MISCELLANEOUS VERSES. 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR FRANCIS HASTINGS DOYLE, BART. 
 
 FELLOW OF ALL SOULS* COLLEGE, OXFORD. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET. 
 1840.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 BLATCH AND LAMPERT, PRINTERS. GROVK PLACB, BROMPTON.
 
 SRLf? 
 URL 
 
 THE LADY NOEL BYRON, 
 
 ARE INSCRIBED BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR, 
 
 IX GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF MANY ACT* OF 
 KINDNESS AND FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 .Ill Souls' Cotli'ye, 
 June lOt/i, 1810.
 
 DEDICATORY STANZAS 
 
 SPIRIT OF BEAUTY. 
 
 THE beautiful, that Inner Sun 
 
 Which quickens earth, and air, and sea, 
 Has held, since life her course begun, 
 
 The Poet's heart in fee. 
 
 From spirits of immortal sway, 
 
 Before whose dauntless eagle eyes, 
 
 Open and palpable as day, 
 Her naked glory lies ;
 
 DEDICATORY STANZAS TO THE 
 
 Down to the least, who hear alone 
 Far echoes of her footstep fall, 
 
 We gather round her dazzling throne 
 Sworn liegemen, one and all . 
 
 Queen over heaven-embracing space 
 Her effluence wanders unconfined ; 
 
 Each has her, in a chosen place, 
 For his own worship shrined 
 
 Whether in woods, by sunny streams. 
 
 At nature's side she rest apart, 
 Or clothe her presence with the dreams 
 
 Of consecrating art. 
 
 Or tired of dead unchanging things, 
 Slu- seek what only soul can give, 
 
 Shed softly, as on Angel wings. 
 From looks that move and live ;
 
 SPIRIT OF BEAUTY. 
 
 In his deep spirit, each may fold 
 Her sacred shadow veil'd, and dim 
 
 To eyes profane, and leave untold 
 Her chosen Home for him : 
 
 To this one fealty confined, 
 
 That firm in faith, and loyal love, he bring 
 To BEAUTY by the heart enshrined 
 
 His vassal offering.
 
 LADY AGNES. 
 
 IT is the hour, when through the air 
 
 The Elves of silence creep, 
 And maidens, with unhraided hair, 
 
 Sink into blooming sleep. 
 
 The Lady Agnes, lightly lifting 
 
 Her dove-like hazel eyes, 
 From room to room, like sunlight shifting. 
 
 'To her calm chamber hies.
 
 LADY AGNES. 
 
 Beautiful Agnes ! as she went 
 
 By stair and gallery wall, 
 There seemed a mellowing glory lent 
 
 Unto that wild old hall. 
 
 Even portraits, grim with iron thought, 
 
 And monsters of the loom, 
 Were softened, as if near her, nought 
 
 Could keep its natural gloom. 
 
 But as her youthful beauty stole 
 
 Through the long corridor, 
 There spread a passion on her soul, 
 
 Shadowing its brightness o'er. 
 
 Her eye, among the imaged dead 
 No face of love could see 
 
 " Alas for her who died,'' she said, 
 " In giving life to me.
 
 LADY AGNES. 
 
 " These warrior portraits stern and old, 
 " Make sad this echoing place ; 
 
 " It would have soothed me to behold 
 My mother's angel face. 
 
 " But she was taken suddenly 
 From human hope and fear, 
 
 And lives but in the memory 
 Of those who loved her here. 
 
 " But I, who never saw her I 
 Question and question still ; 
 
 Had her dear likeness smiled on high, 
 I might have gazed my fill. 
 
 " Dreaming that life within the eye, 
 Was kindling more and more, 
 
 I could have sat for ever by 
 Her shadow on the floor.
 
 LADY AGNES. 
 
 " And if my spirit lacking strength 
 
 Felt desolate and sad, 
 I could have watched her, till at length 
 
 Her looks had made me glad. 
 
 "Oil tell me, tell me, Nurse, to night, 
 
 Was she not mild and fair? 
 Which were the rooms of her delight, 
 
 What garments did she wear?" 
 
 " Your mother, sweet," the Nurse roplie 
 ' Indeed was wondrous fair ; 
 
 Like yours her dove-like hazel eyes, 
 Like yours her auburn hair. 
 
 " In that same room, she loved the best. 
 
 You sleep, my child, each night ; 
 And like an angel, she was drest, 
 
 Kver in raiment white.
 
 LADY AGNES. 
 
 " But these are stories for the day, 
 When summer sunbeams fall 
 
 With searching and enlivening ray 
 Around this wild old hall. 
 
 " Suffer not now, such thoughts of pain 
 
 About your heart to stay, 
 Or the dim workings of the brain 
 
 Will chase all sleep away." 
 
 Still feeling on her orphaned breast 
 
 A weight of tender gloom, 
 She reached the chamber of her rest, 
 
 Her mother's favourite room ; 
 
 And sinking with a quiet sigh 
 
 Into the offered chair, 
 She scarcely felt the nurse untie 
 
 Her waving auburn hair.
 
 LADY AGNES. 
 
 Within that consecrated space, 
 You could not but have felt, 
 
 Touched by the spirit of the place, 
 That THERE a Virgin dwelt. 
 
 There seemed a presence half divine 
 
 Floating unseen above 
 The shadow of calm thoughts, the sign 
 
 Of maiden faith, and love ; 
 
 As if her spotless heart had shed 
 
 A dew of pureness there, 
 Which brooded o'er the placid bed, 
 
 And glorified the air. 
 
 Beautiful Agnes ! sitting still 
 
 Before a mirror tall, 
 Letting the auburn curls at will 
 
 On her white shoulder fall.
 
 LADY AGNES. 
 
 She gazed into the solemn skies, 
 Now hung with boundless night ; 
 
 Her large uplifted hazel eyes 
 Floating in liquid light ; 
 
 Whilst from her fresh and lucent skin, 
 
 A lustre seemed to pour, 
 Like delicate pink tints, within 
 
 Shells from an Indian shore. 
 
 In pensive silence thus the maid 
 
 Her loveliness undrest; 
 The nurse in silence gave her aid, 
 
 Then left her to her rest. 
 
 The silver lamp was quenched in gloom, 
 
 The prayer was duly said, 
 And the dim qxiiet of the room 
 
 Closed o'er her graceful head.
 
 LADY AGNES. 
 
 Beautiful Agnes ! may she sleep 
 
 Until the golden day, 
 Beneath an angel's wing, to keep 
 
 All evil things away. 
 
 But soft she wakes, as if in fear ; 
 
 What sights or sounds invade 
 The wavering eye or dreaming ear, 
 
 To make her thus afraid ? 
 
 The nurse was summoned to her side. 
 
 " Is then my darling ill ?" 
 " No, but the lamp, dear nurse," she cried 
 
 " You left it burning still." 
 
 ' Nay, look, my love, no lamp is near, 
 The room was black as night ; 
 
 This taper I have carried here 
 There is no other light."
 
 LADY AGNES. 
 
 " Have I then roused you up in vain? 
 
 I must have dreamt," she said; 
 And on the silken couch again 
 
 Down dropped her flower-like head. 
 
 But on the closing of the door, 
 
 Again the room was bright ; 
 O'er coniice, curtain, ceiling, floor, 
 
 Fluttered that wondrous light. 
 
 High o'er her pillow, she beheld 
 
 A glory gliding nigher, 
 From which, as from a fountain, welled 
 
 Floods of innocuous fire ; 
 
 And in the middle of the light 
 
 A winged woman there, 
 With hazel eyes, and raiment white, 
 
 And waving auburn hair.
 
 10 LADY AGNES. 
 
 Upon the silent girl below, 
 Her looks of beauty fell, 
 
 Speaking of peace earth cannot know, 
 And love ineffable. 
 
 And Agnes gazed a little while, 
 
 Then prayed for strength and grace, 
 
 Till both came issuing from the smile 
 Upon that woman's face. 
 
 Whether in words, to human sense, 
 
 The spirit found its way, 
 Or by some mystic influence, 
 
 The maiden could not say. 
 
 But words, or thoughts, an angel sway 
 Lived on her heart like balm, 
 
 So that her senses, as she lay, 
 Were steeped in wondrous calm.
 
 LADY AGNES. 11 
 
 And thus, a heaven-sent messenger, 
 
 Upon her human child, 
 Scarcely more beautiful than her, 
 
 The spirit mother smiled. 
 
 Mother and daughter felt through death, 
 
 Their hearts grow one in love ; 
 Delicious human tears beneath, 
 
 And seraph smiles above. 
 
 And then the Aspect told the maid, 
 
 By word, or look, or sign, 
 That she must pass from earthly shade 
 
 Into a light divine; 
 
 That it had pleased the Lord, to give 
 
 Them both a precious boon, 
 And that her child should come to live 
 
 With her to-morrow noon.
 
 12 LADY AGNES. 
 
 When this was said, the air grew dim. 
 And Agnes felt her brain 
 
 Down a bright stream of vision swim, 
 To slumbrous depths again. 
 
 Oh ! there was trouble in the hall 
 When Agnes told her tale, 
 
 A shadow of strange fear on all 
 She only did not quail. 
 
 She only said, " This wondrous show, 
 Though true and clear it seem, 
 
 By my own reason taught, I know, 
 May only be a dream. 
 
 " And if a dream it be, why soon 
 The cloud it leaves is gone ; 
 
 But if a spirit then at noon, 
 God's holy will be done."
 
 LADY AGNES. 1 % 
 
 Then grave physicians came, to try 
 
 If fever lurked within 
 The splendours of the hazel eye, 
 
 Or the translucent skin. 
 
 But nothing they could find, to show- 
 One trace of feverish heat ; 
 
 As soft and calm as falling snow, 
 Her maiden pulses beat. 
 
 " Cool is her blood," they said; " unriven 
 
 The peaceful nerves and brain ; 
 Our skill is idle and with Heaven 
 
 The issue must remain. 
 
 " Let her go forth to usual things, 
 
 The tasks of every day, 
 Until this dream, which round her clings, 
 
 Dies silently away.
 
 11 LADY AGNES. 
 
 Pensively then the maiden's eye 
 Turned to the climbing sun ; 
 
 But ever, as the hour went by, 
 Its usual task was done, 
 
 Until that sun had ceased to climb 
 The fathomless mid-heaven, 
 
 And noon was drawing near, the time 
 To holy music given. 
 
 Her minstrel did not come; and tired 
 With waiting on so long, 
 
 She sat her down, like one inspired, 
 And poured her soul in song. 
 
 " Christe, miserere mei, 
 
 Praebe, Mater, lucem, 
 Miserere, Ague Dei, 
 
 Per ceternum crucem."
 
 LADY AGNES. 15 
 
 The Minstrel stealing in alone, 
 
 Stood tranced beside the door ; 
 " For sounds came forth," he said, " unknown, 
 
 Except in Heaven, before." 
 
 And often he was wont to say, 
 
 And to his faith did cling, 
 That those, who listened on that day, 
 
 Had heard an angel sing. 
 
 At once the song stops hurriedly, 
 
 As if without her will; 
 Though floods of viewless melody 
 
 Seem eddying round her still. 
 
 Gracefully then the maiden bent 
 
 Over her throbbing lute, 
 As if to sweep the strings she meant; 
 
 But still those strings were mute.
 
 16 LADY AGNES. 
 
 The dial points to noon and hark ! 
 
 The old clock shakes its tower; 
 Yet, strange to say, she did not mark 
 
 The coming of that hour. 
 
 A sunbeam touched her placid brow, 
 
 If earthly beam it were, 
 And tinted with a golden glow 
 
 Her trembling auburn hair. 
 
 She stirred not and it seemed to lie 
 
 A glory on her head ; 
 But when that splendour had passed by. 
 
 They found that she was dead! 
 
 So gentle was her death so blest 
 
 Under the covering cross, 
 That even those who loved her best. 
 
 Could scarcely mourn their loss.
 
 LADY AGNES. 17 
 
 They laid her, Heaven's selected bride, 
 
 Her mother's grave within 
 Two sainted sleepers, side by side, 
 
 Far from the strife of sin. 
 
 Beautiful Agnes ! may she sleep 
 Thus, till the judgment day, 
 
 Beneath an angel's wing, to keep 
 All evil things away.
 
 RESEMBLANCE. 
 
 tINES SUGGESTED BY A REMARKABLE LIKENESS 
 BETWEEN TWO YOUNG LADIES. 
 
 WHAT solemn law, what changeless end, 
 The shaping hand of Nature guides, 
 
 So that with outward form may blend. 
 The spirit that within resides ? 
 
 And how that spirit working on, 
 Frames for itself a fitting shrine, 
 
 And what the purport, stamped upon 
 Kuch varying motion, look, and line .'
 
 RESEMBLANCE. 19 
 
 To us are unrevealed things, 
 
 Far hidden in the clouds, which lower 
 
 Above the dark unsounded springs 
 Of motive will, and living power. 
 
 But though we cannot always guess 
 
 The scope of her unswerving plan, 
 Nature is never meaningless, 
 
 Nor sway'd by blind caprice, like man : 
 
 Not idly then of late, she drew 
 
 Forth from her ever-sounding loom, 
 Those living robes she wove for you, 
 
 Twin beauty, and resembling bloom : 
 
 Though slight the tie, if human thought 
 
 Measure this mystic union well, 
 Its inner essence may be fraught 
 
 With deeper powers than thought can tfll.
 
 RESEMBLANCE. 
 
 Perchance, it mutely prophesies 
 Of the To-come, whilst yet afar. 
 
 Of Ante-natal destinies 
 
 Launched from the same impending star. 
 
 Perchance, apportioned as his own, 
 
 One Angel watches both bright flowers : 
 
 Perchance, from his refulgent throne 
 Upon each maiden brow, in hours 
 
 Of peril, troubled fear, and need, 
 The shadow of one love is thrown ; 
 
 And in your spotless hearts, the seed 
 Of the same calming amaranth sown. 
 
 So that, when o'er this desert dim 
 
 With equal steps your feet have trod. 
 
 ^ e may be led at once by him, 
 As sister spirits, home to God :
 
 RESEMBLANCE. 21 
 
 Believe at least, that it was wise 
 
 Your graceful reverence to shew 
 For all the unknown deep, that lies 
 
 About our path, where'er we go. 
 
 That interchange of happy laughter, 
 Of emblem blooms, and gentle speech, 
 
 Should be a well-spring, ever after, 
 Of pleasant kindliness, to each. 
 
 The symbol flowers you gave, must die ; 
 
 May what they shadowed forth, live still ; 
 Let not one drop of love run by, 
 
 Which Time's wild river brings at will.
 
 CIRCASSIAN WAR SONG. 
 
 TIIOKUI Russia, cheating, crushing, yet 
 
 Her web of ruin twines, 
 Along Caucasian hills, unset 
 
 The star of Freedom shines. 
 
 The Czar upon his marshy plains, 
 May count and drill his men; 
 
 More must be done, before lie gain? 
 The mountain lion's den.
 
 CIRCASSIAN WAR SONG. 
 
 War is to him a science cold 
 
 Of numbers and array 
 Enough of lead, enough of gold, 
 
 Enough of food and pay ; 
 
 As if men's hearts that sink and swell, 
 Like wooden chessmen were; 
 
 As if the strength of central hell 
 Could shake a brave despair. 
 
 We'll teach this monarch of machines, 
 
 What living souls can do, 
 When noble ends, and noble means, 
 
 Conspire to bring them through. 
 
 Yes ! when blood-red the firing glares 
 Through floods of smoke, and thunder. 
 
 When every ravening echo, tears 
 The trembling crags in sunder : 
 
 23
 
 21 CIRCASSIAN WAR SONG. 
 
 When warlike pom]) of fife and drum. 
 
 And columns clustering deep, 
 Mere rottenness and dust become, 
 
 Against God's mountain-steep ; 
 
 The planning, marching, numbering Czar. 
 
 Among his tools, may find 
 That something else is strong in war, 
 
 The Spirit of mankind.
 
 THE POETASTER'S PLEA. 
 
 \ FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO W. E. GLADSTONE, ESQ., M. 
 
 ONE, of a long-oppressed insulted crew, 
 At length, dear Gladstone, I appeal to you; 
 I do not mean the warrior of the state, 
 Clothed in bright armour at the temple's gate : 
 Set in the front of battle, to uphold 
 The truth that streams in glory from of old; 
 To praise thy bearing in that arduous fight, 
 Proud friends, and unresentful foes unite ; 
 And the hushed spirits of the future see 
 Even now, a lord of human kind in thee. 
 Not to the man or statesman, now I speak ; 
 Another, who is yet the same, I seek, 
 One of a joyous company, who hied 
 Through the green fields along the river side, 
 Those laughing fields, which wear for you and m 
 A garment of perpetual youth and glee.
 
 THE POETASTER'S PLEA. 
 
 Where voices call us, that are heard no more, 
 And our " lost Pleiad" brightens as before. 
 
 To one I turn the monarch of debate, 
 President Minos of our little state, 
 Who, when we met to give the world the law 
 About Confucius, Caesar, or Jack Straw, 
 Saw with grave face the unremitting flow 
 Of puffs and jellies from the shop below ; 
 At the right moment, called us to forsake 
 Intrusive fruit, and unattending cake; 
 And if unheeded, on the stroke of four, 
 With rigid hand closed the still-opening door. 
 Denouncing ever after in a trice, 
 That heinous breach of privilege an ice 
 To one, who in his editorial den 
 Clenched grimly an eradicating pen, 
 Confronting frantic poets with calm eye, 
 And dooming hardened metaphors to die. 
 Who, if he found his young adherents fail, 
 The ode unfinished, uncommenced the tale.
 
 THE POETASTER'S PLEA. 27 
 
 With the next number bawling to be fed, 
 And its false feeders latitant or fled, 
 Sat down unflinchingly to write it all, 
 And kept the staggering project from a fall. 
 Nor men, nor gods, nor yet the trade, alas ! 
 Will license middling poetry to pass; 
 So Horace tells us, but is Horace right ? 
 I own I think his dictum merely spite. 
 The pampered favourite only means to say 
 That Roman Grub-streets bored his soul away, 
 Ecstatic bards beset his path in swarms, 
 And Bavins clasped him in fraternal arms. 
 Hoarse Ma'vius talked his best to make him stare, 
 Whilst he sat shuddering in his elbow chair ; 
 Hence, full of bile, he raised his arm on high, 
 And smote that hapless legion, hip and thigh. 
 Succeeding times have echoed on the strain, 
 And spent their fury on the tribe in vain. 
 In self-conceit invulnerably mailed, 
 Wi- stand, however savagely assailed,
 
 28 THE POETASTER'S PLEA. 
 
 And pour into the drowsy ear of time 
 
 Our never ebbing tides of blank and rhyme. 
 
 Coxcombs there are, no doubt, by scribbling made, 
 
 Sons of a shapeless star for every shade 
 
 Of many-coloured life alike unfit 
 
 Who deem themselves the miracles of wit. 
 
 Through all the forms of our great art they crawl. 
 
 Producing nothing, but infesting all. 
 
 To some mysterious wisdom make pretence, 
 Sneer at plain strength of head, and stalwart sense 
 Discover then that rhyme is not a knife, 
 To open at their will, the oyster life; 
 Grow sour and bitter, and fermenting fast 
 Fret into eager vinegar at last, 
 Till the vexed world wraps, in one general curse, 
 Each luckless vagabond who writes a verse. 
 Still setting these aside, a whining few, 
 Why loose your dogs against our harmless crew .' 
 At my own cost I give the world my own 
 It does not please you .' leave it then alone.
 
 THE POETASTER'S PLEA. 29 
 
 To the dull page no law chains down your eye ; 
 No act of parliament compels to buy ; 
 No general warrant do I hold, to keep 
 Members from their diurnal prose and sleep, 
 Squires from the Derby, lawyers from the courts, 
 Or you, from those seducing blue reports, 
 Where Elliot does his best stale fish to cry, 
 And Lin to blacken the Barbarian Eye. 
 What, though a thousand holders of the quill 
 Can write as well, or better if you will ? 
 What, though I never hope to see my rhyme 
 Surmount one ripple of the stream of time ? 
 Why should I stay my hand ? or blot what lends 
 A touch of pleasure to some partial friends? 
 Whilst praise and fame, in every grade belong 
 Unto the sister arts design and song. 
 Freely we grant our talents are but small, 
 But is it better to have none at all ? 
 I nridiculed by men or (Jods, we see 
 A sketcher, sitting under every tree.
 
 30 THE POETASTER'S PLEA. 
 
 Not theirs the hands, that can express at will, 
 Gigantic visions with unerring skill. 
 No mighty genius moulds the vast design, 
 No labouring thought inheres in every line; 
 Near the rapt eye, as still the shapes they trace, 
 There floats no mild unfathomable face, 
 Whose human beauty melts into seraphic grace. 
 Still, praised themselves, they teach us to admire 
 The depth which awes, the models that inspire : 
 Were there none such (like gradual hills set high 
 To parley with the peaks that drink the sky,) 
 Apelles might have lived and died unknown, 
 And Phidias left unscraped the Parian stone. 
 So, but for us, a scorned, a trampled throng, 
 Homage would fail the sacred kings of song ; 
 Did not our spirits catch the dawning blaze. 
 Reflect the glory, and transmit the rays, 
 Beams of the sun without an atmosphere, 
 Great poets would be useless aliens here. 
 If still you shake your head, I can but say,
 
 THE POETASTERS PLEA. 
 
 That thus I smoothe the roughness of the way. 
 
 At Eton taught to bear, and to forbear, 
 
 I boast of no magnificent despair ; 
 
 I am not good, or bad enough, to know 
 
 The isolation of especial woe ; 
 
 Still there are times, when fever and unrest 
 
 Besiege the silent fortress of the breast; 
 
 Unspoken heaviness and cares unshown, 
 
 Which yet are bitter to endure alone ; 
 
 When on some sunny dream cloud-shadows fall, 
 
 Or sorrows come to me that come to all 
 
 Days of uprooted hope of fading flowers 
 
 Of rainbows, waning into wintry showers 
 
 When hidden languor follows secret strife, 
 
 And the heart sickens at the length of life 
 
 These are the seasons, which of right belong 
 
 To thoughts, which rush and kindle into song. 
 
 No idle dream of fame, no servile fear 
 
 Of the world's scorn, beset and goad me here. 
 
 Instinctively, my shattered spirits come 
 
 To look for peace within their natural home,
 
 THE POETASTERS PI.EA. 
 
 In that small circle still, defying fate, 
 
 I can at least, or well or ill, create, 
 
 Till genial art has charmed away the pain, 
 
 And the soul strengthens to her work again. 
 
