A Vision Of Philosophy.

'Twas on the Red Sea coast, at morn, we met     The venerable man;[1] a healthy bloom     Mingled its softness with the vigorous thought     That towered upon his brow; and when he spoke     'Twas language sweetened into song--such holy sounds     As oft, they say, the wise and virtuous hear,     Prelusive to the harmony of heaven,     When death is nigh; and still, as he unclosed[2]     His sacred lips, an odor, all as bland     As ocean-breezes gather from the flowers     That blossom in Elysium, breathed around,     With silent awe we listened, while he told     Of the dark veil which many an age had hung     O'er Nature's form, till, long explored by man,     The mystic shroud grew thin and luminous,     And glimpses of that heavenly form shone through:--     Of magic wonders, that were known and taught     By him (or Cham or Zoroaster named)     Who mused amid the mighty cataclysm,     O'er his rude tablets of primeval lore;     And gathering round him, in the sacred ark,     The mighty secrets of that former globe,     Let not the living star of science sink     Beneath the waters, which ingulfed a world!--     Of visions, by Calliope revealed     To him,[3]who traced upon his typic lyre     The diapason of man's mingled frame,     And the grand Doric heptachord of heaven.     With all of pure, of wondrous and arcane,     Which the grave sons of Mochus, many a night,     Told to the young and bright-haired visitant     Of Carmel's sacred mount.--Then, in a flow     Of calmer converse, he beguiled us on     Through many a Maze of Garden and of Porch,     Through many a system, where the scattered light     Of heavenly truth lay, like a broken beam     From the pure sun, which, though refracted all     Into a thousand hues, is sunshine still,[4]     And bright through every change!--he spoke of Him,     The lone, eternal One, who dwells above,     And of the soul's untraceable descent     From that high fount of spirit, through the grades     Of intellectual being, till it mix     With atoms vague, corruptible, and dark;     Nor yet even then, though sunk in earthly dross,     Corrupted all, nor its ethereal touch     Quite lost, but tasting of the fountain still.     As some bright river, which has rolled along     Through meads of flowery light and mines of gold,     When poured at length into the dusky deep,     Disdains to take at once its briny taint,     Or balmy freshness, of the scenes it left.     But keeps unchanged awhile the lustrous tinge,     And here the old man ceased--a winged train     Of nymphs and genii bore him from our eyes.     The fair illusion fled! and, as I waked,     'Twas clear that my rapt soul had roamed, the while,     To that bright realm of dreams, that spirit-world,     Which mortals know by its long track of light     O'er midnight's sky, and call the Galaxy.[5]