Page:Hemans in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine 11 1822.pdf/6

 Of village duties, in the Alpine glen, Where Nature cast its lot, 'midst peasant men; Drawn to that vortex, whose fierce Ruler blent The earthquake-power of each wild element, To lend the tide which bore his Throne on high, One impulse more of desp'rate energy; Might, when the billow’s awful rush was o'er, Which toss'd its wreck upon the storm-beat shore, Won from its wand'rings past, by suffering tried, Search'd by remorse, by anguish purified; Have fix’d at length its troubled hopes and fears On the far world, seen brightest through our tears! And, in that hour of triumph, or despair, Whose secrets all must learn, but none declare, When, of the things to come a deeper sense Fills the rais'd eye of trembling Penitence, Have turn'd to Him, whose bow is in the cloud, Around life's limits gathering as a shroud; The fearful mysteries of the heart who knows, And, by the tempest, calls it to repose Who visited that death-bed?—who can tell, Its brief sad tale, on which the soul might dwell, And learn immortal lessons?—who beheld The struggling hope, by shame, by doubt repell'd— The agony of prayer—the bursting tears, The dark remembrances of guilty years, Crowding upon the spirit in their might— He, through the storm who look'd—and there was light?



! let the Waste lift up the exulting voice! Let the far-echoing solitudes rejoice! And thou, lone Moor! where no blithe reaper's song E'er lightly sped the summer hours along, Bid the wild rivers, from each mountain source, Rushing in joy, make music on their course! Thou, whose sole records of existence mark The scene of barb'rous rites, in ages dark,