Poems and miscellanies selected from the writings of Miss Eliza Townsend ::

Oft have you said, (or scolded rather,)
In many a literary quarrel,
Why strive these useless sprigs to gather,
E'en though they should be “sprigs of laurel?”
No! strive to have some lofty tree,
Whose branches stretching o'er the plain,
Reclined beneath thou 'lt gladly see;
Then take thy ease, nor plant again!
Thou dearest one! and dost thou, then,
Prize the rude lines I thus indite?
And think of manners and of men
Thy minstrel qualified to write?
Grant that “the tree” thy wish would raise,
To meet thy wish, had grown and flourished,

Protected by thy guardian praise,
And by thy kind attention nourished;
Grant that its early buds were fair,
That taste and tint its fruits combined;
Its dewy foliage cooled the air,
Its balmy fragrance blessed the wind;
Grant that its roots were firmly fixed,
Its limbs its just proportion knew,
Duly its soft'ning shadows mixed,
And pruned each shoot that wildly grew;—
All unadmired those leaves would fade,
Untasted be that fruitage-store;
Ah! withered soon its slighted shade,
Its wasted fragrance breathed no more!—
Thy hand alone, indulgent friend,
Its garlands, meet for praise, would twine,
And ev'ry sweet it e'er might lend,
Would satisfy no sense but thine.
Then cease, thou partial prompter, cease
The wish to urge a loftier strain;
The humble-hearted taste a peace
The rash aspirant ne'er could gain,
And still indulge the careless muse;
These wild-flower shoots, as wont entwined,
The tears of love its only dews,
Then graft the chaplet on thy mind.

TRIBUTARY LINES.

TO JAMES FENNELL.

Where is the one, whose soul of amplest plan
In Nature's mint received the stamp of man?
When erst the goddess, fired with noblest rage
At the vile cheatings of a bankrupt age;
Intent her treasury, the stage, to clear
From dazzling counterfeits, late current here;
Bade from her mines their purest ore be brought,
Mines, pervious only to the track of thought;
And taught the braggart witlings to behold,
And learn the diff'rence 'twixt their dross and gold.
While just discernments give to worth its due,
Detect base metal, and admire the true.

Say where the one, thus singled from an host,
Nature's exemplar, votary, and boast?
Tell me, ye crowds, who owns that eye-ball's glare,
That form majestic, and that martial air?
Who, grateful for the impress which he bore,
Has much received, but still has rendered more.

Language to him unlocks her countless stores;
And deep and wide the critic's glance explores,
Illumes the archives, gives the poets' lore
To speak a latent sense, unknown before;
While Taste's keen orbs their covert charms discern,
And teach their “thoughts to breathe, their words to burn;”
Judgment's strong lamp emits a steadier ray,
And Fancy's sunbeams blaze a brighter day.
Supremely skilled to point the forceful phrase
Of secret rancor or ingenuous praise;
Minutest meaning, studious to explain,
Nor let a particle be given in vain!
A thousand voices swell the loud acclaim;
A thousand voices echo Fennell's name.

All hail, thou master of the drama's art!
Thou necromancer of the human heart!
Thou speak'st the word;—it glows with tenfold heat,
Thou speak'st again;—its pulses cease to beat.
With wily potency, thy skill entwines
The charm that trances, and the spell that binds.
Like the weird sisters at thy Macbeth's word,
The subject Passions throng around their lord.
While strong Enchantment's various force he tries,
These sink to softness, those to frenzy rise;
Empowered Despair's dark breast with Hope to cheer,
And wring from Cruelty Compassion's tear.

To thrill with joy, transfix in awe profound,
Melt with a look, and madden with a sound.

But bolder yet; thou dar'dst thy way to wind
Throughout the devious mazes of the mind!
Nature, here too, allowed th' advent'rous claim,
Herself an Ariadne to its aim.
Led by her clue, and with her ensigns graced,
The human labyrinth her champion traced;
Where each crooked purpose, with alternate power,
Becomes the Monster of the darkened hour.
Where embryo mischiefs nameless ill presage,
Or plagues embodied taint a present age;
Where the brain quivers with its own intent,
And guilt's design becomes guilt's punishment;
Where crazed Reflection to a fiend dilates,
And starts from furies which itself creates!

Conversant thus with moral, mental power,
'Tis these have taught thy genius thus to tower;
More than thy voice's strength, thy awful mien,
Thy frown tremendous, or thy smile serene!
Contemned the churlish contrast that essays
To sink the player's worth, the poet's raise.
Restored an art half lost by false pretence,
And proved the drama's proud pre-eminence!
So rare in one the varying gifts unite,
Our country thought to “die without the sight.”

Myriads indeed, with high, theatric rage,
Or mere mechanic art, can stalk the stage;
Can leave their writer's meaning on the shelf,
And find a substitute in sapient self;
Till broad Burlesque too plainly shows his face,
And struggling Laughter bids Grief give him place;
While poor Melpomene, o'ercome with shame,
Disowns the changeling that assumed her name.

But he who wears his author deep enshrined,
Joins heart to heart, and mixes mind with mind;
Feels as he wrote, enforces all he taught,
Quickens perception, and embodies thought;
Bear witness, Truth! Scarce such an one appears
Within the circuit of an hundred years.
Though scores of poets graced Eliza's throne,
The perfect player was a prize unknown.
'Twas this conviction Avon's bard impressed,
To task with foreign aim his restless breast,
Made buskined Jonson seem the wretch he knew,
And Shakespeare act the character he drew.
Most rash and vain! Was genius e'er assigned
Without some limit its excess to bind?
Enough; his mind's creative daring placed
A second Eden in the world of taste;
And flowers and fruits the grateful garden crowned,
And human nature dignified the ground.

Here sunk his strength; to animate the whole
Another's power must breathe THE LIVING SOUL.
Fennell! for him thy efforts have prevailed,
And gained for Shakespeare where HIMSELF had failed!
Macbeth had still, within his page, 'tis true,
Instructed some, perhaps—th' attentive few;
But like the fated writing on the wall,
That told Chaldea's monarch of his fall,
By most unheeded, had enticed in vain
From the rich banquet, and the mirth profane;
Had not a moving hand—that all might see,
Beckoned to all—itself a prodigy!
Pointing alike the menace and the sign,
The acting muscles lived along the line,
Traced each strong character in deepest dye,
And forced the warning on the startled eye!

'Tis hence that Wolsey proves, by thee applied,
A living lesson on th' effects of pride.
Hence Hamlet's anguish answering anguish found;
And hence the night by high deserving crowned,
When public plaudit told the ear of Fame,
That Romeo was—perfection's other name!

Ere thy example gave our actors law,—
Remembrance, aid their portraitures to draw!
Our lovers paid their vows at beauty's shrine,
With smirking simper, or with whimpering whine.

Our heroes, quick to desperation driven,
With ceaseless storm besieged both earth and heaven.
Our villains, never such a dangerous clan!
Looked dark, talked sentiment, and—killed their man.

Love, shown by thee, is tenderness sublimed,
The condescension of the loftiest mind.
'Tis Jove, who bending o'er his Juno's charms,
Smooths his dark brow, and spreads his mighty arms;
With fondness wins whom majesty had awed,
And is at once, the lover and the god!

If memory e'er disturb the spirit's rest,
Or earthly honors please th' immortal's breast;
Should Percy's soul recall that tort'ring hour,
When from its frame 'twas forced by Monmouth's power,
Some balmy solace for the wound renewed,
Had soothed its pangs, could he thy powers have viewed;
When beams of glory round thy Hotspur shone,
That Scotia's chieftain had not scorned to own.

Thy villain—hold! No villain can we see;
E'en Zanga wins us, when performed by thee!
Moved by thy plaints of his disastrous fate,
We melt in pity o'er the wretch we hate;
The rising curse is smothered on his tomb,
And hell implored to mitigate his doom.

And shall the minstrel cease these feeble lays,
Nor touch one chord, that yields thee sweeter praise?
That says,—whene'er confessed to public sight,
Thou play'st some motley hero of the night,—
Where lights and shades of good and ill combine—
Native the virtue; foreign is the crime.
Not in thy acts the critic-eye can trace
The private failings of the Thespian race;
Nor cynic-voice the contrast rude proclaim
Of mimic honor, and of real shame.
Whate'er of greatness marks thy scenic strife,
'Tis thy best praise—to copy from the life.
Still well-sustained thy arduous part hath been
Through all the shiftings of its various scene.
When dark Misfortune's gathered clouds were spread,
And winds and thunders roared around thy head,
Like thine own Lear, erect th' unshrinking form
Met the sharp lightning, and sustained the storm.

Still strict to virtue's as the drama's laws,
O be thy meed, thine own and Heaven's applause!
So while the actor “bids the reign commence,
Of rescued nature and reviving sense,”
The man shall aid the efforts of the sage
To mend the morals of a miscreant age!

VENONI.

First printed in “The Emerald,” Boston, 1808.

I do not know that this character has been personated by Mr. F. on the stage. To those parts of it given in his recitations, the remarks equally apply.

LINES,

ON THE DEATH OF MRS. WARREN, FORMERLY MRS. MERRY, OF THE LONDON THEATRE.

[1808.]

Shall Belvidera's voice no more
Lend to the muse its peerless aid,
That erst on Albion's ingrate shore,
Soothed Otway's discontented shade?

She, to no single soil confined,
Sought in our climes extended fame;
The wreaths of either world entwined,
And taught both continents her name.

Nor, of those strains that crowds have hailed,
Small is the praise, nor light the gain;
Clio can boast, such sounds prevailed,
When Faith and Freedom prayed in vain.

Such notes the Mantuan minstrel owns,
Long lured his Trojan from the main;

And bleeding Arria in such tones,
Assured her lord she “felt not pain.”

Such notes, in Rome's delirious days,
Could liberty and laws restore;
Could bid “be still” sedition's waves,
And faction's whirlwind cease to roar.

'Twas by such suasive sounds inspired,
The matrons pressed the hostile field;
The Volscian hosts amazed retired;
The proud Patrician learned to yield.

Such powers, oh had Calphurnia known,
Great Julius all unharmed had stood!
No senate-walls beheld his doom,
Nor Pompey's marble drank his blood!

For thee—though born to happier times,
And gentler tasks than these endured,
Thy voice might oft prevent those crimes
Which e'en thy voice could scarce have cured.

Although no civic aim was there,
Yet not in vain that voice was given,
Which often as it blessed the air,
Informed us what was heard in heaven!

Sure, when renewed, thy powers shall rise,
To hymn before th' empyreal throne,
Angels shall start in wild surprise,
To hear a note so like their own!

OCCASIONAL ODE.

First of all created things,
God's eldest born, O tell me, Time!
E'er since within that car of thine,
Drawn by those steeds, whose speed divine,
Through ev'ry age and ev'ry clime,
Nor pause nor rest has known;
'Mongst all the scenes long since gone by,
Since first thou op'd'st thy closeless eye,
Did its scared glances ever rest
Upon a vision so unblest,
So fearful as our own?

If thus thou start'st in wild affright
At what thyself hast brought to light,
O yet relent! nor still unclose
New volumes vast of human woes.
Thy bright and bounteous brother, yonder Sun,
Whose course coeval still with thine doth run,
Sick'ning at the sights unholy,
Frightful crime, and frantic folly,

By thee, presumptuous! with delight
Forced upon his awful sight,
Abandons half his regal right,
And yields the hated world to Night.
And e'en when through the honored day
He still benignly deigns to sway,
High o'er th' horizon prints his burnish'd tread,
Oft calls his clouds,
With sable shrouds,
To hide his glorious head!

And Luna, of yet purer view,
His sister and his regent too,
Beneath whose mild and sacred reign
Thou darest display thy deeds profane,
Pale and appalled, has frowned her fears,
Or veiled her brightness in her tears.
While all her starry court, attendant near,
Only glance, and disappear.

But Thou, relentless! not in thee
These horrors wake humanity:
Though Sun, and Moon, and Stars combin'd,
Ne'er did it change thy fatal mind,
Nor e'er thy wayward steps retrace,
Nor e'er restrain thy courser's race,

Nor e'er efface the blood thou'd'st shed,
Nor raise to life the murdered dead.

Is't not enough, thou spoiler, tell!
That, subject to thy stern behest,
The might of ancient empire fell,
And sunk to drear and endless rest?
Fallen is the Roman eagle's flight,
The Grecian glory sunk in night;
And prostrate arts and arms no more withstand;
Those own thy Vandal flame, and these thy conq'ring hand.
Then be destruction's sable banner furled,
Nor wave its shadows o'er the modern world!

In vain the prayer. Still opens wide,
Renewed each former tragic scene
Of Time's dark drama; while beside
Grief and Despair their vigils keep;
And Mem'ry only lives to weep
The mould'ring dust of WHAT HAS BEEN.
How nameless now the once famed earth,
That gave to Kosciusco birth,
The pillared realm that proudly stood,
Propped by his worth, cemented by his blood.
As towers the lion of the wood
O'er all surrounding living things,
So, 'mid the herd of vulgar kings,
The dauntless Dalecarlian stood.

“Pillowed by flint, by damps enclosed,”
Upon the mine's cold lap reposed,
Yet firm he followed freedom's plan;
“Dared with eternal Night reside,
“And threw inclemency aside,”
Conq'ror of Nature as of Man!
And earn'd by toils unknown before,
Of blood and death, the crown he wore;
That radiant crown, whose flood of light
Illumined once a nation's sight,
Spirit of Vasa! this its doom?
Gleams in a dungeon's living tomb!

Where'er the frightened mind can fly,
But nearer ruins meet her eye.
Ah! not Arcadia's pictured scene
Could more the poet's dream engage,
Nor manners more befitting seem
The vision of a golden age,
Than where the chamois loved to roam
Through old Helvetia's rugged home;
Where Uri's echoes loved to swell
To kindred rocks the name of Tell;
And past'ral girls and rustic swains,
Were simple as their native plains,
Nor mild alone, but bold, the mind,
The soldier and the shepherd joined;

The Roman heraldry restored;
The crook was quartered with the sword.
Their seed-time cheerful labor stored;
Plenty piled their vintage board;
Peace loved their daily fold to keep;
Contentment tranquillized their sleep;
Till through those giant guards of stone,
Where Freedom fixed her “mountain-throne,”
Battle's blood-hounds forced their way
And made the Human Flock their prey!

Is it Fact, or Fancy tells,
That now another mandate's gone?
Hark, e'en now those fated wheels
Roll the rapid ruin on!
Lo, where the generous and the good,
The heart to feel, the hand to dare;
Iberia pours her noblest blood,
Iberia lifts her holiest prayer!
The while from all her rocks and vales
Her peasant-bands by thousands rise;
Their altar is their native plains,
Themselves, the willing sacrifice.
While HE, the “strangest birth of time,”
Red with gore, and grim with crime,

Whose fate more prodigies attend,
And in whose course more terrors blend,
And o'er whose birth more portents lower,
Than ever crowned,
In lore renowned,
The Macedonian's natal hour!
Now here, now there, he takes his stand,
The 'stablish'd earth his footsteps jar;
Goads to the fight his vassal-band,
While ebbs or flows, at his command,
The torrent of the war!

Could the bard, whose powers sublime
Scaled the heights of epic glory,
And rendered in immortal rhyme
Of Rome's disgrace the blushing story;
Where, formed of treason and of woes,
Pharsalia's gory genius rose;
Might he again
Renew the strain,
That once his truant Muse had charmed,
Each foreign tone
Unwak'd had lain;
And patriot Spain,
And Spain alone
The Spaniard's patriot heart had warmed!

Then had the chords proclaimed no more
His deeds, his death renowned of yore;
Who, when each ling'ring hope was slain,
And Freedom fought with Fate in vain,
Lone in the city, 'reft of all,
While Usurpation stormed the wall,
The tyrant's entrance scorned to see,
But died with dying Liberty.

Those chords had raised the local strain;
That bard a filial flight had ta'en;
Forgot all else; the ancient past,
Thick in oblivion's mists o'ercast,
Or past and present both combined
Within the graspings of his mind;
In what now' is, viewed what hath been;
The dead within the living seen:
Owned transmigration's strange control,
In Spaniards owned the Cato-soul;
And wailed in tones of martial grief,
The valiant band and hero-chief,
Who shared in Saragossa's doom,
And made their Utica their tomb.
Bright be the am'ranth of their fame!
May Palafox a Lucan claim!

That bard no more had filled his rhymes
With Cæsar's greatness, Cæsar's crimes;
Another Cæsar waked the string,
Alike usurper, traitor, king.
Another Cæsar? rashly said!
Forgive the falsehood, mighty shade!
'Mong'st Julius' treasons, still we know
The faithful friend, the gen'rous foe;
And even enmity could see
Some virtues of humanity.

But thou! by what accursed name
Shall we denote thy features here?
In records of infernal Fame
Where shall we find thy black compeer?
Thou, whose perfidious might of mind
Nor Pity moves, nor faith can bind;
Whose friends, whose followers vainly crave
That trust which should reward the brave;
Whose foes, 'mid tenfold War's alarms,
Dread more thy treachery than thine arms.
The Ishmaelite, 'mid deserts bred,
Who robs at last whom first he fed,

The midnight murd'rer of the guest
With whom he shared the morning's feast,
This Arab wretch, compared with thee,
Is honor and humanity!

And shall that proud, that ancient land,
In treasure rich, in pageant grand,
Land of romance, where sprang of old
Adventures strange and champions bold,
Of holy faith and gallant fight,
And bannered hall, and armored knight,
And tournament, and minstrelsy,
The NATIVE LAND OF CHIVALRY!
Shall all these “blushing honors” bloom
For Corsica's detested son?
These ancient worthies own his sway,
The upstart fiend of yesterday?
O, for the kingly sword and shield
That once the victor monarch sped,
What time from Pavia's trophied field
The royal Frank was captive led!
May Charles's laurels, gained for you,
Ne'er, Spaniards, on your brows expire;
Nor the degenerate sons subdue
The conq'rors of their nobler sire.

None higher 'mid the zodiac line
Of sovereigns and of saints you claim,
Than fair Castilia's star could shine,
And brighten down the sky of fame.
Wise, magnanimous, refined,
Accomplished friend of human kind,
Who first the Genoese sail unfurled,
The mighty mother of an infant world,
Illustrious Isabel! Shall thine,
Thy children, kneel at Gallia's shrine?
No: rise, thou venerated shade,
In heaven's own armor bright arrayed,
Like Pallas to her Grecian band;
Nerve ev'ry heart and ev'ry hand;
Pervious or not to mortal sight,
Still guard thy gallant offspring's right,
Display thine Ægis from afar,
And lend a thunderbolt to war!

God of battles! from thy throne,
God of vengeance, aid their cause!
Make it, conq'ring one, thine own!
'Tis faith, and liberty, and laws.
'Tis for these they pour their blood:
The cause of man—the cause of God!

Not now avenge, all-righteous power,
Peruvia's red and ruined hour;
Nor mangled Montezuma's head;
Nor Guatimozin's burning bed;
Nor give the guiltless up to fate,
For Cortez' crimes, Pizarro's hate!
Thou, who behold'st, enthroned afar,
Beyond the vision of the keenest star,
Far through creation's ample round,
The universe's utmost bound;
Where war in other shape appears,
The destined plague of other spheres;
Other Napoleons arise
To stain the earth and cloud the skies;
And other realms in martial ranks succeed,
Fight like Iberians, like Iberians bleed!
If an end is e'er designed
The dire destroyers of mankind;
O, be some seraphim assigned,
To breathe it to the patriot mind!
What Brutus, bright in arms arrayed,
What Cordè bares the righteous blade?
Or if the vengeance, not our own,
Be sacred to thy arm alone;
When shall be signed the blest release,
And wearied worlds refreshed with peace!

O could the muse but dare to rise
Far o'er these low and clouded skies,
Above the threefold heaven to soar,
And in thy very sight implore!
In vain. While angels veil them there,
While faith half fears to lift her prayer,
The glance profane shall fancy dare?
Yet there around, a fearful band,
Thy ministers of vengeance stand.
Lo, at thy bidding stalks the storm;
The lightning takes a local form;
The floods erect their hydra head;
The pestilence forsakes his bed;
Intolerable light appears to wait;
And far-off darkness stands in awful state!

For thee, O time!
If still thou speed'st thy march of crime,
'Gainst all that's beauteous or sublime;
Still prov'st thyself the sworn ally,
And author of mortality;
Infuriate earth, too long supine,
Whilst demon-like thou lov'st to ride,
Ending every work beside,
Shall live to see the end of thine,
Her great revenge shall see!

By prayer shall move th' Almighty power
To antedate that final hour,
When the archangel firm shall stand,
Upon the ocean and the land;
His crown a radiant rainbow sphere,
His echoes seven-fold thunders near,
The last dread fiat shall proclaim:
Shall swear by His tremendous name,
Who formed the earth, the heavens, and sea,
Time shall no longer be!

The Alps.

The younger Cato.

“His enemies confess
The virtues of humanity are Cæsar's.”
Addison's Cato.

TO CHEERFULNESS.

[1810.]

Goddess of the playful mien!
Goddess of the pleasant scene!
Of Innocence and Peace the friend,
Obedient to my call attend!
Come, from care and languor free,
Make thy blest abode with me!
Grant me all thy magic power
To beguile the dreary hour;

For thou canst blunt misfortune's fangs,
And cheat e'en anguish of its pangs;
Then come, from care and languor free,
Make thy blest abode with me!
Powerful Goddess steel my heart,
Firm t' encounter Envy's dart.

In fortune's smiles or frowns the same,
If free from all deserved blame.
Then come, &c.

Heightener of Prosperity!
Soother of Adversity!
Thou canst bless alike all hours,
And make every pleasure ours;
Then come, &c.

Come, ever welcome to my heart,
Come, and from it ne'er depart;
Since every station thou canst bless,
With peace, if not with happiness:
Come, &c.

If flowers and fragrance are not found,
In every path of life's dull round;
Yet with the buds and blossoms crowned
We tread as on enchanted ground.
Then come, &c.

Should Heaven not grant my ev'ry claim,
A thousand blessings still remain;
And with thy aid, I yet may find
Large comforts in an active mind.
Come then, &c.

Living, I'll confess thy power,
And love thee e'en in life's last hour;
When Death, dread conqueror, shall invade,
And every charm of life shall fade,
Smiling, his entrance may I see,
Upheld by Innocence and thee!
Come, then, from care and languor free,
Ever make thy home with me!

A HYMN, FOR FIRST OF MAY.

[1809.]

Lo! all the waste of Winter's past;
The darkened sky, the ocean's roar;
No more is heard the rising blast,
The icy fetters bind no more.

Lord of the seasons! may we raise
Unblamed, the notes of worship here?
And honest hearts and cheerful praise
Welcome the seed-time of the year.

The simplest herb, the meanest flower,
Both to their several purpose tend;
Each insect lives its little hour,
Each worm fulfils its destined end.

Then even such as we may dare
To ask those aids, enabling man
Within some small degree to bear
His part in thine eternal plan.