 The humblest thus appear to draw more nigh 
 
 To the great heirs of immortality 
 
 Milton rose up, when fate grew hard to bear, 
 
 From earth to Heaven, and drew empyrean air. 
 
 From the salt bread he loathed, and paths of pain, 
 
 Ip alien stairs, when life was on the wane. 
 
 The Tuscan sought his seraph love again. 
 
 And Tasso kept in gloom, when hope was dead, 
 
 One brightness, from the laurel on his head. 
 
 Auguster grief was theirs, whose awful sound, 
 
 Sea-like, is heard the listening earth around 
 
 But yet the same perennial fountains 111] 
 
 The ocean-deeps, and shallows of the rill. 
 
 Though vast the space between us, not the les> 
 
 We seek a common solace in distress. 
 
 Enough of this and kindly take from me 
 
 These fragments as a poetaster's plea.
 
 THE NIGHT AND THE DAY. 
 
 THEY met in the hour of the dim twilight, 
 The hour, that is neither day, nor night; 
 Like two. proud queens, they met on high, 
 In that neutral space of the summer sky, 
 Where the evening star, when the day is done, 
 Shines through the haze of the sunken sun. 
 The first was darkly pale with eyes 
 Deeper than are the midnight skies, 
 Pale, as an Indian monarch's bride, 
 The burning pyre beside; 
 Yet lovely, as the seraphim, 
 When pitying tears their splendour dim.
 
 34 THE NIGHT AND THE DAY. 
 
 Tears shed in heaven itself, to see 
 The depth of human misery: 
 Her voice was musical, and low ; 
 With something in its tone 
 Of charmed power, that seemed to flow 
 From worlds to man unknown. 
 Beneath her broad imperial brow, 
 Those deep eyes darkly shone, 
 Pure, as the wreathed stars below, 
 That glowed within her burning zone. 
 The second, was a brighter maiden, 
 Her brow with curls of gold was laden ; 
 Her smile was sparkling, clear and free, 
 Though stately as a queen was she. 
 Her jewelled neck, and arms, were bare. 
 Snow-white, beneath her sunny hair 
 Each vein was filled with fire, and lent 
 Her eye ethereal merriment ; 
 Upon her cheek there lived a blush, 
 Warm, as the sunset's tender flush ;
 
 THE NIGHT AND THE DAY. 
 
 A tone in her glad voice had she, 
 
 At which, the heart beat like the sea, 
 
 When the west wind hloweth warm and free, 
 
 And a merry glance, like the smile of spring, 
 
 Which made each pulse a living thing. 
 
 But her dark rival stood, sedate, 
 
 With soothing eyes compassionate, 
 
 Whose light my very heart did fill 
 
 With visions that subdued the will, 
 
 And bowed me with a sudden sense 
 
 Of unresisted reverence ; 
 
 For, by the brow divinely fraught 
 
 With incommunicable thought 
 
 By those low tones, which seemed to be 
 
 The accents of eternity 
 
 By all the living memories, 
 
 Shrined in those calm, and searchless eyes, 
 
 It was as though no voice had told, 
 
 As though no seraph could unfold
 
 .'36 THE NIGHT AND THE DAY. 
 
 The mighty mysteries that sleep, 
 
 In that still spirit hidden deep. 
 
 Then, as the blue-eyed maiden bent 
 
 Above her charmed instrument, 
 
 And breathed unto the listening air, 
 
 Strains sweet enough to lull despair, 
 
 Those eyes of beauty did express 
 
 A pure and pitying tenderness, 
 
 And on her lip, there gleamed the whik 
 
 A calm and melancholy smile. 
 
 THE DAY. 
 
 1 am the queen of eartli and sea, 
 Who shall dispute the palm with me ? 
 I am lovely as of yore, 
 When, upon the clouded shore 
 Of an abysmal sea, I stood, 
 Enkindled by the breath of God. 
 All things then, that hate the light 
 All the gloomy brood of night,
 
 THE NIGHT AND THE DAY. 37 
 
 Fled before me, as I blest 
 
 The raging deep with peace, and rest. 
 
 Then the proud giant of the sun, 
 
 Leapt forth his glorious race to run, 
 
 And the breathing world her course begun : 
 
 How beautiful it was, to see 
 
 Beneath my beams, all things that be 
 
 Awake in primal revelry ; 
 
 Oh turn to me, from the dark dull night, 
 
 For my voice is the voice of life, and light. 
 
 THE NIGHT. ' 
 
 Mine is the sceptre of the sky, 
 
 And mine the starry worlds on high : 
 
 Those fountains of eternal light, 
 Which feed the immeasurable void 
 With life and splendour undestroyed, 
 
 And tell that God is infinite. 
 Thou knowest how the midnight sky, 
 Fills the weak heart with purity ;
 
 THE NIOHT AND THE DAY. 
 
 How all the dreams of wrath and sin, 
 That lurk the soul's lone caves within, 
 To make its peace their prey take flight 
 Before the blessed breath of night. 
 Thou know'st the reverential sense 
 
 Of God and his omnipotence ; 
 The tears of pleasantness that rise 
 " Up from the heart into the eyes"- 
 Thou know'st the sweet and solemn fear. 
 As if the holy dead were near, 
 And the deep touch of earthly love, 
 When the stars are shining bright above, 
 And all things that about us lie 
 Inhale their immortality. 
 
 If these have charms to move thei-, 
 
 Follow and love me. 
 
 THE DAY. 
 
 Bring all the flowers beneath the sun, 
 
 That shut their leaves when the light is gone-
 
 THE NIGHT AND THE DAY. 39 
 
 For mine is the breath of the crimson rose, 
 
 Mine is every bud that blows ; 
 
 O turn from the dark dull night to me, 
 
 For mine is the beauty of earth and sea 
 
 Thy spirit shall be clear as day, 
 
 Thy smile shall be the morning ray, 
 
 Whose light, wherever it may fall, 
 
 Sheds love and blessedness o'er all. 
 
 Thy soul shall feel the soft caress 
 
 Of unimagined happiness ; 
 
 For all the roses that combine 
 
 To veil the ills of life, are mine: 
 
 Mine are the crowded cities, where 
 
 Mirth is always on the air 
 
 Where no shadow can eclipse 
 
 The smile that lives upon the lips, 
 
 But all tilings ever seem to be 
 
 Steeped in sunny revelry. 
 
 Mine is the joyous wine-cup, bright 
 
 And burning with imprisoned light ;
 
 10 THE DAY AND THE NIGHT. 
 
 Mine Eire the melodies which fill 
 The heart with a voluptuous thrill, 
 Which cloud the spirit with excess 
 Of most tumultuous happiness, 
 And drown all sense of pain in man, 
 As fully as the wine cup can. 
 Mine are the maidens of sunny hair, 
 
 And eyes divinely blue; 
 Mine is the love that knows no care, 
 
 But yet is warm and true. 
 () turn to me, from the gloomy night, 
 For my voice is the voice of life, and light. 
 
 THE NIGHT. 
 
 Many a cycle has there been, 
 
 With gulphs of nothingness between ; 
 
 Many a time have life and birth 
 
 Revisited the aged earth : 
 
 Learn, mortal, that to me alone, 
 
 The secret things of the past are known ;
 
 THE NIGHT AND THE DAY. 11 
 
 Mine is every charmed rhyme, 
 
 Freighted with spells of ancient time, 
 
 Strains divinely sweet, which sing 
 
 The deeds of many a giant king, 
 
 Whose life was mighty in each limb, 
 
 Whose soul was as the seraphim ; 
 
 I can place before thine eye 
 
 The mirror of eternity, 
 
 I can skow thee imaged there 
 
 Shadows of all things that were, 
 
 And bid oblivion's self unfold 
 
 The treasures of his cavern old ; 
 
 Stately cities ever bright 
 
 With porphyry, and chrysolite ; 
 
 And wild primeval things, that sleep 
 
 Low-buried in the purple deep. 
 
 Mine are all the ruins grey 
 
 Which, since their prime has passed away, 
 
 Are garmented, to Fancy's sight, 
 
 In the still beauty of the night :
 
 42 THE NIGHT AND THE DAY. 
 
 Mine is Babylon the great, 
 
 Mine her river desolate, 
 
 And that sky-cleaving citadel, 
 
 Above the golden halls of Bel : 
 
 Mine are the towers along the Nile 
 
 Where Power and Wisdom dwelt erewhile- 
 
 The labyrinths, whose courts enfold 
 
 The melancholy gods of old 
 
 The obelisks, vmfallen still, 
 
 On some lone Abyssinian hill, 
 
 Covered with uncouth shapes, which brood 
 
 Above the lion-haunted wood. 
 
 Hers is this world of life and breath, 
 
 But mine the treasuries of death ; 
 
 All things holy and divine 
 
 Whose light on earth has ceased to shine, 
 
 High hopes and visions that are fled, 
 
 Pure feelings that have perished 
 
 Deep love whose passionate caress 
 
 Grew still more tender in distress
 
 THE NIGHT AND THE DAY. 4.'5 
 
 And all the genius of the dead 
 Which never can be rivalled. 
 Mine is the music pure and deep, 
 Such as poets hear in sleep, 
 Where genius, clear as heaven ahove, 
 And quickened by intensest love, 
 Dreams of the beautiful and true, 
 Such as the cold world never knew, 
 And feeling soft as morning dew, 
 Unite, like streams upon the lea, 
 Into one simple melody : 
 Mine are the maidens who delight 
 With tender loveliness, like night, 
 With voices of a thrilling sound 
 Which sheddeth peace and love around, 
 And pensive feelings deep, that shine 
 Through spiritual eyes divine ; 
 
 If these have charms to move thee, 
 
 Follow and love me. 
 1 covet not the incense blind, 
 The mad allegiance of mankind
 
 44 THE NIGHT AND THE DAY. 
 
 How should I, being the ancient queen 
 
 Of all beyond this narrow scene ! 
 
 My kingdom knows nor time nor place, 
 
 It is the lone abyss of space 
 
 The illimitable darkness thrown 
 
 Round petty systems, like a zone ; 
 
 Still, though above the touch of woe, 
 
 F pity those who weep below. 
 
 As I sit, crowned with power, alone 
 
 Upon my everlasting throne, 
 
 I feel that the gloom around is rife 
 
 With the spirit of enduring life, 
 
 And cherish amid darkness dull 
 
 The image of the beautiful. 
 
 A thousand times has the light of Day 
 
 Startled those holy dreams away ; 
 
 A thousand times has the brute mass 
 
 Felt God's eternal pinions pass 
 
 Through the gross element, that holds 
 
 Pale Chaos in her cumbrous folds ;
 
 THE NIGHT AND THE DAY. 45 
 
 I have seen it waken every time, 
 
 To be the theatre of crime. 
 
 I have seen sick dreams of unreal good, 
 
 As life and happiness pursued, 
 
 And the blessed hopes that cannot die 
 
 Again and again passed idly by. 
 
 I am wearied out at length to see 
 
 The same vain toil repeatedly 
 
 The self-deceit, the ceaseless strife, 
 
 The utter vanity of life. 
 
 Her promised joys will end once more, 
 
 In gloom and sorrow, as of yore. 
 
 I am very weary of the past, 
 
 O take the peace I bring at last. 
 
 She ceased to speak, but my charmed soul 
 Bowed down before her soft control ; 
 And I left the Day with her flaunting light, 
 To follow the calm and starry Night.
 
 A STARLIGHT NIGHT. 
 
 THE thin white clouds serenely move 
 Athwart the blue ethereal dome ; 
 
 The silent stars are bright above, 
 Each in his own eternal home, 
 
 Filling the solemn void of night, 
 
 With effluence of primal light. 
 
 Ye silent stars ! I feel that nought, 
 Or heart, or world, alone can be, 
 
 And know, by human feeling taught, 
 That over all yon trackless sea, 
 
 The myriad worlds that round me shim 
 
 Are linked in sympathy to mine.
 
 A STARLIGHT NIGHT. 47 
 
 Alas ! each clear unsullied star 
 
 Is but another earth like this ; 
 The same wild hopes, and feelings are 
 
 Throughout the infinite abyss : 
 The same vain thirst to love and know, 
 And all the mystery of woe. 
 
 Yet though strange grief within be folded, 
 The rays we see are pure and still : 
 
 Their orbs to shine on us were moulded 
 By the great Spirit's plastic will ; 
 
 And this dark spot, which we contemn, 
 
 Lives in eternal light for them. 
 
 Though vexed within by countless woes, 
 They sink not underneath the wound : 
 
 By means, which God on all bestows, 
 The solace of their grief is found. 
 
 Leaning, like seraphs, from above, 
 
 Thev till the skies with lisjht and love.
 
 48 A STARLIGHT NIGHT. 
 
 To those who feel, the power is given 
 This sign of mystery to scan, 
 
 And draw down from the stars of heaven, 
 A lesson for the heart of man, 
 
 That it should cherish, in all grief, 
 
 Its own affections, as relief. 
 
 By works of love the soul must he 
 To its own happiness refined ; 
 
 And thus invincible and free, 
 
 Weave ever round the subject mind 
 
 (Though gloomy as the wings of night) 
 
 An atmosphere of holy light.
 
 TO 
 
 THERE is a magic in thy smile, 
 
 I shall not feel again, 
 Which melts into my heart the while, 
 
 Like music's mournful strain : 
 
 Though light and gay that smile may be. 
 
 As the sunbeam on the waters, 
 Its power is deeper upon me 
 
 Than the smile of beauty's daughters.
 
 50 
 
 Like some young flower, thou blossomest, 
 
 Without a fear on earth ; 
 Deep feelings, in thy tranquil breast, 
 
 Are blent with graceful mirth : 
 
 Beloved one, thou standest now, 
 
 In our dim vale of years, 
 Just where the streams of childhood flow 
 
 Into Life's sea of tears. 
 
 I know not, and I would not know, 
 What Fate prepares for thee ; 
 
 I know not, whether joy or woe 
 Will change the soul I see. 
 
 The cherished rose may droop and die, 
 
 Or beam in beauty's brightness ; 
 But its deepest blush can never vie 
 With the rosebud's maiden whiteness.
 
 I SAW HER LAST. 
 
 Elle toit de ce moude oil lea plus belles choses 
 
 Ont le pire destin, 
 Elle vefut, ce que vivent lea roses, 
 
 L'espace d'un matin. 
 
 1 SAW her last, when love's warm light 
 Lay deep within her modest eye, 
 
 When all futurity was bright 
 
 Before her, like a summer sky 
 
 It quieted both pain and fear, 
 To see a thing so happy, near. 
 
 i; 2
 
 52 1 SAW HER LAST. 
 
 Yet was this blessedness, a flower 
 Too delicate for earth alas ! 
 
 Its leaves were withered in an hour; 
 As sunshine glideth from the grass, 
 
 And melts invisibly away, 
 
 So did she vanish from the day. 
 
 Then came soft sorrow upon all, 
 That one so full of gentle grace 
 
 Beneath so rude a touch should fall ; 
 By eyes, that never saw her face, 
 
 Tears from the inmost heart were shed. 
 
 And all the happy mourned the dead : 
 
 They mourned her as the beautiful, 
 Even as we mourn the rose's doom. 
 
 When every crimson leaf grows dull, 
 And death feeds on the damask bloom 
 
 They mourned her as she was but I 
 
 Looked to our vanished infancv
 
 I SAW HER LAST. 
 
 To those deep memories, which seem 
 
 The very fountains of the stream. 
 
 The early unforgotten things 
 
 To which the spirit ever clings, 
 
 And feels, throughout all change, to be 
 
 The seal of her identity. 
 
 With the same blood our veins were rife, 
 
 The selfsame summer gave us life, 
 
 And this was as a silken tie 
 
 Of fellowship and sympathy 
 
 Therefore, through childhood's sunny weather, 
 
 We were, as loving twins, together ; 
 
 Together in the greenwood shade, 
 
 Day after day we laughed and played ; 
 
 Together, with hushed breath, drew nigh 
 
 To snare the crimson butterfly, 
 
 Or stopped to hear the throstle sing 
 
 Beneath the mellow evening. 
 
 Alas ! how vain the hope I cherished, 
 
 That though the childish joys had perished,
 
 "A I SAW HER LAST. 
 
 The memory of these pleasant things 
 Would lend the weary spirit wings, 
 To flee away from care and sadness, 
 
 From life's great sea of tossing foam, 
 From manhood's grief, and manhood's gladness, 
 
 Back to her youthful home. 
 Alas ! that sunny place is not, 
 A cloud has deepened o'er the spot, 
 So that whene'er I summon back 
 The faded hues of childhood's track, 
 There comes upon me a distress, 
 A sense of solemn loneliness, 
 Which makes my spirit for a time 
 Shrink from that bright and blessed clime. 
 To find a home in future things, 
 For the deep heart's imaginings ; 
 Since she, who shared the past with me. 
 Has put on immortality.
 
 HEATHEN LIFE. 
 
 fj.ri <f>vvai rbv fiiraiTa vi- 
 Ka \6yov' rb 5', eire! tpavfj 
 fir/vat Kf"i6fv, '6Q(v irep 7}- 
 (cei, iro\v Sfinfpov, us Ta^iffTa. 
 
 SOPHOCLES. 
 
 THOUGH clear the day, it fadeth, 
 
 Though calm the starry night, 
 The dreams her mantle shadeth 
 
 Die with the morning light. 
 Though softly the rose twineth 
 
 Her odours with the air, 
 Her silent head declineth, 
 
 Like love beneath despair:
 
 56 HEATHEN LIFE. 
 
 The graceful flower expireth, 
 
 The shapeless rocks yet lower, 
 Nor storm, nor earthquake, tireth 
 
 The ocean's hungry roar. 
 The lute of softness, weareth 
 
 Beneath a hand of snow, 
 The sword of sternness, bearetli 
 
 The battle's iron blow : 
 Like the fleet mirage, flieth 
 
 All that is soft and gay ; 
 Gloom brightness underlieth, 
 
 And passeth not away.
 
 COUNT OTTO. 
 
 COUNT OTTO for once foregoes the chase ; 
 
 Unhoped-for gladness is in his face, 
 
 For an heiress is born to his ancient race. 
 
 And Time flew by on swifter wing, 
 
 Where she grew like a flower, in the silence of spriru 
 
 With an old oak overshadowing.
 
 .~>8 COUNT OTTO. 
 
 Lovely in feature, and heart, and limb, 
 
 For years she clung in love to him, 
 
 Like a graceful plume round a helmet grim. 
 
 But again he neglects the reveille horn ; 
 He talked with the Abbot all night till morn. 
 Whose eyes were bright with joyful scorn. 
 
 And that fair girl, adored by all, 
 The life of masque and festival, 
 Why is she absent from the hall ? 
 
 Cold, pale, and silent, in her bower, 
 
 Without a sob, from hour to hour 
 
 She sits and weeps to smile no more 
 
 Count Otto is idle to-day again, 
 His stalwart hand forgets the rein. 
 And tears on his cheek have left a stain :
 
 COUNT OTTO. 
 
 Alas ! for the fall of that ancient line ! 
 Alas, Count Otto, for thee and thine ! 
 Alas for him in Palestine. 
 
 Behind the inexorable veil, 
 
 As hope and sense and motion fail, 
 
 Totters and falls that maiden pale. 
 
 Before the impenetrable railing, 
 The aged sire kneels bewailing, 
 But all things now are unavailing 
 
 Hark ! hear ye not the distant swell, 
 The deep and melancholy knell, 
 Flung from the convent's iron bell ? 
 
 Hark ! to the masses chanted slowly, 
 Hark ! to the blessing murmur'd lowly. 
 " Peace to the slumbers of the holy."
 
 GO COUNT OTTO. 
 
 God's love can now alone restore 
 The heart of him, who goes no more 
 To rouse the stag, or track the boar. 
 
 With settled sorrow in his face, 
 
 He sits, and broods in some dark place. 
 
 The last of all that ancient race.
 
 THE COMET. 
 
 This poem was suggested by the vague apprehensions of injury to 
 the earth from the Comet of 1832, which were talked over, at least, if 
 not partially acquiesced in, by a great number of persons. 
 
 Wr. spake of ether of the midnight heavens, 
 
 Of the wide sea, alike in every change 
 
 The vassal of the cold and distant Moon ; 
 
 Of all the solemn workings of the stars 
 
 Harmonious to a hidden law, and all 
 
 That something '' far more deeply interfused" 
 
 Which makes the heaven and earth one mighty whole. 
 
 Then spake we of the inarch of destiny
 
 62 THE COMET. 
 
 Through her appointed cycles of the fate 
 
 Of ruined planets of the mystic star 
 
 In Cassiopeia, which AY as seen of old 
 
 By the pale shepherdess, and lated hind, 
 
 Through many a summer evening to burn, 
 
 With an intense effulgence of white light, 
 
 Which deepened into red, and then became 
 
 Darkness, in its own fury self-consumed : 
 
 Thus dropping by a gradual discourse 
 
 To Earth, and that fierce shape of erring fire 
 
 Which even then (so to the untaught mind 
 
 Imagination had inteqireted 
 
 The simple fact, that in its course a Comet 
 
 Would cross the pathway sacred to the earth.) 
 
 Was winding its interminable way 
 
 Through the black infinite, a wondrous orb 
 
 Made heavy with the freight of death, and charged 
 
 To crush the earth to chaos, as a hill, 
 
 Torn from its strong foundations, in its fall 
 
 Crushes the careless traveller beneath
 
 THE COMET. 
 
 To say to the wild sea, " Enough, be still, 
 
 Thy tides are numbered in Eternity ;" 
 
 To shake the rocks and mountains into dust, 
 
 Or scatter their huge limbs upon the air 
 
 Like drops of summer dew ; from Caucasus, 
 
 And the ice-crowned Himala, unsurpassed 
 
 In loftiness, above Cathaian plains, 
 
 To the great mountains of the western world, 
 
 Clothed in enduring snow, or bright within 
 
 With caves of wondrous flame, and galleries, 
 
 Where the chained earthquake slumbers, light as day 
 
 Yea, bearing earthwards on its awful car 
 
 Than this material ruin of a world 
 
 A deeper desolation, since at once 
 
 The orb of its destroying wrath must quell 
 
 All beatings of the wondrous human heart, 
 
 Must quench the sacred light of earthly love, 
 
 And wrap in death the soaring mind of man 
 
 In the sole world we know. 
 
 What marvel then
 
 64 THE COMET. 
 
 That when my limbs were laid in pleasant sleep 
 My brain was haunted with dim phantasies ? 
 That voices of strange music touched mine ear, 
 And said to me, A vision to thy soul 
 Shall prophesy, a dream upon thine eye 
 Shall paint the coming hour ? 
 
