SHAKSPEARE ODE.*

GoD of the glorious lyre!

Whose notes of old on lofty Pindus rang,
While Jove's exulting choir

Caught the glad echoes and responsive sang-
Come! bless the service and the shrine
We consecrate to thee and thine.

Fierce from the frozen north,
When Havoc led his legions forth,

O'er Learning's sunny groves the dark destroyer spread:

In dust the sacred statue slept,
Fair Science round her altars wept,
And Wisdom cowl'd his head.
At length, Olympian lord of morn,
The raven veil of night was torn,
When, through golden clouds descending,
Thou didst hold thy radiant flight,

O'er Nature's lovely pageant bending,
Till Avon rolled, all sparkling to thy sight!

There, on its bank, beneath the mulberry's shade, Wrapp'd in young dreams, a wild-eyed minstrel stray'd.

Lighting there and lingering long,
Thou didst teach the bard his song;

Thy fingers strung his sleeping shell,
And round his brows a garland curl'd;
On his lips thy spirit fell,

And bade him wake and warm the world!

Then SHAKSPEARE rose!
Across the trembling strings

His daring hand he flings,

And, lo! a new creation glows!

Delivered in the Boston Theatre, in 1823, at the exhibition of a pageant in honour of SHAKSPEARE.

There, clustering round, submissive to his will
Fate's vassal train his high commands fulfil.

Madness, with his frightful scream,
Vengeance, leaning on his lance,
Avarice, with his blade and beam,
Hatred, blasting with a glance;
Remorse, that weeps, and Rage, that roars,
And Jealousy, that dotes, but dooms, and mur-
ders, yet adores.

Mirth, his face with sun-beams lit,

Waking laughter's merry swell,
Arm in arm with fresh-eyed Wit,
That waves his tingling lash, while Folly shakes
his bell.

Despair, that haunts the gurgling stream,
Kiss'd by the virgin moon's cold beam,
Where some lost maid wild chaplets wreathes,
And, swan-like, there her own dirge breathes,
Then, broken-hearted, sinks to rest,

Beneath the bubbling wave, that shrouds her maniac breast.

Young Love, with eye of tender gloom,
Now drooping o'er the hallow'd tomb
Where his plighted victims lie-
Where they met, but met to die:
And now, when crimson buds are sleeping,
Through the dewy arbour peeping,
Where Beauty's child, the frowning world
forgot,

To youth's devoted tale is listening,
Rapture on her dark lash glistening,
While fairies leave their cowslip cells and guard
the happy spot.

Thus rise the phantom throng, Obedient to their master's song, And lead in willing chain the wandering soul along, For other worlds war's Great One sigh'd in vainO'er other worlds see SHAKSPEARE rove and reign! The rapt magician of his own wild lay, Earth and her tribes his mystic wand obey. Old Ocean trembles, Thunder cracks the skies, Air teems with shapes, and tell-tale spectres rise: Night's paltering hags their fearful orgies keep, And faithless Guilt unseals the lip of Sleep: Time yields his trophies up, and Death restores The mouldered victims of his voiceless shores. The fireside legend, and the faded page, The crime that cursed, the deed that bless'd an

And

In midnight's hallow'd hour
He seeks the fatal tower,

Where the lone raven, perch'd on high,
Pours to the sullen gale

Her hoarse, prophetic wail,

And croaks the dreadful moment nigh. See, by the phantom dagger led,

Pale, guilty thing,

Slowly he steals with silent tread,

grasps his coward steel to smite his sleeping king.

Hark! 'tis the signal bell,

Struck by that bold and unsex'd one,
Whose milk is gall, whose heart is stone;
His ear hath caught the knell-
"T is done! 'tis done!

Behold him from the chamber rushing,
Where his dead monarch's blood is gushing:
Look, where he trembling stands,
Sad, gazing there,

Life's smoking crimson on his hands,
And in his felon heart the worm of wild despair.

Mark the sceptred traitor slumbering!

There flit the slaves of conscience round, With boding tongues foul murderers numbering;

Sleep's leaden portals catch the sound.
In his dream of blood for mercy quaking,
At his own dull scream behold him waking!
Soon that dream to fate shall turn,
For him the living furies burn;
For him the vulture sits on yonder misty peak,
And chides the lagging night, and whets her hun-
gry beak.