Not of the humblest be it said,
They ceased to join the social strife,
While air we breathe and earth we tread
Are full of motion, order, life!

For knowledge, plenty, peace bestowed,
For life preserved and health enjoyed,
That here no midnight plague has come
Nor noonday pestilence destroyed!

Supreme Protector of mankind!
To Thee may we our praise express;
And next, to those on earth assigned
Thy chosen instruments to bless.

O, guide us o'er life's wintry sphere,
And through its closing shadows bring
To know in Heaven's eternal year,
Another and a brighter Spring!

A PETITION.

[1809.]

I ask not pomp, I ask not power,
Thou Giver of all gifts to man!
Nor fickle Fortune's golden shower,
Nor life beyond the common span.

Grant me a heart to good inclined,
That gift all other gifts above,—
An active hand, a liberal mind,
The hearts and lives of those I love!

And O, forbid that e'er again,
With bleeding heart and weeping eye,
I mingle with the mourning train,
Where Friendship's funeral passes by!

Spare me but that, Almighty Sire!
All other blessings I'd resign;
Let not its flame of life expire,
But last beyond the date of mine!

Should toil and want be still my share,
And disappointment and disease,
Still more my wasted form impair,
And wrench my hold from peace or ease!

If never mine to know the joy
To draw Detraction's poisoned dart,
The power of penury to destroy,
And cheer the stranger's desert heart!

Yet may not merely selfishness
Exhaust my wishes or my fears;
May hardened guilt receive my prayers,
And misery ever have my tears!

And still, let weal or woe betide,
May that fraternal One be nigh,
Who rose and ripened by my side,
With whom I've lived—for whom I'd die!

Then give—nor dare I ask for more—
A righteous life, a tranquil end;
Till raised to join, when these are o'er,
My Heavenly Guide—my earthly Friend.

ANOTHER “CASTLE IN THE AIR.”

TO MARY.

[1809.]

“To me, like Phidias, were it given
To form from clay the man sublime,
And like Prometheus, steal from heaven
The animating spark divine!”
Thus once in rhapsody you cried;
As for complexion, form, and air,
No matter what, if thought preside,
And fire and feeling mantle there.
Deep on the tablets of his mind
Be learning, science, taste impressed;
Let piety a refuge find
Within the foldings of his breast;
Let him have suffered much; since we,
Alas! are early doomed to know
All human virtue we can see
Is only perfected through woe.

Purer the ensuing breeze we find
When whirlwinds first the skies deform,
And hardier grows the mountain hind
Bleaching beneath the wint'ry storm;
But, above all, may heaven impart
That talent which completes the whole—
The finest and the rarest art—
To analyze a woman's soul.
Woman—that happy, wretched being,
Of causeless smile, of nameless sigh,
So oft whose joys unbidden spring,
So oft who weeps, she knows not why!
Her piteous griefs, her joys so gay,
All that afflicts and all that cheers;
All her erratic fancy's play,
Her flutt'ring hopes, her trembling fears—
With passions chastened, not subdued,
Let dull inaction stupid reign;
Be his the ardor of the good,
Their loftier thought and nobler aim.
Firm as the towering bird of Jove,
The mightiest shocks of life to bear;
Yet gentle as the captive dove,
In social suffering to share.

If such there be, to such alone
Would I thy worth, beloved, resign;
Secure, each bliss that time had known
Would consummate a lot like thine.
But if this gilded human scheme
Be but the pageant of the brain,
Of such slight “stuff as forms our dream,”
Which waking we must seek in vain,
Each gift of nature and of art
Still lives within thyself enshrined;
Thine are the blossoms of the heart,
And thine the scions of the mind;
And if the matchless wreath shall blend
With foliage other that its own,
Or destined not its sweets to lend,
Shall flourish for thyself alone,
Still cultivate the plants with care;
From weeds, from thorns, oh, keep them free!
Till ripened for a purer air,
They bloom in immortality!

TO SARAH, COUNTESS OF RUMFORD.

WRITTEN BY REQUEST, JANUARY, 1811.

The winds that breathe our mansions round,
So long and loud that Fancy's ear
Oft hears in each distressful sound
The groanings of the dying year—
These winds, though harsh their notes we deem,
Ere long shall sweep a softer string;
E'en now their tones but preludes seem
To merrier music from the spring.
That spring, as wont, a frolic fair,
Whene'er she treads our hills again,
Shall tempt thy truant steps to dare
Once more the perils of the main.
What powerful, what resistless hand
Beckons thee o'er a waste of wave,
Where other hills o'ertop the land,
Whose borders other waters lave?

Thy Sire's? Ah, then no longer fail!
Cheer him, who cheers a grateful age;
And winged by duty, fly to hail
At once the father and the sage!
Oft the false lights that learning shows,
But lead the 'wildered wretch astray;
The meteor, Genius, often glows
Only to dazzle or dismay.
A nobler image pictures him;
(No baleful star in vengeance hurled;)
The Central Orb, whose blessed beam
Not only lights but warms the world.
Go then!—yet ah, could wish of mine
Embodied wait upon thy will,
'T would cause the sweetest suns to shine,
And bid the boist'rous gales be still!
Be thine the tributary hours
That Judgment rules, that Taste refines;
May Art present her fruits and flowers,
And Science ope her thousand mines.
Farewell! yet one request remains:
When Gallia's gayer scenes are shown,
Forget not, 'mid her fairy plains,
The modest merits of thine own.

The humble pleasures deck our soil—
Pleasures which, simple as they seem,
Have ever mocked the worldling's toil,
And fled the guilty, gilded scene.
Wearied with flights the world around,
(Whilst war's red deluge drowns the rest,)
The doves of Peace at length have found
Within our ark a sheltered nest.
Here enterprise and toil engage,
And friendship firm, and awful truth.
Here kindness cheers the frost of age,
And counsel checks the fire of youth.
These are our boast—nor here alone
The social graces love to dwell;
But hallowed still in every home,
The hermit-virtues find a cell.
Here Temp'rance rules our vain desires,
Toil lifts—Contentment soothes the mind,
And holy Hope to heaven aspires,
And leaves the less'ning world behind.

Oh, love this land! where'er thou art,
Where'er thy wand'ring feet may roam,
Still hither turn thy constant heart,
And fondly, proudly, own its HOME!

AN EPITAPH

ON MRS. MARY H. SHAW, DAUGHTER OF JUDGE HOWEL, OF PROVIDENCE.

[1811.]

Here sleep the charities of heart combined,
To meliorate the energies of mind;
Where purest wit and liveliest fancy graced,
And reason wore the ornaments of taste.
With her, enthusiast feeling's warmest flame
Consumed the selfish in the social aim;
Hers the firm faith that calmed the flutt'ring breath,
And hers the holy hope that lived in death!
Mother of babes, with every kindred grace,
And equal parent of an orphan race,
Each duty, bliss of life, within her call,
She felt, fulfilled, enjoyed, resigned them all!
No fav'rite virtue sparkled in her breast
With fatal brightness, to eclipse the rest;

Like yon white arch, whose stars unite as one,
Her circling virtues blended—each a sun.
When ruined health found aid and effort vain,
Nobly she triumphed o'er protracted pain,
And sweetly slumbered, till the just shall rise,
And God pronounce her welcome to the skies!

YESTERDAY, TO-DAY, TO-MORROW.

[1810.]

On Hallow Eve, as late I lay,
And vagrant Fancy chose to stray,
She met the Sisters three
Who realize the tales of yore,
Of fabled Fates in ancient lore,
Who held within their stern decree
What was, what is, and what shall be.

But theirs was but fictitious power,
The idol of an augur's hour,
Mythology's fantastic scheme,
The pagan's pageant, poet's dream;
Far diff'rent force to those is given
Whom late I met on Hallow Even,
On whom depends, in very truth,
All vice or virtue, joy or ruth,
That man can e'er befall;

All of the scenes that Life we call,
All that makes death invite—appall,
All that in Heaven can hope enthrall,
Or Hell affright withal!

The elder was of pensive air,
With sable eyes and jetty hair,
And dark brow, darker tinged with care,
That neither joy nor peace could share.
And to the world, she seemed to quit
With ever swift-retreating feet,
Small notice could she spare;
Yet now and then a glance was lent
To mark the steps, which way they bent,
Of her young sister, called To-day;
But as those steps would constant stray,
And reckless take the downward path,
Then, “more in sorrow than in wrath,”
She turned her head away.

Slow she receded from my sight,
To distant domes of shadowy night,
To reach the spot where, shrouded, stood
Her family, “beyond the flood;”
Nor to my aching voice or eye,
Or looked regard or deigned reply;

But still that saintly form and mien,
Solemn though mild, though sad serene,
Seemed an embodied voice, to say
Mortal! my name is Yesterday!

The second of the kindred race
Received from heaven a livelier grace;
With health's own rose her cheek was dyed,
Bright was her hazel eye,
And graceful activeness supplied
The place of majesty.

But truly active while she seemed,
What were her aims no soul could guess;
For still, in Wisdom's view, 'twere deemed
But busy idleness.

In careless guise she roamed around,
And picked her pebbles from the ground,
And when attained the worthless store
She flung them by and gathered more;
And all her actions, as her thought,
Life's sunny surface only sought,
Nor ever searched the secret springs
That move beneath the face of things,

Though latent pearls beneath the sand
Awaited but her seeking hand,
And sleeping diamonds seemed to say—
Give us the sun's awakening ray!

Thus reckless though she roved, yet near
Methought I traced the frequent tear;
And that she noted not the care
Or sorrows of the elder Fair,
Was not that (captious or severe)
She ceased to deem that sister dear,
But that her fond and eager sight,
(That else its glance had backward turned,
And taught it there to rest,)
Now with extatic ardor burned,
And darted onward on its light,
Where, seeming just from Ida's height,
As Hebe young, as Venus bright,
To-morrow stood confessed!

There in a vista through the shade
Above whose arch the sunbeams played,
The fairest form that e'er was seen
Is pranking o'er the dewy green,
Peeping each mazy walk between,
Or playfully intent to screen

That dazzling hair and angel mien
Amid the boughs that intervene;
Those amber ringlets far behind
Wave in the sportive western wind,
And ever 'mid the green leaves seen,
Sparkle like fairy-light between.
But with her mantle's hues so fair
What tints of Nature could compare?
'Twas April's once—so poets say—
But Proteus stole the robe for May,
And Iris tinged it with her ray,
And Hope had borrowed from the skies
The colors for those azure eyes,
Whose tempered radiance, softened dyes,
Allured but not fatigued the sight;
And seemed a sunny orb to view,
Wreathed by a cloud of faintest blue,
That swam in liquid light!

O, matchless maid! forever hail!
Forever thus thy power prevail;
Each former inspiration o'er,
On other forms I gaze no more,
Nor wonder that the world agree
To slight thy sisters—worship thee.

For sure, without thy pitying power,
The first might prove the final hour;
And each his fettered life would free,
But for the blissful hope of thee.
As clouds the present scene o'ercast,
And Memory mourns the buried past,
The future, shown by thee, appears
Of fadeless joys and endless years.
Thou bath'st the Christian's aching eye
With dews from a celestial sky;
Thou calm'st the poet's troubled mind,
Whisp'ring “the world will yet be kind;”
Then bid'st before the patriot's soul
Visions of civic glory roll,
When ransomed realms shall give to fame
His laurelled bust, his pæaned name!

Fairest and best, accept the song!
To thee my lays—myself belong.
All other thoughts I'd tell to flee,
And consecrate my soul to thee;
All other cherished loves depart,
Thou, only thou, shalt rule my heart!

[Pilgrim, whose pious steps have led thee on]

[_]

The following lines were originally entitled, “An Inscription for a Monument at Richmond.” The reflections, however, suggested by the subject, having extended beyond the limits usually allowed to inscriptive composition, they are now offered without a name, and may be supposed the natural effusions of every mind, on contemplating the scene of that memorable conflagration.

[1812.]

Pilgrim, whose pious steps have led thee on,
To pause and ponder at this sacred shrine,
Where relics rest, of sanctifying power
Greater than Mecca or Loretto knew,
Lo! this the spot, where, at the very hour
Of social sentiment, of scenic show,
When eye met eye participant of pleasure,
As passed the varied forms of mimic life,
E'en at an hour like this, came Death's dread angel,
Shrouding his mystic form in smoke and flame,
And still dilating, till his presence filled
Rapid the dome—through blazing fires—anon
Through deepest darkness—here his mighty arms
Grasped close his victims!

Pilgrim, no common sigh,
No vulgar tear! Profane not dust like this
With aught but purest griefs, with holiest sorrows,
Meet for the good, the great, the brave, the fair!
How much of worth—worth greatest at the last!
If e'er thy heart throbbed high at the remembrance
Of him who bore from Illion's heaven-doomed walls
And smoking battlements his aged sire;
Or her who sought, in Gallia's guilty hour,
Death with the friend she loved; or, later yet,
The glorious Scot, whose daring aid preserved,
Spite of the searching flames of civil war,
Hundreds of hearts—who shall attest his praise
In earth and heaven! O, if thy spirit stirred
At such exploits, look here, and it shall own
Kindred pulsations. Here Affection proved
As proud a triumph; undismayed at danger;
Strong even as death, and dearer far than life,
Embraced the fiery ordeal of her faith.
Think on't; th' admiring thought shall flush thy cheek
And dry the dews of Pity. Soothe thee, too,
To think what they were spared! Not theirs to totter
Unto the utmost verge of useless life,
And tremble on the brink, dreading to go,
Yet unallowed to stay. Not theirs to feel

Ling'ring disease—that slow but certain poison,
Perpetual martyrdom, incessant death;
Nor, what were even worse, if worse can be,
To witness such decay—the wasted form,
The ruined intellect, the fevered brain,
The fitful hectic of the cheek, succeeded
By pallid hollowness; and O! the eyes
That roll their wild dilated orbs around,
Imploring aid, till the beholder's heart
Hails with a kind of horrid hope the hour
That ends the being which was best beloved!
God, of his mercy, spared them sights like these,
And gave their final moment one brief pang—
That pang the first and last. “These died together,
Happy in ruin, undivorced by death.”
Their love so powerful was not left to dull
On earth's low cares its fervors, but preferred
To where its essence shall be more sublimed—
Its extacy exhaustless. And if e'er,
Stranger, the wretched havoc which the passions
Too often make, has pierced thy pride of nature,
'Twill heal thy heart to know they here asserted
Their native rank, primeval destination,
The firm allies and generous guards of virtue.

'Twill raise thy hopes of man, and lift thy prayer
To Him, who, when he formed our beings mortal,
Made them immortal, too—that be thy call
As sudden, thou mayst breast thee to the shock,
And buffet Fate as greatly, gallantly,
As those who perished here!

Conflagration of the Richmond Theatre.

Princess de Lamballe.

Duncan M'Intosh.

STANZAS

COMMEMORATIVE OF CHARLES B. BROWN, OF PHILADELPHIA, AUTHOR OF “WIELAND,” “CIMOND,” “ARTHUR MERVYN,” ETC.

[1810.]

Columbia! mourn thy buried son—
Fancy's beloved, the Muses' heir;
Mourn him whose course too soon was run;
Mourn him, alas! thou ill canst spare.

Mourn thou of whom the tale of old,
So oft, so tauntingly is told,
That all thy earth-born sons refuse
Alliance with the heavenly muse;

That though, o'er many a warrior's grave,
Thou bidst the trophied banner wave,
And rescued realms shall give to fame
The laurelled bust, the pœaned name.

And though thou boast on glory's scroll
Of patriot worth a splendid roll;
Their wealth, the gain of equal laws,
Their bribe, the boon of self applause;

And though thy ocean-hero's name
Revived the ancient Decian claim;
While e'en the Turk can point and tell
Where Somers, Wadsworth, Israel fell;

Yet of the sacred sons of song,
How far too few to thee belong;
With Pallas' strength, with Hermes' fire,
Lovers of letters or the lyre.

Though nature with unsparing hand,
Has scattered round thy favored land
Those gifts that prompt th' aspiring aim,
And fan the latent spark to flame;

Such awful shade of black'ning woods,
Such roaring voice of giant floods,
Cliffs which the dizzied eagles flee,
And cat'racts tumbling to the sea;

That in this wild and lone retreat,
Great Collins might have fixed his seat;
Called Horror from the mountain's brow,
Or Danger from the deeps below!

And then, for those of milder mood,
Heedless of forest, rock, or flood,
Here too are found, the pebbly rill,
The honied vale, the breezy hill;

Gay fields bedecked with golden grain;
Rich orchards, bending o'er the plain,
Where Sydney's fairy pen had failed,
Or Mantuan Maro's muse had hailed;

Yet 'midst this luxury of scene,
These varied charms, this graceful mien,
Canst thou no hearts, no voices raise,
Those charms to feel, those charms to praise?

Then mourn thy Brown! whose ardent mind
Aonian worship early joined;
Who chose his shrine from classic bowers,
His lares from the studious hours.

Amid the busy hum of men,
He plied the strong descriptive pen,
And sketched whate'er within, around,
In motley vision could be found.

He watched of livid death the tread,
And marked each fated shaft that sped;
He crossed destruction's midnight way,
And plagues that waste in open day.

Nor chiefly here his powers were shown;
Each lighter theme he made his own;
As Folly's different freaks engage
The serious or the smiling sage.

Where'er his lucid colors glow,
Manners and life the portrait know;
And through the canvass, fiction deemed,
Reality's bold features gleamed.

Nor only his the skill to scan
The outward acts of varied man;
But his was nature's clue, to wind
Through mazes of the heart and mind.

The moral painter well portrayed,
The cause of each effect surveyed;
And breathed upon the lifeless page
The informing soul, the “noble rage.”

If gifts like these might well demand
The gen'rous tear, the votive hand,
E'en where such gifts full wide prevail,
In Latium's porch or Arno's vale;

Then mourn, my country! mourn thy son—
Fancy's beloved, the Muses' heir;
Mourn him whose course so soon was run,
Mourn him, alas! thou ill canst spare.

Arthur Mervyn.

STANZAS.

[_]

The writer of the following stanzas was importuned by a friend, some time since, to supply the deficiencies of the “Ode on the Passions.” It was replied that such an undertaking would resemble the attempt of a journeyman carpenter to finish a statue of Praxiteles. The request, however, being renewed, was so far effectual as to elicit this fragment; not as a presumptuous endeavor to add anything to Collins's Ode, but as an humble distant effort, to imitate the character of that celebrated production.

[1810.]

Behold yon monstrous shape appear!
The Gorgon head, the Danaides' heart;
Their stings the curling serpents rear,
While e'en Ambition owns a fear,
And Hope and Joy depart.
'T was Envy dared the bower invade,
And round with curious eye surveyed,
To where the Lesbian lyre was laid,
Buried beneath its myrtle shade;
That lyre, whose strains so sweet, so strong,
To Sappho's touch alone belong;

That lyre, whose strains so strong, so sweet,
No voice but Echo's dared repeat.
Yet this weird wretch presumed to strive
The lyric spirit to revive!
And emulate those sounds that stole
O'er poor Alcæus' subject soul!

Remorse approached; his wasted frame
Feebly on trembling knees he bore;
Alike in sorrow and in shame,
Timoleon's form he wore,
(What time, from Corinth forced to roam,
He wandered far from friends and home;)
With gory hands he struck the lyre.
The lyre, indignant at the wrong,
Scorned to pour the soothing song;
And harshly groaned each clotted wire,
Now first by murd'rous hand profaned,
Now first by human blood distained.
Back sprang the wretch, and called Despair
To end the strange and “solemn air;”
While still within its banquet flies
The gnawing worm that never dies!

The next that came
With sinewy arm of fight,
And ardent, eagle-sight,
Ambition was his name
Amid the band,
With lawless hand,
He dared aspire
To seize famed Memnon's mystic lyre,
And struck those hallowed chords of fire,
Long sacred to the Sun!
But when the impious deed was done,
I saw, what seemed of mortal state,
To sudden majesty dilate;
I saw him stretch his giant form
In shadowy length athwart the sky;
His rocky forehead clothed in storm,
Bloodshot his dark delirious eye.
While, at his tocsin's furious sound,
Loosened demons danced around;
Joying 'mid the groans profound,
Of Virtues, slaughtered on the accursed ground!

A RHAPSODY.

TO ROBERT SOUTHEY.

[1812.]

O, thou, whom we have known so long, so well,
Thou who didst hymn the Maid of Arc, and framed
Of Thalaba the wild and wondrous song,
And in later tale of Times of Old,
Remindest us of our own patriarch fathers,
The Madocs of their age, who planted here
The cross of Christ, and liberty, and peace!
Minstrel of other climes, of higher hopes,
And holier inspirations, who hast ne'er
From her high birth debased the goddess muse,
To grovel in the dirt of earthly things;
But learned to mingle with her human tones
Some breathings of the harmonies of heaven!
Joyful to meet thee yet again, we hail
Thy last, thy loftiest lay; nor chief we thank thee

For every form of beauty, every light
Bestowed by brilliancy, and every grace
That fancy could invent and taste dispose,
Or that creating, consummating power,
Pervading fervor, and mysterious finish,
That something occult, indefinable,
By mortals, genius named; the parent sun
Whence all those rays proceed; the constant fount
To feed those streams of mind, th' informing soul
Could e'er describe, whose fine and subtle nature
Seems like the aerial forms which, legends say,
Greeted the gifted eye of saint or seer,
Yet ever mocked the fond inquirer's aim
To scan their essence!
Such alone we greet not,
Since genius oft (so oft the tale is trite)
Employs its golden art to varnish Vice
And bleach Depravity, till it shall wear
The whiteness of the robes of Innocence;
And Fancy's self forsakes her truest trade,
The lapidary for the scavenger;
And Taste, regardful of but half her province,
Self-sentenced to a partial blindness, turns
Her notice from the semblance of perfection,
To fix its hood-winked gaze on faults alone,

And, like the owl, sees only in the night;
Not like the eagle soars to meet the day.
Oblivion to all such! For thee we joy
Thou hast not misapplied the gifts of God,
Nor yielded up thy powers, illustrious captives,
To grace the triumph of licentious Wit.
Once more a female is thy chosen theme,
And Kailyal lives a lesson to the sex,
How more than woman's loveliness may blend
With all of woman's worth; with chastened love,
Magnanimous exertion, patient piety,
And pure intelligence. Lo! from thy wand
Even faith, and hope, and charity, receive
Something more filial and more feminine.
Proud praise enough were this; yet is there more:
That 'neath thy splendid Indian canopy
By fairy fingers woven, of gorgeous threads,
And gold and precious stones, thou hast enwrapped
Stupendous themes that Truth divine revealed,
And answering Reason owned—naught more sublime,
Beauteous, or useful, e'er was charactered
On Hermes' mystic pillars—Egypt's boast,
And more, Pythagoras' lesson, when the maze
Of hieroglyphic meaning awed the world!

