Ere we the deep preluding strain have poured
To the great Father, only Rightful King, Eternal Father! King Omnipotent!
To the Will Absolute, the One, the Good! The I AM, the Word, the Life, the Living God!
Such symphony requires best instrument. Seize, then, my soul! from Freedom's trophied dome The harp which hangeth high between the shields Of Brutus and Leonidas! With that
Strong music, that soliciting spell, force back Man's free and stirring spirit that lies entranced.
For what is freedom, but the unfettered use Of all the powers which God for use had given? But chiefly this, him first, him last to view Through meaner powers and secondary things Effulgent, as through clouds that veil his blaze. For all that meets the bodily sense I deem Symbolical, one mighty alphabet
For infant minds; and we in this low world Placed with our backs to bright reality,
That we may learn with young
The substance from its shadow.
unwounded ken
Infinite Love,
Whose latence is the plenitude of all,
Thou with retracted beams, and self-eclipse
Veiling, revealest thine eternal Sun.
But some there are who deem themselves most free When they within this gross and visible sphere Chain down the winged thought, scoffing ascent, Proud in their meanness and themselves they cheat With noisy emptiness of learned phrase, Their subtle fluids, impacts, essences, Self-working tools, uncaused effects, and all Those blind omniscients, those almighty slaves, Untenanting creation of its God.
But properties are God: the naked mass (If mass there be, fantastic guess or ghost) Acts only by its inactivity.
Here we pause humbly. Others boldlier think That as one body seems the aggregate Of atoms numberless, each organized; So by a strange and dim similitude Infinite myriads of self-conscious minds Are one all-conscious Spirit, which informs With absolute ubiquity of thought (His one eternal self-affirming act!) All his involved Monads, that yet seem With various province and apt agency Each to pursue its own self-centring end. Some nurse the infant diamond in the mine; Some roll the genial juices through the oak; Some drive the mutinous clouds to clash in air, And rushing on the storm with whirlwind speed, Yoke the red lightnings to their volleying car. Thus these pursue their never-varying course, No eddy in their stream. Others, more wild, With complex interests weaving human fates, Duteous or proud, alike obedient all, Evolve the process of eternal good.
And what if some rebellious o'er dark realms Arrogate power? yet these train up to God, And on the rude eye, unconfirmed for day, Flash meteor-lights better than total gloom. As ere from Lieule-Oaive's vapory head The Laplander beholds the far-off sun Dart his slant beam on unobeying snows, While yet the stern and solitary night Brooks no alternate sway, the Boreal Morn With mimic lustre substitutes its gleam, Guiding his course or by Niemi lake
Or Balda Zhiok,* or the mossy stone
Of Solfar-kapper,† while the snowy blast
* Balda Zhiok; i. e. mons altitudinis, the highest mountain in Lapland. Solfar Kapper; capitium Solfar, hie locus omnium quotquot veterum
Drifts arrowy by, or eddies round his sledge, Making the poor babe at its mother's back* Scream in its scanty cradle: he the while Wins gentle solace as with upward eye He marks the streamy banners of the North, Thinking himself those happy spirits shall join Who there in floating robes of rosy light Dance sportively. For Fancy is the power That first unsensualizes the dark mind, Giving it new delights; and bids it swell With wild activity; and peopling air, By obscure fears of beings invisible, Emancipates it from the grosser thrall Of the present impulse, teaching self-control, Till Superstition with unconscious hand
Seat Reason on her throne. Wherefore not vain, Nor yet without permitted power impressed, I deem those legends terrible, with which The polar ancient thrills his uncouth throng: Whether of pitying Spirits that make their moan O'er slaughtered infants, or that giant bird. Vuokho, of whose rushing wings the noise Is tempest, when the unutterablet shape
Speeds from the mother of Death, and utters once That shriek, which never murderer heard, and lived.
Lapponum superstitio sacrificiis religiosoque cultui dedicavit, celebratissimus erat, in parte sinus australis situs semimilliaris spatio a mari distans. Ipse locus, quem curiositatis gratia aliquando me invisisse memini, duabus prealtis lapidibus, sibi invicem oppositis, quorum alter musco circumdatus erat, constabat.-Leemius de Lapponibus.
