AND, now, PHILANTHROPY! thy rays divine,
Dart round the globe from Zembla to the line;
O'er each dark prison plays the cheering light,
Like northern lustres o'er the vault of night-
From realm to realm, with cross or crescent crown'd,
Where'er mankind and misery are found,
O'er burning sands, deep waves, or wilds of snow,
Thy HOWARD, journeying, seeks the house of woe.
Down many a winding step to dungeons dank,
Where anguish wails aloud, and fetters clank;
To caves bestrew'd with many a mouldering bone,
And cells, whose echoes only learn to groan;
Where no kind bars a whispering friend disclose,
No sunbeam enters, and no zephyr blows,
He treads, inemulous of fame or wealth,
Profuse of toil and prodigal of health;
With soft assuasive eloquence expands
Power's rigid heart, and opes his clenching hands;
Leads stern-eyed justice to the dark domains,
If not to sever, to relax the chains;
Or guides awaken'd mercy through the gloom,
And shows the prison, sister to the tomb!-
Gives to her babes the self-devoted wife,
To her fond husband liberty and life!
-The spirits of the good, who bend from high Wide o'er these earthly scenes their partial eye, When first, array'd in VIRTUE's purest robe, They saw her HOWARD traversing the globe; Saw round his brows her sun-like glory blaze In arrowy circles of unwearied rays; Mistook a mortal for an angel-guest,
And askt what seraph-foot the earth imprest. -Onward he moves!--disease and death retire, And murmuring demons hate him and admire.
THRICE round the grave CYRCEA prints her tread,
And chants the numbers which disturb the dead; Shakes o'er the holy earth her sable plume, Waves her dread wand, and strikes the echoing
Pale shoot the stars across the troubled night,
The timorous moon withholds her conscious light;
Shrill scream the famisht bats and shivering owls,
And loud and long the dog of midnight howls!
Then yawns the bursting ground!-two nymphs
obscene
Rise on broad wings, and hail the baleful queen;
Each with dire grin salutes the potent wand,
And leads the sorceress with his sooty hand;
Onward they glide, where sheds the sickly yew,
O'er many a mouldering bone, its nightly dew;
The ponderous portals of the church unbar,—
Hoarse on their hinge the ponderous portals jar;
As through the colored glass the moon-beam falls,
Huge shapeless spectres quiver on the walls;
Low murmurs creep along the hollow ground,
And to each step the pealing ailes resound;
By glimmering lamps, protecting saints among,
The shrines all trembling as they pass along,
O'er the still choir with hideous laugh they move,
Fiends yell below, and angels weep above!
Their impious march to God's high altar bend,
With feet impure the sacred steps ascend;
With wine unblest the holy chalice stain,
Assume the mitre, and the cope profane;
To heaven their eyes in mock devotion throw,
And to the cross with horrid mummery bow;
Adjure by mimic rites the powers above,
And plight alternate their satanic love.
So on his NIGHTMARE, through the evening fog, Flits the squab fiend o'er fen, and lake, and bog; Seeks some love-wilder'd maid with sleep opprest, Alights, and, grinning, sits upon her breast. Such as of late, amid the murky sky,
Was markt by FUSELI's poetic eye;
Whose daring tints, with SHAKSPEARE's happiest
Gave to the airy phantom form and place.
Back o'er her pillow sinks her blushing head,
Her snow-white limbs hang helpless from the bed;
While with quick sighs, and suffocative breath,
Her interrupted heart-pulse swims in death.
Then shrieks of captured towns, and widows' tears,
Pale lovers stretcht upon their blood-stain❜d biers,
The headlong precipice that thwarts her flight,
The trackless desart, the cold starless night,
|