Hark! the trumpet's warning breath
Echoes round the vale of death.
Unhorsed, unhelm'd, disdaining shield,
The panting tyrant scours the field.
Vengeance! he meets thy dooming blade!
The scourge of earth, the scorn of heaven,
He falls! unwept and unforgiven,
And all his guilty glories fade.
Like a crush'd reptile in the dust he lies,
And hate's last lightning quivers from his eyes!

Behold yon crownless king

Grief's choking note

Swells in his throat,

Each wither'd heart-string tugs and breaks! Round her pale neck his dying arms he wreathes, And on her marble lips his last, his death-kiss breathes.

Down! trembling wing: shall insect weakness keep
The sun-defying eagle's sweep?
A mortal strike celestial strings,
And feebly echo what a seraph sings?

Yon white-lock'd, weeping sireWhere heaven's unpillar'd chambers ring, And burst their streams of flood and fire! He gave them all-the daughters of his love: That recreant pair! they drive him forth to

rove;

In such a night of wo,

The cubless regent of the wood
Forgets to bathe her fangs in blood,

And caverns with her foe!

Yet one was ever kind:

Why lingers she behind?

O pity!-view him by her dead form kneeling, Even in wild frenzy holy nature feeling.

His aching eyeballs strain,

To see those curtain'd orbs unfold,

That beauteous bosom heave again:

In

But all is dark and cold.

agony the father shakes;

Who now shall grace the glowing throne, Where, all unrivall'd, all alone, Bold SHAKSPEARE sat, and look'd creation through, The minstrel monarch of the worlds he drew?

That throne is cold-that lyre in death unstrung,
On whose proud note delighted Wonder hung.
Yet old Oblivion, as in wrath he sweeps,
One spot shall spare-the grave where SHAKSPEARE
sleeps.

Rulers and ruled in common gloom may lie,
But Nature's laureate bards shall never die.
Art's chisell'd boast and Glory's trophied shore
Must live in numbers, or can live no more.
While sculptured Jove some nameless waste may
claim,

Still roars the Olympic car in PINDAR's fame:
Troy's doubtful walls, in ashes pass'd away,
Yet frown on Greece in HOMER's deathless lay;
Rome, slowly sinking in her crumbling fanes,
Stands all immortal in her MARO's strains;
So, too, yon giant empress of the isles,
On whose broad sway the sun forever smiles,
To Time's unsparing rage one day must bend,
And all her triumphs in her SHAKSPEARE end!

O thou! to whose creative power
We dedicate the festal hour,
While Grace and Goodness round the altar stand,
Learning's anointed train, and Beauty's rose-lipp'd
band-

Realms yet unborn, in accents now unknown, Thy song shall learn, and bless it for their own. Deep in the west, as Independence roves, His banners planting round the land he loves, Where Nature sleeps in Eden's infant grace, In Time's full hour shall spring a glorious race: Thy name, thy verse, thy language shall they bear, And deck for thee the vaulted temple there. Our Roman-hearted fathers broke Thy parent empire's galling yoke; But thou, harmonious monarch of the mind, Around their sons a gentler chain shall bind; Still o'er our land shall Albion's sceptre wave, And what her mighty lion lost, her mightier swan shall save.

THE BROTHERS.

We are but two-the others sleep
Through death's untroubled night;
We are but two-O, let us keep
The link that binds us bright.

Heart leaps to heart-the sacred flood

That warms us is the same;
That good old man-his honest blood
Alike we fondly claim.

We in one mother's arms were lock'd-
Long be her love repaid;
In the same cradle we were rock'd,
Round the same hearth we play'd.

Our boyish sports were all the same,
Each little joy and wo;—
Let manhood keep alive the flame,
Lit up so long ago.

We are but two-be that the band
To hold us till we die;

Shoulder to shoulder let us stand,
Till side by side we lie.

ART.