* The Lapland women carry their infants at their back in a piece of excavated wood, which serves them for a cradle. Opposite to the infant's mouth there is a hole for it to breathe through.-Mirandum prorsus est et vix credibile nisi cui vidisse contigit. Lappones hyeme iter facientes per vastos montes, perque horrida et invia tesqua, eo presertim tempore quo omnia perpetuis nivibus obtecta sunt et nives ventis agitantur et in gyros aguntur, viam ad destinata loca absque errore invenire posse, lactantem autem infantem si quem habeat, ipsa mater in dorso bajulat, in excavato ligno (Gieed❜k ipsi vocant) quod pro cunis utuntur: in hoc infans pannis et pellibus convolutus colligatus jacet.-Leemius de Lapponibus.
Or if the Greenland Wizard in strange trance Pierces the untravelled realms of Ocean's bed Over the abysm, even to that uttermost cave By mis-shaped prodigies beleaguered, such As earth ne'er bred, nor air, nor the upper sea: Where dwells the Fury Form, whose unheard name With eager eye, pale cheek, suspended breath, And lips half-opening with the dread of sound, Unsleeping Silence guards, worn out with fear Lest haply 'scaping on some treacherous blast The fateful word let slip the elements And frenzy Nature. Yet the wizard her,
Armed with Torngarsuck's* power, the Spirit of Good, Forces to unchain the foodful progeny
Of the Ocean stream;-thence thro' the realm of Souls, Where live the Innocent, as far from cares
As from the storms and overwhelming waves That tumble on the surface of the Deep, Returns with far-heard pant, hotly pursued By the fierce Warders of the Sea, once more, Ere by the frost foreclosed, to repossess His fleshly mansion, that had staid the while In the dark tent within a cow'ring group Untenanted.-Wild phantasies! yet wise, On the victorious goodness, of high God Teaching reliance, and medicinal hope, Till from Bethabra northward, heavenly Truth With gradual steps, winning her difficult way, Transfer their rude Faith perfected and pure.
If there be beings of higher class than Man, I deem no nobler province they possess, Than by disposal of apt circumstance
They call the Good Spirit Torngarsuck. The other great but malignant spirit is a nameless Female; she dwells under the sea in a great house, where she can detain in captivity all the animals of the ocean by her magic power. When a dearth befalls the Greenlanders, an Angekok or magician must undertake a journey thither. He passes through the kingdom of souls, over a horrible abyss into the Palace of this phantom, and by his enchantments causes the captive creatures to ascend directly to the surface of the ocean.-See Crantz's History of Greenland, vol. i. 206.
To rear up kingdoms: and the deeds they prompt, Distinguishing from mortal agency,
They choose their human ministers from such states As still the Epie song half fears to name, Repelled from all the minstrelsies that strike The palace-roof and soothe the monarch's pride.
And such, perhaps, the Spirit, who (if words Witnessed by answering deeds may claim our faith) Held commune with that warrior-maid of France Who scourged the Invader. From her infant days, With Wisdom, mother of retired thoughts,
Her soul had dwelt; and she was quick to mark The good and evil thing, in human lore Undisciplined. For lowly was her birth, And Heaven had doomed her early years to toil That pure from tyranny's least deed, herself Unfear'd by fellow-natures, she might wait On the poor laboring man with kindly looks, And minister refreshment to the tired
Way-wanderer, when along the rough hewn bench The sweltry man had stretched him, and aloft Vacantly watched the rudely pictured board
Which on the mulberry-bough with welcome creak Swung to the pleasant breeze.
Here, too, the Maid Learnt more than schools could teach: Man's shifting mind, His vices and his sorrows! And full oft
At tales of cruel wrong and strange distress, Had wept and shivered. To the tottering eld Still as a daughter would she run she placed His cold limbs at the sunny door, and loved To hear him story, in his garrulous sort, Of his eventful years, all come and gone.
So twenty seasons past. The Virgin's form,
Active and tall, nor sloth nor luxury
Had shrunk or paled. Her front sublime and broad, Her flexile eye-brows wildly haired and low,
And her full eye, now bright, now unillumed,
Spake more than Woman's thought; and all her face
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