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To Riches? Alas! 'tis in vain ; Who hid in their turns have been hid;

The treasures are squandered again; And here in the grave are all metals forbid

But the tinsel that shines on the dark coffin lid.

To the pleasures which Mirth can afford,

The revel, the laugh, and the jeer?

Ah! here is a plentiful board!

But the guests are all mute as their pitiful cheer,

And none but the worm is a reveller here.

Shall we build to Affection and Love?

Ah no! they have withered and died,

Or fled with the spirit above.

Friends, brothers, and sisters are laid side by side,
Yet none have saluted, and none have replied.

Unto sorrow?-the Dead cannot grieve;

Not a sob, not a sigh meets mine ear,

Which Compassion itself could relieve.

Ah, sweetly they slumber, nor love, hope, or fear;
Peace! peace is the watchword, the only one here.

Unto Death, to whom monarchs must bow?
Ah no! for his empire is known,

And here there are trophies enow!

Beneath the cold dead, and around the dark stone, Are the signs of a sceptre that none may disown.

The first tabernacle to Hope we will build, And look for the sleepers around us to rise!

The second to Faith, which insures it fulfilled; And the third to the Lamb of the great sacrifice, Who bequeathed us them both when He rose to the

skies.

ROBERT POLLOK.

In 1827 appeared a religious poem in blank verse, entitled The Course of Time, by ROBERT POLLOK, which speedily rose to great popularity, especially among the more serious and dissenting classes in Scotland. The author was a young licentiate of the Scottish Secession church. Many who scarcely ever looked into modern poetry were tempted to peruse a work which embodied their favourite theological tenets, set off with the graces of poetical fancy and description; while to the ordinary readers of imaginative literature, the poem had force and originality enough to challenge an attentive perusal. The Course of Time' is a long poem, extending to ten books, written in a style that sometimes imitates the lofty march of Milton, and at other times resembles that of Blair and Young. The object of the poet is to describe the spiritual life and destiny of man; and he varies his religious speculations with episodical pictures and narratives, to illustrate the effects of virtue or vice. The sentiments of the author are strongly Calvinistic, and in this respect, as well as in a certain crude ardour of imagination and devotional enthusiasm, the poem reminds us of the style of Milton's early prose treatises. It is often harsh, turgid, and vehement, and deformed by a gloomy piety which repels the reader in spite of the many splendid passages and images that are scattered throughout the work. With much of the spirit and the opinions of Cowper, Pollok wanted his taste and his refinement. Time might have mellowed the fruits of his genius; for certainly the design of such an extensive poem, and the possession of a poetical diction so copious and energetic, by a young man reared in circumstances by no means favourable for the cultivation of a literary taste, indicate remarkable intellectual power and determination of cha

racter.

Robert Pollok was destined, like Henry Kirke

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Mid Muirhouse, the Residence of Pollok in Byhood

country schools, was sent to the university of Glasgow. He studied five years in the divinity hall under Dr Dick. Some time after leaving college, he wrote a series of Tales of the Covenanters, in prose, which were published anonymously. His application to his studies brought on symptoms of pulmonary disease, and shortly after he had received his license to preach, in the spring of 1827, it was too apparent that his health was in a precarious and dangerous state. This tendency was further confirmed by the composition of his great poem, which was published by Mr Blackwood of Edinburgh about the time that the author was admitted to the sacred office for which he was so well qualified. The greater part of the summer was spent by Pollok under the roof of a clerical friend, the Rev. Dr Belfrage of Slateford, where every means was tried for the restoration of his health. The symptoms, however, continued unabated, and the poet's friends and physicians recommended him to try the climate of Italy. Mr Southey has remarked of Kirke White, that it was his fortune through his short life, as he was worthy of the kindest treatment, always to find it.' The same may be said of his kindred genius, Pollok. His poetry and his worth had raised him up a host of fond and steady friends, who would have rejoiced to contribute to his comfort or relief. Having taken his departure for London, accompanied by a sister, Pollok was received into the house of Mr Pirie, then sheriff of London. An immediate removal to the south-west of England was pronounced necessary, and the poet went to reside at Shirley Common, near Southampton. The milder air of this place effected no improvement, and after lingering on a few weeks, Pollok died on the 17th of September 1827. The same year had witnessed his advent as a preacher and a poet, and his untimely death. The Course of Time, however, continued to be a popular poem, and has gone through eighteen editions, while the interest of the public in its author has led to a memoir of his life, published in 1843. Pollok was interred in the churchyard at Millbrook, the

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parish in which Shirley Common is situated, and some of his admirers have erected an obelisk of granite to point out the poet's grave.

