Songs of the ark: with other poems

Front matter

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Part IV A Song of the Wife of Ham

IV CONTENTS.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

PAOB

Jacob*s Lament, 905

Lines to a Note-Book, ..... 331

SONGS OF THE ARK.

PART nRST.

SONGS OF THE ARK.

INVOCATION TO THE HARP OF ZION.

Harp of the holy heart and hand,

May I awake thy sacred tone, Far 'mid this wild and lonely land,

Wliere many a martyr's moss-grey stone Remains in hallow'd light, to tell

Where lone and low the ashes lie Of hearts that loved thy numbers well,

And dared for thee to die.

Exulting in the mortal pain Which they were ne'er to feel again ?

When Persecution's ruthless power

Ungodly murderers sent abroad, These wilds, at midnight's deepest hour,

Have heard those hymns sung out to God Which died away by Babel streams,

Like wailings of the desert wind, When exiled hearts recalled the dreams

Of homes far left behind.

And scenes of Zion's holy hill. Where all thy echoes then were still.

Thy strains were as eternal ties

Of sympathy, which bound in one The souls of those that could despise

All influence else below the sun ; And through these solitudes though far

Their weary feet were doom'd to roam. Bright as the glory of a star

Their hopes were pointed home To Him, who, o'er this scene of clay. Once wander d houselessly as they.

INVOCATION TO THE HARP OF ZION.

The hoary wing of ages hath

Pass'd o'er this world of woe and crime, Since slept the holy Bards in death

Who woke thy harmonies sublime ; But time, which sheds its darkness o'er

The pride of all created things, Can never dim the heavenly lore

Which melted from thy strings, Nor sever from immortal thought The wisdom that thy light has taught.

Thine is a sun which cannot set— -

A power whose influence cannot die ; The hand its cunning may forget.

And stars grow dim amid the sky. But thou shalt to the soul be known,

As that which can a charm impart, When all the earth-bom hopes of man

Have faded from the heart — A treasure that shall bless him more Than all the wealth the world e'er bore.

S0K6S OF THE ARK.

'Twas thine to wake triumphal dirge

O'er Egypt's ocean-buried band. And thine the lofty plaints to urge,

Of him who dwelt in Uzz's land ; And it was thine to bear abroad

That radiance of prophetic song. Which taught the love and truth of God

The sons of men among ; And thine to pour, in Salem's halls, Those strains which every heart recalls.

My early days have been upon

The lonely mountains pass'd away ; But I hare other longings known.

Than those that lire but to decay: And though I ne'er may trace that land

Which gave thy sacred anthems birth, How were I bless'd to reach it, and

To kneel upon its earth — That earth which holier feet hare trod, Than those that bore the Ark of God I

INVOCATION TO THE HARP OF ZION.

To share one drop of Hermon's dew,

To pull one rose in Sharon's vale, And see the vines on Carmel's brow

Spread their bright glories to the gale, I'd face the desert blast, which bids

The homing sky be wrapt in gloom, Steer on through wind-rear'd pyramids.

And brave the dread simoom.

If Heaven but will'd to bear me o er The waves to Jordan's hallow'd shore.

And though Engedi's caverns vast,

Far by the lone and lifeless sea — The pilgrim's home in ages past —

My destined dwelling-place should be, The lonely heart might have its meed,

The soul its silent power of prayer; And if I may be bless'd indeed.

Could Heaven not bless me there. And guard my orisons sublime. In regions of the hallow'd dime ?

SONGS OF THE ARK.

Yet all is vain, but that Tvhich wakes

The longings that can never die ; And mortals err, when will partakes

Of aught that leads not to the sky. No feelings of unholy strife

Can wrest the rod from reason's hand, And point to days of after life

Within a promised land ; Else he who sleeps on Pisgah lone Had pass'd to goodly Lebanon.

I've shared of hope like other men —

I've known the joys which others kn^w ; And life has had its moments when

Thorns but remain'd where roses grew : And he who recks of earthly fame.

May live to find the charm depart, Or but the fading laurels claim

To wreathe a wither'd heart.

