The throngs that choked its hundred gates of yore,
Its fleets, its armies, were no longer seen;
Its priesthood's pomp, its Pharaohs, were no more,——
All—all were gone, as if they ne'er had been !
Deep was the silence now, unless some vast
And time-worn fragment thunder'd to its base,
Whose sullen echoes, o'er the desert cast,
Died in the distant solitude of space.
Or haply, in the palaces of kings,
Some stray jackal sat howling on the throne;
Or on the temple's holiest altar springs
Some gaunt hyæna, laughing all alone.
Nature o'erwhelms the relics left by time—
By slow degrees entombing all the land;
She buries every monument sublime
Beneath a mighty windingsheet of sand.
Vain is each monarch's unremitting pains
Who in the rock his place of burial delves;
Behold, their proudest palaces and fanes
Are subterraneous sepulchres themselves.
Twenty-three centuries unmoved I lay,
And saw the tide of sand around me rise;
Quickly it threaten'd to ingulf its prey,
And close in everlasting night mine eyes.
Snatch'd in this crisis from my yawning grave,
Belzoni roll'd me to the banks of Nile,
And slowly heaving o'er the western wave,
This massy fragment reach'd the imperial isle,
In London now, with face erect, I gaze
On England's pallid sons, whose eyes upcast
View my colossal features with amaze,
And deeply ponder on my glories past.
But who my future destiny shall guess?
Saint Paul's may lie, like Memnon's temple, low; London, like Thebes, may be a wilderness,
And Thames, like Nile, through silent ruins flow
Then haply may my travels be renew'd:
Some Transatlantic hand may break my rest, And bear me from Augusta's solitude
To some new seat of empire in the West,
Mortal! since human grandeur ends in dust,
And proudest piles must crumble to decay,
Build up the tower of thy final trust
In those bless'd realms where nought shall pass
away.
Stonehenge.
BY T. S. SALMON.
in the veil of Time's unbroken Obscure as death, and silent as the tomb, Where cold Oblivion holds her dusky reign, Frowns the dark pile on Sarum's lonely plain.
Yet think not here with classic eye to trace Corinthian beauty, or Ionian grace;
No pillar'd lines with sculptured foliage crown'd,
No fluted remnants deck the hallow'd ground;
Firm, as implanted by some Titan's might,
Each rugged stone uprears its giant height,
Whence the poised fragment tottering seems to throw
A trembling shadow on the plain below.
Here oft when evening sheds her twilight ray,
And gilds with fainter beam departing day,
With breathless gaze, and cheek with terror pale,
The lingering shepherd startles at the tale,
How at deep midnight, by the moon's chill glance,
Unearthly forms prolong the viewless dance;
While on each whispering breeze that murmurs by,
His busied fancy hears the hollow sigh.
Rise from thy haunt, dread genius of the clime,
Rise, magic spirit of forgotten time !
'Tis thine to burst the mantling clouds of age,
And fling new radiance on Tradition's page:
See, at thy call, from Fable's varied store,
In shadowy train the mingled visions pour:
Here the wild Briton, 'mid his wilder reign,
Spurns the proud yoke, and scorns th' oppressor's chain;
Here wizard Merlin, where the mighty fell,*
Waves the dark wand, and chants the thrilling spell.
Hark! 'tis the bardic lyre, whose harrowing strain
Wakes the rude echoes of the slumbering plain ;
Lo! 'tis the Druid pomp, whose lengthening line
In lowliest homage bend before the shrine.
He comes the priest-amid the sullen blaze
His snow-white robe in spectral lustre plays;
Dim gleam the torches through the circling night,
Dark curl the vapours round the altar's light;
O'er the black scene of death each conscious star,
In lurid glory, rolls its silent car.
On this spot it is said that the British nobles were slaughtered by Hengist.
'Tis gone! e'en now the mystic horrors fade
From Sarum's loneliness and Mona's glade :
Hush'd is each note of Taliesin's* lyre,
Sheath'd the fell blade, and quench'd the fatal fire.
On wings of light Hope's angel-form appears,
Smiles on the past, and points to happier years—
Points, with uplifted hand and raptured eye,
To yon pure dawn that floods the opening sky;
And views at length the Sun of Judah pour
One cloudless noon o'er Albion's rescued shore.
HE midnight star above her glows;
She sinks in deep yet wild repose:
From her faint hand has dropp'd the scroll
That wakes the conflict of her soul.
Loose on the gale the ringlets flow
Round her white neck and throbbing brow;
And oft she breathes the struggling sigh,
And tears are stealing from her eye;
And oft the life-blood's sudden gush
Spreads on her cheek the burning flush-
Then instant sinking, leaves it pale
As the wan leaf on Autumn's gale.
But pitying, from her cloud above,
Stoops the soft Queen of dreams and love;
Taliesin, President of the Bards, flourished in the sixth century.
Around in rainbow lustre fling
Her elfins the unwearied wing.
A glimpse of light, a gleam of gold,
First quivering through the moonlight's fold,-
Then on the lovely dreamer's eye
Unrolls the pomp's full majesty:
Along the heaven's serene expanse
Are seen the banner and the lance,
And warriors urging to the speed,
With spur and voice, the meteor steed;
And plume, and pearl, and coronet,
On brows of fairy beauty set;
And helmets crown'd and gemmed tiars
O'er troops, like showers of falling stars.
But soft as Hesper's silver sleep,
And swift as thought down heaven's smooth
Wreathing the spell, the elfin train
Circle the couch of love and pain;
Hush'd earth and air: the lover's lute
In that high hour of charms is mute;
Silent the thrilling nightingale ;
The dove is silent in its vale;
The wind scarce whispers in its cave;
Sleeps on the shore the sparkling wave;
Like lamps around a midnight shrine,
The stars in solemn glory shine:
Above, beneath, on vale and hill,
All but one guileless heart is still.
Yet soon that wand's enchanted sweep
Forbids the dreamer's eye to weep:
The charm of peace is wound, and well
May that sweet smile its magic tell!
Call'd by their gentle Queen's command,
Rise forms of beauty bright and bland;
|