[Love.]

Hail love, first love, thou word that sums all bliss!
The sparkling cream of all Time's blessedness,
The silken down of happiness complete!
Discerner of the ripest grapes of joy

She gathered and selected with her hand,
All finest relishes, all fairest sights,

All rarest odours, all divinest sounds,

All thoughts, all feelings dearest to the soul:
And brought the holy mixture home, and filled
The heart with all superlatives of bliss.

But who would that expound, which words transcends,
Must talk in vain. Behold a meeting scene
Of early love, and thence infer its worth.

It was an eve of autumn's holiest mood.
The corn-fields, bathed in Cynthia's silver light,
Stood ready for the reaper's gathering hand;
And all the winds slept soundly. Nature seemed
In silent contemplation to adore

Its Maker. Now and then the aged leaf
Fell from its fellows, rustling to the ground;
And, as it fell, bade man think on his end.
On vale and lake, on wood and mountain high,
With pensive wing outspread, sat heavenly Thought,
Conversing with itself. Vesper looked forth
From out her western hermitage, and smiled;
And up the east, unclouded, rode the moon
With all her stars, gazing on earth intense,
As if she saw some wonder working there.

Such was the night, so lovely, still, serene,
When, by a hermit thorn that on the hill
Had seen a hundred flowery ages pass,
A damsel kneeled to offer up her prayer-
Her prayer nightly offered, nightly heard.
This ancient thorn had been the meeting place
Of love, before his country's voice had called
The ardent youth to fields of honour far
Beyond the wave: and hither now repaired,
Nightly, the maid, by God's all-seeing eye
Seen only, while she sought this boon alone-
'Her lover's safety, and his quick return.'
In 'oly, humble attitude she kneeled,
Aad to her bosom, fair as moonbeam, pressed
One hand, the other lifted up to heaven.
Her eye, upturned, bright as the star of morn,
As violet meek, excessive ardour streamed,
Wafting away her earnest heart to God.

Her voice, scarce uttered, soft as Zephyr sighs
On morning's lily cheek, though soft and low,
Yet heard in heaven, heard at the mercy-seat.
A tear-drop wandered on her lovely face;
It was a tear of faith and holy fear,
Pure as the drops that hang at dawning-time
On yonder willows by the stream of life.
On her the moon looked steadfastly; the stars
That circle nightly round the eternal throne
Glanced down, well pleased; and everlasting Lov9
Gave gracious audience to her prayer sincere.
O had her lover seen her thus alone,
Thus holy, wrestling thus, and all for him!
Nor did he not: for ofttimes Providence
With unexpected joy the fervent prayer
Of faith surprised. Returned from long delay,
With glory crowned of righteous actions won,
The sacred thorn, to memory dear, first sought
The youth, and found it at the happy hour
Just when the damsel kneeled herself to pray.
Wrapped in devotion, pleading with her God,
She saw him not, heard not his foot approach.
All holy images seemed too impure

To emblem her he saw. A seraph kneeled,
Beseeching for his ward before the throne,
Seemed fittest, pleased him best. Sweet was the
thought!

But sweeter still the kind remembrance came,
That she was flesh and blood formed for himself,
The plighted partner of his future life.

And as they met, embraced, and sat embowered
In woody chambers of the starry night,
Spirits of love about them ministered,
And God approving, blessed the holy joy!

[Morning.]

