ページの画像
PDF
ePub

Then for a beam of joy to light

In Memory's sad and wakeful eye!
Or banish from the noon of night
Her dreams of deeper agony.

Shall song its witching cadence roll?
Yea, even the tenderest air repeat,
That breathed when soul was knit to soul,
And heart to heart responsive beat?

What visions rise! to charm, to melt!

The lost, the loved, the dead, are near!

Oh, hush that strain, too deeply felt!
And cease that solace, too severe !

But thou serenely silent art!

By heaven and love was taught to lend

A milder solace to the heart,

The sacred image of a friend.

All is not lost! if, yet possest,

To me that sweet memorial shine.

If close and closer to my breast
I hold that idol all divine.

Or, gazing through luxurious tears,

Melt o'er the loved departed form,
Till death's cold bosom half appears
With life, and speech, and spirit warm.

She looks! she lives! this tranced hour
Her bright eye seems a purer gem
Than sparkles on the throne of power,
Or glory's wealthy diadem.

Yes, Genius, yes! thy mimic aid

A treasure to my soul has given, Where Beauty's canonized shade

Smiles in the sainted hues of heaven.

No spectre forms of pleasure fled,

Thy soft'ning, sweet'ning tints restore; For thou canst give us back the dead,

E'en in the loveliest looks they wore. Then blest be Nature's guardian Muse, Whose hand her perish'd grace redeems! Whose tablet of a thousand hues

The mirror of creation seems.

From Love began thy high descent;
And lovers, charm'd by gifts of thine,
Shall bless thee mutely eloquent,

And call thee brightest of the Nine!

[blocks in formation]
[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

AND call they this Improvement?-to have changed,
My native Clyde, thy once romantic shore,
Where Nature's face is banish'd and estranged,
And Heaven reflected in thy wave no more;
Whose banks, that sweeten'd May-day's breath before,
Lie sere and leafless now in summer's beam,
With sooty exhalations cover'd o'er;
And for the daisied green-sward, down thy stream
Unsightly brick-lanes smoke, and clanking engines
gleam.

Speak not to me of swarms the scene sustains;
One heart free tasting Nature's breath and bloom
Is worth a thousand slaves to Mammon's gains.
But whither goes that wealth, and gladd'ning whom?
See, left but life enough, and breathing-room
The hunger and the hope of life to feel,
Yon pale Mechanic bending o'er his loom,
And Childhood's self as at Ixion's wheel,

From morn till midnight task'd to earn its little meal.

Is this Improvement?-where the human breed
Degenerates as they swarm and overflow,
Till Toil grows cheaper than the trodden weed,
And man competes with man, like foe with foe,
Till Death, that thins them, scarce seems public woe?
Improvement!-smiles it in the poor man's eyes,
Or blooms it on the cheek of Labor?-No-
To gorge a few with Trade's precarious prize,
We banish rural life, and breathe unwholesome skies.

Nor call that evil slight; God has not given
This passion to the heart of man in vain,
For Earth's green face, th' untainted air of Heaven,
And all the bliss of Nature's rustic reign.
For not alone our frame imbibes a stain
From fetid skies; the spirit's healthy pride
Fades in their gloom-And therefore I complain
That thou no more through pastoral scenes shouldst
glide,

My Wallace's own stream, and once romantic Clyde!

LINES

ON REVISITING CATHCART.

OH! scenes of my childhood, and dear to my heart,
Ye green-waving woods on the margin of Cart,
How blest in the morning of life I have stray'd
By the stream of the vale and the grass-cover'd glade!

Then, then, every rapture was young and sincere,
Ere the sunshine of bliss was bedimm'd by a tear,
And a sweeter delight every scene seem'd to lend,
That the mansion of peace was the house of a FRIEND.

Now the scenes of my childhood and dear to my heart,
All pensive I visit, and sigh to depart;
Their flowers seem to languish, their beauty to cease,
For a stranger inhabits the mansion of peace.

But hush'd be the sigh that untimely complains,
While Friendship and all its enchantment remains,
While it blooms like the flower of a winterless clime,
Untainted by chance, unabated by time.

LINES WRITTEN IN SICKNESS.

