William Lisle Bowles: Verses about Sorrow

I trust the happy hour will come,
That shall to peace thy breast restore;
And that we two, beloved friend,
Shall one day meet to part no more.

It grieves me most, that parting thus,
All my soul feels I dare not speak;
And when I turn me from thy sight,
The tears in silence wet my cheek.

Yet I look forward to the time,
That shall each wound of sorrow heal;
When I may press thee to my heart,
And tell thee all that now I feel.

O THOU, whose stern command and precepts pure
(Tho' agony in every vein should start,
And slowly drain the blood-drops from the heart)
Have bade the patient spirit still endure;
Thou, who to sorrow hast a beauty lent,
On the dark brow, with resolution clad,
Illumining the dreary traces sad,
Like the cold taper on a monument;
O firm Philosophy! display the tide
Of human misery, and oft relate
How silent sinking in the storms of fate,
The brave and good have bow'd their head and died.
So taught by Thee, some solace I may find,
Remembering the sorrows of mankind.

O THOU, whose stern command and precepts pure
(Tho' agony in every vein should start,
And slowly drain the blood-drops from the heart)
Have bade the patient spirit still endure;
Thou, who to sorrow hast a beauty lent,
On the dark brow, with resolution clad,
Illumining the dreary traces sad,
Like the cold taper on a monument;
O firm Philosophy! display the tide
Of human misery, and oft relate
How silent sinking in the storms of fate,
The brave and good have bow'd their head and died.
So taught by Thee, some solace I may find,
Remembering the sorrows of mankind.

If chance some pensive stranger, hither led,
His bosom glowing from majestic views,
Temple and tower 'mid the bright landscape's hues,
Should ask who sleeps beneath this lowly bed?
A maid of sorrow. To the cloistered scene,
Unknown and beautiful a mourner came,
Seeking with unseen tears to quench the flame
Of hapless love: yet was her look serene
As the pale moonlight in the midnight aisle;--
Her voice was gentle and a charm could lend,
Like that which spoke of a departed friend;
And a meek sadness sat upon her smile!--
Now, far removed from every earthly ill,
Her woes are buried, and her heart is still.

O, Poverty! though from thy haggard eye,
Thy cheerless mien, of every charm bereft,
Thy brow that Hope's last traces long have left,
Vain Fortune's feeble sons with terror fly;
I love thy solitary haunts to seek.
For Pity, reckless of her own distress;
And Patience, in her pall of wretchedness,
That turns to the bleak storm her faded cheek;
And Piety, that never told her wrong;
And meek Content, whose griefs no more rebel;
And Genius, warbling sweet her saddest song;
And Sorrow, listening to a lost friend's knell,
Long banished from the world's insulting throng;
With thee, and thy unfriended offspring, dwell.

Milton, our noblest poet, in the grace
Of youth, in those fair eyes and clustering hair,
That brow untouched by one faint line of care,
To mar its openness, we seem to trace
The front of the first lord of the human race,
Mid thine own Paradise portrayed so fair,
Ere Sin or Sorrow scathed it: such the air
That characters thy youth. Shall time efface
These lineaments as crowding cares assail!
It is the lot of fallen humanity.
What boots it! armed in adamantine mail,
The unconquerable mind, and genius high,
Right onward hold their way through weal and woe,
Or whether life's brief lot be high or low!

How blessed with thee the path could I have trod
Of quiet life, above cold want's hard fate,
(And little wishing more) nor of the great
Envious, or their proud name; but it pleased GOD
To take thee to his mercy: thou didst go
In youth and beauty to thy cold death-bed;
Even whilst on dreams of bliss we fondly fed,
Of years to come of comfort! Be it so.
Ere this I have felt sorrow; and even now,
Though sometimes the unbidden tear will start,
And half unman the miserable heart,
The cold dew I shall wipe from my sad brow,
And say, since hopes of bliss on earth are vain,
Best friend, farewell, till we do meet again!

I shall behold far off thy towering crest,
Proud mountain! from thy heights as slow I stray
Down through the distant vale my homeward way,
I shall behold upon thy rugged breast,
The parting sun sit smiling: me the while
Escaped the crowd, thoughts full of heaviness
May visit, as life's bitter losses press
Hard on my bosom; but I shall beguile
The thing I am, and think, that ev'n as thou
Dost lift in the pale beam thy forehead high,
Proud mountain! whilst the scattered vapours fly
Unheeded round thy breast,--so, with calm brow,
The shades of sorrow I may meet, and wear
The smile unchanged of peace, though pressed by care!

O TIME! who know'st a lenient hand to lay
Softest on sorrow's wound, and slowly thence,
(Lulling to sad repose the weary sense)
Stealest the long-forgotten pang away;
On Thee I rest my only hope at last,
And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear
That flows in vain o'er all my soul held dear,
I may look back on many a sorrow past,
And meet life's peaceful evening with a smile -
As some poor bird, at day's departing hour,
Sings in the sunbeam, of the transient shower
Forgetful, tho' its wings are wet the while: -
Yet ah! how much must that poor heart endure,
Which hopes from thee, and thee alone, a cure!

O Time! who know'st a lenient hand to lay
Softest on sorrow's wound, and slowly thence
(Lulling to sad repose the weary sense)
The faint pang stealest unperceived away;
On thee I rest my only hope at last,
And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear
That flows in vain o'er all my soul held dear,
I may look back on every sorrow past,
And meet life's peaceful evening with a smile—
As some lone bird, at day's departing hour,
Sings in the sunbeam, of the transient shower
Forgetful, though its wings are wet the while:—
Yet ah! how much must that poor heart endure,
Which hopes from thee, and thee alone, a cure!

O TIME! who know'st a lenient hand to lay
Softest on sorrow's wound, and slowly thence,
(Lulling to sad repose the weary sense)
Stealest the long-forgotten pang away;
On Thee I rest my only hope at last,
And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear
That flows in vain o'er all my soul held dear,
I may look back on many a sorrow past,
And meet life's peaceful evening with a smile --
As some poor bird, at day's departing hour,
Sings in the sunbeam, of the transient shower
Forgetful, tho' its wings are wet the while: --
Yet ah! how much must that poor heart endure,
Which hopes from thee, and thee alone, a cure!

O TIME! who know'st a lenient hand to lay
Softest on sorrow's wound, and slowly thence
(Lulling to sad repose the weary sense)
The faint pang stealest unperceived away;
On thee I rest my only hope at last,
And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear
That flows in vain o'er all my soul held dear,
I may look back on every sorrow past,
And meet life's peaceful evening with a smile:
As some lone bird, at day's departing hour,
Sings in the sunbeam, of the transient shower
Forgetful, though its wings are wet the while:--
   Yet ah! how much must this poor heart endure,
   Which hopes from thee, and thee alone, a cure!

O stay, harmonious and sweet sounds, that die
In the long vaultings of this ancient fane!
Stay, for I may not hear on earth again
Those pious airs--that glorious harmony;
Lifting the soul to brighter orbs on high,
Worlds without sin or sorrow! Ah, the strain
Has died--even the last sounds that lingeringly
Hung on the roof ere they expired!
And I
Stand in the world of strife, amidst a throng,
A throng that reckons not of death or sin!
Oh, jarring scenes! to cease, indeed, ere long;
The worm hears not the discord and the din;
But he whose heart thrills to this angel song
Feels the pure joy of heaven on earth begin!

IN ALVERSTOKE CHURCH, HANTS.

Oh! they shall ne'er forget thee, they who knew
Thy soul benevolent, sincere, and true;
The poor thy kindness cheered, thy bounty fed,
Whom age left shivering in its dreariest shed;
Thy friends, who sorrowing saw thee, when disease
Seemed first the genial stream of life to freeze,
Pale from thy hospitable home depart,
Thy hand still open, and yet warm thy heart!
But how shall she her love, her loss express,
Thy widow, in this uttermost distress,
When she with anguish hears her lisping train
Upon their buried father call in vain!
She wipes the tear despair had forced to flow,
She lifts her look beyond this vale of woe,
And rests (while humbled in the dust she kneels)
On Him who only knows how much she feels.

No, I never, till life and its shadows shall end,
Can forget the sweet sound of the bells of Ostend!
The day set in darkness, the wind it blew loud,
And rung as it passed through each murmuring shroud.
My forehead was wet with the foam of the spray,
My heart sighed in secret for those far away;
When slowly the morning advanced from the east,
The toil and the noise of the tempest had ceased;
The peal from a land I ne'er saw, seemed to say,
'Let the stranger forget every sorrow to-day!'
Yet the short-lived emotion was mingled with pain,
I thought of those eyes I should ne'er see again;
I thought of the kiss, the last kiss which I gave,
And a tear of regret fell unseen on the wave;
I thought of the schemes fond affection had planned,
Of the trees, of the towers, of my own native land.
But still the sweet sounds, as they swelled to the air,
Seemed tidings of pleasure, though mournful to bear,
And I never, till life and its shadows shall end,
Can forget the sweet sound of the bells of Ostend!

IN YOUTH.

Milton, our noblest poet, in the grace
Of youth, in those fair eyes and clustering hair,
That brow untouched by one faint line of care,
To mar its openness, we seem to trace
The front of the first lord of human race,
'Mid thine own Paradise portrayed so fair,
Ere Sin or Sorrow scathed it: such the air
That characters thy youth. Shall time efface
These lineaments as crowding cares assail!
It is the lot of fall'n humanity.
What boots it! armed in adamantine mail,
The unconquerable mind, and genius high,
Right onward hold their way through weal and woe,
Or whether life's brief lot be high or low!


IN AGE.

And art thou he, now 'fall'n on evil days,'
And changed indeed! Yet what do this sunk cheek,
These thinner locks, and that calm forehead speak!
A spirit reckless of man's blame or praise,--
A spirit, when thine eyes to the noon's blaze
Their dark orbs roll in vain, in suffering meek,
As in the sight of God intent to seek,
'Mid solitude or age, or through the ways
Of hard adversity, the approving look
Of its great Master; whilst the conscious pride
Of wisdom, patient and content to brook
All ills to that sole Master's task applied,
Shall show before high heaven the unaltered mind,
Milton, though thou art poor, and old, and blind!

Oh, Mary, when distress and anguish came,
And slow disease preyed on thy wasted frame;
When every friend, ev'n like thy bloom, was fled,
And Want bowed low thy unsupported head;
Sure sad Humanity a tear might give,
And Virtue say, Live, beauteous sufferer, live!
But should there one be found, (amidst the few
Who with compassion thy last pangs might view),
One who beheld thy errors with a tear,
To whom the ruins of thy heart were dear,
Who fondly hoped, the ruthful season past,
Thy faded virtues might revive at last;
Should such be found--oh! when he saw thee lie,
Closing on every earthly hope thine eye;
When he beheld despair, with rueful trace,
Mark the strange features of thy altered face;
When he beheld, as painful death drew nigh,
Thy pale, pale cheek, thy feebly lifted eye,
Thy chill, shrunk hand, hung down as in despair,
Or slowly raised, with many a muttered prayer;--
When thus, in early youth, he saw thee bend
Poor to the grave, and die without a friend;
Some sadder feelings might unbidden start,
And more than common pity touch his heart!
The eventful scene is closed; with pausing dread
And sorrow I drew nigh the silent bed;
Thy look was calm--thy heart was cold and still,
As if the world had never used it ill;
Methought the last faint smile, with traces weak,
Still seemed to linger on thy faded cheek.
Poor Mary! though most beauteous in thy face,
Ere sorrow touched it, beamed each lovely grace;
Yet, oh! thy living features never wore
A look so sweet, so eloquent before,
As this, which bids all human passions cease,
And tells my pitying heart you died in peace!

To every gentle Muse in vain allied,
In youth's full early morning HEADLEY died!
Too long had sickness left her pining trace,
With slow, still touch, on each decaying grace:
Untimely sorrow marked his thoughtful mien!
Despair upon his languid smile was seen!
Yet Resignation, musing on the grave,
(When now no hope could cheer, no pity save),
And Virtue, that scarce felt its fate severe,
And pale Affection, dropping soft a tear
For friends beloved, from whom she soon must part,
Breathed a sad solace on his aching heart.
Nor ceased he yet to stray, where, winding wild,
The Muse's path his drooping steps beguiled,
Intent to rescue some neglected rhyme,
Lone-blooming, from the mournful waste of time;
And cull each scattered sweet, that seemed to smile
Like flowers upon some long-forsaken pile.
Far from the murmuring crowd, unseen, he sought
Each charm congenial to his saddened thought.
When the gray morn illumed the mountain's side,
To hear the sweet birds' earliest song he hied;
When meekest eve to the fold's distant bell
Listened, and bade the woods and vales farewell,
Musing in tearful mood, he oft was seen
The last that lingered on the fading green.
The waving wood high o'er the cliff reclined,
The murmuring waterfall, the winter's wind,
His temper's trembling texture seemed to suit;
As airs of sadness the responsive lute.
Yet deem not hence the social spirit dead,
Though from the world's hard gaze his feelings fled:
Firm was his friendship, and his faith sincere,
And warm as Pity's his unheeded tear,
That wept the ruthless deed, the poor man's fate,
By fortune's storms left cold and desolate.
Farewell! yet be this humble tribute paid
To all his virtues, from that social shade
Where once we sojourned. I, alas! remain
To mourn the hours of youth, yet mourn in vain,
That fled neglected. Wisely thou hast trod
The better path; and that High Meed, which GOD
Ordained for Virtue towering from the dust,
Shall bless thy labours, spirit pure and just!

Faint-gazing on the burning orb of day,
When Afric's injured son expiring lay,
His forehead cold, his labouring bosom bare,
His dewy temples, and his sable hair,
His poor companions kissed, and cried aloud,
Rejoicing, whilst his head in peace he bowed:--
Now thy long, long task is done,
Swiftly, brother, wilt thou run,
Ere to-morrow's golden beam
Glitter on thy parent stream,
Swiftly the delights to share,
The feast of joy that waits thee there.
Swiftly, brother, wilt thou ride
O'er the long and stormy tide,
Fleeter than the hurricane,
Till thou see'st those scenes again,
Where thy father's hut was reared,
Where thy mother's voice was heard;
Where thy infant brothers played
Beneath the fragrant citron shade;
Where through green savannahs wide
Cooling rivers silent glide,
Or the shrill cicalas sing
Ceaseless to their murmuring;
Where the dance, the festive song,
Of many a friend divided long,
Doomed through stranger lands to roam,
Shall bid thy spirit welcome home!
Fearless o'er the foaming tide
Again thy light canoe shall ride;
Fearless on the embattled plain
Thou shalt lift thy lance again;
Or, starting at the call of morn,
Wake the wild woods with thy horn;
Or, rushing down the mountain-slope,
O'ertake the nimble antelope;
Or lead the dance, 'mid blissful bands,
On cool Andracte's yellow sands;
Or, in the embowering orange-grove,
Tell to thy long-forsaken love
The wounds, the agony severe,
Thy patient spirit suffered here!
Fear not now the tyrant's power,
Past is his insulting hour;
Mark no more the sullen trait
On slavery's brow of scorn and hate;
Hear no more the long sigh borne
Murmuring on the gales of morn!
Go in peace; yet we remain
Far distant toiling on in pain;
Ere the great Sun fire the skies
To our work of woe we rise;
And see each night, without a friend,
The world's great comforter descend!
Tell our brethren, where ye meet,
Thus we toil with weary feet;
Yet tell them that Love's generous flame,
In joy, in wretchedness the same,
In distant worlds was ne'er forgot;
And tell them that we murmur not;
Tell them, though the pang will start,
And drain the life-blood from the heart,--
Tell them, generous shame forbids
The tear to stain our burning lids!
Tell them, in weariness and want,
For our native hills we pant,
Where soon, from shame and sorrow free,
We hope in death to follow thee!

I climb the highest cliff; I hear the sound
Of dashing waves; I gaze intent around;
I mark the gray cope, and the hollowness
Of heaven, and the great sun, that comes to bless
The isles again; but my long-straining eye,
No speck, no shadow can, far off, descry,
That I might weep tears of delight, and say,
It is the bark that bore my child away!
Sun, that returnest bright, beneath whose eye
The worlds unknown, and out-stretched waters lie,
Dost thou behold him now! On some rude shore,
Around whose crags the cheerless billows roar,
Watching the unwearied surges doth he stand,
And think upon his father's distant land!
Or has his heart forgot, so far away,
These native woods, these rocks, and torrents gray,
The tall bananas whispering to the breeze,
The shores, the sound of these encircling seas,
Heard from his infant days, and the piled heap
Of holy stones, where his forefathers sleep!
Ah, me! till sunk by sorrow, I shall dwell
With them forgetful in the narrow cell,
Never shall time from my fond heart efface
His image; oft his shadow I shall trace
Upon the glimmering waters, when on high
The white moon wanders through the cloudless sky.
Oft in my silent cave, when to its fire
From the night's rushing tempest we retire,
I shall behold his form, his aspect bland;
I shall retrace his footsteps on the sand;
And, when the hollow-sounding surges swell,
Still think I listen to his echoing shell.
Would I had perished ere that hapless day,
When the tall vessel, in its trim array,
First rushed upon the sounding surge, and bore
My age's comfort from this sheltering shore!
I saw it spread its white wings to the wind,
Too soon it left these hills and woods behind,
Gazing, its course I followed till mine eye
No longer could its distant track descry;
Till on the confines of the billows hoar
A while it hung, and then was seen no more,
And only the blue hollow cope I spied,
And the long waste of waters tossing wide.
More mournful then each falling surge I heard,
Then dropt the stagnant tear upon my beard.
Methought the wild waves said, amidst their roar
At midnight, Thou shalt see thy son no more!
Now thrice twelve moons through the mid heavens have rolled
And many a dawn, and slow night, have I told:
And still as every weary day goes by,
A knot recording on my line I tie;
But never more, emerging from the main,
I see the stranger's bark approach again.
Has the fell storm o'erwhelmed him! Has its sweep
Buried the bounding vessel in the deep!
Is he cast bleeding on some desert plain!
Upon his father did he call in vain!
Have pitiless and bloody tribes defiled
The cold limbs of my brave, my beauteous child!
Oh! I shall never, never hear his voice;
The spring-time shall return, the isles rejoice,
But faint and weary I shall meet the morn,
And 'mid the cheering sunshine droop forlorn!
The joyous conch sounds in the high wood loud,
O'er all the beach now stream the busy crowd;
Fresh breezes stir the waving plantain grove;
The fisher carols in the winding cove;
And light canoes along the lucid tide
With painted shells and sparkling paddles glide.
I linger on the desert rock alone,
Heartless, and cry for thee, my son, my son.

When dark November bade the leaves adieu,
And the gale sung amid the sea-boy's shrouds,
Methought I saw four winged forms, that flew,
With garments streaming light, amid the clouds;
From adverse regions of the sky,
In dim succession, they went by.
The first, as o'er the billowy deep he passed,
Blew from its brazen trump a far-resounding blast.
Upon a beaked promontory high,
With streaming heart, and cloudy brow severe,
Marked ye the father of the frowning year!
Dark vapours rolled o'er the tempestuous sky,
When creeping WINTER from his cave came forth;
Stern courier of the storm, he cried, what from the north?

NORTH WIND.

From the vast and desert deeps,
Where the lonely Kraken sleeps,
Where fixed the icy mountains high
Glimmer to the twilight sky;
Where, six lingering months to last,
The night has closed, the day is past,
Father, lo, I come, I come:
I have heard the wizard's drum,
And the withered Lapland hag,
Seal, with muttered spell, her bag:
O'er mountains white, and forests sere,
I flew, and with a wink am here.

WINTER.

Spirit of unwearied wing,
From the Baltic's frozen main,
From the Russ's bleak domain,
Say, what tidings dost thou bring!
Shouts, and the noise of battle! and again
The winged wind blew loud a deadly blast;
Shouts, and the noise of battle! the long main
Seemed with hoarse voice to answer as he passed.
The moody South went by, and silence kept;
The cloudy rack oft hid his mournful mien,
And frequent fell the showers, as if he wept
The eternal havoc of this mortal scene.
He had heard the yell, and cry,
And howling dance of Anarchy,
Where the Rhone, with rushing flood,
Murmured to the main, through blood:--
He seemed to wish he could for ever throw
His misty mantle o'er a world of woe.
But rousing him from his desponding trance,
Cold Eurus blew his sharp and shrilling horn;
In his right hand he bore an icy lance,
That far off glittered in the frost of morn;
The old man knew the clarion from afar,
What from the East? he cried.

EAST WIND.

Shouts, and the noise of war!
Far o'er the land hath been my flight,
O'er many a forest dark as night,
O'er champaigns where the Tartar speeds,
O'er Wolga's wild and giant reeds,
O'er the Carpathian summits hoar,
Beneath whose snows and shadows frore,
Poland's level length unfolds
Her trackless woods and wildering wolds,
Like a spirit, seeking rest,
I have passed from east to west,
While sounds of discord and lament
Rose from the earth where'er I went.
I care not; hurrying, as in scorn,
I shook my lance, and blew my horn;
The day shows clear; and merrily
Along the Atlantic now I fly.
Who comes in soft and spicy vest,
From the mild regions of the West?
An azure veil bends waving o'er his head,
And showers of violets from his hands are shed.
'Tis Zephyr, with a look as young and fair
As when his lucid wings conveyed
That beautiful and gentle maid
Psyche, transported through the air,
The blissful couch of Love's own god to share.
Winter, avaunt! thy haggard eye
Will scare him, as he wanders by,
Him and the timid butterfly.
He brings again the morn of May;
The lark, amid the clear blue sky,
Carols, but is not seen so high,
And all the winter's winds fly far away!
I cried: O Father of the world, whose might
The storm, the darkness, and the winds obey,
Oh, when will thus the long tempestuous night
Of warfare and of woe be rolled away!
Oh, when will cease the uproar and the din,
And Peace breathe soft, Summer is coming in!

INSCRIBED TO THE REV. W. HOWLEY.

The morning wakes in shadowy mantle gray,
The darksome woods their glimmering skirts unfold,
Prone from the cliff the falcon wheels her way,
And long and loud the bell's slow chime is tolled.

The reddening light gains fast upon the skies,
And far away the glistening vapours sail,
Down the rough steep the accustomed hedger hies,
And the stream winds in brightness through the vale.

Mark how those riven rocks on either shore
Uplift their bleak and furrowed fronts on high;
How proudly desolate their foreheads hoar,
That meet the earliest sunbeams of the sky!

Bound for yon dusky mart, with pennants gay,
The tall bark, on the winding water's line,
Between the riven cliffs slow plies her way,
And peering on the sight the white sails shine.

Alas! for those by drooping sickness worn,
Who now come forth to meet the cheering ray;
And feel the fragrance of the tepid morn
Round their torn breasts and throbbing temples play!

Perhaps they muse with a desponding sigh
On the cold vault that shall their bones inurn;
Whilst every breeze seems, as it whispers by,
To breathe of comfort never to return.

Yet oft, as sadly thronging dreams arise,
Awhile forgetful of their pain they gaze,
A transient lustre lights their faded eyes,
And o'er their cheek the tender hectic plays.

The purple morn that paints with sidelong gleam
The cliff's tall crest, the waving woods that ring
With songs of birds rejoicing in the beam,
Touch soft the wakeful nerve's according string.

Then at sad Meditation's silent hour
A thousand wishes steal upon the heart;
And, whilst they meekly bend to Heaven's high power,
Ah! think 'tis hard, 'tis surely hard to part:

To part from every hope that brought delight,
From those that loved them, those they loved so much!
Then Fancy swells the picture on the sight,
And softens every scene at every touch.

Sweet as the mellowed woods beneath the moon,
Remembrance lends her soft-uniting shades;
'Some natural tears she drops, but wipes them soon:'--
The world retires, and its dim prospect fades!

Airs of delight, that soothe the aching sense;
Waters of health, that through yon caverns glide;
Oh! kindly yet your healing powers dispense,
And bring back feeble life's exhausted tide!

Perhaps to these gray rocks and mazy springs
Some heart may come, warmed with the purest fire;
For whom bright Fancy plumes her radiant wings,
And warbling Muses wake the lonely lyre.

Some orphan Maid, deceived in early youth,
Pale o'er yon spring may hang in mute distress;
Who dream of faith, of happiness, and truth,
Of love--that Virtue would protect and bless.

Some musing Youth in silence there may bend,
Untimely stricken by sharp Sorrow's dart;
For friendship formed, yet left without a friend,
And bearing still the arrow at his heart.

Such was lamented RUSSELL'S early doom,
The gay companion of our stripling prime;
Ev'n so he sank unwept into the tomb,
And o'er his head closed the dark gulph of time.

Hither he came, a wan and weary guest,
A softening balm for many a wound to crave;
And wooed the sunshine to his aching breast,
Which now seems smiling on his verdant grave!

He heard the whispering winds that now I hear,
As, boding much, along these hills he passed;
Yet ah! how mournful did they meet his ear
On that sad morn he heard them for the last!

So sinks the scene, like a departed dream,
Since late we sojourned blythe in Wykeham's bowers,
Or heard the merry bells by Isis' stream,
And thought our way was strewed with fairy flowers!

Of those with whom we played upon the lawn
Of early life, in the fresh morning played;
Alas! how many, since that vernal dawn,
Like thee, poor RUSSELL, 'neath the turf are laid!

Joyous a while they wandered hand in hand,
By friendship led along the springtide plain;
How oft did Fancy wake her transports bland,
And on the lids the glistening tear detain!

I yet survive, now musing other song,
Than that which early pleased my vacant years;
Thinking how days and hours have passed along,
Marked by much pleasure some, and some by tears!