In 'customed glory bright, that morn the sun
Rose, visiting the earth with light, and heat,
And joy; and seemed as full of youth, and strong
To mount the steep of heaven, as when the stars
Of morning sung to his first dawn, and night
Fled from his face; the spacious sky received
Him, blushing as a bride when on her looked
The bridegroom; and spread out beneath his eye,
Earth smiled. Up to his warm embrace the dews,
That all night long had wept his absence, flew ;
The herbs and flowers their fragrant stores unlocked,
And gave the wanton breeze that newly woke,
Revelled in sweets, and from its wings shook health,
A thousand grateful smells; the joyous woods
Dried in his beams their locks, wet with the drops
Of night; and all the sons of music sung

Their matin song-from arboured bower the thrush
Concerting with the lark that byinned on high.
On the green hill the flocks, and in the vale
The herds, rejoiced; and, light of heart, the hind
Eyed amorously the milk-maid as she passed,
Not heedless, though she look another way.

[Friendship.]

Not unremembered is the hour when friends
Met. Friends, but few on earth, and therefore ear;
Sought oft, and sought almost as oft in vain;
Yet always sought, so native to the heart,
So much desired and coveted by all.

Nor wonder those-thou wonderest not, nor need'st.
Much beautiful, and excellent, and fair,
Than face of faithful friend, fairest when seen
In darkest day; and many sounds were sweet,
Most ravishing and pleasant to the ear;
But sweeter none than voice of faithful friend,
Sweet always, sweetest heard in loudest storm.
Some I remember, and will ne'er forget;
My early friends, friends of my evil day;
Friends in my mirth, friends in my misery too;
Friends given by God in mercy and in love;
My counsellors, my comforters, and guides;
My joy in grief, my second bliss in joy;
Companions of my young desires; in doubt,
My oracles, my wings in high pursuit.
O, I remember, and will ne'er forget
Our meeting spots, our chosen sacred hours,
Our burning words that uttered all the soul,
Our faces beaming with unearthly love;
Sorrow with sorrow sighing, hope with hope
Exulting, heart embracing, heart entire.
As birds of social feather helping each
His fellow's flight, we soared into the skies,
And cast the clouds beneath our feet, and earth,
With all her tardy leaden-footed cares,
And talked the speech, and ate the food of beaven!
These I remember, these selectest men,
And would their names record; but what avails
My mention of their names? Before the throne
They stand illustrious 'mong the loudest harps,
And will receive thee glad, my friend and theirs-
For all are friends in heaven, all faithful friends;

And many friendships in the days of time
Begun, are lasting here, and growing still;
So grows ours evermore, both theirs and mine.
Nor is the hour of lonely walk forgot
In the wide desert, where the view was large.
Pleasant were many scenes, but most to me
The solitude of vast extent, untouched
By hand of art, where nature sowed herself,
And reaped her crops; whose garments were the clouds;
Whose minstrels brooks; whose lamps the moon and
stars;

Whose organ-choir the voice of many waters;
Whose banquets morning dews; whose heroes storms;
Whose warriors mighty winds; whose lovers flowers;
Whose orators the thunderbolts of God;
Whose palaces the everlasting hills;
Whose ceiling heaven's unfathomable blue;
And from whose rocky turrets battled high
Prospect immense spread out on all sides round,
Lost now beneath the welkin and the main,
Now walled with hills that slept above the storm.
Most fit was such a place for musing men,
Happiest sometimes when musing without aim.
It was, indeed, a wondrous sort of bliss

The lonely bard enjoyed when forth he walked,
Unpurposed; stood, and knew not why; sat down,
And knew not where; arose, and knew not when;
Had eyes, and saw not; ears, and nothing heard;
And sought-sought neither heaven nor earth-sought
nought,

Nor meant to think; but ran meantime through vast
Of visionary things, fairer than aught

That was; and saw the distant tops of thoughts,
Which men of common stature never saw,
Greater than aught that largest worlds could hold,
Or give idea of, to those who read.
He entered into Nature's holy place,
Her inner chamber, and beheld her face
Unveiled; and heard unutterable things,
And incommunicable visions saw;
Things then unutterable, and visions then
Of incommunicable glory bright;
But by the lips of after-ages formed
To words, or by their pencil pictured forth;
Who, entering farther in, beheld again,

And heard unspeakable and marvellous things,
Which other ages in their turn revealed,
And left to others greater wonders still.

