University of Virginia Library

SONNETS.

I. RELIGIOUS AND MORAL.

I. Prayer 1.

And what is prayer? not with bold grasp to seize
God's gifts, as suitors clamouring for a share;
Not cold, set phrases, loud doxologies,
Of Wealth or Wisdom, patronizing prayer;
Not cant, that hurls with sanctimonious air
Fanatic comminations; not bent knees,
Bowed necks, joined palms, brows crossed with pious care;
(Harmless but feeble ceremonies these!)
Not such is prayer. God's shrine is in our hearts:
From them the prostrate Spirit silently
Proffers its adoration; meditates
The Gospel word; for pardon supplicates;
Fears, yet confides; from duty not departs;
Feels faith on earth, hope in eternity!

II. Prayer 2.

Then what is prayer? Peruse that Gospel word:
Mark, learn, examine; it shall teach thee well.
That Word “which was with God, and was God, Lord
Of life, the light of men!” in parable
Familiarly expounded; oracle
Pronouncing weal or woe; in precepts heard
With tears by the awakened infidel;
In those meek orisons, whose pure accord
The human with the divine nature blends
So subt'ly that at once we recognise
Man's best emotions and the will of God.
With these sure guides, so studied that our ends
Be truth, not argument, our hearts shall rise
To heaven, in rightful worship, understood.

III. Prayer 3.

But God Himself hath taught us how to pray;
In that most comprehensive form, by all
The hosts of Christendom revered. Each day,
“Glory to God in heaven!” devotional
The Catholic prayer begins. From earth's low ball
The echoing song resounds through the array
Of angel choirs and harps seraphical,
Hymning that reign which shall not pass away!
Obedience, resignation, duly professed
Our sustenance in all things we implore;
On deeds and thoughts of charity we rest
Our hope of pardon; nor petition more
Than safeguard from all evil; and again
With dutiful Hosanna close the sacred strain.

IV. Principle, not Expediency.

Shall it be said, O Lord! shall it be said
That men must be incited on their path
Of trial through this world by hope, or dread,
Of human accident in life or death?
Why on this world's vain wisdom waste we breath,
Follies of false philosophy, inbred?
Why preach the recompense that virtue hath—
The worth of character—the glory shed
On patriotic deeds? Should we not ever
Make Right our rule, which is immutable;
Nor fear a fall when strong in Principle?
Good works are Acts of Faith. Christ does not sever
The deed from the design, and the endeavour:
But makes the basis of His law God's will!

V. Jerusalem.

And sit'st thou there, O lost Jerusalem!
Bowed down, yet something still of royal state
Ennobling thee in ruin? Thee the weight
Of age regards not: thou art, as the gem,
Undimmed by time: yet is the diadem,
And thrones, that made thee like the common Great,
All perished; and thy People desolate:
Thy holiness a scoff, thy power a dream!
The arm of the Omnipotent is on
Thy guiltiness; a living Death art thou;
An all-enduring miracle: for God
Hath set, in record of His slaughtered Son,
His ineffaceable seal upon thy brow;
And cursed the land a dying Saviour trod!

VI. The Church tolerant. 1.

I cannot doubt that our dear English Church,
Our wise and gracious mother, hath inferred,
Truly, the meaning of God's holy word,
(Howe'er in dubious text involved) by search
Impartial: not as disputants who perch
On Reason's gauntlet, like the hooded bird
Eager to strike; but frank, while undeterred
By fraud, or sophism. High she lifts her torch
Over the maze perplexed; and points for aye
The path for those who innocently stray,
Mid doubts, perchance, not wholly undesigned.
She rends no franchise of our race away:
But grants, what she first claimed for all mankind,
Free conscience: spiritual charter of the mind.

VII. The Church tolerant. 2.

Ay, wisely do we call her mother: she
Who from her liberal breast yields sustenance
To nations; a majestic Charity!
No marble symbol cold, on suppliant glance
Deceitful smiling! Strenuous her advance,
Yet calm; while holy ardours, fancy-free,
Direct her measured steps: in every chance
Sedate—as Una 'neath her forest tree
Encompassed by the lions. Why, alas!
Must her perverse and thoughtless children turn
From her example? why must the sultry breath
Of Bigotry stain Charity's pure glass?
Poison the springs of Art and Science—burn
The brain through life, and sear the heart in death!

VIII. Intimations of past Existence.

Omorn of life! fast fleeting moments! lent
For sinful souls on trial! Dost thou, indeed.
Bear witness to some foregone act decreed
By righteous Power to tempered punishment?
O pleasant dreams of childhood! are ye sent
Preluding knowledge; light designed to feed
The fruitful germ within its flowery tent?
Or, rather, hold we not that as the seed
Is of the flower begotten, memory
Still prompts the vision? Thus the slumbering child,
On pinions unforgotten wafted free,
Floats o'er the shadowy breadth of waters wild;
Revels in light, the tissue of the morn;
And hears the choral swell of harmonies sphereborn!

IX.

There is no remedy for time misspent;
No healing for the waste of idleness
Whose very languor is a punishment
Heavier than active souls can feel or guess.
O hours of indolence and discontent,
Not now to be redeemed! ye sting not less
Because I know this span of life was lent
For lofty duties, not for selfishness.
Not to be wiled away in aimless dreams,
But to improve ourselves, and serve mankind,
Life, and its choicest faculties were given.
Man should be ever better than he seems:
And shape his acts, and discipline his mind,
To walk adorning earth, with hope of heaven.

X. The Teaching of Christ.

Jesus, though One with God, dwelt upon earth
As Man, sharing his functions; and applied
Speech, common to our kind, so simplified
In majesty severe, plain without dearth,
Yet full, that all might apprehend its worth,
And fearless follow so sincere a guide.
Not His the art rhetorical, nor pride
Of sophistry; their roots have mortal birth.
For ill accord such pomps and ornament
(Weak oratory's refuge) with His plan
Who, speaking from Authority, and sent
To preach the Word, and give the Law, to man,
Yet stooped to teach with gentleness, and blend
With masterdom His sympathy as Friend.

XI. Sacred and Profane Writers.

Let those who will hang rapturously o'er
The flowing eloquence of Plato's page;
Repeat, with flashing eye, the sounds that pour
From Homer's verse as with a torrent's rage;
Let those who list, ask Tully to assuage
Wild hearts with high-wrought periods, and restore
The reign of rhetoric; or maxims sage
Winnow from Seneca's sententious lore.
Not these, but Judah's hallowed bards, to me
Are dear: Isaiah's noble energy;
The temperate grief of Job; the artless strain
Of Ruth, and pastoral Amos; the high songs
Of David; and the tale of Joseph's wrongs,
Simply pathetic, eloquently plain.

XII. Origin of the Soul.

It cannot be that by traduction come
Our souls, like growth of the corporeal frame:
This earth is to the flesh a natural home;
But Spirit is of Heaven, from whence it came,
And tends aspiring; an etherial flame,
Sacred, as are the fires of martyrdom!
All else is mystery. We hear a name;
But meet no phantom risen from the tomb.
What shall we think then! Ere this world was born,
Were souls, countless as beams of stellar light,
Called forth; or as our flesh demands?—The night
Of childhood, and man's meditative morn,
Thrill with vague memories; and blind impulse brings
Shadows perplexed of pre-existing things!

XIII.

Oft have I thought they err, who, having lost
That love-gift of our youth an infant child,
Yield the faint heart to those emotions wild
With which, too oft, strong memory is crost;
Shrinking with sudden gasp, as if a ghost
Frowned in their path. Not thus the precepts mild
Of Jesus teach; which never yet beguiled
Man with vain promises. God loves us most
When chastening us: and He who conquered Death
Permits not that we still deem death a curse.
The font is Man's truetomb; the grave his nurse
For heaven, and feeder with immortal breath.
O grieve not for the Dead! none pass from earth
Too soon: God then fulfils His purpose in our birth!

XIV. Church Music.

Before the Ark, in slow majestic measure,
With upraised brow devotionally calm,
And eyes irradiate with hallowed pleasure,
The Monarch-bard advanced: the lofty psalm
At once from rapturous lip, and harp, and shalm,
Broke forth; the sweet sounds lending just expressure
To the raised spirit. Thus we, too, embalm
Our praise in music; and disperse the treasure
Of that most pure and holiest Liturgy,
(By saints bequeathed, by martyrs sealed in fire,)
With choral hymn, low-chaunted litany,
Alternate pealing through the shadowy choir;
Or anthem, like some mighty Being of sound,
Uncoiling through long aisles and echoing vaults profound!

XV. Christmas Bells.

Sweet-sounding bells, blithe summoners to prayer!
From midnight till auspicious day return
Your far re-echoing melody, wind-borne
From dome and tower comes bounding on the air;
As if the mighty voice of Earth were there,
The jubilant cry of multitudes, to warn
Creation that a Saviour-Lord this morn
For all had birth! Far off, and every where,
Swells the harmonious tumult; billowy sound,
Wild, yet concordant; beautifully blending
With the sonorous organ of the wind.
O fortunate indeed! if there be found
Hearts dutiful as voices—souls ascending
To heaven, with love sincere, faith unconfined!

XVI. The Ways of the World.

Unfeeling World! I mourn your vanished worth:
For when I look around, where'er I turn,
I can see nought but selfishness on earth;
Something to hate, to pity, or to scorn.
The Rich are grown too strong, the Poor forlorn;
The tongue of Malice thrives; and there's a dearth
Of all the milder traits that should adorn
Or smooth the frailties of our human birth.
O! I would rather, in some distant nook,
Beneath a sheltering oak, beside a brook,
Far from the varying passions of mankind,
Know nothing of their ways but in a book;
Be to their follies deaf, their vices blind,
And leave, for ever, all their joys and griefs behind!

XVII. Misanthropy.

From earliest time, such is stern nature's will,
The tide of error always hath been strong:
Stream of mysterious tendency! along
Whose awful gulfs of unknown good and ill
Onward is hurled the human bubble still!
A feeble thinker, ever acting wrong,
Man sinks, at last, beneath a sordid throng
Of cares, griefs, customs, fears inscrutable.
What is he then at last, what shall be ever?
A creature formed, alas! to feel and live
For self alone; reckless how others thrive:
Dupe, knave, a wanton sceptic, rash believer:
Quick to inflict a pang, slow to forgive;
Vain, envious, false, and charitable never!

XVIII.

Though care may sap the mind, and anguish bend,
And man may wither at the touch of grief,
Still may one faithful remedy befriend
His saddest hour, and bring a sure relief:
And in the book of life, however brief,
He still may find some tear-dipped smiles attend;
Detect some lurking charm in every leaf:
And close it up, with pleasure, at the end.
For as the traveller of a stormy day,
When through the opening clouds the evening ray
Glimmers with dewy lustre in the west,
Hails the bright promise, so the good man's way
Looks fairest at the final hour of rest,
When Life lies down in sleep, to waken with the Blest!

XIX. The Passion-flower.

Art thou a type of beauty, or of power,
Of sweet enjoyment, or disastrous sin?
For each thy name denoteth, Passion-flower.
O no! thy pure corolla's depth within
We trace a holier symbol; yea, a sign
'Twixt God and man: a record of that hour
When the expiatory Act divine
Cancelled the curse that was our mortal dower.
It is the Cross! never hath Psalmist's tongue
Fitlier of hope to human frailty sung,
Than this mute Teacher in a floret's breast—
A star of guidance the wild woods among;
A page, with more than lettered lore imprest;
A beacon to the havens of the Blest!

XX. Vices of Society.

Far be from me the ballroom's giddy rout;
The gambler's haunt, where Avarice loves to rule
Miser and witling, prodigal and fool;
The pageant race-ground's noisy rabble-shout;
The jovial crew who push the bowl about;
The hunter's wild halloo through brake and pool;
The self-sufficient pedant of the school;
Envy's vile pander; Scandal's hireling scout!
I ask but some small space whereon to think,
And conquer vain desires; where hope may blend
The future with time past; some flower-sweet
To woo the Muse on; some delicious brink
By living stream, for converse with a friend; sod
Some solitude, to commune with my God!

