one mighty circle drawn 'round all, 
 And that one circle strong-embracing love. 
 
 No scene, no creature, spite of partial ill, 
 But shares the great Creator's wide-spread smile : 
 E'en deserts have their riches in the well, 
 The camel and the palm ; volcanoes' sides 
 Are decked with flowers, and purple with the grape ; 
 The South holds luxury's horn ; the North can yield 
 A wild, rough pleasure to its shivering tribes ; 
 The Aurora lights them, and the rein-deer sweeps, 
 Wafting them like swift spirits. All that man 
 Can well desire, he grasps on this rich globe ; 
 All he deems good and fair, kind Heaven supplies, 
 And e'en for his diseases Art can find 
 A cure provided in the strengthening spring, 
 Or generous, healing plant. The wildest beast, 
 The timid bird, the insect, and the worm, 
 
 ) 
 
A SHADOW OF THE SUPREME. 85 
 
 The finny darter of the watery depths — 
 Each is provision'd, guarded, each enjoys, 
 Through bounteous providence, its gift of life — 
 Is this an angry monarch's vengeful plan, 
 Breathing a blast of evil 'round the world ? 
 Or kindness of a God who rules in love ? 
 
 Man from his birth-hour yields unceasing proof 
 Of heaven's benevolence, and watchful care ; 
 Ay, every portion of his wondrous frame, 
 The agile limb, the fine-drawn, mystic nerve, 
 Each sense conveying to the prisoned mind 
 The outer glory of material things — 
 Fair shape, sweet sounds, the countless hues of flowers, 
 And the rich changing world of woven light, 
 With all the pictures of magnificence, 
 The grand, the lovely, painted on the brain ; 
 These, like a holy chant of being, rise, 
 Whose burden is God's love — a love that framed 
 A mortal creature wonderful as man. 
 
 What guards the infant in its helpless hour, 
 That frailest blossom on the tree of life ? 
 What yieldeth strength to manhood, that his arm 
 
86 THE IMMOTITALS. 
 
 May garner in the fruits of affluent earth, 
 And shield the beings dear unto his heart ? 
 And, oh, when age makes frail the stalwart limb, 
 Dropping its snows upon the stooping head, 
 What cheers the sinking sense, and sheddeth light 
 Deep in the soul as dimmer grows the sun, 
 Breathing meek resignation's hallowed calm ? 
 'Tis God's supporting, never-failing love. 
 Like a soft balmy wind, or fruitful rain, 
 Designed for all, His bounty gladdens earth. 
 On every side is love — each height, each depth, 
 From grand archangels to weak, dying man, 
 From man to motes that sport in Summer's beam, 
 His mighty love o'ershadows, blesses all. 
 E'en pains and woes afflict us, but to wean 
 The heart too fondly clinging to the world ; 
 And death we shrink from, as a cruel law, 
 Ending all pleasure, is by love designed 
 The bridge to pass our spirits o'er the flood, 
 The tossing flood of stormy, changeful time ; 
 The opening door to let out waiting soul, 
 So she may issue from close darkness here, 
 To walk the sunny paradise of God. 
 
 
87 
 
 THE IMMORTALS; 
 
 OR, 
 
 GLIMPSES OF PARADISE. 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 Of all the forms of loveliness that move 
 Beside the streams of life, or wreathe their hair 
 With amaranths blooming in Elysian vales, 
 No spirit equals in pure, touching grace, 
 The soft-eyed angel, Mercy. Where on earth 
 Might searcher find 'mid all that charms our gaze, 
 Aught so enchanting, bright, and beautiful, 
 As that ethereal and love-beaming face ? 
 Aught throning mind like that high, pensive brow ? 
 Aught full of pathos as those yearning eyes, 
 That turn from dazzling joy to seek distress, 
 And weep for others' woe ? — Her parted lips, 
 Her very wings, while resting by her side, 
 
88 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Though silent, seem to breathe heart-language sweet. 
 
 And tremble with deep feeling. Like that tree, 
 
 Low stooping in our world, when feet approach,* 
 
 She bends all sensitive at Sorrow's step ; 
 
 And sighs will shake her nature, as the wind 
 
 Doth rock the aspen's cradle of thick leaves : 
 
 Yet Mercy is not sad, but flushed with hope ; 
 
 Pillowed on lofty trust, she feels a joy 
 
 E'en in her seeming grief, and stands in heaven 
 
 The beautiful, the courted, and the loved, 
 
 A sunny iris round her golden head. 
 
 And what bright Mercy's office ? through the worlds 
 She speeds at large, and bears heaven's gifts of love ; 
 To God, though merciful, she still would plead, 
 That crime may pardon find. She stoops and weeps 
 Above the two-edged sword that Justice draws, 
 And prays it may not fall. 'Tis hers to fly 
 From system unto system, race to race, 
 Seeking where darkness, wrong, and misery dwell, 
 Mourning for suffering, melting over woe, 
 Then, graving on her heart, as some blest page, 
 
 * A species of Mimosa found in Arabia. 
 
 
THE ANGEL OF MERCY. 89 
 
 The gentler history of humanity, 
 
 She bears the touching record back to heaven, 
 
 Drawing from eyes celestial pitying tears. 
 
 'Twas now her task to visit a small star 
 Hung near its sun, far down the Milky-Way — 
 An humble world, and lost to common gaze, 
 Among the loftier systems, mightier globes, 
 That crowd life-teeming space ; a little sphere, 
 That, like a fire-fly, humm'd its shining course 
 Amidst the gorgeous woods of countless worlds ; 
 Great to the boastful beings it contained, 
 But Oh, a speck of dust upon the robe 
 Of vast Creation — dust if swept away, 
 No heaven-wide gazer would its absence mark : 
 A world, though seeming old, of briefest date 
 Beside the Pleiad glories, or the globes 
 Circling gigantic Sirius ; yet a world 
 Favoured of God — a spot most bright and fair, 
 A blooming garden in the waste of sky, 
 The choicest flower in Nature's varied wreath — 
 A land where centering met all beauty, grace, 
 All the sublimities and forms of life, 
 Scattered through other spheres ; as if a lens 
 
90 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 The Spirit of Creation o'er it held, 
 
 Gathering each matchless feature, burning, there. 
 
 It was a world where angels, gliding down 
 The skyey r<5ad, oft loved to light and rest ; 
 For streams more purely ran, and valleys spread 
 With richer verdure, in that distant globe. 
 Who loveth God, loves all His beauteous works ; 
 For what is beauty on wide Nature stamp'd, 
 But well-pleased Deity's embodied smile ? 
 So angels gloried in that favoured Earth, 
 And only marvelled Man was dull and blind ; 
 That he, begirt by choicest sights and sounds, 
 And cheered by hopes of immortality, 
 Went sighing o'er its surface. Mole-like man ! 
 Closing his eyes on truth's broad- shining sun, 
 And burrowing under ground in error's dark, 
 The outer universe, the spirit- sphere, 
 All unregarded, nothing to his soul. 
 Oh, well might Mercy long to visit Earth ! 
 Well might her pitying spirit mourn to see 
 Those canker spots on Being's lovely flower, 
 And ask to sweep them out ! her soul would dwell 
 On Nature's beauty and man's sorrows here, 
 
THE ANGEL OF MERCY. 91 
 
 Soothe where she could not heal, and pray a God 
 To banish ill's dark train from world so fair. 
 
 The sun wheeled near the horizon's glimmering brim, 
 Not lifting yet his forehead hot and flushed, 
 To shine down India's valley, when, beam-crowned, 
 Mercy alighted on high Himmaleh. 
 The lofty mount she trod was fluttering soft 
 With Morning's rosy fire, but still its feet 
 Lay in thick shadow, like a dying saint, 
 Half lingering in the world, and half in heaven. 
 
 The Angel gazed, and as she gazed, what change 
 Flashed upon Nature ! — Up the Day-god sprang, 
 And wide Creation, startled by his eye, 
 Flung off her leaden slumbers. Every hill 
 Arose rejoicing, like a tower of beams, 
 And every tree, where waking birds piped out, 
 Seemed as a lyre soft-touched by harpist Morn, 
 Kinging with fairy music ; white cascades, 
 Leaping from gloom, like happy captives freed, 
 Answered amid their wild and foamy joy, 
 Bass to the silver treble of the rills. 
 A living freshness breathed from out the lips 
 
92 THE IMMOBTALS. 
 
 Of ancient Earth, and steeped the crystal sky ; 
 As if great Nature's youth, with opening light, 
 Came back once more in tender gloriousness, 
 Giving to all things grandeur's, beauty's spell, 
 Embracing all things in its glowing arms. 
 
 From Northern hills the angel glided South, 
 Then floated thoughtfully on winnowing wings. 
 Oh ! what a land of wonders charmed her gaze, 
 Her keen eye gathering all the landscape in, 
 From tree'd Cabool to Coromandel's shore ! 
 She traced that mighty king of worshipped waves, 
 Ganges that proudly trails his tawny length, 
 Watering a continent of palms and flowers. 
 She saw the Brahmin 'neath that holy tree, 
 The wide-spread Banian by Nerbudda's tide, 
 Musing, as mused his sires ere Christ was born. 
 She saw the twilight woods that Eastward sweep — 
 Forests unpruned since Earth was clad in green, 
 Where roamed the elephant, the lord of brutes, 
 Lacking but reason's force to equal man. 
 She tracked, with eyes refreshed, the long rich plains 
 Of famed Bahar, where Nature from her horn 
 Scatters her wealth of flowers, and luscious fruits. 
 
THE ANGEL OF MERCY. 93 
 
 In many a stream, and sky-pure fount, she saw, 
 With piercing vision, grains of richest gold, 
 And every precious gem by Beauty prized : 
 While oft pagodas towered 'mid cypress groves, 
 Their burnished points thrown up, in Morning's beam, 
 Like hopes that flash o'er grief. Then swept her eye 
 Down the long coast with tufted cocoas fringed, 
 Where proud old Ocean, a strong giant, lay 
 Guarding this hoary land of ancient fame, 
 Sounding an anthem at its royal gates, 
 Proclaiming Ind the favourite of the sun, 
 Wealth's tiar'd queen, the orient paradise. 
 
 Alas ! this land so sumptuous and so rich, 
 'Tis but a dazzling sepulchre of soul, 
 Where wisdom, truth, and virtue, corpses lie. 
 The sun is radiant in rejoicing heaven, 
 But starless midnight black on spirit rests. 
 See the grim monster, Superstition, stalk, 
 With iron hoof, and glittering, ghastly eye ! 
 His foul touch numbs, his pestilential breath 
 Withers up sickening soul. Dark age on age, 
 His fiery march hath crushed the Hindoo world. 
 Ye hideous rites of Siva ! well might shame 
 
94 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Cover with fire her forehead's taintless white, 
 And momentary sorrow, with sharp pang, 
 Touch her celestial nature. Oh ! to see 
 Souls meant to soar, advance in wisdom's walks, 
 So sunk, debased, so crime-enthralled and lost, 
 Dragging, degraded, error's clanking chains, 
 God's image from their natures all erased — 
 Wonder and horror thrilled her anguished heart ; 
 She could not sigh, or vent her grief in tears, 
 But, mounting from the sad and ghastly scene, 
 Leant on a silvery cloud, and, arms outstretched, 
 Prayed there, as fervid angels only pray, 
 That Satan's legions might resign their reign 
 O'er prostrate spirits they had swayed so long ; 
 That Mind would light her torch, and Truth unscale 
 The eyes of Error in this Pagan world ; 
 That happiness and virtue might descend, 
 And strew sweet flowers where coiled the scorpion, 
 
 crime, 
 And richest Ind be poor in soul no more. 
 
 Not ours to trace that angel's varied flight 
 O'er Tropic Isles, where man, the savage still, 
 Turns Eden into hell : to mark her course 
 
THE ANGEL OF MERCY. 95 
 
 Through wide Cathay,* that strange and wondrous land, 
 
 That garden rich, that busy hive of souls, 
 
 But where black Cruelty digs million graves. 
 
 Many a broad waste, and cloud- topped mountain peak, 
 
 And many a river's blue meandering wave, 
 
 Her wings went silvering o'er. Cashmere's bright lakes, 
 
 And bowers of roses stocked with nightingales, 
 
 Whose ceaseless songs, so mellow, clear, and pure, 
 
 Woke, by their touching sweetness, sweeter thoughts 
 
 Of younger angels' hymns in distant heaven : 
 
 Proud citied Persia, old historic land, 
 
 Where the bald pillars of Persepolis, 
 
 Like spirits naked and most desolate, 
 
 Shivering expectant on the Stygian shore, 
 
 Gleamed whitely in the moon ; these met her gaze ; 
 
 She passed Chaldsea's plain, Power's earliest seat, 
 
 Where rude green mounds, and broken sculptured stones, 
 
 And stunted shrubs which hid the jackal's brood, 
 
 Were all that greedy Desolation showed 
 
 Of earth's primeval cities. Phantoms stalked 
 
 Around the ruined tower which Belus reared, 
 
 By lightnings blasted ; and hyenas prowled 
 
 Where shone the courts of Babylonian Kings. 
 
 * China. 
 
96 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 But rivers wandered, affluent as they gushed 
 When watering paradise, and Eve beheld, 
 In their smooth glass, her new-created face. 
 Not now, along their banks, the Angel saw 
 Man, beautiful and sinless, walk in peace ; 
 Not now fruit-laden trees, and spangled groves, 
 And beds of flowers, whose richness mocked the West, 
 When Day melts all his clouds to flames and gold ; 
 Not now the music of flute-throated birds 
 Swelled with rich odours up the balmy sky ; 
 But where bloomed Eden, grew the prickly thorn, 
 Where Eve looked love, the scaly adder hissed ; 
 For music she but heard the bittern's cry, 
 So wildly shrill, monotonously sad. 
 Ruin and Solitude, with scythe-armed Death, 
 Exultant walked the scene once bless'd by God — 
 The scene of glory crime had made a grave 
 What murmur trembled down the desert air, 
 Most gentle, sweet, but full of hopeless grief ? 
 'Twas musing Mercy's sad, regretful sigh. 
 
 Steep followed steep, as swift her pinions spurned 
 The floating fragrance of Assyrian skies ; 
 And now she paused, constrained by some strong spell, 
 
THE ANGEL OF MERCY. 97 
 
 And gazed from upper air. An ancient land, 
 Full of hoar tombs, with holy memories linked, 
 Beneath her spread. The scene was solemn, feir, 
 Yet breathed intensest sorrow : not a hill, 
 A glen, a stream, but told its by-gone tale ; 
 And not a ruin garmented with moss, 
 But midst its desolation pleading looked, 
 And spake as with a trumpet, silver-toned, 
 Of mighty seers, of miracles and heaven ; 
 Whilepassed like ghosts that still would haunt the spot — 
 Ghosts the dark sorcerer-ages failed to lay — 
 Religion, Power, and Glory. — Peopled earth ! 
 And earth sublime with Andes and with Alps ! 
 And beautiful with green Ausonian vales, 
 And solemn with old Egypts, crumbling Pomes ! 
 Nought canst thou show enthralling fervid hearts, 
 Prompting high visions, flooding all the soul 
 With sacred sorrow yet with grateful love, 
 Leading man's thoughtful nature up to God, 
 Like sad, deserted, ruined Palestine ! 
 
 From blasted rocks by Sodom's bitter lake, 
 To Bashan's valleys, and the live-green slopes 
 Of cedar'd Lebanon, the angel gazed. 
 
98 
 
 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Though joy and plenty long had fled the land, 
 Their foot-prints lingered still in many a vale, 
 That woo'd them back with bloomy vines and flowers , 
 And would they come no more ? was hope e'en dead ? 
 No, like the sun-god, hope had smiled farewell, 
 Gone sorrowing down behind the hills of woe, 
 But while her broad, grand orb thus veiled its rays, 
 Her glimmering twilight lit the mournful scene. 
 
 The Spirit knew, from records kept in heaven, 
 The deathless history of each hallowed spot, 
 And thrilled while gazing there. Tiberias' lake 
 Shone like a streak of sky betwixt the hills : 
 Tabor, green-clothed with freshly-rustling woods. 
 Looked like a gorgeous emerald set in earth, 
 While on its summit birds, surviving man, 
 Piped jubilean song. Esdraelon spread, 
 Rich with young flowers, her bosom to the sky, 
 A bride of beauty that ne'er waxeth old, 
 And loved untiring by her bridegroom sun, 
 That draws such fragrance from her heart of sweets 
 The bees, those busy children of the beam, 
 Knowing no rebels in their happy realms, 
 Humm'd faintly in the drowsy, luscious noon, 
 
THE ANGEL OF MERCY. 99 
 
 Where bloomed, warm Nazareth, thy garden beds ; 
 While eagles shrieked their piercing, dolorous notes, 
 Along Gilboa's haunted, desert hills, 
 Where Saul despaired and died. The angel's eye 
 Followed entranced Samaria's verdurous steeps, 
 Billowing with trees, and white with cottage homes. 
 Charmed she beheld green Shechem's long-drawn vale, 
 Noisy with infant rills, that babbled sweet, 
 And, babbling, wept through moss their diamond tears ; 
 She saw dewed Hermon's tops, and, Eastward far, 
 Pouring from urns whose riches never fail, 
 Wandering through palms, and reeds, and banks of shade, 
 The living genius of the dying land, 
 Breathing in every whisper tales of heaven — 
 Immortal Jordan — earth's most holy stream. 
 
 Ye lingering glories ! how the musing heart 
 Clings to these scenes — religion's hallowed haunts f 
 How they seem linked to heaven ! as if blest hands 
 Let down a shining ladder from the skies, 
 That angels might descend and speak with man. 
 
 But Mercy turned ; she saw the fiery curse 
 Stamped on Judsea's hills ; there Grandeur throws, 
 a 2 
 
^^^^^^■^PWPP*- 
 
 100 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Eobed in dark sackcloth, ashes on her head, 
 
 And Power sits sepulchred in voiceless caves, 
 
 With the dead millions in Jehoshaphat. — 
 
 Mourn, Spirit, mourn, for Salem, the uncrowned ! 
 
 The Mother of dead Kings who left no heirs ; 
 
 The mummied corpse of Glory, whose proud soul 
 
 Passed with the flaming Temple from the world. 
 
 City of Solomon ! whose brazen gates, 
 
 And battled turrets, laughed each foe to scorn ; 
 
 Where Sheba's queen, though nursed in luxury's lap 
 
 Fainted for envy of the sumptuous scenes : 
 
 What art thou now ? a city lit alone 
 
 By Memory's star — the present, night, black night. 
 
 A voice from thy deep heart calls low and sad, 
 
 Like a pale widow's wail. Wide ruin sweeps, 
 
 A dull Dead- Sea o'er all thy buried pride. 
 
 Men desecrate thy holy hills ; thy shrine 
 
 Can boast no stone to speak its ancient fame. 
 
 Along thy streets where kings and warriors stalked, 
 
 The Moslem tramples on the crouching Jew, 
 
 Deriding while he loathes him. Would thou wert 
 
 A ruin plaining to the crannying winds, 
 
 Thy walls and towers with mourning ivy hung, 
 
 And owls thine only tenants ! Then the soul 
 
THE ANGEL OF MERCY. 101 
 
 Might sympathise more truly with thy woes, 
 And cling to thee, the desolate of years, 
 With an exalted and a hallowed love. 
 
 A hushed, white form, as Evening's shadows fell, 
 Bowed upon Zion's hill ; her face was sad ; 
 She felt the desolation darkening 'round, 
 Black as a funeral pall o'er all the scene. 
 Deep pity moved that gentle angel's soul ; 
 She veiled her features with her closing wings, 
 And bending low, more low, her falling hair 
 Hid her clasped hands, and touched the rugged rocks. 
 For Salem and her sorrows ; for a land 
 Passed to the Pagan ; for the humbled sons 
 Of seers, and prophets, and immortal kings, 
 Mercy would supplicate offended heaven. 
 Eadiant with feeling, beautiful she looked 
 To other spirits, met dejected there ; 
 They grouped in circles 'round that shining form, 
 Like silvery haze which belts a glorious star ; 
 And lifting to blue heaven their bluer eyes, 
 Their bosoms swelling with a tender grief, 
 They mingled lamentations with her own, 
 And wept sad tears for Salem's bitter doom. 
 
102 
 
 THE IMMORTALS; 
 
 OK, 
 
 GLIMPSES OF PAKADISE. 
 
 BOOK VII. 
 
 Who doth not love the beautiful, the fair ? 
 What gazer is not ravished, when Stambool 
 First blazes on his sight? Sure Nature curved 
 Those beauteous shores for Ocean's lips to kiss, 
 Murmuring sea-music 'tween two Continents ; 
 Sure Nature formed the headland's purple front, 
 And reared behind the theatre of hills, 
 With fond design that man should fashion there 
 The gem of earthly cities. 
 
 'Tis most sweet 
 To view Stambool, when o'er the Asian height 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE. 103 
 
 Morn's rose-wreathed goddess walks, and flings abroad 
 
 Crowns of dew- pearls for happy fairy heads, 
 
 And, heavenly sower, handfuls of bright beams, 
 
 And, building high her ruby orient arch, 
 
 Looks from beneath it laughing at the West, 
 
 Till the rich sparklings of her smiles illume 
 
 Marm'ra's glassed wave, while all the rocks and hills 
 
 Seem wrought to brilliance by her flashing eyes ; 
 
 Then Mosque's gilt dome, and minaret, gleam out, 
 
 Like gold rough beaten, and the muezzin's call 
 
 To early worship, sweet to faithful ears, 
 
 Swells musically down the glowing air ; 
 
 And breezes from the Euxine waft new life 
 
 And vigour on their wings, and softly bring, 
 
 From flowers imparadising Thracian plains, 
 
 The rich ethereal spirit of perfume ; 
 
 While streamy, wooded dells, that all the night 
 
 Had wept in silence, suddenly lit up 
 
 By joyous beams, forget their tearful grief, 
 
 And sound thro' all their depths with chant of birds. 
 
 The dreamer, too, who calmest beauty love's, 
 And the rapt Artist who on colour feeds, 
 Will view the scene entranced, when Evening comes, 
 
104 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 And by her cunning, magic- masonry, 
 
 Doth tesselate, with burning, crimson ore, 
 
 That narrow severing billow ; then a path 
 
 The smooth wave shines between the poplar'd banks. 
 
 Meet to be trod by Peris' glancing feet. 
 
