Death comes to all. Not earth's collected wealth, Golcondian diamonds and Peruvian gold, Can gain from him the respite of an hour. Man yields to death; and man's sublimest works Must yield at length to Time. The proud one thinks Of life's uncertain tenure, and laments His transitory greatness. While he boasts From anxious thoughts, that teach his sickening heart, The creature of an hour; that when a few, Few years have past, that little spot of earth, That dark and narrow bed, which all must press, Will level all distinction. Then he bids The marble structure rise, to guard awhile, A little while, his fading memory. Thou lord of thousands! Time is lord of thee: Must one day cease to be. The chiefs and kings, A CHORAL ODE. [Date unknown.] Όστις του πλεονος μέρους. SOPHOCLES Edipus at Colonas. LAS! that thirst of wealth and power To chase a false and fleeting shade ! And streams, that meet the expanding sea, That marked their infant flow. Go seek what joys, serene and deep, Till, where unpitying Pluto dwells, And where the turbid Styx impels Its circling waves along, The pale ghost treads the flowerless shore, Their loveless, lyreless song. Man's happiest lot is not to be: And, when we tread life's thorny steep, Age comes, unloved, unsocial age, 270 "OH, NOSE OF WAX! TRUE SYMBOL OF THE MIND." As to the ocean-tempest's rage The bleak and billow-beaten rock. As, when the storm of winter raves, The wild winds rush from all their caves, To swell the northern seas. "OH, NOSE OF WAX! TRUE SYMBOL OF THE MIND." [Date unknown.] H, nose of wax! true symbol of the mind Which fate and fortune mould in all mankind (Even as the hand moulds thee) to foul or fair Thee good John Bull for his device shall bear, Thy image shrined in studious state severe, Shall grace the pile which Brougham and Campbell rear: A GOODLYE BALLADE OF LITTLE JOHN: SHEWINGE HOW HE RAYSED A DYVELL, AND COULDE NOTTE L LAYE HYMME. [Date unknown.] FYTTE THE FIRST. ITTLE John he sat in a lonely hall, Mid spoils of the Church of old: He saw the dawn of a coming day, Dim-glimmering through the gloom: From the ancient halls where it then held sway, He saw, the while, through the holy pile He saw the poor, at the Abbey door, He saw on the wall the shadows cast Of sacred sisters three: He blessed them not, as they flitted past : Now down from its shelf a book he bore, And a spell he muttered o'er and o'er, "Now take thee a torch in thy red right hand,” Little John to the fiend he saith: "And let it serve as a signal brand, Straight through the porch, with brandished torch, And a posse of parsons, established by law, And braw Scots Presbyters nimbly sped Sent forth a yell of zeal. And pell-mell went all forms of dissent, Each beating its scriptural drum ; Wesleyans and Whitfieldites followed as friends, Et omne quod exit in hum. And in bonfires burned ten thousand Guys, And such a clamour rent the skies, FYTTE THE SECOND. The devil gave the rabble scope And they left him not in the lurch: But they went beyond the summoner's hope; For they quickly got tired of bawling "No Pope !" And bellowed, "No State Church!" "Ho!" quoth Little John, "this must not be: He works for himself, and not for me: Again he took down his book from the wall, He muttered a speech, and he scribbled a scrawl: Was a glimpse, at the uttermost end of the hall, Of the devil taking a sight. And louder and louder grew the clang The fiendish shade, on the wall portrayed, And flourished his tail like a brandished flail, And his task were on the sea. |