XXI. The 24th of August, 1830.

How oft, in youth, I loved to muse beneath
The shadow of this antient cloister dim;
Watching beyond those arches, dark and grim,
Bright through the gloom, yon river's ample breadth,
Like Hope on Sorrow smiling! But Time fleeth.
Now, with vain bitterness my eyelids swim!
These peopled quays, towers, bridge, no more to him
Give joy, whose Hope lies yonder, veiled in death.
Yet, would I wrestle with these pangs, and look
Steadfast to heaven, with hand upon that book,
Whence not alone, through holy lips, are heard
Precept and law, from sage or saint departed;
But the deep breath of God's sufficing word;
Outpouring, sweet as tears, to sooth the weary-hearted!

XXII. Easterday, 1834.

Again God's messenger hath visited
My Fold, and from my little flock with-drawn
A spotless lamb: my Gentle-one is dead!
Her beauty—O how precious in the dawn
Of intellectual expression—gone
To an untimely grave! and yet, though fled
From earth, though never more in wood or lawn
Her step shall bound before us, God hath shed
Balm, even from the vial of His wrath;
And we walk cheered, though tearful, down our path.
O Comforter! still heavenward points thy hand:
Where my rapt Treasures, clasped in mute embraces,
Immortal gleams lighting their upturned faces,
With the Cherubic choir take their appointed stand!

XXIII. From Petrarch.

Weeping for all my long-lost years I go,
And for that lore which to this world confined
A spirit, whose strong flight, for heaven designed,
No mean example might on man bestow.
Thou who didst mark my wanderings and my woe,
Great King of heaven! unseen, immortal, Mind!
Succour this weary being, frail and blind,
And may thy grace o'er all my failings flow!
Then, though my life through warring tempests passed,
My death may tranquilly and gently come:
And my calmed soul may flee in peace at last:
While o'er that space which shuts me from the tomb,
And on my death bed, be thy blessing cast—
From Thee, in trembling hope, O God! I wait my doom!

XXIV. The Primeval Church.

God, in the days of old, with Patriarch
And Prophet, speaking in familiar guise,
Walked; a most loving Master, watchful, wise;
A kind Instructor, sedulous to mark,
Prompt to reward, mild in reproof; nor dark
Of speech, when men besought Him to advise.
So stooped Almighty Love to human ties;
Making with men a covenanted ark
To dwell in. But what love, all love transcending,
Was that when, in the after-time, He gave
His Son, from majesty and glory bending,
To take our griefs upon Him, and to save
From sin! bequeathing to His Church the Keys
Of heaven, through faith, and holy charities!

XXV. The Elder Ministry.

Frail Nature is but dust! Man might not bear
The glorious presence, and the brow of God,
When on the verge of Sinai He trod,
Giving the Law: and Israel shook with fear
The sound of His immediate voice to hear.
Therefore were Judges given, and Kings allowed,
And warrior forms to a westruck Prophet bowed.
So waxed the Church of God! through gifted Seer—
Moses, and Aaron, and stern Samuel,—
With Divine doctrine, as pure manna, fed:
So waxed the Church! by Joshua, David, led:
So waxed the Church! 'till false Idolatry
Cast forth the Priests of God: and Israel
Fought her last field beneath the Maccabee!

XXVI. The Decline and Restoration of the Church.

Even as a barque upon a troubled sea,
With shattered masts, and bulwarks thunder riven,
Unpiloted before the tempest driven;
So laboured in her dire extremity
The Church of God. Faction and Tyranny,
Blind Superstition in the face of heaven,
With hierarchal pride, too oft forgiven,
Their fatal influence resistlessly
Combined. At length a Saviour, to restore
The altar, came, the covenant renew—
He gave her faithful Teachers, Doctrine true,
An Apostolic mission to go forth
With faculties and gifts that, more and more,
Shall conquer to the farthest bound of earth.

XXVII. The Christian Church.

Christ is our Shepherd! Christ is King of Kings!
Christ is our Judge! the Bishop of our Souls!
The Master of the household, who controls
The world as one great family, and brings
Unto our lips and heart all wholesome things!
Lord of the vineyard, who reanimates
The fruitful tree, but sternly extirpates
The barren! Ah! no weak imaginings
With titles such as these doth Christ invest.
Great Truths, in Scripture Majesty exprest,
Are thus propounded: truths that link with man
The providence of God: that have their birth
In heaven, for the necessities of Earth;
To work His will, and vindicate His plan.

XXVIII. The Later Ministry.

Not without holy warrant do we call
These reverend Leaders, toiling in our front,
God's Messengers, and Spirits Ministrant;
Yea, Angels of our Churches: Priests through Paul
Descending; whose high station functional
Needs comprehensive powers, and vigilant
Observance. Such in Israel were wont
To guide the flocks of God: by pastoral
Authority, and stern judicial power,
And Mercy's just prerogative, sustained.
Such Moses was, when Korah in that hour
Perished, before the face of God arraigned:
Such Aaron, mid the Dying, when he made
Atonement, and the pestilence was stayed.

XXIX. The Episcopal Character.

Whoe'er, through God's permission, and endowed
With providential graces, and impelled
By the heart's in ward voice, clear though not loud,
Holds in his grasp that staff the Apostles held,
Upon his brow the sacred snows of eld
Should manifest experience; yet no cloud
Obscure those eyes, where Passion, long since quelled,
Hath left his throne to Wisdom. Firm, not proud,
His mien should be; and firm his voice, tho' mild;
His language, as his heart, frank like a child;
His judgment subtle, not perplexed; his spirit
Such as becomes an angel-warrior;
The zeal of ancient days he should inherit;
And Faith dwell with him, an abiding Power!

XXX. The Anglican Fathers. 1.

In argument compressed, in words concise;
In illustration apt and liberal;
Prompt in debate, sagacious to advise;
With zeal, nor doubt, nor danger, might appal;
Christians devout, and Churchmen filial;
Profound, impassioned, lofty, learned, wise:
Such were the men, teachers authentical,
The Church required—God granted. Energies
Like theirs were wasted not in honied phrase,
Or frothy descant, or light metaphor.
They laboured, earnest to instruct, not please;
Their words were full of weight, as sterling ore;
Their thoughts we ponder—an exhaustless store—
Crying—“God's blessing surely were with these!”

XXXI. The Anglican Fathers. 2.

In them the spirit of reason was not mute,
Nor uninspired; such were of little worth:
Their wisdom seemed some natural attribute;
Their faith a plant in Spring-tide budding forth:
For as a tree draws vigour from the Earth,
So in the depths of reason spreads the root
Of that strong faith, whose seed had heavenly birth,
And lifts again to heaven its ripened fruit.
Yet dared not These to mock by argument
Mysteries of grace—self-love they scorned to win:
But power Divine shewed forth; and sternly bent
A Pythian bow against prevailing Sin.
In works abounding, as in doctrine pure;
Long shall their memory live, their crowns endure!

XXXII. The Soldiers of the Cross.

They fought—nor fought in vain: their constancy
Triumphed on Earth, and they enjoy their great
Reward with God! So may it be our fate
With spiritual foes to wrestle: so may we,
Following their track, strong in their armory,
The traitor host affront; and extirpate
All schism! Awake! it is not yet too late—
The Church shall conquer still—and far and free
Over the nations her bright oriflamb
Float, like the glorious clouds of evening hours,
That herald peaceful mornings. In the name
Of God, stand forth, ye consecrated Powers!
The time is come—ignoble foes surround—
False friends betray—strike! 'tis on holy ground!

XXXIII. The Divine Law.

The natural Law, howe'er remote, obscure
Of origin, lies patent to the eye
Of Reason: whence astute Philosophy
From shrewd induction points to issues sure:
The laws of men but for a time endure;
And vary, as their plastic frame we spy
Through shifting glasses of expediency—
The Laws of God, immaculately pure,
Unalterably firm, whose sanctions claim
Affinity with naught of Earth; these laws
Have their deep root in Faith, in Hope their aim,
In Mystery their birth, in Love their cause;
League Earth with Heaven; and, knowing how to bind
Angels with Power, have care for human kind.

XXXIV. The Pursuit of Knowledge.

So frail is the condition of our birth,
Ourhuman course with such disasters fraught,
That solaces are needful of high thought.
Our hearts are hungered, aching thro' the dearth
Of knowledge: harvests gleaned from sensual Earth
Feed not the soul: etherial fields are sought,
Regions whereto the soaring spirits are caught
Like eaglets from their eyrie darting forth
Into the sunrise. To attain—to know—
Is Man's bold prayer. Alas! the gates of sense
Unbarred, thro' them shall lore immortal flow?
Shall intellect reveal, Man's art declare,
Mysteries of Grace—Redemption—Providence?
Wisdom and Faith are One! Be Faith our prayer.

XXXV. The Perversion of Letters.

Time was when books, sent forth without pretence,
Elaborately wrought with studious zeal,
Were true exponents of the heart. To feel
Strongly came first; then speech, pure from offence,
Yet vigilantly fearless. Handmaid to Sense,
Wit wrought for Reason; Satire probed to heal;
And Raillery, chafed spirits to anneal.
Thus, genuine instincts to fulfil, and thence
Good ends secure, the purpose was of all.
Men fight for triumph now; transforming words
To stings; and poisoning Wisdom's fount with gall.
Books have cloaked meanings: a light tale affords
A mask for sour Polemicks; and the curse
Of Passion desecrates immortal verse!

II. ON CHARACTER AND EVENTS.

I. Death of the Princess Charlotte.

Lost Princess! to whose beauty as a star
Amid the stormy rack of a dark sky,
Dwelling in deep retired serenity,
The eyes of men looked wishfully from far:
Thou who wert blest, as Princes seldom are,
With household virtues, felt revivingly
Like morning freshness to a world-sick eye,
And love, which Death from heaven may not debar:
For Thee, and thy fair babe, hopeless we grieve;
That tender pledge, which, dying at the birth,
The dear maternal spirit would not leave.
All that is best of grandeur, all on earth
That virtue can make holy, beauty's pride,
The purity of love, in thee have died!

II. Waterloo.

Why have the Mighty lived—why have they died?
Is it ever, thus, with idle wreck to strew
Fields such as thine, remorseless Waterloo?
Hopeless the lesson! Vainly hath ever cried
Stern Fate to man—“So perish human pride!”
Still must the Many combat for the Few:
Still must the noblest blood fair earth bedew:
Tyrants, slaves, freemen, mouldering side by side!
On such a day the World was lost, and won,
By Pompey at Pharsalia: such a day
Saw glorious Hannibal a fugitive:
So faded 'neath the Macedonian Sun
Persia's pale star: so empire passed away
From Harold's brow,—but He disdained to live!

III. The Return of Wellington.

The deed is done—the storm of battle o'er;
And now the Victor comes, amid the cries
Of gratulation, to his native shore.
Thronging the hills, rank upon rank, they rise
A theatre of men! while to the skies
For aye the stunning shouts of “Victory!” soar;
And women with their fond, admiring, eyes
Cling round his path, and scatter flowers before.
Thus a great People feel: though inly torn
By griefs, in privacy less proudly borne.
What though the widow's heart be bleeding still,
Though sire, and orphan, still in darkness mourn;
The patriot mind survives all human ill,
And feels in times like these heroic pulses thrill!

IV. The Italian People.

From Chiabrera.

When Italy's proud heart imposed the yoke
On the barbaric crew; and in the throng
Of her pale slaves led captive kings along,
Triumphantly, to the old Tarpeian rock;
Not then her warriors girt them for the shock
Of arms to cadence of Idalian song;
But with a martial zeal; while deep and strong
O'er their fierce souls the tide of vengeance broke.
Lo! through the whirlwind, 'neath the lightning's glance,
Their thirsty spears, their iron limbs advance,
Making earth terrible! We, day by day,
To dalliance, and sweet sound, and idle dance,
Contented give our dastard souls away;
Prize of triumphant Force, each robber-despot's prey!

