The following passages
remind us of some of the more beautiful portions of Young.
On the breast of Earth
I lie and listen to her mighty voice;
A voice of many tones-sent up from streams
That wander through the gloom, from woods unseen
Swayed by the sweeping of the tides of air,
From rocky chasm where darkness dwells all day,
And hollows of the great invisible hills,
And sands that edge the ocean stretching far
Into the night- a melancholy sound!
Ha! how the murmur deepens! I perceive
And tremble at its dreadful import. Earth
Uplifts a general cry for guilt and wrong
And Heaven is listening. The forgotten graves
Of the heart broken utter forth their plaint.
The dust of her who loved and was betrayed,
And him who died neglected in his age,
The sepulchres of those who for mankind
Labored, and earned the recompense of scorn,
Ashes of martyrs for the truth, and bones
Of those who in the strife for liberty
Were beaten down, their corses given to dogs,
Their names to infamy, all find a voice!
In this poem and elsewhere occasionally throughout the volume, we
meet with a species of grammatical construction, which, although it is
to be found in writing of high merit, is a mere affectation, and, of
course, objectionable.
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