Carol and Cadence New poems: MDCCCCII-MDCCCCVII: By John Payne |
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| MARTYRS OF HISTORY. |
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| VIII. |
| IX. |
| X. |
| XI. |
| XII. |
| XIII. |
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 | Carol and Cadence |  |
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MARTYRS OF HISTORY.
VII. ESAU.
Esau, wild huntsman, rough and frank and free,By crafty Jacob, God's accepted one,
Of birthright spoiled and place beneath the sun,
That, when the waves of Time's resurgent sea
Brought vengeance to thy hand and wrath to be,
Yet, for old Isaac's sake, the victory won
Forewent'st and spar'dst thy treacherous father's son,
My heart is heavy, when I read of thee.
Still, though Jehovah on the traitor smile
And the world's laughter in thy steps ensue,
For us, who honour more of worth than wile
Hold, through the darkness of four thousand years,
Echoes thy cry despairing, “Bless me too,
“Me also, o my father!” in our ears.
VIII. HECTOR.
Of all that by their deaths at Ilium came,There's none the chord of sympathy in me
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Who to the boor Achilles life and fame
Not only lost, but, by Fate's spite, whose name,
Miswritten on the page of history,
(Though modest he as brave,) is grown to be
A byword for a braggart and a shame.
What bard hath e'er bethought himself of thee,
To justify thy memory in his lays?
One only, mightiest of the sons of men,
Hath set thee somedele in thy place of praise,
In that his song of Trojan times, where he
Of Troïlus and Cressid told erewhen.
IX. JULIAN.
“Vicisti, Galilaee!” In these days,When, on the mouldering cross, his discrowned head
The Galilean hangs, a last time dead,
His brow dishaloed, reft of power and praise,
Forsaken of the folk his temples' ways,
Thought turns to him who for the old faith led
The fight and dying, by his fall foresaid
His, unto whom he left the conqueror's bays.
Thou fellest, Julian, and thy Gods with thee;
Yet ever honoured shall thy memory be
That to relight the extinguished altar-fires
Strov'st and forbaddest, in the face of Fate,
The sons of Shem barbarian desecrate
The tombs and temple-places of thy sires.
X. CLIVE.
England, to whom he gave the gorgeous EastOf Ind from Ganges to the Waters Five,
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How dealt'st thou with the founder of thy feast?
Alack! Thou sufferedst the blatant beast
Of calumny thy hero hound and drive
To a dishonoured sepulchre, alive,
And dead, well nigh to think of him hast ceased.
Such, such is heroes' fortune, so ill-starred
Their horoscope and such the abiding curse
That stains the shields of nations! In repine
They live and at their epicedial shrine
None kneels but some expiatory bard,
Who sets their names in his enbalming verse.
XI. EDWARD JOHN EYRE.
Thy given trust pluck out from treason's fire;'Gainst rebel rogues uphold the sacred tree
Of English rule for law and liberty;
And thou by fools and knaves shalt through the mire
Be dragged and die in misery, like Eyre,
Whose memory, England, honour, for that he
As true a martyr lived and died for thee
As any saint e'er perished on the pyre.
Would but his fate (yet History's sorry tale
Forbiddeth hope) to teach us might avail
How wantonly unwise it is to entrust
The arbitrament of states to the fool folk,
Who by the shell the egg judge, not the yolk,
Nor gold distinguish can from glittering dust!
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XII. TOMAS ZUMALACARREGUI.
Though the Gods favoured the victorious cause,That which pleased Cato was the vanquished one.
Few viler causes ever shamed the sun
Than that, which, founded in contempt of laws
And uses immemorial, on this clause
Established of descendance, sire to son,
But for the ball uneath might have been won
Which at Bilbáo gate gave victory pause.
Few now remember him who, for the right,
Pure, grave and gracious, battling, a true knight,
Plucked victory well nigh from the jaws of doom.
But he who looks beyond our idle day
Will at this page of history pause, to lay
A wreath on Zumalacarregui's tomb.
The great Carlist general, whose triumphant career was ended by a gunshot-wound received at the siege of Bilbáo. Ob. 24th June, 1835.
XIII. QUI CARENT VATE SACRO.
How many lives there be, misfortune-marred,Whereto the Fates such little pity show
That they through grief to death not only go,
But for remembrance lack the sacred bard!
Such England's Charles, the noble, the ill-starred;
Such Maximilian of Mexico;
Such France's Third Napoleon, evenso,
The kind, the sad, of fortune followed hard;
Such Pedro of Brazil, the modern Lear,
Such Laud, such Strafford, to the fated goal
Their lord foregoing, whom they loved so dear:
To whom and many a Fate-forsaken soul,
Martyred and mortified of traitor Time,
Too late I consecrate this tribute rhyme.
| Carol and Cadence | |