On, death! if there be quiet in thine arms,
And I must cease-gently, oh, gently come,
To me! and let my soul learn no alarms,

But strike me, ere a shriek can echo, dumb,
Senseless, and breathless.-And thou, sickly life,
If the decree be writ, that I must die,
Do thou be guilty of no needless strife,

Nor pull me downwards to mortality, When it were fitter I should take a flight

But whither? Holy Pity, hear, oh hear! And lift me to some far-off skyey sphere,

Where I may wander in celestial light: Might it be so-then would my spirit fear

To quit the things I have so loved, when seenThe air, the pleasant sun, the summer green,Knowing how few would shed one kindly tear, Or keep in mind that I had ever been!

THE NAME UNKNOWN;"

IN IMITATION OF KLOPSTOCK.

PROPHETIC pencil! wilt thou trace
A faithful image of the face,

Or wilt thou write the "Name Unknown,"
Ordain'd to bless my charmed soul,
And all my future fate control,

Unrivall'd and alone?

Delicious Idol of my thought!

Though sylph or spirit hath not taught
My boding heart thy precious name;
Yet musing on my distant fate,
To charms unseen I consecrate
A visionary flame.

Thy rosy blush, thy meaning eye,
Thy virgin voice of melody,

Are ever present to my heart;
Thy murmur'd vows shall yet be mine,
My thrilling hand shall meet with thine,
And never, never part!

Then fly, my days, on rapid wing,
Till Love the viewless treasure bring;
While I, like conscious Athens, own

A power in mystic silence seal'd,

A guardian angel unreveal'd,
And bless the "Name Unknown!"

TRAFALGAR.

WHEN Frenchmen saw, with coward art,
The assassin shot of war

That pierced Britain's noblest heart,

And quench'd her brightest star,

Their shout was heard,-they triumph'd now,
Amidst the battle's roar,

And thought the British oak would bow,
Since Nelson was no more.

But fiercer flamed old England's pride,
And-mark the vengeance due,
"Down, down, insulting ship," she cried,
"To death, with all thy crew!

"So perish ye for Nelson's blood,
If deaths like thine can pay
For blood so brave, or ocean wave
Can wash that crime away!"

LINES ON THE STATE OF GREECE, OCCASIONED BY BEING PRESSED TO MAKE IT A SUBJECT OF POETRY, 1897.

IN Greece's cause the Muse, you deem,
Ought still to plead, persisting strong;
But feel you not, 't is now a theme

That wakens thought too deep for song?
The Christian world has seen you, Greeks,
Heroic on your ramparts fall;
The world has heard your widows' shrieks,
And seen your orphans dragg'd in thrall.

Even England brooks that, reeking hot,

The ruffian's sabre drinks your veins,
And leaves your thinning remnant's lot

The bitter choice of death or chains.
Oh! if we have nor hearts nor swords
To snatch you from the assassins' brand,
Let not our pity's idle words

Insult your pale and prostrate land.
No! be your cause to England now,
That by permitting acts the wrong,
A thought of horror to her brow,
A theme for blushing-not for song,

To see her unavenging ships

Ride fast by Greece's funeral pile, "Tis worth a curse from Sibyl lips! "Tis matter for a demon's smile!

LINES

ON JAMES IV. OF SCOTLAND, WHO FELL AT THE
BATTLE OF FLODDEN.

"Twas he that ruled his country's heart
With more than royal sway;

But Scotland saw her James depart,
And sadden'd at his stay.

She heard his fate-she wept her grief-
That James, her loved, her gallant chief,

Was gone for evermore :

But this she learnt, that, ere he fell,
(O men! O patriots! mark it well),

His fellow-soldiers round his fall
Inclosed him like a living wall,
Mixing their kindred gore!
Nor was the day of Flodden done,
Till they were slaughter'd one by one;
And this may serve to show:
When kings are patriots, none will fly-
When such a king was doom'd to die,
Oh who would death forego?

TO JEMIMA, ROSE, AND ELEANORE,

THREE CELEBRATED SCOTTISH BEAUTIES.

ADIEU, romance's heroines!

Give me the nymphs, who this good hour
May charm me, not in fiction's scenes,
But teach me beauty's living power;-
My harp, that has been mute too long,
Shall sleep at beauty's name no more,
So but your smiles reward my song,
Jemima, Rose, and Eleanore,-

In whose benignant eyes are beaming
The rays of purity and truth;
Such as we fancy woman's seeming,
In the creation's golden youth;-
The more I look upon thy grace,
Rosina, I could look the more,
But for Jemima's witching face,
And the sweet voice of Eleanore.