V. The Fate of Norway.

Where was the mountain-spirit that of old
Trod the steep paths of liberty with Tell?
The mighty Genius of that sacred mould,
By song and freedom hallowed, round the well
Of Castaly, and famous Tempe's dell?
Where was the Latian soul, that down ward rolled
Thrones in the dust? O where, when Norway fell,
Spurned by the Free, by Despots bought and sold?
O! nations are the merchandise in which
Kings love to traffic, and their slaves grow rich;
And human blood, and earthly happiness,
The awful price. In vain doth Wisdom preach!
Men see these things, and feel them: yet not less
Like dogs, their chains, the more they gall, caress.

VI. South American Liberty.

Surely thy heart hath British blood—and graced
Are thy freed limbs with grandeur of that mould;
Thy lion port as proud; thy voice as bold
In generous defiance! Now, at last,
Thy wrongs are numbered, and the die is cast
For death—for death—or victory! Thou dost hold
Communion with the undying Great of old,
Tyrannicides Earth worshipped as they passed.
But hark—the strife augments! O Liberty!
We hear thy groans, we feel the earthquake shocks
Of thy great agony! all Nature rocks!
Thou droop'st—thy glorious front grows pale—while we—
Cursed be the slavish hand, the traitorous frown,
That chills, and would for ever chain you down!

VII. Glory,

From Giulio Bussi.

Glory, what art thou? Thee, despite of pain,
And want, and toil, the brave heart cherisheth:
Thee the pale student courts, wasting, in vain,
His primal youth, thy worshipper in death.
Glory, what art thou? Thy impartial breath
Speaks woe to all: with pangs do men obtain
An empty boon, that duly perisheth,
Whose very fear of loss outweighs the gain.
Glory, what art thou then? A fond deceit,
Child of long suffering, empty air, a sweet
Prize that is sought with toil, but never found:
In life, by every envious lip denied;
In death, to ears that hear not a sweet sound:
Glory—thou fatal scourge of human pride!

VIII. The Trial of Queen Caroline.

Queen, or no Queen, I care not! we stand out
For justice, and the good old English laws;
For these our hearts throb in the meanest cause
Warmly as though the noblest were in doubt.
We will not deem her guilty, though the Rout
Of fawning courtiers brand her such; nor pause
In judgment, though vile Faction overawes,
And frets us with her hireling rabble-shout.
If she be guiltless, stern should be their doom
Who have degraded thus the royal name;
And with unmanly violence presume
To soil the sanctity of female fame:
If she be guilty, let her die! and be,
As in her crime and rank, unmatched in infamy!

IX. To the Spanish People, 1823.

All men are filled with sorrow, dark dismay
Clings round the heart of nations: deep is the stake
For which in heedless apathy ye play,
Like maniacs, or as men but half awake!
These are dread times; when in their strength men break
High contracts, making sacred laws their prey:
When kings unsheath the sword for conquest's sake;
And tear the birthright of mankind away!
But have ye not among ye freeborn hearts,
That in the deepest core high feelings cherish;
Firm against force, scornful of meaner arts?
Have ye not hands to fence your rights, or perish?
Spirits of freedom! lift your martyred eyes!
Soul of the Cid, awake! Padilla, hear—arise!

X. Liberty of the Press.

Some laws there are too sacred for the hand
Of man to approach; recorded in the blood
Of patriots; before which, as the Rood
Of Faith, devotional we take our stand.
Time-hallowed laws! magnificently planned
When Freedom was the nurse of public good,
And Power paternal: laws that have withstood
All storms—unshaken bulwarks of the land!
Free will, frank speech, an undissembling mind,
Without which Freedom dies and laws are vain,
On such we found our rights, to such we cling:
In these shall Power his surest safeguard find.
Tread them not down in passion, or disdain:
Make Man a reptile, he will turn and sting.

XI. To Liberty. 1817.

Spirit, or Shadow! Wheresoe'er thou art—
Whose pitying countenance has watched for ages,
With most indulgent tenderness of heart,
Our growing foibles, through their thousand stages;
Now, when wild Want assails, and Faction rages,
And the unbridled Vices round us start,
When Power with Right a social conflict wages,
And the worn patriot half resigns his part:
O! in this agony of life and fame,
Turn not aside; veil not thy glorious face;
Slight not our weakness now, O Liberty!
But, terrible in action as in name,
Bend on thy foes that brow of awful grace:
Look, and they wither; speak, and they shall die!

XII. The true Basis of Power.

Power's footstool is Opinion, and his throne
The human heart: thus only Kings maintain
Prerogatives God-sanctioned. The coarse chain
Tyrants would bind around us may be blown
Aside, like foam, that with a breath is gone:
For there's a tide within the popular vein
That despots in their pride may not restrain;
Swoln with a vigour that is all its own.
Ye who would steer along these doubtful seas,
Lifting your proud sails to high heaven, beware!
Rocks throng the waves, and tempests load the breeze.
Go, search the shores of History—mark there
The Oppressor's lot, the Tyrant's destinies.
Behold the Wreck of Ages; and despair!

XIII. Despondency in bad Times. 1817.

Othat the Spirit of my thought could spring
As with an eagle's pinion, to that height
Where, in the golden palaces of light,
Yon Type of freedom dwells, throned like a king!
So might I catch upon expanded wing,
And the replenished fountains of the sight,
Gleams fresh from heaven; and stoop my earthward flight
The thunderbolts of vengeance scattering.
But, as it is, sorrow, and shame, supprest,
Bow down my heart; and Fancy droops forlorn,
(Like young birds by rude tempests overborne,
Or flowers in autumn winds fading full fast)
So I, amid this deepening gloom, unblest,
Sit in my Country's shade, and silent mourn!

XIV. Columbus. 1.

The crimson sun was sinking down to rest,
Pavilioned on the cloudy verge of heaven;
And Ocean, on her gently heaving breast,
Caught, and flashed back, the varying tints of even;
When, on a fragment from the tall cliff riven,
With folded arms, and doubtful thoughts opprest,
Columbus sat; till sudden hope was given:
A ray of gladness shooting from the West.
O what a glorious vision for mankind
Then dawned above the twilight of his mind;
Thoughts shadowy still, butindistinctly grand!
There stood his Genius, face to face; and signed
(So legends tell) far seaward with her hand:
Till a new World sprang up, and bloomed beneath her wand!

XV. Columbus. 2.

He was a man whom danger could not daunt,
Nor sophistry perplex, nor pain subdue;
A stoic, reckless of the world's vain taunt,
And steeled the path of honour to pursue:
So, when by all deserted, still he knew
How best to sooth the heartsick, or confront
Sedition; schooled with equal eye to view
The frowns of grief, and the base pangs of want.
But when he saw that promised land arise
In all its rare and bright varieties,
Lovelier than fondest Fancy ever trod;
Then softening nature melted in his eyes;
He knew his fame was full, and blessed his God:
And fell upon his face, and kissed the virgin sod!

XVI. Columbus. 3.

Beautiful realm beyond the western main,
That hymns thee ever with resounding wave!
Thine is the glorious sun's peculiar reign!
Fruits, flowers, and gems, in rich mosaic pave
Thy paths: like giant altars o'er the plain
Thy mountains blaze, loud thundering, mid the rave
Of mighty streams, that shoreward rush amain,
Like Polypheme from his Etnean cave.
Joy, joy, for Spain! a seaman's hand confers
These glorious gifts, and half the world is hers!
But where is He? that light, whose radiance glows
The load-star of succeeding mariners!
Behold him! crushed beneath o'ermastering woes—
Hopeless, heart-broken, chained, abandoned to his foes!

XVII. The Tomb of Charlemagne.

Amid the torch-lit gloom of Auchen's aisle
Stood Otho, Germany's imperial Lord;
Regarding, with a melancholy smile,
A simple stone, where, fitly to record
A world of action by a single word,
Was graven “Carlo-Magno.” Regal style
Was needed none: that name such thoughts restored
As sadden, yet make nobler men the while.
They rolled the marble back: with sudden gasp,
A moment o'er the vault the Kaiser bent,
Where still a mortal monarch seemed to reign.
Crowned, on his throne, a sceptre in his grasp,
Perfect in each gigantic lineament,
Otho looked face to face on Charlemagne!

XVIII. Dioclesian at Salona.

Take back these vain insignia of command,
Crown, truncheon, golden eagle,—baubles all—
And robe of Tyrian dye, to me a pall:
And be for ever alien to my hand,
Though laurel-wreathed, War's desolating brand.
I would have friends, not courtiers, in my hall;
Wise books, learned converse, Beauty free from thrall,
And leisure for good deeds, thoughtfully planned.
Farewell, thou garish World! thou Italy,
False Widow of departed Liberty!
I scorn thy base caresses. Welcome the roll,
Between us, of mine own bright Adrian sea!
Welcome these wilds, from whose bold heights my soul
Looks down on your degenerate Capitol!

XIX. The Old Literature of England.

These are the mighty footprints that report
The giant form of antique Literature.
Sinews Herculean; proportion pure;
Strength, or agility, for strife or sport;
Dexterity in fence; grace for the Court.
No meretricious jargon, to allure,
Wrote these of old; but language to endure,
The stern regards of Time. Ill ye assort
With that undying philosophic spirit,
Which breathes in these worn pages, who deride
Their scant reward of praise. They best inherit
The fame of a great era, when the pride
Of nations was, in all things loyalty,
And trust in God, and magnanimity.

XX. The Cradles of Empire.

Two mountain centres are there upon earth,
Where mighty Monarchies have reared their throne;
And down the conquering rivers followed forth
The imperial instinct to the ocean zone.
Deep in the Orient, Caucasus is one:
Whence sprang the Persian; where the Mede had birth;
Where Asshur's line, and Babel's glory, shone;
And Cyrus on Belshazzar's godless mirth
Fell like a thunderbolt. Thence Tamurlane
Let loose his fatal horsemen; and the car
Of Gengis rolled; and Othman's cimetar
Smote the last Cæsar 'neath Sophia's fane!
Above our Alpine throne a nobler star
Dawned over Greece and Rome; Alfred and Charlemagne!

III. DESCRIPTIVE.

I. Castleconnel.

Broad, but not deep, along his rock-chafed bed,
In many a sparkling eddy winds the flood,
Clasped by a margin of green underwood:
A castled crag, with ivy garlanded,
Sheer o'er the torrent frowns: above the mead
De Burgho's towers, crumbling o'er many a rood,
Stand gauntly out, in airy solitude,
Backed by yon furrowed mountain's tinted head.
Sounds of far people, mingling with the fall
Of waters, and the busy hum of bees,
And larks in air, and throstles in the trees,
Thrill the moist air with murmurs musical:
While cottagesmoke goes drifting on the breeze;
And sunny clouds are floating over all.

II. Kilmallock.

What ruined shapes of feudal pomp are there,
In the cold moonlight fading silently?
The castle, with its stern, baronial air,
Still frowning, as accustomed to defy;
The Gothic street, where Desmond's chivalry
Dwelt in their pride; the cloistered house of prayer;
And gate-towers, mouldering where the stream moans by,
Now, but the owl's lone haunt, and foxes' lair.
Here once the pride of princely Desmond flushed,
His courtiers knelt, his mailëd squadrons rushed,
And saintly brethren poured the choral strain;
Here Beauty bowed her head, and smiled and blushed:—
Ah! of these glories what doth now remain?
The charnel of yon desecrated fane!

III. Adare.

As o'er this antique bridge pensive I lean,
How calmly bright, how venerably grand,
Through clustering trees yon towers and steeples stand;
Reporting well what splendour once hath been
Proud denizen of each time-hallowed scene.
Ay, Power and Priestcraft here held high command,
Stern quellers of the heart! beneath whose brand
Even instinct fades; the very soul grows mean.
Yet here, though Time's insensible decay
Steals with the ivy round each turret gray,
And breathes its spirit through the cloistered gloom,
A charm, unwonted in their earlier day,
Dwells with their green old age; and still shall bloom
Undimmed—while we sleep well in the ancestral tomb.

