Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

O'er glories gone the invaders march,
Weeps triumph o'er each levell'd arch-
But let Freedom rejoice.
With her heart in her voice;
But, her hand on her sword,
Doubly shall she be adored;

France hath twice too well been taught
The moral lesson» dearly bought;
Her safety sits not on a throne,
With CAPET or NAPOLEON!

But in equal rights and laws,

Hearts and hands in one great cause--
Freedom, such as God hath given
Unto all beneath his heaven,

With their breath, and from their birth,
Though Guilt would sweep it from the earth;
With a fierce and lavish hand
Scattering nations' wealth like sand;
Pouring nations' blood like water,
In imperial seas of slaughter!

But the heart and the mind,
And the voice of mankind,
Shall arise in communion-

And who shall resist that proud union?
The time is past when swords subdued-
Man may die-the soul's renewd:
Even in this low world of care
Freedom ne'er shall want an heir;
Millions breathe but to inherit

Her for ever bounding spirit:

When once more her hosts assemble,
Tyrants shall believe and tremble.
Smile they at this idle threat?
Crimson tears will follow yet.

[FROM THE FRENCH. ]

All wept, but particularly Savary, and a Polish officer who had been exalted from the ranks by Bonaparte. He clung to his master's knees, wrote a letter to Lord Keith, entreating permission to a company him, even in the most menial capacity, which could not be admitted.

Must thou go, my glorious chief,
Sever'd from thy faithful few?
Who can tell thy warrior's grief,

Maddening o'er that long adieu?
Woman's love, and friendship's zeal-
Dear as both have been to me-
What are they to all I feel,

With a soldier's faith, for thee?

Idol of the soldier's soul!

First in fight, but mightiest now Many could a world control:

Thee alone no doom can bow. By thy side for years I dared

Death, and envied those who fell, When their dying shout was heard Blessing him they served so well, '

At Waterloo, one man was seen, whose left arm was shattered by a cannon-l all, to wrench it off with the other, and, throwing it up in the air, ex lamed to his comrades Vive l'Empereur ju qu'a la mort.' There were many other instances of the like; this you may, however, depend on as trites

A private Letter from Brussels

Would that I were cold with those,
Since this hour I live to see;
When the doubts of coward foes

Scarce dare trust a man with thee,
Dreading each should set thee free.

Oh! although in dungeons pent,
All their chains were light to me,
Gazing on thy soul unbent.

Would the sycophants of him
Now so deaf to duty's prayer,
Were his borrow'd glories dim,

In his native darkness share?
Were that world this hour his own,

All thou calmly dost resign, Could he purchase with that throne

Hearts like those which still are thine

My chief, my king, my friend, adieu'
Never did I droop before;
Never to my sovereign sue,

As his foes I now implore.
All I ask is to divide

Every peril he must brave, Sharing by the hero's side

flis fall, his exile, and his grave.

ON THE STAR OF « THE LEGION OF HONOUR. »

[FROM THE FRENCH. }

STAR of the brave!-whose beam hath shed

Such glory o'er the quick and dead—

Thou radiant and adored deceit!

Which millions rush'd in arms to greet,—

Wild meteor of immortal birth!

Why rise in heaven to set on earth?

Souls of slain heroes form'd thy rays;
Eternity flash'd through thy blaze!
The music of thy martial sphere
Was fame on high and honour here;
And thy light broke on human eyes
Like a volcano of the skies.

Like lava roll'd thy stream of blood.
And swept down empires with its flood;
Earth rock'd beneath thee to her base,
As thou didst lighten through all space.
And the shorn sun grew dim in air,
And set while thou wert dwelling there.

Before thee rose, and with thee grew,

A rainbow of the loveliest hue
Of three bright colours, each divine,
And fit for that celestial sign;
For freedom's hand had blended them

Like tints in an immortal gem.

One tint was of the sunbeam's dyes;
One, the blue depth of seraphs' eyes;
One, the pure spirit's veil of white
Had robed in radiauce of its light;
The three so mingled did beseem
The texture of a heavenly dream.