 The sloping gardens, opening to the sea, 
 
 Bask many-coloured in the sun's farewell. 
 
 The yew and cypress, Nature's mutes, that watch 
 
 The sleeping dead, at solemn Scutari, 
 
 Gleam green and gold, as varied shafts of light 
 
 The archer sun shoots warmly through their depths ; 
 
 And the tall turban'd stones, where mourners weep, 
 
 Resign their ghostly white, and, tipp'd with fire, 
 
 Look burning finger-posts that point from time 
 
 And troubles here, to calm eternal days. 
 
 The Asian hills gaze shadowy from the East, 
 
 Growing for envy momently more pale, 
 
 At the rich splendors mantling Europe's shores, 
 
 Where the bright queen of colour, dropt from heaven, 
 
 Stands in her flaming robes on Haemus' top,* 
 
 And with her dainty brush paints land and sea, 
 
 Till clouds float rubies, rocks glow hot with gold, 
 
 * Mount Hsemus, the modern Balkan. 
 
THE ANGEL OF MERCY. 105 
 
 Forests hang burnished, streams look running wine ; 
 And, flushed with crimson, like a maid in dreams, 
 The Sultan's city her siesta takes, 
 Too beautiful to move, or sigh, or wake. 
 
 But Mercy's angel passed ; mysterious heaven I 
 In spot like this can direst evil reign ? 
 Hath loveliness no spell to charm away 
 Invidious, cruel death ? The angel saw, 
 And shuddered though immortal — saw a shape 
 More hideous than e'er shocked her cowering gaze r 
 E'en on the confines of dark Satan's realms. 
 Fiends may tower nobly, and, amid their crimes, 
 Look grandly beautiful, but here a dream 
 Of nightmare-horror, and of spectral fear, 
 That haunteth oft the slumbering murderer's brain r 
 Seemed to have leaped to black malignant life. 
 It hovered o'er that scene of wondrous grace, 
 And stretched with rancorous threat its livid arms, 
 And from blue lips breathed poison on the air : 
 Fixing its withering eyes on bright Stambool, 
 It launched its flame-tipp'd arrows far and wide, 
 Each arrow piercing some doomed human heart — 
 And such was Earth's fell scourger — deadly Plague. 
 
106 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 While Nature's face wore smiles, the face of man 
 Spoke anxious terror ; and while breezes kissed, 
 "With lips invisible of purest balm, 
 The flowers to bloomier life, and beast and bird 
 Rejoiced around, man sank, and moaned, and died. 
 Dark destiny ! perplexing law of heaven ! 
 Reason's proud sons must agonise, and meet 
 A double death — the real, and its fear ; 
 But soulless brutes, in this supremely blest, 
 Pass without dread, unconscious, to their doom. 
 
 Poor pitying Spirit ! how she moved along 
 The tainted streets, and glided to the sides 
 Of suffering mortals in their last sad hour ! 
 Each pang they felt, she felt ; with viewless hands 
 She soothed the couch of weak and fainting age, 
 And crowned with smiles the terror of the tomb. 
 Like a rich rainbow o'er a bed of flowers, 
 She spread her wings o'er dying infancy, 
 And opened to its pure and sinless soul, 
 Ere it had quite escaped the feeble frame, 
 Glimpses of glory, vistas leading up 
 The starry heights to God's bright paradise. 
 She brought cool airs to fever's throbbing brow, 
 
THE ANGEL OF MERCY. 107 
 
 Hushed the sad sighs of new-made orphan hearts, 
 And sweetly cheered with hope the dying bride, 
 Whispering to inner sense supporting words — 
 How love's dear tie, unbroken by strong death, 
 "Would bind pure spirits through eternal years. 
 The mournful boats that bore their freight of dead, 
 To sleep on Asia's shore,* she followed slow, 
 And watched the hurried burials by the moon, 
 And to the wailing mourners whispered peace ; 
 While virtuous souls just freed from bonds of clay, 
 She gently raised above the mists of earth, 
 Speeding their flight to joy's celestial land. 
 
 " Great lord of life, and Governor of worlds !" 
 Sighed the sad Angel ; " thus Thy judgments fall 
 On man's poor race, so noble yet so mean, 
 So formed for virtue, yet so bound by crime. 
 The demons for awhile prevail below, 
 Dispensing death and agony, to prove 
 How lost, how friendless, mortals without Thee, 
 How happiness and good all flow from Thee, 
 How heaven and earth should love — but Thee, but 
 
 Thee i" 
 
 * At the great Turkish cemetery near Scutari. 
 
108 
 
 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Wide was the parched and dreary desert land y 
 O'er which the angel now slow shaped her way — 
 A land where fell the fire of cloudless suns, 
 As if God's eye in hot and deadly wrath, 
 Withering, and never closed in pardoning love, 
 Flashed on that hapless country. 'Twas a land 
 Whose central depths man's foot had rarely trod m r 
 And when some bold adventurer, toiling long,. 
 Dragged him to that forbidden solitude, 
 It was his wont, beneath the brassy sky, 
 To faint and sink, and leave his untombed bones 
 To whiten on the waste. The home of Ham, 
 Once covered by the wide -engulfing wave, 
 In some past epoch awful and unknown : 
 Country of lions, pestilence, and snakes, 
 Where Man so far hath fallen from the type 
 Of human beauty, born in paradise, 
 That doubters seek another well of life 
 Whence flows so strange a stream : this land remains 
 A mystery, and a melancholy fear, 
 Its river-veins that wander thro' hot sands, 
 Haunted by savage tribes that nothing know 
 Of science, art, of progress, or a God. 
 Yes, Afric, save where Mind, with partial light, 
 
THE ANGEL OF MERCY. 109 
 
 Illumes its borders, like intensest fire 
 Fringing the blackness of a thunder- cloud, 
 Lies dark and lost, as curs'd for evermore. 
 
 She crossed this sea-like desert, dotted rare 
 With palmy Isles ; so virtue blooms by stealth 
 In the sad waste of our crime-tainted world. 
 Oft boomed upon the breeze, terrific, dread, 
 The prowling lion's roar ; anon she flew 
 O'er some barbaric city, and beheld 
 Chiefs clad in skins, and monarchs crowned with shells. 
 But now she paused to bless one lonely form — 
 A man of solemn mien and hopeful eye ; 
 Musing he trod the sands, then, halting, sat 
 Beneath a shadowy palm, and conn'd the page, 
 The Hebrew's legacy to favored Earth. 
 Home he had left, and friends, and happier climes, 
 And courted danger, toil, starvation, death, 
 From love to human kind. He wandered here, 
 Bringing truth's Morn to error's sable Night, 
 Bearing from tribe to tribe religion's torch. 
 " Speed thee ! God's chosen child ! pursue thy course!" 
 Whispered the Angel, as she stooped more near. 
 u For sacrifice like this — for deeds like thine, 
 
110 THE IMMOKTALS. 
 
 Above the holy great ones shalt thou rank, 
 
 On yon celestial shore. Thy crown shall be 
 
 Of flowers more bright than deck the seraph's hair, 
 
 Plucked from Eternity's unfading hills ; 
 
 And thou shalt walk, for deserts, heaven's starr'd floor, 
 
 Its halls of sapphire, and its amaranth vales, 
 
 For ever honored midst the honored there." 
 
 The angel, mounting skyward, steadfast kept 
 Her vision on the westering, flaming sun, 
 And followed, comet-like, his crimson course ; 
 And now the mighty, wide-resounding sea 
 Burst, in its freshened glory, on her sight. 
 
 She leant upon the rocks, and cast her eyes 
 Across the blue immensity. That soul, 
 Lofty, immortal, who had roamed the worlds, 
 Far stellar systems, vast as beautiful, 
 Saw something noble and exalted here, 
 Something as grand, and imaging a God, 
 As lives in all Creation's boundless range. 
 
 Thou Ocean ! we do call thee old and hoar, 
 Yet thy wild power, thy freshness, still display 
 
THE ANGEL OF ME11CY. Ill 
 
 All, all the bounding energy of youth. 
 We look on thee, a world in thy great self; 
 From coral insect-tribes to mighty whales, 
 What myriads people thy blue wilderness ! 
 How many of our race beneath thy foam 
 Have found cold sepulchres, the pitiless surge 
 Tolling, for ever tolling their deep knell ! 
 Friends cannot on their tombs write epitaphs 
 Yes, all must lie unmonumented there. 
 We hail thy restless, ever-rolling waves, 
 As something with mysterious life endowed, 
 Heaving and throbbing 'round the conscious world. 
 Thou callest, with a voice of rageful storms, 
 Out to the sky that hears thy loud complaint ; 
 And with the solemn thunder dost thou talk, 
 Thy words the sounding billows. Still thy heart 
 Beats, beats, within that fathomless abyss ; 
 And when calms smooth thy wrath to gentleness, 
 Thy giant arms are stretched abroad to God, 
 And thy deep prayers in softest whispers rise. 
 
 Sea ! when cradled in thy hollow caves, 
 Or shining, glossy-bright, beneath the moon, 
 Bearing the soul away on wings of awe, 
 
112 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Thou, like the unpillar'd sky above thee arched, 
 Unchanged, through ever- changing, wasting years, 
 Dost seem, despite thy majesty and power, 
 A melancholy thing. Thy sobbing surge, 
 Monotonous, wild-plunging, rolling on, 
 Lapping among the rocks, and breaking white 
 On shingle and on sand for ever, ever, 
 Sounded, when sorrowing Eve bewailed her fall, 
 And when the last man dies, it still will sound, 
 Heard by the Judgment-angel in the clouds. — 
 Thus face to face with God's sublimest work, 
 We own no pride beside the humbling sea, 
 But shrink into ourselves, and feel how great 
 That Power above, whose faintly-spoken word 
 Created and upholds yon world of waves. 
 
 The wind was fair, and heaven and ocean smiled 
 As proudly bore from land the stately ship. 
 Her sails all spread, and white as virtue's soul, 
 She yielded easy to the easy gale, 
 And moved in grace and beauty o'er the main. 
 Oh, who might dream that vessel, gliding on, 
 A thing so gay and gallant, held within 
 A crowd of hearts, whose every fiery beat 
 
THE ANGEL OF MERCY. 113^ 
 
 Seemed as a pulse of torture, countless eyes 
 Upraised to heaven, mad anguish in their glare ? 
 
 The wave was tranquil, and no human sense 
 Might catch a groan on lightly-fluttering winds,. 
 As swept the bark to sea ; yet not a sigh 
 Escaped one wretch's bosom, but it reached 
 The Angel's ear, in quivering up to God. 
 Mirth on the deck, and pleasing dreams of gain — 
 Below sad tears, and wailings of despair, 
 And fever's madness in that burning den, 
 While still the lash was plied to hush their cries — 
 Torture to stifle torture — body's pains 
 To crush out spirit's. Poor immortal ones ! 
 Sprung from one parent with their tyrant lords, 
 Yet ranked and bartered with the soulless brute. 
 weeping Afric ! home of sable slaves ! 
 Stand in your chains, and lift your voice to God ! 
 Tell of your wrongs, till pity melts, all tears — 
 Tell of your wrongs, till justice swears redress — 
 Tell of your wrongs, till vengeance draws her sword, 
 Stamps her red foot, and rolls her eye of flame ! 
 
 The Angel followed that swift ship of woe, 
 
114 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Pitying the victims whom she could not save. 
 The horrors of that passage ! — How her heart 
 Sickened and quailed to view the deadly pangs 
 Man can inflict on man ! At stilly night, 
 When stars shed down their tranquil, holy beams, 
 And Nature talked with God, she heard the moan 
 Of sleepless anguish o'er the sleeping wave. 
 When rose the sun with brilliant, cheerful brow, 
 Gloom, death, and horror, settled 'round the ship, 
 For then were wretches, who had breathed their last, 
 Flung to the deep — flung slow, with heavy plunge — 
 Flung to the sharks expecting banquet there ; 
 And still those ocean-monsters followed close, 
 With wondrous instinct, passing reason's power. 
 
 Swiftly, thou bark of agony, fly on ! 
 Fly with thy suffering freight, elude pursuit ! 
 And thou, white lord, exult in bold success. 
 Evil's black clouds must lower a season here, 
 But crime's fell ministers draw down at last 
 The thunders of just vengeance. Mercy wept 
 Above those hapless victims of the sea, 
 And stretched her hands that mightier God might save, 
 And prayed for bleeding Afric and her wrongs. 
 
THE ANGEL OF MERCY. 115 
 
 The Angel passed to Europe, where mankind 
 Hath higher scaled the mountain-heights of soul, 
 And pressed more near perfection. Much she saw 
 That raised her wonder, much that caused her joy, 
 And much a poignant sorrow. Now she met 
 Virtue in rags, and Learning wanting bread ; 
 Here Science plumbed Creation's glimmering depths, 
 Measured the stars, and pierced the awful past, 
 Anticipating high pursuits in heaven : 
 There dullness plodded on, nor raised his eyes 
 From toil and dust, the hurrying, puny years 
 Filling his thoughts, the smallest scenes around, 
 The emmet's universe, enough for him. 
 She stood by death-beds, and in grief beheld 
 The last sad wrestlings of mortality, 
 And chased the fear, and soothed the final pain. 
 And oft she loved, when twilight's haunted hour 
 Made calm elysium of the purple air, 
 To rove some quiet burial-ground, and think 
 How many a heart, once tossed on passion's wave, 
 Or racked upon the wheel of sharp distress, 
 Lay pangless, tranquil now ; the flower that 
 
 drooped, 
 Weeping dew-tears upon the unconscious turf, 
 h2 
 
116 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Not calmer than the body, waiting there 
 Reunion with the sky-ascended soul. 
 
 She watched a suicide — a female heart 
 Broken by wrong, and flying unto death. 
 The stars were quivering on a wide, deep stream 
 That wandered through a city's dusky bounds : 
 There bent the sad forsaken, straining eyes 
 No longer full of tears, for grief, like fire, 
 Had dried up feeling's fountain : from her brow, 
 White as sepulchral marble, and as cold, 
 Impatiently she dashed the falling hair, 
 Disordered as the thoughts within her brain. 
 
 That city with its towers, its halls of life, 
 An instant drew her gaze ; a million hearts 
 Beat gaily there, but not one heart that felt 
 Compassion for her anguish ; e'en if known, 
 Her grief had wakened only bitter scorn, 
 For every woe will move the world's great sigh 
 Save fallen woman's sorrow. Up to heaven, 
 In wordless prayer, she cast beseeching looks, 
 But in those depths, pure, calm, with holy stars, 
 She read no sympathy with her impure, 
 
THE ANGEL OP MERCY. 117 
 
 And tainted spirit — wrongly read no hope. 
 Then on the waves she fixed her steadfast glance ; 
 They rushed, and chafed, and eddied dark below ; 
 There the poor lost one deemed oblivion lay ; 
 There her crushed heart would bleed — would break 
 no more. 
 
 " Bowed spirit, cheer thee !" to her sinking soul 
 Whispered the Angel ; " Trust thy God, not man ; 
 He will accord the pardon man withholds ; 
 3S"o wretch so lost, but God will hear his prayer." 
 
 Smiles for a moment, o'er that cold, white cheek, 
 Passed like brief sunshine o'er a waste of snow ; 
 And the long sigh came softer from her heart, 
 As winds more gently blow when wandering through 
 A thicket of sweet roses. Heaven the while 
 Seemed by its peace to lift her grief from earth, 
 And smile on past repentance, for her guilt 
 Had long been mourned with bitter, contrite tears. 
 
 Alas ! for fallen Nature ! hope's sweet beam 
 Too soon went out, and woe, despair, came down 
 With their all-mantling midnight on her soul. 
 
118 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Shame's burden crushed her ; in that darkened hour, 
 
 The agony of life outweighed the dread 
 
 Of heaviest judgment in a world to come. 
 
 She stretched her arms — she sprang — and, with a cry 
 
 Of piercing anguish, plunged in depths below. 
 
 The Angel, heart-wrung, shuddered as she gazed, 
 And from the troubled waves, where sank in death 
 The world-spurned victim of man's broken faith, 
 A spirit rose, by mortal eyes unseen. 
 Great were its crimes, but Oh, how great its wrongs ! 
 And if wild madness urged the fatal deed, 
 When clouded reason asked not what was crime, 
 Then God e'en dark self-murder could forgive. 
 That spirit looked most beautiful, most meek, 
 Yet sad of aspect, knowing not its doom. 
 The angel waited ■ presently a light 
 Elumed the brow of that long-suffering soul — 
 A brilliant circlet of celestial beams, 
 Such as in paradise the pardoned wear. — 
 Then Mercy knew that madness urged its plea, 
 And love divine washed out the mortal's guilt ; 
 And welcoming the beauteous soul, she chased 
 All shade of sorrow from her drooping form, 
 
THE ANGEL OP MERCY, 119 
 
 All mem'ry of remorse, and every sigh, 
 Tinged with immortal hues her pallid cheek, 
 And sprinkled glory on her lustrous locks ; 
 Till she shone forth, bright-smiling in new life, 
 Like the young flower, first kissed by vernal beams ; 
 And Mercy, pointing skyward, sped her on, 
 From lower darkness up to light and God. 
 
 Winging o'er Northern Europe rapt in thought, 
 The Angel viewed a scene fame crowns with bays ; 
 Yet rife with fear and horror. Lust of power, 
 And pride that would climb high, or lowest sink, 
 Too oft enslave the great ones of our world, 
 Drive mortals to inflict unnumbered ills 
 And tortures upon mortals, cutting short 
 The few brief days by heaven allotted here. 
 
 We see a star that, white and beautiful, 
 And breathing from its radiance love and peace, 
 Glows in the tender azure, and we dream 
 Its balmy clime, and silver-glistening shores, 
 Form an elysium, where no guilt or woe 
 Can sadden happy beings : but if told 
 Creatures live there who, spite of glorious scenes, 
 
120 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 And love, and joy, and blessings heaped by Heaven, 
 
 Rise against creatures, race to race opposed, 
 
 Smiting and crushing, aiming still to cast 
 
 Their fellows o'er the battlements of life, 
 
 To suffering and perdition — we should call 
 
 Such tale a fable, or, if proved a truth, 
 
 That gentle star would make hearts shudder here. 
 
 And such an orb is our own lovely Earth ! 
 The denizens of planets far in space 
 May view us too, and think no dreadful thing, 
 Like mad, wild war, can shock the heart of peace, 
 Or mar the golden beauty of our world. 
 They know not how ambition, pride, and hate, 
 liaise moral storms amid the seeming calm, 
 Or how, by our own dark and guilty deeds, 
 We hedge our lives with ill. Thou blackest curse 
 The Evil One hath brought from depths of woe ! 
 More direful too, since glory 'round thy form 
 Sheds brilliant beams to veil thy hideousness, 
 And places on thy head a crown that looks 
 Of laurel formed, but ah ! of poison-leaves, 
 Weeping more venom than the upas-bough — 
 A funeral wreath, and dabbled all with blood. 
 
 
THE ANGEL OF MERCY. 121 
 
 War ! indignant Reason, Justice, Truth, 
 Indignant Valour of the nobler mind, 
 Viewing thine aims, the fruits that spring from thee — 
 Ruin, and wrong, and anguish, and vain death, 
 Could they but utter half that in them burns, 
 Their voice would sound in thunder out to heaven, 
 And every accent would be withering fire, 
 Lightnings to blast thee on thy trophied way. 
 But thou wilt flourish, Hydra-headed War ! 
 Despite our maledictions : Virtue rears 
 The trenchant sword, but, less than Hercules, 
 She cannot lop thy hundred heads away. 
 Love cannot charm thee, deadly monster, War 1 
 Calm wisdom fails to smooth thy stormy front ; 
 And e'en religion may not drive thee back 
 To thy primeval hell. While Crime walks earth, 
 Thou, her grim offspring, wilt be rampant too : 
 While bold ambition schemes and avarice grasps, 
 Thy reign will last, earth's fiery spirits doomed 
 Thy sport, thy victims, and, like Indian priests, 
 Following well-pleased to death thy blood-stained car. 
 
 The deadly struggle, which the Angel watched, 
 Had ceased its terrors ; lines of furious men 
 
122 tjse immortals. 
 
 No longer clashed with lines ; the sword no more 
 
 Hewed crimson rents thro' which men's souls might pass, 
 
 Before their time, into eternity. 
 
 No longer to the shaken, answering hills, 
 
 The fire-mouthed cannon roared. The smoke's dun veil, 
 
 Drawn o'er the field by Havoc's jealous hand, 
 
 To hide the bleeding hecatombs of death, 
 
 Had melted off, like guilt which shrinks from day. 
 
 Now came the sight more horrible, more dread, 
 Than e'en the battle's tumult. Now white Pain 
 Lay writhing on the soil, where late in pride 
 The victim struck for glory : now the groans 
 Of dying men, called heroes, murmured low, 
 Broken anon by some sharp, sudden shriek 
 Of agony no effort might control : 
 Then fruitless cries for help, and cries of thirst 
 From men in bleeding torture — cries to those 
 Walking the crimson field, to raise their swords, 
 And in kind pity stab them to the heart, 
 That torment so might finish. Looks from some 
 Harrowed e'en more than sight of body's pangs — 
 Looks that betrayed the soul's intense despair. 
 Here mourned the youth, who never now would lead 
 
THE ANGEL OF MERCY. 123 
 
 To Hymen's altar the dear maid he loved ; 
 There wept the son, who never more should see 
 The aged sire, or kiss the Mother's cheek ; 
 And there the Father, never more to clasp 
 The babes that would be orphans. Livid heaps 
 Of what that morn were bounding, joyous frames, 
 With hearts brisk-beating to the voice of hope, 
 Lay stark, and cold — poor hands and icy brows, 
 Dabbled with blood, and eyes, so glassy-still, 
 Fixed by the thought in which the sufferer died. 
 
 Moon, rising slowly with calm, silvery face ! 
 Pause on thy course, withhold thy gentle light ; 
 'Tis not for thee, sweet Yestal ! with thy brow 
 Of meekness, peace, and purity, to view 
 Such spot of fear and horror. Yeil your eyes, 
 Ye wakening stars ! nor let your holy beams, 
 Meet to illume Elysium, tremble here. 
 Come, saddest spectres from Cimmerian realms, 
 And walk this ground ! come, blackest clouds that pall 
 Hades' deep gulf, and hide the dreadful scene ! 
 
