Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE CASTLE OF TIME; A VISION, by DAVID MACBETH MOIR


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE CASTLE OF TIME; A VISION, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Up rose the full moon in a heaven of blue
Last Line: And heaven's o'erarching dome, eternal and sublime!
Alternate Author Name(s): Delta
Subject(s): Castles; Memory; Past; Time


I.

UP rose the full moon in a heaven of blue,
And sweetly sang the hermit nightingale,
As, with slow steps, I saunter'd through the vale,
Brushing aside the wild flowers bright with dew:
There hung a purple haze athwart the hills;
And all was hush'd beside me and remote;
Gleam'd, as they trickled, the pellucid rills,
Or 'neath the sallows dark seclusion sought;
The stars, dim twinkling in celestial mirth,
Seem'd sleepless eyes that watch'd the slumber-mantled earth.

II.

A while I stray'd beneath broad arbute trees,
As the scarce-breathing west wind, with a sigh,
The glittering greenness kiss'd in wandering by;
Around me roses bloom'd; and, over these,
The moss-brown'd lilac and laburnum bright
Commingled their blown richness; perfume sweet
From wild flowers breathed, and violets exquisite,
Crush'd in their beauty by my careless feet;
O'er earth and air a slumbrous influence stole,
With wizard power, that charm'd the billows of the soul.

III.

So, as reclining 'mid the blooms I lay,
The moonlight and the landscape bland declined,
And, rapt from outward shows, the trancèd mind
Woke 'mid the splendours of another day.
It was a wondrous scene; receding far
Into the distance, hills o'er hills arose,
Of mighty shapes and shades irregular,—
Here green with verdure, and there capp'd in snows;
Here gorgeous groves, there desert wastes sublime;
And, gazing, well I knew the changeful realm of Time.

IV.

In the midst a Castle stood, whose arches show'd
All architecture's grand varieties;
Carved columns rear'd their summits to the skies,
While, over others, the dark mould was strew'd:
Pile picturesque and wild! with spires and domes,
And pyramids and pillars manifold,
And vaults, wherein both bird and beast made homes;
And part was strongly fresh, and part was old,
And part was mantled o'er by Ruin grey,
And part from eye of man had wholly sunk away.

V.

Methought a spirit led me up the tower,
And bade me gaze to the east; there, calmly bright,
Revolving pageants charm'd my trancèd sight,
In that deep flow of inspiration's hour,
As changed the vision. On Moriah's steeps
Behold a victim son for offering bound,
While the keen knife the aweless Patriarch keeps
Unsheathed to perpetrate the mortal wound.
But, hark, an angel,—" Stay thy hand from death;
For God hath known thee just, Heaven murmurs of thy faith."

VI.

Now 'tis a desert vast; but wherefore roam
These countless multitudes? before them, lo,
The pillar'd smoke revolves, as on they go,
By Heaven directed to their promised home.
Their garments know not wear; the skies rain bread;
Out gushes water from the obedient rock,
By miracle at once sustain'd and led;
Until, at length, the Shepherd of the flock,
From Pisgah gazes down on Palestine,
Then shuts in death his eyes that glow with hope divine.

VII.

A crimson battle-field! careering steeds
Over the prostrate and the perish'd driven;
The moon turns pale, the sun stands still in heaven,
As Israel conquers, and the godless bleeds.
A son's rebellion—" Spare him!" cried the King,
The Father; but from Ephraim, tidings dire
Smite on his heart; for Joab, triumphing,
Hath slain the erring in relentless ire:
Then bleeds his heart, then bows he in despair—
"Oh, Absalom, my son" and tears his silver hair.

VIII.

A banquet hall—'tis gorgeous Babylon,
The palace, and the satraps; radiant shine
A thousand lamps; the heathen's festal wine
Brims golden cups that in God's temple shone;
Quench'd is the mirth, the music dies away—
Belshazzar trembles; for a visible hand
Writes on the wall the date of his' decay—
Wealth reft, life forfeited, and bondaged land:
'Twas darkness then, but, ere red morning shone,
The Persian bursts his gates, the Mede is on his throne!

IX.

Spirit of Homer! is it but a dream,
A spectre of the fancy, that reveals
To us such majesty and power, and steals
The bosom from what is, to what may seem?
It matters not; still Agamemnon reigns,
The king of men; by Chrysa moors the fleet;
Achilles in his chariot scours the plains,
Showing to Troy slain Hector at his feet;
Andromache laments, and Ruin lowers
On Priam's princely line, and Ilion's fated towers.

X.

