 | 1. |
 | 2. |
| 3. |
| 4. |
| 5. |
| 6. |
| 7. |
 | The Works of Thomas Love Peacock |  |
STROPHE II.
From me all being springs: on meDestruction waits, and death, and fear.
With silent awe pale mortals see
My wandering comet's wild career,
That shakes sublime in meteor-light
Its flaming tresses on the night,
Announcing ruin to the world below.
Her spirit kindling at the glow,
The tearful muse with voice prophetic sings
The swift mutations of terrestrial things;
Sees discord's frantic brand
O'er some devoted land
Lead revolution's fratricidal train;
Hears from the ravaged vale
Tumultuous clamors sail,
252
While exiled kings in desert-pools assuage
Unwonted thirst's avenging rage;
Or, driven the peasant's wretched hut to share,
Force from a churlish soil the scanty meal of care.
ANTISTROPHE II.
The midnight seaman marks afarThe terrors of my mountain-throne,
Where, rousing earth's intestine war,
I sit, mid nature's wrecks, alone.
A fiery column rears on high
My darkly-volumed canopy,
Whose waving folds, deep-tinged with lurid light,
Gleam like the funeral robe of night.
Old ocean shrinks, and earth convulsive rends,
While fast and far the fiery shower descends;
And down the mountain-verge
The crimson cataract's surge
Rolls with impetuous force and thundering sound,
Hurls in ascending steam
The dissipated stream,
And sinks the woods in whitening ashes round;
Till, mid the homes of men, the billows red
Involve the dying and the dead,
In general havoc sweeping from the soil
Vineyards, and fanes, and towers, the pride of earthly toil.
253
EPODE II.
Mark yon city's ancient glory,Through revolving ages reared;
Long the theme of deathless story,
Long by distant lands revered.
In vain around her bulwarks lower
The legions of the adverse power,
Till at my shrine the suppliant hymn they raise.
Then comes the triumph of my conquering hour:
Her portals tremble, and her temples blaze:
Her long dominion of unnumbered years
One dreadful day to endless ruin dooms.
In after times the pensive wanderer hears
The shrill breeze whistle o'er unhonored tombs,
Where mid her prostrate walls the purple heath-flower blooms.
| The Works of Thomas Love Peacock | |