WHEN, from the sacred garden driven,
Man fled before his Maker's wrath,
An angel left her place in heaven,

And cross'd the wanderer's sunless path.
Twas Art! sweet Art! new radiance broke
Where her light foot flew o'er the ground,
And thus with seraph voice she spoke:
"The curse a blessing shall be found."
She led him through the trackless wild,
Where noontide sunbeam never blazed;
The thistle shrunk, the harvest smiled,

And Nature gladden'd as she gazed.
Earth's thousand tribes of living things,
At Art's command, to him are given;
The village grows, the city springs,
And point their spires of faith to heaven.

He rends the oak-and bids it ride,

To guard the shores its beauty graced;
He smites the rock-upheaved in pride,
See towers of strength and domes of taste.
Earth's teeming caves their wealth reveal,
Fire bears his banner on the wave,
He bids the mortal poison heal,

And leaps triumphant o'er the grave.
He plucks the pearls that stud the deep,
Admiring beauty's lap to fill;
He breaks the stubborn marble's sleep,
And mocks his own Creator's skill.
With thoughts that fill his glowing soul,
He bids the ore illume the page,
And, proudly scorning Time's control,
Commerces with an unborn age.

In fields of air he writes his name,

And treads the chambers of the sky, He reads the stars, and grasps the flame That quivers round the throne on high. In war renown'd, in peace sublime,

He moves in greatness and in grace; His power, subduing space and time,

Links realm to realm, and race to race.

"LOOK ON THIS PICTURE."

O, IT is life! departed days
Fling back their brightness while I gaze:
"Tis EMMA's self-this brow so fair,
Half-curtain'd in this glossy hair,
These eyes, the very home of love,
The dark twin arches traced above,
These red-ripe lips that almost speak,
The fainter blush of this pure check,
The rose and lily's beauteous strife-
It is-ah no!-'tis all but life.

"Tis all but life-art could not save
Thy graces, EMMA, from the grave;
Thy cheek is pale, thy smile is past,
Thy love-lit eyes have look'd their last;
Mouldering beneath the coffin's lid,
All we adored of thee is hid;

Thy heart, where goodness loved to dwell,
Is throbless in the narrow cell;
Thy gentle voice shall charm no more;
Its last, last, joyful note is o'er.

Oft, oft, indeed, it hath been sung,
The requiem of the fair and young;
The theme is old, alas! how old,
Of grief that will not be controll'd,
Of sighs that speak a father's wo,
Of pangs that none but mothers know,
Of friendship, with its bursting heart,
Doom'd from the idol-one to part-
Still its sad debt must feeling pay,
Till feeling, too, shall pass away.

O say, why age, and grief, and pain
Shall long to go, but long in vain;
Why vice is left to mock at time,
And, gray in years, grow gray in crime;
While youth, that every eye makes glad,
And beauty, all in radiance clad,
And goodness, cheering every heart,
Come, but come only to depart;
Sunbeams, to cheer life's wintry day,
Sunbeams, to flash, then fade away.

'Tis darkness all! black banners wave
Round the cold borders of the grave;
There, when in agony we bend
O'er the fresh sod that hides a friend,
One only comfort then we know—
We, too, shall quit this world of wo;
We, too, shall find a quiet place
With the dear lost ones of our race;
Our crumbling bones with theirs shall blend,
And life's sad story find an end.

And is this all-this mournful doom?
Beams no glad light beyond the tomb?
Mark how yon clouds in darkness ride;
They do not quench the orb they hide;
Still there it wheels-the tempest o'er,
In a bright sky to burn once more;
So, far above the clouds of time,
Faith can behold a world sublime—
There, when the storms of life are past,
The light beyond shall break ́at last.

III.

Behold! they come-those sainted forms,
Unshaken through the strife of storms;
Heaven's winter cloud hangs coldly down,
And earth puts on its rudest frown;
But colder, ruder was the hand

That drove them from their own fair land;
Their own fair land-refinement's chosen seat,
Art's trophied dwelling, Learning's green retreat;
By valour guarded, and by victory crown'd,
For all, but gentle charity renown'd.
With streaming eye, yet steadfast heart,
Even from that land they dared to part,
And burst each tender tie;

Haunts, where their sunny youth was pass'd, Homes, where they fondly hoped at last

In peaceful age to die.

Friends, kindred, comfort, all they spurn'd;
Their fathers' hallow'd graves;
And to a world of darkness turn'd,
Beyond a world of waves.

