Make mournful emblems, and you think of man Doom'd to the grave's long winter, spirit-broken, Bending beneath the burthen of his years, Sense-dull'd and fretful, «full of aches and pains,>> Yet clinging still to life. To me they show The calm decay of nature when the mind Retains its strength, and in the languid eye Religion's holy hopes kindle a joy
That makes old age look lovely. All to you Is dark and cheerless; you in this fair world See some destroying principle abroad, Air, earth, and water full of living things, Each on the other preying; and the ways Of man, a strange perplexing labyrinth, Where crimes and miseries, each producing each, Render life loathsome, and destroy the hope That should in death bring comfort. Oh, my friend, That thy faith were as mine! that thou couldst see Death still producing life, and evil still Working its own destruction; couldst behold The strifes and troubles of this troubled world With the strong eye that sees the promised day Dawn through this night of tempest! All things then Would minister to joy; then should thine heart Be heal'd and harmonized, and thou wouldst feel God, always, every where, and all in all.
HARK,-how the church-bells' thundering harmony Stuns the glad ear! tidings of joy have come, Good tidings of great joy! two gallant ships Met on the element,-they met, they fought A desperate fight!-good tidings of great joy' Old England triumph'd! yet another day Of glory for the ruler of the waves!
For those who fell, 't was in their country's cause, They have their passing paragraphs of praise, And are forgotten.
There was one who died In that day's glory, whose obscurer name No proud historian's page will chronicle. Peace to his honest soul! I read his name, 'T was in the list of slaughter, and blest God The sound was not familiar to mine ear. But it was told me after that this man Was one whom lawful violence had forced From his own home and wife and little ones, Who by his labour lived; that he was one Whose uncorrupted heart could keenly feel A husband's love, a father's anxiousness; That from the wages of his toil he fed The distant dear ones, and would talk of them At midnight when he trod the silent deck With him he valued,-talk of them, of joys Which he had known,-oh God! and of the hour When they should meet again, till his full heart, His manly heart, at last would overflow, Even like a child's with very tenderness. Peace to his honest spirit! suddenly It came, and merciful the ball of death, For it came suddenly and shattered him, And left no moment's agonizing thought
The person alluded to was pressed into the service.
On those he loved so well.
Now lies at rest. Be Thou her comforter Who art the widow's friend! Man does not know What a cold sickness made her blood run back When first she heard the tidings of the fight; Man does not know with what a dreadful hope She listened to the names of those who died; Man does not know, or knowing will not heed, With what an agony of tenderness She gazed upon her children, and beheld His image who was gone. O God! be Thou, Who art the widow's friend, her comforter !
THOU chronicle of crimes! I read no more; For I am one who willingly would love His fellow-kind. O gentle Poesy, Receive me from the court's polluted scenes, From dungeon horrors, from the fields of war, Receive me to your haunts,-that I may nurse My nature's better feelings, for my soul Sickens at man's misdeeds!
I spake, when lo! There stood before me, in her majesty, Clio, the strong-eyed Muse. Upon her brow Sate a calm anger. Go, young man, she cried, Sigh among myrtle bowers, and let thy soul Effuse itself in strains so sorrowful sweet, That love-sick Maids may weep upon thy page, Pleased with delicious sorrow. Oh shame! shame! Was it for this I waken'd thy young mind? Was it for this I made thy swelling heart Throb at the deeds of Greece, and thy boy's eye So kindle when that glorious Spartan died? Boy! boy! deceive me not!-What if the tale Of murder'd millions strike a chilling pang; What if Tiberius in his island stews, And Philip at his beads, alike inspire Strong anger and contempt: hast thou not risen With nobler feelings,—with a deeper love For Freedom? Yes, if righteously thy soul Loathes the black history of human crimes And human misery, let that spirit fill
Thy song, and it shall teach thee, boy! to raise Strains such as Cato might have deign'd to hear, As Sidney in his hall of bliss may love.
Ir is the funeral march. I did not think That there had been such magic in sweet sounds! Hark! from the blacken'd cymbal that dead tone !-- It awes the very rabble multitude;
They follow silently, their earnest brows
Lifted in solemn thought. T is not the pomp
And pageantry of death that with such force Arrests the sense:-the mute and mourning train, The white plume nodding o'er the sable hearse, Had past unheeded, or perchance awoke
A serious smile upon the poor man's cheek
At pride's last triumph. Now these measured sounds,
This universal language, to the heart Speak instant, and on all these various minds Compel one feeling.
