England :: :: University of Virginia Library

Oh, but it is indeed a lovely morn!
Hot, burning, sultry, though it is but spring.
The sky is clear and fresh, as newly born;
Among the groves the birds all gaily sing;
With leaping fish the glancing waters ring,
Like rainbows on the misty summer tide.
'Tis such a morn as Fancy loves to wing
Her fairy flights, and o'er the sunbeams glide,
Pouring enraptur'd dreams from grove and mountain side.

The lazy stream can scarcely wind along;
There is no motion in the dizzy air;
A languor dreams from every warbled song;
Dull Indolence sits sceptred everywhere;
Yet doth all life a steady action bear.
The finest fibres grow, the leaves spring forth—
The leaves and blossoms both. The grass is fair,
And gemm'd with flowers; all nature hath a birth,
Loading with treasures rare the lean and hungry earth.

Joy, joy from mountain, cave, and rolling river!
Joy, from the valleys and the sounding sea!
Joy, from the azure skies! Joy, joy for ever,
Eternal joy and constant jubilee!
Spring hath come forth, all young, and fresh, and free—
The balmy Spring, first daughter of the skies.
The nations leap with joy her steps to see;
From all the earth loud gratulations rise—
Her worshippers the pure, the eloquent, the wise.

Spring hath come forth; and Winter, banished,
Laments his shattered frost-works sunk away;
The snows are melted from the mountain's head;
The ice-chains gone that bound the streams in sway.
Now doth a brighter sunlight warm our day;
Now blows a softer breeze o'er hill and dale;
Gone are the storms that held the waves at bay,
And swept tempestuous through each shatter'd sail;
Gone the dead wither'd years on Time's remorseless gale.

Come, then, ye south-winds, from your pastures come!
Come from the desert moors, and let us hear
The wondrous stories of your distant home;
Of cliffs and rugged haunts, in that strange sphere;
Of voices that disturb'd your listening ear,
From wild birds and the heath-cock in his pride;
Of stunning winds that fill the brain with fear,
The cruel winter snows, and whirlwind's tide,
And strange sepulchral forms that wander at your side!

Come, come ye south-winds—all our vales are green;
The pleasant May-time spreads her carpet fair;
The little birds beside their mates are seen,
Singing sweet songs to wile each hour of care.
What clouds of perfume satiate the air,
From the rich yellow broom and hawthorn white;
(Celestial blooms that greet us everywhere.)
O, ye will find fresh bowers by day and night,
Where ye may wander free, in gladness and delight!

Come, ye shall rove about by every stream,
And see the golden fishes leap in joy;
Flowers rich and rare shall blossom in your dream,
And the green glade afford serene employ;
The high o'erhanging cliffs, your sole annoy,
Shall make Æolian noise; and you shall climb
The pine-clad mountains like a happy boy,
And hear the harping cuckoo mock at time,
And each enchanting sound of Spring's delightful prime.

And where the ocean beats the cliffs in pride,
And roareth from its caves in royal glee,
Or moaneth out wild dirges from its tide,
Singing wild songs, as lovers wander free—
There, with the falling wavelets, ye shall be;
There, with the snow-white sea-birds, ye shall roam;
And, as your wings wind o'er the sounding sea,
Each mermaid, from its caves beneath the foam,
Shall breathe delicious songs to wile you to their home.

O, day of glory and supreme delight,
Shining upon the earth a lovely star!
How shall I drag my thoughts from out the night
That hath been near, whilst thou, O Spring, wert far?
How strike my harp without a flaw or jar?
The Winter hath been tyrannous and strong;
My lyre was laid upon his frozen car;
Yea, every tone was silent, every song
That erst in holy tides, linger'd its chords among.

What though my brain was bursting to be free;
What though I gnaw'd the chains that wrung my heart;
What though I shrieked aloud in agony,
I could not break these bonds by any art.
The world, even like a hound, watch'd every part.
I knew that glorious spirits roll'd away,
And pour'd sweet hymns from breasts that had no smart;
I knew celestial harpings murmur'd aye;
But I was weak and faint, oppress'd in every way.

I could not go, on unconfined wing,
Unto the distant place that I did seek;
I saw the stars at heaven's clear portals sing;
I saw the moon in waves of glory break;
I saw the northern streamers wild and bleak.
The clouds lay curl'd along the still blue sky;
The waters, 'neath their bondage, murmur'd meek;
The silent snows clad all the mountains high;
The flowers were buried deep, and sank them down to die.

I look'd abroad. The bleating lamb was still,
The yellow corn was gone, the fruit was dead.
Time, the old conqueror, seem'd to have his will,
And all the earth was his, and they were wed—
Our fruits and flowers adorn'd his marriage-bed.
Wherefore I spake, “Whither is spring-time gone?
Alas! alas! where doth she rest her head?
Shall we for ever pine and grieve alone,
And mourn, in winter bowers, o'er what the frosts have won?

“There were no streaks upon the evening sky,
There was no freshness in the sullen air;
I knew the ghostlike trees and flowers must die,
Each garden lose the hues that shone so fair;
For desolate snows and winds dwell everywhere.
Come forth, O Spring, thy bright hair rolling free,
Thy blue eyes beaming forth, serene and clear;
Come forth, and spread thy banners out in glee,
And sing aloud the songs of love and liberty.

“Shake from thy lap fresh flowers upon the plain,
Strew wild blooms in the depth of woodland green;
From off thy hair let fall the dripping rain,
And o'er our mountains be thy presence seen,
Thou, who shalt be our everlasting queen!
And we will chant thee hymns, who art so good,
So lifted up o'er all things poor and mean;
Thou shalt be sung aloud o'er field and wood,
And worshippers from far around thy altars crowd!

“The shepherd-boy, along the green hill-side,
Will proudly sing in mellow'd praise of thee;
The cottage girl, forth walking in her pride,
Will weep for joy to view thy garments free;
Love will throw back its hair, and laugh for glee;
The maiden, who hath wept thro' many a night
Her sailor lost upon the hungry sea;—
The lover, who hath mourn'd his lady bright,
And orphan tongues, shall sing thy reign of love and light.

“Sing, till the mountain caverns hear thy voice!
Sing, till the ocean hears our jubilee!
Sing, till the naked crags and cliffs rejoice,
And the loud vales are stirr'd with rapturous glee!
Yea, thou shalt heal our woes and make us free,
And with thy presence wake our thoughts on high,
Bear through our brains the songs of liberty,
And lift us upward to the azure sky,
Where mist, nor snow, nor storm, shall ever dim the eye,”

Methinks that Autumn hath no lovelier hue
Than hath the garment of awakening Spring.
I speak not of the skies' intenser blue,
Nor of the cloud-groves, borne on shadowy wing,
But of the tinted woods, where sweet birds sing.
There broods the sovereign oak, array'd in brown:
A sturdy woodsman he, a royal king;
Unflinching, strong, no might can tear him down,
That heeds not summer's heat, nor winter's angry frown.

There, all in green, like Petrarch's gentle maid,
The stately elm uplifts his shaded head;
There stands the broad-arm'd sycamore arrayed,
With rank on rank of flowers, all sweetly spread;
(O, that such beauty should so soon be dead!)
There, too, the lady-lover of the grove,
The silvery birch, awaketh from her bed,
Shaking her tresses to the breeze's love—
O, 'tis a tree might bloom among the fields above!

Nor thou, old kingly beech, be thou forgot,
Twin-brother of the oak, co-sceptred king;
Thee, loves the deer, forsaking every spot;
Thee, love the little birds, on distant wing,
That, 'mid thy light-leav'd branches, gaily sing.
Ye all have various hues—ye all are great;
In wealth, distinct, all liveried by spring;
And lovers, poets, patriarchs, ever wait
To meet your honey'd smiles, and greet your homag'd state.

And Spring herself, is she not like a maid
That loves to roam alone—her father's pride?
She wanders forth all plain and unarrayed;
The breezes flow among her ringlets' tide,
And cheer her healthful blood. All undenied,
She goeth where she will. Her loveliness
And innocence, like angels at her side,
Protect her. All she blesseth all do bless,
And the blue heavens are glad to view her happiness.

In silent places doth she meekly rest,
Seeking lone bowers untwined by human hand,
Now gazing on the linnet in its nest,
Now seeking wild flowers in each starry band;
Yet harming nought. In the far distant land
Of vision is her soul, from whence she came,
She knows bright sisters wave the magic wand
To beckon her away: she hears her name
Call'd from the azure depths, and from the evening's flame.

Most fair and beautiful—the poet's dream!
Far, far he seeks her through each sunny day;
She is his hope, his rapture, and his theme;
He ever views her eyeballs' glistening ray,
Her coral cheeks, her bosom's “milky way;”
He hears among the flowers her fairy feet;
He sees her robes among the gales of May,
And knows her voice, that ever soundeth sweet:
She is his love, his bride—all, all that is most meet!

But, oh, shall I forget you, ye strange flowers
And wilder'd weeds, that deck the silent woods?
And you wild trailing plants and hidden bowers,
Shall I not seek your hidden solitudes,
Far, where the linnet sings, the ring-dove broods?
Anemone and harebell scatter'd wide,
And the sweet violet hid, where none intrudes;
Meek yellow primrose, deck'd in humble pride,
The dearest flower that grows along the mountain side?

And thou, black ivy, climbing up on high,
Even to the raven's nest; and woodbine fair,
Shrouder of lovers from intruding eye;
And thou, rough brier, with dishevelled hair,
That, like a poet, roamest without care.
How are the woods with loveliness prank'd o'er?
What sights and perfumes fill the o'erburthen'd air!
Our woods are full of high and sacred lore—
There nature's book is writ, to last for evermore!

Spring is the time of youth, and love, and gladness,
And passion, newly-waken'd, walks the earth;
We have thrown off the Winter's weary sadness,
And things start up again to newer birth—
O'er hill and vale is jubilee and mirth.
The hare is sporting in the enamell'd mead,
Among bright flowers, far scattered, without dearth;
The deer lies languishing in love's sweet need,
Where, on the dewy leaves, the loving moonbeams feed.

His even song, the thrush, from topmast spray,
Unto his mate doth sing in rivalry;
The ring-dove fills the woodlands all the day,
With notes of heart-created harmony;
The wanton fishes leap about in glee;
And sighs of love are borne along the gale,
From the white-spreading thorn and meadows free.
Yea, over mountain side, and hill, and vale,
And every bower'd grove, doth love—young love prevail.

Now, wandering far, and scarcely knowing why,
The poet seeks each lone and hidden place,
Fancying he views upon the azure sky,
His mistress' lovely and applauding face;
Or views among the clouds her footsteps' trace.
He hears her voice in every breeze that blows,
Singing her love-songs in their jocund race;
And where the stars at midnight do repose,
He sees her beauteous eyes down-looking on his woes.

Or, resting on the green and mossy ground,
Beside the trotting of some murmurous stream,
(Lulled by the holy sweetness of its sound)
He views among the skies, as in a dream,
Bright, beauteous shapes, (yet scarcely what they seem)
Fair, sculptur'd forms, born of old classic time;
Brave knights, all deck'd for ladies love, I deem;
Or kings and giants tread that distant clime—
Forms royal, mighty, vast, heroic, and sublime.

Yea, he will see old visions far away,
(As gazing through the thickly ivyed shade
He views along the leaves the summer ray,)
Of bright Diana, hunting through the glade,
And of her beauteous nymphs, all unarray'd
In naked loveliness:—he'll see them clear,
Drying their shining limbs, and undismay'd;
Gazing on which, the sun faints in his sphere,
And the blue heavens look out from many a dewy tear.

Or dream of Delphos, and the sacred grove
Oracular, from cave or secret shrine;
Where earth hears messages from heaven above,
Responses wild, and oracles divine!
Or dreams of Bacchus and the streaming vine;
Or satyrs rude, all racing in the shade,
Who, flush'd and swollen with the voluptuous wine,
Seek, 'mid the gloom, some lonely wandering maid,
Walking among the flowers unconscious, undismay'd.

Spring hath come back again—her steps I hear,
I see her lovely face where'er I go;
“But sorrow comes with the revolving year,”
And grief still hunts my footsteps to and fro!
Methinks in every face I see a foe,
Who would tramp down these limbs into the mire,
And o'er my coffin black oblivion throw;
Circle my brow with red and burning fire,
And scatter on the wastes my dearest all—my lyre.

Since I was born, no rest was ever mine;
I seem to have nor home, nor hope, nor love;
Heaven, ocean, earth—all elements combine
To chace my footsteps wheresoe'er they rove;
In every place do rage and hatred move.
But am I all deserted? Is there none
To hear me? O there is a God above,
Who from his holy temple hears each groan,
And views each suppliant's woes from his celestial throne.

Thou gnarled oak, all desolate and bare,
Waving thine arms upon the hungry wind;
Thou that for centuries hast blossom'd fair
In well-leaf'd grandeur, O be good and kind!
Here let me rest, beneath thy shade inclined.
What have I done each man should seem my foe?
What is my error? Where's the stain ye find?
Why, why with savage hatred strike the blow
O'er one who harmeth nought wherever he may go?

For I have ever worshipped poetry;
My life hath been a long and lovely dream;
The mountain paths I've ever wander'd free,
Taking no heed, nor seeking any theme;
(Thinking not of those reptiles whose wild gleam,
Of furious eyes, lit up the glooms beneath)
There, on the barren heights, 'twas mine, I deem,
To commune with the tempest's sullen breath,
And hear the pine trees groan, as from the ribs of death.

There did I see the sunlight over-head,
Setting the battlemented heavens on fire;
There did I view the quiet cloudland spread,
Fancying of spirits on each sparkling tear;
There did I tune the many-voiced lyre,
To thee, bright moon, and you, ye starry train!
Seeking on loftiest pinions to aspire,
(The power and passion of the sacred strain)
That with the immortal dead a place I might attain.

There have I heard the cataract roar loud,
As if a demon struggled with his chain;
There in the mists I've walked as in a shroud,
Seeking the hidden splendours all in vain;
Yet there, as if to ease my bitter pain,
I've fancied glorious spirits wander'd near,
And heard wild voices o'er the moorland plain,
That fill'd my soul with wonder, awe, and fear,
As if dim ancient ghosts were wandering from their bier.

In the deep woods, full many a summer day,
I've heard each curious note that warbled nigh;
I've mark'd amid our streams the bright fish play,
And watch'd each hue reflected from the sky.
Shunning ambition, 'twas my joy to lie
On the green grass, and trace each beauteous thing,
Insect or flower, and heave the pensive sigh.
The ocean doth her dearest voices bring—
Where'er my footsteps roam all nature seems to sing.

What, then, ye virulent and full of guile—
What, ye malignant vipers, have I done?
Is it that I will never lend the smile
To rank hypocrisy? assume the tone
Of gentleness, when in my heart was none?
Do I want poison? am I not the toad
That ye are, that ye throw the damning stone?
Or do ye curse, because I spurn the load
Of all your damning lies? what is't that makes ye gourd?

No matter! I am happy in the thought
That fear was never mine. That I could die
Even at this hour. That I have never brought
Hatred to cowardice, but still do try
To bear myself aloft, with fearless eye.
Good for the evil I have aye assay'd.
But when the oppressor would not list my cry,
Then have I link'd myself with other aid,
Standing in honour's field unflinching, undismay'd.

No matter!—have I not a glorious theme?
O England, art thou not enough for me?
Thou hast for ever linger'd in my dream,
And all my wandering thoughts still cling to thee!
Thee have I traced through childhood's early glee
Among the hills! I've seen thee in the prime,
When Boadicæ, Alfred, made thee free;
Causing thy fame to live o'er hungry time,
Borne to eternal age, in majesty sublime!

I've sung of glorious Spencer—he who threw
Thought, passion, fancy, beauty, all in one;
I traced the old religion's gorgeous hue;
The legendary kings that now are gone;
The Aborigines, the bold, the strong.
'Twas mine to sing of England in her pride,
And Rome's battalions her hills among.
Of thou old Troynavaunt, by Thames' side,
Listening the kingly tone with which his waters glide.

Of those sweet innocent children, first, who brought
The ways of Christ to our barbarian land.
Of that glad time when men of pious thought
Planted the tree—a pure and righteous band!
Of fell Rowena, blood upon her hand.
Of royal Arthur, pride of chivalry,
'Neath whose right arm no other knight could stand.
Of kingly Alfred, from whose eagle eye
The savage Dane drew back;—who gave us liberty.

Of holy Benedict, a hermit pure,
Who worshipped God, in the untrodden wood,
Learning each dread privation to endure;
A hermit whose whole life was just and good.
Of sweet Elgiva, bathed in her own blood;
Of royal Edward, by his mother slain;
Of fair Elfrida, by a monarch woo'd;
Of royal Canute, binding in the main;
Of the last Saxon king, on Hastings' battle plain.

Of William, “son of love and lord of war;”
And Rufus, who by Tyrell's arrow fell;
And of the first crusader—he who far
Spread blood-bound piety, and made to dwell
Murder on every shore. Of the wild tale
Of William's shipwreck; of the civil strife;
Of beauteous Rosamond, murdered by the fell
And furious Queen; how Becket lost his life;
How Cœur de Lion pined beneath the Austrian's knife.

Of Robin Hood, who 'mong the green woods sped;
Of youthful Arthur in the dungeon slain;
And of that charter won at Runnymede—
Our noblest right, our most heroic gain;
Of royal Edward and the battle plain,
And Eleonora's great and lofty deed;
And of Orleans mission'd damsel's pain,
Burnt in hot fires—the patriot's proudest breed;
And of that piteous act by Ebor's son decreed!

Of the “first star of English martyrdom,”
Hight Gerard—praying in the burning flame,
And undismay'd, even by his bitter doom,
Still hearing angels call aloud his name.
And last, of those dear children—dear to fame—
By ruffians murdered in their innocent pride;
Blest children, unto you no sorrow came—
Ye sweetly sleep where grief can never bide,
In death, even as in life, still resting side by side!

And now again my theme must flow along—
Glad, like a race-horse, I return again!
Not the loud nightingale's serenest song,
Murmur'd aloft in ecstasy of pain,
Can joy it more, than me my humbler plain.
And O 'tis pleasant, all the summer long,
In the dim groves to weave the inspired strain,
Singing to birds and streams the rapturous song,
Still wandering all alone, the leafy trees among.

I see before me a long glorious dream
Of noble nations, that must yet be known!
Before me is a high and lofty theme,
Fitted for inspiration's proudest tone.
The fairest and the best, these, these alone
Demand the lyre; and, O, is it not here
Among the brave, the good, the just; each one
Of history's records, blazon'd bright and clear,
And shining out, like stars, in their eternal sphere?

Each reign of king or queen is studded o'er
With those who made our fame ring far and wide;—
Of those who sent our ships to every shore,
And made our conquests sound on every tide;
Of poets, singing by the mountain-side;
Of statesmen, who o'er earth have held command;
Patriots, whose deeds shall always speak in pride;
Philanthropists, who walk'd o'er every land,
Diffusing peace and joy, as with a seraph's hand!

Of martyrs, who in burning fires were tried;
Of preachers, eloquent, and meek, and good;
Of heroes great, who, for their country, died,
Shedding for her their patriotic blood;
Of exiles, wandering o'er the ocean flood!
O, England, thou art graven in my heart;
With thee my loftiest visions are imbued;
Thy glory is with me a sacred part;
And, O, I love thee well, that thou so glorious art!

May heaven protect thee from the traitor's guile,
And dash the standard of rebellion down!
Oh! look on this our richly-favoured isle—
Send, send thy guardian angels round the throne,
And keep pure watch about our monarch's crown!
May heaven direct his councils, make them wise,
That in their harvests may no tares be sown;
And England, thus, o'er all the earth will rise,
Until her fame shall be coeval with the skies!

Protect our holy church: protect our king;
Uphold the pillars of the state, and bear
The people high, as on an eagle's wing!
Oh, make us loyal; scatter in the air
The traitor's curse—the rebel's anxious care;
Crush down the venom'd viper in the mire,
That crawls among our fields and meadows fair.
Oh! let us feel the purifying fire,
That we may rise again—once more toward heaven aspire!

Hark, 'tis the twenty-ninth of May! I hear
From the square tower the sweet-resounding bell,
Chiming among the echos, soft and clear!
Children, like youthful poets, roam each dell,
Their brows with verdant oak-branch crown'd. 'Tis well;
I love to see old memories still retain'd.
This is the blessed day when traitors fell,
Like blood-hounds, hunted royal Charles; all stain'd
With his dead father's gore, whilst he in peace remain'd

In the old Royal Oak. For this alone
I love thee, that thou wast a holy bower.
I love thee that thou wert a monarch's throne—
Thy leafy shade his citadel and tower.
On thee may all the sweetest seasons shower
Sunshine and freshening dews. Oh, mayst thou be
Ever and ever; long thy branches lour,
And be our ark on the victorious sea;
Of patriots still the pride—of love the chosen tree.

England, my country, as my dearest theme,
Again I call thee to throw off the stain—
The nightmare lying on thy fever'd dream.
View blood-stain'd France, and how canst thou restrain
Thy fury? Look abroad on coward Spain
And Portugal, all scorch'd in treason's fire.
Lo! and beyond the dim and hungry main,
Italy, Greece, lie weltering in the mire;
And Poland, Poland shrieks, and can no more aspire!

Keep, keep thee as thou art! Thy fields are green,
Thy woods and forests fair, thy harvests strong.
Bravely thy spires salute the heavens serene;
Thy temples stand in pomp, the glooms among;
Thy castles still shine far—and may they long!
Where'er I look, on mountain, vale, or sea,
I see thy wealth and grandeur move along;
I still behold thee brave, and bright, and free,
Thy breast and brow all cloth'd with holiest liberty!

But I must close my strain. Yet, not alone,
For this. Sad, weary, worn, and desolate,
Still must I wander on, 'mid tear and groan—
I, who was once so happy and elate,
And deem'd the world could never change my state!
Alas, the oil is scatter'd, and the light
Is quench'd! I nothing see but hungry hate,
And murky clouds, where all was once so bright;
And where the sunbeams play'd is now tempestuous night!

Ye sacred Nine, so often sore prophan'd
By unknown voices! Ye, who sit afar,
Where nought of earthly sorrow ever reign'd,
Beside the morning and the evening star,
And where the spheres join their melodious jar,
Hear me, and bear me up, nor let me fall!
Ye, unto whom the moonbeams make a car;
Into whose ears heaven's voices ever call,
O lift me from the dust into your sacred hall!

