Apostrophe To Hope. Poem by William Billington

PURE, Sun, which round my darkened orb of being
Once poured a flood of sanctifying light,
Whose sacred presence makes the soul far-seeing,
Whose absence plunges in Despair's dark night
The fainting spirit-Mildness robed in might-
God-gazing Angel-Pilot of the soul,
Whose course is Godward as the eagle's flight
Is sunward! When beneath thy sweet control
My life-stream ran rejoicing in its bed,
Thy light was like the Moon's mild glory shed
Upon the midnight Ocean to console
His dark unrest. Bright Seraph, who canst soar
Through Death-glooms swift as, ere the thunder's roar,
Red lightning leaps the cloud-gulfs, wherefore fled
Art thou to Heaven, thine origin and goal,
As earth-imprisoned streams to parent oceans roll?

Wilt thou not, like the Summer, come again
And hang bright blossoms on our Tree of Life?
Wilt thou not be our trusty boatswain when
Our struggling bark shall breast the waves of strife?
Our helmsman, when Misfortune's tempest blows?
Our captain, when the Truth to battle goes?
When dark-browed Doubt shall raise his rusty knife
To murder Faith, wilt thou not interpose
Thy golden shield to ward the baneful blows?
When Pride would tread God's image in the mire,
Will not thy falchion smite the Demon down,
Lest Peace should perish, and a world of woes
Wage war within the mind, till Hate and Ire,
Like Lust and Havoc armed with steel and fire,
By tyrants sent to waste some conquered town,
Have banished Bliss, and reft Love's jewel from Life's
crown?

Lo! from sad Sorrow's darkest, deepest glooms,
Where pale Despondency sits throned and crowned,
To thee I call, whose cheek for ever blooms
Blushed with the hues of Heaven's primeval dawn,
Whose beamy brow, by Love and Virtue bound,
Rays forth the living light of Deity,
Untinged by Time or Mutability,
Belting the dusky Future with a zone
Of burning splendour, gilding Fancy's plumes,
Sweet Hope! rain down that radiance which once
shone
Upon my path, now lustreless and lone,
And in my heart, now loveless as the Tomb's,
Then will I wrestle down the demon Fear.
'Tis done! thy glory floods my Soul's dim sky,
Thy dawn-light falls upon her death-dark sphere,
Like sudden Summer on the Winter-withered Year!

THE ANGEL'S TOMB.
OH! Conscience will nevermore sleep,
For Guilt's fatal thunders aye roll,
And God, like a tempest, doth sweep
O'er the infinite deeps of my soul.

An Angel was sent me from Heaven,
A child of the cherubic race,
And strict was the soul-warning given
To govern and guide it apace;

To feed it on perishless food
Was bountiful Heaven's behest;
But, alas! dust and ashes, and blood
Of black vipers, I gave to my guest.

The child seemed to sicken and die,
Yet I knew that it was not true death,
For a living Dream lurked in its eye,
Though void of pulsation and breath.

I buried it under the turf,
In Memory's verdant domain,
Which is washed by the flame-flowing surf
Of Phantasy's ocean of Pain.

Twelve dissolute winters fled by,
When I dreamed that this child of the skies
From the hollow grave heaved a faint sigh
Which drew tears from pale Pity's wan eyes.

I arose in a sorrowing mood
To revisit that narrow green tomb,
On the margin of Memory's wood,
By thought-ruins shrouded in gloom.

But the bright sun of Virtue and Truth
Had ceased to illumine that grove,
And dim as the star of my youth
Waged the far-distant planet of Love.

I had dug the live corpse from its grave,
My soul from Remorse to have screened;
But I feared lest the food which I gave
Should have changed Heaven's child to a fiend.

Strange fear scared my soul from the spot,
For Hope had forsaken me there,
And, resigned to my desolate lot,
I shook hands with the Giant Despair.

But Conscience will nevermore sleep,
For Guilt's fatal thunders aye roll,
And God, like a tempest, doth sweep
O'er the infinite deeps of my soul.