But such better thoughts
Will pass away how soon! and these who here Are following their dead comrade to the grave, Ere the night fall will in their revelry
Quench all remembrance. From the ties of life Unnaturally rent, a man who knew
No resting-place, no dear delights of home, Belike who never saw his children's face, Whose children knew no father; he is gone,- Dropt from existence, like a blasted leaf That from the summer tree is swept away, Its loss unseen. She hears not of his death Who bore him, and already for her son Her tears of bitterness are shed: when first He had put on the livery of blood, She wept him dead to her.
Clay in the potter's hand! one favour'd mind, Scarce lower than the Angels, shall explore The ways of Nature, whilst his fellow-man, Framed with like miracle, the work of God, Must as the unreasonable beast drag on A life of labour; like this soldier here, His wondrous faculties bestow'd in vain, Be moulded by his fate till he becomes A mere machine of murder.
And there are Who say that this is well! as God has made All things for man's good pleasure, so of men The many for the few! Court-moralists, Reverend lip-comforters, that once a-week Proclaim how blessed are the poor, for they Shall have their wealth hereafter, and though now Toiling and troubled, though they pick the crumbs That from the rich man's table fall, at length In Abraham's bosom rest with Lazarus; Themselves meantime secure their good things here, And feast with Dives. These are they, O Lord! Who in thy plain and simple Gospel see All mysteries, but who find no peace enjoin'd, No brotherhood, no wrath denounced on them Who shed their brethren's blood,-blind at noon-day As owls, lynx-eyed in darkness!
Lie still, thou coward heart! this is no time
To shake with thy strong throbs the frame convulsed. To die, to be at rest,-oh, pleasant thought! Perchance to leap and live; the soul all still, And the wild tempest of the passions hush'd In one deep calm; the heart, no more diseased By the quick ague fits of hope and fear, Quietly cold!
Presiding Powers, look down! In vain to you I pour'd my earnest prayers, In vain I sung your praises: chiefly thou, VENUS! ungrateful Goddess, whom my lyre Hymn'd with such full devotion! Lesbian groves, Witness how often, at the languid hour Of Summer twilight, to the melting song Ye gave your choral echoes! Grecian maids, Who hear with downcast look and flushing cheek, That lay of love, bear witness! and ye youths, Who hang enraptured on the impassion'd strain, Gazing with eloquent eye, even till the heart Sinks in the deep delirium! and ye, too, Ages unborn! bear witness ye, how hard Her fate who hymn'd the votive hymn in vain! Ungrateful Goddess! I have hung my lute In yonder holy pile: my hand no more Shall wake the melodies that fail'd to move The heart of Phaon!-yet when Rumour tells How from Leucadia Sappho cast herself, A self-devoted victim,-he may melt Too late in pity, obstinate to love.
O haunt his midnight dreams, black NEMESIS! Whom, self-conceiving in the inmost depths Of CHAOS, blackest NIGHT long labouring bore, When the stern DESTINIES, her elder brood, And shapeless DEATH, from that more monstrous birth Leapt shuddering! haunt his slumbers, Nemesis! Scorch with the fires of Phlegethon his heart, Till helpless, hopeless, heaven-abandon'd wretch, He too shall seek beneath the unfathom'd deep To hide him from thy fury.
Phaon is cold, and why should Sappho live? Phaon is cold, or with some fairer one- Thought worse than death!
[She throws herself from the precipice. 1793.
Scene, The Temple of Mexit.
SUBJECTS! friends! children! I may call you children, For I have ever borne a father's love
Towards you; it is thirteen years since first You saw me in the robes of royalty,— Since here the multitudes of Mexico
Hail'd me their King. I thank you, friends, that now In equal numbers and with equal love, You come to grace my death.
For thirteen years What I have been, ye know that with all care, That with all justness and all gentleness, Seeking your weal, I govern'd. Is there one Whom I have injured? one whose just redress I have denied, or baffled by delay?
Let him come forth, that so no evil tongue Speak shame of me hereafter. O my people, Not by my sins have I drawn down upon me The wrath of Heaven.