Behold the Persian—like a green bay tree
Flaunting in summer beauty; to the shores
Of Hellespont an armed million pours
To shackle Greece—to subjugate the free:
Yet Xerxes, thou wert man, and shall not die
Thy passionate saying; still thy voice we hear,
As, o'er the peopled plain's immensity,
Flash to the sunset, corslet, helm, and spear,
"A century hence—and of this fair array
There beats no bosom, now, but shall be silent clay!"

XI.

Behold on yon seven hills a city rear'd,
Immense, majestic, mistress of the world;
O'er all the standard of her power unfurl'd,
By subject nations is obey'd and fear'd.
She calls her vassals—Mauritania pours
Her golden tribute; proud Hispania bows;
Rude Albion answers from her chalky shores;
The echo sounds o'er Scandinavia's snows;
Swart Scythia hears the summons; and, afar,
Blue Thule in the main 'neath Eve's descending star.

XII.

City of Dido, by the sounding sea!
I know thee by thy grandeur desolate—
Green weeds wave rankly o'er thy levell'd gate,
The sea-fowl and the serpent dwell in thee—
Where are thy navies? Whelm'd beneath the wave!
Where are thine armies, that, with thundering tread,
Shook Rome to her foundation-rocks, and gave
Manure to Cannæ of the Roman dead?
Nought of thy vanish'd state the silence speaks;
The fisher spreads his nets, on high the heron shrieks!

XIII.

O, hundred-gated Thebes, magnificent!
Where Memnon's image hymn'd the march of Time,
As sank the day-star 'mid the dewy prime,
In tones celestial with the sunrise blent,
I know thee by thy remnants Titan-like;
And thee, proud Memphis, proud, alas! no more,
Whose thinn'd and desolate fragments scarcely strike
The pilgrim's eye on thy blue river's shore;
And thee, Palmyra, 'mid whose silent piles
Still lingering grandeur sleeps, the unworshipp'd sun still smiles.

XIV.

I see thee now, supreme Jerusalem!
The city of the chosen, great in power;
Glory surrounds thee in thy noontide hour,
Of Palestine's green plains the diadem.
Now graves give up their dead 'mid thunders drear;
A murmuring multitude on Calvary see!—
The temple's vail is rent!—a sound of fear!
'Tis "Eli! Eli!" from the accursed tree;
Daylight shrinks waning from the scene abhorr'd,
And shuddering Nature shares the pangs that pierce her Lord.

XV.

From Danube, see, from Don, and Volga's banks,
Come pouring to the South barbarian hordes,
Innumerous, irresistible; keen swords
Their only heritage, their home the ranks:
Erst like the locusts on Egyptian vales
They darken, and the treasured shores consume;
And Science is o'erthrown, and Courage fails;
And droop the eagles of imperial Rome;
Art palsied wanes; and Wisdom sighs to find
A second gloomier night o'ershadowing lost mankind.

XVI.

A fierce acclaim! Alarm's loud trumpet-call—
And up in arms the banded nations rise,
The Red Cross standards flout the morning skies,
To rescue Palestine from Paynim thrall:
The Lion-hearted girds his falchion on,—
Bright beams the Gallic ensign o'er the wave,—
Death's vultures crowd o'er carnaged Ascalon;
But Salem, unsubdued, resists the brave:
Where is the victim gone? His minstrel plays,—
And from false Austria's cell come back responsive lays!

XVII.

Now rising from the dusk-subjected Earth,
Forth walks Civilisation, to illume
With learning's light divine the Gothic gloom,
Awaking man as 'twere to second birth:
Greens barren valley,—blossoms desert plain,—
Towers city flourishing,—smiles hamlet home,—
Track venturous navies the engirding main,—
O'er willing lands Religion's banners roam,—
Dawns mental day—and Freedom's sacred pile
Is rear'd, by proud resolve, in Albion's favour'd isle.

XVIII.

Most fortunate, most fortunate, for now
Broods over Gaul the tempest-cloud of blood!
Down, down it streams around, a crimson flood!
Afar the deluge pours, to overthrow
Peoples and empires; Chaos frowns on man
With midnight threatening; Reason is o'erthrown;
Red Murder roams in Desolation's van;
And frenzied Anarchy makes earth her own;
Hope trembles; and Religion, with a sigh,
Shrieks as her burning shrines rejoice the Atheist's eye.

XIX.

Yet, Queen of Nations, yet in thee are found
The buckler and the sword; thy war hath gone
Amid Heaven's foes, invincible, alone—
For all beside were bleeding, faint, or bound:
The rampart of the righteous, in the day
Of need, thy succouring arm is strongly felt:
Before thy flooding sunlight rush away
Hell's spectral legions, and in shadows melt;
Crush'd is the serpent brood—the unholy crew,
And triumph wreathes thy brows on deathless Waterloo!

XX.

