 | Lays and Legends of Ancient Greece, with Other Poems |  |
265
ODE TO LIBERTY.
Freedom, thou co-eternal might with Love,
Great birthright of all breathing things that be,
The bird's light wing thy inspirations move,
And the stern thinker's thought is shaped by thee.
Thou in the sailing cloud,
Thou in the laughter loud
Of ocean's bright wave dost supremely reign;
The grey hills know thy sovereignty; and all
The undulant fulness of the green-leaved plain;
And heaving nations own thy heart-constraining call.
Great birthright of all breathing things that be,
The bird's light wing thy inspirations move,
And the stern thinker's thought is shaped by thee.
Thou in the sailing cloud,
Thou in the laughter loud
Of ocean's bright wave dost supremely reign;
The grey hills know thy sovereignty; and all
The undulant fulness of the green-leaved plain;
And heaving nations own thy heart-constraining call.
Peoples are strong by thee. Old Greece and Rome
Waxed mighty, when thy waxing power they knew;
Thy virtue fenced the Sabine farmer's home,
And to a king the ploughman-consul grew.
From each Ægean isle
Thy broad benignant smile
Beamed forth; and lo! all radiant with thy fire,
Th blind old Chian leads the minstrel band;
A thousand bards catch rapture from one sire,
And tuneful sages teach the fine-eared Grecian land!
Waxed mighty, when thy waxing power they knew;
Thy virtue fenced the Sabine farmer's home,
And to a king the ploughman-consul grew.
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Thy broad benignant smile
Beamed forth; and lo! all radiant with thy fire,
Th blind old Chian leads the minstrel band;
A thousand bards catch rapture from one sire,
And tuneful sages teach the fine-eared Grecian land!
Thy home is in the soul. On Hebrew hills,
Alone communing with his fervid thought,
The shepherd knew thee, brooding o'er the ills
That godless kings to his dear country brought.
God's Spirit moved him then
To walk forth amongst men,
And through the crowds his burning message send.
Through streets, through halls, his fearless way he took;
People and priest before his preaching bend,
And purple monarchs own the shaggy seer's rebuke.
Alone communing with his fervid thought,
The shepherd knew thee, brooding o'er the ills
That godless kings to his dear country brought.
God's Spirit moved him then
To walk forth amongst men,
And through the crowds his burning message send.
Through streets, through halls, his fearless way he took;
People and priest before his preaching bend,
And purple monarchs own the shaggy seer's rebuke.
Thee knew the Saxon monk in lonely cell,
What time on dusty shelf remote he found
The Book; and from his eyes thick darkness fell,
Like scales. As one new-born he looked around.
O then, nor Prince nor Pope,
Nor worldly fear or hope,
Might bribe his lips; but with free voice he spake.
Scorning the smooth damnation of a lie:
Old Error shrinks; world-famous falsehoods quake.
And the strong Kaiser fears his bright truth-gleaming eye.
What time on dusty shelf remote he found
The Book; and from his eyes thick darkness fell,
Like scales. As one new-born he looked around.
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Nor worldly fear or hope,
Might bribe his lips; but with free voice he spake.
Scorning the smooth damnation of a lie:
Old Error shrinks; world-famous falsehoods quake.
And the strong Kaiser fears his bright truth-gleaming eye.
Right hand of God, victorious Freedom! who
Are they that dare, where thou dost loose, to bind?
The dark-stoled priests, the sharp suspicious erew.
The jealous warders of the God-stirred mind.
These are thy foes; and thou
With them dost struggle now
In terrible agony, where old Tiber rolls
His tide, with many a murtherous memory red,
And hoary curses from the prisoned souls
Of thousands, cry to God to judge the injured dead.
Are they that dare, where thou dost loose, to bind?
The dark-stoled priests, the sharp suspicious erew.
The jealous warders of the God-stirred mind.
