ページの画像
PDF
ePub

"I, by twenty sail attended,
Did this Spanish town affright;
Nothing then its wealth defended
But my orders-not to fight:
Oh! that in this rolling ocean

I had cast them with disdain;

And obey'd my heart's warm motion,
To have quell'd the pride of Spain !

"For resistance I could fear none,
But with twenty ships had done
What thou, brave and happy Vernon,
Hast achiev'd with six alone.
Then the Bastimentos never

Had our foul dishonour seen,

Nor the sea the sad receiver

Of this gallant train had been.

"Thus, like thee, proud Spain dismaying,
And her galleons leading home,
Though condemn'd for disobeying,
I had met a traitor's doom:
To have fall'n, my country crying,

[ocr errors]

He has better play'd an English part,'

Had been better far than dying
Of a griev'd and broken heart.

Unrepining at thy glory,

Thy successful arms we hail; But remember our sad story,

And let Hosier's wrongs prevail : Sent in this foul clime to languish, Think what thousands fell in vain, Wasted with disease and anguish, Not in glorious battle slain.

6

"Hence, with all my train attending
From their oozy tombs below,
Through the hoary foam ascending,
Here I feed my constant woe :
Here the Bastimentos viewing,
We recall our shameful doom,
And, our plaintive cries renewing,

Wander through the midnight gloom.

"O'er these waves, for ever mourning,
Shall we roam, depriv'd of rest,
If, to Britain's shores returning,
You neglect my just request:
After this proud foe subduing,
When your patriot friends you see,
Think on vengeance for my ruin,
And for England sham'd in me."

THE SUICIDE.

T. WARTON.

BENEATH the beech, whose branches bare,
Smit with the lightning's livid glare,
O'erhang the craggy road,

And whistle hollow as they wave;
Within a solitary grave,

A wretched suicide holds his accurs'd abode.

Lower'd the grim morn, in murky dyes
Damp mists involv'd the scowling skies,
And dimm'd the struggling day;
As by the brook that ling'ring laves
Yon rush-grown moor with sable waves,

Full of the dark resolve, he took his sullen way.

K

I mark'd his desultory pace,

His gestures strange, and varying face,
With many a mutter'd sound;

And ah! too late aghast I view'd

The reeking blade, the hand imbru'd; He fell, and groaning grasp'd in agony the ground.

Full many a melancholy night
He watch'd the slow return of light;

And sought the powers of sleep,

To spread a momentary calm

O'er his sad couch, and in the balm

Of bland oblivion's dews his burning eyes to steep.

Full oft, unknowing and unknown,
He wore his endless noons alone,
Amid th' autumnal wood;
Oft was he wont, in hasty fit,

Abrupt the social board to quit,

And gaze with eager glance upon the tumbling flood.

Beck'ning the wretch to torments new,
Despair, for ever in his view,

A spectre pale, appear'd;

While, as the shade of eve arose,

And brought the day's unwelcome close, More horrible and huge her giant-shape she rear'd.

"Is this," mistaken Scorn will cry,
"Is this the youth whose genius high
Could build the genuine rhyme?
Whose bosom mild the fav'ring Muse
Had stor❜d with all her ample views,

Parent of fairest deeds, and purposes sublime?"

Ah! from the Muse that bosom mild
By treach'rous magic was beguil'd,
To strike the deathful blow:
She fill'd his soft ingenuous mind
With many a feeling too refin'd,

And rous'd to livelier pangs his wakeful sense of

woe.

Though doom'd hard penury to prove,
And the sharp stings of hopeless love;
To griefs congenial prone,

More wounds than nature gave he knew,
While Mis'ry's form his fancy drew
In dark ideal hues, and horrors not its own,

Then wish not o'er his earthy tomb
The baleful night-shade's lurid bloom
To drop its deadly dew:

Nor, oh! forbid the twisted thorn,
That rudely binds his turf forlorn,

With Spring's green swelling buds to vegetate anew,

What though no marble-piled bust
Adorn is desolated dust,

With speaking sculpture wrought?
Pity shall woo the weeping Nine
To build a visionary shrine,

Hung with unfading flowers, from fairy regions brought.

What though refus'd each chanted rite?
Here viewless mourners shall delight

To touch the shadowy shell:

And Petrarch's harp, that wept the doom

Of Laura lost in early bloom,

In many a pensive pause shall seem to ring his

knell,

To sooth a lone, unhallow'd shade,
This votive dirge, sad duty! paid,
Within an ivied nook:

Sudden the half-sunk orb of day
More radiant shot its parting ray,

And thus a cherub voice my charm'd attention took :

"Forbear, fond bard, thy partial praise;
Nor thus for guilt in specious lays
The wreath of glory twine:

In vain with hues of gorgeous glow
Gay fancy gives her vest to flow,

Unless Truth's matron hand the floating folds con

fine.

"Just Heav'n, man's fortitude to prove,
Permits through life at large to rove

The tribes of hell-born woe:

Yet the same Power that wisely sends Life's fiercest ills, indulgent lends Religion's golden shield to break th' embattled foe.

“Her aid divine had lull'd to rest
Yon foul self-murd'rer's throbbing breast,
And stay'd the rising storm;

Had bade the sun of Hope appear

To gild his darken'd hemisphere,

And give the wonted bloom to Nature's blasted form.

"Vain man! 'tis Heav'n's prerogative
To take what first it deign'd to give,
Thy tributary breath:

« 前へ次へ »