 The Angel, shuddering, hovered o'er the plain, 
 Too foul, too blood-drenched for her hallowed foot: 
 
124 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 She stretched one hand tow'rd crimson heaps of dead, 
 
 As if to curse fell war — the other hid 
 
 Her pitying, shrinking eyes. A trembling ran 
 
 From limb to limb, and e'en her glorious wings 
 
 Quivered and thrilled through all their spreading width, 
 
 In sympathy with that strong burst of grief 
 
 Which stirr'd her generous bosom. She had seen 
 
 Dire pain and misery in this lower world, 
 
 And death in countless forms had awed her soul, 
 
 But nought had shocked her like that field of blood, 
 
 Where doom and torture, not by demons sent, 
 
 Seemed of man's own creation — seemed alone 
 
 The baneful fruit of folly and of crime. 
 
 Oh ! what a tale to tell in spheres above, 
 
 Of this prized, favourite star ! a world that shines 
 
 The brightest mid her sisters, dower'd with gifts 
 
 Transcendent by her God, with hills and vales 
 
 Lovely enough to lure bright angels down, 
 
 Lovely enough to form bright angels' homes. 
 
 Beautiful Earth ! crime-laden, fallen Man ! 
 
 In intellect and thought, a spark from God, 
 
 In passion, falsehood, pride, a brand from hell. 
 
 " Farewell ! thou scene of suffering and dismay !" 
 
THE ANGEL OP MERCY. 125 
 
 Whispered the Angel with pale, quivering lips. 
 Appalled by war's red front, her eyes no more 
 Could dwell on earthly horrors, and she pined 
 For the far realms of sempiternal peace. 
 Sorrowing she turned from fields of blood and 
 
 death, 
 To those still spheres in heaven's cerulean calm ; 
 There Night looked holy, and her sabbath kept 
 Of rest, and love, and glory. Spirits there, 
 "Wandering mid orbs where crime had cast no shade,. 
 Held rapt commune with mighty Nature's God. 
 Those stellar lights she hailed as ancient friends, 
 But one grand orb arrested now her gaze, 
 Glowing amid the Pleiads, with a ray 
 More softly-pure, divinely beautiful, 
 Than aught which flashed from other beamy founts* 
 That central splendour, with no cloud between, 
 Shone like the watch-tower of near paradise, 
 The beacon blazing to remotest bounds, 
 Directing voyagers to the bowers of peace. 
 For that loved Eden-Land, its amaranth vales 
 And opal-terraced hills, she wildly sighed, 
 As one long exiled, and her pensive eyes 
 Fixed on that globe, immensest 'mid the immense, 
 
12G THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Fixed longingly on those white dazzling shores, 
 Which look to us but softest, fleecy beams. 
 
 With sudden bound, all energy, all joy, 
 Spurning with glittering foot the earthly hill, 
 Her arms outspread tow'rd that attracting sphere, 
 The Angel rose in air. She cloye the blue, 
 Up, up the path of radiance known so well, 
 A thing of fire — a living, flying thought ! 
 Inferior spirits watched her heavenward track, 
 And saw along the ether, flashed by speed, 
 Bright coruscations trailing far behind ; 
 But these soon melted, like the dreams of bliss 
 Illuming for a moment our sad lives ; 
 And now a silvery thread, a feeble spark, 
 She shone upon the bosom of the sky — 
 That vanished too, and darkest midnight reigned. 
 
127 
 
 THE IMMORTALS; 
 
 OK, 
 
 GLIMPSES OF PARADISE. 
 
 BOOK VIII. 
 
 Spirit of Love ! all hail ! thy subtile power 
 Thrills and pervades the glorious universe. 
 Thine influence, sweet compelling force, doth bind 
 All matter in all worlds, all worlds to Gocl. 
 What unseen virtue issues from the sun, 
 And, darting through the infinite of blue, 
 Draweth the pilgrim-planets evermore 
 Tow'rd his fond, radiant, vivifying arms ? 
 What stays the comet in his far, far course, 
 And, from his wanderings of a thousand years, 
 Doth call him backwards to the fount of light ? 
 Attraction's spell is Nature's ceaseless love. 
 
128 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Beautiful spirit, hail ! what sheds heaven's tears, 
 That cloud-born sorrow fertilizing Earth ? 
 What spreadeth in the "West a gorgeous bed 
 Of downy gold, for Day to die upon, 
 And jubilant with roses hangs the East 
 To greet his resurrection ? What doth guide 
 The Spring-wind's chariot, bringing to the world 
 Freshness and health, and life -inspiring balm ? 
 What feeds a thousand rivers ? drapes the hills 
 With rustling forest pomp ? what sprinkles scents, 
 Delicious, on each tiny nun-like flower, 
 That, hid from man, adorns the wilderness ? 
 Diffusive soul ! unfailing Love ! 'tis thou. 
 
 Dweller in human hearts ! all hail ! all hail ! 
 Whether thou take affection's simplest form 
 'Twixt kindred, friends, or gladden wedded life, 
 The sweetest bliss-cup man can quaff below 
 Is brimm'd with thy rich wine ; his choicest feast 
 Comes from thy garden of ambrosial fruits. 
 Thou, midst the desert of our cares and crimes, 
 Dost plant a green oasis. Thou hast caught 
 The faint dear echo of the voice of joy, 
 That filled lost paradise, and brought it down, 
 
LOVE. 129 
 
 Through all the sorrows of the primal curse, 
 Harmonious to our souls. Oh, wide-spread lore ! 
 All-tyrannous, all-swaying, wondrous love ! 
 Despite thy frequent pains, thy sad farewells, 
 Thou art Earth's sweetest, dearest, heavenliest guest. 
 Thou flashest from the skies, a quenchless spark 
 From one great loving Spirit, lighting up 
 Bright altars in our hearts ; thy chastened joy 
 Not only blesses time, 'tis doomed to flow, 
 Cleared of each stain which dims its current now, 
 A stream of .pleasure for unending years. 
 
 A tale of earthly love — a love that lived 
 Through sorrows and afflictions, changeless, strong ; 
 A love whose torch, unquenched by death's chill flood, 
 Passed the dark river, and, with sacred fire, 
 Still lit the spirit freed from bonds of clay, 
 And while the knowledge-seeking pilgrim roamed 
 Those libraries of the sky whose books are stars, 
 Still pointed on to bliss, until it reached 
 The Central lands, the Eden-bowers of rest. 
 
 Life had just budded into Spring, the woods 
 Of thick, fre'sh hopes were all alive with song ; 
 
130 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 And flowers of sweet delights — flowers honey-leaved — 
 
 Perfumed her joyous path. sun of youth ! 
 
 Bright is thy shining to the ardent soul, 
 
 Ere stern experience draws its envious cloud 
 
 Across thy dazzling glory ! Earth puts on, 
 
 To youthful view, the raiment of a bride, 
 
 And glides along the sunshine of the sky, 
 
 In freshness, loveliness, and bounding bliss. 
 
 Youth never dreams of trials, falsehood's guile, 
 
 But thinks of blessings, thinks of truth's sweet 
 
 heaven ; 
 Youth never mourns the past, but only looks 7 
 While leaning on the glowing breast of hope, 
 Straight tow'rd the future's golden-turning door. 
 
 Cecile was young, and Nature to her youth 
 Had added that most rich — oft fatal gift 
 By woman prized — the gift of loveliness. 
 Her beauty, like the almond's hurrying bough , 
 Had burst to early blossom, yet it seemed 
 No beauty doomed to fade in briefest days, 
 But beauty which would triumph o'er the winds 
 And frosts of fortune, passing into fruit, 
 Sweetening, and mellowing, through a happy life. 
 
 i 
 
CECILE. 131 
 
 Go, view some statue of the ancient Greek, 
 Making substantial fancy's airiest dream, 
 Calm, quiet, yet most lovely — pure, yet warm,. 
 Breathing of mind from each fair lineament, 
 And clothed as with an atmosphere of thought — 
 Such was Cecile, save ardent feelings lay 
 Within that breast, or, wakened, darted shafts 
 From the sweet oval bow of those black eyes, 
 That mocked the Sculptor's art. Her cheek was pale, 
 Telling of spirit's fervour ; but when joy, 
 Hope, or surprise, her heart's clear lake perturbed, 
 The hasty blood would eddying circles make, 
 And ruffle all her smooth and sunny brow 
 To tremulous flushings. Warm expression, soul, 
 Humility, yet hopes that towered to Heaven, 
 And gentle kindness seeking others' good — 
 These 'round her beauty threw a chastened light, 
 Like sobered radiance circling sainted heads. 
 
 She loved and was beloved : the Attic sage 
 A strange, sweet fancy held, that oft in pairs 
 Souls are created, and designed by heaven 
 To love in time and through eternity. 
 When fate, unpitying, parts such spirits here 
 i2 
 
]32 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 They seek each other, sighing through the world ; 
 Till, like two streams which dash from adverse points, 
 And join their waters with a glad embrace, 
 They meet, and blend their beings, from that hour, 
 In bliss or pain, divided never more. 
 
 He, the congenial spirit, proved that love 
 May fill the heart, while Mind, with burning zeal, 
 Doth worship wisdom's goddess. All the heights 
 Of heaven-high learning did he long to scale, 
 And all its sunless depths his soul would plumb. 
 He turned from life's mad whirl and Pleasure's walks, 
 To muse with those great spirits, who have mused 
 In other years, and built their dreams and thoughts 
 Into grand pyramids defying time. 
 Yet most he loved to roam broad Nature's realms, 
 Feasting imagination and proud mind 
 On wonders stars disclose. He longed to solve, 
 Still prison'd in the body, secrets heaven 
 Doth hide from mortals, and would ponder deep 
 Celestial mysteries, soul's high destiny, 
 And humbly thy great nature, ruling God ! 
 
 He loved the maiden with a love that soared 
 
CECILS. 133 
 
 Beyond mere sense — beyond the fleeting hour. 
 
 Were love to end with life, a transient charm, 
 
 To soothe us in our night of pain and grief, 
 
 And scatter 'round us roses but to fade ; 
 
 Oh, then he would have shunned its keen delights, 
 
 Nor yielded up his soul to bliss so brief. 
 
 But mortal love shall reach the immortal fields, 
 
 And thus 'tis wise to sow its seeds on earth 
 
 For future blowing : yes, the beauteous wreath 
 
 Shall flourish, to undying amaranths changed, 
 
 Sharing the spirit's proud, eternal doom, 
 
 In spite of thee, Death ! of thee, Grave ! 
 
 She faded in her youth ; a shadow lay 
 On the once smiling landscape of her hopes. 
 The silvery orb of night groAVS faint and dim 
 Before the rising sun ; so grew her face 
 Paler and dimmer, while the fell disease 
 Rose to meridian height, and eat with fire 
 The body's strength away. Oh, grief most deep, 
 For loving hearts to watch health's shrinking stream 
 Run less and less, and know 'twill soon be dry ! 
 The quivering embers of a brief, doomed life, 
 Slowly, but surely, spark by spark, go out ; 
 
134: THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 And Beauty's star, so treasured and admired, 
 Behind the hills of darkness, fade and set — 
 Oh, woe of woes, the waiting thus for death ! 
 
 Isle of the deep-blue sea, embossed with woods, 
 Where vines creep o'er the rugged lava-rocks, 
 Like Charity which covereth darkest sins ! 
 Where rills leap murmuring down the terraced steeps, 
 Their fairy harps just heard amid the swell 
 Of Ocean's mighty organ ; where each flower, 
 From England's daisy to the aloe's pride, 
 And cactus all a-flame, paints mount and dell, 
 Bringing back Eden to those lonely shores, 
 And stamping beauty where volcano s raged, 
 Like meekness settling calm on passion's brow. 
 
 Lovely Madeira ! boasted land of health ! 
 To whose sweet breezy hills pale Sickness flies, 
 Trembling mortality that hugs dear life, 
 Hoping to add unto her chain of days 
 That fast is breaking, a few links of time, 
 And drink, with strengthened powers, afew more draughts 
 Of earth's delicious air, and lift dim eyes 
 A little longer to God's cheerful sun. 
 
CECILE. 135 
 
 The cottage, gay with bloom of creeping plants, 
 Decked the hill's side, and faced the balmy South ; 
 The slope between it and the foamy sea 
 Looked brilliant, checkered with a million flowers, 
 And social groups of many-coloured trees. 
 They placed her in the porch where Summer- airs, 
 With pinions cooled by wandering o'er the wave, 
 Sprinkled reviving freshness, while perfume, 
 From beds of sweet carnation, rose, and musk, 
 Might gratify once more her thirsting sense. 
 Oh, beautiful yet mournful that young face, 
 On which disease, with hard, remorseless hand, 
 Had traced the word of — death. The veins of blue 
 Crossed her white brow, like rills that traverse snow ; 
 And languor half had closed her thoughtful eyes 
 Which glittered with last light. The poor thin hand 
 Lay cold and drooping, e'en too weak to grasp 
 The flowers it strove to fold. Her little foot, 
 Shrunk, feeble, could no more support the frame, 
 Though slender as the forms we see in dreams, 
 Gliding in fairly-land beneath the moon. 
 Her hair, in all its black and glossy length, 
 As if it shared the languor body felt, 
 Spread down her pale, pale bosom, virtue's seat — 
 
136 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Spread o'er the couch in rich, abundant curls, 
 Dear to one heart, as though each curl possessed 
 A mystic power, and was itself a life. 
 
 Behold that gentle, uncomplaining one, 
 Thus slowly sinking, fading from the world, 
 Loving earth's scenes intensely, yet so soon 
 To close her eyes on all that charmed her here ; 
 Clinging to human hearts, yet soon to know 
 Death's cruel separation. Oh ! confess, 
 Mid piteous sights, no sight more pitiful ! 
 Sight that might bow philosophy to dust, 
 And dim with tears the stoic's iron eye. 
 
 He bent above her, motionless and hushed, 
 Unwilling to disturb her silent dream ; 
 For lifted hand, and fixed and anxious gaze, 
 Betrayed a spirit rapt in deepest thought : 
 Day, in the Western garden of the clouds, 
 Was gathering now rich flowers, all crimson-leaved, 
 To hang about the cradle of young Eve ; 
 And he seemed pausing on his downward course, 
 Weeping hot tears of light to bid adieu 
 A world he loved so well. Along the hills 
 
CECILE. 137 
 
 The winds were dying with a murmured plaint, 
 
 And the wide chesnut-forests drooped their boughs, 
 
 As wearied with the breezes of the day, 
 
 Wearied with light, and asking for repose. 
 
 The long green waves came heaving to the shore, 
 
 Slowly and solemnly, and when they broke 
 
 In spumy silver on the pink-lipped shells, 
 
 Their voice swelled deep yet prayer-like, grand yet sad. 
 
 Earth, heaven, all sympathised with that hushed hour, 
 
 For sure a sorrow, tempered by sweet hope, 
 
 Touched while it calmed great Nature's conscious heart. 
 
 Cecile moved not, her meditative eyes 
 Following the sinking sun ; the flaming orb 
 Grew less intensely bright, and, softening, turned, 
 Ere reaching ocean's brim, to mellow gold : 
 It hung above the billow, broad, immense, 
 A glowing, living glory ; then long lines 
 Of amethystine radiance formed a road, 
 Pompous and jewell'd, o'er the level main, 
 As if for some great cavalcade of souls, 
 Hastening to heaven's bright gates, which burned afar, 
 Where sky and ocean joined. That orb would sink, 
 Shorn of his majesty, and seem to die 
 
138 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Beneath the shaded and entombing sea; 
 
 Yet Morn would come, fresh-breathed, exulting Morn, 
 
 And give him joyously to earth again, 
 
 With warming ray, and vivifying smile, 
 
 And all his bridegroom robes of splendour on ; 
 
 But she no more may view him, her fond eye 
 
 Closed to the beautiful and grand by death. 
 
 And whither would the hopeful spirit flee ? 
 Momentous thought which oft perplexed her heart ! 
 Heaven's sacred page breathed holy trust and peace, 
 And filled her with a joy that came from God ; 
 Yet ardent Nature longed to know how soul 
 Might pass uninjured from this shattered frame, 
 This wreck of matter, into fields of light ; 
 How live, move, act, and where the realms of bliss— 
 If heaven were here, in space, or some far orb 
 Unreached by sight, unvisited by thought. 
 The sage may hold that ambient air is heaven, 
 That souls will wing for ever yon deep blue, 
 Passing from paradisal world to world, 
 Gathering their bliss from knowledge, and the wells 
 Of unexhausted beauty ; this, too, this 
 Was hoped and humbly asked by him she loved. 
 
CECILE. 139 
 
 But mind for her a narrower circle took ; 
 True to her woman's feelings, she did think 
 The sage's heaven but cold ; that constant views 
 Of wandering worlds, however fair or grand, 
 Would weary and distract ; that largest stores 
 Of knowledge, howe'er rich, would never yield 
 That wealth of bliss the craving bosom asks. 
 
 For her one calm, blest spot beyond the stars. 
 Or e'en a planet beautiful as ours, 
 Ere shadowed by the clouds of woe and crime, 
 Peopled by pure affections, with One Power 
 To watch and love it, smiling blessings down, 
 Seemed to her humbler thoughts a sweeter heaven, 
 More fraught with joy that fills and satisfies, 
 Than widest fields of bright cerulean space, 
 Than proudest flights through systems infinite, 
 And all the wonders found in all the globes ; 
 For these may tire at last, while bliss that springs 
 From happy intercourse of soul with soul, 
 Shall pall not, die not, an exhaustless stream, 
 Whose course is love, whose fountain-head is God. 
 
 Life's last few sands were running slowly out ; 
 
140 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 The pale, faint bow was melting from the sky : 
 Cecile was gazing on an anxious face 
 Where sorrow cast its shade, and large, slow tears 
 Betokened grief too strong, too deep for words ; . 
 But death's sweet victim spoke in accents low : 
 
 " The solemn mysteries of our loftier state 
 Will soon be solved, and all doubt's shadows flee ; 
 But if the realms I speed to be yon skies, 
 Where, as thou deemest, spirits love to roam 
 Among fair stars and systems, seeking joy ; 
 Or if God's paradise be one fixed spot, 
 Where Christ's bright form will bless our longing eyes, 
 While knowledge, holy aspirations, mix 
 With simpler joys, dear memories, and pure love, 
 I bow resigned ; yet one sad, haunting thought 
 Disturbs my bosom more than other fears." 
 
 A moment's anguish filled those asking eyes ; 
 He stooped and clasped her, kissed her faded cheek, 
 Bidding her tell what burdened thus her soul . 
 
 " My dread is this — amidst the countless throng 
 Of spirits and of angels in the skies, 
 
CECILE. 141 
 
 Thou mayst not find me, when thine hour arrives 
 To break earth's cumbering bonds, but haply roam, 
 Seeking me vainly through the fields above. 
 Think not I shall forget thee e'en in heaven ; 
 No, loved on earth, thine image will be linked 
 With every thought on high ; for, reft of thee, 
 Methinks the sweetest joy would scarce be joy : 
 Yet this is crime, is madness — hush, my heart ! 
 Father in heaven ! forgive thine erring child, 
 Whose soul is sinful, as her frame is weak." 
 
 She strove to kneel, but could not from the seat 
 Move her half-fainting form. She clasped her hands, 
 Praying for pardon, and her lifted eyes 
 Spoke sweet contrition, while unaltered love : 
 Then tremulous in his ear her wish was breathed, 
 A lengthened pause between each feeble word. 
 She promised, if allowed by pitying heaven, 
 To wait in that green vale where first they met — 
 Wait by the fount where oft, at twilight hour, 
 They talked of future days, and wove bright dreams 
 Of earthly bliss, and never- changing faith. 
 
 Poor heart, she spake as human feelings urged ; 
 
142 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Perchance 'tis God's high will no souls on earth 
 Shall wait for those they love ; the good may pass, 
 Borne on the wings of guardian cherubim, 
 To bright beatitude the hour they die. 
 
 She leant within his arms ; her young head drooped 
 More low and low, and as the sun's thin rim 
 Of quivering fire now left the ruby wave, 
 The farewell ray soft-tinged her falling hair, 
 Fluttered upon the forehead's marble calm, 
 And gave the cheek a warm fictitious glow. 
 In her hushed breast no peevish sorrow dwelt, 
 But love that found not utterance — love that clung 
 In hopeful trust to Him who saved her soul, 
 And in fond truth to one dear worshipped heart, 
 Her own, her own, through all eternity. 
 Her hand that lay in his so still, so cold, 
 Could feel no more ; her lips that kissed his hair, 
 His forehead, in abandonment of grief, 
 Now closed, or murmured only wordless sighs, 
 That fainter, fainter, like the twilight air, 
 Breathed, paused, and breathed again, and then were 
 
 hushed. 
 But Oh, those eyes, expressive, yearning eyes, 
 
CECILE. 143 
 
 Through which hope, feeling, all the mind looked out, 
 Were fixed upon him — fixed unto the last. 
 What can subdue, what touch us, e'en in death, 
 Like the heart-speaking, loving, soul-lit eyes ? 
 
 Daylight was dying from the world, and fast 
 The beam of life was fading in that form ; 
 The stars were stealing from the dark blue depths, 
 And beautifying shadow and the gloom ; 
 So faith illumined, with her cheering beams, 
 The sable brow of death. Come, Mercy ! Hope ! 
 Gladden that lovely saint's expiring hour, 
 Point to the skies, and not the turf beneath, 
 Whisper of paradise, and flowers, and song, 
 Of radiant crowns, of God's approving smile, 
 And an eternity of hallowed love. 
 
 Life for an instant fann'd its subtile flame ; 
 A tremulous sigh — a pressure of the hand, 
 Affection's tender touch— a gentle smile, 
 But no farewell, and that blest spirit passed 
 From the dark portal of its prison-house, 
 To renovated strength, and light, and joy, 
 To everlasting youth, and peace, and God. 
 
144 
 
 THE IMMORTALS; 
 
 OR, 
 
 GLIMPSES OF PARADISE. 
 
 BOOK IX. 
 