The wrath is heavy on me! Heavy; a burthen more than I can bear, I have endured contempt, insult, and wrongs, From that Acolhuan tyrant; should I seek Revenge? alas, my people, we are few,- Feeble our growing state, it hath not yet Rooted itself to bear the hurricane; It is the lion-cub that tempts not yet The tiger's full-aged fury. He sent to bid me wear a woman's robe;- When was the day that ever I look'd back In battle? Mexicans, the wife I loved, To faith and friendship trusted, in despite Of me, of heaven, he seized, and spurn'd her back Polluted!-coward villain, and be lurks Behind his armies and his multitudes, And mocks my idle wrath!-It is not fit,— It is not possible that I should live!- Live! and deserve to be the finger-mark
Of slave-contempt!-His blood I cannot reach, But in my own all stains may be effaced; It shall blot out the marks of infamy, And when the warriors of the days to come Tell of Ximalpoca, it shall be said He died the brave man's death!
Unworthy, do I seek his altar thus, A voluntary victim. Aud perchance The sacrifice of life may profit ye, My people, though all living efforts fail'd By fortune, not by fault.
And if your ill-doom'd King deserved your love, Say of him to your children, he was one Who bravely bore misfortune; who, when life Became dishonour, shook his body off, And join'd the spirits of the heroes dead.
Yes! not in Miclanteuctli's dark abode With cowards shall your King receive his doom: Not in the icy caverns of the North Suffer through endless ages! He shall join The Spirits of the brave, with them at mora Shall issue from the eastern gate of Heaven, And follow through his fields of light the Sun; With them shall raise the song and weave the dance; Sport in the stream of splendour; company
Down to the western palace of his rest
The Prince of Glory; and with equal eye Endure his center'd radiance. Not of you Forgetful, O my people, even then;
But often in the amber cloud of noon Diffused, will I o'erspread your summer fields, And on the freshen'd maize and brightning meads Shower plenty.
Spirits of my valiant Sires,
I come; Mexitli, never at thy shrine Flow'd braver blood! never a nobler heart Steam'd up to thee its life! Priest of the God, Perform your office!
Fergusius 3 periit veneno ab uxore dato. Alii scribant cam user sæpe exprobrasset ei matrimonii contemptum et pellicam greges, neque quicquam profecisset, tandem noctu dormientem ab ea strapgulatum. Quæstione de morte ejus habità, cum amicorum plerimi insimularentur, nec quisquam ne in gravissimis quidem tormentis quicquam fateretur, mulier, alioqui ferox, tot innoxiorum capitum mis rta, in medium processit ac e superiore loco cædem a se faciam confessa, ne ad ludibrium superesset, pectus cultro transfodit: quod ejus factam varie pro cujusque ingenio est acceptum, ac perinde sermonibus celebratum.-BUCHANAN.
Idle threats! I stand
All access to these battlements
Is barr'd beyond your sudden strength to force; And lo! the dagger by which Fergus died! Shame on ye, Scotchmen, that a woman's hand Was left to do this deed! Shame on ye, Thanes, Who with slave-patience have so long endured The wrongs, and insolence of tyranny!
Ye coward race!—that not a husband's sword Smote that adulterous King! that not a wife Revenged her own pollution; in his blood Wash'd her soul pure, and for the sin compell'd Atoned by virtuous murder!-O my God! Of what beast matter hast thou moulded them To bear with wrongs like these? There was a time When if the Bard had feign'd you such a tale, Your eyes had throbb'd with anger, and your hands In honest instinct would have graspt the sword. O miserable men, who have disgraced
Your fathers, whom your sons must blush to name! Aye,-ye can threaten me! ye can be brave In anger to a woman! one whose virtue Upbraids your coward vice; whose name will live Honour'd and praised in song, when not a hand
Is not a thing familiar to my mind!
As if I knew not what must consummate My glory! as if aught that earth can give Could tempt me to endure the load of life!- Scotchmen! ye saw when Fergus to the altar Led me, his maiden Queen. Ye blest me then,- I heard you bless me, and I thought that Heaven Had heard you also, and that I was blest, For I loved Fergus. Bear me witness, God! With what a sacred heart-sincerity My lips pronounced the unrecallabie vow
That made me his, him mine; bear witness, Thou! Before whose throne I this day must appear Stain'd with his blood and mine! my heart was his,- His in the strength of all its first affections. In all obedience, in all love, I kept
Holy my marriage-vow. Behold me, Thanes! Time hath not changed the face on which his So often dwelt, when with assiduous care Tie sought my love; with seeming truth, for one, Sincere herself, impossible to doubt!