The charm, bless'd Lyre, that springs of thee. Shall live when time hath ceased to be.

INVOCATION TO THE HARP OF ZION.

And o*er thy chords though never more

May fall that wonted light divine — Else how to wake their slumb'ring lore.

Had e'er essay'd this hand of mine ?— * Yet shall my soul, with humble hope.

Plead for a guiding star from Him, Who, though yon sky its orbs should drop.

And all besides grow dim, Can o'er the spirit pour a ray More bright than nature's earliest day.

The graves are green, and time is old,

And each prophetic lip is dumb; But hours of heavenly peace, foretold,

Are here, or coming, and will come ; And yet the eyes of sinful men

Shall glow with love and lustre mild, And see the lion forth his den

Led by a little child.

Nor aught of evil break again. The tie of holy wisdom's chain. a2

But not of days, when words shall he

The heart's deep trath alone — and sang In strains hless'd as the harmony

Of Eden, when its howers were young, Thou now shalt sing ;-— 4ays when no gloom

Shall nuir the sky's immortal hue. Spread o'er the flowera of endless hloom

Along the vales of dew.

Where weary hreezes die away, Sick with the firagrance of the day ; —

But of the scenes of early time,

Ere oceans Ararat had lash'd, By which the hlood-red prints of crime

Were from the world's wide surface wash'd ;- And if my wand'ring lore recall

One faded inmge £rom the past. The strains may not prove idle all

To human hearts at last, While moved hy hope, with tremhling hand, I touch the Harp of Judah's Land.

Introduction

Come, then, thou holy Lyre— come to my heart —

Thy tones shall fill the breesM of hill and glen ; For I will woo thy time-worn chords, apart

From all the noisy homes of living men — When dawning, like the radiance of a dream, Steals softly o'er the scenes of vale and stream, And bright the sun, his jonmey to renew,

Comes forth his chamber, in the sky afar. To melt the mist, and drink the drops of dew

That fell beneath the bright-eyed evening star — When larks are np, and flocks far bleating still Are on their little pathwa3rs of the hill. Returning, with the noon-tide hours, to lie In pastures green the quiet waters by, 111 bear thee to the shade of hawthorn grey. And wake thy numbers to the breeze of day.

12 80NGS OF THE ARK.

Or when the shadows of the erening-tide Weave their grey mantle o'er the world so wide, And plovers sing, on moorlands far away, Their songs of sadness to the dying day. And chilly winds in fitful whispers creep Around the lone recesses of the steep, And dews fall deep upon the leaf and flower That clothe the hranches of the inland hower ; Still wandering lonely hy the stream or tree, My meditations shall remain with thee. Or seated by the fern-fringed mossy stone.

Rent from the rocks so high above it piled, I'll wake anew thy solemn breathing tone,

To charm the pilgrim wandering in the wild.

And in those silent hours, when sleep comes o'er

The sons of men, that urge their toils no more.

When fancy owns a spirit unconfined,

And travels o'er its regions, as the wind,

The scenery of those ages to survey

That from our ken so long have pass'd away.

SONGS OF THE ARK. Id

The moorland harp, that proved my early skill.

This fervid being may not all disown, But mingle with the varied anthems still

A moral cadence with thy holier tone. As telling of the attributes of mind.

Of form or air of those who lived to see The ruin that the waters left behind.

When nations on the earth had ceased to be, Or how the omens of dismay began To speak the coming of the doom of man.

Wild as the strife of midnight's starless hour. When winds are up, and demons urge their pow'r, A moral darkness bore its madd*ning sway O'er all of mind that stirr'd a form of clay ; And nought of earth by erring mortals trod. Wore any more a hallow'd trace of God.

Mail'd in their guilt, and bent on ceaseless strife, The sons of men had left the ways of life.

Effacing still in deed or dark design, Each lingering tnut of all that was divine ; And loud the cries of misery and crime Were heard from ont the troubled realm of time.