 Grief doth not always kill : a heavy load 
 The camel bears ere sinking on the waste ; 
 So fares the heart on life's poor pilgrimage. 
 Still we may live, though sorrow striketh down 
 The palace of our joys, and all its pride 
 Be turned to marble ruins. Eeft of love, 
 And that dear worshipped form, Bernardin stood 
 Alone in desolation ; like the tree 
 Once fondly clasped by Summer's leafy vine; 
 The lightning came ; the embracer, withering, fell, 
 And strewed the earth in death. The oak aloft 
 Still lifts its naked branches, proud yet sad ; 
 
CECILE. 145 
 
 And as winds toss its bare, ungarnished arms, 
 It mourns the perished one — its fond green love, 
 That decked each branch with beauty, and hung blooms 
 Of purple promise on its grateful strength. 
 
 He did not rush into the blaze of life, 
 To scare the haunting spectre of distress, 
 Bat gave his soul to thought and studious toil, 
 Hoping to cheat the weary, grief-dark hours. 
 He threaded history's labyrinthine walks, 
 And wooed the light the sun of science sheds ; 
 Yet still his burning aspirations turned 
 Tow'rd the grand secrets of the peopled skies -> 
 His hopes, his wishes, ever flew beyond 
 The honours others crave, and this small star, 
 This dim, poor anxious world we call our own. 
 But e'en while fancy swept the stellar plain, 
 One gentle vision, on his proudest dreams, 
 Rose like a moon amidst the sombre heavens, 
 Making his dark and lofty studies bright. 
 The lamp upon- his page flung idle rays ; 
 He thought upon the history of her heart, 
 Not chronicles of time. Great Nature's laws 
 Were nought to spells that swayed affection's world. 
 
 K 
 
146 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Awake, he only heard her gentle voice 
 Soft- echoing down the gallery of years ; 
 Asleep, she filled his every longing dream, 
 Beckoning with radiant hand to happier shores. 
 Her image, with sweet sunshine, warmed and lit 
 Past, present, future, while immortal hope 
 Wove around darkness an unfading bow. 
 
 He died, where hoary Egypt crowns the plain 
 With monumental glory, and old Time 
 Triumphant walks upon a myriad graves. 
 They placed his bones beneath the herbless sands, 
 To moulder with the Pharaohs, and a host, 
 Once lords and princes, now poor mummy-forms, 
 That wait with him the resurrection-morn. 
 There lay the shattered dome that held the soul, 
 A crumbling ruin, like Egyptian shrines, 
 To mingle slowly with forgotten earth ; 
 The occupant was gone, in freedom, power, 
 To pass along the world, the expanded germ 
 Not visible to sense, but brightly formed 
 Of elements ethereal, mocking death, 
 And bearing all the memories, feelings, hopes, 
 It proudly bore when linked to grosser clay. 
 
CECILE. 147 
 
 The student-soul, the worshipper of God, 
 The lover of the virtuous one in bliss, 
 Glided from Egypt to his native land, 
 Swift as a ray from Morning's opening eye 
 Launched tow'rd the western dark ; for soul is dowered 
 With lightning fleetness next to rapid thought. 
 Yes, that young spirit, free awhile to roam, 
 Sought the dear haunts of childhood, where so oft 
 He dreamt life's happy dreams with her he loved ; 
 Oh, would she keep the promise breathed in death ? 
 
 A moment, and he stood beside the fount, 
 The olden trysting-place, but where Cecile ? 
 There, spread the beech above the crystal wave — 
 The tree that, long ago, weird Nature's harp, 
 Had whispered music in love's pensive ear : 
 There, stood the rustic seat on which she leant : 
 Nought, nought was changed ; could that dear spirit be 
 The only altered thing, forgetting love, 
 And vows to meet him in the land of souls ? 
 His piercing eyes looked 'round him, but no shape 
 Emerged in beauty to his longing gaze : 
 He sighed her name, and listened — songs of birds, 
 The fountain's slumbrous gush, and low-voiced winds 
 k 2 
 
148 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Creeping from leaf to leaf, alone were heard : 
 And so he bowed and mourned, while memory's spell 
 Called up past hours of love, and meetings sweet, 
 By that time-hallowed fountain's mossy brink, 
 Yet while he mourned, he blest a ruling God. 
 
 A sudden brilliance flashing on the fount — 
 A sudden rustle of descending wings — 
 And, looking up with shaded eyes, he saw 
 A form of glory passing human thought ; 
 An angel this of might, whose wing could plough 
 The sea of ether with the speed of beams, 
 His shape majestical of placid pride, 
 On which, self-luminous, no other form, 
 Crossing the sun, could cast a staining shade ; 
 Yet lovely while august, the Immortal stood. 
 Presenting all the graceful lineaments 
 That mark a breathing being in our world. 
 He looked a sudden meteor darted down, 
 His wings, his brow, a-blaze with opal beams ; 
 His eyes could pierce dull matter, reading thought 
 In other angels' bosoms ; he had power 
 Surpassing common spirits of the sky, 
 Yet his great presence brought no fear, but peace ; 
 
THE GUARDIAN ANGEL. 149 
 
 Guide and protector of weak human souls, 
 A holiness and beauty, love and joy, 
 Breathed 'round him like a heavenly atmosphere, 
 Softening his lofty look, and awful mien. 
 
 Gazing on earth's young spirit sorrowing there, 
 The glorious agent of the Eternal felt 
 Ineffable compassion. All was known 
 To that great friend and visitor of men. 
 
 "Poor spirit! weep not;" fell the murmured 
 words, 
 Solemn yet gentle as the voice of Night, 
 When winds lie sleeping on the starry air; 
 " Lament not earthly love ; yet 'tis no crime 
 For soul to love fond soul, for God is love, 
 Implanting in all breasts the fire divine. 
 She could not meet thee here ; expiring man 
 Must make no vows to mortals left behind. 
 Her pure, forgiven soul was borne on high 
 By gentlest seraphim, and now is blest." 
 
 The child of earth all eagerness looked up, 
 And raised imploringly his folded hands ; 
 
150 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 " Oh, guide me to her, if this erring heart 
 Deserve such bliss !" 
 
 " I may not take thee now ; 
 But thou hast leave to indulge the ardent wish 
 That made thy life one burning, ceaseless prayer ; 
 And I am sent to lift thee from this sphere. 
 I know, when mortal, thou didst long to range 
 The universe of spirit, and to scan 
 The marvels of creation — come with me ! 
 Fear not, for easily through liquid space, 
 And, light as thought, can spirit-essence glide. 
 Long is the journey to the gates of heaven, 
 And, on our passage, we will read the book 
 Of God's creative wisdom — come with me !" 
 
 The heavenly guardian took the trembling hand 
 Of earth's freed child, who felt, unknown before, 
 A strange quick power flash lightning through his 
 
 frame, 
 While his strong wish to visit other worlds, 
 And all his thirst for knowledge, burned anew. 
 The great one's arching wings, with sudden blaze, 
 And coruscating splendour, outward spread, 
 
JOURNEY THROUGH THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 151 
 
 A golden glory on our lower air ; 
 
 And, with his charge, up silently from earth, 
 
 Terribly beautiful, serenely grand, 
 
 Like spiral flame, he shot into the sky. 
 
 Ere the heart beateth twice, a liying beam 
 Can reach the moon* — so did those spirits mount. 
 They paused on outstretched wings, to mark the globe 
 We call our servant — Earth's fair Ministress. 
 How changed her aspect ! now no longer smiled 
 The gentle lady with the pale, sweet face, 
 And foot, white-sandalled, walking azure heaven, 
 Inspiring bards, and melting hearts to love. 
 
 Distance will beautify, and throw a veil 
 Of softness over horror ; as long years 
 Exalt and sanctify the deeds of man. 
 The moon no calm, bright dwelling-place appeared, 
 But cloudless, herbless, streamless, blackly spread 
 In arid desolation ; ( n ) it did look 
 A mourning thing, accurs'd, and all forlorn, 
 
 * Light is transmitted to us from the moon in one second 
 and a quarter. 
 
152 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 A world in ghastly ruins ! splintered rocks, 
 
 Ne'er worn by breeze or rain, rose jagg'd and sharp, 
 
 Painfully glittering in the solar blaze : 
 
 A mass of vitreous mountains, cone-shaped steeps, 
 
 Seemed tossed around, convulsively upheaved, 
 
 Tossed as in sport by some dark, mocking fiend ; 
 
 And frequent from their tops burst jets of flame, 
 
 While down their sides, like blood, hot lava rolled ; 
 
 And oh ! more full of fear, than if spoke out 
 
 Loud thunder-tongues from every fiery mount, 
 
 Dead silence reigned through all the dreary scene, 
 
 For pulsed above, below, no vital air. 
 
 Charged hills sent forth fierce lightnings unto hills, 
 
 Clouds never wandering 'round them ; earthquakes rent 
 
 The cindered plain, and toppled down the peaks ; 
 
 But still no sound went booming up the sky, 
 
 Sound that might speak of Nature's cheerful life ; 
 
 A calm most dread, a stillness horrible, 
 
 Sat, like a mighty Death, on all the globe. 
 
 The angel-guide addressed the trembling soul, 
 And told the strange, wild history of the moon, 
 E'en from its birth a ruin, terror's home ; 
 And still it ploughed its melancholy way, 
 
JOURNEY THROUGH THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 153 
 
 A savage waste undecked by flower or tree. 
 Enough, it served to lace, with cheerful beams, 
 The sombre garment Night doth cast around 
 Our slumbering planet, while from roughest hills 
 It rained sweet influence, like a kindly heart 
 Most happy serving others, though that heart 
 May beat beneath a beggar's tattered vest. 
 All generous, faithful moon ! 'tis God's decree 
 That fruitfulness and joy should ne'er be thine, 
 But, barren ever, thou should st walk thy round, 
 A lowly handmaid waiting on our world. 
 Glide on, calm orb ! though lifeless, aiding life, 
 Though void of grace, bestowing beauty's gift, 
 And, though most mournful, silvering earth with smiles. 
 
 Away ! the immortals voyagers far behind 
 Leave the volcanic moon ; their pathway lies 
 Tow'rd the red star that nestles near the sun. 
 With swift-wing'd foot, and golden-flaming wand, 
 The youngest planet, Mercury, hurries on. 
 First in the train of our life-bearing worlds, 
 High honour waits this small but active sphere. 
 To man he seems immersed in fiery rays, 
 Rays that, if blazing here, might wither up, 
 And turn to dust, all verdant, living things ; 
 
154 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Banish such dream — great Nature's secret know ; 
 Wrapping most worlds, the changeful air alone 
 Tempers the solar heat, and cools or warms. ( 12 ) 
 In this sweet star the air floats purely light, 
 As on the summit of earth's loftiest hills, 
 And fiercest beams evolve no torrid blaze. 
 
 The shading clouds the travellers swiftly pierce, 
 And, lighting on a mountain, gaze around. 
 Kich emerald green clothes all the fruitful plains, 
 And breezes freshly blow from steep to steep, 
 Like viewless coursers urged by lusty Health. 
 The snows melt sparkling at the illumined pole, 
 Brimming the rivers wandering tow'rd the South, 
 And, as they glide, they bear upon their breasts 
 Kose-lipped Fertility, and dew-eyed Mirth ; 
 While Spring pranks all the margins thick with flowers, 
 And sets the glad birds singing in the groves, 
 And calls the bees, late slumbering, from their cells, 
 And large-wing'd moths, round, golden, as the stars, 
 To feast and frolic in the genial ray. 
 Nature, not withered, as we wrongly deem, 
 But fair, and jubilant, and crowned with life, 
 Proud to be nearest light's refulgent lord — 
 Nature, in bursting bliss, doth clap her hands, 
 
JOURNEY THROUGH THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 155 
 
 And toss her tresses from her giddy head, 
 
 And, like a blithe young bacchante, dance for joy. 
 
 The forms that tread the mossy turf, or sit, 
 Embowered 'mid trees by flag-lined, humming brooks, 
 Are small but beautiful ; they almost seem, 
 To Earth's pleased Spirit, an embodiment 
 Of mundane dreams of peopled fairy-land.* 
 Their gaiety, in that pure, subtile air, 
 The lightness, and the gushing forth of soul, 
 Surpass aught known on earth ; the ills and pains, 
 Doomed by wise Heaven to shade each human lot, 
 Are borne with happiest temper ; gleesome hearts 
 Beat in their ever reckless, jocund breasts. 
 Too brief their lives for discontent or strife, 
 Smile begets smile, glad souls affect glad souls ; 
 And hoping, trusting, chasing every care, 
 They bless their world, and ceaseless feed on joy. 
 
 * That the planets are inhabited, no thoughtful mind can doubt ; 
 and although this "Journey through the Solar System" is, of 
 course, a mere poetic fiction or vision, yet, we think, that the 
 peculiar varieties of planetary beings, and the duration of their 
 lives, may in some slight degree be conjectured from a consideration 
 of the different constitutions of those planets, their respective mag- 
 nitudes, their distances from the sun, and the length of their seasons. 
 
156 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Glittering afar, with open, diamond eye, 
 How fair an orb is Venns ! — Travelling space, 
 And loving Eve and Morn with constant faith, 
 And smiling rays, white, spotless through the blue, 
 As glorified beyond her sister stars, 
 How beautiful is Yenus ! — From our world 
 We look with envious eyes, and long to mount, 
 And tread her shores of soft, translucent pearl. 
 Fond fancy paints Elysium in that orb ; 
 We deem its flowers more bright, its vales more green, 
 Than flowers and vales on earth ; its wandering streams 
 More pure and musical than waters here. 
 Komance weaves 'round that planet richest spells, 
 And tuneful bards in every age have burned, 
 Singing the glories of sweet Evening's star, 
 And hanging wreaths of immortality. 
 On the white beauty of her silvery brow. 
 
 Oh ! what the mortal dreamt, the Immortal found, 
 While with his guide, slow down the crimson'd West, 
 He wing'd enrapt, as there soft Venus turned 
 Her languid bosom from the torrid sun, 
 Seeking to cool her forehead, and to close 
 Her passion-lidded eyes awhile in sleep. 
 They paused a moment on a floating cloud, 
 
JOURNEY THROUGH THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 157 
 
 Stained to a blood-red ruby, and though far 
 The sumptuous planet basked and laughed below, 
 They caught the odors, faint and delicate, 
 Eising from plains of aromatic flowers, 
 And heard the gurglings of unnumbered brooks, 
 Cool-sparkling down romantic, reedy dells, 
 While murmured ever, up the rosy air, 
 Dulcet farewells to calm retiring Day — 
 Sweet human song — not one uncertain voice, 
 But blended strains from countless multitudes, 
 And swelling, deepening, and increasing still ; 
 As if not only each glad being there 
 Anthem'd his joy, but wood and streamy vale, 
 And cavern'd hill, and wave-kissed promontory, 
 Breathed forth a melody to rival man's, 
 And charm the spirit of the sunset-hour. 
 
 It was the orb where reigned bright poetry : 
 How few, among e'en thoughtful mortals here, 
 Draw bliss from the ideal, or can mount 
 Above the sod of our dark, weary world ! 
 But each full heart in Venus warmly glowed ; 
 Imagination's children, they could find 
 Rapture in hopes, and joy in airiest dreams. 
 
158 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 To banish far all cares, all thoughts of grief, 
 
 Was deemed the spirit's duty. Every form 
 
 Of splendour or of grace that Nature showed, 
 
 Proved an exhaustless well of pure delight. 
 
 The valley preached humility ; the sea 
 
 Raised a sublime devotion ; and the stars, 
 
 Filling the illumined, wondrous book of God, 
 
 Seemed great Creation's history writ in flame, 
 
 The eternal poem of Omnipotence. 
 
 The trees and flowers were more than trees and flowers, 
 
 Calling up visions of rich loveliness, 
 
 And thoughts of Him who sprinkled them with hues, 
 
 Green and vermillion : God's whole universe 
 
 Closed 'round them like a feeling sweet and blest. 
 
 It was the orb of love. Impressive, warm, 
 And ever quaffing draughts at Beauty's fount, 
 Such spirits well might own love's thralling power. 
 Love in no other star controlled the heart 
 "With such a sceptred tyranny as there. 
 Sons of the beam, with feelings wild and strong, 
 They revelled in extremes. All passions found 
 A home within their bosoms, yet 'twas Love, 
 That, like some giant, lorded o'er the rest — 
 
JOURNEY THROUGH THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 159 
 
 The one great leading note of Being's song 
 The race, in look, in stature, likened ours, 
 Venus and Earth, in rank and dignity, 
 Refulgent twins : but Beauty walks our world, 
 Like perfect virtue, shining rarely out ; 
 There, woman took no form save beauty's mould ; 
 As every rose, dew-steeped, hath sweet perfume, 
 And every star in heaven is fair and bright. 
 Her dowry grace, she smiled in loveliness 
 Through buoyant youth, and carried to old age 
 The glowing feature, and the dazzling eye. 
 Years bowed not limb, nor wrote their wrinkle-tales 
 On alabaster brow, and peachy cheek. 
 The curse of slow decadence fell not there ; 
 It seemed as Time could only take her breath, 
 And lay her beautiful within the tomb. 
 
 But think not crime unknown in this bright star ; 
 Did man against his Maker ne'er rebel, 
 Nor fiery passions warp him oft to wrong, 
 Venus were paradise. But God hath placed 
 Mortals on trial here, to strive, like us, 
 With dire temptation, and make pure their hearts 
 For loftier regions in a life to come. 
 
160 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Evil doth share mysterious power with good ! 
 Such the great law through all the varied range 
 Of finite being — problem unresolved — 
 Evil doth share mysterious power with good. 
 
 Yet, star of evening ! other planet- worlds 
 Shall still admire, and, envious, gaze on thee, 
 Looking so softly-radiant, sweetly-calm, 
 Eobed like a shining angel, glory-crowned, 
 The first that sparkles in the deepening blue, 
 Worthiest to lead the brilliant train of Night. 
 Star of serenity, by Godhead formed 
 When smiling brightest on the universe ! 
 We hail thee, truest Island of the Blest, 
 The world of pleasure, poetry, romance, 
 The home of peace, the dream-land of the soul, 
 The happy empire of the fervid heart, 
 The silvery bower of universal love. 
 
 Again they sweep the depths, repassing Earth 
 Before them hangs the rosy throbbing Mars. 
 As near they draw, a picture, gorgeous, soft, 
 Grows on their view ; the eye takes plainly in 
 The rounded world, and follows every curve 
 
JOURNEY THROUGH THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 161 
 
 The deep-green sea impresses on the land— ( 13 ) 
 
 Windings of beauty, shining creek and cove. 
 
 Islands, thick-fringed with palms that shade tall rocks- 
 
 Of ruddy gems, spring circling from the wave : 
 
 Wide continents reveal all Nature's wealth, 
 
 In hills and plains embossed with living green ; 
 
 In trees of each imaginable hue ; 
 
 And rivers silver- surfaced by the sun ; 
 
 No scorching, withering heat beneath the line, 
 
 No herbless desert-plains of boundless sand, 
 
 But varied flowers, eternal Summer flowers, 
 
 Like a rich belt of beauty 'round the globe, 
 
 A fadeless iris wove by Nature's God. 
 
 And man thinks fertile Mars a moonless world, 
 But lo ! the small, red orb steals nestling close, 
 Kaising the tides, and brightening midnight's gloom. 
 Not stern, not grand — a world of gentleness, 
 Here the young Seasons, joyous sisters, dance, 
 Dispensing blessings through the jocund year. 
 On this cool, happy soil, no serpent creeps, 
 And roams no savage beast with fangs of death. 
 Like warmer Venus, Mars doth echo Earth ( u ) 
 In richest beauty, but to Earth must yield 
 
162 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 In majesty severe, in mass and power, 
 
 In the sublimity of mountain pride, 
 
 And the expanse of ocean's sounding realms. 
 
 The Angel stretched his hand tow'rd peopled plains, 
 And cities shining on the banks of lakes ; 
 " Behold this world ! the tracts to man assigned, 
 A glowing Eden, with no curse that casts 
 A shadow on its beauty ; here alone 
 Spirit hath nearly reached perfection's goal ; 
 Here mortals never fell — a noble race, 
 Not like your brethren, by dire passions torn, 
 But gentle as their planet; ne'er they lose 
 The balance of their souls, but calmly pass 
 Their hopeful lives in pristine innocence. 
 Earth's sons misname this planet fiery Mars, 
 But war's dread demon finds no entrance here, 
 A hero's proud renown uncraved, unknown. 
 They fear not death ; crime only points its dart ; 
 Their souls throw off the chrysalis of clay. 
 And flash to immortality and light, 
 To live with us, free tenants of the skies ; 
 For mortals breathe a moment, then become, 
 E'en like ourselves, the blest inhabitants 
 
JOURNEY THROUGH THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 163 
 
 Of glory's bright, eternal palaces, 
 Built in the blue immensity by God." 
 
 Bernardin mused and marvelled, following slow 
 His angel-guide, oft pausing in his flight 
 To catch some beauty fading on his view, 
 To breathe the scents the planet left in space, 
 Exhaled from gummy woods and balm-lipped flowers, 
 And, with fine nerves, to drink the music soft 
 Of birds, and choiring waves, and human song, 
 That, raising undulations far and wide, 
 Thrilled many a league the pure ethereal paths. 
 
 Their course is outward, earth and sun behind ; 
 They fly along our System, ether's waves 
 Silently cloven by their brilliant wings, 
 White rays the foam that marks their rapid flight. 
 They search for planet-worlds, and now they meet 
 A small green body wandering down the blue, 
 A world in miniature, with tiny hills, 
 And bosky vales scarce large enough for fays 
 To dance in by the starlight ; while the sea 
 Looks only like a glassy, narrow lake ; 
 The rivers are but rills of nectarous sweet, 
 l 2 
 
164: THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 And trees are dwarfed to flowrets, rosy-stemm'd. 
 
 Another globe — another still careers, 
 
 Actively journeying 'round the lordly sun ; 
 
 And now a smaller, now a larger flies, 
 
 That emerald bright, — this coated thick with flowers. 
 
 All urge the same long course, but still apart, 
 
 Untiring pilgrims travelling joyous on, 
 
 In ceaseless sunshine, and harmonious peace. 
 
 " These are the globes seen faintly from your earth, 
 Kaising the wonder of the curious sage. 
 He calls them asteroids ; and some have deemed 
 The shining specks the ruins of a world 
 Once huge and glorious, long, long ages back, 
 Shivered to atoms by convulsive throes, 
 "While the torn fragments 'round the firmament 
 Must roam forlorn for ever. — Blind belief ! 
 As if Omnipotence, in moulding worlds, 
 Could wander into error. ( 15 ) Spirit, no ! 
 With high design He cast these drops of gold, 
 These fairy orbs, along the aerial road. 
 I well remember when they first beamed forth, 
 Myriads of ages ere thy race arose 
 On earth's then shaping and chaotic star. 
 
