Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/78

 62 MICAH P. FLINT. [1820-30. With devious, comet-course, receding still From God and hope to mercy's utmost verge ; And there arrested by th' unceasing power Of the great Shepherd's love, and by di- vine Attraction turn'd, and circling back to God. The choral anthems still, methinks, I hear, Symplionious, swelling acclamations loud From heavenly hosts, to hail the wanderer home. There are, to whom all this would only seem Fit subject for the scorner's idle mirth. The cold and scanning critic's sneer I felt Were out of place. But flitting visions pass'd, Like light'ning scorching through my wil- der'd brain; And memory's specters sprang up from the past. My earth-born schemes, my palaces of hope, Lately so proud, all melted into air. Eternity, and truth, and God alone, re- main'd. 'Twas as the Great Invisible had come In power, o'ershadowing all the vale. I almost look'd, to see the mountains smoke, Emitting Sinai's thunderings and fires. Nor was I single ; many a sin- worn face Was pale, and woman's sympathetic tears, And children's flow'd, and men, who thought no shame, In tears. The proud ones, looking down in scorn From fancied intellectual heights, Avhose hearts The world had sear'd ; e'en these, uncon- scious, caught Th' infectious weakness, like the rest, and though They only " came to mock, remain'd to pray." THE SILENT MONKS.* Amidst the hundred giant mounds, that rise Above Cahokia's flowering plains, I spent A vernal day. The cloudless sun rode high, And all was silent, save that in the air. Above the fleecy clouds, careering swans. With trumpet note, sailed slowly to the south ; And a soft breeze swept gently o'er the grass, Moving its changing verdure, like the wave. A few religious mid these sepulchers Had fixed their home. In sackcloth clad they were ; And they were old and gray, and walked as in dreams. Emaciate, sallow, pale. Their furrowed brow, Though now subdued, show'd many a trace That stormy passions once had wantoned there. I asked the way, the country, and the tombs. One finger on their lip, the other hand Raised to the sky, they motion'd me That they were vowed to silence, and might give No accent to their thoughts. 'Twas said around, That they had deeply sinn'd beyond the seas. That one had practiced cruel perjury To a fond heart, that broke, when he proved false ; And sunk in beauty's blighted bloom to earth. Another, for an idle fray in wine, that rose For venal beauty, slew his dearest friend. A third, like Lucifer, had falfn from jiower. They all had play'd high parts; had been TOwed to perpetual silence, had fixed tlieir re.^idenee near the largest of the numerous Indian moxmds that are found near Cahokia, in the American Bottom, not f;u' from the eastern shore of the Mississippi.
 * A few French monks, of the order of "La Trappe,"