 With fiery speed 
 
 I felt myself borne upward far away, 
 Sustained upon the unessential gloom 
 Of the starred empyrean, whilst around, 
 
 The azure chasms of infinity, 
 
 Yawned without limit, and unfathomable ! 
 
 Then saw I all the congregated worlds 
 
 Flowing around their central suns in joy 
 
 And exultation, full of perfect life : 
 
 Most wonderful ! and my delighted spirit 
 
 Drank thirstily the noble harmonies 
 
 Flung from them as they passed in glorious state. 
 
 But as I gazed in passive wonderment 
 
 Upon that radiant fleet of breathing worlds
 
 THE COMET. 05 
 
 Which navigate eternally the seas 
 
 Of hollow space, under the eye of God ; 
 
 Planets, and satellites, and wandering flames, 
 
 And the blind progress of chaotic stars 
 
 Ripening from vaporous films, until they shine 
 
 As orbed suns of undecaying fire ; 
 
 The spirit who accompanied my flight 
 
 Spoke to me once again " I brought thee here 
 
 From the low earth up to the tsacred heavens 
 
 To spare thy human nature, when the hour 
 
 Of the annihilation shall arrive ; 
 
 It were not good to render visible 
 
 The divine features of thy mother earth 
 
 Made hideous in her fearful agony. 
 
 No eye of human mould covdd look upon 
 
 The very lineaments of desolation ; 
 
 No human ear could listen to a world 
 
 Breathing forth strange unprecedented sounds 
 
 In solemn woe, or bear the single shriek 
 
 Of mighty cities startled out of sleep
 
 66 THE COMET. 
 
 Into the arms of death. Thou shalt behold 
 
 The hour of fate prefigured thou shalt see 
 
 God's vengeance on the dark idolatries 
 
 Of a near globe that worships the dull earth ; 
 
 And hear a mighty death-dirge, from above, 
 
 Sung by the stars in their eternal course, 
 
 Unto the wide ear of the universe ; 
 
 But this is not our goal ; away with me." 
 
 I felt my brain grow dizzy with the speed 
 
 Of sudden flight, and when again the mist 
 
 Fled from my eyesight, in a plain I stood, 
 
 A wide green meadow on a river's brink. 
 
 A stately city with its thousand towers, 
 
 A wilderness of palaces and domes, 
 
 Bounded the southern aspect ; on the north 
 
 Wild mountains of immeasurable height 
 
 Shot up into the sky upon their sides 
 
 Undying snow dazzled the gazer's eye : 
 
 But their dread summits were unknown and dark 
 
 The very atmosphere of life and light
 
 THE COMET. ()7 
 
 Knew not their secret tops, but failed midway 
 
 In utter weakness, whilst unweariedly 
 
 The barren crags rose on around them ever 
 
 Kternal blackness clung, Eternal calm. 
 
 I gazed around in blank astonishment; 
 
 The hills were thick with trees, but, as it seemed, 
 
 Their vegetation was not of the earth ; 
 
 Upon the shapely stems, upon the leaves, 
 
 Upon the flowers beneath my feet, the seal 
 
 Of a mysterious difference was set : 
 
 All things, though not discordant, were unlike 
 
 Their kindred here over its pebbly bed 
 
 The river murmured with an alien sound ; 
 
 The winds breathed out a low peculiar tone 
 
 As they flew by ; the clouds wore not the hues 
 
 Of earth ; the sky was bright with other stars : 
 
 hi lieu of the cold moon which rules our night, 
 
 Full in the centre of the living heavens 
 
 An orb of beauty shone majestical ; 
 
 Smiling upon us with a disk as broad 
 
 r '2
 
 THE COMET. 
 
 As that, wherewith the mighty sun looks down, 
 
 Upon the fevered plains of Mercury 
 
 In middle summer, yet with light as mild 
 
 As the pale glow-worm in a flowery dell : 
 
 It tilled the air with silver, as a lamp 
 
 Girt round with glistering spar of caverns old, 
 
 Low in the central earth : how beautiful ! 
 
 How more than beautiful that smile divine 
 
 Fell on the snow-clad rocks, and silent stream ! 
 
 Long gazed I there forgetful of all else, 
 
 In blissful musings wrapt ; When suddenly 
 
 Once more I heard the voice angelical 
 
 Low breathing its mysterious melody 
 
 Upon the tranced air till the clear heavens 
 
 Were satiated with delightful sound 
 
 Beneath that queenly moon, whose glorious or!> 
 
 Blent the full powers of an unclouded sun 
 
 With all the weird solemnity of night. 
 
 ' This region,'' thus it spake to me, " is part 
 
 Of that fair planet which the sons of men
 
 THE COMET. 69 
 
 Have called their moon and that etherial light, 
 That brighter Cynthia, upon which thine eyes 
 Aje fixed with such deep love, does not thy heart, 
 Thy human heart, taught by some magic power, 
 Acquaint thee with its dear familiar name ? 
 Behold in her thy native earth. How calm ! 
 How beautiful in her serenity 
 She floats upon the blue empyrean flood ! 
 Who could believe that underneath that calm 
 The tides of passion are awake ? We know 
 The sorrow and the sin that revel there, 
 Linked ever with the life of man we know 
 What hollowness, and agony, and gloom, 
 The mantle of her beauty hides but they 
 Whom Fate has made the tenants of this orb, 
 Unknowingly revere that earth as God 
 Looking around with soul-less eyes, they see 
 The outward form and aspect, but forget 
 The inner life of things That Mighty One 
 Whose spirit ever shineth in his works ;
 
 THE COMET. 
 
 For what is all the spacious universe 
 
 With its proud splendour? What the thousand shapes 
 
 Which till the human heart with loveliness 
 
 What are they but the presence of the Lord? 
 
 Diviiu' conceptions of the beautiful, 
 
 Imperishable ever, and deep thoughts, 
 
 Coeval with the very being of God, 
 
 Embodied in the passive elements : 
 
 They have forgotten him who gave them birth, 
 
 And turned to worship idols. Void of love, 
 
 Incapable of elevating faith, 
 
 They bow their hearts to a debasing creed 
 
 Of .sensuality, and carnal rites 
 
 Which fill the soul with darkness. But at length 
 
 The hour of chastisement arrives, and Fate 
 
 Implacable, with righteous vengeance armed, 
 
 Is pressing onward to its destined goal: 
 
 The young men see no visions, and the old 
 
 Dream not of woe and ruin, moving on 
 
 With wings of lightning speed they shall behold
 
 THE COMET. 71 
 
 The meeting of these mighty combatants ; 
 They shall behold their own eternal God 
 Vanish in dust and ashes from His sphere. 
 But see ! Where from the city gates advance 
 The multitudes, thick swarming, self-deceived 
 With eager zeal ; from every land they come, 
 To swell the great millennial festival 
 In honour of their moon ; join thou the throng, 
 And follow where its evil guidance leads." 
 He spoke ; already did the plain resound 
 With echoing steps and voices ; with such speed 
 The crowd came on. I saw in solemn pomp 
 Uncounted myriads pass by ; distinct 
 In shape and hue, with vestures manifold, 
 And various forms of worship and of song. 
 Nations, and tribes, and languages, they came 
 From every corner of that populous globe, 
 I-'roin the far isles, and mountains, to assist 
 At tlu> great sacrifice. I5y tribes they passed, 
 Kach nation bearing solemn gifts, the produce
 
 THE COMET. 
 
 Of their own regions : Diamond, and gold. 
 
 Rare spices, ivory, and fragrant wood, 
 
 \Vitli woven robes, and costly merchandize. 
 
 Unlike, and yet analogous to man, 
 
 The divers races did appear, as though 
 
 The children of the many climes of earth, 
 
 By some strange chance were gathered in one place 
 
 Tartar, and Ethiopian, and the sons 
 
 Of silken Hindostan, Aral), and Copt, 
 
 The feathery chieftains of the Southern isles, 
 
 The men who drink of that Assyrian stream, 
 
 Euphrates, and the wild Caucasian tribes ; 
 
 Together with the wide-spread progeny 
 
 Of those, who in the rough Hercynian wood 
 
 Went naked to the beating of the storm ; 
 
 With all who till that mighty continent, 
 
 Which, drawing from the mountains, and the caves. 
 
 Innumerable complicated streams 
 
 Down their strong slopes to the recoiling sea, 
 
 Great Amazon, and Orinoco, drain.
 
 THE COMET. 
 
 And silver Plata with her double flood ; 
 
 Araucan, Caribbean, and the men 
 
 Of Patagon, feigned of gigantic size : 
 
 Such was the aspect which these multitudes 
 
 Wore as they passed. I followed in their train, 
 
 Until we reached a gently rising ground, 
 
 Where, mirrored in the soft and silent wave, 
 
 A massive temple stood, majestical 
 
 Above all human art ; Such as might rise 
 
 Upon a poet's eye at dead of night, 
 
 If he that day alone had looked upon 
 
 The city of the sun or, mightier yet, 
 
 The marble halls of Memphis in her pride ; 
 
 Syene, or the wide magnificence 
 
 Of hundred-gated Thebes, with all her towers 
 
 And pyramids, fast by the river Nile; 
 
 Whilst yut, through every portal opening wide, 
 
 With bannered ornaments, and martial sound 
 
 < >t I'choing brass, the living tide of war 
 
 Flowi-d forth against the dusky kings who sat
 
 74 THE COMET. 
 
 In Meroe, and the continuous crowd 
 
 Of scythed chariots, terrible in fight, 
 
 Came thundering through her peaceful obelisks. 
 
 All of black marble was this wondrous fane, 
 
 Spreading itself abroad in halls, and towers 
 
 Frequent with mighty columns, underneath 
 
 Vast cupolas of mournful majesty. 
 
 A pile like to the great metropolis 
 
 Of some slain warrior in cycles old, 
 
 When a whole people slaughtered on his tomb, 
 
 Accompanied unto the home of death 
 
 Their ghastly monarch, that he still might rule 
 
 The city of the silent a dead king 
 
 Of a dead people, to eternity. 
 
 As we came on, under the gloomy walls, 
 
 Before the long procession open flowed 
 
 The adamantine gates from either side 
 
 On noiseless hinges gliding from our path ; 
 
 And nation after nation entered in. 
 
 The rich moss-agate framed the temple's floor,
 
 THE COMET. 75 
 
 Stretching far onward to the lustrous stair 
 Behind the crimson veil, which from above, 
 Fastened to dizzy pinnacles, and heights 
 Scarce visible, athwart the lofty hall 
 Hung waving like a sea, and hid from sight 
 The altar of the oracles, untrod 
 Save by the priest at the appointed hour. 
 Circling around, black marble galleries 
 On columns leant, whose palmy capitals 
 Were living adamant, intensely bright ; 
 Whilst high above, around the solemn wall, 
 Sculptured with strange device, and traceries 
 More beautiful than those of Phidias old, 
 Huge windows of the purple amethyst 
 Tier above tier arose, and silently 
 Mellowed the day into a gloom divine, 
 I'p to the very summit of the fane. 
 Between each lofty window's slumbrous shade, 
 (ireat stars of glowing emerald were set, 
 Serenely bright and calm, and narrow lines
 
 76 THE COMET. 
 
 Of diamond light, between each purple tier, 
 Ran round the great majestic cupola : 
 Such was the temple sacred to their Moon. 
 Along the glossy pavement of the hall 
 In solemn march continuous, one by one, 
 The banded tribes advanced Before the veil 
 They knelt to offer up the splendid gifts, 
 Which their vain piety had brought to add 
 To all the sumless wealth (statues of gold, 
 Invaluable gems, bright thrones of pearl, 
 And chrysolite,) which lay unseen below ; 
 Stored up in the ancestral treasuries 
 Of the great temple, from the days of old. 
 Nor wanted, as they passed, the sumptuous aid 
 Of false religion all the glittering rites 
 Idolatrous, which captivate the sense ; 
 Music, and light, and perfumes, and the swell 
 Of frequent hymns, and the protracted prayer, 
 With change of place, and vesture, and vain form 
 Elaborate and perplexed until the time
 
 THE COMET. 77 
 
 Of the last sacrifice, to be performed, 
 
 With an exceeding pomp and luxury, 
 
 To their bright Moon under the eye of heaven : 
 
 The high priest led the way, but suddenly 
 
 Upon the threshold stopped and shrieked aloud 
 
 With frantic voice and gesture. Then I saw 
 
 All that immeasurable multitude, 
 
 Fluctuate like the sea through the long files 
 
 Ran n low murmur of despair, and dread, 
 
 In the same breath of time, communicate 
 
 From man to man, like the electric fire : 
 
 Then, with a sudden impulse, from the fane, 
 
 Regardless of all order forth they ran, 
 
 Confused and masterless, filling the plains 
 
 With dissonant and savage screams of fear. 
 
 It was indeed an awful spectacle ! 
 
 A heavy vapour loaded the dense air, 
 
 In scorching folds voluminous, through which 
 
 Dimly could we discern the swift advance 
 
 Of a wild orb, glistening with blood-red beams.
 
 78 THE COMET. 
 
 Onward it rolled, shedding around its path 
 Wide-ruining blasts, and flakes of raging fire, 
 Insufferably fierce and fast : The moon 
 Glowed opposite, with mild and lovely light ; 
 And the two worlds drew near we saw them join 
 Like some bright seraph, and the baleful fiend, 
 Meeting in mortal combat, on they came ; 
 But we saw naught beyond for, as they met, 
 From the dun skies closer and heavier fell 
 The sullen mist, and burning floods of smoke 
 Closed over us, making a denser night 
 Than the black vapour which was shed around 
 Christ crucified or that more ancient gloom 
 When God with palpable thick darkness smote 
 Proud Egypt ; and the monarch of the Nile 
 Trembled in sudden blindness on his throne; 
 But, not the less, through that gross atmosphere, 
 Impenetrable to the sight, there came 
 Strange thunderings ; Ebbing and flowing sounds 
 Of wild uproar, like the convulsive crash
 
 THE COMET. 79 
 
 Of scattered elements in some far world. 
 
 Whilst louder than the thunders, heard above 
 
 The jar of the dissolving earth, a voice 
 
 Like the last trumpet of the Lord, arose, 
 
 Crying, "God has judged you in his wrath. That Moon 
 
 Shall shine no more in heaven false worshippers 
 
 Of a false God, repent ye of your sins."
 
 PRUSSIC ACID. 
 
 .SONG OF THE SPIRITS OF DEATH 
 
 " FEVERISH and fierce 1 , the hurrying crowd 
 Can see no beauty in the tomb ; 
 
 The eyeless skeleton, the shroud, 
 Appal them into hopeless gloom ; 
 
 "These are the wrecks of life not Deal';.. 
 
 Before whose loveliness benign. 
 Each earthly sorrow vanisheth 
 
 From all, who cross her calming line ;
 
 PRUSSIC ACID. 81 
 
 " Weak man with her identifies 
 
 A scythed monster, he miscalls ; 
 Still this is life, who as he flies, 
 
 Turns back, to mock the wretch who falls. 
 
 " We know her, in another guise, 
 
 Of deepening thought, and quiet love, 
 
 Serenely fair, divinely wise, 
 
 And changeless as the heavens above. 
 
 " We know her, as the faithful spouse 
 
 Of sleep from toil and evil free, 
 And around her pale and placid brows 
 
 Wreath'd blossoms of the Almond-tree. 
 
 " She loves the flower, she loves the fruit, 
 
 Because, within them hidden flows 
 An essence, rapid to transmute 
 
 Man to the dim caves of repose.
 
 82 PRUSSIC ACIIJ. 
 
 ' Loud-throated war is swift to kill, 
 When cannon roar across the lea, 
 
 We honour him, but swifter still 
 
 The noiseless work of the Almond-tree : 
 
 " The Lord of pain, the Lord of grief. 
 
 Of fell despair, in it we see ; 
 Proud Life is vassal to each leaf 
 
 That nutters, from the Almond-tree. 
 
 " Pale genius, too forlorn to live, 
 
 When rest and hope like sunlight flee, 
 
 Finds, what the laurel will not give, 
 Upon its kindred Almond-tree. 
 
 " And wounded love, whose heart's blood flo\ 
 Like water searching out the sea, 
 
 May change its dead and scorned rose 
 For chaplets, from the Almond-tree.
 
 PRUSSIC ACID. 83 
 
 Then rightly, does our Lady wear 
 This symbol of her sovranty, 
 
 And we, in faith of spirit, share, 
 
 That reverence for the Almond-tree."
 
 LINES TO LADY * * * * 
 
 LADY, thou art very fair, 
 
 Safe under wings of tenderest care, 
 
 Youth her gayest dress doth wear, 
 
 And life (as the warm summer dav 
 Bends o'er a rose-bud lovingly,) 
 Breathes out her blessedness on thec.
 
 LINES TO LADY * * * * 85 
 
 Sorrow thou hast never known, 
 Rank and riches are thine own, 
 Thy mellow laughter's breezelike tone 
 
 Chaseth all mists of gloom away ; 
 What cloud can stain the stars above ? 
 What sorrow quench thy lamp of love ? 
 
 And yet though bright the prospect be, 
 Search well thy spirit's depth, to see 
 How thou canst bear calamity 
 
 Thou smilest, but I do not speak 
 Of wann affections chilled for life, 
 Of young hearts stabbed, as with a knife. 
 
 I do not speak of loveliness 
 Blighted by unforeseen distress, 
 Nor of the common wretchedness, 
 
 Which withers up the roselike cheek. 
 And makes the wounded heart its prey. 
 Draining the lifeblood, day by day.
 
 8(3 LINES TO LADY * * * 
 
 Thy moments winged with pleasure, fly ; 
 Thou smilest, as the hours go by 
 But thunder gathers in the sky : 
 
 Wake from thy love-dream, wake, and see. 
 How troubled all things look, how strange, 
 How full of wickedness, and change. 
 
 Wild dreams of sin and strife abound, 
 
 Harsh voices mutter, with a sound 
 
 Like earthquakes moaning under ground. 
 
 Yes ! lovely one, I speak to thee, 
 Strengthen, and arm thy patient will, 
 To bear the fierce extremes of ill. 
 
 It may be, that my dazzled eye 
 
 Looks falsely on futurity ; 
 The stream may roll on peacefully : 
 Vet in thy mirth remember, how 
 Sunk down of old, the song, the dance. 
 When Ruin smote the land of France.
 
 LINES TO LADY * * * * 87 
 
 There was more pleasure there, more mirth, 
 Than over all the peopled earth ; 
 But Time to a dark hour gave birth, 
 
 And all at once, it seemed as though 
 Beneath some troop of dancers gay, 
 The painted floor had given way. 
 
 So fearfully, so suddenly, 
 
 From laughter, wealth, and luxury, 
 
 Down fell that proud nobility ; 
 
 Struck, as from cloudless skies, with flame, 
 Into a gulf of blood they fell, 
 And in their place uprose a hell. 
 
 Bright hair, in a few weary hours, 
 Whitened beneath its crown of flowers 
 In pleasure's own beloved bowers; 
 
 And world-worn youth, as age became. 
 And life no longer life did seem, 
 But a delirious fever-dream.
 
 88 LINES TO LADY 
 
 * * * 
 
 Gore streamed, as from a fountain head, 
 The land was covered with the dead, 
 The young child with its mother hied, 
 
 Unstained alike, and innocent, 
 And madness mixed itself with crime 
 Read thou the annals of that time. 
 
 Read, and reflect, with earnest prayer, 
 Thy heart, for softness made, prepare, 
 Anguish more deep than death, to bear ; 
 
 Whatever then from God is sent, 
 Thy soul will he hy him endued 
 With meek unfailing fortitude.
 
 GENEVRA. 
 
 The feelings of Oenevrn's lover, on the body of his mistress being discovered, afte 
 i disappearance of half a century. 
 
 Vide HOGBRS'S Italy. 
 
 'THESL locks, which round my fingers twine, 
 
 Are beautiful, and bright, 
 Such as they ever were but mine 
 
 Are withered, thin, and white. 
 Yet, when beneath the ilex shade, 
 
 We pledged a fruitless vow ; 
 They clustered, as in light arrayed, 
 
 Around my youthful brow. 
 I was young then, who now am weak and old, 
 And this heart warm, which is so stern and cold.
 
 90 GEXEVRA. 
 
 Old as I am, thy mother's cries 
 
 I have not yet forgot, 
 When, through the dusky galleries, 
 
 We sought, and found thee not, 
 Till sportive wonder became fear, 
 
 And laughing lips grew dumb ; 
 For, though we called her far and near, 
 
 The maiden did not come. 
 She had been seen by many, just before, 
 But the place knew her joyous laugh no more. 
 
 She must have withered, day by day, 
 
 With friends for ever nigh 
 She must have perished, where she lay, 
 
 Still striving not to die. 
 For throbs of burning hope were given, 
 
 (Till the last breath was gone) 
 Through that fierce anguish. God in heaven ! 
 
 Was this a death for one 
 In whose young heart, so tender and so gay, 
 Love dwelt as light inhabited! the day.
 
 91 
 
 How terrible the rise and fall 
 
 Of soul-killing suspense ! 
 I tore myself away from all, 
 
 Upon some weak pretence ; 
 I hid myself in darkness black, 
 
 Upon the hard cold ground, 
 That I might hear, when I came back, 
 
 " The lost one has been found." 
 I said unto my heart, why beatest thou ? 
 Let me return they must have found her now. 
 
 There met me, when at length I came, 
 
 No such delightful sound ; 
 1 found, what I had left, the same 
 
 Wan faces all around. 
 We struggled with our fears to cope, 
 
 Throughout that restless day ; 
 I Jut all the while, the tide of hope 
 
 Kbbed, drop by drop, away : 
 And when the sun went down beneath the sea. 
 We sunk under the weight of agony.
 
 92 GENEVRA. 
 
 Now after fifty years of pain, 
 
 And toil, by sea, and land : 
 1 look upon my bride again, 
 
 I touch the loved-one's hand : 
 And all the dreary gulf between 
 
 Thy last kiss, and this hour, 
 Is like some dim fantastic scene, 
 
 When night and sleep have power. 
 All is confused within me and I seem 
 About to wake, from some distressing dream.
 
 ENOCH. 
 
 ' A THOUSAND years have faded like a dream 
 
 Since the first birth of time ; 
 On either side of our Assyrian stream 
 
 Unnumbered cities climb, 
 
 " With obelisks and heaven-searching spires. 
 