Time hath not changed that face;-I speak not now With pride of beauties that will feed the worm To-morrow! but with joyful pride I say, That if the truest and most perfect love Deserved requital, such was ever mine. How often reeking from the adulterous bed Have I received him! and with no complaint. Neglect and insult, cruelty and scorn, Long, long did I endure, and long curb down The indignant nature.
Tell your countrymen, Scotchmen, what I have spoken! say to them Ye saw the Queen of Scotland lift the dagger Red from her husband's heart; that in her own She plunged it.
Nay, hear me out! And be thou wise in vengeance, so thy wife Not vainly shall have suffer'd. I have wrought My soul up to the business of this hour, That it may stir your noble spirits, and prompt Such glorious deeds that ages yet unborn Shall bless my fate. At midnight I awoke, The Tarquin was beside me! O my husband! Where wert thou then! gone was my rebel strength,All power of utterance gone! astonish'd, stunn'd, I saw the coward ruffian, heard him His damned suit, and bid me tamely yield,Yield to dishonour. When he proffer'd death,Oh, I had leapt to meet the merciful sword! But that with most accursed vows he vow'd That he would lay a dead slave by my side, Murdering my spotless honour-Collatine From what an anguish have I rescued thee! And thou, my father, wretched as thou art, Thou miserable, childless, poor old man,-Think, father, what that agony had been! Now thou mayst sorrow for me, thou mayst bless The memory of thy poor, polluted child. Look if it have not kindled Brutus' eye! Mysterious man! at last I know thee now, I see thy dawning glories!-to the grave Not unrevenged Lucretia shall descend; Not always shall her wretched country wear The Tarquins' yoke! ye will deliver Rome, And I have comfort in this dreadful hour. Think'st thou, iny husband, that I dreaded death? O Collatine! the weapon that had gored My bosom had been ease, been happiness,Elysium, to the hell of his hot grasp. Judge if Lucretia could have fear'd to die!
Tell them also, that she felt No guilty fear in death.
Scene, The House of Collatine.
WELCOME, my father! good Valerius, Welcome! and thou too, Brutus! ye were both My wedding guests, and fitly ye are come. My husband-Collatine-alas! no more Lucretia's husband, for thou shalt not clasp Pollution to thy bosom,- hear me on! For I must tell thee all.
I sat at eve Spinning amid my maidens as I wont, When from the camp at Ardea Sextus came. Curb down thy swelling feelings, Collatine! I little liked the man! yet for he came From Ardea, for he brought me news of thee, I gladly gave him welcome; gladly listen'd,- Thou canst not tell how gladly! to his tales Of battles, and the long and perilous siege; And when I laid me down at night to sleep, 'T was with a lighten'd heart,-I knew thee safe,
Remove far from me vanity and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me.-The words of Agur.
οικοι βέλτερον είναι επει βλαβερον το θύρηφι.
YET One Song more! one high and solemn strain, Ere, Phoebus! on thy temple's ruin'd wall
I hang the silent harp : there may its strings, When the rude tempest shakes the aged pile, Make melancholy music. One Song more! PENATES! hear me! for to you I hymn The votive lay; whether, as sages deem,
Ye dwell in the inmost Heaven,' the COUNSELLORS 2 Of Jove; or if, SUPREME OF DEITIES,
All things are yours, and in your holy train Jove proudly ranks, and Juxo, white-arm'd Queen, And wisest of Immortals, the dread Maid ATHENIAN PALLAS. Venerable Powers! Hearken your hymn of praise! Though from your Estranged, and exiled from your altars long,
Hence one explanation of the name Penates, because they were supposed to reign in the inmost heavens.
? This was the belief of the ancient Hetrusci, who called them Conceries and Complices.
I have not ceased to love you, HOUSEHOLD GODS! In many a long and melancholy hour Of solitude and sorrow, hath my heart With earnest longings pray'd to rest at length Beside your hallow'd hearth-for PEACE is there!
