Proceed: your race of glory run,
Your virtuous toils endure;
You come, commissioned from on high,
And your reward is sure.
Mrs. Barbauld.
A VISION.
When 'twixt the drawn forces of Night and of Morning,
Strange visions steal down to the slumbers of men,
From heaven's bright stronghold once issued a warning,
Which baffled all scorning, when brought to my ken.
Methought there descended the Saints and the Sages,
With grief-stricken aspect and wringing of hands,
Till Dreamland seemed filled with the anguish of ages,
The blots of Time's pages, the woes of all lands.
And I, who had deemed that their bliss knew no morrow
(Half vexed with their advent, half awed with their might)—
Cried, "Come ye from heaven, Earth's aspect to borrow,
To mar with weird sorrow the peace of the night?"
They answered me sternly, "Thy knowledge is mortal;
Thou hear'st not as we must, the plaints without tongue:
The wrongs that come beating the crystalline portal,
Inflicted by mortals on those who are dumb.
"Ye bleed for the nation, ye give to the altar,
Ye heal the great sorrows that clamor and cry,
Yet care not how oft 'neath the spur and the halter,
The brutes of the universe falter and die.