Thankful, that to these verdant scenes I owe
That he whom late I saw all drooping pale,
Raised from the couch of sickness and of woe,
Now lives with me these mantling views to hail.

Thankful, that still the landscape beaming bright,
Of pendant mountain, or of woodland gray,
Can wake the wonted sense of pure delight,
And charm a while my solitary way.

Enough:--through the high heaven the proud sun rides,
My wandering steps their silent path pursue
Back to the crowded world where fortune guides:
Clifton, to thy white rocks and woods adieu!

Spirit of Death! whose outstretched pennons dread
Wave o'er the world beneath their shadow spread;
Who darkly speedest on thy destined way,
Midst shrieks and cries, and sounds of dire dismay;
Spirit! behold thy victory! Assume
A form more terrible, an ampler plume;
For he, who wandered o'er the world alone,
Listening to Misery's universal moan;
He who, sustained by Virtue's arm sublime,
Tended the sick and poor from clime to clime,
Low in the dust is laid, thy noblest spoil!
And Mercy ceases from her awful toil!
'Twas where the pestilence at thy command
Arose to desolate the sickening land,
When many a mingled cry and dying prayer
Resounded to the listening midnight air,
When deep dismay heard not the frequent knell,
And the wan carcase festered as it fell:
'Twas there, with holy Virtue's awful mien,
Amid the sad sights of that fearful scene,
Calm he was found: the dews of death he dried;
He spoke of comfort to the poor that cried;
He watched the fading eye, the flagging breath,
Ere yet the languid sense was lost in death;
And with that look protecting angels wear,
Hung o'er the dismal couch of pale Despair!
Friend of mankind! thy righteous task is o'er;
The heart that throbbed with pity beats no more.
Around the limits of this rolling sphere,
Where'er the just and good thy tale shall hear,
A tear shall fall: alone, amidst the gloom
Of the still dungeon, his long sorrow's tomb,
The captive, mourning, o'er his chain shall bend,
To think the cold earth holds his only friend!
He who with labour draws his wasting breath
On the forsaken silent bed of death,
Remembering thy last look and anxious eye,
Shall gaze around, unvisited, and die.
Friend of mankind, farewell! These tears we shed--
So nature dictates--o'er thy earthly bed;
Yet we forget not, it was His high will,
Who saw thee Virtue's arduous task fulfil,
Thy spirit from its toil at last should rest:--
So wills thy GOD, and what He wills is best!
Thou hast encountered dark Disease's train,
Thou hast conversed with Poverty and Pain,
Thou hast beheld the dreariest forms of woe,
That through this mournful vale unfriended go;
And, pale with sympathy, hast paused to hear
The saddest plaints e'er told to human ear.
Go then, the task fulfilled, the trial o'er,
Where sickness, want, and pain are known no more!
How awful did thy lonely track appear,
Enlightening Misery's benighted sphere!
As when an angel all-serene goes forth
To still the raging tempest of the north,
The embattled clouds that hid the struggling day,
Slow from his face retire in dark array;
On the black waves, like promontories hung,
A light, as of the orient morn, is flung,
Till blue and level heaves the silent brine,
And the new-lighted rocks at distance shine;
Ev'n so didst thou go forth with cheering eye--
Before thy glance the shades of misery fly;
So didst thou hush the tempest, stilling wide
Of human woe the loud-lamenting tide.
Nor shall the spirit of those deeds expire,
As fades the feeble spark of vital fire,
But beam abroad, and cheer with lustre mild
Humanity's remotest prospects wild,
Till this frail orb shall from its sphere be hurled,
Till final ruin hush the murmuring world,
And all its sorrows, at the awful blast
Of the archangel's trump, be but as shadows past!
Relentless Time, that steals with silent tread,
Shall tear away the trophies of the dead.
Fame, on the pyramid's aspiring top,
With sighs shall her recording trumpet drop;
The feeble characters of Glory's hand
Shall perish, like the tracks upon the sand;
But not with these expire the sacred flame
Of Virtue, or the good man's honoured name.
HOWARD! it matters not, that far away
From Albion's peaceful shore thy bones decay:
Him it might please, by whose sustaining hand
Thy steps were led through many a distant land.
Thy long and last abode should there be found,
Where many a savage nation prowls around:
That Virtue from the hallowed spot might rise,
And, pointing to the finished sacrifice,
Teach to the roving Tartar's savage clan
Lessons of love, and higher aims of man.
The hoary chieftain, who thy tale shall hear,
Pale on thy grave shall drop his faltering spear;
The cold, unpitying Cossack thirst no more
To bathe his burning falchion deep in gore;
Relentless to the cry of carnage speed,
Or urge o'er gasping heaps his panting steed!
Nor vain the thought that fairer hence may rise
New views of life, and wider charities.
Far from the bleak Riphean mountains hoar,
From the cold Don, and Wolga's wandering shore,
From many a shady forest's lengthening tract,
From many a dark-descending cataract,
Succeeding tribes shall come, and o'er the place,
Where sleeps the general friend of human race,
Instruct their children what a debt they owe;
Speak of the man who trode the paths of woe;
Then bid them to their native woods depart,
With new-born virtue stirring in their heart.
When o'er the sounding Euxine's stormy tides
In hostile pomp the Turk's proud navy rides,
Bent on the frontiers of the Imperial Czar,
To pour the tempest of vindictive war;
If onward to those shores they haply steer,
Where, HOWARD, thy cold dust reposes near,
Whilst o'er the wave the silken pennants stream,
And seen far off the golden crescents gleam,
Amid the pomp of war, the swelling breast
Shall feel a still unwonted awe impressed,
And the relenting Pagan turn aside
To think--on yonder shore the _Christian_ died!
But thou, O Briton! doomed perhaps to roam
An exile many a year and far from home,
If ever fortune thy lone footsteps leads
To the wild Nieper's banks, and whispering reeds,
O'er HOWARD's grave thou shalt impassioned bend,
As if to hold sad converse with a friend.
Whate'er thy fate upon this various scene,
Where'er thy weary pilgrimage hath been,
There shalt thou pause; and shutting from thy heart
Some vain regrets that oft unbidden start,
Think upon him to every lot resigned,
Who wept, who toiled, and perished for mankind.
For me, who musing, HOWARD, on thy fate,
These pensive strains at evening meditate,
I thank thee for the lessons thou hast taught
To mend my heart, or animate my thought.
I thank thee, HOWARD, for that awful view
Of life which thou hast drawn, most sad, most true.
Thou art no more! and the frail fading bloom
Of this poor offering dies upon thy tomb.
Beyond the transient sound of earthly praise
Thy virtues live, perhaps, in seraph's lays!
I, borne in thought, to the wild Nieper's wave,
Sigh to the reeds that whisper o'er thy grave.

Mortal! who, armed with holy fortitude,
The path of good right onward hast pursued;
May HE, to whose eternal throne on high
The sufferers of the earth with anguish cry,
Be thy protector! On that dreary road
That leads thee patient to the last abode
Of wretchedness, in peril and in pain,
May HE thy steps direct, thy heart sustain!
'Mid scenes, where pestilence in darkness flies;
In caverns, where deserted misery lies;
So safe beneath His shadow thou may'st go,
To cheer the dismal wastes of human woe.
O CHARITY! our helpless nature's pride,
Thou friend to him who knows no friend beside,
Is there in morning's breath, or the sweet gale
That steals o'er the tired pilgrim of the vale,
Cheering with fragrance fresh his weary frame,
Aught like the incense of thy sacred flame?
Is aught in all the beauties that adorn
The azure heaven, or purple lights of morn;
Is aught so fair in evening's lingering gleam,
As from thine eye the meek and pensive beam
That falls like saddest moonlight on the hill
And distant grove, when the wide world is still!
Thine are the ample views, that unconfined
Stretch to the utmost walks of human kind:
Thine is the spirit that with widest plan
Brother to brother binds, and man to man.
But who for thee, O Charity! will bear
Hardship, and cope with peril and with care!
Who, for thy sake, will social sweets forego
For scenes of sickness, and the sights of woe!
Who, for thy sake, will seek the prison's gloom,
Where ghastly Guilt implores her lingering doom;
Where Penitence unpitied sits, and pale,
That never told to human ears her tale;
Where Agony, half-famished, cries in vain;
Where dark Despondence murmurs o'er her chain;
Where gaunt Disease is wasted to the bone,
And hollow-eyed Despair forgets to groan!
Approving Mercy marks the vast design,
And proudly cries--HOWARD, the task be thine!
Already 'mid the darksome vaults profound,
The inner prison deep beneath the ground,
Consoling hath thy tender look appeared:
In horror's realm the voice of peace is heard!
Be the sad scene disclosed; fearless unfold
The grating door--the inmost cell behold!
Thought shrinks from the dread sight; the paly lamp
Burns faint amid the infectious vapours damp;
Beneath its light full many a livid mien,
And haggard eye-ball, through the dusk are seen.
In thought I see thee, at each hollow sound,
With humid lids oft anxious gaze around.
But oh! for him who, to yon vault confined,
Has bid a long farewell to human kind;
His wasted form, his cold and bloodless cheek,
A tale of sadder sorrow seem to speak:
Of friends, perhaps now mingled with the dead;
Of hope, that, like a faithless flatterer, fled
In the utmost hour of need; or of a son
Cast to the bleak world's mercy; or of one
Whose heart was broken, when the stern behest
Tore him from pale affection's bleeding breast.
Despairing, from his cold and flinty bed,
With fearful muttering he has raised his head:
What pitying spirit, what unwonted guest,
Strays to this last retreat, these shades unblest?
From life and light shut out, beneath this cell
Long have I bid the cheering sun farewell.
I heard for ever closed the jealous door,
I marked my bed on the forsaken floor,
I had no hope on earth, no human friend:
Let me unpitied to the dust descend!
Cold is his frozen heart--his eye is reared
To Heaven no more--and on his sable beard
The tear has ceased to fall. Thou canst not bring
Back to his mournful heart the morn of spring;--
Thou canst not bid the rose of health renew
Upon his wasted cheek its crimson hue;
But at thy look, (ere yet to hate resigned,
He murmurs his last curses on mankind),
At thy kind look one tender thought shall rise,
And his full soul shall thank thee ere he dies!
Oh ye, who list to Pleasure's vacant song,
As in her silken train ye troop along;
Who, like rank cowards, from affliction fly,
Or, whilst the precious hours of life pass by,
Lie slumbering in the sun! Awake, arise,
To these instructive pictures turn your eyes;
The awful view with other feelings scan,
And learn from HOWARD what man owes to man!
These, Virtue! are thy triumphs, that adorn
Fitliest our nature, and bespeak us born
For loftier action; not to gaze and run
From clime to clime; nor flutter in the sun,
Dragging a droning flight from flower to flower,
Like summer insects in a gaudy hour;
Nor yet o'er love-sick tales with fancy range,
And cry--'Tis pitiful, 'tis wondrous strange!
But on life's varied views to look around,
And raise expiring sorrow from the ground:--
And he who thus has borne his part assigned
In the sad fellowship of human kind,
Or for a moment soothed the bitter pain
Of a poor brother, has not lived in vain!
But 'tis not that Compassion should bestow
An unavailing tear on want or woe:
Lo! fairer Order rises from thy plan,
Befriending virtue, and adorning man.
That Comfort cheers the dark abode of pain,
Where wan Disease prayed for relief in vain;
That Mercy soothes the hard behest of law;
That Misery smiles upon her bed of straw;
That the dark felon's clan no more, combined,
Murmur in murderous leagues against mankind;
That to each cell, a mild yet mournful guest,
Contrition comes, and calms the laboring breast,
Whilst long-forgotten tears of virtue flow;
Thou, generous friend of all--to thee we owe!
To thee, that Pity sees her views expand
To many a cheerless haunt, and distant land!
Whilst warm Philanthropy extends her ray,
Wide as the world, and general as the day!
HOWARD! I view those deeds, and think how vain
The triumphs of weak man, the feeble strain
That Flattery brings to Conquest's crimson car,
Amid the bannered host, and the proud tents of war!
From realm to realm the hideous War-fiend hies
Wide o'er the wasted earth; before him flies
Affright, on pinions fleeter than the wind;
Whilst Death and Desolation fast behind
The havoc of his echoing march pursue:
Meantime his steps are bathed in the warm dew
Of bloodshed, and of tears;--but his dread name
Shall perish--the loud clarion of his fame
One day shall cease, and, wrapt in hideous gloom,
Forgetfulness bestride his shapeless tomb!
But bear thou fearless on;--the God of all,
To whom the afflicted kneel, the friendless call,
From His high throne of mercy shall approve
The holy deeds of Mercy and of Love:
For when the vanities of life's brief day
Oblivion's hurrying wing shall sweep away,
Each act by Charity and Mercy done,
High o'er the wrecks of time, shall live alone,
Immortal as the heavens, and beauteous bloom
To other worlds, and realms beyond the tomb.

'Tis dawn:--the distant Andes' rocky spires,
One after one, have caught the orient fires.
Where the dun condor shoots his upward flight,
His wings are touched with momentary light.
Meantime, beneath the mountains' glittering heads,
A boundless ocean of gray vapour spreads,
That o'er the champaign, stretching far below,
Moves now, in clustered masses, rising slow,
Till all the living landscape is displayed
In various pomp of colour, light, and shade,
Hills, forests, rivers, lakes, and level plain,
Lessening in sunshine to the southern main.
The Llama's fleece fumes with ascending dew;
The gem-like humming-birds their toils renew;
And there, by the wild river's devious side,
The tall flamingo, in its crimson pride,
Stalks on, in richest plumage bright arrayed,
With snowy neck superb, and legs of lengthening shade.
Sad maid, for others may the valleys ring,
For other ears the birds of morning sing;
For other eyes the palms in beauty wave,
Dark is thy prison in the ocean-cave!
Amid that winding cavern's inmost shade,
A dripping rill its ceaseless murmur made:
Masses of dim-discovered crags aloof,
Hung, threatening, from the vast and vaulted roof:
And through a fissure, in its glimmering height,
Seen like a star, appeared the distant light;
Beneath the opening, where the sunbeams shine,
Far down, the rock-weed hung its slender twine.
Here, pale and bound, the Spanish captive lay,
Till morn on morn, in silence, passed away;
When once, as o'er her sleeping child she hung,
And sad her evening supplication sung;
Like a small gem, amidst the gloom of night,
A glow-worm shot its green and trembling light,--
And, 'mid the moss and craggy fragments, shed
Faint lustre o'er her sleeping infant's head;
And hark! a voice--a woman's voice, its sound
Dies in faint echoes, 'mid the vault profound:
Let us pity the poor white maid!
She has no mother near!
No friend to dry her tear!
Upon the cold earth she is laid:
Let us pity the poor white maid!
It seemed the burden of a song of woe;
And see, across the gloom an Indian girl move slow!
Her nearer look is sorrowful, yet mild,
Her hanging locks are wreathed with rock-weed wild;
Gently she spoke, Poor Christian, dry thy tear:
Art thou afraid? all are not cruel here.
Oh! still more wretched may my portion be,
Stranger, if I could injure thine and thee!
And, lo! I bring, from banks and thickets wild,
Wood-strawberries, and honey for thy child.
Whence, who art thou, who, in this fearful place,
Does comfort speak to one of Spanish race?

INDIAN.

It is an Indian maid, who chanced to hear
Thy tale of sorrow, as she wandered near:
I loved a white man once; but he is flown,
And now I wander heartless and alone.
I traced the dark and winding way beneath:
But well I know to lead thee hence were death.
Oh, say! what fortunes cast thee o'er the wave,
On these sad shores perhaps to find a grave?

SPANISH WOMAN.

Three years have passed since a fond husband left
Me and this infant, of his love bereft;
Him I have followed; need I tell thee more,
Cast helpless, friendless, hopeless, on this shore.

INDIAN.

Oh! did he love thee, then? Let death betide,
Yes, from this cavern I will be thy guide.
Nay, do not shrink! from Caracalla's bay,
Ev'n now, the Spaniards wind their march this way.
As late in yester eve I paced the shore
I heard their signal-guns at distance roar.
Wilt thou not follow? He will shield thy child,--
The Christian's God,--through passes dark and wild
He will direct thy way! Come, follow me;
Oh, yet be loved, be happy, and be free!
But I, an outcast on my native plain,
The poor Olola ne'er shall smile again!
So guiding from the cave, when all was still,
And pointing to the furthest glimmering hill,
The Indian led, till, on Itata's side,
The Spanish camp and night-fires they descried:
Then on the stranger's neck that wild maid fell,
And said, Thy own gods prosper thee, farewell!
The owl is hooting overhead; below,
On dusky wing, the vampire-bat sails slow.
Ongolmo stood before the cave of night,
Where the great wizard sat:--a lurid light
Was on his face; twelve giant shadows frowned,
His mute and dreadful ministers, around.
Each eye-ball, as in life, was seen to roll,
Each lip to move; but not a living soul
Was there, save bold Ongolmo and the seer.
The warrior half advanced his lifted spear,
Then spoke: Dread master of the mighty lore!
Say, shall the Spaniards welter in their gore?
Let these dark ministers the answer tell,
Replied the master of the mighty spell.
Then every giant-shadow, as it stood,
Lifted on high a skull that dropped with blood.
Yet more, the impatient warrior cried; yet more!
Say, shall I live, and drink the tyrant's gore?
'Twas silence. Speak! he cried: none made reply.
At once strange thunder shook the distant sky,
And all was o'er; the grisly shapes are flown,
And the grim warrior stands in the wild woods alone.
St Pedro's church had rung its midnight chimes,
And the gray friars were chanting at their primes,
When winds, as of a rushing hurricane,
Shook the tall windows of the towered fane;--
Sounds more than earthly with the storm arose,
And a dire troop are passed to Andes' snows,
Where mighty spirits in mysterious ring
Their dread prophetic incantations sing,
Round Chillan's crater-smoke, whose lurid light
Streams high against the hollow cope of night.
Thy genius, Andes, towering o'er the rest,
Rose vast, and thus a phantom-shape addressed:
Who comes so swift amid the storm?
Ha! I know thy bloodless form,
I know thee, angel, who thou art,
By the hissing of thy dart!
'Tis Death, the king! the rocks around,
Hark! echo back the fearful sound;--
'Tis Death, the king! away, away!
The famished vulture scents its prey.
Spectre, hence! we cannot die--
Thy withering weapons we defy;
Dire and potent as thou art!
Then spoke the phantom of the uplifted dart:
Spirits who in darkness dwell,
I heard far off your secret spell!
Enough, on yonder fatal shore,
My fiends have drank your children's gore;
Lo! I come, and doom to fate
The murderers, and the foe you hate!
Of all who shook their hostile spears,
And marked their way through blood and tears,
(Now sleeping still on yonder plain)
But one--one only shall remain,
Ere thrice the morn shall shine again.
Then sang the mighty spirits. Thee, they sing,
Hail to thee, Death, all hail to Death, the king!
The penguin flaps her wings in gore,
Devoted Spain, along the shore.
Whence that shriek? with ghastly eyes,
Thy victor-chief abandoned lies!
Victor of the southern world,
Whose crimson banners were unfurled
O'er the silence of the waves,--
O'er a land of bleeding slaves!
Victor, where is now thy boast;
Thine iron steeds, thy mailed host?
Hark! hark! even now I hear his cries!--
Spirits, hence!--he dies! he dies!

Why mourns the ingenuous Moralist, whose mind
Science has stored, and Piety refined,
That fading Chivalry displays no more
Her pomp and stately tournaments of yore!
Lo! when Philosophy and Truth advance,
Scared at their frown, she drops her glittering lance;
Round her reft castles the pale ivy crawls,
And sunk and silent are her bannered halls!
As when far off the golden evening sails,
And slowly sink the fancy-painted vales,
With rich pavilions spread in long array;
So rolls the enchanter's radiant realm away;
So on the sight the parting glories fade,
The gorgeous vision sets in endless shade.
But shall the musing mind for this lament,
Or mourn the wizard's Gothic fabric rent!
Shall he, with Fancy's poor and pensive child,
Gaze on his shadowy vales, and prospects wild,
With lingering love, and sighing bid farewell
To the dim pictures of his parting spell!
No, BURKE! thy heart, by juster feelings led,
Mourns for the spirit of high Honour fled;
Mourns that Philosophy, abstract and cold,
Withering should smite life's fancy-flowered mould;
And many a smiling sympathy depart,
That graced the sternness of the manly heart.
Nor shall the wise and virtuous scan severe
These fair illusions, ev'n to nature dear.
Though now no more proud Chivalry recalls
Her tourneys bright, and pealing festivals;
Though now on high her idle spear is hung,
Though Time her mouldering harp has half unstrung;
Her milder influence shall she still impart,
To decorate, but not disguise, the heart;
To nurse the tender sympathies that play
In the short sunshine of life's early way;
For female worth and meekness to inspire
Homage and love, and temper rude desire;
Nor seldom with sweet dreams sad thoughts to cheer,
And half beguile affliction of her tear!
Lo! this her boast; and still, O BURKE! be thine
Her glowing hues that warm, yet tempered shine;
Whilst whispers bland, and fairest dreams, attend
Thy evening path, till the last shade descend!
So may she soothe, with loftier wisdom's aid,
Thy musing leisure in the silent shade,
And bid poor Fancy, her cold pinions wet,
Life's cloudy skies and beating showers forget.
But can her fairest form, her sweetest song,
Soothe thee, assailed by calumny and wrong!
Ev'n now thy foes with louder accents cry:
Champion of unrelenting tyranny,
At Freedom hast thou aimed the deadly blow,
And striven with impious arm to lay her altars low!
No, BURKE! indignant at the voice we start:
We trust thy liberal views, thy generous heart;
We think of those who, naked, pale, and poor,
Relieved and blessed, have wandered from thy door;
We see thee with unwearied step explore
Each track of bloodshed on the farthest shore
Of injured Asia, and thy swelling breast
Harrowing the oppressor, mourning for the oppressed,
No, BURKE! where'er Injustice rears her head,
Where'er with blood her idol grim is fed;
Where'er fell Cruelty, at her command,
With crimson banner marches through the land,
And striding, like a giant, onward hies,
Whilst man, a trodden worm, looks up, and dies;
Where'er pale Murder in her train appears,
With reeking axe, and garments wet with tears;
Or, lowering Jealousy, unmoved as Fate,
Bars fast the prison-cage's iron gate
Upon the buried sorrows and the cries
Of him who there, lost and forgotten, lies;--
When ministers like these, in fearful state,
Upon a bloody tyrant's bidding wait,
Thou too shalt own (and Justice lift her rod)
The cause of Freedom is the cause of GOD!
Fair spirit, who dost rise in beauteous pride,
Where proud Oppression hath thine arm defied!
When led by Virtue thou dost firm advance,
And bathe in Guilt's warm blood thy burning lance;
When all thy form its awful port assumes,
And in the tempest shake thy crimson plumes,
I mark thy lofty mien, thy steady eye,
So fall thy foes! with tears of joy I cry.
But ne'er may Anarchy, with eyes a-flame,
And mien distract, assume thy awful name;
Her pale torch sheds afar its hideous glare,
And shows the blood-drops in her dabbled hair;
The fiends of discord hear her hollow voice,
The spirits of the deathful storm rejoice:
As when the rising blast with muttering sweep
Sounds 'mid the branches of the forest deep,
The sad horizon lowers, the parting sun
Is hid, strange murmurs through the high wood run,
The falcon wheels away his mournful flight,
And leaves the glens to solitude and night;
Till soon the hurricane, in dismal shroud,
Comes fearful forth, and sounds her conch aloud;
The oak majestic bows his hoary head,
And ruin round his ancient reign is spread:
So the dark fiend, rejoicing in her might,
Pours desolation and the storm of night;
Before her dread career the good and just
Fly far, or sink expiring in the dust;
Wide wastes and mighty wrecks around her lie,
And the earth trembles at her impious cry!
Whether her temple, wet with human gore,
She thus may raise on Gallia's ravaged shore,
Belongs to HIM alone, and His high will,
Who bids the tempests of the world be still.
With joy we turn to Albion's happier plain,
Where ancient Freedom holds her temperate reign;
Where Justice sits majestic on her throne;
Where Mercy turns her ear to every groan.
O Albion! fairest isle, whose verdant plain
Springs beauteous from the blue and billowy main;
In peaceful pomp whose glittering cities rise,
And lift their crowded temples to the skies;
Whose navy on the broad brine awful rolls;
Whose commerce glows beneath the distant poles;
Whose streams reflect full many an Attic pile;
Whose velvet lawns in long luxuriance smile;
Amid whose winding coombs contentment dwells,
Whose vales rejoice to hear the Sabbath bells;
Whose humblest shed, that steady laws protect,
The villager with woodbine bowers hath decked!
Sweet native land, whose every haunt is dear,
Whose every gale is music to mine ear;
Amidst whose hills one poor retreat I sought,
Where I might sometimes hide a saddening thought,
And having wandered far, and marked mankind
In their vain mask, might rest and safety find:
Oh! still may Freedom, with majestic mien,
Pacing thy rocks and the green vales, be seen;
Around thy cliffs, that glitter o'er the main,
May smiling Order wind her silver chain;
Whilst from thy calm abodes, and azure skies,
Far off the fiend of Discord murmuring flies!
To him who firm thy injured cause has fought,
This humble offering, lo! the Muse has brought;
Nor heed thou, BURKE, if, with averted eye,
Scowling, cold Envy may thy worth decry!
It is the lot of man:--the best oft mourn,
As sad they journey through this cloudy bourne:
If conscious Genius stamp their chosen breast,
And on the forehead show her seal impressed,
Perhaps they mourn, in bleak Misfortune's shade,
Their age and cares with penury repaid;
Their errors deeply scanned, their worth forgot,
Or marked by hard injustice with a blot.
If high they soar, and keep their distant way,
And spread their ample pinions to the day,
Malignant Faction hears with hate their name,
And all her tongues are busy with their fame.
But 'tis enough to hold, as best we may,
Our destined track, till sets the closing day;
Whether with living lustre we adorn
Our high sphere, like the radiance of the morn;
Or whether silent in the shade we move,
Cheered by the lonely star of pensive love;
Or whether wild opposing storms we stem,
Panting for Virtue's distant diadem;
'Tis the unshaken mind, the conscience pure,
That bids us firmly act, meekly endure;
'Tis this may shield us when the storm beats hard,
Content, though poor, had we no other guard!