Yes, I have loved you long! I call on you Yourselves to witness with what holy joy, Shunning the common herd of human kind, I have retired to watch your lonely fires And commune with myself. Delightful hours, That gave mysterious pleasure, made me know Mine inmost heart, its weakness and its strength, Taught me to cherish with devoutest care Its strange unworldly feelings, taught me too The best of lessons-to respect myself. Nor have I ever ceased to reverence you, DOMESTIC DEITIES! from the first dawn
Of reason, through the adventurous paths of youth Even to this better day, when on mine ear The uproar of contending nations sounds But like the passing wind, and wakes no pulse To tumult. When a child-(and still I love To dwell with fondness on my childish years,) When first a little one, I left my home, I can remember the first grief I felt, And the first painful smile that clothed With feelings not its own: sadly at night I sat me down beside a stranger's hearth; And when the lingering hour of rest was come, First wet with tears my pillow. As I grew In years and knowledge, and the course of Time Develop'd the young feelings of my heart, When most I loved in solitude to rove Amid the woodland gloom; or where the rocks Darken'd old Avon's stream, in the ivied cave Recluse to sit and brood the future song,Yet not the less, PENATES, loved I then Your altars; not the less at evening hour Delighted by the well-trimm'd fire to sit, Absorb'd in many a dear deceitful dream Of visionary joys: deceitful dreams,— And yet not vain; for painting purest bliss, They form'd to Fancy's mould her votary's heart.
By Cherwell's sedgy side, and in the meads Where Isis in her calm clear stream reflects The willow's bending boughs, at early dawn,
In the noon-tide hour, and when the night-mist rose, I have remember'd you; and when the noise Of lewd Intemperance on my lonely car Burst with loud tumult, as recluse I sate, Pondering on loftiest themes of man redeem'd From servitude, and vice, and wretchedness, I blest you, HOUSEHOLD GODS! because I loved Your peaceful altars and serener rites. Nor did I cease to reverence you, when driven Amid the jarring crowd, an unfit man To mingle with the world; still, still my Sigh'd for your sanctuary, and inly pined; And, loathing human converse, I have stray'd Where o'er the sea-beach chilly howl'd the blast, And gazed upon the world of waves, and wish'd That I were far beyond the Atlantic deep, In woodland haunts, a sojourner with PEACE.
Not idly did the poets dream of old, Who peopled earth with Deities. They trod The wood with reverence where the DRYADS dwelt; At day's dim dawn or evening's misty hour They saw the OREADS on their mountain haunts, And felt their holy influence; nor impure Of thought, or ever with polluted hands Touch'd they without a prayer the NATAD's Spring: Yet was their influence transient; such brief awe Inspiring as the thunder's long loud peal Strikes to the feeble spirit. DoUSEHOLD GODS, Not such your empire! in your votaries' breasts No momentary impulse ye awake;
Nor fleeting, like their local energies, The deep devotion that your fanes impart. O ye whom Youru has wilder'd on your way, Or VICE with fair-mask'd foulness, or the lure OF FAME that calls ye to her crowded path With FOLLY's rattle, to your HoUSEHOLD GODS Return; for not in VICE's gay abodes, Not in the unquiet unsafe halls of Fame Doth HAPPINESS abide! O ye who weep Much for the many miseries of Mankind, More for their vices; ye whose honest eyes Frown on OPPRESSION,-ye whose honest hearts Beat high when FREEDOM Sounds her dread alarm; O ye who quit the path of peaceful life Crusading for mankind—a spaniel race That lick the hand that beats them, or tear all Alike in frensy; to your HOUSEHOLD GODS Return, for by their altars VIRTUE dwells, And HAPPINESS with her; for by their fires TRANQUILLITY, in no uusocial mood, Sits silent, listening to the pattering shower; For, so SUSPICION 2 sleep not at the gate Of WISDOM, Falsehood shall not enter there.
As on the height of some huge eminence, Reach'd with long labour, the way-faring man Pauses awhile, and gazing o'er the plain With many a sore step travell'd, turns him then Serious to contemplate the onward road, And calls to mind the comforts of his home, And sighs that he has left them, and resolves To stray no more: I on my way of life Muse thus, PENATES, and with firmest faith Devote myself to you. I will not quit, To mingle with the crowd, your calm abodes, Where by the evening hearth CONTENTMENT sits And hears the cricket chirp; where Love delights To dwell, and on your altars lays his torch That burns with no extinguishable flame.
Hear me, ye PoWERS benignant! there is one Must be mine iumate,-for I may not chuse
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