IV. The Rock of Cashel.

Royal and saintly Cashel! I would gaze
Upon the wreck of thy departed powers
Not in the dewy light of matin hours,
Nor the meridian pomp of summer's blaze,
But at the close of dim autumnal days,
When the sun's parting glance, through slanting showers,
Sheds o'er thy rock-throned battlements and towers
Such awful gleams as brighten o'er Decay's
Prophetic cheek. At such a time, methinks,
There breathes from thy lone courts and voiceless aisles
A melancholy moral; such as sinks
On the lone traveller's heart, amid the piles
Of vast Persepolis on her mountain stand,
Or Thebes half buried in the desert sand.

V. The Shannon.

River of billows! to whose mighty heart
The tide-wave rushes of the Atlantic sea;
River of quiet depths! by cultured lea,
Romantic woods, or city's crowded mart;
River of old poetic founts! which start
From their lone mountain-cradles, wild and free,
Nursed with the fawns, lulled by the woodlark's glee,
And cushat's hymeneal song apart;
River of chieftains! whose baronial halls,
Like veteran warders, watch each wave-worn steep,
Portumna's towers, Bunratty's royal walls,
Carrick's stern rock, the Geraldine's gray keep—
River of dark mementoes! must I close
My lips with Limerick's wrong, with Aughrim's woes?

VI. The Sea-cliffs of Kilkee.

Awfully beautiful art thou, O sea!
Viewed from the vantage of these giant rocks,
That vast in air lift their primeval blocks,
Skreening the sandy cove of lone Kilkee.
Cautious, with out-stretched arm, and bended knee,
I scan the dread abyss; 'till the depth mocks
My straining eyeballs, and the eternal shocks
Of billows, rolling from infinity
Disturb my brain. Hark! the shrill sea-bird's scream!
Cloud-like they sweep the long wave's sapphire gleam,
Ere the poised Ospray stoop in wrath from high.
Here Man, alone, is nought; Nature supreme:
Where all is simply great that meets the eye—
The precipice, the ocean, and the sky.

VII. The Hill of Saint Patrick.

There is a moment of intense delight
When, standing on the place of some great deed,
We mark where human intellect for right
Hath triumphed, as at bloodless Runnymead:
Or where the victim Spartan fell in fight,
Self sacrificed, that Hellas might be freed—
Beside the walls with Raffaelle's soulstill bright—
Or Chatham's tomb, by Senate-kings decreed.
In such a mood, on this bold height, I stand,
Where first the holy pilgrim, Patrick, trod;
And as he gazed upon the glorious land,
Like Pisgah's Seer, stirred by the inward God,
With the deep weight of prophecy oppressed,
Stretched forth, and blessed the land:—and it was blessed!

VIII. The Traveller.

From Nature.

Ungainly Traveller, with divergent toes,
Pricking thy Rosinante through the mud,
Facing the frosty wind with purple nose,
And blear eyes scalded in their rheumy flood,
Thy leathern cheek hath lost all sign of blood;
Thy wig is blown awry; and thy old clothes
Do hang about thee like a thing of wood
Set up by the way side, to scare the crows.
Certes, thou art a strange original,
Thus jogging on through rain and mire and all,
As tranquil as if trotting in the sun:
And that old beast, so ragged, gaunt, and tall,
That thus thy spindle shanks are stuck upon;
Sure both are of a piece—ye are but one!

IX. Atlantic Coast Scenery, 1.

The Cliffs, 1.

These iron-rifted cliffs, that o'er the deep,
Wave-worn and thunder-scarred, enormous lower,
Stand like the work of some primeval Power,
Titan or Demiurgos, that would keep
Firm ward for ever o'er the bastioned steep
Of turret crowned Beltard, or mightiest Moher.
Vainly beneath, as though they would devour
The rooted rocks before them, reel and leap
The headlong waves: and as a plumed phalanx,
Crushed in the assault of some strong citadel,
Indomitable still, its shattered ranks
Cheers to the breach again, and yet again,
So from the battling billows bursts the swell
Of a more awful combat than of men!

X. Coast Scenery, 2. The Cliffs, 2.

Though all is grand, nay somewhat stern, around,
Yet softer beauties decorate the scene.
No floral garniture of meadow ground,
Nor perspective of pastures evergreen;
No shadowy pomp of woods, no silver sheen
Of waterfalls, with music in their sound,
Nor mountains, fading in the blue serene,
Nor perfume of the gardens, here are found.
Yet here hath Nature lavished hues, and scent,
And melody; born handmaids of the ocean:
Metallic veins, with moss and rock-flowers blent,
Brighten the laminated crag; the motion
Of waves, the breezes fragrant from the sea,
And cry of birds, combine one glorious symphony!

XI. Coast Scenery, 3. The Hag's-head Cape.

The last and loftiest cape, whose wasted front
Looks down the Atlantic waters evermore,
Far out above the main sustains a gaunt
Colossal head (so seems it) bending o'er,
With stony gaze perpetual, the wild shore.
There fixed for ages, where her wiles were wont
To lure and to betray, a mightier Power
Charmed into stone the Siren at her haunt,
A monumental beacon. Such the tale
Our simple hinds rely on; to its place
Accordant. In that hoary mass we trace
Features, like death in frost compressed and pale:
And awful as the sculptures in the vale
OfNile; the Memphian Sphinx, and Osymandias.

XII. Coast Scenery,4. The Puffing Cave.

Wha't sport of the elements is here; transcending
Art's rare felicities? These tinted rocks,
Deep channel'd by the billow's ceaseless shocks,
Swallow, through one dim chasm, abruptly bending,
The rush of the flowing tide; which roaring, rending,
Bounds, blue as heaven, and flaked with snowy spume,
Inwardly boiling, to yon arch of gloom,
Low browed, above the raging gulf impending.
And lo!—how beautiful!—the hollow sounding
Weight of white waters, from the cave rebounding,
Flies, shattered into mist, slant on the air:
While, graceful o'er the hovering spray embowed,
Iris, bright Spirit of the Sun! is there;
Kindling a transient glory in the cloud.

XIII. Coast Scenery, 5. The Cave of Purgatory.

Oh! words are idle, superstition vain
To stamp a sterner character upon
A place like this. Afar, the cheerful Sun,
O'er the wide offing showering rays like rain,
Transmutes to boiling gold the azure main:
But here—these black and beetling rocks; this dun
Cavernous fissure, dark as Acheron,
And ever filled with moanings, as of pain,
Make the heart shrink, and shiver: chilly air
Breathes in our faces like expiring sighs;
And death damps seem to wander through our hair:
The obscure gulf grows instinct to our eyes
With Stygian shades; and ghostly forms arise!
Well fabled they of old the gate of woe yawned there!

XIV. Coast Scenery, 6. Spanish Point.

The waters—O the waters!—Wild and glooming,
Beneath the stormy pall that shrouds the sky,
On, through the deepening mist more darkly looming,
Plumed with the pallid foam funereally,
Onward, like death, they come, the rocks entombing!
Nor thunder knell is needful from on high;
Nor sound of signal gun, momently booming
O'er the disastrous deep; nor seaman's cry!
And yet,—if aught were wanting—manifold
Mementoes haunt these reefs: how that proud Host
Of Spain and Rome so smitten were of old,
By God's decree, along this fatal coast,
And over all their purple and their gold,
Mitre, and helm, and harp, the avenging waters rolled!

XV. Coast Scenery, 7. Malbay Sands.

It may not be, because this tranquil hour,
Brightening elsewhere to beauty scenes more grand,
Here lights with milder beam a lowlier strand;
And that yon sea, like a tired warrior,
For quiet joy had laid aside his power;
That unattractive, therefore, must expand
This graceful curvature of golden sand,
By the ebbing tide left shining. Vernal bower
Is scarce more fragrant than these weeds marine
Fringing the chrysolite, pellucid, wells,
Wave-worn in the rock, where children stoop for shells;
And braiding yon gray reef with tresses green,
Where sunset loiterers love at eve to stand—
Dark groups, with shadows lengthening to the land.

XVI. Coast Scenery, 8. The Solitudes of Malbay.

And o! ye solitudes of rocks and waters,
And medicinable gales, and sounds Lethean!
Remote from strife and fratricidal slaughters!
Have I not sighed to hear your mighty Pæan,
Reverberating through the Empyrean!
And yearned to gaze while your white-throated surges
Leap, and dissolve in air; like shapes Protean,
That sport in the sunset, as the moon emerges
Over the sea-cliff? Have I not felt the longing
Then most intensely, when the storm-steed rushes
O'er the wild waves tumultuously thronging;
Smiting their wan crests,—scattering as he crushes;—
To stand on some lone peak, and hear, from under
Its caverned base, the ocean's melancholy thunder?

XVII. Coast Scenery, 9. Malbay, caricatured.

Malbay a solitude? egregious nonsense!
Of some such thing I dreamed when lodged there newly!
But soon found out 'twas only true in one sense:
An intellectual desert it is truly.
There's company—a ship full-so unruly!
Boarding-school rompers, academic praters,
Blues, blacklegs, pettifoggers, gabbling duly,
And squealing, reeling, chambermaids and waiters!
Nor is this all: in every path cajolery
Whines at our heels; jades, beggars, rogues omnivorous;
The solemn cliffs are reboant with drollery;
The breathing shores, Bethesda pools pestiferous;
Our very chambers clogged with steams mephitical
From fiddlers, dancers, ranters jesuitical!

XVIII. A Summer Evening at Dromoland.

Sunset on lake beneath, in heaven above!
Corrival forms of one surpassing glory!
Hued like the opal, or the neck o' the dove—
Lustrous, yet ever changing—transitory
As the swift blushes on the cheek of Love!
Sunset on turret grey and serried wall
And shafted oriel gleaming through yon' grove
Of pigeon-haunted chestnuts musical!
Home of O'Brien! in these placid hours
Such are thy charms: and, hark! thy terfaces
Are resonant, around their stately towers,
And the dim alley 'neath yon ancient trees,
With innocent mirth and tuneful voices; where
Youths and fair girls partake the perfumed evening air.

XIX. Rydal with Wordsworth.

What we beheld scarce can I now recall
In one connected picture; images
Hurrying so swiftly their fresh witcheries
O'er the mind's mirror, that the several
Seems lost, or blended in the mighty All.
Lone lakes; rills gushing through rock-rooted trees;
Peaked mountains, shadowing vales of peacefulness;
Glens, echoing to the flashing waterfall.
Then that sweet twilight isle! with friends delayed
Beside a ferny bank, 'neath oaks and yews;
The moon between two mountain peaks embayed;
Heaven and the waters dyed with sunset hues:
And He, the Poet of the age and land,
Discoursing, as we wandered, hand in hand.

XX. Nightfall.

The sun is set, the clouds are on the hill,
In leaden hue the streamlets are arrayed;
And now the damp and gloomy shadows fill
The depths of every valley, and distil
Unwholesome vapours through each leafyglade:
O'er the wide scene a sombre gray is laid:
The distant town and spire lie dim and still;
And a cold night wind gathers in the shade.
Feebler and feebler now all sounds subside;
All but the river's ever murmuring tide;
All but the rising tempest's sullen swell;
Or sheep-dog baying from the moorlands wide;
Or stifled utterance of the far church bell,
Tolling the passing hour, as Nature's parting knell!

XXI. Gougaun Barra. 1.

Not beauty which men gaze on with a smile,
Not grace that wins, no charm of form or hue,
Dwelt with that scene. Sternly upon my view,
And slowly-as the shrouding clouds awhile
Disclosed the beetling crag and lonely isle—
From their dim lake the ghostly mountains grew,
Lit by one slanting ray. An eagle flew
From out the gloomy gulf of the defile,
Like some sad spirit from Hades. To the shore
Dark waters rolled, slow heaving, with dull moan;
The foam-flakes, hanging from each livid stone
Like froth on deathful lips: pale mosses o'er
The shattered cell crept, as an orphan lone
Clasps his cold mother's breast when life is gone.

XXII. Gougaun Barra. 2.

Aplace it was for superstition meet
That ruined chapel and that islet bare—
And superstition stoops full lowly there!
For thither wend the pilgrims' weary feet;
There sinful hands repentant bosoms beat;
And kneeling mourners with dishevelled hair
Gaze, weeping, on low graves, in silent prayer;
Death linked to life in sad communion sweet.
And some hang relics on the blasted trees;
And some on flinty path, with bleeding knees,
Crawl round the margin of the holy well:
But ah! what fears—what grief—what pangs are these—
Which 'neath the low arch of that tomb-like cell
Prostrate yon shrouded forms immoveable!

