  BY J. BAYARD TAYLOR.I had a vision in that solemn hour, Last of the year sublime, Whose wave sweeps downward, with its dying power Rippling the shores of Time! On the lone margin of that hoary sea My spirit stood alone, Watching the gleams of phantom History Which through the darkness shone: Then, when the bell of midnight, ghostly hands Tolled for the dead year's doom, I saw the spirits of Earth's ancient lands Stand up amid the gloom! The crownÉd deities, whose reign began In the forgotten Past, When first the glad world gave to sovereign Man Her empires green and vast! First queenly Asia, from the fallen thrones Of twice three thousand years, Came with the wo a grieving goddess owns Who longs for mortal tears: The dust of ruin to her mantle clung, And dimmed her crown of gold, While the majestic sorrows of her tongue From Tyre to Indus rolled: "Mourn with me, sisters, in my realm of wo, Whose only glory streams From its lost childhood, like the artic glow Which sunless Winter dreams! In the red desert moulders Babylon, And the wild serpent's hiss Echoes in Petra's palaces of stone And waste Persepolis! Gone are the deities who ruled enshrined In Elephanta's caves, And Brahma's wailings fill the odorous wind That stirs Amboyna's waves! The ancient gods amid their temples fall, And shapes of some near doom, Trembling and waving on the Future's wall, More fearful make my gloom!" Then from her seat, amid the palms embowered That shade the Lion-land, Swart Africa in dusky aspect towered— The fetters on her hand! Backward she saw, from out her drear eclipse, The mighty Theban years, And the deep anguish of her mournful lips Interpreted her tears. "Wo for my children, whom your gyves have bound Through centuries of toil; The bitter wailings of whose bondage sound From many a stranger-soil! Leave me but free, though the eternal sand Be all my kingdom now— Though the rude splendors of barbaric land But mock my crownless brow!" There was a sound, like sudden trumpets blown, A ringing, as of arms, When Europe rose, a stately Amazon, Stern in her mailÉd charms. She brooded long beneath the weary bars That chafed her soul of flame, And like a seer, who reads the awful stars, Her words prophetic came: "I hear new sounds along the ancient shore, Whose dull old monotone Of tides, that broke on many a system hoar, Wailed through the ages lone! I see a gleaming, like the crimson morn Beneath a stormy sky, And warning throes, my bosom long has borne, Proclaim the struggle nigh! "The spirit of a hundred races mounts To glorious life in one; New prophet-wands unseal the hidden founts That leap to meet the sun! And thunder-voices, answering Freedom's prayer, In far-off echoes fail, As some loud trumpet, startling all the air, Peals down an Alpine vale!" O radiant-browed, the latest born of Time! How waned thy sisters old Before the splendors of thine eye sublime, And mien, erect and bold! Pure, as the winds of thine own forests are, Thy brow beamed lofty cheer, And Day's bright oriflamme, the Morning Star, Flashed on thy lifted spear. "I bear no weight," so rang thy jubilant tones, "Of memories weird and vast— No crushing heritage of iron thrones, Bequeathed by some dead Past; But mighty hopes, that learned to tower and soar, From my own hills of snow— Whose prophecies in wave and woodland roar, When the free tempests blow! "Like spectral lamps, that burn before a tomb, The ancient lights expire; I wave a torch, that floods the lessening gloom With everlasting fire! Crowned with my constellated stars, I stand Beside the foaming sea, And from the Future, with a victor's hand Claim empire for the Free!"
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