[Happiness.]

Whether in crowds or solitudes, in streets
Or shady groves, dwelt Happiness, it seems
In vain to ask; her nature makes it vain;
Though poets much, and hermits, talked and sung
Of brooks and crystal founts, and weeping dews,
And myrtle bowers, and solitary vales,
And with the nymph made assignations there,
And wooed her with the love-sick oaten reed;
And sages too, although less positive,
Advised their sons to court her in the shade.
Delirious babble all! Was happiness,
Was self-approving, God approving joy,
In drops of dew, however pure? in gales,
However sweet? in wells, however clear?
Or groves, however thick with verdant shade?
True, these were of themselves exceeding fair;
How fair at morn and even! worthy the walk
Of loftiest mind, and gave, when all within
Was right, a feast of overflowing bliss;
But were the occasion, not the cause of joy.
They waked the native fountains of the soul
Which slept before, and stirred the holy tides
Of feeling up, giving the heart to drink
From its own treasures draughts of perfect sweet.
The Christian faith, which better knew the heart

Of man, him thither sent for peace, and thus!
Declared: Who finds it, let him find it there;
Who finds it not, for ever let him seek
In vain; 'tis God's most holy, changeless will.
True Happiness had no localities,
No tones provincial, no peculiar garb.
Where Duty went, she went, with Justice went,
And went with Meekness, Charity, and Love.
Where'er a tear was dried, a wounded heart
Bound up, a bruised spirit with the dew
Of sympathy anointed, or a pang
Of honest suffering soothed, or injury
Repeated oft, as oft by love forgiven;
Where'er an evil passion was subdued,
Or Virtue's feeble embers fanned; where'er
A sin was heartily abjured and left;
Where'er a pious act was done, or breathed
A pious prayer, or wished a pious wish;
There was a high and holy place, a spot
Of sacred light, a most religious fane,
Where Happiness, descending, sat and smiled.
But there apart, in sacred memory lives
The morn of life, first morn of endless days,
Most joyful morn! Nor yet for nought the joy.
A being of eternal date commenced,

A young immortal then was born! And who
Shall tell what strange variety of bliss
Burst on the infant soul, when first it looked
Abroad on God's creation fair, and saw
The glorious earth and glorious heaven, and face
Of man sublime, and saw all new, and felt
All new! when thought awoke, thought never more
To sleep! when first it saw, heard, reasoned, willed,
And triumphed in the warmth of conscious life!
Nor happy only, but the cause of joy,
Which those who never tasted always mourned.
What tongue!-no tongue shall tell what bliss o'er-
flowed

The mother's tender heart while round her hung
The offspring of her love, and lisped her name
As living jewels dropped unstained from heaven,
That made her fairer far, and sweeter seem
Than every ornament of costliest hue!
And who hath not been ravished, as she passed
With all her playful band of little ones,
Like Luna with her daughters of the sky,
Walking in matron majesty and grace?

All who had hearts here pleasure found: and oft
Have I, when tired with heavy task, for tasks
Were heavy in the world below, relaxed
My weary thoughts among their guiltless sports,
And led them by their little hands a-field,

And watch them run and crop the tempting flower-
Which oft, unasked, they brought me, and bestowed
With smiling face, that waited for a look

Of praise-and answered curious questions, put
In much simplicity, but ill to solve;
And heard their observations strange and new;
And settled whiles their little quarrels, soon
Ending in peace, and soon forgot in love.
And still I looked upon their loveliness,
And sought through nature for similitudes
Of perfect beauty, innocence, and bliss,
And fairest imagery around me thronged;
Dewdrops at day-spring on a seraph's locks,
Roses that bathe about the well of life,
Young Loves, young Hopes, dancing on morning'ʼn
cheek,

Gems leaping in the coronet of Love!
So beautiful, so full of life, they seemed
As made entire of beams of angels' eyes.
Gay, guileless, sportive, lovely little things!
Playing around the den of sorrow, clad
In smiles, believing in their fairy hopes,
And thinking man and woman true! all joy,
Happy all day, and happy all the night!