Shout! for the Lord hath triumphed gloriously!
Upon the shores of that renowned land,
Where erst His mighty arm and outstretched hand
He lifted high,
And dashed, in pieces dashed the enemy;--
Upon that ancient coast,
Where Pharaoh's chariot and his host
He cast into the deep,
Whilst o'er their silent pomp He bid the swoll'n sea sweep;
Upon that eastern shore,
That saw His awful arm revealed of yore,
Again hath He arisen, and opposed
His foes' defying vaunt: o'er them the deep hath closed!

Shades of mighty chiefs of yore,
Who triumphed on the self-same shore:
Ammon, who first o'er ocean's empire wide
Didst bid the bold bark stem the roaring tide;
Sesac, who from the East to farthest West
Didst rear thy pillars over realms subdued;
And thou, whose bones do rest
In the huge pyramid's dim solitude,
Beneath the uncouth stone,
Thy name and deeds unknown;
And Philip's glorious son,
With conquest flushed, for fields and cities won;
And thou, imperial Caesar, whose sole sway
The long-disputed world at length confessed,
When on these shores thy bleeding rival lay!
Oh, could ye, starting from your long cold rest,
Burst Death's oblivious trance,
And once again with plumed pride advance,
How would ye own your fame surpassed,
And on the sand your trophies cast,
When, the storm of conflict o'er,
And ceased the burning battle's roar,
Beneath the morning's orient light,
Ye saw, with sails all swelling white,
Britain's proud fleet, to many a joyful cry,
Ride o'er the rolling surge in awful sovereignty!

For fierce Ambition fired your mind--
Beside your glittering car,
Amid the thickest war,
Went Superstition, sorceress blind,
In dimly-figured robe, with scowling mien,
Half hid in jealous hood;
And Tyranny, beneath whose helm was seen
His eye suffused with blood;
And giant Pride,
That the great sun with haughty smile defied;
And Avarice, that grasped his guilty gold;
These, as the sorceress her loud sistrum rung,
Their dismal paean sung;
And still, far off, pale Pity hung her head,
Whilst o'er the dying and the dead
The victor's brazen wheels with gory axle rolled.
Now look on him, in holy courage bold;
The asserter of his country's cause behold!
He lifts his gaze to heaven, serenely brave,
And whilst around war's fearful banners wave,
He prays: Protect us, as our cause is just;
For in thy might alone, Judge of the world, we trust!

And they are scattered--the destroyers die!
They that usurped the bloody victor's claim,
That spoke of freedom; but, behold a cry!
They, that like a wasteful flame,
Or the huge sandy pillar, that amain
Whirls 'mid the silence of the desert plain,
Deathful in their career of terror came,
And scattered ruin as they passed!
So rush they, like the simoom's horrid blast;
They sweep, and all around is wilderness!
But from thy throne on high,
Thou, God, hast heard the cry
Of nations in distress!
Britain goes forth, beneath thy might,
To quell the proud blasphemers in the fight;
And Egypt, far along her winding main,
Echoes the shout of joy, and genuine Freedom's strain!

Now let them, who thy name, O GOD! defy,
Invoke the mighty Prophet of the East;
Or deck, as erst, the mystic feast
To Ashtaroth, queen of the starry sky!
Let them, in some cavern dark,
Seek Osiris' buried ark;
Or call on Typhon, of gigantic form,
Lifting his hundred arms, and howling 'mid the storm!
Or to that grisly king
In vain their cymbals let them ring,
To him in Tophet's vale revered
(With smoke his brazen idol smeared),
Grim Moloch, in whose fuming furnace blue
The unpitying priest the shrieking infant threw,
Whilst to shrill cries, and drums' and timbrels' sound,
The frantic and unhearing troop danced round;
To _him_ despairing let them go,
And tell their fearful tale of hideous overthrow!

Calm breathed the airs along the evening bay,
Where, all in warlike pride,
The Gallic squadron stretched its long array;
And o'er the tranquil tide
With beauteous bend the streamers waved on high
But, ah! how changed the scene ere night descends!
Hark to the shout that heaven's high concave rends!
Hark to that dying cry!
Whilst, louder yet, the cannon's roar
Resounds along the Nile's affrighted shore,
Where, from his oozy bed,
The cowering crocodile hath raised his head!
What bursting flame
Lightens the long track of the gleamy brine!
From yon proud ship it came,
That towered the leader of the hostile line!
Now loud explosion rends the midnight air!
Heard ye the last deep groaning of despair?
Heaven's fiery cope unwonted thunders fill,
Then, with one dreadful pause, earth, air, and seas are still!

But now the mingled fight
Begins its awful strife again!
Through the dun shades of night
Along the darkly-heaving main
Is seen the frequent flash;
And many a towering mast with dreadful crash
Rings falling. Is the scene of slaughter o'er?
Is the death-cry heard no more?
Lo! where the East a glimmering freckle streaks,
Slow o'er the shadowy wave the gray dawn breaks.
Behold, O Sun, the flood
Strewed with the dead, and dark with blood!
Behold, all scattered on the rocking tide,
The wrecks of haughty Gallia's pride!
But Britain's floating bulwarks, with serene
And silent pomp, amid the deathful scene
Move glorious, and more beautiful display
Their ensigns streaming to thy orient ray.

Awful Genius of the land!
Who (thy reign of glory closed)
By marble wrecks, half-hid in sand,
Hast mournfully reposed;
Who long, amid the wasteful desert wide,
Hast loved with death-like stillness to abide;
Or wrapped in tenfold gloom,
From noise of human things for ages hid,
Hast sat upon the shapeless tomb
In the forlorn and dripping pyramid;
Awake! Arise!
Though thou behold the day no more
That saw thy pride and pomp of yore;
Though, like the sounds that in the morning ray
Trembled and died away
From Memnon's statue; though, like these, the voice
That bade thy vernal plains rejoice,
The voice of Science, is no longer heard;
And all thy gorgeous state hath disappeared:
Yet hear, with triumph, and with hope again,
The shouts of joy that swell from thy forsaken main!

And, oh! might He, at whose command
Deep darkness shades a mourning land;
At whose command, bursting from night,
And flaming with redoubled light,
The Sun of Science mounts again,
And re-illumes the wide-extended plain!
Might He, from this eventful day,
Illustrious Egypt, to thy shore
Science, Freedom, Peace restore,
And bid thy crowded ports their ancient pomp display!
No more should Superstition mark,
In characters uncouth and dark,
Her dreary, monumental shrine!
No more should meek-eyed Piety
Outcast, insulted lie
Beneath the mosque, whose golden crescents shine,
But starting from her trance,
O'er Nubia's sands advance
Beyond the farthest fountains of the Nile!
The dismal Gallas should behold her smile,
And Abyssinia's inmost rocks rejoice
To hear her awful lore, yet soft consoling voice!

Hasten, O GOD! the time, when never more
Pale Pity, from her moonlight seat shall hear,
And dropping at the sound a fruitless tear,
The far-off battle's melancholy roar;
When never more Horror's portentous cry
Shall sound amid the troubled sky;
Or dark Destruction's grimly-smiling mien,
Through the red flashes of the fight be seen!
Father in heaven! our ardent hopes fulfil;
Thou speakest 'Peace,' and the vexed world is still!
Yet should Oppression huge arise,
And with bloody banners spread,
Upon the gasping nations tread,
Whilst he thy name defies,
Trusting in Thee alone, we hope to quell
His furious might, his purpose fell;
And as the ensigns of his baffled pride
O'er the seas are scattered wide,
We will take up a joyous strain and cry--
Shout! for the Lord hath triumphed gloriously!

Oh! I should ill thy generous cares requite
Thou who didst first inspire my timid Muse,
Could I one tuneful tear to thee refuse,
Now that thine aged eyes are closed in night,
Kind Warton! Thou hast stroked my stripling head,
And sometimes, mingling soft reproof with praise,
My path hast best directed through the maze
Of thorny life: by thee my steps were led
To that romantic valley, high o'erhung
With sable woods, where many a minstrel rung
His bold harp to the sweeping waterfall;
Whilst Fancy loved around each form to call
That fill the poet's dream: to this retreat
Of Fancy, (won by whose enticing lay
I have forgot how sunk the summer's day),
Thou first did guide my not unwilling feet;
Meantime inspiring the gay breast of youth
With love of taste, of science, and of truth.
The first inciting sounds of human praise,
A parent's love excepted, came from thee;
And but for thee, perhaps, my boyish days
Had all passed idly, and whate'er in me
Now live of hope, been buried.
I was one,
Long bound by cold dejection's numbing chain,
As in a torpid trance, that deemed it vain
To struggle; nor my eyelids to the sun
Uplifted: but I heard thy cheering voice;
I shook my deadly slumber off; I gazed
Delighted 'round; awaked, inspired, amazed,
I marked another world, and in my choice
Lovelier, and decked with light! On fairy ground
Methought I buoyant trod, and heard the sound
As of enchanting melodies, that stole,
Stole gently, and entranced my captive soul.
Then all was life and hope! 'Twas thy first ray,
Sweet Fancy, on the heart; as when the day
Of Spring, along the melancholy tract
Of wintry Lapland, dawns; the cataract,
From ice dissolving on the silent side
Of some white precipice, with paly gleam
Descends, while the cold hills a slanting beam
Faint tinges: till, ascending in his pride,
The great Sun from the red horizon looks,
And wakes the tuneless birds, the stagnant brooks,
And sleeping lakes! So on my mind's cold night
The ray of Fancy shone, and gave delight
And hope past utterance.
Thy cheering voice,
O Warton! bade my silent heart rejoice,
And wake to love of nature; every breeze,
On Itchin's brink was melody; the trees
Waved in fresh beauty; and the wind and rain,
That shook the battlements of Wykeham's fane,
Not less delighted, when, with random pace,
I trod the cloistered aisles; and witness thou,
Catherine, upon whose foss-encircled brow
We met the morning, how I loved to trace
The prospect spread around; the rills below,
That shone irriguous in the gleaming plain;
The river's bend, where the dark barge went slow,
And the pale light on yonder time-worn fane!
So passed my days with new delight; mean time
To Learning's tender eye thou didst unfold
The classic page, and what high bards of old,
With solemn notes, and minstrelsy sublime,
Have chanted, we together heard; and thou,
Warton! wouldst bid me listen, till a tear
Sprang to mine eye: now the bold song we hear
Of Greece's sightless master-bard: the breast
Beats high; with stern Pelides to the plain
We rush; or o'er the corpse of Hector slain
Hang pitying;--and lo! where pale, oppressed
With age and grief, sad Priam comes; with beard
All white he bows, kissing the hands besmeared
With his last hope's best blood!
The oaten reed
Now from the mountain sounds; the sylvan Muse,
Reclined by the clear stream of Arethuse,
Wakes the Sicilian pipe; the sunny mead
Swarms with the bees, whose drowsy lullaby
Soothes the reclining ox with half-closed eye;
While in soft cadence to the madrigal,
From rock to rock the whispering waters fall!
But who is he, that, by yon gloomy cave,
Bids heaven and earth bear witness to his woe!
And hark! how hollowly the ocean-wave
Echoes his plaint, and murmurs deep below!
Haste, let the tall ship stem the tossing tide,
That he may leave his cave, and hear no more
The Lemnian surges unrejoicing roar;
And be great Fate through the dark world thy guide,
Sad Philoctetes!
So Instruction bland,
With young-eyed Sympathy, went hand in hand
O'er classic fields; and let my heart confess
Its holier joy, when I essayed to climb
The lonely heights where Shakspeare sat sublime,
Lord of the mighty spell: around him press
Spirits and fairy-forms. He, ruling wide
His visionary world, bids terror fill
The shivering breast, or softer pity thrill
Ev'n to the inmost heart. Within me died
All thoughts of this low earth, and higher powers
Seemed in my soul to stir; till, strained too long,
The senses sunk.
Then, Ossian, thy wild song
Haply beguiled the unheeded midnight hours,
And, like the blast that swept Berrathron's towers,
Came pleasant and yet mournful to my soul!
See o'er the autumnal heath the gray mists roll!
Hark to the dim ghosts' faint and feeble cry,
As on the cloudy tempest they pass by!
Saw ye huge Loda's spectre-shape advance,
Through which the stars look pale!
Nor ceased the trance
Which bound the erring fancy, till dark night
Flew silent by, and at my window-grate
The morning bird sang loud: nor less delight
The spirit felt, when still and charmed I sate
Great Milton's solemn harmonies to hear,
That swell from the full chord, and strong and clear,
Beyond the tuneless couplets' weak control,
Their long-commingling diapason roll,
In varied sweetness.
Nor, amidst the choir
Of pealing minstrelsy, was thy own lyre,
Warton, unheard;--as Fancy poured the song,
The measured music flowed along,
Till all the heart and all the sense
Felt her divinest influence,
In throbbing sympathy:--Prepare the car,
And whirl us, goddess, to the war,
Where crimson banners fire the skies,
Where the mingled shouts arise,
Where the steed, with fetlock red,
Tramples the dying and the dead;
And amain, from side to side,
Death his pale horse is seen to ride!
Or rather, sweet enthusiast, lead
Our footsteps to the cowslip mead,
Where, as the magic spell is wound,
Dying music floats around:--
Or seek we some gray ruin's shade,
And pity the cold beggar, laid
Beneath the ivy-rustling tower,
At the dreary midnight hour,
Scarce sheltered from the drifting snow;
While her dark locks the bleak winds blow
O'er her sleeping infant's cheek!
Then let the shrilling trumpet speak,
And pierce in louder tones the ear,
Till, while it peals, we seem to hear
The sounding march, as of the Theban's song;
And varied numbers, in their course,
With gathering fulness, and collected force,
Like the broad cataract, swell and sweep along!
Struck by the sounds, what wonder that I laid,
As thou, O Warton! didst the theme inspire,
My inexperienced hand upon the lyre,
And soon with transient touch faint music made,
As soon forgotten!
So I loved to lie
By the wild streams of elfin poesy,
Rapt in strange musings; but when life began,
I never roamed a visionary man;
For, taught by thee, I learned with sober eyes
To look on life's severe realities.
I never made (a dream-distempered thing)
Poor Fiction's realm my world; but to cold Truth
Subdued the vivid shapings of my youth.
Save when the drisly woods were murmuring,
Or some hard crosses had my spirit bowed;
Then I have left, unseen, the careless crowd,
And sought the dark sea roaring, or the steep
That braved the storm; or in the forest deep,
As all its gray leaves rustled, wooed the tone
Of the loved lyre, that, in my springtide gone,
Waked me to transport.
Eighteen summers now
Have smiled on Itchin's margin, since the time
When these delightful visions of our prime
Rose on my view in loveliness. And thou
Friend of my muse, in thy death-bed art cold,
Who, with the tenderest touches, didst unfold
The shrinking leaves of Fancy, else unseen
And shelterless: therefore to thee are due
Whate'er their summer sweetness; and I strew,
Sadly, such flowerets as on hillocks green,
Or mountain-slope, or hedge-row, yet my hand
May cull, with many a recollection bland,
And mingled sorrow, Warton, on thy tomb,
To whom, if bloom they boast, they owe their bloom!

The second moon had now begun to wane,
Since bold Valdivia left the southern plain;
Goal of his labours, Penco's port and bay,
Far gleaming to the summer sunset lay.
The wayworn veteran, who had slowly passed
Through trackless woods, or o'er savannahs vast,
With hope impatient sees the city spires
Gild the horizon, like ascending fires.
Now well-known sounds salute him, as more near
The citadel and battlements appear;
The approaching trumpets ring at intervals;
The trumpet answers from the rampart walls,
Where many a maiden casts an anxious eye,
Some long-lost object of her love to espy,
Or watches, as the evening light illumes
The points of lances, or the passing plumes.
The grating drawbridge and the portal-arch,
Now echo to the long battalion's march;
Whilst every eye some friend remembered greets,
Amid the gazing crowd that throngs the streets.
As bending o'er his mule, amid the throng,
Pensive and pale, Anselmo rode along,
How sacred, 'mid the noise of arms, appeared
His venerable mien and snowy beard!
Whilst every heart a silent prayer bestowed,
Slow to the convent's massy gate he rode:
Around, the brothers, gratulating, stand,
And ask for tidings of the southern land.
As from the turret tolls the vesper bell,
He seeks, a weary man, his evening cell,
No sounds of social cheer, no beds of state,
Nor gorgeous canopies his coming wait;
But o'er a little bread, with folded hands,
Thanking the God that gave, a while he stands;
Then, while all thoughts of earthly sorrow cease,
Upon his pallet lays him down in peace.
The scene how different, where the castle-hall
Rings to the loud triumphant festival:
A hundred torches blaze, and flame aloof,
Long quivering shadows streak the vaulted roof,--
Whilst, seen far off, the illumined windows throw
A splendour on the shore and seas below.
Amid his captains, in imperial state,
Beneath a crimson canopy, elate,
Valdivia sits--and, striking loud the strings,
The wandering ministrel of Valentia sings.
For Chili conquered, fill the bowl again!
For Chili conquered, raise the heroic strain!
Lautaro left the hall of jubilee
Unmarked, and wandered by the moonlit sea:
He heard far off, in dissonant acclaim,
The song, the shout, and his loved country's name.
As swelled at times the trump's insulting sound,
He raised his eyes impatient from the ground;
Then smote his breast indignantly, and cried,
Chili! my country; would that I had died
On the sad night of that eventful day
When on the ground my murdered father lay!
I should not then, dejected and alone,
Have thought I heard his injured spirit groan.
Ha! was it not his form--his face--his hair?
Hold, soldier! stern, inhuman soldier, spare!
Ha! is it not his blood? Avenge, he cries,
Avenge, my son, these wounds! He faints--he dies!
Leave me, dread shadow! Can I then forget
My father's look--his voice? He beckons yet!
Now on that glimmering rock I see him stand:
Avenge! he cries, and waves his dim-seen hand!
Thus mused the youth, distempered and forlorn,
When, hark! the sound as of a distant horn
Swells o'er the surge! he turned his look around,
And still, with many a pause, he heard the sound:
It came from yonder rocks; and, list! what strain
Breaks on the silence of the sleeping main?
I heard the song of gladness;
It seemed but yesterday,
But it turned my thoughts to madness,
So soon it died away:
I sound my sea-shell; but in vain I try
To bring back that enchanting harmony!
Hark! heard ye not the surges say,
Oh! heartless maid, what canst thou do?
O'er the moon-gleaming ocean, I'll wander away,
And paddle to Spain in my light canoe!
The youth drew near, by the strange accents led,
Where in a cave, wild sea-weeds round her head,
And holding a large sea-conch in her hand,
He saw, with wildering air, an Indian maiden stand.
A tattered poncho o'er her shoulders hung;
On either side her long black locks were flung;
And now by the moon's glimmer, he espies
Her high cheek-bones, and bright but hollow eyes.
Lautaro spoke: Oh! say what cruel wrong
Weighs on thy heart, maiden, what bodes thy song?
She answered not, but blew her shell again;
Then thus renewed the desultory strain:
Yes, yes, we must forget! the world is wide;
My music now shall be the dashing tide:
In the calm of the deep I will frolic and swim--
With the breath of the South o'er the sea-blossom skim.
If ever, stranger, on thy way,
Sounds, more than earthly sweet, thy soul should move,
It is the youth! Oh! do not say--
That poor Olola died for love.
Lautaro stretched his hand; she said, Adieu!
And o'er the glimmering rocks like lightning flew.
He followed, and still heard at distance swell
The lessening echoes of that mournful shell.
It ceased at once; and now he heard no more
Than the sea's murmur dying on the shore.
Olola!--ha! his sister had that name!
Oh, horrid fancies! shake not thus his frame!
All night he wandered by the desert main,
To catch the melancholy sounds again.
No torches blaze in Penco's castled hall
That echoed to the midnight festival.
The weary soldiers by their toils oppressed,
Had now retired to silence and to rest.
The minstrel only, who the song had sung
Of noble Cid, as o'er the strings he hung,
Upon the instrument had fall'n asleep,
Weary, and now was hushed in slumbers deep.
Tracing the scenes long past, in busy dreams
Again he wanders by his native streams;
Or sits, his evening saraband to sing
To the clear Garonne's gentle murmuring.
Cold o'er the fleckered clouds the morning broke
Aslant ere from his slumbers he awoke;
Still as he sat, nor yet had left the place,
The first dim light fell on his pallid face.
He wakes--he gazes round--the dawning day
Comes from the deep, in garb of cloudy gray.
The woods with crow of early turkeys ring,
The glancing birds beneath the castle sing,
And the sole sun his rising orb displays,
Radiant and reddening, through the scattered haze.
To recreate the languid sense a while,
When earth and ocean wore their sweetest smile,
He wandered to the beach: the early air
Blew soft, and lifted, as it blew, his hair;
Flushed was his cheek; his faded eye, more bright,
Shone with a faint but animated light,
While the soft morning ray seemed to bestow
On his tired mind a transient kindred glow.
As thus, with shadow stretching o'er the sand,
He mused and wandered on the winding strand,
At distance tossed upon the tumbling tide,
A dark and floating substance he espied.
He stood, and where the eddying surges beat,
An Indian corse was rolled beneath his feet:
The hollow wave retired with sullen sound;
The face of that sad corse was to the ground;
It seemed a female, by the slender form;
He touched the hand--it was no longer warm;
He turned its face--O God! that eye, though dim,
Seemed with its deadly glare as fixed on him!
How sunk his shuddering sense, how changed his hue,
When poor Olola in that corse he knew!
Lautaro, rushing from the rocks, advanced;
His keen eye, like a startled eagle's glanced:
'Tis she!--he knew her by a mark impressed
From earliest infancy beneath her breast.
Oh, my poor sister! when all hopes were past
Of meeting, do we meet--thus meet--at last!
Then full on Zarinel, as one amazed,
With rising wrath and stern suspicion gazed;
For Zarinel still knelt upon the sand,
And to his forehead pressed the dead maid's hand.
Speak! whence art thou?
Pale Zarinel, his head
Upraising answered,
Peace is with the dead!
Him dost thou seek who injured thine and thee?
Here--strike the fell assassin--I am he!
Die! he exclaimed, and with convulsive start
Instant had plunged the dagger in his heart,
When the meek father, with his holy book,
And placid aspect, met his frenzied look.
He trembled--struck his brow--and, turning round,
Flung the uplifted dagger to the ground.
Then murmured: Father, Heaven has heard thy prayer--
But oh! the sister of my soul lies there!
The Christian's God has triumphed! father, heap
Some earth upon her bones, whilst I go weep!
Anselmo with calm brow approached the place,
And hastened with his staff his faltering pace:
Ho! child of guilt and wretchedness, he cried,
Speak!--Holy father, the sad youth replied,
God bade the seas the accusing victim roll
Dead at my feet, to teach my shuddering soul
Its guilt: Oh! father, holy father, pray
That heaven may take the deep, dire curse away!
Oh! yet, Anselmo cried, live and repent,
For not in vain was this dread warning sent;
The deep reproaches of thy soul I spare,
Go! seek Heaven's peace by penitence and prayer.
The youth arose, yet trembling from the shock,
And severed from the dead maid's hair a lock;
This to his heart with trembling hand he pressed,
And dried the salt-sea moisture on his breast.
They laid her limbs within the sea-beat grave,
And prayed: Her soul, O blessed Mary, save!

INSCRIBED TO THE DUKE OF LEEDS.

