The age that next shall be!

But of this Present be the name untold;

Its birth was Infamy!

Up from that Gaulish hell that boil'd but now, And bore, in whelping throes,

Times of unchristen'd brow,

What locust hordes arose !

Read of that God-eclipse

No more, on Clio's page,

That deep in blood her painter-pencil dips, And limns the infernal tale with muttering lips,

Like some black Archimage;

God hath reveal'd this age

In that old Elder's dread Apocalypse,
Whose soul with wonder still'd,

Stood long agone, in Patmos, thrill'd
With visions wild, and far-off sight
Of unborn years of fright;

Woe after woe fulfill'd,

And still new woes and sorrows yet to be!

Then did the fire-girt scorpions burn for death,

And stung their death-pangs free;

While fiend on fiend steam'd up, as from the breath Of Acheron, that smokes eternally!

And half that woe was gone;

Another sound there came,

Rolling like thunder on,

And brazen hosts, with breastplates all aflame, Rose, with that angel of abhorred name, Their king, Apollyon!

His wing'd artillery, behind,

Roar'd like a rushing, mighty wind;

And o'er the world the shadow of his form,

Stretch'd, like the spirit of the storm,

While in the cloud, swept on his wild dragoons, With crests of streaming hair,

Far as the fierce typhoons

That Earth and Ocean tear.
Yea-though the sound be sped,

Say not 'tis by-gone now;
"Twas but the monster's head;

His coil lags on, I trow!

The writhings of his horrid train

Lash the crush'd nations still;

His sting remaineth, and shall yet remain,
Until another's will.

Why should the lesson be?

That Earth, with added slaughter-drops might fill,

The trembling urn of her dark destiny; And learn what bitter bloodstreams may distil, In Reason's age, from pure Philosophie !

XVIII.

Trust ye to Freedom's vaunt;
The unchain'd, people's song!
Then nerve ye, for the taunt
Of faithless friends ere long!
Oh, shun the war of tongues :
Back from the vain debate;

The Upas-blast of lungs,

The desert-clouds of state;

Nor with the rabble that are flowing strong,

Like young Niagara to his cliffs along,

Give thy poor soul to fate!

The people's tumult rageth but an hour,
And in that hour ye die :

Give not your short-lived spirit, to the power,
That souls are trampled by !

The whisper'd story of a well-spent life,

Speaks louder than the Boreas of strife,

And in your high hopes sure,

Looking to calmer worlds, through tears for this, Like him that our dear Lord and leader is,

Say, can ye not endure?

XIX.

He that, in peace, his triumph knows,
Walks Earth, as ne'er its Cæsars trod;
From ill to ill, a conqueror goes,
And mounts to his great Captain-GOD.
What recks he of the mob's distrust,
The clamour of their mouths of dust;
Before high Heaven that man is just!

The wisdom that we love, looks up from Earth :
And if these troubled things are yet to be,
Then triumphs our divine Philosophy,
When human doctrines are the rabble's mirth;

For our first lesson is Eternity

And the

pure nature of our second birth.

In our progressive being, Time is naught,

And we can bear its strife;

For yet with awful burthen is it fraught,
And giant birth-throes of an endless life.

D

The world of little men,

Count foolish our sweet faith:

But look on them agen:

The end of these is Death.

What boots it they have lived their long threescore;

For it hath pass'd, and now it is no more!

And all their fury strong,

For fancied right or wrong,

like summer-day, so slow that wore,

Oh, could I be as they,

Sweet were no wisdom but the Epicure's!
Why spend short hours in fray,

Or turn joy's channels into reeking sewers.
I'd toss such Life away

Where old Anacreon lures,

And with the roses play,

Long as my pulse endures,