I thought mine enemies had been but man, But spirits may be leagued with them-all Earth Abandons-Heaven forgets me ;-in the dearth Of such defence the Powers of Evil can, It may be, tempt me further, and prevail Against the outworn creature they assail. Why in this furnace is my spirit proved Like steel in tempering fire? because I loved? Because I loved what not to love, and see, Was more or less than mortal, and than me.
I once was quick in feeling-that is o'er :- My scars are callous, or I should have dash'd My brain against these bars as the sun flash'd In mockery through them ;-if I bear and bore The much I have recounted, and the more Which hath no words, 'tis that I would not die And sanction with self-slaughter the dull lie Which snared me here, and with a brand of shame Stamp madness deep into my memory, And woo compassion to a blighted name, Sealing the sentence which my foes proclaim. No-it shall be immortal!—and I make A future temple of my present cell, Which nations yet shall visit for my sake.
While thou, Ferrara! when no longer dwell The ducal chiefs within thee, shalt fall down, And crumbling piecemeal view thy heartless hall, A poet's wreath shall be thine only crown, A poet's dungeon thy most far renown, While stranger's wonder o'er thy unpeopled walls! And thou, Leonora! thou-who wert ashamed That such as I could love-who blush'd to hear To less than monarchs that thou could'st be dear, Go! tell thy brother that my heart, untamed By grief, years, weariness-and it may be A taint of that he would impute to me- From long infection of a den like this, Where the mind rots congenial with the abyss, Adores thee still;-and add-that when the towers And battlements, which guard his joyous hours Of banquet, dance, and revel, are forgot, Or left untended in a dull repose, This-this shall be a consecrated spot! But Thou-when all that Birth and Beauty throws Of magic round thee is extinct-shalt have One half the laurel which o'ershades my grave. No power in death can tear our names apart, As none in life could rend thee from my heart. Yes, Leonora! it shall be our fate
To be entwined for ever-but too late!
ON THE DEATH OF THE RIGHT HON. R. B. SHERIDAN.
SPOKEN AT DRURY-LANE THEATRE.
WHEN the last sunshine of expiring day In summer's twilight weeps itself away, Who hath not felt the softness of the hour Sink on the heart, as dew along the flower? With a pure feeling which absorbs and awes, While Nature makes that melancholy pause, Her breathing moment on the bridge where Time Of light and darkness forms an arch sublime, Who hath not shared that calm so still and deep, The voiceless thought which would not speak but
A holy concord—and a bright regret, A glorious sympathy with suns that set? "Tis not harsh sorrow-but a tender wo, Nameless, but dear to gentle hearts below, Felt without bitterness-but full and clear, A sweet dejection-a transparent tear, Unmix'd with worldly grief or selfish stain, Shed without shame-and secret without pain.
Even as the tenderness that hour instils, When Summer's day declines along the hills,
So feels the fulness of our heart and eyes, When all of Genius which can perish dies. A mighty Spirit is eclipsed-a Power Hath pass'd from day to darkness-to whose hour
Of light no likeness is bequeath'd-no name, Focus at once of all the rays of Fame! The flash of Wit-the bright Intelligence, The beam of Song-the blaze of Eloquence, Set with their Sun-but still have left behind The enduring produce of immortal Mind; Fruits of a genial morn, and glorious noon, A deathless part of him who died too soon. But small that portion of the wondrous whole, These sparkling segments of that circling soul, Which all embraced-and lighten'd over all, To cheer-to pierce-to please-or to appal. From the charm'd council to the festive board, Of human feelings the unbounded lord; In whose acclaim the loftiest voices vied, The praised-the proud-who made his praise their pride.
When the loud cry of trampled Hindostan⭑ Arose to heaven in her appeal from man, His was the thunder-his the avenging rod, The wrath-the delegated voice of God!
These are his portion-but if join'd to these Gaunt Poverty should league with deep Disease If the high Spirit must forget to soar,
[blazed And stoop to strive with Misery at the door,
Which shook the nations through his lips-and To soothe Indignity-and face to face
Till vanquish'd senates trembled as they praised.
Meet sordid Rage-and wrestle with Disgrace, To find in Hope but the renew'd caress,
And here, oh! here, where yet all young and warm, The serpent-fold of further Faithlessness,— The gay creations of his spirit charm, The matchless dialogue-the deathless wit, Which knew not what it was to intermit;
The glowing portraits, fresh from life, that bring Home to our hearts the truth from which they spring; These wondrous beings of his Fancy, wrought To fulness by the fiat of his thought, Here in their first abode you still may meet, Bright with the hues of his Promethean heat, A halo of the light of other days, Which still the splendor of its orb betrays.