When Want, with wasted mien and haggard eye,
Retires in silence to her cell to die;
When o'er her child she hangs with speechless dread,
Faint and despairing of to-morrow's bread;
Who shall approach to bid the conflict cease,
And to her parting spirit whisper peace!
Who thee, poor infant, that with aspect bland
Dost stretch forth innocent thy helpless hand,
Shall pitying then protect, when thou art thrown
On the world's waste, unfriended and alone!
O hapless Infancy! if aught could move
The hardest heart to pity and to love
'Twere surely found in thee: dim passions mark
Stern manhood's brow, where age impresses dark
The stealing line of sorrow; but thine eye
Wears not distrust, or grief, or perfidy.
Though fortune's storms with dismal shadow lower,
Thy heart nor fears, nor feels the bitter shower;
Thy tear is soon forgotten; thou wilt weep,
And then the murmuring winds will hush thy sleep,
As 'twere with some sad music;--and thy smiles,
Unlike to those that cover cruel wiles,
Plead best thy speechless innocence, and lend
A charm might win the world to be thy friend.
But thou art oft abandoned in thy smiles,
And early vice thy easy heart beguiles.
Oh for some voice, that of the secret maze
Where the grim passions lurk, the winding ways
That lead to sin, and ruth, and deep lament,
Might haply warn thee, whilst yet innocent
And beauteous as the spring-time o'er the hills
Advancing, when each vale glad music fills!
Else lost and wandering, the benighted mind
No spot of rest again shall ever find;
Then the sweet smiles, that erst enchanting laid
Their magic beauty on thy look, shall fade;
Then the bird's warbled song no more shall cheer
With morning music thy delighted ear;
Fell thoughts and muttering passions shall awake,
And the fair rose the sullied cheek forsake!
As when still Autumn's gradual gloom is laid
Far o'er the fading forest's saddened shade,
A mournful gleam illumines the cold hill,
Yet palely wandering o'er the distant rill;
But when the hollow gust, slow rising, raves,
And high the pine on yon lone summit waves,
Each milder charm, like pictures of a dream,
Hath perished, mute the birds, and dark the stream!
Scuds the dreer sleet upon the whirlwind borne,
And scowls the landscape clouded and forlorn!
So fades, so perishes frail Virtue's hue;
Her last and lingering smile seems but to rue,
Like autumn, every summer beauty reft,
Till all is dark and to the winter left.
Yet spring, with living touch, shall paint again
The green-leaved forest, and the purple plain;
With mingling melody the woods shall ring,
The whispering breeze its long-lost incense fling:
But, Innocence! when once thy tender flower
The sickly taint has touched, where is the power
That shall bring back its fragrance, or restore
The tints of loveliness, that shine no more?
How then for thee, who pinest in life's gloom,
Abandoned child! can hope or virtue bloom!
For thee, exposed amid the desert drear,
Which no glad gales or vernal sunbeams cheer!
Though some there are, who lift their head sublime,
Nor heed the transient storms of fate or time;
Too oft, alas! beneath unfriendly skies,
The tender blossom shrinks its leaves, and dies!
Go, struggle with thy fate, pursue thy way;--
Though thou art poor, the world around is gay!
Thou hast no bread; but on thy aching sight
Proud luxury's pavilions glitter bright;
In thy cold ear the song of gladness swells,
Whilst vacant folly chimes her tinkling bells:
The careless crowd prolong their hollow glee,
Nor one relenting bosom thinks of thee.
Will not the indignant spirit then rebel,
And the dark tide of passions fearful swell!
Will not despight, perhaps, or bitter need,
Urge then thy temper to some direful deed!
Pale Guilt shall call thee to her ghastly band,
Or Murder welcome thee with reeking hand!
O wretched state, where our best feelings lie
Deep sunk in sullen, hopeless apathy!
Or wakeful cares, or gloomy terrors start,
And night and tempest mingle in the heart!
All mournful to the pensive sage's eye,
The monuments of human glory lie;
Fall'n palaces, crushed by the ruthless haste
Of time, and many an empire's silent waste,
Where, 'midst the vale of long-departed years,
The form of desolation dim appears,
Pointing to the wild plain with ruin spread,
The wrecks of age, and records of the dead!
But where a sight shall shuddering sorrow find,
Sad as the ruins of the human mind;--
As Man, by his GREAT MAKER raised sublime
Amid the universe, ordained to climb
The arduous height where Virtue sits serene;--
As Man, the high lord of this nether scene,
So fall'n, so lost!--his noblest boast destroyed,
His sweet affections left a piteous void!
But oh, sweet Charity! what sounds were those
That met the listening ear, soft as the close
Of distant music, when the hum of day
Is hushed, and dying gales the airs convey!
Come, hapless orphans, meek Compassion cried,
Where'er, unsheltered outcasts! ye abide
The bitter driving wind, the freezing sky,
_The oppressor's scourge, the proud man's contumely_;
Come, hapless orphans! ye who never saw
A tear of kindness shed on your cold straw;
Who never met with joy the morning light,
Or lisped your little prayer of peace at night;
Come, hapless orphans! nor, when youth should spring
Soaring aloft, as on an eagle's wing,
Shall ye forsaken on the ground be left,
Of hope, of virtue, and of peace bereft!
Far from the springtide gale, and joyous day,
In the deep caverns of Despair ye lay:
She, iron-hearted mother, never pressed
Your wasted forms with transport to her breast;
When none o'er all the world your 'plaint would hear,
She never kissed away the falling tear,
Or fondly smiled, forgetful, to behold
Some infant grace its early charm unfold.
She ne'er with mingling hopes and rising fears,
Sighed for the fortune of your future years:
Or saw you hand in hand rejoicing stray
Beneath the morning sun, on youth's delightful way.
But happier scenes invite, and fairer skies;
From your dark bed, children of woe, arise!
In caves where peace ne'er smiled, where joy ne'er came,
Where Friendship's eye ne'er glistened at the name
Of one she loved, where famine and despair
Sat silent 'mid the damp and lurid air,
The soothing voice is heard; a beam of light
Is cast upon their features, sunk and white;
With trembling joy they catch the stealing sound;
Their famished little ones come smiling round.
Sweet Infancy! whom all the world forsook,
Thou hast put on again thy cherub look:
Guilt, shrinking at the sight, in deep dismay
Flies cowering, and resigns his wonted prey.
But who is she, in garb of misery clad,
Yet of less vulgar mien? A look so sad
The mourning maniac wears, so wild, yet meek;
A beam of joy now wanders o'er her cheek,
The pale eye visiting; it leaves it soon,
As fade the dewy glances of the moon
Upon some wandering cloud, while slow the ray
Retires, and leaves more dark the heaven's wide way.
Lost mother, early doomed to guilt and shame,
Whose friends of youth now sigh not o'er thy name,
Heavy has sorrow fall'n upon thy head,
Yet think--one hope remains when thou art dead;
Thy houseless child, thy only little one,
Shall not look round, defenceless and alone,
For one to guide her youth;--nor with dismay
Each stranger's cold unfeeling look survey.
She shall not now be left a prey to shame,
Whilst slow disease preys on her faded frame;
Nor, when the bloom of innocence is fled,
Thus fainting bow her unprotected head.
Oh, she shall live, and Piety and Truth,
The loveliest ornaments, shall grace her youth.
And should her eye with softest lustre shine,
And should she wear such smiles as once were thine,
The smiles of peace and virtue they shall prove,
Blessing the calm abode of faithful love.
For ye who thus, by pure compassion taught,
Have wept o'er human sorrows;--who have sought
Want's dismal cell, and pale as from the dead
To life and light the speechless orphan led;--
Trust that the deed, in Mercy's book enrolled,
Approving spirits of the just behold!
Meanwhile, new virtues here, as on the wing
Of morn, from Sorrow's dreary shades shall spring;
Young Modesty, with fair untainted bloom;
And Industry, that sings beside her loom;
And ruddy Labour, issuing from his hatch
Ere the slant sunbeam strikes the lowly thatch;
And sweet Contentment, smiling on a rock,
Like a fair shepherdess beside her flock;
And tender Love, that hastes with myrtle-braid
To bind the tresses of the favoured maid;
And Piety, with unclasped holy book,
Lifting to heaven her mildly-beaming look:
These village virtues on the plain shall throng,
And Albion's hills resound a cheerful song;
Whilst Charity, with dewy eyelids bland,
Leading a lisping infant in her hand,
Shall bend at pure Religion's holy shrine,
And say, These children, GOD OF LOVE, are thine!

Far in the centre of the deepest wood,
The assembled fathers of their country stood.
'Twas midnight now; the pine-wood fire burned red,
And to the leaves a shadowy glimmer spread;
The struggling smoke, or flame with fitful glance,
Obscured, or showed, some dreadful countenance;
And every warrior, as his club he reared,
With larger shadow, indistinct, appeared;
While more terrific, his wild locks and mien,
And fierce eye, through the quivering smoke, was seen.
In sea-wolf's skin, here Mariantu stood;
Gnashed his white teeth, impatient, and cried, blood!
His lofty brow, with crimson feathers bound,
Here, brooding death, the huge Ongolmo frowned;
And, like a giant of no earthly race,
To his broad shoulders heaved his ponderous mace.
With lifted hatchet, as in act to fell,
Here stood the young and ardent Teucapel.
Like a lone cypress, stately in decay,
When time has worn its summer boughs away,
And hung its trunk with moss and lichens sere,
The Mountain-warrior rested on his spear.
And thus, and at this hour, a hundred chiefs,
Chosen avengers of their country's griefs;
Chiefs of the scattered tribes that roam the plain,
That sweeps from Andes to the western main,
Their country-gods, around the coiling smoke,
With sacrifice, and silent prayers, invoke.
For all, at first, were silent as the dead;
The pine was heard to whisper o'er their head,
So stood the stern assembly; but apart,
Wrapped in the spirit of his fearful art,
Alone, to hollow sounds of hideous hum,
The wizard-seer struck his prophetic drum.
Silent they stood, and watched with anxious eyes,
What phantom-shape might from the ground arise;
No voices came, no spectre-form appeared;
A hollow sound, but not of winds, was heard
Among the leaves, and distant thunder low,
Which seemed like moans of an expiring foe.
His crimson feathers quivering in the smoke,
Then, with loud voice, first Mariantu spoke:
Hail we the omen! Spirits of the slain,
I hear your voices! Mourn, devoted Spain!
Pale-visaged tyrants! still, along our coasts,
Shall we despairing mark your iron hosts!
Spirits of our brave fathers, curse the race
Who thus your name, your memory disgrace!
No; though yon mountain's everlasting snows
In vain Almagro's toilsome march oppose;
Though Atacama's long and wasteful plain
Be heaped with blackening carcases in vain;
Though still fresh hosts those snowy summits scale,
And scare the Llamas with their glittering mail;
Though sullen castles lour along our shore;
Though our polluted soil be drenched with gore;
Insolent tyrants! we, prepared to die,
Your arms, your horses, and your gods, defy!
He spoke: the warriors stamped upon the ground,
And tore the feathers that their foreheads bound.
Insolent tyrants! burst the general cry,
We, met for vengeance--we, prepared to die,
Your arms, your horses, and your gods, defy!
Then Teucapel, with warm emotion, cried:
This hatchet never yet in blood was dyed;
May it be buried deep within my heart,
If living from the conflict I depart,
Till loud, from shore to shore, is heard one cry,
See! in their gore where the last tyrants lie!
The Mountain-warrior: Oh, that I could raise
The hatchet too, as in my better days,
When victor on Maypocha's banks I stood;
And while the indignant river rolled in blood,
And our swift arrows hissed like rushing rain,
I cleft Almagro's iron helm in twain!
My strength is well-nigh gone! years marked with woe
Have o'er me passed, and bowed my spirit low!
Alas, I have no son! Beloved boy,
Thy father's last, best hope, his pride, his joy!
Oh, hadst thou lived, sole object of my prayers,
To guard my waning life, and these gray hairs,
How bravely hadst thou now, in manhood's pride,
Swung the uplifted war-club by my side!
But the Great Spirit willed not! Thou art gone;
And, weary, on this earth I walk alone;
Thankful if I may yield my latest breath,
And bless my country in the pangs of death!
With words deliberate, and uplifted hand,
Mild to persuade, yet dauntless to command,
Raising his hatchet high, Caupolican
Surveyed the assembled chiefs, and thus began:
Friends, fathers, brothers, dear and sacred names!
Your stern resolve each ardent look proclaims;
On then to conquest; let one hope inspire,
One spirit animate, one vengeance fire!
Who doubts the glorious issue! To our foes
A tenfold strength and spirit we oppose.
In them no god protects his mortal sons,
Or speaks, in thunder, from their roaring guns.
Nor come they children of the radiant sky;
But, like the wounded snake, to writhe and die.
Then, rush resistless on their prostrate bands,
Snatch the red lightning from their feeble hands,
And swear to the great spirits, hovering near,
Who now this awful invocation hear,
That we shall never see our household hearth,
Till, like the dust, we sweep them from the earth.
But vain our strength, that idly, in the fight,
Tumultuous wastes its ineffectual might,
Unless to one the hatchet we confide;
Let one our numbers, one our counsels guide.
And, lo! for all that in this world is dear,
I raise this hatchet, raise it high, and swear,
Never again to lay it down, till we,
And all who love this injured land, are free!
At once the loud acclaim tumultuous ran:
Our spears, our life-blood, for Caupolican!
With thee, for all that in this world is dear,
We lift our hatchets, lift them high, and swear,
Never again to lay them down, till we,
And all who love this injured land, are free!
Then thus the chosen chief: Bring forth the slave,
And let the death-dance recreate the brave.
Two warriors led a Spanish captive, bound
With thongs; his eyes were fixed upon the ground.
Dark cypresses the mournful spot inclose:
High in the midst an ancient mound arose,
Marked on each side with monumental stones,
And white beneath with skulls and scattered bones.
Four poniards, on the mound, encircling stood,
With points erect, dark with forgotten blood.
Forthwith, with louder voice, the chief commands:
Bring forth the lots, unbind the captive's hands;
Then north, towards his country, turn his face,
And dig beneath his feet a narrow space.
Caupolican uplifts his axe, and cries:
Gods, of our land be yours this sacrifice!--
Now, listen, warriors!--and forthwith commands
To place the billets in the captive's hands--
Soldier, cast in the lot!
With looks aghast,
The captive in the trench a billet cast.
Soldier, declare, who leads the arms of Spain,
Where Santiago frowns upon the plain?

CAPTIVE.

Villagra!

WA RRIOR.

Earth upon the billet heap;
So may a tyrant's heart be buried deep!
The dark woods echoed to the long acclaim,
Accursed be his nation and his name!

WARRIOR.

Captive, declare who leads the Spanish bands,
Where the proud fortress shades Coquimbo's sands.

CAPTIVE.

Ocampo!

WARR IOR.

Earth upon the billet heap;
So may a tyrant's heart be buried deep!
The dark woods echoed to the long acclaim,
Accursed be his nation and his name!

WARRIOR.

Cast in the lot.
Again, with looks aghast,
The captive in the trench a billet cast.
Pronounce his name who here pollutes the plain,
The leader of the mailed hosts of Spain!

CAPTIVE.

Valdivia!
At that name a sudden cry
Burst forth, and every lance was lifted high.

WARRIOR.

Valdivia!
Earth upon the billet heap;
So may a tyrant's heart be buried deep!
The dark woods echoed to the long acclaim,
Accursed be his nation and his name!

And now loud yells, and whoops of death resound;
The shuddering captive ghastly gazed around,
When the huge war-club smote him to the ground.
Again deep stillness hushed the listening crowd,
While the prophetic wizard sang aloud.

SONG TO THE GOD OF WAR.

By thy habitation dread,
In the valley of the dead,
Where no sun, nor day, nor night,
Breaks the red and dusky light;
By the grisly troops, that ride,
Of slaughtered Spaniards, at thy side,--
Slaughtered by the Indian spear,
Mighty Epananum, hear!
Hark, the battle! Hark, the din!
Now the deeds of Death begin!
The Spaniards come, in clouds! above,
I hear their hoarse artillery move!
Spirits of our fathers slain,
Haste, pursue the dogs of Spain!
The noise was in the northern sky!
Haste, pursue! They fly--they fly!
Now from the cavern's secret cell,
Where the direst phantoms dwell,
See they rush, and, riding high,
Break the moonlight as they fly;
And, on the shadowed plain beneath,
Shoot, unseen, the shafts of Death!
O'er the devoted Spanish camp,
Like a vapour, dark and damp,
May they hover, till the plain
Is hid beneath the countless slain;
And none but silent women tread
From corse to corse, to seek the dead!

The wavering fire flashed with expiring light,
When shrill and hollow, through the cope of night,
A distant shout was heard; at intervals,
Increasing on the listening ear it falls.
It ceased; when, bursting from the thickest wood,
With lifted axe, two gloomy warriors stood;
Wan in the midst, with dark and streaming hair,
Blown by the winds upon her bosom bare,
A woman, faint from terror's wild alarms,
And folding a white infant in her arms,
Appeared. Each warrior stooped his lance to gaze
On her pale looks, seen ghastlier through the blaze.
Save! she exclaimed, with harrowed aspect wild;
Oh, save my innocent, my helpless child!
Then fainting fell, as from death's instant stroke;
Caupolican, with stern inquiry, spoke:
Whence come, to interrupt our awful rite,
At this dread hour, the warriors of the night?
From ocean.
Who is she who fainting lies,
And now scarce lifts her supplicating eyes?
The Spanish ship went down; the seamen bore,
In a small boat, this woman to the shore:
They fell beneath our hatchets,--and again,
We gave them back to the insulted main.
The child and woman--of a race we hate--
Warriors, 'tis yours, here to decide their fate.
Vengeance! aloud fierce Mariantu cried:
Let vengeance on the race be satisfied!
Let none of hated Spanish blood remain,
Woman or child, to violate our plain!
Amid that dark and bloody scene, the child
Stretched to the mountain-chief his hands and smiled.
A starting tear of pity dimmed the eye
Of the old warrior, though he knew not why.
Oh, think upon your little ones! he cried,
Nor be compassion to the weak denied.
Caupolican then fixed his aspect mild
On the white woman and her shrinking child,
Then firmly spoke:--
White woman, we were free,
When first thy brethren of the distant sea
Came to our shores! White woman, theirs the guilt!
Theirs, if the blood of innocence be spilt!
Yet blood we seek not, though our arms oppose
The hate of foreign and remorseless foes;
Thou camest here a captive, so abide,
Till the Great Spirit shall our cause decide.
He spoke: the warriors of the night obey;
And, ere the earliest streak of dawning day,
They lead her from the scene of blood away.

My heart has sighed in secret, when I thought
That the dark tide of time might one day close,
England, o'er thee, as long since it has closed
On Egypt and on Tyre: that ages hence,
From the Pacific's billowy loneliness,
Whose tract thy daring search revealed, some isle
Might rise in green-haired beauty eminent,
And like a goddess, glittering from the deep,
Hereafter sway the sceptre of domain
From pole to pole; and such as now thou art,
Perhaps NEW-HOLLAND be. For who shall say
What the OMNIPOTENT ETERNAL ONE,
That made the world, hath purposed! Thoughts like these,
Though visionary, rise; and sometimes move
A moment's sadness, when I think of thee,
My country, of thy greatness, and thy name,
Among the nations; and thy character,--
Though some few spots be on thy flowing robe,--
Of loveliest beauty: I have never passed
Through thy green hamlets on a summer's morn,
Nor heard thy sweet bells ring, nor seen the youths
And smiling maidens of thy villages,
Gay in their Sunday tire, but I have said,
With passing tenderness--Live, happy land,
Where the poor peasant feels his shed, though small,
An independence and a pride, that fill
His honest heart with joy--joy such as they
Who crowd the mart of men may never feel!
Such, England, is thy boast. When I have heard
The roar of ocean bursting 'round thy rocks,
Or seen a thousand thronging masts aspire,
Far as the eye could reach, from every port
Of every nation, streaming with their flags
O'er the still mirror of the conscious Thames,--
Yes, I have felt a proud emotion swell
That I was British-born; that I had lived
A witness of thy glory, my most loved
And honoured country; and a silent prayer
Would rise to Heaven, that Fame and Peace, and Love
And Liberty, might walk thy vales, and sing
Their holy hymns, while thy brave arm repelled
Hostility, even as thy guardian cliffs
Repel the dash of that dread element
Which calls me, lingering on the banks of Thames,
On to my destined voyage, by the shores
Of Asia, and the wreck of cities old,
Ere yet we burst into the wilder deep
With Gama; or the huge Atlantic waste
With bold Columbus stem; or view the bounds
Of field-ice, stretching to the southern pole,
With thee, benevolent, lamented Cook!
Tyre be no more! said the ALMIGHTY voice:
But thou too, Monarch of the world, whose arm
Rent the proud bulwarks of the golden queen
Of cities, throned upon her subject seas,
ART THOU TOO FALL'N?
The whole earth is at rest:
'They break forth into singing:' Lebanon
Waves all his hoary pines, and seems to say,
No feller now comes here; HELL from beneath
Is moved to meet thy coming; it stirs up
The DEAD for thee; the CHIEF ONES of the earth,
Tyre and the nations, they all speak and say--
Art thou become like us! Thy pomp brought down
E'en to the dust! The noise of viols ceased,
The worm spread under thee, the crawling worm
To cover thee! How art thou fall'n from heaven,
Son of the morning! In thy heart thou saidst,
I will ascend to Heaven; I will exalt
My throne above the stars of God! Die--die,
Blasphemer! As a carcase under foot,
Defiled and trodden, so be thou cast out!
And SHE, the great, the guilty Babel--SHE
Who smote the wasted cities, and the world
Made as a wilderness--SHE, in her turn,
Sinks to the gulf oblivious at the voice
Of HIM who sits in judgment on her crimes!
Who, o'er her palaces and buried towers,
Shall bid the owl hoot, and the bittern scream;
And on her pensile groves and pleasant shades
Pour the deep waters of forgetfulness.
On that same night, when with a cry she fell,
(Like her own mighty idol dashed to earth,)
There was a strange eclipse, and long laments
Were heard, and muttering thunders o'er the towers
Of the high palace where his wassail loud
Belshazzar kept, mocking the GOD OF HEAVEN,
And flushed with impious mirth; for BEL had left
With sullen shriek his golden shrine, and sat,
With many a gloomy apparition girt,
NISROCH and NEBO chief, in the dim sphere
Of mooned ASTORETH, whose orb now rolled
In darkness:--They their earthly empire mourned;
Meantime the host of Cyrus through the night
Silent advanced more nigh; and at that hour,
In the torch-blazing hall of revelry,
The fingers of a shadowy hand distinct
Came forth, and unknown figures marked the wall,
Searing the eye-balls of the starting king:
Tyre is avenged; Babel is fall'n, is fall'n!
Bel and her gods are shattered!
PRINCE, to thee
Called by the voice of God to execute
His will on earth, and raised to Persia's throne,
CYRUS, all hearts pay homage. Touched with tints
Most clear by the historian's magic art,
Thy features wear a gentleness and grace
Unlike the stern cold aspect and the frown
Of the dark chiefs of yore, the gloomy clan
Of heroes, from humanity and love
Removed: To thee a brighter character
Belongs--high dignity, unbending truth--
Yet Nature; not that lordly apathy
Which confidence and human sympathy
Represses, but a soul that bids all hearts
Smiling approach. We almost burn in thought
To kiss the hand that loosed Panthea's chains,
And bless him with a parent's, husband's tear,
Who stood a guardian angel in distress
To the unfriended, and the beautiful,
Consigned a helpless slave. Thy portrait, touched
With tints of softest light, thus wins all hearts
To love thee; but severer policy,
Cyrus, pronounces otherwise: she hears
No stir of commerce on the sullen marge
Of waters that along thy empire's verge
Beat cheerless; no proud moles arise; no ships,
Freighted with Indian wealth, glide o'er the main
From cape to cape. But on the desert sands
Hurtles thy numerous host, seizing, in thought
Rapacious, the rich fields of Hindostan,
As the poor savage fells the blooming tree
To gain its tempting fruit; but woe the while!
For in the wilderness the noise is lost
Of all thy archers;--they have ceased;--the wind
Blows o'er them, and the voice of judgment cries:
So perish they who grasp with avarice
Another's blessed portion, and disdain
That interchange of mutual good, that crowns
The slow, sure toil of commerce.
It was thine,
Immortal son of Macedon! to hang
In the high fane of maritime renown
The fairest trophies of thy fame, and shine,
THEN only like a god, when thy great mind
Swayed in its master council the deep tide
Of things, predestining th' eventful roll
Of commerce, and uniting either world,
Europe and Asia, in thy vast design.
Twas when the victor, in his proud career,
O'er ravaged Hindostan, had now advanced
Beyond Hydaspes; on the flowery banks
Of Hyphasis, with banners thronged, his camp
Was spread. On high he bade the altars rise,
The awful records to succeeding years
Of his long march of glory, and to point
The spot where, like the thunder rolled away,
His army paused. Now shady eve came down;
The trumpet sounded to the setting sun,
That looked from his illumed pavilion, calm
Upon the scene of arms, as if, all still,
And lovely as his parting light, the world
Beneath him spread; nor clangours, nor deep groans,
Were heard, nor victory's shouts, nor sighs, nor shrieks,
Were ever wafted from a bleeding land,
After the havoc of a conqueror's sword.
So calm the sun declined; when from the woods,
That shone to his last beam, a Brahmin old
Came forth. His streaming beard shone in the ray,
That slanted o'er his feeble frame; his front
Was furrowed. To the sun's last light he cast
A look of sorrow, then in silence bowed
Before the conqueror of the world. At once
All, as in death, was still. The victor chief
Trembled, he knew not why; the trumpet ceased
Its clangor, and the crimson streamer waved
No more in folds insulting to the Lord
Of the reposing world. The pallid front
Of the meek man seemed for a moment calm,
Yet dark and thronging thoughts appeared to swell
His beating heart. He paused--and then abrupt:
Victor, avaunt! he cried,
Hence! and the banners of thy pride
Bear to the deep! Behold on high
Yon range of mountains mingled with the sky!
It is the place
Where the great Father of the human race
Rested, when all the world and all its sounds
Ceased; and the ocean that surrounds
The earth, leaped from its dark abode
Beneath the mountains, and enormous flowed,
The green earth deluging! List, soldier, list!
And dread His might no mortal may resist.
Great Bramah rested, hushed in sleep,
When Hayagraiva came,
With mooned horns and eyes of flame,
And bore the holy Vedas to the deep.
Far from the sun's rejoicing ray,
Beneath the huge abyss, the buried treasures lay.
Then foamed the billowy desert wide,
And all that breathed--they died,
Sunk in the rolling waters: such the crime
And violence of earth. But he above,
Great Vishnu, moved with pitying love,
Preserved the pious king, whose ark sublime
Floated, in safety borne:
For his stupendous horn,
Blazing like gold, and many a rood
Extended o'er the dismal flood,
The precious freight sustained, till on the crest
Of Himakeel, yon mountain high,
That darkly mingles with the sky,
Where many a griffin roams, the hallowed ark found rest.
And Heaven decrees that here
Shall cease thy slaughtering spear:
Enough we bleed, enough we weep,
Hence, victor, to the deep!
Ev'n now along the tide
I see thy ships triumphant ride:
I see the world of trade emerge
From ocean's solitude! What fury fires
My breast! The flood, the flood retires,
And owns its future sovereign! Urge
Thy destined way; what countless pennants stream!
(Or is it but the shadow of a dream?)
Ev'n now old Indus hails
Thy daring prows in long array,
That o'er the lone seas gliding,
Around the sea-gods riding,
Speed to Euphrates' shores their destined way.
Fill high the bowl of mirth!
From west to east the earth
Proclaims thee Lord; shall the blue main
Confine thy reign?
But tremble, tyrant; hark in many a ring,
With language dread
Above thy head,
The dark Assoors thy death-song sing.
What mortal blow
Hath laid the king of nations low?
No hand: his own despair.--
But shout, for the canvas shall swell to the air,
Thy ships explore
Unknown Persia's winding shore,
While the great dragon rolls his arms in vain.
And see, uprising from the level main,
A new and glorious city springs;--
Hither speed thy woven wings,
That glance along the azure tide;
Asia and Europe own thy might;--
The willing seas of either world unite:
Thy name shall consecrate the sands,
And glittering to the sky the mart of nations stands.
He spoke, and rushed into the thickest wood.
With flashing eyes the impatient monarch cried--
Yes, by the Lybian Ammon and the gods
Of Greece, thou bid'st me on, the self-same track
My spirit pointed; and, let death betide,
My name shall live in glory!
At his word
The pines descend; the thronging masts aspire;
The novel sails swell beauteous o'er the curves
Of INDUS; to the Moderators' song
The oars keep time, while bold Nearchus guides
Aloft the gallies. On the foremost prow
The monarch from his golden goblet pours
A full libation to the gods, and calls
By name the mighty rivers, through whose course
He seeks the sea. To Lybian Ammon loud
The songs ascend; the trumpets bray; aloft
The streamers fly, whilst on the evening wave
Majestic to the main the fleet descends.

