THE DESCENT INTO HELL.

PROLOGUE.

F

"The Son of Man shall be three days and three nights

in the Heart of the Earth."

MATT. xii. 40.

THE

DESCENT INTO HELL.

I.

PROLOGUE.

THE River murmured by me: .. rapt in mind,
Alone within a Bower, while the fresh airs
Played o'er my unconscious temples, I reclined.
I mused upon my boyhood, ere by cares
Of sterner age perplexed; on Faith sublime
That still inspires the soul which nobly dares ;
On Emulation mastering Death and Time;
On Hope, like Love, that acts an alien part,
As if Above, or Under, she would climb,

Having no region on the world's wide chart,
In spirit though present alway. Therefore I,
In spirit, sought her in the great Earth's Heart.

Earth's Heart, where Time is not,--capacity
Eonian, whose clear light no shadow flings
On gnomoned dial, from apparent sky:

But Song is of the Sense, and Words have wings;
Their work by motion relative they raise,

Order of sequence, and the sum of things.

-Our days are as a sleep, and, like dreams, chase Each other, till the morning shall accede; And, like the moon, our life has many a phase.

To-morrow's for Eternity decreed,

Our yesterdays are in Eternity,
And to-day is Eternity indeed.

Eternity itself, oh, Man! with thee

Inheres; and thou mayst feel, but listen well,
In thine own soul, spiritual harmony,

Deeper by far than the mysterious swell
Of Ocean's diapason, tender made,
Like memory, in his imitative shell-

And finer than sphere-musick, and displayed
Even more divinely in the calm recess
Of simple hearts, hid in the quiet shade,

Who make their own world, and, though dead to this,

Live in that Other, and sweet visions see,

Pensive as Thought, and grave as earnest Bliss

Visions of Life and true Felicity,

Of real Light and undeparting Love..
To such will all be present as to me;

Awake to Beauty, Man amid the grove,
As ere deep sleep on Adam fell of old,
Walking as angels walk in Heaven above;