Had I been Lawrence, kings had wanted
Their portraits, till I'd painted yours;
And these had future hearts enchanted
When this poor verse no more endures;
I would have left the congress faces,
A dull-eyed diplomatic corps,

Till I had grouped you as the graces-
Jemima, Rose, and Eleanore.

The Catholic bids fair saints befriend him;
Your poet's heart is Catholic too,-
His rosary shall be flowers ye send him,
His saint-days when he visits you.
And my sere laurels for my duty,
Miraculous at your touch would rise,
Could I give verse one trace of beauty
Like that which glads me from your eyes.

Inseal'd by you, these lips have spoken,
Disused to song for many a day;

Ye've tuned a harp whose strings were broken,
And warm'd a heart of callous clay;

So, when my fancy next refuses

To twine for you a garland more,

Come back again and be my muses,
Jemima, Rose, and Eleanore.

SONG.

Tis now the hour-'t is now the hour

To bow at beauty's shrine; Now, whilst our hearts confess the power Of women, wit, and wine; And beaming eyes look on so bright, Wit springs, wine sparkles in their light.

[blocks in formation]

LINES TO EDWARD LYTTON BULWER,
ON THE BIRTH OF HIS CHILD.

My heart is with you, Bulwer! and portrays
The blessings of your first paternal days;
To clasp the pledge of purest, holiest faith,
To taste one's own and love-born infant's breath,
I know, nor would for worlds forget the bliss.
I've felt that to a father's heart that kiss,
As o'er its little lips you smile and cling,
Has fragrance which Arabia could not bring.
Such are the joys, ill mock'd in ribald song,
In thought, ev'n fresh'ning life our life-time long,
That give our souls on earth a heaven-drawn bloom:
Without them we are weeds upon a tomb.

Joy be to thee, and her whose lot with thine
Propitious stars saw truth and passion twine :
Joy be to her who in your rising name

Feels love's bower brighten'd by the beams of fame!
I lack'd a father's claim to her-but knew
Regard for her young years so pure and true,
That, when she at the altar stood your bride,.
A sire could scarce have felt more sire-like pride.

SONG.

WHEN Love came first to Earth, the Spring
Spread rose-buds to receive him,
And back he vow'd his flight he'd wing
To heaven, if she should leave him.

But Spring, departing, saw his faith

Pledged to the next new-comer-
He revell'd in the warmer breath
And richer bowers of Summer.

Then sportive Autumn claim'd by rights
An archer for her lover,
And even in Winter's dark, cold nights
A charm he could discover.

Her routs and balls, and fireside joy,

For this time were his reasonsIn short, young Love's a gallant boy, That likes all times and seasons.

[ocr errors]

DIRGE OF WALLACE.

SONG.

THEY lighted a taper at the dead of night,

And chanted their holiest hymn;

O CHERUB Content! at thy moss-cover'd shrine,
I'd all the gay hopes of my bosom resign,

But her brow and her bosom were damp with affright, I'd part with ambition thy vot'ry to be,
Her eye was all sleepless and dim!
And the lady of Elderslie wept for her lord,

When a death-watch beat in her lonely room,
When her curtain had shook of its own accord ;
And the raven had flapp'd at her window-board,
To tell of her warrior's doom!

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

And breathe not a sigh but to friendship and thee!

But thy presence appears from my wishes to fly.
Like the gold-color'd clouds on the verge of the sky;
No lustre that hangs on the green willow-tree,
Is so sweet as the smile of thy favor to me.

In the pulse of my heart I have nourish'd a care
That forbids me thy sweet inspiration to share,
The noon of my life slow departing I see,
But its years as they pass bring no tidings of thee.

O cherub Content! at thy moss-cover'd shrine,
I would offer my vows if Matilda were mine;
Could I call her my own, whom enraptured I see,
I would breathe not a sigh but to friendship and thee!

THE FRIARS OF DIJON.

A TALE.

WHEN honest men confess'd their sins,
And paid the church genteelly,

In Burgundy two capuchins

Lived jovially and freely.

They march'd about from place to place,
With shrift and dispensation;
And mended broken consciences,
Soul-tinkers by vocation.