Since fell that date when first below the sun A brother's brow told what his arm had done, Full many a vital tide the dust had drench'd, Yet earth's deep-rooted thirst remained unquench'd ; And nature's robe of deeply-shaded green, Which never more shall be, and ne'er had been, So lovely, since the dawning of the hour That saw the birth of Sin in Eden's bower. The crime-wove characters now widely wore. That spoke of parted worth from shore to shore.

The dead lay in the valleys — darkly slun In wildest struggles of inglorious pain, Sharing afor death's deep and awful rest Unum'd — ^unhallow'd as the spot they press'd :

Appalling sights were imaged on the view, And man's dark blood lay deeper than the dew Around the birth-place of the sicken'd flower, That shed no fragrance from the summer bower — Whence in dismay the birds, that sweetly sung Through days of earlier time, forsook their young, Loathing the aspect of the festering forms Which stayed the wanderings of the lazy worms, And gave the tainted breath of pale decay. The wings which bore it o'er the scene of day.

There runs, methinks, through all immortal mind, A chain that vibrates, though it may not bind ; And when in heaven above or earth below, The causes come of powerful joy or woe. Its links will thrill from him of loftiest thought, Down through the range of being far remote, Awakening feelings of the deep distress. Or of emotions glowing but to bless. As sentiments of peace or pain may flow. And known to all, as each is form'd to know.

16 80N08 OF THE ARK.

When this lone world and all its liring host The last fair smile of innocence had lost, And, in the hand of sin-enshrouded time, Trembled the fnll-crown'd cup of human crime, Long-suffering Mercy in the holy sky Dropt one deep tear of pity — and was dry : Then paused the angels in that song sublime Which wakes amid interminable time, And from the glowing fields of living light That never wore a shadow from the night. Surveyed afar on man's unbless'd abode. The scenes of guilt that grieved the heart of God : And when the secret council of the sky . Was spread in open light before their eye, And from Jehovah's will the thought went forth That told through heaven the destiny of earth. Emotion of inexplicable kind Trembled afar through all created mind.

The sinful sons of men in homes below Own'd dark presentiments of coming woe.

As if had 'pear'd the shadow of the curse

That hung, to deepen, o'er the universe

The arm prepared to work the works of hell, Shorn of its power, in palsied frailty fell, And lips that wont so fiercely to dispute In words of blasphemy, grew pale and mute, As startled looks, with wilder'd meaning fraught. From heart to heart convey *d the sudden thought. That from some dread unalterable decree, Unwonted doom had been, or soon should be ; Even nature show'd a strange and wild dismay, As if her secret laws had roU'd astray*

The azure sky, that scarce a doud had known Since first its glowing lamps in glory Aone — Since first, amid its airy regions hung. The morning stars in joy together sung. Began to mingle with its native blue A wildly sicken'd, melancholy hue, Pale as the light that tampers with the gloom Around the precincts of the whiten'd tomb.

When mom its earliest glimmering renews Athwart the wild weeds and the churchyard dews.

Confdsion rose amid the realms of air.

As if dark spirits, wildly passing there,

Had with their wings a dread conmiotion made,

That rolling whirlwinds round the world convey'd.

Disturbing far o'er ocean-wave and isle

Each lingering ray of nature's native smile.

Tumultuous clouds again would cease to reel, Shrink back o'er heaven, tremble, and congeal ; Till all that scene, that wont to bring the day To awe-struck nations, doom'd to pass away, Seem'd still «nd black, as starless night may be Wove o'er the silence of a waveless sea.

Behind the curtains of yon hollow gloom That mocks the deepest darkness of the tomb, The stillness breaks, as if, when mortals err'd, The Deity, unseen, himself had stirr'd.

And hark I the heavens in awful tones reveal

The agonizing pangs they seem to feel.

Shaking from whence the thunders had their hirth.

The farthest atom of the quaking earth.

Lo I where yon lighter shade the mass forsakes.

How wildly hright the vivid lightning breaks,

Like lip of spirit trembling through the gloom,

Prepared to speak th' inevitable doom,

That soon shaQ o'er astonish'd nature burst.