Could Music's potent charm, as some believed,
Have warmth to animate the slumbering dead,
And “lap them in Elysium,” second only
To that which shall await in other worlds,
How would the native sons of ancient India
Unclose on thee that wondering, dubious eye,
Where admiration wars with incredulity!
Sons of the morning! first born of creation!
What would they think of thee—thee, one of us,
Sprung from a later race, on whom the ends
Of this our world has come, that thou shouldst pen
What Varanasis' venerable towers,
In all their pride and plenitude of powers,
Ere conquest spread their bloody banner o'er them,
Or Ruin trod upon their hallowed walls,
Could ne'er excel, though stored with ethic wisdom,
And epic minstrelsy and sacred lore!
For there Philosophy's Gantami first
Taught man to measure mind; there Valmic hymned
The conquering arms of heaven-descended Ruma;
And Calidasa and Viassa there,
At different periods, but with powers the same,
The Sanscrit song prolonged, of Nature's works,
Of human woes, and sacred Crishna's ways.

That it should e'er be thine, of Europe born,
To sing of Asia! that Hindostan's palms
Should bloom on Albion's hills, and Brahma's Vedas
Meet unconverted eyes, yet unprofaned!
And those same brows the classic Thames had bathed,
Be laved by holy Ganges! while the lotus,
Fig-tree, and cusa, of its healing banks,
Should, with their derva's vegetable rubies,
Be painted to the life! Not truer touches,
On plane-tree arch above, or roseate carpet
Spread out beneath, were ever yet employed
When their own vale of Cashmere was the subject,
Sketched by its own Abdallah!
He, too, of thine own land, who long since found
A refuge in his final sanctuary
From regal bigotry, could thy voice reach him,
His awful shade might greet thee as a brother
In sentiment and song; that epic genius
From whom the sight of outward things was taken
By Heaven in mercy—that the orb of vision
Might totally turn inward—there concentrated
On objects else perhaps invisible,
Requiring and exhausting all its rays,
Who (like Tiresias, of prophetic fame,)
Talked with Futurity! that patriot
Poet of Paradise, whose daring eye

Explored “the living throne, the sapphire blaze,”
But, blasted with “excess of light,” retired
And left to thee to compass other heavens
And other scenes of being!
Bard beloved
Of all who virtue love—revered by all
That genius reverence—Southey! if thou art
“Gentle as bard beseems,” and if thy life
Be lovely as thy lay, thou wilt not scorn
This rustic wreath; albeit 'twas entwined
Beyond the western waters, where I sit
And bid the winds that wait upon their surges,
Bear it across them to thine island-home.
Thou wilt not scorn the simple leaves, though culled
From that traduced, insulted spot of earth
Of which thy contumelious brethren oft
Frame fables, full as monstrous in their kind
As e'er Munchausen knew—with all his falsehood,
Guiltless of all his wit! Not such art thou—
Surely thou art not, if as Rumor tells,
Thyself, in the high hour of hopeful youth,
Had cherished nightly visions of delight,
And day-dreams of desire, that lured thee on
To see the sister States, and painted to thee
Our frowning mountains and our laughing vales,

The countless beauties of our varied lakes,
The dim recesses of our endless woods,
Fit haunt for sylvan deities, and whispered
How sweet it were in such deep solitude,
To talk to Nature, but to think of man;
Then thou, perchance, like Scotia's darling son,
Hadst sung our Pennsylvanian villages,
Our bold Oneidas, and our tender Gertrudes,
And sung, like him, thy listeners into tears!
Such were thy early musings; other thoughts,
And happier, doubtless, have concurred to fix thee
On Britain's venerated shore; yet still
Must that young thought be tenderly remembered,
Even as romantic minds are sometimes said
To cherish their first love—not that 'twas wisest,
But that 'twas earliest. If that morning dream
Still lingers to thy noon of life, remember,
And for its own dear sake, when thou shalt hear,
(As oft, alas! thou wilt,) those gossip tales
By lazy Ignorance or inventive Spleen
Related, of the vast, the varied country
We proudly call our own, O! then refute them,
By thy just consciousness that still this land
Has turned no adder's ear toward thy muse,
That charms so wisely; that where'er her tones,

Mellowed by distance, o'er the waters come,
They meet a band of listeners—those who hear
With breath-suspending eagerness, and feel
With feverish interest. Be this their praise,
And sure they'll need no other! Such there are,
Who, from the centre of an honest heart,
Bless thee for ministering to the purest pleasures
That man, whilst breathing earthly atmosphere,
In this minority of being, knows;
That of contemplating immortal verse,
In fit communion with Eternal Truth!

The College of Benares.

Supposed the earliest founder of a Philosophical School.

DUNCAN M'INTOSH.

[_]

To offer a notice of this departed philanthropist for the Christian Disciple, is to concur, it is believed, with the objects of that publication. In a mercantile community it can never be unreasonable to record an exception to the sordid spirit of accumulation; and in a Christian country, it must always be salutary to contemplate the actual intrepidity and elevation of the Christian character, in opposition to what has been unfortunately asserted of its abjectness and pusillanimity.

We may not be as generally apprised in this, as in our more southern capitals, that Mr. M'Intosh was at St. Domingo during the sanguinary revolution of 1793, which threatened the total extermination of the French inhabitants; and although (as an American citizen) he might have departed in safety, and taken with him the whole of his large property, he preferred remaining and sacrificing that property, together with the interesting hopes connected with its acquirement, to the preservation of the proscribed. At every hazard he continued during eight months to freight vessels at his own expense, laden with these destitute fugitives, to the number of nine hundred men and fifteen hundred women and children. At his subsequent arrival in Philadelphia, a gold medal, a public dinner, and every demonstration of enthusiastic respect, were rendered him by the gratitude of the exiles he had saved; but for services like his, what are all sublunary rewards? Remuneratio ejus cum altissimo.

[1821.]

Hail! son of ancient Caledon!
Thy race is sped, thy crown is won;
The voice Supreme thy worth must tell;
Ours only utters “Hail! Farewell!”

Oft has offended Virtue's frown
Withered the chaplets of renown;
Struck by the lightning of her eye,
In their first blossoming they die;
And incense, fired to rise for years,
Is quenched in her indignant tears.
Not to the just such fate is given;
Their laurel is the growth of heaven;
Seed, sown amid the storms of time,
Expands in that unclouded clime;
The Virtues, guardian angels there,
Make the immortal plant their care;
And heavenly hands its leaves suffuse
With moisture from celestial dews.
It feels the Sun's enliv'ning ray
Long ere he gilds our distant day,
And winds from primal Eden's vales,
Breathe over it their balmiest gales.
And never tree of glory there,
Has towered more fragrant, full or fair,
Than that which waves its holy flower
O'er Duncan's high immortal bower.
Thou hero of an holier flame
Than boasts the ranks of martial fame!
Though honored still that steel must be,
Which strikes for lawful liberty,

(Such as thy Wallace wont to wield,
Defender of his native field;)
Yet happier is that course maintained,
Whose trophies are with tears unstained;
And worthier benisons should fall
On him, above each narrower call,
Who risked his life, his wealth, his all,
With charity that knew no bound,
For strangers, on a foreign ground;
And felt the outcast alien blend
The claims of clansman, brother, friend!
What time against their ancient foes
Dark Afric's race like demons rose,
Past wrongs with present strength conspiring,
And memory all their passions firing,
Till mad, and madd'ning all the throng,
Freedom a Fury raved along,
With garments rolled in blood; with hand
Grasping the desolating brand;
What voice but thine alone could dare
Breathe the forbidden word—to spare?
From glens and caves the fugitive
Could look to thee alone, and live;
Whose shelt'ring arms a rampart spread,
Stood 'twixt the living and the dead,

With angel eloquence to stay
The carnage of that direful day!
And when the shield that saved before,
From power incensed could save no more,
Thou gav'st the meed of years of toil,
To waft them to a kindlier soil.
Vain were the dungeon's terrors, vain
The threatened scaffold's penal stain;
Ah! vain those fonder thoughts, that pressed
For mastery in thy manly breast,
And bade thee pause, nor forfeit now
The nuptial torch, the mutual vow,
The social hall, the festal dome,
The comforts of the hearth and home.
O happy in the sacrifice!
For what the suffering to the prize?
What loss of all that earth holds dear,
In such a high and proud career?
Let faith, prophetic faith, portray
The glories of thy rising day,
When grateful thousands shall proclaim
Their kind deliverer's honored name;
Sires hail him, who from direst rage
Rescued the filial props of age;

And mothers bless the arm that stayed
From infant hearts the ruthless blade;
While from before the mystic throne
Erst to the seer of Patmos shown,
Sublimest welcome shall accord
Thy great exampler and thy lord,
Who onward to his own abode
Through sacrifice and suffering trode;
Endured each earthly, heavenly loss;
Renounced a kingdom for a cross;
Cheerful, himself for others gave,
And lived to bless, and died to save!

Vide Paley and Tenyns.

Mr. M. was twice imprisoned, and narrowly escaped death, for his efforts in this cause.

INCOMPREHENSIBILITY OF GOD.

“I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him.”

[1824.]

Where art Thou? Thou Source and Support of all
That is, or seen, or felt, Thyself unseen,
Unfelt, unknown; alas, unknowable!
I look abroad among Thy works—the sky,
Vast, distant, glorious, with its world of suns,
Life-giving earth, and ever moving main,
And speaking winds, and ask if these are Thee?
The stars that twinkle on the eternal hills,
The restless tide's outgoing and return,
The omnipresent and deep breathing air,
Though hailed as gods of old, and only less,
Are not the Power I seek; are Thine, not Thee.
I ask Thee from the past, if in the years
Since first intelligence could search its Source,
Or in some former, unremembered being,
(If such, perchance were mine,) did they belong to Thee?
And next interrogate futurity,

So fondly tenanted with better things
Than e'er experience owned; but both are mute,
And past, and future, vocal on all else,
So full of memories and fantasies,
Are deaf and speechless here! Fatigued, I turn
From all vain parley with the elements,
And close mine eyes, and bid the thought turn inward,
From each material thing its anxious quest,
If in the stillness of the waiting soul
He may vouchsafe Himself—Spirit to Spirit!
O, Thou, at once most dreaded and desired,
Pavilioned still in darkness, wilt Thou hide Thee?
What though the rash request be fraught with fate—
No human eye may look on Thee and live?
Welcome the penalty! Let that come now,
Which, soon or late, must come. For light like this
Who would not dare to die?
Peace! my proud aim,
And hush the wish which knows not what it asks;
Await His will, who hath appointed this
With every other trial. Be that will
Done now as ever. For thy curious search
And unprepared solicitude to gaze
On Him, the Unrevealed, learn hence, instead,
To temper brightest hope with humbleness;

Pass thy noviciate in these outer courts,
Till rent the veil no longer separating
The Holiest of all, as erst disclosing
A brighter dispensation, whose results
Ineffable, interminable, tend
E'en to the perfecting thyself, thy kind,
Till meet for that sublime beatitude,
By the firm promise of a voice from Heaven,
Pledged to the pure in heart.

LINES TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS F. PALMER,

BURIED AT BOSTON.

[1824.]

“Thou shalt not have my bones,” the Roman said
To his ungrateful country. Then, as now,
Whoe'er put forth the patriot's voice or arm
Incurred the patriot's penalty—proscription,
Exile, or death. Then blush we not for thee,
Whose ashes here repose. The blush be theirs
Who doomed thee guilty for in freedom's cause
Uttering a freeman's voice—as Sydney erst,
And sacred Milton—doomed thee to the hulk,
And desert strand, by felons companied!
(Was not His doom, who spoke to free the world
From sin's worse thraldom, to the odious tree,
With malefactors at his side?) On them,
On them the shame, albeit thine the suffering!
And meet it was, since thou wert ne'er again
To view the white cliffs of thy sea-girt Albion,

The “mighty mother,” who, like her of Colchis,
Has sometimes slain her sons; whose fatal ire
Had driven thee from her to the wilderness,
With brutes, and men more brutish—meet at last
To rest thee in a land where Priestly rested,
Like him a witness for the truth, like him
An exile for its sake. And be thy meed
To mix thy dust with theirs, the pilgrim sires,
Men after thine own heart, and kindred spirits,
Whom persecution banished in their day.
Even here—what time all here was but a waste,
With its fell Indian and its beast of prey—
Taking their turn before thee! one in destiny,
Confessors of the same heroic faith,
Martyrs alike for the same righteous cause;
Rest thee, and rise with them!

Medea.

THE EASTERN KING AND SOUTHERN QUEEN.

(A HEBREW FABLE.)

TO MARY PRINCE TOWNSEND.

[1836.]

He sat upon his ivory throne,
The mightiest among monarchs known,
Who raised Palmyra from the wild,
And Balbec's wond'rous fabrics piled,
Wisest among the sage!
Through farthest Ind, whose gifted name
First on the rolls of ancient fame,
Jew, Arab, Moslem, join to claim,
E'en to this distant age.
To him each latent cause was known,
And Nature's mysteries made his own,
Nor could a flower its incense fling,
Nor reptile creep—bird, insect, wing—
But still of each created thing,
He knew its powers to call;
E'en from Libanus' cedar tall
To humblest hyssop of the wall.

He sat upon his ivory throne,
And royal Balkis near him stand;
She who proud Nilus' wave subdued,
Until his tributary tide
Had her vast reservoirs supplied,
Whence aqueduct and fountain plied,
Refreshing all her garden's side;
She, whom the judgment trump shall raise
With Hebrew souls of Herod's days,
By bright example to condemn
That hardened race of ingrate men;
She, high in soul as rank, with mind
Enlightened beyond woman-kind,
(Though seas and deserts spread between,)
Left Araby the Blest, to find
And prove the far-famed one.
That Fair was Sheba's potent Queen,
That prince King Solomon!
She stood the monarch's throne before,
And either hand twin garlands bore,
Where Sharon's rival roses show,
The paler and the blushing hue,
The various tribes of tulips, too,
And lilies of the golden view,
With that more modest one, that grew
Beneath the valley's shelt'ring shade,

And drooped its bashful bells e'en there,
Lest they should meet the gazer's stare,
And that one blent with either skin,
Snowy without and gold within,
Who shamed that Nature ne'er supplied
A leafy covering for its side,
Is fain its naked stem to hide
Beneath the lake's encircling tide.
There the Carnation lent its share;
There blossomed the Narcissus fair;
The Almond bud breathed fragrance there,
And passing all, the rich Gulnare!
These flowers Arabia's sovereign bore,
As Judah's lord she bowed before,
And held them up to view.

“O, live forever, glorious king!
Behold, the rural wreaths I bring
In form and tint have vied;
But one its quickening substance drew
From Salem's soil, and sun, and dew;
And one, with imitation true,
I and my maidens dyed!
And now, O king, consult thine eyes,
As thou art wisest of the wise,

And tell, according to thy thought,
Which is the chaplet we have wrought,
And which is Nature's hand?
This boon thy handmaid to command
Asks humbly at thy royal hand,
Who, since she ne'er a suit preferred
But thou most graciously hast heard,
Not now must ask in vain;
And spices, richer far, and more
Than those she lately hither bore,
(Though Israel saw not such before,)
Shall be thy royal gain.”

She ceased, but still her glance confessed
The frolic feeling of her breast,
Where secret triumph, ill suppressed,
Through mimic deference shone confessed.
Ceased she, and on the ground her eye
Demurely cast, while waiting by
Stood Judah's court its monarch nigh,
Marvelling that daring dame should try
Their king's sagaciousness defy.
Awhile the monarch paused and smiled
To see his sapience half beguiled
By woman's sprightlier wile.

“And hast thou proved this curious toil,
Queen of the South! my skill to foil?
Well may thy friend admire!
And frankly to thee be it known
That by no wisdom of our own
Could any difference here be shown;
But, (as thou know'st,) thy subjects tell
That mystic call and powerful spell
Force from the spirits, at our will,
Their aid of more than mortal skill
When our behests require,
And there be tenants of the air
Who make King Solomon their care.”

With that the monarch gave command,
Within the queen had fixed her stand,
That all the palace windows wide
Be opened free on every side;
When, lo! the insect chemists there,
Whose skill compounds the sweetest fare,
Rifling from dawn to day's full prime
Through balmiest bowers of Palestine,
Nearer and louder hum,
Till to the regal presence hall,
As conscious of its owner's call,
The revellers have come!

Following the vegetable lure,
With instinct sensitive and sure,
Past the fictitious wreath they flew,
And clustered jocund round the true,
Whilst shouts th' exultant crowd, to see
Their sovereign's ingenuity,
Who thus—“Bear witness, royal Fair!
These counsellors from upper air
Thus aid me judgment to declare.”
“No more, my lord! the gums are thine.”
“Lady, their fragrance I resign;
The wreath—THY WREATH—alone be mine!”

To thee, dear girl, what need to tell
The moral thou hast proved so well?
In whom together meet,
What jointly must their powers dispense
To satisfy a sapient sense,
The useful with the sweet!

Name of the Pomegranate's blossom.

A VISION.

[1832.]

“And when the fit was on him I did mark
How he did shake—'t is true—this god did shake;
His coward lips did from their color fly,
And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world,
Did lose its lustre.”
Shakspeare.

Time hath been
When dreams were oracles, and slumber proved
The source of inspiration; when the senses
Fast locked to all below, the soul was free
For impress from on high, and man awoke
Fraught with futurity—to nations round
Herald and chronicle of coming years.
This is the world's beginning; but for us,
On whom its ends have come, our dreams concern not
The future, but the past; the mind revolves it
In hours of consciousness, and the mood holds
When bathed by Sleep in her lethargic dews.

And mine was such a vision, when in spirit
I looked, and lo! before me rose that isle,
Whose rocky base is worn by waves that bore
The barque of Gama on its vent'rous way,
To climes beyond the Ganges and the morn.
I scaled its cliffs, and heard the sea-bird shriek
Around its dizzy promontory; thence
Stooped to its shadier vale, admiring oft
The culture that to vegetative bloom
Could force that sterile soil. And I bethought me
Of him, the wretched Lusian, to this spot
Self-exiled, victim of his own misdeeds,
And Albuquerque's barbarian policy.
Scorning to carry his disfigured front
Among his former peers, or leave at last
A mutilated corpse to fill its niche
Amid his fathers' sepulchres; abjuring
Country, connections, friends, and kindred dust,
He hid him here; and trained the vine, and taught
The various plants of Europe, like himself,
To bear a foreign home; striving by toil

On the hard face of earth—less cursed to him
Than was the face of man—to dispossess
From their stronghold the demons of remorse,
Despair, and madd'ning memory. Little thought he,
Another and more memorable exile
Should, centuries after, pace his bowers among,
And haply gather the perennial fruits
His hand had early scattered! But such thoughts
And all beside gave way, when I beheld,
Within his martial couch and warrior shroud,
The Evil Genius of the present time
Taking his final leave of it, henceforth
Part of eternity! Already settled
Its awful shadows round his brow, and closed
His sunken eyelids. One by one each sense
Had yielded up its function. Can it be?
This powerless arm belonged to him, who proved
In very deed the Syracusan's project,
And tossed the globe? This swoln and stiff'ning form—
Is this the same whose fatal activeness
Was felt, when, from the Tiber to the Nile,
Echoed his trumpet and his tread? The Alps
Frowned as their everlasting snows reflected
The lightning of his steel; and the hot desert,
Through all its vast and sandy solitudes,
Has shook to hear his rolling thunders waken

The slumber of the pyramids. But no!
'T is fable—in the nineteenth age, nay more,
In one, the star of whose nativity
Rose in the same horizon with our own—
That such things were—and this is all a dream.
Would it were but a dream! And, sure, 't would seem so,
Did not Marengo, Jena, Austerlitz,
And Lodi's bridge, and Berezina's flood,
All rife with fate, attest its verity
With many a dread memorial!
But not now,
In presence of thy bier, would we call up
The list of thine offences. Gone thy victims,
And gone thyself beyond all human audit.
The execrations that had reached thee once
Are stilled, for thou art still; and Death has made
Inviolable peace 'twixt thee and man.
Thy bier has moved the mem'ry from thy sins
To trace thy sufferings. Never change like thine!
The arbiter of Europe's destinies
A suppliant for his own; and he who found
A continent too narrow for his march,
Now cramped in one small isle. The mighty one,
Who set his foot upon the necks of kings,
And bade them do him homage for their crowns,
Now destined to endure, while he despised,

A courtly minion's petty despotism,
Proud, like the keeper of the Lybian lion,
Who lords it o'er the royal brute with tyranny,
Teasing, yet trifling.
Thine imperial bride,
Who would have shared thy banishment, denied thee;
And thy bright son, whose “baby brow” had worn
So soon “the round and top of sovereignty,”
No more to greet his sire. And grant thy heart
Less meet than others for familiar ties,
Still it was human, and as such has felt
When that the right the veriest peasant holds
To commune with his own, was reft from thee!
Through opening ranks that line the long parade
Onward the funeral car has moved, and now
Adown the steep the soldiers' arms have borne
Their fellow soldier; long the grenadier
Shall boast this burden! In thy stony chamber
They rest thee now, while robed and mitred priests
Lift high the prayer and consecrate the tomb;
And thrice from cliff to cliff the cannon's peal
Reverberates long and loudly; while between,
From the far distant ship, the groaning gun
Sends its according sound the ocean o'er,
Startling the Spirit of the stormy Cape,

To call his tempests round him for reply
To such strange menaces.
And they have sealed
The stone, and set the watch; lest e'en thy bones,
Thy very skin, like the Bohemian's, minister
To mortal fray. So thy career has closed;
A thing to meditate and marvel at.
For we but see events; where tend their issues,
Presumptuous we pronounce not, nor decipher
The mystic characters by Providence
Stamped on the scroll that holds his high decrees,
Unmeet for man to utter! This is plain—
All lust of power was not concentrated
In him whom St. Helena sepulchred,
When Austria treads the spark of freedom out
That Italy had kindled. When the Czar
Joins with the turbaned miscreant 'gainst those Greeks
Who rose to wrest the field of Marathon
From Moslem profanation. Thou dead one!
It were enough to have compelled thy features
To smile Sardonic, when the holy league
Thus gave the lie to its own protestations,
And to the faith of all those credulous ones
Who put their trust in princes. But for thee!
Who shall attempt thine epitaph?—and when?
All have heard evil of thee, but the day

Has not yet dawned when what was good as truly
Shall be recorded. Sure thou hadst thy good;
Impious it were to think the Godhead's image
Impressed on man could e'er be wholly lost!
Witness their love, whose self-devotedness
Clung to thy shipwrecked barque, with hold as firm
As when triumphantly it rode the surges,
With all its canvas and its streamers out,
Favored by wind and tide. Nor desperate these
With momentary fervor; steadily
They followed to thy prison-house; for thee
Renounced the world; endured the wayward moods
Of fallen grandeur and of wasting nature;
Nor left till life had left. In Wisdom's view
'Twere worth the price of both thy diadems
To prove such friendship!—this, of all thy honors
Most to be coveted. Thou hadst thy good;
For splendid Art and philosophic Science
Owned thee their patron; and thy height of power,
If wrongly gained, was rightly used for purposes
Of wisest legislation. For ourselves,
Who sit in judgment on thy deeds, have we
Looked to our own? The lesson of thy life
Learned we from thence, who claim a worthier course,
A holier prize, to copy into ours
That vigilance, and zeal, and perseverance;

That energy unquenchable—unnerved
By no defeat, by no confinement cooled;
(As Elba saw, and vaunted Waterloo,
Where many raised 'gainst one scarce wrought his fall.)
Then were the social weal with half that ardor
But sought, as was the selfish, then, indeed,
Thou hadst not lived in vain, but might'st repair
The wrong thou didst humanity. An influence
Strenuous and righteous thus, through the new earth,
Might mould a race of men, the like of whom
The sun ne'er looked upon; who, if he stopped
His swift career a day in Ajalon,
Lured by a hero's call, a hero's deed,
At such a sight as this would gaze forever,
And night be known no longer.

