Paul Preaching At Athens

Greece! hear that joyful sound,
A stranger's voice upon thy sacred hill;
Whose tones shall bid the slumbering nations round,
Wake with convulsive thrill.
Athenians! gather there; he brings you words
Brighter than all your boasted lore affords.

He brings you news of One,
Above Olympian Jove. One, in whose light
Your gods shall fade like stars before the sun.
On your bewildered night,
That UNKNOWN GOD of whom ye darkly dream,
In all his burning radiance shall beam.

Behold, he bids you rise
From your dark worship of that idol shrine;
He points to Him who reared your starry skies,
And bade your Phoebus shine.
Lift up your souls, from where in dust ye bow;
That God of gods commands your homage now.

But brighter tidings still!
He tells of One whose precious blood was spilt,
In lavish streams upon Judea's hill,
A ransom for your guilt, -
Who triumphed o'er the grave, and broke its chain;
Who conquered Death and Hell, and rose again.

Sages of Greece! come near -
Spirits of daring thought and giant mould.
Ye questioners of Time and Nature, hear
Mysteries before untold!
Immortal life revealed! light for which ye
Have tasked in vain your proud philosophy.

Searchers for some first cause,
'Midst doubt and darkness - lo! he points to One,
Where all your vaunted reason, lost, must pause,
And faint to think upon, -
That was from everlasting, that shall be
To everlasting still, eternally.

Ye followers of him
Who deemed his soul a spark of Deity!
Your fancies fade, - your master's dreams grow dim
To this reality.
Stoic! unbend that brow, drink in that sound!
Skeptic! dispel those doubts, the Truth is found.

Greece! though thy sculptured walls
Have with thy triumphs and thy glories rung,
And, through thy temples and thy pillared halls,
Immortal poets sung, -
No sounds like these have rent your startled air,
They open realms of light, and bid you enter there.

Nightfall In Hungary

As when the sun in darkness sets,
And night falls on the earth,
Along the azure fields above
The stars of heaven come forth;

So when the sun of Liberty
Grows dim to mortal eyes,
From out the gloom, like radiant stars,
The world's true heroes rise.

The men of human destiny,
Whom glorious dreams inspire;
High-priests of Freedom, in whose souls
Is shrined the sacred fire.

The fire that through the wilderness
In steadfast lustre streams;
That on the future, dim and dark,
Sheds its effulgent beams.

Thus, oh Hungaria! through the night
That wraps thee in its gloom,
Light from one burning soul streams forth,
A torch above thy tomb.

Thy tomb! oh no - the mouldering shroud
The worm awhile must wear,
Ere, from its confines springing forth,
He wings the upper air.

Thy tomb! then from its door ere long
The stone shall roll away,
Thou shalt come forth, and once again
Greet the new-risen day.

The day that prayed and waited for
So long, shall surely rise,
As surely as to-morrow's sun
Again shall greet our eyes.

What though before the shape evoked
The coward heart has quailed,
And when the hour, the moment came,
The recreant arm has failed: -

What though the apostate wields the sword
With fratricidal hand,
And the last Romans wander forth
In exile o'er the land: -

What though suspended o'er thee hangs
The Austrian's glittering steel;
What though thy heart is crushed beneath
The imperial Cossack's heel: -

Not to the swift is given the race,
The battle to the strong;
Up to the listening ear of God
Is borne the mighty wrong.

From Him the mandate has gone forth,
The giant Power must fall;
Oh Prophet! read'st thou not the doom,
The writing on the wall!

The slaves of Power, the sword, the scourge,
The scaffold and the chain,
Awhile may claim their hecatombs
Of hero martyrs slain.

But they that war with Tyranny
Still mightier weapons bear;
Winged, arrowy thoughts, that pierce like light,
Impalpable as air.

Thoughts that strike through the triple mail,
That spread, and burn, and glow,
More quenchless than that fire the Greeks
Rained on their Moslem foe.

Rest, rest in peace, heroic shades,
Whose blood like water ran:
For every crimson drop ye shed,
Shall rise an arméd man.

Rest, rest in peace, heroic souls,
Who wander still on earth;
THOUGHTS, your immortal messengers,
Are on their mission forth.

The pioneers of Liberty,
Invincible they throng;
They scale and undermine the towers
And battlements of Wrong.

Speak! Sages, Poets, Patriots, speak!
And the dark pile shall fall,
As at the Prophet's trumpet tones
Once fell the city's wall.

Darkness sat brooding o'er the infant world,
That in chaotic gloom and silence lay,
Till from the throne of Light the sun was hurled;
Then that eternal night was changed to day,
And his effulgent, life-imparting ray,
O'er the wide waste of waters moved along:
The land and sea divided, and away
From out their depths young Nature startled sprung,
And in the light rejoiced till the blue heavens rung.

Even thus, oh! Science, hath thy glorious light
Rolled the dark clouds of Ignorance away,
Dispelled the darkness of a deeper night,
Than that which once o'er chaos thickly lay -
The darkness of the mind; and thy mid-day
Is still far distant - yet nor time nor space
Is unillumined with thy heavenly ray:
The clouds are rent that shrouded Nature's face,
And now she stands unveiled in all her loveliness.

Onward thou movest on thy tireless wing,
Through air and sea to Earth's remotest shore,
And givest a name to every living thing,
The beast, the bird, the insect or the flower,
The jewel of the mine, the sparkling ore.
Thou knowest the mysteries of the unseen air;
Thou lightest the caverns of the deep, whose floor
Yields to thy hand its pearls and treasures rare,
And every tinted shell that breathes its music there.

Now on the bosom of the swelling flood
That clasps the earth, and by whose wave-worn side
In ages past our trembling fathers stood,
Nor dared to breast the deep and trackless tide,
Our floating palaces majestic ride,
Their canvas whitening every foreign strand;
For thou, oh Science, thou art there our guide -
Like that bright pillar reared at God's command,
To light his wandering sons through Egypt's desert land.

And by the radiance of that heavenly light
Now man may mark the wandering comet's way.
Measure the swiftness of the sunbeam's flight,
Command the elements and they obey.
O'er the whole earth he holds his godlike sway;
He bids the river from its course be driven,
And lo! it flows where'er he points the way;
And from the skies the lightning he has riven,
As erst Prometheus stole the sacred fire from heaven.

Science! illumined by thy living rays,
A brighter glory lights the dome of night;
There thou dost open to our wondering gaze
System on System round those worlds of light,
In silence winging their harmonious flight.
And when weak sense returns to earth again,
There we behold, when thou dost guide our sight,
Above, around, where'er our gaze hath been,
'Infinity without, Infinity within.'

Here hath thy sister, Art, upreared for thee
A stainless shrine where fair young spirits led
To seek thy smile, shall bow the willing knee:
They would not ask the radiance thou didst shed
Around a Newton's or a Franklin's head;
Albeit a milder and a gentler ray,
That through this world with loveliness o'erspread,
They may not roam along the sunny way
In dark and dreary night while all around is day.

May time tread lightly through these classic halls;
Long may their columns stand through coming years,
When we who kneel within these snowy walls
Have passed away to yonder blessed spheres,
Secure from change, from parting, and from tears,
Where our enfranchised spirits shall explore
Those boundless realms beyond the tide of years,
Rapt, at the shrine of all creating power,
Through endless time to learn, and wonder, and adore.