The tri- olour.

Star of the brave! thy ray is pale,
And darkness must again prevail!
But, oh thou rainbow of the free!

Our tears and blood must flow for thee.
When thy bright promise fades away,
Our life is but a load of clay.

And freedom hallows with her tread
The silent cities of the dead;
For beautiful in death are they
Who proudly fall in her array;
And soon, oh goddess! may we be
For evermore with them or thee!

NAPOLEON'S FAREWELL.
[FROM THE FRENCH.]

FAREWELL to the land where the gloom of my glory
Arose and o'ershadow'd the earth with her name:
She abandons me now,-but the page of her story,
The brightest or blackest, is fill'd with my fame.
I have warr'd with a world, which vanquish'd me only
When the meteor of conquest allured me too far;

I have coped with the nations which dread me thus lonely,

The last single captive to millions in war!

Farewell to thee, France!--when thy diadem crown'd me,
I made thee the gem and the wonder of earth,-
But thy weakness decrees I should leave as I found thee,
Decay'd in thy glory and sunk in thy worth.
Oh! for the veteran hearts that were wasted

In strife with the storm, when their battles were won!
Then the eagle, whose gaze in that moment was blasted,
Had still soar'd with eyes fix'd on Victory's sun!

Farewell to thee, France!-but when liberty rallies
Once more in thy regions, remember me then :
The violet still grows in the depth of thy valleys;
Though wither'd, thy tears will unfold it again.
Yet, yet I may baffle the hosts that surround us,
And yet may thy heart leap awake to my voice:
There are links which must break in the chain that has
bound us-

Then turn thee, and call on the chief of thy choice!

SONNET.

ROUSSEAU-Voltaire-our Gibbon-and de Stael-
Leman!' these names are worthy of thy shore,
Thy shore of names like these; wert thou no more,
Their memory thy remembrance would recal:
To them thy banks were lovely as to all;

But they have made them lovelier, for the lore
Of mighty minds doth hallow in the core
Of human hearts the ruin of a wall

Where dwelt the wise and wond'rous; but by thee
How much more, Lake of Beauty! do we feel,
In sweetly gliding o'er thy crystal sea,
The wild glow of that not ungentle zeal,
Which of the heirs of immortality

Is proud, and makes the breath of glory real?

Geneva, Ferncy, Coppet, Lausanne.

WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF OF THE PLEASURES OF MEMORY."

ABSENT or present, still to thee,

My friend, what magic spells belong!
As all can tell, who share, like me,

In turn, thy converse and thy song.
But when the dreaded hour shall come,
By friendship ever deem'd too nigh,
And « MEMORY» o'er her Druid's tomb
Shall
weep that aught of thee can die,
How fondly will she then repay
Thy homage offer'd at her shrine,
And blend, while ages roll away,
Her name immortally with thine!

April 19, 1812.

STANZAS TO ***.
THOUGH the day of my destiny 's over,
And the star of my fate hath declined,
Thy soft heart refused to discover

The faults which so many could find:
Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted,
It shrunk not to share it with me,
And the love which my spirit hath painted

It never hath found but in thee.

Then when nature around me is smiling
The last smile which answers to mine,
I do not believe it beguiling,

Because it reminds me of thine;
And when winds are at war with the ocean,
As the breasts I believed in with me,
If their billows excite an emotion,

It is that they bear me from thee.
Though the rock of my last hope is shiver'd,
And its fragments are sunk in the wave,
Though I feel that my soul is deliver'd
To pain-it shall not be its slave.

There is many a pang to pursue me:

They may crush, but they shall not contemnThey may torture, but shall not subdue me: 'Tis of thee that I think-not of them.

Though human, thou didst not deceive me,
Though woman, thou didst not forsake,
Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me,
Though slander'd thou never couldst shake,-
Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me,
Though parted, it was not to fly,
Though watchful, 't was not to defame me,
Nor mute, that the world might belie.
Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it,
Nor the war of the many with one;
If my soul was not fitted to prize it,
T was folly not sooner to shun.
And if dearly that error hath cost me,
And more than I once could foresee,

I have found that, whatever it lost me,
It could not deprive me of thee.