 The blue abysmal sky ; 
 On altars of rich carving, perfumed fires 
 
 Are tended carefully :
 
 " And ever in the marble colonnades, 
 
 And streets as sunshine bright, 
 Wit.li melodies of love, our bright-haired maids 
 
 Quicken the dreamful night : 
 
 " And smiles are interchanged, without control, 
 
 With full and happy sighs ; 
 \e\v lights have dawned upon the human soul. 
 
 And taught it to be wise. 
 
 " How would our ancient father, full of woe*. 
 
 Rejoice that it is so, 
 Had not the thing within, which feels, and know; 
 
 Fled from him like a foe ; 
 
 " We too, his children, must like him bow down 
 To that abhorred power; 
 
 Alas! no maiden's smile, no warrior's frown. 
 Can wring from it UHU hour.
 
 ' Even now, to think of Death, who mixes grief 
 
 With all things that delight ; 
 Our seared hearts tremble, as the sapless leaf 
 
 Shakes in an eastern blight. 
 
 " Oh! that some spirit mild, and wise, and good, 
 
 Would teach us how to keep 
 The life for ever young within the blood ; 
 
 Secure of that chill sleep ; 
 
 " Then should we never suddenly let fall 
 
 The wine-cup at our lips ; 
 Then should we live, and love, together all, 
 
 In mirth without eclipse. 
 
 Thou art a prophet, father; call aloud. 
 
 Unto the God of truth, 
 That lie may chase this overhanging cloud, 
 
 r'rom the bright skies of youth :
 
 " How can the Lord of mercy vex mankind 
 
 With knowledge such as this, 
 When every living thing around is blind 
 
 In unalarmcd bliss? 
 
 " Like one pale coward, who trembles in a host 
 
 Of heroes flushed with hope, 
 When the shrill trumpet-sound is tossed 
 
 Down some long grassy slope 
 
 " Like one unwelcome guest, in some bright hal 
 
 Thronged with the beautiful. 
 Who troubleth all that gorgeous festival 
 
 With aspect strange and dull, 
 
 " Such, amid all the merriment, and bliss, 
 
 Which this life furnisheth. 
 The many joys of love, and wine, is ////'.?. 
 
 The single thought of death.
 
 97 
 
 " Call therefore, prophet, on thy worshipped sire, 
 
 Distant, and vague, and cold, 
 And all the wide earth's monarchs shall conspire 
 
 To fill thy home with gold." 
 
 Thus amid moonlit palaces, and towers, 
 
 And columned halls of pride-, 
 The young and gay, crowned with ambrosial flower; 
 
 Spoke sad, and downward-eyed ; 
 
 They spoke to one, who sat upon the ground, 
 
 Under a cypress tree, 
 And heard, or seemed to hear, the heavy sound 
 
 Of an outbursting sea. 
 
 The noise of mighty waters, evermore 
 
 Smote on his throbbing ears ; 
 In sleep he heard unearthly screams, which tore 
 
 His lonelv soul with fears :
 
 And faces of drowned men came floating by. 
 
 Lit each as with a ray, 
 Pale faces painted on his straining eye, 
 
 That would not pass away. 
 
 And viewless messengers about him trod. 
 
 With footsteps echoing loud ; 
 Wide shadows, from the secret form of God. 
 
 Fell on him like a cloud. 
 
 Thus, his mind hung upon futurity, 
 
 In that all-evil time, 
 And saw, by heaven unrolled, before her lie 
 
 The map of human crime. 
 
 A secret influence, like wasting flame. 
 Withered him day and night, 
 
 Till every thing he used to love, became 
 As nothing in his sight.
 
 'J9 
 
 Strength melted from his mighty limbs, and sleep 
 
 Touched not his burning eye ; 
 Often he sat, without the power to weep, 
 
 And only prayed to die. 
 
 Alas ! no earthly spirit can sustain, 
 
 By her inherent force, 
 Without convulsions of oppressive pain, 
 
 That awful intercourse : 
 
 Before all worlds, was it appointed so, 
 
 That it could not be given 
 To man, but with such agonies, to know 
 
 The secret things of heaven. 
 
 But at that time, the supernatural dread 
 
 The spirit's secret chill 
 Before some power of gentleness had lied, 
 
 Leaving him calm, and still.
 
 100 
 
 All motionless had lie been stretched for hours, 
 
 Under the deepening shade, 
 Dreaming of Eden's amaranthine bowers, 
 
 In heaven's own light arrayed : 
 
 The stars came out above that lonely place. 
 
 The river gurgled on, 
 The breeze played round and round his haggard lace 
 
 As if its task were done. 
 
 The gentle influence of declining day 
 
 Melted into his breast ; 
 The balmy moonlight soothed him, and lie lav 
 
 Cradled in perfect rest. 
 
 Why do the sons of pleasure strive to break 
 
 That brief hour of repose .' 
 \Vhv, with these idle questionings, awake 
 
 II is deep heart to its woes/
 
 101 
 
 Say, is it not enough, without control, 
 
 Lapped in such joys to live ? 
 Have they not satisfied, and filled the soul, 
 
 With all that earth can give ? 
 
 No ! there are memories which ache and burn, 
 
 And bitter tears to flow ; 
 In each light-seeming heart, a shrouded urn, 
 
 Sacred to love and woe. 
 
 They had asked answering looks, from eyes now dead, 
 Hands they had clasped, were bone; 
 
 t hit of their path beloved things had fled, 
 Into a world unknown. 
 
 Day after day, their forced and fitful mirth 
 
 Sunk into deeper gloom, 
 I'litil. to all alike, the glad warm earth 
 
 Seemed rayless, as the tomb.
 
 102 
 
 Then came they from the feast, in blank despair, 
 
 Seeking that lonely seer ; 
 As if there needed but a prophet's prayer 
 
 To quench sorrow, and fear. 
 
 Alas ! the mind which in its anguish flies 
 
 Still to the joys of earth, 
 To nought, but hollow sensualities, 
 
 And grovelling hope, gives birth. 
 
 They prayed, as if the deep laws of the sky, 
 
 Which in God's heart abide, 
 Coeval with his own eternity, 
 
 Could thus be set aside : 
 
 As if the Lord, that Spirit pure and just. 
 
 Who sees the soul within, 
 Would give immortal life to this vile dust, 
 
 Or happiness to sin.
 
 The rapt seer heard he felt celestial ire 
 
 O'ermastering his will ; 
 He started to his utmost height, as fire 
 
 Leaps from some caverned hill. 
 
 With pangs, on which no human eye could look. 
 
 Beneath some touch of power, 
 The prophet's mighty stature reeled and shook. 
 
 Like an imperial tower, 
 
 Which feels the earthquake, raging underground 
 
 Against its marble root, 
 Whilst the calm air above it, and around, 
 
 Stirs not the ripened fruit. 
 
 A brooding stillness covered all things near, 
 
 As if before a storm, 
 I'ntil, like evil spirits, Pain and Fear 
 
 Fled from his stately form.
 
 1 0-1 
 
 Then, as the dead upon a field of fight, 
 
 After a hard-fought day, 
 That impious multitude, in dumb affright, 
 
 Around the prophet lay. 
 
 His keen eye, sharper than a two-edged sword. 
 
 Smote on them from afar ; 
 On his high front, the presence of the Lord 
 
 Sat like a burning star. 
 
 He spoke of those unquiet souls, which lie 
 
 Fast bound in chains of clay ; 
 Of the strong hope of immortality 
 
 Thrown, like a weed, away ; 
 
 Till all high aspirations, one by one, 
 
 Fade from the darkened heart ; 
 As those brief splendours, which outlive the sun. 
 
 From the grey clouds depart.
 
 10.J 
 
 The world," he said, " beyond their senses dim. 
 
 The realm of upper air, 
 Invisible to all on earth, but him, 
 
 Before his eye lay bare." 
 
 Often, he said, with a deep sense of awe, 
 
 His heart within him died, 
 Rebuked by some high presence ; and he saw 
 
 A spirit at his side : 
 
 And voices of strange music hovered near, 
 
 Denouncing deatli and woe ; 
 Or demon laughters jarred upon his ear, 
 
 In mocking cadence slow. 
 
 lie told them, how before his tranced eye. 
 
 From morn to eventide, 
 Visions of a sad future floated by : 
 
 And one there was, that cried
 
 106 
 
 " Let loose the wild winds in their destined flight, 
 
 For I, the Lord, must sweep 
 The offending sons of Adam from my sight : 
 
 Let loose the raging deep." 
 
 The prophet paused an awful shadow smote 
 
 The flower-enamelled sod 
 A sound there was, as thunder heard remote. 
 
 And Enoch walked with God.
 
 ODE ON THE FALL OF POLAND. 
 
 POLAND has fallen ! Heaven ! how long 
 
 Shall fraud and tyranny he strong ? 
 How long shall Russia's impious lord he free 
 
 To trample on the hearts of men, 
 That he may turn, with smiles of savage glee. 
 
 To revel in his Arctic den '. 
 
 What ! must the sword of righteous vengeance sleep 
 Must the warm heart its even tenor keep .' 
 
 And shroud its feelings from the light. 
 
 And veil its horror and affright, 
 
 Lest we should rouse the Muscovite .'
 
 108 ON THE FALL OF POLAND. 
 
 Alas ! how great is England's fall ; 
 
 Was it for this she smote the Gaul ? 
 
 And poured her blood, like summer rain, 
 
 Upon the burning fields of Spain ? 
 
 Is it to this barbaric race 
 
 That the fierce Corsican gave place ? 
 
 Alas ! old Warsaw's crumbling wall 
 
 Startled no echo in its fall : 
 
 Though Poland flung her banners forth, 
 
 Against the millions of the north : 
 
 And faced the slaves, who rushed to slay. 
 
 Like some proud forest-stag at bay, 
 
 In foreign lands, no answering shout 
 
 From nations burst in thunder out ; 
 
 No people started from their rest, 
 
 No trumpet sounded in the west ; 
 
 That high and holy enterprise 
 
 Awoke no feeling, but surprise. 
 
 The hatred ceasing but with life, 
 
 The fierce roar of the rapid strife.
 
 ON THE FALL OF POLAND. 
 
 The smoke, the death-fires covering all around, 
 
 As though from some volcano cast, 
 The heavy tramp, that shook the heated ground, 
 
 As if an earthquake past, 
 The axe of vengeance raised and bare, 
 
 The despot's panting haste to smite, 
 The high hearts breaking in despair, 
 
 As the last column sunk in light, 
 On Europe's languid senses fell, 
 Like a theatric spectacle; 
 Yea ; as in some luxurious room, 
 
 We lix our rapt and earnest eyes 
 On scenes, which some great limner's sight. 
 In darkness saw by its own light, 
 Wild paintings full of death and gloom, 
 I -ike dreams arrested in their flight ; 
 
 ^ et. feel no human sympathies 
 l-'or the pale forms within, which seem 
 Convulsed in suffering's fierce extreme,
 
 110 ON THE FALL OF POLAND. 
 
 So gazed the sons of Europe all 
 On that brave land's disastrous'fall. 
 Alone they stood, alone they fell, 
 Sprung from those knights, to God, and Europe true, 
 Whose war-cry well the Turkish Spahi knew. 
 Whose coursers, as the tameless eagle, flew, 
 Whose spears, like fire set to grass, broke through 
 
 The masses of the infidel ; 
 And gave to death the turbaned lord 
 Of many an Asiatic horde, 
 When from the East, with fierce acclaim. 
 The children of the Crescent came, 
 Like locusts warping on the wind, 
 To leave despair and death behind. 
 Alone they stood, alone they fell ; 
 For many a month, the cannon's roar 
 Boomed from old Warsaw's citadel ; 
 For many a month, with earthquake sound. 
 The hoofs of charging horsemen tore
 
 ON THE FALL OF POLAND. Ill 
 
 The bloody turf around : 
 
 And still untamed, from day to day, 
 
 They kept the noi'thern wolf away, 
 But help in none was found. 
 
 Instead of filling heaven and earth 
 
 With the loud trumpet's awful mirth ; 
 
 Instead of pouring to the breeze 
 
 A shout, like the awakened seas ; 
 
 Instead of pressing to the strife, 
 
 Like lightnings bursting into life : 
 
 Instead of leaping on the foe 
 
 As leaps the eager lawine-snow ; 
 
 All fawned around the man of blood ; 
 
 All fawned around him, as he stood 
 
 On freedom stiffening in her gore, 
 
 With his foul triumph crimsoned o'er. 
 Kven now the threat of vengeance is deferred. 
 No people breathes a single word ; 
 
 Though still within that stately rity. 
 The sob of breaking hearts is heard,
 
 112 ON THE FAM, OF POLAND. 
 
 For the tyrant has no pity ; 
 
 The buoyant hope, the keen desire. 
 
 Which filled the souls of all with fire ; 
 
 Now to the eye doth seem, 
 
 The shadow of an unrcmembered dream : 
 Silent, and cold, like some deep frozen stream. 
 
 Which none would deem to be the rill. 
 That in the golden summer's beam, 
 With gurgling rush, and dazzling gleam. 
 Leapt joyously from hill to hill. 
 
 Alike on every spirit press 
 
 Deep lassitude and hopelessness; 
 
 Alike, by day and night, on all 
 
 The Tartar's iron scourges fall. 
 
 The vassal, on the ravaged wold 
 
 Sighs for the glorious deeds of old : 
 
 He sighs in secret, to behold 
 
 The downfall of his country's pride. 
 
 Wherewith, he was identified : 
 
 He mourns, because his native lord,
 
 ON THE FALL OF POLAND. 113 
 
 The son of an heroic name, 
 (Now fading, like an unfed flame) 
 Is forced, even as the idle foam 
 Shifts in the changing gale, to roam 
 
 With crest defaced, and useless sword, 
 An exile from his ruined home : 
 The warworn noble must endure, 
 
 In bitterness of heart, to see 
 The axe of ruthless vengeance laid, 
 
 To his ancestral tree ; 
 Beneath whose venerable shade, 
 In all the pomp of age displayed, 
 
 The peasant slept secure : 
 See that young mother, trembling there, 
 Pale, as a statue of despair. 
 What recks she, that like death around 
 The harsh blast strikes the lifeless ground .' 
 To her intense, and cureless grief, 
 Such outward suffering, is relief.
 
 Ill ON THE FALL OF POLAND. 
 
 See ! how with feeble steps and slow, 
 
 She tracks, along the frozen snow, 
 
 The crowded wain, wherein is borne. 
 
 From arms of clasping fondness torn. 
 
 The child of some historic stem, 
 
 Who might have worn a diadem. 
 
 Perchance the fairest flower of all, 
 
 The life of some ancestral hall, 
 
 She moved, like light, to cheer and blus> 
 
 A very star of loveliness : 
 
 Who tore that child of hope away .' 
 
 Who turned those locks of gold to grey .' 
 
 Who pierced that heart of love from far. 
 
 And outraged nature thus .' The C'/.ar ! 
 
 Alas! alas ! for Poland's fate ; 
 
 Her castles now are desolate ; 
 
 Kach city, is a place of tears. 
 
 The home of woe, and killing fears ; 
 
 OVr her wide meadows, like a blight. 
 
 Hath swept the ruthless Muscovite .
 
 ON THE FALL OF POLAND. 115 
 
 Her bravest children wake to weep 
 
 Their ruined country's woe, 
 Where the cold skies of northern Asia steep 
 The trackless plains in snow : 
 On wilds above, in mines below, 
 
 The mark of servile scorn ; 
 Forbid o'er Poland's fate to sigh, 
 Too proud to sink, too brave to die, 
 From Poland, and from glory, torn, 
 They live, forgotten, and forlorn. 
 No more, as in the days of old, no more 
 
 Does God fight visibly for martyrs hen- : 
 Our dim eyes reach not to the happy shore. 
 
 Beyond time's clouded ocean moaning near: 
 Therefore it is, that round my spirit cling, 
 Dejection deep as death, forlorn dismay, 
 And heaviness, that will not pass away. 
 We cannot in our blindness see, 
 What will, what ought to be ; 
 \\ e cannot soar on angel's win.
 
 IK) ON THE FALL OF POLAND. 
 
 Above the atmosphere of doubt and gloom, 
 
 Which makes this wide earth darker than the tomb. 
 
 Into that upper air, 
 
 Where all is bright and fair ; 
 The soul is fettered to a heavy doom, 
 
 Which it must learn to bear : 
 But still, the eyes of Heaven do not sleep, 
 The wisdom of the universe is deep ; 
 Though all around be dark, 'tis not for man 
 The footsteps of the Lord to scan : 
 What though we cannot shape the lightning's way 
 To scare the tiger from his prey ? 
 
 What though we dare not say, 
 That heaven will rain down vengeance from above. 
 
 On those who draw the sword to slay '( 
 It is enough to know, that God is love. 
 
 And wiser than the sons of clav.
 
 SYMPATHY. 
 
 THE dew-drop is a trivial thing, 
 Yet it lends freshness to the rose, 
 
 When diamonds, from the sun would fling, 
 New withering on her wan repose. 
 
 With pride of their own lustre fired, 
 The unloving gems burn on in vain ; 
 
 The humble dew-drop, love inspired, 
 Can wake the flower to life again. 
 
 Judge not a gift from outward show, 
 Nor test it by its actual worth ; 
 
 These are its body, far below, 
 
 Its soul, is that which gives it birth.
 
 TO TWO SISTER BRIDES, 
 
 WHO WERE MARRIED ON THE SAME DAY. 
 
 NOT surely to unmix 'cl delight, 
 
 Not to unhesitating mirth, 
 These trembling veils of virgin white 
 
 And bridal orange-flowers give birth. 
 
 In the same cradle ye have slept 
 The sleep that only childhood may. 
 
 Together smiled, together wept, 
 
 Together knelt, and learned to pray.
 
 TO TWO SISTER BRIDES. 119 
 
 Together ! in that solemn word 
 What depth of love, what meaning lies ; 
 
 It is, as if the heart were stirred 
 By angel hymns from Paradise. 
 
 And now these twin-like years are o'er, 
 These clasping tendrils disentwined, 
 
 Your thoughts and hopes can flow no more 
 As channelled in a single mind. 
 
 Behind you, shifting rapidly 
 
 As the wild rack beneath the blast, 
 In mazy movement, flutter by 
 
 The dream-like tissues of the past. 
 
 Before you, full of mystery, 
 
 Ages unborn their shadows fling : 
 Time, with its seed eternity. 
 
 Sleeps in each slender marriage ring.
 
 120 THE TWO SISTER BRIDES. 
 
 What marvel, then, that as ye kneel, 
 There fall some consecrating tears. 
 
 That dizzily ye seem to feel 
 
 The motion of the moving spheres ? 
 
 But though dim shapes the air may fill, 
 One spot of heaven smiles above, 
 
 Through which, with lustre calm and still. 
 Shines on your hearts, the star of love. 
 
 And wider yet, from day to day 
 
 That stainless spot on high, shall spread 
 Vnd yet more full, love's deathless ray, 
 Cover with light each graceful head. 
 
 Cold were the man whose eves could re>i 
 On this beloved and lovelv pair, 
 
 Nor feel within his thrilling breast. 
 A gush of blessing and of prayer.
 
 THE TWO SISTER BRIDES. 121 
 
 Ay, coldert han the sunless north 
 
 Than the frore gale that numbs the sea 
 
 The heart that is not rushing forth, 
 
 Like brooks, by sudden spring set free. 
 
 Not such the multitudes, who press 
 
 To look upon you once again, 
 In reverential tenderness, 
 
 And tears, half pleasure and half pain. 
 
 Oh, priceless tribute! these are they 
 
 Whose lives were soothed and raised by you ; 
 
 On whom your gentle presence lay, 
 As upon flowers, the evening dew. 
 
 Their loss they know, yet it is borne 
 
 Without a touch of seltish fear; 
 Albeit, as if the spring were torn 
 
 For ever, from the rolling year.
 
 122 THE TWO SISTER BRIDES. 
 
 Not human hearts alone the skies 
 (Nor over dark, nor over bright), 
 
 Are clad in mystic sympathies, 
 
 Of tender gloom, and chastened light. 
 
 So mild the sun, so soft the grey, 
 It almost seems, as if there were 
 
 A spirit, in the silent day 
 A feeling, on the lifeless air : 
 
 As if these lawns and woodlands, full 
 Of a deep instinct, resting not, 
 
 Motioned away the beautiful, 
 In loving sadness, to their lol. 
 
 Yes and for both that lot shall glow 
 With splendours, not the gift of time; 
 
 Keeping undimmed, through weal and woe. 
 The promise of its maiden prime 1 .
 
 THE TWO SISTER BRIDES. 123 
 
 High hopes are thine, oh! eldest flower, 
 
 Great duties to be greatly done ; 
 To soothe, in many a toil-worn hour, 
 
 The noble heart which thou hast won. 
 
 Covet not then the rest of those, 
 
 Who sleep through life unknown to fame; 
 
 Fate grants not passionless repose 
 To her, who weds a glorious name. 
 
 Hi 1 presses on through calm and storm 
 
 I nshaken, let what will betide; 
 Thou hast an office to perform, 
 
 To be his answering spirit bride. 
 
 Tin- path appointed for his feet, 
 
 Through desert wilds, and rocks may go. 
 
 \\ here the eye looks in vain to greet 
 The gales, that from the waters blow.
 
 124 THE TWO SISTER BRIDES. 
 
 Be thou a balmy breeze to him, 
 A fountain singing at his side ; 
 
 A star, whose light is never dim, 
 A pillar, to uphold and guide. 
 
 Nay, haply, not of thee alone, 
 This proud futurity is true ; 
 
 Wreaths, on as green a laurel grown, 
 To thy bright sister may be due. 
 
 Your happy destiny has been, 
 To find another tie in them, 
 
 Who might have rudely rushed between 
 The sister roses on the stem. 
 
 Like double stars, the even beam 
 Of their young glory burns on you; 
 
 So that the nearer heart may deem 
 Her own, the brighter of the two.
 
 THE TWO SISTER BRIDES. 1 2."j 
 
 Let this yet more your souls unite, 
 
 Into one woven thought and will; 
 Reflecting, like twin mirrors, light 
 
 And beauty on each other still.
 
 TO LEONORA. 
 
 IT is a joy and blessing to behold 
 Maidens of such ethereal mood, 
 
 Ripening, amid the smiles of young and old, 
 Into the bloom of womanhood. 
 
 1 saw thee, moving like a seraph's bride. 
 
 Serenely gay in quiet grace ; 
 And marked, on thine own river's grassy side, 
 
 The beauty of that thoughtful face.
 
 TO LEONORA. 
 
 The native warmth of feelings, pure and deep, 
 
 Alternating with graceful glee, 
 The souls of all, within thy sphere, did steep 
 
 In fond, and yearning love, for thee. 
 
