Seatonian Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Once more farewell! The sunset ray
Is glittering on the tropic bay:
Its waves are glorious to behold,
With crests of crimson and of gold:
But glow, by passing Zephyrs kiss'd,
At distance like an amethyst.
And clouds of brightness o'er them glance,
As 'twere in mystic fairy dance,
And with celestial fingers weave
A coronet for parting Eve
Of wildly purple light:

It comes! it comes! that matchless glow
On heaven above, and earth below,
Which brightest dream can never know
Till Fancy yields to sight!

II.

Lo! through the deepening twilight, peep
On heaven's serene and azure deep,
The shining squadrons of the sky,
That never beam on northern eye:
Canopus, like imperial gem
On night's eternal diadem,
And nameless constellations rise
That vie with England's winter skies,
And half replace their loss:
But chief, in perfect beauty drest,
Like conscious Empress of the rest,
The peerless Southern Cross.
Day lingers yet with rosy smile
Upon thy peaks, sweet mountain-isle!
Or calmly dies away:

Where once, through sunshine or through shower,
From break of morn till evening hour
My feet were wont to stray:
The dizzy bridge that spann'd the abyss,
The goat-path down the precipice,
The mountain-stream, I knew:
The peak in sunset purple deck'd,
The cloud on crag sublimely wreck'd,—
And mark'd the boundless sea reflect
The sky's intenser blue:
What time the thunder-cloud was spread
On Ruivo's crest of gloomy red,
And Arrieiros' mighty head
Shone out in evening-gold;
And modest twilight stole along
The needle ridge of sharp Cidrāo,
And sweet machete was mixed with song
In the dim ‘Pilgrims' Fold.’
O lovelier far than tongue can tell,
Eternal mountains! fare ye well!

III.

Eternal! Strange and vain the word
Thus of terrestrial beauty heard!
E'en now it lingers not,—the day
When that magnificent array
Like morning clouds must pass away
And leave no trace behind:
Thus by its ruin giving birth
To those new Heav'ns and that new Earth,
The resting-place of Peace and Love,
The mansions promised from above
To ransom'd human-kind:
The day in types and signs foretold
By seers that prophesied of old;
A day of darkness and of woe,
Whose advent, angel may not know,
Nor man to man declare;
Thus taught to spend his hours below
In watching unto prayer:
Lest haply, coming like a thief,
That time of terror and of grief
Should take him unaware.

IV.

Yet not unheralded by fear
The End of all things shall draw near:
By portents, writ in heavenly lines,
By ‘fearful sights and mighty signs.’
The blood-red moon shall walk no more
Her path of brightness, as before;
The ocean with unwonted roar,
And anguish'd moan, shall vex his shore,—
The sun be clad in black:
The heaven, and all its powers decay,
The constellations fade away;
And, as she hastens to her end,
Must Nature's suffering self portend
The universal rack.
So saith the vision from on high,
The ‘more sure word of prophecy.’

V.

Such scenes, serene in faith the while,
On that Apocalyptic isle
The loved Apostle saw:

Elect and blest! To him alone
The future glory was made known,
The emerald rainbow round the Throne,
And God, their God, from Whom His own
Eternal comfort draw:
The sea of glass, serenely fair,
The thousand times ten thousand there
That worship day and night:
What time, in mystic vision set,
He viewed the things that were not yet:
And thence, with piercing sight,
To earth her future fate reveals
In the dread Loosing of the Seals!

VI.

'Tis done! A sevenfold Angel-band
Take golden trumpets in their hand,
And there, the Eternal Throne around,
Each hath prepared himself to sound.—
The first shrill blast! And issuing forth
From the cold regions of the North,

With flinty hearts, and wild blue eyes,
And dissonance of barbarous cries,
Germanic myriads, pour'd
On the sweet land of corn and wine,
Athwart the pathless Apennine,
The mountain-torrent ford:
On, on they sweep with whirlwind-sway,
Through steel and fire and death obey
The bidding of their lord:
And Roman legions shrink and quail,
And vain the trust in lance and mail
And well-attemper'd sword:
Wake, Rome, O wake! 'Tis all too late!
The Goth, the Goth is at thy gate!
Maiden and veteran, babe and sire,
Have known ‘the mingled hail and fire’
Of that barbarian horde.

