Her wand is pointed, -till the past untombs
Her treasure; Athens is revived again,、
The slave-isles hurl their shackles o'er the sea,
And Greece awakes to glorify the world!
Surpassing clime! though man thy home profane,
Nature bedecks thee for her idol still.
When moon-tints tremble on the Adrian waves,
What sea so beautiful? what sun so bright,
Glassing the air to richness? Still thy skies
Are canopies cerulean hung; thy flowers
Ope radiant as the fairy wings of birds,
And fruit and tree wave luscious in the wind.
HEAVENLY INFLUENCES.
ARE there not hours of an immortal birth,
Bright visitations from a purer sphere,-
A trance of glory, when the mind, attuned
To heaven, can out of dreams create her worlds?
Oh! none are so absorb'd, as not to feel
The calm of thought, the melody of mind!
When prayer, the purest incense of a soul,
Hath risen to the throne of heaven, the heart
Is mellow'd, and the shadows that becloud
Our state of darken'd being, glide away;
The Heavens are open'd! and the eye of Faith
Looks in, and hath a fearful glimpse of God!
HAPPINESS OF HUMBLE LIFE. UNKNOWN, unhonour'd, in the noiseless sphere Of humbleness, the happy man I found. It was not that the tears, or toils of fate Were never his; or that no stormy rush
The sober current of his days annoy'd;
But in him dwelt that true philosophy
That flings a sunshine o'er the wintryest hour.
The proud he envied not; no splendours craved,
Nor sigh'd to wear the laurels of renown;
But look'd on greatness with contented eye,
Then smilingly to his meek path retired :
Thus o'er the billows of a troublous world,
As o'er the anarchy of waters moves
The seaman's bark, in safety did he ride,
Forgot his woes, and left his wants to Heaven.
HEBER'S DEPARTURE FOR INDIA.
THE parting o'er, behold! the billows sweep
In rushing music as he rides the deep
That wafts him onward to his Indian clime,
While mus'd his heart on future toil sublime,
Whereby Redemption and her God would smile
On heathen lands, and many a lonely isle,
Where stinted Nature in her soulless gloom
From age to age had wither'd to the tomb!—
And haply too, when rose the twilight star,
And billows flutter'd in a breezy war,
At that dim hour regretted England came,
Familiar walks, and sounds of early fame,
And village steeple, with the lowly race,
Whose fondness brighten'd to behold his face!
The land was reach'd; and, oh! too fondly known
How Heber made that sunny land his own,
Till heathen hearts a Christian nature wore,
And feelings sprang which never bloom'd before,
As toil'd he there with apostolic truth,
Redeem'd her Aged, and reform'd her Youth,
For praise to honour with a pow'rless line
A heart so deep, a spirit so divine?
He lived; he died; in life and death the same,
A Christian martyr,-whose majestic fame
In beacon glory o'er the world shall blaze,
And lighten empires with celestial rays!
While virtue throbs, or human hearts admire
A poet's feeling with a prophet's fire;
While pure Religion hath a shrine to own,
Or Man can worship at his Maker's throne!
HUMAN NATURE OF OUR SAVIOUR.
O THOU! apparell'd in a robe of true
Mortality; meek sharer of our low
Estate, in all except compliant sin :
To Thee, a comprehending worship pays
Perennial sacrifice of life and soul,
By love enkindled : Thou hast lived, and breathed,
Our wants and woes partaken; all that charms
Or sanctifies, to thine unspotted truth
May plead for sanction; virtue but reflects
Thine image; wisdom is a voice attuned
To consonance with Thine; and all that yields
To thought a pureness, or to life a peace,
From Thee descends; whose spirit-ruling sway,
Invisible as thought, around us brings
A balm almighty for affliction's hour!
HUMAN REASON BENDING TO THE
GROSSEST SUPERSTITION.
THE past survey,-and what hath Reason done?
Passion and Doubt her waning light withstood,
And stubborn ages, as they swept along,
But mock'd her impotence with blind misrule,
Of creed or crime begot.-Man look'd abroad,
And on his spirit rush'd one vast belief!
From life and matter, from the sun and moon,
And the deep waters did a power appeal,
Attesting God, and teaching his domain :
But how to worship, how his law obey,
In vain would philosophic Reason find,
In pensive shade, or academic bower.-
The world was deified! terrestrial gods,
In all that apprehending sense believed,
A mystic reign for adoration held.
Thus, Neptune on his ocean-car appear'd,
Apollo gloried in the realm of light,
And Dian, with her starry nymphs begirt,
The virgin mooninspired.-There breathed no wind,
There waved no grove, no fountain-music play'd,
No river in his march of waters joy'd,—
But Superstition lent a list'ning ear
To hail her fancied god: each city claim'd
Presiding deities, and built her fanes
For monsters imaged out of monstrous thought,
Where dark pollution fed her secret fires.
At length, Idolatry the mind subdued,
From tombs evoked the undeserving dead,
Or, round the statues of her living great
In sycophantic homage knelt, and pray'd!
HATRED OF OUR SAVIOUR BY THE EVIL
ONE, YET HIS ALMIGHTY POWER
I HATE him, and His everlasting cause,
The Church, upon the rock of ages rear'd,
His word, His truth, and Heaven-directing sway;
And soul by soul, and heart by heart, through light
And gloom, by land and isle, through life and death,
'Mid all the legions of innumerous Powers
That on His ministry attend, and war
For holiness-my hate shall dare Him still; Though Truth may vanquish, and the thousand thrones
Of Darkness tremble with their last despair!
Too deep the vengeance of atoning blood
On me shall come, for him to be forgot!
I hate Him for the ruin'd world he saved;
And yet His glorious pilgrimage confess.
Sublime of martyrs! in that dread career
What wonders hallow His remember'd way!
The blind awaken'd to the bliss of light,
The deaf and lame, the dying and the dead,
All yielding up infirmity to Him,
And putting on young attributes of life.-
Vain mortals, read and tremble! Once the Sea,
That god and glory of the elements,
Obeyed His fiat, when a tempest rose,
Till the huge waves, like living mountains leapt In the wild majesty of midnight storm,
Mocking the haggard lightnings as they streak'd
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