These are thy foes; and thou
With them dost struggle now
In terrible agony, where old Tiber rolls
His tide, with many a murtherous memory red,
And hoary curses from the prisoned souls
Of thousands, cry to God to judge the injured dead.
These be thy foes; and whoso leagued with them.
Stopping their ears to fettered nature's moan,
Have glued with blood their forceful diadem,
And marched through murder to a lawless throne:
He who doth use foul sway
O'er Naples azure bay;
And he—his baseness with his years increased—
Where the fat Danube feeds the polished slave,
Who sold his empire's charter to a priest,
And hired the Russ with gold to dig free Hungary's grave.
Stopping their ears to fettered nature's moan,
Have glued with blood their forceful diadem,
And marched through murder to a lawless throne:
He who doth use foul sway
O'er Naples azure bay;
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Where the fat Danube feeds the polished slave,
Who sold his empire's charter to a priest,
And hired the Russ with gold to dig free Hungary's grave.
Long hath grim Tyranny reigned; but we will wait.
A thousand years with God are as one day:
And the slow-brewing storm of righteous fate
Will burst, like deluge, from the long delay.
The days and years that roll
Obey thy sure control,
Almighty; and, like fruitful sowers, we
Cast the small seed beneath the lowly clod;
From the hard shell thy touch the germ makes free;
And all the field is quick with verdurous life from God.
A thousand years with God are as one day:
And the slow-brewing storm of righteous fate
Will burst, like deluge, from the long delay.
The days and years that roll
Obey thy sure control,
Almighty; and, like fruitful sowers, we
Cast the small seed beneath the lowly clod;
From the hard shell thy touch the germ makes free;
And all the field is quick with verdurous life from God.
287
MAHOMET.
The legend of Mahomet in the cave of Thor, saved from the pursuit of his enemy by the providential web woven by a spider over the entrance to his retreat, will be found in the introduction to Sale's Koran. In connection with this striking occurrence in the life of the great Arabian prophet, I have endeavoured to realize Mahomet's notion of his own mission, and method of procedure, giving him credit for a certain fundamental earnestness and honesty of prophetic fervour; which charitable supposition, I hope, is not altogether remote from orthodoxy.
Clear thy looks, the worst is o'er!”
Thus, from Mecca fled, the prophet
In the darksome cave of Thor,
Spake to his friend—“Good Abubeker,
Danger hath its darts, but they
Only where great Allah pointeth
Strike; where he points not, they stray.
The foe like drifting storm pursues us,
But, like clouds before the wind,
Allah shapes each mortal purpose,
To his changeless will inclined.
Where he clouds the sense, the wisest
Flounder with a vagrant mind;
Where he blocks the way, the sharpest
To the clearest road are blind.
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In my travail; thou did'st see
When in Mecca's cave the Eternal
Oped his secret thought to me.
Gold I had, but I despised it;
Birth, and rank, and state, and all
The glittering pride of outward grandeur
I did leave at Allah's call.
'Neath the azure tent sublimely
Spread before God's watchful eye,
In the desert I have pondered
On deep truths that may not die.
In the lonely midnight musing,
Breezy voices came to me,
Whispering strange, with power prophetic,
Of great things that yet shall be.
Allah stirs the hearts of mortals,
In my life there lives a charm;
Till God's work be done, God's prophet
Brooks no wrong from human arm.
Five times to the labouring world
Hath the Eternal voiced his will;
Shall He fail, when need is greatest,
To direct the wanderer still?
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When with stranger-eye he viewed
The bursting world, and, mutely gazing,
Feared to spell its magnitude;
Then to Noah, when the waters
Seized the hills with surges dark,
And the sainted patriarch floated
Safely in the chartered ark;
Then to Abraham, when millions
Brutish-minded kissed the sod
To idols dumb, at leafy Mamre
Worshipping the one true God;
Then to Moses, wisely fencing
The untutored heart with awe,
From the smoking mountain pealing
Forth the thunders of the law;
Then to Jesus, veiling terror
With the free redundant grace,
Preaching pardon to the guilty,
Bearing burdens with the base.