And still the tumult of a world accursed I

Man I what art thou ? or hast thou deem'd that He Who wove the heavens o'er the weltering s^ And, by the mandate of creative power. Sublimed the rock, and dyed the lowly flower, Dwells in a cold abstraction, far away From thee, and all the doings of thy day ? Canst thou believe that He, whom love divine Call'd from the bosom of his God and thine. With thee to sojourn in a life below, Joy in thy joy, and suffer in thy woe.

20 60X0S OF THE ARK.

Bid sin and death's eternal empire cease.

And woo thy spirit to a home of peace,

Shall e'er nnmored from His high throne survey

Thy heart returning, or thy steps astray ?

Peace, peace to man. He said, my peace I give

Not as the world, and he that hears shall live :

And shall thy thoughts the power of reason win.

To mould thy spirit to the deeds of sin ?

Hold up thy pride to passion's fiery &n.

Then pour thy malice on thy fellow-man,

And not again the many wounds renew

He deign'd to bear, that mankind's might be few ?

Thus bartering, for the soul's unhallow'd war,

That gracious peace He offers from afar

To such as mock, and will not turn to Heaven,

But sin the sins which may not be forgiven !

Where desolation, through the ages gone. Has held the mournful empire of her throne, Amid the wilderness, forlorn and grey. Froze by the night and wither'd by the day.

If there — ^yes, there, amid the endless ham, Cold fate should hid some weary wanderer come. And if his joyless eye might chance sunrey A scene, hy nature guarded from decay, Where 'neath the wind-worn difls, sublimely piled, The £ftir flower flourished by the fountain wild, How bless'd — ^how lorely were the freshness found. Amid the wide and howling wastes around I Yet fairer far, and fresher is the bloom. Of moral worth 'mid degradation's gloom !

There had been sorrowing for the sins of man In realms his mortal eye shall never scan ; And wild imaginations render'd still His arm the agent of an evil will, Led by the fiend who, erst in early time, Beguiled in Eden those who knew no crime, And when there woke throughout the homes below The deeds of malice, and the plaints of woe. Mingled with mirth and madness, — such affray As chased all silence from the world away.

The soul of Noah, bright in native worth, Shone as a star amid the storm of earth ; And he and his, with faith unswerving, trode The holy paths which lead to peace and God.

Oft as the evening shed its dark array

Deep o'er the footsteps of departing day.

And pity sat on the untrodden dale,

List'ning the voice of sorrow from the vale,

Wild o*er the sage's soul would rise again

The thoughts of sadness, or the pangs of pain ;

And he to Heaven in humble guise would kneel,

And pour his spirit's prayer in holy zeal.

That yet the doom which threaten'd dread decay

To all of earth below, might pass away.

And mercy rise in its own hallow'd light.

And bar the coming of a darker night,

For evermore to shed its rays abroad.

And light earth's guilty wanderers home to God.

And when the mom, from out its secret dime,

Came stealing on along the scene of time,

He to the sons of men would loudly cry —

*< Oh, turn ye-^tum ye, wherefore will ye die ?-—

Let man forsake his evil ways and lire.

And yet the Grod of mercy may forgive—

Let him whose mind is meditating now

The evil deeds he waits but to avow.

Call home, by thought, a feeling to the heart

With which the laws of Heaven may claim a part,

Humble his haughty spirit in the dust.

And learn in God alone to place his trust.

<< Oh, I have seen, in visions wild and dread, The awfiil things from other mortals hid ; Nor have these lips been silent through the past, In telling how the die of man was cast ; For o'er the doom that waits mankind below, My soul has sorrowed with a ceaseless woe. And pleaded vainly ever to restore The heart to Him it only should adore.

<< IVe mark'd how passion in the soul of man Hath marr'd the good which reason bids him plan — Tve seen how warnings from the mouth of God Stay'd not his steps upon the path he trode, Nor tum'd the wayward spirit to believe The words of Him who cannot e'er deceive.

