Imatges de pàgina
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X.

Of awful subjects have I dared to sing,

Yet surely are they such as, viewed aright, Contentment to thy better mind may bring : A strain which haply may thy heart invite To ponder well, how to thy choice is given

A glorious name on Earth, a high reward in Heaven.

XI.

Light strains, though cheerful as the hues of spring, Would wither like a wreath of vernal flowers; The amaranthine garland which I bring

Shall keep its verdure through all after hours;Yea, while the Poet's name is doomed to live, So long this garland shall its fragrance give.

XII.

« Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown;»
Thus said the Bard who spake of kingly cares:
But calmly may the Sovereign then lie down

When grateful Nations guard him with their prayers: How sweet a sleep awaits the Royal head,

When these keep watch and ward around the bed!

L'ENVOY.

Go, little Book, from this my solitude,

I cast thee on the waters :-go thy ways! And if, as I believe, thy vein be good,

The world will find thee after many days. Be it with thee according to thy worthGo, little Book! in faith I send thee forth.

NOTES.

Note 1, page 514, col. 2.

The short parenthesis of life is all.

I have borrowed this striking expression from

Storer.

All as my chrysom, so my winding sheet;

None joy'd my birth, none mourn'd my death to see ;

The short parenthesis of life was sweet,

But short-what was before, unknown to me,
And what must follow is the Lord's decree.
STORER'S Life and Death of Wolsey.

Let me insert here a beautiful passage from this forgotten poet, whose work has been retrieved from oblivion in the Heliconia. Welsey is speaking.

More fit the dirige of a mournful quire
In dull sad notes all sorrows to exceed,
For him in whom the Prince's love is dead.

I am the tomb where that affection lies,
That was the closet where it living kept:
Yet wise men say affection never dies;-
No, bat it turns, and when it long bath slept,
Looks heavy, like the eye that long hath wept.

O could it die,- that were a restful state!
But living, it converts to deadly hate.

Note 2, page 515, col. 1. Daughter of Calia and Speranza bight. 4.

Dame Corlia men did her call as thought
From Heaven to come, or thither to arise.

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The Poet's Pilgrimage to Waterloo.

Εὐανθία δ' ἀναβάσομαι

Στόλον ἀμφ' ἀρετα

Κελαδέων.

PIND. Pyth. 11.

TO JOHN MAY,

AFTER A FRIENDSHIP OF TWENTY YEARS,

This Poem is Inscribed,

IN TESTIMONY OF THE HIGHEST ESTEEM AND AFFECTION,

BY ROBERT SOUTHEY.

ARGUMENT.

THE first part of this Poem describes a journey to the scene of war. The second is in an allegorical form; it exposes the gross material philosophy which has been the guiding principle of the French politicians, from Mirabeau to Buonaparte; and it states the opinions of those persons who lament the restoration of the Bourbons, because the hopes which they entertained from the French Revolution have not been realized; and of those who see only evil, or blind chance, in the course of human events.

PROEM.
I.

ONCE more I see thee, Skiddaw! once again
Behold thee in thy majesty serene,

Where like the bulwark of this favoured plain,

Alone thou standest, monarch of the scene-
Thou glorious Mountain, on whose ample breast
The sunbeams love to play, the vapours love to rest!
II.

Once more, O Derwent, to thy awful shores
I come, insatiate of the accustomed sight;
And listening as the eternal torrent roars,

Drink in with eye and ear a fresh delight:
For I have wandered far by land and sea,
In all my wanderings still remembering thee.

III.

Twelve years, (how large a part of man's brief day!)
Nor idly, nor ingloriously spent,

To the Christian philosopher all things are consistent and clear. Our first parents brought with them the light of natural religion and the moral law: as men departed from these, they tended toward barbarous and savage life; large portions of the world are in this degenerated state; still, upon the great scale, the human Of evil and of good have held their way, race, from the beginning, has been progressive. But Since first upon thy banks I pitched my tent. the direct object of Buonaparte was to establish a mili-Hither I came in manhood's active prime, tary despotism wherever his power extended; and the And here my head hath felt the touch of time. immediate and inevitable consequence of such a system is to brutalize and degrade mankind. The contest in which this country was engaged against that Tyrant, was a struggle between good and evil principles, and never was there a victory so important to the best hopes of human nature as that which was won by British valour at Waterloo,-its effects extending over the whole civilized world, and involving the vital interests of all mankind.

That victory leaves England in security and peace. In no age and in no country has man ever existed under circumstances so favourable to the full development of his moral and intellectual faculties, as in England at this time. The peace which she has won by the battle of Waterloo, leaves her at leisure to pursue the great objects and duties of bettering her own condition, and diffusing the blessings of civilization and Christianity.

IV.

Heaven hath with goodly increase blest me here,
Where childless and opprest with grief I came;
With voice of fervent thankfulness sincere

Let me the blessings which are mine proclaim:
Here I possess,-what more should I require?
Books, children, leisure,—all my heart's desire.

V.

O joyful hour, when to our longing home

The long-expected wheels at length drew nigh! When the first sound went forth, « they come! they

come!»

And hope's impatience quickened every eye! << Never had man whom Heaven would heap with bliss More glad return, more happy hour than this.»

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