Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“

Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime

Dark-heaving;-boundless, endless, and sublime→
The image of Eternity-the throne

Of the invisible; even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee: thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
I wanton'd with thy breakers-they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror-'t was a pleasing fear,
For I was as it were a child of thee,

And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane-as I do here.

THE COLISEUM BY MOONLIGHT.

Manfred alone.

Man. The stars are forth, the moon above the tops Of the snow-shining mountains.-Beautiful!

I linger yet with Nature, for the night

Hath been to me a more familiar face
Than that of man; and in her starry shade

Of dim and solitary loveliness,

I learn'd the language of another world.
I do remember me, that in my youth,
When I was wandering,-upon such a hight
I stood within the Coliseum's wall,

Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome;
The trees which grew along the broken arches
Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars
Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar
The watchdog bay'd beyond the Tiber; and
More near from out the Cesar's palace came
The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly,
Of distant sentinels the fitful song
Begun and died upon the gentle wind.
Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach
Appear'd to skirt the l.orizon, yet they stood
Within a bowshot-where the Cesars dwelt,
And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst
A grove which springs through level battlements,
And twines its roots with the imperial hearths,
Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth;
But the gladiators' bloody Circus stands,

A noble wreck in ruinous perfection!

358

STUDIES IN POETRY.

While Cesar's chambers, and the Augustan halls,
Grovel on earth in indistinct decay.-

And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon
All this, and cast a wide and tender light,
Which soften'd down the hoar austerity
Of rugged desolation, and fill'd up,
As 't were, anew, the gaps of centuries;
Leaving that beautiful which still was so,
And making that which was not, till the place
Became religion, and the heart ran o'er
With silent worship of the great of old!—

The dead, but sceptered sovereigns, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns.—

"T was such a night! "Tis strange that I recall it at this time;

But I have found our thoughts take wildest flight
Even at the moment when they should array
Themselves in persive order.

THE IMMORTAL MIND.

WHEN coldness wraps this suffering clay,
Ah, whither strays the immortal mind?
It cannot die, it cannot stay,

But leaves its darken'd dust behind.
Then, unembodied, doth it trace

By steps each planet's heavenly way?
Or fill at once the realins of space;
A thing of eyes, that all survey

Eternal, boundless, undecay'd,

A thought unseen, but seeing all,
All, all in earth, or skies display'd,
Shall it survey, shall it recall:
Each fainter trace that memory holds
So darkly of departed years,

In one broad glance the soul beholds,
And all, that was, at once appears.

Before creation peopled earth,

Its eye shall roll through chaos back:
And where the furthest heaven had birth,
The spirit trace its rising track.

And where the future mars or makes,
Its glance dilate o'er all to be,

While sun is quench'd or system breaks;
Fix'd in its own eternity.

An age shall fleet like earthly year;
Its years as moments shall endure.
Away, away, without a wing,

O'er all, through all, its thoughts shall fly
A nameless and eternal thing,

Forgetting what it was to die.

ON THE DEATH OF SIR PETER PARKer, bart.

THERE is a tear for all that die,

A mourner o'er the humblest grave;
But nations swell the funeral cry,
And Triumph weeps above the brave.

For them in Sorrow's purest sigh
O'er Ocean's heaving bosom sent:
In vain their bones unburied lie,

All earth becomes their monument!

A tomb is theirs on every page
An epitaph on every tongue;
The present hours, the future age,
For them bewail, to them belong.

For them the voice of festal mirth

Grows hush'd, their name the only sound; While deep Rememberance pours to Worth The goblet's tributary round.

A theme to crowds that knew them not,
Lamented by admiring foes,

Who would not share their glorious lot?
Who would not die the death they chose?

And gallant Parker! thus enshrined
Thy life, thy fall, thy fame shall be;
And early Valour, glowing, find

A model in thy memory.

But there are breasts that bled with thee
In wo, that glory cannot quell;

And shuddering hear of victory,

Where one so dear, so dauntless, fell.

Where shall they turn to mourn thee less?
When cease to hear thy cherish'd name?
Time cannot teach forgetfulness,

While

Alas! for them, though not for thee,
They cannot choose but weep the more;
Deep for the dead the grief must be,
Who ne'er gave cause to mourn before.

THOMAS MOORE.

MOORE is another writer, whose most exquisite poetry we could be very well content to lose from the record of English song, if that which is evil in its influence might thus forever be annihilated. He displays a most unlimited command of rich language, and luxurious imagery; but the reader may search in vain, except in some few instances, for elevated moral feeling, manly reflection, or wise and pious sentiment. Paradise and the Peri, and indeed the greater part of Lallah Rookh, together with his Sacred Melodies are beautiful exceptions to the truth of this remark.

FROM PARADISE AND THE PERI.

Now, upon Syria's land of roses
Softly the light of eve reposes,
And, like a glory, the broad sun
Hangs over sainted Lebanon ;
Whose head in wintry grandeur towers,
And whitens with eternal sleet,
While summer, in a vale of flowers,
Is sleeping rosy at his feet.

To one, who look'd from upper air
O'er all the' enchanted regions there,
How beauteous must have been the glow,
The life, the sparkling from below!
Fair gardens, shining streams, with ranks
Of golden melons on their banks,
More golden where the sun-light falls;-
Gay lizards, glittering on the walls
Of ruin'd shrines, busy and bright
As they were all alive with light;-
And, yet more splendid, numerous flocks
Of pigeons, settling on the rocks,
With their rich restless wings, that gleam
Variously in the crimson beam
Of the warm west,-as if inlaid
With brilliants from the mine, or made
Of tearless rainbows, such as span

The' unclouded skies of Peristan!

And then, the mingling sounds that come,
Of shepherd's ancient reed, with hum
Of the wild bees of Palestine,

Banqueting through the flowery vales ;— And, Jordan, those sweet barks of thine, And woods, so full of nightingales!

But nought can charm the luckless Peri;
Her soul is sad-her wings are weary-
Joyless she sees the sun look down
On that great temple, once his own,
Whose lonely columns stand sublime,
Flinging their shadows from on high,
Like dials, which the wizard Time
Had rais'd to count his ages by!

Yet haply there may lie conceal'd,
Beneath those chambers of the sun,
Some amulet of gems, anneal'd
In upper fires, some tablet seal'd

With the great name of Solomon,
Which, spell'd by her illumin'd eyes,
May teach her where, beneath the moon,
In earth or ocean lies the boon,

The charm, that can restore so soon

An erring spirit to the skies!

Cheer'd by this hope she bends her thither ;-
Still laughs the radiant eye of Heaven,
Nor have the golden bowers of even

In the rich west begun to wither
When, o'er the vale of Balbec winging
Slowly, she sees a child at play,
Among the rosy wild-flowers singing,
As rosy and as wild as they;
Chasing, with cager hands and eyes,
The beautiful blue damsel-flies,

That flutter'd round the jasmine stems,
Like winged flowers or flying gems;-
And, near the boy, who tir'd with play
Now nestling mid the roses lay,
She saw a wearied man dismount

From his hot steed, and on the brink
Of a small minaret's rustic fount
Impatient fling him down to drink,
Then swift his haggard brow he turn'd
To the fair child, who fearless sat,
Though never yet hath day beam burn'd
Upon a brow more fierce than that,—
Sullenly fierce-a mixture dire,
Like thunder-clouds, of gloom and fire!

« AnkstesnisTęsti »