And send us prying into the abyss,
To gather what we shall be when the fra
Shall be resolved to something less than t
Its wretched essence; and to dream of fa
And wipe the dust from off the idle na
We never more shall hear,—but never m
Oh, happier thought! can we be m
the same;
Or view the Lord of the unerring bow,
The God of life, and poesy, and light—It is enough in sooth that once we bor
The Sun in human limbs array'd, and brow These fardels of the heart--the heart wh
All radiant from his triumph in the fight;
sweat was gore
The shaft hath just been shot-the arrow
bright
With an immortal's vengeance; in his eye
And nostril beautiful disdain, and might,
And majesty, flash their full lightnings by,
Developing in that one glance the Deity.
But in his delicate form-a dream of Love,
Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose
breast
Long'd for a deathless lover from above,
And madden'd in that vision—are exprest
All that ideal beauty ever bless'd
The mind with in its most unearthly mood,
When each conception was a heavenly
guest-
A ray of immortality-and stood,
Starlike,around, until they gather'd to a god!
And if it be Prometheus stole from heaven
The fire which we endure, it was repaid
By him to whom the energy was given
Which this poetic marble hath array'd
With an eternal glory-which, if made
By human hands, is not of human thought;
And time himself hath hallow'd it, nor laid
One ringlet in the dust-nor hath it caught
A tinge af years, but breathes the flame
with which 'twas wrought.
But where is he; the Pilgrim of my song,
The being who upheld it through the past?
Methinks he cometh late and tarries long.
He is no more these breathings are his last;
His wanderings done, his visions ebbing fast,
And he himself as nothing:-if he was
Aught but a phantasy, and could be class'd
With forms which live and suffer let that
Hark! forth from the abyss a voice proced
A long low distant murmur of dread sou
Such as arises when a nation bleeds
With some deep and immedicable wound
Through storm and darkness yawns
The gulf is thick with phantoms, but chief
Seems royal still, though with her h discrown'd,
And pale, but lovely, with maternal g
She clasps a babe, to whom her br
yields no reli
Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art th
Fond hope of many nations, art thou de
Could not the grave forget thee, and lay
Some less majestic, less beloved head?
In the sad midnight, while thy heart s
bled,
The mother of a moment, o'er thy t
Death hush'd that pang for ever: with t
fled
The present happiness and promised j Which fill'd the imperial isles so ful seem'd to cloy
Peasants bring forth in safety.-Can it
Oh thou that wert so happy, so adore
Those who weep not for kings shall w
for thee,
And Freedom's heart, grown heavy, co
to hoard
Her many griefs for ONE; for she had pou
Her orisons for thee, and o'er thy head
Beheld her Iris.-Thou, too, lonely l
And desolate consort-vainly wert th
wed;
His shadow fades away into Destruction's The husband of a year! the father of
farkeloth was thy wedding-garment made; | The midland ocean breaks on him and me, Thy bridal's fruit is ashes: in the dust And from the Alban Mount we now behold Our friend of youth, that ocean, which when we
The fair-hair'd Daughter of the Isles is laid,
The love of millions! How we did entrust
Futurity to her! and, though it must
Darien above our bones, yet fondly deem'd
Our children should obey her child, and bless'd
Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise
seem'd
Like stars to shepherds' eyes:-'twas but a meteor beam'd.
We unto us not her; for she sleeps well: The file reek of popular breath, the tongue Of bellow counsel, the false oracle, Which from the birth of monarchy hath rung All in princely ears, till the o'erstung Nations have arm'd in madness, the strange fate Which tumbles mightiest sovereigns, and hath flung gainst their blind omnipotence a weight Within the opposing scale, which crushes soon or late,
The might have been her destiny; but no, arts deny it: and so young, so fair, without effort, great without a foe; towa bride and mother-and now there! many ties did that stern moment tear! thy Sire's to his humblest subject's breast i'd the electric chain of that despair, These shock was as an earthquake's, and opprest The land which loved thee so that none could love thee best.
la Semi! navell'd in the woody hills
that the uprooting wind which tears Tak from his foundation, and which spills The ocean o'er its boundary, and bears ls
against the skies, reluctant spares The oval mirror of thy glassy lake; And calm as cherish'd hate,its surface wears cold settled aspect nought can shake, Lil'd into itself and round, as sleeps the snake.