Fernandez Lopez, a Portuguese nobleman, who, after the victory at Goa, was punished cruelly for his apostacy to the Moors, by having his nose and ears slit—at the command of the Governor General—a stain on that otherwise magnanimous character. Instead of being sent home, Lopez was, at his own request, landed on this island, in the year 1513, twelve years after its first discovery by John de Nova, and fifteen after de Gama had first doubled the southern promontory of Africa. To Lopez the island is said to have been indebted for most of its early cultivation.

A BALLAD

OCCASIONED BY THE LATE FATAL COMBAT ON THE MARYLAND BORDER.

[1823.]

And thou too gone!—whose name can raise
The Spirits of romantic rhyme,
The legends of departed days,
The chronicle of elder time;

Art thou THUS gone?—who haply placed
In sable Edward's warlike age,
Chaucer's chivalric lines had graced,
Or sparkled from Froissart's page!—

For not in camp or tourney high,
Could knight or noble e'er be seen,
Of manlier form or keener eye,
More dauntless heart or courteous mien.

100

And ne'er was fealty more strong
In vassal train of feudal lord,
Than glowed among that hardier throng
Who waited on thy martial word.

Witness his deeds whose prompt relief
'Twixt thee and fate, sprang undismayed,
With his own forehead fenced his chief,
And met the Moslem's cleaving blade!

Glory to both! to him whose zeal
With loyal heart could burn so high;
To thee who sought the seaman's weal
Till for thy sake he dared to die.

Where naval Carthage towered sublime,
Cumbers the mosque degen'rate earth;
And dozing beys debase the clime
Where Hannibal received his birth.

Where old Phenicia's friendly sails
Afar her gen'rous products bore,
Our age beheld the recr'ant gales
Waft to his prey the robber Moor.

101

The oath that bound Hamilian's heir,
On Rome alone its vengeance hurled;
More fell than Punic ruffian's swear—
Eternal wrath to all the world.

And emp'rors, kings, and prince or peers,
The Briton, Spaniard, Belgian, Gaul,
Had warred for half a hundred years
To break that yoke that foiled them all.

E'en there our mountain eagle flew,
Fresh in his fierceness from the West,
Kept his bold course, untired and true,
And soared above the Moorish crest.

Through black'ning tempests round him thrown,
His stormy baldrick scattered day,
And as its conq'ring splendors shone,
Trembled the crescent's pallid ray.

Amid that glorious list of men
Foremost we still distinguish thee,
Who broke the Christian captives' chain,
And freed the mighty middle sea!

102

And while the merchant's argosy
Securely o'er the sea shall roam,
Shall he not bless the thought of thee,
Who drove the pagan pirate home?

The shades of that crusading band
Who once the Soldan's host o'erthrew,
Hailed kindred prowess from their hand
'Gainst that same misbelieving crew.

Whilst fire, and flood, and sword, and storm,
And every form of death was there,
Shrank the fierce Turk before that form
That seemed “a charmed life to wear.”

And when he saw thy galiot's prow
Through threefold forces cut its room,
Deemed that predestined hour was nigh
When Allah willed his children's doom;

Saw thy brave brother's life expire,
And scimitars surrounding clashed,
But swift dilating in his ire,
On to his march the Avenger dashed;

103

Singly, five foeman's blades thrust by,
Rushed to the wretch that wrought his fall,
And sent the death-stroke from thine eye
Before he felt it from thy ball.

Nor chief the Saracen to quell
Sufficed thy conq'ring arm to crown;
Before that arm a trophy, fell
The lion banner of renown!

Though since, that banner turned by fate
To those who first its ensigns wore,
Thy soul in victory unelate
Its failure undejected bore.

Did chance or change thy course invade,
Like clouds that tinge Italian skies,
They did but soften by their shade
The dizzying radiance of its dyes.

O! who that through our firmament,
To mark thy radiant pathway, stood,
Had thought, ere half the day was spent,
To see that sun go down in blood?

104

For sunk in powerless sleep is he
Who once a nation's bolts could throw,
And Moorish ghosts have laughed at thee,
To see a Christian lay thee low.

Long gazed upon that glorious scene,
The Genius of thy country near;
Now, more in sorrow than in wrath,
He turns him from thy gory bier!

From all the scenes that formed the past
His partial glance alone would see,
And bid oblivion screen the last,
Could it o'ershadow aught of thee.

Yet, 'mid thy fault, I fondly view
No selfish jar, no private feud—
Though rash and dire the means—as true,
Their object was thy country's good;

Such love that heart thy country gave;
To it thy life, thy death was given,
Prizing its cause, its service, more
Than aught of earth—alas! or Heaven.

105

That parent country wails aloud
The fav'rite of so many years,
And would upbraid him, but his shroud
Changes her chidings into tears!

“Son of my strength,” I hear her cry,
“I bless thee in this last adieu!
E'en I forgive thou thus should die;
God, of his grace, forgive it, too!”

The duel between Commodores Decatur and Barron, which resulted in the death of the former.

106

A FRAGMENT.

[FEBRUARY, 1817.]

The wind is high, the tempest is abroad!
Thou hear'st it not, my brother! feel'st no more
Its rude assaultings; thou who erst could breast
The shock of storms and wind with fearless front,
That almost mocked the peril others shrunk from;
Alas! perchance, thence earlier overpowered,
Suddenly prostrate, while the selfish souls
That cautious calculate the doubtful risk,
Live on—live long! whilst thou, beloved!
Art in that lowly house, whereto my thought
So often turns, sickening at all beside,
And emulous of thy mysterious rest,
Whate'er it be!
The tempest rages on,
And not unwelcomely; afar it keeps
The ceremonious guest, the officious friend,
Both with one aim to banish from thy tomb
The faithful thought, or lead it, truant-like,
To lose itself amid the trivial themes
And desultory movements of the hour.

107

But now alone, and still, and serious here,
'Tis sweet, how sad soe'er, it still is sweet
To be together, love! amid these gusts,
(Which have been likened to a spirit's voice,
With reason, though with fancy,) to persuade me,
I feel thy presence and I hear thy tones.
But be this as it may, I am with THEE!
How often with thee in the communings
Of secret mind, when all around suppose me
Intent on other matter, he alone,
The Master Spirit, he alone can know,
Or tell, perhaps, to thine.
Thou who art ever with me, like a God,
Unseen, yet omnipresent, witness, Charles,
How all unwillingly I turn my mind
From musing on thy fate, e'en at the call
Of holy duty; seems it holier duty,
And primal, too—at least, my sickly spirit
So dreams of it—to linger on those hours,
Those brief but bitter hours, thy latest!
Yet spare me, Memory, spare th' appalling image
Of that dear face, such as in death I saw it,
And give it back as it was wont to be,
Ruddy with health and life. Spare the thought
Of that loved voice, now faint and tremulous,
Now with delirium wild! Canst thou not show him

108

As for so many years he stood before me?
Why turn tormentor, and thus rack my fancy
With visions but of anguish?

The spring returned, but not to thee returned!
And summer came—thy summer never came!
And next the fatal season follows on
That took thee from us; never more by me
That season can be witnessed but with woe!
The reaper's song shall wake no glad response,
And the bright glories of the harvest moon
Shine dimly through my tears. Would I could sleep
Until the vintage shall be gathered in!
“The joyous vintage”—so they name it.

The sun smiles on as ever, and the skies
With answering looks of clear and cheering hues
Seem in contempt to hold the mourner's heart,
For Nature mourns with no one. Yet methought
Of late it did; for see, our leaves have fallen,
Have fallen like thee, my brother, to the ground,
Though not like thee, untimely. They have seen
Their summer through; nor mocked the gazer's hope;
Whilst thou, beloved!—

109

Yet yon little tree
Retains its mite of foliage, while the large
And loftier ones that skirt our garden round
Have lost their honors; yonder slender stem
Still holds its three small twigs toward the sun,
And twinkles its few leaves amid the breeze.
It is the tree; thou planted it when thy health
Was firm, thine arm was strong, thy hopes were high,
And now, how sickens it thy sister's heart,
To think the verdure of that little tree
Outlasted thine!

110

TO C---.

[1817.]

I plant no roses on THY grave,
To mock decay with fragrant breath;
Or gaudy hues in triumph wave
O'er the pale form that wastes beneath.

No laurel o'er that form shall tower,
To boast a life outlasting thine;
And vaunt its leaf's perennial power,
In contrast with thy swift decline.

The sculptured stone the proud uprear,
The venal verse by flattery paid,
Were odious to thy living ear,
Nor shall they shame thy parted shade.

111

Thy name thyself, in idle hour,
Graved on the rind of yonder tree;
And still through sun and storm and shower,
That sylvan record stands of thee.

Naught else, save but the tear, the sigh
That ever must thy loss deplore,
Till thine own voice in realms on high,
Shall bid the mourner mourn no more!

112

“WHEN SHALL WE THREE MEET AGAIN?”

[1816.]

Long years have passed, but vernal May
Returns this anniversary day,
When yet 't was mine, in converse sweet,
A pair of precious friends to greet;
The question quick, the prompt reply,
The quicker language of the eye,
The flash that lightened either face,
The hand's close clasp, the long embrace—
These once were mine; ah, cease the strain,
For ne'er can these be mine again!

The years return, but never more
Those friends partake my simple store;
Low in the earth their forms repose,
High to the heavens their spirits rose,

113

Whilst, by life's longer storm oppressed,
I gaze with envy on their rest,
And to the passing wind complain,
“When shall we three meet again.”

Appalling thought! ere that can be,
All things must cease that now I see;
Stars from their stations must retire,
Faint the pale moon, the sun expire,
Earth must depart, nor heaven remain,
Ere we three can meet again!

Macbeth.

114

THE VASE.

[1816.]

Hear ye! who list this simple lay,
How Lusitanian lady gay,
From sunnier regions far away,
Myrtle and orange bowers,
Deigned in our frigid climes to stay,
Cheating the dullness of the day,
By bidding yonder vase display
Its imitative flowers.
Within that vase, a wondrous thing,
Her talismanic touch could bring
The mimic progeny of spring
To live, or seem to live,
And in her reverie would seem
To foster Fancy's, Memory's dream,
Oblivion's images redeem,
Teach fond associate thoughts to beam,
And warmth and fragrance give.

115

As brief, as brittle as that dream,
The vase, alas! my mournful theme!
Too soon in dust was laid!
Protecting sylphs, is this your care?
And guardian gnomes, O! tell me where—
Where was your wonted aid?
That aid, which still from age to age
Shall shine in Pope's recording page,
Yon monster might have stayed;
And ye, too, train of elphin birth,
Titania's subjects, sylphs of earth,
Though tiny each, your myriad worth
Collective might have saved.
A fierce grimalkin from the wood
Profaned the shrine wherein it stood,
And as the Ephesian miscreant viewed
The temple firm and fair,
Alike this modern outlaw, proud
And bold, to sure destruction vowed
This vase, so rich and rare.
Nor in suspense the blow was hung;
Swift to his mark the ruffian sprung,
Like tiger on his prey.
Down fell the vase with clashing sound,
And all its fragments on the ground
Beauteous in ruins lay!

116

E'en so Palmyra's prostrate towers,
The pride of other days than ours,
Attract the musing eye,
And at Etrurius' mould'ring fane,
And thine, O, classic Greece! must gain
The moralizing sigh.
If towers and temples thus must fall,
E'en vases, too, must hear the call
Of violence of time.
Yet shall the muse thy worth rehearse,
Thou shattered subject of my verse,
In monumental rhyme.
'Twas Gallia gave thee to the day,
Moulded of purest porcelain clay,
Thy well-proportioned frame,
Thy polished front, thy snowy side,
And colors bright, were all her due,
And hers to give thy name.

And since the Fates decree that all
Of Gallia's arms or arts must fall
When leagued grimalkins 'reft her hall
Of statue and of bust,
What wonder if it be presumed
Her roses, like her Venus, doomed,
Should fall and kiss the dust?

117

Behold, all ye this verse who list,
How humblest instruments assist
In every grand design:
Columbian cats, though rough the race,
Republicans, and out of place,
May aid Duke Wellington, His Grace,
“Great moral lessons” to impress,
While vases share the like distress
With fallen Napoleon's line!
O! that were mine the votive skill
Of him who taught his notes to swell
The drowning tabby's funeral knell
With Orpheus' fabled power!
Then higher should my notes ascend,
And fitter melodies attend
The vase's final hour;
But, since 'tis all a bard can do
To do his best, that best for you,
Lady, my hand essayed;
And if it wake one ready smile
Sense of privation to beguile,
The effort is repaid.

118

STANZAS

COMMEMORATIVE OF THE TWENTY-THIRD DAY OF DEC., 1815, WHEN THE BRITISH WERE REPULSED FROM NEW ORLEANS.—AN ATTEMPTED IMITATION OF SIR WALTER SCOTT'S VERSES ON MR. PITT'S BIRTHDAY.

O, dark was the cloud and more dark the foreboding,
When the conq'rors of France and the champions of Spain
Turned hither those bolts late so fatal exploding,
Far flashing the lightnings of battle again!
Now the blackness no more the horizon deforms,
Be the incense of thankfulness wafted on high,
Nor let gratitude's flower, which has flourished in storms,
'Mid the sun of security wither and die.

When the earth with its groans joins the sea with its roaring,
In a menace that startles his tottering walls,
To his tutelar saint for protection imploring,
The terrified Lusian in agony calls;

119

But departs with the danger, the feeling it forms,
When nature resumes her original guise,
And gratitude's flower, that was nourished in storms,
'Neath the sun of security withers and dies.

Far from us be the sin of thy slaves, Superstition!
Whose ingrate sensations no ardor retain,
Till the element war that portends their perdition,
Shall shock them to feeling and phrenzy again;
More gen'rous emotions our bosoms shall warm,
Than timidity's tremor that danger is nigh;
Nor shall gratitude's flower, which we cherished in storm,
In the sun of security wither and die.

For yet hail we the chieftain commissioned to save,
We invoked as our guardian from perils at hand,
When the bellow of battle was heard on the wave,
And kindred convulsions were quaking the land.
That sea-shout he stilled, those convulsions he stayed;
Then be gratitude's fragrancy still wafted high,
And beware, lest the flower safe thro' storm and thro' shade,
In security's sunbeam be suffered to die.

But cheer we the chief, who, empowered by high Heaven,
Reduced civic chaos to order and plan,

120

Made to contrary forces one impulse be given,
And the mind of the many the mind of one man.
To him and his band, as returns this proud morning,
Fresh chaplets we'll culture all change to defy;
From our heart's hardy flower that, all seasons adorning,
Nor in storm nor in sunshine can wither or die.

Sprung from Scotia, whose sons, northern lights 'mid the nation,
Illumine the mists of her spirit-starred sky,
There beatified Moore, from his bright elevation,
Shall bend on thy valor a brother's fond eye!
Ah! haply, no tear damped the wreath that we form,
With thy palm and thy laurel no cypress we tie;
They are gratitude's flowers which, immortal through storm,
In the sun of security never shall die.

Sir J. Moore.

Gen. Jackson is said to have been born in Scotland.

121

STANZAS

ON A VIEW OF NEWSTEAD PARK, BELONGING TO A SEAT LATE THE PROPERTY OF THE RIGHT HONORABLE LORD BYRON.

[1814.]

From scenes like these, that far and wide
Rise and expand in sylvan pride,
Where fickle man might find in range
From hill to vale, congenial change;
From scenes whose very hues impart
Good and gay cheerfulness of heart,
Could e'er their reckless owner roam,
With guilt and gloom to find a home?
To wander, like the exiled ghost,
From heavenly fields forever lost,
Doomed, with Elysium yet in view,
His wayward rovings to pursue,
Where tosses Doubt's tumultuous sea,
Thy shattered wreck, Depravity!

122

Degenerate Gordon! not like thee
Have proved thy nobler ancestry;
Nor rambling taste, nor thirst of gain,
From them had wrung their loved domain;
Naught lured them from their native hall
But fatal honor's sternest call;
Their only signal to depart
The beating of a loyal heart;
That, when Culloden's crimsoned bed
Heaved with the dying and the dead,
Followed its guiding beams afar,
Till set in blood the Stuart's star,
While heaven and earth combined to sign
The ruin of that royal line.

Son of the Muse, celestial guide,
Wont to inspire far purer pride!
Son of the Muse! had gold the power
To win from thee thy classic bower?
Of Byron should it e'er be told
His birthright bartered was—for gold?

Alas! for thou hast sold yet more
Than fragile dome or earth-born store;
And Virtue mourns, in early day,
A brighter birthright cast away;

123

What time delirious Passion's bowl
Dissolved thy priceless pearl—the soul!
O, crowned by heaven with youth and health,
And mental hoards and worldly wealth,
Vain the vast patrimony's aid!
Thy debt on high has ne'er been paid;
Thy means perverted from the aim
That had discharged the loftiest claim;
Guilt's lawless traffic lost for thee
The treasures of futurity!

Yet might it be—thyself—thy song
Are causelessly accused of wrong;
And tell-tale Fame, though still believed,
Has still as constantly deceived;
And thy free soul, unleagued with ill,
Retains its guardian angel still,
Who, when Temptation's fiends assailed,
Has wrestled for thee and prevailed;
If so, the burning blush suffuse,
The bitterest tear bedim the Muse;
To find it false were cause to rue,
Unequalled, save—to find it true!

124

Yet must the mind misgive thy lot
That lingers on this pictured spot,
Gazes its many beauties o'er,
And still returns to number more,
Musing what bliss 'twere here to find
A solace for the wearied mind.
When long sustained the various parts
Of public trust in arms or arts,
Blessing and blest—how fitly here
Might pause from toil a British Peer!
Be welcomed by the well-known shade
Where many a truant prank he played,
And taste the fruit and pluck the flower,
Creations of his earlier hour.

From courts and camps, in groves like those,
Thy hero, Blenheim, found repose;
To breathe the calm that such inspire,
Would awful Chatham's self retire;
And sacred ever be the shade
Where, matchless Burke! thy form was laid,
When, pond'ring all thy country's woes,
The genius of prescience rose,
And spread such visions to thy sight
As checked the spirit's hastening flight,
And stopped of age the coming night,

125

Bidding, as erst in Ajalon,
The mental sun not yet go down!

Beside that bright and tranquil stream
How pleasant to recline and dream!
Listening the while its gentle sound
Not even fairy ear might wound,
Nor passing zephyr dare molest
The sacred quiet of its breast.
In gay translucency complete,
Yet mild as bright—O, emblem meet!
The very heaven assigned the just,
The haunt of beatific trust,
Where no defilement enters e'er,
Seems scarce more fair, more calm, more dear.
Byron! from this—and couldst thou pass?
Perchance, because its faithful glass
To thy inquiring glance has shown
Features the contrast to its own.
Far other images might find
Access to that distempered mind—
The dark wave warring 'gainst the shore,
The wild cascade's eternal roar;
What scorns, or what maintains control,
Suits the stern habits of thy soul.

126

Where opes yon vista, to disclose
Deep blushing how th' horizon glows,
'Twere sweet to watch the sun descend,
Like patriarch or like patriot's end—
The radiance of whose parting light
Gleams far athwart the grave's long night,
And glances to that distant shore
Where suns arise to set no more.

Or where the hill's serener brow
O'erlooks the bustling world below,
Wait till that glorious orb arise,
And ride along the nether skies,
A warrior, awful to assail,
With fiery lance and golden mail,
Who, while his own impassive form
Derides of heaven and earth the storm,
Has ireful shafts, so swift, so sure,
That mortal strength can ne'er endure;
When that, in vengeance like a God,
O'er scorching realms he proudly trod,
But oftener when he glads the view
Like as a God in bounty, too,
Painting the flow'ret and the stone
With tints without his touch unknown,

127

Aiding the labors of the swain,
Granting to life its feast of grain;
The holiest heart was e'er bestowed
Might hail him on his heavenly road,
And pardon that the pagan knee
Had bent in fond idolatry.

Sweet scene, farewell! Although these eyes
Behold thee but through mimic dyes;
Though ne'er my step may wander o'er
To ancient Albion's distant shore,
Yet for this semblance shall my heart
Long bless the imitative art.

But thou! whose meed it was to know
The substance of this shadowy show,
At will to visit such a shrine,
With the high consciousness—'TWAS THINE,
Couldst thou—whate'er the syren call—
From such an fly—self-driven?
Its social bower, its festive hall,
Its lawns, its waters, woods, its all—
“O! how couldst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven?”

The pearl of the soul may be melted away.—
T. Moore.

128

STANZAS

SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN NEAR A VILLA IN NAPLES, ONCE THE RESIDENCE OF EMMA, LADY HAMILTON.

Yes, thy enlightened mind can scorn
The fables of the nursery page,
And hold of fraud or error born
The legends of a monkish age:

Of witch or fay, in evil hour,
Foul demons, garbed in form most fair,
With heroes spell-bound by their power,
Or nature vassalled in their care.

Yet persons, places, there may be
Our doubts could to conviction turn;
Make us, what we have heard, to see,
And force us on the faith we spurn.

129

And this is one! and stranger, sure,
If holily thy heart incline
'T will pray, should e'en the syren lure,
The deafened adder's part be thine.

For here dwelt one, whose gifts of art
And grace of nature could combine
To harbor a demoniac heart,
Hid in the goodliest human shrine—

And as the rebel seraphim
That heaven records with dire renown,
Drew other spirits like to him,
E'en from their high allegiance down—

Son of the morning! so could she,
Nelson! thy noble mind o'erthrow,
To forfeit what was due from thee,
To God above or man below.

To blight that hero's laurel-crown,
Her deadly nightshade on she threw,
And round the stars of his renown,
A dark and misty halo drew.

130

His “milk of human kindness” all
Was changed and cursed by sorcerer's art;
And milder feelings turned to gall,
That wont to circle round his heart.

False then, to trust luxurious joys
With barb'rous deeds have nought in kind,
That swords cannot be joined with toys
To supple and to steel the mind.

Its reckless lord, 'mid flaming Rome
Wakening the viol's warbling, stood;
And Stuart left his goblet's foam,
To banquet upon Russell's blood.

The vices, allied in their aim,
Still in each other's tread pursue;
And she who loses woman's shame,
Soon loses woman's pity too.