VII.

Another blast! With dauntless breast
The conqueror hastens to the West:

O'er prostrate realms and kings he trod,
—Dark Attila, the Scourge of God!
Anguish, and rapine, and dismay
Attend the victor's reddening way:
On Rome's imperial ocean came
A mighty mount, that blazed with flame:
Amidst that troubled sea it glowed,
And the changed billow foam'd with blood.
Another woe is past:
And yet it slumbereth not, the sword
That works the Vengeance of the Lord:
And dreader fury is outpour'd
With each succeeding blast.
And still the Angel-voice we know
Proclaiming sadly, Woe! Woe! Woe!

VIII.

From the land of the spice-tree, the land of the palm,
Where founts scatter freshness, and flowers breathe balm,
Where the breeze, as it travels the greenwood, brings
A thousand sweets on his silken wings,

And the sky hath no cloud, and the fair earth smiles
In the lovely array of the Fortunate Isles;
Where at twilight, beside the shady well,
You may catch the chime of the camel's-bell;
And the hill and the dale are fair to see
With the glossy green of the coffee-tree:
From the land, on whose happy confines press
The fearful realms of the wilderness,
With its blistering heat, and its fierce white glare,
And the fire of its sun, and the drought of its air;
Where from close of twilight till blush of morn,
Led forth by the strains of the clarion and horn,
They journey right onward,—the pilgrim array,—
For the “Ship of the Desert” can teach them the way:
—From Araby's country, the far East's boast,
The great False Prophet goes out with his host!

IX.

They gather! they thicken! on, on, they pour!
'Tis a land as the Garden of Eden before:
Ye may mark their track as they onward press,—
'Tis a blighted and desolate wilderness:

They ford the river, they scale the bank,
They stumble not in their serried rank,
They laugh at pity, they mock at fear,
They scorn the shaking of sword and spear;
And the tramp of their horse is as dread and as loud
As the burst of a mountain thunder-cloud;
And the mail of their horsemen as thick to the eye
As the locust-swarm of an Afric sky;
And the gold-deck'd turban is seen afar,
And ye know the flash of the scymetar:
Their prince Abaddon hath well his name,
For ruin and havock is all their aim:
And men, as they view that onward tide,
Shall pant for death as for plighted bride!

X.

And hark! for the camp and the battle-hour,
The dread seducer hath words of power:
“They that shall fall in march or fight,
Are called by Allah to realms of light:
Where in giant pearls the Houris dwell,
And reach to the faithful the wine-red shell:

With their words so sweet, and their forms so fair,
Their gazelle-like eyes, and their raven hair:
Where the raptured ear may drink its fill
Of the heavenly music of Izrahil:
And Tuba, next Allah's throne on high,
Owes gladness and Immortality.
One sight of that Paradise well repays
Long nights of watching and weary days:
And he that falls with his sword in hand
Shall wake at once in the promised land.
And monarch on monarch, and state on state,
Shall be conquer'd by Islam,—for Allah is great:
And the faithful shall gather the gold like dust,
And the gems like pebbles, for Allah is just:
And shall comfort His warriors, and wipe their tears,
In the endless repose of Eternity's years!”

XI.

Speed, speed the summons West and North!
Call each recruit and veteran forth!
Herald of woe! ere yet too late,
Haste for thy life across the strait!

Legate and Prefect, one and all,
Double the guards, and man the wall!
Where are the legions, Asia's boast,
Where Lycia's pride, and Phrygia's host?
Make one brave stand, hold firm one post,
The invaders are but men!
Be sons indeed of them that died
In trampling Carthaginian pride,
And forced Jugurtha's battle-tide
To his own wilds again!

XII.

