THE

COURSE OF TIME.

BOOK I.

ANALYSIS OF BOOK I.

Invocation is made to the Eternal Spirit of Truth, and the subject of the Poem is stated.

Long after Time had ceased, and Eternity had rolled on its ages, two youthful sons of Paradise walk on the hills of immortality, enjoying holy converse. A stranger spirit from another world arrives, and is welcomed by them to the abodes of bliss. The stranger desires them to explain the wonderful things he had noticed in his flight from his native world to heaven. Having sailed through empty, nameles. regions, where utter nothing dwelt, he suddenly came to a mountainous wall of fiery adamant, on which were horrid figures, traced in fire, imitating life. He entered within, and saw a wide lake of burning fire, and saw most miserable beings walking in the flames, burning continually, yet unconsumed. Filled with horror, he hastened from the dismal prison to the world of light, and now desired to understand this wondrous wretchedness. The Two, unable to explain it, and having their curiosity awakened, propose to visit an "ancient Bard of Earth," who often had sung on this subject to the admiring youth of heaven.

They find the Bard alone, in holy musing, and state to him their desire. He informs them that the prison described is Hell, and promises more fully to meet their curiosity by relating to them the HISTORY OF MAN.

THE

COURSE OF TIME.

BOOK I.

ETERNAL SPIRIT! God of truth! to whom All things seem as they are; Thou, who of old The prophet's eye unscaled, that nightly saw, While heavy sleep fell down on other men, In holy vision tranced, the future pass Before him, and to Judah's harp attuned Burdens which made the pagan mountains shake, And Zion's cedars bow,-inspire my song; My eye unscale; me what is substance teach, And shadow what, while I of things to come, As past, rehearsing, sing the Course of Time, The second birth, and final doom of man.

The muse, that soft and sickly wooes the ear Of love, or, chanting loud in windy rhyme Of fabled hero, raves through gaudy tale Not overfraught with sense, I ask not: such A strain befits not argument so high. Me thought, and phrase severely sifting out The whole idea, grant; uttering-as 'tis The essential truth-time gone, the righteous saved, The wicked damned, and providence approved.

Hold my right hand, Almighty! and me teach To strike the lyre, but seldom struck, to notes

Harmonious with the morning stars, and pure
As those by sainted bards and angels sung,
Which wake the echoes of Eternity;

That fools may hear and tremble, and the wise,
Instructed, listen, of ages yet to come.

Long was the day, so long expected, past Of the eternal doom, that gave to each

Of all the human race his due reward.

The sun, earth's sun, and moon, and stars, had ceased
To number seasons, days, and months, and years
To mortal man. Hope was forgotten, and fear:
And time, with all its chance, and change, and smiles,
And frequent tears, and deeds of villany,

Or righteousness, once talked of much, as things
Of great renown, was now but ill remembered;
In dim and shadowy vision of the past
Seen far remote, as country, which has left
The traveller's speedy step, retiring back
From morn till even; and long Eternity
Had rolled his mighty years, and with his years
Men had grown old. The saints, all home returned
From pilgrimage, and war, and weeping, long
Had rested in the bowers of peace, that skirt
The stream of life; and long-alas! how long
To them it seemed!-the wicked, who refused
To be redeemed, had wandered in the dark
Of hell's despair, and drunk the burning cup
Their sins had filled with everlasting wo.

Thus far the years had rolled, which none but God
Doth number, when two sons, two youthful sons
Of Paradise, in conversation sweet,-

For thus the heavenly muse instructs me, wooed
At midnight hour, with offering sincere

Of all the heart, poured out in holy prayer,