The night was still and clear, when, o'er the snows,
Andes! thy melancholy Spirit rose,--
A shadow stern and sad: he stood alone,
Upon the topmost mountain's burning cone;
And whilst his eyes shone dim, through surging smoke,
Thus to the spirits of the fire he spoke:--

Ye, who tread the hidden deeps,
Where the silent earthquake sleeps;
Ye, who track the sulphurous tide,
Or on hissing vapours ride,--
Spirits, come!
From worlds of subterraneous night;
From fiery realms of lurid light;
From the ore's unfathomed bed;
From the lava's whirlpools red,--
Spirits, come!
On Chili's foes rush with vindictive sway,
And sweep them from the light of living day!
Heard ye not the ravenous brood,
That flap their wings, and scream for blood?
On Peru's devoted shore
Their murderous beaks are red with gore;
Yet here, impatient for new prey,
The insatiate vultures track their way.
Let them perish! they, whose bands
Swept remote and peaceful lands!
Let them perish!--on their head,
Descend the darkness of the dead!
Spirits, now your caves forsake:
Hark! ten thousand warriors wake!--
Spirits, their high cause defend!--
From your caves ascend! ascend!

As thus the Genius of the Andes spoke,
The trembling mountain heaved with darker smoke;
Lightnings, and phantom-forms, by fits appeared;
His mighty voice far off Osorno heard;
The caverned deeps shook through their vast profound,
And Chimborazzo's height rolled back the sound.
With lifted arm, and towering stature high,
And aspect frowning to the middle sky
(Its misty form dilated in the wind),
The phantom stood,--till, less and less defined,
Into thin air it faded from the sight,
Lost in the ambient haze of slow-returning light.
Its feathery-seeming crown, its giant spear,
Its limbs of huge proportion, disappear;
And the bare mountains to the dawn disclose
The same long line of solitary snows.
The morning shines, the military train
Streams far and wide along the tented plain;
And plaited cuirasses, and helms of steel,
Throw back the sunbeams, as the horsemen wheel:
Thus, with arms glancing to the eastern light,
Pass, in review, proud steeds and cohorts bright;
For all the host, by break of morrow's gray,
Wind back their march to Penco's northern bay,
Valdivia, fearful lest confederate foes,
Ambushed and dark, his progress might oppose,
Marshals to-day the whole collected force,
File and artillery, cuirassier and horse:
Himself yet lingers ere he joins the train,
That moves, in ordered march, along the plain,
While troops, and Indian slaves beneath his eye,
The labours of the rising city ply:
Wide glows the general toil; the mole extends,
The watch-tower o'er the desert surge ascends;
And battlements, and rising ramparts, shine
Above the ocean's blue and level line.
The sun ascended to meridian height,
And all the northern bastions shone in light;
With hoarse acclaim, the gong and trumpet rung,
The Moorish slaves aloft their cymbals swung,
When the proud victor, in triumphant state,
Rode forth, in arms, through the portcullis' gate.
With neck high-arching as he smote the ground,
And restless pawing to the trumpet's sound,--
With mantling mane, o'er his broad shoulders spread,
And nostrils blowing, and dilated red,--
The coal-black steed, in rich caparison
Far trailing to the ground, went proudly on.
Proudly he tramped, as conscious of his charge,
And turned around his eye-balls, bright and large,
And shook the frothy boss, as in disdain;
And tossed the flakes, indignant, off his mane;
And, with high-swelling veins, exulting pressed
Proudly against the barb his heaving breast.
The fate of empires glowing in his thought,
Thus armed, the tented field Valdivia sought.
On the left side his poised shield he bore,
With quaint devices richly blazoned o'er;
Above the plumes, upon his helmet's cone,
Castile's imperial crest illustrious shone;
Blue in the wind the escutcheoned mantle flowed,
O'er the chained mail, which tinkled as he rode.
The barred vizor raised, you might discern
His clime-changed countenance, though pale, yet stern,
And resolute as death,--whilst in his eye
Sat proud Assurance, Fame, and Victory.
Lautaro, now in manhood's rising pride,
Rode, with a lance, attendant at his side,
In Spanish mantle gracefully arrayed;
Upon his brow a tuft of feathers played:
His glossy locks, with dark and mantling grace,
Shaded the noonday sunbeams on his face.
Though passed in tears the dayspring of his youth,
Valdivia loved his gratitude and truth:
He, in Valdivia, owned a nobler friend;
Kind to protect, and mighty to defend.
So, on he rode; upon his youthful mien
A mild but sad intelligence was seen;
Courage was on his open brow, yet care
Seemed like a wandering shade to linger there;
And though his eye shone, as the eagle's, bright,
It beamed with humid, melancholy light
When now Valdivia saw the embattled line,
Helmets, and swords, and shields, and matchlocks, shine;
Now the long phalanx still and steady stand,
Fixed every eye, and motionless each hand;
Then slowly clustering, into columns wheel,
Each with the red-cross banners of Castile;
While trumps, and drums, and cymbals, to his ear
Made music such as soldiers love to hear;
While horsemen checked their steeds, or, bending low
With levelled lances, o'er the saddle-bow,
Rode gallantly at tilt; and thunders broke,
Instant involving van and rear in smoke,
Till winds the obscuring volume rolled away,
And the red file, stretched out in long array,
More radiant moved beneath the beams of day;
While ensigns, arms, and crosses, glittered bright,--
Philip! he cried, seest thou the glorious sight?
And dost thou deem the tribes of this poor land
Can men, and arms, and steeds, like these, withstand?
Forgive!--the youth replied, and checked a tear,--
The land where my forefathers sleep is dear!--
My native land!--this spot of blessed earth,
The scene where I, and all I love, had birth!
What gratitude fidelity can give
Is yours, my lord!--you shielded--bade me live,
When, in the circuit of the world so wide,
I had but one, one only friend beside.
I bowed resigned to fate; I kissed the hand,
Red with the best blood of my father's land!
But mighty as thou art, Valdivia, know,
Though Cortes' desolating march laid low
The shrines of rich, voluptuous Mexico;
With carcases, though proud Pizarro strew
The Sun's imperial temple in Peru,
Yet the rude dwellers of this land are brave,
And the last spot they lose will be their grave!
A moment's crimson crossed Valdivia's cheek--
Then o'er the plain he spurred, nor deigned to speak,
Waving the youth, at distance, to retire;
None saw the eye that shot terrific fire.
As their commander sternly rode along,
Troop after troop, halted the martial throng;
And all the pennoned trumps a louder blast
Blew, as the Southern World's great victor passed.
Lautaro turned, scarce heeding, from the view,
And from the noise of trumps and drums withdrew;
And now, while troubled thoughts his bosom swell,
Seeks the gray Missionary's humble cell.
Fronting the ocean, but beyond the ken
Of public view, and sounds of murmuring men,
Of unhewn roots composed, and gnarled wood,
A small and rustic oratory stood;
Upon its roof of reeds appeared a cross,
The porch within was lined with mantling moss;
A crucifix and hour-glass, on each side--
One to admonish seemed, and one to guide;
This, to impress how soon life's race is o'er;
And that, to lift our hopes where time shall be no more.
O'er the rude porch, with wild and gadding stray,
The clustering copu weaved its trellis gay;
Two mossy pines, high bending, interwove
Their aged and fantastic arms above.
In front, amid the gay surrounding flowers,
A dial counted the departing hours,
On which the sweetest light of summer shone,--
A rude and brief inscription marked the stone:
To count, with passing shade, the hours,
I placed the dial 'mid the flowers;
That, one by one, came forth, and died,
Blooming, and withering, round its side.
Mortal, let the sight impart
Its pensive moral to thy heart!
Just heard to trickle through a covert near,
And soothing, with perpetual lapse, the ear,
A fount, like rain-drops, filtered through the stone,
And, bright as amber, on the shallows shone.
Intent his fairy pastime to pursue,
And, gem-like, hovering o'er the violets blue,
The humming-bird, here, its unceasing song
Heedlessly murmured, all the summer long;
And when the winter came, retired to rest,
And from the myrtles hung its trembling nest.
No sounds of a conflicting world were near;
The noise of ocean faintly met the ear,
That seemed, as sunk to rest the noontide blast,
But dying sounds of passions that were past;
Or closing anthems, when, far off, expire
The lessening echoes of the distant choir.
Here, every human sorrow hushed to rest,
His pale hands meekly crossed upon his breast,
Anselmo sat: the sun, with westering ray,
Just touched his temples, and his locks of gray.
There was no worldly feeling in his eye;
The world to him was 'as a thing gone by.'
Now, all his features lit, he raised his look,
Then bent it thoughtful, and unclasped the book;
And whilst the hour-glass shed its silent sand,
A tame opossum licked his withered hand.
That sweetest light of slow-declining day,
Which through the trellis poured its slanting ray,
Resting a moment on his few gray hairs,
Seemed light from heaven sent down to bless his prayers.
When the trump echoed to the quiet spot,
He thought upon the world, but mourned it not;
Enough if his meek wisdom could control,
And bend to mercy, one proud soldier's soul;
Enough, if, while these distant scenes he trod,
He led one erring Indian to his God.
Whence comes my son? with kind complacent look
He asked, and closed again the embossed book.
I come to thee for peace, the youth replied:
Oh, there is strife, and cruelty, and pride,
In this sad Christian world! My native land
Was happy, ere the soldier, with his band
Of fell destroyers, like a vulture, came,
And gave its peaceful scenes to blood and flame.
When will the turmoil of earth's tempests cease?
Father, I come to thee for peace--for peace!
Seek peace, the father cried, with God above:
In His good time, all will be peace and love.
We mourn, indeed, mourn that all sounds of ill,
Earth's fairest scenes with one deep murmur fill;
That yonder sun, when evening paints the sky,
Sinks, beauteous, on a world of misery;
The course of wide destruction to withstand,
We lift our feeble voice--our trembling hand;
But still, bowed low, or smitten to the dust,
Father of mercy, still in Thee we trust!
Through good or ill, in poverty or wealth,
In joy or woe, in sickness or in health,
Meek Piety thy awful hand surveys,
And the faint murmur turns to prayer and praise!
We know--whatever evils we deplore--
Thou hast permitted, and we know no more!
Behold, illustrious on the subject plain,
Some tow'r-crowned city of imperial Spain!
Hark! 'twas the earthquake! clouds of dust alone
Ascend from earth, where tower and temple shone!
Such is the conqueror's dread path: the grave
Yawns for its millions where his banners wave;
But shall vain man, whose life is but a sigh,
With sullen acquiescence gaze and die?
Alas, how little of the mighty maze
Of Providence our mortal ken surveys!
Heaven's awful Lord, pavilioned in the clouds,
Looks through the darkness that all nature shrouds;
And, far beyond the tempest and the night,
Bids man his course hold on to scenes of endless light.

Nay, let us gaze, ev'n till the sense is full,
Upon the rich creation, shadowed so
That not great Nature, in her loftiest pomp
Of living beauty, ever on the sight
Rose more magnificent; nor aught so fair
Hath Fancy, in her wildest, brightest mood,
Imaged of things most lovely, when the sounds
Of this cold cloudy world at distance sink,
And all alone the warm idea lives
Of what is great, or beautiful, or good,
In Nature's general plan.
So the vast scope,
O Rubens! of thy mighty mind, and such
The fervour of thy pencil, pouring wide
The still illumination, that the mind
Pauses, absorbed, and scarcely thinks what powers
Of mortal art the sweet enchantment wrought.
She sees the painter, with no human touch,
Create, embellish, animate at will,
The mimic scenes, from Nature's ampler range
Caught as by inspiration; while the clouds,
High wandering, and the fairest form of things,
Seem at his bidding to emerge, and burn
With radiance and with life!
Let us, subdued,
Now to the magic of the moment lose
The thoughts of life, and mingle every sense
Ev'n in the scenes before us!
The fresh morn
Of summer shines; the white clouds of the east
Are crisped; beneath, the bright blue champaign steams;
The banks, the meadows, and the flowers, send up
An incensed exhalation, like the meek
And holy praise of Him whose soul's deep joy
The lone woods witness. Thou, whose heart is sick
Of vanities; who, in the throng of men,
Dost feel no lenient fellowship; whose eye
Turns, with a languid carelessness, around
Upon the toiling crowd, still murmuring on,
Restless;--oh, think, in summer scenes like these,
How sweet the sense of quiet gladness is,
That, like the silent breath of morning, steals
From lowly nooks, and feels itself expand
Amid the works of Nature, to the Power
That made them: to the awful thought of HIM
Who, when the morning stars shouted for joy,
Bade the great sun from tenfold darkness burst,
The green earth roll in light, and solitude
First hear the voice of man, whilst hills and woods
Stood eminent, in orient hues arrayed,
His dwelling; and all living Nature smiled,
As in this pictured semblance, beaming full
Before us!
Mark again the various view:
Some city's far-off spires and domes appear,
Breaking the long horizon, where the morn
Sits blue and soft: what glowing imagery
Is spread beneath!--Towns, villages, light smoke,
And scarce-seen windmill-sails, and devious woods,
Chequering 'mid sunshine the grass-level land,
That stretches from the sight.
Now nearer trace
The forms of trees distinct--the broad brown oak;
The poplars, that, with silvery trunks, incline,
Shading the lonely castle; flakes of light
Are flung behind the massy groups, that, now
Enlarging and enlarging still, unfold
Their separate beauties. But awhile delay;
Pass the foot-bridge, and listen (for we hear,
Or think we hear her), listen to the song
Of yonder milkmaid, as she brims her pail;
Whilst, in the yellow pasture, pensive near,
The red cows ruminate.
Break off, break off, for lo! where, all alarmed,
The small birds, from the late resounding perch,
Fly various, hushed their early song; and mark,
Beneath the darkness of the bramble-bank
That overhangs the half-seen brook, where nod
The flowing rushes, dew-besprent, with breast
Ruddy, and emerald wing, the kingfisher
Steals through the dripping sedge away. What shape
Of terrors scares the woodland habitants,
Marring the music of the dawn? Look round;
See, where he creeps, beneath the willowy stump,
Cowering and low, step silent after step,
The booted fowler: keen his look, and fixed
Upon the adverse bank, while, with firm hand,
He grasps the deadly tube; his dog, with ears
Hung back, and still and steady eye of fire,
Points to the prey; the boor, intent, moves on
Panting, and creeping close beneath the leaves,
And fears lest ev'n the rustling reeds betray
His footfall; nearer yet, and yet more near,
He stalks. Who now shall save the heedless group,
The speckled partridges, that in the sun,
On yonder hillock green, across the stream,
Bask unalarmed beneath the hawthorn bush,
Whose aged boughs the crawling blackberry
Entwines!
And thus, upon the sweetest scenes
Of human loveliness, and social peace
Domestic, when the full fond heart reclines
Upon its hopes, and almost mingles tears
Of joy, to think that in this hollow world
Such bliss should be its portion; then (alas,
The bitter change!), then, with his unheard step,
In darkness shrouded, yet approaching fast,
Death, from amidst the sunny flowers, lifts up
His giant dread anatomy, and smites,
Smites the fair prospect once, whilst every bloom
Hangs shrivelled, and a sound of mourning fills
The lone and blasted valley: but no sound
Is here of sorrow or of death, though she,
The country Kate, with shining morning cheek
(Who, in the tumbril, with her market-gear,
Sits seated high), seems to expect the flash
Exploding, that shall lay the innocent
And feathered tenants of the landscape low.
Not so the clown, who, heedless whether life
Or death betide, across the plashy ford
Drives slow; the beasts plod on, foot following foot,
Aged and grave, with half-erected ears,
As now his whip above their matted manes
Hangs tremulous, while the dark and shallow stream
Flashes beneath their fetlock: he, astride
On harness saddle, not a sidelong look
Deigns at the breathing landscape, or the maid
Smiling behind; the cold and lifeless calf
Her sole companion: and so mated oft
Is some sweet maid, whose thrilling heart was formed
For dearer fellowship. But lift the eye,
And hail the abode of rural ease. The man
Walks forth, from yonder antique hall, that looks
The mistress of the scene; its turrets gleam
Amid the trees, and cheerful smoke is seen,
As if no spectred shape (though most retired
The spot) there ever wandered, stoled in white,
Along the midnight chambers; but quaint Mab
Her tiny revels led, till the rare dawn
Peeped out, and chanticleer his shrill alarm
Beneath the window rang, then, with a wink,
The shadowy rout have vanished!
As the morn
Jocund ascends, how lovely is the view
To him who owns the fair domain! The friend
Of his still hours is near, to whom he vowed
His truth; her eyes reflect his bliss; his heart
Beats high with joy; his little children play,
Pleased, in his pathway; one the scattered flowers
Straggling collects, the other spreads its arms,
In speechless blandishment, upon the neck
Of its caressing nurse.
Still let us gaze,
And image every form of heartfelt joy
Which scenes like these bestow, that charm the sight,
Yet soothe the spirit. All is quiet here,
Yet cheerful as the green sea, when it shines
In some still bay, shines in its loneliness
Beneath the breeze, that moves, and hardly moves,
The placid surface.
On the balustrade
Of the old bridge, that o'er the moat is thrown,
The fisher with his angle leans intent,
And turns, from the bright pomp of spreading plains,
To watch the nimble fry, that glancing oft
Beneath the gray arch shoot! Oh, happiest he
Who steals through life, untroubled as unseen!
The distant city, with its crowded spires,
That dimly shines upon his view, awakes
No thought but that of pleasure more composed,
As the winds whisper him to sounder sleep.
He leans upon the faithful arm of her
For whom his youthful heart beat, fondly beat,
When life was new: time steals away, yet health
And exercise are his; and in these shades,
Though sometimes he has mourned a proud world's wrong,
He feels an independence that all cares
Breasts with a carol of content; he hears
The green leaves of his old paternal trees
Make music, soothing as they stir: the elm,
And poplar with its silvery trunk, that shades
The green sward of the bank before his porch,
Are to him as companions;--whilst he turns
With more endearment to the living smile
Of those his infants, who, when he is dead,
Shall hear the music of the self-same trees
Waving, till years roll on, and their gray hairs
Go to the dust in peace.
Away, sad thought!
Lo! where the morning light, through the dark wood,
Upon the window-pane is flung like fire,
Hail, Life and Hope; and thou, great work of art,
That 'mid this populous and busy swarm
Of men dost smile serene, as with the hues
Of fairest, grandest Nature; may'st thou speak
Not vainly of the endearments and best joys
That Nature yields. The manliest heart that swells
With honest English feelings,--while the eye,
Saddened, but not cast down, beholds far off
The darkness of the onward rolling storm,--
Charmed for a moment by this mantling view,
Its anxious tumults shall suspend: and such,
The pensive patriot shall exclaim, thy scenes,
My own beloved country, such the abode
Of rural peace! and while the soul has warmth,
And voice has energy, the brave arm strength,
England, thou shalt not fall! The day shall come,
Yes, and now is, that thou shalt lift thyself;
And woe to him who sets upon thy shores
His hostile foot! Proud victor though he be,
His bloody march shall never soil a flower
That hangs its sweet head, in the morning dew,
On thy green village banks! His mustered hosts
Shall be rolled back in thousands, and the surge
Bury them! Then, when peace illumes once more,
My country, thy green nooks and inmost vales,
It will be sweet amidst the forest glens
To stray, and think upon the distant storm
That howled, but injured not!
At thoughts like these,
What heart, what English heart, but shall beat high!
Meantime, its keen flash passed, thine eye intent,
Beaumont, shall trace the master-strokes of art,
And view the assemblage of the finished piece,
As with his skill who formed it: ruder views,
Savage, with solitary pines, hung high
Amid the broken crags (where scowling wait
The fierce banditti), stern Salvator's hand
Shall aptly shade: o'er Poussin's clustering domes,
With ampler umbrage, the black woods shall hang,
Beneath whose waving gloom the sudden flash
Of broken light upon the brawling stream
Is flung below.
Aerial Claude shall paint
The gray fane peering o'er the summer woods,
The azure lake below, or distant seas,
And sails, in the pellucid atmosphere,
Soft gleaming to the morn. Dark on the rock,
Where the red lightnings burst, shall Wilson stand,
Like mighty Shakspeare, whom the imps of fire
Await. Nor oh, sweet Gainsborough! shall thee
The Muse forget, whose simple landscape smiles
Attractive, whether we delight to view
The cottage chimney through the high wood peep;
Or beggar beauty stretch her little hand,
With look most innocent; or homeward kine
Wind through the hollow road at eventide,
Or browse the straggling branches.
Scenes like these
Shall charm all hearts, while truth and beauty live,
And Nature's pictured loveliness shall own
Each master's varied touch; but chiefly thou,
Great Rubens! shalt the willing senses lead,
Enamoured of the varied imagery,
That fills the vivid canvas, swelling still
On the enraptured eye of taste, and still
New charms unfolding; though minute, yet grand,
Simple, yet most luxuriant; every light
And every shade, greatly opposed, and all
Subserving to one magical effect
Of truth and harmony.
So glows the scene;
And to the pensive thought refined displays
The richest rural poem. Oh, may views
So pictured animate thy classic mind,
Beaumont, to wander 'mid Sicilian scenes,
And catch the beauties of the pastoral bard,
Shadowing his wildest landscapes! AEtna's fires,
Bebrycian rocks, Anapus' holy stream,
And woods of ancient Pan; the broken crag
And the old fisher here; the purple vines
There bending; and the smiling boy set down
To guard, who, innocent and happy, weaves,
Intent, his rushy basket, to ensnare
The chirping grasshoppers, nor sees the while
The lean fox meditate her morning meal,
Eyeing his scrip askance; whilst further on
Another treads the purple grapes--he sits,
Nor aught regards, but the green rush he weaves.
O Beaumont! let this pomp of light and shade
Wake thee, to paint the woods that the sweet Muse
Has consecrated: then the summer scenes
Of Phasidamus, clad in richer light,
Shall glow, the glancing poplars, and clear fount;
While distant times admire (as now we trace
This summer-mantling view) hoar AEtna's pines,
The vine-hung grotts, and branching planes, that shade
The silver Arethusa's stealing wave.