 The meekness of a spirit without strife, 
 A heart from grief and passion free, 
 
 Just showed how beautiful a thing, the life 
 So wasted here on earth, might be. 
 
 I see thee in a dHierent scene to-night, 
 Hurried along in pleasure's round ; 
 
 A thousand lamps have filled the air with light, 
 Rich flowers are dropping to the ground. 
 
 In me the dance, in me this painted room. 
 
 With all its empty forms of mirth, 
 '|'H nothing, but a sense of smothered gloom, 
 
 \nd heaviness of heart, <rivcs birth.
 
 128 TO LEONORA. 
 
 Thou too its chilling influence hast proved ; 
 
 Thy smiles as yet their sweetness keep, 
 But not their sunny flash ; the voice I loved. 
 
 Though musical, is not so deep. 
 
 Oh thou, whom all things flatter and caress, 
 Take heed lest meaner thoughts invade 
 
 That soul of reverential tenderness, 
 For all, which the high God has made. 
 
 Fly from this scene of jealousy and strife, 
 The realms where vanity has power : 
 
 This joyless and unprofitable life, 
 Suits not so delicate a flowvr. 
 
 To thy old feelings, and old haunts, return ; 
 
 The woods the streams the ocean flood 
 And the undying stars of night, which hurn 
 
 Like seraphs in the house of God.
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF A DEAR FRIEND. 
 
 I N our dim eyes too often doth it seem, 
 
 As it' the Architect of earthly life 
 
 Built, only to pull down the burning lamp 
 
 Of genius, in the very dawn of youth, 
 
 And love, and happiness, before its orb, 
 
 Has gathered strength to shed a deathless light 
 
 I poll the drear gloom of humanity, 
 
 FeeU the chill blast of death, and vanishes 
 
 In the shadowy silence of the past. 
 
 The star is quenched by Him who framed its sphen
 
 130 TO THE MEMORY OF A DEAR FRIEND. 
 
 When it begins .to shine. The forest oak, 
 
 Nurtured, and cherished long, in one short moment 
 
 Is smitten by God's thunder into dust. 
 
 The temple of the soul, elaborate 
 
 In splendour, and endowed with glorious gifts, 
 
 At once, as if in sport, is overthrown 
 
 By the same hand that raised it, leaving here 
 
 Sorrow that dieth not. Friend of my youth. 
 
 Lamented spirit of lost excellence, 
 
 Thus has it been with tliee ! the intellect, 
 
 Whose light was rising like a sun the heart 
 
 Instinct with love, together have sunk down 
 
 Into the darkness of the sepulchre. 
 
 Alas! for those who watched tliee with (k'ep love 
 
 Who knew thee as thou wert and daily said, 
 
 When will his spirit open her strong wings, 
 
 Scaling the heaven of fame? when shall we see 
 
 His name, engraven among those which shine 
 
 Imperishable, with a starry lire 
 
 Piercing the sullen mists of death and time '.
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF A DEAR FRIEND. 131 
 
 It is indeed a heavy blow but yet 
 
 Not altogether sorrowful not bare 
 
 Of solemn consolation. If we turn 
 
 To the old time, and picture to ourselves 
 
 The loss of a dear friend, we shall be taught 
 
 How light our burden is. Everything then 
 
 Ended with life the proud philosopher 
 
 Smiled in derision at the blessed hope 
 
 Of immortality, and endless love 
 
 Among the spirits of departed men, 
 
 Coldly repeating, " Let us eat and drink, 
 
 To-morrow we shall die." The poet's soul, 
 
 Feeding on melancholy thoughts of death. 
 
 And dull annihilation in the tomb, 
 
 Envied the falling flowers, and rotting leaves. 
 
 Their annual life. Under the mellow light 
 
 Of sunset, on the warm Sicilian sea - 
 
 l.'nder the moon, and the ethereal ray 
 
 Of the clear stars, amid the works of (Jod. 
 
 I nconscious of his own high destiny, 
 
 K '_'
 
 1.'32 TO TIIF. MF.MOKY OF A DEAR FRIEND. 
 
 He walked, musing uncomforted, and drew 
 
 From the chill Stygian fountain of despair, 
 
 The yearning pathos of his deathless verse. 
 
 Alas! how hopeless then, the pilgrimage 
 
 Of life, how sharp and terrible the stroke 
 
 Sundering the bonds of love ! We should have stood 
 
 Over his early tomb, and scattered flowers 
 
 To perish, and shed perfumes on the ground : 
 
 With a vain providence we should have called 
 
 The dews of heaven, to keep for ever green 
 
 The consecrated spot, and bid the winds 
 
 liivathe low and deep around; we should have pr;:\e<i 
 
 The Naiades and Dryads, to respect 
 
 The silence of his everlasting sleep. 
 
 Finding, alas! in prayers and hopes like the-r 
 
 A feeble solace and a last resource 
 
 For the rich fund of tenderness, and love. 
 
 Which. ba'Ked as it was, in the warm he-art 
 
 Lav undecayed, and inexhaustible. 
 
 Owning the horrible supn maev
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF A DEAK FKIEXU. 
 
 Of death, over the hopes and joys of man, 
 
 We should have clung to the delights of earth, 
 
 Anchoring our hearts on sensuality, 
 
 And the low pleasures of this mortal state, 
 
 To spare ourselves such woe. With dust, and mud, 
 
 We should have choked the fount of love within, 
 
 That its deep waters might be vexed no more. 
 
 How miserable ! happier far to know 
 
 The word of Heaven, to be empowered to say, 
 
 Not in the grave, not in the loathsome pit 
 
 Of darkness, is the friend we love entombed. 
 
 He lives in God through life, unstained like him. 
 
 Let us pass, comforting the heart with hope 
 
 <)I meeting, in the sunnv land of souls.
 
 A COMMON PROSPECT. 
 
 How strange it must he without any pain, 
 
 To lie upon the hed of death ; 
 As the last pulses thrill each languid vein. 
 
 And the lip trembles yet with breath : 
 
 Whilst the clear spirit, all unchanged within. 
 
 Looks back along life's eddying stream, 
 And feels reality at length begin, 
 
 After a Ions and fevered dream.
 
 A COMMON PROSPECT. 
 
 That scene made up of darkness, and of light, 
 
 The irrecoverable past, 
 Like a great picture lies before our sight, 
 
 Seen all at once from first to last. 
 
 Its hopes, its passions, its events, we see, 
 Its acts of hate, and fear, and love, 
 
 Just as the gate of immortality 
 Turns on its golden hinge above. 
 
 Some think of time alone, to others life 
 
 Is the porch of eternity : 
 In that last hour of inward calm, or strife. 
 
 How awful must the difference be!
 
 SONNET 
 
 \\KITTF.N IN THL FIRST PAGE OF WORDSWORTH s I'OLM> 
 
 IN tliis high poet's song, you will not iind 
 
 Fierce passion painted with a demon's force. 
 
 Vice, by wild incongruities relir.L-d, 
 
 And every virtue poisoned at its source. 
 
 Nor yet, marked by strange hatred of mankind 
 
 The drunken anguish of a false remorse : 
 
 His soul is calm and lofty as a star, 
 
 Nor does he sing to give his spirit rest. 
 
 And charm to peace the hell within hi !>re-i-t. 
 
 Hut as a quiet lake reflects from tar, 
 
 The forests, and the mountains, and the kv . 
 
 Thus, led by nature as a loving niii'M'. 
 
 His mind is made her mirror, and IIH UT<< 
 
 Is full of hope, and immortality.
 
 SONNET. 
 
 Yor spake of reason, of reality, 
 
 As if high monuments of mental power 
 
 Were nought but dreams, to be thrown idly by. 
 
 Just glanced at, and forgotten in an hour. 
 
 A hollow creed, and false philosophy, 
 
 Fur one so pure and beautiful to hold. 
 
 Let others phantom-following, strive in vain, 
 
 'I'u make those mocking visions, fame and gold, 
 
 A haven and a resting-place for life. 
 
 But live not thou with thin, own heart at strife 
 
 il'o build up llutt in beauty, without stain, 
 
 1> the true end of being and (iod has given. 
 
 i. Lest the soul faint in weariness and pain,) 
 
 F.thereal wings, to lift her np to heaven.
 
 SONNET 
 
 WRITTEN IN A MOUNTAINOUS COUNTRY. 
 
 THE poet, is like one by fancy led, 
 
 Whose footsteps in the lonely morning press 
 
 Some stubborn lull of difficult access, 
 
 Which seems to lengthen on above his head, 
 
 As though it sported with his weariness. 
 
 His path is steeped in vapour dark as death, 
 
 And flooded with chill mist whilst to and fro 
 
 Thousands, along the dusty road beneath, 
 
 Securely in bright sunshine come and go : 
 
 But, ever and anon, in that steep way 
 
 The sudden mountain gales, with joyous breath. 
 
 Uproot the seated clouds the sun's warm ray 
 
 Leaps forth, and on wide plains below are thrown 
 
 Ethereal splendours, seen by him alone.
 
 SONNET TO PERDITA, 
 
 ON THE OCCASION OF SENDING HER A TRIFLING PRESENT. 
 
 A MOMENTARY wish passed through my brain, 
 To be the monarch of a magic place 
 Thick sown with burning gems, or to constrain 
 The uncouth help of some half-demon race, 
 Vexing the pearl-paved hollows of the main 
 For thee, and starry caverns in far space : 
 It was a wish unwisely formed, and vain ; 
 Even in the humblest trifles, love can trace 
 That which no mine can give, no Genii's wing 
 From depths beneath, or heights above can bring. 
 The memories of each kind look and tone, 
 Gestures, and glancing smiles, into the gift 
 I'ass like a living spirit, and uplift 
 IN value, to the level of their own.
 
 SONNET 
 
 ON HEADING SOME AMERICAN POETU1. 
 
 HICK strains and pure, worthy to live and shiiu 1 
 By tlii'ir own light hereafter, still in these 
 I find not what I sought, ye ancient seas, 
 And matchless rivers, Forests of dark pine, 
 And of each tree that lires the autumn bree/e 
 With myriad quivering colours, bright as gold, 
 Maple and beech, and leagues of clustering vine. 
 Hound huge hill-shrouding oaks, that have grown old 
 Unmarked, save by the changeless stars divine. 
 There come from you no solemn presences 
 Shaping the hearts of men no spirit glides 
 From I he vast woods at night, no marvellous dreams 
 Flow from the sullen shade, in whom abides 
 The ^ceptre of the ever-sounding stream*.
 
 SONNET 
 
 ON 11F.ING ASKED TO WRITE A DESCRIPTION OK \ 
 BRILLIANT SUNSET, IN VEKSE. 
 
 IT cannot be; the effort to transfuse 
 
 Into dead, measured form, this setting sun, 
 
 With its rich harmony of living hues, 
 
 Painter and hard alike would wisely shun : 
 
 We may not hope to reach that mighty one. 
 
 The Prince and Chief of Authors, who imbues 
 
 This ancient heaven, bright earth, and stainless 
 
 With ;i more deep and wondrous poesy. 
 
 Creator Maker Poet -is //is name, 
 
 Not ours, who struggle painfully to climb, 
 
 Clothed only with the shadow of the same. 
 
 Whilst He on visionary heights sublime 
 
 S,r- fathomless of soul, and placidly 
 
 K> > ps weaving on his giant epic Time.
 
 THE DONCASTER ST. LEGER. 
 
 This poem is intended to illustrate the spirit of York- 
 shire racing, now unhappily, or happily, as the rase may 
 he, on the decline. The perfect acquaintance of every 
 peasant on the ground, with the pedigrees, performance's, 
 and characters of the horses engaged his genuine interest 
 in the result and the mixture of hatred and contempt 
 which he used to feel for the Newmarket favourites, who 
 came down to carry off his great national prize, must he 
 well known to everybody who has ever crossed the Trent in 
 August or September : altogether it constituted a peculiar 
 modification of English feeling, which I thought deserved
 
 THE DONCASTER ST. LEGER. 
 
 to be recorded; and in default of a more accomplished 
 Pindar, I have here endeavoured to do so. 
 
 THE sun is bright, the sky is clear, 
 
 Ahove the crowded course, 
 As the mighty moment draweth near 
 
 Whose issue shows the horse. 
 The fairest of the land are here 
 To watch the struggle of the year, 
 The dew of beauty and of mirth, 
 Lies on the living flowers of earth, 
 And blushing cheek and kindling eye 
 Lend brightness to the sun on high : 
 And every corner of the north, 
 Has poured her hardy yeomen forth ; 
 The dweller by the glistening rills 
 That sound among the Craven hills; 
 The stalwart husbandman who holds 
 His plough upon the eastern wolds;
 
 141 THE DONCASTF.R ST. I.IXiER. 
 
 The sallow shrivelled artisan. 
 
 Twisted below the height of man, 
 
 Whose limbs and life have mouldered down 
 
 Within some foul and clouded town, 
 
 Are gathered thickly on the lea, 
 
 Or streaming from far homes to see 
 
 If Yorkshire keeps her old renown , 
 
 Or if the dreaded Derby horse 
 
 Can tear the laurel from her course ; 
 
 With the same look in every face, 
 
 The same keen feeling, they retrace 
 
 The legends of each ancient race : 
 
 Recalling Reveller in his pride, 
 
 Or Ulacklock of the mighty stride, 
 
 Or listening to some grey-haired sage 
 
 Full of the dignity of age ; 
 
 How, neither pace, nor length, could tire 
 
 Old Mnley Moloch's speed and fire: 
 
 How Ilambletonian beal of yore 
 
 Such racers, as are s^cii no more :
 
 THE DONCASTER ST. LEGER. 
 
 How Yorkshire coursers, swift as they, 
 Would leave this southern horse half way, 
 But that the creatures of to-day, 
 Are cast in quite a different mould, 
 From what he recollects of old. 
 Clear peals the bell; (at that known sound). 
 Like bees, the people cluster round ; 
 On either side upstarting then 
 One thick dark wall of breathing men. 
 Far down as eye can stretch, is seen 
 Along yon vivid strip of green, 
 Where keenly watched by countless eyes- 
 Mid hopes, and fears, and prophecies, 
 Now fast, now slow, now here, now there. 
 With hearts of lire, and limbs of air, 
 Snorting and prancing sidling by 
 With arching neck, and glancing eye, 
 in every shape of strength and LTa-'e. 
 The horses gather for the race ;
 
 146 THE DOXCASTEK ST. LEGER. 
 
 Soothed for a moment all, they stand 
 Together, like a sculptured band, 
 Each quivering eyelid flutters thick, 
 Each face is flushed, each heart beats quick ; 
 And all around dim murmurs pass, 
 Like low winds moaning on the grass. 
 Again the thrilling signal sound 
 And off at once, with one long bound, 
 Into the speed of thought they leap, 
 Like a proud ship rushing to the deep. 
 
 A start ! a start ! they're off, by heaven. 
 Like a single horse, though twenty-seven, 
 And mid the flash of silks we scan 
 A Yorkshire jacket in the van ; 
 
 Hurrah ! for the bold bay mare ! 
 
 I'll pawn my soul her place is there 
 
 Unheaded to the last, 
 For a thousand pounds, she wins unpast 
 
 Hurrah! for the matchless mare!
 
 THE DONCASTER ST. LEGEK. 147 
 
 A hundred yards have glided by 
 
 And they settle to the race, 
 More keen becomes each straining eye, 
 
 More terrible the pace. 
 Unbroken yet o'er the gravel road 
 Like maddening waves the troop has flowed, 
 
 But the speed begins to tell. 
 And Yorkshire sees, with eye of fear, 
 The Southron stealing from the rear. 
 
 Ay ! mark his action well ! 
 Behind he is, but what repose ! 
 How steadily and clean he goes ! 
 What latent speed his limbs disclose ! 
 What power in every stride he shows ! 
 They see, they feel, from man to man 
 The shivering thrill of terror ran, 
 And every soul instinctive knew 
 It lay between the mighty two. 
 The world without, the sky above. 
 
 Have glided from their straining eves-
 
 148 TIIF. DOXCASTEH ST. LF.OEH. 
 
 Future and past, and hate and love, 
 
 The life that wanes, the friend that d it- 
 Even grim remorse, who sits behind 
 Each thought and motion of the mind, 
 These now are nothing, Time and Space 
 Lie in the rushing of the race; 
 As with keen shouts of hope and fear 
 They watch it in its wild career. 
 Still far a-head of the glittering throng. 
 Dashes the eager mare along, 
 And round the turn, and past the hill, 
 Slides up the Derby winner still. 
 The twenty-live that lay between 
 Arc blotted from the stirring scene, 
 And the wild cries which rang so loud. 
 Sink by degrees throughout the crowd. 
 To one deep humming, like the roar 
 Of swollen seas on a northern shore. 
 
 In distance dwindling to the eye 
 Uigbt opposite the stand they lie.
 
 THE DONCASTER ST. LEOEK. 149 
 
 And scarcely seem to stir ; 
 Though an Arab scheich his wives would give 
 For a single steed, that with them could live 
 
 Three hundred yards, without the spur. 
 Hut though so indistinct and small, 
 You hardly see them move at all, 
 There are not wanting signs, which show 
 Defeat is busy as they go. 
 Look how the mass, which rushed away 
 As full of spirit as the day, 
 So close compacted for a while, 
 Is lengthening into single iile. 
 Now inch by inch it breaks, and wide 
 And spreading gaps the line divide. 
 As forward still, and far away 
 I'ndulates on the tired array 
 (Jay colours, momently less bright, 
 Fade dickering on the gazer's siirht. 
 Till keenest eyes can scarcely trace 
 I'lie onward ripple of the race.
 
 150 THE DONCASTER ST. LEGER. 
 
 Care sits on every lip and brow. 
 
 " Who leads? who fails? how goes it now?" 
 
 One shooting spark of life intense, 
 
 One throb of refluent suspense, 
 
 And a far rainbow-coloured light 
 
 Trembles again upon the sight. 
 
 Look to yon turn ! Already there 
 
 Gleams the pink and black of the fiery mare. 
 
 And through that, which was but now a gap. 
 
 Creeps on the terrible white cap. 
 
 Uprises straight a quivering shout 
 
 Wrung from their fevered spirits out, 
 
 And runs like lire along the sod, 
 
 " He's there! lie's coining up, by Ci !" 
 
 Then momently like gusts, you heard, 
 
 " He's sixth he's lifth lie's fourth lie's third 
 
 As on, like some arrowy meteor-flame, 
 
 The stride of the Derby winner came. 
 
 And during all that anxious time, 
 (Sneer as it suits you at my rhyme)
 
 THE DONCASTER ST. LEGER. 151 
 
 The earnestness became sublime ; 
 Common and trite as is the scene 
 At once, so thrilling, and so mean, 
 To him who strives his heart to scan, 
 And feels the brotherhood of man, 
 That needs must be a mighty minute, 
 When a crowd has but one soul within it. 
 As some bright ship with every sail 
 Obedient to the urging gale, 
 Darts by vext hulls, which side by side, 
 Dismasted on the raging tide, 
 Are struggling onward, wild and wide, 
 Thus, through the reeling field he flew, 
 And near, and yet more near he drew ; 
 Each leap seems longer than the last, 
 Now now the second horse is past, 
 And the keen rider of the mare, 
 With haggard looks of feverish care, 
 Hangs forward on the speechless air, 
 By steady stillness nursing in 
 Tin 1 remnant of her speed to win.
 
 1.52 THE DONCASTER ST. LEGER. 
 
 One other bound one more 'tis done; 
 Right up to her the horse has run, 
 And head to head, and stride for stride 
 Newmarket's hope, and Yorkshire's pride. 
 Like horses harnessed side by side, 
 
 Are struggling to the goal. 
 Ride ! gallant son of Ebor, ride ! 
 For the dear honour of the north, 
 Stretch every bursting sinew forth, 
 
 Put out thy inmost soul, 
 And with knee, and thigh, and tightened rein. 
 Lift in the mare by might and main ; 
 Tlie feelings of the people reach, 
 What lies beyond the springs of speech, 
 So that there rises up no sound 
 From the wide human life around ; 
 One spirit flashes from each eye, 
 One impulse lifts each heart throat-high. 
 One short and panting silence broods, 
 O'er the wildly-working multitudes.
 
 THE DONCASTER ST. LEGEK. 15.3 
 
 As on the struggling coursers press, 
 So deep the eager silentness, 
 That underneath their feet the turf 
 Seems shaken, like the eddying surf 
 
 When it tastes the rushing gale, 
 And the singing fall of the heavy whips, 
 Which tear the flesh away in strips, 
 
 As the tempest tears the sail, 
 On the throbbing heart and quivering ear, 
 Strike vividly distinct, and near. 
 Hut. hark ! what a rending shout was there, 
 He's heat! he's beat! by heaven, the mare!" 
 J ust on the post she springs away 
 And by half a length has gained the day. 
 Then, how to life that silence wakes, 
 Ten thousand hats thrown up on high, 
 Solid darkness to the echoing sky, 
 And like the crash of hill-pent lakes, 
 Out bursting from their deepest fountains, 
 Among the rent and reeling mountains,
 
 154 THE DONCASTER ST. LEGER. 
 
 At once, from thirty thousand throats 
 
 Rushes the Yorkshire roar, 
 And the name of their northern winner floats 
 
 A league from the course, and more.
 
 THE OLD CAVALIER. 
 
 ' FOR our martyred Charles I pawned my plate 
 
 For his son 1 spent my all, 
 That a churl might dine, and drink my wine, 
 
 And preach in my father's hall: 
 That father died on Marston Moor, 
 
 My son on Worcester plain ; 
 Hut the king he turned his hack on me, 
 
 When he got his own again.
 
 156 THE OLD CAVALIER. 
 
 " The other day, there came, God wot ! 
 
 A solemn pompous ass, 
 Who begged to know if I did not go 
 
 To the sacrifice of mass : 
 I told him fairly to his face, 
 
 That in the field of fight, 
 1 had shouted loud for church and king, 
 
 When he would have run outriirht. 
 
 " He talked of the Man of Babylon 
 
 With his rosaries and copes, 
 As if a Roundhead wasn't worse 
 
 Than half a hundred Popes. 
 I don't know what the people mean. 
 
 With their horror and affright ; 
 All Papists that, I ever knew 
 
 Fought stoutly for the right.
 
 THE OLD CAVALIER. 157 
 
 ' 1 now am poor and lonely, 
 
 This cloak is worn and old, 
 But yet it warms my loyal heart 
 
 Through sleet, and rain, and cold, 
 When I call to mind the Cavaliers, 
 
 Bold Rupert at their head, 
 Bursting through blood, and fire, with cries 
 
 That might have waked the dead. 
 
