Such was the scenery;—­with garden walks,
  Delight of angels and the blest, where flowers
  Perennial bloom, and leaping fountains breathe,
  Like melted gems, a gleaming mist around! 
  Here fruits for ever ripe, on radiant boughs,
  Droop temptingly; here all that eye and heart
  Enrapts, in pure perfection is enjoy’d;
  And here o’er flowing paths with agate paved,
  Immortal Shapes meander and commune. 
  While with permissive gaze I glanced the scene,
  A whelming tide of rich-toned music roll’d,
  Waking delicious echoes, as it wound
  From Melody’s divinest fount!  All heaven
  Glow’d bright, as, like a viewless river, swell’d
  The deepening music!—­Silence came again! 
  And where I gazed, a shrine of cloudy fire
  Flamed redly awful; round it Thunder walk’d,
  And from it Lightning look’d out most sublime! 
  Here throned in unimaginable bliss
  And glory, sits The One Eternal Power,
  Creator, Lord, and Life of All:  Again,
  Stillness ethereal reign’d, and forth appear’d
  Elysian creatures robed in fleecy light,
  Together flocking from celestial haunts,
  And mansions of purpureal mould; the Host
  Of heaven assembled to adore with harp
  And hymn, the First and Last, the Living God;
  They knelt,—­a universal choir, and glow’d
  More beauteous while they breathed the chant divine,
  And Hallelujah!  Hallelujah! peal’d,
  And thrill’d the concave with harmonious joy.

VISION OF HELL.

  Apart, upon a throne of living fire
  The Fiend was seated; in his eye there shone
  The look that dared Omnipotence; the light
  Of sateless vengeance, and sublime despair.—­
  He sat amid a burning world, and saw
  Tormented myriads, whose blaspheming shrieks
  Were mingled with the howl of hidden floods,
  And Acherontine groans; of all the host,
  The only dauntless he.  As o’er the wild
  He glanced, the pride of agony endured
  Awoke, and writhed through all his giant frame,
  That redden’d, and dilated, like a sun! 
  Till moved by some remember’d bliss, or joy
  Of paradisal hours, or to supply
  The cravings of infernal wrath,—­he bade
  The roar of Hell be hush’d,—­and silence was! 
  He called the cursed,—­and they flash’d from cave
  And wild—­from dungeon and from den they came,
  And stood an unimaginable mass
  Of spirits, agonized with burning pangs: 
  In silence stood they, while the Demon gazed
  On all, and communed with departed Time,
  From whence his vengeance such a harvest reap’d.

BEAUTIFUL INFLUENCES.