Oh! lend that lute, sweet Archimage, to me!
Enough of care and heaviness
The weary lids of life depress,
And doubly blest that gentle heart shall be,
That wooes of poesy the visions bland,
And strays forgetful o'er enchanted land!
Oh! lend that lute, sweet Archimage, to me!
So spoke, with ardent look, yet eyebrow sad,
When he had passed o'er many a mountain rude,
And many a wild and weary solitude,
'Mid a green vale, a wandering minstrel-lad.
With eyes that shone in softened flame,
With wings and wand, young Fancy came;
And as she touched a trembling lute,
The lone enthusiast stood entranced and mute.
It was a sound that made his soul forego
All thoughts of sadness in a world of woe.
Oh, lend that lute! he cried: Hope, Pity, Love,
Shall listen; and each valley, rock, and grove,
Shall witness, as with deep delight,
From orient morn to dewy-stealing night.
My spirit, rapt in trance of sweetness high,
Shall drink the heartfelt sound with tears of ecstasy!
As thus he spoke, soft voices seemed to say,
Come away, come away;
Where shall the heart-sick minstrel stray,
But (viewing all things like a dream)
By haunted wood, or wizard stream?
That, like a hermit weeping,
Amid the gray stones creeping;
With voice distinct, yet faint,
Calls on Repose herself to hear its soothing plaint.
For him, romantic Solitude
Shall pile sublime her mountains rude;
For him, with shades more soft impressed,
The lucid lake's transparent breast
Shall show the banks, the woods, the hill,
More clear, more beautiful, more still.
For him more musical shall wave
The pines o'er Echo's moonlit cave;
While sounds as of a fairy lyre
Amid the shadowy cliffs expire!
This valley where the raptured minstrel stood
Was shaded with a circling slope of wood,
And rich in beauty, with that valley vied,
Thessalian Tempe, crowned with verdant bay,
Where smooth and clear Peneus winds his way;
And Ossa and Olympus, on each side,
Rise dark with woods; or that Sicilian plain
Which Arethusa's clearest waters lave,
By many a haunt of Pan, and wood-nymph's cave,
Lingering and listening to the Doric strain
Of him, the bard whose music might succeed
To the wild melodies of Pan's own reed!
This scene the mistress of the valley held,
Fancy, a magic maid; and at her will,
Aerial castles crowned the gleaming hill,
Or forests rose, or lapse of water welled.
Sometimes she sat with lifted eye,
And marked the dark storm in the western sky;
Sometimes she looked, and scarce her breath would draw,
As fearful things, not to be told, she saw;
And sometimes, like a vision of the air,
On wings of shifting light she floated here and there.
In the breeze her garments flew,
Of the brightest skiey blue,
Lucid as the tints of morn,
When Summer trills his pipe of corn:
Her tresses to each wing descending fall,
Or, lifted by the wind,
Stream loose and unconfined,
Like golden threads, beneath her myrtle coronal.
The listening passions stood aloof and mute,
As oft the west wind touched her trembling lute.
But when its sounds the youthful minstrel heard,
Strange mingled feelings, not to be expressed,
Rose undefined, yet blissful, on his breast,
And all the softened scene in sweeter light appeared.
Then Fancy waved her wand, and lo!
An airy troop went beckoning by:
Come, from toil and worldly woe;
Come, live with us in vales remote! they cry.
These are the flitting phantasies; the dreams
That lead the heart through all that elfin land,
Where half-seen shapes entice with whispers bland.
Meantime the clouds, impressed with livelier beams,
Roll, in the lucid track of air,
Arrayed in coloured brede, with semblances more fair.
The airy troop, as on they sail,
Thus the pensive stranger hail:
In the pure and argent sky,
There our distant chambers lie;
The bed is strewed with blushing roses,
When Quietude at eve reposes,
Oft trembling lest her bowers should fade,
In the cold earth's humid shade.
Come, rest with us! evanishing, they cried--
Come, rest with us! the lonely vale replied.
Then Fancy beckoned, and with smiling mien,
A radiant form arose, like the fair Queen
Of Beauty: from her eye divinely bright,
A richer lustre shot, a more attractive light.
She said: With fairer tints I can adorn
The living landscape, fairer than the morn.
The summer clouds in shapes romantic rolled,
And those they edge the fading west, like gold;
The lake that sleeps in sunlight, yet impressed
With shades more sweet than real on its breast;
'Mid baffling stones, beneath a partial ray,
The small brook huddling its uneven way;
The blue far distant hills, the silvery sea,
And every scene of summer speaks of me:
But most I wake the sweetest wishes warm,
Where the fond gaze is turned on woman's breathing form.
So passing silent through a myrtle grove,
Beauty first led him to the bower of Love.
A mellow light through the dim covert strayed,
And opening roses canopied the shade.
Why does the hurrying pulse unbidden leap!
Behold, in yonder glade that nymph asleep!
The heart-struck minstrel hangs, with lingering gaze,
O'er every charm his eye impassioned strays!
An edge of white is seen, and scarcely seen,
As soft she breathes, her coral lips between;
A lambent ray steals from her half-closed eye,
As her breast heaves a short imperfect sigh.
Sleep, winds of summer, o'er the leafy bower,
Nor move the light bells of the nodding flower;
Lest but a sound of stirring leaves might seem
To break the charm of her delicious dream!
And ye, fond, rising, throbbing thoughts, away,
Lest syren Pleasure all the soul betray!
Oh! turn, and listen to the ditty
From the lowly cave of Pity.
On slaughter's plain, while Valour grieves,
There he sunk to rest,
And the ring-dove scattered leaves
Upon his bleeding breast!
Her face was hid, while her pale arms enfold
What seemed an urn of alabaster cold;
To this she pressed her heaving bosom bare:
The drops that gathered in the dank abode
Fell dripping, on her long dishevelled hair;
And still her tears, renewed, and silent, flowed:
And when the winds of autumn ceased to swell,
At times was heard a slow and melancholy knell!
'Twas in the twilight of the deepest wood,
Beneath whose boughs like sad Cocytus, famed
Through fabling Greece, from lamentation named
A river dark and silent flowed, there stood
A pale and melancholy man, intent
His look upon that drowsy stream he bent,
As ever counting, when the fitful breeze
With strange and hollow sound sung through the trees,
Counting the sallow leaves, that down the current went.
He saw them not:
Earth seemed to him one universal blot.
Sometimes, as most distempered, to and fro
He paced; and sometimes fixed his chilling look
Upon a dreadful book,
Inscribed with secret characters of woe;
While gibbering imps, as mocking him, appeared,
And airy laughter 'mid the dusk was heard.
Then Fancy waved her wand again,
And all that valley that so lovely smiled
Was changed to a bare champaign, waste and wild.
'What pale and phantom-horseman rides amain?'
'Tis Terror;--all the plain, far on, is spread
With skulls and bones, and relics of the dead!
From his black trump he blew a louder blast,
And earthquakes muttered as the giant passed.
Then said that magic maid, with aspect bland,
'Tis thine to seize his phantom spear,
'Tis thine his sable trumpet to command,
And thrill the inmost heart with shuddering fear.
But hark! to Music's softer sound,
New scenes and fairer views accordant rise:
Above, around,
The mingled measure swells in air, and dies.
Music, in thy charmed shell,
What sounds of holy magic dwell!
Oft when that shell was to the ear applied,
Confusion of rich harmonies,
All swelling rose,
That came, as with a gently-swelling tide:
Then at the close,
Angelic voices seemed, aloft,
To answer as it died the cadence soft.
Now, like the hum of distant ocean's stream,
The murmurs of the wond'rous concave seem;
And now exultingly their tones prolong
The chorded paeans of the choral song,
Then Music, with a voice more wildly sweet
Than winds that pipe on the forsaken shore,
When the last rain-drops of the west are o'er,
Warbled: Oh, welcome to my blest retreat,
And give my sounds to the responsive lyre:
With me to these melodious groves retire,
And such pure feelings share,
As, far from noise and folly, soothe thee there.
Here Fancy, as the prize were won,
And now she hailed her favourite son,
With energy impatient cried:
The weary world is dark and wide,
Lo! I am with thee still to comfort and to guide.
Nor fear, if, grim before thine eyes,
Pale worldly Want, a spectre, lowers;
What is a world of vanities
To a world as sweet as ours!
When thy heart is sad and lone,
And loves to dwell on pleasures flown,
When that heart no more shall bound
At some kind voice's well-known sound,
My spells thy drooping languor shall relieve,
And airy spirits touch thy lonely harp at eve.
Look!--Delight and Hope advancing,
Music joins her thrilling notes,
O'er the level lea come dancing;
Seize the vision as it floats,
Bright-eyed Rapture hovers o'er them,
Waving light his seraph wings,
Youth exulting flies before them,
Scattering cowslips as he sings!
Come now, my car pursue,
The wayward Fairy cried;
And high amid the fields of air,
Above the clouds, together we will ride,
And posting on the viewless winds,
So leave the cares of earth and all its thoughts behind.
I can sail, and I can fly,
To all regions of the sky,
On the shooting meteor's course,
On a winged griffin-horse!
She spoke: when Wisdom's self drew nigh,
A noble sternness in her searching eye;
Like Pallas helmed, and in her hand a spear,
As not in idle warfare bent, but still,
As resolute, to cope with every earthly ill.
In youthful dignity severe,
She stood: And shall the aspiring mind,
To Fancy be alone resigned!
Alas! she cried, her witching lay
Too often leads the heart astray!
Still, weak minstrel, wouldst thou rove,
Drooping in the distant grove,
Forgetful of all ties that bind
Thee, a brother, to mankind?
Has Fancy's feeble voice defied
The ills to poor humanity allied?
Can she, like Wisdom, bid thy soul sustain
Its post of duty in a life of pain!
Can she, like meek Religion, bid thee bear
Contempt and hardship in a world of care!
Yet let not my rebuke decry,
In all, her blameless witchery,
Or from the languid bosom tear
Each sweet illusion nourished there.
With dignity and truth, combined,
Still may she rule the manly mind;
Her sweetest magic still impart
To soften, not subdue, the heart:
Still may she warm the chosen breast,
Not as the sovereign, but the guest.
Then shall she lead the blameless Muse
Through all her fairest, wildest views;
To mark amid the flowers of morn,
The bee go forth with early horn;
Or when the moon, a softer light
Sheds on the rocks and seas of night,
To hear the circling fairy bands
Sing, Come unto these yellow sands!
Sweeter is our light than day,
Fond enthusiast, come away!
Then Chivalry again shall call
The champions to her bannered hall!
The pipe, and song, with many a mingled shout,
Ring through the forest, as the satyr-rout,
Dance round the dragon-chariot of Romance;
Forth pricks the errant knight with rested lance;
Imps, demons, fays, in antic train succeed,
The wandering maiden, and the winged steed!
The muttering wizard turns, with haggard look,
The bloody leaves of the accursed book,
Whilst giants, from the gloomy castle tower,
With lifted bats of steel, more dreadful lower!
At times, the magic shall prevail
Of the wild and wonderous tale;
At times, high rapture shall prolong
The deep, enthusiastic song.
Hence, at midnight, thou shalt stray,
Where dark ocean flings its spray,
To hear o'er heaven's resounding arch
The Thunder-Lord begin his march!
Or mark the flashes, that present
Some far-off shattered monument;
Whilst along the rocky vale,
Red fires, mingled with the hail,
Run along upon the ground,
And the thunders deeper sound!
The loftier Muse, with awful mien,
Upon a lonely rock is seen:
Full is the eye that speaks the dauntless soul;
She seems to hear the gathering tempest roll
Beneath her feet; she bids an eagle fly,
Breasting the whirlwind, through the dark-red sky;
Or, with elated look, lifts high the spear,
As sounds of distant battles roll more near.
Now deep-hushed in holy trance,
She sees the powers of Heaven advance,
And wheels, instinct with spirit, bear
God's living chariot through the air;
Now on the wings of morn she seems to rise,
And join the strain of more than mortal harmonies.
Thy heart shall beat exulting as she sings,
And thou shalt cry: Give me an angel's wings!
With sadder sound, o'er Pity's cave,
The willow in the wind shall wave;
And all the listening passions stand,
Obedient to thy great command.
With Poesy's sweet charm impressed,
Fancy thus shall warm thy breast;
Still her smiling train be thine,
Still her lovely visions shine,
To cheer, beyond my boasted power,
A sad or solitary hour.
Thus let them soothe a while thy heart,
'Come like shadows, so depart;'
But never may the witching lay
Lead each sense from life astray;
For vain the poet's muse of fire,
Vain the magic of his lyre,
Unless the touch subdued impart
Truth and wisdom to the heart!

I am the comforter of them that mourn;
My scenes well shadowed, and my carol sweet,
Cheer the poor passengers of life's rude bourne,
Till they are sheltered in that last retreat,
Where human toils and troubles are forgot.
These sounds I heard amid this mortal road,
When I had reached with pain one pleasant spot,
So that for joy some tears in silence flowed;
I raised mine eyes, sickness had long depressed,
And felt thy warmth, O sun! come cheering to my breast.

The storm of night had ceased upon the plain,
When thoughtful in the forest-walk I strayed,
To the long hollow murmur of the main
Listening, and to the many leaves that made
A drowsy cadence, as the high trees waved;
When straight a beauteous scene burst on my sight;
Smooth were the waters that the lowland laved:
And lo! a form, as of some fairy sprite,
Who held in her right hand a budding spray,
And like a sea-maid sung her sweetly warbled lay.

Soothing as steals the summer-wave she sung:
The grisly phantoms of the night are gone
To hear in shades forlorn the death-bell rung;
But thou whom sickness hast left weak and wan,
Turn from their spectre-terrors the green sea
That whispers at my feet, the matin gale
That crisps its shining marge shall solace thee,
And thou my long-forgotten voice shalt hail,
For I am Hope, whom weary hearts confess
The soothest sprite that sings on life's long wilderness.

As slowly ceased her tender voice, I stood
Delighted: the hard way, so lately passed,
Seemed smooth; the ocean's bright extended flood
Before me stretched; the clouds that overcast
Heaven's melancholy vault hurried away,
Driven seaward, and the azure hills appeared;
The sunbeams shone upon their summits gray,
Strange saddening sounds no more by fits were heard,
But birds, in new leaves shrouded, sung aloft,
And o'er the level seas Spring's healing airs blew soft.

As when a traveller, who many days
Hath journeyed 'mid Arabian deserts still,
A dreary solitude far on surveys,
And met, nor flitting bird, nor gushing rill,
But near some marble ruin, gleaming pale,
Sighs mindful of the haunts of cheerful man,
And thinks he hears in every sickly gale
The bells of some approaching caravan;
At length, emerging o'er the dim tract, sees
Damascus' golden fanes, and minarets, and trees:

So beat my bosom when my winding way
Led through the thickets to a sheltered vale,
Where the fair syren sat; a smooth clear bay
Skirted with woods appeared, where many a sail
Went shining o'er the watery surface still,
Lessening at last in the gray ocean flood;
And yonder, half-way up the fronting hill,
Peeping from forth the trees, a cottage stood,
Above whose peaceful umbrage, trailing high,
A little smoke went up, and stained the cloudless sky.

I turned, and lo! a mountain seemed to rise,
Upon whose top a spiry citadel
Lifted its dim-seen turrets to the skies,
Where some high lord of the domain might dwell;
And onward, where the eye scarce stretched its sight,
Hills over hills in long succession rose,
Touched with a softer and yet softer light,
And all was blended as in deep repose;
The woods, the sea, the hills that shone so fair,
Till woods, and sea, and hills seemed fading into air.

At once, methought, I saw a various throng
To this enchanting spot their footsteps bend;
All drawn, sweet Hope! by thy inspiring song,
Which melodies scarce mortal seem to blend.
First buxom Youth, with cheeks of glowing red,
Came lightly tripping o'er the morning dew,
He wore a harebell garland on his head,
And stretched his hands at the bright-bursting view:
A mountain fawn went bounding by his side,
Around whose slender neck a silver bell was tied.

Then said I: Mistress of the magic song,
Oh, pity 'twere that hearts that know no guile
Should ever feel the pangs of truth or wrong!
She heeded not, but sang with lovelier smile:
Enjoy, O youth, the season of thy May;
Hark, how the throstles in the hawthorn sing!
The hoary Time, that resteth night nor day,
O'er the earth's shade may speed with noiseless wing;
But heed not thou; snatch the brief joys that rise,
And sport beneath the light of these unclouded skies.

His fine eye flashing an unwonted fire,
Then Fancy o'er the glade delighted went;
He struck at times a small and silver lyre,
Or gazed upon the rolling element;
Sometimes he took his mirror, which did show
The various landscape lovelier than the life;
Beaming more bright the vivid tints did glow,
And so well mingled was the colours' strife,
That the fond heart, the beauteous shades once seen,
Would sigh for such retreats, for vales and woods so green!

Gay was his aspect, and his airy vest,
As loose it flowed, such colours did display,
As paint the clouds reposing in the west,
Or the moist rainbow's radiant arch inlay;
And now he tripped, like fairy of the wood,
And seemed with dancing spirits to rejoice,
And now he hung his head in pensive mood:
Meantime, O Hope! he listened to thy voice,
And whilst of joy and youth it cheerly sung,
He touched his answering harp, and o'er the valley sprung.

Pleasure, a frolic nymph, to the glad sound
Came dancing, as all tears she might forget;
And now she gazed with a sweet archness round,
And wantonly displayed a silken net:
She won her way with fascinating air--
Her eyes illumined with a tender light,
Her smile's strange blandishment, her shaded hair
That lengthening hung, her teeth as ivory white,
That peeped from her moist lip, seemed to inspire
Tumultuous wishes warm, and dreams of fond desire.

What softer passions did thy bosom move,
When those melodious measures met thine ear,
Child of Sincerity, and virtuous Love!
Thine eyes did shine beneath a blissful tear
That still were turned towards the tranquil scene,
Where the thin smoke rose from the embowered cot;
And thou didst think, that there, with smile serene,
In quiet shades, and every pang forgot,
Thou mightest sink on pure Affection's breast,
And listen to the winds that whispered thee to rest.

I thought, O Love, how seldom art thou found
Without annoyance in this earthly state!
For, haply, thou dost feed some rankling wound,
Or on thy youth pale poverty doth wait,
Till years, on heavy wing, have rolled away;
Or where thou most didst hope firm faith to see,
Thou meetest fickleness estranged and cold;
Or if some true and tender heart there be,
On which, through every change, thy soul might trust,
Death comes with his fell dart, and smites it to the dust!

But lusty Enterprise, with looks of glee,
Approached the drooping youth, as he would say,
Come to the high woods and the hills with me,
And cast thy sullen myrtle-wreath away.
Upon a neighing courser he did sit,
That stretched its arched neck, in conscious pride,
And champed as with disdain a golden bit,
But Hope her animating voice applied,
And Enterprise with speed impetuous passed,
Whilst the long vale returned his wreathed bugle's blast.

Suddenly, lifting high his ponderous spear,
A mailed man came forth with scornful pride,
I saw him, towering in his proud career,
Along the valley with a giant stride:
Upon his helm, in letters of bright gold,
That to the sun's meridian splendour shone,
Ambition's name far off I might behold.
Meantime from earth there came a hollow moan;
But Fame, who followed, her loud trumpet blew,
And to the murmuring beach with eyes a-flame he flew.

And now already had he gained the strand,
Where a tall vessel rode with sail unfurled,
And soon he thought to reach the farther land,
Which to his eager eye seemed like a world
That he by strength might win and make his own;
And in that citadel, which shone so bright,
Seat him, a purple sovereign, on his throne.
So he went tilting o'er the waters white,
And whilst he oft looked back with stern disdain,
In louder tone, methought, was heard the inspiring strain:

By the shade of cities old,
By many a river stained with gore,
By the sword of Sesac bold,
Who smote the nations from the shore
Of ancient Nile to India's farthest plain,
By Fame's proud pillars, and by Valour's shield
By mighty chiefs in glorious battle slain,
Assert thy sway; amid the bloody field
Pursue thy march, and to the heights sublime
Of Honour's glittering cliffs, a mighty conqueror climb!

Then said I, in my heart: Man, thou dost rear
Thine eye to heaven, and vaunt thy lofty worth;
The ensign of dominion thou dost bear
O'er nature's works; but thou dost oft go forth,
Urged by proud hopes to ravage and destroy,
Thou dost build up a name by cruel deeds;
Whilst to the peaceful scenes of love and joy,
Sorrow, and crime, and solitude, succeeds.
Hence, when her war-song Victory doth sing,
Destruction flaps aloft her iron-hurtling wing.

But see, as one awakened from a trance,
With hollow and dim eyes and stony stare,
Captivity with faltering step advance!
Dripping and knotted was her coal-black hair;
For she had long been hid, as in the grave;
No sounds the silence of her prison broke,
Nor one companion had she in her cave,
Save Terror's dismal shape, that no word spoke;
But to a stony coffin on the floor
With lean and hideous finger pointed evermore.

The lark's shrill song, the early village chime,
The upland echo of the winding horn,
The far-heard clock that spoke the passing time,
Had never pierced her solitude forlorn;
At length, released from the deep dungeon's gloom,
She feels the fragrance of the vernal gale;
She sees more sweet the living landscape bloom,
And while she listens to Hope's tender tale,
She thinks her long-lost friends shall bless her sight,
And almost faints with joy amid the broad daylight.

And near the spot, as with reluctant feet,
Slowly desponding Melancholy drew,
The wind and rain her naked breast had beat,
Sunk was her eye, and sallow was her hue:
In the huge forest's unrejoicing shade
Bewildered had she wandered day by day,
And many a grisly fiend her heart dismayed,
And cold and wet upon the ground she lay;
But now such sounds with mellow sweetness stole,
As lapped in dreams of bliss her slow-consenting soul.

Next, to the woody glen poor Mania strayed,
Most pale and wild, yet gentle was her look;
A slender garland she of straw had made,
Of flowers and rushes from the running brook;
But as she sadly passed, the tender sound
Of its sharp pang her wounded heart beguiled;
She dropped her half-made garland on the ground,
And then she sighed, and then in tears she smiled:
But in such sort, that Pity would have said,
O GOD, be merciful to that poor hapless maid!

Now ravingly she cried: The whelming main--
The wintry wave rolls over his cold head;
I never shall behold his form again;
Hence flattering fancies--he is dead, is dead!
Perhaps on some wild shore he may be cast,
Where on their prey barbarians howling rush,
Oh, fiercer they, than is the whelming blast!
Hush, my poor heart! my wakeful sorrows, hush!
He lives! I yet shall press him to my heart,
And cry, Oh no, no, no,--we never more will part!

So sang she, when despairing, from his cell,
Hid furthest in the lone umbrageous wood,
Where many a winter he had loved to dwell,
Came grim Remorse; fixed in deep thought he stood,
His senses pierced by the unwonted tone;
Some stagnant blood-drops from his locks he shook;
He saw the trees that waved, the sun that shone,
He cast around an agonised look;
Then with a ghastly smile, that spoke his pain,
He hied him to his cave in thickest shades again.

And now the sun sank westward, and the sky
Was hung with thousand lucid pictures gay;
When gazing on the scene with placid eye,
An ancient man appeared in amice gray;
His sandal shoes were by long travel worn,
O'er hill and valley, many a weary mile,
Yet drooped he not, like one in years forlorn;
His pale cheek wore a sad, but tender smile;
'Twas sage Experience, by his look confessed,
And white as frost his beard descended to his breast.

Thus said I: Master, pleasant is this place,
And sweet are those melodious notes I hear,
And happy they among man's toiling race
Who, of their cares forgetful, wander near;
Me they delight, whom sickness and slow pain
Have bowed almost to death with heavy hand;
The fairy scenes refresh my heart again,
And, pleased, I listen to that music bland,
Which seems to promise hours of joy to come,
And bids me tranquil seek my poor but peaceful home.

He said: Alas! these shadows soon may fly,
Like the gay creatures of the element;
Yet do poor mortals still with raptured eye
Behold like thee the pictures they present;
And, charmed by Hope's sweet music, on they fare,
And think they soon shall reach that blissful goal,
Where never more the sullen knell of Care
For buried friends and severed loves shall toll:
So on they fare, till all their troubles cease,
And on a lap of earth they lie them down in peace.

But not there ceases their immortal claim;
From golden clouds I heard a small voice say:
Wisdom rejoiceth in a higher aim,
Nor heeds the transient shadows of a day;
These earthly sounds may die away, and all
These perishable pictures sink in night,
But Virtue from the dust her sons shall call,
And lead them forth to joy, and life, and light;
Though from their languid grasp earth's comforts fly,
And with the silent worm their buried bodies lie.

For other scenes there are; and in a clime
Purer, and other strains to earth unknown,
Where heaven's high host, with symphonies sublime,
Sing unto Him that sitteth on the throne.
Enough for man, if he the task fulfil
Which GOD ordained, and to his journey's end
Bear him right on, betide him good or ill;
Then Hope to soothe his death-bed shall descend,
Nor leave him, till in mansions of the blest
He gains his destined home, his everlasting rest.

It was a high and holy sight,
When Baldwin and his train,
With cross and crosier gleaming bright,
Came chanting slow the solemn rite,
To Gwentland's pleasant plain.

High waved before, in crimson pride,
The banner of the Cross;
The silver rood was then descried,
While deacon youths, from side to side,
The fuming censer toss.

The monks went two and two along,
And winding through the glade,
Sang, as they passed, a holy song,
And harps and citterns, 'mid the throng,
A mingled music made.

They ceased; when lifting high his hand,
The white-robed prelate cried:
Arise, arise, at Christ's command,
To fight for his name in the Holy Land,
Where a Saviour lived and died!

With gloves of steel, and good broadsword,
And plumed helm of brass,
Hoel, Landoga's youthful lord,
To hear the father's holy word,
Came riding to the pass.

More earnestly the prelate spake:
Oh, heed no earthly loss!
He who will friends and home forsake,
Now let him kneel, and fearless take
The sign of the Holy Cross.

Then many a maid her tresses rent,
And did her love implore:
Oh, go not thou to banishment!
For me, and the pleasant vales of Gwent,
Thou never wilt see more.

And many a mother, pale with fears,
Did kiss her infant son;
Said, Who will shield thy helpless years,
Who dry thy widowed mother's tears,
When thy brave father's gone?

GOD, with firm voice the prelate cried,
God will the orphan bless;
Sustain the widow's heart, and guide
Through the hard world, obscure and wild,
The poor and fatherless.

Then might you see a shade o'ercast
Brave Hoel's ruddy hue,
But soon the moment's thought is past:--
Hark, hark, 'tis the trumpet's stirring blast!
And he grasped his bow of yew.

Then might you see a moment's gloom
Sit in brave Hoel's eye:
Make in the stranger's land my tomb,
I follow thee, be it my doom,
O CHRIST, to live or die!

No more he thought, though rich in fee,
Of any earthly loss,
But lighting, on his bended knee,
Said, Father, here I take from thee
The sign of the Holy Cross.