The gauzy-fleeced clouds attire ye well,
Richer than Indian silk's embroidery;
Among your locks the brightest sunbeams dwell,
And, for your jewels, shines the starred sky;
Innumerable worlds delight your eye;
The halo of young stars affords your zone;
And, for your sandals, early breezes fly,
Incens'd and perfum'd, all for you alone;
And ye have constant rest beside the eternal throne.

You view the Northern streamers in their flight,
And hunt them in your glee. You see the moon,
And fill your urns with her celestial light.
Ye see the midnight in its starry noon,
And greet the planets clear. And, late and soon,
'Tis yours to view the wondrous glories spread,
When blushing morning from her couch comes down;
And when the gorgeous evening sinks to bed;
And when pale phantoms seek the dwellings of the dead.

ENGLAND.

BATTLE OF CRECY.—FOUGHT AUGUST 26, 1346.

“Rejoice, ye men of Angiers, ring your bells;
Edward, your king, and England's doth approach,
Commander of this hot malicious day!
Their armours, that march'd hence so silver bright,
Hither return all gilt with Frenchmen's blood;
There stuck no plume in any English crest
That is removed by a staff of France;
Our colours do return in those same hands
That did display them when we first march'd forth;
And like a jolly troop of huntsmen, come
Our lusty English, all with purpled hands
Dy'd in the dying slaughter of their foes.”
—Shakspeare.

“As for the great battles that were fought from time to time, it is confessed by the French historians themselves, that the English were at most but half in number to them, in all engagements.”—Harleian Miscellany, page 285.

They tell us ye were slaves, brave Englishmen,
When this your country was in highest state;
That ye were slaves for driving to their den
The wolves of France! If slavery, it was great,
Brave and heroic, and of equal height
To liberty, and linked with equal deed.
If slavery, then long, long must we wait
Ere Liberty produces such a breed
Of kings and warriors now, to aid us in our need.

Was't like a slave to buckle on his arms,
Forsaking home and all that is most dear;—
Heroic mingle with rude war's alarms,
And spill his burning heart's-blood without fear,
So that his country's honour might stand clear?
Endure the dreary march, the sultry heat;
Hunger and thirst, the groan and bitter tear,
So that this land might hold her ancient seat?
Then let us all be slaves, if slavery be so great!

Man's freedom is a rich and precious dower—
It is the spark by God elicited;
It guards him as an adamantine tower,
And, as a crown of gold, adorns his head.
With highest purposes is freedom wed:
It is the dearest blessing we can know!
And, oh! may this right hand be palsied,
If 'gainst the free it ever strike a blow,
Mingling with tyrants, ranks to keep the patriot low.

But that was freedom in the ancient time,
Spotted, perchance, and stain'd, but still the same:
Ne'er had the slave an aspect so sublime
As gave to Crecy those high deeds of fame.
Ne'er did the slave feel patriotic flame!
Laws might oppress—for England still was young;
To ancient things we give an ancient name:
But ancient as it was, it still hath rung
The world with mighty deeds—high acts that must be sung.

The sun of August looks serenely down
On the red vineyards, rolling far and wide;
The forest tops shine bright as with a crown—
Their rare embroider'd robes look out in pride,
With every rich and glorious colour dy'd;
The heavens are blue and calm, the sun is bright;
The fleeced clouds float gently side by side;
The waters roll away in lines of light,
And all things fresh and fair rejoice the aching sight.

But hark! there is a sound to break this hush;
Moving of busy feet, and mingled cry,
And crowding hosts, together seem to rush:
The loud war-trumpet sends its notes on high,
And the deep drum disturbs the silent sky:
An earthquake seems to shake beneath their feet;
And the deep centre heaves an angry sigh,
As if some giant sought to move its seat;
And the huge forest trees groan mid the sultry heat.

O glorious! such a sight was never seen,
Such glittering of arms—the helmets' glare,
The red swords' flash, the banners' gorgeous sheen,
And the deep plaited mail. Stunn'd is the air
With the loud-sounding noise; whilst everywhere
The war-steed neigheth in his stormy pride,
And shakes his streaming mane, as if to dare
The fight, and makes the earth sound far and wide,
As if himself were chief of all that warrior tide.

The o'erhanging sky looks on applaudingly,
Yet with a silent pity—knowing well
That death will glaze full many an eagle eye,
And close those nostrils where fierce passions swell.
Well knowing that those valorous breasts will tell
Of bloody wounds, and red and streaming gore;
And that, ere long, decay will sternly dwell
Where hope and exultation now run o'er,
And those strong limbs, so swift, be numb'd for evermore!

The tokens of approving love will fail,
Tho' born by might from tilt and tournament,
The scarfs and banners will be torn and frail,
Trampled in gore and mire. Each snow-white tent,
So bravely garnished, shall be soil'd and rent;
The glittering helmet will protect in vain
Beneath the war-steeds' hoofs, all delv'd and bent.
O what rude sights must greet the peaceful firmament.

On—on, and on!—Lo the vast mass doth strain
Fibre and nerve! Their hearts beat loud and high.
Fast, like strong waves upon the stormy main—
Fast, like fierce wolves, the furious Frenchmen hie;
Whilst, calm like rocks, to conquer or to die,
Stand England's heroes. “On, ye Genoese!”
Roared Philip: whilst St. George, the English cry.—
“St. George,”—“St. Dennis,” shook the astonied breeze
Louder than winter storms, upon tempestuous seas!

“St. Dennis” and “St. George,”—“on!” “on!” and “on!”
Was the continual shout. Whilst far and wide,
The banners shook the Frenchmen's ranks among.
But England's archers, banded side by side,
Undaunted stood, and mov'd not—in their pride,
Resolved “to do or die.” No foot they stirr'd,
Till, all at once, with mighty voice they cried—
And even like sheets of hail their arrows whirr'd,
Stopping each furious foe, even like a wounded bird.

Then did old Luxemburgh, Bohemia's king,
Like to a stricken stag, still stand at bay;
Though gored and wounded, yet prepared to spring
Into the battle's rage, and hew his way.
It was indeed a wild and savage day!
“Is my son dead?” said Edward. “He is not.”
“Back then unto my son—away, away—
“Tell him to move not from that glorious spot;
“This victory be his—his fame he shall not blot.”

There is on that red field a a glorious sight;
The youthful prince, even like a god is there;
His long locks streaming in the sunbeams' light,
His wild eyes gleaming glory's mad despair.
Scarce sixteen years have weaved a life of care;
His limbs are like Apollo's. To and fro
He dashes, spreading havoc everywhere—
But the two warrior knights have met, and lo!
The brave old Luxemburgh hath found his hated foe!

It seems like something of the ancient day,
When youthful knights sought out enchanters grim,
To rescue beauty from their cruel sway.
Wild, like an eagle, one:—the other, dim
With age. Young princely Edward in his prime
Of heart and limb—old Luxemburgh a tree
Worn by the tempests and corroding time.
The one is like a tiger in his glee,
The other, like a rock, that may not moved be.

Like sound of thrasher's flail, their blows descend,
The two alike, unmoving, undismay'd;
Long, long they struggle, neither still will bend,
Nor either call aloud for any aid.
Ye heavens, will ye not lend a sheltering shade?
The blind old hero reels!—he calls aloud!—
He falls, even like a mast by tempests sway'd—
The light hath left his eyes and forehead proud;
The pulse hath left his heart—bring Luxemburgh his shroud!

“Ich dien,” that day the youthful Edward wore.
But hark, the moving squadrons fall away,
Like billows, swift-retreating from the shore,
Shattered and lost they fly!—O bloody day!
How could the sun e'er lend his fostering ray
To such a scene? How could the skies look down
On reeking gore, that hold such gentle sway?
Who would retain the sceptre and the crown,
Dy'd with a nation's gore, tho' girded with renown?

War-steeds, that in the morning threw the mane
Upon the admiring wind, lie steaming low,
Death-wounded, nor will ever rise again!
Strong heroes, with the helmet on their brow,
Where is their valour and their greatness now?
The sword is broken; and the shield is rent;
The plaited armour torn in shreds. Oh! how,
How can the stars upon yon firmament,
Look on this bloody scene, nor speak their discontent?

How, how can man, with savage cruelty,
Thus slay for wicked hire, his brother-man?
Lay bare the fertile fields, and make the cry
Of Death and Desolation sound their ban—
And virgin beauty weep? O say, how can
He burn with such volcanic rage and hate
That all must wail where'er his feet have ran?
Sure, hell rejoices from her inmost gate,
And heaven laments in tears, to view our fallen state.

Majorca, and Bohemia, and Lorraine,
D'Alençon—every lord and noble knight—
How will your widows weep in bitter pain
Still hoping, thro' despair, your coming sight!
How will they wail this miserable fight!
Each little child will spread its tiny hand
To greet your form on the appointed night,
And, when ye come not to the gathered band,
Mothers will shriek revenge on England's hated land.

Never again your halls in festal glow
And merriment will scare the midnight moon;
Never again your steeds will wanton now,
Proud of your coming, in your bravery down.
Your staghounds will lament you late and soon—
Lament the vanish'd glories of the chace;
Your mighty woods will faint beneath the noon;
Your gardens lose their loveliness and grace,
And desolation reign in each deserted place!

And you, ye humbler warriors, shall I leave
No offering for you? You nobly died
For glory and a name—I, therefore, grieve
That such high hearts were butchered in their pride.
The hills and vales will mourn ye far and wide!
The sound of lamentation and deep wail
Will echo from each cottag'd mountain-side
The history of your sad and doleful tale;
And minstrels sound your praise o'er time's continual gale.

The white smoke from your cottage, standing lone,
Will seek the azure depths of heaven no more;
Your wives and children will do nought but groan,
Whose days like happy dreams once glided o'er,
And wander through the world oppressed and poor.
Oh! even the humblest born has that to lose
Which pains him—friendship, love. The vaunted lore
Of wisdom hath but this—and ye had those,
Ye warriors dead—sound hearts that sympathiz'd your woes.

Rest sweetly—sweetly rest, ye warrior dead!
Pilgrims from far, upon the battle field,
Where ye are shrined, will bow the pensive head,
And hang up trophies on each shatter'd shield.
Ye died like men and heroes, nor would yield,
Because your country spake. Ye battled on
Like lions, nor would cease. And now ye wield
The palm of immortality. Ye won
The undying wreath of fame—honour's eternal crown!

For you, brave Englishmen, it is enough
That Crecy, Calais, Poictiers, Agincourt,
Knew your heroic strength, your valorous stuff.
It is enough that our bold soldiers wore
That day the wreaths that since have drench'd in gore
Vittoria, Salamanca, Waterloo!
And, if we look the page of history o'er,
We know, whatever ills from war accrue,
Peace wins a longer reign, and wears a fresher hue.

The same high spirit lives among us yet,
Far on our mountains, deep in every vale.
Let but the invader ever dare to set
His foot on English ground, they will not fail
To rush, like banded wolves, and them assail.
Then, O ye glorious and immortal dead!
Your dirge be rung on freedom's freshest gale;
Your epitaph with history be wed,
And, in the lion-hearts, through all broad England spread.

Be ye of them who fell at Marathon,
Or by the cliffs of great Thermopylæ!
Of all the noblest hearts whom death hath won
In battle, butcher'd, fighting to be free.
Your bones are moulder'd; nothing can we see
Of that which gave ye strength, and life, and might,
But on the hills of immortality,
Like beacons from afar, ye pierce the night,
Shedding o'er every age and clime your lustrous light.

SIEGE OF CALAIS, FROM AUGUST, 1346, TO JULY, 1347.

“Hark! through the silence of the cold dull night,
The hum of armies gathering, rank on rank!
Lo! dusky masses steal, in dubious sight,
Along the leaguer'd wall and bristling bank
Of the armed river, while, with straggling light,
The stars peep through the vapours dim and dank,
Which curl in curious wreaths—How soon the smoke
Of hell shall pall them in a deeper cloak!”
—Lord Byron.

“O foolish mortals! always taught in vain!
Oh glorious laurel! since for one sole leaf
Of this imaginary deathless tree,
Of blood and tears must flow the unebbing sea.”
—Lord Byron.

“Glory to God and the Empress, Ismail's ours!”—Suwarrow's letter to the Empress Catharine.

Days, weeks, and months, how swiftly passed they on
In peace and happiness o'er many a clime!
But, Calais, not for thee! Thou, thou alone
Wert miserable. Came the summer prime,
Wreathing its flowers around the brow of time;
Came the red autumn, showering all its wealth,
And winter, with its tempests, heard sublime;
And spring, with breezes and the voice of health—
But Calais felt them not; or if she did, by stealth!

The notes of strife were sounding in her street—
The war-steeds' thunder and the clash of arms—
The heavy clang—the swiftly moving feet—
The exploding crash—terrific war's alarms!
Nought heard of, but red wounds and cruel harms,
Of ruined homes, of valiant soldiers slain.
Oh! how the indignant bosom throbs and warms
To hear of such wild deeds; such cruel pain
By man inflicted still, in never ending train!

And Calais wakes at morn—alas for them,
Repose is far away! They view the sun
At mid-day burning—still their grief's the same!
At eve, they cannot hear the breezes run,
For battle's crash of arms. The gentle moon
Shines fair in middle heaven, with all her host
Of glittering stars—midnight's celestial noon;
Yet still the turmoil lasts—their passions lost
In agony and dread, like stormy seas uptost.

Within their sleep, pale, ghastly phantoms come—
Nightmares, and hideous dreams. The hush of night
Is dreadful. Wheresoe'er their eyeballs roam,
The same, same vision meets their loathing sight,
Of those unmoving camps and banners bright,
Around their leaguer'd town. Almost they hear
The victors' snore amid the waning light,
The opposing army lie encamp'd so near.
Days, nights, weeks, months,—still, still 'tis one continual fear.

And Famine came with his far-streaming torch,
And burnt their granaries, and eat their food,
Till in his wild and desolating march,
All was consum'd that once so bravely stood;
And nought was left, save human flesh and blood.
In vain the little infant shriek'd, and cried,
And beat its mother's breast in angry mood
For sustenance—its fount of life was dried—
In vain the mother groan'd, and wept aloud, and died.

Men fought like tigers for the moulded crust,
Glaring demoniac o'er the wretch who won;
And lick'd from off their swords the gather'd rust,
And eat the belt that round their bodies run,
And even their dagger's sheath. They cursed the sun
That dried their fountains. Then they cursed their God,
Who from the skies beheld them thus undone,
And sent no aid—no Aaron with his rod;
They cursed the barren ground on which their footsteps trod.

Young boys and maidens, rolling in the mire,
Sucked the moist ground, made wet with tears and blood;
Sire murdered feebler son—son murdered sire,
To win the latest morsel of his food.
And maniacs ran about in savage mood,
With broken swords and spears, demanding bread;
And robbed and murdered those whom they subdued;
Mangling in rage their wretched forms when dead;
Because no food remained with which they might be fed.

Strong heroes, who in war had hewed their way
Up to the war-steed's throat, like children moan'd;
Bold children, who did nought but laugh and play,
By the extinguished fire now wept and groan'd;
Or in the streets, for food, each other ston'd.
Pure lovely maidens sunk away and died;
Some mad, in wild delirious phrenzy bound—
Some like the blighted violet pined and sighed
Their lovely lives away, that day by day did glide.

Love, that in bowers had twined the amorous lay,
And wreathed white fingers in its mistress' hair,
Soothing, with tender ditties and sweet play,
The wanton hours, was chang'd into despair
And bitter hate. The voice of evening prayer
Was turn'd to execration, loud and deep.
Hope, that had wiled them long with aspect fair,
Forsook them now. They cannot rest nor sleep,
But stalk about like ghosts, that ever sob and weep.

Woe, woe, eternal woe, that this should be!
O, could ye dream, ye angels dwelling high,
That man should ever feel such misery?
Ye saw him, like yourselves, who cannot die,
Nor feel a pang, in paradise; no sigh
Was his, no tear. In peace he spent the day,
Roaming about, as ye do in the sky,
Among celestial blooms. At night, the ray
Of the sweet moon was his, and love's enraptur'd play.

Ye saw him in his nature, calm and pure,
Even like yourselves. No sorrow stain'd his brow—
He had no pang or suffering to endure.
The azure skies he view'd (their painted bow
Was not, for cloud nor storm existed now);
He twined his fingers in the lion's mane,
And with the shy dear gamboll'd. His the glow
Of an eternal spring; he felt no pain
For past or future—would such rapture were again!

With lovely Eve he wandered, hand in hand,
And spake in language lofty and sublime,
Showing the splendours of that happy land,
And praising God who gave that glorious prime.
(Kissing his gentle spouse full many a time.)
The life of man was like a summer dream,
Dwelling for ever in a heavenly clime.
What he is now—alas full well I deem,
Thou, Calais, well can'st speak in this my woeful theme.

From many a broken heart and ruined home;
From blood, and tears, and groans of agony;
From corpses weltering in the charnel gloom,
And maniacs dancing o'er the graves in glee,
And screaming loud, like demons broken free
From shattered halls and festal splendour, o'er
The shiver'd domes of hospitality.
Well, well, O Calais! can'st thou man explore,
“Fallen from his high estate and weltering in his gore!”

There is a crowd in Calais: from each street
And every house great multitudes throng fast.
Old men and children crawl with languid feet;
And even the strongest, worn away at last,
Now move like skeletons, pale and aghast!
All now assemble in the market place,
Narrating on the sorrows of the past,
And, wildly glaring on each speaker's face,
They marvel what relief their sufferings may efface.

“What shall we do?” they said. “We have no food.
No living thing except ourselves is here.”
If ye would feed on human flesh and blood,
Then fight ye on, and Calais be your bier!
If this ye loathe, surrender! Not thro' fear,
But dire necessity. We still remain
Unconquered; in our honour, pure and clear;
And history will shew, in letters plain,
That Heaven and Edward won—but Calais bore no stain.

“History will paint our sufferings, and lament,
In many a tearful page, our dreadful woe.”
All wept to hear—for, shatter'd, worn, and bent
With constant grief, they could not brave the foe
Longer. They could not strike another blow.
The men sobb'd; and the women tore their hair;
And the small infants shrieked; and to and fro
The youthful heroes ran, in mad despair,
Or, with their valiant swords, put out their life of care.

Then up spake gallant Eustace de St. Pierre,
“To save the people, I will be the first
To put my life in jeopardy. I'm here
For France, and let the victors do their worst:
France is my country. In her bosom nurst,
It is my pride to die.” Then others came,
And, bending to the tyranny accurst,
Prepared to share their brave commander's shame;
And O! is not the deed enrolled in endles fame?

Lo, Edward sits aloft in royal state
Beside his noble queen. (The same who beat
At Neville's Cross proud Scotland.) Thousands wait
Around;—the warriors, whose victorious feet
Crecy had heard. Each baron takes his seat
Around the king. The banners, borne on high,
Droop mournfully amid the sultry heat;
Far thunder-clouds come low'ring o'er the sky—
Surely some noble knight—some monarch is to die!

Ah! woe is me, what piteous sight is this!
What phantoms of the dead come stalking here?
What miserable shapes, devoid of bliss,
From Erebus broke loose, are gliding near?
Alas, poor burgesses! full many a tear
Those aching eyes have wept, full many a groan
Those shrivell'd breasts have heav'd; and bitter fear,
Like burning chains, hath eaten flesh and bone—
What hideous crimes are yours, that you must thus atone?

Their silvery locks are thin and worn away,
Their manly cheeks are colourless and pale,
Nought shrouds their foreheads from the sultry ray—
Nought saves their feet from thorns that may assail.
Their limbs are bare—all, save a covering frail
To hide their nakedness—their shame conceal.
Around their necks—O sad and woeful tale!—
A halter hangs!—King! does no pity steal
Into thy savage heart? How canst thou help but feel?

Fierce, like a tiger glaring on his prey,
So looked the madden'd and ferocious king.
“Bring here the hangman—they shall die this day
“And feed the vulture!—ho!—the hangman bring!”
The barons grim, who would have dared to spring
Through the volcano's throat, to meet a foe,
Wept audibly. Then did the queen, fair thing,
Fall on her knees, and, with a voice of woe,
Beseech her lord the boon—to let these brave men go.

He could not choose but grant it. Praise be thine,
Philippa! constant praise for that high deed.
It was a gem that made thy crown divine,
And, through the gloom of ages, still doth breed
Proud dreams of thee, and thy immortal seed.
The battle's triumph and the victor's praise
May fade, or unto nought their conquests lead—
But acts like this the human spirit raise;
Living to every age, in never-dying lays!

They live, like halos, o'er the midnight past:
Soft roses on the brow of hungry war.
We half forget the woes that overcast
The dreadful rout of his triumphal car—
The bloodshed—the contention's cruel jar—
The groans of dying men—when acts so pure
Shine out, as through the tempest gleams a star.
War's present woe may future hopes allure,
But actions great like this, for evermore endure.

Ages are past away to endless night,
And what of all these conquests now remains?
What have we left of Crecy's cruel fight,
Of Calais' vanquished town, and all its gains,
Of Poictiers, Agincourt?—What but their pains?
All of those mighty conquerors are dead,
Who fought so true, and history, sole, retains
Their glorious relics. They are gone to bed,
Where neither sin nor sorrow touch the aching head.

Yet, like the pillar of celestial light,
That shone to Israel's children—in their woe,
Those names still live, far shining, pure and bright.
Shedding, to every time, their constant glow:
They live to let Old England teach her foe
How France's plains have been her battle-field,
Where she hath driven its traitorous madmen low;
Hanging upon its towers her 'scutcheon'd shield,
And shewing France's sons, how we the sword can wield.

Farewell to royal Edward. Lovely Shene,
Embossed in woods, received his latest sigh;
And lovely Perrers watched the closing scene.
(Sure, it is false, that that celestial eye
Ere looked on Mammon—robbing, miserably,
The dying king!) He lies, in silent death,
Beneath the shade of solemn Canterbury.
War cannot mingle with his stifled breath:
Its thunders cannot shake his sepulchre beneath.

His spirit is with those immortal dead
Whose mighty actions held the world at bay—
With Alexander, Cæsar, Cyrus, wed:—
Heroes, to whom all climates have given way.
He lived, too, in a great and glorious day,
When chivalry was in its proudest prime;
And truth, and honour held victorious sway;
He lived when human nature soared sublime—
The poet's blessings be upon that glorious time!