 Then spur and sword, was the battle word, 
 
 And we made their helmets ring, 
 Howling, like madmen, all the while, 
 
 For (iod, and for the king. 
 And though they snuffled psalms, to give 
 
 The Rebel-dogs their due. 
 When the roaring-shot poured elose and hot. 
 
 Thev were stalwart men and true.
 
 158 THE OLD CAVALIER. 
 
 " On the fatal field of Naseby, 
 
 Where Rupert lost the day, 
 By hanging on the flying crowd 
 
 Like a lion on his prey, 
 I stood and fought it out, until, 
 
 In spite of plate and steel, 
 The blood that left my veins that day. 
 
 Flowed up above my heel. 
 
 " And certainly, it made those quail 
 
 Who never quailed before, 
 To look upon the awful front 
 
 Which Cromwell's horsemen wore. 
 I felt that every hope was gone, 
 
 When I saw their squadrons form, 
 And gather for the final charge, 
 
 Like the coming of the storm.
 
 THE OLD CAVALIER. 159 
 
 Oh ! where was Rupert in that hour 
 
 Of danger, toil, and strife : 
 It would have been to all brave men, 
 
 Worth a hundred years of life, 
 To have seen that black and gloomy force, 
 
 As it poured down in line, 
 Met midway by the Royal horse, 
 
 And Rupert of the Rhine. 
 
 All this is over now, and I 
 
 Must travel to the tomb, 
 Though the king I served lias got his own, 
 
 In poverty and gloom. 
 \\ I'll, well, I served him for himself, 
 
 So I must not now complain, 
 Hut I often wish that I had died 
 
 With my son on Worcester plain."
 
 THE EAGLE'S NEST. 
 
 THESE VERSES WERE SUGGESTED BY AN INCIDENT KM. 
 IN "WILD SPORTS OF THE WEST." 
 
 " Speed hither, all my vassals bold, 
 
 And in the brown rock's caverned breast, 
 
 Where yon huge fissure yawns, behold 
 The oeean eagle's nest. 
 
 'The waves beneath in thunder iling 
 Unbroken leagues of angry t'oani ; 
 
 Above, with iron beak and wing, 
 
 The Osprey wheels around her home.
 
 THE EAGLE'S NEST. 161 
 
 " Five hundred feet of sheer ascent, 
 
 As metal darkly smooth and bare, 
 No jutting stone, no twig is lent 
 
 To help the cragsman there. 
 
 " Who boasts a fearless heart, and limbs 
 
 Like the wild cat, or mountain roe, 
 An eye that neither winks nor swims, 
 
 Though the waves dance and shine below ? 
 
 " Who. in that rush, and whirl and glare, 
 
 A pulse unhurried can maintain ; 
 And face the mother-bird's despair, 
 
 With steady hand and brain?" 
 
 In air the chosen vassal stands, 
 
 Down swinging on his venturous quest ; 
 
 Now, now he touches it, his hands 
 Scrape round the unprotected nest.
 
 162 THE EAGLE'S NEST. 
 
 " Up with him, friends, in pride and mirth ! 
 
 Up with the rope, the prize is won !"- 
 Won is it ? no hy heaven and eartli 
 
 His task is but begun ! 
 
 With claws fast clenched, and eyes that gleam 
 Like light'ning when it leaps from high, 
 
 The vast bird swoops, with one long scream. 
 Flung forward through the echoing sky. 
 
 But gallantly and cheerily 
 
 The hunter shakes his faithful knife ; 
 Then with strung arm and measuring eye. 
 
 Makes ready for the strife. 
 
 And for a moment, from between 
 The covering wings of his wild foe. 
 
 Ilis upturned face by all was seen, 
 Untroubled wholly cheek and brow ;
 
 THE EAGLE'S NEST. 163 
 
 But as the bold bird swept around, 
 
 And keener shrill'd its frantic shriek, 
 At something in the savage sound, 
 
 The hunter's heart grew weak. 
 
 Those gloomy wings above him spread, 
 
 Cast, as he deemed, unnatural shade; 
 Whilst all about the eye-balls dread 
 
 Unnatural heat and brightness played. 
 
 Bold as the sun, he yet had grown 
 
 Among the grim and lonely hills, 
 Where many a legend dark, self-sown. 
 
 The air with influence rills. 
 
 His solitary shepherd hours, 
 
 In their wide silences were past, 
 \\ hilst gathering round him, viewless powers 
 
 Their shadow on his spirit cast.
 
 104 THE EAGLE'S NEST. 
 
 Weak only there, his nerves unstrung, 
 From early childhood ever drew 
 
 Omens from dreams, and blindly clung 
 To each wild tale that grew 
 
 On the night-covered mountain side, 
 
 Dim shapes which lurk away from men. 
 
 Under the hollow mists, that hide 
 
 The wailing stream, and haunted glen. 
 
 Hence in that breathless interim. 
 
 Ere the knife fell, like withering flame. 
 
 Each half-seen ghost and phantom grim 
 Across his memory came. 
 
 His strained sense imaged that it heard 
 The rocks with horrid laughter rife. 
 
 Whilst momently the demon-bird, 
 Grew larger into monstrous life.
 
 THE EAGLE'S NEST. 165 
 
 Wild gibbering faces flickered near, 
 
 Fantastic shapes convulsed the air, 
 A whisper glided round his ear, 
 
 " It is a fiend beware !" 
 
 Upwards he looked to the void heaven, 
 And downwards on the dazzling main ; 
 
 Whilst fiercely round and round were driven, 
 The surges of his eddying brain. 
 
 Ht> strikes at length, but on his eyes 
 Danced giddily the white wave's gleam, 
 
 As the whirling rocks and the wavering skies, 
 Kang to the eagle's scream. 
 
 Then 1 was dead silence upon high, 
 
 And the tall forms of armed men 
 Slioiu 1 motionless against the sky, 
 
 For a brief breathing-time, and then
 
 THE EAGLES NEST. 
 
 Huge frames of giant height and bone 
 Reeled all at once like foundering ships, 
 
 Whilst a low half-unconscious moan 
 Slid from their quivering lips. 
 
 Not idly from his comrades true, 
 
 Hissed forth that deep-drawn breath of dread. 
 For the stout cord was severed through, 
 
 To its last link of straining thread. 
 
 They fall together on their knees, 
 
 With one short thrilling prayer for aid. 
 
 To the good saints who rule the seas, 
 And the blest mother-maid. 
 
 Then without words their tasks they ply, 
 Sick with alternate fear and hope ; 
 
 Whilst the poor wretch instinctively 
 Clings senseless to the shivering rope.
 
 THE EAGLE'S NEST. 107 
 
 But still it holds together, still 
 
 They lift him silently and slow, 
 Inch after inch with steady skill, 
 
 Up from the depth below. 
 
 Hurrah! the arm of God can make 
 
 Frail thread as firm as iron bands, 
 His power forbids it now to break, 
 
 And safe the bloodless trembler stands. 
 
 The agony of that affright, 
 
 One awful sign remained to show 
 His hair went down as black as night, 
 
 It rises white as snow.
 
 THE MAMELUKE CHAIUJK. 
 
 LI;T the Arab courser go 
 
 Headlong on the silent foe ; 
 
 Their plumes may shine like mountain snow. 
 
 Like fire their iron tubes may glow, 
 
 Their cannon death on death may throw, 
 
 Their pomp, their pride, their strength, we know. 
 
 But let the Arab courser go. 
 
 The Aral) horse is free and bold, 
 His blood is noble from of old, 
 Through dams, and sires, many a one. 
 t p to the steed of Solomon.
 
 THE MAMELUKE CHARGE. 169 
 
 lie needs no spur to rouse his ire, 
 
 His limbs of beauty never tire, 
 
 Then, give the Arab horse the rein, 
 
 And their dark squares will close in vain. 
 
 Though loud the death-shot peal, and louder. 
 
 He will only neigh the prouder; 
 
 Though nigh the death-flash glare, and nigher, 
 
 He will face the storm of fire ; 
 
 He will leap the mound of slain, 
 
 Only let him have the rein. 
 
 The Arab horse will not shrink back, 
 
 Though death confront him in his track ; 
 
 I'he Arab horse will not shrink back, 
 
 And shall his rider's arm be slack? 
 
 No! By the (Jod who gave us life, 
 
 ( >ur souls are ready tor the strife. 
 
 \V e need no serried lines, to show 
 
 A gallant bearing to the foe. 
 
 U c need no trumpet to awake 
 
 'I'he thirst, which blood alone can slake.
 
 170 THE MAMELUKE CHARGE. 
 
 What is it that can stop our course, 
 
 Free riders of the Arab horse ? 
 
 (io brave the desert wind of fire 
 
 Go beard the lightning's look of ire 
 
 Drive back the ravening flames, which leap 
 
 In thunder from the mountain steep ; 
 
 But dream not, men of fifes and drums, 
 
 To stop the Arab when he comes : 
 
 Not tides of fire, not walls of rock, 
 
 Could shield you from that earthquake shock. 
 
 Come, brethren, come, too long we stay, 
 
 Tlie shades of night have rolled a\vav. 
 
 Too fast the golden moments fleet. 
 
 Charge, ere another pulse has beat ; 
 
 Before another breath is drawn, 
 
 Charge like the tiger on the lawn.
 
 LINKS ON THE SALE OF THE BLACK ARAB, 
 
 mi; GIFT 01 THE IMAUM or MUSCAT. 
 
 Vi.s ! it is well that lie should go, 
 The matchless present of a king, 
 
 From ends so vile, and thoughts so low, 
 As round the soul of England cling. 
 
 He was a horse for days of old, 
 
 When British hearts were firm and true, 
 I ntit for times so mean and cold, 
 
 And tlnit the greedy pedlars knew ;
 
 172 LINES ON THE SALE OF 
 
 They cared not, when to stranger-men 
 The courteous monarch's gift was sent : 
 
 That link'd therewith, for ever then 
 The honour of the people went. 
 
 They care not that the shameful tale 
 Throughout the wavering East is borne. 
 
 Making the sellers, and the sale, 
 A mark for just and hostile scorn. 
 
 What though with throbbing hearts we fear 
 Strange terrors rushing from afar, 
 
 And daily rather feel than hear 
 
 The stealthy tread of Russian war .' 
 
 Great thoughts, great deeds, and feelings high. 
 
 The sunshine of our British past. 
 All they can neither sell nor buy. 
 
 To heaven or hell awav they ca-t.
 
 THE BLACK ARAB. 173 
 
 Yes ! it is well that he should go, 
 
 The matchless present of a king, 
 From ends so vile, and thoughts so low, 
 
 As round the soul of England cling. 
 
 Tlit' spirit of his Arab sires 
 
 Would droop, as though in fetters bound, 
 With no reflection of its fires, 
 
 From aught that moved or breathed around. 
 
 England of yore was full of men, 
 
 Made strong to run a glorious course, 
 
 Of lion-port and eagle-ken, 
 Fit riders for the Arab horse. 
 
 His high heart, then, like mingling flame, 
 Into their brightness would have flowed ; 
 
 And, in his generous veins, the same 
 
 Free spirit would have lived and glowed.
 
 174 LINES ON THE SALE OF 
 
 Such were the fearless few who stood 
 Around a trembling tyrant's throne. 
 
 Eager to shed their dearest blood 
 On freedom's primal altar-stone. 
 
 Such were the giants who upsprimg 
 
 Round her who crushed insulting Spain. 
 
 When, from our arms and hearts, we flung 
 The fragments of the papal chain. 
 
 Such who, in old manorial halls, 
 Which yet with loyal echoes ring, 
 
 Live still along the storied walls 
 In armour for an outraged king. 
 
 Knights who at Naseby stood, and died 
 Unbroken by the Roundhead boor, 
 
 Or from broad death-wounds swelled the tidr 
 Of faithful blood on Marston-moor.
 
 THE BLACK ARAB. 
 
 Hut Faith, and Truth, and Chivalry, 
 And emanating powers, have fled ; 
 
 The veins of the worn earth are dry, 
 By which each mighty growth was ted. 
 
 Scarce, through the gathering dimness, One 
 True-hearted heir oi' ancient worth, 
 
 Shines, like the last ray of the sun, 
 
 The night before the floods went forth. 
 
 The rest are shadows of an hour, 
 
 A sapless, bloodless, boneless throng, 
 
 Without the spirit, or the power, 
 
 For noble right, or strenuous wrong. 
 
 Amid the fog, and icy gloom, 
 
 Round wither'd heart, and stunted brain, 
 U i- have not sympathy, or room 
 
 For aught that shows u generous strain.
 
 176 LINES ON THE SALE OF THE BLACK ARAB. 
 
 Then freely let the Arab go, 
 
 That matchless present of a king, 
 
 From ends so vile, and thoughts so low. 
 As round the soul of England cling.
 
 MKIIHAB KHAN. 
 
 riiti Khnn died, M he suid lie would, sword in Imuil, at the door ..f hi 
 
 CAPIl'HE OF KEI ; 
 
 WITH all his fearless chief's around, 
 
 The Moslem Ruler stood forlorn, 
 And heard at intervals, the sound 
 
 Of drums athwart the desert home. 
 'i'ii him a sign of fate, they told 
 
 That Britain in her wrath was nigh. 
 And his great heart its powers unrolled 
 
 In steadiness of will to die.
 
 I7S MKIIRAB KHAN. 
 
 ' Ye come, in your mechanic force, 
 A soulless mass of strength and skill - 
 
 Ye come, resistless in your course, 
 What matters it ? Tis but to kill. 
 
 A serpent in the bath, a gust 
 
 Of venomed breezes through the door. 
 
 Have power to give us hack to dust-- 
 Has all your giant empire more .' 
 
 " Your thousand ships upon the sea, 
 
 Your guns and bristling squares by lam 
 Are means of death --and so may be 
 
 A dagger in a woman's hand. 
 I'ut forth the might you boast, and try 
 
 If it can shake my seated \vill : 
 By knowing when and how to die, 
 
 I can escape, and scorn you still.
 
 MEHRAB KHAN. 179 
 
 ' The noble heart, as from a tower, 
 
 Looks down on life that wears a stain ; 
 He lives too long, who lives an hour 
 
 Beneath the clanking of a chain. 
 1 breathe my spirit on my sword, 
 
 I take my stand upon this stone, 
 And perish, to the last the Lord 
 
 Of all that man can call his own." 
 
 Such was the mountain leader's speech ; 
 
 Say ye, who tell the bloody tale, 
 When Havock smote the howling breach, 
 
 Then did the noble savage quail ? 
 No- when through dust, and steel, and flame, 
 
 Hot steams of blood, and smothering smoke. 
 True as an arrow, to its aim 
 
 The meteor-Hag of England broke; 
 
 \ 2
 
 180 MEHRAB KHAN. 
 
 And volley after volley threw 
 
 A storm of ruin, crushing all, 
 Still cheering on a faithful few, 
 
 He would not lose his father's hall. 
 At his yet unpolluted door 
 
 He stood, a lion-hearted man, 
 And died, A FREEMAN STILL, before 
 
 The merchant thieves of Frangistan.
 
 SONG. 
 
 A i LOWER, a welcome flower, I bring 
 With drops of liquid diamond bright ; 
 
 Si-i-, how the first moss-rose of spring, 
 Blooms for the ball to-night. 
 
 A fairy nursed the bud for you, 
 
 For you she warded off the blight ; 
 
 And cherished it with heavenly dew, 
 For your first ball to-nhrht.
 
 182 
 
 But she who takes the magic flower, 
 Must of no magic laws make light, 
 
 Even when her beauty learns its power 
 Over the ball to-night. 
 
 Trusted by sylphs in fairy-land 
 To bear their elfin-message right, 
 
 1 claim to press that maiden-hand 
 First at the ball to-night. 
 
 This is Titunia's message, " Wear 
 No other dress than simple white ; 
 
 The rose alone in your bright hair, 
 To charm the ball to-night. 
 
 ' To other lovers use a tone 
 Of civil but decided slight ; 
 
 And on the bringer smile alone. 
 At your first ball to-night."
 
 TO A LADY 
 
 WHO \\OIU. GIU'.F.N, Till: COLOUR SACKED TO Till: I'AIKIKS, 
 ON rillDAY. 
 
 " [ AM that lady of the air, 
 
 The fairy Amabel : 
 I conic from the rose-scented heart 
 
 Of a distant Indian dell. 
 1 have left the graceful jessamine, 
 
 And flowers of burning bloom, 
 \\ hose clips are filled with fairy wine. 
 I'o seek this wintry irloom.
 
 184 TO A LADY. 
 
 " I was floating above my tuberose, 
 
 (Deep-hearted queen of flowers,) 
 Drinking the fragrance of its love, 
 
 In silent citron bowers ; 
 I chased the bright-winged moths away. 
 
 With passion's jealous care; 
 I folded it, from the sun's warm ray, 
 
 And the embrace of air. 
 
 " Then I saw my page, that humming-bird 
 
 Whom I dipped in a shooting star, 
 Burn through the green and quiet wood. 
 
 Like a flying gem from far. 
 And lie said, that a sullen English gnome, 
 
 Who barbs the darts of snow, 
 From within his cold and lurid home. 
 
 Had sworn to be thy foe.
 
 TO A LADY. 
 
 ' So I yoked my birds of Paradise, 
 
 Whose speed knows no decay, 
 To a car of light, which I have framed 
 
 Of the sun's violet ray. 
 And darted hither on the sigh 
 
 Of a fairy-widowed rose ; 
 That the lightnings of mine eye 
 
 Might chase away thy foes."
 
 THE EPICUREAN. 
 
 How gently, beautiful and calm. 
 
 The quiet river murmurs by, 
 How soft the light, how full of balm 
 
 The breeze that soothes the clark'ning sky 
 
 In every clime, in every state. 
 
 \Ve may be happy if we will ; 
 Man wrestles against iron fate. 
 
 And then complains of pain and ill.
 
 THE EPICUREAN. 187 
 
 The flowers, the beasts, the very heaven, 
 
 Calmly their destined paths pursue ; 
 All take the pleasures that are given, 
 
 We only, find them short and few. 
 
 Oh that mankind, alive to truth, 
 
 Would cease a hopeless war to wage; 
 Would reap in youth, the joys of youth, 
 
 In age, the peacefulness of age. 
 
 Upon an everlasting tide 
 
 Into the silent seas we go ; 
 Hut verdure laughs along the side. 
 
 And on the margin roses blow. 
 
 Nor life, nor death, nor aught they hold, 
 
 Kate- tliou above their natural height; 
 Yet learn that all our eves behold, 
 
 lias value, if we mete it ritrht.
 
 188 . THE EPICUREAN. 
 
 Pluck then the flowers that line the stream. 
 
 Instead of fighting with its power ; 
 But pluck as flowers, not gems, nor deem 
 
 That they will bloom beyond their hour. 
 
 Whate'er betides, from day to day, 
 An even pulse, and spirit keep ; 
 
 And like a child, worn out with play, 
 When wearied with existence, sleep.
 
 THE MANICHEAN. 
 
 How wonderful a place is earth ! 
 
 To lend its gloom a single spark, 
 Birth must be death, and death be birth, 
 
 And even then, 'tis dark. 
 
 \\ c know not whence, or how, we come. 
 
 \Ve see not how, or where, we go; 
 And this, our only certain home, 
 
 It is a home of woe.
 
 190 TICK MANICIIF.AN. 
 
 The mysteries that lie about, 
 
 Warred on the fearless hearts of yore, 
 
 Till, in long combatings worn out. 
 Their swords were keen no more ; 
 
 Unvexed, our fathers lived beneath 
 The calming shadow of the cross ; 
 
 How blest their power of simple faitli ! 
 We can but mourn its loss : 
 
 That waning shadow will not cover 
 Man's heart, as in its orient youth : 
 
 Through its faint flutterings, we discover 
 The wintry light of truth. 
 
 Far up as eye or thought can climb. 
 
 We find the howling gale of life 
 I, ashing the ancient floods of Time. 
 
 From stillness into strife.
 
 THE MAN1CHEAN. 191 
 
 And ever and anon, grim Ruin, 
 
 Wearied with idle change beneath, 
 And mocked by viewless powers, renewing 
 
 The urns of life and death, 
 
 With wide fires round her awful way, 
 
 Or garmented in ocean's thunder. 
 Swoops sudden, like a bird of prey, 
 
 And tears the world in sunder; 
 
 Then light and love no more are seen, 
 Death reigns, uneounterpoised by birth. 
 
 And a dense veil is drawn between 
 Tin- Lord of life, and earth : 
 
 Till the slow cycles roil it back, 
 
 To its chill waking hour again. 
 Kcjiiipping it, to tread the track 
 
 Of ancient doubt and pain
 
 192 THE MANICHEAN. 
 
 Then time and space are loosed from high, 
 Once more to shed deluding gleams 
 
 On a fresh pageant, peopled by 
 Another crowd of dreams. 
 
 There are two powers, not made to die. 
 Pursued and caught, and then pursuing, 
 
 Creation, everlastingly 
 Alternating with Ruin. 
 
 Whether they wage an awful war, 
 Or play a still mure awful game. 
 
 Victims, or pawns, alike tec arc 
 The sufferers in the same. 
 
 Happy who die, and are, as when 
 These evil days had not begun ; 
 
 But happier still as yet, the men 
 Which have not seen the sun.
 
 THE PLATONIST. 
 
 !' \niKK of Gods and men, on thee we call, 
 Thou, who within the limits of thy soul, 
 
 Embracing all things, yet distinct from all, 
 
 Spread's! life and order through the boundless \vl 
 
 ii i> the highest privilege of man, 
 The crown, which philosophic virtue brings. 
 
 After long years of thought, aright to scan 
 Thy presence, hidden under human thini. 1 "*.
 
 194 THE PLATOMST. 
 
 Not easy is the task nor is it wise, 
 At large the holy secret to unfold ; 
 
 Excessive light, into dim-seeing eyes, 
 Infuses darkness blinder than of old. 
 
 How noble are the Gods that spring from thee. 
 
 The holy ones who made and bless us all 
 Rivers of goodness, issuing from thy sea 
 
 Of Love, into whose deeps again they fall. 
 
 And we too are thy children, for within 
 
 Our dim and crowded hearts, under the strife 
 
 Of fleshly lusts, of passion, and of sin, 
 Burns on one spark of everlasting life. 
 
 A spark of heaven is given us, to keep clear 
 Of this foul dungeon's damp, that we may see, 
 
 A seed of heaven is set, for us to rear 
 Into a beautiful and deathless tree.
 