I have a wife, to me more dear
Then is my own heart's blood;
I have a child, (a starting tear,
Which soon he dried, of love sincere,
On his stern eyelid stood);

To them farewell! O God above,
Thine is the fate of war;
But oh! reward Gwenlhian's love,
And may my son a comfort prove,
When I am distant far!

Farewell, my harp!--away, away!
To the field of death I go;
Welcome the trumpet's blast, the neigh
Of my bold and barbed steed of gray,
And the clang of the steel crossbow!

Gwenlhian sat in the hall at night,
Counting the heavy hours;
She saw the moon, with tranquil light,
Shine on the circling mountain's height,
And the dim castle towers.

Deep stillness was on hill and glen,
When she heard a bugle blow;
A trump from the watch-tower answered then,
And the tramp of steeds, and the voice of men,
Were heard in the court below.

The watch-dog started at the noise,
Then crouched at his master's feet;
He knew his step, he heard his voice;
But who can now like her rejoice,
Who flies her own lord to greet?

And soon her arms his neck enfold:
But whence that altered mien!
O say, then, is thy love grown cold,
Or hast thou been hurt by the robbers bold,
That won in the forest of Dean?

Oh no, he cried, the God above,
Who all my soul can see,
Knows my sincere, my fervent love;
If aught my stern resolve could move,
It were one tear from thee.

But I have sworn, in the Holy Land,--
Need I the sequel speak;
Too well, she cried, I understand!
Then grasped in agony his hand,
And hid her face on his cheek.

My loved Gwenlhian, weep not so,
From the lid that tear I kiss;
Though to the wars far off I go,
Betide me weal, betide me woe,
We yet may meet in bliss.

Fourteen suns their course had rolled,
When firmly thus he spake;
Hear now my last request: behold
This ring, it is of purest gold,
Love, keep it for my sake!

When summers seven have robed each tree,
And clothed the vales with green,
If I come not back, then thou art free,
To wed or not, and to think of me,
As I had never been!

Nay, answer not,--what wouldst thou say!
Come, let my harp be brought;
For the last time, I fain would play,
Ere yet we part, our favourite lay,
And cheat severer thought:

THE AIR.

Oh, cast every care to the wind,
And dry, best beloved, the tear!
Secure, that thou ever shalt find,
The friend of thy bosom sincere.
Still friendship shall live in the breast of the brave,
And we'll love, the long day, where the forest-trees wave.

I have felt each emotion of bliss,
That affection the fondest can prove,
Have received on my lip the first kiss
Of thy holy and innocent love;
But perish each hope of delight,
Like the flashes of night on the sea,
If ever, though far from thy sight,
My soul is forgetful of thee!
Still the memory shall live in the breast of the brave,
How we loved, the long day, where the forest-trees wave.

Now bring my boy; may God above
Shower blessings on his head!
May he requite his mother's love,
And to her age a comfort prove,
When I perhaps am dead!

The beams of morn on his helm did play,
And aloud the bugle blew,
Then he leaped on his harnessed steed of gray,
And sighed to the winds as he galloped away,
Adieu, my heart's love, adieu!

And now he has joined the warrior train
Of knights and barons bold,
That, bound to Salem's holy plain,
Across the gently-swelling main,
Their course exulting hold.

With a cross of gold, as on they passed,
The crimson streamers flew;
The shields hung glittering round the mast,
And on the waves a radiance cast,
Whilst all the trumpets blew.

O'er the Severn-surge, in long array,
So, the proud galleys went,
Till soon, as dissolved in ether gray,
The woods, and the shores, and the Holms steal away,
And the long blue hills of Gwent.


PART II.

High on the hill, with moss o'ergrown,
A hermit chapel stood;
It spoke the tale of seasons gone,
And half-revealed its ivied stone.
Amid the beechen wood.

Here often, when the mountain trees
A leafy murmur made,
Now still, now swaying to the breeze,
(Sounds that the musing fancy please),
The widowed mourner strayed.

And many a morn she climbed the steep,
From whence she might behold,
Where, 'neath the clouds, in shining sweep,
And mingling with the mighty deep,
The sea-broad Severn rolled.

Her little boy beside her played,
With sea-shells in his hand;
And sometimes, 'mid the bents delayed,
And sometimes running onward, said,
Oh, where is Holy Land!

My child, she cried, my prattler dear!
And kissed his light-brown hair;
Her eyelid glistened with a tear,
And none but God above could hear,
That hour, her secret prayer.

As thus she nursed her secret woes,
Oft to the wind and rain
She listened, at sad autumn's close,
Whilst many a thronging shadow rose,
Dark-glancing o'er her brain.

Now lonely to the cloudy height
Of the steep hill she strays;
Below, the raven wings his flight,
And often on the screaming kite
She sees the wild deer gaze.

The clouds were gathered on its brow,
The warring winds were high;
She heard a hollow voice, and now
She lifts to heaven a secret vow,
Whilst the king of the storm rides by.

Seated on a craggy rock,
What aged man appears!
There is no hind, no straggling flock;
Comes the strange shade my thoughts to mock,
And shake my soul with fears?

Fast drive the hurrying clouds of morn;
A pale man stands confessed;
With look majestic, though forlorn,
A mirror in his hand, and horn
Of ivory on his breast.

Daughter of grief, he gently said,
And beckoned her: come near;
Now say, what would you give to me,
If you brave Hoel's form might see,
Or the sound of his bugle hear!

Hoel, my love, where'er thou art,
All England I would give,
If, never, never more to part,
I now could hold thee to my heart,
For whom alone I live!

He placed the white horn to her ear,
And sudden a sweet voice
Stole gently, as of fairies near,
While accents soft she seemed to hear,
Daughter of grief, rejoice!

For soon to love and thee I fly,
From Salem's hallowed plain!
The mirror caught her turning eye,
As pale in death she saw him lie,
And sinking 'mid the slain.

She turned to the strange phantom-man,
But she only saw the sky,
And the clouds on the lonely mountains' van,
And the Clydden-Shoots, that rushing ran,
To meet the waves of Wye.

Thus seven long years had passed away,--
She heard no voice of mirth;
No minstrel raised his festive lay,
At the sad close of the drisly day,
Beside the blazing hearth.

She seemed in sorrow, yet serene,
No tear was on her face;
And lighting oft her pensive mien,
Upon her languid look was seen
A meek attractive grace.

In beauty's train she yet might vie,
For though in mourning weeds,
No friar, I deem, that passed her by,
Ere saw her dark, yet gentle eye,
But straight forgot his beads.

Eineon, generous and good,
Alone with friendship's aid,
Eineon, of princely Rhys's blood,
Who 'mid the bravest archers stood,
To sooth her griefs essayed.

He had himself been early tried
By stern misfortune's doom;
For she who loved him drooped and died,
And on the green hill's flowery side
He raised her grassy tomb.

What marvel, in his lonely heart,
To faith a friendship true,
If, when her griefs she did impart,
And tears of memory oft would start,
If more than pity grew.

With converse mild he oft would seek
To sooth her sense of care;
As the west wind, with breathings weak,
Wakes, on the hectic's faded cheek
A smile of faint despair.

The summer's eve was calm and still,
When once his harp he strung;
Soft as the twilight on the hill,
Affection seemed his heart to fill,
Whilst eloquent he sung:

When Fortune to all thy warm hopes was unkind,
And the morn of thy youth was o'erclouded with woe,
In me, not a stranger to grief, thou should'st find,
All that friendship and kindness and truth could bestow.

Yes, the time it has been, when my soul was oppressed,
But no longer this heart would for heaviness pine,
Could I lighten the load of an innocent breast,
And steal but a moment of sadness from thine.

He paused, then with a starting tear,
And trembling accent, cried,
O lady, hide that look severe,--
The voice of love, of friendship hear,
And be again a bride.

Mourn not thy much-loved Hoel lost,--
Lady, he is dead, is dead,--
Far distant wanders his pale ghost,--
His bones by the white surge are tossed,
And the wave rolls o'er his head.

She said, Sev'n years their course have rolled,
Since thus brave Hoel spake,
When last I heard his voice, Behold,
This ring,--it is of purest gold,--
Then, keep it for my sake.

When summers seven have robed each tree,
And decked the coombs with green,
If I come not back, then thou art free,
To wed or not, and to think of me
As I had never been.

Those seven sad summers now are o'er,
And three I yet demand;
If in that space I see no more
The friend I ever must deplore,
Then take a mourner's hand.

The time is passed:--the laugh, the lay,
The nuptial feast proclaim;
From many a rushing torrent gray,
From many a wild brook's wandering way,
The hoary minstrels came.

From Kymin's crag, with fragments strewed;
From Skirid, bleak and high;
From Penalt's shaggy solitude;
From Wyndcliff, desolate and rude,
That frowns o'er mazy Wye.

With harps the gallery glittered bright,--
The pealing rafters rung;
Far off upon the woods of night,
From the tall window's arch, the light
Of tapers clear was flung.

The harpers ceased the acclaiming lay,
When, with descending beard,
Scallop, and staff his steps to stay,
As, foot-sore, on his weary way,
A pilgrim wan appeared.

Now lend me a harp for St Mary's sake,
For my skill I fain would try,
A poor man's offering to make,
If haply still my hand may wake
Some pleasant melody.

With scoffs the minstrel crowd replied,
Dost thou a harp request!
And loud in mirth, and swelled with pride,
Some his rain-dripping hair deride,
And some his sordid vest.

Pilgrim, a harp shall soon be found,
Young Hoel instant cried;
There lies a harp upon the ground,
And none hath ever heard its sound,
Since my brave father died.

The harp is brought: upon the frame
A filmy cobweb hung;
The strings were few, yet 'twas the same;
The old man drawing near the flame,
The chords imperfect rung:

Oh! cast every care to the wind,
And dry, best beloved, the tear;
Secure that thou ever shalt find
The friend of thy bosom sincere.

She speechless gazed:--he stands confessed,--
The dark eyes of her Hoel shine;
Her heart has forgotten it e'er was oppressed,
And she murmurs aloud, as she sinks on his breast,
Oh! press my heart to thine.

He turned his look a little space,
To hide the tears of joy;
Then rushing, with a warm embrace,
Cried, as he kissed young Hoel's face,
My boy, my heart-loved boy!

Proud harpers, strike a louder lay,--
No more forlorn I bend!
Prince Eineon, with the rest, be gay,
Though fate hath torn a bride away,
Accept a long-lost friend.

* * * * *

This tale I heard, when at the close of day
The village harper tuned an ancient lay;
He struck his harp, beneath a ruin hoar,
And sung of love and truth, in days of yore,
And I retained the song, with counsel sage,
To teach _one_ lesson to a wiser age!

Such are thy views, DISCOVERY! The great world
Rolls to thine eye revealed; to thee the Deep
Submits its awful empire; Industry
Awakes, and Commerce to the echoing marts
From east to west unwearied pours her wealth.
Man walks sublimer; and Humanity,
Matured by social intercourse, more high,
More animated, lifts her sovereign mien,
And waves her golden sceptre. Yet the heart
Asks trembling, is no evil found! Oh, turn,
Meek Charity, and drop a human tear
For the sad fate of Afric's injured sons,
And hide, for ever hide, the sight of chains,
Anguish, and bondage! Yes, the heart of man
Is sick, and Charity turns pale, to think
How soon, for pure religion's holy beam,
Dark crimes, that sullied the sweet day, pursued,
Like vultures, the Discoverer's ocean tract,
Screaming for blood, to fields of rich Peru,
Or ravaged Mexico, while Gold more Gold!
The caverned mountains echoed, Gold more Gold!
Then see the fell-eyed, prowling buccaneer,
Grim as a libbard! He his jealous look
Turns to the dagger at his belt, his hand
By instinct grasps a bloody scymitar,
And ghastly is his smile, as o'er the woods
He sees the smoke of burning villages
Ascend, and thinks ev'n now he counts his spoil.
See thousands destined to the lurid mine,
Never to see the sun again; all names
Of husband, sire, all tender charities
Of love, deep buried with them in that grave,
Where life is as a thing long passed; and hope
No more its sickly ray, to cheer the gloom,
Extends.
Thou, too, dread Ocean, toss thine arms,
Exulting, for the treasures and the gems
That thy dark oozy realm emblaze; and call
The pale procession of the dead, from caves
Where late their bodies weltered, to attend
Thy kingly sceptre, and proclaim thy might!
Lord of the Hurricane! bid all thy winds
Swell, and destruction ride upon the surge,
Where, after the red lightning flash that shows
The labouring ship, all is at once deep night
And long suspense, till the slow dawn of day
Gleams on the scattered corses of the dead,
That strew the sounding shore!
Then think of him,
Ye who rejoice with those you love, at eve,
When winds of winter shake the window-frame,
And more endear your fire, oh, think of him,
Who, saved alone from the destroying storm,
Is cast on some deserted rock; who sees
Sun after sun descend, and hopeless hears;
At morn the long surge of the troubled main,
That beats without his wretched cave; meantime
He fears to wake the echoes with his voice,
So dread the solitude!
Let Greenland's snows
Then shine, and mark the melancholy train
There left to perish, whilst the cold pale day
Declines along the further ice, that binds
The ship, and leaves in night the sinking scene.
Sad winter closes on the deep; the smoke
Of frost, that late amusive to the eye
Rose o'er the coast, is passed, and all is now
One torpid blank; the freezing particles
Blown blistering, and the white bear seeks her cave.
Ill-fated outcasts, when the morn again
Shall streak with feeble beam the frozen waste,
Your air-bleached and unburied carcases
Shall press the ground, and, as the stars fade off,
Your stony eyes glare 'mid the desert snows!
These triumphs boast, fell Demon of the Deep!
Though never more the universal shriek
Of all that perish thou shalt hear, as when
The deep foundations of the guilty earth
Were shaken at the voice of God, and man
Ceased in his habitations; yet the sea
Thy might tempestuous still, and joyless rule,
Confesses. Ah! what bloodless shadows throng
Ev'n now, slow rising from their oozy beds,
From Mete, and those gates of burial
That guard the Erythraean; from the vast
Unfathomed caverns of the Western main
Or stormy Orcades; whilst the sad shell
Of poor Arion, to the hollow blast
Slow seems to pour its melancholy tones,
And faintly vibrate, as the dead pass by.
I see the chiefs, who fell in distant lands,
The prey of murderous savages, when yells,
And shouts, and conch, resounded through the woods.
Magellan and De Solis seem to lead
The mournful train. Shade of Perouse! oh, say
Where, in the tract of unknown seas, thy bones
Th' insulting surge has swept?
But who is he,
Whose look, though pale and bloody, wears the trace
Of pure philanthropy? The pitying sigh
Forbid not; he was dear to Britons, dear
To every beating heart, far as the world
Extends; and my faint faltering touch ev'n now
Dies on the strings, when I pronounce thy name,
Oh, lost, lamented, generous, hapless Cook!
But cease the vain complaint; turn from the shores,
Wet with his blood, Remembrance: cast thine eyes
Upon the long seas, and the wider world,
Displayed from his research. Smile, glowing Health!
For now no more the wasted seaman sinks,
With haggard eye and feeble frame diseased;
No more with tortured longings for the sight
Of fields and hillocks green, madly he calls
On Nature, when before his swimming eye
The liquid long expanse of cheerless seas
Seems all one flowery plain. Then frantic dreams
Arise; his eye's distemper'd flash is seen
From the sunk socket, as a demon there
Sat mocking, till he plunges in the flood,
And the dark wave goes o'er him.
Nor wilt thou,
O Science! fail to deck the cold morai
Of him who wider o'er earth's hemisphere
Thy views extended. On, from deep to deep,
Thou shalt retrace the windings of his track;
From the high North to where the field-ice binds
The still Antarctic. Thence, from isle to isle,
Thou shalt pursue his progress; and explore
New-Holland's eastern shores, where now the sons
Of distant Britain, from her lap cast out,
Water the ground with tears of penitence,
Perhaps, hereafter, in their destined time,
Themselves to rise pre-eminent. Now speed,
By Asia's eastern bounds, still to the North,
Where the vast continents of either world
Approach: Beyond, 'tis silent boundless ice,
Impenetrable barrier, where all thought
Is lost; where never yet the eagle flew,
Nor roamed so far the white bear through the waste.
But thou, dread POWER! whose voice from chaos called
The earth, who bad'st the Lord of light go forth,
Ev'n as a giant, and the sounding seas
Roll at thy fiat: may the dark deep clouds,
That thy pavilion shroud from mortal sight,
So pass away, as now the mystery,
Obscure through rolling ages, is disclosed;
How man, from one great Father sprung, his race
Spread to that severed continent! Ev'n so,
FATHER, in thy good time, shall all things stand
Revealed to knowledge.
As the mind revolves
The change of mighty empires, and the fate
Of HIM whom Thou hast made, back through the dusk
Of ages Contemplation turns her view:
We mark, as from its infancy, the world
Peopled again, from that mysterious shrine
That rested on the top of Ararat,
Highest of Asian mountains; spreading on,
The Cushites from their mountain caves descend;
Then before GOD the sons of Ammon stood
In their gigantic might, and first the seas
Vanquished: But still from clime to clime the groan
Of sacrifice, and Superstition's cry,
Was heard; but when the Dayspring rose of heaven,
Greece's hoar forests echoed, The great Pan
Is dead! From Egypt, and the rugged shores
Of Syrian Tyre, the gods of darkness fly;
Bel is cast down, and Nebo, horrid king,
Bows in imperial Babylon: But, ah!
Too soon, the Star of Bethlehem, whose ray
The host of heaven hailed jubilant, and sang,
Glory to God on high, and on earth peace,
With long eclipse is veiled.
Red Papacy
Usurped the meek dominion of the Lord
Of love and charity: vast as a fiend
She rose, Heaven's light was darkened with her frown,
And the earth murmured back her hymns of blood,
As the meek martyr at the burning stake
Stood, his last look uplifted to his GOD!
But she is now cast down, her empire reft.
They who in darkness walked, and in the shade
Of death, have seen a new and holy light,
As in th' umbrageous forest, through whose boughs,
Mossy and damp, for many a league, the morn
With languid beam scarce pierces, here and there
Touching some solitary trunk, the rest
Dark waving in the noxious atmosphere:
Through the thick-matted leaves the serpent winds
His way, to find a spot of casual sun;
The gaunt hyaena through the thicket glides
At eve: then, too, the couched tiger's eye
Flames in the dusk, and oft the gnashing jaws
Of the fell crocodile are heard. At length,
By man's superior energy and toil,
The sunless brakes are cleared; the joyous morn
Shines through the opening leaves; rich culture smiles
Around; and howling to their distant wilds
The savage inmates of the wood retire.
Such is the scene of human life, till want
Bids man his strength put forth; then slowly spreads
The cultured stream of mild humanity,
And gentler virtues, and more noble aims
Employ the active mind, till beauty beams
Around, and Nature wears her richest robe,
Adorned with lovelier graces. Then the charms
Of woman, fairest of the works of Heaven,
Whom the cold savage, in his sullen pride,
Scorned as unworthy of his equal love,
With more attractive influence wins the heart
Of her protector. Then the names of sire,
Of home, of brother, and of children, grow
More sacred, more endearing; whilst the eye,
Lifted beyond this earthly scene, beholds
A Father who looks down from heaven on all!
O Britain, my loved country! dost thou rise
Most high among the nations! Do thy fleets
Ride o'er the surge of ocean, that subdued
Rolls in long sweep beneath them! Dost thou wear
Thy garb of gentler morals gracefully!
Is widest science thine, and the fair train
Of lovelier arts! While commerce throngs thy ports
With her ten thousand streamers, is the tract
Of the undeviating ploughshare white
That rips the reeking furrow, followed soon
By plenty, bidding all the scene rejoice,
Even like a cultured garden! Do the streams
That steal along thy peaceful vales, reflect
Temples, and Attic domes, and village towers!
Is beauty thine, fairest of earthly things,
Woman; and doth she gain that liberal love
And homage, which the meekness of her voice,
The rapture of her smile, commanding most
When she seems weakest, must demand from him,
Her master; whose stern strength at once submits
In manly, but endearing, confidence,
Unlike his selfish tyranny who sits
The sultan of his harem!
Oh, then, think
How great the blessing, and how high thy rank
Amid the civilised and social world!
But hast thou no deep failings, that may turn
Thy thoughts within thyself! Ask, for the sun
That shines in heaven hath seen it, hath thy power
Ne'er scattered sorrow over distant lands!
Ask of the East, have never thy proud sails
Borne plunder from dismembered provinces,
Leaving the groans of miserable men
Behind! And free thyself, and lifting high
The charter of thy freedom, bought with blood,
Hast thou not stood, in patient apathy,
A witness of the tortures and the chains
That Afric's injured sons have known! Stand up;
Yes, thou hast visited the caves, and cheered
The gloomy haunts of sorrow; thou hast shed
A beam of comfort and of righteousness
On isles remote; hast bid the bread-fruit shade
Th' Hesperian regions, and has softened much
With bland amelioration, and with charms
Of social sweetness, the hard lot of man.
But weighed in truth's firm balance, ask, if all
Be even. Do not crimes of ranker growth
Batten amid thy cities, whose loud din,
From flashing and contending cars, ascends,
Till morn! Enchanting, as if aught so sweet
Ne'er faded, do thy daughters wear the weeds
Of calm domestic peace and wedded love;
Or turn, with beautiful disdain, to dash
Gay pleasure's poisoned chalice from their lips
Untasted! Hath not sullen atheism,
Weaving gay flowers of poesy, so sought
To hide the darkness of his withered brow
With faded and fantastic gallantry
Of roses, thus to win the thoughtless smile
Of youthful ignorance! Hast thou with awe
Looked up to Him whose power is in the clouds,
Who bids the storm rush, and it sweeps to earth
The nations that offend, and they are gone,
Like Tyre and Babylon! Well weigh thyself:
Then shalt thou rise undaunted in the might
Of thy Protector, and the gathered hate
Of hostile bands shall be but as the sand
Blown on the everlasting pyramid.
Hasten, O Love and Charity! your work,
Ev'n now whilst it is day; far as the world
Extends may your divinest influence
Be felt, and more than felt, to teach mankind
They all are brothers, and to drown the cries
Of superstition, anarchy, or blood!
Not yet the hour is come: on Ganges' banks
Still superstition hails the flame of death,
Behold, gay dressed, as in her bridal tire,
The self-devoted beauteous victim slow
Ascend the pile where her dead husband lies:
She kisses his cold cheeks, inclines her breast
On his, and lights herself the fatal pile
That shall consume them both!
On Egypt's shore,
Where Science rose, now Sloth and Ignorance
Sleep like the huge Behemoth in the sun!
The turbaned Moor still stains with strangers' blood
The inmost sands of Afric. But all these
The light shall visit, and that vaster tract
From Fuego to the furthest Labrador,
Where roam the outcast Esquimaux, shall hear
The voice of social fellowship; the chief
Whose hatchet flashed amid the forest gloom,
Who to his infants bore the bleeding scalp
Of his fall'n foe, shall weep unwonted tears!
Come, Faith; come, Hope; come, meek-eyed Charity!
Complete the lovely prospect: every land
Shall lift up one hosannah; every tongue
Proclaim thee FATHER, INFINITE, and WISE,
And GOOD. The shores of palmy Senegal
(Sad Afric's injured sons no more enslaved)
Shall answer HALLELUJAH, for the LORD
Of truth and mercy reigns;--reigns KING OF KINGS;--
HOSANNAH--KING OF KINGS--and LORD OF LORDS!
So may His kingdom come, when all the earth,
Uniting thus as in one hymn of praise,
Shall wait the end of all things. This great globe,
His awful plan accomplished, then shall sink
In flames, whilst through the clouds, that wrap the place
Where it had rolled, and the sun shone, the voice
Of the ARCHANGEL, and the TRUMP OF GOD,
Amid heaven's darkness rolling fast away,
Shall sound!
Then shall the sea give up its dead;--
But man's immortal mind, all trials past
That shook his feverish frame, amidst the scenes
Of peril and distemper, shall ascend
Exulting to its destined seat of rest,
And 'justify His ways' from whom it sprung.