From the wreck of the past, which hath perish'd,
Thus much I at least may recal,

It hath taught me that what I most cherish'd
Deserved to be dearest of all.

In the desert a fountain is springing,
In the wide waste there still is a tree,
And a bird in the solitude singing,
Which speaks to my spirit of thee.

DARKNESS.

I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air.
Morn came, and went-and came, and brought no day;
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watch-fires-and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings-the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
And men were gather'd round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face:
Happy were those who dwelt within the cyc

Of the volcanos and their mountain-torch.
A fearful hope was all the world contain'd.
Forests were set on fire-but hour by hour
They fell and faded—and the crackling trunks
Extinguish'd with a crash-and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them: some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up

With mad disquietude on the dull sky,

The pall of a past world; and then again

With curses cast them down upon the dust,

Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things

For an unholy usage; they raked up,

And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath

Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld

Each other's aspects-saw, and shriek'd and died-
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless-
A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean, all stood still,
And nothing stirred within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,

And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropp'd,
They slept on the abyss without a surge.

The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon their mistress had expired before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; darkness had no need
Of aid from them-she was the universe.

CHURCHILL'S GRAVE,

A FACT LITERALLY RENDERED.

I STOOD beside the grave of him who blazed -
The comet of a season, and I saw
The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed.
With not the less of sorrow and of awe
On that neglected turf and quiet stone,

With name no clearer than the names unknown,
Which lay unread around it; and I ask'd
The gardener of that ground, why it might be
That for this plant strangers his memory task'd

And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd. The wild birds Through the thick deaths of half a century;

shrick'd,

And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,

And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous, and vipers crawld
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless-they were slain for food :
And war, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again. A meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart,
Gorging himself in gloom : no love was left;
All earth was but one thought--and that was death,
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails. Men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devour'd.
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famished men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food
But with a piteous and perpetual moan
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answer'd not with a caress-he died,
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies; they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place

And thus he answer'd-« Well, I do not know
Why frequent travellers turn to pilgrims so;
He died before my day of sextonship,
And I had not the digging of this grave. »
And is this all? I thought,-and do we rip
The veil of immortality? and crave

I know not what of honour and of light
Through unborn ages, to endure this blight?
So soon and so successless? As I said,
The architect of all on which we tread,
For earth is but a tombstone, did essay
To extricate remembrance from the clay,
Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's thought,
Were it not that all life must end in one,
Of which we are but dreamers;-as he caught
As 't were the twilight of a former sun,
Thus spoke he,- -I believe the man of whom
You wot, who lies in this selected tomb,
Was a most famous writer in his day,

And therefore travellers step from out their way
To pay him honour,-and myself whate'er
Your honour pleases » Then most pleased I shook
From out my pocket's avaricious nook
Some certain coins of silver, which as 't were
Perforce I Gave this man, though I could spare
So much but inconveniently. Ye smile,

I see ye, ye profane ones! all the while,

Because my homely phrase the truth would tell.
You are the fools, not I-for I did dwell
With a deep thought, and with a soften'd eye,
On that old sexton's natural homily,

In which there was obscurity and fame,

The glory and the nothing of a name.

And a firm will, and a deep sense, Which even in torture can descry Its own concentred recompense, Triumphant where it dares defy, And making death a victory.

PROMETHEUS.

TITAN! to whose immortal eyes
The sufferings of mortality,
Seen in their sad reality,

Were not as things that gods despise ;
What was thy pity's recompense!
A silent suffering, and intense;

The rock, the vulture, and the chain,
All that the proud can feel of pain,
The agony they do not show,
The suffocating sense of woe,

Which speaks but in its loneliness, And then is jealous lest the sky Should have a listener, nor will sigh Until its voice is echoless.