 THE PLATONIST. 195 
 
 For this the toilsome circle was ordained, 
 Lives new and multiform, unending still 
 
 Until the soul its native seats has gained, 
 Or sunk for ever to the gulfs of ill. 
 
 Turn not the spirit into flesh, nor grieve 
 For virtue's sake to suffer and to die 
 
 -So after fewer transits, shalt them leave 
 
 Gross darkness, for a shining light on high.
 
 THE STOIC. 
 
 THE cup of joy is found, 
 
 A shallow draught and vain ; 
 
 The cup of joy ! but who shall sound 
 The secret gulfs of pain? 
 
 The mystery of death 
 
 The mystery of birth 
 The hourly groans that rise like breatli 
 
 From this bewildered earth,
 
 THE STOIC. 197 
 
 Grow wild and wilder still 
 
 In that expiring light, 
 Whose living lustre once could fill 
 
 The ghastliness of night. 
 
 Alas ! the star which poured 
 
 Belief on pastoral men, 
 Through ages not in vain adored, 
 
 Sets ne'er to rise agon. 
 
 And over earth is spread 
 
 A grim reentering gloom ; 
 Whilst doubts and fears contemned as dead 
 
 Their ancient strength resume. 
 
 Sitting in sullen state 
 
 I pon his joyless throne, 
 Daily becomes the sage's fate. 
 
 More intimately known.
 
 198 THE STOIC. 
 
 With all that heaven could shower 
 
 Of gifts esteemed the best ; 
 Health, wisdom, beauty, wealth and power, 
 
 Only the unending rest 
 
 Of death seemed good to him ; 
 
 Yea better still to keep, 
 For ever in the regions dim 
 
 Of ante-natal sleep ; 
 
 But yet, however wise, 
 
 Oh man ! believe him not ; 
 The noble realm of duty lies 
 
 Within thy clouded lot. 
 
 Following her steady beam 
 
 Across the waste abyss, 
 Taint not thy spirit witli the dream 
 
 Of future bale or bliss.
 
 THE STOIC. 199 
 
 It well may be that God 
 
 Sends immortality, 
 Earthwards from his unknown abode, 
 
 To summon those who die. 
 
 And if when life is o'er 
 
 Our fate is fixed so, 
 lieyond the sable ocean's shore, 
 
 We soon enough shall know. 
 
 Still let not hope debase, 
 
 Nor horrors overawe, 
 Our love for her celestial lace, 
 
 Whose name is truth and law.
 
 THE CATHOLIC. 
 
 STII.I,, let not sordid hopes debase. 
 
 Nor horrors over-awe, 
 Our love for her celestial face 
 
 Whose name, is Truth and Law. 
 
 When, wooing vague and baseless dreams 
 
 Man spurns all best control, 
 And drunken in his weakness, seems 
 
 A Ciod, to his own soul,
 
 THE CATHOLIC. 201 
 
 Oh ! that the proud of heart could hear 
 
 One sound of joyless mirth, 
 Could look upon the icy sneer 
 
 Of him, who loves not earth. 
 
 " Duty," you say, " unto the wise, 
 
 Blooms like a virgin bride, 
 With starry softness in her eyes, 
 
 And Pleasure at her side." 
 
 Is Duty such? Aye! who is then 
 
 That mailed and sceptred queen, 
 Whose voice falls on the souls of men 
 
 Consumingly serene ? 
 
 " The Lifeblood of the Infinite, 
 
 The Shadow of the Lord, 
 I ;.m, to those who scan me right, 
 
 A thing, and not a word.
 
 202 THE CATHOLIC. 
 
 " Did not my quenchless impulse fill 
 
 The veins of the Most High, 
 The heart of God were numb and still, 
 
 And the great world would die. 
 
 " Ye have stretched forth your arms, and striven 
 
 As human strength may do, 
 There have been men who called on heaven 
 
 Which triumphed, they or you ? 
 
 " The mighty men of old, have borne 
 
 Burdens ye could not bear ; 
 The warriors of the Cross, have worn 
 
 Armour ye may not wear. 
 
 " The hands of man are sinewless; 
 
 To cui'b the tempted will, 
 Let him despair and die, unless 
 
 God lift him upward still."
 
 THE CATHOLIC. 20.'5 
 
 Low, but with spirit-withering might 
 Glide in the words of power, 
 
 Darkening all courage, as a blight 
 Dries up some joyous flower. 
 
 To our own purposes, we give 
 
 At first unfearing trust, 
 By our own strength, we will to live, 
 
 Holy, and wise, and just : 
 
 Till that calm scorn with pity blent, 
 Breaks through the sleep of sin, 
 
 And our whole nature shudders, rent 
 To its dim depths within. 
 
 Soul-smitten then, we writhe and pine 
 
 In one unresting strife, 
 Seeking a promise, and a sign, 
 
 1'nder the mask of life.
 
 204 THE CATHOLIC. 
 
 Till this wild world, around the brain, 
 Reels like a feverish dream, 
 
 So that we know not in our pain 
 Whether it be, or seem. 
 
 Is there no ray athwart the gloom ? 
 
 No hope for the distrest ? 
 No one unwavering stay, on whom 
 
 That weary world may rest ? 
 
 Over Chaldean plains, a star 
 Shed light and warmth on high, 
 
 Divine looks floated thence from far, 
 As from a living eye, 
 
 A living eye, which showed to man 
 
 A living God was there, 
 A Hope, a Promise, and a Plan. 
 
 Not chaos and despair.
 
 THE CATHOLIC. 205 
 
 Until this withered heart of earth, 
 
 So long a stagnant thing, 
 Rushed into blossom, like the birth 
 
 Of bursting buds, in Spring. 
 
 Surely the elder years, no less 
 
 Than this unquiet age, 
 Staggered in weight and weariness, 
 
 Through their bleak pilgrimage. 
 
 Hunters of Wisdom, wasting Youth, 
 
 And rest, and joy, and fame, 
 Have plunged into the gulphs of Truth, 
 
 And Thought, till madness came : 
 
 And Bards have felt, beneath the curse, 
 
 The heavens and earth grow black, 
 Questioning this veiled universe, 
 
 Which gives no echo back.
 
 206 THE CATHOLfC, 
 
 And bitterer still, bereaved love 
 
 Has sorrowed on in vain, 
 No seraph answering from above, 
 
 " Yet shall ye meet again." 
 
 There is no pang, no doubt, no dread, 
 
 Thou idly striv'st to flee, 
 That slept not with the noble dead, 
 
 Before it lived in thce ; 
 
 The soul of man had dived, and soared, 
 Through depths and heights sublime ; 
 
 Plato had mused, and Homer poured 
 His spirit upon Time, 
 
 Before the Lord of Calvary 
 
 Under his thorny crown, 
 Looked in divine benignity 
 
 Upon his murderers down.
 
 THE CATHOLIC. 
 
 Yet sages, weak with thought, which still 
 
 Led to defeat and shame, 
 From their proud schools, to learn his will, 
 
 As lisping children came, 
 
 And those, to whom this varied earth 
 
 Was one sepulchral den, 
 Felt on their withered hearts, the birth 
 
 Of Hope and life again. 
 
 No levity of jealous pride 
 
 Fettered the deep assent ; 
 Kach eye unseal'd, at once descried 
 
 What God and Nature meant. 
 
 They did not test each burning word 
 
 By Logic's barren art, 
 Only a voice within they heard, 
 
 The Reason of the heart,
 
 208 THE CATHOLIC. 
 
 Power touched their Spirits, as they knelt, 
 
 Like renovating dew, 
 God lived within them, and they felt. 
 
 Yea, saw that Christ was true. 
 
 Age teaching Age, flung forward light, 
 
 As out of beacon-pyres, 
 Till the rejoicing earth was bright 
 
 With countless mountain-fires. 
 
 The weak thence nerved, were strong to (lit 
 
 Exulting crowds before. 
 Calm, though the Lion's kindling eye 
 
 Glared through the grated door ; 
 
 Full of meek hope, not only men, 
 
 But fragile girls, have seen 
 The slow unclosing of the den, 
 
 With nought but God between.
 
 THE CATHOLIC. 
 
 " Alas ! that yonder spotless maid, 
 
 So delicately fair, 
 Should through mean carnage, undismayed 
 
 Be dragged, to perish there. 
 
 " Alas! for her, she stands alone, 
 
 With large uplifted eye, 
 On the harsh sand, profusely thrown 
 
 O'er planks it will not dry. 
 
 '' No ; not alas ! she does not sec 
 
 The furnished creature's rage, 
 There seems to her a company 
 
 Of Angels round the cage. 
 
 " Aye, but if when the monster grim 
 
 Rush roaring from his lair, 
 Over that awful interim, 
 
 Lie only vacant air,
 
 210 THE CATHOLIC. 
 
 " If that fresh flower, that lovely child, 
 To the fanged savage cast, 
 
 By mocking fancies self-beguiled, 
 Bleed for a dream, at last." 
 
 A dream oh no, believe it not, 
 Rather sink down, and die. 
 
 The Hope, that glorified her lot. 
 ^Vas deeper than a lie. 
 
 Have we another creed to make .' 
 
 Another God to raise, 
 Out of the Phantom forms, which shake 
 
 These melancholy days? 
 
 Better to join the quiet dead, 
 
 Than aimlessly live on, 
 With rayless heavens over-head, 
 
 And faith for ever gone.
 
 THE CATHOLIC. 211 
 
 Let not the drunken pride of will 
 
 In logic's glittering fence, 
 Kntice thee to the ranks of ill, 
 
 Against thy holier sense. 
 
 The Cross to save is as divine, 
 
 The Spirit sword to quell, 
 As when of old, its primal sign 
 
 Silenced unresting Hell. 
 
 Martyrs and saints, a reverent train, 
 
 Gleams yet of glory cast; 
 Oh ! sever not the golden chain 
 
 That links thee to the past. 
 
 Pray with meek heart, and tearful eye, 
 
 Fixing the inner mind 
 Upon that noble company. 
 
 Who live in li>jht behind.
 
 212 THE CATHOLIC. 
 
 Still to the man of humble knee, 
 For human fear and grief, 
 
 The Church's old and mystic tree 
 Has healing on its leaf.
 
 THE CRUSADER'S RETURN. 
 
 (STANZAS FOR MUSIC.) 
 
 AT length wo meet again, love we meet, but where and 
 
 how ! 
 Dark time lias rolled between us, but we stand together 
 
 now ; 
 
 The flowers I wreathed at parting, around thy sunny hair. 
 Have left nor sign nor shadow, of their blessed presence 
 
 there ;
 
 214 THE CRUSADER'S RETURN. 
 
 I have thought of thee, love, ever, through years of toil 
 
 and pain ; 
 Whilst the Syrian sun was burning down through the very 
 
 brain : 
 Whilst the dungeon damps were eating their way into my 
 
 frame, 
 I have soothed my soul by dwelling on the music of thy 
 
 name. 
 
 To thee the past is nothing, a dream of fled delight 
 Long gathered to its brothers, in the caverned gloom of 
 
 night ; 
 
 Through all the common channels thy life has glided by, 
 Whilst mine has been but one long wish, to see thee once 
 
 and die. 
 
 Rememberest thou the sunset, love, at the gleaming forest - 
 
 well, 
 On thy young and blushing fondness how its mellowed 
 
 radiance fell ?
 
 THE CRUSADER'S RETURN. 215 
 
 From an hour before its dawning, I had ridden fast and 
 
 far, 
 To see thee in the spirit-light of the silver evening star ; 
 
 Not the sand wind of the desert, in its swift and circling 
 
 gloom, 
 
 Not the purple harbinger of the pitiless Simoom, 
 Not the dungeon roof of darkness, nor the howling storm 
 
 of war, 
 Had power to stain that sunset that silver evening star. 
 
 1 blame thee not, beloved nay, I rejoice to see 
 
 How life and love conspire to breathe, their blessedness on 
 
 thee ; 
 
 i come in pain and sickness, like a leaf about to fall. 
 To look upon thy beauty, ere the spirit-voices call. 
 
 They call me, yes, beloved, I hear them call me now ; 
 Oh ' joy unhoped, to perish with thy tears upon my brow;
 
 216 THE CRUSADER'S RETURN. 
 
 Yet weep not for the wounded bird, who seeks that peaceful 
 
 rest, 
 Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are 
 
 at rest.
 
 THE SYRENS. 
 
 All the old talcs of Evil Beauty in the Grecian Mythology are, I think, 
 tales of the sea, probably therefore of Pliu-iiician origin ; at any rate, 
 the idea of Evil Beauty is not in accordance with the general character 
 of the Greek mind. 1 have endeavoured to obviate this anomaly, by 
 making the Syrens the unwilling instruments of a destiny which they 
 can neither explain nor resist. 
 
 No rest no pause no change Aclmymene, 
 And thou, I'henusa, with thy shadowing hair 
 Thrown round the weepings of a heart outworn 
 To veil them from the sight Beloved ones, 
 Speak to me : is there any hope for us 
 Uut in ourselves? have we not inward strength
 
 18 THE SYRENS. 
 
 And sinews of the spirit, to control 
 This self-surrender to the powers of ill ? 
 
 What though, like hovering clouds, about our home, 
 
 Slow moving ever to the moving sea, 
 
 Drift undulating ships there moss-grown rafts 
 
 The spoil of Caucasus, compact with oak, 
 
 And rough primeval pine trees interlaced; 
 
 Floating of old beneath gigantic forms 
 
 Who, urged by power malign, were hurried on 
 
 Down forest-shadowed rivers sounding wide, 
 
 To the great deep; thence under hostile stars 
 
 With rude art skirting this accursed shore. 
 
 Here tall Sidonian barks -/Egean boats 
 
 Built low for speed; and of the jealous isle 
 
 Full freighted argosies, for whose return 
 
 Even now the merchant kings are looking out 
 
 From the broad quays of Tyre magnificent 
 
 With gold and pearl, and Tribute from afar.
 
 THE SYREXS. 219 
 
 What though the breath of our entrancing song 
 
 Heaps up, from age to age, around our feet 
 
 The mouldering bones of men, as the keen gales 
 
 Over Numidia, wide accumulate 
 
 Incessant hills of ever-heightening sand : 
 
 Still, oh beloved sisters, not by us 
 
 Is the life drawn away out of the heart ; 
 
 Not upon us, relentless Destinies, 
 
 The curse of the bereaved rests hour after hour, 
 
 Day after day, year after year, for ever. 
 
 Our prayers have wearied the vast halls of Heaven 
 
 That we might spare but the Fates iron-nerved 
 
 Press close upon us, irremoveably, 
 
 And we but struggle, like a dragon writhing 
 
 Its hopeless folds under a stedfast rock. 
 
 Still, as the white sail from the distant sea 
 I 'prises, slowly thickening into form 
 Above its peopled hull, our better nature 
 (ilides from us like the shadow of a dream:
 
 220 THE SYRENS. 
 
 Still, the unbodied Demons with fierce glee, 
 
 And ravenous exactness, streaming up 
 
 From some unsounded depth of Acheron, 
 
 Pass into us, and shake the vacant soul 
 
 With Phantoms swarming from an evil will. 
 
 So that, instead of feeling gentle thoughts 
 
 And impulses of love, and happy hopes 
 
 Blossoming, one by one, like summer flowers, 
 
 As, in the days of old, when cherishing 
 
 A life, serenely passionless, yet soft, 
 
 We fed on beauty, beauty in all forms, 
 
 In all her aspects, ministrant on good. 
 
 Now fettered to some demon Lord unknown, 
 
 And doomed to execute his purposes, 
 
 We rush through horrible vicissitudes 
 
 Of stormy sin passion and pain and change- 
 
 We shudder in an unimagined thirst 
 
 For human blood, in fits of hideous crime, 
 
 Alien desires, undreamt-of attributes, 
 
 And all the heat and darkness of deep Hell
 
 THE SYRENS. 221 
 
 Full thence of awful fever, we become 
 A chaos of commingling elements 
 Working within, and smothering as they spread 
 The sense of beauty, and the touch of good, 
 Till the foul mist dissolving, rushes out 
 In floods of sound, and headlong melodies, 
 Enriching the insatiate nets of death : 
 Whilst, ever pressing in upon the brain, 
 The air of heaven grows heated like a sea 
 Of fluctuating fires around, through which 
 Pale features and faint shapes are dimly seen, 
 Immoveably decaying, with bright eyes, 
 And indrawn breathings of husht ecstacy. 
 Until, the purpose being accomplished, 
 Hack to his home the demon speeds, and we 
 Wildered, and weak, and panting, find ourselves 
 Among the silent faces of the dead, upon 
 The broadly blossoming shores of the full sea. 
 Say ! what avails it then, when we behold 
 The breathless aspect of the beautiful
 
 222 THE SYRENS, 
 
 Waning from beauty, or the loving heart 
 Shining unquenchable through dying eyes 
 Say, what avails it, that we crowd the night 
 With moaning upon moaning, and repel 
 All thoughts of pleasure, and all hope of rest >. 
 Girt, if we sleep, with ghastly multitudes, 
 Which wax and wane, and sever and combine, 
 And flit, and glare, and fade ; as others still 
 Keep flickering up from the dim gulf of dreams, 
 To die past deaths again gaunt mariners, 
 And bright-haired women, and the steel-clad strength 
 Of old sea-kings, with garments rich and strange. 
 And visages burnt in upon the brain- 
 So that our worn hearts, empty of delight. 
 Are wasted utterly, and drop away 
 In bitter weepings. I have wept enough 
 Year after year, in vague self-torturings, 
 I have stood nightly on moonlighted cliffs 
 Near the soft-sounding ocean I have called 
 The everlasting stars to answer me
 
 THE SYRENS. 22.3 
 
 From their bright quietness ; I have invoked 
 
 Forgotten names and forms of ancient Gods 
 
 Ophion, and the mystic three who droop 
 
 From fading thrones, among the caverns old, 
 
 And on the clouded hills of Samothrace. 
 
 But not from these, nor from the younger heavens 
 
 Filled with rejoicing Gods, nor from beneath, 
 
 When, maddened with the sickness of suspense, 
 
 I have thrown loathing off, and called aloud 
 
 To the swart powers of sullen Erebus, 
 
 Down deepening through separate gulfs of death, 
 
 Nor yet from that far God the nameless one 
 
 Tin- everlasting the unsearchable 
 
 Who in his fathomless infinitude 
 
 Clasps equally the undivulgcd abyss 
 
 Of Darkness and the inmost home of Light, 
 
 Has rome or voice or token, to unfold 
 
 How we, of our own natures full of love, 
 
 As are the heavens of day, or the broad sea 
 
 Of waters, in this solitary spot
 
 224 THE SYRENS. 
 
 This desert isle remote from Gods and men, 
 Can thus have earned, of the deaf universe, 
 Our weary and impenetrable doom. 
 
 Therefore, uplifting from my soul the load 
 Of the drear past let the unanswering stars, 
 And the void air, and the nnpitying heaven 
 Feel sorrow for the dead / weep no more 
 1 will no longer yield my spirit up 
 To this I will no longer he the slave 
 Of such forlorn and futile sympathies. 
 There is yet music sleeping in the lute, 
 Soft airs, and modulations, over which 
 There hangcth not the taint of human blood : 
 There are yet glories of the earth and sea, 
 And splendours in the skv nor from the heart 
 Is absent the deep sense of solemn .Joy, 
 Which rushes like a river, loosed from ice. 
 To greet the coming of the beautiful. 
 To them to it to all to life and hope.
 
 THE SYRENS. 
 
 To poesy and nature, to the light 
 
 Of Loveliness, and the calm powers of Joy, 
 
 I dedicate myself. There are yet ships 
 
 To moulder here, there are yet men to die 
 
 But what of that .' Death is the end of all 
 
 There are a thousand paths, a thousand gates 
 
 On silent hinges ever opening in 
 
 To his black hall, so has it been decreed ! 
 
 !!' are no more than one blind instrument, 
 
 One, of the countless multitude, employed 
 
 To lead the shadowy sons of time and change. 
 
 From heat and dust, from passion and from sin, 
 
 'I'd their dim couches of unending rest. 
 
 \\ e too shall die^in that unfathomed gloom 
 
 I'luTe is a place- for us, there is a home 
 
 For our world-wearied hearts, encompassed 
 
 With silence, and undreaming weight of sleep. 
 
 For ever, and for ever, we shall lie. 
 
 After this litt'ul wretchedness, in deatli 
 
 Taking our till of rest, with a half sense
 
 226 THE SYRENS. 
 
 Of something pleasurable sliding down 
 Throughout the blind abyss, as overhead 
 The earth renews itself unceasingly 
 In fruitage, and bright flowers, and everywhere 
 From her full breast of undecaying youth, 
 Life gushes into fountains of delight.
 
 THE DREAM OF PILATE'S WIFE. 
 
 The same subject is much more successfully treated b7 my Friend Mi. 
 Milnes, in the Volumes which he has just published. 
 
 IN the mild Eastern Spring-time, far away 
 From Latian hills, and Tiber's yellow stream, 
 
 l.'pon a couch a Roman matron lay, 
 
 And felt the awful presence of a dream : 
 
 To tlif blind sons of men, there was no more 
 Than a fair woman sleeping through the night. 
 
 To rise to household duties as before, 
 
 Or chase the fleeting shadow, called delight
 
 228 THE DREAM OF PILATF/S WIFE. 
 
 But Angels stood around in trembling love, 
 Till the stern vision had unrolled its power, 
 
 And the whole chorus of the stars above 
 Was hushed in humble silence at that hour. 
 
 What heart can number up the mystic throng 
 Of shapes, down-drifting upon human eyes, 
 
 Through all the darkness that has flowed along, 
 Since the first moonlight looked on Paradise .' 
 
 There have been dreams of agonizing pain, 
 Of love of bitter vengeance, of despair 
 
 Of madness working in upon the brain, 
 And wildly-woven trifles light as air : 
 
 Nor are they wanting to the fated few, 
 
 By some fine sense, foreshadowing what will hv. 
 
 Of deeper import, and of clearer hue, 
 
 Than those thin phantoms which the million see
 
 THE DREAM OF PILATE S WIFE. 
 
 But, whether bubble of the mind's emotion, 
 Or prophet visions, over the grey foam 
 
 Of Time's unfathomed and unmeasured ocean, 
 They pass in dim procession to their home ; 
 
 Handed together in the twilight pale, 
 
 Like shadows of a troop of ghosts, they weep 
 
 And Hit about fantastically frail; 
 
 I'nwilling to go down into the deep; 
 
 But this was not as they : its task being done, 
 With stately mien, and covered brow, it stood 
 
 Before that gibbering crowd, nor strove to shun, 
 As they did, the inevitable Hood. 
 
