Like spots of earth where angel-feet have steppedAre holy; and high-dreaming bards have told Of times when worth was crowned, and faith was kept, Ere friendship grew a snare, or love waxed cold— Those pure and happy times-the golden days of old. III. Peace to the just man's memory,-let it grow Greener with years, and blossom through the flight Of ages; let the mimic canvas show His calm benevolent features; let the light Stream on his deeds of love, that shunned the sight Of all but heaven, and in the book of fame, The glorious record of his virtues write, And hold it up to men, and bid them claim A palm like his, and catch from him the hallowed flame. IV. But oh, despair not of their fate who rise To dwell upon the earth when we withdraw! Lo! the same shaft by which the righteous dies, Strikes through the wretch that scoffed at mercy's law, And trode his brethren down, and felt no awe Of Him who will avenge them. Stainless worth, Ripens, meanwhile, till time shall call it forth From the low modest shade, to light and bless the earth. V. Has Nature, in her calm, majestic march The plenty that once swelled beneath his sober eye? Look on this beautiful world, and read the truth VII. Will then the merciful One, who stamped our race With his own image, and who gave them sway Now that our swarming nations far away Are spread, where'er the moist earth drinks the day, VIII. Oh, no! a thousand cheerful omens give And in the abyss of brightness dares to span In God's magnificent works his will shall scan- IX. Sit at the feet of history-through the night And show the earlier ages, where her sight Went forth the tribes of men, their pleasant lot To choose, where palm-groves cooled their dwelling-place, Or freshening rivers ran; and there forgot The truth of heaven, and kneeled to gods that heard them not. X. Then waited not the murderer for the night, But smote his brother down in the bright day, And he who felt the wrong, and had the might, His own avenger, girt himself to slay; Beside the path the unburied carcass lay; The shepherd, by the fountains of the glen, Fled, while the robber swept. his flock away, And slew his babes. The sick, untended then, Languished in the damp shade, and died afar from men. XI. But misery brought in love-in passion's strife The weak, against the sons of spoil and wrong, The timid rested. To the reverent throng, Grave and time-wrinkled men, with locks all white, Gave laws, and judged their strifes, and taught the way of right; XII. Till bolder spirits seized the rule, and nailed A boundless sea of blood, and the wild air Cities and bannered armies; forms that wear The kingly circlet rise, amid the gloom, O'er the dark wave, and straight are swallowed in its womb XIII. Those ages have no memory-but they left A record in the desert-columns strown On the waste sands, and statues fallen and cleft, Vast ruins, where the mountain's ribs of stone hest XIV. And tombs of monarchs to the clouds up-piled— And the black precipice, abrupt and wild, Like the night-heaven, when clouds are black with rain. |