One friar was Father Boniface,
And he ne'er knew disquiet,
Save when condemn'd to saying grace
O'er mortifying diet.

The other was lean Dominick,

Whose slender form, and sallow,
Would scarce have made a candlewick
For Boniface's tallow.

Albeit, he tippled like a fish,

Though not the same potation;
And mortal man ne'er clear'd a dish
With nimbler mastication.

Those saints without the shirts arrived,
One evening late, to pigeon
A country pair for alms, that lived
About a league from Dijon;

Whose supper-pot was set to boil
On fagots briskly crackling :
The friars enter'd with a smile

To Jacquez and to Jacqueline.

They bow'd and bless'd the dame, and then
In pious terms besought her
To give two holy-minded men
A meal of bread and water.

For water and a crust they crave,
Those mouths that, even on Lent days,
Scarce knew the taste of water, save
When watering for dainties.

Quoth Jacquez, "That were sorry cheer
For men fatigued and dusty;
And if you supp'd on crusts, I fear
You'd go to bed but crusty."

So forth he brought a flask of rich
Wine fit to feast Silenus,
And viands, at the sight of which
They laugh'd like two hyenas.

Alternately, the host and spouse

Regaled each pardon-gauger,
Who told them tales right marvellous,
And lied as for a wager-

'Bout churches like balloons convey'd
With aeronautic martyrs;

And wells made warm, where holy maid
Had only dipt her garters.

And if their hearers gaped, I guess,
With jaws three inch asunder,
T was partly out of weariness,
And partly out of wonder.

Then striking up duets, the frères
Went on to sing in matches,
From psalms to sentimental airs,
From these to glees and catches.

At last they would have danced outright,
Like a baboon and tame bear,

If Jacquez had not drunk Good Night,
And shown them to their chamber.

The room was high, the host's was nigh:
Had wife or he suspicion

That monks would make a raree-show
Of chinks in the partition ?-

Or that two confessors would come,
Their holy ears outreaching
To conversations as humdrum
Almost as their own preaching?

Shame on you, friars of orders grey,
That peeping knelt, and wriggling,
And when ye should have gone to pray,
Betook yourselves to giggling!

But every deed will have its meed:
And hark! what information
Has made the sinners, in a trice,
Look black with consternation.

The farmer on a hone prepares

His knife, a long and keen one; And talks of killing both the frères, The fat one and the lean one.

To-morrow by the break of day,
He orders, too, saltpetre

And pickling tubs-But, reader, stay,
Our host was no man-eater.

The priests knew not that country-folks
Gave pigs the name of friars;
But startled, witless of the joke,
As if they trod on briers.

Meanwhile, as they perspired with dread,
The hair of either craven

Had stood erect upon his head,

But that their heads were shaven.

"What! pickle and smoke us limb by limb? God curse him and his larders!

St. Peter will bedevil him

If he saltpetre friars.

"Yet, Dominick, to die!-the bare
Idea shakes one oddly;

Yes, Boniface, 'tis time we were
Beginning to be godly.

"Would that, for absolution's sake,
Of all our sins and cogging,
We had a whip to give and take

A last kind mutual flogging.

"O Dominick! thy nether end Should bleed for expiation,

And thou shouldst have, my dear fat friend, A glorious flagellation."

But having ne'er a switch, poor souls!

They bow'd like weeping willows, And told the Saints long rigmaroles

Of all their peccadilloes.

Yet, 'midst this penitential plight,

A thought their fancies tickled; "Twere better brave the window's height Than be at morning pickled.

And so they girt themselves to leap,
Both under breath imploring
A regiment of saints, to keep

Their host and hostess snoring.
The lean one 'lighted like a cat,

Then scamper'd off like Jehu,
Nor stopp'd to help the man of fat,
Whose cheek was of a clay hue-
Who, being by nature more design'd
For resting than for jumping,

Fell heavy on his parts behind,

That broaden'd with the plumping.

There long beneath the window's sconce
His bruises he sat pawing,
Squat as the figure of a bonze

Upon a Chinese drawing.

At length he waddled to a sty;

The pigs, you'd thought for game-sake,
Came round and nosed him lovingly,
As if they'd known their namesake.
Meanwhile the other few to town,
And with short respiration
Bray'd like a donkey up and down,
"Ass-ass-ass-assination!"

« 前へ次へ »