JOURNEY THROUGH THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 165 
 
 Life reigneth here, but not immortal man ; 
 God takes delight in each existent thing, 
 From humble flowers to eagles cleaving air, 
 Or wherefore should he give them being's joy ? 
 Yon planets bloom and shine beneath his care, 
 Sky-Islets, river'd, fountain'd, flower'd and valed, 
 Laughing for ever on their glittering way, 
 Full of all plants to fondling Nature dear, 
 And full of gay, exulting, beauteous forms ; 
 Sweet throated, painted birds, and golden bees, 
 And placid zebras with their rich-ringed sides, 
 And antelopes that fear no blood-stained fang : 
 These, though they boast not reason, live in love, 
 Existence to their hearts sufficient bliss." 
 
 Another flight through ether, outward still, 
 Bernardin following close the Angel's track. 
 The silvery point they lately watched in space, 
 Grew momently more broad, more huge, more bright, 
 Then rounded to a world. A something breathed 
 Superior from that globe, slow-rolling on, 
 Fraught with dread majesty, and kingly power, 
 Monarch of all the planets. Vastness there 
 Sat on a throne, its pillars propped by Time, 
 
166 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 While Awe bowed low before the mighty hills, 
 Stupendous altars Nature reared to God. 
 
 But now the long dark lines that mortals see, 
 Belting the globe with thunder, rain, and storm,* 
 Unveiled their terrors : peal on peal rolled out, 
 Far-sounding into space. Anon through chasms 
 Of rifted clouds, they viewed the giant world ; 
 And the huge mountains, which had shrunk our Alps 
 To petty molehills, looked all crowned with fire, 
 Lightnings the diadems upon them placed. 
 The cataracts, down-dashing from the hills, 
 Seemed broad sheet-masses formed of diamond- sparks; 
 Long rivers mocked our Niles and Amazons, 
 And Earth's wide oceans were but tranquil lakes 
 To the loud- waved, unfathomed, mighty seas. 
 
 The earth-born spirit gazed, but could not speak ; 
 And now they passed behind this royal globe, 
 Where Night her mantle waved, rich-fringed with stars ; 
 
 * Dark streaks, termed the "belts of Jupiter," surround the 
 equatorial regions, supposed to be dense clouds floating in the 
 planet's atmosphere, and influenced by currents of air, similar to 
 our Trade Winds. 
 
JOURNEY THROUGH THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 167 
 
 They shone the same, as mortals see them blaze, 
 
 Arcturus, white Orion, and the road 
 
 Of opal splendour, leading 'round that sun, 
 
 Creation's centre, glory's dazzling home. 
 
 But the fair moons gleamed large, and silvery-soft, 
 
 Ordained to cheer the giant's night, and walk 
 
 Servants around him, for his health and joy ; 
 
 While from the snow-wrapt poles, electric fires, 
 
 Eich with a thousand colours, ever streamed, 
 
 Lighting the dark, like Hope the sunless tomb. 
 
 " And this is Jupiter !" the Angel cried, 
 " The crown of all your system. ( 16 ) Thou dost see 
 A world most proud, stupendous, and sublime, 
 A thousand earths here moulded in one globe ; 
 Yet with Omnipotence your smaller star 
 Hath equal value, while 'tis more beloved. 
 Not magnitude, but worth is prized by God, 
 And moral grandeur passes matter's pomp. 
 Yon world is peopled by a lordly race, 
 Dying and yet immortal. Follow me, 
 And view the sons of this colossal sphere." 
 
 The gorgeous city spread o'er hill and vale, 
 
168 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 In marble sumptuousness, and dazzling pride, 
 
 Surpassing aught the Babylonian reared, 
 
 Or Grascia shaped from dreams of loveliness. 
 
 One palace had outshone Imperial Eome ; 
 
 And the long streets had been to earthly foot 
 
 The journey of a moon. The forms of men 
 
 Were grand and dignified to suit their world. 
 
 A calmness smoothed their pensive, lofty brows, 
 
 Unknown to dwellers in our anxious star ; 
 
 Rarely they smiled, too grave, too proud, for 
 
 mirth ; 
 Yet sullen gloom did shadow not their souls, 
 For contemplation and still melancholy 
 Turned them to sages. Theirs it was to live 
 A thousand years in unbowed majesty, ( 17 ) 
 Gaining soul-wealth that vast experience yields. 
 They trod not walks of science, like ourselves, 
 But deeply studied Mind's mysterious book, 
 And, all harmonious in their creed, embraced 
 The one right faith, that led them errless through 
 The mazy road of Nature on to Truth, 
 And from Truth's glorious temple up to God. 
 
 A Jovian Beauty. — Think not woman shines 
 
JOURNEY THROUGH THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 169 
 
 With radiant beauty only in our world ; 
 Where'er God's creatures live, in countless globes, 
 Pure loveliness, the fire of soul that lights 
 The outer lineaments, doth burn and charm ; 
 And still the mantle, wove of gentleness, 
 Dyed with rich feeling, and all lined with love, 
 Falls brightest upon woman. Calm she sat, 
 Singing unto the lyre a hymn of praise ; 
 Sweet thought was throned upon her noble brow, 
 As if young Majesty, in trance of love, 
 Had carved a dream in marble : speaking mind 
 Illumed each feature cast in faultless mould — 
 A straight, fine profile, Greeks had doated on ; 
 Her eyes were large and azure ; chesnut locks 
 Streamed down her shoulders to her feet of snow. 
 Vestments, and floating robes of texture rich, 
 Adorned the stately Beauty of this sphere ; 
 And that strong love of costly ornament, 
 Marking the sex in all the peopled worlds, 
 She too displayed ; for precious jewels dug 
 From teeming Jovian mountains decked her wrists, 
 And white pearls gleamed around her whiter neck. 
 Oh, had this fair one lighted on our earth, 
 Fancy had hailed her a Minerva, sent 
 
170 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 To flash high wisdom from her sparkling face, 
 A goddess and a mortal brightly mixed. 
 
 Boomed on the air the hoarse, deep toll of bells ; 
 For the sad iron tongue, death's preacher here, 
 Did syllable its name in this grand globe. 
 "What though they liyed a thousand years, that term, 
 E'en like our own brief span, would glide away. 
 Now did the great procession sweep along, 
 And the dark grave receive the Jovian dead. 
 Not as with us, no doubter sorrowed there, 
 For all believed soul's life, the mortal frame 
 But as a worn-out garment, worthless now — 
 The rough, crushed shell which held the spirit-pearl, 
 The cloud an instant drawn before the sun. 
 They knew the lost was lost not, but had clothed 
 Its loftier self with never-fading light, 
 Mounting the beam-lined sky, and finding heaven 
 Beyond those central stars — the clustering suns 
 We nightly view, yet scarcely may believe 
 Their glorious story — stars that charmed their eyes, 
 Filled them with hope, and lit the path to bliss ; 
 Stars, all the universe should watch and love. 
 
171 
 
 THE IMMORTALS; 
 
 OR, 
 
 GLIMPSES OF PARADISE. 
 
 BOOK X. 
 
 Farewell the lord of planets, and its calm 
 Majestic sages ! onward still they speed. 
 Behold a world in grandeur next to Jove, 
 The sage-perplexing marvel of the sky, 
 Hanging in space, a beauteous mystery, 
 Ringed with a glory, fair yet wonderful ! 
 Behold a world, slow-forming ! ( 18 ) cast by God 
 On the wide bosom of the ethery waste, 
 Long ages orbed and cooled, but passing still 
 Thro' countless changes, like our globe of old : 
 World, where no Eden yet hath smiled in flowers, 
 Nor man, a living soul, awoke from clay ; 
 But monsters, wild and fearful, strange, immense, 
 
172 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Wander sole monarchs of the troubled scene, 
 While Nature, with her slow but errless hand, 
 Builds the high mountain, hollows out the vale, 
 And spreads the seas, for races yet unborn. 
 
 " Spirit ! mark well this huge, unfinished globe ! 
 Yet know, for countless ages, thine own star 
 Strove with like savage wildness, ere it grew 
 The thing of loveliness it now appears. 
 Earth's swift-revolving and illumined belt, 
 Like Saturn's circle, I remember well : 
 Parting, it dashed upon your shaken world, 
 Kaising the Equator high, and settling there ; 
 And so will Saturn's fall, ere man be placed, 
 Free of all danger, on its solid orb." 
 
 " How long, angel ! ere this threatening ring 
 Will sink, as thou dost say, and leave the moons 
 Alone in silvery pride to light the globe, 
 And Saturn, now unpeopled, smile like earth ?" 
 •" The hour is chronicled in God's great book ; 
 That hour may come a myriad ages hence — 
 Time long to thee, and yet a scarce-seen grain 
 Amid the sands of never-ending years." 
 
JOURNEY THROUGH THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 17& 
 
 " Oh, tell me what is meant by that dread word, 
 So oft pronounced on earth — eternity !" 
 
 " Late child of clay ! as yet thou canst not grasp 
 The lengths and depths of passing, measured Time,, 
 Much less the awful days that know no bound. 
 Countless as seem yon worlds, and all the suns,, 
 Star-dust that strews the infinite abyss, 
 Mind can embrace them ; matter hath an end ;, 
 But where is your beginning, ages gone ? 
 And thy long cycles who can measure out, 
 Eternity to come ? — Great King of heaven ! 
 Who sittest on the throne those ages rear, 
 Thou only know'st what endless days may mean, 
 For Thou dost guide Time's rushing chariot-wheels 
 Along Creation's flaming mountain-tops. 
 In Thee the years began, from Thee they flow, 
 And they will close, if e'er they close, in Thee ; 
 For Thou dost mingle with eternity, 
 Yet not eternity can bow thy power, 
 Nor dread eternity exhaust thy love !" 
 
 The Angel paused, with face uplift to heaven ; 
 Devotion filled his bright, immortal eyes, 
 
174 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Now fixed in incommunicable thought. 
 
 Strange splendour on him fell, rich-flooding down 
 
 From some mysterious source ; his form tower'd high, 
 
 His wings spread out, an arch of amethyst ; 
 
 His hands were clasped in meekness, but his brow, 
 
 Sublime and still, upturning to the stars, 
 
 Flashed whitely with intolerable beams, 
 
 As if his ardent feelings, lofty thoughts, 
 
 All the outbreathing mind, were centred there. 
 
 The travellers passed the gulf to Herschel's star,* 
 And outer Neptune — last and lonely link 
 In the grand chain of worlds that gird the sun. ( 19 ) 
 Faint grew the light, until the sun himself 
 Lost all his golden wealth of torrid beams, 
 And, like a king dethroned, put off his pomp, 
 His diadem, his radiant robes of state, 
 And sat dejected in the shadowy sky, 
 "With pale regret, and sullen discontent, 
 Stamped on his coldly-waning, mournful brow. 
 
 Neptune and Uranus that, dim and far, 
 Sweep their tremendous round — the babe on earth 
 
 * Uranus. 
 
JOURNEY THROUGH THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 175 
 
 Is born, gains manhood, drops with silvery head, 
 Like o'erripe fruit, into the waiting grave, 
 Ere, their Spring past, another Spring arrives, 
 To crown the slow-paced year. worlds of frost ! 
 So we, blind mortals, cry, and bless our lot — 
 "Worlds of waste snow, and melancholy rain, 
 And biting winds, and deep, enduring gloom, 
 Far exiled from the beaming lord of day ! 
 If black Remorse did crave a dreary home, 
 If hard Misanthropy would spurn mankind, 
 And Sorrow weep her cankered heart away, 
 They'd dwell in these benighted, joyless worlds. 
 
 Awake ! renounce such error — mighty globes, 
 Huge as a hundred earths, were never launched 
 Majestic on the sky, and hung with moons, ( 20 ) 
 Betokening foresight, care, and anxious love, 
 Only to harbour pain — the lands of death. 
 The pilgrims hovered o'er great Neptune's side, 
 As he walked space, a Titan, laying bare 
 His ancient bosom to the distant blaze. 
 They saw how "Wisdom, Mercy, triumphed here ; 
 How gloom and iron frost, though tyrants oft, 
 Held no perpetual reign. When stole the beams, 
 
176 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Chilly and dim, across the waste of sky, 
 They pierced a dense and phosphorus-shining air y 
 That, glowing unconsumed, evolved a light 
 Genial as rays that bathe our own fair world ; 
 While cherished fires, within the globe's great heart, 
 Sent gently upward never-failing heat. 
 
 Yes, in deep wonder Earth's young traveller gazed 
 Along the equator, 'round the tempered zones ; 
 Fertility laughed there, and gaily spread 
 Her emerald robe o'er all the heathy plains, 
 Topp'd the high hills with forests, filled the vales 
 With blushing roses, golden daffodils ; 
 And Beauty trailed her sinuous, silver streams, 
 And oval'd oft her reed-marged, dimpling lake, 
 While happy, sportive beasts, and large-winged birds 
 Sailing the air, or thrilling it with song, 
 Gave life and cheerfulness to every scene. 
 
 Oh ! say not human races all distinct, 
 Their forms unlike, their destinies apart, 
 People the planets ; the same Being made 
 Each shapeful orb, and launched it round the sun. 
 The hill, the watered vale, the leafy wood, 
 
JOURNEY THROUGH THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 177 
 
 The exalting grandeur of the solemn sea ; 
 These all accord, in each fair world alike : 
 Oneness pervades — an universal law — 
 The map of Nature, and the map of man ; 
 We're all affianced, breathe one common air ; 
 All walk the globes with foreheads to the sky, 
 All in our great Creator's image cast, 
 All dying but to pass to endless life. 
 
 Thus Neptune, by kind laws illumed and warmed, 
 Though ploughing depths so cold, so far away, 
 Displayed each scene that charms the human sense. 
 The busy palaced city humm'd with life : 
 The brown - thatched hamlet, straggling by the 
 
 stream, 
 Sent up blue wreaths of smoke o'er patriarch-trees ; 
 The rustling corn-fields waved their golden pride ; 
 The gallant vessel sailed the breezy deep ; 
 Man toiled, pursued his pleasure, smiled or wept : 
 Life's varied drama, as on earth, was played, 
 Save the long year, the slow, slow journeying year 
 Beyond our century marched, and mortals lived 
 In Neptune, oldest of the planet- worlds, 
 Long as the time great Babylon could boast 
 
178 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 From founding Nimrod, till her towery pride, 
 And all her strength of ages, strewed the waste. 
 
 The Angel woke Bernardin from his dream 
 Of pleasing wonder, that the flowers of life 
 Bloomed in such distant fields. " Thou standest now 
 On thy proud System's outer, closing world, 
 Yet marvels lie beyond these seeming bounds. 
 Behold where comes, slow-moving up the void, 
 Diffuse, immense, yet lone and melancholy, 
 Yon comet wandering for a thousand years !" 
 
 " How awful is its aspect ! even here, 
 Angel ! I tremble, such dread mystery 
 Wraps the strange nature of these baneful stars ; 
 Wellmay earth's children, shuddering, watch their course. 
 God maketh nought in vain — then why create 
 These useless terrors, threatening startled worlds ?" 
 
 " Thou sayest well — God mouldeth nought in vain ; 
 Comets perplex, their missions half unknown, 
 Hidden amid the wonders Nature shrouds 
 In her great workshop of the universe. 
 Man ever dreads the things in darkness veiled ; • 
 
JOURNEY THROUGH THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 17$ 
 
 Thus comets awe his soul. They rarely spread 
 
 Disaster in their wide, erratic flight ; 
 
 Yet heaven at times doth send their filmy forms 
 
 E'en as a deadly scourge. They pass near worlds, 
 
 Poisoning their healthful air, and, with strong power, 
 
 Drawing wide oceans over continents. 
 
 So perished once thy earth, yet never more 
 
 A comet will approach to drown thy race." ( 21 ) 
 
 jries, 
 
 " Great angel ! I would pierce all myste] 
 And grasp all wonders." 
 
 " "Wait — thou art immortal ? 
 Thou hast eternity to climb and learn. 
 But ere we leave thy System, thou must see 
 That marvel of all marvels formed of dust — 
 That life-upholder — power of Nature's powers — 
 King of the worlds — we must approach the sun." 
 
 " Will it not burn to ashes e'en my essence ? 
 I shudder at its fierce and ceaseless fire." 
 
 " Ethereal substance can defy the flame, 
 And safely dash through lightning — follow me !' 
 m2 
 
180 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Back through the ethery waste the voyagers sped ; 
 They passed the comet, lagging soon behind ; 
 Meteors of silvery light, they flashed beneath] 
 Saturn's pale belt, and, swiftly winging o'er 
 The gulf of silence and cold solitude, 
 Threaded the yellow moons of mighty Jove. 
 The wandering starlets sang across their path ; 
 They heard the dash, where rolled on rocks of pearl 
 The seas, the Summer-seas, of happy Mars. 
 Sweeping near mountain'd Earth, they plainly saw 
 The fiery tops of Andes, and the snow 
 Pillaring the electric pole. Warm Venus' hills, 
 Alive, and brilliant with a million flowers, 
 Far back on ether breathed delicious scents, 
 As if her odorous soul still lingered there. 
 Then, leaving Mercury basking in the beam, 
 They paused before that glory, awing man, 
 God's mightiest, dreadest work — the wondrous Sun. 
 
 He trembled, as the Angel bade him look : 
 There glows no brighter, more terrific blaze, 
 Save one, to which this splendour is a shade — 
 The light that veils thy brow, Omnipotence ! 
 He trembled, while conducted through the gates 
 
JOURNEY THROUGH THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 181 
 
 Of pure electric flame, and lightnings streamed 
 
 Continuous, up the incandescent air ; 
 
 He trembled as he reached the solid globe ; 
 
 Nought there resembled earth — all, all most strange : 
 
 Wonder, the child of Terror, hushed his voice ; 
 
 And as he saw the Angel's shining form 
 
 Dilate with pride, as if that awful scene 
 
 Inspired no dread, but only lofty thought, 
 
 He bowed, and hid his face, and trembled more. 
 
 Mysteries there are man's soul shall never solve : 
 Not all the wisdom he hath hived on earth, 
 Not all his dreams, his gazings on the heavens, . 
 Since first the Asian watched the fields of sky, 
 Have read the inscrutable, the wondrous laws 
 That govern Day's grand orb. How virtue dwells 
 In matter unendowed with will or life, 
 Swaying the planets that must ever bend 
 Vassals before his throne : how luminous clouds, 
 Electrical, and white with active heat, 
 Gird all his mighty body, while beneath 
 The unmelting, labouring, massive globe revolves 
 Stupendous on its axis ;* how those clouds 
 
 * The sun rotates on his axis in 25 days and 7 hours. 
 
182 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Thrill the thin ether, brilliant wave on wave 
 Flashing the beam through cheered immensity, 
 And onward still, beyond the planets' range, 
 Beyond the comets', till the glimmerings fall 
 Faintly on other suns ; and this full blaze 
 Evolved unceasing, unconsumed, undimmed, 
 Through the long lapse of ages baffling thought — 
 Oh, all are marvels fearful as sublime ! 
 Man, lost, perplexed, doth own the lofty truths, 
 Thinks deeply, speculates, weaves fancies wild, 
 And, weaving fancies, drops into the grave. 
 
 The guardian angel led earth's pilgrim on, 
 The place to him familiar as a home ; 
 And each new wonder, wonder followed still. 
 It was not solitude that 'round them spread, 
 For beings mortal-limbed, with brows of light, 
 "Walked thoughtfully those radiant solar plains ; ( 22 ) 
 It was no land of woe, no penal realm, 
 For, roofed by clouds high-arched above the sphere, 
 Screening the electric fires that blazed without, 
 Beauty prevailed, and coolness, and sweet winds, 
 White brooks were seen, and many-coloured trees, 
 And golden flowers that breathed of Eden's fields, 
 
JOURNEY THROUGH THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 183 
 
 And valleys hung with thick, melodious shade, 
 And mountain-paths that led to still retreats. 
 O God, thou dost delight in all things fair, 
 And rich, and beautiful, and fraught with joy, 
 And thus thy goodness fills e'en suns with life — 
 Suns which are resting-places, gardens bright, 
 For angels and thy Ministers, who sweep 
 World-covered space to bear thy holy will — 
 The home of beings higher raised than man, 
 The linking lands between the humbler globes 
 They sway and lighten, and thy glorious heaven. 
 
 They stood upon a mountain in the sun, 
 A pinnacle o'ertopping Teneriffe, 
 As pyramids outsoar a cotter's home. 
 While mused the two on that high, radiant hill, 
 Viewing far off a wide-spread solar sea, 
 Heaving cool waves upon a silvery shore, 
 A glory slowly glided down the air ; 
 And now a dazzling form beside them stood : 
 Great majesty made calm his noble brow, 
 The stern and grand soft blent with loveliness : 
 Benevolence and wisdom filled his eyes ; 
 His ruby-coloured wings were folded up, 
 
184 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Flashing no more red splendour, and his feet 
 Shone golden fire, but burnt not flowers beneath. 
 He looked a god, yet, with kind, placid face, 
 Seemed, while so mighty, gentle as a saint. 
 
 Such was the immortal ruler of the sun, 
 And all the suns boast rulers like to him, 
 Appointed to their lofty trusts by Heaven, 
 And granted power o'er solar elements. 
 That radiant being knew the angelic guide, 
 And bade him hail, and welcomed both with smiles. 
 He pointed upwards with his dazzling hands, 
 Where clearly shone, through rifts of gorgeous clouds, 
 The Pleiad glories in the outer blue ; 
 Those lovely orbs woke dreams of distant heaven ; 
 And all knelt down to worship on the hill, 
 And waft their prayers to that far Eden-Land, 
 Blessing its mighty Monarch. Then they rose, 
 And the sun's bright- crowned lord, with kind farewell,, 
 Embraced them both, and went his shining way. 
 
 " Soul, thou hast traversed thy wide System now, 
 The glowing counterpart of Systems spread 
 Like dust in yonder depths. Say, wilt thou mount, 
 
JOURNEY THROUGH THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 185 
 
 And trace new world on world — new sun on sun, 
 And slake thy thirst for knowledge at the wells 
 Infinitude supplies ? or wilt thou pass 
 Straightway across the void, bright-bridged by beams,. 
 And join Earth's loved ones in the realms of peace ?" 
 
