The Power of Fancy

Wakeful, vagrant, restless thing,Ever wandering on the wing,Who thy wondrous source can find,Fancy, regent of the mind;A spark from Jove's resplendent throne,But thy nature all unknown.This spark of bright, celestial flame,From Jove's seraphic altar came,And hence alone in man we trace,Resemblance to the immortal race.Ah! what is all this mighty whole,These suns and stars that round us roll!What are they all, where'er they shine,But Fancies of the Power Divine!What is this globe, these lands, and seas,And heat, and cold, and flowers, and trees,And life, and death, and beast, and man,And time--that with the sun began--But thoughts on reason's scale combin'd,Ideas of the Almighty mind!On the surface of the brainNight after night she walks unseen,Noble fabrics doth she raiseIn the woods or on the seas,On some high, steep, pointed rock,Where the billows loudly knockAnd the dreary tempests sweepClouds along the uncivil deep.Lo! she walks upon the moon,Listens to the chimy tuneOf the bright, harmonious spheres,And the song of angels hears;Sees this earth a distant star,Pendant, floating in the air;Leads me to some lonely dome,Where Religion loves to come,Where the bride of Jesus dwells,And the deep ton'd organ swellsIn notes with lofty anthems join'd,Notes that half distract the mind.Now like lightning she descendsTo the prison of the fiends,Hears the rattling of their chains,Feels their never ceasing pains--But, O never may she tellHalf the frightfulness of hell.Now she views Arcadian rocks,Where the shepherds guard their flocks,And, while yet her wings she spreads,Sees chrystal streams and coral beds,Wanders to some desert deep,Or some dark, enchanted steep,By the full moonlight doth shewForests of a dusky blue,Where, upon some mossy bed,Innocence reclines her head.Swift, she stretches o'er the seasTo the far off Hebrides,Canvas on the lofty mastCould not travel half so fast--Swifter than the eagle's flightOr instantaneous rays of light!Lo! contemplative she standsOn Norwegia's rocky lands--Fickle Goddess, set me downWhere the rugged winters frownUpon Orca's howling steep,Nodding o'er the northern deep,Where the winds tumultuous roar,Vext that Ossian sings no more.Fancy, to that land repair,Sweetest Ossian slumbers there;Waft me far to southern islesWhere the soften'd winter smiles,To Bermuda's orange shades,Or Demarara's lovely glades;Bear me o'er the sounding cape,Painting death in every shape,Where daring Anson spread the sailShatter'd by the stormy gale--Lo! she leads me wide and far,Sense can never follow her--Shape thy course o'er land and sea,Help me to keep pace with thee,Lead me to yon' chalky cliff,Over rock and over reef,Into Britain's fertile land,Stretching far her proud command.Look back and view, thro' many a year,Cæsar, Julius Cæsar, there.Now to Tempe's verdant wood,Over the mid-ocean floodLo! the islands of the sea--Sappho, Lesbos mourns for thee:Greece, arouse thy humbled head,Where are all thy mighty dead,Who states to endless ruin hurl'dAnd carried vengeance through the world?--Troy, thy vanish'd pomp resume,Or, weeping at thy Hector's tomb,Yet those faded scenes renew,Whose memory is to Homer due.Fancy, lead me wandering stillUp to Ida's cloud-topt hill;Not a laurel there doth growBut in vision thou shalt show,--Every sprig on Virgil's tombShall in livelier colours bloom,And every triumph Rome has seenFlourish on the years between.Now she bears me far awayIn the east to meet the day,Leads me over Ganges' streams,Mother of the morning beams--O'er the ocean hath she ran,Places me on Tinian;Farther, farther in the east,Till it almost meets the west,Let us wandering both be lostOn Taitis sea-beat coast,Bear me from that distant strand,Over ocean, over land,To California's golden shore--Fancy, stop, and rove no more.Now, tho' late, returning home,Lead me to Belinda's tomb;Let me glide as well as youThrough the shroud and coffin too,And behold, a moment, there,All that once was good and fair--Who doth here so soundly sleep?Shall we break this prison deep?--Thunders cannot wake the maid,Lightnings cannot pierce the shade,And tho' wintry tempests roar,Tempests shall disturb no more.Yet must those eyes in darkness stay,That once were rivals to the day?--Like heaven's bright lamp beneath the mainThey are but set to rise again.Fancy, thou the muses' pride,In thy painted realms resideEndless images of things,Fluttering each on golden wings,Ideal objects, such a store,The universe could hold no more:Fancy, to thy power I oweHalf my happiness below;By thee Elysian groves were made,Thine were the notes that Orpheus play'd;By thee was Pluto charm'd so wellWhile rapture seiz'd the sons of hell--Come, O come--perceiv'd by none,You and I will walk alone.