And gushing oceans every barrier rend, Be he, who made thee and thy sire! We deem our curses vain; we must expire; But as we know the worst, Why should our hymn be raised, our knees be bent Before the implacable Omnipotent, Since we must fall the same? If he hath made earth, let it be his shame, And with their roar make wholesome nature dumb! When Paradise upsprung, Ere Eve gave Adam knowledge for her dower, Or Adam his first hymn of slavery sung,) So massy, vast, yet green in their old age, Their summer blossoms by the surges lopt, Vainly we look up to the lowering skies— And shut out God from our beseeching eyes. And view, all floating o'er the Element, Thy song of praise! A Mortal. Blessed are the dead Who die in the Lord! And though the waters be o'er earth outspread, Yet, as his word, Be the decree adored! He gave me life-he taketh but The breath which is his own: And though these eyes should be forever shut, Nor longer this weak voice before his throne Be heard in supplicating tone, Still blessed be the Lord, For what is past, For that which is: For all are his, From first to last Time-space-eternity-life-death • The vast known and immeasurable unknown. He made, and can unmake; And shall I, for a little gasp of breath, Blaspheme and groan? No; let me die, as I have lived, in faith, Nor quiver, though the universe may quake! Chorus of Mortals. Where shall we fly? Not to the mountains high;* For now their torrents rush with double roar, Nor leaves an unsearch'd cave. Enter a Woman. Woman, Oh, save me, save! Our valley is no more: My father and my father's tent, My brethren and my brethren's herds, The pleasant trees that o'er our noonday bent And sent forth evening songs from sweetest birds, The little rivulet which freshen'd all Our pastures green, No more are to be seen. When to the mountain cliff I climb'd this morn, 1 turn'd to bless the spot, And not a leaf appear'd about to fall; And now they are not! Why was I born? Japh. To die! in youth to die; And happier in that doom, Than to behold the universal tomb Which I Am thus condemn'd to weep above in vain. [The Waters rise: Men fly in every direction; many are THE CURSE OF MINERVA. SLOW sinks, more lovely ere his race be run, Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright, O'er the hush'd deep the yellow beam he throws, The God of gladness sheds his parting smile. And dark the mountain's once delightful dyes. But ere he sunk beneath Citharon's head, But lo! from high Hymettus to the plain Hides her fair face, or girds her glowing form: The groves of olive, scatter'd dark and wide, Their long expanse of sapphire and of gold, As thus within the walls of Pattas' fane I mark'd the beauties of the land and main, *The twilight in Greece is much shorter than in our own country. The days in winter are longer, but in summer of less duration. + The kiosk is a Turkish summer-house-the palm is without the present walls of Athens, not far from the temple of Theseus, between which and the tree the wall intervenes-Cephisus' stream is indeed scanty, and Illi ssus has no stream at all. |