 It-; purpose known, all else remained untold. 
 
 In that wise silence that from reverence flows, 
 Tlie woman felt it would be over-bold 
 
 Its unimagined aspect to disclose.
 
 230 THE DREAM OF PILATE'S WIFE. 
 
 And still within its nameless resting place 
 The monarch of all dreams, upon its throne 
 
 It sits immoveably, with veiled face, 
 In unrevealing majesty alone.
 
 SAPPHO. 
 
 WHAT power has caused the ocean swell, 
 
 Like startled sleep, to flee? 
 What conquering Thessalian spell 
 
 Breathed on the raging sea, 
 To sudden rest hath bowed and bent 
 The soul of the wild element?
 
 Nothing is there, save one sweet bird, 
 
 Yet as she glideth on, 
 With wing that moves through heaven unheard. 
 
 Wave after wave is won, 
 Under her shadow soft to lie 
 Lulled into clear tranquillity. 
 
 It is the halcyon, holy thing ! 
 
 To whom the gods have given, 
 That the sea should smile beneath her wing, 
 
 And reflect the bright blue heaven 
 Unsullied, and serenely fair, 
 As the dreams of my youthful spirit were. 
 
 The halcyon flitteth to and fro, 
 
 Above the charmed sea; 
 My thoughts like troubled waters flow. 
 
 Why comes she not to me .' 
 Why calms she not the waves of pain, 
 Which vex this wcarv heart and brain .'
 
 My harp is silent at my side, 
 
 It has been silent long ; 
 Vainly these trembling hands have tried 
 
 To wake it into song. 
 My soul is full of one desire 
 One dream one fever-fit one fire. 
 
 At every sound mine ears have caught. 
 This heart has throbbed so fast, 
 
 That broken down, and over-wrought 
 It hardly beats at last ; 
 
 I'.bbing from hot and bitter strife, 
 
 To utter weariness of life. 
 
 My flu-ek is wan my pulse is low, 
 
 With waiting here alone ; 
 I cannot stav, I cannot <:o. 
 
 Oh ! that the day were done ; 
 Oli ! that some power my brain would stc 
 In slumber motionless and deep.
 
 284 
 
 Oh bear me to some forest glade, 
 Far from this glaring sun, 
 
 Where, dark with overhanging shade 
 The fresh cold waters run ; 
 
 If God and nature fail to cure, 
 
 The hand of healing death is sure.
 
 TARPEIA. 
 
 IN yonder magic hill, 
 
 There is a dungeon deep, 
 Wherein, girt round with darkness, still 
 
 Tarpeia sits, in sleep. 
 
 Let no rude murmur break 
 The charmed trance of sin ; 
 
 It were not good, for man to wake 
 Tlie maid, who sleeps within.
 
 236 
 
 For many an age, she sate, 
 
 Forbid to rest or die ; 
 Fast fettered by the hand of fate 
 
 To quenchless agony. 
 
 Wreathed flames around her head 
 
 Were fastened by a spell ; 
 The gems, upon her neck, were fed 
 
 With lurid light from hell. 
 
 And as the inmost hill 
 
 Shook to her speechless pain ; 
 
 Insulting demon-voices still 
 Kept singing on their strain. 
 
 That is the crown of gold 
 
 Which made this rock your home ; 
 Those are the jewels, for which you sold 
 
 The warlike sons of Rome.
 
 Such was Tarpeia's doom, 
 Within the grim hill side ; 
 
 Until that day of mystic gloom, 
 When God for sinners died. 
 
 Since that, these pangs no more 
 Her heavy slumbers chase ; 
 
 (iod grant, that by the penance sore, 
 Her soul may have found grace. 
 
 Still, let no murmurs break 
 The charmed trance of sin ; 
 
 It were not good, for man to wake 
 The maid who sleeps within
 
 THE HYPERBOREAN MAIDEN. 
 
 " Tliese Hyperborean virg-ius died in Dclos .... Their sepulchre is cm tin 
 left liiiud, withiu n spot consecrated to Diana, and covered by an olive-tree." 
 
 HERODOTUS. 
 
 SCYTHIAN. 
 WHAT does this olive here ? 
 
 DELI AN PKIKST. 
 
 Its brandies weave a holy gloom, 
 Over the northern maiden's tomb, 
 
 Throughout the year : 
 She came from a land that is far away, 
 Where the brightness of our southern dav
 
 THE HYPERBOREAN MAID. 239 
 
 Is all unknown, 
 To listen to our Delian god ; 
 And here, beneath the flowery sod, 
 
 She sleeps alone. 
 And this olive rose up silently, 
 To shade with its sacred canopy, 
 
 Her quiet sleep : 
 
 And our Delian virgins every year, 
 With solemn music come, and here 
 
 Bend down to weep ; 
 Whilst all the flowers of Greece are shed 
 Above the Scythian damsel's head. 
 
 SCYTHIAN. 
 
 It is not beneath the olive shade, 
 That a northern maiden should be laid, 
 
 Deep though it be, 
 Nor within these marble halls of pride; 
 
 Her spirit free
 
 240 THE HYPERBOREAN MAID. 
 
 Should dwell, where the cool breeze at even 
 Brings whispers of her native heaven. 
 And your God should have called a stately tree. 
 From the forests that frown o'er the northern sea. 
 
 Her tomb to shade : 
 He should have called a mighty pine, 
 With gnarled boughs, and knotted rind. 
 To catch the roarings of the wind, 
 
 Where she is laid : 
 For the olive, and the purple vine, 
 Though bright in the sun their green leaves shine 
 
 Know not the maid ; 
 
 But the solemn tree of the north, would spread 
 Its shadow in love o'er her narrow bed; 
 And the breath of the simple flowers tbat blow 
 At the melting of the northern snow, 
 Would lend delight to the visions of death, 
 When she dreaineth silently beneath.
 
 TIIK ATHENIAN I'(KAN AT MARATHON. 
 
 The ln'cinninj; and end (if tliis composition, arc to be taken as the 
 inherited battle hymn of tlie Ionian race; of that branch of it, at least, 
 which -a< seated in Attica, hi the middle I have added some lines, 
 pointing to the particular emergency; there was, I apprehend, no such 
 addition in point of lac t ; but 1 think imsclf justified poetically in 
 sii|)]>oMn<; it to have been made, considering the terror of the Athenians, 
 .tncl the unusual iinnoitance of the crisis. 
 
 <Kc i. more, a tlm-atoning truin 
 Across our skies is honu", 
 
 Ouci 1 more, a format! * fuotsti*]) 
 Tranipli's Ionia:: curn.
 
 242 THE ATHENIAN PO2AN AT MARATHON. 
 
 In thy stern Father's shining hall, 
 
 Pallas Athene hear, 
 Be thou to us a brazen wall, 
 
 Be thou our shield and spear ; 
 Ionian Goddess undefined, 
 Unmothered and umvedded child 
 
 Of the Eternal name, 
 When we call upon thee, hear us, 
 In the mist of strife he near us, 
 Be a strong arm, to uprear us 
 
 From the gulphs of death and shame 
 Be a keen unwaning star, 
 With threatening might 
 Of arrowy light, 
 
 Piercing the cloud of hostile war. 
 With them are Alien (lods be thou 
 Among us, and about us, now. 
 
 Down from thy Father's shining halls. 
 With meteor swiftness leap,
 
 THE ATHENIAN P(EAN AT MARATHON. 
 
 Unconquered, hear us when we call, 
 Thy people's needs are deep ; 
 
 No common perils round us hover, 
 No common foes have vowed, 
 
 Our Temples, and our Homes to cover 
 With Ruin's thunder-cloud. 
 
 That baleful trumpet-note which passed, 
 Was waked by no Hellenic lips, 
 
 Those shadows on yon sea, are cast, 
 Not from Corinthian ships. 
 
 Not now -along the river bank 
 Careering wild and wide, 
 
 With lances set against our Hank, 
 Thessalian horsemen ride. 
 
 No Thracian drives his battle car 
 
 From black Pangjuan heights afar, 
 Nor swelleth loud a Theban shout, 
 Nor Isle of I'elops poureth out 
 Her floods of Dorian war; 
 
 R '2
 
 THE ATHENIAN FCEAN AT MARATHON. 
 
 But hither from wild homes are rolled, 
 
 The grim clans of the restless Mede, 
 Men, whom untravelled regions breed, 
 
 And Gods unknown uphold ; 
 In yonder shining files have place 
 The Syrians of the iron mace. 
 The Lords of the Cilician steed, 
 The Bactrian, with his how of reed, 
 
 The Paricanian spear, 
 The Arab shafts that never fail. 
 The scales of Persia's glittering mail, 
 
 And Libyan cars of fear. 
 Vet, though the Median Lord be grca!. 
 Wanton in wealth, and drunk with hate, 
 Others, as mighty in estate, 
 Have fallen into cureless ill : 
 Yes, though the Median Lord be great. 
 
 Greater and mightier still, 
 Are those, win. pass through heaven's high gak 
 
 To work their father's will ;
 
 THE ATHENIAN PCEAN AT MARATHON. 
 
 Therefore, in calmness we await 
 This travail of incumbent fate, 
 Because we know that thou can'st smite 
 His myriads into instant flight. 
 
 Now, ye shouts of men go round, 
 
 Now, ye quickening trumpets sound, 
 
 Now, each fife and clarion 
 
 Fling the battle-music on, 
 
 Fling forward, as a gathering flood. 
 
 The ancient melody of blood : 
 
 Like a beacon, let it dart 
 
 From lip to lip, from heart to heart, 
 
 For great Athene hears, 
 From rank to rank, from line to line. 
 She glides a spirit and a sign, 
 
 I p with the old Ionian spears : 
 Ila.k ! how her haughty footstep treads 
 Like living thunder o'er our head*.
 
 246 THE ATHENIAN PO3AN AT MARATHON. 
 
 Mark ! where through aether's mystic veil 
 Burn glimpses of her gleaming mail ; 
 The brazen shield is darkening o'er us, 
 The brazen lance is bright before us, 
 Ionian Goddess ! Maid divine, 
 We follow, where they move and shine.
 
 DIDO'S ANSWER TO /ENEAS IN HADES. 
 
 These verses are founded on the dreary Homeric notion of a future 
 atf, according to which nothing but mere being remained to the Dead. 
 
 I KNOW thiT -yet no quickening thrill 
 (iiides through tin- icy breast of death: 
 
 The shadowy veins arc cold and still, 
 The silent tide of seeming breath 
 
 is regular and tranquil as before: 
 
 I loved thee once but the dead feel no more.
 
 ^iO DIDO S ANSWER TO AENEAS IN HADES. 
 
 The chill blue lake of Acheron, 
 
 Whose flood has never moved at all ; 
 The dim grey forest, overgrown 
 
 With withered leaves which do not fall ; 
 The still mist seated on the herhless ground ; 
 The numb sky, barren of all light and sound : 
 
 These are not merely dreams, the spawn 
 
 Of Chaos and unmeaning Fate, 
 Hut pictured types around us drawn 
 
 To image forth Man's inward state, 
 As soon as Time, ebbing in giant waves, 
 Has rolled him down through Death's unsounded cave 
 
 . The earth, the air, the sea, the sky, 
 
 Lovely in unrelaxing change, 
 With deepest harmonies reply 
 
 To Life in all her boundless range : 
 Kven so accords, this wan unmoving gloom. 
 With what our spirits are beyond (lie tomb.
 
 nine's ANSWER TO *NEAS IN HADES. 24'J 
 
 You ask me to forgive Tis vain, 
 
 We have not here the human will ; 
 Nor feelings now, nor powers remain 
 
 To wish thee either good or ill : 
 The shapes that sail around care not for thee ; 
 I am the same with them, and they with me. 
 
 Once bound tor this unchanging place, 
 
 One solemn change all undergo; 
 Though still ourselves, we lose all trace 
 
 Of that which used to make us so : 
 One vast and shadowy soul, diffused in each, 
 (iives us our phantom thought and dreaming speech. 
 
 Pass on then, through this pulseless deep, 
 
 Home to the eddying world of man ; 
 There love and hate, rejoice and weep, 
 
 \nd hurry through thy little span : 
 For earth must close above thee and this orb 
 Into its dim monotony thy soul absorb.
 
 FROM THE GREEK. 
 
 ALAS ! the mallows, when along the dale 
 They fade and perish when the parsley pale 
 And the bright-leaved anethus droops once more 
 These live, and bloom in beauty, as before. 
 But we the wise, the warlike, arid the great, 
 Wither beneath the touch of death and straight 
 Sleep, deaf within the hollow earth, a sleep 
 For ever lengthening, limitless, and deep. 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 Thus sung the ancient bark of Sicily, 
 
 The shepherd poet as he wandered forth, 
 
 And saw the flowers of summer droop and die, 
 Under the toxich of the malignant north.
 
 FROM THE GREEK. 251 
 
 Rare visitant of that unclouded sky. 
 
 And yet he knew, each semivital flower 
 Was watched by nature's God, and clothed in sleep 
 
 By the wise tenderness of sovran power, 
 That it might live. What demon whispered there ? 
 What charms, and magic drugs, conspired to steep 
 The poet's heart in darkness and despair? 
 How dull a thought ! that God, whose love can bless 
 The falling rose, and tend the wonn with care, 
 Made man a living soul for nothingness.
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF IHPPIAS. 
 
 FROM SIMOMDF.S. 
 
 Tins turf lies on a woman's breast, 
 Sliroiulcd in deep and peaceful rest ; 
 The sc-ion of a royal tree. 
 Mother, and wife of kings, was she; 
 Vet, though to these high names allied. 
 Her gentle spirit knew not pride. 
 
 SONXKT. 
 
 Her father was a man of violent mood, 
 Hated and hating many. Restless fear 
 
 Alternately, and burning anger glowed 
 
 Heneath his heart and deatli seemed ever near.
 
 THF. DAUGHTER OF HIPPIAS. 2i. 
 
 Such multitudes were thirsting for his blood. 
 Hut she was young, and beautiful, and mild 
 As is the morning star in their own clime, 
 Taught by her natural love, though yet a child, 
 She sung to him, and smiled his cares away : 
 Tlnls did she ever in her maiden prime, 
 And when his head in foreign lands was grey, 
 Slu- soothed him still with love that grew not dull, 
 And stood before him, striving to be gay, 
 With pleading eyes, divinely beautiful !
 
 THE OLD AGE OF SOPHOCLES. 
 
 irpbs r&<f>po5iffia. K. r. A. 
 
 PLATO DE REP., LIB. I. 
 
 LEAF-TINTED through the vines, a ray of green 
 
 Is playing from the horizontal sun, 
 
 And fast, beneath yon plane-tree's deepening screen. 
 
 The fresh cold waters darken as they run ; 
 
 And there, an old man of majestic mien, 
 
 Sitting with silver hair, and eye serene, 
 
 Muses on Time and on Eternity 
 
 On the hold hopes, in which his youth begun, 
 
 The much accomplished, the more left undone : 
 
 Draw near with reverence, for this is he 
 
 Who heard the eyeless father's cursings wild 
 
 Fall on the hostile twins, who called up tlice, 
 
 High-soul'd Elcctra, and that orphan child 
 
 Antigone, as lofty, and more mild :
 
 THE OLD AGE OF SOPHOCLES. 
 CONTINUED. 
 
 Upon the setting sun lie gazed, whose light 
 An emblem of himself, before him lay, 
 Poised in mild beauty on the edge of night, 
 The dreams that dazzled morning with delight, 
 The splendours of hot noon, had passed away, 
 And Repose came before the tomb, a sight 
 Serenely sacred in its calm decay ; 
 For as life faded, underneath the sway 
 Of an immortal spirit, evermore 
 Brighter and keener like a kindling star, 
 Dilating inwardly, the frantic jar 
 Of struggling lusts, and passions deemed before 
 Resistless, now became submiss and still. 
 No more enchaining the distorted will. 
 
 CONTINUED. 
 
 And men came round him, eager to drink in 
 That mild paternal wisdom, full of love 
 And peace, and shadowy grandeur from above, 
 A twilight, just becoming the first ray
 
 256 THE OLD AGE OF SOPHOCLES. 
 
 Of the freed spirit's everlasting day. 
 
 But one there was, whom shame could not reprove, 
 
 Nor holy age abash nor wisdom win 
 
 To put aside the thoughts of earth and sin. 
 
 " Tell me," he cried, " can woman's quickening eye 
 
 Still thaw thee into transient youth, and move 
 
 Thy frozen blood from its thin apathy ; 
 
 Or is the sense of pleasure dead within?" 
 
 Thus spoke lie, either of a scornful mind, 
 
 Or to all moral beauty, deaf and blind. 
 
 CONTINUED. 
 
 As if an eagle, whose unfaltering flight 
 Sweeps through the halls of sunshine, with a range 
 Wide as the sky, should plunge into a night 
 Of free/ing clouds, before they readied his sight : 
 Thus, with a sudden sense of painful change, 
 As into stormy darkness out of light 
 The hearers passed heaven-taught by hopes sublime 
 The Poet answered, "Thou art yet enthralled 
 In the foul webs of sense, be wise in time:
 
 THE OLD AGE OF SOPHOCLES. 2-) t 
 
 The privilege of age, is to be called 
 
 Out of life's whitening ashes, to a clime 
 
 And region of calm thought, a glorious realm, 
 
 Where Truth and Freedom reign, divine exchange 
 
 For passions which enslave and overwhelm." 
 
 CONCLUDED. 
 
 Ay ! even then, when health and strength sunk low, 
 
 When eac^ temptation to indulge desire 
 
 Crumbled away upon life's failing fire, 
 
 And Earth, with all her gifts, arose to go ; 
 
 Happy, if even then the soul might shew 
 
 Some shadow of her origin divine, 
 
 And with fresh hopes, and zeal renewed, aspire 
 
 T<> wrestle with her maimed and wearied foe. 
 
 Mean though we be, our state through Christ is higher, 
 
 A Power flows to us from his awful sign, 
 
 Which is both spear and shield, wherewith to tare 
 
 And conquer, though in baleful powers arrayed, 
 
 Tho^e unseen kings, to whom man's haple^ rare 
 
 Homage of old inevitable, paid.
 
 ILIAD. 
 BOOK I. LINE 147. 
 
 THEN with stern looks in answer spoke. 
 
 Achilles famed for speed ; 
 " Oli wretch in insolence attired ! 
 
 Oh spirit bent on greed! 
 Why should the Greeks thy words obey . ? 
 
 Why should they journeys take.' 
 And stoutly, against warlike men. 
 
 Do battle for thy sake .' 
 
 " Not through the spear-armed sons of Trov. 
 
 Came I to fight and slay; 
 They wronged not me, they drove no steer, 
 
 No steed of mine away ;
 
 FROM THE ILIAD. 
 
 In tin- fertile fields of Phthia 
 
 They spoiled no fruits, I ween, 
 For many are the shadowy cliffs. 
 
 And loud the sea between. 
 
 Abandoned wretch ! we followed thee, 
 
 \\ C came to please thy heart ; 
 Honouring thy brother, and thyself. 
 
 All shameless as thou art : 
 Yet though we only came to Troy 
 
 In answer to that call. 
 \ i never waste a thought on us. 
 
 ' )r care for us at all. 
 
 Nay more, thou threatenest me, that thou. 
 
 Thyself wilt seize my spoil, 
 That which the 1 children of the Greeks 
 
 ( ia\ c after all my toil : 
 And yet my prize ne'er eipiaK thine, 
 
 Whene'er the Greeks destroy.
 
 FROM THE ILIAD. 
 
 And plunder of the wealth it holds, 
 Some peopled town of Troy. 
 
 " The burden of the raging war 
 
 Falls on these hands of mine ; 
 But when the time of sharing comes, 
 
 Far larger gifts are thine : 
 And I retire to my ships, 
 
 When wearied in the fight, 
 With some trifle, which I love, because 
 
 It is my own by right. 
 
 %i But now to Phthia I return. 
 
 Tis the best course for me, 
 Once more, with all my curved ships, 
 
 To c-ross the sounding sea: 
 No longer stay I here, when thus 
 
 Dishonoured by thyself, 
 That HIOH mayest fatten on the spoil 
 
 And drain the land of pelf."
 
 ILIAD. 
 HOOK XVI. MNF. 65. 
 
 " LEAD forth my gallant myrmidons 
 
 The battle shock to meet, 
 For the dark cloud of Trojan war 
 
 Hangs grimly o'er our fleet : 
 The Argive troops are fettered in 
 
 Along the ocean strand, 
 Seautly maintaining as their own, 
 
 That narrow strip of land : 
 Hut the whole of Trov is rushing on 
 
 Without a thought of fear ; 
 No longer see they now the front 
 
 Of HII/ helmet blazing near.
 
 FROM THE ILIAD. 
 
 Had the king's words to me been mild, 
 
 How soon they would have fled, 
 And left the trenches in our cam]) 
 
 Filled to the brim with dead : 
 Now, though they hem our army round. 
 
 No Diomed is near ; 
 Not in his hands, to save and guard, 
 
 Flashes the ravening spear. 
 From the hated head of Agamemnon, 
 
 I hear no shouts resound ; 
 But those of the man-quelling Hector 
 
 Are bursting loud around; 
 He calls his Trojans on, and they 
 
 With a cry of wild delight 
 Cover the whole of the wide plain, 
 
 Conquering the Greeks in tight."
 
 ODYSSEY. 
 BOOK XX. LINK 345. 
 
 SIIK kindled fits of frantic mirth, 
 
 Maddening their liearts the while, 
 But suddenly their laughter sunk 
 
 To a convulsive smile : 
 The flesh they eat grew foul with gore. 
 
 Strange tears began to flow, 
 And something in the secret soul 
 
 Prompted their hearts to woe : 
 Then outspake Theuclyiuunus, 
 
 (These were the words he said,) 
 " \V hat evil doom, () wretched men, 
 
 Vexes you now .' Kadi head.
 
 264 FROM THE ODYSSEY. 
 
 Each face, down to the knees below, 
 
 Is swathed in darkness dread. 
 Low wailing murmurs spread like fire, 
 
 Tears down your cheeks have flowed. 
 The .walls, and all the lintels round. 
 
 Are dabbled o'er with blood ; 
 Yon porch is full of shadowy forms, 
 
 Full too this stately room, 
 Together gliding duskily 
 
 Down into Stygian gloom ; 
 And over all the place beneath, 
 
 A deadly mist hath run ; 
 And some one, from the heaven above, 
 
 Has blotted out the sun." 
 He ceased On this, right merrily 
 
 They all to laugh begun. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 4LA1CII AND LAMFERT, PRINTERS, GROVE PLACE, BROMPTON