BY THE REV. J. WHITEHOUSE.
O THOU, whose light touch sheds the opiate dews
Of bland Oblivion; thou whose power
Man's wearied, drooping frame renews,
Oft as thou deignst thy influence shower
On my closed lids, lead me, O shadowy Queen,
To fairy regions, and some blissful clime
Elysian; picturing the unreal scene
In Fancy's gorgeous garb and imagery sublime:
And bring from out thy magic cell
That potent, necromantic spell,
Which holds the soul in wonder's trance,
While pass thy airy train successiye by,
Rolling along the visioned ecstacy
To rapt Attention's glance:
Oft' has the Bard whom genius warms,
Who marks at eve thy spectre-forms,
Won from thy magic stores divine
The colouring of his simple line;
And o'er the page the Muses own
Rays of poetic glory thrown;
And sketched the high-wrought scenes, and bade them glow,
In radiant hues of light, and Fiction's solemn show.
But far, far greater boast was thine
When Inspiration led thy band;
When not with fond illusions vain,
Such as the idle brain
Alarm, with prodigy and dire portent,
Thou cam'st; but which when Wisdom's self beheld, Rightly she augured what thy visions meant,
Shadowed in doubtful hues by some immortal hand;
When breathing mystic truths divine,
Full many a seer and prophet thou hast taught,
And from the Almighty brought
Behests of dread command, and import high;
While the rapt mind's judging eye
In cloudless perspective the Future caught:
Nor seldom God or Angel held
Converse with man; the midnight hour
Illumined shone with glory's ray,
And coruscations of eternal day
Waved, queen of silence! o'er thy darksome bower;
Heaven oped her golden portals wide,
And far within her glittering courts were spied
The angelic phalanx robed in vestments bright*,
To earth descending slow from yon fair worlds of light.
And still thy gracious forms await
The good man on the verge of fate;
When this world and the next between,
The Beatific Vision to the sight
Unfolding, opens heaven: then floods the scene,
In boundless bliss absorbed, and deluges of light.
Thou canst the heart of Guilt appal;
Thy voice, O awful Sleep, has power
To wake the dead at midnight hour,
Obedient to thy potent call:
And tyrants oft' have heard with dread
The cry of vengeance thundering in their ear,
While the pale spectre Fear
Hangs her dire portents round the regal bed,
* Genesis, ch. xxviii. ver. 12.
Horrors, and woes, and death: Night's demons loud
Shriek to the moon afar, from many a passing cloud.
Beneath the dim Earth's centre deep,
Beneath where Ocean rolls his wave,
Where ghosts their lingering sabbath keep,
And thrown across the gulph of fate,
Where Hell her ponderous, adamantine gate
Bars on the mansions of the grave;
Close by Death's door, on either hand,
O Sleep, thy shadowy kingdoms stand;
Stretched on thy ebon-couch supine,
Soft poppy-wreaths thy temples twine;
Around thee mimic Fancy plays,
The shadow of the evening strays,
And busy murmurs creep:
While dreams in clusters thick are spread
Like hovering mists about thy head,
That with fantastic wing thy dewy eye-lids sweep.
About thy sable standard pass
Of Hopes and Fears a mingled mass,
Fluttering Wishes, gay Desires,
Sighs of Disappointment born,
Passion's unextinguished fires,
And Melancholy's plaint forlorn!
While from the tablet of the brain
Memory calls off her dusky train,
Dim-veiled Illusion mocks the sight
With short-lived phantoms of delight,
And shows of promised bliss, that fly
Ere the young Morn with bashful eye,
From Thetis' coral-woven bed,
Lifts o'er the wave his beaming head:
Amidst the deep-surrounding shade
Ambition's gilded trophies fade;
No more the Lover's arms infold
The fair, snatched sudden from his view;
And melting like the early dew
Slips from the Miser's grasp the evanescent gold.
Vast and stupendous beyond aught
Fancy, in fit ecstatic, thought;
Or what beside of high-wrought lore
Graced Fiction's elfin-tales of yore,
Thy forms in many a wondrous hue
Glance on the bard's astonished view,
Or hold in deep suspense his tranced ear;
While many a phantom cleaves the ground,
And busy murmurs circle round,
And airy voices wake, that whisper fear:
Oft' by thy paly star
His steps thou lead'st to shadowy wood-scenes wild,
Or where stupendous precipices piled,
Gleam through the untrodden wilderness afar;
Where nature's awful scenes present
Mute wonder and astonishment;
Or in some nook where Solitude
Sits on a rocky fragment rude,
He reads that high, immortal line,
Traced by the Muse's hand divine,
Which, while enamoured of the strain,
Memory's bold pencil would retain,
Fades by degrees upon the mental sight,
And seeks Oblivion's shore, and melts before the light.
Ye visions of the night, farewell!
The orient Morn's impurpled ray
Has chased your airy forms away,
And now with strong immortal hand,
She breaks, O Sleep, thy fairy wand,
And melts thy wizard spell:
Yet with impassioned, fond regret,
I quit thy shadowy realms, where brought
'Midst Fancy's high and solemn hour,
The muse invoked thy mystic power
To nurse poetic thought:
Adieu, ye visionary vales!
Far off Night's sullen spirit sails,'
The land of shadows, lo, I leave:
Yet shall yon golden lamp of day
More lasting forms, more happy scenes display?
Alas! like thine, they quickly pass away,
Like thine, alas! deceive.
SOFT Queen of shadows, gentle Sleep,
Once more to thee I pay my vow,
Again I woo thy murmurs deep
To sooth this throbbing breast of mine,
And round my aching temples twine
The grateful foliage of thy cypress-bough;
Sweet are thy foldings; when the mind
Leaving the load of cares behind,
Expatiates 'midst thy visionary reign,
And bathes in slumbers bland the wakeful sense of pain,
Sweet are thy foldings; when to bless
The spirit faint with trials sore,
Thou com'st indulgent, to restore.
Past scenes of short-lived happiness!
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