Julia Alpinula With The Captive of Stamboul and Other Poems. By J. H. Wiffen |
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| XVII. |
| XVIII. |
| XIX. |
| XX. |
| XXI. |
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| XXV. |
| XXVI. |
| XXVII. |
| XXVIII. |
| XXIX. |
| XXX. |
| XXXI. |
| XXXII. |
| XXXIII. |
| XXXIV. |
| XXXV. |
| XXXVI. |
| XXXVII. |
| XXXVIII. |
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 | Julia Alpinula |  |
VI.
Some there are yet who wear, unawed,Nor slavery's chain, nor murder's sword;
Whose hearts, like harps, have brilliant tones,
If feeling touch, or valour waken,
The sweetnesses an angel owns,
In life devoted, death unshaken.
But when beneath a despot lord
Crime, like a giant walks abroad,
Law's fruitless fences trampling down,
To seize on Power's unstable crown,
The hearts that truth and freedom send
Her failing fortress to defend,
Strive against fate a little while,
Then sink with a despairing smile,
To ruin with the ruined pile
Whilst Love—the daughter, or the bride,
Who clung in life to Valour's side,
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Their lovely blossoms on the past,
O'er memories of a former day,
To bleed a broken heart away.
Like a young vine, whose tendrils lone
Embrace some hero's funeral stone:
Fixed in a fatal soil, it pines,
Even whilst the season sweetest shines;
In vain the wind, the sun, the dew,
Its weeping beauty would renew;
Faithful to death, its leaf defies
The light of suns, and balm of skies;
The lively colours are defaced;
The boughs run verdantly to waste;
Every day more faint and frail,
It wears in the caressing gale;
Hour by hour the wan leaves strewing,
Hour by hour it hastes to ruin;
And soon its little life is spent
Upon the warlike monument.
| Julia Alpinula | |