XXIII. Lismore.

Ameeting of bright streams and valleys green;
Of heathy precipice; umbrageous glade;
Dark, dimpling eddies, 'neath bird-haunted shade;
White torrents gushing splintered rocks between;
With winding woodland roads; and dimly seen
Through the deep dell, ere hazy sunset fade,
Castle, and spire, and bridge, in gold arrayed;
While o'er the deepening mist of the ravine
The perspective of mountain looms afar.
Such was our Raleigh's home—and here his eye
Drank deep of Nature's wild variety,
Feeding on hopes and dreams! From the world's war
Retired, he dwelt: nor deemed how soon his star
Should set, dishonoured, in a bloody sea!

XXIV. Dromana.

Much need hath he who treads this rockhewn path
Of a firm footing, and unswerving brain.
Fierce with contending currents roll beneath
The turbid waters, bearing to the main
Full-freighted barques. The forest hills, again
Sketched dark below, o'er the brown river's breadth
Fling bars of deeper shade; rocks, by the stain
Of thousand storms left hoary, through green heath
Thrust out their brows oak-crowned, like some gray stag,
With broad-beamed front, at gaze.—But hark! The air
Kindles with music; and the sunset glare
Lights up the windows of yon castled crag.
Once more, methinks, your revels are begun,
High Geraldine! and princely Grandison!

XXV. Castle Martyr.

Agentle voice, and plaintive, whispers here
Of an unfading, though a widowed love.
Where'er her footsteps wandered, 'neath the grove,
By the green margin of the waters clear,
Or through those laurel thickets never sear,
The seats she pressed, the lawns she loved to rove,
Flowers nurtured by her tender hand, that wove
A living broidery o'er each quaint parterre;
All, all, unchanged! as when her own warm breath
For him diffused fragrance more sweet than flowers;
All bright! as when the balmy evening hours
Lured her last footsteps by the accustomed path,
With him she loved: unconscious of the death
Ambushed, even then, in those delicious bowers.

XXVI. Glengarriff. 1.

Gazing from each low bulwark of this bridge,
How wonderful the contrast! Dark as night,
Here, amid cliffs and woods, with headlong might,
The black stream whirls; through ferns and drooping sedge,
'Neath twisted roots moss-brown, and weedy ledge,
Gushing. Aloft, from yonder birch-clad height
Leaps into air a cataract, snow-white;
Falling to gulfs obscure. The mountain ridge,
Like a gray Warder, guardian of the scene,
Above the cloven gorge gloomily towers.
O'er the dim woods a gathering tempest lours;
Save where athwart the moist leaves' lucid green
A sunbeam, glancing through disparted showers,
Sparkles along the rill with diamond sheen!

XXVII. Glengarriff. 2.

Asun-burst on the Bay! Turn and behold!
The restless waves, resplendent in their glory,
Sweep glittering past yon purpled promontory;
Bright as Apollo's breastplate. Bathed in gold,
Yon bastioned islet gleams. Thin mists are rolled,
Translucent, through each glen. A mantle hoary
Veils those peaked hills, shapely as e'er in story,
Delphic, or Alpine, or Vesuvian old,
Minstrels have sung. From rock and headland proud
The wild wood spreads its arms around the bay.
The manifold mountain cones, now dark, now bright,
Now seen, now lost, alternate from rich light
To spectral shade; and each dissolving cloud
Reveals new mountains while it floats away.

XXVIII. Killarney. Approached from Kenmare.

Long leagues of terraced road, from summits wild
Of heath and savage crag gently declining,
And lo! beneath, a snake-like stream lay twining;
And calmly spread the mirror undefiled
Of the deep lake. The sun behind us smiled;
A sudden shower before us swept, enshrining
The hills, as in a veil; between stood shining
A rainbow apparition, where the piled
And beetling rocks a caverned passage gave
To the worn traveller. There, intensely glowing,
Behind the lessening arches of the cave,
The radiant vision hung; momently growing
More bright: as if, with heaven's pure beams o'erflowing,
A quire of hovering angels spanned the wave.

IV. PERSONAL. MISCELLANEOUS.

I. My Early Life.

The morn of life to me was full of gloom
And dreariness, that never would depart;
And melancholy clung around my heart;
Like willows, overshadowing a tomb.
Too oft, in lonely places, tears would start,
And bodings, terrible in darkness, come:
Dread shapes! which through our mental twilight loom,
Awful as Death with his uplifted dart!
O gentle Hope! breathe on me once again!
So shall I seek thee in the haunts of men,
And Nature's solitude; and greet thy light
On the wave's bosom; down the leafy glen;
O'er sunny hills; in the clear moon at night;
And glance of woman's eye, so exquisitely bright!

II. The Family Picture.

With work in hand, perchance some fairy cap
To deck the little stranger yet to come;
One rosy boy struggling to mount her lap,
The eldest studious, with a book or map;
Her timid girl beside, with a faint bloom,
Conning some tale; while with no gentle tap
Yon chubby urchin beats his mimic drum,
Nor heeds the doubtful frown her eyes assume.
So sits the Mother! with her fondest smile
Regarding her sweet Little-ones the while:
And he, the happy man! to whom belong
These treasures, feels their living charm beguile
All mortal care; and eyes the prattling throng
With rapture-rising heart, and a thanksgiving tongue.

III. Solitude and Society.

Omarvel not that, lonely thus, I love
To pace the devious pathways of this wood;
Or meditate beneath yon piny grove,
Where the slant beam, trembling, dares scarce intrude;
Or mid these mossy rocks in silence brood.
Here thoughts which joy in liberty to rove
Swell up, like waves in ocean's solitude
When all is calm around, and bright above.
Yet do I love thee well, Society!
When on my hearth the wintry faggots blaze,
And jest, and friendly laugh, ring cheerily;
Or some dear voice recounts heroic lays;
Or gentle maid, blushing at whispered praise,
Sings some pathetic strain of antique harmony.

IV. To other Times.

Owhen i muse below these hazel bowers,
With ear attuned to the wild babbling stream,
Its very lapse goes by me like a dream,
Recalling distant scenes, of weeds, and flowers.
I know of old yon sweeping mountain showers;
That ivied crag some ancient friend I deem;
The birds salute me; and those breezes seem
Laden with odours of departed hours.
But ah!—these tones of early hope and pleasure,
That stole so sweetly o'er my hours of leisure,
Have not the influence now, they had before;
Then life was unalloyed; a growing treasure:
But now, each thought I sadly linger o'er
Tells but of broken ties, and friends that are no more!

V. “The Voice of her Heart.”

Thou touching voice! in fancy visiting
Our kindred hearts, like the uncertain tone
Of the young cuckoo, in the dawn of spring,
Telling of warmer suns, and storms o'erblown;
Or like the virgin snowdrop, early and lone;
Or any other fresh and hopeful thing
Upon the lap of our affections thrown,
Or fanning memory with reviving wing.
Dear voice! no more may thy blest accents lie
Soundless within that breast of purity.
There is a virtue in them: they possess
Power o'er the heart, whose sign is in the eye—
Smiles of delight and tears of tenderness—
That sanctify thy lays; our own sweet Poetess!

VI. The Portrait.

T.S.R.

That countenance is noble; we descry
Features that love mightdwell upon for ever:
The sweet, clear-spirited glance that's no deceiver;
Firm, yet persuasive lips; a cheek whose dye
Study hath stolen some roses from; an eye
Upsparkling like the sunbeams on a river;
High-swelling brows, throbbing with thought that never
Knew darker clouds than sensibility.
My brother!—for to me, indeed, thou art
What nature hath denied me—in my heart
I treasure thy dear lineaments; and dwell
Long-lingering over each, and loth to part.
Thou look'st upon me with a silent spell;
Imaging her fair face we love so well.

VII. The Statue of Moses.

From Zappi.

What form in everlasting marble wrought
Sits, giantlike, Art's noblest triumph there?
Voice almost trembles on the lip, high thought
Seems throbbing on that brow of grandeur rare.
'Tis Moses!—Lo! that beard of wreathing hair,
And the twin glories from his temples shot:
Moses!—but with that yet diviner air
Upon the Mountfrom God's own presence caught.
Such was he once, when the wave's wild rebound
Hung o'er him vast; such, when the deathful roar
Of waters closed, at the command of Heaven!
And ye—vile Crew!—once worshippers around
A worthless calf; had ye but knelt before
A shape like this, your sin almost had been forgiven!

VIII. The Landrail.

Dear, wakeful bird! I bid thine accents hail,
When, like the voice of May, thy startling note
Comes wandering up the moonlight, grassy, vale;
Or hill of springing corn, or reedy moat.
Dearer I love thee than the classic throat,
Melodious, of the poet's nightingale;
When her aerial numbers wildly float,
Like fairy music, o'er some haunted dale.
'Tis thine to wake a sweeter harmony;
Thrilling the viewless chords of memory:
To come upon the heart in silent hours,
Touching each trembling pulse deliciously;
Recalling vows of youth, Hope's budding flowers,
And visions of pure love in amaranthine bowers!

IX. The Cross of the South.

What deep emotions o'er thy features rush,
Gama!—what sudden tremour of the soul?
The storm is past, the moonlit billows roll
Glossy and still, amid the general hush:
There's not a sound, save the light rippling gush
Round the ship's prow; or clear bell's vesper toll:—
But ha!—I, too, behold!—the Antarctic pole,
Lifting her veil of clouds, streams forth a flush
Of starry light, miraculously bent,
A glorious Cross, athwart the firmament.
O heavenly Apparition! throned on high
In form so holy, art thou the covenant
Of mercy, in our lone extremity,
Or a memento dire, to warn us ere we die?

X. On the Funeral of a Lady and her Son.

There i beheld them last—nay, still behold—
The mother, and her son, both on one bier,
In their small coffins sleeping; both so dear
To me, and mine! The heavy death-bell tolled;
And there was gathering of the young and old
Round those sad obsequies: I, in the rear,
Stept in slow grief, and deep religious fear;
Wrapping my heart in my cloak's silent fold!
And as the earth on each dark coffin's lid
Fell, there were tears, O how sincere! and cries,
From the thick-crowding Poor, that rose unbid.
Ay, in far countries, there were streaming eyes,
And bosoms choked with sobs; such as suit well
A loss whose memory is indelible.

XI. To a Lady.

Fair mistress of the upland wilds! with thee,
On whom with liberal hand just Fortune showers
The gathered fragrance of domestic hours,
My thoughts shall dwell, lingering and wistfully:
And Fancy oft those heavenly forms shall see,
That paradise of pure and living flowers,
Mid thy green lawns, and dells, and springing bowers,
Clustering like blossoms o'er the parent tree.
Thus shall I love to dream; and fondly stand
Fettering Time's wing; while fairy forms shall wind
Around my heart light spells of fantasy:
And that all glorious Shape, first of thy band,
Shall, like a vestal Spirit, o'er my mind
Keep watch beside the shrine of memory!

XII. To the Nightingale.

Ah once again prolong that thrilling strain,
That tells of transports now for ever gone;
Of fruitless sorrows, eager wishes vain,
Of baseless dreams, and airy hopes o'erthrown,
Brightly on us the sun of pleasure shone!
Now its remembered beams but mock my pain;
Shaping that form I ne'er shall clasp again—
From my encircling arms for ever flown.
For She, too, loved to list thy melting note,
As oft we strayed beneath the moon's pale ray;
While, scarcely heard, the rivulet remote
Under the quivering beam in beauty lay.
Angel adored! on thy blest pinions float,
O'er my sick heart; and sooth my slow decay!