When ruined patriots' cries arose,
'T was hers the monarch's ear to engage;
To turn them fenceless to their foes,
And quench in blood their “noble rage.”

131

'T was hers the accursed doom to spy,
Where aged Honor met his end,
Whilst to his death-distorted eye
Glared horrible the female fiend!

Sorc'ress! when next you meet again,
In other hands the penal power;
Not thine to wield the vengeance then,
When next that murdered form shall lower!

As when, slow rising o'er the wave,
It struck the guilty Bourbon dumb:
A spectral herald from the grave,
A monitor of wrath to come!

Yet, if the guilt that stains the soul,
Immortal as that soul may be—
And crimes their dark, dark shadows roll,
O'er scenes of far futurity!—

Then, the blot of Albion's isle,
Though Italy's ensanguined scourge,
Oh Hamilton! th' avenger's smile,
Nor further need thy sentence urge.

132

The bosom serpents cherished here,
Hereafter shall that bosom tear;
Medusa's loose and ruthless peer
Medusa's loathsome doom must bear.

Then, traveller! turn thee hence, and curse her not,
Who waits, imprisoned 'neath the clod,
Stern retribution's righteous lot,
The final fiat of her God.

Nero.

Carocciobi.

133

THE RAINBOW.

[1813.]

Seen through the misty southern air,
What painted gleam of light is there,
Luring the charmed eye?
Whose mellowing shades of different dyes
In rich profusion gorgeous rise,
And melt into the sky?

Higher and higher still it grows,
Brighter and clearer yet it shows,
It widens, lengthens, rounds;
And now that gleam of painted light,
A noble arch, confessed to sight,
Spans the empyreal bounds.

134

What curious mechanician wrought,
What viewless hands, as swift as thought,
Have bent this flexile bow?
What seraph touch these shades could blend,
Without beginning, without end?
What sylph such tints bestow?

If Fancy's telescope we bring
To scan withal this peerless thing,
The Air, the Cloud, the Water King,
'Twould seem their treasures joined,
And the proud monarch of the day,
Their grand ally, his splendid ray
Of eastern gold combined.

Vain vision, hence! that will reverse,
Which in Creation's infant year,
Bade, in compassion to our fear,
(Scarce spent the deluge rage,)
Each elemental cause combine,
Whose rich effect should form this sign,
Through every future age.

O, Peace! the rainbow-emblemed maid,
Where have thy fairy footsteps strayed?

135

Where hides thy seraph form?
What twilight caves of ocean rest?
Or in what island of the blest
Sails it on gales of morn?

Missioned from heaven in early hour,
Designed through Eden's blissful bower
Delightedly to tread,
Till exiled thence in evil time,
Scared at the company of crime,
Thy startled pinions fled.

E'er since that hour, alas, the thought!
Like thine own dove, who vainly sought
To find a sheltered nest,
Till from the East, the South, the North,
Doomed to be driven a wanderer forth,
And find not where to rest;

Till when the west its world displayed
Of hiding hills and sheltering shade,
Thither thy weary flight was stayed,
Here fondly fixed thy seat;
Our valleys and our desert caves,
Our wall of interposing waves,
Seemed a secure retreat.

136

In vain! from this thy last abode
(One pitying glance on earth bestowed)
We saw thee take the heavenward road,
Where yonder cliffs arise;
Saw thee thy tearful features shroud,
Till cradled on the conscious cloud
That to await thy coming bowed,
We lost thee in the skies.

For now the maniac demon, War,
Whose ravings, heard so long from far,
Convulsed us with their distant jar,
Nearer and louder roars;
His arm, that death and conquest hurled
On all beside of all the world,
Claims these remaining shores.

What though the laurel leaves he tear,
Proud round his impious brow to wear
A wreath that will not fade?
What boots him its perennial power?
These laurels canker where they flower,
They poison where they shade.

137

But thou, around whose holy head
The balmy olive loves to spread,
Return, O nymph benign!
With buds that Paradise bestowed,
Whence “healing for the nations” flowed,
Our bleeding temples twine.

For thee our fathers ploughed the strand;
For thee they left that goodly land,
The turf their childhood trod,
The hearths on which their infants played,
The tombs in which their sires were laid,
The altars of their God.

Then, by their consecrated dust,
Their spirits—spirits of the just,
Now near their Maker's face;
By their privations and their cares,
Their pilgrim toils, their patriot prayers,
Desert thou not their race.

Descend to mortal ken confessed,
Known by thy white and stainless vest,
And let us on the mountain crest

138

That snowy mantle see;
O, let not here thy mission close!
Leave not the erring sons of those
Who left a world for thee!

Celestial visitant! again
Resume thy gentle, golden reign,
Our honored guest once more;
Cheer with thy smiles our saddened plain,
And let thy rainbow, o'er the main,
Tell that the storms are o'er!

139

OCEAN.

A NAVAL PRIZE ODE.

[1813.]

All hail, thou mightiest, monstrous Power!
To whom, in this tempestuous hour,
The nations bow the knee!
This hour, when Heaven's right arm hath hurled
Its thunders round a warring world,
O'er Christendom one bloody flag unfurled,
We lift our eyes to thee!

Primeval Power! ere order sprung,
While yet o'er chaos darkness hung,
Thou wert; and when, in onward time,
The impious mortal stained by crime
The image of his Sire sublime;
Then, great Avenger! didst thou rise,
And swelling to the darkened skies,

140

Each of thy waves commissioned then
Whelmed in the worthless race of men!

Ocean! that venerable name,
What tongue unfaltering shall proclaim?
Here, as upon my native plain
That borders on thy wide domain,
I stand, and strive one glimpse to gain
Of half thy worth, but strive in vain.
Power! to whose hundred hands is given
To toss their foam against the face of heaven,
And, ere insulted heaven its wrath can show,
Retreat in safety to th' abyss below.
Extent! whose untold regions lie
Where man nor angel e'er could pry,
Who mantlest round this mighty globe,
As in one vast, cerulean robe.
And wealth! whose many massive heaps
Lie piled within thy cavern deeps,
Where new Peruvia's unfold
Their copious veins of liquid gold,
And other India's rise to spread
Of rival gems, thy sparkling bed.

141

Yet, grand and awful as thou art,
'T is ours with no foreboding heart,
To count thy glories o'er;
Descendants from that western wild,
Of heaven the latest, loveliest child,
Who safe in thy protection smiled,
Nor asked nor cared for more:
Blooming so long from all intrusion free,
And known to none but Heaven and thee;
Till he, thy chosen chieftain, came,
Genoa's boast, Iberia's shame;
(Blest, had he never ceased o'er thee to roam,
Nor found disgrace, and chains, and death at home.)
He wooed and won the peerless dame,
And gave to her his honored name.
E're since that hour, their children, we,
In weal or woe thy aid can see.
In war, thy guarding waters rose,
A fence between us and our foes;
In peace, thy stars have been our guides,
Our coursers swift thy foaming tides,
And safe have been our billowy rides,
As when some white-winged seraph glides
To haven of repose.

142

Far to that execrated shore,
Where ancient Carthage towered of yore,
'Twas thy supporting arms that bore
'Gainst Punic perfidy the band
Who well avenged our injured land,
And drove the crescent, bathed in blood,
To hide its blushes in the flood;
But when no effort could withstand
The wily Turk's ensnaring hand,
Snatched for themselves the lighted brand,
And, mounting in a shroud of flame,
Died to the world—to live in fame!

And now, though in the recent year
That compassed our “diurnal sphere,”
Defeat, disgrace, and want, and fear,
Wherever else we look, appear;
Yet, when to thee we turn our eyes,
Some stars amid the storms arise.
Lo! twice within that little year,
Behold yon trophied barque appear,

143

Whose eagle, in the wat'ry field,
Twice bade the British lion yield!
Whose noble mast yet stands to tell
Its native oaks—it never fell!
And bids Defiance' loudest blast
Challenge the world to mate that mast,
For service shared, for duty done,
For danger dared, for vict'ry won!

Ere, echoing round our gladdened shore,
The peal of triumph scarce was o'er,
Thou bad'st thy winds to bear again
O'er all its hills the lofty strain,
To tell them that another sail,
'Mid dark October's stormy gale,
In direst, deadliest shock, could close
With hearts as brave as Britain knows,
And in that shock prevail!

We crowd not on the shuddering sight
The horrors of that awful fight;
Not ours to count the cruel scars,
And groans, and wounds of ocean wars;
Let others note how, side by side,
The virtuous and the valiant died;

144

Where gun 'gainst gun, encount'ring, lay
So near, they crossed each other's way!
And from the suff'ring and the slain
The life-stream mingled with the main,
Till Conquest grasped his laurelled crown,
Less as a symbol of renown
Than to conceal from sight, from thought,
Proofs of the price at which 'twas bought!

Thou, Ocean! thou, the seaman's sire!
Witness for us! while deeds like those
Approved our prowess to our foes,
Did they not, 'mid ourselves, inspire
In all the emulous desire
As well to act as to admire?
Witness, as well it may,
That one could, unattended, roam
To Albion's very channel home,
In vain but bold essay;
And could bid his cannon sound
To St. Salvador's farthest ground,
Till Andes might the shock rebound,
Of challenging the fray!

145

And soon, with streamers waving nigh,
On thy blue throne exalted high,
We hailed another naval son,
Graced with the gift his arm had won;
A rare and goodly gift, to greet
A country ever proud to meet
The same chivalrous chief, who bore
Rich tributes once from Barbary's shore,
As Allah's sons can tell;
But now a nobler trophy shows,
Wrested from mightier, manlier foes,
Who fought so long—so well.
Vict'ry was ours, and conflict o'er,
Found mercy had been ours before,
And kindness, from elation free,
And frank, high-minded courtesy.
In losing Peace we have not lost
That gentle grace she prizes most.
So may the goddess, when again
She re-ascends her sacred fane,
That fane, whose gates, alas! now closed,
Have stood to force and fraud exposed,
Find still upon her altar's urn
Unquenched its lambent lustre burn.
Without is all the storm and din;
The vestal flame yet lives within.

146

Once more, upon thy list of fame,
Ocean! inscribe another name;
Surely, we may not ask in vain
For him, who ne'er can ask again!
For him, most prized, yet pitied most—
For Lawrence, honored—Lawrence, lost!
For him, who erst the fight maintained,
And erst the conqueror's chaplet gained,
And better, nobler far,
Who sprang where battle fiercest bled,
Between the living and the dead,
And stayed the waste of war!
For him, whose virtues were declared
By enemies his sword had spared,
What time his arm humanely dared
The reeling captive to sustain,
And snatch the sinking from the main.
The life, in fight half lost before,
Was now to peril risked once more,
Till, aiding in the great emprise,
His comrades sank before his eyes.
This—this may Fame's sublimest song
In everlasting note prolong!
O, glorious end! O, death of pride!
The victors for the vanquished died!

147

But be the shouts of triumph o'er;
Strike the high warbling harp no more!
And let the minstrel's measure know
No tones but tones of martial woe!
O'er the slow undulating tide
Let only mournful music glide,
And but the solemn sounding oar
Awake the silence of the shore.
Let Fancy to the tufted steep
For sad sepulchral sights retire,
Where wildly o'er the moaning deep
The mermaids tear
Their golden hair
And fling it on the funeral pyre.
Such sorrows, to the patriot dear,
Befit a hero's bloody bier;
Such, Lawrence! to thy name be paid
All that can greet thy gallant shade.
O, thou! whose gen'rous arm could save
Thy fellows from an early grave,
What blessings had to him belonged
Who had a life like thine prolonged?

Yet had thy parting been deferred,
Hadst thou been spared, thou hadst but heard

148

Thy country to thy claims demurred,
Nor paid thee for thy wounds a word.

Indignant shade! I see thee stand
On wild Canadia's adverse strand,
While round the night breeze moans,
And pointing with thy shadowy hand,
Thy voice exclaims, “Ungrateful land!
Thou shalt not have my bones!”

Long on the saddened mind shall stay
The thought of that disastrous day,
When, with thy few brave followers round,
Thou daredst dispute th' unequal ground,
Till sunk beneath thy mortal wound;
Nor then—in the recording line
Ne'er be it said—to yield was thine;
Till reeling sense and fainting life
Withheld thee from the desp'rate strife;
Ne'er was that bloody banner down,
So lately starred with thy renown,

149

Long as thy arm could wield a sword,
Long as thy lips could breathe a word;
Thy deeds, thy voice, this truth revealed,
That Lawrence never knew to yield!
Naught but the final enemy
Who conquers all has conquered thee!

Yet still the tributary verse
Must flow lamenting round thy hearse;
For partial Heaven in thee combined
The sternest with the softest mind;
Seemed that thou wert but lent, to show
The rest of Ocean's race below
How all the charities might blend,
Of father, brother, husband, friend,
Till, perfecting the patriot plan,
The warrior mellowed in the man!
But, hark! E'en now what tidings swell!
Last, but not least, they speed to tell
Where Burroughs the invader spoiled,
His arms, his arts, o'erpowered and foiled,
But in the struggle fell!

Then be it so! An end so great
No sighs but sighs of envy wait!

150

What could a Roman triumph more,
Than passed his closing eyes before?
With falt'ring hand and bosom gored,
'Twas his to grasp a conq'ror's sword,
Like gallant Wolfe, well “satisfied”
In that he conquered, and he died!

Ocean! when storms of conflict o'er,
Shall desolate our coasts no more,
But that firm race of thine shall come
To dignify a peaceful home,
O, grant that race to prove them, then,
Better as well as braver men;
Wise to forbear, in civil life,
As bold to dare in hostile strife;
For angel eyes, that turn afar
Abhorrent from the scenes of war,
Have yet beheld, with tears of joy,
Virtues which war could not destroy;
That in the hot and tempting hour
Of mad success and lawless power,
When Av'rice, Pride, Revenge, contend
For mastery in the human fiend,
Could chain these furies to their den,
And make the victors more than men!

151

Nor solely to the chieftain free
This might of magnanimity;
Round many an humbler head it glowed,
Through many a humbler heart it flowed;
Those who, whate'er their leaders claim,
Must fall, themselves, unknown to Fame;
Theirs the toil without the praise;
The conquest theirs, but not its bays.

Then grant, great Ruler of the Main!
These virtues they may long retain;
So shall thy waters ne'er be viewed
Without a burst of gratitude;
So, when War's angry flame retires,
And ling'ring, on thy bed expires,
These, tried and purified, shall rise,
And, phœnix-like, ascend the skies.

This refers to Capt. Somes and Lieutenants Wadsworth and Israel, who, seeing themselves surrounded by three gunboats in the harbor of Tripoli, on the remarkable night of August 4th, 1804, with no prospect of escape, preferred death to slavery, and putting a match to the train of the fireship Intrepid, blew the whole into the air!

Alluding to the refusal of a vote of thanks by the Senate of Massachusetts, for the victory in the Hornet.

Exclamation of Scipio Africanus.

152

A FRAGMENT.

Lone on the beatific mound,
When evening's shadows closed around,
The band have left their leader there,
In orison which none might share;
And they have sought the sacred sea,
That laves the shores of Galilee.

But had the adversary power
To harass in that darkling hour,
That vengeful turned the tide, the gale,
Against the fisher's struggling sail?
Though stout of arm and strong of will,
His strength is spent and foiled his skill;
The night's fourth watch is almost closed,
Nor the tired mariner reposed.

153

Oh! vain to toil 'gainst wind and wave,
And sunk the heart the hope to save,
And lo! is yon shape the mist of storm,
Or whence, or what, that dubious form
That seems athwart the wave to glide,
That burst anon our barque beside?
Is it his shade, the man austere,
Of desert haunts the deep-voiced seer?
What dread commission brings him here?
Or is the shadowy semblance he
Late of the chosen company,
The first that Herod's vengeance proved,
The brother of the best beloved?
Comes he to speak that brother's doom,
And tell us of a wat'ry tomb,
At such dread time of doubt and fear,
That aught unearthly should draw near?
When lo! with face as beams our sunbeams bright,
With robe all whitening in the light,
(But once again on Tabor's height,
In after days they saw that sight,)
Treading the tempest to their aid.
He calls—“'Tis I, be not afraid!”
Their leader stands confessed;
The hushed wind is at rest,

154

And like an infant at his will,
Low at his feet the wave lies still.
Such power to One alone is given;
That One on earth, who came from heaven!

Or when upon that mystic sea,
We cross in life's extremity,
When to worn barque and shattered sail
No human art can more avail,
The latest night-watch nearly o'er,
Nor morning gilds the distant shore;
Again may that resplendent form
Dispel the cloud and still the storm,
Come to the trembling suppliant's aid—
“'Tis I, be not afraid!”

155

THE FIRST GRAVESTONE.

“And Jacob set a pillar upon her grave.”

First of primeval monuments! of all
The long lost trophies won by elder Time,
Fondly the mental eye reverts to thee,
Reared by the Patriarch to that Syrian spouse,
So beauteous, so beloved! meed of his toils,
What time, a wanderer from his father's house,
He sought the stranger land, and twice seven years
Of labor hard, and harder outrage proved,
When by the day the drought consumed his strength,
And frost benumbed at night! yet all was deemed
But little for the love and hope of her
Who blessed his after life; and in her turn,
For sire and country, friends and kindred left,
Found him her all in all, and paid him back
The “debt immense” of that long suffering love.
Nor died it with her death; but reared this stone
To witness it through ages yet to come.

156

True, mightier things have been; the mounds where Thebes
Enshrines her nameless dead, and that famed pile
Of the world's wonders Artemisia reared
To her lost lord, then died for loss of him;
Yet tend'rer thoughts and busier phantasies
Stray toward the grave of Haran's shepherdess,
And seek from Bethel's heights to Ephrath's way
That lonely sepulchre!

157

THE DEAD.

How happy are the dead!
Ye slumberers of the tomb, I envy you,
Who in the midst of this tumultuous world
Have hied you to a spot where all its din
Rolls over you unheard! My wearied senses,
Vexed with their lingering vigil, call for sleep
To seal them up forever. The strained eye
Aches with the force that wears its loathing gaze
On things half wild enough to make its ball
Start from its socket; and the ear is stunned,
And gladly would hold amity with deafness,
So it might 'scape the clamor and the jar
Of this distracted globe; and the poor heart—
The feeling heart, is sick almost to death!
Would it were quite!—

Yes, I confess it; nor can sin be called,
Nor the stern decalogue itself prohibit,

158

An envy like to this; those interdicts
Guarded alone our neighbor's living weal,
Nor dreamed the world should come to such a pass
Corse or corruption could be coveted,
(As Eastern sages failed to legislate
'Gainst parricide, not dreaming such a crime
Could e'er exist;) then not unlawfully,
Ye slumberers of the tomb! I envy you
Your dreamless rest. How happy are the dead!

159

LINES SUGGESTED BY A STUDY-CHAIR

BELONGING TO THE LATE HORACE HOLLEY.

Pastor, philosopher, and friend!
Who fill'st this sacred seat no more,
Might I without presumption bend,
And lean where thou hast leaned before?

Memorial of a master mind,
With power to bring its owner near,
In living light, like that which shined
Throughout his bright but brief career;

In inspiration, mien, and air,
In form and FRONT, “how like a God!”
Such glorious creatures, some declare,
From higher spheres have walked abroad.

160

Yet those “called gods must die like men,”
And such the stern and fixed decree
Which leaves thee, till we meet again,
But an immortal memory.

Thy steady stand at Truth's high call,
Thy eloquence that fought and won,
Thy courtesy that cared for all,
Yet, independent, cringed to none;

With candid faith, the only shield
Thy generous zeal would deign to choose;
Ah, vain celestial arms to wield
'Gainst arts thyself had scorned to use!

Were but thy mantle fallen here,
But part of these, thy spirit's fund,
Where but a blank can now appear;
Who would have asked or wished beyond?

It may not be! But memory yet
Faithful thine image shall retain;
Which who that saw can e'er forget,
Or look upon its like again?

161

ON A WREATH

BROUGHT BY F. ALEXANDER FROM THE TOMB OF ABELARD AND HELOISE, IN PERE LE CHAISE.

The wreath! but not of laurel leaved,
The conqueror's prize of yore;
The meed of murders past achieved,
The stimulant to more!
The wreath! but not from off the vine
The bacchanalian's boast,
Of revelry and wrath the sign,
Of soul and sense the cost.
The sabre's flame, the cup's desire,
These flow'rets ne'er have fed:
Such vanities the living fire,
These only deck the dead!
A pilgrim to the funeral shrine
Of famed but fatal love, to me
The relic brought; nor verse of mine
May chide the friendly felony:

162

Memorial of a claim more near
That same sepulchral earth enshrined,
The amity of many a year,
The cordial heart, the beaming mind,
That, from its native Tagus borne,
From orange groves his waters lave,
Where flows the stranger Seine to mourn,
Was doomed to find a foreign grave!

Ann Frances Bulkley, of Lisbon, widow of Gen. Humphreys, (re-married to Col. de Walewski), was interred in Pere le Chaise.

163

AN INSCRIPTION FOR A MONUMENT TO THE MEMORY OF GEN. HUMPHREYS.

WRITTEN BY REQUEST.

[1819.]

Oft to departed worth benignant Heaven
A power of working miracles has given,
Insensate matter's gloomy rest to break,
Bid dust be eloquent and marble speak;
Then e'en this stone by future patriots read,
May bid the living emulate the dead.
He who in youth was armed for civil right,
And shared the dangers braved in freedom's fight,
These sylvan plains, where first to life he sprung,
His sword defended, and his numbers sung;
In graver years the statesman's toil he proved,
And served in foreign realms the land he loved.

164

Ere age advanced, back to that land he bore
The fleecy treasures of Iberia's shore.
Patron of arts and guardian of the state;
Friend of the poor, and favored by the great;
To sum all titles of respect in one—
Here Humphreys rests, beloved of Washington!

165

LINES ON A STONE FROM THE FIELD OF WATERLOO.

[1823.]

Sermons there are in stones, the poet said,
With more than poet's truth; then surely THIS
May preach most movingly. Thou stone of slaughter,
Midway between the warring hosts, who met
On that dire battle-field, where blood was poured
Like water! Belgian, Briton, German, Gaul,
In one commingling current, the mad throng
In mutual rush who trod thee under foot,
A slighted pebble—where and what are THEY?
Erst God's erect and animated works,
But yet survived and vaunted over now,
By such a thing as thou art! Thou hast taught
One awful lesson—will the world be learners?—
How small the gain to liberty, when man
Attempts to counteract unlicensed power
By power alike unlicensed! Crush one head,
While a seven-headed hydra in its room

166

Still revels in its brutal banqueting
Upon the flesh of nations! What a cheat
To human hope! Could stones indeed cry out,
O thou mute witness! what a testimony
Were thine! But thou art cold and still, as they
Who lately pressed above thee, when thy surface
Was slippery with the gore of gallant hearts
Soon pressed in turn beneath thee! But be dumb!
Would that no eye had seen nor ear had heard,
Nor heart of man conceived it!

167

TO A. T., AT WASHINGTON.

WRITTEN AT MIDNIGHT, DEC. 30, 1825.