 Bernardin mused with fixed and downcast eyes, 
 Then spoke in low-breathed tones : 
 
 " The works of God 
 Are wondrous, beautiful, and well may raise 
 Awe, and devotion, and transcendent thoughts ; 
 But something tells me now, not wisdom's wealth. 
 Grandeur that dazzles, glories that exalt, 
 But sympathy and feeling are the springs 
 Of inward pleasure, peace, and perfect joy. 
 Our human souls draw bliss from other souls ; 
 In splendid solitude we tire and mourn ; 
 I feel my finite powers e'en now o'ertasked, 
 And sigh for humbler objects, mind's repose : 
 Blest Angel, hear me ! guide my feet to rest ! 
 Lead me to her, the loving, pure, and good ! 
 For her dear presence, and the pardoning smile 
 Of Him we worship, great Creation's lord, 
 
186 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Gladly I'll turn from Nature's glorious face, 
 
 Her countless beauties, dread sublimities ; 
 
 For these, surveyed through everlasting years, 
 
 Would scarcely fill with bliss the craving heart. 
 
 I once deemed rapture lay enshrined in depths 
 
 Of science, thought, and proud philosophy, 
 
 And burned to pass eternity among 
 
 The flaming orbs seen dimly from our world ; 
 
 But now, though Nature, knowledge, yield their joy, 
 
 I feel, I feel, the greatest joy is love, 
 
 True rapture centering all in love and God." 
 
187 
 
 THE IMMORTALS; 
 
 OK, 
 
 GLIMPSES OF PARADISE. 
 
 BOOK XI. 
 
 How many fear to image to their souls 
 The bright eternal land, but live content 
 With shadowy hopes, and vague, unmeaning dreams ! 
 They shrink as 'twere too bold to lift their gaze 
 Up yon blue heights, and say heaven lieth there, 
 That angels wing the broad cerulean calm, 
 Visit the stars, and our glad, beauteous Earth. 
 They reverence God, and think that angels live, 
 But dare not give them an abiding home. 
 Man hath his home, the beast and bird have homes ; 
 Shall spirits, then, have no high dwelling-place, 
 But homeless wander through the universe, 
 The orphan-exiles of eternity ? 
 
188 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Shall Deity, though filling earth and sky, 
 
 Have no peculiar home ? — Oh, dust we are, 
 
 Yet Mind declares, in yon starr'd ether-depths 
 
 A heaven exists, not vapourous, built of dreams, 
 
 Floating on nothing and on nothing based, 
 
 But a grand, real, and resplendent realm, 
 
 For beings of celestial substance formed, 
 
 Teeming with beauties, stored with all things bright, 
 
 Proud centre of creation, world of worlds, 
 
 A sphere of glory, while a home of joy. 
 
 O man, that strainest all thy powers to grasp 
 Poor tinsel honours in this gaudy world, 
 Knowing how brief their glitter : who dost build 
 Gay, sumptuous palaces for weeds at last 
 To choke the marble halls, and owls to sit 
 Hooting on broken pillars through the night ; 
 Who rearest pyramids with hopes as high, 
 To dare the worst that giant Time can do ; 
 But lo ! with surly, sure, and ruthless power, 
 Stone after stone he wears, and topples down, 
 Then points at pride's eternity, and laughs : 
 Who spreadest mighty cities, quick with life, 
 Fill'st them with all things costly 'neath the sun, 
 
PARADISE. 189 
 
 With gold of Ophir, gems, and Indian wealth, 
 While chariots roll, and Pleasure wakes her lyre ; 
 Ah ! vain — the ages sweep ; the Spoiler comes ; 
 She pours her vial out ; she striketh down 
 Art's great creations, trampling pomp in dust. 
 Now India's wealth, swift chariots, Pleasure's harp, 
 The hero's wreath, the monarch's dazzling throne, 
 Have shrunk into a mound where peasants stray, 
 And vacant whistle o'er unshapen stones, 
 And plovers cry, and build among the grass, 
 While Evening suns smile faintly as in grief, 
 And the cold moon makes stillness e'en more still. 
 
 Yes, man, this doom awaits thy works and thee 
 Stern truth doth preach it in unwilling ears ; 
 Nought stands unchanged, nought conquers time onearth. 
 Then burst the fetters that would chain thy hopes, 
 Thy soul's ambition, to this lower world, 
 And let them, like freed eagles, soar away. 
 Strive for those honours crowning virtue's brow, 
 In lands where wreaths are fadeless as the stars ; 
 Where joy and love are soul's great pyramids 
 Of everlasting strength, and endless date : 
 Aspire to palaces, whose jasper walls 
 
190 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Will ne'er grow dim, or crumble in decay, 
 Death never entering there to sadden hearts. 
 Think of the cities, not like ours upreared 
 Of perishable stone, but built by hands 
 Whose touch imparts an immortality — 
 Built on the eternal plains beyond those suns, 
 Whose silver- shining radiance lights them up ; 
 Cities, whose dwellers flock from countless stars, 
 To join the angel-hosts that never fell ; 
 Cities, whose loveliness still grows with time, 
 Where beauty, glory, unconceived by clay, 
 Fold all things like a brilliant, circling air ; 
 Beauty and glory, the wide-beaming smile 
 Of the great Father of eternity. 
 
 She died in green Madeira ; on her grave, 
 Not sweeter, brighter, than her virtues shone, 
 The rose and violet bloomed ; they loved the spot. 
 As if her beauty and her goodness lent 
 The very sod a sanctity and charm. 
 Cecile, when freed from earth's eclipsing shade, 
 And entering, robed in beams, the immortal land, 
 Might not her meeting keep in that lone vale, 
 Where first her eyes unclosed, and first she loved, 
 
CECILE. 191 
 
 But guardian angel-arms received her soul. 
 Go, mount yon hill, when heaven displays no cloud, 
 And our worn, weary planet turns her side 
 On ether's bed to sleep, while watchful stars, 
 "With golden lamps, light soft her deep repose ; 
 Then wilt thou see — awaking brightest thoughts — 
 The line of beams down-quivering from the orb, 
 The loveliest of the Pleiads ; up that road, 
 Which led to Eden-Land through stars and suns, 
 The angels bore the spirit of Cecile. 
 
 A vision shines upon our mortal gaze — 
 The arms celestial are outstretched in love, 
 And there the gentle spirit trustful rests, 
 Silently rising through the liquid blue — 
 Rests like an infant cradled in our world, 
 Dreaming of those bright bowers the Mother's lips 
 Have early painted to its wondering heart, 
 The sinless bowers of far-off paradise. 
 The wings arch widely o'er the ascending soul, 
 As though they would protect some fragile thing, 
 Fragile yet precious, and the travelling beams, 
 Erom distant suns, fall mellowing on the group, 
 "Wrapping each form in softest, golden haze. 
 
192 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Oh, those meek, joy-lit eyes are raised to eyes 
 That beam encouraging and tender light ! 
 Her brow, on which no earthly shadow rests, 
 Glows with a holy ecstasy of thought, 
 Glows with a conscious immortality. 
 The ethereal form, that ne'er again shall fade, 
 Shines forth, by God's preserving, powerful law, 
 A glorious likeness of the gentle clay 
 That once moved beauteous in our lower world. 
 The face is young Cecile's ; those features wear 
 All, all their mortal sweetness, but assume 
 Expression more exalted, beaming too 
 With smiles more heavenly-bright than smiles on earth. 
 And there she leans upon the angelic arms, 
 Borne up the azure by those guardian Powers ; 
 She sighs not for earth's scenes now left behind, 
 Bound for a land more lovely, more sublime ; 
 She mourns not for the hearts that mourn her flight ; 
 1 Tis but a moment, and again they'll meet 
 In starry halls, and everlasting bliss. 
 
 She mounts, her burning feelings all unquenched, 
 And all earth's tender memories active still. 
 But 'midst her longings for the eternal shores, 
 
CECILE. 193 
 
 She yearns o'er one dear image — one loved voice 
 
 Einging remembered music in her ear. 
 
 Oh, where is he — her own in mortal hours, 
 
 Who soothed her couch of death — and yet not death, 
 
 Only a vista to more lofty life ; 
 
 Who wept her exit to the bowers of bliss, 
 
 And sighed so sadly as she passed from earth — 
 
 That sigh the last dear sound she caught below, 
 
 Lingering upon the air, and drawing back 
 
 Her last, long glances, till they turned above, 
 
 And fixed upon the angels, and the skies. 
 
 She goes before, yet feels the time will come 
 When their disparted lots once more will blend, 
 Like the smooth Summer- waves the ship may cleave, 
 Joining again in brightness, and in peace. 
 Oh, hastening, blest reunion ! surely God 
 Smiles on a love so faithful, pure as theirs ; 
 For his bright throne is built on holy love ; 
 His laws, though changing not, are breathed in love ; 
 Wide space is decked with globes upheld by love, 
 And love divine will rule the eternal years. 
 
 Her hands are crossed upon her hopeful breast, 
 
194 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Her eyes seem momently to beam more bright, 
 As though they drank fresh lustre from each star 
 The seraphs bear her past. Fair child of earth ! 
 Sweet daughter of a prized yet erring race ! 
 Dear spirit wakened to new life and bliss ! 
 Saved by the power that will not crush the frail, 
 The mercy that exalts the lowly heart — 
 Ascend, blest soul ! ascend, young loving saint ! 
 Speed thee to heaven ! an amaranthine crown 
 Waits in the skies, to wreathe thy spotless brow. 
 
 The Angel and his charge had left the sun ; 
 They plunged through ether till the planets looked, 
 With all their tossing oceans, and high hills 
 Sublime with storm and thunder, but as sparks, 
 Or silver dew-drops on the fields of sky ; 
 Those drops waned fainter, fainter, then were lost ; 
 The thirsty depths of space had drunk them up ; 
 And the fierce sun himself had cooled his brow, 
 The royal giant, with his shafts of flame, 
 Dwarfed to a common, twinkling, tiny star. 
 
 And now they paused — not wearied with their flight 
 O'er that stupendous gulf, but paused to gaze 
 
THE LAST JOURNEY. 195 
 
 More calmly on the glory, strange, immense, 
 Fast widening in the sky, as other worlds 
 Shrank off remote, and paled their feebler fires. 
 They halted in a star, the last that moved 
 In vassal beauty 'round the sun of suns, 
 Placed haply there that spirits might alight, 
 And meditate awhile, and calm their thoughts,. 
 Humbly preparing for the last great scene, 
 The entrance of that land God fills with smiles,. 
 The land of glory, melody, and joy, 
 The Paradise of beatific rest. 
 
 'Twas on an opal terrace flushed with beams, 
 While brightly 'round the rich-rayed Pleiads burned, 
 The Immortals stood ; their late wide- spreading wings 
 That swept the ether-waves like oars of flame, 
 Lay moveless and unruffled at their sides ; 
 So peace will follow passion. On the winds, 
 Soft-blowing, and impregnate with perfume, 
 Floated their locks, each hair a line of gold ; 
 Their foreheads beamed with thought ; their radiant 
 
 limbs, 
 Immortal, yet as mortals' graceful shaped, 
 Glowed pure as veinless marble, with a blush 
 n2 
 
196 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Falling upon them from the roseate heavens ; 
 Their eyes, fixed steadfastly on worlds afar, 
 Flashed self-lit splendour — eyes no art might paint, 
 Brilliant yet soft, and full of issuing mind — 
 Eyes we might fancy liquid diamonds, blent 
 With tempering melted pearls, still open wide, 
 And drinking in the gorgeous, wondrous scene — 
 Eyes, like the worlds they gazed on, doomed to shine 
 With pure, unclouded ray, for evermore. 
 
 The angelic pilgrims in deep silence mused, 
 But he, late mortal, slowly stooped his head 
 Before the blaze of that grand fount of beams, 
 And, lost in fervid worship, clasped his hands. 
 
 The realms of beauty and eternal Spring 
 Shone distant still athwart the crystal sky, 
 Yet their fine vision pierced the abyss between ; 
 And plainly now, entranced, enrapt, they saw 
 The holy mountains and the vales of peace, 
 The rivers with their shores of lucid pearl, 
 The trees of life, and never-dying flowers, 
 While the thin, radiant ether bore across 
 The parting void, distinct to spirit-ears, 
 
PAEADISE. 197 
 
 Pulsations of rich music, floods of song — 
 Such man ne'er heard in grosser earthly air — 
 Music soft-floating from those spheres, to tell 
 Not only Glory built her palace there 
 Of starry wonder, and unfading pomp, 
 But Joy sat ever at the feet of God. 
 
 The lofty Angel touched his bending charge, 
 And raised him from his knees. The child of earth 
 Heard eagerly the Immortal, as he strove 
 To unfold the mysteries of the eternal state, 
 And shadow faintly forth the abode of bliss, 
 Which lay in prospect, like a golden dream 
 Blessing a saint's calm slumbers. Fear and doubt 
 Oppressed him not, but boldness, sprung from trusty 
 Upheld his soul, and peace diffused its calm, 
 While some compelling influence seemed to draw 
 His strong desires to that celestial land. 
 
 Then rose the thought that she, the fond and loved 
 In mortal moments, waited for him there — 
 Waited beside the glass-clear founts of life, 
 Or her fair, shining forehead wreathed with flowers,. 
 Born of the beams in vales that knew no night. 
 

 
 198 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Impatient fancy saw his dear Cecile, 
 Lovely as when she died on that sweet shore 
 Lashed by earth's ocean-waves. Her very face 
 Seemed smiling there, all sonl, all joy, all peace ; 
 The very thoughts that warmed her human heart, 
 Love for her God and him, illumed her eyes. 
 Yes, there she bent, that fond, expectant saint, 
 In voiceless worship, sweetest quietude, 
 Happy, yet knowing still more joy would come, 
 The meek, the trusting, and the beautiful. 
 
 picture blest that drew his mental gaze, 
 And fanned his eagerness to wildest flame ! 
 He rose — he spread his arms — his longing heart 
 Was stirred by strong impatience, till he shook 
 E'en like the aspen touched by Evening's breeze, 
 Trembling with tender pleasure ; and his eyes 
 Turned yearningly to that far glorious land, 
 As though its light were life. Then, brow all 
 
 smiles, 
 Stood forth the angel ready to renew 
 The flight across the sky. Outlaunching swift, 
 The two, on meteor-pinions, sped their way, 
 Cleaving the yielding, surge-like, azure calm, 
 
PARADISE. 199 
 
 And every moment, lightnings to them slow, 
 Nearing the Eden of the universe. 
 
 We close the scene ; we follow not their course ; 
 Too bright, too holy, is celestial ground 
 For mortal foot to tread ; while linked to dust, 
 'Twere better humbly wait, believe, and hope. 
 When life's thick shades depart — for life is night, 
 Truth's open day will flash on raptured mind, 
 Kevealing all we burn to know and see ; 
 Mystery now curtains close those hallowed realms, 
 And Eeverence lowly bends, and hides her face. 
 
 Oh, the blest meeting of those faithful hearts I 
 Now did they find that knowledge, though the source 
 Of lofty bliss, and worthy deathless soul, 
 Is but as wintry ice which melts away 
 Before the Summer of celestial love ; 
 Now did they find the affections will survive 
 The wreck of things material — heaven's true flowers 
 Immortal in their beauty, doomed to blow 
 On the bright forehead of eternity. 
 The mem'ry of their human frailties past, 
 Care, sorrow, and the mortal body's pain, 
 
200 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Would but enhance their hallowed rapture now. 
 Oh ! the fond meeting of those happy souls ! 
 Their lot henceforth to roam this glorious world, 
 Beneath the smile of pleased Omnipotence ; 
 To pluck the fruits of joy, not scant and crude, 
 As found on earth, but large, and rich, and ripe ; 
 To press up wisdom's hills, soul taking in 
 Still widening views of wonder and of truth ; 
 To bow together at the Eternal feet, 
 Defying death, and knowing that no more 
 Their day of happiness would wane to night, 
 Or love's bright rose one leaf of fragrance drop — 
 This was itself reward — itself a heaven. 
 
 Our lay has ceased ; a mortal, blind and frail, 
 Hath dared from this low sphere, this darkened earth, 
 Ascend in thought, and, on weak, flagging wing, 
 Pierce skyey depths where roam angelic forms, 
 And the stars sing their golden -chiming hymns ; 
 Hath dared, with reverential awe, to dream 
 In what far region, screened from mortal view, 
 Placed in the midst of Nature's vast expanse, 
 The home of souls, the abode of bliss may be. 
 God, why hast thou dower'd weak creatures here 
 
CONCLUSION. 201 
 
 With the strong, restless wish to lift the veil 
 That shrouds the hidden, unconceptioned land, 
 If such a quenchless longing be a crime ? 
 Why granted reason, if we may not use 
 Its searching powers that raise us o'er the brute ? 
 Why given us fancy, if its eagle-wings 
 'Twere best to clip, and check each wish to soar 
 Above life's narrow walks, and fleeting scenes ? 
 
 To long with ardour to behold God's worlds, 
 Sighing for loftier powers than bless us now ; 
 To feed upon the wonders of His works 
 In matter and in spirit ; to adore 
 The Father of all life, and, while we feel 
 This world of change is not our final home, 
 To mount in dreams made bright by joyous hope, 
 To yonder land of peace, and love, and bliss — 
 This is all worthy soul, the breath of God, 
 This is a proof of our immortal doom. 
 
 Thou central star, that beam'st so softly-pure, 
 Swaying the worlds, while pointing glory's home J 
 Ye angels, haunting earth and guarding man ! 
 Bright paradise, that bloom'st in yon far depths t 
 
202 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 Still let us dream of ye, still hail ye, truths, 
 Prized, golden truths, that hallowed music make, 
 Cheering our hearts, while journeying here below. 
 But all traced faintly on this transient page, 
 Is but a glimpse to soul's dim vision given, 
 Of the great mysteries filling earth and sky : 
 Such glimpse is like that narrow, crimson edge 
 Trembling around some dense and sable cloud, 
 Which hides the splendour of the setting sun ; 
 It draws the gaze, but only shines to tell 
 How brightly burns the glory, veiled behind. 
 
203 
 
 THE IMMORTALS; 
 
 OR, 
 
 GLIMPSES OF PARADISE. 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 0). Page 12. 
 
 What though God's Eden-land be far away, 
 He sends them thus to all the peopled worlds. 
 
 We are authorised to believe, from numerous statements in 
 Scripture, that spiritual Intelligences frequently visit the world 
 we inhabit: in other words, that many beatified spirits are 
 permitted by God, at certain seasons, to quit the regions of bliss, 
 in order to traverse His immense empire, to investigate His 
 glorious works, and perform offices of good in relation to creatures 
 still in-the mortal state. By the term spiritual Intelligences, we 
 must be understood to mean the beatified souls of those once 
 called mortals, as well as the happy beings never associated with 
 perishing clay, but who were created at the first by God, pure, 
 angelic existences, endowed with immortality. 
 
 (*). Page 14. 
 
 Spirit is substance, or material things 
 Would bow not to its power. 
 
 It is a common thing to hear individuals affirm that the human 
 soul or spirit has no substance, form, or any thing akin to what 
 
204 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 we term matter. They speak without reflection, for their assertion 
 would reduce at once the soul of man to a mere thought or 
 abstract idea. Now thoughts and ideas are simply effects ; that 
 is, they are emanations from some higher source, and cannot of 
 themselves live, hope, sorrow, or rejoice. The soul, therefore, 
 must be something beyond these — a subtile, ethereal essence, 
 assuming shape, and endowed with every faculty necessary to a 
 conscious being. All must admit that it will be as easy for 
 Omnipotence to develop or expand the existing spiritual essence, 
 giving it, though invisible to our grosser senses, form, symmetry, 
 and independent capacity of motion, and to supply it with visual 
 powers, and other modes of perception, as it was easy for Him to 
 create the first corporeal visible man, and endow him with 
 mortal organs. 
 
 Yet what the substance in reality may be which constitutes 
 spirit, it would be hopeless to inquire. We know, however, that 
 it must be something not subject to change or decay ; and while 
 superior to injury or accident, it must be endowed with intense 
 vitality ; a vitality inherent, and not bestowed for a season ; a 
 vitality which, unlike that of the perished frame, requires no 
 support from without, itself constituting the essence of being : 
 the former was organised for time ; the latter has perceptive 
 faculties for eternity : the one being a faint image of the divine 
 Creator ; the other (we speak of spirits virtuous and good) being 
 a nearer likeness, with faculties sharpened, and endowments 
 enlarged, as compared with those which it knew when united to 
 clay, yet carrying forward, from the mortal to the immortal state, 
 reason and memory, reflective powers and feelings, all that it 
 once possessed or experienced, but now strengthened, refined, and 
 exalted, with its own glorified and elevated nature. 
 
 ( 3 ). Page 15. 
 
 Our air birds sail ; a million times refined, 
 The blue abyss is swept by angel-plumes. 
 It has been a point long disputed whether space be an utter 
 vacuum, or pervaded by a subtile fluid which we term ether. 
 The mind of man is incapable of forming an idea of an absolute 
 " nothing," any more than it can grasp the conception of that 
 which is infinite. That the Almighty, among other purposes, has 
 
NOTES. 205 
 
 •designed space as a medium for the transmission of light from 
 world to world, is obvious; and if the " undulatory theory" of 
 light be the correct one — a theory which supposes an agitation of 
 the ether by electric bodies, wave forcing wave onward with 
 incredible velocity — then must space be occupied by a substance, 
 attenuated it is true, but still a material fluid, as proved by the 
 fact that something is excited. If space, then, be pervaded by 
 a subtile gaseous matter, no objection can be urged, on physical 
 grounds, to the opinion that angelic beings easily traverse it ; 
 and from the rarity of this matter, it follows, that they may be 
 enabled to move with a swiftness of which we can form no 
 adequate conception. 
 
 (+). Page 18. 
 
 Are their eyes dim with viewing new suns flame, 
 And old ones wane to darkness ? 
 
 Among the most extraordinary phenomena witnessed in the 
 starry heavens, may be named the sudden breaking forth of new 
 stars, and the disappearance of old ones. Several instances, well 
 authenticated, are on record, which place the question beyond 
 a doubt that the objects perceived were not meteors, but bodies 
 stationed among the recognized stars. In 1572, Tycho Brahe 
 detected a new star in the constellation Cassiopeia, "occupying 
 a position which had previously been blank." It continued to 
 increase in brilliancy, but after remaining visible for two years, it 
 passed away, and has not again been seen. Herschel missed in 
 succession several stars which had been located in certain places, 
 according to the catalogues, for ages. During 1828, astronomers 
 lost a star in Virgo (No. 42), and, by no efforts since, have they 
 been able to discover it. 
 