IV.

When ISRAEL's race from bondage fled, Signs from on high the wanderers led; But here-Heaven hung no symbol here, Their steps to guide, their souls to cheer; They saw, through sorrow's lengthening night, Naught but the fagot's guilty light; The cloud they gazed at was the smoke That round their murder'd brethren broke. Nor power above, nor power below Sustain'd them in their hour of wo; A fearful path they trod,

And dared a fearful doom;

To build an altar to their Gon,

And find a quiet tomb.

* Pronounced at the Centennial Celebration of the Settlement of Boston, September, 1830.

V.

But not alone, not all unbless'd,
The exile sought a place of rest;
ONE dared with him to burst the knot
That bound her to her native spot;
Her low, sweet voice in comfort spoke,
As round their bark the billows broke;
She through the midnight watch was there,
With him to bend her knees in prayer;
She trod the shore with girded heart,
Through good and ill to claim her part;
In life, in death, with him to seal
Her kindred love, her kindred zeal.

VI.

They come;-that coming who shall tell?
The eye may weep, the heart may swell,
But the poor tongue in vain essays
A fitting note for them to raise.
We hear the after-shout that rings
For them who smote the power of kings;
The swelling triumph all would share,
But who the dark defeat would dare,
And boldly meet the wrath and wo
That wait the unsuccessful blow?
It were an envied fate, we deem,
To live a land's recorded theme,

When we are in the tomb;
We, too, might yield the joys of home,
And waves of winter darkness roam,

And tread a shore of gloom

Knew we those waves, through coming time,
Should roll our names to every clime;
Felt we that millions on that shore
Should stand, our memory to adore.
But no glad vision burst in light
Upon the Pilgrims' aching sight;
Their hearts no proud hereafter swell'd;
Deep shadows veil'd the way they held;

The yell of vengeance was their trump of fame,
Their monument, a grave without a name.

VII.

Yet, strong in weakness, there they stand, On yonder ice-bound rock,

Stern and resolved, that faithful band,

To meet fate's rudest shock. Though anguish rends the father's breast, For them, his dearest and his best, With him the waste who trodThough tears that freeze, the mother sheds Upon her children's houseless heads-The Christian turns to GOD!

VIII.

In grateful adoration now,

Upon the barren sands they bow.

What tongue of joy e'er woke such prayer
As bursts in desolation there?

What arm of strength e'er wrought such power

As waits to crown that feeble hour?

There into life an infant empire springs!
There falls the iron from the soul;
There Liberty's young accents roll

Up to the King of kings!

Nor here alone their praises shall go round,
Nor here alone their virtues shall abound-
Broad as the empire of the free shall spread,
Far as the foot of man shall dare to tread,
Where oar hath never dipp'd, where human tongue
Hath never through the woods of ages rung,
There, where the eagle's scream and wild wolf's cry
Keep easeless day and night through earth and sky,
Even there, in after time, as toil and taste
Go forth in gladness to redeem the waste,
Even there shall rise, as grateful myriads throng,
Faith's holy prayer and Freedom's joyful song;
There shall the flame that flash'd from yonder Rock,
Light up the land, till nature's final shock.

XIII.

Yet while, by life's endearments crown'd,
To mark this day we gather round,
And to our nation's founders raise

The voice of gratitude and praise,
Shall not one line lament that lion race,
For us struck out from sweet creation's face?
Alas! alas! for them-those fated bands,
Whose monarch tread was on these broad, green
lands;

Our fathers call'd them savage-them,whose bread
In the dark hour, those famish'd fathers fed;
We call them savage, we,
Who hail the struggling free
Of every clime and hue;
We, who would save
The branded slave,

And give him liberty he never knew;
We, who but now have caught the tale
That turns each listening tyrant pale,
And bless'd the winds and waves that bore
The tidings to our kindred shore;
The triumph-tidings pealing from that land
Where up in arms insulted legions stand;

There, gathering round his bold compeers,
Where He, our own, our welcomed One,
Riper in glory than in years,

Down from his forfeit throne
A craven monarch hurl'd,

And spurn'd him forth, a proverb to the world!