Scarce have the notes of yonder bell
Paid to the parting eve farewell,
And now 'tis greeting loud and clear
The morning of the coming year.
But, (as in regal states, 'tis said
The grieving for an old king dead
Merges his faithful people through
In gratulation to the new,)
So seems that jocund bell more true
To sounds of welcome, than adieu!
As Allegro, with laughing grace,
Shoved Penseroso from her place;
Or as that wight to either muse
Addressed, yet if, perforce to choose,
Yielded like all his fellows yet,
His preference to the bright Cadette.

168

Would that this heart with kindred tone
Could beat for once in unison,
The Future teach the Past to flee,
And Hope take place of Memory!
It may not be, unless its spell
Could minister a miracle,
And give the shapes my dreams that press
Once more their wonted consciousness!

Yet not to miss, though lone the time,
The moral of that cheerful chime,
Forbid it that my ingrate strain
O'erlook the goods that yet remain.
For those around—for him apart—
Be grateful and be glad my heart;
And since he wends afar, and may
Not meet the good old England way
Of wishing well on New Year's day,
Bid him from hence the Fates to grant
All he can ask, or wish, or want;
And if nought else this doggerel show,
E'en as it is, so let it go,
Sure in his eyes to stand approved,
So early and so late beloved;
Loved by the boy, and by the man,
Loved long, ere other loves began.

Vide Sir J. Reynold's Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy.

169

A DIRGE,

WRITTEN AT THE DECEASE OF JOHN ADAMS, JULY 4, 1826.

Praise to the virtuous dead the Heathen owed,
And funeral game, and urn, and chant bestowed;
Praise for the virtuous dead the Christian claims,
From higher motives, and with holier aims,
O, called too soon, how late soe'r thy knell,
Our earliest, longest hope, “Hail and farewell!”
That fiftieth sun who brought his faithful ray
To gild thine own, and Freedom's fav'rite day,
His noontide glories flung around thy shrine,
Nor sunk to rest till thou retired to thine;
That sacred rest attained, his parting fire
Lit the wide West as for a funeral pyre.

Survey those lineaments—that open smile,
The statesman's wisdom, not the statesman's wile—
The honest front, that knew itself sincere,
And scorned suspicion as it scouted fear;

170

And hence the viperous brood, that ceaseless wait
To bask beneath the fostering beams of state,
With means more facile found the unguarded way,
To sting the gen'rous heart where late they lay.
Ah, that the same high orb, whose smile so bright
Gives modest worth and loveliest hues to light,
Which calls the bee to rove, the ant to toil,
And herbs and flowers to bless and grace the soil,
By the same power the reptile race must bring,
And weeds and thorns, and every creeping thing.

Enough for thee, that more than half an age,
Ruler or ruled, our father, saint, or sage—
Missioned from court to court—abroad approved—
At home, when most beheld still best beloved—
Vouchers of thine the meeting virtues stand,
The stern that freed, the mild that cheered the land.

If, while that long-protracted life you scan,
Say that he erred agreed; for he was man,
(Rest it with Him we Sire of mercies call,
Sent through that Son whose bosom bled for all;)
From life's first dawning to its latest end,
Who shall demand desert, or who defend?

171

Who boast the hands so clean, the heart so pure,
To turn Inquisitor, and turn secure?
If such there be, to play such part who dare?
Where are they found, objector? Tell me where.
Still dost thou cavil? Strike thy breast and ask,
If with his temper thou hadst had his task,
Through all his trials hadst thou never swerved?
By all his conflicts ne'er hadst been unnerved?
If such the difference, well! But, lest thou err,
Pause yet; nor call complexion, character.
His the wrought marble, rich and veined all o'er,
But time and storm its substance somewhat wore;
Thine the rough granite crag, alike unriven
Or by the damps of earth or bolts of heaven.

Though weak the hand this votive wreath to bring,
And faint this voice the lay of worth to sing,
Haply its tones may wake some powerful shell,
In nobler numbers noblest deeds to swell.
With his own Themis Clio shall engage
To stamp his name on their enduring page.
Amidst the glorious circle of compeers
That crowned our perilous but proudest years,

172

Record the champion, whose ingenuous youth
Intrepid fought the righteous fight of truth;
Then, when, if ever, public virtue warms;
Then, when, if ever, young ambition charms;
Though all his country's wrongs the patriot claimed,
And all his country's hopes the man inflamed,
Those wrongs, those hopes, his soul refused to see,
Moved by thy higher call—Humanity!
When the cold blood our central pavement pressed,
And the hot blood beat high in every breast;
While an infuriate People's frenzied shout
Held not its peace, but bade those stones cry out;
E'en mid that madd'ning din his voice arose,
And asked for justice to our fenceless foes;
Bade Passion's surges rage not, but be still,
And Law and Reason sway the public will;
And, as the oil on ocean's subject wave
Has power to lull it, till it cease to rave,
His suasive accents dropped as charms, to bind
The hoarser tumult of tempestuous mind!

Such the fair promise of his opening year,
Such the rich harvest of his ripe career;

173

Gathered to great and good, renowned of yore,
In classic haunts long communed with before;
With those of his own time—the wise, the brave,
Who lived to serve the state, or died to save.
What else need grateful Mem'ry ask or tell?
Once more, Illustrious Dead, “HAIL and FAREWELL!”

Vide the Cunningham Correspondence.

Vide The Letters of Col. Pickering.

His defence of the British soldiery, 4th March, 1775.

174

ODE

TO WHOM IT CONCERNS.

[1832.]

O Carolina! wilt thou sever
The silver cord so long confessed?
And must our nation's eagle never
His wing on thy Palmetto rest?
Wrenched from thy course by these wild jars,
Madly through space to run;
Wilt thou forsake the fixed stars,
To be a wandering one?

Star of the South! that wont to gleam
So steady and so bright,
Shedding afar its guiding beam
Through War's tempestuous night;

175

When England's “meteor flag” full high
“Terrific burned” o'er all,
Between us and the darkened sky,
Like 'scutcheoned funeral pall;

Star of the South! thy glorious ray
O'erpowered that boding glare,
Till the broad banner, rent away,
No more could menace there.
Long as the rescuing blade was bared
That cut our passage free,
The danger dared, the duty shared,
Canst thou forget? can we?

O, land of Marion and his band,
That, ever tried and true,
With gallant heart, with strenuous hand,
The same, yet ever new,
“Came, saw and conquered,” like the sprite
More than like mortal men,
And sped them as the arrowy flight,
That none knew where or when.

176

Land of the Laurens'! son and sire,
Each peerless in his place,
A Spartan pair, a seed of fire,
Like Lacedæmon's race.
He, captive in the ocean strife,
Immured in foreign thrall,
Who perilled fortune, freedom, life,
At stubborn duty's call.

Yet, while the Julian towers confined
Their veteran prisoner fast,
The mantle of that dauntless mind
Was to his first-born cast;
Last victim of an hostile hour,
Nor less heroic he,
Who fell, in life, in death, the flower
Of Carolina's chivalry!

Then did the reign of Peace reveal
Throughout its better day,
The gentler, not less generous zeal,
That cheered our common way.
Whene'er disease had forced to flee,
Or feel its deadlier thrust,
We yielded all we loved to thee,
Nor thou refused the trust.

177

Thy luscious fruits, thy sunny sky,
Thy bland and balmier air,
And more than all that these supply,
Thy hospitable care;
All thine, the sufferer felt was ours,
Who helplessly had come,
But found, within a stranger's bowers,
The kindly hearts of home.

No half disgust that scarce could hush,
E'er made thy greeting tame;
No dread lest that strange hectic flush
Might sere thee with its flame;
Reckless of selfish risk or not,
Watchful but to befriend;
O God! and is it all forgot,
And is it all to end?

The wise, the weak, who dwell at ease,
From storm and strife apart,
May marvel at the blasts that freeze
The tempest-beaten heart.

178

Let statists calmly count thy throes,
Let fools thy cause malign;
The bosom its own burden knows—
I may not measure thine.

And, lo! the threat is on thy tongue,
The scowl is on thy brow;
Yet, Carolina! ours so long,
Do not desert us now;
Forbid that present interests screen—
Or right or wrong—from thee
The memory of what once has been,
The hope of what's to be.

Alas! how old so'er the tale,
'Tis not less true than trite,
Wherever kindred feuds prevail,
Neither is fully right.
Yet man in every age and clime
His story well has shown,
Perversely scans his brother's crime,
And recks not of his own.

179

For us may better views betide
Than such a half survey,
Nor narrowing mists prevail to hide
What truth the times convey;
But patriots still, afar or nigh,
Till civil discords cease,
Echo impartial Carey's sigh,
For party not, but “Peace!”

Lucius Carey, Lord Falkland. His disinterested dread of the ultimate success of either side, his own or the opposite, from a conviction of the injury that would ensue to the common weal, and his choice of death rather than life, (a death so gallantly sought and found,) that he might not witness what he could not avert, must be familiar to all who are conversant with the story of the English civil wars.

180

TO M---.

[1832.]

The first fruits for thine album's store,
Mary! another hand should bring;
The far-fetched boon is valued more
Than the familiar offering.

And wherefore need this tell-tale page
Proclaim to strangers o'er and o'er,
What should alone thine ear engage,—
But that thou know'st it all before.

That since our being's earliest source,
As o'er the stream of life we glide,
One chart below to mark our course,
One star above that course to guide;

181

Nearest in blood, in heart as near,
Through all our fair or stormy weather,
Like Ladies of the Lake, we steer
Our simple shallop still TOGETHER.

And let what winds or tides prevail,
(Until the final blast upset her,)
“The Sisters” still unparted sail,
And I for one will ask no better!

182

LINES TO A WALL-FLOWER FROM THE COLISEUM.

[1832.]

Nay, grieve not if thy flow'ret sent—
The promise of the Latian year—
With faded tints and foliage bent,
And broken stem should now appear.

For sure these aspects of decay,
Fitlier its native scenes recall,
Than when in golden front, so gay,
It flaunted o'er a Roman wall.

Where erst the marvel of the world—
A tottering arch, a crumbled way—
If Ruin's hand on those was hurled,
Should this endure more firm than they?

183

Yet might the muse invest the flower
(As legendary lays pretend)
With sentient life and vocal power,
'T would thus its life and death defend—

“Wand'rer and witness of our days!
Behold to things like us 'tis given,
In answer to the asking gaze,
To vindicate the ways of heaven.

“Though quickened into life and bloom,
Our roots have sprung from Christian gore,
When at some royal murd'rers doom
Their blood like water wont to pour.

“Ere gathered to our parent earth
Mindful of its avenging call,
The flower that owed th' oppressed its birth,
Shall triumph in the oppressor's fall.

“Shall round his shattered column sport,
O'er all its prostrate pride elate;
And glitter 'mid its mould'ring court,
In mockery of their buried state!

184

“Then, when its destined work is done,
No more its leafy flag shall wave,
But duteous end where it begun,
And deck in death the martyr's grave!”

185

TO OUR JAVA SPARROWS.

JANUARY, 1839.

Fair warblers from a summer clime,
Who bid'st with us in wint'ry time,
Though cold the soil on which we live,
Warm is the welcome that we give.

Companions to our kinsman given,
Through boisterous days, and tempest driven,
And tossed through many a rougher night,
The feathered freight still kept aright,
Still followed in his billowy track,
Cheering the bark that brought him back,
And chirped and hopped the time away,
As blithe as on their native spray!

But now, with frost encompassed round,
And captives on a foreign ground,

186

Far from their Java's spicy grove,
No more with early mates to rove;
Though freedom, country, clime be lost,
That sprightly carol is not crossed.
With Quaker coat, and beaver on,
And smooth white collar, neck upon,
And ruddy beak of healthiest hue,
Cheerful they meet my morning view,
And doffed the curtain from the day,
Quick hail'st it with their matin lay.

Brave birds! ah, would that such as we
Meet lesson might have learned from ye!
Despite of change and season drear,
Still with unconquered note to cheer.
Pick each sweet seed, howe'er astray,
And cast the refuse husk away,
Sip the clear stream, where'er 'tis given,
And look up, thankfully, to Heaven!

187

LITTLE CANARY.

Affairs of state so excited of late
That even the feathered creation
To politics made their pretension,
Left their shady retreat
The emergence to meet,
Sending one of their swift delegation,
The fleetest for settling the nation,
To fly to the Whig Convention.

From what part of the country come
He has not said nor sung,
But a naturalized foreigner he
This Whiggie appeareth to be,
Since up to the chamber he made his way,
And into the cage where it hung
He very familiarly sprung,
Helped himself to what edibles round about lay,
Seemed very contented and happy to stay,
And made himself quite at home.

188

With a bright, new, straw-colored vest,
And a uniform coat and crest,
And a carol can vie with the best,
In praise of the Chief of the West!
Nor has Harrison any
'Mongst all of the many
In his canvass, or farther or nearer,
With voices or consciences clearer
(However they vary)
Than constituent Canary,
Who has turned, for his tribe, 'Lectioneer.

189

THE DEAD BIRD.

Dear Bird, that late inspired the lay,
Unnoticed shouldst thou pass away?
Whose life, whose death, excited here
Friendship's fond care and final tear?
No! to thy fate shall not refuse
Her dirge the moralizing muse,
Taught by thyself each changing moon,
To keep the voice in cheerful tune.
Through summer bright or winter hoar
Above the ills of earth to soar,
So might her days like thine be past,
Cherished and solaced to the last;
Then be her lot like thine, to die
Without a struggle or a cry!

190

TO LITTLE “WAG.”

[1853.]

Ah, darling dog, thou canst not know
What tears were shed for thee!
And there be those might meet their flow
With smiling mockery.

Yet who that owns a human heart,
From friend of twelve long years,
Proved and found perfect, e'er could part,
And yet refrain from tears?

Companion of our couch by night,
Beneath our board by day,
Content while we remained in sight,
But sorrowing when away,

Still watching at the window-pane,
Or guarding on the ground
Erect, the proffered boon to gain,
Or pranking all around,

191

In frolic play to catch away
The slipper as it dropped,
And force us, fleet in stocking-feet,
To chase him ere he stopped.

Too mannerly to take the lead
On stairway or at door,
Waiting (unlike the human breed)
Till others went before.

The ready food from morn till eve
Untasted might remain
When separate, till at our return
He banqueted again!

In journeyings nestling at our side,
Or crouching at our feet,
Well pleased alike to walk or ride,
A guest our hosts to greet.

Yet, when the ringing bells would prove
The Sabbath's wonted sign,
Aware with us he must not move,
He'd tranquilly recline;

192

Prompt in our cause his aid to lend,
And zealous service show;
Wagging his welcome to a friend,
But barking off a foe.

Grateful for kindly word or will,
Most patient when in pain,
With laboring breath, caressing still
The hand that would sustain!

And, if the grace of love and trust
Fit beings for the sky,
The spirit that informed that dust
May claim its place on high.

How this may be I cannot see,
Since there is none to show,
And those that frown such fancy down
Themselves as little know.

At least, I'm sure, and make an end,
This marvel has occurred,
One funeral record has been penned
Without a flattering word!

195

THE WIFE OF SEATON:

OR, THE SIEGE OF BERWICK.

AN HISTORIC TRAGEDY.

196

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

Alexander Seaton, Governor of the Town.
Patrick Dunbar, Of the Castle.
Friar.
Edward III., King of England.
Mordaunt, His Envoy.
Neville, His Envoy.
Attendants, &c.
Donaldus, A Seer.
Lady Agnes Seaton, Wife to the Governor.
Margaret, Her Attendant.

197

INVOCATION.

Genius of Celtic Song! who, high enthroned
Amid Iona's hallowed sepulchres,
Hath dread communings with a buried world!
Thou, who disowning all Ausonia yields
To fix poetic gaze—on contrasts strong
Of ruined grandeur and luxurious life,
Art's noblest forms decaying—tantalized
By ever blooming Nature, (where the rose
Flaunts through the chasms of Antonius' wall,
And balmy breezes sport, and laughing suns
Shine, as in mockery, o'er the fallen domes
Where once the Cæsars swayed!) from these hast turned
With Spartan scorn thy tread, to rear a seat
Far in the lone Ebudæ; where, for voice
Of man or note of bird, no sound is heard
But the contending ocean's ceaseless roar
'Gainst the bold rock that dares oppose his force,
And breast, with craggy front, his onward way.

198

Genius of Celtic Song! if haunts like these
Have power to win thee from the southern muse—
If, wedded to thy country still, thy soul
Prefer that bride, unportioned though she be,
With cliffs and deserts only for her dower,
To Tuscan vineyards or Hindostan groves—
If Scotia's native ruggedness of clime
From all refinements of a richer soil
Still hold thy constant heart—take then this lay,
To Scotia consecrate! And should its tones
But wake one note accordant with the sounds
That oft have called thy mountain echoes forth
To speak the glories of thy native sons,
O, grant thine inspiration to the theme,
And give the muse that aid which can perform
Those miracles of chronicles and song—
Roll back the tide of far receded time,
Restore the Douglas days—awake the dead!

199

ACT I.

Scene 1.

A room in the Governor's house. Seaton alone, leaning on a table covered with maps, plans, &c.
SEATON.
My native country, what a fate is thine!
Thy Bruce no more, his infant son afar,
His faithful Regent treacherously slain,
His rival, Baliol, roused again to arm
In contest for the crown—scarred as thou art
With former wounds, and must thou bleed afresh,
From the remorseless blows of civil war?
Yet more, those home-bred feuds have proved the heralds
Of foreign war, and now its best ally,
As these three ling'ring, suffering months can witness,
Since haughty Edward, with a chosen host,
Buckled his armor on and spurred his steed
To Berwick's menaced walls.

200

(Enter Attendant.)
ATTENDANT.
My lord! the envoys,
The British envoys seek you.

SEATON.
Strait admit them,
Then, Walter, to the castle's commandant,
Greet him from me, and ask his presence hither.

(Exit Attendant. Enter Neville and Mordaunt.)
NEVILLE.
Hail we not here Sir Alexander Seaton,
The Governor of Berwick?

SEATON.
You are right;
I own the name and office, with the purpose
Ne'er to discredit either.

NEVILLE.
Be it so!
Like trait is ours in this our embassage.
We bear a message from our royal master,
Edward of England.

SEATON.
What hath England's king
For Seaton's hearing?

201

MORDAUNT.
Even to demand
The town's surrender as our monarch's right,
And holden by his father's heretofore,
Ere farther loss of time, and wealth, and life,
Serve to impoverish you, exasperate him,
And make the path to future peace and concord
Less easy than the present. We have said.

SEATON.
I will convene the council, and impart
Promptly their answer; meantime, worthy Barons,
If such poor cheer as times like these allow
Meet your regard, betake you to our board.

NEVILLE.
We are beholden to your courtesy.

SEATON.
Myself the Lady Agnes will apprise
What guests do honor us. She hath a son,
Alas! within your custody, and doubtless
Will profit of your presence to indulge
A mother's fond inquiries. This way, sirs.

[Exit.

202

Scene 2.

Another apartment. Mordaunt, Neville discovered, to whom enter Seaton and Dunbar.
SEATON.
Barons, the Scottish Council have decreed
That I should thus reply unto your mission:
Berwick was always ours, till thirst of power
Prompted your monarch's warlike ancestor
By violence to seize it; but when Bruce,
Our glorious champion, won his country back
From its usurpers, Berwick with the rest
Resumed its ancient government and laws.
But more; the right of conquest thus obtained,
By right of treaty was confirmed; for, pressed
And counselled by the wise men of his land,
Four years ago your English King renounced
All right himself or his forefathers claimed
To Scotland's crown, and swore to leave its realm
Free as it was ere the contending claims
Of Bruce or Baliol rose, pressed by no yoke
Of foreign servitude; even to return
All scrolls of compacts, bonds, or whatsoe'er
Might seem a vestige of a subject state;
And, on our part, we promised to repay
A stipulated sum for those domains
By Edward and his sires possessed among us,

203

To yield to him our lands in England held,
And even to consider Stanmore's cross
Our utmost boundary. To fix this league
We farther fastened on the added tie
Of family and friend; our Prince espoused
The sister of your sovereign, and the names
Of Robert and of Henry to our ears
Were as the names of brothers.
Wherefore, then,
Have we been thus assailed with secret art
And open warfare, while ourselves in aught
Had ne'er infringed those articles of peace,
Nor would reject it now on any terms,
So they were honorable?

MORDAUNT.
Is this all?

SEATON.
This for your monarch; for yourselves, as missioned
To mediate between us, we would urge
A claim to favorable offices;
Such as may seem to you as but comporting
With duty to your country; well persuaded
You cannot prove yourselves less true to Edward
By being just to Scotland. You are answered.

204

MORDAUNT.
I am concerned our orders should insist
Plainly and positively on this point,
Stated at first—the rendering up of Berwick.

SEATON.
But, surely, you did not at first exact
Instant surrender.

NEVILLE.
Truly, no, we did not;
And to the farthest we are authorized
To grant you, will we go. Take a given time;
Name it yourself; till which, if no relief
Come to the garrison, (aware that soon
The Douglas will arrive,) you then consent
To yield it to our arms.

SEATON.
I must consent!
Unwilling howsoe'er. Too well you know
I have no choice. 'Tis now the thirteenth day
Of our midsummer month; if ere the thirtieth
No succors reach the town from Douglas' force,
I yield it up.

205

MORDAUNT.
But further, our instructions
Demand that, as a pledge for the performance
Of this engagement on your part, your son,
(Twin-born with him who now is pris'ner with us,)
Be rendered for an hostage.

SEATON.
My poor Duncan!
Must he, too, go? His brother's early valor
Already had betrayed him to captivity;
Must I be reft of both?

DUNBAR.
You press us hardly;
As men, as knights, I put it to yourselves;
Are not these harsh conditions?

NEVILLE.
'Tis not ours
To make them easier; though, to your discretion,
I own the wish that they were otherwise.

MORDAUNT.
Our worthy host and his compeer are each
Too well informed upon a soldier's duty
Not to acknowledge it the part of such
But to discharge their orders—not dispute them.

206

DUNBAR.
Yet soldiers do remonstrate; aye, rebel,
When their own rights, or real or supposed,
Have seemed to be impaired; their pay withheld;
Their privileges lowered; causes like these
Sometimes create such things as mutinies,
Even in English armies. But for injury
Done toward others—for a stranger's wrong—
Then to expect resistance or regret
Were all too high or low for sober manhood—
Chimerical or childish.

NEVILLE.
Little know ye
The mind of him we serve, if you imagine
That aught in us were prevalent to alter
His strenuous will, or check his dread resolve
On sovereignty here.

DUNBAR.
Vain expectation!
Can iron break the northern iron? No!
Ours is yet harder metal than your own.
Witness the many shocks by which 'twas bent,
But never yet was riven. Your Roman master
Obtained no mastery here. His legions scaled
Our cliffs in vain; and to his eagle's scream

207

Athwart our cliffs, was borne with echo back,
Answering defiance from our native eyrie.
Since then the like assault hath still received
The like discomfiture; our frigid clime
Had reared a race too rough for the grim Norman
Or bloodier Dane to quell.