DEATH OF RICHARD II. CONDEMNED TO STRICT IMPRISONMENT, OCT. 1399.

“For heaven's sake let us sit upon the ground,
And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
How some have been deposed, some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd;
All murder'd! For, within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king,
Keeps death his court.”
—Shakspeare.

“Close by the regal chair,
Fell thirst and famine scowl
A baleful smile upon their baffled guest.”
—The Bard.

“Regem Ricardum ad castrum de Pomfret deduxerunt, ubi breviter ut vulgariter dicitur, quindecim dies et totidem noctes in fame, siti, ac frigore vexaverunt; et tandem morte turpissima, adhuc regno nostro incognitâ, sed gratia divina diutius non celanda interimerunt, et occiderunt.”—Scrope's Testimony.

His life began in smiles, it closed in tears:
The shadow of his father's mighty fame
Was o'er his youthful head; death's ghastly fears,
Like phantoms, clung around his later name:
And he, who, in the sun's applauding flame,
At Smithfield, struck rebellion to the mire,
(Reeking in its own gore, to endless shame,)
Himself was smit by treason's baleful fire,
And, dungeon'd like a dog, sunk in convulsions dire.

Bid thy farewell to pomps and regal show,
The courtly chamber and the painted hall,
For there, poor king, thou never more shalt go!
Bid thy farewell to music's drowsy fall,
To flattery's honied words and cheating thrall!
No more on barbed steed accoutered,
Thou'lt move amid the land's approving call;
No more 'mid crowned monarch's rear thy head,
But, throneless and unsceptred, rest thee with the dead!

No more around thy neck shall love entwine;—
Her winged messengers have flown away.
No more for thee shall pleasure's pathway shine—
The suns that lit thee have withdrawn their ray.
The nations, that once fear'd thy kingly sway,
Now laugh thee all to scorn, and mock thy fate,
And hold thy former vauntings all at bay.
Look where thou wilt, there's nought but scorn and hate:
Alas, that such things aye on fallen grandeur wait!

Richard hath lived for nought!—The ancestral throne,
The regal crown's another monarch's now!
And he, a dungeon slave, chain'd and alone.
O! had he never reign'd, nor, on his brow
Worn power, but rather been a beggar low,
To see sweet nature in her meekest moods,
And view the little flowers wave to and fro,
And hear the music warbled from the woods—
Each wondrous sight and sound of nature's solitudes.

How better had it been! His dying hour
Had known sweet dreams and visions now denied;
Dim memories of delight, feelings of power,
Breath'd from deep forests or the mountain side;
But, as it is, the fiends of fallen pride
Haunt him. He has no peace within his soul.
Where'er he looks, is an abysm wide
Of horrid shapes, that past his eyeballs roll—
Ghosts of departed years, he never may recal!

He might have lived in blissful solitude,
In some poor hut, remote from human e'e;
Basking himself at ease i' the sunlit wood,
On banks of blue bell and anemone.
But, as it is, the beggar wanders free,
Whilst Richard, king of England, is a slave!
His dwelling-place a dungeon!—Nought to see,
But the damp walls that hang around his grave!
Hear—but the old trees that round his prison wave.

The bat, that flaps against his window pane—
The spider, that for ever weaves its coil—
The toad, that joineth with him in his reign—
The very worm, that crawls with weary toil—
Are far more free than he. Them, no turmoil
Can e'er disturb; they have their proper home,
And raging war their purpose cannot foil.
The world is theirs, wherever they may roam—
A dwelling-place alive:—and, when they die, a tomb!

They die, and seldom do we see them dead—
He died—thirst, hunger, madness, and despair
United, dragged to dust his royal head,
And clutch'd, like devils, at his drooping hair.
He died so slowly, that his eyes saw there
Death coming, day by day, distinct and plain;
Whilst hunger, like a fiery snake, did tear
And gnaw his burning entrails with slow pain—
O may no English king e'er feel the like again!

And when he died, as if to mock at death,
They brought his corpse into the city street,
To mock his subjects' palpitating breath.
The same, who once had come on rushing feet,
To see his pomp, now saw his winding sheet,
And grinn'd to see a monarch in his grave.
Oh! how can heaven, from her celestial seat,
Behold, and stretch not out her hands to save?
Or is its vengeance ta'en, when the loud tempests rave?

Ta'en, when the earthquake smites the ground with dread,
And pestilence cries havoc in our ear!
Ta'en, when the lightning strikes the atheist dead,
Or war's loud thunder shakes the earth with fear?
Sure retribution always lingers near;
There sounds a note of judgment everywhere,
That, to the proud Belshazzar's eyes shone clear;
That lit o'er Nineveh the sultry air,
And shrieked, as Sidon fell, the curses of despair!

Richard is dust. The dungeon walls are gone
That heard his groans, and echoed to his woe:
There scarcely now remains a single stone
Of that proud pile. The battlements are low;
And scarce the bat can find him where to go;
Nor the black ivy have a fitting home!
There is no food for desolation's maw;
And the winds cannot whistle as they roam
Through walls that once were meet to be a monarch's tomb!

Rich, lovely gardens bloom where once they stood;
And still the gazer sees a lovely sight:
He views, on every side, far-towering wood,
And halls where festal splendour gleameth bright;
Sweet lovely dells, bath'd in the summer light;
Far-spreading meadows, stretch'd before his eyes:
And, if he gazeth in the moonlit night,
He will behold a fairy fabric rise—
A fine old abbey greet the illuminated skies.

He'll hear the hum of voices on the air—
Young, happy children shouting in their glee,
The bleating lamb, the milkmaid singing clear;
And half he'll say, “How could it ever be,
That blood, O Pomfret, e'er could fall on thee?”
And, looking through the visionary past,
Red murderers in the night-mists he will see,
Till, as the skies are gradually o'ercast,
He'll sink upon the turf, sad, breathless, and aghast!

KING HENRY V.

“He is gracious if he be observed;
He hath a tear to pity, and a hand,
Open as day, for melting charity:
Yet, notwithstanding, being incens'd, he's flint.
His temper, therefore, must be well observed. [OMITTED]
God forgive them, that have so much sway'd
Your majesty's good thoughts away from me!
I will redeem all this on Percy's head!
And, in the closing of some glorious day,
Be bold to tell you that I am your son. [OMITTED]
I saw young Harry with his beaver on,
His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly armed,
Rise from the ground, like feather'd Mercury,
And vaulted with such ease into his seat,
As if an angel, dropped down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,
And witch the world with noble horsemanship.
—Shakspeare.

Who hath not heard of this young jovial king,
His quips and cranks, and whims for ever new?
Light as the fresh blown blossoms of the spring,
Yet, with a heart, like summer's colours true.
Him did all impulses alike embue.
Now passionate, like the angry tempest's tongue,
Now mild and calm, as heaven's celestial blue:—
His heart with every freshest impulse rung;
Oh! may such kings as he for evermore be sung!

Who hath not heard of Falstaff? His prime sack?
His amorous sayings and his humorous woes?
Or when he bore brave Hotspur on his back,
And slew by scores his self-created foes?
Falstaff will live when monarchs, low, repose
In deep oblivion. Lofty is his name,
Link'd with great Shakspeare's poetry and prose.
But Henry, too, hath rear'd a mighty fame,
Won from the hearts of men and battle's smouldering flame.

What, though this royal king, in early youth,
Revell'd with pleasure in the summer shade?
What, though like amorous breezes of the south,
He woo'd each flower in field or sunny glade,
And made the midnight view his shining blade,
In frays that echoed through each sounding street?
What, though “to please himself” was aye his trade,
Delight still following at his rapid feet,
Whilst Love and Bacchus join'd to give attendance meet.

What, though old grey-hair'd dotards shook their head,
And, in malignant proverbs, prophesied.
Still hath he won, what soldiers, tamer bred,
In vain, through years of toil, have madly tried,
To sit with the old heroes, side by side.
The flush of young ambition aye must shew,
Like coming tempests o'er the slumbering tide.
Genius would die with its own maddening glow,
If, in the schoolboy's chains, it was constrain'd to go.

As well the Alpine torrents can be held,
As genius sink into the sodden mire;
It must burst forth—it cannot be withheld—
No earthly furnace can contain its fire.
Its natural love and aim is to aspire;
Its instinct is its own; and easier far
It is to tame the lion's fierce desire,
Or the lamb's freaks—or stop the tempest's roar,
Than bind to earthly aims what dwells in pomp afar.

Is it not so ye unforgotten dead;
Ye who have topp'd the battlements of fame;
Or, in your early greatness, bow'd the head,
Scorch'd wildly in your own volcanic flame?
Is it not so, each high and mighty name—
Tasso and Chatterton, Burns, Byron, all
Whom the world vainly would surround with shame?
Ye glorious dead who fill the immortal hall,
Is there not living fire even yet beneath your pall?

Then let us hear of youthful pranks no more,
But rather wait with expectation's eye,
And, where the burning chalice runneth o'er,
Hope only that it yet will fill more high,
Till its sweet sounds salute the morning sky.
Malignity and envy grovelling low,
Will ever watch, like vultures, to espy
The stain of weakness on a brother's brow;
But genius walks in climes where they can never go.

Lo, now the embarkation! On the sea
Ride the leviathans. The shining spars
Wanton among the sunbeams, bright and free,
Their streamers dallying with the hidden stars.
O little do these waves know of the wars
That soon shall shake huge France unto the core;
Their peaceful depths know nought of distant jars,
But love to greet the vessels gliding o'er,
And kiss their painted prows in love for evermore.

Ye idly heave, bright ships, upon the wave,
As if on you destruction could not come;
Ye dally with the pleasant winds that wave
Your streamers, or among your white sails roam,
As if no tempests shook their distant home!
Ye move like living creatures in your glee,
And sweep your painted hues among the foam;
And, if ye held great Neptune in your fee,
Ye could not walk more proudly o'er the heaving sea!

'Tis well, 'tis well—full many a distant heart
Will mourn your absence; many a solemn groan
Will sound to you from the hearts doom'd to part.
O many a noble maid will sit alone
Within her bower, and desolately moan.
Matrons will grieve your absence, and, at night,
Pray that the winds may breathe their softest tone;
And children, leaning in the household light,
Weep o'er the hideous tales of Crecy's murderous fight.

Full many a noble son and sire is there,
Britannia's strongest stems—her chiefest pride.
Then be ye still, ye storms! ye heavens, shine fair!
Restrain thy bounds, O thou remorseless tide!
Ye spirits of the deep, in rest abide!
And, O ye soldiers, pray the God on high,
That he will never wander from your side;
And you, ye moon and stars, that deck the sky,
Keep back the midnight clouds that veil your placid eye.

Hurrah!—Hurrah for England! Now they go
And dash among the breakers in their glee.
Proudly about their sides the waters flow,
Like children, climbing round their mother's knee.
And, O they move majestical and free
These armaments, and shall exist as long
As England dwells in strength and majesty;
And other Trafalgars shall have the song
Of patriots—future deeds stand forth as pure and strong.

Why should the ocean dare to be your foe?
Ye who have brav'd the tempest's wildest rage,
And, from your mountain-thrones, ruled o'er the snow,
And mist, and whirlwind of full many an age.
For all the forest birds ye were a cage:
Myriads of insects had from you their food.
Five hundred years the seasons tried to wage
War with you, still you rul'd each mighty wood,
And held your peaceful reign without a drop of blood.

Then roll, roll on thy surges, thou deep sea,
'Tis all in vain, thy strength they shall defy!
The time was not yet far, when glad and free
These vessels should in every harbour lie.
Into the Orient have they cast their eye;
Within the temples of the setting sun;
And where eternal snows salute the sky;
Beneath the poles their glorious course hath run,
To lands, where ne'er before the foot of man had gone.

And now, though centuries have past away,
Since to the winds your pennants glittered clear,
Our ships have still retain'd the sea in sway,
Still have they travers'd ocean without fear,
O'er every clime, o'er every hemisphere.
And O, in looking o'er far times to come,
Where will your glories cease? Oh! let us hear
The limits of your reign, your final home,
The unbounded ocean paths whereon you yet shall roam?

We have done more than Carthage, Greece, and Rome,
Than Macedonia, Babylon, or Tyre,
Sidon or Nineveh. Immers'd in gloom,
The sextant was unknown. Each tempest dire
Shook us to nought. But now the sacred fire
Of knowledge burns, and the deep hungry sea
Then trod with fear, is bridled as for hire.
Our ships in every harbour anchor free,
And with the tempests sport, and hold the waves in fee.

The scene is changed. It is no battle field;
There are no dancing plumes, save those of death.
There is no flaming sword, nor sounding shield,
Nor scarfs, nor banners,—nought but mourners' breath,
The hearse, the pall, the bier, and dust beneath.
Woe soundeth everywhere through London's street.
Sharp sorrow, like a sword within its sheath,
Lies hid; and mourners, with slow heavy feet,
Move to and fro, like ghosts, cas'd in their winding sheet.

The giant river seems to heave a groan
From out its inmost heart, and sigheth deep
Far up into its fountains. There's a tone
Of sorrow in the breezes' mournful sweep,
And the heavens seem like one about to weep:
Even the little birds have ceas'd to sing,
Fearing from out their leafy bowers to creep;
And the bright sun, his offering to bring,
Is pall'd with murky clouds, from which sweet tear-drops wring.

He died, as kings and heroes aye should die,
With all his glory circling round his brow;
Victorious armies met his fading eye,
And mighty nations did before him bow.
He died, 'mid acclamations sounding thro'
His dreams—he died a victor and a king.
Glorious, and, like a star that falleth low,
Quench'd in its brightness, so life droop'd its wing;
And of his name and deeds the world shall ever ring.

O lay him down in all his regal shew,
And place his conquering sword upon his breast!
Let sculpture come, with its enchanting glow,
And o'er his noble features carve her best—
The hero and the god in kingly rest!
His emblem, be the youthful lion slain
Beside its vanquish'd foe, (for he redrest
Old England's wrongs upon the battle plain)
And be his right hand laid upon the lion's mane!

And oh! unto the utmost verge of time
England shall mourn this glory past away,
Darken'd and vanish'd in its brightest prime!
And, sadly weeping by the insensate clay,
Lament in gloom o'er life's extinguish'd ray!
Lament that all things fade we most would cherish;
And strength, and youth, and beauty all decay;
And, what the nations in their love would nourish,
In death's remorseless fires, at last must fade and perish.

ELINOR COBHAM, DUCHESS OF GLOSTER. 1441.

“The silver Thames, that sweetly pleas'd mine eye,
Procur'd me golden thoughts of majesty:
The kind content and murmurs of the water,
Made me forget the woes that would come after.

On gold and silver looms my garments fair
Were woven still, by women, strange and rare:
Embroider'd variously with Medean silk;
More white than thistle down, or morning's milk.

My coaches any my stately pamper'd steeds,
Well furnish'd in their gold betrapped weeds;
With gentle glidings in the summer nights,
Still yielding me the evening's sweet delights.

My feet, that lately trod the steps of pleasure,
Now flinty stones so sharp were forced to measure;
Yet none alive, where I did come or go,
Durst shed one trickling tear at this my woe.

Farewell, dear friends! Farewell, my courtly trains!
My late renown is turn'd to lingering pains!
My melody of music's silver sound,
Are snakes and adders hissing on the ground.

The downy bed, whereon I lay full oft,
Are sunburnt heaps of moss now seeming soft;
And waxen tapers, lighting to my bed,
Are stars, about the silver moon bespread.

Ring out my knell, ye birds in top of sky!
Quite tir'd with woes, here Elinor must die!
Receive me, earth, into thy gentle womb,
A banish'd lady craves no other tomb.”

—Old Ballad.

There was a time, when yet the world was young,
In ages long ago. Chaos had heard
The voice of heaven, and from her caverns rung
Wild dirges, that through earth's foundations stirr'd;
The sun shone forth to hear God's awful Word;
The moon appeared; the stars came out on high;
Then, gradually, of their own sweet accord,
The seasons came, and looked with placid eye;
And the green earth with joy and rapture met the sky.

Then, from their mountain caverns, roll'd each river,
And with deep music met the sounding sea,
That roar'd as if its voice would last for ever.
Then, like loud trumpets, spake the winds in glee,
And swept the earth, majestical and free.
Then, like the clang of battle fields, arose
The clattering cataracts. Then 'gan to be
The hideous thunder, shaking heaven's repose,
Earthquake, and pestilence, war, hate, and all our woe.

The curse had fallen, that wail'd in paradise,
And wither'd all that heaven had made so fair:
Time's march began, and with it every vice
Walk'd hand in hand. The nations, in despair,
Shriek'd loud, and lamentations fill'd the air.
Man had not yet attained his dignity,
But wallow'd in the sullen depths of care.
Knowledge, that makes the spirit high and free,
Had not yet burst the bonds that chained her liberty.

Even as the mighty deluge, gradual fell
The ocean waters from each mountain side,
Till nought was left behind their track to tell,
Save beauteous shells of the retreating tide;
So man declined, and towards the earth did glide.
He had a soul to count the stars of night,
And tell the planet's course, and wander wide,
Far as the viewless winds in giant might—
Twas fallen—its strength was gone—gone its tremendous light.

Angels had ceased to walk the silent earth,
Nought but the memory of their love was known;
The rays that deep in heaven receiv'd their birth,
And shone o'er earthly human flowers was gone:
Chang'd were the planets— chang'd the spheric tone!
The mind of man, erst high, exalted, pure,
Ne'er in its former wondrous splendour shone,
But, grovelling low, nought lofty could endure,
Deceiv'd by earthly sound and every sensual lure.

He had an eye that, like the eagle's, far
Could gaze upon the red and burning sun,
And watch at ease the elemental war;
Swift limbs that with the frighted deer could run,
And pride, strength, courage, by no toil undone;
A trusting heart triumphant o'er the world.
These, had new times, fallen and degenerate, won;
These, from their high and glorious dwellings hurl'd,
Gladden'd the skies no more, their banners all unfurl'd.

Then superstition, brooding in her cave,
Shrieked, and the depths of hell sent meet reply.
Shadows, like ghosts, fiend-hunted from the grave,
Attended her, and join'd her hideous cry;
Red fires for ever filled her blood-stain'd eye:
Her wings upon the midnight tempests rung,
And pestilential fires did ever fly
About her feet, and frightful nightmares hung
Upon her haggard breast, and to her tresses clung!

The owl and bat and every thing obscene,
The spotted serpent, and the poisonous toad,
And sharp-tooth'd asp about her steps were seen.
Through mossy fens and quagmires was her road,
Loving with filth and mire to make abode,
And with their misty, meteor-phantoms play.
There did she love her worshippers to goad,
And with their spoils her hideous gods array,
Who, thron'd mid reeking blood, still held mysterious sway.

She wander'd by the torrent-swollen Nile,
And, 'neath those heavens of deep continual blue,
Rear'd wondrous rites o'er continent and isle.
With dreams magnificent she did embue
Her mysteries, and with the gorgeous hue
Of an unreal creed upheld her sway;
Lamenting oft, with many a bitter rue,
Osiris and lost Isis far away,
And Bacchus' mystic flight beyond the realms of day.

In domes magnificent she held high state,
Thron'd on pure gold, with jewels in her hair;
Tyrannic priests did ever round her wait
To bear her robes and watch her eyeballs glare,
Who sought for blood, even like a tiger's care.
And in these temples did the enthusiast bow,
Senseless, and with wild howlings fill'd the air;
Whilst heaven alone beheld the accursed show,
Mumbled 'mid secret oaths, that shook the soul with awe.

That too is gone—and, 'mid the desert sands,
The pyramids and temples shade their height
(True that their glory spreads o'er myriad lands,
Thousands of miles afar, in constant light,
And shall, till time shall cease in endless night.)
The songs of holy Memnon have no sound,
That erstwhile own'd the sun's celestial might,
Thebes, Memphis, sleep beneath the burning ground,
And the great kings are dead that made the earth their round.

Then Zoroaster rose, and from his cave,
Shaped to a temple constellated o'er
With shapes of heaven, did solemnly engrave
Majestic visions of mysterious lore.
There, too, the enthusiast, streaming in his gore,
By men, like tigers hunted, from his soul
Deep-groaning, worshipped phantoms now no more;
Whilst dreams, such as our Christian martyrs roll,
Bore up his madden'd brain o'er agony's control.

It was a glorious creed. Was it not so,
Thou sun, that in bright ether aye dost dwell
'Mid gentle airs, that ever round the flow
To jar thy locks? O say was it not well
That constant praise should ever round thee swell?
Bright messenger, disperser of the mist,
Conqueror of night, who in thy luminous shell
Bearest rich gold; and, with heaven's glories kist,
Makest the rainbow's hues to wander where they wist!

Yea, Persia, well indeed thy hills did shine,
With fires of incense, to the uprisen sun.
Thy worship in its essence was divine,
Though the true living God it seem'd to shun—
God the Omnipotent, the Only One!
Let us not blame the false idolatry
That hath to broken shrines and altars gone.
Its hearts were bent upon the spreading sky;
And in its utmost depths still dwelt the God most high.

Greece caught the rays from Egypt. In the land
Of sunny fields, blue heavens, and glorious clime,
Still superstition led her maniac band.
Their creed, even in its falseness, was sublime:
Men then were gods, whose deeds had conquer'd time.
They had a sylph for every fruitful wood;
And satyrs that among the rocks would climb;
Naiads that tenanted each glassy flood;
And mermaids singing sweet 'mid ocean's solitude.

But Mars is gone, and Venus dead of love;
Gone are the wings from swift Apollo's feet,
No more doth Dian 'mong the forests rove,
Chacing, with all her nymphs, the wild-deer fleet;
Long since hath Bacchus left his vine-clad seat:
The glorious heavens, that bore on every cloud
A conquering god, have lost their ancient heat;
And that bright land, to which the nations bow'd,
Is now a land of slaves, and buried in its shroud.

Yea, Zoroaster, Vishnou, Thoth are gone—
Oannes, Melicesta, Odin—all
To whose red chariot wheels the earth was won,
And bound in chains. The earth hath had a call
From heaven, whose wildest murmur could appal.
The cities of their pride are sunk away,
Deep buried, far within oblivion's pall,
And from the throne of God hath come a ray,
That yet shall fill the earth with all the blaze of day.

Alas! alas! and shall it now be said
That what was once so high hath sunk so low?—
That those same thoughts, to loftiest actions wed,
And dreams immortal, should all earthward bow,
Where nought but sin and ignorance we know?
That the same passion, once with gods surrounded,
And halos dropt from heaven to man below,
In later times by meanest fancies bounded,
Should, o'er sweet Cobham's grave, like winter winds have sounded.

