Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. 1829.
By The Vision of LibertyHenry Ware, Jr. (1794–1843)
T
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;
And silence reign’d profound o’er earth, and sea, and sky.
My spirit burn’d within; I caught
A holy inspiration from the hour.
Around me man and nature slept;
Alone my solemn watch I kept,
Till morning dawn’d, and sleep resumed her power.
I still was gazing up to heaven,
As in the early hours of even;
I still beheld the planets roll,
And all those countless sons of light
Flame from the broad blue arch, and guide the moonless night.
Just where it skirts the swelling main,
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
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.
Yet ivy there and moss their garlands wove,
Grave, silent chroniclers of time’s protracted flow.
See, within, a sudden blaze!
So small at first, the zephyr’s slightest swell,
That scarcely stirs the pine tree top,
Nor makes the wither’d leaf to drop,
The feeble fluttering of that flame would quell.
Waving, rushing, fierce, and red,
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
Like streaming radiance from the kindled pole.
Silent as death, I saw the fabric stand.
At length a crackling sound began;
From side to side, throughout the pile it ran;
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,
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.
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,
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,
My slumbers fled mid shouts of “Liberty!”
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?
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,
Till despotism’s towers be overthrown;
And in their stead,
Liberty stands alone!
Accomplish thy design;
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,
And peace and virtue undisputed reign.