ince, long ago, I left
Those well-known shores, and when mine eyes are filled
With tears, I take the pencil in its turn,
And shading light the landscape spread below,
So smilingly beguile those starting tears; 10
Something, the feelings of the human heart--
Something, the scene itself, and something more--
A wish to gratify one generous mind--
May plead for pardon.
To this spot I came
To view the dark memorials of a world[4]
Perished at the Almighty's voice, and swept 17
With all its noise away! Since then, unmarked,
In that rude cave those dark memorials lay,
And told no tale!
Spirit of other times,
Sad shadow of the ancient world, come forth!
Thou who has slept four thousand years, awake!
Rise from the cavern's last recess, and say,
What giant cleft in twain the neighbouring rocks,[5]
Then slept for ages in vast Ogo's Cave,[6]
And left them rent and frowning from that hour;
Say, rather, when the stern Archangel stood,
Above the tossing of the flood, what arm
Shattered this mountain, and its hollow chasm 30
Heaped with the mute memorials of that doom!
Spirit of other times, thou speakest not!
Yet who could gaze a moment on that wreck
Of desolation, but must pause to think
Of the mutations of the globe--of time,
Hurrying to onward spoil--of his own life,
Swift passing, as the summer light, away--
Of Him who spoke, and the dread storm went forth.
The surge came, and the surge went back, and there--
There--when the black abyss had ceased to roar, 40
And waters, shrinking from the rocks and hills,
Slept in the solitary sunshine--there
The bones that strew the inmost cavern lay:
And when forgotten centuries had passed,
And the gray smoke went up from villages,
And cities, with their towers and temples, shone,
And kingdoms rose and perished--there they lay!
The crow sailed o'er the spot; the villager
Plodded to morning toil, yet undisturbed 49
They lay:--when, lo! as if but yesterday
The Archangel's trump had thundered o'er the deep
The mighty shade of ages that are passed
Towers into light! Say, Christian, is it true,
That dim recess, that cavern, heaped with bones,
Will echo to thy Bible!