But should there be to whom the fatal blight, of failing Wisdom yields a base delight, Men who exult when minds of heavenly tone Jar in the music which was born their own, Still let them pause-Ah! little do they know That what to them seem'd Vice might be but Wo. Hard is his fate on whom the public gaze Is fix'd forever to detract or praise; Repose denies her requiem to his name, And Folly loves the martyrdom of Fame. The secret enemy whose sleepless eye Stands sentinel-accuser-judge-and spy, The foe-the fool-the jealous-and the vain, The envious who but breathe in others' pain, Behold the host! delighting to deprave, Who track the steps of Glory to the grave, Watch every fault that daring Genius owes Half to the ardor which his birth bestows, Distort the truth, accumulate the lie, And pile the pyramid of Calumny!
• See Fox, Burke, and Pitt's eulogy on Mr. Sheridan's speech on the charges exhibited against Mr. Hastings in the House of Commons, Mr. Pitt entreated the House to adjourn, to give time for a calmer consideration of the question than could then occur after the immediate effect of that oration.
If such may be the ills which men assail, What marvel if at last the mightiest fail? Breasts to whom all the strength of feeling given Bear hearts electric-charged with fire from Heaven, Black with the rude collision, inly torn,
By clouds surrounded, and on whirlwinds borne, Driven o'er the lowering atmosphere that nurst Thoughts which have turn'd to thunder-scorch- and burst.
But far from us and from our mimic scene Such things should be-if such have ever been; Ours be the gentler wish, the kinder task, To give the tribute Glory need not ask, To mourn the vanquish'd beam—and add our mite Of praise in payment of a long delight. Ye Orators! whom yet our councils yield, Mourn for the veteran Hero of our field! The worthy rival of the wondrous Three!* Whose words were sparks of Immortality! Ye Bards! to whom the Drama's Muse is dear, He was your Master-emulate him here! Ye men of wit and social eloquence! He was your brother bear his ashes hence! While Powers of mind, almost of boundless range, Complete in kind—as various in their change, While eloquence-Wit-Poesy-and Mirth, That humble Harmonist of care on Earth, Survive within our souls-while lives our sense Of pride in Merit's proud preeminence, Long shall we seek his likeness-long in vain, And turn to all of him which may remain, Sighing that Nature form'd but one such man, And broke the die-in moulding Sheridan!
"Expende Annibalem :-quot libras in duce summo Invenies?"
"The Emperor Nepos wa acknowledged by the Senate, by the Italians, and by the Provincials of Gaul; his moral virtues, and military talenta, were endly celebrated; and those who derived any private benefit from his government, announced in prophetic strains the restoration of public felicity.
By this shameful abdication, he protracted his life a few years, in a very ambiguous state, between an Emperor and an Exile, till- Decline and Fall, vol. vi. p. 220.
But thou-from thy reluctant hand, The thunderbolt is wrung
Too late thou leav'st the high command, To which thy weakness clung; All Evil Spirit as thou art,
It is enough to grieve the heart,
To see thy own unstrung;
To think that God's fair world hath been The footstool of a thing so mean!
And Earth hath spilt her blood for him, Who thus can hoard his own!
And Monarchs bow'd the trembling limb, And thank'd him for a throne! Fair Freedom! we may hold thee dear, When thus thy mightiest foes their fear In humblest guise have shown. Oh! ne'er may tyrant leave behind A brighter name to lure mankind!
Thine evil deeds are writ in gore,
Nor written thus in vain
Thy triumphs tell of fame no more, Or deepen every strain-
If thou hadst died as honor dies, Some new Napoleon might arise,
To shame the world again- But who would soar the solar height, To set in such a starless night?
Weigh'd in the balance, hero dust Is vile as vulgar clay; Thy scales, Mortality! are just To all that pass away; But yet methought the living great, Some higher sparks should animate,
To dazzle and dismay;
Nor deem'd Contempt could thus make mirth Of these, the Conquerors of the earth.
And she, proud Austria's mournful flower, Thy still imperial bride;
How bears her breast the torturing hour? Still clings she to thy side?
Must she too bend, must she too share Thy late repentance, long despair, Thou throneless Homicide? If still she loves thee, hoard that gem, "Tis worth thy vanish'd diadem!