MORDAUNT.
The more the glory
If we succeed.

DUNBAR.
How far succeed, I pray?
What if a castle fall, a town be taken?
Dream not that Scotland is subdued! that stake,
So long contested, cannot thus be won.
Behold the board whereon the game is played!
Look far and wide; each rock shall prove a castle,
Each crag a tower, each cave a walled city;
Ramparts of strength, on which the miner, Nature,
Hath wrought so secretly, and surely, too,
That human prowess vainly may assail
The superhuman barrier.

MORDAUNT.
Nay, go on;
Stop not with Nature. Canst not tell us somewhat
Of marvels passing Nature, which your Celts
Have long had credit for?

208

DUNBAR.
Did I think meet
For tongue of sturdy soldier or the ear
Of Christian knights to note such fantasies—
For such they seem, albeit they may be more—
There were enough to occupy more time
Than, by the strictness of our several callings,
Could now be warranted. Of sprites that haunt
Our Caledonian forests, all their own,
With nameless mischiefs for intruding alien;
Of shapes that people all our Highland mists,
And spread its dimness on the eyes beneath
They would bewilder; of the goblin brood
That prank them ever in our lochs and fens
To lose the wanderer by the light that leads him.
Enough of these.

NEVILLE.
But you did not include
The strange pretensions of those bold diviners
Who claim to call the future—and it cometh?

DUNBAR.
True, Englishmen, I did not; for, believe me,
There's more of might, whate'er of mystery,
In this than merits scoffing; nor would I
To stranger eyes expose a gift thus solemn;
The less that, peradventure, at some period,
Themselves may mark its power.

(Enter Donaldus behind, unperceived by all but Seaton.)

209

SEATON.
They mark it now.

DONALDUS.
Woe! woe!

SEATON.
To whom denounced?
To whom, Donaldus?

DONALDUS.
To all; to thee, good Seaton, even to thee!
Thou and thine house. The hovering pestilence
Strikes down the righteous with the reprobate.
The dogs of war once out, the bloodhounds track
No less the anchorite in his hermitage
Than robber in his den. Woe, then, to Scotland!
And woe to England, too, the ruthless cause!
Woe to us all!

[Exit.
DUNBAR.
It is the gifted seer,
Who, hand in hand with dark Futurity,
Sees that, to others without form and void,
Moulded to shape, and fraught with circumstance.

NEVILLE.
Truly, an awful presence! felt you not (to Mordaunt)

As with the disembodied?

210

MORDAUNT.
But, my comrade,
Be that as may, our business toucheth not
The world of spirits, but concerneth merely
Such an inferior sphere, that I would counsel
We put the warning to some present use;
Letting it hasten us in our leave-taking,
Soon as the Governor prepare his hostage
To bear us company.

SEATON.
I'll not detain you;
What must be, must! Go with me now.

DUNBAR.
Then, sirs,
Fare you well, hence, in all but your attempts
Against my country.

NEVILLE.
With like reservation,
Prosperity to you.

MORDAUNT.
Good Commandant,
The same from me.

[Exit all.

END OF THE FIRST ACT.

211

ACT II.

Scene 1.

The interior of Berwick Castle. Dunbar discovered, to whom enters the Friar.
FRIAR.
Save you, son!
I do attend your summons, and would now
Inquire its cause.

DUNBAR.
The troops of Douglas, father,
Have just arrived, in sight of friends and enemies,
And halted on the Hill of Halidon.

FRIAR.
St. Andrew speed them! This is welcome news.

DUNBAR.
Aye, father, but the news is overburdened
With heaviest tidings for our worthy Governor.
The faithless king, despite his stipulation
To stay proceedings till the day appointed,
And reckless of the truce yet unexpired,
Has sent a threat unless the place be yielded,
That he will order summary execution
On both the sons of Seaton.

212

FRIAR.
Barbarous monster!
What must—what can be done?

DUNBAR.
I stopped the herald
Before he reached the wretched Governor,
And took upon myself to bear the message;
That, haply, it be told him in some manner
Shorn of its first ferocity. For this
Did I despatch the page to you, good father,
To ask this Christian service at your hands,
That you would break the matter as you may
Unto the parents of these fated children.

FRIAR.
Well may I shudder at my woeful errand,
Yet must not shrink from it. But what dost think?
Will Seaton—

DUNBAR.
Ask me not—I cannot think,
Cannot advise, in circumstance thus shocking.
No sire myself, how could I counsel others
To that which I can ne'er be called to suffer?
How estimate such call? It were presumptuous!
Nay, it were obdurate! Well you know that Seaton
Is worthiest of the worthy; brave, yet sage;

213

Sparing, albeit, in words, but full in judgment;
With wariest caution, skilled to counteract
The inconsiderate sallies of the rash,
And to conciliate the feuds of others
By the example of his own forbearance.
All this he is; and if he have a weakness,
'Tis for his sons—as, sometimes, the best blades
May yield the most—the proudest, tenderest parent;
Fond, e'en to dotage; (and, in truth, the bantlings
Do well become it;) hence, I doubt his course,
In exigence so sharp, and my reliance
Leans with more fixedness upon his consort.

FRIAR.
The noble Agnes!

DUNBAR.
To her ghostly guardian
I need not urge how well the loftier traits
Of an heroic soul are blent in hers,
With all the touching tenderness of woman.

FRIAR.
I long have noted it.

214

DUNBAR.
So have I, from the first. My own near kinswoman,
And, had my fortune favored, I had aimed
To make her somewhat nearer; failing that,
I do rejoice her lot has fallen to one
Who, far as man can merit, merits her,
And willingly could forfeit one poor life
But to have kept from both an hour like this!

FRIAR.
These sufferings of the good, my son, are mysteries
Beyond our fathoming.

DUNBAR.
They are so, father.
Now to our several tasks. Thou to the Seatons,
I to attend the herald, whose safe conduct
I must inspect, lest the exasperate sentinel
Should follow Edward's lead, and disregard
The known immunities of time and person.

215

Scene 2.

The front of the castle. Enter Donaldus.
DONALDUS.
Ah, sinful Scotland! 'tis thine own offences
That toss thee now with tempests. Had thy sons
Been true to thee and to themselves, and proved
A hardy brotherhood, still leagued together
For mutual weal or woe, rather than prowled,
A horde of bandits, bent against each other
In predatory warfare—then, indeed,
What could have wrought them harm? had they not stretched
(Blinded by wrath) their hands toward the stranger,
To battle in their broils—the stranger, then,
Had not, as now, become the general spoiler,
In justest retribution! Watchful Edward
Hailed in disunion's hour his hour of triumph,
And to the horrors of the home-brewed storm
That lowered around the genius of the North,
Sent from abroad his thunders, to combine,
Gather and burst, in bolts of final ruin.
So his own Cornwall's craggy coast has shown
Yet harder hearts and rougher hands, to snatch
E'en from the shipwrecked prey of winds and waves
The refuse of the elements! So, too,
What time the frighted Lusian, forced to fly
From crash of falling tower, leaves all for life,

216

The daring robber rushes to his home
To rifle what the whelming earth had spared!
[Pauses, then starts and speaks.
Whence comes this darkling mist, that riseth round me
So chill and ominous? and—mighty powers
Of earth or air! what means that shadowy scaffold,
And those dim forms that fill it? Spare them, Edward!
But for the sake of thine own flesh and blood!
For thy soul's sake, be not the slaughtering Herod
To innocents like these! It all disperses.
Can this be fiendish juggling, or, indeed,
A boding from on high?

END OF THE SECOND ACT.

217

ACT III.

Scene 1.

An oratory. Lady Agnes Seaton kneeling before a representation of the Blessed Virgin.
LADY AGNES.
Oh holy Mary, hear and answer me!
A miserable mother, lo! I come
To spread my griefs before thee. Blessed One,
Though now thou art with heaven's beatitude,
I call on thee by the remembered pangs
That once were thine on earth; by the sharp sorrows
That pierced, as with a sword, through thy own soul;
As thou hast known a parent's deadly anguish,
To feel for mine!
'Tis unavailing all!
E'en prayer relieves not.

(Enter Friar.)
FRIAR.
Peace be with you, daughter!

LADY AGNES.
O, father, mock me not with words like these!
Peace can be mine no more.

218

FRIAR.
The peace of Heaven,
If not of earth; full rarely they agree;
And thus the soul that compasseth the one
Must oft renounce the other.

LADY AGNES.
I have sought it;
Have been imploring succor from on high;
But Heaven and earth alike conspire against me,
And all is dark above—below—around!

FRIAR.
O, say not thus! these clouds are earth-engendered.
'Tis from our saddened thoughts the mists arise
And dim the tearful vision, intercepting
The Light above, thence deemed to hide itself,
Though shining still forever and the same;
E'en as the restless world turned from the sun,
And when the night succeeded, lo! 'twas deemed
The sun had turned from them. She heeds me not. (Aside.)

Lady, as is my office and my wont,
I came to solace and to strengthen thee
With words of ghostly comfort; but, I know not,
The sight of thy sore suffering hath unmanned me,
And what I would I lack the heart to utter.

219

LADY AGNES.
Father, I own and thank thy sympathy.
All that a mortal can to mortal lend
I know thou dost; but never lot like mine
Called forth thy kindly services, for none
Was ever tried like me.

FRIAR.
Think, daughter, think
Upon the Syrian of our sacred records,
The ancient patriarch of the chosen race,
Called to destroy the son in whom alone
That race could be continued.

LADY AGNES.
Such a sacrifice
Had never been demanded from a mother.
The sire may proudly, fondly love his son;
(Full well I know it by the bitter case
Of my own gallant, broken-hearted Seaton;)
But, to the tenderness of manlier natures,
The mother adds, moreover, new affections,
Whose height and depth no being but herself
And Him who gave them to her comprehendeth.

220

FRIAR.
Lady, I doubt it not.

LADY AGNES.
Then, think that I
Am called to speak the doom of—do I live
To think it, even?—not of one alone,
But both my precious boys; my duteous ones;
That I, their mother—for it falls on me,
Since Seaton's mind, torn with conflicting claims,
Station, paternity, and patriotism,
(The rent sail, shiv'ring in the shifting blast,)
Turns to my own to speak the words of fate.
Mother, forsooth! Ha, am I such, good father?
A fitting task for such!

FRIAR.
I pray thee, talk not
So very terribly. (Not since the burial
Of Bruce's royal heart in Palestine
Knew I as dark an hour.)

LADY AGNES.
I've heard the learned
Tell of that Colchis woman—one Medea—
Who killed!—dost shudder, father?—killed her children.
Wouldst thou believe it? If men doubt the fact,
Let them look here, and gain the fell conviction.

221

FRIAR.
O, think not for an instant, noble Agnes,
To liken thee with her. She was a sorceress;
Fair incarnation of a fiend most foul;
Who, to the guilty flame that fired her spirit,
Shamed not to sacrifice her sons; whilst thou
But yieldest thine to meet the sacred cry
Thy country sends to thee. 'Twas hers to loose
The vilest passions—thine, to bind the best.

LADY AGNES.
But men will note the sameness of the fact,
The direful fact, nor stay to scan the motive.
All are not calm, like such as we, good father,
To make the due distinction. But, thou saidst
(Or my dull sense deceived) somewhat of country.
I've said the same within my conscious soul;
But then the tempter cometh, to remonstrate,
“What doth a woman with her country's weal,
Whose world is her own home, her fireside group,
Kindred and friends?” And then he whispereth, “Pride,
Belike, unseemly and unsexly pride,
Misleading by the name of heroism,
Hurls me and mine to this abyss.” Is't so?
O, tell me, father! prove it be but pride,
And I will bless thy name forevermore!

222

FRIAR.
Resist the arch one, lady. These dark hours
He ever seizes for his own; to conflicts
Of flesh and blood still superadding those
Of wrestling with bad spirits; thus to crush
The overburdened mortal. But for thee,
Noble and virtuous dame, I have petitioned,
And hope for better things. The pride thus called
Were heathen! nay, were hellish! like his own;
Unlike the gentle and benignant bearing
That, from the innocence of infancy
To thy devout and gracious womanhood,
Hath still characterized thee.

LADY AGNES.
So I trusted,
Till the misgivings of this evil time.
Surely, the lure of Fame could not have led me;
Her note, they say, is gladdening to the sense;
Not like that stern and solemn voice of duty
That called me—calls me still. 'Tis near the moment
When I must meet my husband. I but asked,
For orison at this our Lady's shrine,
And to commune with you, my reverend father,
An hour's delay. One fearful interview
With him is past—the next—and all is over.
But will it e'er be over? Never, never!

223

FRIAR.
St. Andrew's blessing go along with thee,
And guard thy high resolve!

[Clock strikes.
LADY AGNES.
Hark 'tis the hour! (Starts up.)

These tremblings now? (sits.)
Yet, yet I may not linger,
Though life or reason reel. I must not leave
My lord in his extremity—but who
Will be with them in theirs? O, horror! horror!

[Clasps her hands, and rushes out.
FRIAR.
(alone.)
That task shall be my care. I would not hazard
The fresh emotion to her o'erwrought feelings
Of telling mine intention, but hereafter,
The conflict past, 'twill prove to her a solace
To know I shrived them for their last account;
My sacred function will protect my person;
If not, my life is vowed unto my Master;
To lose it in his cause, the cause of charity,
Would be to gain the crown of martyrdom.

[Exit.

This sublime answer was actually made to a French monk, when urging a mother to resignation by the mention of Abraham.

224

Scene 2.

A room in the Governor's house, (with folding-doors back of the scene.) Seaton discovered, to whom enters Lady Agnes.
LADY AGNES.
My honored lord hath said, in other times,
My presence brought him comfort; now, alas!
Agnes hath none to offer.

SEATON.
Say not so;
Community is comfort, even in wretchedness.
But of thy mind—what of thy mind, my wife?
My own 's unstable as the ebbs and flows
Of Solway's current.

LADY AGNES.
Thou wilt hate me, Seaton,
When I disclose it.

SEATON.
Ha! sets the stream that way?
Woman! canst thou?

LADY AGNES.
Nay, hearken to me first,
And then, canst thou?

SEATON.
Go on!

225

LADY AGNES.
I bore those bairns, giving them life, thou know'st,
With half the loss of mine. (Had it but been—
Would it had been—the whole!) Parts of myself,
And nourished by myself—within mine arms,
Or at my bosom ever, day and night,
In health or ailment—thou canst witness for me,
No weariness or watching e'er o'erpowered
My ministering vigils.

SEATON.
'Tis most true,
My tried and faithful Agnes! Oft I chid
Thy ceaseless carefulness.

LADY AGNES.
Their opening forms
To my rapt gaze seemed infant deities,
And their first lispings fell upon my ear
Sweeter than angel voices. (Hold, my heart!
These memories will melt me! When I need
The hardness of the rock, am I become
Like water?)

SEATON.
None can like myself avouch
What thou hast ever been and done, my love;
But is not this an argument to spare
The purchase of such pangs?

226

LADY AGNES.
I did not mean
An idle vaunt thus to bespeak thy praise,
However precious. That which then was done
Now seems too little. They deserved it all,
The darlings—pshaw! this childishness again?
What I had meant to say, before this theme
Bewitched me with its fond remembrances,
Was, that if I, a mother, (and, thou own'st,
A kindly one,) give up my being's right
In theirs, 'tis surely no impeachment, then,
Of thy paternal tenderness, that thou
Should set the seal upon the sacrifice.

SEATON.
The sacrifice! and dost thou know its worst?
Not death alone; but such a death, my Agnes!
The place, the mode—the gibbet and the cord!
The felon's fate! Agnes, 'twere double death
To die thus vilely.

LADY AGNES.
The like fate attended
Our peerless Wallace. What he bore unblemished
Can ne'er disparage those who after him
Tread the same path to heaven.

227

SEATON.
Alas! alas!

LADY AGNES.
Thou needs not put it to thy loyalty.
Thou hast a king, though young, and far away,
Son of the Bruce, (and destined, as we trust,
To prove his lineage by his future deeds,)
For whom his faithful subjects all are bound
To keep his royal heritage unspoiled;
Nor yet to urge upon thy patriot heart
The sacred claim of country to be held
Back from th' invader's grasp; still less to cite
(All which thou know'st far better than myself)
What I have gathered from the wise discoursing—
Of those, that chronicles of old attest,
To aid the fortunes of the failing state
Gave up themselves and theirs. Our later days
Showed as good samples, where a single household
Sufficed to turn the adverse tide of war.

SEATON.
No, I forget them not. Thou mean'st the Hayes.

228

LADY AGNES.
Yes, those three men—of humble station, then,
Though since assigned, as meed for their exploit,
Rank with the highest—those three husbandmen,
Father and sons, who, laboring on the glebe,
Rushed with their rustic implements of toil,
The spade, the harrow, whatso'er they held,
To stop the flight of their retreating countrymen—
Driving them back upon the enemy,
Thence to return as conquerors!

SEATON.
They deserved
The fame that followed them, and I will own
Such fame were dear; yet are my sons far dearer.

LADY AGNES.
Think not the loss of that alone I heed,
Though that were much; the burning brand of infamy
Might yet be quenched, by others or ourselves;
Not so the inward, inextinguished fire,
Still scorching, ne'er consuming. Voice of man,
Without us, may capriciously award
Its censure or acclaim, and we contemn it;
But of man's Maker, in us, who shall scorn?

229

SEATON.
I own its hallowed sanction to thy pleadings.

LADY AGNES.
Besides, if thou desert thy trust, and thus
Betray the sons of all the sires in Scotland
To save thine own, blotting the fair escutcheon
Worn by thine ancestry unsoiled till now;—
Bethink thee, after all, if thou be sure
To gain the guerdon? to deliver those
For whom all else were forfeited? Not so!
For if, in mockery of the faith of treaties,
Of his own covenant, the tyrant now
Has broke his oath—who knows but then he fail
To spare the captives, and thou sow'st the wind
Only to reap the whirlwind!

SEATON.
Hold, in mercy!

LADY AGNES.
Think, too, my Seaton, we have other children.

SEATON.
None other half so dear.

230

LADY AGNES.
None dearer, sure. The absent and the dead
Are ever most delighted in—and justly.
The heart must seek to compensate itself,
When past the power to pour it forth in act,
By hoarding larger measures of affection.
So let it be with them!

SEATON.
Thy solemn words
Fall like a requiem! Hast thou more to move me?

LADY AGNES.
Nought of my own; but, could I summon others,
There are, whose words to second my appeal,
Were more prevailing.

SEATON.
Who could be thus gifted?
Say, who?

LADY AGNES.
The lads themselves!
Start not! 'tis true! Stood they before us now,
Themselves to hold the balance, and their doom
The weight depending, confident I am
Allan and Duncan are no sons of ours
But they would beg thee not to spare their lives

231

At peril of their honor; would prefer
To die, the offspring of an honest man,
Than live a traitor's heirs! And dost thou shrink
At the mere name? Think of the thing, my Seaton!
And let it nerve thee to the only course
By which thou canst avoid it.

SEATON.
Thou hast won me;
Hast conquered, Agnes! Thou hast gained thy husband,
But lost thy sons!
[Falls on her neck, when, suddenly catching a glance at the side scene, she screams and sinks back.
What means that fearful shriek?

LADY AGNES.
A sudden pang. Within. (pointing to the folding-doors.)

Send Margaret hither.
I shall be better soon, and come to thee.

[Seaton goes into the inner room.
(Enter Margaret.)
[Lady Agnes, starting up, snatches the hand of Margaret, and points with it to the view through the side scene.
LADY AGNES.
'Tis there, already. Look! the fatal tree!
Beneath our walls—within our very sight!
I sped my husband hence, ere he beheld
What might have blunted all his resolution.

232

Barbarian Edward! could thy savage heart
Contrive this aggravation? Curses on thee!
On thee and thine. Take, ruthless spoiler, take
A mother's malison. O, may it reach thee!
Follow through life and haunt thee at thy death!
And let it cleave the tomb, and pierce beneath,
Keen as a falchion, till it find the hell
To which thy crimes shall sink thee, and dire Heaven
Deaf to thy cries, as thou wert deaf to mine!

[Falls exhausted into the arms of Margaret. Curtain drops.

END OF THE THIRD ACT.

233

ACT IV.

Scene 1.

The grounds belonging to the Governor's house. Lady Agnes, disordered. Margaret following.
LADY AGNES.
Follow me not; I go to seek my sons.
Dost hear me, girl? Let go my hand! My sons
Are in the camp; no place for such as thee.
My errand is a lone one.

MARGARET.
Dearest lady,
Drive me not from you!

LADY AGNES.
Fie on't! Margaret.
Wouldst have me trust a decent Scottish lassie
With Edward's lawless soldiery? Thy mistress
Is bound to better care of thee, poor Margaret.
Wait thou until thy maiden snood be doffed
For matron coif. Even such as I, myself,
May shudder at the enterprise; these English
Have grown so pitiless! Thou canst not know
How pitiless—nor will they let me tell thee—
The leech forbade it; did he not?

234

MARGARET.
Yes, lady;
He bade me keep you quieted.

LADY AGNES.
Most truly.
Well, we must do his bidding. I'll but whisper—
These English are so fell they neither spare
Mother nor children. Children! that reminds me
My own are waiting me in yonder camp,
While I am loit'ring here; my bright-eyed Allan
And my dark Duncan. Ha! in yonder camp?
What do they there? Art tampering with the foe?
I tell thee, Margaret, if the lads are traitors
Then they are none of mine. 'Tis some mistake!
Mine were true men.

MARGARET.
The Friar will soon return,
And tell us, lady, all concerning them.
(Aside.)
(I am content her wanderings take this turn;
It may beguile her to repose awhile,
Which she so greatly needs for restoration
To wonted sanity.) The pious father
Will shortly bring us tidings from the camp,
Upon whose word we know you can rely.

235

LADY AGNES.
Truly, so can I; thou sayest well, my Margaret.
No more discreet an handmaid can attend
On any dame. 'Tis fittest we await
The Friar's return, to ascertain this matter,
Ere we depart on an uncertain quest.
Meantime, let me betake me to my couch,
And tell my beads. Lend me thy arm, my girl.

Scene 2.

The armory of the castle. Dunbar and the Friar conversing.
FRIAR.
I did fear me this.

DUNBAR.
Yes, she sustained the task appointed her
Unfaltering to the end; but, that accomplished,
The copious tide of nature, long pent up,
Burst forth at once, and overwhelmed the reason.
Like as, when pierced to death, the dauntless Theban
Kept in the javelin till the day was won—
Then life gushed with it!

236

FRIAR.
Thus it ever is.
Ah, that it should be thus with poor mortality,
Even at the highest! The weak frame gives way,
Though the firm purpose fail not; but hereafter
The spirits of the saints, we may believe,
(Freed from a world scarce worthy of their stay,)
Shall gain befitting forms, with a duration
Eternal, as the souls inspiring them.

DUNBAR.
Our Lady grant it.