Ard par Albano's scarce divided waves e from a sister-valley ;—and afar The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves The Latian coast where sprung the Epic war, Arms and the Man," whose reascending star er an empire:- but beneath thy right by reposed from Rome; and where yon bar
dling mountains intercepts the sight The Sabine farm was till'd, the weary bard's delight.
But I forget.—My pilgrim's shrine is won, the and I must part, so let it be,task and mine alike are nearly done; Let once more let us look upon the sea ;
The armaments which thunderstrike the | And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my Of youthful sports was on thy breast to
I wanton'd with thy breakers-they to
Were a delight, and if the freshening
Made them a terror-'twas a pleasing fe
For I was as it were a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near
And laid my hand upon thy mane-as I
here.
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, | Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
The oak-leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay-creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war:
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Tra-
falgar.
SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ.
19 A SLIGHT BUT MOST SINCERE TOKEN OF
cnterprise. The story, when entire, tained the adventures of a female slave, who was thrown, in the Mussulman manner, ADMIRATION OF HIS GENIUS, RESPECT FOR HIS into the sea for infidelity, and avenged by CHARACTER, AND GRATitude for his friEND-a young Venetian, her lover, at the time SHIP, THIS PRODUCTION IS INSCRIBED BY HIS
OBLIGED AND AFFECTIONATE SERVANT,
ADVERTISEMENT. THE Tale which these disjointed fragments present, is founded upon circumstances now common in the East than formerly; eder because the ladies are more circumpect than in the "olden time;" or because Christians have better fortune, or less
the Seven Islands were possessed by the Republic of Venice, and soon after the Arnauts were beaten back from the Morea, which they had ravaged for some time subsequent to the Russian invasion. The desertion of the Mainotes, on being refused the plunder of Misitra, led to the abandonment of that enterprise and to the desolation of the Morea, during which the cruelty exercised on all sides was unparalleled even in the annals of the faithful.
![[blocks in formation]](https://books.google.no/books/content?id=0Cm8w5hHWH4C&hl=no&output=html_text&pg=PA57&img=1&zoom=3&q=death&cds=1&sig=ACfU3U03d-M4lxflYAbZbHvjtzSuDOLh_A&edge=0&edge=stretch&ci=3,855,412,838)
By every breeze and season blest,
Returns the sweets by nature given
In softest incense back to heaven;
And grateful yields that smiling sky
Her fairest hue and fragrant sigh.
And many a summer-flower is there,
And many a shade that love might share,
And many a grotto, meant for rest,
That holds the pirate for a guest;
Whose bark in sheltering cove below
Lurks for the passing peaceful prow,
Till the gay mariner's guitar
Is heard, and seen the evening-star;
Then stealing with the muffled oar,
Far shaded by the rocky shore,
Rush the night-prowlers on the prey,
And turn to groans his roundelay.
Strange-that where Nature loved to trace,
As if for Gods, a dwelling-place,
And every charm and grace hath mix'd
Within the paradise she fix'd,
There man, enamour'd of distress,
Should mar it into wilderness,
And trample, brute-like, o'er each flower
That tasks not one laborious hour,
Nor claims the culture of his hand
To bloom along the fairy-land,
But springs as to preclude his care,
And sweetly woos him--but to spare!
Strange-that where all is peace beside
There passion riots in her pride,
![[ocr errors]](https://books.google.no/books/content?id=0Cm8w5hHWH4C&hl=no&output=html_text&pg=PA57&img=1&zoom=3&q=death&cds=1&sig=ACfU3U03d-M4lxflYAbZbHvjtzSuDOLh_A&edge=0&edge=stretch&ci=11,1751,8,19)
And lust and rapine wildly reign
To darken o'er the fair domain.