It spake among the rocky Hebrides,
And wizards started from the hollow earth,
Pretended seers arose, and shook the seas
With fears and doubts that ne'er before had birth,
(Enough to make grim death laugh loud in mirth.)
It spake in England through its utmost bound.
Of ghosts, and ghouls, and witches, was no dearth;
And woes of persecution did surround
Poor wretches worn with age—burnt, hunted down, or drown'd.

A better time hath come; old things are new.
Would, lovely Elinor, thy gentle soul
Had known this long ago. O is it true
That storms could o'er so sweet a spirit roll,
And thou be left beneath the base control
And insults of a rabble? made the show
Of scorn within thy penitential pall,
With lights to shew thy shame, whilst scoffings low
Broke from each ruffian's breast wherever thou didst go.

The head that ever shone with pearl and gem,
And those long glistening ringlets falling low,
Once hid beneath the jewell'd diadem,
Are now exposed to winds that coldly blow.
Those eyes, whose dreams none but her lord might know,
And coral cheeks now tell the mob their shame!
Yea, she who once in stately halls might go,
Where all did homage to her lofty name,
Now, barefoot trod the streets, 'mid noontide's burning flame!

Ah! little did thy lady-mother deem,
Fair Elinor, when thy young eyes first spake,
That e'er should come so horrible a dream,
Or her proud heart had broken of its ache.
As little, when ye trod the pleasant brake,
Did he, thy lover, wist that such a woe
This lovely form could ever overtake;
As little did thy gentle bridesmaid know,
That one, so meek as thou, through such wild sights must go.

And, O, still less couldst thou, angelic maid,
In thy delightful youth of love and gladness,
View on the azure heavens the coming shade:
If, to thy joy, had come this dream of sadness,
Thy brain had sunk in instant death or madness.
'Tis well that God hath wisely spread a veil
O'er future joys or woe. So much of badness
Blackens our fate, that we could ne'er assail
The pains of coming years, if we should know their tale.

Know of the dreadful woes and agonies,
The wringing pains that throng the beating breast;
Sleep's hideous phantoms and convulsive cries,
And all that night or day disturb our rest;
The hate and scorn with which we are opprest;
The liar's contumelies, the scoffer's sneer,
The pangs that rend the highest and the best;
Love's bitter grief, and friendship's hollow tear,
Despair's horrific throes—the ecstacies of fear.

Thanks to the God of heaven, who made us all,
Shame cannot sink the heart that feels not shame;
There is no storm nor tempest can appal
The strong of soul, whose actions know no blame.
What though the world may seek to stain their name,
And plant its foot upon their sorrowing head,
Banding, like wolves, to hunt away their fame!
Are they not with the balms of heaven fed,
And shall they not be judged among the uprisen dead?

Men are but cowards, pending, savagely,
To scatter evil. But the God on high
Dwelleth alone, 'mid councils ever free.
All things must pass before his sovran eye.
He is the righteous judger of the sky:
With Him is retribution. Then live on,
Ye injured ones, and sink not down to die:
There is a light that shines for you alone,
And ye shall sit in glory on a heavenly throne.

ELIZABETH WOODVILLE, MARRIED TO KING EDWARD IV.

“A glove-like head, a golden hair,
A forehead smooth and high,
A seemly nose, on either side
Did shine a greyish eye:
Two rosy cheeks, and ruddy lips
White ivory teeth within,
A mouth in mean, and underneath
A round and dimpled chin.

A snow-white neck with bluish veins,
To make her seem more fair;
Yet, all her body fram'd so fine,
That earth had none more rare:
For life, for love, for form, for face,
None fairer was than she;
And none, but only she alone,
So fair a maid could be.”

—Old Ballad.

“She knew all birds by their strange carved note,
Each flower she conn'd by its bright painted hue;
No lone and silent grot she did not know,
No quaint inlacing of the summer trees,
No shadow where the brooks made sweetest flow,
No waterfall that wanton'd in the breeze.”
The Wandering Bard.

The hunting all is o'er. The merry shout
Of triumph ceas'd; and echo, tir'd and worn,
Scattereth no more the ringing sounds about
Of baying hounds. The stag that, at bright morn,
Heard, in proud glee, the hunter's silver horn,
And, like a sunbeam, shot along the grove,
Far-beaming—now hath all his beauty shorn,
And his lone mate is mourning for his love—
Alas, he never more before her eyes shall move.!

O for the hunter's glory! he awakes
With the first rays of morn, and mounts his steed,
Whilst pamper'd luxury still mourns its aches;
The green earth sounds beneath his charger's speed;
Ravine and fence he clears, and, in his need,
Braves the strong river's depths. His heart is full
Of valour; danger stimulates each deed;
He hath a hero's aim; he's never dull,
But full of lofty thoughts, and feelings beautiful.

Echo sends forth her sweetest notes for him;
Her music, o'er the sounding vales, doth swell
Clear notes that fill his soul unto the brim.
Content and jocund gladness with him dwell;
His spirit is elate. The mountains tell
Wild tales to him. The sunbeams come and greet
His entrance as he boundeth through each dell.
For him sweet dews make cool the burning heat,
And the fresh breezes mourn o'er his retreating feet.

Nor careth he for tempests that may roll,
So that they do not harm his favourite toil;
The bitter frosts can never chill his soul;
The pouring rains his pastime cannot spoil.
For him green vallies spread, bright fountains boil;
For him the hills a pleasant pathway form;
For him the glories of his native soil
Awake, and patriotic raptures warm,
As, on his bounding steed, he dasheth like a storm!

But who is he, this gallant hunter—who
This man of kingly form, who treads alone
The forest depths? What hath he here to do?
Dark were his raven locks, and proudly shone
His eyes, and, when he speaks, 'tis with a tone
Of birth and high command. Much doth he know,
I ween, each fair and courtly fashion. One
Who, at a lady's feet, can bend him low—
Virtue's most serpent lure, and beauty's deadliest foe.

And who is she that wandereth along—
That maid so wondrous and surpassing fair?
Is she the sylph that hath her reign among
These woods? or is she some bright shape of air
Dropp'd from the clouds, the heavens' peculiar care?
Bright beam those azure eyes that, open'd wide,
Gaze love and wonder; richly droops that hair
Which doth in amorous falls her bosom hide,
Like webs of precious silk around an eastern bride.

Those eyes would charm a seraph to despair;
And will they speak? O let us hear them speak!
Those teeth, like crystal hail drops, rank with care,
And cheeks enough a hermit's heart to break,
Like snow-white clouds touch'd with an evening streak;
And oh! that bosom where the loves repose,
Which, evermore, the summer breezes seek,
Is it not like a large and full-blown rose?
Oh! 'tis enough to pillow all our earthly woes!

We cannot often view such forms as thee,
Yet oh! in many a lone and hidden place,
Bloom many such in love and purity.
Scarce human eye can ever view their face,
Scarce human memory ever knows their trace,
But the still wood-walks hear their gentle feet,
And the sweet beds of violets know their pace;
And, do they not, like them, in summer's heat,
All slowly pine away to nature's winding sheet?

And she was good as she was beautiful;
Virtuous in mind as in her person pure.
The breath of calumny could never dull
The mirror of her soul, and passion's lure
Had never won her thoughts to aught impure.
Blameless and innocent she pass'd her life,
And nought of wrong or evil could endure;
The sins and vices in great cities rife
She knew not—living on without or care or strife.

It sooth'd king Edward's heart to see a maid
So lovely, so angelic, and so fair.
The flaunting wantons, gaudily array'd
With meretricious jewels in their hair—
Court butterflies upon the summer air;
What were they to this being of the shade?
Gay artificial flowers, arrang'd with care,
Will never tempt the bee, nor grace the glade,
But nature's simplest flower shines lovely without aid.

From earliest youth it was her precious dower
To wander free wherever she might list:
The woods, to her, were as a solemn bower,
By all the winds of morn and evening kist;
And, mid the shadows of the floating mist,
She, like a lovely spirit, trod the hills,
And, in the rapture of her soul, I wist,
Dreamt heavenly dreams among the murmurous rills,
And wept the rapturous tear that in warm bosoms fills.

Nature had plac'd her language in her eyes,
And on her cheeks, and on her lofty brow:
Her earliest infancy was pure and wise,
Fed by those secrets thousands never know:
Rich flowers within her inmost soul did grow;
Cull'd by invisible hands, and kept with care,
And guarded round from each invading foe;
Yea, in her language and inspired air,
Ye knew that she and nature were a wedded pair.

In the deep vale her father's castle stood,
Within the murmur of the waterfall,
And deep embosom'd in the shady wood:—
Green and majestic hills encompass'd all.
There, when the earliest morning streamers fall,
It was her wont to wander forth alone.
She saw the sun come from his regal hall,
And sit majestic on his burning throne;
She saw the gorgeous hues that o'er all nature shone.

She felt the welcome breezes on her brow,
And shook the dewdrops with her fairy feet;
She heard the first-wak'd songsters singing low,
Till, swelling high, far echoes answer'd sweet.
She heard the little lamb's melodious bleat;
The milkmaid's song along the green hill side;
The ploughman whistling in the noontide heat,
Or gaily talking to his love in pride:
And nature spoke to her as if she were his bride.

And noon, too, found her there. The sun on high
Shone perpendicular mid the fields of blue.
Each little bird now closed its weary eye
And sung no more. Each flower had lost the hue
With which the sprightly morn did them embue.
Dim heated mists lay on the sultry wood,
Born of the mid-day heat and morning dew;
The lonely hills, like sweaty giants, stood,
And peace and solemn calm ruled every solitude.

But O the evening was her chief delight!
Then, mid the massy-barred clouds on high,
The day-god clad himself in robes of light,
And, like a conqueror, trod the burning sky,
And glar'd upon the earth with fiery eye.
She saw his presence o'er the blazing sea,
(The mighty cradle where he soon must lie)
Each giant mountain own'd his sovranty,
And shap'd him palace domes where he might wander free.

The leaves she heard sweet rustling on the bough—
Soft cushions laid for every wild bird's rest;
She felt the evening breezes on her brow—
A gentle offering from the balmy west!
Feelings most pure and holy filled her breast,
To hear the universal language there;
To hear the ringdove cooing on her nest;
To hear the songs that warbled in the air;
To hear the voice of God, like conscience, everywhere.

Yea, she was pure as was that azure blue—
Pure as those waters in their mountain well:
Nature had fixed her influence, strong and true,
Making with her the best of precepts dwell.
Vainly then, Edward, mayst thou strive to tell
Tales fit for flaunting towns, and try to gloze
The theme of true love from the wanton's hell:
If thou wilt not this gentle maiden lose,
Thy tongue must own such thoughts as only nature knows.

And so they wandered sweetly up and down;
And gentle converse did beguile his soul:
And soon that monarch's beating heart did own
A flame shat raged beyond his will's control.
Each word she spake like honey-dew did fall
Upon his heart:—love revell'd in his brain,
And bound that mighty monarch to its thrall.
That king, so mighty on the battle plain,
Now sunk him down resign'd to love's delicious pain!

He, whom red war had robed in mists of blood,
Roaring in thunder 'neath his charger's feet,
Now felt, even like a hermit, meek and good,
Bound to a spell from which was no retreat.
He, who on England's throne held regal seat,
Knelt on the moss, dependant on a sigh;
He, at whose nod a nation's pulses beat,
Was now all vanquish'd by a downcast eye—
Chain'd, by a blushing girl, to Love's captivity.

“Ope wide the castle gates! Let holiday
Revel within our courts, and merry cheer
Heap for our banquets. This shall be a day
Of jubilee. Bring, bring the music near;
There shall be nought but joy and gladness here.
Let us have dance, and song, and festive show,
King Edward weds, this day, our daughter dear.
Bring, bring the music! Let the trumpet blow!
Let the loud minstrel sing, and let the wine-cups flow!”

The sweetest star of heaven's great hosts, that night,
Shone on the window-pane where Love was laid;
The tenderest moonbeams shed their mellow'd light
Upon the walls that held that lovely maid;
The warmest breezes with the roses play'd
Around her trellic'd chamber, and the stream
Within the grove his deepest hymnings made.
The nightingale, at midnight, weav'd his theme,
And sung harmonious songs that murmur'd in her dream!

THE SHEPHERD, LORD CLIFFORD; 1478.

“Who loves to lie 'i the sun,
And would ambition shun,
Let him come hither, hither.”
—Shakspeare.

“O God, methinks it were a happy life,
To be no better than a simple swain;
To sit upon a hill, as I do now,
To carve out dials, quaintly, point by point,
Thereby to see the minutes how they run!
Ah! what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely!
Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade
To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep,
Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy
To kings that fear their subjects' treachery.”
—Shakspeare.

“Love had he found in huts, where poor men lie,
His daily teachers had been woods and rills;
The silence that is in the starry sky,
The sleep that is among the lonely hills.

In him, the savage virtue of his race,
Revenge, and all ferocious thoughts were dead:
Nor did he change; but kept in lofty place,
The wisdom which adversity had bred.”

(Wordsworth's noble Poem on the same subject.)

Gentle and pleasant is the shepherd's life.
Nor Clifford wert thou first to throw away,
In thy rich youth, the world's corroding strife.
Where Judah's consecrated mountain's lay;
Where the blue hills received each lingering ray;
There kings and prophets had their gentle cheer.
They herded their meek charge the livelong day,
And worshipped God in humbleness and fear,
And view'd him in his works thro' many a feeling tear.

They were the shepherd-kings, and wore a crown
More lustrous far, than monarchs on a throne.
Their flocks were willing subjects: they look'd down
From hills eternal, where they dwelt alone,
In more than regal pride. The sunbeams shone
For them at earliest morn; the breezes blew
Their earliest welcoming, their kindest tone;
The seasons show'd them every changing hue,
And brought them summer sunbeams and the summer dew.

Yea, they were more than kings; and their domain
Was sanctified by God's eternal sight.
They dwelt in peace. War's reeking battle plain
They knew not—sword, and spear, and faulchion bright,
And the war trumpet, and the cannon's might,
And the loud drum. The nations ne'er combin'd
To hunt them down. The assassin, in the night,
They feared not, who in peace were aye inclined:—
Theirs was the constant empire of the heart and mind.

The shepherd-kings, they were a mighty race.
Of them was pious Abraham—he trod
Judea's mountains with monarchic pace;
Or, kneeling meekly, on the grassy sod,
Worshipp'd the true and omnipresent God.
Then lived a pastoral people, whose delight
It was to make the hills their lone abode,
Sleeping at peace beneath the stars of night,
The heath-bells for their couch—the moon their taper's light.

Of them, were that pure band, who, far remote
Beneath the calm of eastern midnight skies,
Heard tidings of great joy by angels brought;
And saw the star of glorious triumph rise,
And watch'd its silent march with wondering eyes,
Till o'er the Son of God its glories faded;
Who in the wisdom of religion wise,
Then worshipp'd, and with precious offerings, laded
The Saviour, and with gold and pearls his forehead shaded.

Of them was David, a true shepherd-king,
Monarchic in his youth, and with the glow
Of health and strength, that mountain breezes bring:
Who pierc'd the Philistinean giant's brow;
Who brought the towering foes of Israel low.
Of them, were the astronomers, who sway'd
The eastern worlds; and on the lands did throw
A bondage, in their mystic robes array'd,
And in their lofty watch-towers contemplative laid.

O what elate and mighty joy we feel,
Sitting upon the mountains as a throne;
Majestic feelings through the bosom steal,
And we are multiplied, though all alone.
We feel a higher and a purer tone
Of thought, and gazing on the vales below,
Fancy we hear the wretches pule and groan,
And marvel that in earthly dust they bow,
When they might soar like us, where the hill-breezes blow.

Our mountains were the pillars that were rear'd,
Land marks and monuments to future time,
When the broad deluge gradual disappear'd;
The living frames of many a scátter'd clime;
Fathers and children perish'd in their prime;
Within their depths, lie hidden far and deep.
Leviathan, his jaw-bones rear'd, sublime,
Form arches vast, where gold and diamonds sleep;
And Mammoth, like a giant, doth his vigils keep.

Perchance, full many a strong ribb'd ship doth ride,
'Mid time's defying springs at anchor there.
Kings, potentates, and rulers there abide,
Who lived before Deucalion left his lair:
And beauty lies entangled in her hair.
The old primeval forests left their breed
With them entomb'd—the lion, and the bear:
And the great sea, in its exceeding need,
Disgorged to them the wealth that ages had decreed.

Our mountains now are bright, and fresh, and green,
Where the old legendary kings lie dead;
And now the lamb and shepherd boy are seen,
Where generations bow'd the dying head,
Where yet rude cairns and hollow caves are spread.
Here martyrs worshipp'd God thro' fear of blood,
(Druids and Christians) and the vulture fed.
Here patriots fought unconquer'd, unsubdued,
Till with their reeking gore, the heath turn'd crimson-hued.

Still undiminish'd and undimm'd ye stand,
And shape a mirror for the sister sky—
A bound and limit for the ocean strand;
The roaring winter tempests ye defy—
Mists, snows, and cataracts. The rainbows lie
All lovingly among your peaks. The sun,
And moon, and stars, come to you from on high;
And, when the lean and lazy day is done,
The brightest evening beams along your turrets run.

Still, still the same, whilst nations on the wane
Sink down to nought; and war's tremendous roar
Shakes crowns and empires; and the hideous train
Of pestilence, with all its ghosts, moves o'er
The earth; and murder wallows in its gore,
And death gets fat with death! Yet you change not,
But stand erect, and shall for evermore,
Beaming with many a bright and sunny spot,
And many a lovely vale, and brooklet's merry trot.

Braving the heavens with beauties like their own,
Deep painted mosses—silken, long, and bright,
And gorgeous tufts of moss that shape a crown
Around their brows—a carpet, where the light
And airy-footed spirits dance at night.
Towering with knotty cliffs, chasm'd dark and deep,
Where the black raven reigneth in its might,
And like those deserts' king his court doth keep;
And where long beauteous grasses and meek wild-flowers sleep.

Oh to be ever with you; in the pride
And power of song go with the wild deer free,
And meet the tempests in their stormiest tide!
Ye have the spell that makes the heart to be
Elate, and fills the soul with liberty.
Ye can exalt the reptile to the god,
And make a Mease a man! Ye bow the knee
To none, save only the Almighty's nod;
And none, save only He, your utmost bounds hath trod.

And ye have homes of hospitality!
Pure hearts and strong inhabit lonely places;
Maidens most gentle, innocent and free,
With minds as fair and lovely as their faces,
Whom, from their childhood, nature's self embraces.
Bold honest men who for their king would die,
On whom the cities' sins have left no traces;
Simple, pure-minded, brave, exalted, high,
Whose hearts were made for thee—thy champions, liberty!

But what of Clifford? What doth Clifford here
Among our Yorkshire hills? Perchance, he came
Where now I sit, and saw those valleys clear,
And mid their sunbeams, read his father's name,
And heard the waterfalls his deeds proclaim.
These heath-clouds of dense gold perchance his feet
Shook out, here, where the hills seem all on flame:
And, on our highest mountains, took his seat,
And heard the waters roar and the loud tempests beat.

The wildered moors with many a patch of green
Gave him a fitting home, and there he dwelt.
Yea, like a monarch did he rule, I ween,
And, on his towering throne, a monarch felt:—
The drifting snows surround, the wild rains pelt—
What cared the happy shepherd-boy for them?
There, like a youthful patriarch, oft he knelt,
And clasp'd his innocent hands to praise God's name;
Whilst, round his saint-like head, the sun wreath'd lambent flame!

Far, far away from strife and hate and fear,
He dwelt a lonely and a loving child;
Caring not, 'mid this happy hemisphere,
For aught that, in high places, men beguil'd:
The deaths of kings—war's terrors roaring wild—
The noise of earthquakes—plague's polluted breath.
His soul no festal show nor triumph wil'd;
A hermit-child, like him, knew nought of death,
And love and peace, alone, dwelt with him on the heath.

And well I ween, that all things loved him well!
The fanged worm would sting him not; the bee—
The little busy bee, for him would swell
Her tiny horn, and hum melodiously.
The wild fox would come near and wanton free,
And timid birds eat crumbs from out his hand:
The heathcock and the plover joy'd to see
So fair a creature in their barren land,
And he be as their lord to hold them in command.

The wild deer, bounding like a whirlwind past,
Starting, would gaze upon his golden hair;
The eagle, in the clouds careering fast,
Would sudden stop to view a thing so fair!
The spirits, that aye wander on the air,
Would watch his sleep, and brush the crystal dews
From his bright locks, and mildest winds blow there;
And fairies, with his visions, interfuse
Delicious, lovely sights, to mingle with their hues.

Oh! what a pleasant thing it is to lie
Upon the golden heath in Summer's prime,
To seek strange shapes upon the silver'd sky—
Phantoms of shades and countenances sublime!—
In dreams confus'd to pass away the time,
Weaving wild fancies to an ancient song;
And, gazing on the peaceful, heavenly clime,
Weep that our earthly fears should bind so strong,
And yearn for that calm land where is nor hate nor wrong.

To feel the mountain-breezes fan our head;
To hear the distant ocean murmur low
A requiem o'er the chambers of the dead;
To count the hours, as lazily they flow
O'er God's own dial, moving proudly slow;
To view the cheerful lambs, and hear them bleat,
And, round their mother, amble to and fro,
All reckless of the burning summer heat;
And hear pale echo mourn from every rocky seat.

He was a young astronomer, and here,
At midnight, resting on the silent ground,
Bath'd in the moonlight, view'd the stars shine clear,
And watch'd their courses—heard their mystic sound.
His spirit, high and wise, knew well to bound
From star to star; and, 'mid the crystal deep,
Rejoic'd to take at ease its pleasant round;
And, when the world was laid in dreamless sleep,
Wander the azure skies, and lofty vigils keep.

The book, from which he read, was written o'er
With God's own hand in characters of light;
The page he conn'd was heaven's bespangled floor;
His taper was the moon that glitter'd bright,
(The moon, fair chambermaid of glorious night.)
And, when he slept, 'twas on the incens'd earth,
High above human dwellings, where the blight
Of poisonous air can come not, nor have birth,
And where, by moonlight, fairies hold their court of mirth.