Titan! to thee the strife was given
Between the suffering and the will,
Which torture where they cannot kili;
And the inexorable heaven,
And the deaf tyranny of fate,
The ruling principle of hate,
Which for its pleasure doth create
The things it may annihilate,
Refused thee even the boon to die :
The wretched gift eternity

Was thine-and thou hast borne it well.
All that the Thunderer wrung from thee
Was but the menace which flung back
On him the torments of thy rack;
The fate thou didst so well foresee,

But would not to appease him tell : And in thy silence was his sentence, And in his soul a vain repentance, And evil dread, so ill dissembled That in his hand the lightnings trembled.

Thy godlike crime was to be kind,

To render with thy precepts less
The sum of human wretchedness,
And strengthen man with his own mind.
But baffled as thou wert from high,

Still in thy patient energy,

In the endurance, and repulse

Of thine impenetrable spirit,

Which earth and heaven could not convulse,

A mighty lesson we inherit.

Thou art a symbol and a sign

To mortals of their fate and force;

Like thee, man is in part divine,

A troubled stream from a pure source:
And man in portions can foresee
His own funereal destiny;

His wretchedness, and his resistance,
And his sad unallied existence :
To which his spirit may oppose
Itself-an equal to all woes,

ODE.

On, shame to thee, land of the Gaul' Oh shame to thy children and thee! Unwise in thy glory, and base in thy fall, How wretched thy portion shall be! Derision shall strike thee forlorn,

A mockery that never shall die : The curses of hate, and the hisses of scoru, Shail burden the winds of thy sky; And proud o'er thy ruin for ever be hurl'd The laughter of triumph, the jeers of the world!

Oh, where is thy spirit of yore,

The spirit that breathed in thy dead, When gallantry's star was the beacon before, And honour the passion that led? Thy storms have awaken'd their sleep, They groan from the place of their rest, And wrathfully murmur, and sullenly weep, To see the foul stain on thy breast; For where is the glory they left thee in trust? T is scatter'd in darkness, 't is trampled in dust!

Go look through the kingdoms of earth,
From Indus all round to the pole,

And something of goodness, of honour, and worth,
Shall brighten the sins of the soul.
But thou art alone in thy shame,

The world cannot liken thee there;

Abhorrence and vice have disfigured thy name
Beyond the low reach of compare:

Stupendous in guilt, thou shalt lend us through time
A proverb, a by-word, for treachery and crime!

While conquest illumined his sword,
While yet in his prowess he stood,
Thy praises still follow'd the steps of thy lord,
And welcomed the torrent of blood:
Though tyranny sat on his crown,

And wither'd the nations afar,

Yet bright in thy view was that despot's renown, Till fortune deserted his car;

Then back from the chieftain thou slunkest away, The foremost to insult, the first to betray!

Forgot were the feats he had done,

The toils he had borne in thy cause;
Thou turned'st to worship a new rising sun,
And waft other songs of applause.
But the storm was beginning to lower,
Adversity clouded his beam;

And honour and faith were the brag of an hour,
And loyalty's self but a dream:-

To him thou hadst banish'd thy vows were restored, And the first that had scoff'd were the first that adored.

What tumult thus burthens the air? What throng thus encircles his throne?

'Tis the shout of delight, 't is the millions that swear

His sceptre shall rule them alone. Reverses shall brighten their zeal, Misfortune shall hallow his name,

Next for some gracious service unexprest,
And from its wages only to be guess'd—
Raised from the toilet to the table, where
Her wondering betters wait behind her chair:

And the world that pursues him shall mournfully feel With eye unmoved, and forehead unabash'd,
How quenchless the spirit and flame

She dines from off the plate she lately wash'd.

That Frenchmen will breathe, when their hearts are Quick with the tale, and ready with the lie, on fire,

For the hero they love, and the chief they admire!

Their hero has rush'd to the field;

His laurels are cover'd with shade-
But where is the spirit that never should yield,
The loyalty never to fade?

In a moment desertion and guile

Abandon'd him up to the foe;

The dastards that flourish'd and grew in his smile
Forsook and renounced him in woe;

And the millions that swore they would perish to save,
Beheld him a fugitive, captive, and slave!