 A satisfactory explanation of these mysterious occurrences has 
 never been given. Whether the stars have appeared and dis- 
 appeared, owing to the great eccentricity of their orbits, we 
 seeing them only on their nearest approach to our System; 
 whether new worlds have actually been created ; or whether, on 
 the other hand, the phenomenon indicates that the luminosity of 
 some suns has indeed ceased, and that they are blotted out for ever 
 from the face of Creation, as light-bearing bodies, it is not perhaps 
 for man to decide. Yet who shall declare God's creative energy 
 
^^^^^^^^^■HM"*P"e"P""Blll*~ --» 
 
 206 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 at an end? — There is nothing unreasonable in supposing that 
 still, from time to time, the Almighty summons into existence new 
 suns with their accompanying newly-peopled Systems, as well as, 
 in his infinite wisdom, he may deem it expedient to withdraw the 
 light from some older luminaries, thus bringing their present 
 economies and dispensations together with human existence, to a 
 close. 
 
 (s). Page 49. 
 
 Te ken star-Islands, other Milky -Ways, 
 Complete with all their suns. 
 
 It is now generally admitted by astronomers that the Nebular 
 patches of faint light, most of them being resolvable by powerful 
 telescopes into stars, are firmaments resembling in every respect 
 our own Via Lactea (Milky-Way). So inconceivable is the gulf 
 between them and our astral system, that Sir William Herschel 
 is of opinion that light, flying at the rate of twelve millions of miles 
 in a minute, would not reach us from the nearest of those 
 Nebulce in a less period than twenty thousand years. Yet such 
 are the all-comprehending laws of gravitation, that we cannot but 
 believe a connexion exists between those remote firmaments and 
 our own. They also must have their centres of gravity ; they 
 also, to maintain their respective distances, so that firmament 
 shall not be drawn towards firmament, must revolve around 
 superior Nebulce. In spite of the magnitude of the star-system 
 seen through the constellation of Orion, there are the strongest 
 reasons for believing that our Milky- Way is the most consider- 
 able of all the Nebulae; consequently those outer and remote 
 Systems may preserve their equilibrium and harmony, by 
 revolving around our mightier mass. 
 
 (e). Page 51. 
 
 And 'mid the Pleiads shows the giant star, 
 Whose power, wide-issuing, sways the universe. 
 
 It by no means follows that the Central Sun, in order to control 
 the motions of the surrounding luminaries, must of necessity 
 exceed in magnitude all other globes combined, in the same pro- 
 portion that our own sun surpasses in mass the united attendant 
 
NOTES 207 
 
 planets. The law obtaining in our Solar System may only be 
 partially carried out, as regards the aggregate of the worlds. 
 We find the multiple stars revolving around each other, without 
 the presence of a greatly preponderating mass ; and we have only 
 to apply their economy to the worlds at large, to be convinced 
 how the Creator may have balanced the entire universe. "We 
 contend, however, that a point has been found around which all 
 the suns, composing our Milky-Way, revolve : that point is 
 occupied, as Professor Maedlar has demonstrated, by Alcyone, a 
 precedence and an unquestionable importance being thus given to 
 the star so situated. At the same time, astronomers adduce facts 
 to show that the magnitude of Alcyone immensely exceeds the 
 magnitude of our own sun, and also many times that of the great 
 stars Aldebaran and Sirius. 
 
 ('). Page 52. 
 
 The Paradise of angels and of souls. 
 
 That the celestial paradise is located in the heavens far above 
 or beyond our world, Scripture everywhere intimates. We 
 know that it must be somewhere, and the interesting and im- 
 portant subject ought to engage our solemn attention. Dr. 
 Thomas Dick, in his beautiful and truly Christian work on " The 
 Future State," referring to the discovery of a Central Sun, 
 remarks that, from its singular position and consequent im- 
 portance and splendour, it may indeed be the spot appointed by 
 God for the dwelling-place of beatified spirits, and where He may 
 display his own peculiar glory. We can scarcely proceed so far 
 as this ; but, with a reverence due to the subject, we may venture, 
 without presuming to specify any particular world actually 
 visible in the heavens, to suggest the extreme probability that 
 the centre of the Almighty's universe would be chosen by Him as 
 the fitting seat of the celestial Eden. The Pleiades having been 
 proved to occupy such a centre, it follows that near these glorious 
 worlds, or among them, the happy region may be situated. For 
 any thing we know to the contrary, vast masses, or opaque ter- 
 raqueous globes, may exist in proximity to this group of suns ; 
 a group on which no one can gaze without being struck by its 
 extraordinary configuration and beauty. Paradise, however 
 immense the region, and though it were illumined by one hundred 
 
208 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 suns (the Pleiad-group contains in reality more than that number), 
 would not be visible to us, by reflected light, at such an immense 
 distance. It is indeed in accordance with all our ideas of lofty 
 sanctity, that a place so holy and glorious should be concealed 
 from the common gaze of mortals; yet, as we have stated, 
 paradise must, if the Bible be true, have some location in space, 
 and can any spot more august, more suitable, than the region 
 named, be conceived by the finite mind ? 
 
 ( 8 ). Page 53. 
 
 The Central Sun is but a lamp that lights, 
 With smiles from God, the Eden-Land of souls. 
 
 Alcyone, the presumed Central Sun, is the principal member of 
 the Pleiad-group. From the earliest ages, the singular assem- 
 blage of stars in the constellation of Taurus, called the Pleiades, 
 has attracted the attention of astronomers. Their marked aspect, 
 and, on a clear night, the appearance of their clustering apart 
 from other stars, give them an interest and a significance 
 irrespective of any other circumstance. The ancients invented a 
 beautiful story in connexion with these stars. The Pleiades were 
 the seven daughters of King Atlas and Pleone ; all, except the 
 youngest, Merope, married immortals, and were raised to heaven 
 to shine as a constellation. Merope, at her death, was also raised 
 to share the honours of her six sisters, only that she exhibited 
 far less lustre than they. It is indeed difficult to discover her 
 star in the group without the aid of a glass. Thus Merope, for 
 marrying a mortal, has been called the "lost Pleiad." The other 
 six present a beautiful spectacle. The ancients imagined the 
 Pleiad-group to be composed of these seven stars, but, under a 
 telescope of no great power, more than one hundred can be perceived, 
 some possibly being smaller bodies, others ranged further back in 
 space, but all comprised within a compass so small, that they 
 might be covered by the moon when at her full. This extra- 
 ordinary cluster of stars, while its picturesque form charms the 
 spectator, suggests the idea that some cause exists for such a 
 close aggregation of suns. It is no ordinary group ; it is unique 
 in the heavens; and if it be proved the central point of the 
 universe, and that those suns have some office to serve, beyond all 
 other created luminaries, then we shall regard the Pleiades with 
 
NOTES. 209 
 
 an interest never felt for them by the ancients — an interest ever 
 increasing as the subject is studied, and we contemplate their 
 importance and beauty. 
 
 ( 9 ). Page 61. 
 
 'Round the grand sun of suns, the Central World. 
 
 If our sun, which, according to Sir William Herschel, i& 
 situated somewhat within the great stratum of stars composing 
 the Milky- Way, occupies, in making one revolution around its 
 companion star in Hercules, an immense period of time, and a 
 longer period again in moving with its fellow around the Central 
 Sun, then the suns, forming the outer belt of the Milky- Way, 
 will occupy periods proportioned to their distances, in their orbital 
 progress around the same Central World. The cycle, named in 
 the text, may be supposed that point of time when all the suns 
 shall have performed one or more revolutions around the great 
 centre of gravity where Alcyone is situated. 
 
 0°). Page 65. 
 
 For quiverings e'en of feeble song on earth 
 Cease not, tho' mortals may believe they cease 3 
 Thrilling deep space for ever. 
 
 The hypothesis that sound, once commenced, has no cessation,, 
 the vibrations, however diffused or slight they become, continuing 
 to be vibrations even beyond our atmosphere, may with difficulty 
 win belief, yet is it based on absolute physical laws. The theory 
 would intimate that the waves of sound will as certainly pass 
 through the great spaces which separate star from star, as will 
 undulations of light. We have no perception of such minute 
 waves of sound, because our organs of hearing are far less 
 delicately formed than our organs of vision. Nevertheless angelic 
 Intelligences may be endowed with an acuteness which we, at 
 present, do not possess; and their capability of being affected by 
 the slightest vibrations of ether, that shall have travelled for 
 millions of miles, may be one of those beautiful and astonishing 
 truths which appear to us, in our imperfect organization, little 
 else than poetic dreams and fables. 
 o 
 
210 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 ("> Page 151. 
 
 But cloudless, herbless, streamless, blaclcly lay 
 In arid desolation. 
 
 Did any atmosphere or water exist in the moon, we should 
 not fail to detect their presence. The stars are occulted by the 
 moon without any refraction of their rays, disappearing and re- 
 appearing instantly ; this would not be the case if an atmosphere, 
 even of a few miles in height, enveloped the satellite : also no 
 vapour has ever been seen staining the vitreous plains, or passing 
 around its lofty mountains. The atmospheres of Jupiter and 
 Mars, globes comparatively so distant, are easily discoverable, 
 and in the latter the seas are plainly traced. No forms of life, 
 with which we are acquainted, could exist on the surface of the 
 moon ; but Nature for once may be contented to resign a globe 
 to barrenness and solitude, in consideration that it has so many 
 important and beneficial offices to serve in connexion with our 
 superior world. 
 
 2 ). Page 154. 
 
 Wrapping most worlds, the changeful air alone 
 Tempers the solar heat, and cools or warms. 
 
 The moon which never has, nor can be inhabited, on account of 
 the absence of a life-supporting air, may scarcely be called a world 
 in the sense we usually apply to that term, as meaning a habitable 
 globe. A common notion prevails that the nearer the planet is to 
 the sun, the greater degree of heat it receives. This, however, is a 
 fallacy. It is not proximity to the solar orb, but the nature of the 
 atmosphere on which the planet's temperature mainly depends. 
 The aeronaut who, in Summer time, mounts to a great height, and 
 when no clouds intercept the beams of the sun, is frozen in his 
 baloon ; while on the highest peaks of the Andes, the snow never 
 melts. These facts alone prove to the most ordinary observers, 
 that the rarer the atmosphere is the lower must be the tempera- 
 ture. Mercury, though but thirty six millions of miles from the 
 sun, may be provided with an atmosphere so pure and rare, and 
 yet suited to every description of life, that the planet probably 
 is as cool and pleasantly genial as Jupiter, which moves at a 
 distance rather more than five times that of the earth, from the 
 
NOTES. 211 
 
 source of heat. If one thing evinces design, on the part of the 
 Creator, more than another, it is the adaptation of rare and dense 
 atmospheres to the respective positions of globes, for the purposes 
 of vegetable and animal existence. 
 
 ( 13 ). Page 161. 
 The deep-green sea impresses on the land. 
 Viewed through a good telescope, the green tints of the seas 
 can be discerned on the surface of Mars, in beautiful contrast 
 with the rosy colour of the land. 
 
 0*). Page 161. 
 
 Like warmer Venus, Mars doth echo Earth. 
 
 No other planet, in all its features and economy, bears so 
 striking a resemblance to our earth as Mars. Its mass is con- 
 siderably less, yet the distribution of land and water, of mountain 
 and valley, nearly approaches that prevailing on our own globe. 
 It revolves on its axis in twenty-four hours, thirty-nine minutes : 
 its atmosphere being a little more dense than ours, the temperature, 
 probably, at the surface of both planets, is much the same. Unlike 
 Jupiter which, owing to the very slight inclination of its axis, 
 has scarcely any diversity of seasons, the seasons of Mars are as 
 marked as our own. The white belts of snow at the poles are 
 distinctly apparent, and their gradual diminution can be watched, 
 as the Summers come on. No moon has yet been discovered, the 
 small size of the satellite, in all probability, and its proximity to 
 the planet, baffling astronomers in their endeavours to detect it. 
 
 ( ls ). Page 164. 
 
 As if Omnipotence, in moulding worlds, 
 Could wander into error. 
 
 Much mystery attaches to the numerous diminutive bodies, 
 called asteroids, which are found between the orbits of Mars and 
 Jupiter. The diameter of one of the largest, Pallas, has been 
 computed at 670 miles, that of Vesta, 290, while Flora, and some 
 of the others, are so small, that their diameters are thought not 
 to exceed 100 miles. The mean distance of their orbits from the 
 
 o2 
 
212 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 sun — their moving in a tract of heaven where, according to 
 Bode's law of distances, a great planet ought to be situated— and 
 the near approximation of those orbits at the point of intersection, 
 seem almost to countenance the opinion of Olbers, that the 
 asteroids are the remains of a large world shivered to pieces by 
 some internal force, in ages long past. But one consideration is 
 fatal to such a conjecture. The great Architect of Nature has 
 never failed in the formation of the mightiest sun. Shall He 
 here alone show Himself less than Omnipotent? shall He 
 resemble a mortal in being compelled to suffer the work of His 
 hands to become a ruin and a wreck ? The asteroids, we believe, 
 are the result, not of an accident, but have been created thus 
 minute for some purpose man is unable to comprehend. The 
 number now known of these extraordinary "miniature worlds," 
 from the first one announced by Piazzi in 1801, to the last 
 detected by our distinguished countryman, Mr. Hind, is very 
 large, and almost every year brings a fresh discovery. 
 
 (!«). Page 167. 
 
 The crown of all your System. 
 
 Jupiter has ever been considered the monarch of the Planets. 
 It is difficult for us to realise the fact that an apparently small 
 brilliant point in our evening skies is a moon-attended globe, no 
 less than eighty-eight thousand miles in diameter, and which 
 would make one thousand three hundred worlds like our own. 
 Some have argued that gravitation is so powerful in Jupiter, that 
 if any human beings exist there, they must, when they endeavour 
 to move, do so with extreme difficulty, the attractive influence 
 rooting them, as it were, to the spot ; and this physical incon- 
 venience has been adduced as a strong presumption that the 
 planet is uninhabited. But it requires little argument to show that 
 the difficulty named will be entirely overcome, if man be endowed 
 there with muscles more vigorous than we possess on earth. 
 Indeed, it is rational to conclude that both in size and bodily 
 power, the Jovian inhabitant will be adapted to his planet. The 
 human races, throughout all the worlds, we may safely believe, 
 present a family likeness. Man is created in the image of his 
 divine Maker; j r et as Mercury differs in magnitude from our 
 earth, and the last from Jupiter and Uranus, why should not the 
 
NOTES. 213 
 
 inhabitants of each planet possess a like diversity, as regards 
 strength and size, though the distinctive formation of features, 
 bodily shape, and adjustment of limbs, be precisely similar ? 
 
 ( 17 ). Page 168. 
 
 Theirs it was to live 
 A thousand years in unbowed majesty. 
 
 Seasoning from analogy, we may infer that the Creator has 
 proportioned the length of life, enjoyed by his creatures, to the 
 duration of the seasons, or the solar years of the respective worlds. 
 Thus the term of life in Mercury, whose year is about a fourth 
 part of our own, may be twenty of our Summers ; while in 
 Jupiter the inhabitants shall be permitted, on an average, to see 
 seventy revolutions of their planet around the sun, extending 
 over a period not far short of nine hundred terrestrial years. 
 
 ( 19 ). Page 171. 
 Behold a world slow-forming. 
 
 Some modern astronomers have announced that the rings of 
 Saturn are composed of millions of separate small meteors. But 
 the accepted opinion is that they are formed of continuous 
 matter. The rings have been prominently put forward by the 
 advocates of the Nebular Hypothesis as affording strong evidence 
 of its truth. According to the theory of the elder Herschel, and 
 Laplace, the outer planets were first cast off from the sun, and 
 condensed; consequently they are the oldest bodies. Be this as 
 it may, the Creator probably has willed that some globes should 
 occupy far longer periods than others, in arriving at a condition 
 suitable for the abode of human beings. The extraordinary 
 appendage to Saturn (for rings have never been detected surround- 
 ing any other planet), would seem to intimate that the globe is 
 still in process of condensation, having thrown off those flat 
 circles during its rapid axial rotation ; in all probability the 
 planet goes on decreasing in volume ; for it is rather remarkable 
 that its mean density (half the weight of water) is less than that 
 of any other body, comets excepted, in the System. 
 
 That our world, at some remote period, possessed a ring or 
 rings similar to those of Saturn, we have reason to suspect ; there 
 
 i 
 
2] 4 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 is surplus matter all around the earth's equator, forming a 
 graduated elevation of thirteen miles beyond what the equatorial 
 regions would be, were our globe a perfect sphere ; hence the 
 diameter at the equator exceeds that at the poles, by twenty-six 
 miles. This may be the first suggestion offered that the elevation, 
 above named, is attributable to our earth's primitive rings, and 
 we are aware that such elevation has been regarded as an effect 
 of centrifugal force, derived from the earth's rapid revolution on 
 its axis, when in a less dense state than at present; but the 
 accumulation at the equator may, we think, with as much reason 
 be ascribed to the disruption of the once encircling rings, which, 
 falling on our planet, would be heaped around the equatorial 
 regions. 
 
 A further argument that Saturn's belts will eventually be 
 broken up, is supplied by the fact that he is attended by so 
 numerous a retinue of moons. The light which the rings derive 
 from the sun, and throw upon Saturn's surface, must be very 
 considerable, and did the Creator design them to be permanent, 
 their luminosity might suffice the inhabitants during their brief 
 night of five hours, without the presence of moons. But the 
 seven moons seem to have been created in anticipation of the 
 catastrophe adverted to, when, with its brother worlds, Saturn's 
 time shall have come to support, unthreatened by danger, 
 rational beings. 
 
 9 ). Page 174. 
 
 Last and lonely link 
 In the grand chain of tcorlds that gird the sun. 
 
 It is very improbable that another planet revolves beyond the 
 orbit of Neptune, for some future Le Verrier or Adams to discover. 
 The mean distance of Neptune from the sun (three thousand 
 millions of miles) being more than thirty times that of the earth 
 from the same luminary, the solar disc must appear from the 
 planet's surface dwindled down to a mere point ; and, presuming 
 B ode's law correct, if another planet exist, it must be situated at 
 nearly double the distance of Neptune from the sun, or in a 
 region of space where our sun's attraction would certainly be too 
 feeble to control the motions of a solid body, the subtile matter 
 of comets alone obeying the weakened solar force. 
 
XOTES. 215 
 
 (2 0). Page 175. 
 Majestic on the sky, and hung with moons. 
 
 That one moon only has been discovered in attendance on 
 Neptune, is no proof that several moons do not cheer the darkness 
 of his nights. Neptune may be regarded as the oldest of the 
 planets, as Mercury may be considered the youngest, if we follow 
 the order that some astronomical theories prescribe. Far less in 
 mass than Jupiter or Saturn, Neptune is nevertheless thirty-one 
 thousand miles in diameter, and above one hundred times larger 
 than our earth. That its surface is suited to vegetable life, 
 and the life of sentient beings, we have no reason to doubt. A 
 peculiar atmosphere of great density, on the principle before 
 alluded to, may cause the sun's beams to develop light and caloric, 
 however feebly those beams may shine there, so that Neptune is 
 probably a world of great fertility and beauty. 
 
 We have considered Saturn, arguing from the presence of its 
 yet unfallen rings, as in a state of transition, preparing for the 
 reception of human beings. It was at first suspected that 
 Neptune possessed a ring, and Professor Challis and Mr. Lassell 
 thought they could perceive traces of it ; but the idea of its 
 existence is now, we believe, quite abandoned. The appendage 
 of rings, then, not being discovered in connexion with Neptune, 
 and resembling in several points our own world, we may fairly 
 conclude that this magnificent globe is no wilderness, created 
 without aim or purpose, but that it supports on its surface a race 
 of beings endowed with intellect and reason. If we carry out 
 the theory before named, in relation to the term of life assigned 
 by God to his creatures, then must we suppose the inhabitants of 
 Neptune favoured with length of days beyond any patriarch we 
 read of in Sacred Writ. The summer of Neptune comes around 
 but once in 164 of our years ; and we can scarcely imagine that 
 the Almighty would create beings to witness only one solar year 
 of their world ; consequently man, if permitted to live even for 
 twenty of Neptune's summers, would attain to an age equivalent 
 to about three thousand of our years. 
 
216 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 ( 21 ). Page 179. 
 
 Yet never more 
 A comet will approach to drown thy race. 
 
 After the first miracle of creation, the Almighty appears to 
 have heen pleased ever to work out his purposes by natural 
 means; therefore, other causes assisting in bringing about the 
 deluge, as stated in Scripture, both physical laws and the Sacred 
 Narrative may allow the supposition, that one of the larger 
 comets was once permitted to pass so near the surface of our 
 earth as to raise, by attraction, a tidal wave. That these 
 mysterious bodies concerning which, in reality, so little is' known, 
 however attenuated their gaseous matter may be, possess a 
 certain substance and weight, is beyond dispute. Consequently, 
 though their influence on solid bodies, when placed at some con- 
 siderable distance from them, may have escaped detection, they 
 must possess attractive power. The tidal wave, raised by this 
 large comet on its near approach to the earth, may have 
 exceeded in volume any that could be elevated by the moon : it 
 might have swept over the land, and covered many of the hills. 
 Thus it may be said, in the language of the Mosaic narrative, 
 that '■ the fountains of the great deep were broken up." A body 
 of water might in this manner have been drawn from the Atlantic 
 ocean over Southern Europe, and all the Western parts of Asia 
 might have been submerged. The waters, after the passage of 
 the comet, would, of course, retreat to their former beds. 
 
 ( 22 ). Page 182. 
 
 Walked thoughtfully those radiant solar plains. 
 