A poet and philosopher!—Than these
Greater exist not. And he was more free,
And high, perchance, than those 'mid festal glare
Of princely halls and regal jubilee!
Greater than was his sire in victory,
When, at his footsteps, reek'd a prince's blood!
Greater, when on his desert-mountains, he
Roam'd at his will in sovran solitude,
Than in his castled domes or his ancestral wood!

His soul was nourish'd by the constant food
Of outward impulse. Every flower and tree
Had secret charms o'er which to think and brood.
The hollow murmur of the distant sea
Proclaim'd the warnings of eternity;
The smallest blade of grass that woo'd the breeze—
The smallest insect, moving glad and free—
The smallest motion of the summer trees—
Spoke of the king of heaven and heavenly mysteries.

And, 'mid the deep and desert wilderness,
Leaning against the rocks his languid head,
He much had ponder'd human happiness,
And human woe—the living and the dead!
A hermit, still to human feelings wed—
A poet, yet not wrapt in self alone—
Philosopher, yet willing to be led:—
And thus his spirit bore a lofty tone,
That from his weeds spake out of rank and lineage gone.

And, after all his woes, when Lonesborough
No more received him, and, amid the shade
Of Bolton's solemn groves he wander'd slow,
Hearing loud Wharf, as, with swift steps, he stray'd
Through vales of deepest beauty: undismay'd
He ponder'd o'er his history, and said,
“I was a happy shepherd-boy, and made
“My life a holiday; the heath bloom spread
“A carpet for my feet, and, when I slept, a bed.

“I hunted then the rainbow in the spray,
“The cuckoo in his solitary bowers;
“The butterfly enticed me from my way,
“Guiding my steps among the sweetest flowers.
“I chaced the owl among her ivy towers;
“I sought the ringdove's nest in the pine grove:
“Wiling with constant change the pleasant hours;
“Listening among the trees the songs of love;
“Or hearing, with deep joy, the running streamlets move.

“Then I became a man, and passion came,
“Deep feelings, and the high resolves of thought,
“Ambition and the ecstacy of fame—
“Dreams with my father's lofty lineage wrought!
“Now, all in vain, through bitter tears, I sought
“My boyhood's rapture. Never, as of yore,
“The mountains, now, elate aspirings brought,
“Nor deep thoughts came from ocean's sounding shore—
“The rainbows of my dreams were gone for evermore!

“I deem'd that manhood was a wall of light,
“A star of glory 'mid life's murky gloom;
“Full of sweet love, and power, and feeling bright,
“To shed a lustre o'er the gaping tomb;
“That sin and dust and sorrow had no room
“On earth—no agonized tears to shed—
“No dread of present woe or future doom
“Perplex our paths—no feelings ache the head
“Until we madly pray to mingle with the dead!

“I look'd around; love welter'd in his bier,
“And friendship was a phantom never seen;
“I saw old grey-hair'd men drop oft the tear
“Of misery, and youth turn wan and lean,
“And droop beneath the coverlet of green.
“Death had a mighty strength, beyond our own,
“And struck the good more than the base and mean;
“Wearing o'er all the earth a conqueror's crown—
“Wreathing, with dead men's bones, a sceptre and a throne!

“That loveliness and youth will pine away,
“And genius and promise lose their light,
“And, in their palmiest greatness, all decay;
“That war and rude contention gave delight;
“That toil, with sweaty forehead, day and night
“Strain'd heavily for crumbs of bitter food;
“That gold and avarice had greatest might,
“Holding the earth in chains of wrong and blood,
“Making, for cruel greed, the world a solitude.

“O child, but thou wert great, and bold, and free,
“Leaning thy head against the snow-white breast!
“O boy, but in thy gambols and rich glee,
“Thou, truly, hadst a spirit unopprest!
“O youth, but in thy wild and strange unrest,
“With wood-walks and lone murmurings, and the light
“Of nature in her gayest trappings drest,
“Beaming upon thee in her beauty bright,
“Glad and rejoicing wert thou—robed with giant might!”

Oft hadst thou felt, bold Clifford, moments lone,
When strength, and hope, and feeling, sunk away,
And expectation seem'd for ever gone;
When clouds came o'er thy life's exultant ray,
And sudden mists and whirlwinds closed the day;
And, like a dreamer down a vast abyss
Of hideous shapes, and winds, and clashing spray,
Thou deem'dst thou never more shouldst feed on bliss,
But sink to endless woe and sad unhappiness.

Yet, O thou hadst thy mighty joys! Why mourn?
Thousands must pine through years of bitter woe,
And toil, and shame—from every solace torn!
But thou, amidst untrodden wastes, could go,
Heedless of summer heat and winter snow,
A comrade for the eagle and the deer.
Thou heardst the cataract sublimely flow,
And look'd on mighty vales that glitter'd clear,
Standing on mountain cliffs, and gazing far and near.

Thou, to the thunder storms, couldst shout reply,
And bare unto the blast thy shining head;
And call upon the spirits of the sky,
As on the whirlwind's trumpet-tones they fed!
The phantoms of the high and kingly dead,
Long ages buried on that solemn moor,
Would glide in radiant robes before thy bed,
Crown'd regally, and sceptred as of yore,
And bring thee wondrous dreams and strange, mysterious lore.

And not in vain for thee thy father's fame!
Flodden beheld thy snow-white plumes on high,
Redden'd with spots of blood, and heard the name
Illustrious of Clifford, o'er the cry
Of death and slaughter. Now his bones do lie
Beneath the marble slab, in holy sleep,
Where stands in pride fair Bolton's priory:
The breezy woods, like mourners, stand and weep,
And, for his dirge, swift Wharf sobs audibly and deep.

THE WARS OF YORK AND LANCASTER.

“The passing moments now were fraught
With desolating rage,
And now the bloody deeds were wrought
That swell th' historic page.

The martial trump invades the ear,
And drowns the orphans' cry;
No more the widows' shrieks they hear,
The love-lorn virgins' sigh!

The pangs those dear wrought laurels yield,
Alas! what tongue can speak?
Perchance, not one that strews the field,
But leaves some heart to break.”

—Old Ballad.

“Do but think
How sweet a thing it is to wear a crown;
Within whose circle is Elysium,
And all that poets feign of bliss and joy.”
—Shakspeare.

The white rose and the red in unity!
O! who hath link'd to war the white and red?
They are ordain'd round ladies' brows to lie,
Or wreath the crumbling fragments of the dead;
Or, in the living bosom, find a bed,
Fed on the incense of its milk-white snow!
Love's sweet companions with them are wed;
And poetry entwines them round her brow,
And quaffeth of their nectar as she stoopeth low.

They are the heart's best motto; dearest token
Of such as in requited love repose;
Or, in deep sorrowings, languish and are broken!
The holiest stars of heaven shine o'er thee, rose;
Thou, in thy bosom, dost the dews inclose;
The sunbeams and the breezes nestle there.
The honey-bee thy richest secrets knows,
And, like a lover, seeks thy bosom fair;
The butterfly rejoices 'mid thy perfum'd hair.

No marvel, for most beautiful, sweet rose,
Art thou; and fancy's chords with thee entwine;
Like half-imagin'd dreams thy leaves repose—
Like lovers drunk with loveliness and wine.
Beneath their delicate folds the Muses nine
Might wreathe their ditties. Fairies, by moonlight,
Might hold their court beneath their sheltering shine:
And thy deep bosom glows with golden light,
And life, and love, and beauty fill thy bowers bright.

In that rude war thy leaves were often red
With blood, that, in the morning, glitter'd white;
And the rich scarlet pal'd above the dead,
Robb'd by the sunbeams of their gorgeous light;
What time our rivers, from each murderous fight,
Were swollen with kindred's blood, and forests green
Were wither'd, and our fields were eat with blight;
When carnage o'er our towering cliffs was seen,
Who clapp'd his hands and shouted o'er each bloody scene.

There was no peace in England. Old men died
At their own hearths, by their own children slain:
Gladness had gone from every mountain side,
And joy and sweet content did nought but plain,
And love lay gor'd 'mid battle's ghastly train:
The smoke from cottage fires no more ascended,
And calm domestic bliss was turn'd to pain;
Instead of day, war's fiery lightnings blended
With the red, glaring skies, and hideous portents tended.

'Stead of the ploughman's songs, the warrior's cries
Sounded among our fields and yell'd despair;
'Stead of the lowing herds the war-steed neighs,
And pants to rush among the ranks of war,
Among the pointed spears: nought stirs the air
But yells of pain or triumph. On each head
Flutters the warrior's plume, and, everywhere,
Helmet, and sword, and broken spear lie spread,
And every field is fatten'd with the rotting dead.

Revenge, in ghastly pomp, and red with gore,
Sat gibbering on our hills, and shriek'd aloud—
A phantom-king! and hurl'd his chariots o'er
The corpses of the dead. Death brought his shroud,
And stalk'd with haughty steps, and aspect proud,
And fiery eyes, through pools of reeking blood;
And ghastly shapes, like fiends and demons, bow'd
In the night's glooms, and filled the solitude!
And, with pestiferous hisses, the black corpses woo'd.

O, Tewksbury! there's wailing on thy fields,
And bitter lamentation. At the morn
There was the clang of unpolluted shields,
And unstain'd banners in the air were borne;
White plumes gleam'd far that ere the night were shorn.
There was a long and glittering array
Of warriors, 'mid the fields of yellow corn,
All mail'd and belted for the battle day;
And prancing war-steeds neighing for the joyous play.

Old chieftains stood and gaz'd all anxiously,
And youthful warriors panted for the fight:
As for a festive triumph glar'd each eye,
And every face was eager, glad, and bright:
Sisters, perchance, or lovers had, with light,
Swift fingers, these bold conquerors array'd:
Love's hand had pluck'd the roses, red and white,
That to each soldier's beating heart was laid,
And wreath'd the lily love-knot o'er each shining blade.

O, Tewksbury! thou hadst wild sport that day,
When these huge armies met. When, sweeping on,
Like tempests from their caves, the vast array
Of rank and file leapt to the clarion's tone,
And the deep drum; (o'er which was heard the groan
Of agony.) Then far gleam'd sword and spear,
And heavy mailed chieftains were dragg'd down,
And the proud steeds all riderless did rear,
And mighty warriors groan'd for rage, who mock'd at fear.

Men seem'd like fiends, and oil'd their swords with blood—
The blood, perchance, that left a brother's side;
The evening sun, amid the gory flood,
Beheld in death full many a widow's pride.
Many a virgin's first born fell i' the tide
Of eddying slaughter. Snorting and aghast,
With upturn'd nostrils, that dilated wide,
The wounded war-horse snuff'd the passing blast,
And, almost like a hero, gave up life at last.

The gnarring wolf then left his secret lair,
And with the hawk and raven took his meal;
And fiercely gorg'd the remnants of despair.
Then did Decay from out his caverns steal,
And, drunk with blood, among the corpses reel:
Whilst, quietly, the calm and azure sky,
Even, like a gentle mother, seem'd to feel;
The moon look'd down with calm and placid eye,
And angels wept for grief among their homes on high.

St. Alban's, Wakefield, Tonton, Tewksbury,
And blood-stain'd Pomfret felt war's dreadful feet;
There kings, and lords, and princes valiantly
Did bleed and die. There Warwick held his seat
As king-maker, and bore the battle's heat;
There Percy fought and Clifford slew his foes;
And England's bravest found their winding sheet:
Their wives and maidens mourn'd their heavy woes,
And feeling hearts were heav'd with dire convulsive throes.

Alas! that all this valour strove in vain;
That not against their country's foes they fought!
No matter—they sleep quietly where pain
Can come not, laid in many a grassy spot.
Their glittering helmets, curiously enwrought,
The bees made hives of. Each bright sword and spear
Is eat and rusted all away to nought;
The eye and countenace, that filled with fear,
Are rayless, sunk and moulder'd in their sepulchre.

Margaret of Anjou, it had better been
For thee, to tend thy sheep, a shepherdess,
Living remote from strife, and all unseen,
Save by the lambs that would thy presence bless,
Than, as a queen, the field of battle press
With thy heroic feet! Better for thee
The milk-maid's morning song of happiness,
Than thy proud throne, and halls of tapestry,
And thousand belted knights before thee on their knee.

Thousands of lovely maidens live unknown,
In places far remote from human eye;
The breeze, stream, wood-walk, waterfall alone,
Their presence welcome as they wander by;
Thousands there are that list their lover's sigh,
In blissful ecstacy, beneath the moon;
Or list his voice or lute from lakelet nigh,
Sweet serenading for that dearest boon—
Their love!—and thousands seek the shaded groves at noon.

Thousands of wives and mothers watch with joy
Their golden-headed children skip and play—
(Children, in whose high glee is no alloy)
A husband tends their wants, and sheds the ray
Of peace around their footsteps; night and day
They greet his coming, and, in beauty's pride,
Sink on his breast where soon their looks must lie;
And, in the silent night time, side by side,
In chaste, connubial bliss and rapture they abide.

But Margaret of Anjou hath no home—
A wanderer and an outcast she must be;
And, through her own dominions, lonely roam,
Who was a queen, and ruled in sovranty!
The poor and wretched Henry, what is he?
Feeble and imbecile, a rayless clod!
Bondage to him's as good as liberty;
The dungeon floor as pleasant an abode,
As when, in courtly halls, a youthful king he trode.

She, who in regal pomp, in robes of white
All delicately array'd, not long before
Walk'd beautiful, amid the festal light,
Unto the bridal altar, cover'd o'er
With wreaths and garlands—now is queen no more!
What, though unto a regal monarch wed,
Upon whose crest the English lions roar;
The partner of his bosom and his bed—
With outcast beggars now that bride must bow her head!

100

With that young, delicate prince, they, hand in hand,
Must wander rugged, desert hills, and go
Amid the wildest places of the land.
The humblest cottages their footsteps know,
And where the swiftest mountain-rivers flow.
They must partake of meanest, simplest food,
Dwelling in hunger, misery, and woe;
And hear of scoffs, and taunts, and insults rude,
From savage village-boors, in barbarous solitude.

War is the deadliest enginery of hell—
The foulest fiend at hell's wide-open'd gate.
Terror and Famine 'mid its thunders dwell;
And Murder sitteth 'mid its halls in state;
Lust, Fire, and Slaughter round its footsteps wait;
And, 'mid its red repasts, do vultures prey
Peace, Hope and Safety fled! Left to our fate,
Our lives, and homes, and harvests sink away,
And the blue heavens refuse to lend a sheltering ray.

May never more most foul rebellion rise
To clothe our hills with fire and desolation;
Sending the smoke of murder to the skies;
Rending away the links of every station;
And rearing bloody standards o'er the nation.
O, let not virtue's shrieks ascend on high
And have its long locks torn! Be commendation,
And lofty praise, and hymns eternally,
To those high spirits who preserv'd our liberty.

101

Ye warrior-dead of ages, who, at home,
Or, 'mid far desert-sands, or on the sea,
Or, where the ancient cities have a tomb,
Upheld this land from fangs of tyranny,
And made us, that we now are, high and free;
Continual acclamations sound for you!
Your names are in the page of history,
And wreaths and garlands deck each sacred brow,
And, in the immortal halls, your spirits wander now.

Praise, Wellington, especial praise to thee!
Thy name is mingled with the mighty dead—
The giant-shapes who held the earth in fee.
Thy fame is to the golden Orient spread;
And, where the naked Indian rests his head
In desert-woods; and o'er the Lapland snow;
And, o'er the mountains, that with heaven are wed,
Where congeal'd caves stop ocean's rapid flow;
And, o'er those torrid climes, where verdure cannot grow.

Cæsar and Alexander rudely fought
With savage tribes; thy battles were for fame
And liberty. Thy enemies were brought
From lands most civilized, and, in the game
Of war, stood forth Napoleon's lofty name.
Madden'd and phrenzied with a phantom cause,
Passions, as well as swords, 'twas thine to tame;
Elate and fierce enthusiasts were thy foes,
And thou didst wrench Old England from their poisonous claws.

102

It was a nobler war, and it was just,
Myriads of coming years may pass away,
Ere other Buonapartes shall leave the dust—
Ere such another cause we need to stay.
Myriads of suns may shed their passing ray,
Ere such a fell usurper walk the earth.
But having been, 'twas ours to hold at bay
The tiger's fangs, and stop rebellion's birth;
And ne'er did England feel of warriors a dearth.

Spain, India, Talavera, Waterloo,
Vittoria felt thy proudly valorous hand;
And say, O, say, hath not Britannia, too,
Rejoic'd beneath thy strong and just command?
For thou didst save from ruin this, our land.
The Spanish maids threw roses on thy brow,
That mingled with thy laurels; the bold band
Of English heroes did, for thee, let flow
Their heart's blood: at thy feet did swarthy Indians bow!

And, oh! at thy victorious return,
Honours were thine, more glorious and high,
Than when, at Cæsar's chariot, kings did mourn,
Bound miserably, to feed the rabble's eye.
Yea, when those rapturous plaudits shook the sky,
And, from their balconies, each English maid
Shower'd laurels on the lord of victory,
And wav'd their scarfs, all gorgeously display'd—
No hero of the earth was e'er so nobly paid!

103

And, now, I hear of thee where Isis flows;
The wise, and great, and good salute thee there;
The inheritors of mighty deeds and laws
Do homage to the chief, whose greatest care,
In war or peace, was to preserve them, fair,
Bright, and untouch'd, from foul rebellion's hand;
So that rebellion's slaves might never dare
Pull down the altars, nor defile the land,
Nor, from the great and wise, tear off their just command.

In war and peace thou still hast born us up,
Stuck by the pillars, and upheld the throne,
And dash'd away black treason's deadly cup!
Long mayst thou live! Long mayst thou guard the crown,
The state, the altar—lest they drag them down.
Nations will hail thee greater, greater far,
And, at thy feet, a deeper homage own,
For being wise in peace than strong in war—
Than hadst thou shone, 'mid carnage, victory's brightest star.

And, when thou sinkest into silent death,
(O be it long!) nations will mourn and weep,
And sadly heave the palpitating breath.
But most will England, with emotion deep,
Lament and sob above thy charnell'd sleep.
And they shall lay thee in the marble, free,
Where the old banner'd chiefs their slumbers keep
'Neath shatter'd crests. Thy epitaph shall be,
“Sparta possess'd no worthier son than he!”

104

My curses be on them who would drag down
Our castles! noblest memories linger there;
They won our charter, purified the crown.
My curses be on them who, with wild glare,
Of fiendish hate, and traitorous malice, e'er
Would burn our altars, and, with brutish hate,
Trample upon our mitres; who would dare
Raze our cathedrals, where they stand in state,
And make our pleasant churches lone and desolate.

My curses be on them—the accursed brood,
Who would, like poisonous serpents, love to crawl
O'er virgin-truth, and slay the pure and good:
The horrors of their countenance appal!
Who would possess each palace, hut, and hall,
And cottage-bower, and lovely solitude!
My curses be upon them, one and all!
This is not liberty—'tis hell subdued
To earthly rage—'tis man even like the fiend imbued!

“I had a dream; it was not all a dream.”
I sat upon the mountains, at the hour
Of eventide, when, in the heavens supreme,
The sun, even like a giant in his tower,
Was proudly walking 'mid his shady bower
Of golden clouds, that carpetted his feet.
Each pleasant, little songster now did pour
His curious melodies, which, in the heat
Of day, were heard not; and the sea roll'd like a fiery sheet.

105

The winds were silent on each leafy bough,
That rustled not, save in deep happiness;
Rich, sunny mists clad every mountain's brow,
That stood, like mighty giants, drunk with bliss!
I heard with joy each deep and amorous kiss
Given by the stream to its low, drooping flowers;
I heard the ploughman singing high, I wis,
To please his love, amid the shady bowers;
I heard the sky-lark's song, far, in his airy towers.

And, looking, forth, I saw fair Guisborough,
Like a proud maiden, sitting all alone;
Whose halls, encompass'd round from every foe,
Heeds not her lover's solitary moan.
I saw her ancient abbey, where the tone
Still sounded of past greatness: on its head
The lingering sunbeams still serenely shone;
I saw the pleasant church, and, where the dead,
In peaceful slumbers rest, upon their charnel bed.

I saw the shady groves that lie around,
Sacred to meditation's sweet repose,
And fancy's dim and visionary bound.
I saw her gardens, where the stately rose,
And pink, and tulip, their rich blooms disclose:
Her fields were richly green, and gaily shone
With buttercups and daisies, all in rows;
Her pleasant cottage, standing all alone,
Embosom'd 'mid tall trees, seem'd like a wood-nymph's throne.

106

And homes of peace and hospitality
Were there, that pleasantly and calmly stood,
Their white smoke curling to the azure sky.
I thought how many high, and brave, and good,
Might humbly dwell in this sweet solitude,
Who, were they known, might make examples bright,
To shine, like stars, o'er cities' clamours rude;
And, over distant ages, spread their light,
But now must die unknown, and sink to endless night!

I thought how many a bright and lovely head,
This night, must droop its ringlets in sweet sleep;
Whilst, stealthily, the moonbeams shall be wed
With them, and view them from his azure deep,
And on their half-seen, virgin beauty peep.
And then I thought, alas, and ever woe,
If war or rude dispersion e'er should sweep
In tempests here, what horrid fears would flow,
How all this peace would fade before the threatening foe.

I look'd again. There was the clanging spear,
The shining bayonet, and the cannon's roar;
Banners were flaring high, and, to the ear,
Swell'd the loud war-cry all along the shore.
The sea was white with ships, whose pennants wore
The badge of civil strife, and shouts arose,
“The king, the king,” whilst some their hoarse throats tore,
With “burn the altar!”—“well we know our foes,
“The king and church are ties to bind us to our woes!”

107

“The king's a bauble and the church a lie—
“A sanctimonious lie, by priestcraft worn,
“To chain with bible-oaths our liberty;
“God is a phantom God!” With mighty scorn
The hideous roars were drown'd, and far-were borne
Loud acclamations to the reigning king.
Said they, “we will not see Old England shorn
“Of her proud strength; blood shall not stain her wing;
“Enough of rabble-might, and monarch-murdering!”

Methought that they were few, who, in this wise,
Themselves expressed—that black-brow'd traitors stood
Innumerable, thick studded, like the skies
When throng'd with stars, close as a pine-tree wood.
Yet did the loyal chiefs this multitude
Long hold at bay, till, overwhelm'd at last,
Like wounded lions, they became subdued,
And, fighting still, reel'd like the storm-struck mast,
Or fell, as doth the oak-tree, in the winter blast.

