THE ARGUMENT. ABADDON or Apollyon, as the name imports, is supposed to be subordinate only to Satan, the adversary or tempter, who prepares by intrigue and seduction for the terrible triumphs of the Fiend of Ruin. The scenes subsequent to the flight of Abaddon have been necessarily selected for a general illustration of the desolation and agony which sin has entailed upon the world; and the purpose of the author has been to exhibit, in the strongest light, the malevolence, the ingratitude, and the weakness of men; their ineptitude to choose the highest good; their bigotted perseverance in confirmed and habituated crime; their insusceptibility, in the midst of desperate vice, to permanent impressions of virtue; and their ill-fated adherence to all that demoralizes the heart and degrades the mind. From the vast empire of History but few examples could be delineated or even named in a poem so brief as this; but it is trusted that enough have been presented to unfold the melancholy truth, that man has too often been the dupe of fallacy and the slave of passion, devoted to the accomplishment of ambition or opulence-the common vain glories of life-though exposed to the penalty of popular execration and personal unhappiness. Little relief has been thrown upon the picture; for the purest religion has been for centuries made subservient, in too many instances, to the perfidious policy of designing men, who sullied the purity which opposed their ambition, or annihilated by ostracism, the scaffold, or the pyre, the enlightened few of a darkened æra. True piety, averse from contention, and humble in its lofty devotion, exerts but little influence over the affluent and the worldly. The Spirit of Love breathes over the agitated waters, but seldom hushes their commotion; the rainbow of beauty only adorns the storm-cloud which it cannot disperse. THE SPIRIT OF DESTRUCTION. WHERE the wild darkness of the nether world Fell with its ghastliest grandeur, and vast clouds Trailed o'er the panting firmament, and hung Like sworded ministers of vengeance low Upon the dismal, thick, and deadly air, ABADDON stood companionless, and wrapt In wasting thought—a pyramid of mind On the dark desert of Despair! Alone He stood, and his broad shadow quivered o'er The jagged and tumultuary clouds, Where living blackness struggled with the glare Thrown from the fierce volcano's lava breast, With even a deeper gloom; for moral guilt Transcends the tempest's terror and the wreck Of warring elements, and brands its curse Upon the tortured spirit, from its throne Hurled down, and doom'd to agonize and burn. Abraded of his glory-shrouded now In the dire garments of the accursed race Whom Pride, the child of Intellect, o'erthrew, Buried in blackness with the muttering slaves Of his tremendous treasons-worst of all, Too proud in desolation's loneliest hours To hold communion with inferior minds, Or, for a moment, bend the archangel's brow His blasted brow Worked in a terrible torture as the throng Of horrible remembrances went by, And all the majesty of mind unblest Glared in the high and haughty scorn that burst Hurled from the pinnacle of glory-hurled From seraph throne, from love, from heaven and hope, The matchless mind, that consummated bliss When o'er the crystal fountain of his soul Hovered ethereal Purity and smiled, Now sealed the utter madness of his doom. Rushed o'er the burning realm of banished thought, Haunted the ruined altar of his soul, And offered up the sacrifice of death, That found no mercy and could never die. Closed round his prison-house-his living tomb |