On, on they roll! Ye might as well
Check with a sand-mound Ocean's swell,
As with pale foot and dastard horse,
Dream to oppose the invader's course!
Now in the desert,—now, elate,
He thunders at Damascus' gate;—
The queenly city falls:
And trumpets mix with shrieks of woe,
And streams of blood, like water, flow
In Antioch's purple halls.

Avoid that hour of hopeless grief:
Tiberias! hail the victor chief!
Fair Salem, once the earth's delight,
And precious in the Almighty's sight,
The irrevocable doom is spoke,
Prepare thee for the Othman yoke!
—And still, in unopposed advance,
The turban'd squadrons shake the lance:
Their's is the growth of Egypt's fields,
And trembling Alexandria yields
The riches of the main:
And sea-girt Carthage, she that erst
The Roman bands had well-nigh burst,
Stoops to the Moslem yoke accurst,
And wears the Prophet's chain!

XIII.

Oh, who may count the hopeless tears
That thick bedew the waste of years,
While, gathering strength and winning fame,
Westward and westward Islam came!

A traitor calls: with hope elate
They man the ships, they cross the strait:
And Calpe, from her beacon-brow,
Hath caught the nearing squadron now:
And Roderick, waked by battle-din
From dreams of pleasure and of sin,
Would fain avert, by one brave blow,
The trespass that hath wrought him woe,
And end, o'ermatch'd in bloody strife,
By noble death ignoble life.
And Lusitania weeps in chains,
And Ebro flows through captive plains,
And no deliverer nigh:
Save where, the seat of Christian throne,
Mountain Asturias holds her own;
And Gaul, with gladden'd eye,
Surveys the heaps of them that fell
Beneath the sword of stern Martel!

XIV.

Europe is up! from the cot to the throne
The summons that issued from Clermont is known:

The arrow they feather, the bow they shape,
From the snow-crown'd Alp to the Icy Cape:
There is donning of helmet in England and France,
There is girding of armour and whetting of lance:
The war-cry is loud, and the pennon is spread
From the Holy Island to Beachy Head:
They have taken the vow to be spent and to spend
From the cliffs of Dover to far Land's End:
And the knights of Normandy burnish the mail,
And the burghers of Calais equip the sail:
The yeoman comes down from the green hill-side;
The lover forsaketh the plighted bride;
And Kentish shepherds the sheephook spurn,
And the vines are untended in mountain Auvergne:
And brambles grow in the field apace,
And the deer is tame in the wildwood chase:
And the peasant hath shod his oxen twain
To serve for steeds in the warrior-train:
And farewells are spoken, and vows are made,
And prayers are breathed for the great Crusade.
For those Four Angels that dwell around
The streams of Euphrates must straitly be bound.

XV.

Like clouds, that in the April day
O'er hill and valley flit away,
And as the breeze goes by, the grass
Can show no traces where they pass,
So those rude bands, untaught to know
The wiles and onset of the foe,
Whose skill-less hand so lately took
The javelin for the pruning-hook,
Through Europe poured the stream amain
That never should return again.
The last fierce strife for life and death,
The failing hand, the gasping breath,
The dying shriek, the anguish fell,
Hungarian wolves, ye know right well;
Far, far from every loved one's reach
Their graveless bones are left to bleach;
And long the widow's heart shall beat
At every sound of entering feet,
Too fondly deeming him at hand
That moulders in Bohemian sand.

And long the sire, though weary now
Of trembling limb and wrinkled brow,
Shall call on Heaven with earnest cries
That still his son may close his eyes.
Few, few of many, shall behold
Santa Sophia's vaults of gold:
And fewer win their passage o'er
The love-famed strait to Asia's shore.

XVI.

But louder the tumult and braver the sight
Where the knighthood of Europe are trick'd for the fight:
With Godfrey of Boulogne and Fulke of Anjou
And Robert of Normandy, “tender and true”:
And the banners wave and the clarions peal,
And the host, as it moves, is one glare of steel:
They know not of doubt, and they dream not of flight,
For their faces are set like a rock for the fight:
And the coward Cæsar grows pale afar,
And his trembling courtiers the straits would bar:

But who shall gainsay them? but who may deny
A passage to those that will force it or die?
Through Asia they sweep in their terrible might;
On the plains of Nicæa they muster for fight:
They circle Antioch with mound and fosse,
And the Crescent is humbled beneath the Cross:
And thinn'd in numbers, but glad of soul,
They stand at length at their journey's goal!