XIII. To A. de V.

Vainly thou bidst me woo the lofty muse,
And with weak voice, and hand unskilful, try
“To string the orient pearls of poesy:”
With pencil dipped in Fancy's rainbow hues
Thou bidst me all her hopeful light diffuse
O'er this sad world of dull reality:
In vain!—no slumbering spirit of melody
Lives on my lyre; no spell her voice renews.
The ring-dove does not strain her tender throat
Vainly ambitious of the finches' note:
On feeble wing why should I seek to soar,
When simplest words thy faithful heart can bless?
Why envious wish for bright poetic lore,
When in thy love I find all happiness?

XIV. From Petrarch.

If the birds sing, and the green leaves are shaking
In the soft summer air, and the clear deep
Of running waters a low murmuring keep,
By my fresh, flowery seat for ever breaking;
Then, while with mournful thoughts my heart is aching,
From heaven she comes; bursting her mortal sleep:
I hear, I see, I know her!—yet I weep—
My sighs and tears her sighs and tears awaking!
“O why consume thy days in grief for ever,”—
Pitying she seems to say—“and why pour'st thou
From thy sad eyes this agonizing river?
O not for me—grieve not for me, Love, now!
By death I am immortal, and the light
Of Earth gone by, Heaven dawns above my night!”

XV. From Petrarch.

I raised my mind to heaven, and there, methought,
Within the pale of that celestial sphere
She stood whom long on earth I vainly sought;
More lovely than of old, and less austere.
She took my hand, and said—“To me, even here,
If Hope deceive not, thou shalt yet be brought;
To me, thy mortal bane, yet still most dear,
From the bright morn of life untimely caught!
My bliss no human heart can understand:
I wait but thee, and what was dear to thee,
That delicate mould which yet remains beneath.”
Why ceased she then to speak—why loosed my hand?
At those meek tones, and words of charity,
My soul of Heaven's pure clime appeared to breathe!

XVI. From Bembo.

Lone bird! that lov'st lamentingly to stray,
Mourning the sweet song of thy ravished mate,
Blend thy complaint with mine; our lonely state
Alike, in unison should rise our lay.
But thou may'st meet thy Love some happier day:
O! when shall I?—thee, the slow hours await,
In thy green home of woods: while my sad fate
Hope soothes no more: In grief I waste away!
My peace of mind is fled—for ever fled!
Wandering in loneliness, and sad and shaken,
With measured steps, numbering my griefs, I go:
My eyes are fixed on earth; bowed down my head;
Hopeless my soul; and my poor heart, nigh breaking
Scarce asks a respite from subduing woe!

XVII. From Petrarch.

That lovely paleness growing o'er thy face;
That smile which, as a love-cloud, spreads and fades;
Speak with such eloquence, such feeling grace,
To my fond heart, that answering pallour shades
My cheek: and now I know how souls embrace,
And thought meets thought, in Eden's sacred glades:
Thoughts kind as thine to me; which none can trace
But eyes like mine, which seek no other maids.
Those gentle deeds, those looks of angel birth,
Which women in their fondness use to wear,
How cold to those she deigned on me to bend!
Her beautiful, soft, regards, declined to earth,
Seemed silently to whisper on my ear—
“Whonow bereaves me of my faithful friend?”

XVIII. From Petrarch.

All day I weep; and through the live-long night,
When miserable mortals find repose,
I waste in tears, redoubling all my woes;
And thus I count the hours till morning's light.
O'erflowing sadness dims my aching sight,
And grief consumes me: Heaven no creature knows
Wretched like me! relentless passions close
Around; and Peace for ever takes her flight!
Ah me! that ceaseless thus, from day to day,
And night to night, I run my weary course;
While this, which men call life, slow wastes away,
But is as death indeed! Ah! cruel source
Of all my woe; more than these pangs I mourn,
That thou canst see me pine, unpitied, and forlorn!

XIX. Canzonet;

In the Sonnet Form.

The sun is risen o'er the trees;
Light vapours drift along the plain;
The smoke curls upward on the breeze;
Bold chanticleer crows out amain,
While small birds pour a milder strain;
And every stirring sight one sees,
And every sound that wakes again,
Comes fresh'ning with varieties.
The dew that fills the floweret's eye
Is like the tear of tenderness;
And softer than a lover's sigh
The light air lifts yon virgin's tress;
For now the milkmaid wanders by,
Singing for very happiness.

V. HISTORICAL.

I. The Crusaders. 1.

The flattering crowd wreath laurels for the brow
Of blood-stained chief, or regal conqueror;
To Cæsar, or the Macedonian, bow—
Meteors of Earth, that set to rise no more—
A Hero-worship, as of old! Not now
Should Christians bend with servile reverence o'er
The fading pageantry of paynim lore.
True Heroes they whose consecrated vow
Led them to Jewry, fighting for the Cross!
While not by Avarice lured, or lust of power
Inspired, they combatted that Christ should reign;
And life for Him laid down counted no loss.
On Dorylæum's plain, by Antioch's tower,
And Ascalon, sleep well the martyred slain.

II. The Crusaders. 2.

Godfrey, first Christian Captain! Bohemond!
Tancred! and he, whose wayworn gabardine,
And steel clad limbs, the throne of Constantine
Pressed in the face of day, though thousands frowned!
Once more your dust, beneath the Charmer's wand,
Starts into form, and in the heroic line
Of Scotland's Bard, or Tasso the divine,
Breathes vital air! Glorious in life, beyond
The grave ye triumph! With undying Palms
The soldiers of the Cross are garlanded.
For them the Poet pours immortal breath!
The song that shall not die their worth embalms!
Like perfume from the Martyr's sanguine bed
Glory exhales around their cells of death.

III. The Crusaders. 3.

The Council of Clermont.

Amid the throng the Hermit stood; so wan,
Careworn, and travel-soiled; with genius high
Throned on his brow, shrined in his spiritual eye.
The Hermit spake—and through the council ran
A tremour, not of fear; as in the van,
Chafing before embattled Chivalry,
A proud steed listens for the clarion's cry,
So sprang they to their feet: and every man—
Pontiff and Prince, Prelate and Peer—caught up
Their swords, and kissed the crosiered hilts, and swore,
As though their lips the sacramental cup
Had touched, Christ's sepulchre to free! The shore
Of Asia heard that sound, in thunder hurled—
“Deus id vult” from Clermont through the world!

IV. The Crusaders. 4.

The Templars.

The victory for God, or holy death,
They sought alone; honour, not length of days;
For penitence—not joy, nor human praise,
Nor wealth, nor love—they raised their suppliant breath:
Steeled like their limbs, their hearts were mailed in faith.
Toil, and austere neglect, and the fierce blaze
Of Asian skies, had bronzed their brow: their
Was as the Serpent's, terrible: beneath [gaze
Their rush in battle—fatal as the Pard—
The foe fell prone, nor unhoped mercy prayed.
Yet in the hour of peace, with helm unbarred,
Their voice was mild, their hand outstretched to aid.
Chaste and devout; inflexibly severe;
They lived without a smile—gave death no tear.

V. The Crusaders. 5.

The Children Band.

All holy influences dwell within
The breast of Childhood: instincts fresh from God
Inspire it, ere the heart beneath the rod
Of grief hath bled, or caught the plague of sin.
How mighty was that fervour which could win
Its way to infant souls!—and was the sod
Of Palestine by infant Croises trod?
Like Joseph went they forth, or Benjamin,
In all their touching beauty, to redeem?
And did their soft lips kiss the sepulchre?
Alas! the lovely Pageant, as a dream,
Faded! they sank not through ignoble fear—
They felt not Moslem steel. By mountain, stream,
In sands, in fens, they died—no mother near!

VI. The Crusaders. 6.

Jerusalem Delivered.

The Hermit stood beside the Saviour's tomb;
His mission passed, his righteous hopes fulfilled;
He who, long years agone, had wept and kneeled
At Salem, in her hour of bondage gloom.
There, too, from taint of blood made pure, they come—
Contrite they come—each fiery passion stilled—
The warriors of the Cross. Ah! then how thrilled
Thy bosom, Godfrey, treading that dear home
Of all thy troubled thoughts, and pious toil;
In the white robe of peace, with temples bare;
And lingering o'er each hallowed scene—where'er
The Saviour's feet had sanctified the soil!
While red-cross banners waved o'er Moslem spoil;
And sainted Spirits hovered in the air.

VII. The Crusaders. 7.

Philosophic Depreciation.

“What profit”—cool Economists exclaim—
“These wasteful brawls and inexpedient wars!
To get more blows than pence, and ugly scars—
Mementoes dire of perishable fame—
Suits not a truly philosophic aim.
Men meddle much, forsooth; and meddling mars
More than it mends: and Turkish cimeters
Not fiercelier bite than Christian faggot-flame.
Besides,—the Arabians were so mathematical!
Moreover—Moslems are extremely prayerful;
And Saladin by no means was fanatical!
In short—the more you weigh in balance careful
Those old barbaric Christians, void of letters,
You'll find Mahometans were much their betters.”

VIII. The Crusaders. 8.

Christian Argument.

Ianswer thus. 'Tis not enough to live
Securely moral; watchful not to break
Strict covenants with Man; nor to partake
With sinners: not enough to trade and thrive;
And with a grave ostent, give and forgive:
Or cherish knowledge as a Power to shake
Thrones. But it was a noble thing to make
“God's will” the Nation's watch word: and to rive
Selfish ambition from the heart of Kings:
And lead to righteous ends through painful ways.
Exiles and warriors for the Faith to be,
Was good; and good, regardless of the stings
Of pain and grief, to stand with yearning gaze,
Renouncing Earth, fixed on Eternity!

IX. The Plantagenets.

True Christians! worthy Knights! heroic Kings!
They come—they come! the regal shades draw near,
With bannered pomp advancing—Prince, and Peer,
And saintly Prelate. Hark! the welkin rings
Triumphant: and the laurelled minstrel flings
Warlike and jubilant music on the ear!
Of Azincour, of Crecy, and Poictier,
And Ascalon, the inspiring chaunt he sings;
Of those three puissant Edwards; and of him,
Richard, the lion-hearted warrior;
And Henry radiant from the fields of France.—
Ask'st thou, why years such glory make not dim?
Their works reply: cloister, and fane, and tower,
Have voices fine as clarion's utterance!

X. The Barons at Runnimede.

With what an awful grace those Barons stood
In presence of the King at Runnimede!
Their silent finger to that righteous Deed—
O'er which, with cheek forsaken of its blood,
He hung—still pointing with stern hardihood;
And brow that spake the unuttered mandate—“Read!”
“Sign!” He glares round—Never!—Though thousands bleed
He will not! Hush—Low words, in solemn mood,
Are murmured—and—he signs. Great God! were these
Progenitors of our enfeebled kind?
Whose wordy wars are waged to thwart, or please
Minions, not Kings: who stoop with grovelling mind
To weigh the Pauper's dole—scan right by rule—
And plunder churches to endow a school!

XI. The House of Tudor. 1.

At length “the glorious sun of York” had set
Behind the bloody rim of Bosworth field:
Hurled from his heaven, Richard scorning to yield,
Lay like a vanquished Titan. There had met,
For their last combat, the Plantagenet
And Tudor: there the rival Roses sealed
A covenant: and to the Bridal reeled,
Drunk with fraternal gore. War ceased—and yet
The hereditary fire in Tudor's vein
Bounded: once more contentious cries arose,
And controversial fury raved again,
And ermined hands smote spiritual foes,
And brother brother slew! An iron reign
Was Tudor's: yet with blessing at its close.

XII. The House of Tudor. 2.

Ah sanguinary Race—baptized in blood!
Rightly by your Lancastrian Ancestor,
Beneath whose stroke great Edward's grandson bowed,
Were ye prefigured. Lo! what Phantoms o'er
Your restless slumbers bend! Warbeck before
Stern Richmond frowns, and Warwick; long, and loud
Grey Salisbury's frantic shrieks of anguish pour
On the eighth Harry's ear, and Bullen's shroud
Stifles his death-bed prayer. O'er Mary's eyes
Jane's mild regards, and Cranmer's burning hand,
And Latimer, and all that martyr band,
And Mothers torn from childbed pangs, arise.
Thou, too, Elizabeth?—Woe worth the day
When Scotland's Mary died at Fotheringay!