FRIAR.
Yes, the shrinking nerve,
Not then, as now, perchance, shall counteract
“Th' unconquerable will;” that the strong man,
Armed at all points against a foreign foe,
Shall start aghast to see himself subdued
By his own flesh and blood! the pilgrim faints
Beneath the penance he must yet perform
At peril of his soul, and the rough soldier—

DUNBAR.
Aye, father, has thy moralizing creed
A saving plea for cowards? for, if so,
Son of the church, and duteous as I may be,

237

I hardly shall respond to it; the less
At such a time of need for dauntless hearts
In our beleaguered realm.

FRIAR.
I had foreseen
Thy soldierly protest, heroic Dunbar,
Nor would it suit, in this emergency,
To preach such doctrine to the famished troops
Of either garrison—thy castle's charge,
Or hapless Seaton's—but, in calmer moments,
I ask it of the conscience of that chieftain
Who ever closely communed with himself
Whether he have not found a subtle something
That strove to curb his mettle, and anon
Cried “craven” to his prowess? that, repressed,
Returned with powers repaired, e'en as the reptile,
Though once dissevered, rallies yet again
With fangs renewed? or rather, like the fiend,
(If such may now be suffered to possess us,
As sacred records teach they did of old,)
Who, once expelled, came back with seven-fold powers
Confederate with himself, to wreak his will?

238

DUNBAR.
I bow me to thy holy record, father,
Howe'er, as commandment of Berwick castle,
Strenuous to disallow the application
That shelters timorous natures; all too many
Of such our bastion doth enclose already,
Fled here, perforce, for safety from the foe.
The anxious matron and the trembling maid;
The worn-out veteran, whose encumb'ring limb
(As if in mockery of its former strength)
Hangs withered now—a dead and useless weight;
And the poor child, whose utmost stretch of height
Scarce gains his grandsire's knee; whose height of hope
Already reaches what his grandsire was!
But the effective force that guardeth these
Is all too small, in view of Edward's numbers,
To need enfeebling dogmas; yet I grant
There's weight within your words; and these wars over,
When I have leisure to look o'er my conscience,
If the survey disclose to me such lurkers
As those whose ambush you so well denote,
Lowly at thy confessional, good father,
Will I my breast unbare till thou absolve me.

239

FRIAR.
'Tis frankly said, and I accept the pledge
Freely as given. Meanwhile, mistake me not.
Neither the frost of age, nor cloister's chill,
Hath frozen yet the blood within these veins
That once hath burned upon the battle-field,
Alas! too hotly! But the helm and corslet
Possessed the man before the cowl and gown.
My breath, while lent, shall fan, and not extinguish
The fire of action; but, that action done,
Should strive to temper the delirious pulse
Of human exultation, in the hour
Of its wild triumph, by recalling, then,
The conscious thought to tranquilize its throbs;
And silently impart that touch of humbleness
That lends a grace to honor.

(Enter Attendant.)
ATTENDANT.
Reverend father,
The Lady Agnes Seaton, so far healed,
The saints be praised! of her late malady,
Took note of thy return,, directing me
To crave thy presence.

240

FRIAR.
Bear my blessing to her,
And tell the noble lady she confirmeth
My previous purpose of a conference
Soon as her strength allowed.
[Exit Attendant.
(To Dundar.)
I have good hope
That my narration of the constancy
With which her youthful martyrs met their fate,
How sad soe'er, may yet be salutary
To the condition of the noble mourner;
Healing the broken heart-strings that had snapped
From over tension.

DUNBAR.
Sights like these, good father,
Have lessened my repining at my portion,
When—as a lonely man, beholding none
My name may rest upon when I resign it—
Tempted to discontent, in those brief hours
A soldier steals from warfare.

FRIAR.
Yes, my son,
Though selfish be the thought, and subject after
For mortifying penance, I have found,
In my own case, the sworn celibacy

241

Enjoined our sect a rule less burdensome,
When called to witness those domestic sorrows
My duty bids me comfort.

DUNBAR.
Even so.
And I as well may magnify my lot,
Lauding it as the choice of knights and saints,
Pilgrim and priest; and if, at times, the thought
Still prick me like a thorn within the flesh,
That in reserve no progeny of prattlers
Shall cheer my dotage—'tis a far-off day!
And, thanks to Edward and his minion Baliol,
Few of us may be left to fill the seats
Of reverend eldership.

FRIAR.
Till when, and ever,
In all conditions, benedicite!

[Exit.
(Enter Seaton.)
SEATON.
My worthy Dunbar will not think it strange
If late his comrade, borne down with the weight
Of individual burden, lacked the power
To hold discourse upon the common interest.

242

DUNBAR.
That common interest who so well had cared for
As thy much-injured self, my suffering friend?

SEATON.
But now I would be aided by thy judgment.
What saith it to this aspect of affairs?

DUNBAR.
That they have reached their crisis; or, at least,
Inevitably must, in no long time.
The mighty forces mustered by the foe
On sea and land, when brought to bear at once
Upon our wasted town and shattered fortress,
Must prove resistless; neither can I gather
(More than yourself, I think,) much hope from Douglas.

SEATON.
Grant Heaven his coming be not ominous
To all, as to myself! its doleful consequences
To me and mine may cloud, perchance, my judgment.

DUNBAR.
No. It has proved, as yet, disastrous merely;
Provoked his foes, and done his friends no good.

243

SEATON.
And yet, one should not willingly prejudge
A great and gallant name; but, in the case
Of Archibald Douglas, will it be dispraise
To own that I distrust his very virtues,
Deeming him over brave? a quality,
(I need not say,) in circumstance like ours,
Worse than its abject opposite.

DUNBAR.
To this
Add, that albeit he love his country much,
He hates his enemy yet more; which, paired
With that false shame lest he be deemed inert,
(Our reverend Friar would call a snare,) may tempt him
To peril all, and risk a general battle.

SEATON.
And lose it, Dunbar! Yes, my soul forebodes
Such for the issue. After all our struggles,
Is such the stern decree? And Bruce has warred
And Wallace died for this, and this alone!
Is all in vain, and Scotland doomed to follow
In the long funeral of departed nations
Whose being ended ere her own began?

244

DUNBAR.
No, no! believe it not!

SEATON.
Or, if forbade
By policy—not pity—to be struck
From off the roll of states, is she reserved
The more degraded lot to hold existence
The feudatory servitor of England,
And the rapacious and remorseless wretch
That sways her sceptre?

DUNBAR.
Neither fate, I trust,
Awaits our country. The foe may enter,
But can he keep its borders? Will fair Tweed
E'er settle to a tributary stream?
Or Cheviot long look down on any lord
Save one of Scotland's rearing? No, my friend.
The native heather, that bent awhile
Beneath the pressure of a foreign tread,
Shall wave as free as ever. Though the soldier
Is not to play the seer, yet may he judge
The future from the past; from what has been
Gather what is to be. And if “the days

245

Of open vision” have not dawned on me,
As on Donaldus, yet, from boyhood's hour,
I ne'er beheld our mountain cataract,
In giant-leap from heights the eagle knew not
To depths past human ken—our island surge,
Still roaring to the deafened Hebrides—
But that my spirit sprang, as if their bold
Unearthly voice had sworn to us a freedom
Wild as their own.

SEATON.
Would I might share thy faith!
Ah, Dunbar! 'tis the cheerful character
Of thy own mind that ever coloreth thus
The scenery it surveyed. My darkened spirit
From the same sounds would catch the groans of bondage
Or the sharp death-cry! Bear with me, my friend,
As the survivor of a recent wreck,
The raving tempest clamorous in his ears
When calmed to all beside.

DUNBAR.
Doth Berwick own
A heart that would not “bear” and bleed with his
Whose own has thus been wrung?

246

SEATON.
For thine, at least,
I ask no guarantee. Now let's away.
I must have sight of Agnes.

DUNBAR.
And I follow.

[Exit.

Scene 3.

The apartment of Lady Agnes Seaton. Herself and the Friar in conversation.
LADY AGNES.
Now, holy father, blessings on thy head,
Here and hereafter, for that charity!

FRIAR.
In aught to comfort thee hath more than paid me.

LADY AGNES.
I did not think ever to weep again,
But thou hast touched the spring within the rock,
And healing waters flow.

247

(Enter Dunbar and Seaton.)
SEATON.
How fares my Agnes?
How is it with thee now?

LADY AGNES.
Better, my lord;
And not unmindful of the kind solicitude
That prompts the asking.

SEATON.
I could not rely
On the reports they of the household brought,
But stole a moment from the cares of office,
(Though at the heaviest now,) to satisfy me.

DUNBAR.
I, too, a respite snatch from the like duties,
To hail my precious cousin's restoration;
And, in the name of Berwick and of Scotland,
To thank that pair to whom all thanks are due.

SEATON.
Pay them to her. None to myself are owing.
To Agnes, only, doth that debt belong.

248

LADY AGNES.
(To Seaton.)
Nay, prithee, nay! (to Dunbar)
and if it were so, kinsman,
Thou know'st it chanceth for the fragile skiff
Sometimes to bear itself above the waves
From very lightness—when the braver bark,
Borne down by its rich freight and pressed with sail,
Had well-nigh parted.

DUNBAR.
Such lowly estimate of thy own merits
Does but enhance the worth it seeks to lower.

LADY AGNES.
Forbear! my friend, thy plaudits overpower me.
Even with the duty done, so highly rated,
Mingled enough to shame the sense of pride!
A dark and stormy interval has left
Its clouds between me and my memory,
Spreading o'er much a dreamy indistinctness;
Yet I recall—albeit confusedly—
I do remember, in my agony,
(That cast me, as a prey, to frantic impulse,)
Venting strange words of fearful imprecation.

249

I would they were unsaid! 'Tis not for me,
O, not for me, a weak and tempted woman,
(Daughter of dust, which every breath is bearing
Back to its source,) to teach the steadfast Heavens
Where to direct their thunders! O, forbid it!
If, in my frenzy, I have cursed King Edward,
I do revoke—

(Donaldus, entering, speaks.)
DONALDUS.
In vain! 'tis registered!
Eternal retribution is concerned
It should be so, howe'er thy generous nature
Relenteth thus toward so fell a foe.
The righteous wrath of man hath sometimes proved
Prompting of Providence; the cry of anguish
Forced from the tortured spirit (like the groan
Wrung from the writhing martyr on the rack)
Is heard of Heaven; aye, heard and answered, too!
Thy curse shall fasten, yet, on him and his,
Sharp as the eagle's talons! and I go
To warn him of it.
[Exit Donaldus.

250

SEATON.
Did I hear aright?
And dares he front that merciless destroyer
In his own place?

DUNBAR.
Donaldus is not one
To fear the face of man—of guilty man
The least of any—since to such his tidings
Of solemn import may be most effectual
To probe past crimes, or to preserve from future.
But time has sped, and I must leave you, cousin,
And seek a ruder presence.

SEATON.
True, my Agnes;
Yes, our short furlough has expired already.
I do commend thee to thy own best caution,
And leave thee, dearest, to the care of Heaven,
And this, its holy minister.

FRIAR.
Her comfort,
My son, shall be my care. The saints direct you,
(To S. and D.)
Giving to each good fortune, or the grace
That draws the sting from bad!

251

LADY AGNES.
Amen; so be it!
Husband and kinsman, all good go with you!

[Exit Seaton and Dunbar.
FRIAR.
Daughter, thine ancient harper had produced
His wonted tribute of a brief lament
To suit thy circumstance; but did reserve it
Until the season of bewilderment
Had passed away, and left thee to thyself.
But now, wilt please thee listen to his lay,
Whene'er the mood shall favor?

LADY AGNES.
It will soothe me,
To hear the strain whose burden is to be
Of what I loved and lost. Within the oratory
We will await it.

[Exit both.
(Scene changes to the oratory. Lady Agnes, Friar, Harper.)
LADY AGNES.
(To Harper.)
Mine ancient follower, I am now prepared
To lend the funeral chant thy zeal hath offered
A renovated ear. The holy father
Made known to me this proof of fealty,
My good old Gildus! that my heart has answered,
And thanks thee, for the living—and the dead!

252

HARPER.

My noble mistress will permit the purpose
To hide the faultiness of the performance.
For the poor minstrel felt his wonted fires
Quenched by his tears. The broken voice of age
Hath little melody at best—but less
When grief would choke its utterance. Yet the strains,
Such as they are, shall wake them at thy bidding.

(Sings, accompanied by the harp. During the strain Lady Agnes covers her face with her hand.

They are gone; they are gone from the hearth and the home;
To the hall of their fathers no more can they come;
In the bloom of their youth, in the light of their prime,
Ere the tempests of life or the shadows of time,
They are gone!

No more shall the hind hear their call at the morn,
Nor the stag start, when echo their bugle hath borne;
Not again wave the plumes that in battle they wore,
Nor their arm bears the banner their forefathers bore.
No more, no more!

Yet their names shall be lofty as Scotia's high pine,
Live as long as the oak, and as green as the vine;
In their lives they were lovely, nor death would dissever—
Not divided, as wont, but united them ever!
Forever!

253

(The Friar now rises and joins the chant of the Harper.)

By all the blood the martyrs shed,
By relics of the sainted dead,
By pilgrim's penitential tear,
By knighthood's consecrated bier,
Be their frailties here forgiven!
Let their spirits rest in heaven!

[Curtain falls.

END OF THE FOURTH ACT.

254

ACT V.

Scene 1.

The English camp before Berwick. A distant view of the town, castle, river, with its vessels of war, &c.
Tent of Edward III.
(Enter Donaldus, advancing, and speaks.)
DONALDUS.
Why ever thus, when called to exercise
My awful function, feel I such reluctance?
The dread decrees I utter are not mine,
And I believe them fully merited
And equitably ordered. Spite of this,
The weakness lingers still. Would that the prophet
Had mastered more the man! A Voice, they call me;
Would I were but a voice! I should not then—
Appointed to confront this throned transgressor
Just reeking from the gory spectacle
To angels and to men his wrath had raised—
Be conscious to aught other than his crimes,
Nor reck their threatened penal expiation.
Yes, let me think on the unnumbered wrongs
His mad career of conquest hath inflicted

255

Already on the land—the many more
He meditates—till it shall rouse to rage
The spirit of the North, and raise within me
All the avenger.
[Goes to the entrance of the tent.
Edward of England!

EDWARD.
Who art thou, bold one?

DONALDUS.
Edward of England!

EDWARD.
Ha! what rash intruder
Invades our presence thus? Where are my guards?

DONALDUS.
Thy guards are vigilant; but they shrank back
When they regarded me.

(Neville enters to them and speaks.)
NEVILLE.
My liege, 'tis he;
That awful One I spake of. (To the king.)

EDWARD.
In Heaven's name!
What art thou, man?

256

DONALDUS.
I am the voice of one
To thee, O king, sent from the King of kings,
To speak thy doom. And I, too, am a monarch,
And wield a sceptre; though no outward ensigns
Blazon it forth. The Future is my kingdom!
I stretch my sceptre o'er its darkling realm,
Which none can wrest from me; the arm that seeks it
Must borrow weapons from archangel's armory—
Michael, or Gabriel!

EDWARD.
To the proof, vain boaster!
I dare the utmost that the Prince of Darkness
Speaks by that lying tongue.

DONALDUS.
Blasphemer! pause;
'Tis truth, as sure as thine adulterous mother
Murdered thy recreant father!

EDWARD.
Seize the caitiff! (To guards.)

DONALDUS.
They dare not—cannot! This is not my hour.
Its features have been shown me with the rest,
That when it comes I know, and bid it welcome.

257

EDWARD.
Better it had come ere now—nay, better yet,
That thou hadst ne'er been born, than live to slander,
The head of England's chivalry.

DONALDUS.
I meant,
As him on whom the prophet stole had fallen,
But to deliver that I have received
To thee, O king, with prophet passiveness.
But, as one born of Caledonian blood,
Can I stand face to face with thee, thou spoiler,
Nor feel it boiling to be cooled in thine?
But thou art spared to be the scorpion scourge
Of neighboring nations round, till come the end;
When, like that ruthless reptile thou resemblest,
Thy sting shall turn, at last, against thyself.

EDWARD.
Now, by St. George and Christendom's seven champions!
Half of thy prophecy contents me well;
What warrior but must wish to prove a scourge
Unto his enemies? Thine other augury,
Sir Soothsayer, we'll withhold our credence from
Till some more special revelation force it.

DONALDUS.
Sir King, but late thou didst command me dumb;
Now, wouldst hear on, though hearing should appall thee.

258

(Fixed, like the bird, by fatal fascination.)
Know, then—and this shall be to thee a sign—
Thy son, thy first-born and thy best beloved,
In war thy buckler, and in peace thy star,
Shall die before thine eyes! Nor in the field,
Girt by his glittering host, and cheered to conquest;
(As sets the sun upon the Solway's bed,
With rays of glory round;) the sable prince,
Like fiery comet, whose portentous train
Still terminates in gloom—shall meet his fate.
Low on th' ignoble couch, no more to rise,
'Mid countless pangs, and every pang a death,
Yet death delaying—heart-wrung, drop by drop,
Shall Edward and Phillippa's boast depart!
Yet for her sake, erewhile thy better angel,
Whose interposing pity saved from death
The burghers of Calais, (and, present here,
Had surely saved those unoffending striplings!)
For this the vials of the wrath to come
Shall not be all poured out upon thy person,
But part on thy posterity. Yet, know

259

Full surely that it shall be thus outpoured,
Even to its bitterest dregs. In token of it,
The conquests thou hast gained thou shalt restore
Ere thy career be closed. Thy very blessings
Shall prove thy bane. A numerous progeny,
The joy of other men, shall be to thee
And to thy realm the rankest seed of strife;
Like to those horrid teeth once sown in earth,
Whence sprang up armed men. Not Scotland, then,
But thy own England be the seat of war.
The feuds once fostered between Scot and Scot,
Clansman and chieftain, prince and people here,
By arts of thine and of thine emissaries,
Shall tenfold be returned on English heads.
I look! thy sworn successor dies by piecemeal,
The ling'ring death of famine! at the hands
Of his own brutal subjects, trained by thee
To direst deeds. I see that ancient tower,
Reared by the noblest Cæsar of the twelve,
What time he conquered Britain, though he failed
To conquer Caledon. That tower in ward
The sacred majesty of England holds,
And o'er him stands the crooked Plantagenet,
(Monstrous at once in body and in soul,)
His coward weapon in his captive's heart.
Again that tower! the same foul shape appears,

260

Searching new victims; and the princely boys
Are 'reft of crown and life! But what of these?
Kings, princes, people, all are whelmed alike
In one vast tide of war. The crime of Cain
Renewed in each, ungraced with the remorse
Of the first man-slayer. Bosworth! Tewksbury!
Your fields are full before me. In mine ears
The clash of armor and the tramp of steeds,
And the fierce shout of triumph, strangely mingled
With the death-shriek, are there! The paler rose
Is bathed in blood, the while its sanguine sister
Glares with a deeper dye. This shall befall,
Tyrant, the latest limit of thy line;
Until, at length, athwart to England's sky,
Our northern light, our Stuart star shall gleam!
A hundred years of havoc shall avenge
The Wife of Seaton and the Siege of Berwick!

I am aware that the conquest of Calais did not occur till twelve or fifteen years after the date of this piece, at the invasion of Scotland by Edward III.; but the temptation to commemorate an illustrious woman, to whom literature no less than humanity is so much indebted, (the foundress of Queen's College, and the patroness of Chaucer,) prevailed with me to hazard the anachronism; which, however, is hardly such in the mouth of one to whom the future was as the past.

END OF THE TRAGEDY.

University of Virginia Library

TO A. T.

ON HIS IMPORTUNING THE WRITER TO COMPOSE SOMETHING OF MAGNITUDE.

[Salem, 1808.]

TRIBUTARY LINES.

TO JAMES FENNELL.

LINES,

ON THE DEATH OF MRS. WARREN, FORMERLY MRS. MERRY, OF THE LONDON THEATRE.

[1808.]

OCCASIONAL ODE.

TO CHEERFULNESS.

[1810.]

A HYMN, FOR FIRST OF MAY.

[1809.]

A PETITION.

[1809.]

ANOTHER “CASTLE IN THE AIR.”

TO SARAH, COUNTESS OF RUMFORD.

WRITTEN BY REQUEST, JANUARY, 1811.

AN EPITAPH

ON MRS. MARY H. SHAW, DAUGHTER OF JUDGE HOWEL, OF PROVIDENCE.

[1811.]

YESTERDAY, TO-DAY, TO-MORROW.

[1810.]

[Pilgrim, whose pious steps have led thee on]

STANZAS

COMMEMORATIVE OF CHARLES B. BROWN, OF PHILADELPHIA, AUTHOR OF “WIELAND,” “CIMOND,” “ARTHUR MERVYN,” ETC.

[1810.]

STANZAS.

A RHAPSODY.

TO ROBERT SOUTHEY.

[1812.]

DUNCAN M'INTOSH.

INCOMPREHENSIBILITY OF GOD.

LINES TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS F. PALMER,

BURIED AT BOSTON.

[1824.]

THE EASTERN KING AND SOUTHERN QUEEN.

(A HEBREW FABLE.)

A VISION.

[1832.]

A BALLAD

OCCASIONED BY THE LATE FATAL COMBAT ON THE MARYLAND BORDER.

[1823.]

A FRAGMENT.

[FEBRUARY, 1817.]

TO C---.

[1817.]

“WHEN SHALL WE THREE MEET AGAIN?”

[1816.]

THE VASE.

[1816.]

STANZAS

COMMEMORATIVE OF THE TWENTY-THIRD DAY OF DEC., 1815, WHEN THE BRITISH WERE REPULSED FROM NEW ORLEANS.—AN ATTEMPTED IMITATION OF SIR WALTER SCOTT'S VERSES ON MR. PITT'S BIRTHDAY.

STANZAS

ON A VIEW OF NEWSTEAD PARK, BELONGING TO A SEAT LATE THE PROPERTY OF THE RIGHT HONORABLE LORD BYRON.

[1814.]

STANZAS

SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN NEAR A VILLA IN NAPLES, ONCE THE RESIDENCE OF EMMA, LADY HAMILTON.

THE RAINBOW.

[1813.]

OCEAN.

A NAVAL PRIZE ODE.

[1813.]

A FRAGMENT.

THE FIRST GRAVESTONE.

THE DEAD.

LINES SUGGESTED BY A STUDY-CHAIR

BELONGING TO THE LATE HORACE HOLLEY.

ON A WREATH

BROUGHT BY F. ALEXANDER FROM THE TOMB OF ABELARD AND HELOISE, IN PERE LE CHAISE.

AN INSCRIPTION FOR A MONUMENT TO THE MEMORY OF GEN. HUMPHREYS.

WRITTEN BY REQUEST.

[1819.]

LINES ON A STONE FROM THE FIELD OF WATERLOO.

[1823.]

TO A. T., AT WASHINGTON.

WRITTEN AT MIDNIGHT, DEC. 30, 1825.

A DIRGE,

WRITTEN AT THE DECEASE OF JOHN ADAMS, JULY 4, 1826.