 If there be any truth in the statements and sublime deductions 
 of Sir William Herschel, then we may well believe that our sun 
 is inhabited. These are his words — "I think myself authorized, 
 upon astronomical principles, to propose the sun as an inhabitable 
 world, and am pursuaded that the foregoing observations, with 
 the conclusions I have drawn from them, are fully sufficient to 
 answer every objection." — Electricity is the grand secret of the 
 luminosity of this mysterious body, and as electric currents, 
 under certain conditions, can never exhaust themselves, the solar 
 light has a ceaseless endurance. Electric clouds in a state of 
 
NOTES. 217 
 
 ■constant activity, passing our conception, encompass the entire 
 orb ; other strata of clouds, not luminous, appear to form a screen 
 beneath, but at a considerable distance from the sun's solid body. 
 The modern discovery of the extraordinary fact that several 
 metals, well known in our planet, float in a burning vaporous 
 state above the sun's surface, goes to confirm, we think, rather 
 than overthrow the doctrine of continued electric action. These 
 electric clouds, exerting all their influence outwards, permit the 
 opaque body to remain in comparative shadow and coolness ; 
 vapours from the solar seas may also conduce to lower the 
 temperature of the atmosphere. The spots, so frequently dis- 
 covered on the sun's disc, are believed to be temporary removals 
 of the surrounding luminous envelope, caused by excessive 
 agitation, allowing the dark surface of the sun to be partially 
 uncovered ; thus the inhabitants may have occasional views of 
 the outer tmiverse, for in these openings shadow and darkness 
 must, to a certain extent, prevail, so that the rays from the 
 planets and other stars may shine through them. 
 
 It seems to be the will of the great Architect of Nature, that 
 every portion of our own globe, both land and water, should teem 
 with life ; we can therefore with difficulty believe that He would 
 permit so stupendous a world as the sun to be an unpeopled solitude. 
 The power that created such a magnificent globe, is able certainly, 
 in some way unknown to us, to render it inhabitable, and, while 
 it exercises such important offices, controlling and vivifying all 
 the planetary worlds, the same power can clothe it with natural 
 beauty, and fill it with every form of life and intelligence. 
 
218 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 THE CENTRAL SUN. 
 
 The great modern discovery of a Central Sun being so fre- 
 quently referred to in the preceding pages, and forming much of 
 the subject-matter of the Poem, a few additional observations 
 regarding it may not be inopportune. 
 
 Up to a comparatively recent period, an idea prevailed that 
 our sun is fixed in space, merely rotating on his axis ; also that 
 the stars, with the exception of the few planets constituting our 
 System, are immoveable. Suns, these stars were acknowledged 
 to be, each probably attended by its retinue of planets, satellites, 
 and comets, but still they were thought to maintain for ever 
 unaltered stations in the sky. 
 
 The first public announcement by Sir William Herschel, 
 although Bradley and Halley had previously thrown out sug- 
 gestions, that our sun has a proper motion in space, carrying 
 along with him the planets and comets, was received with little 
 favour by contemporary astronomers. But that eminent man, 
 no more than his successor, his equally eminent son, was not a 
 visionary; he never made statements unsupported by proof. 
 The gradual widening or spreading out of stars towards the 
 
APPENDIX. 219 
 
 North, as compared with the stations they held in the catalogue 
 made by Hipparchus two thousand years ago, and the drawing 
 together, or closing up, of those located in the South, convinced 
 him that our sun's progress is in a Northern direction. Recent 
 investigations and discoveries have corroborated his views, and 
 confirmed the truth of his bold theory, placing his then doubted 
 declaration among the great facts of the age. 
 
 The labours of Argelander, who selected five hundred stars 
 situated in all parts of the heavens, so that, by their apparent 
 motions, the sun's proper motion might be detected, and the con- 
 firmation which the celebrated astronomer, Otho Struve, gave to 
 the results obtained — all go to prove that our System is pro- 
 gressing through space towards a star in the constellation 
 Hercules. Whether that star be our companion sun, which also, 
 at that immense distance, may be performing a revolution around 
 ourselves, the pair having hundreds of counterparts, called binary 
 stars, is a question yet to be decided. 
 
 Under any circumstances, the orbit we are describing is one of 
 a stupendous nature. Such of the members of the «double and 
 multiple stars whose orbits have been computed, perform re- 
 volutions around each other in periods varying from half a 
 century to two thousand years, although one of the pairs of the 
 quadruple star in the constellation of the Harp, requires, as 
 estimated from their distances, a period not far short of a million 
 of years. From very close calculations which cannot greatly err, 
 our sun, with his attendant planets, is found to be sweeping 
 through space at the rate of one hundred and thirty three millions 
 of miles every year ; yet a single revolution around this distant 
 world located in Hercules, will occupy a period greater than that 
 required by the stars in the constellation of the Harp. Can it 
 be that one revolution has yet been performed ? Geology alone 
 may return an answer ; and the immense antiquity which she 
 gives to the Earth seems to indicate that the revolution has been 
 performed several times, since the Almighty condensed our planet, 
 and moulded it out of chaos. 
 
 Let us not, however, be misunderstood : we are not among 
 those who would endeavour very greatly to extend the chronology 
 generally received, as regards the period of man's creation. The 
 acknowledged antiquity of our globe does not argue that its last 
 convulsions were not comparatively of a modern date, and after 
 
L'ZU THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 which the history of our species commences. The flint-head 
 weapons discovered embedded in certain ancient strata, and the 
 Lacustrine remains in Switzerland, may point, it is true, to a 
 high antiquity ; but the value of these data, we submit, if value 
 they do possess, is by no means yet determined. Little doubt, 
 however, exists that, from other and weightier considerations 
 than these just named, the period of the creation of man should 
 be thrown back a very considerable time beyond that computed 
 by the old chronologists. 
 
 Now our sun's proper motion in space being admitted, we are 
 led to infer from analogy that every other sun, including the 
 myriads that compose our astral System, the Milky Way, is also 
 in a state of progression. Independently of the consideration 
 that all God's works obey the laws of perfect harmony, and that 
 other suns seem but a beautiful repetition of our own, we are 
 driven to the conclusion that universal motion prevails in the 
 heavens. The numerous binary and triple stars have for ever 
 settled the question that the laws of gravitation obtain in the 
 remotest parts of the universe. This important fact being 
 granted, it follows that all the great bodies in space must have an 
 onward movement around some centre of gravity, otherwise as 
 certainly as our own planet, were it to be suddenly deprived of 
 the centrifugal force it received at its creation, would drop into 
 the sun, so would the mass of worlds, as elsewhere observed, 
 obedient to the laws of attraction, no matter how widely stationed 
 apart, gradually approach each other, and universal ruin be the 
 result. 
 
 It appears, then, absolutely necessary from the known pro- 
 perties of material bodies, that no member of the great family of 
 worlds should be stationary. But whither can the suns, with 
 ourselves, be tending ? they must without question move in orbits, 
 and there must exist a centre of gravity, or the Creator's universe, 
 speaking reverently, would be devoid of harmony, and his mighty 
 engineering would, to human comprehension, exhibit imperfection. 
 A central world, around which all the members of our astral 
 System, at less or greater distances, should perform revolutions, 
 seems a strong necessity resulting from the very constitution of 
 the universe. Astronomers have felt that such a "point of 
 force " must have existence somewhere ; the great difficulty has 
 been in determining its exact locality. Many men of eminence 
 
APPENDIX. 221 
 
 have employed their powers in this important search for the 
 common centre of gravity of all the stars, and among them Pro- 
 fessor Maedlar stands conspicuous. 
 
 The elder Herschel, in determining the direction in which our 
 sun is moving, made a gigantic stride towards a solution of the 
 problem; hut it has remained for Maedlar, by a process as 
 ingenious as laborious, to point out, with a high degree of pro- 
 bability, I would say with certainty, the star which has the 
 honour and glory of occupying that spot in the universe, which 
 may be termed the throne and spring-head of creation. 
 
 Our sun is situated at present in the Southern portion of the 
 Milky Way, and is proceeding North. Hence the centre of 
 gravity must be sought in the latter direction. We cannot 
 pretend to explain here the sagacious method by which Maedlar 
 arrived at his conclusions ; suffice it to say, that the star which 
 answers all the conditions required by a central sun, is Alcyone, 
 the principal member of the Pleiad-group. 
 
 This beautiful and well-known cluster appears to the un- 
 assisted eye to be composed of seven stars, but the telescope 
 reveals more than a hundred, and all are situated within a space 
 not larger, apparently, than the circumference of the moon. 
 
 Among other indications or proofs that this is the real centre 
 of the universe, may be stated the remarkable fact that the stars 
 which surround Alcyone have all a motion in the same direction ; 
 and extending observations further from its body, Maedlar found 
 that, out of one hundred and ten stars, only one appeared to 
 move contrary to the course which he assumed each ought to 
 maintain. 
 
 From what has been stated, we arrive at the conclusion that, 
 amidst the innumerable stars which bespangle our heavens, a 
 centre of gravity exists, around which their countless thousands 
 revolve. The question then presents itself, is this centre of 
 gravity merely a point in space, occupied by no globe superior in 
 dimensions to other suns, but resembling the point between 
 binary or quadruple stars, which, while they may be of similar 
 size, perform revolutions around each other ? — Oris there a body 
 located there of sufficient magnitude to influence and control the 
 motions of all other suns ? — The mind at first refuses to believe 
 that any body so stupendous can exist in creation ; precisely as 
 the young student in astronomy is staggered, when, for the first 
 
222 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 time, he learns that the mass or weight of the sun exceeds that 
 of the earth 355 thousand times, and the mass of all the planets 
 united 500 times. But though he is astounded and incredulous, 
 the fact remains undeniable. 
 
 "We rise from our own subordinate System to the sun-systems 
 of revolving multiple stars, and then to the combined astral 
 scheme of the universe. If harmony distinguish the one, shall 
 not harmony prevail in the others ? We only extend the field of 
 creation, and we can imagine nothing so august, nothing so 
 mighty, but that the divine Artificer's ^workmanship shall 
 transcend all our conceptions. To the power which is infinite no 
 limit can be assigned ; and He who could create one sun many 
 times larger than the globes it presides over, could, for his lofty 
 purposes, create another body many times larger than the com- 
 bined mass of our sun and his luminous companions. 
 
 Nevertheless the law operating in our own System, that a 
 governing body shall much exceed in size all the governed 
 together, does not, as far as observation teaches us, prevail in 
 regard to the Central Sun. The stars nearest Alcyone revolve, 
 it would seem, almost in circles, while those further off, including 
 our own sun, move in curves more and more elongated, according 
 to their increasing distances. But so nicely adjusted may the 
 mutual attractions be, that the worlds probably revolve around 
 the Central Sun, partly on the principle developed among the 
 binary and quadruple stars, and partly through the gravitating 
 force of an immense globe, placed in a peculiar position with 
 reference to the entire sidereal scheme. 
 
 If this view prove the correct one, then Alcyone may be 
 regarded as a mighty world, it is true, but of course not 
 proportioned in mass to the aggregate stars, as our sun is 
 proportioned to the System he governs ; its importance must be 
 attributed in some measure to its superior magnitude, but also to 
 the station which it occupies — that wonderful point in space 
 around which all other worlds are constrained to revolve. 
 
 It has been shown that our sun is progressing towards a star in 
 the Constellation Hercules ; at the same time he may be advanc- 
 ing with that companion, in his elliptical orbit, around Alcyone ; 
 but, in process of time, the sun's course will be altered; he will 
 bend in his path, and, after performing his tremendous perihelion, 
 will retire in an opposite direction again to the South. 
 
APPENDIX. 223 
 
 Such are the considerations that lead us fully to accept Alcyone, 
 pointed out by Professor Maedlar, as the grand central object of 
 the universe, the " compelling " world of worlds. Objectors may 
 urge that if Alcyone be so stupendous, its superior magnitude 
 would be apparent in the heavens, so that its august character 
 would strike every observer. We answer that its immense 
 distance from the earth, for its parallax has not yet been obtained, 
 and other causes, operate in making it appear so inconsiderable a 
 body. 
 
 Alcyone may be said to occupy the Northern or North -Eastern 
 focus in the great elliptical figure formed by the Milky- Way. 
 Our sun is travelling from the South ; presuming it moves in an 
 elongated ellipse, we shall, in performing our perihelion, approach 
 much nearer to this mighty luminary than we are at present. 
 Then will Alcyone shine a glorious object in the heavens, and 
 doubt no longer will obscure the minds of the inhabitants of our 
 globe, as to its stupendous character, and the high office it serves 
 in Creation. 
 
 The remarks we have offered in the poem of " The Immortals," 
 on the presumed existence of this Central Sun, and the inferences 
 we have ventured to draw, must be left to the consideration and 
 judgment of the reader. If there be any truth in our arguments ; 
 if such an august world or worlds, placed in the centre of 
 creation, do exercise their necessary controlling power, thereby 
 declaring that region to be the most remarkable and important 
 in the universe, then we hope that our averments may be accepted 
 by reason, as well as sanctioned by the spirit of religion. 
 
 There are some men, even accounted devout, who take no 
 interest in the great questions connected with the marvels and 
 glories of the universe around us, and who never ask how we 
 shall exist hereafter, or where the region of happiness may be. 
 Not so the inquiring spirit — such a spirit as that possessed by the 
 celebrated divine and philosopher, Dr. Chalmers, and the amiable 
 and distinguished President of Amherst College, U.S.* Though 
 both eminently religious men, they have not hesitated, in their 
 investigations, and in their search after important truths, to make 
 statements which many individuals may refuse assent to, as 
 being visionary, and contrary to the teachings or evidence of our 
 
 * Professor Hitchcock, author of " The Keligion of Geology." 
 
224 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 senses, they quite forgetting how limited in their powers these 
 senses are, and that speculation, cautiouslv indulged in, often- 
 times pioneers the way to the beautiful temple of truth. 
 
 To such spirits as these, Avho, while they bow to the authority 
 of Holy Writ, think ' it their duty to exercise the intellect, 
 however imperfect it be, which God has given them, we address 
 our considerations. Convinced we are that they will not re- 
 pudiate, without some good cause, the doctrine of a Central World, 
 which, while it produces harmony through the laws of gravita- 
 tion, lights up, with its neighbouring brother suns, a tract of sky 
 pre-eminently beautiful, and suggests to us the strong and 
 cheering probability that in or near such a central region, as 
 being more worthy and glorious than any other part of the 
 heavens, may be situated (we repeat it reverentially), the mag- 
 nificent and happy home prepared for the virtuous children of 
 the great Father of the universe. 
 
CHEAP AND REVISED EDITION 
 
 OF 
 
 MR. NICHOLAS MICHELL'S POETICAL WORKS 
 
 Now in course of Publication. 
 
 New Editions cf some of Mr. Nicholas Michell's Poems being 
 required, it is purposed to issue the whole of his Poetical Works, in 
 cheap uniform volumes. They will appear at short intervals, each 
 volume to be complete in itself. This Edition of the Author's Works 
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 of Creation" and "Pleasure" will have been enlarged. The volumes, 
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 THE IMMORTALS ; or, Glimpses of Paradise. A Poem. 
 
 In XI. Books. Fcap. 8vo, cloth, gilt lettered 1 6 
 
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 in this Edition. 
 
 [OVER. 
 
MR. NICHOLAS MICHELL's POETICAL WORKS. 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 "FAMOUS WOMEN AND HEROES." 
 
 " Mr. Nicholas Michell is decidedly one of the most popular poets 
 of the day. His themes are peculiar to himself. They are of a cha- 
 racter demanding high intellectual attainments, true poetic feeling, a 
 comprehensive soul, and great learning and research." — New Monthly 
 Magazine. 
 
 " He causes to pass before the mind's eye those who, by their 
 character and great deeds, have illustrated the world's progress from 
 remotest ages. He is at once a poet and a philosopher. In his portrai- 
 ture of famous women, enthusiasm breaks forth, and he is filled with a 
 fervour worthy of the fascinating subject. We would instance Lucretia, 
 Dante's Beatrice. Laura, Tasso's Leonora, and Lady Jane Grey, as 
 
 highly wrought and touching pictures Mr. Michell is entitled to 
 
 take high rank among the poets of the age." — New Quarterly Review. 
 
 "THE POETRY OF CREATION." 
 
 " A theme as sublime and stupendous as those themes which once 
 occupied the genius of a Milton, and a Dante. The ' Poetry of Creation ' 
 treats of angelic intelligences, of the mechanism of the heavens, of the 
 solar system, of our earth, of man, of woman, of human body and souL 
 Such are the subjects, such Mr. Michell's powers of celebrating, in 
 poetry of great beauty, the wonders, the glory, the loveliness of 
 Creation." — Sun. 
 
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 already won. Its merits are of a high order." — New Monthly Magazine. 
 
 " It will, as it deserves, find as many admirers as readers." — Observer. 
 
 " The Series is a marvel of cheapness." — Globe. {Recent Notice). 
 
 "PLEASURE." 
 
 " Mr. Michell's ' Pleasure ' will, we think, establish his reputation as 
 a thoughtful, elegant writer, and set the seal of critical approval on 
 
 his works Pleasure, its sources, its varieties, its effects on mind 
 
 and body — Pleasure as derived from literature, music, and painting, 
 with the indulgence of the human passions, distinguishing the elevating 
 from the debasing, is an extensive subject, and is treated by Mr. Michell 
 in a large and comprehensive spirit. He is earnest, eloquent, beautiful 
 — sometimes sublime; and a love for whatever is grand and good 
 speaks in every page." — Civil Service Gazette. 
 
 " The subject of this poem is ' Pleasure,' — whether moving the fancy, 
 or taking up its pure dwelling-place in the heart — born amid woods 
 and flowers, or wandering with the clouds along the sky, or forming a 
 
 connection with the stars There are vivid passages of woodland 
 
 and mere which recall the ' Lady of the Lake,' and there are pictures 
 which might have been written by Goldsmith." — Athenceum. 
 
 " We may point to ' Pleasure ' as a work, which, for genuine beauty 
 and healthy moral tone, will take a place in our permanent literature, 
 —John Bull. 
 
MR. NICHOLAS MICHELlAs POETICAL WORKS. 
 "SIBYL OF CORNWALL:" 
 
 " The Author possesses unquestionable genius, and his works are 
 certain to afford pleasure. In ' Sibyl of Cornwall ' we have an exciting 
 story well and powerfully told, while the sketches of scenery in Cornwall 
 are exquisite." — Civil Service Gazette. 
 
 " Mr. Michell has an eye which can discover the beautiful even in 
 strange lurking-places — a taste which has been cultivated, and a soul 
 which is susceptible of deep as well as light impressions." — Illustrated 
 London News. 
 
 " It is a most interesting and pathetic story." — Court Circular. 
 
 " He has an intense love of the beautiful. This volume should win 
 for Mr. Michell the admiration of all readers." — Public Opinion. 
 
 "THE IMMORTALS;" 
 Or, Glimpses of Paradise. 
 
 " If it be part of the poet's office to lift the thoughts of his fellow- 
 men from the dust — to lift them up into the abysses of the vast 
 universe, that office the writer of this book has most certainly fulfilled. 
 .... The range of his view is, beyond all doubt, magnificent. The 
 poem is full of elevating thought." — The Sun. 
 
 " We think the present work not only sustains, but enhances, the 
 reputation of the author. ' The Immortals ' contains fine passages, 
 beautiful imagery, and grand conceptions. — Not its least remarkable 
 feature is the idea that one of the Pleiad-group of stars (the great 
 Central Sun) points out the heaven prepared by the Almighty for the 
 dwelling of the blest." — Civil Service Gazette, April 9. 
 
 " Mr. Michell on the present occasion essays a lofty flight, soaring 
 into those regions where immortal spirits behold thro' eternity the 
 
 wondrous works of Omnipotence In the 9th and 1 Oth books, 
 
 under the guidance of one of those angel-spirits, a journey is made 
 thro' the starry systems, and in the 11th the celestial Paradise itself 
 is reached." — Morning Advertiser. 
 
 " The subject is grand and noble. His imaginative flights through 
 the universe are well sustained ; there are passages of great beauty and 
 sublimity, and the whole is pervaded by that thoughtful, earnest tone 
 which is sure to attract the reader. The entire poem is an intellectual 
 treat." — Oxford Chronicle, April 30. 
 
 " Allow me to thank you for the very pleasing volume which you 
 have been so good as to send me, a considerable portion of which I 
 have already read with much pleasure. I find in it a great deal of 
 very imaginative, and (what in these days is becoming more and more 
 
 rare) unimpeachable poetry I am glad you have peopled 
 
 Jupiter with a grand, majestic type of humanity." — Collingvvood, 
 Hawkhurst, 7th April, 1870. — Extract from a letter written by the 
 late Sir John Herschel to the Author. 
 
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" LONDON IN LIGHT AND DARKNESS :" 
 
 With all the Author's Minor Poems, now first collected, and extending 
 
 over a period of twenty years, including several Poems never before 
 
 published. With Portrait of the Author. 
 
 " Our pages have borne evidence again and again (as regards his 
 minor poems) to the poetical powers of Mr. Michell." — New Monthly 
 Magazine. 
 
 "Mr. Nicholas Michell's poetry is of a high order, abounding in 
 noble thoughts and delicate fancies ; the sentiments are lofty, the 
 language fine, the imagery beautiful." — Civil Service Gazette, July 29. 
 
 " RUINS OF MANY LANDS :" 
 
 a Jl?cietn% 
 
 With copious Descriptive and Historical Notes. 
 
 " We hail with much gratification this very remarkable and inte- 
 resting work — a production which, for its varied, sterling, and classical 
 merits, will be deemed a standard composition. Mr. Michell evinces 
 great power of condensation, and of placing the scenes, the countries, 
 and the ruins, before the mind's eye ; while the historical details render 
 the work one of the deepest interest." — Morning Advertiser. 
 
 "The subject is replete with interest, and the treatment of it is most 
 spirited, and imbued with classic feeling ; the notes are full of learning, 
 and scarcely less interesting than the text." — Gentleman's Magazine. 
 
 NOT INCLUDED IN THE ABOVE SERIES, 
 
 Third Edition. 
 
 Small quarto. Price Is. 
 
 "THE WRECK OF THE HOMEWARD-BOUND." 
 
 " We are glad to •welcome the third edition of this little poem. 
 Written, as it appears to have been, on behalf of that noble association, 
 the National Lifeboat Institution, it is worthy of its subject, and the 
 cause which it so tellingly pleads. The poem gives a graphic, and in 
 some places a powerful, description of this most appalling of incidents, 
 a wreck, and the rescue by the lifeboat. We heartily recommend the 
 little book to our readers." — United Service Gazette. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 WILLIAM TEGG, PANCRAS LANE, CHEAPSIDE. 
 
 1871.