XIII. Henry the Eighth.

A Reformation needful, it was good
That he, the strong man, missioned to unbar
A Nation's prison, should be one endued
With iron heart, and eager hand for war:
Of vision stern, and piercing; slow to spare;
Prompt, resolute, and in his angry mood
Fatal: a captain whose crowned helm from far
Might lead the van of battle unwithstood.
Such Henry was; thus wrought; though red with crimes;
Voluptuous, despotic, pitiless;
Yet royally endowed for perilous times;
A weapon coarse yet apt; where gentleness
Had but provoked a wide spread martyrdom:
An Attila to scourge a later Rome!

XIV. Edward the Sixth.

Ah royal Boy beloved, too early lost!
Thine was that star's heliacal ascent,
Rising mid sunbeams, yet with dire portent
Of summer skies by flaming tempest crost;
Herald not less of vintage, and the host
Of harvest joys. Thus—thus in thee were blent
Our faith's aurora; and dread punishment
For gifts abused, and blessings spurned the most
When without measure lavished. Saintly Boy!
Too gentle was thy hand, perchance, to chain
The Hydra of Dissent; or in his joy,
The Bondsman bounding from his yoke restrain.
—He passed.—The Gold of God from all alloy
To purge, a fire was kindled: not in vain.

XV. Mary Tudor.

Was it in vengeance of paternal wrong
That the fierce Furies thy declining days
Pursued—Eumenides no more—with blaze
Of tossing torches, and the scorpion thong?
Or sprang the wolf of madness, swift, and strong,
Upon thee, while encompassed by the rays
Of Majesty? O fearful Queen! we gaze,
Awe-struck, on thee; and (painful casuists) long
To judge of thee as one whom Fate had sealed
With blindness, through intolerable woes;
Stung by hereditary insult; steeled
To hatred by the unrequited throes
Of Love: a fanatic, in bonds long sleeping,
From agony to blood delirious leaping!

XVI. Cranmer.

Too feebly nerved for so severe a trial
Wert thou, O Cranmer! yet thy heart was true,
And the church owes thee much, and loves thee too.
If thou didst faint beneath the fiercest vial
That wrath could pour, O let no harsh decrial
Tarnish the Martyr's fame! The Saviour knew
How weak are even the best!—ere the cock crew
Peter thrice uttered the foretold denial!
Think not of Cranmer to his chains descending,
Fear-palsied, and his mind scarce half awake:
But Cranmer, with the faithful Ridley, bending
Over the Liturgy; Cranmer as he spake
From his last pulpit; Cranmer when extending
His hand through flame, undaunted at the stake!

XVII. Queen Elizabeth.

The Lioness that stalks the forest bound
More awful in her presence and her port
Looked not than she: high in her cloudy court
The rock-throned Osprey, glancing sternly round
Through sun-lit air unshaken by a sound,
From low desires and the base world's resort
Seemed elevated less: the Dolphin's sport
O'er foam-flecked waves and sapphire depths profound
Shewed not a pageant to the eye of morn
More bright. Her thoughts were in the purple born;
Her eye was empery; she gave the nod
And all obeyed; all earthly powers with scorn
She noted: yea, the fane itself she trod
As though she were the sister of a God!

XVIII. Laud.

Of dauntless spirit, with untiring zeal;
Loving his native land; munificent;
A liegeman true; a churchman firmly bent
On duty; with a faith, like tempered mail,
Strong to resist; and courage to prevail,
Or bear, how stern soever the event:
So loyally with us dwelt Laud, intent
On God's high service, knowing not to quail.
Ay, such was Laud! to death, and after death,
Implacably borne down; even in the grave
Maligned. Yet great was his reward, in faith,
And love of that dear Church he toiled to save.
A righteous Confessor—a steadfast guide—
He lived: a martyr for the Truth he died!

XIX. Charles the Martyr. 1.

So generous a master, kind a friend,
Never beneath the stroke of treason died:
A Prince more righteous never was defied
By popular Rage; nor ever forced to bend
'Neath factious Hate: in him were seen to blend
Grandeur with meekness, and the regal pride
By human virtues tempered, and allied
With Christian graces. Learning to defend
The Faith, and zeal to curb the Infidel,
And constancy the issue to abide,
Were his. He stood before the Parricide
Fearless; and with a martyr spirit fell!
By impious foes beguiled, false friends betrayed,
The dying Saint for his destroyers prayed!

XX. Charles the Martyr. 2.

Perfect he was not, being but a man,
And subject to temptation as a King:
Knowledge came to him from afar, a thing
Misshaped as Craft inspired, or Rumour ran.
He fell upon a time when Thought began
With Faith to wrestle; and hot youth to spring
Into the seat of age; the Serf to fling
His chain to earth; the Fanatic to ban
The altar, and to beard anointed Power.
Authority so scorned, prerogative
So lightly valued, and so ill defined,
Unhappy was the Prince who ruled that hour!
Unhappy we—unless our hearts we give
To that great warning he bequeathed mankind!

XXI. The Parliamentary Leaders.

Hampden and Essex, Fairfax, Algernon!
Ay, these were Hearts not narrowed to a Sect.
Generous of blood, in cultured Intellect
Supreme, they stood apart; the wreaths they won
Sprang not in crypts—they wrought in the open sun.
Amid the baser crew they moved erect,
Frank in their speech, their acts above suspect;
Danger they scorned, and praise, or malison,
Nor sought nor would avoid. Stern, tho' sincere,
And more admired than loved, they toiled to gain
A barren victory, and died in vain.
And O! forget not Her, their bright Compeer—
Her, who spake fearless for her Sovereign
Before his Butchers—high-souled child of Vere!

XXII. Oliver Cromwell.

Fierce as his sword at Naseby and Dunbar—
Cold as the hidden cuirass on his breast—
Swift in pursuit as falcons—in acquest
Eager as vultures, scenting from afar
The steam of battle, the foul feast of war—
Amid a ruffian Faction chief confest
Stood Cromwell; prompt with equal skill to wrest
God's law, or institutes of man to dare.
Yet, though he reached, he dared not mount the throne;
Though in his grasp, he durst not wear the crown.
Lo! round his board the spectral poniards gleam!
Hark! by his couch the ghostly victims moan!
His pale lips quiver, his shut eyelids stream;
Stung by the pangs of that Orestean dream!

XXIII. Charles the Second.

Not mid wild revelry, ignoble games,
And sensual dalliance, wasting year by year,
Should thus the Monarch-martyr's Son appear.
No frivolous Trifler, steeped in public shames,
No Ingrate, scornful of all social claims,
Should mount the lineal throne restored. Sincere
That heart should be; and many a pious tear
Temper those radiant eyes; and holy aims
Make bright thy path, to gladden a sad realm.
All joy for thee should gleam with chastened ray;
Hope lure no Memory of the Past away;
For lo!—even now—the thunder-clouds, to whelm
Thy fated House, impend; and coming Doom
Shadows thy faded cheek with deeper gloom!

XXIV. James the Second.

The schoolmen of the state have done thee wrong
Lear of the latter time! Thee, too, false daughters,
Cheering their mates to parricidal slaughters,
Hunted to hopeless exile. In the throng
Of bloodhounds, tracking thy pale flight along,
The nursling of thy heart, the household friend,
The creature of thy bounty, these, to rend
Their palpitating Victim, foremost sprung.
Stern was the doom! yet forfeiture was just.
That oath, the sacred sanction of the throne,
By the Church hallowed, clothed thee with a trust
Enduring as the jewel of thy crown.
Thou from that oath didst fall, that Church disown,
Therefore thy People fell from thee like dust.

XXV. The Man of Glencoe.

If this be true, that from thy lip, or hand,
The mandate passed—or the inexpressive eye
Kindling to keen, yet cold ferocity,
Consented—or that hints forestalled command—
Too long hath Vengeance slept: too long the brand
Of shame by flattering wreaths been hid. To die
Untimely, yet unjudged, doth not imply
Atonement. Rise, at last, and take thy stand,
Great King! before the Avenger! Wake—arise!
Posterity the Judge, amid the cries
Of the unforgotten slain, his sentence slow
Records;—for desecrated household ties?—
For wrong fraternal? filial treason?—No!
Grave on his tomb but one dark word: “Glencoe.”

XXVI. The Soldiers of Sarsfield.

Before the standards of his daughter flying,
By Boyne's dark stream, even as a stag at bay,
Stood hapless James in arms: yet loathed to slay.
One faithful Band alone, mid foes defying,
And perjured friends deserting, and denying,
Clung round him, as a breastplate, thro' that day;
The fate they might avert not to delay.
There, where ill-omened Dane, and Dutchman dying
Lay thickest, his wild slogan o'er the plain
Sarsfield's indomitable soldiers pealed,
In vain, alas! for James! but not in vain
For vengeance! Soon Almanza heard once more
That cry: and Fontenoy's disastrous field
Those fatal bayonets dyed with kindred gore.

XXVII. The Scottish Bishops at the Revolution.

Great Witnesses on earth for sacred truth
Were Scotland's ancient Prelates. “Serve the King”—
So spake the Tempter—“Serve, and ye shall bring
Much profit to your Order—triumph, in sooth,
Unto the Church—and to your foemen ruth!”
Knowing their danger, and the Man, this thing
They would not. No! though Persecution wring
The panting heart, and Penury's fell tooth
Gnaw at their vitals! Gloriously they dared
The crisis. But the traitorous Tempter—he,
Cold Trafficker in profitable crime—
For him was the red arm of Justice bared?
The Church strikes not: but waiting God's good time
Endures, not sanctions, passing Tyranny.

VI. ON THE LORD'S PRAYER.

I. Introductory. 1.

Universal Prayer.

Children of God, high privilege have we,
For whom, throughout the world, all fellow saints
Exalt to heaven their prayers continually.
Not lonely kneel we, nor unpitied faints
Our heart; nor uncompanioned our low plaints
Ascend: a mighty chain of sympathy
Binds Christian men together, and acquaints
Their souls with love, and thoughtful charity.
O! joy! that we, who pray for all, by all
Commended are to God in daily prayer.
Yea, now, as in time past, and yet again
Through time to come, that Church, which shall not fall,
From night to morn, breathes forth upon the air
Meek intercession for the sons of men.

II. Introductory. 2.

The Brotherhood in Christ.

All men are brethren in God's equal eye;
Yea, sons of God, partaking Christian grace.
How fades all outward pomp of power and place,
Glory and wealth, frail beauty's pageantry—
Prerogatives of earth that swiftly fly—
Before that noblest birthright of our race,
The brotherhood with Christ! Now face to face
With God we stand. In Him disparity
Of love, proportioned to man's earthly state,
Exists not: right of eldership is none
Where all with Christ are heirs. The Low, the Great,
The Wise, the Simple, gather round His throne
In heaven, one equal boon to supplicate:—
God's sons confest! the Brethren of the Son!

III. Introductory. 3.

The right Use of Prayer.

Therefore when thou wouldst pray, or dost thine alms,
Blow not a trump before thee: hypocrites
Do thus, vaingloriously; the common streets
Boast of their largess, echoing their psalms.
On such the laud of men, like unctuous balms,
Falls with sweet savour. Impious Counterfeits!
Prating of heaven, for earth their bosom beats!
Grasping at weeds, they lose immortal palms!
God needs not iteration nor vain cries.
That man communion with his God might share
Below, Christ gave the ordinance of prayer.
Vague ambages, and witless ecstasies,
Avail not: ere a voice to prayer be given
The heart should rise on wings of love to heaven.

IV. “Our Father which art in Heaven.” 1.

We pray to God in heaven—and He is there—
Not circumscribed, for heaven may not contain
The vastness of His glory; every where
Around, on forest slope, prolific plain,
The breathing mountain peaks, the liberal main,
The wealth of mines, the sanatory air,
His Presence clasps creation, with a chain
Whose golden links are love! The Good we share
His voluntary bounty yields; the woes
Which scourge are His correction; whispered words
To Him are trumpet-tongued; all thought He knows:
We pass with feathery swiftness, as young birds,
Yet lie, the while, in His embrace at rest:
Night hides us not—we sleep upon His breast!

