Iuka reporter. (Iuka, Miss.) 1888-1894, 1891-08-13
1mmaginative Conceptions Of He'll.
BY W. F. CAMPBELL.

Pe-chance dark and frightful sphere
Accused Of God, thrown wide apart
From other worlds, erratic and lawless
wasrs
No object in creation plays pert,
No tw'nkling ster to pierce tho gathering
Or spread its radiance DER the moulding
tomb.
No sun to shed its magic golden light
Ger HELPS eternal darkness there,
Or light the etherial darkness of the night
And chase the internal vapors of dispair,
Where dreary night must bide the sway
OF future ages nor yet DO passed away
There may be rivers swift and deep
Their tide of liquid fire made,
Oceans may roll with maddening sweep
Their waves in scortehing flames arrayed
! Where continents of incnerated rock may
stand
And scattered scoria cover the whole cursed
laad
With here and there a chasm deep and wide
In which creeping serpents hiss and sing,
And Ill omened birds creep and hide
Or rising, soar on sin crrsed wing,
And not a thing but is accursed of God
MAY tread the seathing, burning sod.
Over this the lost may walk and stumble on
And run and grope and fall and climb
forever,
And find for burning feet no cooling stone
Mare l. u. IL .I4t.-
ing feve-,
But stumble on through Ill coming years
Their faces bauhed in CALLING, binding tears.
Ger the lost it may perhaps possess
power like to tuat OF gravity,
Ssrong, tyran c, nor growing less
But binding through yll eternity,
Or perhaps the blacksned soul is hull
Into another sin cursed world:
1t may be world riven and shivered
by volcanic fires deafeniEg BOOM
Where sin, like smothered gases quivered
Then burst the dark, coniining tomb.
Where lulid darkness and hazy light
Mingie u dusky shadows, one eternal night.
Where smoky flames may flash and ooze
From thousand assures and sparkling.
throw
Its mantle OF fire brands. a thousand hues
Ger all that cheerless world of woe,
In every gorge serpents hiss and sing
And scatter wide their poisonor. sling
On every hill gaunt COLLINS dance
And spectres creeping from each rock.
Their gastly forms seem to enhance
The riding every wind or mock
The foul demons as they hooking stride
Up and down each towering mountain side.
And where redoubtable horrors mounted
high
On fiery dragons. nor turns, nor bends.
But with tongues OF flame and fierce outcry
/ Chases the ruined soul DER smouldering
plains.
And chases on and on through all eternity
Nor ever stops n ever sets it tree.
It may not be this, but perhaps world
Wrapt in deepest ever increasing gloom
whose mountains idto anarchy hu led.
Desolate and barren with no sweet
pcrfume
Of blushing flowers No leafy trees
To bend beneath the scortcnlnr breeze
No dewy vales to grace the barren scene.
No bubling brook to cool the parched
bseath,
Nor grassy slopes OF ever living green.
Nought reigns there but death, eternal
death,
There the the lost may meier say home
But in everlasting darkness roam.
Or perchance world in shape like this
with sin accused, stepped in cri.ne,
No Star Of hope to pierce the gather M mist
where nc record Is Kept OF the lapse Of
time,
who're all is onvy, hatred and strife
And every human form demons life
world where ceaseles sorrows dwells
Ana SIN runs riot and love is dead
Wnera malisnant hatred stands and tall.
" life Of hellish deeds and misery lad
Each brother then is . brothers dealiv -.
ana eace must drain the cup OF woe.
no religion there to lift the veil
u crimes rensrseless s;aiu
~ ease Or soothc the ceaseless vail
~ = soul racked with mortal main
Where prayer and curses alike NAV ian
NOT break nor lift tho gathering SalI.
No smile Of God can pierce the gloom
u sin and crime soul that sourht th,s
doom '-'''
Must wander on, gaunt victim of d,.vo,,
Whore humanity lies mangied. bkedirg