Beneath aerial cliffs, and glittering snows,
The rush-roof of an aged warrior rose,
Chief of the mountain tribes: high overhead,
The Andes, wild and desolate, were spread,
Where cold Sierras shot their icy spires,
And Chillan trailed its smoke and smouldering fires.
A glen beneath, a lonely spot of rest,
Hung, scarce discovered, like an eagle's nest.
Summer was in its prime;--the parrot-flocks
Darkened the passing sunshine on the rocks;
The chrysomel and purple butterfly,
Amid the clear blue light, are wandering by;
The humming-bird, along the myrtle bowers,
With twinkling wing, is spinning o'er the flowers,
The woodpecker is heard with busy bill,
The mock-bird sings--and all beside is still,
And look! the cataract that bursts so high,
As not to mar the deep tranquillity,
The tumult of its dashing fall suspends,
And, stealing drop by drop, in mist descends;
Through whose illumined spray and sprinkling dews,
Shine to the adverse sun the broken rainbow hues.
Chequering, with partial shade, the beams of noon,
And arching the gray rock with wild festoon,
Here its gay net-work, and fantastic twine,
The purple cogul threads from pine to pine,
And oft, as the fresh airs of morning breathe,
Dips its long tendrils in the stream beneath.
There, through the trunks with moss and lichens white,
The sunshine darts its interrupted light,
And, 'mid the cedar's darksome boughs, illumes,
With instant touch, the Lori's scarlet plumes.
So smiles the scene;--but can its smiles impart
Aught to console yon mourning warrior's heart?
He heeds not now, when beautifully bright,
The humming-bird is circling in his sight;
Nor ev'n, above his head, when air is still,
Hears the green woodpecker's resounding bill;
But gazing on the rocks and mountains wild,
Rock after rock, in glittering masses piled
To the volcano's cone, that shoots so high
Gray smoke whose column stains the cloudless sky,
He cries, Oh! if thy spirit yet be fled
To the pale kingdoms of the shadowy dead,--
In yonder tract of purest light above,
Dear long-lost object of a father's love,
Dost thou abide; or like a shadow come,
Circling the scenes of thy remembered home,
And passing with the breeze, or, in the beam
Of evening, light the desert mountain stream!
Or at deep midnight are thine accents heard,
In the sad notes of that melodious bird,
Which, as we listen with mysterious dread,
Brings tidings from our friends and fathers dead?
Perhaps, beyond those summits, far away,
Thine eyes yet view the living light of day;
Sad, in the stranger's land, thou may'st sustain
A weary life of servitude and pain,
With wasted eye gaze on the orient beam,
And think of these white rocks and torrent stream,
Never to hear the summer cocoa wave,
Or weep upon thy father's distant grave.
Ye, who have waked, and listened with a tear,
When cries confused, and clangours rolled more near;
With murmured prayer, when Mercy stood aghast,
As War's black trump pealed its terrific blast,
And o'er the withered earth the armed giant passed!
Ye, who his track with terror have pursued,
When some delightful land, all blood-imbrued,
He swept; where silent is the champaign wide,
That echoed to the pipe of yester-tide,
Save, when far off, the moonlight hills prolong
The last deep echoes of his parting gong;
Nor aught is seen, in the deserted spot
Where trailed the smoke of many a peaceful cot,
Save livid corses that unburied lie,
And conflagrations, reeking to the sky;--
Come listen, whilst the causes I relate
That bowed the warrior to the storms of fate,
And left these smiling scenes forlorn and desolate.
In other days, when, in his manly pride,
Two children for a father's fondness vied,--
Oft they essayed, in mimic strife, to wield
His lance, or laughing peeped behind his shield;
Oft in the sun, or the magnolia's shade,
Lightsome of heart as gay of look they played,
Brother and sister. She, along the dew,
Blithe as the squirrel of the forest flew;
Blue rushes wreathed her head; her dark-brown hair
Fell, gently lifted, on her bosom bare;
Her necklace shone, of sparkling insects made,
That flit, like specks of fire, from sun to shade.
Light was her form; a clasp of silver braced
The azure-dyed ichella round her waist;
Her ancles rung with shells, as unconfined
She danced, and sung wild carols to the wind.
With snow-white teeth, and laughter in her eye,
So beautiful in youth she bounded by.
Yet kindness sat upon her aspect bland,--
The tame alpaca stood and licked her hand;
She brought him gathered moss, and loved to deck
With flowery twine his tall and stately neck,
Whilst he with silent gratitude replies,
And bends to her caress his large blue eyes.
These children danced together in the shade,
Or stretched their hands to see the rainbow fade;
Or sat and mocked, with imitative glee,
The paroquet, that laughed from tree to tree;
Or through the forest's wildest solitude,
From glen to glen, the marmozet pursued;
And thought the light of parting day too short,
That called them, lingering, from their daily sport.
In that fair season of awakening life,
When dawning youth and childhood are at strife;
When on the verge of thought gay boyhood stands
Tiptoe, with glistening eye and outspread hands;
With airy look, and form and footsteps light,
And glossy locks, and features berry-bright,
And eye like the young eaglet's, to the ray
Of noon unblenching as he sails away;
A brede of sea-shells on his bosom strung,
A small stone-hatchet o'er his shoulder slung,
With slender lance, and feathers blue and red,
That, like the heron's crest, waved on his head,--
Buoyant with hope, and airiness, and joy,
Lautaro was a graceful Indian boy:
Taught by his sire, ev'n now he drew the bow,
Or tracked the jagguar on the morning snow;
Startled the condor, on the craggy height;
Then silent sat, and marked its upward flight,
Lessening in ether to a speck of white.
But when the impassioned chieftain spoke of war,
Smote his broad breast, or pointed to a scar,--
Spoke of the strangers of the distant main,
And the proud banners of insulting Spain,--
Of the barbed horse and iron horseman spoke,
And his red gods, that, wrapped in rolling smoke,
Roared from the guns;--the boy, with still-drawn breath,
Hung on the wondrous tale, as mute as death;
Then raised his animated eyes, and cried,
Oh, let me perish by my father's side!
Once, when the moon, o'er Chillan's cloudless height,
Poured, far and wide, its softest, mildest light,
A predatory band of mailed men
Burst on the stillness of the sheltered glen:
They shouted, Death! and shook their sabres high,
That shone terrific to the moonlight sky;
Where'er they rode, the valley and the hill
Echoed the shrieks of death, till all again was still.
The warrior, ere he sank in slumber deep,
Had kissed his son, soft-breathing in his sleep,
Where on a Llama's skin he lay, and said,
Placing his hand, with tears, upon his head,
Aerial nymphs! that in the moonlight stray,
O gentle spirits! here awhile delay;
Bless, as ye pass unseen, my sleeping boy,
Till blithe he wakes to daylight and to joy.
If the GREAT SPIRIT will, in future days,
O'er the fall'n foe his hatchet he shall raise,
And, 'mid a grateful nation's high applause,
Avenge his violated country's cause!
Now, nearer points of spears, and many a cone
Of moving helmets, in the moonlight shone,
As, clanking through the pass, the band of blood
Sprang, like hyaenas, from the secret wood.
They rush, they seize their unresisting prey,
Ruthless they tear the shrieking boy away;
But, not till gashed by many a sabre wound,
The father sank, expiring, on the ground.
He waked from the dark trance to life and pain,
But never saw his darling child again.
Seven snows had fallen, and seven green summers passed,
Since here he heard that son's loved accents last.
Still his beloved daughter soothed his cares,
Whilst time began to strew with white his hairs.
Oft as his painted feathers he unbound,
Or gazed upon his hatchet on the ground,
Musing with deep despair, nor strove to speak,
Light she approached, and climbed to reach his cheek,
Held with both hands his forehead, then her head
Drew smiling back, and kissed the tear he shed.
But late, to grief and hopeless love a prey,
She left his side, and wandered far away.
Now in this still and shelter'd glen, that smiled
Beneath the crags of precipices wild,
Wrapt in a stern yet sorrowful repose,
The warrior half forgot his country's woes;
Forgot how many, impotent to save,
Shed their best blood upon a father's grave;
How many, torn from wife and children, pine
In the dark caverns of the hopeless mine,
Never to see again the blessed morn;--
Slaves in the lovely land where they were born;
How many at sad sunset, with a tear,
The distant roar of sullen cannons hear,
Whilst evening seems, as dies the sound, to throw
A deadlier stillness on a nation's woe!
So the dark warrior, day succeeding day,
Wore in distempered thought the noons away;
And still, when weary evening came, he sighed,
My son, my son! or, with emotion, cried,
When I descend to the cold grave alone,
Who shall be there to mourn for me?--Not one!
The crimson orb of day now westering flung
His beams, and o'er the vast Pacific hung;
When from afar a shrilling sound was heard,
And, hurrying o'er the dews, a scout appeared.
The watchful warrior knew the piercing tones,
The signal-call of war, from human bones,--
What tidings? with impatient look, he cried.
Tidings of war, the hurrying scout replied;
Then the sharp pipe with shriller summons blew,
And held the blood-red arrow high in view.

CHIEF.

Where speed the foes?

INDIAN.

Along the southern main,
Have passed the vultures of accursed Spain.

CHIEF.

Ruin pursue them on the distant flood,
And be their deadly portion--blood for blood!

INDIAN.

When, round and red, the moon shall next arise,
The chiefs attend the midnight sacrifice
In Encol's wood, where the great wizard dwells,
Who wakes the dead man by his thrilling spells;
Thee, Ulmen of the Mountains, they command
To lift the hatchet for thy native land;
Whilst in dread circle, round the sere-wood smoke,
The mighty gods of vengeance they invoke;
And call the spirits of their fathers slain,
To nerve their lifted arm, and curse devoted Spain.
So spoke the scout of war;--and o'er the dew,
Onward along the craggy valley, flew.
Then the stern warrior sang his song of death--
And blew his conch, that all the glens beneath
Echoed, and rushing from the hollow wood,
Soon at his side three hundred warriors stood.

WARRIOR.

Children, who for his country dares to die?

Three hundred brandished spears shone to the sky:
We perish, or we leave our country free;
Father, our blood for Chili and for thee!
The mountain-chief essayed his club to wield,
And shook the dust indignant from the shield.
Then spoke:--

O Thou! that with thy lingering light
Dost warm the world, till all is hushed in night;
I look upon thy parting beams, O sun!
And say, ev'n thus my course is almost run.
When thou dost hide thy head, as in the grave,
And sink to glorious rest beneath the wave,
Dost thou, majestic in repose, retire,
Below the deep, to unknown worlds of fire!
Yet though thou sinkest, awful, in the main,
The shadowy moon comes forth, and all the train
Of stars, that shine with soft and silent light,
Making so beautiful the brow of night.
Thus, when I sleep within the narrow bed,
The light of after-fame around shall spread;
The sons of distant Ocean, when they see
The grass-green heap beneath the mountain tree,
And hear the leafy boughs at evening wave,
Shall pause and say, There sleep in dust the brave!
All earthly hopes my lonely heart have fled!
Stern Guecubu, angel of the dead,
Who laughest when the brave in pangs expire;
Whose dwelling is beneath the central fire
Of yonder burning mountain; who hast passed
O'er my poor dwelling, and with one fell blast
Scattered my summer-leaves that clustered round,
And swept my fairest blossoms to the ground;
Angel of dire despair, oh! come not nigh,
Nor wave thy red wings o'er me where I lie;
But thou, O mild and gentle spirit! stand,
Angel of hope and peace, at my right hand,
(When blood-drops stagnate on my brow) and guide
My pathless voyage o'er the unknown tide,
To scenes of endless joy, to that fair isle,
Where bowers of bliss, and soft savannahs smile:
Where my forefathers oft the fight renew,
And Spain's black visionary steeds pursue;
Where, ceased the struggles of all human pain,
I may behold thee--thee, my son, again!
He spoke, and whilst at evening's glimmering close
The distant mist, like the gray ocean, rose,
With patriot sorrows swelling at his breast,
He sank upon a jagguar's hide to rest.
'Twas night: remote on Caracalla's bay,
Valdivia's army, hushed in slumber, lay.
Around the limits of the silent camp,
Alone was heard the steed's patroling tramp
From line to line, whilst the fixed sentinel
Proclaimed the watch of midnight--All is well!
Valdivia dreamed of millions yet untold,
Villrica's gems, and El Dorado's gold!
What different feelings, by the scene impressed,
Rose in sad tumult o'er Lautaro's breast!
On the broad ocean, where the moonlight slept,
Thoughtful he turned his waking eyes, and wept,
And whilst the thronging forms of memory start,
Thus holds communion with his lonely heart:
Land of my fathers, still I tread your shore,
And mourn the shade of hours that are no more;
Whilst night-airs, like remembered voices, sweep,
And murmur from the undulating deep.
Was it thy voice, my father! Thou art dead,
The green rush waves on thy forsaken bed.
Was it thy voice, my sister! Gentle maid,
Thou too, perhaps, in the dark cave art laid;
Perhaps, even now, thy spirit sees me stand
A homeless stranger in my native land;
Perhaps, even now, along the moonlight sea,
It bends from the blue cloud, remembering me!
Land of my fathers! yet, oh yet forgive,
That with thy deadly enemies I live:
The tenderest ties (it boots not to relate)
Have bound me to their service, and their fate;
Yet, whether on Peru's war-wasted plain,
Or visiting these sacred shores again,
Whate'er the struggles of this heart may be,
Land of my fathers, it shall beat for thee!

The morn returns, and, reddening, seems to shed
One ray of glory on the patriot-dead.
Round the dark stone, the victor-chiefs behold!
Still on their locks the gouts of gore hang cold!
There stands the brave Caupolican, the pride
Of Chili, young Lautaro, by his side!
Near the grim circle, pendent from the wood,
Twelve hundred Spanish heads are dripping blood.
Shrill sound the notes of death: in festive dance,
The Indian maids with myrtle boughs advance;
The tinkling sea-shells on their ancles ring,
As, hailing thus the victor-youth, they sing:--

SONG OF INDIAN MAIDS.

Oh, shout for Lautaro, the young and the brave!
The arm of whose strength was uplifted to save,
When the steeds of the strangers came rushing amain,
And the ghosts of our fathers looked down on the slain!

'Twas eve, and the noise of the battle was o'er,
Five thousand brave warriors were cold in their gore;
When, in front, young Lautaro invincible stood,
And the horses and iron-men rolled in their blood!

As the snows of the mountain are swept by the blast,
The earthquake of death o'er the white men has passed;
Shout, Chili, in triumph! the battle is won,
And we dance round the heads that are black in the sun!

Lautaro, as if wrapt in thought profound,
Oft turned an anxious look inquiring round.
He is not here!--Say, does my father live?
Ere eager voices could an answer give,
With faltering footsteps and declining head,
And slowly by an aged Indian led,
Wounded and weak the mountain chief appears:
Live, live! Lautaro cried, with bursting tears,
And fell upon his neck, and, kissing, pressed,
With folding arms, his gray hairs to his breast.
Oh, live! I am thy son--thy long-lost child!
The warrior raised his look, and faintly smiled;
Chili, my country, is avenged! he cried:
My son!--then sunk upon a shield--and died.
Lautaro knelt beside him, as he bowed,
And kissed his bleeding breast, and wept aloud.
The sounds of sadness through the circle ran,
When thus, with lifted axe, Caupolican:
What, for our fathers, brothers, children, slain,
Canst thou repay, ruthless, inhuman Spain?
Here, on the scene with recent slaughter red,
To sooth the spirits of the brave who bled,
Raise we, to-day, the war-feast of the dead.
Bring forth the chief in bonds! Fathers, to-day
Devote we to our gods the noblest prey!
Lautaro turned his eyes, and, gazing round,
Beheld Valdivia and Anselmo bound!
One stood in arms, as with a stern despair,
His helmet cleft in twain, his temples bare,
Where streaks of blood that dropped upon his mail,
Served but to show his face more deadly pale:
His eyebrows, dark and resolute, he bent,
And stood, composed, to wait the dire event.
Still on the cross his looks Anselmo cast,
As if all thought of this vain world was passed,
And in a world of light, without a shade,
Ev'n now his meek and guileless spirit strayed.
Where stood the Spanish chief, a muttering sound
Rose, and each club was lifted from the ground;
When, starting from his father's corse, his sword
Waving before his once-triumphant lord,
Lautaro cried, My breast shall meet the blow:
But save--save him, to whom my life I owe!
Valdivia marked him with unmoving eye,
Then looked upon his bonds, nor deigned reply;
When Harratomac, stealing with slow pace,
And lifting high his iron-jagged mace,
Smote him to earth; a thousand voices rose,
Mingled with shouts and yells, So fall our foes!
Lautaro gave to tears a moment's space,
As black in death he marked Valdivia's face,
Then cried--Chiefs, friends, and thou, Caupolican,
Oh, spare this innocent and holy man!
He never sailed, rapacious, o'er the deep,
The gold of blood-polluted lands to heap;
He never gave the armed hosts his aid,
But meekly to the Mighty Spirit prayed,
That in all lands the sounds of woe might cease,
And brothers of the wide world dwell in peace!
The victor-youth saw generous sympathy
Already steal to every warrior's eye;
Then thus again: Oh, if this filial tear
Bear witness my own father was most dear;
If this uplifted arm, this bleeding steel
Speak for my country what I felt and feel;
If, at this hour, I meet her high applause,
While my heart beats still ardent in her cause;--
Hear, and forgive these tears that grateful flow,
Oh! hear, how much to this poor man I owe!
I was a child--when to my sire's abode,
In Chillan's vale, the armed horsemen rode:
Me, whilst my father cold and breathless lay,
Far off the crested soldiers bore away,
And for a captive sold. No friend was near,
To mark a young and orphan stranger's tear!
This humble man, with kind parental care,
Snatched me from slavery--saved from dark despair;
And as my years increased, protected, fed,
And breathed a father's blessings on my head.
A Spanish maid was with him: need I speak?
Behold, affection's tear still wets my cheek!
Years, as they passed, matured in ripening grace
Her form unfolding, and her beauteous face:
She heard my orphan tale; she loved to hear,
And sometimes for my fortunes dropped a tear.
I could have bowed to direst ills resigned,
But wept at looks so sweet, at words so kind.
Valdivia saw me, now in blooming age,
And claimed me from the father as his page;
The chief too cherished me, yea, saved my life,
When in Peru arose the civil strife.
Yet still remembering her I loved so well,
Oft I returned to the gray father's cell:
His voice instructed me; recalled my youth
From rude idolatry to heavenly truth:
Of this hereafter; he my darkling mind
Cleared, and from low and sensual thoughts refined.
Then first, with feelings new impressed, I strove
To hide the tear of tenderness and love:
Amid the fairest maidens of Peru,
My eyes, my heart, one only object knew:
I lived that object's love and faith to share;
He saw, and blessed us with a father's prayer.
Here, at Valdivia's last and stern command,
I came, a stranger in my native land!
Anselmo (so him call--now most in need--
And standing here in bonds, for whom I plead)
Came, by our chief so summoned, and for aid
To the Great Spirit of the Christians prayed:
Here as a son I loved him, but I left
A wife, a child, of my fond cares bereft,
Never to see again; for death awaits
My entrance now in Lima's jealous gates.
Caupolican, didst thou thy father love?
Did his last dying look affection move?
Pity this aged man; unbend thy brow:
He was my father--is my father, now!
Consenting mercy marks each warrior's mien.
But who is this, what pallid form is seen,
As crushed already by the fatal blow,
Bound, and with looks white as a wreath of snow,
Her hands upon her breast, scarce drawn her breath,
A Spanish woman knelt, expecting death,
Whilst, borne by a dark warrior at her side,
An infant shrunk from the red plumes, and cried!
Lautaro started:
Injured maid of Spain!
Me!--me! oh, take me to thine arms again!
She heard his voice, and, by the scene oppressed,
With one faint sigh fell senseless on his breast.
Caupolican, with warm emotion, cried,
Live, live! Lautaro and his beauteous bride!
Live, aged father!--and forthwith commands
A warrior to unbind Anselmo's hands.
She raised her head: his eyes first met her view,
As round Lautaro's neck her arms she threw,
Ah, no! she feebly spoke; it is not true!
It is some form of the distempered brain!
Then hid her face upon his breast again.
Dark flashing eyes, terrific, glared around:
Here, his brains scattered by the deadly wound,
The Spanish chief lay on the gory ground.
With lowering brows, and mace yet drooping blood,
And clotted hair, there Mariantu stood.
Anselmo here, sad, yet in sorrow mild,
Appeared: she cried, A blessing on your child,
And knelt, as slow revived her waking sense,
And then, with looks aghast, Oh bear us hence!
Now all the assembled chiefs, assenting, cried,
Live, live! Lautaro and his beauteous bride!
With eager arms Lautaro snatched his boy,
And kissed him in an agony of joy;
Then to Anselmo gave, who strove to speak,
And felt the tear first burning on his cheek:
The infant held his neck with strict embrace,
And kissed his pale emaciated face.
From the dread scene, wet with Valdivia's gore,
His wan and trembling charge Lautaro bore.
There was a bank, where slept the summer-light,
A small stream whispering went in mazes bright,
And stealing from the sea, the western wind
Waved the magnolias on the slope inclined:
The woodpecker, in glittering plumage green,
And echoing bill, beneath the boughs was seen;
And, arched with gay and pendent flowers above,
The floripondio its rich trellis wove.
Lautaro bent, with looks of love and joy,
O'er his yet trembling wife and beauteous boy:
Oh, by what miracle, beloved! say,
Hast thou escaped the perils of the way
From Lima, where our humble dwelling stood,
To these tumultuous scenes, this vale of blood?
Roused by his voice, as from the sleep of death,
Faint she replied, with slow-recovering breath,
Who shall express, when thou, best friend! wert gone,
How sunk my heart!--deserted and alone!
Would I were with thee! oft I sat and sighed,
When the pale moon shone on the silent tide--
At length resolved, I sought thee o'er the seas:
The brave bark cheer'ly went before the breeze,
That arms and soldiers to Valdivia bore,
From Lima bound to Chili's southern shore:
I seized the fair occasion--ocean smiled,
As to the sire I bore his lisping child.
The storm arose: with loud and sudden shock
The vessel sunk, disparting on a rock.
Some mariners, amidst the billows wild,
Scarce saved, in one small boat, me and my child.
What I have borne, a captive since that day--
Forgive these tears--I scarce have heart to say!
None pitied, save one gentle Indian maid--
A wild maid--of her looks I was afraid;
Her long black hair upon her shoulders fell,
And in her hand she bore a wreathed shell.
Lautaro for a moment turned aside,
And, Oh, my sister! with faint voice he cried.
Already free from sorrow and alarms,
I clasped in thought a husband in my arms,
When a dark warrior, stationed on the height,
Who held his solitary watch by night,
Before me stood, and lifting high his lance,
Exclaimed: No further, on thy life, advance!
Faint, wearied, sinking to the earth with dread,
Back to the dismal cave my steps he led.
Only at eve, within the craggy cleft,
Some water, and a cake of maize, were left.
The thirteenth sun unseen went down the sky;
When morning came, they brought me forth to die;
But hushed be every sigh, each boding fear,
Since all I sought on earth, and all I love, is here!
Her infant raised his hands, with glistening eye,
To reach a large and radiant butterfly,
That fluttered near his face; with looks of love,
And truth and tenderness, Lautaro strove
To calm her wounded heart; the holy sire,
His eyes faint-lighted with a transient fire,
Hung o'er them, and to Heaven his prayer addressed,
While, with uplifted hands, he wept and blest.
An aged Indian came, with feathers crowned,
And knelt before Lautaro on the ground.
What tidings, Indian?

INDIAN.

When I led thy sire,
Whom late thou saw'st upon his shield expire,
Son of our Ulmen, didst thou mark no trace,
In these sad looks, of a remembered face?
Dost thou remember Izdabel? Look here!
It is thy father's hatchet and his spear.
Friend of my infant days, how I rejoice,
Lautaro cried, once more to hear that voice!
Life like a dream, since last we met, has fled--
Oh, my beloved sister, thou art dead!

INDIAN.

I come to guide thee through untrodden ways,
To the lone valley, where thy father's days
Were passed; where every cave and every tree,
From morn to morn, reminded him of thee!
Lautaro cried: Here, faithful Indian, stay;
I have a last sad duty yet to pay.
A little while we part:--thou here remain.
He spake, and passed like lightning o'er the plain.
Ah, cease, Castilian maid, thy vain alarms!
See where he comes--his father in his arms!
Now lead, he cried. The Indian, sad and still,
Paced on from wood to vale, from vale to hill;
Her infant tired, and hushed a while to rest,
Smiled, in a dream, upon its mother's breast;
The pensive mother gray Anselmo led;
Behind, Lautaro bore his father dead.
Beneath the branching palms they slept at night;
The small birds waked them ere the morning light.
Before their path, in distant view, appeared
The mountain-smoke, that its dark column reared
O'er Andes' summits, in the pale blue sky,
Lifting their icy pinnacles so high.
Four days they onward held their eastern way;
On the fifth rising morn, before them lay
Chillan's lone glen, amid whose windings green,
The Warrior's loved and last abode was seen.
No smoke went up, a stillness reigned around,
Save where the waters fell with soothing sound,
Save where the Thenca sang so loud and clear,
And the bright humming-bird was spinning near.
Yet here all human tumults seemed to cease,
And sunshine rested on the spot of peace;
The myrtles bloomed as fragrant and as green
As if Lautaro scarce had left the scene;
And in his ear the falling waters' spray
Seemed swelling with the sounds of yesterday.
Where yonder rock the aged cedars shade,
There shall my father's bones in peace be laid.
Beneath the cedar's shade they dug the ground;
The small and sad communion gathered round.
Beside the grave stood aged Izdabel,
And broke the spear, and cried: Farewell, farewell!
Lautaro hid his face, and sighed Adieu!
As the stone hatchet in the grave he threw.
The little child that to its mother clung,
Stretched out its arm, then on her garment hung,
With sidelong looks, half-shrinking, half-amazed,
And dropped its flowers, unconscious, as it gazed.
And now Anselmo, his pale brow inclined,
The honoured relics, dust to dust, consigned
With Christian rites, and sung, on bending knee,
'Eternam pacem dona, Domine.'
Then rising up he closed the holy book;
And lifting in the beam his lighted look,
(The cross, with meekness, folded on his breast),
Here, too, he cried, my bones in peace shall rest!
Few years remain to me, and never more
Shall I behold, O Spain! thy distant shore!
Here lay my bones, that the same tree may wave
O'er the poor Christian's and the Indian's grave.
Oh, may it (when the sons of future days
Shall hear our tale and on the hillock gaze),
Oh, may it teach, that charity should bind,
Where'er they roam, the brothers of mankind!
The time shall come, when wildest tribes shall hear
Thy voice, O Christ! and drop the slaughtering spear.
Yet we condemn not him who bravely stood,
To seal his country's freedom with his blood;
And if, in after-times, a ruthless band
Of fell invaders sweep my native land,
May she, by Chili's stern example led,
Hurl back his thunder on the assailant's head;
Sustained by Freedom, strike the avenging blow,
And learn one virtue from her ancient foe!