[Picture of a Miser.]

But there was one in folly further gone;
With eye awry, incurable, and wild,
The laughing-stock of devils and of men,
And by his guardian-angel quite given up-
The Miser, who with dust inanimate

Held wedded intercourse. Ill-guided wretch!
Thou might'st have seen him at the midnight hour,
When good men slept, and in light-winged dreams
Ascended up to God-in wasteful hall,

With vigilance and fasting worn to skin
And bone, and wrapped in most debasing rags-
Thou might'st have seen him bending o'er his heaps,
And holding strange communion with his gold;
And as his thievish fancy seemed to hear

The night-man's foot approach, starting alarmed,
And in his old, decrepit, withered hand,
That palsy shook, grasping the yellow earth
To make it sure. Of all God made upright,
And in their nostrils breathed a living soul,

Most fallen, most prone, most earthy, most debased.
Of all that sold Eternity for Time,

None bargained on so easy terms with death.
Illustrious fool! Nay, most inhuman wretch!
He sat among his bags, and, with a look
Which Hell might be ashamed of, drove the poor
Away unalmsed; and 'midst abundance died—
Sorest of evils-died of utter want!

JAMES MONTGOMERY.

JAMES MONTGOMERY, a religious poet of deservedly high reputation, was born at Irvine, in Ayrshire, in 1771. His father was a Moravian missionary, who died whilst propagating Christianity in the island of Tobago. The poet was educated at the Moravian school at Fulneck, near Leeds. In 1792 he established himself in Sheffield (where he still resides) as assistant in a newspaper office. In a few years the paper became his own property, and he continued to conduct it up to the year 1825. His course did not always run smooth. In January 1794, amidst the excitement of that agitated period, he was tried on a charge of having printed a ballad, written by a clergyman of Belfast, on the demolition of the Bastile in 1789; which was now interpreted into a seditious libel. The poor poet, notwithstanding the innocence of his intentions, was found guilty, and sentenced to three months' imprisonment in the castle of York, and to pay a fine of £20. In January 1795 he was tried for a second imputed political offence-a paragraph in his paper, the Sheffield Iris, which reflected on the conduct of a magistrate in quelling a riot at Sheffield. He was again convicted and sentenced to six months' imprisonment in York castle, to pay a fine of £30, and to give security to keep the peace for two years. All the persons,' says the amiable poet, writing in 1840, who were actively concerned in the prosecutions against me in 1794 and 1795, are dead, and, without exception, they died in peace with me. I believe I am quite correct in saying, that from each of them distinctly, in the sequel, I received tokens of good-will, and from several of them substantial proofs of kindness. I mention not this as a plea in extenuation of offences for which I bore the penalty of the law; I rest my justification, in these cases, now on the same grounds, and no other, on which I rested my justification then. I mention the circumstance to the honour of the deceased, and as an evidence that, amidst all the violence of that distracted time, a better spirit was not extinct, but finally prevailed, and by its healing

influence did indeed comfort those who had been conscientious sufferers.'

