Freedom and morals fled, and in their train
Genius departed,—only Art remained,

And the fair-pictured gods which the Greek mind
Begot with Art: she, heaven-sent, remained
With sorrowing sons of men, when all was lost.
When the strong Macedonian dashed on the ground
The jewelled freedom, even then she poured
Sweet balm upon the grave of Liberty,
The grave which on the ruins of a world
Hellenic genius piled, to soothe the pride
Of lordly Cæsars. Even now to us
With speech divine she speaks, even poesy
With wisdom paired, great glory of the Greeks.
But from delusion knowledge only saves,—
Knowledge which, joined with aspirations pure
And a strong will, regenerates the world;
Which in the light of God-given faith stands firm
In the actual, and in the stream of time

Holds by eternal Being; which from the height

Of thought into the deep shaft of research

Plunges, the oracular Sibyl of the Past.

This knowledge thou, master of thought, didst teach;

This, from the fountain of eternal life.

That from the bosom of the Godhead flows

Into the obscure ages, thou didst draw ;

This from the Word didst fetch, that once assumed

Being in mortal body, full of GOD

And full of Light. This in the holy book

Thine eye

did read, the book which taught thy youth

The knowledge of salvation, perfect made
In Him, whom to believing souls the Spirit
Reveals, and with a heavenly strength divine
Renews the heart. Pledge of eternal love,
The holy book, which whoso reads must read

In spirit and in freedom, mid the scoff
Of modern heathens, and the jealous horror
Of Pharisees, who for the soul prepare

Grim fetters, from GoD's altar chasing light,
As hearth and forum knew their darkening reign.
Unreasoning rabble! who with blinded sense
Seek sheer perdition deep in the abyss
Which their own madness opened; who oppose
Their crusted dogma to the living stream
Of Universal Kosmos, which bears on
Truthward the world, to conquer or to die.

To these a warning voice comes from the Judge
Who crushed the pride of all the Pharaohs, who
Confounds all figments and consumes all lies,
Who breaks the shell to let the kernel grow,
And, to preserve the Spirit, kills the Letter.

Charlottenberg, near Heidelberg,
July 1st, 1854.

THE Votive labour that to thee alive

I from a loyal heart did consecrate,

To thee being dead I consecrate anew,
And, as a wreath, hang on thy honoured grave.
Thy dust the sod that's trodden by the free
Now covers: fresh the Alpine breezes fan
The curtains of thy rest; the lofty rock
Hangs o'er thee, and beneath clear fountains flow.
Two kings conspire with a memorial grace
To honour thee,- their teacher, friend, and guest.
Thy people know the place where thou reposest,
And in the tomb where the great thinker sleeps
They see the cradle of the promised age.

Oh never more shall grateful hearts forget The pilgrim fathers through the tearful vale Who first adventurous cut their way, and dug

Wells in the waste, where future troops should come

Of weary-footed weary-hearted men,

All comfortless and blind! But from pure skies

The nightly dew descends into the wells,

And o'er the fountain floats the freshening breath

Of a new life. And, lo! from ether shines

A heavenly glory which illuminates

The honest vision and confounds the false.

Not with the lips that voiced the word grows pale

The spoken truth: the word becomes a spark,
And bears a soul which over the world flies,
Flame-bearing. Thoughts of wise men still must find
A body upon earth; for only Thought

Has power to work and to create, and holds

The pledge of inexhaustible creation

In its own fulness; yea, if Thought might fail,
The world would perish, and all things cease to be.

Now o'er the dark vale of this earthly scene,

Where thou with faith didst teach and earnest thought,
Hovers thy spirit, thou glorious thinker; now

Thou look'st into the universal thought,

The thought of love that nevermore may die,

And all thy highest hope is thine, to live

In union with the Spirits of the Just.

August 20th, 1855.

PART I.

THE OUTLINES OF A METHOD

OF

EXAMINING THE ORIGINES AND OF MEASURING THE AGES

OF THE WORLD:

WITH A SPECIAL APPLICATION TO EGYPT.