I listen, for a sound salutes mine ear
Of harmony divine; beneath the star
Of Eve, 'tis borne across the waves afar,
From isles that studding Ocean's robe appear:
Hearken ye now to Adoration's tones!
At Truth's pure shrine the heathen bows the knee!
Owns his low worthlessness, submissly owns
His trust in Him who bled on Calvary!
'Mid the blue main the sailor stays his oars,
Wondering at incense such from lone Pacific shores.

XXI.

Not yet, not yet, not yet Heaven's sunlight darts
Through Error's clouds and Ignorance's night:
Wide are the realms that, in their cheerless blight,
Pine darkling, with forlorn and sullied hearts.—
'Neath priesthood bigotry, 'neath tyrant thrall,
The wavering tremble, and the bold are mute;
Prone to the dust, o'erawed, earth's thousands fall
At the proud stamp of Superstition's foot:
Gleams the keen axe; outgushes the bright flood;
And Moloch's monstrous shrines are dew'd with human blood.

XXII.

And these know not the name of Liberty;
And those the boon of Reason cast aside;
Time is to both a dark predestined tide,
Floating their shallops to Oblivion's sea;
Pines in its prison unregarded thought;
The immortal soul is sullied and debased;
A worthless gift is conscience, given for nought;
From man the Maker's stamp is quite erased—
Like Autumn leaf, or fly in summer's ray,
He shines his little hour, and vanisheth away!

XXIII.

Then spake the Spirit,—" Turn thee to the West,
And see what lies before thee." It was dim;
For clouds on the blue air, with shadowy skim,
Were rolling their faint billows; and my breast
Tumultuously heaved, as forth I gazed
Upon that prospect's wild immensity;
For shadows show'd themselves, and then, erased,
Left not a trace on that decayless sky—
Bright forms, some fair like Hope; and some like Fear,
With spectral front sublime, stern, desolate, and drear.

XXIV.

Now, 'twas Elysian, bright and beautiful,
And now a chaos; though, sometimes, a star,
With momentary glitter, shone afar,
Through tempest-clouds that made its lustre dull.
All was a mystery, till the Spirit's touch
Open'd my eyelids, then the waste array'd
Its scenes in majesty, whose glow was such,
That dim seem'd that which first I had survey'd;
And such a scope was to that vista given,
That almost I could see the golden gates of Heaven.

XXV.

Beneath 'twas peace and purity; the sword
Was beat into the sickle; and mankind
(As if 'twere daylight pour'd upon the blind)
The crooked paths of Error quite abhorr'd:
Man's heart was changed; a renovated life
Throbb'd in his veins, and turn'd his thoughts to joy;
Sick'ning he shrank from blood and warlike strife,
Loathing the ire that led him to destroy;
Nations were link'd in brotherhood; and Crime
Was heard of but as what had stain'd departed Time.

XXVI.

Then I saw Angels coming down from Heaven,
And mingling with mankind, almost as pure;
For, through the atonement of the Cross, a sure
And marvellous redemption had been given:
All ends of the earth obey'd it—East and West,
And South and North, responsive echo gave.
The mighty sea of Discord, lulled to rest,
Was heard no more; Sin's storm was in its grave;
Religion's mandate bade the tumult cease;
And o'er each mountain-top the banners stream'd of Peace.

XXVII.

In the same lair the tame beast and the wild
Together caved; the lion and the kid,
Half by the palm-tree's noontide shadow hid,
Roll'd 'mid the wild-flowers with the fearless child,
When sudden darkness fell: the crackling skies
Together rushed as 'twere a folding scroll;
I knew the end of human destinies,
And speechless awe oppress'd my shrinking soul;
When stood an angel, earth's unburied o'er,
And swore by Him that lives, that "Time should be no more!"

XXVIII.

This was the end of all things, and I turn'd
Around, but there lay Darkness, and a void—
Creation's map dim, blotted, and destroy'd—
The sun, the moon, the stars no longer burn'd.
Earth was not now, nor seem'd to have ever been—
Nor wind, nor wave, nor cloud, nor storm, nor shine;
Wide universal chaos wrapt the scene,
And hid the Almighty's countenance divine.
Then died my heart within me; I awoke,
And brightly on mine eyes the silver moonshine broke.

XXIX.

I knew the trees above me—heard the rills
That o'er their pebbles gently murmuring ran;
And saw the wild-blooms bathed in lustre wan,
And far away the azure-shoulder'd hills;
Then up I rose. But graven long shall last
On memory's page the marvels sleep hath shown—
With wonders spotted the receding past;
With mysteries manifold the future strewn;
The mouldering Castle of the spoiler, Time;
And Heaven's o'erarching dome, eternal and sublime!




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