The Columbia Democrat. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1837-1850, 1849-06-16
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The Voice Of the PestilenCe,

1ne VOICE Oh tkac ECSaAheMCC'
This splendid poem was written in 1881, o
the.approach of the cholera from the east towar
the western parts Of Europe, and It is appropriat
TO its renewed appaTaton and westward progress
as mentioned in recent journals. The vlgorou
expression, sublime thought, and higa poetlca
finish, we have seldom met with poetry to exec
it, and we are sorry that we cannot give the au
thor'S name;
Breathless the course of the Pale White Horse,
Bearing the ghastly form
Rapid and dark as the spectre bark
When it sweeps before the storm!
Balefully bright through the torrid night
Ensanguined meteors glare
Fercely the spires Of volcanic fires
Stream on the sulphurous air
Shades of the slain through the murdeEer's brain
Fit terrible and drear
Sbadowy and swift the black storm.drlt
Doth trample the atmosphere!
But swifter than all, with darker pail
OF terror around my path,
have arisen from my lampess prison
Slave of the high Gods wrath
A deep voice went from the Frmament,
And it pierced the caves Of Earth
Therefore came on my wings of fame
From the dark place ofmy birth
And it said "Go from the South to the North,
Over you wandering ball
Sin is the King of the doomed Thing,
And the sin beguiled must fall"
Forth from the Gate of the Uncreate,
From the portals Of the Abyss
From the ca7erns dim where vague forms swim,
And shapeIess chaos is
From Haides' womb-from the joyless tomb
Of Erebus and Old Night
From the unseen deep where death and sleep
Brood in their mystic might
coue-I come--before me are dumb
The nations aghast for dread
Lo have past as the desert blast
And the millions of Earth lie dead.
A voice of fear from the Hemisphere
Tracketh me where fy--
Earth weeping aloud for her widowhood-
A wild and desolae cry!
Thrones and dominions beneath my pinions
Cover like meanest things
Melt from my presence the pride and the pleas
ance
OF pallor stricken things
Sorrow and mourning supremely scornln5r
NV throne is the boundess air
My chosen snroud is the dark pIumed cloud
Which the whrling breezes bear!
Was not borne on the wings Of the norn
From the jungles Of Jessore,
Over the plain Of the purple main
To the far Maurtian shore'
To the isles which sleep on the sunbrght deep
Of coral paved sea;
Where the blue waves welter beneath the shelter
CT Heavens serenity
From the womb of the waters, athirst for slaugh.
ters, ..l
rose that thirst to safe
These green Isles are graves in the waste Of the
waves,
This beauty is desolate
From the wide Eryterean the noise Of my Psad
Rolled on the southern blast
Eternal Taurus made answering chorus,
From the glaciers lone and vast
Did not pass his granite mass,
And the rigid Caucasian hill
Over burning sands-oyer frost chained lands,
Borne at my own wild will!
Then bark to the beat Of my Fastening feet,
Thou shrined in the sea;
Where are the dreams that the Ocean streams
Would be safety unto thee'
Awaken! awaken my wings are shaken
Athwart the troubled sky
Streams the red glance of my meteor lance,
And the glare Of my eager eye
Hearken, oh hearken my coming shall darkeG
The light Of thy festal cheer;
In thy storm rocked home on the Northern foam
Nursling of Ocean-hear!