V. “Our Father which art in Heaven.” 2.

God—holy, true, the merciful, all wise,
All powerful, all knowing, infinite!
His laws, His will, unsearchable—too bright
His glory for the ken of mortal eyes!
Yet what we comprehend not He supplies:
Twin stars, from heaven to point our path aright,
He gives His Works and Word—Angels of light—
That watch beside the gate of Paradise!
Heaven and the earth resound His mighty name:
The meanest creatures of His hand proclaim
His goodness: but, all natural guide transcending,
The holy Scriptures stand, steadfastly teaching
His ways and mysteries to mankind; and preaching
Grace and Redemption—blessings never ending!

VI. “Hallowed be Thy Name.” 1.

God hallows, God alone can sanctify!
How shall the Creature, then, presume to say
“God's name be hallowed?” 'Tis our needful cry
For spiritual aid, through Christ; that thus we may
Be strengthened by good graces day by day.
Pleading, our lips He touches! From on high
Light falls on hands uplifted tremblingly;
And our requests grow holy as we pray.
With thanks, and praise, and acceptable love,
For wisdom we petition, and content:
For gratitude and patience; and, above
All other graces, faith. In these are blent
Whate'er through Mortals may be shadowed forth
Of Divine Glory hallowing on earth.

VII. “Hallowed be Thy Name.” 2.

By blameless life, by exemplary deed,
Our heavenly Father's name is glorified:
In every gift and grace to man decreed
His holiness is marked, His power descried:
All pangs by Him relieved, affections tried
By sorrow and recomforted, plant seed
That grow to holy harvests: earthly pride
Discomfited, and wrath that finds its meed,
Work out His law, His providence expound:
Yea, all His wondrous Creatures, wheresoe'er
Earth, seas, or winds, their radiant beauty bear,
Make manifest His attributes, and sound
His worship unprofaned, with pure acclaim,
Throughout all ages. Hallowed be His name!

VIII. “Thy Kingdom come.” 1.

Thy diadem is Grace, Thy sceptre Power,
Lord of that kingdom which shall have no end!
Thou, at whose frown Hell quakes, and demons cower,
With Thee shall Man debate—shall Earth contend?
Thou Chainer of the Proud! Thou who canst bend
Stiff-necked Rebellion in his fiercest hour—
O! mighty Monarch! dost Thou condescend
To visit Man; partake a Mortal's bower?
Giver of all things! Didst Thou share with Man
His common wants? Prince of the star-set heaven!
Didst Thou lie down in the grave's narrow span?
O! once again to us—condemned, forgiven—
Return in glory, righteous Judge! and grant
Triumphant Palms to Thy Church militant!

IX. “Thy Kingdom come.” 2.

Ye sleepers of the grave! in hope sleep well.
Your bodies shall awaken, O ye just!
Triumphant from the unforgotten dust,
And with the angelic host which never fell,
Martyrs, and good men perfected, shall dwell!
The glorious kingdom is not full: the first
Who went, all living, all who yet shall burst
The gates of life, foreknown, the pomp shall swell
Of that high Retinue. O Man! thine ear
Even now the innumerable march can hear,
Afar, of that great host: for this we dare
With daily orisons, in life or death,
To kneel. Whate'er the object of our faith,
Hope still may be inspirer of our prayer.

X. “Thy Kingdom come.” 3.

Not with proud festival record the date
Of natural birth: rejoicing should attend
The annual cycle of the good man's end.
For all are born depressed beneath the weight
Of sin; until the font regenerate.
The day of Adam's birth saw Christ ascend
His Cross, to die for man: that day we spend
In mourning, yet consoled. Thenceforth the gate
Of Paradise to all—O! mystery
Of life in death!—lies open: man is free!
Joy for the Saints! by Grace divine re-born—
Joy for the Saints! their hour of passion o'er—
Pangs conquered—toils annulled—no sin to mourn—
Illusions dissipated—grief no more!

XI. “Thy Will be done on Earth.” 1.

In quiet resignation, tranquil joy,
The Christian suppliant should meet the Lord:
Whate'er betide to cheer or to annoy,
One staff, one shield, is our's—His holy word.
Hope's seraph-song is there, Faith's true record:
Therein all sacred Charities employ
Their lips sincere hymning the mercies stored
For Christ's beloved: but vengeance shall destroy
The Evil-doer. Once, on Sinai,
He gave the Law in thunder and in flame;
Once more, a gentle Monitor He came,
A meek Atoner, for mankind to die,
Leaving His Scripture canon. Holy One!
We treasure Thy last words. “Thy will be done!”

XII. “Thy Will be done on Earth.” 2.

The precepts and the purposes of God
Once known, plain duty is not hard to learn:
Nor without light a weary way we plod,
The Church our guide, and Christ the way. O turn,
Nor tread with faltering step so straight a road.
All interests of earth, all that concern
Our genuine needs, or spiritual food,
She, without stint, pours from unfailing urn.
His good, His acceptable, perfect, Will,
Unfolded in her Scripture Treasury,
A waits—arrests—the search of every eye—
Gold from the mine—gems indestructible—
But, chiefly, that which Paul declared, mark still:
“God's greatest purpose is to sanctify.”

XIII. “Thy Will be done,” etc. 3.

When from the heart, with lips devout, we say
“God's will be done,” for immortality,
And crowns participate with saints, we pray:
Such fruit obedience bears: to God on high
Thus humble souls advance unconsciously.
Duty shall grow as nature; to obey
Be keen delight; the approval of His eye
Glory, that fleets not from our souls away.
Yet, hoping much, forget not still to fear.
God ever by His purpose shall abide;
Howe'er the weak forget, the proud deride
His precepts. Watch—strong enemies are near;
Weak heart, false counsel. To thyself, severe,
Unmask:—repent! From God thou canst not hide.

XIV. “Give us this Day our daily Bread.” 1.

Tired travellers, to our proper home and bourn—
Mysterious heaven—we press our pilgrimage:
Strangers, on earth we for a time sojourn,
To take brief rest, and wayside thirst assuage.
Recomforted, once more, with thanks, we turn
Unto our path; firm war again to wage
With toils and doubt, our dim eyes scarce discern,
That throng the dark course of life's latest stage.
Thus for support we crave, a daily need,
“The staff of bread,” all comforters of life!
Our worldly cares composed, our temporal strife
Removed, for spiritual ease, the Christian's meed,
We pray: and, as in death we sink subdued,
Rejoice that heaven is near—that God is good!

XV. “Give us this Day our daily Bread.” 2.

New labours task us daily; hour by hour
New wants assail; and Care, the parasite,
Envelopes the weak heart, clasping to blight.
Sordid necessities around us lour;
Importunate habits dog us and devour;
But God is with us always: to requite
Our daily toils, and prayers, is His delight.
Man never asks in vain—a watchful Power
Anticipates, and satisfies, his need.
Trouble springs round us, inexhaustible,
A ceaseless fountain; but His Mercy still
Flows on with equal current. God takes heed
The appetite He stimulates to feed:
Makes prayer necessity, and prompts the will.

XVI. “Forgive us our Trespasses.” 1.

We supplicate for blessings—it were well
To plead for pardon too. The plague of sin
Clings round us as a mist, hanging between
Heaven and our low estate. O! “who can tell
How often he offendeth?”—We compel
His wrath! Turn, sinner, turn, with suppliant mien,
And humble tears, His lingering love to win:
Hope always—God is not implacable.
Unpardoned, earthly joys are but a snare
And temporal good a curse; accursed the bread
We eat, the wine we drink, the wealth we share,
Our endless labour, and unquiet bed:
While Conscience, like the worm in Jonah's gourd,
Makes loathsome every joy that once allured.

XVII. “Forgive us our Trespasses.” 2.

God's pardoning Grace is altogether free:
Yet prayers upon our lip betoken Grace
Within the heart: and though no merit we
Dare boast, before the great Creator's face
Pure orisons find acceptable place.
But what, alas! can prayer, tears, groaning, yea
Our blood, avail? Shall these one stain erase?
Or human sufferings found one valid plea?
Could Divine justice thus be satisfied,
Not then had Adam fallen, nor Jesus died.
Atonement for so infinite a wrong
The Infinite, alone, might offer. Faith
In Christ makes duty vital—hope grows strong;
And man's repentance sooths Almighty wrath.

XVIII. “Forgive us—as we forgive.” 3.

How far the ways of God and man diverge!
God grants forgiveness, vengeance man provides.
Poor emmets of the minute! that emerge
From dust, and whom the dust so quickly hides,
In our hearts, fixed, the worm of wrath abides!
Fierce in our hand waves the vindictive scourge!
While He, that tramples on the cloud; that rides
The storm; that from the void, ungoverned, surge
Evoked the earth, and from primeval night
The Sun, and robed him in immortal light;
Lord of the thunderbolt and shafts of fate!
Not these He boasts of—attributes of might—
But truth, long-suffering, mercy! Learn aright
Christian! in what thy God to imitate.

XIX. “Lead us not into Temptation.”

Forsake not, Lord! Thy servants, lest they fall,
Defenceless, in the net of spiritual foes!
Too strong within the heart temptation grows,
When proffered objects lure, desires enthral,
And apt occasion answers to our call.
O! trials hard to bear! if He who knows
Our nature's weakness fail to interpose
His sacred shield. Strengthened by Him, not all
The blandishment of Passion shall obscure
The mirror of the soul; nor thought of shame
Bedim the mental eye with film impure.
May God renew our spirit! so shall we
Abide our furnace; like the holy Three
Before the Assyrian, mid innocuous flame.

XX. “Deliver us from Evil.” 1.

“Consent not thou though sinful men entice—
Nor walk thou in their way”—the Wise-man saith.
To stand secure, not good resolves suffice
Alone, but “to avoid the evil path:”
“To shun the harlot's door”—Weak words! vain breath!
We have faithless hearts within us; treacheries
Daily creep closer round: while Sin and Death
Like serpents watch, our spirit to surprise.
From these may God's restraining providence
Deliver! else the wickedness of men
Would make this world a solitude; or den
Of raging beasts, down-trampling every fence:
Man would become, at last, an earthly fiend—
Cain to his brother—Judas to his friend!

XXI. “Deliver us from Evil.” 2.

God hath His times and seasons to restrain
The purposed, or committed sin requite.
In Balaam's path the Seraph stood: swift blight
On Jeroboam's hand, upraised in vain
To seize the prophet, fell: on Salem's plain
He sent His Angel-minister to smite
The Assyrian: and behind pale Israel's flight
Whelmed Pharaoh's host beneath the refluent main.
To trust, is to be saved! When Jesus trod
The sea, they deemed a Spirit walked abroad
Upon the troubled waves:—Peter sprang out,
But soon began to sink, by fear betrayed.
“Save me,” he cried: Christ stretched His hand and stayed;—
Saying,—“O Faithless! wherefore didst thou doubt?”

XXII. The Doxology.

The kingdom over all; power uncontrolled;
Glory that makes all other lustre pale;
Are Thine—have ever been—shall never fail!
Therefore to Thee our suppliant hands we fold—
Therefore our hearts, our lips, in faith, are bold—
Therefore in Thee, with grateful hymns, we hail
All-seeing justice, truth that shall prevail,
And love which heaven's great compass cannot hold.
All these for ever! Time can never be
When prayer avails not: the Almighty will
Through prayer alone its mercies can fulfil.
Great need of mercy—yea, great hope, have we!
In the old time before us we have heard
His deeds—trust, now, the promise of His Word!

XXIII. “Amen!”

So let it be!—The prayer that Christ enjoins
Live ever in our soul, and on our tongue!
So let be!—The worship He assigns
Our great Creator, with thanksgiving song,
From hearths, in temples, yea, wild woods among,
Pour forth!—So let it be!—As drooping vines
Drink the reviving shower, so sink along
Our hearts His precepts! Lo! one word enshrines
Full attestation of our faith. “Amen”
Includes the sum of our assent; and bears
The seal of truth: it is the wing of prayers,
Speeding the voice of millions, not in vain,
To God's high throne, borne on seraphic airs,
To ratify in heaven our glorious gain!