XVII.

Fit theme of high emprise for thee,
Bard of romance and chivalry!
How first that band, with joyful awe,
Afar the Holy City saw:
How minaret and dome and spire
Glow'd in the parting sunbeam's fire:
Mingling that wondrous tale the while
With knightly gest and wizard's guile.
How, when the hard-fought day was o'er,
And Salem own'd the Cross once more,
They bade Duke Godfrey take the helm,
And guide the tempest-troubled realm:

But where his Suffering Lord had worn
The Crown inwove with twisted Thorn,
He would not,—humble chief as bold,—
Put on the diadem of gold.

XVIII.

Alas! far other theme is ours:
We have the thorns, and he the flowers:
'Tis ours to trace, in mournful line,
The fated kingdom's slow decline:
How with his sires the monarch slept,
And Salem o'er his ashes wept:
And year by year, and day by day,
Resolve and courage died away:
And civil feuds wax'd fierce and high,
And friends were far, and foemen nigh;
And Christian knights dishonour'd troth,
And monarchs swerved from plighted oath;
And midst the invader's battle-cry
There came the sound of revelry;
And Moslem-conquerors round the few
In ever-narrowing circle drew.—

Still, mindful of her brethren's cause,
Her sword avenging Europe draws:
She sent the noble and the brave
To victory,—and they found a grave!

XIX.

Waken the trump! Bid alarm-bells ring out!
Speed forth the herald! make ready the scout!
Galleys of Pisa! strain yard and bend mast!
Stout be the oarsmen and steady the blast!
Pass ye the tidings by pen and by mouth,—
Saladin, Saladin comes from the South!
Troops he hath victuall'd, forced marches he makes:
Quarter in battle he gives not nor takes:
Lo! 'tis his herald that biddeth King Guy
Look to his palace, for ruin is nigh!
He hath sworn by the Black Stone of Mecca to rest
When abased is the pride of fair Galilee's crest:
When the Templars' fierce lances have melted away,
As the wind drives the leaves on November's dim day:
When the wealth of the burghers is pillaged and gone,
And Palestine knows not the Knights of Saint John:

When Salem hath bow'd to the Crescent again,
And her king is his captive,—but never till then!

XX.

At Sephoris they make their stand,
The bulwarks of the threaten'd land:
There Arnauld, shame of Christian knights,
There Raoul of the thousand fights;
There, false of heart, in vauntings high,
The traitor-Count of Tripoli;
Props of the state, the Orders twain
Have sent their brethren to the plain:
And forced at last to meet the foe,
King Guy stakes all on that one throw.
No needed rest,—no truce from arms:
The night is wild with fresh alarms:
And evermore, with battle-shout,
The Turcopules are up and out.
Oh! for one drop of water now
For the parch'd throat and burning brow!
At eve the dread sirocco came
To fan the desert into flame:

No shadows slake that heat intense,
No evening-dews their balm dispense:
And windward fires blazed high and bright,
With demon-art, the livelong night:
And many a yeoman sigh'd in vain
For England's splashing streams again:
And many a knight, with eager eye,
Caught the first reddening of the sky,
Presaging with its mournful glow
A redder battle-field below!

XXI.

But why pursue, in gloomy strain,
The havock of Tiberias' plain,
And bid its memory wake?
Was the prophetic voice in vain
That from the Altar spake?
Loose the Four Angels, said that sound,
That yet, in dread Euphrates bound,
Their mystic chain obey:

Avenging spirits, that have power
A year, a month, a day, an hour,
The third of men to slay.

XXII.

