Recaptured Rhymes Being a Batch of Political and Other Fugitives Arrested and Brought to Book. By H. D. Traill |
 |
|
|
 |
TO A FAMOUS PARLIAMENT. |
|
 | Recaptured Rhymes |  |
TO A FAMOUS PARLIAMENT.
Hunc neque dira venena nec hosticus auferet ensis
Nec laterum dolor aut tussis nec tarda podagra;
Garrulus hunc quando consumet cumque; loquace
Si sapiat, vitet, simul atque adoleverit aetas.
Nec laterum dolor aut tussis nec tarda podagra;
Garrulus hunc quando consumet cumque; loquace
Si sapiat, vitet, simul atque adoleverit aetas.
As one who from the glacier past the vine
Follows the slow debasement of the Rhine
To where its foiled and sluggish waters creep
Through sand-obstructed channels to the deep—
As such an one may in fantastic mood
Muse on the checkered fortunes of the flood,
The source majestic whence its streams descend,
Its proud career and its ignoble end,—
Thus—but in sober earnestness—are we,
O English Parliament, to think of thee?
124
The long-descended and the high-renowned!
O thou whose shame or glory is our own,
Born with our birth, and with our growth upgrown!
Was it for this the wasting hand of time,
Perils of youth, and maladies of prime,
Spared thee so long? O thou who first didst draw
In a rude age the infant breath of law,
And, storing silent increments of life
Through our long era of dynastic strife,
Take gradual heart of grace thy voice to raise
From whispering humbleness of Tudor days;
Wrest the high sceptre from thy Stuart lords;
Bend only for an hour to Cromwell's swords;
Live faction down, break through corruption's chains,
And of the Walpole-poison purge thy veins;
Wax stronger and still stronger, till the land
Saw all its forces gathered to thine hand—
Didst thou thus triumph that thou thus shouldst fall?
Is that proud head that towers over all
125
Had ever splendid life so mean a close
As thine will show, if thou, for all thy past,
Must die of talk and Irishmen at last?
| Recaptured Rhymes | |