Creatures, whose souls outweigh a world, awake! Methinks I hear a pitying angel cry.
In the next passage, the first line in italics resembles Young; the last line is stamped with sublime force
For many, had they brute enjoyers been Of homely nature, or, as trees and flowers, Than, charter'd with undying mind, to live Mere breath and blood, without a spirit train'd Το pure advancement in the destined walks Of reason, and magnetically sway'd
By truths that up to heaven and glory lead.— He lives the longest who has thought the most; And by sublime anticipation felt,
That what's immortal must progressive prove, Or, downward darken to avenging night.—
To conclude: the blank verse exordium of the Omnipresence has also a passage resembling Young's better style
Is dead! and, with it, many a breathing shape Of life shall breathe no more. Many an eye, That smiled upon the morn, is film'd and cold; Many a heart, that leapt with living joy,
Truth-born, and deep. But Life o'ershadows Death Beneath her brilliant wings; and day on day, And hour on hour is piled: yet unappall'd
We glitter on life's varied road, until
The death-knell mutters o'er our tombs, and some Communer with the midnight, when he hears The dusky steeples moaning to the clouds, Shall sigh and say-"Another day is dead!"
Montgomery's description of the Last Day has been referred to: its fault is inflation; but it may be here said, that it is free from the prevailing blemish, of Young's Last Day-his forced and glittering conceits. Young compares the souls roused by the last trumpet, to clustering bees. Montgomery says the
dust of ages startles into life;' and adds
The sea has heard it; coiling up with dread Myriads of mortals flash from out her bed.
Young compares the stars to bunches of grapes on a vine. Montgomery says of their appearance at nightfall
Heaven's blue concave blossoms out in stars.
THE next avowed publication of Robert Montgomery in the scale of merit is his volume containing the Universal Prayer, Death, the Vision of Heaven, and the Vision of Hell. The Universal Prayer is hardly worthy of his fame; and Death, though it contains some striking passages, does not appear to me characterised by his usual energy and originality. The following picture is however exquisite.
With step as noiseless as the summer air, Who comes in beautiful decay?—her eyes Dissolving with a feverish glow of light, Her nostrils delicately closed, and on Her cheek a rosy tint, as if the tip Of Beauty's finger fuintly press'd it there,- Alas! CONSUMPTION is her name.
I may be excused another extract, equally beautiful, which recalls to mind the witching transitions and magic melody of the divine Weber, in his yet unappreciated Oberon.
A STORM AND SHIPWRECK.
Listen !—for, hear ye not the startled Winds Invisibly are coming from their caves? Fierce as avenging fiends from hell evoked, They march, and madden with a mingled howl; Creation cowers to the waking Storm,
And darkens as the ocean-chaos did Beneath the spirit-shadow of her God!— Again! again! the congregated Winds Unroll their voices, they have roused the Sea, And on her back ten thousand thousand waves, Like wings of wrath, are swelling as they rise!
Above, the rocky clouds are wildly clash'd, Till darkness quickens into light! and fierce And far the thunder-demons whirl their roar, Rattling the heavens until they burst in rain; While echoes wake and shiver as they roll, And lightnings dart like daggers from the clouds! Alone upon the leaping billows, lo!
What fearful Image works its way? A ship! Shapeless and wild, as by the storm begot ; Her sails dishevell'd and her massy form Disfigur'd, yet tremendously sublime:
Prowless and helmless through the waves she rocks, And writhes, as if in agony! Like him, Who to the last, amid o'erwhelming foes, Sinks with a bloody struggle into death, The vessel combats with the battling waves, Then fiercely dives below,-the Thunders roll Her requiem, and Whirlwinds howl for joy !-
Look !-where a lash of lightning stripes the sea,- Like straw upon the wind, a bark is whirl'd From wave to wave! within, a pale-faced crew
Sit dumb as phantoms; with their eyes bedimmed, Their locks all foamy and their lips unclosed; And when the clouds unsheath their fires, against The wizard glare, their upturn'd faces gleam In one despairing row !-Their doom is seal'd Above!-Death howls in every wolfish blast, And rides on each gigantic wave! the Sea Shall be their sepulchre, their coffins be Her caves, until the summon'd Ocean hear The death-trump, and her bosom'd dead arise!
The sudden scenic evanishing of this Weberian transition is full of enchantment?
Wave, wind, and thunder have departed! shrunk The vision'd ocean from my view,—and lo! A distant landscape, dawning forth amid The bright suffusion of a summer sun. On yonder mead, that like a windless lake Shines in the glow of heaven, a cherub boy Is bounding, playful as a breeze new born, Light as the beam that dances by his side. Phantom of beauty! with his trepid locks Gleaming like water-wreaths,—a flower of life.
The Vision of Hell is as gorged with images of sublime terror, as the Vision of Heaven is begemmed with exquisite picturings of Elysian beauty and angelic splendour. The first (especially in the passage which describes the fiery form and agonized enthronement of Satan) resembles the gorgeous orientalisms and splendid horrors of Vathek: the last is coloured by a Swedenburgian hue of religious Platonism; the welcoming, by two angels, of liberated souls into the garden of heaven is redolent with beauty, and the whole scene, tinted with that roseate glow' with which Proclus clothes
his Platonic Elysium, will remind the reader of the fascinating mysticism of Klopstock. I subjoin the contrasted passages.
The palace of the mighty God,
Expanded into view !—My living soul! With awful feeling enter where He dwells.
An empyréan infinitely vast
And irridescent, roof'd with rainbows, whose Transparent gleams a mingled radiance shed, Before me lay: Beneath this dazzling vault, Glory, beyond the wonder of the heart To dream, around interminably blazed.— I felt, but cannot paint the vision there!
Stillness ethereal reign'd, and forth appear'd Elysian creatures, robed in fleecy light, Together flocking from celestial haunts, And mansions of purpureal mould.
The hallow'd choir was hush'd; and I beheld Cherubic forms of immaterial grace And beauty walk o'er amaranthine meads, And soar on shining pinions; as they sail'd, Their radiance quiver'd forth, and from each wing Soft as the breeze, and silky as a cloud,— A gleam play'd liquidly around their path.
Of archangelic mien, upon the wing Two Shapes I watch'd, careering to the bound Of vision lighting there, they welcom❜d in Three happy Spirits, by THE LAMB redeem'd.
Remote, whose emerald leaves with liquid drops Of light were gemm'd, two angels next I mark'd
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