It is as though the fiends prevail'd
Against the seraphs they assail'd,
And, fix'd on heavenly thrones, should dwell
The freed inheritors of hell;
So soft the scene, so form'd for joy,
So curst the tyrants that destroy!
He who hath bent him o'er the dead
Ere the first day of death is fled,
The first dark day of nothingness,
The last of danger and distress,
(Before Decay's effacing fingers
Have swept the lines where beauty lingers,)
And mark'd the mild angelic air,
The rapture of repose that's there,
The fix'd, yet tender traits that streak
The languor of the placid cheek,
And-but for that sad shrouded eye,
That fires not, wins not, weeps not, now,
And but for that chill changeless brow,
Where cold Obstruction's apathy
Appals the gazing mourner's heart,
As if to him it could impart
The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon;
Yes, but for these, and these alone,
Some moments, ay, one treacherous hour,
He still might doubt the tyrant's power;
So fair, so calm, so softly seal'd,
The first, last look by death reveal'd!
Such is the aspect of this shore;
'Tis Greece, but living Greece no more!
So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,
We start, for soul is wanting there.
Hers is the loveliness in death,
That parts not quite with parting breath;
But beauty with that fearful bloom,
That hue which haunts it to the tomb,
Expression's last receding ray,
A gilded halo hovering round decay,
The farewell beam of Feeling past away!
Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly
birth,
Which gleams, but warms no more its cherish'd earth!
Clime of the unforgotten brave! Whose land from plain to mountain-cave Was Freedom's home or Glory's grave! Shrine of the mighty! can it be, That this is all remains of thee? Approach, thou craven crouching slave: Say, is not this Thermopylae? These waters blue that round you lave, Oh scrvile offspring of the freePronounce what sea, what shore is this? The gulf, the rock of Salamis! These scenes, their story not unknown, Arise, and make again your own; Snatch from the ashes of your sires The embers of their former fires; And he who in the strife expires Will add to theirs a name of fear
That Tyranny shall quake to hear,
And leave his sons a hope, a fame,
They too will rather die than shame:
For Freedom's battle once begun,
Bequeath'd by bleeding Sire to Son,
Though baffled oft is ever won.
Bear witness, Greece, thy living page,
Attest it many a deathless age!
While kings, in dusty darkness hid,
Have left a nameless pyramid,
Thy heroes, though the general doom
Hath swept the column from their tom
A mightier monument command,
The mountains of their native land!
The graves of those that cannot die!
There points thy Muse to stranger's ey
Twere long to tell, and sad to trace,
Each step from splendour to disgrace;
Enough-no foreign foe could quell
Thy soul, till from itself it fell;
Yes! Self-abasement paved the way
To villain-bonds and despot-sway.
What can he tell who treads thy shore
No legend of thine olden time,
No theme on which the muse might soa
High as thine own in days of yore,
When man was worthy of thy clime.
The hearts within thy valleys bred,
The fiery souls that might have led
Thy sons to deeds sublime,
Now crawl from cradle to the grave,
Slaves-nay, the bondsmen of a slave,
And callous, save to crime;
Stain'd with each evil that pollutes
Mankind, where least above the brutes;
Without even savage virtue blest,
Without one free or valiant breast.
Still to the neighbouring ports they wa
Proverbial wiles, and ancient craft;
In this the subtle Greek is found,
For this, and this alone, renown'd.
In vain might Liberty invoke
The spirit to its bondage broke,
Or raise the neck that courts the yoke
No more her sorrows I bewail,
Yet this will be a mournful tale,
And they who listen may believe,
Who heard it first had cause to grieve.,
Far, dark, along the blue sea glancing The shadows of the rocks advancing, Start on the fisher's eye like boat Of island-pirate or Mainote; And fearful for his light caique. He shuns the near but doubtful creek: Though worn and weary with his toil, And cumber'd with his scaly spoil, Slowly, yet strongly, plies the oar, Till Port Leone's safer shore Receives him by the lovely light That best becomes an Eastern night.
|