<< Oh, that my voice were as the thunder's peal. And fraught with power to make the nations feel The awful words, ere yet it be too late, Which tell the tidings of approaching fate — Would that my breath were as a living flame Announcing terror, with Jehovah's name I — Amid the wrath and ruin of the day That comes to sweep our guilty race away. When judgment, deepening from the throne above, Debars the mercy of returning love, To mar the vengeance that shall life assail. Oh, what shall all the power of man avail ? Shall he, in hope, lift up his mortal, eye. And mark unmoved the trouble of the sky ;

List from the wilderness the tempest's sweep, And brave the rolling of the rising deep ; Or see the fragments from the mountain rent, And mock the lightning o'er creation sent ; Hear through the heavens the awfiil thunders roll, And still retain that hardihood of soul. Which could from guilty terror prove a shield. While yet the arm of God was unreveal'd ?

<^ The breeze is breathing o'er the valley still, And nature's light sleeps softly on the hill ; The vines and olives, waving fair and high,

Their leaves and fruits, as wont, are putting forth, And gentle de\vs at eve and morning lie

Upon the lowly flowerets of the earth ; The streams are murmuring on their wonted way, And birds sing sweet to welcome home the day ; But these shall change from all they've been before, And mortals look upon their charms no more ! Yet seven days — oh, yet but seven days,

And forest boughs shall wave not in the wind, B

And all the living light of noontide's blaze

Shall sleep unseen, the clouds of gloom behind ; The sun shall wrap him in a lurid shroud, And yield no beams save such as seem of blood ; The heavens shall tremble, and amid their frown, That shall as death upon the earth come down, The living things shall stalk, and wail in dread The coming wrath, which shall not be forbid. Since man is found, for all the warnings given. The unrepenting fool, and foe of Heaven.

" Yet seven days — oh, yet but seven days. And man shall see not what he now surveys. For rolling waters, deep and unconfined.

Their wonted caves of hollow night shall leave. And all the guilty hearts of humankind.

Amid the mighty tumult, cease to heave I Yet seven days — oh, yet but seven days,

And those that darkly grieve shall heave no sigh. And those that gaily sing receive no praise,

Pour'd forth from playful lip or sparkling eye ;

But they shall know, ere yet the strife be o*er, That He who dwelleth in the Heavens high

Sends justice forth, when mercy is no more, To hid the mirepenting sinner die !*'

So spake the Patriarch of old

In heaviness of heart and soul, Erewhile the flood which he foretold

Had o'er the world begun to roll ; But guilty man, to folly prone. Refused his warnings still to own, Pursuing still his evil thought, 'Mid all the awful changes wrought Since Noah, in the days gone by. Received the knowledge from the sky Of that wild deluge that away Should mankind from the world convey, If they refused to turn to Heaven, And plead with God to be forgiven. Thus many years away had pass'd— ^

The world was wam'd^-the Ark was built,

28 SiONGS OF THE ARK.

But mortal ways wore but a cast Of wilder, deeper^ darker guilt ;

The strong the Weaker's blood had spilt By wood, and stream^ and lone abode,

And none in holy worship knelt But he, and his, who walk'd with God ;

And he had wam'd them vainly all

Of judgments that should o'er them fall.

They'd heard him warmly plead with Heaven That yet their sins might be forgiven. And seen him rear that wondrous dome Which Heaven appointed for his home, Yet only laugb'd his art to scorn,

Or mock'd him when they gathered near. And said, though left by God forlorn.

The noble had no cause to fear ; For stiU, though wonders had been wrought^ Their reason none had truly taught ; And vainly, had his words been spent

Regarding all that thus he knew,

Since God no doom decided sent

To prove his prophet true— " And if, thou favoured one of Heaven" —

The wicked would in mock'ry say — << If thou canst bid the sky be riven,

And rocks, which gird the ocean grey. Or, with thy holy smile or frown, The everlasting hills throw down, And force the hidden waters forth To roll above the levelVd earth, Well may the lips of earth's great lords Confess the wisdom of thy words, And Time itself, when Time is old, Declare thy tidings truly told.

<< But thou, and he whom thou hast fear'd, Have tampered with our doubts too long ;

For know ye not, that we have rear'd

The hopes which make our spirit strong ? —

Our names shall live in bright renown

When thine has to the dust gone down.