Last of all, to me, Mohammed,
Allah spake—my work, to join
Jew and Arab, Greek and Roman,
In one simple faith divine.
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Stronger far is Allah's word;
But, to make my mission surer,
God hath girt me with the sword.
Gentle words stir not the laggard,
Wise rebukes touch not the fool;
They shall know their spirit's master,
Flogged like children in the school.”
Thus the prophet, calm assurance
Breathing in the doubtful ear,
When the tramp of hurrying horsemen
Told the dreaded foe was near.
Quailed Abubeker; nigh and nigher,
Like the travelling thunder's roar,
The hot pursuit, with hoofs of fire,
Galloped to the cave of Thor.
“Surely here the traitor skulketh!”
One did cry. “Nay, brother, nay!”
Cried another; “no disturbing
Foot hath stirred the sand this way.
Haste we, lest his flight deceive us,
In this cave no man hath been;
Lo! untouched the flimsy cobweb
Hangs before it, like a screen!”
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Panting o'er the hot-parched ground;
Whoso run to cheat the Highest
With vain speed themselves confound.
“Said I not, good Abubeker?”
Quoth the prophet: “Now adore
Mighty Allah; he hath led them
Past the sheltering cave of Thor!”
292
NAPOLEON.
(On the day after the Battle of Leipzig, October 18, 1813.)
Away, away with hurrying tread,
Close-hounded by the foe,
A vengeful heaven above thy head,
A yawning hell below!
Thy star is set; the surging tide
Shrinks back, that proudly bore thee;
Down reels the fabric of thy pride,
And the wave is surging o'er thee!
Away!—with sharp and hissing sound
The bullets of the foe
Fret the thick air; and from the ground
The eager lances grow.
Nor in thine ear the Furies sleep,
But yell their burden strange:
“Who soweth fear shall hatred reap,
And Wrong shall breed revenge!”
Close-hounded by the foe,
A vengeful heaven above thy head,
A yawning hell below!
Thy star is set; the surging tide
Shrinks back, that proudly bore thee;
Down reels the fabric of thy pride,
And the wave is surging o'er thee!
Away!—with sharp and hissing sound
The bullets of the foe
Fret the thick air; and from the ground
The eager lances grow.
Nor in thine ear the Furies sleep,
But yell their burden strange:
“Who soweth fear shall hatred reap,
And Wrong shall breed revenge!”
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Here, where the sainted hero fell,
On Lützen's storied plain,
Pause o'er thy fate, and count it well;
Much loss is all thy gain.
The Persian fool that lashed the wave,
Old Ocean's neck to bind,
That fool wert thou, that wouldst enslave
With fleshly force the mind.
In vain thy cannon's conquering yell
Even here did lately sound;
The Teuton heart not vanquished fell,
Thou didst but claim the ground.
And now, the impatient flood rolls back,
A multitudinous sea,
And wave on wave roars o'er thy track,
“The nations shall be free!”
On Lützen's storied plain,
Pause o'er thy fate, and count it well;
Much loss is all thy gain.
The Persian fool that lashed the wave,
Old Ocean's neck to bind,
That fool wert thou, that wouldst enslave
With fleshly force the mind.
In vain thy cannon's conquering yell
Even here did lately sound;
The Teuton heart not vanquished fell,
Thou didst but claim the ground.
And now, the impatient flood rolls back,
A multitudinous sea,
And wave on wave roars o'er thy track,
“The nations shall be free!”
Look not for friends; all, all shall fail!
Thou never had'st a friend,
Nor car'dst to have. Nay, do not rail!
Shall loving trains attend
The loveless in his fall? shall he
Who bartered souls like land
By wholesale—he whose oaths were free
As a whore's smiles—demand
The loyal heart-beat? Let him reap
What fruit himself did sow.