The savage

all wild in his glen

Is nobler and better than thou;
Thou standest a wonder, a marvel to men,
Such perfidy blackens thy brow!
If thou wert the place of my birth,
At once from thy arms would I sever;
I'd fly to the uttermost ends of the earth,
And quit thee for ever and ever;
And thinking of thee in my long after
years,
Should but kindle my blushes and waken my tears.
Oh, shame to thee, land of the Gaul!
Oh, shame to thy children and thee!
Unwise in thy glory, and base in thy fall,
How wretched thy portion shall be!
Derision shall strike thee forlorn,
A mockery that never shall die;
The curses of hate, and the hisses of scorn,
Shall burthen the winds of thy sky;
And proud o'er thy ruin for ever be hurl'd
The laughter of triumph, the jeers of the world!

WINDSOR POETICS.

The genial confidante, and general spy ;

Who could, ye gods! her next employment guess?
An only infant's earliest governess!

She taught the child to read, and taught so well,
That she herself, by teaching, learn'd to spell.
An adept next in penmanship she grows,
As many a nameless slander deftly shows:
What she had made the pupil of her art,
None know-but that high soul secured the heart,
And panted for the truth it could not hear,
With longing breast and undeluded ear.

Foil'd was perversion by that youthful mind,
Which flattery fool'd not, baseness could not blind.
Deceit infect not, near contagion soil,
Indulgence weaken, nor example spoil,
Nor master'd science tempt her to look down
On humbler talents with a pitying frown,
Nor genius swell, nor beauty render vain,
Nor envy ruffle to retaliate pain,
Nor fortune change, pride raise, nor passion bow,
Nor virtue teach austerity-till now.
Serenely purest of her sex that live.
But wanting one sweet weakness-to forgive;
Too shock'd at faults her soul can never know,
She deems that all could be like her below:
Foe to all vice, yet hardly virtue's friend-
For virtue pardons those she would amend.

But to the theme-now laid aside too long,
The baleful burthen of this honest song-
Though all her former functions are no more,
She rules the circle which she served before.
If mothers-none know why-before her quake,
If daughters dread her for the mother's sake;
If early habits-those false links which bind,
At times, the loftiest to the meanest mind-
Have given her power too deeply to instil

Lines composed on the occasion of H. R. H. the Pe R-g-t being The angry essence of her deadly will;

seen standing betwixt the coffins of Henry VIII and Charles I, în
the royal vault at Windsor.

FAMED for contemptuous breach of sacred ties,
By headless Charles, see heartless Henry lies;
Between them stands another sceptred thing,
It moves, it reigns-in all but name, a king:
Charles to his people, Henry to his wife,
In him the double tyrant starts to life.
Justice and death have mix'd their dust in vain,
Each royal vampyre wakes to life again.
Ah! what can tombs avail-since these disgorge
The blood and dust of both-to mould a G...ge.
1813.

A SKETCH FROM PRIVATE LIFE.
Honest-honest lago!

If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill then
SHAKSPEARE.

BORN in the garret, in the kitchen bred,
Promoted thence to deck her mistress head;

If like a snake she steal within your walls.
Till the black slime betray her as she crawls;
If like a viper to the heart she wind,

And leave the venom there she did not find;
What marvel that this hag of hatred works
Eternal evil latent as she lurks,

To make a Pandemonium where she dwells,
And reign the Hecate of domestic hells!

Skill'd by a touch to deepen scandal's tints,
With all the kind mendacity of hints,
While mingling truth with falsehood, sneers with smiles,
A thread of candour with a web of wiles:
A plain blunt show of briefly-spoken seeming,
To hide her bloodless heart's soul-harden'd scheming

A lip of lies, a face form'd to conceal,
And, without feeling, mock at all who feel;
With a vile mask the Gorgon would disown,
A cheek of parchment, and an eye of stone.
Mark how the channels of her yellow blood
Ooze to her skin, and stagnate there to mud,

« ForrigeFortsett »