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Mr Montgomery's first volume of poetry (he had previously written occasional pieces in his newspaper) appeared in 1806, and was entitled The Wanderer of Switzerland, and other Poems. It speedily went through two editions; and his publishers had just issued a third, when the Edinburgh Review of January 1807 denounced the unfortunate volume in a style of such authoritative reprobation as no mortal verse could be expected to survive.' The critique, indeed, was insolent and offensive-written in the worst style of the Review, when all the sins of its youth were full-blown and unchecked. Among other things, the reviewer predicted that in less than three years nobody would know the name of the Wanderer of Switzerland,' or of any other of the poems in the collection. Within eighteen months from the utterance of this oracle, a fourth impression (1500 copies) of the condemned volume was passing through the press whence the Edinburgh Review itself was issued, and it has now reached thirteen editions. The next work of the poet was The West Indies, a poem in four parts, written in honour of the abolition of the African slave trade by the British legislature in 1807. This was undertaken at the request of Mr Bowyer, the publisher, to accompany a series of engravings representing the past sufferings and the anticipated blessings of the longwronged Africans, both in their own land and in the West Indies. The poem is in the heroic couplet, and possesses a vigour and freedom of description, and a power of pathetic painting, much superior to anything in the first volume. Mr Montgomery afterwards published Prison Amusements, written during his nine months' confinement in York castle in 1794 and 1795. In 1813 he came forward with a more elaborate performance, The World Before the Flood, a poem in the heroic couplet, and extending to ten short cantos. His pictures of the antediluvian patriarchs in their happy valley, the invasion of Eden by the descendants of Cain, the loves of Javan and Zillah, the translation of Enoch, and the final deliverance of the little band of patriarch families from the hand of the giants, are sweet and touching, and elevated by pure and lofty feeling. Connected with some patriotic individuals in his own neighbourhood in many a plan for lessening the sum of human misery at home and abroad,' our author next published Thoughts on Wheels (1817), directed against state lotteries; and The Climbing Boy's Soliloquies, published about the same time, in a work written by different authors, to aid in effecting the abolition, at length happily accomplished, of the cruel and unnatural practice of employing boys in sweeping chimneys. In 1819 he published Greenland, a poem in five cantos, containing a sketch of the ancient Moravian church, its revival in the eighteenth century, and the origin of the missions by that people to Greenland in 1733. The poem, as published, is only a part of the author's original plan, but the beauty of its polar descriptions and episodes recommended it to public favour. The only other long poem by Mr Montgomery is The Pelican Island, suggested by a passage in Captain Flinders's voyage to Terra Australis, describing the existence of the ancient haunts of the pelican in the small islands on the coast of New Holland. The work is in blank verse, in nine short cantos, and the narrative is supposed to be delivered by an imaginary being who witnesses the series of events related after the whole has happened. The poem abounds in minute and delicate description of natural phenomena-has great felicity of diction and expression-and altogether

possesses more of the power and fertility of the master than any other of the author's works.

Through which the evening star, with milder gleam, Descends to meet her image in the stream. Besides the works we have enumerated, Mr Mont- Far in the east, what spectacle unknown gomery has thrown off a number of small effusions, Allures the eye to gaze on it alone? published in different periodicals, and short transla- Amidst black rocks, that lift on either hand tions from Dante and Petrarch. On his retirement Their countless peaks, and mark receding land; in 1825 from the invidious station' of newspaper Amidst a tortuous labyrinth of seas, editor, which he had maintained for more than thirty That shine around the Arctic Cyclades ; years, through good report and evil report, his friends Amidst a coast of dreariest continent, and neighbours of Sheffield, of every shade of politi-In many a shapeless promontory rent; cal and religious distinction, invited him to a public entertainment, at which the present Earl Fitzwilliam presided. There the happy and grateful poet ran through the story of his life even from his boyish days,' when he came amongst them, friendless and a stranger, from his retirement at Fulneck among the Moravian brethren, by whom he was educated in all but knowledge of the world. He spoke with pardonable pride of the success which had crowned his labours as an author. Not, indeed,' he said, with fame and fortune, as these were lavished on my greater contemporaries, in comparison with whose magnificent possessions on the British Parnassus my small plot of ground is no more than Naboth's vineyard to Ahab's kingdom; but it is my own; it is no copyhold; I borrowed it, I leased it from none. Every foot of it I enclosed from the common myself; and I can say that not an inch which I had once gained have I ever lost. * * I wrote neither to suit the manners, the taste, nor the temper of the age; but I appealed to universal principles, to unperishable affections, to primary elements of our common nature, found wherever man is found in civilised society, wherever his mind has been raised above barbarian ignorance, or his passions purified