Then haste thee to thy sullen Isle, And gaze upon the sea; That element may meet thy smile, It ne'er was ruled by thee! Or trace with thine all idle hand, In loitering mood upon the sand,
That earth is now as free!
That Corinth's pedagogue hath now Transferr'd his by-word to thy brow.
Thou Timour! in his captive's cage, What thoughts will there be thine, While brooding in thy prison'd rage?
But one-"The world was mine!" Unless, like he of Babylon,
All sense is with thy sceptre gone,
Life will not long confine That spirit pour'd so widely forthSo long obey'd-so little worth!
Or like the thief of fire from heaven, Wilt thou withstand the shock? And share with him, the unforgiven, His vulture and his rock! Foredoom'd by God-a man accurst, And that last act, though not thy worst, The very Fiend's arch mock;7
He in his fall preserved his pride, And, if a mortal, had as proudly died!
On Venice! Venice! when thy marble walls Are level with the waters, there shall be A cry of nations o'er thy sunken halls,
A loud lament along the sweeping sea! If I, a northern wanderer, weep for thee, What should thy sons do?-any thing but weep: And yet they only murmur in their sleep. In contrast with their fathers-as the slime, The dull green ooze of the receding deep, Is with the dashing of the springtide foam That drives the sailor shipless to his home, Are they to those that were; and thus they creep, Crouching and crab-like, through their sapping
Oh! agony-that centuries should reap
No mellower harvest! Thirteen hundred years Of wealth and glory turn'd to dust and tears; And every monument the stranger meets, Church, palace, pillar, as a mourner greets; And even the Lion all subdued appears, And the harsh sound of the barbarian drum, With dull and daily dissonance, repeats The echo of thy tyrant's voice along The soft waves, once all musical to song,
That heaved beneath the moonlight with the throng Of gondolas-and to the busy hum
Of cheerful creatures, whose most sinful deeds Were but the overbeating of the heart, And flow of too much happiness, which needs The aid of age to turn its course apart From the luxuriant and voluptuous flood Of sweet sensations, battling with the blood. But these are better than the gloomy errors, The weeds of nations in their last decay, When Vice walks forth with her unsoften'd terrors, And Mirth is madness, and but smiles to slay; And Hope is nothing but a false delay, The sick man's lightning half an hour ere death, When Faintness, the last mortal birth of Pain, And apathy of limb, the dull beginning
Of the cold staggering race which Death is winning, Steals vein by vein and pulse by pulse away, Yet so relieving the o'er-tortured clay, To him appears renewal of his breath, And freedom the mere numbness of his chain ;- And then he talks of life, and how again He feels his spirit soaring-albeit weak, And of the fresher air, which he would seek ·
And as he whispers knows not that he gasps, That his thin finger feels not what it clasps, And so the film comes o'er him-and the dizzy Chamber swims round and round-and shadows busy, At which he vainly catches, flit and gleam, Till the last rattle chokes the strangled stream. And all is ice and blackness-and the earth That which it was the moment ere our birth.
There is no hope for nations!-Search the page Of many thousand years-the daily scene, The flow and ebb of each recurring age,
The everlasting to be which hath been, Hath taught us nought or little still we lean On things that rot beneath our weight, and wear Our strength away in wrestling with the air; For 'tis our nature strikes us down: the beasts Slaughter'd in hourly hecatombs for feasts Are of as high an order-they must go
Even where their driver goads them, though to
Ye men, who pour your blood for kings as water, What have they given your children in return? A heritage of servitude and woes,
A blindfold bondage, where your hire is blows. What! do not yet the red-hot ploughshares burn, O'er which you stumble in a false ordeal, And deem this proof of loyalty the real; Kissing the hand that guides you to your scars, And glorying as you tread the glowing bars? All that your sires have left you, all that Time Bequeaths of free, and History of sublime, Spring from a different theme!-Ye see and read, Admire and sigh, and then succumb and bleed! Save the few spirits, who, despite of all, And worse than all, the sudden crimes engender'd By the down-thundering of the prison-wall, And thirst to swallow the sweet waters tender'd, Gushing from Freedom's fountains-when the crowd, Madden'd with centuries of drought, are loud, And trample on each other to obtain, The cup which brings oblivion of a chain Heavy and sore,-in which long yoked they plough'd The sand, or if there sprung the yellow grain, 'Twas not for them, their necks were too much bow' And their dead palates chew'd the cud of pain:- Yes! the few spirits-who, despite of deeds.
« 前へ次へ » |