But, that where'er our tents are cast,
Each hath an Angel by his side, From the first life-sigh to the last,
His guardian, champion, friend and guide.
Such faith seems half idolatry
To speculation's earth-turned eyes, But wo befall us, if we see
No truth save that in reason's guise!
The simplest child, in sun and storm,
Hath visions of God's awful form,
That dazzled science could not paint;
And he, who bends to laws alone,
May mock the worship of the saint,
Yet kneel unto a graven stone!
The Heathen, when his fancy gave
Their deities to all things fair-
Set Neptune's trident o'er the wave,
And temples made of earth and air—
Had more of worship in his heart,
More of religion's better part,
Than he who dives in reason's well
For all the truth to mortals given,
And from its depths alone, will tell
The starry mysteries of Heaven!
I would not, that the dreams of old
Should veil again the wakened mind,
Nor mine their faith who idly hold
That to be wise we need be blind;
But, when I see how darkly lie
The plainest things before mine eye,
That, with each turn of reason's wheel,
Falsehood and truth, both, upward go,
I can but think that what I feel
Is best and most of what I know!
The Painter turned him to the sky,
And, as he gazed, a cloud went by,
Whose purple seemed to fold
A vision, round whose golden hair
The morning stars a glory were,
And worshipped as they rolled.
Beneath his flashing pencil then
Grew forms of light, unknown to men,
And lo! the canvas gleams
As if the Painter's hand had caught
The vesture of a seraph's thought
To robe immortal dreams!
Time hath not dimm'd them! Pilgrims bow Before that dazzling beauty now
As when, from opened heaven,
Rapt genius snatched its kindling ray,
And revelled in that glorious day
To inspiration given!
But he, the Painter, did he kneel
And in his own high phrensy feel
The awful, present God?
Not so! The shrine was poor and dim
Where faith, not beauty, lit for him
The path that angels trod!
Ah! for ourselves indeed 'twere well,
If Love were part of Fancy's spell,
And all things bright were dear;
If we could bless as well as build,
And Deity and worship filled
What temples we might rear!
In vain our hands shall altars raise,
Though meet they be for proudest praise,
And genius grave the stone;
For howsoe'er the gods be shrined
That lure the incense of the mind,
The heart adores its own!
He speaks! The lingering locks, that cold
And few and gray, fall o'er his brow,
Were bright, with childhood's clustered gold,
When last that voice was heard as now.
He speaks! and as with flickering blaze
Life's last dim embers, waning, burn,
Fresh from the unsealed fount of praise,
His childhood's gushing words return.
Ah! who can tell what visions roll
Before those wet and clouded eyes,
As, o'er the old man's parting soul,
His childhood's wakened memories rise!
The fields are green and gladsome still,
That smiled around his sinless home,
And back, from ancient vale and hill,
Exultant echoes bounding come!
He treads that soil, the first he pressed,
He shouts with all his boyish glee,
He rushes to his mother's breast,
He clasps and climbs his father's knee;
And then the prayer that nightly rose,
Warm from his lisping lips, of yore,
Bursts forth, to bless that evening's close
Whose slumbers earth shall break no more!
Dark though our brightest lot may be,
From toil to sin and sorrow driven,
Sweet childhood! we have still, in thee,
A link that holds us near to heaven!
When Mercy's errand angels bear,
'Tis in thy raiment that they shine,
And if one voice reach Mercy's ear,
That blessed voice is surely thine!
God of his fathers! may the breath
That upward wafts the exile's sigh,
Rise, fragrant, from the lips of death,
As the first prayer of infancy!
Frown not, if through his childhood, back,
The old man heavenward seeks his way
Thy light was on that morning track,
It can but lead to Thee and day!
The city of the dead hath thrown wide its gates at last,
And through the cold gray portal a funeral train hath passed:
One grave-the first-is open, and on its lonely bed,
Some heir of sin and sorrow hath come to lay his head.
Perchance a hero cometh, whose chaplet, in its bloom,
Hath fallen from his helmet, to wither on his tomb:
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