Then did these traitors roar, as, when the sea
Conquers some man-of war, and, vauntingly,
Mimics the tempest's thunder. In fierce glee
They trampled the dead corpses, and did cry,
In loud blaspheming oaths, unto the sky,
And ask'd, “where is the God ye worshipped,
Who cannot save his champions ere they die?”
And then they mangled the poor, innocent dead,
And danc'd among their blood, like demons phrenzied!

108

That abbey, which a thousand years hath stood,
Braving the tempests of full many an age,
They burnt to dust with its embowering wood.
That peaceful church, the ruffians, in their rage,
Raz'd, stone by stone, and impious war did wage
With tomb, and altar, and the cherub child.
Nought could their brutal blasphemies assuage;
But, roaring out their curses fierce and wild,
With horrid atheist rites our altars they defil'd!

The sepulchres wherein our dead are laid—
Our fathers' farthers' dead they shatter'd down,
And scatter'd their dry bones, and, undismay'd,
Wreath'd of them mockeries of a monarch's crown.
Fires roar'd in every quarter of the town;
And, O, I gaz'd on old men's floating hair,
Clutch'd with the blood-red hand; and heard the tone
Of agony, from maidens in despair,
By those fierce murderers ravish'd, and despoiled there.

I could not help but say, “where, where, O! God,
“Where do thy earthquakes and thy thunders sleep?
“Where the destroying sword—the avenging rod—
“The surcharg'd waters of the boiling deep?
“Where are the scorching fires thou once didst heap
“On Sodom and Gomorrah? At thy throne
“The angels and the ancient martyrs weep,
“To see such cruel wrong and madness done;—
Scatter devouring pestilence, hurl thy lightnings down!”

109

I woke,—my eyes were wet with burning tears.
And can it e'er be so, my aching soul,
That we shall ever see those dreadful years?
Sweet Guisborough, shall war's rude tempests roll
Thus o'er thee? Shalt thou feel the slave's control?
Old England, shall thy fields and altars e'er
Be tramp'd by traitors, or thy monarch fall?
Britannia, shall Rebellion ever dare
Drive o'er thy charter'd plains his red and blood-stain'd car?

O, should that time approach! then, Englishmen,
Ye will leap up, and bind your armour on;
Then swords will gleam in every vale and glen.
Kings, lords, and priests shall not be slain alone,
No, we will make this rabblement atone.
Then, Wellington, shall come thy ancient might,
Which is not dead, but sleepeth; and the throne
Of wrong and misrule shall be fill'd with right,
And, through the chastening fires, we'll win our ancient might.

Then, Wellington, thy golden helm shall shine
Amid the ranks of war, and thy strong spear
Be brandish'd o'er our foes. The ancient line
Of heroes is not dead; they linger here
Amongst us—spirits of a higher sphere!
We are not desolate; they will arise,
And brush away the things of wrong and fear;
And bear our ancient glories to the skies,
And make us once again to be serene and wise.

111

JANE SHORE.

“Proper she was and fair, yet delighted not men so much in her beauty as in her pleasant behaviour; for a proper wit had she, and could both read well and write; ready and quick of answer; neither mute nor babbling.

Many mistresses the king had, but her he lov'd; whose favour, to say the truth, she never abused to any man's hurt, but often employed to many a man's relief.”

—Sir T. More's Holinshed, 384.

“Thy error was that thou hadst loved so well—
So passionately, with a power that might not die—
That thou didst suffer in thy heart to dwell
This imag'd god, in mad idolatry,
Who came on wings from love's empurpled sky!
O, heart of woman, full of strength divine,
And full of truth, pure feeling, passion high;
How shall I duly raise th' inspired line—
How shall I sing aloud the honours that are thine?”
—England, Vol. 1, Page 112.

It is a lovely day, we'll sing of love!
The sun moves calmly through his halls of blue,
The proud, bright sky his own; and, from above,
Showers dreams of love and bliss. There is a hue
Upon the hills, that, to the poet's view,
Seems loveliness asleep, so rich so fair.
The sea is fill'd with shadows ever new,
Sent from the sky; and mermaids comb their hair
Among its verdant isles, and sing unto the air.

112

“It is a lovely day, we'll sing of love.”
It minds me of the blue Italian clime,
Where haughty maidens in their bowers move,
And list their lovers 'mid the summer's prime.
It minds me of bright Greece, where, once, sublime
Heroes and demi-gods held rule. Where, now,
Maidens, as fair as those of ancient time,
Exist, and listen to the moonlight vow,
And lean on loving bosoms the rich pearled brow.

It minds me of far distant lands, where rain,
And storm, and hurricane are never known!
Where, in deep forests, by the streamlet's plain,
The naked savage wanders forth, alone,
And listens to the aspen's tremulous tone,
Or Love's strange voices murmuring in his ear:—
Of times, when heaven far purer, brighter shone
On shepherds wandering without pain or fear,
Filling, with dreams of love, that balmy atmosphere.

It minds me of that bright but faded day,
When, 'mid untrodden bowers of perfect bliss,
Our first celestial parents sweetly lay,
Talking of heaven, and hope, and happiness:—
Or when, in after dreams of tenderness,
They sweetly rested on the perfum'd rose;
And, amourously ecstatic, still did press
In love's delicious tremor of repose,
Forgetting, in deep bliss, the weight of all their woes.

113

And farther still my vision loves to go,
Through whirling mists of time; when, in the sky,
Love's earliest fountains first began to flow,
Hurling the blacken'd clouds of chaos by,
Making the sun and stars to shine on high,
And the blue heavens to spread above us all;
When seraphim sung hymns eternally,
'Mid the celestial blaze, that loud did roll
Melodiously and deep, along the heavenly hall.

Ere God was yet a judge, (for sin was not)
But father o'er a peaceful family;
Ere lightning or the thunderbolt had shot
Along the spheres; whilst the blue depths were free
Of cloud or gloom. Yea, when majestically,
With legion'd myriads of angels round,
Amid insufferable splendour, He,
Himself, was Love—the centre of all Bound—
The eternal Love, whom worlds and chaos did surround,

The mower wets his scythe among the grass;
The milkmaid singeth loud her heart's delight;
Among the hay the joke and banter pass,
Each hand is strong and every heart is light;
The birds lie still among their bowers bright;
Beneath their banks the spotted trout retreat;
The silly sheep can scarcely bear their weight;
The cattle frisk amid the sultry heat;
The heron by the river takes his lonely seat.

114

At night the dew-drops glitter on each tree,
Beneath whose shadow sleeps the spotted deer;
At night the moonbeams wander lovingly
O'er lovers that, on violet beds, in dear
Caresses, mingle without dread or fear;
(For love hath nought of rings or trumpery,
But, in its own pure innocence shines clear;
Love hath no laws, but, like a star i' the sky,
Can shoot, where'er it will, in constant brilliancy.)

The hawk and raven dare not leave their home;
The wild fox broodeth in his lonely lair;
The owl and silent bat, afraid to roam,
Snuff, in their hollows, night's delicious air:
The fairies dance, and comb their silken hair,
On the green grass, and, on the moonbeams, dance,
And, with sweet buttercups and daisies fair,
Wreathe perfum'd garlands, and, with look askance,
The nightly spirits greet that on the breezes glance;

And, to the enraptur'd poet in his sleep,
Whisper delicious dreams of ecstacy,
Which, waking, leave him but to sigh and weep!
And brightly glide before the mourner's eye,
As if his lady-love had left the sky,
And shone in all her heavenly robes again;
Or, in fantastic trappings, wanton nigh
With merry elves, and Cupids in their train,
Bright, laughing, dancing shapes that skip along the brain.

115

Alas, why is it in this weary round,
That love should be so lorn and desolate,
That all the worshippers that her surround
Should be the victims of despair and hate?
What is the curse that lingers with our fate—
The curse that burns the eye and breaks the heart?
Why, dwelling as she doth, in gentlest state,
Do such rude storms her battlements dispart?
Why Cupid's arrows link'd with Death's tremendous dart?

Why is it that she cannot lay her head
Among the roses, but must feel the thorn?
That her delicious essence cannot wed
With earthly dust, but poisonous airs be born?
That all our hopes must sink despoil'd and worn?
Why, like the rainbow, doth she gorgeous show
Brightest in clouds, by coming sunbeams shorn
Of all her beauty? Why her footsteps flow
Through horrid paths, where nought but fear and danger go?

Why hath she not an atmosphere of bliss,
An air Elysian, stainless, pure, and bright,
Where she may dwell in bowers of tenderness,
And have her couch in constant summer light?
Why, as a spirit of the moonlit night,
May she not breathe among the stars, and fly
Among the silver clouds in her delight?
And, high enthron'd upon the amorous sky,
Be as a constant presence to the aching eye!

116

But as it is, we desolately pine,
Weeping in our exceeding bitterness,
For shapes to greet us, lovely and divine—
Sometimes, in visions, we devoutly press
The phantom to our heart in love's caress.
Sometimes we listen to a heavenly voice
That murmurs of delight and happiness;
And, with sweet warble, bids us to rejoice:
We wake, and see no more the being of our choice.

Is it not so?—I ask lamenting time—
I ask each royal and each humble maid,
Who feel the sudden lightning in their prime,
Fading like violets in the mossy shade.
Ye silent forms, in mourning all array'd,
Blood-stain'd and sad, your tresses soil'd and torn,
That glide before me, silent and dismay'd,
O, is not love of all her beauty shorn,
A wanderer on the earth, sad, craz'd, and all forlorn?

Speak out my bleeding heart—thou, thou can'st tell;
Thou, o'er the seas canst bring thy tale of woe
Of one, who in her innocence doth dwell,
A blessed angel dropt on earth below,
One beauteous shape, that, wheresoe'er I go,
Even like a star of light directs my way;
Encircling me as doth the heavenly bow:
To whom, as to a goddess, I would pay
My homage, and before her favour'd footstool lay.

117

I see thee now, fair Margaret,—rob'd in white;
Thy spiritual shape delights mine eager eye;
Thy glistering tresses roll in floods of light,
And in fair wreaths enclose thy forehead high:
Clear pearls upon thy lovely bosom lie,
(Would I were they!) and thy large orbs divine,
The eagles, then the doves, gaze pensively;
Life, love, and beauty in thy countenance shine,
And dreams of purest hope and passion intertwine.

But, hark!—I hear her rich voice speak to me,
Sweeter than is the gentlest western breeze;
Sweeter than any warbled minstrelsy,
Echo'd at evening from the sunlit trees!
Its tones are rich with human ministries.
And, lo, I see her move!—O, angel bright,
Go not away beyond those angry seas!
O leave not thus my dim and longing sight—
How can I stay behind thee, vision of delight!

For, when I look upon a violet
Half-hid, half-seen, or, on a shining star,
I think on thee, beloved Margaret!
And, when I look unto the heavens afar,
And view the milk-white moon; and hear the jar
Melodious of the spheres, and see the blue
Among the clouds—Borealis in his car—
The fluttering veils of light—each lovely hue—
Thee, with these heavenly things, my vision doth embue.

118

Yea, shape of exquisite beauty, 'tis with thee
I match all perfect things, and them compare!
The beauteous shells, earth's presents from the sea;
Flowrets, that in lone valleys linger fair;
The hues of gorgeous plumage on the air;
The hawthorn bloom; the wild-rose newly born;
Dew-drops and silken mosses deck'd with care
By fairies; and the eglantine unshorn;
All these I join with thee, thou creature of the morn!

But, O, why linger on an idle theme?
Why clasp a phantom, that will pass away?
Why dally with a vain and hollow dream?
Petrarca is beyond the realms of day;
Tasso his adorations may not pay
To his high Leonora! All alone
I yearn, and sadly weave my mournful lay;
And at deep midnight must lament and moan
Dim and departed memories—O, for ever gone!

Yet, blessed Margaret, I will not go
Without imploring Heaven's sweet care for thee:
May balmiest breezes through thy ringlets flow,
And kiss thy forehead as they wander free;
May gentlest airs embrace thee lovingly;
And sweetest flowers make carpets for thy feet;
And, when at night thou bend'st the praying knee,
May holy angels leave their heavenly seat,
And, warble in thy dreams, seraphically sweet.

119

And, oh, but let me dash away these tears,
Which, from their burning fountains, fill mine eye:
If heaven my faint and feeble wishes hears,
May all thy future life pass lovingly;
And, if that gorgeous head should ever lie
On love's proud breast; and that seraphic face,
'Mid the moon's light, be gaz'd on tenderly;
May rapture high, and true-love leave their trace,
And from the union spring a pure and lofty race.

Ages have past away since lovely Shore,
With royal Edward linger'd in her bower;
Ages and ages now have moulder'd o'er,
Since first she heard him at the twilight hour,
Into her ear rich tones of passion pour;
Seated where clematis, and eglantine,
And the white clambering rose, their scents did shower;
Whilst, through the flowery vistas, heaven did shine,
And the green mountains tower'd with the proud oak and pine.

Seated where the tall elms like giants stood;
And the old patriarchal sycamore,
Among his blossoms bore the myriad brood
Of honey-bees, whose songs melodious bore
Into the heart the memories of yore:
Yea, there they sat in amorous languishment,
The kingly Edward and the gentle Shore;
And the birds sang along the firmament
Their hymeneal loud, in vespers ministrant!

120

The breezes bore light rose-leaves, that did play
About her, and then settled on her hair,
Like snow-white pearls, and crown'd her queen of May,
Birds, breezes, flowers, perfumes, all things there
Did humble homage to a thing so fair.
The laughing Cupids danc'd upon the green
In rapture, viewing that voluptuous pair,
And shot away their shafts. The lovely queen
Of love look'd down, and dreamt of ancient times, I ween.

The oak-tree and the birch, enfolded quite,
And wav'd by summer breezes in the shade,
Might simile that fair and gentle sight—
That manly lover—that confiding maid:
And, as her tresses down her shoulders stray'd,
As pine-tree shadows stream o'er mountain-snow;
And her dark eyes look'd into his for aid;
And, on his breast, she leant her lovely brow,
Whilst round them, like a halo, shone the evening glow.

It was a sight of perfect happiness—
O, what a pleasant thing requited love!
How the heart leaps with deep and passionate bliss!
What balm and incense o'er the feelings move!
A beauty, nourish'd in far realms above,
Clothes all things, and the pulseless air feels pride:
Creatures of loveliness around us move,
'Mid silver mists, and lofty visions glide
Within the chamber'd brain, and there on thrones abide!

121

The scene is chang'd. On tower and battlement,
Lodge, window, balcony, and every tree,
Thousands of anxious multitudes are bent,
To view this gentle lady's infamy.
Yet all do grieve so sad a sight to see,
She was so kind, so good, so meek to all;
None ever sought her, but she gave them fee;
None e'er was chain'd, but she relieved their thrall;
Her ear was always open to the suppliant's call.

She seems a lovely ghost, attir'd in white,
Bearing a taper to her lover's tomb;
Her beauty casts a lustre on the night,
A splendour that illumines the deep gloom;
And, where she breathes, the air is all perfume.
O, cruel, that those snowy feet must press
The pointed flints! O, what a bitter doom,
That such a lovely breast, in nakedness
The chilling blasts now feel, that felt a king's caress!

But, doth not Edward's Queen as bitterly
(The lady whom we sung) lament alone?
On the cold rushes doth she bend the knee,
Gazing for solace on the heedless moon,
That, like some old enchantress, mocks her moan.
Yea queen and mistress both are desolate!
Both, who in such exceeding beauty shone,
Richly attir'd, and holding sovran state,
Now, in their deep misfortune, miserably mate.

122

Not unaveng'd!—Richard of York shall hear,
At midnight, phantoms stalk around his bed!—
Clarence shall wildly shriek into his ear
The fiery curses of the unresting dead!—
Hastings shall come and shake his gory head!—
The seraph children, too, shall hover near,
And tears of burning fire upon him shed!—
Shore, Woodville, each shall leave her silent bier,
And shake the murderer's brain with agony and fear!

Again the scene is chang'd! All silently,
With downcast head and dim retreating eyes,
An aged woman traileth slowly by,
In tattered garments, and most piteous wise,
She moves with pain—she sits—and cannot rise;
And, half upon her knees, implores for food.
O look upon her, ye relenting skies,
And be ye merciful as ye are good!
One groan—and lo! she dies, all dabbled in her blood!

And that was Shore; and queenly even in death,—
In naked misery high; and with an air
Of something noble, to her latest breath.
And so do all things pass of bright and fair—
Fleeting and transient as a falling star!
Youth knows not what its after years may be;
And beauty wists not of the glooms of care;
No state, however lofty, can be free;
The gladdest smile oft springs from secret misery.

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She, in the pomp of beauty, had lain down
On silken couches, fann'd by love's caresses;
The stars had seen her blushes, and the moon
Sent silvery beams among her flowing tresses,
That roam'd at wanton will 'mid love's excesses.
A monarch's paramour is soil'd with mire.
All bless'd her—there is now not one that blesses;
The eye of lightning and the heart of fire,
The tongue of sweet discourse, quench'd like a broken lyre!

O, heavens, ye view full many a bitter thing!
The shatter'd sceptre, and the broken crown;
The crumbled empire lowly withering;
The pyramid and temple mouldering down,
Ye gaze on! And your myriad eyeballs own
Visions of broken hearts; and rayless eyes;
And phrenzied brains that once with genius shone;
And pulseless thoughts that once to you might rise;—
Such sad and doleful sights are gaz'd on by the skies.

But there is heavenly calm for those who weep:
The wild-flowers bloom above them, and they go,
On winged feet, to an Elysian sleep.
Death hath ambrosial poppies round his brow;
Delicious opiates at his footsteps grow;
With him the feverish heart shall calmly rest;
And, though no visions through our slumbers flow,
Do we not lie on Nature's lovely breast,
Within her gentle arms, caressing and carest?

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And, after earthly loss is heavenly gain.
Shriv'd and anointed, they ascend in bliss,
And mingle with the pure and heavenly train.
There, bathed in springs of constant blessedness,
Singing continual hymns, they ever bless
The effulgent Presence; and, with golden crown,
Like heavenly kings, sit side by side, and press
Their hands in saintly love. There never frown
Is seen,—there nought but blissful harmony is known.

125

PERKIN WARBECK. REIGN OF KING HENRY VII.

ARGUMENT.

My Ivy Bower.—Thoughts there suggested.—Lament for Poetry. —Invocation to England.—Warbeck sets out from Burgundy; and description of the Queen of Burgundy, a descendant of the Plantagenets.— Kent, and address to the men of Kent.—The King grieves for the defalcation of Stanley, the same who had won for him, by his treachery, the battle of Bosworth.—Description of the festivities at Holyrood, and the courtship of Catherine Gordon.—Description of Catherine Gordon.—The scene in the Bower.—Description of the Wedding.—Invocation to Holyrood.

My ivy bower—my little ivy bower,
Inwreath'd with myrtle, rose, and jessamine;
Where pleasantly I wile full many an hour,
Pondering on things majestic and divine.
Here, in the summer rays, I intertwine
Quaint fancies, gather'd from the cloudy brain
(That yet, like rain-drops ting'd with sunlight, shine);
Here do I court the muse's solemn train,
And worship at their feet—O, be it not in vain!

126

Here doth my musing fancy float away,
On wings invisible, of memories old;
How, when my boyhood, like a summer day,
Serenely shone (that blessed age of gold);
And I did love whate'er I might behold,
Suspecting nought, and leaning towards all;
How sorrows came, like wolves into the fold,
And shrouded me in grief, as in a pall;
And hate and hopeless love did bind me in their thrall.

How in first youth, ere yet a man, I felt,
What never more can be, proud and elate,
Terribly proud and glad. How oft I knelt
Upon the mountains, like a king in state,
Communing with the tempests as they beat
Among my hair; and saw bright spirits fly
Amid the mists, and with the whirlwinds mate.
How, with a fearless and enquiring eye,
I went from star to star, along the pathless sky.

How that exceeding splendour of my love
Came to my heart in utter solitude;
Came like a gentle being from above,
'Mid burning thoughts and madden'd dreams, to brood—
(For O, wild passion then had me subdued,
And I could gaze not on the stainless moon,
Nor on blue midnight in her starry hood,
Without a bitter shame that held me down!)
She came, and vanish'd quite those tempests of my noon.

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She came on wings of azure calm; she came
And purified my tainted spirit quite,
Like sacrifice new cleans'd with incens'd flame,
I felt ennobled in her gracious light;
The pierceless mists dispers'd before my sight;
My chains fell off; I felt elate and free;
My soul became serene, and clear, and bright,
And wanton'd in its elemental glee;
'Twas thou who did this deed—blest Margaret, 'twas thee!

“My ivy-bower, my little ivy-bower,
Enwreath'd with myrtle, rose, and jessamine!”
Here, o'er the clouds of ages, do I tower—
The suns and stars that ages yet must shine;
Deeming of actions noble or divine—
Of murder'd kings and fallen tyranny—
Of buried names—of many a mighty line
Wither'd: of empires nought, that once were free—
And of thy patriot dead—thy champion's liberty!

Revenges, bitter hates, and tyranny,
Contentions, strifes, wars, murders, aching woes
By kings and martyrs felt:—all, that the skies
In retribution wield o'er man's repose.
Of nightly tournaments, and princely shows;
Of festal merriment and minstrelsie;
Of the proud time when poetry arose
Prophetic, and, in tones sublime and high,
With her majestic hymnings, shook the listening sky.

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Of Chaucer, Spencer, Shakespeare, and the rest—
The mighty ones, who o'er the heart and brain
Hold empire, seated deep in every breast—
Gigantic spirits who must ever reign!
To whose huge souls great worlds are but a train
Of worshippers, who worship at their feet!
Oh! how shall we, poor earth-worms, ever gain
Their viewless height?—Their high immortal seat?
The spheric tones are gone—gone the celestial heat!

“Fallen on evil times and evil men,”
How shall we e'er ascend on high, as they,
Into the golden-sandall'd morn, and when
Meek evening bears the sun's departing ray?
Vainly we strive to gain our ancient sway!
Yet not in vain; not on the desert sand
Unseen, unheeded shall our vessels lay;—
Pure hearts, and high, still throng our kingly land,
There yet are mighty hearts we hold in our command!

Beauty, and worth, and genius still attend;
Not all in vain flow'd, Chatterton, thy blood;
Not vainly from thy bosom did ascend,
O, Otway, groans of agony subdued!
Like temples in the wilderness ye stood,
And pilgrims from afar shall crowd to you;
Your worshippers shall be the wise and good;
The poets shall enwreath each lofty brow,
And lay undying hymns before your feet, as now.