'Tis a fair spring morning! The breeze is high,
The clouds flit fast through the bright blue sky;
And the voice of the trumpet sinks and swells
O'er the purple waves of the Dardanelles:
And Moslem cries on the gale are borne
From the Seven fair Towers to the Golden Horn:
And clarions echo and cannons roar
From the Grecian walls to the Lycian shore;
For by Othman bands, at their Lord's behest,
The Cæsar's City is hardly press'd.
And the strong man totters with hunger now,
And the mother weeps o'er her child's cold brow:
And Prince and burgher are full of woe,
For famine hath come to aid the foe.
But tidings are spread from gate to gate,—
“Five Christian galleys are off the strait!”

With countless myriads the walls are lined
That gaze on the billows and watch the wind:
For steadily onward they win their way,
And their prows are white with the snowy spray:
They near the harbour, they cross the bar,
And their cannon sweep the waves afar:
In vain shall the fleet, like a crescent, spread
From fair Chalcedon to Pera's head:
In vain shall the Moslem tyrant chafe:
The harbour is won, and the City is safe!
'Twas the last brave deed of a falling land:
The Lord hath spoken, and who shall withstand?

XXIII.

More glorious then, with kingly mien,
The Palæologus was seen
In that sad night, when hope was gone,
And his last morn was drawing on,
Than that Imperial line, so long
Renown'd in history and in song,
The memory of whose ancient sway,
In few brief hours must pass away.

At midnight held they council high
How best like Christian chiefs to die:
How the great Empire, sinking fast,
Most gloriously should end at last.
For all that night, by torch and lamp,
They labour in the invader's camp:
They level mound, they fill ravine,
The ladder plant, and pile fascine,
And fourscore galleys, moor'd at hand,
Threaten, with lofty prow, the strand.
The Cæsar joins in rites Divine,
Eternal Wisdom! in Thy shrine:
And pardon from his vassals takes,
And mans each post,—for morning breaks:
And then, with all untroubled eye,
Leaving his halls, goes forth to die.

XXIV.

The hour is come! the war-cries wake:
By sea and land assault they make:
And cannons roar, and bastions shake,
And arrows shower like rain:

And, careless of the heaps that fall,
They hurry onwards towards the wall
The helpless peasant train,
Whose corpses soon shall form the way
By which their lord may reach his prey.
From morn till noon the fosse they fill:
The bridge of death grows higher still;
The Christian bands, with labouring breath,
Are faint and wearied in the death
Of such ignoble foes:
Till fresh and panting for the war,
With lance, and pike, and scymetar,
The Janizaries rose:
And pouring in resistless tide
Havock and ruin far and wide,
They whelm the city's hapless side,
And wall and battlement are dyed
With freshly welling gore:
To new attacks the chieftains call
With trumpet, drum, and atabal:
From line and galley, bridge and wall,
They thunder evermore.

The Cæsar flings away the robe
That once had sway o'er half the globe:
He finds the warrior's death he sought,
And, living while her monarch fought,
Rome and her sway are o'er.

XXV.

Seal up the vision! Empires must decay,
And monarchs, with their people, pass away:
And conquerors on the paths of victory press,
And fruitful lands become a wilderness;
Resistless nations rise from realms unknown,
The mighty fail, the slave ascend the throne:
But all, as history's opening leaves unfold,
Fulfil the doom the Eternal spake of old:
Until, redeem'd and purified from sin,
The fulness of the Gentiles shall come in,
And that Archangel's voice from shore to shore
Proclaims in thunder, Time shall be no more;
And they that sleep shall hear the trumpet's call,
And Heaven rejoice, and God be All in all!

The following Poem is grounded on the commonly received hypothesis, that by the four Angels are signified the four principal Sultanies of the Saracenic empire, which, having been “bound” by the Crusades, were “loosed,” and permitted to extend themselves after the fall of the Latin Dominion in Palestine, and the ruin of Constantinople.

Pico Ruivo, Pico dos Arrieiros, Pico do Cidrāo—mountains in Madeira.

Rev. viii. 7.

Rev. viii. 8.

Joel ii. 3.

Rev. viii. II.

Rev. ix. 14.