Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/77

 1820-30.] MICTAH P. FLINT. 61 On their moist surfaces the light, and wav'd On every bough, now in their native green, And now in burnished gold. The preach- er rose : He was an aged veteran of the cross. Whose thin, gray locks had whiten'd in the snows Of four-score winters, and whose feeble sight No longer from their letter'd tablets conn'd The chosen text, and answering song of praise ; But with a memory quicken'd, till it seem'd Almost an inspiration, and a voice That age alone made tremulous, he spoke A simple, well known hymn. And when he ceas'd. From the deep silence of that desert vale,. A mighty sound, the mingling voices of ' A thousand tongues, in one proud anthem rose ; And as it rose, far through its hoary depths. The forest shook ; and from the distant hills. Like the far rush of many waters, deep, Long, and reverberating echoes came. Loud burst the song ; now swelling to the sky- Now soft'ning down, and at each measur'd close, Along the woods expiring ; till at length 'Twas hush'd into a stillness so intense. That the half sigh of penitence alone. Throughout that multitude, was audible. And then again that trembling voice was heard. In fervent accents, breathing forth the warm And heavenward aspirations of a soul, Whose stragglings shook its weak old tene- ment. His words were simple, humble, solemn, deep — Such as befit a prostrate sinner's lips. When from the depths his earnest cries as- cend Up to the mercy-seat ; yet words of power ; As 'twere strong wrestlings, that would not release The cov'nant angel, 'till the jubilee Of slaves, enfranchis'd from the iron chains Of sin and hell, announced the captive free. And then he plead, that brighter scenes of things, And glad millennial days of promise yet In this dark world might dawn upon his eye. And truth and mercy fill the peopled earth. E'en as the waters fill their pathless beds. And then, invoking audience for a theme. To which the babbling tricks of eloquence Of Greece and Rome were children's idle sports. He rose, to lure back wandering souls to God. His burden was, "I tell you there is joy In heaven, when one repentant sinner comes Home to his God." The trembling orator, Pois'd on his mighty task, and with his theme, Warm'd into ^Dower, applied the golden key, That opes the sacred fount of joy and tears. His solemn paintings flash'd upon the eye The hopeless realms, where dwells impeni- tence, The tearless mansions of a happier world ; The Eternal sitting on his spotless throne For judgment, and an universe arraign'd For doom, unchanging, as his truth and power. Deem not I fondly dare the hopeless task To paint the force of sacred eloquence, Or trace the holy man through all his theme. Were all like him, thus fearlessly to grasp The pillars of the dark colossal towers Of the destroyer's kingdom, 'till it shook, A happier era soon might dawn to earth. E'en yet in better hours o'er memory comes His picture of the wand'ring prodigal.