30 fiONGS OF THE ARK.

And thy memorial but shall be A watchword and a mockery — Even when our children, yet unborn, Shall name thy boasted skill with scorn, And say, as viewing thine abode-^ < What strange and mighty bark is this, Rear'd by the will and wit of God,

That some might live his name to bless ?- The waves on which it should have sail'd

Were never blown on by the breeze, And those far lands it should have hail'd,

Ne'er lash*d but by their native seas : And this full well our Others knew, Erewhile they bade the world adieu !'

<< Then cease to urge thy bootless lore. In which our souls can have no trust ;

'Tis but the tale declared before

The hearts of those were laid in dust,

Who, thou hast said, should live and see

The wondrous things that were to be.

Where now are idl the omens dread, That o'er the prostrate world were spread, When thou did'st say, amid the gloom

Of thunders that o'er nature peal'd, That in the sky the awful doom

Of earth, and all its host, was seal'd. If mankind, through their future days, Repented not their evil ways — What evils — and what ways are changed, Or hearts from manly mirth estranged ? Even since the warnings of that hour Which came with such resistless power. Have we not seen the sun as fair

Shed radiance o'er the vales of bloom, And moonbeams, through the fields of air,

Forbid the night to brood in gloom ? Have we not seen the rain and dew

Their freshness to the earth convey. And greenness o'er the land renew

As when the world was ydung and gay.

And heard the hirds as sweetly sing The welcome of returning spring ? And why, in haughtiness of heart, Wouldst thou unto our souls impart A vain belief, that thou alone Art fayour'd of the Holy One ? Or why, with pomp and pride elate,

Wouldst thou the empty words recall, That told the tidings of a fate

That never to our lot shall fall? Is it that thou mayst still be great.

And proudly hold our hearts in thrall ?- The hearts that can alike decline The power and prayer of thee and thine ; For we will have no monarch vain O'er us to rise, and rule, and reign."

Thus would th' unholy-hearted urge The mock'ry of their haughty pride,

Though trembling on the awfiil verge Of death and desolation wide ;

And he, who long had vainly striven To teach on earth the ways of Heaven, With soul by griefs deep gloom o'ercast, Forbore his holy toil at last.

Yet, ere the day of death had come, His lips of wisdom were not dumb. For often, when in fear he found His sons and daughters gathered round. He taught them in their lone abode. To place their hope and trust in God : And then, as still the power of pain Would gather round his heart again, His eye the bitter tear would shed, As, by prophetic vision led.

He traced the flood, ere it began. And thus bewail'd the doom of man t b2

A SONG OF NOAH.

FvE seen — IVe seen through all my years That peace ne'er dwelt in hearts unholy ;

For fell remorse, and pain, and tears, Are still the fruits of vice and folly.

The pangs of pain awhile may sleep,

But wildly yet shall they awaken. And Crod shall boundless horrors heap

O'er those that have his paths forsaken.

The haughty have no eye to see

How earthly glories shall be blighted ;

Nor how this world of woe shall be Amid the gloom of death benighted.

IVe wam'd our race of coming days. When heaven its wonted lights would darken ;

80NOS OF THE ARK. 35

But, 'mid the evil of their ways.

Their guilty hearts refused to hearken.

Before the altar of our God

In vain hath been my interceding, The cup of crime has overflow'd,

And Heaven seems angry with my pleading.

Man, and the works below the sun,

Shall have no friendly hand to aid them ;

For it repents the Holy One,

And grieves his heart, that he hath made them.

The wicked yet in guilt survive.

And mock wliile judgments gather o'er them ; But God no more with man shall strive —

The end of flesh is come before him.

They would not turn to Heaven above. And keep its holy laws unbroken ;

36 ^ONGS OF THE ARK.

They would not hear the voice of love,

While yet the words of peace were spoken.

Their ways have been the ways of sin, Their deeds the deeds of ruthless riot,

And wisdom had no power to win The souls of men to dwell in quiet.

But now the day of mercy flies

With speed of pinion unabated, And death is treasured in the skies

To mar the life of things created.