129

The first page of all empires they have writ—
The last page of all empires they shall write;
Priests, prophets, martyrs, in their souls have lit
The incens'd breathings fainting in the light!
Then, let us mourn not, but, in stern delight
Through Death and Hell, still bear us bravely on:
Trusting, ere yet we die, to breathe the might
Of ancient times, the ancient pride of song—
And when our lyres are shatter'd, join the immortal throng!

O, England, England, get thee up—arise!
Too long thy fame hath slumber'd! all too long.
The nations have contemn'd thee. Break the ties
Of traitors who have bound thee, and the wrong
Of revolution's slaves. Come—hear the song
Once more of patriots:—throw the anarch off!
Thy children once were brave, and bold, and strong,
Scorning rebellion's wiles and treason's scoff,
Tear, tear their banners down—their blood-red garments doff.

What, shall the Puritans come back again?
Th' accursed Roundheads, to pollute the shrine
Of God?—with traitors, Atheists, in their train?
Shall Oxford hear the hypocrite's false whine?
And Isis weep o'er her departed line?
The pillars all are trembling—and the wing
Is pluck'd—the glories gone that were divine—
The plumes, the banners torn!—How shall we sing
When sounds of shatter'd temples in the horizon ring?

130

Such men as follow'd Warbeck, still are here,
Robbers and ruffians, who, like maggots, gnaw
At rottenness:—whose choicest atmosphere
Is lust and murder:—in whose poisonous maw
The foulest breath's engendered. Men who grow,
As doth the fungus, where's most vile decay:
Thieves, bankrupts, convicts—such as nothing know
But wrong, disorder, death;—loving to stray
'Mid blood and dead men's bones, 'mid desolation's sway.

O'er Burgundy's green vineyard's there's a shade,
A dimness on the pastures. The proud sun,
Even like some great victorious king, hath laid
His worn limbs down:—his daily toil is done!
But oh, what glorious curtains over-run
His canopy!—What gold and crimson meet
Around the couch where ocean's billows run!
How winds and waters cool his burning feet,
And murmur to his slumbers, symphonies most sweet!

The ships are in the harbour, and like trees
In winter, when their leaves are blown away—
Like skeleton trees they stand. Upon the breeze
Each pennant like a fiery snake doth prey.
The gladsome waves leap up, and waft their spray
Like farewell kisses 'gainst each painted prow—
The glittering dolphins in the shadows play,
And scatter o'er the waves their burnish'd glow,
The mermaids sing for joy among their spars below.

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But who is she that gazeth on that sight
Through glimmering tears?—'tis Burgundy's bright queen!
Proud and majestic in the fading light
Of evening doth she stand, and with a keen
And mournful sorrow contemplates the scene.
And oh, how beautiful! Her dark hair flows
Like midnight shadows; and, alas, I ween,
Those dazzling orbs are dimm'd with many woes
That add to their deep, dark, and sorrowful repose!

Her rich embroider'd garments droop in pride
Along her stately limbs. Her spiritual brow
And gorgeous bosom mock the foam-topp'd tide
For perfect whiteness; the meek wavelets bow
To her, as to their ocean-queen, I trow.
Alas, that like a time-defying tree,
Revenge, in such a lovely breast should grow—
O that so pure and bright a shape should be
The monitress of guile and hollow mockery.

But, she hath mourn'd the sorrows of her race:
Blood—reeking blood, hath sunk into her brain;
Barnet and Tewkesbury each have left their trace;
She sees each murder'd king, each warrior slain,
Each gentle murder'd prince and battle-plain.
The heart of woman is the bower of bliss;
Its fruits are fed with constant summer rain;
But let the fiend, Revenge, its foliage kiss,
Its flowers are turn'd to blight—its scent to bitterness.

132

The ships approach our shore. They shout aloud
With joy to see our abbeys breast the sky—
To see our towers and temples standing proud—
To see our fields and groves that calmly lie,
And fertile inland vales. Far as the eye
Can reach is comfort, pleasantness, and peace.
Huts, villages, and castles they espy;
Rich, golden harvests in their proud increase;
Row after row of vales, and towns that never cease!

And such was pleasant Kent. They, who, of yore,
“Did from the Norman win a gallant wreath,
“Confirm'd the charters that were theirs before,”
And, in the cause of freedom, spent their breath
For truth and liberty, despising death.
Nor were they cowards now, but firm and true
They stood, and drew the faulchion from its sheath!
Them did the spirit of their sires embue,
And Liberty in them regain'd her ancient hue.

But there were traitors round the monarch's throne,
O, Stanley, Stanley, thou, who, on the field
Of Bosworth, hurl'dst the proud usurper down;
Thou, who, at Bosworth, bore the anointed shield
That sav'd us, and didst make the murderer yield!
My treasurer, my chamberlain, my friend,
The keeper of my heart;—and dost thou wield
The spear of treason?—Stanley, dost thou bend
Thy might against thy king—and, on his peace, descend;

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“'Tis my companions, not mine enemies—
“'Tis such as eat my food that have betray'd;
“Yet, ere to-morrow's sun ascend the skies,
“The vulture fierce shall leave his native glade,
“And feed on thee, and gnaw thy aching head!”
Yes, men of Kent, 'twas you who did the deed,
Ye, with the ancient spirit, undismay'd,
Drove your war-horses to their mighty speed,
And made the invaders shake before you like a reed.

Yea, ye were great, and glorious, and free,
Majestic in your natures, with the pride
Of the old heroes, patriots, liberty.
Alas, alas! that in your valleys wide,
Now, atheist, traitor, sitteth side by side;
That flames—red raging flames ascend the sky,
And, round your rose-wreath'd doors, in eddies glide,
Like fires of hell;—that now the incendiary
Stalks o'er your peaceful vales, and doth your strength defy!

There is a festal glare in Holyrood,
The towers are lit, the windows seem on fire;
And Arthur's seat, to pleasant thoughts subdued,
Looks proudly down as if he were its sire.
The ancient pavements echo, higher and higher,
To each loud chariot and sleek, prancing steed;
Thousands look on, and wistfully admire
The noble shapes they hurl along in speed,
And, as they view them, pray for Scotland's ancient breed.

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They now are met—brave knights and ladies fair!—
(Bold, stalwart knights, who, in the battle-field,
Had rid full oft in triumph, nor did care
For death, but, on Northumbria's hills did wield
Spear, sword, and faulchion, and would never yield!
Pure, lovely maids from vale and mountain-side,
Where lofty castles o'er wild ravines reel'd;—
Maids, like the spirits of their hills, who glide
Among the morning mists and tempests in their pride.)

The rush-entwined floor, unstain'd with blood,
(Since stain'd) delighted, bore their honour'd feet;
The tapestries shew'd Dian in the wood—
Her naked nymphs—her stag-hounds strong and fleet;—
Fair Venus, in her forest-wove retreat,
Trimming the tangles of Adonis' hair;—
Semele woo'd and won;—and yet more meet,
The dancing Bacchanals were pictur'd there,
And loveliest wood-nymphs racing in the open air.

Vases of gorgeous flowers were trimly plac'd,
And shed delicious perfume. On the wall,
In niches, antique carvings fitly trac'd
Stood meetly; and, far-shining through the hall,
With dazzling lustre, that unshrouded all,
Were golden lamps, with silver chains hung high.
The curtains of rich purple, like a shawl,
Were laid around the windows; and the sky,
Nor yet the stars, could view the wild festivity.

135

Now sounds the harp!—now sounds the music, loud
In festive melody. See, how they go
In mazy wreaths of beauty, each one proud
In her surpassing charms. The circles flow
Rapid, and pleasure sits on every brow.
What loveliness! O, how supreme a sight!
What gorgeous bosoms heave before us now!
What angel-shapes! What heads of perfect light,
Burning with locks of gold! What visions of delight!

Some eyes are dark as is a Lapland night;
Some blue and tender as an Eastern sky;
Some cheeks, like roses bathed in evening's light,
Glow richly; some are pale and fair; some, high
And haughty, do, like ancient queens, move by;
Some, gentle and most sylph-like, seem to ask
Affection and protection from each eye;—
O, lovely!—such as in our visions bask,
Slumbering, in summer woods, without an aim or task.

But who is she that towers above them all?
What graceful being? She doth need no crown—
Her golden-cluster'd curls, that amply fall,
Proclaim her beauty's queen. She need not own
A sceptre, all men at her feet fall down;
Hearts are her lands and empires; and her tower
Of strength, the love and admiration shewn
By all: she is a rare and perfect flower,
On which the sweetest dews and rains of heaven shower.

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Fair is she, yet her sweet humility
Proclaims it not;—yea, beautiful as night,
When moon and stars are spread along the sky—
A sea of beauty and serene delight!
Around her breathes an atmosphere of light;
The ground she treads is sanctified; the place
She fills is lustrous, and the gloom made bright;
And, gazing on her meek and saintly face,
One could not deem that sin had ever left his trace.

She, with her polish'd fingers, trills along
The harp;—O, what delicious sounds are heard!
Her silvery voice doth warble out a song;—
O, it is sweeter than the forest-bird,
And heavenly music seems each whisper'd word!
She dances—fairies, in their rings of green,
And buttercups, and daisies, never stirr'd
More gracefully;—O, would that I had been
Thy lover, gentle one, thy beauty to have seen!

They meet—Warbeck and lovely Gordon meet!
They meet to love. But once did Warbeck gaze
Into the maiden's eyes, but once her sweet
Orbs gaz'd on his, their hearts were in a blaze.
And, when they tread the dance's devious maze,
All do admire, so gracefully they glide;
No after vision can this sight erase,
Of female loveliness and manly pride,
To filmy human eyes, alas, too oft denied!

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He whispers in her ear, and they are gone
The moonbeams fell o'er lofty Arthur's seat,
That like a giant slept, whose toils are done:
The sea sent forth his murmurs dim and sweet,
Like faded memories; and the huge sheet
Of living waves look'd upward to the moon,
And the cold moon did kiss them. From the heat
Of day, the stag lay slumbering alone,
To whom the breezes sent their sweetest gentlest tone.

Like phantom palaces Edina stood,
Her towers and turrets glittering in the light.
Her castles seem'd a giant solitude,
Where wizards and enchanters, in the night
Might weave their mysteries and try their might.
Nought did distrub the utter silence there,
Save the dim sound of music and delight
That Holyrood sent out into the air,
Love, gentleness, and peace, were rulers everywhere.

The nightingale did weave his sweetest song
On the top branches, and around their bower
The perfum'd honeysuckle twin'd along
With many a curious and delightful flower
Enwreath'd. 'Mid such a scene did Warbeck shower
Delicious kisses, and did sigh his love—
“O blessed maid, who o'er thy sex doth tower—
“Grant me to be thy worshipper, and move
“Beside thee, O thou angel, come from Heaven above.”

138

“I am no courtly wooer—let me lay
“My crown, my life, my all before thy feet!
“Long have I been a wanderer far away;
“O let me in thy bosom find a seat
“To rest and feel thy heart's enraptur'd beat!
“As Apame, Darius did command,
“So thou shalt me—thy slave and servant meet:
“O, loveliest maid that dwellest in the land,
“Upon my knees I ask thy fair and beauteous hand!”

And oft the lover kist her gentle cheek,
And eyes and forehead heaving many a sigh.
Then did the maiden say, in language meek,
As on the ground she cast the pensive eye,
“I cannot help but love, I know not why!
“Do with me what thou wilt!” They join again
The festal throng, and list the melody;
But, O, their hearts do hear another strain,
They wander far away o'er love's Elysian plain!

O joy of love returned—O mighty bliss!
O rapture, ecstacy, and trust divine,
When lovers mingle in their tenderness,
And truth, and hope, and virtue intertwine!
The touch of fire, the eyes that passionate shine,
The speechless happiness, the faultering voice,
These, oh thou mighty power of love, are thine!
Sure blessed angels on their thrones rejoice
To gaze on true hearts beating with a mutual choice.

139

Again, and there is joy in Holyrood!
There was a bright procession moving on
Towards the chapel:—lords and ladies stood
Around the marble stairs; the priest is gone,
White-rob'd, behind the altar. The bright sun
Shines down through painted panes on arch and tomb;
Around each shape his chequer'd lustres run
And light each scarf, and robe, and dancing plume—
But, O where true love is, there never can be gloom.

Her lovely form, all clad in robes of white,
She seems a holy saint before the shrine;
From all her presence streams efflulgent light,
That, like a halo, round her head doth shine—
In innocence angelic and divine!
O guard her well, proud lover, she's a gem,
More precious than a world, and she is thine;
A treasure rarer than a diadem,
A watch-tower and a light to cenotaph thy fame.

The sunbeams nestled round her as she went;
The sweetest perfumes sought her on the air;
The warmest winds their hymeneals sent,
And kiss'd insidiously her bosom fair:
Dropping sweet rose-leaves on her cluster'd hair.
The flowers bent forth to touch her fairy feet,
And the blue Ocean, amorous to be there,
Did whisper in her ear his councils meet,
And from his coral depths, sent hymnings wild and sweet.

140

And, when at night, that virgin rose was won,
And in her love and beauty she did lie,
Shone down from heaven the ample-horned moon
Upon her dreams—and the star-spangled sky
Her sleeping loveliness did all espy.
The blushing roses, round her lattice spread,
Scatter'd voluptuous incense—and, on high,
The nightingale, on light and glow-worms fed,
Sung loud melodious songs, that might awake the dead.

Strange sights hast thou beheld, old Holyrood!
Old gaunt and giant kings have dwelt with thee,
And stain'd thy marble stairs with lust and blood—
Thou hast beheld the proud, and great, and free;
And loveliness hath revell'd in its glee
Among thy halls. The sigh of love was thine,
Mingled with murder's savage butchery;
And reeking blood along thy floors did twine,
With which did crystal tear-drops wofully combine.

The tempest and tornado, from their deep,
Deep caves, far sounding through the riven sky,
Have shook thy battlements, and woke thy sleep.
The hail, and rain, and snow, and mists that fly,
Have shower'd at midnight on thy turrets high.
Then, in thy wakening trance, the sunbeams came;
The halo-guarded moon and stars that lie
In azure vales—and evening's mellow flame,
And morning's painted clouds and breezes breath'd thy name.

141

And thou hast heard the tempest-riven sea;
The mingled echos sent from Arthur's seat,
Reverberate in his caves. Thou'st heard the glee
Of singing shepherds; and upon thy feet
Hath hung the city's roar, the mighty beat
And clang of human hearts. War's hideous jaw
Hath hurl'd o'er thee its poisonous thunder-sheet;
And Carnage tore thee with his fanged paw,
And spew'd upon thy garments from his blood-stain'd maw.

Since thou wert first—since thy foundation-stone
Wast laid, how many a shipwreck on the sea
Hath shriek'd, 'mid lurid lightnings; many a groan
Hath rent the secrets of eternity,
From plague and war, and lust; the mystery
Of death been open'd; kings have lost their crown,
And enslaved nations risen to be free;
Despots and tyrants, from their guarded throne,
Have felt the freeman's majesty, and tumbled down.

Blue heavens have look'd on many a woodland bower,
Where love breath'd out its ditties to the air;
Blue heavens have gaz'd on many a broken flower
Of beauty, wither'd when it seem'd most fair.
Bright-headed boys have sunk without a care;
Old grey-brow'd men have bow'd their heads and died;
And youth hath fallen without a changed hair.
The whirling wheel hath turn'd; and, side by side,
With circling spheres, great worlds felt time's majestic tide.

142

Yet Holyrood—august and royal place,
Still tower thy turrets to the setting sun;
The distant mountains leave on thee their trace
Of dimness, still thy grandeur is not gone:
The spangled heavens their constant orbits run:
Moons change, and falling stars disturb their sphere,
But still, of living temples, thou art one,
Thy stones are mov'd not, and thou hast no fear—
Still sun, and moon, and stars, behold thy aspect clear.

The old knights and the ancient dames are dead,
That in thy dances whirl'd. Gordon no more
Touches the harp—Warbeck's wild course is sped:
The night of joy and merriment is o'er;
Yet still thou lookest out on hill and shore;
And city-streets, all changed, and fresh, and new:
And Arthur's cliffs are with thee evermore,
And watch thee, like a guardian, firm and true;
And Cheviot, from afar, peers through his mists of blue.

O, we will leave him in his proudest state,
In all his blaze of fame and happiness!
We will not drag him from his lofty height,
Nor wrench the clasp'd embrace of tenderness,
The wedded kiss and conjugal caress.
Suffice it, that the lovely Gordon still,
In all his woes, was ever near to bless;
And, when the cruel axe of murder fell,
The “pale rose” dropt sweet dews, and sigh'd his piteous knell.

143

That blaze of beauty then beheld, is gone—
Warbeck is past away! Gordon is dead!
With myriad flowers and stars that now are none;
With myriad monsters in their caverns dead;
With myriad savage beasts, to silence wed;
With myriad forests fall'n in all their pride,
Warbeck and Gordon bow the drooping head:
Eternity hath whelm'd them in its tide,
With all the various dead that toward its ocean glide.

145

IMPRISONMENT AND DEATH OF YOUNG EDWARD PLANTAGENET, EARL OF WARWICK. REIGN OF HENRY VII.

“He has outsoared the shadow of our night;
Envy, and calumny, and hate, and pain,
And that unrest, which men miscal delight,
Can touch him not, and torture not again.
From the contagion of the world's slow stain
He is secure, and now can never mourn
A heart grown cold—a head grown grey in vain;
Nor, when the spirit's self has ceas'd to burn,
With sparkless ashes loud, an unlamented urn.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley.

[_]

(I cannot, in quoting from this exquisite author, help lamenting that the works of Shelley are so little circulated in the libraries of the people. In spite of many objectionable passages, the general sentiments are of the most ennobling and commanding character; “every line is instinct with peculiar beauty.”)

“With a general character of originality and boldness, they (the Plantagenets) were a race often tinged with their own blood.”—Bacon.

“He was a perfect innocent.”—Holinshed.

What, hath that mighty race that soar'd so high;
That trod the Saracen and Scotchman down;
That did the Frenchman's legion'd hosts defy;
And planted on the Celtic cliffs a throne;
And won an empire and a monarch's crown—
Say, can it be that that majestic band,
Those bold Plantagenets, whose vast renown
In thunder echoed over every land,
And bore the mighty earth beneath its huge command,

146

Hath fallen at last? The accumulated weight
Of full four hundred years hath dropt away—
Faded, the dazzling lustre, into night,
That mingled with the sun's far-piercing ray!
Palsied the hand that held the earth at bay;
Sear'd the bright head that, in the ranks of war,
Tower'd eminent amid the bloodiest fray;
Dimm'd the clear eye that, like a piercing star,
Shone calm; the axles broke of their triumphal car!

Their race is o'er! The banner droopeth low
That once in terror shook the lurid sky!
The casque and plumed helm at length must bow;
The grinding sword must now all rusted lie;
No more the battle-axe shall gleam on high!
Cressy, Poictiers, and Agincourt are gone!
Richard and Edward are with history:—
Yet shall their fame, as with a trumpet's tone,
To time's remotest verge and boundary be known!

This empire, that is boundless as the sea,
That, with its billows, roars to every land,
Hath lost its ancient pomp and majesty,
And rests its fortunes in an infant's hand!
Poor Warwick, it doth make the tear-drops stand
Hot in the eyes, as we record thy fate;
How thou wast born to glory and command
The regal sceptre, and the kingly state,
Now chain'd in dungeon'd caves, forlorn and desolate!

147

Thy soul can chronicle no act of good;
What doth it know but of thy father's clay,
In mockery floating on a pool of blood!
What but of war and the usurper's sway,
And groans, and borken hearts, and wild dismay!
Poor youth, he never knew a mother's kiss;
The eye that beam'd affection's placid ray;
The loving clasp, the passionate caress;
The watcher of his sleep—a mother's tenderness.

'Stead of a mother's breast, the cold damp stone
Pillow'd his head. 'Stead of her gentle tongue
Borne to his dreams, he heard the night-winds' groan.
'Stead of affection's tears, the turrets rung
With the loud-showering rains, and storms that sung
Dissonant music. 'Stead of shady bower
Wreath'd by a mother's hands, the black roof hung
Like night above his head;—and every hour
He fear'd that Death would come, and bind him to his power.

O, other children have a pleasant home
Of dear delights, this wretched youth had none!
Nature to them's a palace where they roam,
Culling enchanted flowerets all alone,
And hearing fairies in each warbled tone.
The mossy nests of hidden birds they find,
And try to wile the architects when gone,
By mockery of their voices;—and they bind
Daisies for monarch's crowns, with buttercups entwin'd.

148

The rainbow on the hill they fancy their's:
They deem heaven's canopy is spread for them:
The voices warbled on the ministering airs,
The stars that cluster heaven's clear diadem;
Each lovely flower, each gaily painted gem;
Each beauteous insect, glittering in the light;
Each beast that wantons in the noon-day flame;
Each gorgeous hue, each fond and lovely sight,
They deem is sent for them, their heritage and right.

Their friendship is a saintly brotherhood;
They all are equals, and they know no wrong;
They wander where they list, and constant good
Is with them—peace, and harmony, and song.
Brief are their strifes; their love is pure and strong;
Life's racking wheel o'er them rolls heedlessly;
Their heart's the world in which they move along;
And constant hope and rapture round them lie:
O, who would not return to blissful infancy!

But Warwick hath no mother's prayer at night,
Nor sister's kiss;—nor bird, nor flower, nor tree;
Nor stars, nor rainbows—neither hue nor sight—
Nor hope, nor love, nor peace, nor liberty.
Nought can he hear, or feel, or know, or see—
Nought but the dungeon floor, the dungeon wall,
The loathly damps, the chains around his knee—
A blacken'd prison is his father's hall,
And filthy tatter'd garments are his purple pall!

149

Kind looks, and tones, and solace hath he none,
That youthful hermit! Nothing doth he know
But tears and sorrow, and the bitter groan,
The beating bosom and the burning brow!
The channels of the soul have ceased to flow;
Words, thoughts, imaginations, hath he none;
His brain is like a tomb where phantoms go,
Death-peopled; like a tree that stands alone,
Silent itself, but listening to the night-wind's moan.

