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| THE EVENING 1 heavens were calm and bright; | |
| No dimness rested on the glittering light, | |
| That sparkled from that wilderness of worlds on high | |
| Those distant suns burn’d on with quiet ray; | |
| The placid planets held their modest way; | 5 |
| And silence reign’d profound o’er earth, and sea, and sky. | |
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| Oh what an hour for lofty thought! | |
| My spirit burn’d within; I caught | |
| A holy inspiration from the hour. | |
| Around me man and nature slept; | 10 |
| Alone my solemn watch I kept, | |
| Till morning dawn’d, and sleep resumed her power. | |
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| A vision pass’d upon my soul. | |
| I still was gazing up to heaven, | |
| As in the early hours of even; | 15 |
| I still beheld the planets roll, | |
| And all those countless sons of light | |
| Flame from the broad blue arch, and guide the moonless night. | |
| |
| When, lo, upon the plain, | |
| Just where it skirts the swelling main, | 20 |
| A massive castle, far and high, | |
| In towering grandeur broke upon my eye. | |
| Proud in its strength and years, the pond’rous pile | |
| Flung up its time-defying towers; | |
| Its lofty gates seem’d scornfully to smile | 25 |
| At vain assault of human powers, | |
| And threats and arms deride. | |
| Its gorgeous carvings of heraldic pride | |
| In giant masses graced the walls above, | |
| And dungeons yawn’d below. | 30 |
| Yet ivy there and moss their garlands wove, | |
| Grave, silent chroniclers of time’s protracted flow. | |
| |
| Bursting on my steadfast gaze, | |
| See, within, a sudden blaze! | |
| So small at first, the zephyr’s slightest swell, | 35 |
| That scarcely stirs the pine tree top, | |
| Nor makes the wither’d leaf to drop, | |
| The feeble fluttering of that flame would quell. | |
| |
| But soon it spread— | |
| Waving, rushing, fierce, and red, | 40 |
| From wall to wall, from tower to tower, | |
| Raging with resistless power; | |
| Till every fervent pillar glow’d, | |
| And every stone seem’d burning coal, | |
| Instinct with living heat, that flow’d | 45 |
| Like streaming radiance from the kindled pole. | |
| |
| Beautiful, fearful, grand, | |
| Silent as death, I saw the fabric stand. | |
| At length a crackling sound began; | |
| From side to side, throughout the pile it ran; | 50 |
| And louder yet, and louder grew, | |
| Till now in rattling thunder-peals it grew, | |
| Huge shiver’d fragments from the pillars broke, | |
| Like fiery sparkles from the anvil’s stroke. | |
| The shatter’d walls were rent and riven, | 55 |
| And piecemeal driven | |
| Like blazing comets through the troubled sky. | |
| ’T is done; what centuries had rear’d, | |
| In quick explosion disappear’d, | |
| Nor even its ruins met my wondering eye. | 60 |
| |
| But in their place,— | |
| Bright with more than human grace, | |
| Robed in more than mortal seeming, | |
| Radiant glory in her face, | |
| And eyes with heaven’s own brightness beaming, | 65 |
| Rose a fair majestic form, | |
| As the mild rainbow from the storm. | |
| I mark’d her smile, I knew her eye; | |
| And when, with gesture of command, | |
| She waved aloft the cap-crown’d wand, | 70 |
| My slumbers fled mid shouts of “Liberty!” | |
| |
| Read ye the dream? and know ye not | |
| How truly it unlock’d the word of fate? | |
| Went not the flame from this illustrious spot, | |
| And spreads it not, and burns in every state? | 75 |
| And when their old and cumbrous walls, | |
| Fill’d with this spirit, glow intense, | |
| Vainly they rear their impotent defence— | |
| The fabric falls! | |
| That fervent energy must spread, | 80 |
| Till despotism’s towers be overthrown; | |
| And in their stead, | |
| Liberty stands alone! | |
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| Hasten the day, just Heaven! | |
| Accomplish thy design; | 85 |
| And let the blessings thou hast freely given, | |
| Freely on all men shine; | |
| Till equal rights be equally enjoy’d, | |
| And human power for human good employ’d; | |
| Till law, not man, the sovereign rule sustain, | 90 |
| And peace and virtue undisputed reign. | |