No faithful friend for him shall weep,
No honest tears shall flow;
The wife, that lent her venal hand,
Shall haste back to her own,
And he like a blasted tree shall stand
On a barren heath alone.
Thou never had'st a friend,
Nor car'dst to have. Nay, do not rail!
Shall loving trains attend
The loveless in his fall? shall he
Who bartered souls like land
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As a whore's smiles—demand
The loyal heart-beat? Let him reap
What fruit himself did sow.
No faithful friend for him shall weep,
No honest tears shall flow;
The wife, that lent her venal hand,
Shall haste back to her own,
And he like a blasted tree shall stand
On a barren heath alone.
Hark! from vexed Leipzig's sulphurous wall
A fearful cry ascends;
In hideous rout, wild hurrying out,
The shattered column wends.
And the Teut's war-cry is Hermann's name,
Drowning the cannon's roar,
And bids thee weep thy legions' shame,
As Cæar did before.
“The Rhine, the Rhine, the German Rhine!”
The echo rolls more nigh;
“Our German Rhine shall ne'er be thine,
Thou stranger Celt!” they cry.
The Prussian, from Montmartre's hill,
Shall hold proud Paris in awe;
And, from the heights of Romainville,
The Cossack cry Hurrah!
A fearful cry ascends;
In hideous rout, wild hurrying out,
The shattered column wends.
And the Teut's war-cry is Hermann's name,
Drowning the cannon's roar,
And bids thee weep thy legions' shame,
As Cæar did before.
“The Rhine, the Rhine, the German Rhine!”
The echo rolls more nigh;
“Our German Rhine shall ne'er be thine,
Thou stranger Celt!” they cry.
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Shall hold proud Paris in awe;
And, from the heights of Romainville,
The Cossack cry Hurrah!
Ah, woe is me! where now be they,
Thy feats of sounding glory,
War linked to war in grim array,
Long lines of crimson story:
Land yoked to land to pave thy path,
Limb rudely wrenched from limb,
Great kings unmade to soothe thy wrath,
And made to please thy whim?
Gone like what shapes the light cloud frames
Floating, fantastic wholly;
Marengo, Jena, Wagram, names
To eternize thy folly!
Ceased are thy terrible thunder fits,
Emptied thy iron quiver,
And the Sun that shone on Austerlitz
Shall shine no more for ever.
Thy feats of sounding glory,
War linked to war in grim array,
Long lines of crimson story:
Land yoked to land to pave thy path,
Limb rudely wrenched from limb,
Great kings unmade to soothe thy wrath,
And made to please thy whim?
Gone like what shapes the light cloud frames
Floating, fantastic wholly;
Marengo, Jena, Wagram, names
To eternize thy folly!
Ceased are thy terrible thunder fits,
Emptied thy iron quiver,
And the Sun that shone on Austerlitz
Shall shine no more for ever.
Go! from the scene that mocks thee, go!
And, on some lonely spot,
Recount the story of thy woe
To things that know thee not.
We know thee well, too well; ah, heaven!
That such a sweet-wreathed smile,
But to deceive, should have been given,
Such goodness, but for guile!
Go! on some lonely rock relate
Thy tale to the sounding billow,
And spell to men thy freakish fate
Beneath the weeping willow:—
“My life hath been a fevered race,
The phantom Fame pursuing;
False Fortune winged the eager chase,
And Pride was my undoing.”
And, on some lonely spot,
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To things that know thee not.
We know thee well, too well; ah, heaven!
That such a sweet-wreathed smile,
But to deceive, should have been given,
Such goodness, but for guile!
Go! on some lonely rock relate
Thy tale to the sounding billow,
And spell to men thy freakish fate
Beneath the weeping willow:—
“My life hath been a fevered race,
The phantom Fame pursuing;
False Fortune winged the eager chase,
And Pride was my undoing.”
| Lays and Legends of Ancient Greece, with Other Poems | |