Oh! I shrink, My very soul doth shrink, when I reflect That the time hastens, when, in vengeance clothed, Thou shalt come down to stamp the seal of fate On erring mortal man. Thy chariot wheels Then shall rebound to earth's remotest caves, And stormy Ocean from his bed shall start At the appalling summons. Oh I how dread, On the dark eye of miserable man, Chasing his sins in secrecy and gloom, Will burst the effulgence of the opening Heaven; When to the brazen trumpet's deafening roar Thou and thy dazzling cohorts shall descend, Proclaiming the fulfilment of the word! The dead shall start astonish'd from their sleep! The sepulchres shall groan and yield their prey, The bellowing floods shall disembogue their charge Of human victims. From the farthest nook Of the wide world shall troop the risen souls, From him whose bones are bleaching in the waste Of polar solitudes, or him whose corpse, Whelm'd in the loud Atlantic's vexed tides, Is wash'd on some Caribbean prominence, To the lone tenant of some secret cell In the Pacific's vast ... realm, Where never plummet's sound was heard to part The wilderness of water; they shall come To greet the solemn advent of the Judge. Thou first shalt summon the elected saints To their apportion'd Heaven! and thy Son, At thy right hand, shall smile with conscious joy On all his past distresses, when for them He bore humanity's severest pangs. Then shalt thou seize the avenging scimitar, And, with a roar as loud and horrible As the stern earthquake's monitory voice, The wicked shall be driven to their abode, Down the immitigable gulf, to wail And gnash their teeth in endless agony. * * * * * Rear thou aloft thy standard.--Spirit, rear Thy flag on high!--Invincible, and throned In unparticipated might. Behold Earth's proudest boasts, beneath thy silent sway, Sweep headlong to destruction, thou the while, Unmoved and heedless, thou dost hear the rush Of mighty generations, as they pass To the broad gulf of ruin, and dost stamp Thy signet on them, and they rise no more. Who shall contend with Time--unvanquish'd Time, The conqueror of conquerors, and lord Of desolation?--Lo! the shadows fly, The hours and days, and years and centuries, They fly, they fly, and nations rise and fall, The young are old, the old are in their graves. Heard'st thou that shout? It rent the vaulted skies; It was the voice of people,--mighty crowds,-- Again! 't is hushed--Time speaks, and all is hush'd; In the vast multitude now reigns alone Unruffled solitude. They all are still; All--yea, the whole--the incalculable mass, Still as the ground that clasps their cold remains.