from brutal selfishness.' In 1830 and 1831 Mr

Montgomery was selected to deliver a course of lectures at the Royal Institution on Poetry and General Literature, which he prepared for the press, and published in 1833. A pension of £200 per annum has since been conferred on Mr Montgomery. A collected edition of his works, with autobiographical and illustrative matter, was issued in 1841 in four volumes. A tone of generous and enlightened morality pervades all the writings of this poet. He was the enemy of the slave trade and of every form of oppression, and the warm friend of every scheme of philanthropy and improvement. The pious and devotional feelings displayed in his early effusions have grown with his growth, and form the staple of his poetry. In description, however, he is not less happy; and in his 'Greenland' and 'Pelican Island' there are passages of great beauty, evincing a refined taste and judgment in the selection of his materials. His late works have more vigour and variety than those by which he first became distinguished. Indeed, his fame was long confined to what is termed the religious world, till he showed, by his cultivation of different styles of poetry, that his depth and sincerity of feeling, the simplicity of his taste, and the picturesque beauty of his language, were not restricted to purely spiritual themes. His smaller poems enjoy a popularity almost equal to those of Moore, which, though differing widely in subject, they resemble in their musical flow, and their compendious happy expression and imagery.

Greenland.

'Tis sunset; to the firmament serene
The Atlantic wave reflects a gorgeous scene;
Broad in the cloudless west, a belt of gold
Girds the blue hemisphere; above unrolled
The keen clear air grows palpable to sight,
Embodied in a flush of crimson light,

O'er rocks, seas, islands, promontories spread,
The ice-blink rears its undulated head,
On which the sun, beyond the horizon shrined,
Hath left his richest garniture behind;
Piled on a hundred arches, ridge by ridge,
O'er fixed and fluid strides the alpine bridge,
Whose blocks of sapphire seem to mortal eye
Hewn from cerulean quarries in the sky;
With glacier battlements that crowd the spheres,
The slow creation of six thousand years,
Amidst immensity it towers sublime,
Winter's eternal palace, built by Time:
All human structures by his touch are borne
Down to the dust; mountains themselves are worn
With his light footsteps; here for ever grows,
Amid the region of unmelting snows,
A monument; where every flake that falls

Gives adamantine firmness to the walls.
The sun beholds no mirror in his race,
That shows a brighter image of his face;
The stars, in their nocturnal vigils, rest
Like signal fires on its illumined crest;
The gliding moon around the ramparts wheels,
And all its magic lights and shades reveals;
To undermine it through a thousand caves;
Beneath, the tide with equal fury raves,
Rent from its roof, though thundering fragments oft
Plunge to the gulf, immovable aloft,
Its turrets heighten and its piers expand.
From age to age, in air, o'er sea, on land,

*

Slow, solemn, sweet, with many a pause between,
Hark! through the calm and silence of the scene,
Celestial music swells along the air!
No! 'tis the evening hymn of praise and prayer
From yonder deck, where, on the stern retired,
Three humble voyagers, with looks inspired,
And hearts enkindled with a holier flame
Than ever lit to empire or to fame,
Devoutly stand: their choral accents rise
On wings of harmony beyond the skies ;
And, 'midst the songs that seraph-minstrels sing,
Day without night, to their immortal king,
These simple strains, which erst Bohemian hills
Echoed to pathless woods and desert rills,
Now heard from Shetland's azure bound-are known
In heaven; and he who sits upon the throne
In human form, with mediatorial power,
Remembers Calvary, and hails the hour
When, by the Almighty Father's high decree,
The utmost north to him shall bow the knee,
And, won by love, an untamed rebel-race
Kiss the victorious sceptre of his grace.
Then to his eye, whose instant glance pervades
Heaven's heights, earth's circle, hell's profoundest
shades,

Is there a group more lovely than those three
Night-watching pilgrims on the lonely sea?

1 The term ice-blink is generally applied by mariners to the nocturnal illumination in the heavens, which denotes to them the proximity of ice-mountains. In this place a description is attempted of the most stupendous accumulation of ice in the known world, which has been long distinguished by this pe culiar name by the Danish navigators.

2 The first Christian missionaries to Greenland.

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