 | Poems |  |
63
TO THE POST-CHARIOT OF A FRIEND, GOING ABROAD.
O may
Auriga's
lucid star,
Direct thee, Chariot, on thy way;
Whose whirling wheels from England far
To southern climes my friend convey:
And may no shock his ease invade
From snapping spring, or linch-pin lost;
No crack, save those by post-boys made,
Till Bernard's ice-crown'd cliff be crost.
Direct thee, Chariot, on thy way;
Whose whirling wheels from England far
To southern climes my friend convey:
And may no shock his ease invade
From snapping spring, or linch-pin lost;
No crack, save those by post-boys made,
Till Bernard's ice-crown'd cliff be crost.
Steel were his nerves, his sinews brass,
Who first with vaulting footstep rose
Sublime; and from the virgin-pass
Look'd down upon eternal snows:
Who, by the raving storm unscared,
'Mid Alpine precipices strode;
The thundering mass unflinching heard,
And dauntless traced the desperate road.
In vain, to chariot-wheels denied,
The crags their glittering horrours raise;
Who first with vaulting footstep rose
Sublime; and from the virgin-pass
Look'd down upon eternal snows:
Who, by the raving storm unscared,
'Mid Alpine precipices strode;
The thundering mass unflinching heard,
And dauntless traced the desperate road.
In vain, to chariot-wheels denied,
The crags their glittering horrours raise;
65
If skittish mules may climb their side,
And plod secure the air-hung ways.
But man forbidden paths will tread:
Columbus thus, of Japheth sprung,
From virtue's simple sons convey'd
The fire, whose name would taint my song.
Hence the shrunk shank, and carious bone,
Accelerate Nature's slow decay;
And Death, no longer hobbling on,
His ancient crutches flings away.
Montgolfier thus, thro' vacant air,
Elate on buoyant pinion soar'd;
And Spalding thus, too prompt to dare,
Old ocean's wreck-strew'd bed explored.
To wildest flights wild man aspires:
Here Paine would scale th' eternal walls;
And there, as Franklin points his wires,
Disarm'd th' indignant lightning falls.
And plod secure the air-hung ways.
But man forbidden paths will tread:
Columbus thus, of Japheth sprung,
From virtue's simple sons convey'd
The fire, whose name would taint my song.
Hence the shrunk shank, and carious bone,
Accelerate Nature's slow decay;
And Death, no longer hobbling on,
His ancient crutches flings away.
Montgolfier thus, thro' vacant air,
Elate on buoyant pinion soar'd;
And Spalding thus, too prompt to dare,
Old ocean's wreck-strew'd bed explored.
To wildest flights wild man aspires:
Here Paine would scale th' eternal walls;
And there, as Franklin points his wires,
Disarm'd th' indignant lightning falls.
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