Yet Henry—tyrant—murderer—that boy,
That almost idiot boy, shall rise at last
With prouder triumph, more ecstatic joy
Than thou—who, shivering at the trumpet blast,
Shalt pray the stones, and cliffs, and rocks, to cast
A shade and shelter o'er thy blood-stain'd head!
That prince in Abraham's bosom shall sleep fast,
When thou art tossing in thy fiery bed,
Tormented by the phantoms of thy murder'd dead!

That innocent shall stand before his God,
When thou art struggling in the flames of hell!
That innocent shall tend his Maker's nod,
When thou in utter misery shalt dwell!
And his now scarcely human voice shall swell
Harmonious hymns of praise and jubilee,
And in rich robes he shall be clothed well,
When thou shalt shriek, when fire consumeth thee—
When thou shalt see his bliss, and feel thy agony!

150

Thou, Tower, there's scarce a crevice in thy wall,
Unfill'd with lamentation. Scarce a chain
That is not rusted deep with blood. The groan,
The sigh, the sob of agony and pain
Have echoed in thy courts, and the loud plain
Of madness swell'd o'er Thames's majestic flow!
Kings, queens, and lords have felt the leaping brain,
The fever'd eyeball, and the burning brow,
And shriek'd to hear the death-bell swinging to and fro.

Strange tales, thou mighty fortress, can'st thou tell
Of passions utter'd in the midnight hour;
What shatter'd visions 'mid thy dungeons dwell
Of freedom, home, and love. Yea, mighty Tower,
Thy chains have bound the martyr's spirit lower;
The patriots, heroes' lofty souls have died
To nought 'neath tyranny's infernal shower;
Yet, from thy gates like kings, and side by side,
They proudly have stalk'd forth, and perish'd in their pride.

Meek innocence, with parted hands in prayer,
Hath wet thy floors with tears of agony;
Heart-rending groans have fill'd thy heedless air,
Till grown familiar quite with misery.
Beauty in vain hath op'd the azure eye,
And tore its locks, and beat its lovely breast,
And call'd upon the bright and careless sky:—
Thy chains have bound the loveliest and the best;
Thy blood-stain'd floor's the pillow where their heads might rest!

151

Men strong of limb, who, in the cannon's throat,
Would dare its thunder, and, despising fear,
Rush through destruction's ranks, have sunk to nought,
And wept like little babes, when night is near,
To leave hope, fame, for a dishonoured bier!
The meekest maids have felt the hero's soul,
And proudly smil'd, and dash'd away the tear!
And patriots have beheld before them roll
The shapes of coming years, when tyranny should fall!

Especial praise to you, ye noble seven,
Who, here immur'd, preferr'd to pine and die,
Rather than recreants live to God and heaven;
Who, when the gather'd ranks of Papistry
Touch'd Oxford, did their legion'd hosts defy!
Still, still, descendent bishops, proudly stand,
Nor ope your gates to fraud and infamy;
Still be as pillars to this falling land;
The God of heaven protects, and holds you in his hand!

Thou'st been the tyrant's fortress—be thou now
The stronghold of the patriot and the free!
Let freedom's beacons stand upon thy brow;
And, from thy mantled turrets, let us see
The standard, helm, and plume of liberty.
Too long thy gates, and moats, and stubborn stone,
And dens, and caves, have link'd with tyranny;
Too long the widow's curse and orphan's moan
Been heard within thy walls—let's hear thee now atone!

152

My soul looks o'er the visionary past;
Thou saw'st old Thames, when scarce a single sail
Met on his waves, the sunbeam, or the blast.
Thou wast, ere commerce, borne on freedom's gale,
Dar'd rugged rocks, and stormy seas assail—
Ere distant shores had felt the English prow.
The history of empires is thy tale:
A thousand years are written on thy brow;
The mighty dead of ages are thy records now!

Thou hast beheld each rough old English knight
Gallop upon thy pavements in their pride;
Mighty processions, like a stream of light,
Thou'st seen along the thronged pavements glide.
Thou hast beheld invasion's stormy tide
Strike at thy walls;— and heard the traitor's roar;
Thou art the parent of those temples wide,
That circle round thee, spreading more and more;
Thou hast beheld the lords and kings of every shore!

The clang of civil war hath shook thy wall;
The fires of persecution singed thy hair;
Thou hast beheld a proud religion fall,
Her shrines and temples shatter'd without care.
Thou'st seen a murder'd king, the tainted air
Loaded with ruffian curses. Thou hast seen
A murdered queen, the fairest of the fair—
And heard full oft the victor's march, I ween;
And victory's burning flag upon thy towers hath been.

153

Still art thou—but what changes have been thine!
That glorious river now is loaded quite
With brilliant vessels that, all proudly shine,
(Glorious alike in commerce or in fight)
And, o'er the waters, shed their burnish'd light.
Temples, and towers, and domes spread everywhere,
And festive splendour in each street burns bright;
A myriad voices murmur on the air;—
There's clang and noise enough to drive thee to despair.

Still art thou; but, methinks, a mighty change
Hath come, and, in the calm and silent night,
Thou'st seen the robber and the murderer range;
And lust committed, without fear or fright,
Beneath the blushing moon's celestial light.
Thou'st heard the Bacchanal's rude, dissonant roar,
Where once was calm and peace; and, what was bright,
Is mist and gloom; and man is now no more,
Pure as in earlier times, but rotten to the core.

Still shalt thou be!—And shall I, in my swoon,
Dream prophecies? Thou'st seen our brightest time;
Thou'st seen Britannia in her proudest noon;
Past is our greatness—vanish'd is our prime;
The pillars gone that made the land sublime!
There is an earthquake by the sounding sea;
There is a monstrous beast that strives to climb
Into the temples of the brave and free!—
I gaze on shatter'd shrines!—O, can it ever be?

154

I see a sceptre in a murderer's hand—
A crown upon a traitor's gory head!
I see the harvests wither'd from the land—
The trees, the flowers, the meadows, sear'd and dead!
The rivers all are dyed with blood, and red
With revolution. On the marble stair
Of palaces black, trunkless shapes are spread;
The fox hath ta'en our temples for his lair;
The owl, the bat, the raven have their cages there!

Men fight like demons in each bloody street;
The noblest, bravest, and the best are slain!
I hear the sound of death's loud clanging feet,
I hear the murderer's oath—the virgin's plain;
And, Oh, I gaze upon a white-robed train
Of holy priests that at their altars die,
Yet, singing hymns to God through all their pain,
That soar above the atheist's drunken cry!—
But, lo! the vision's gone into its native sky.

Warwick is dead—the pattering rains—the storm
Disturb him not; the tempest cannot shake
His charnel-hole—his dwelling-house deform.
Warwick is dead, and never will awake!
He never more shall feel the spirit's ache—
The fever'd eye—the hot and beating brow;
Disease and Pestilence shall never shake
Their garments o'er him; nought can touch him now;
Plantagenet's last stem is slumbering deep and low!

155

He might have trod in courts monarchical,
And seen the festive pomps of regal pride,
And join'd the courtly dance to music's fall:
In bowers, with beauty, sitting side by side,
He might have pour'd forth passion's stormy tide,
And felt love's thrilling touch and wild caress:
But now the grave's his home, the worm's his bride;
Among his shining locks the beetles race;
Death's chilling mists are now his atmosphere of bliss!

Perchance, if he had lived, the battle-field
Had felt the footsteps of his rising fame;
Perchance, it had been his once more to wield
The faded glories of his ancient name.
Wisdom, and valour, and the tongue of flame,
The murderer's axe, perchance, hath quenched quite;
And the proud heart death had no power to tame
Been chill'd by the black dungeon's withering might,
And deeds of loftiest fame sunk down to endless night!

Death comes on wings invisible, like the wind;
His touch is blight; there's poison on his kiss;
He can the mightiest kings and heroes bind;
The strongest warrior faints in his caress.
Goodness and honour, wisdom, loveliness,
Wealth, greatness, eloquence, before him fall;
Through iron walls the tyrant grim can press;
He hath his home in cottage as in hall;
His empire and dominion circle over all.

156

The battle-field, the storm, the hungry waves,
The perpendicular rock, the mist, the snow,
The pestilence, the earthquake are his slaves.
Sometimes his steps are sluggish, faint, and slow;
Sometimes as rapid as the whirlwind's flow:—
Warwick had scarcely time to view the sky,
And hear the murmurous winds about his brow,
So long abstracted from his ear and eye,
Ere body went to death, and spirit soar'd on high.

A parting dirge!—The last, the last is dead—
The last Plantagenet! Ye tempests, sing
And shout from all your caves around his head!
Ye mountain-cataracts—ye torrents—ring
This requiem! ye waves, your dirges bring!
Let morn, and noon, and pleasant evening, hear
His memory, like a seraph's waving wing!
Suns, rainbows, moons, and every starry sphere;
Let that majestic name aye thunder in your ear.

157

QUEEN PHILIPPA. REIGN OF HENRY VII.

Even like a noble tower that stands alone,
Perfect in all its parts, and soaring high
Above the ocean-waves, as on a throne,
And mocking at its wrath with placid eye;
Its halls attir'd with pomp and bravery;
Its courtways throng'd with statues; every wall
Hung round with pictures and rich tracery;
Yea, like a stately mansion, perfect all
That habitation is, which holds the immortal soul.

Again, and when the waves and winds have swept
That temple, and destroy'd the marble floor;
Shatter'd the niches where meek statues slept,
Erased the paintings all so rich before,
Through every room and chamber revell'd o'er,
And stolen each gem and lovely thing away—
Such is the mind when roused by madness' roar,
Its beauteous fabric hath no morning ray:
Its heavenly tenant seems no more than passive clay.

158

The mind it is a town and citadel;
The city of the soul; the house, the dome,
Where that which is immortal loves to dwell!
It is a walk where pleasant fancies roam;
Here Reason, Will, Desire have made their home;
Here sits Imagination on her throne;
Here dreams, and ecstacies, and visions come;
Here start enchanted pictures that atone
For half our woes; here sights most radiant wander down!

The mind it is heaven's spark in human dust;
'Tis heavenly fire, in wretched human clay;
'Tis this that makes it soar beyond the crust
That circles it; by this we're borne away
To the empyrian, and our offering lay
On shrines celestial; lustrous, burning bright,
Man cannot quench it, or its wanderings stay;
'Twas fallen Adam's lamp, lost Eden's light,
The glow that shone on chaos and dissolved its night.

It can combine, dissolve, support, divide,
Examine, reason, judge, and analyze;
'Tis stronger than the monarch in his pride,
Yet, like a lamb, at wisdom's feet it lies.
It hath a power to climb the starry skies,
And soar above the rainbow; and, at will,
Discourse the planets; and, with councils wise,
Foretel the eclips'd sun; and, from the hill
Of thought and contemplation, the invisible tell.

159

It hath trod down the waves of the huge sea,
And plough'd the tempest, and dissolv'd the storm;
To every shore it wanders bold and free;
Gigantic mountains have beheld its form,
And sunk beneath its feet; its mighty arm
Hath shook vast forests, tamed the lion's might,
And doth the tiger of his fangs disarm;
Caverns of solid rocks have felt its light,
And the wide realms of air have seen it wander bright.

From blocks of stones most lovely shapes have come,
That, o'er the earliest times, their splendour cast;
Rude, barren rocks have rear'd full many a dome,
Temple, and pyramid, and tower, The past,
Though it is cloth'd with beauty, is o'ercast
With hues, like clouds of evening; it hath gone,
And of the pine-tree made a stubborn mast,
And wrung the yellow gold with many a groan;
And swords, and helms, and spears wrench'd from the barren stone.

Into the realms of meditative thought
The sprite hath burst, and rang'd the beams of day;
The little flowers of many a lovely spot
Have own'd it; and the birds regard its sway;
Rocks, trees, and stones their duteous homage pay;
The elemental origins are known;
This wondrous human skeleton doth lay,
Even at its feet, its secret mysteries down,
And every living thing its majesty doth own.

160

Its cradles were Greece, Egypt, Babylon,
Assyria, Rome. Men brave, and bold, and high
Philosophers, its swaddling clothes put on,
Gave fitting words, and did direct its eye;
Kings, priests, astronomers did early try
Its sandals, placing on its head a crown.
And last came Newton, to explore its sky:
He subjugated all its worlds, made known
The axis of its wheels, the centre of its throne.

Yea, like the azure breast of heaven, it is
All studded o'er with stars, as with a floor,
For the Great God. Its inner thoughts are bliss,
Or woe, or both. We ope its crystal door;
We gaze, as on a fair or barren shore,
Even as we list. The world is sad and lone,
Ourselves can make it lovely as of yore;
Instead of tear, and sigh, and bitter groan,
Ourselves can give to woe and fear a pleasant tone.

Yea, of its high-priests Newton's name is first.
Then issue forth, like lamps, a radiant band,
Euclid and Archimedes, names that burst
The gloom of early times. Plato doth stand
With Zeno. Socrates, too, holds command
With Seneca, who both, as martyrs, died
For truth: these o'er the spirit held command,
And made the limits of its range more wide,
And bore it far aloft to soar in constant pride.

161

To these, we add the poets; that pure host
Of almost martyrs. Homer rings his shell
From fabulous regions, and the soul is lost
Amid the plumes of war—we cannot swell
His fame; the classic Virgil hath a knell
O'er burning Troy; we list to Horace's name;
The pure and saintly Milton, too, can tell
Of mighty acts; we hear of Shakspeare's fame;
And Byron's lyre is heard amid the mouldering flame.

'Tis we ourselves, like murderers, have come
And call'd up shapes of blood. We, we alone,
Have driven the serpent to his secret home,
And given him fangs; and made the cliffs a throne
For the fierce wolf. The storms have got their tone
From us; we have created hate and war;
'Tis we have stain'd the sun, and dimm'd the moon,
And scatter'd clouds around the morning star:—
When first the world was ours, there was no strife nor jar.

It came, a spirit from elysium,
Cloth'd by God's hands, a thing of saintly light;
Pleasure, and joy, and rapture were its doom:
These have we chang'd to clouds, and storms, and night.
God gave us peace, and love, and rare delight;
Man gave us blood, and wrong, and lies, and hate.
Our primal world was beautiful and bright;
Now fiends and scorpions linger at our gate,
And want, and fear, and pestilence in our pathways wait.

162

And madness—madness, of all woes the chief;
The spectral phantom—the strange ghastly form—
The blood-stain'd nightmare—and the midnight thief—
We, we ourselves have conjur'd to deform
Our temple; we gave valour to his arm;
Lust, wrong, intoxication brought him here;
We gave the giant's sinews to the worm,
And call'd the midnight phantasies of fear—
For that which came from God, was stainless, pure, and clear!

What wreck hath madness! Comes a changed hue,
Black and distorted, o'er each living thing!
The hidden workings of the soul are new—
Its gates, and halls, and courts, and chambers ring
With sound of desolation! The winds bring
The shrieks of ghosts; fiends echo in the ear;
And wild and strange unearthly voices sing,
As from the dead, of grief, and woe, and fear,
And the stars seem to mock from out their holy sphere.

Some are there, who, with slow and devious feet,
Seek ancient places, where the lover's vow
Was murmur'd to their shame. She clasps the seat
Where he had sat, whose beauty brought her low—
And she will wreath rare flowers around her brow,
And sing beloved songs, and for her child
Wreath curious garlands, and in language sweet,
Tell of the faithless sire that her beguil'd,
Then sink to lamentations, terrible and wild.

163

Another weepeth for the silent dead,
And sorrow bears the sufferer to the ground—
The maiden whom he lov'd, in her death-bed
Lies low—and now the midnight hears the sound
Of his craz'd woes, and echo doth rebound
With mighty grief—He calleth on the sky
To send her back—the moon and starry round
He calleth, and the tempests rolling by,
And execrates the clouds, that like her garments fly.

He seeks her in each old familiar place,
Amid her pleasant walks—he seeks her tomb,
And calls her from the grass, and sees her face
Among the distant moonbeams—'mid the gloom
Of silent night he prowls, and bids her come.
Haggar'd and ghastly like a ghost he kneels,
And fancies he beholds her eyes illume
The darkness-and half fancies that he feels
Her hands in his—and with ecstatic gladness reels.

A mother maddens o'er her infant dead—
She feels his little lips and hands no more,
To cool her burning brow—his lovely head
Is sunk to dust; his pleasant wiles are o'er;
And now her main delight it is to shower
The wild rose o'er his grave, and o'er the stone,
His monument, wreathe garlands, and explore
The waving grass, as if he had not gone—
Then shriek with hideous cries, in solitude alone.

164

Some for the clinging love of gold, will craze,
And rake their prison pavement, and the clay,
For the incarnate fiend—and madly gaze
Into each crevice, and insanely pray
For gold, gold, gold—and when their heads they lay
In slumber, dream of bags and loads, and see
Huge burthens of the dross, which burthens they
Press to their shrivell'd breasts, and shout for glee,
And raise their bleared eyes—and wake to misery.

Some—the debauched, the profligate, the gay,
Whose life hath been a wild and reckless dream,
A wildering ecstacy and holiday;
When all is o'er, like an exhausted theme,
Their health, their wealth, their station gone, I deem;
Their dear, dear friends, all false—at last, start up
And curse themselves and all. For these did seem
True as the heavens; with them, did drink and sup;
Their food was death, and poison hiss'd within their cup.

The ambitious man, whose far exalted soul
Saw empires at his feet, and wore a crown—
Whose spirit in its phantasies, did roll
O'er seas and continents for high renown.
When the wild dream is o'er, the vision flown,
What's left but madness and a shatter'd brain?
The fabric of his thoughts hath humbled down,
And nought is left of enterprise or gain;
Nought hath he of his all, but agony and pain.

165

And some are warriors, and insanely wage
With swords of lath, fierce war, and massacre,
And hew down empires in their frothy rage:
Some, too, are kings and queens, and bind their hair
With straw for gold, and on their foreheads bear
Crowns of the woven reed, and on the stone
Of their cold dungeons, place themselves with ease
And fancy, they possess an empire's throne:
And some do nought but sing, and some do nought but moan.

Some 'mid black fiends and hideous phantoms dwell,
And view grim faces frowning on their sleep:
Some in their dreams, view all the fires of hell,
And hear the blazing whirlwinds o'er them sweep—
Shrieks, laughters, lamentations, groanings, keep
Their souls in constant dread; and staring wild,
With long and matted hair, they war and weep,
Or battle with the fiends that them beguil'd,
Or hide their burning foreheads like a frighted child.

The rustling leaves are phantoms in their eyes,
The moaning winds bring terror to their soul,
Departed spirits throng the starry skies,
And on the tempests horrid nightmares roll,
And Demons from the gulphs of midnight call:
Where sweet content and peace and gladness dwelt
With reason, madness reigns with control
The same who at the shrine of nature knelt,
And worshipp'd all her forms, and saint-like felt.

166

Her influences now are wreck'd and lost;
Her wilder'd vision wanders far away,
And like a storm-cloud through the heavens is toss'd;
Enchanted temples greet the evening ray;
Huge shaggy cliffs and caves around him lay;
Tempestuous seas, and monsters raging there,
Surround, and to the bard their homage pay;
And sometimes holy music fills the air,
And beatific sights irradiate his hair.

And sometimes, in his high impassioned dream,
Wing'd messengers will wander up and down,
And give the sun and rainbow for his theme:
Yea, shining spirits, each with golden crown
Array'd, and sitting on an emerald throne,
Each with a radiant sceptre in his hand,
Will call to him, with Heaven's harmonious tone,
And lift his visions to that starry land
Where peace, and love, and justice reign in joint command.

But, what of her, our queen?—She once was fair,
And sat in bowers of beauty, 'mid the ray
Of summer sunbeams, without thought or care;
Princes and youthful kings did homage pay
Before her loveliness, and woke the lay
Of serenading 'neath the midnight moon,
And watch'd beneath her casement, and did pray
That she would smile on them, and grant their boon,
And call'd her lofty names—and sought her late and soon.

167

The blessings on her infant cradle laid,
A nation's acclamations now are nought.
What recks it that her royal mother pray'd
For heaven to bless her infancy, and sought
Each holy saint? The brain is over wrought
To madness; there's no music in the tongue;
The soul is out of tune, and judgeth not;
The cup of reason's broke; the mind is wrung
To drops of blood, and agonies that never can be sung.

Her crown is as a bauble in her hand,
A toy for children. With her robes of state
She clothes her maids, and gives them her command:
Lovely in all madness, and elate
In beauty, kings might at her footstool wait;
For, in her open forehead and bright eye
Still seem the lamps of reason at the gate—
But the shrine is shatter'd—on the sky
Lingers the lucid thunder cloud, and storms are nigh.

169

THE BABES IN THE WOOD. REIGN OF HENRY VII.

“These pretty babes, with hand in hand,
Went wandering up and down,
But never more did see the man,
Approaching from the town:
Their pretty lips, with blackberries
Were all besmear'd and dyed,
But when they saw the darksome night,
They sat them down and cry'd.

Thus wander'd these two pretty babes,
Till Death did end their grief;
In one another's arms they died,
As if they sought relief:
No burial these pretty babes
Of any man receives,
But Robin Redbreast, painfully
Did cover them with leaves.

—Old Ballad, 225.

[_]

These sweet lines, from the Old Ballad, are enough to make one even in love with this gentle bird, though he comes to us but in winter, and then only through necessity. But every nation has a bird or a beast that it loves.

A Castle standeth in a lonely wood;
(Where trees, and brooks, and lakes conjoin to send
Delightful welcomes to the solitude.)
There in a darken'd room, a priest doth bend
O'er dying shape. The tapers lend
A solemn lustre. Not a sound is heard,
Save a low mournful language that might rend
The heart of Death, such feeling swells each word—
It seems the last low hymning of a dying bed!

170

It is these infants' mother. She is laid
On the white couch, her eyes are film'd and dim,
Her cheeks are pale, her hair is disarray'd!
Yet radiance, as around a cloudlet's rim,
Lights up her face, as she beholds each gem
Of childhood near her—her belov'd—her own.
And as she calls these little seraphim
To walk in virtue's paths, and aye disown
Sin's least approach, she seems a saint from heaven come down.

Blest little ones, they lean upon the ground,
And clasp their hands, and look into her eyes;
(And if a spell is breath'd in music's sound,
And if a charm from loveliness can rise,
And if there is an angel in the skies,
Sure ghastly death will not bereave them quite!)
And as the saintly mother feels the ties
Of life grow slacker, still she holds more tight,
And kisses with more rapture these young things of light.

They know not, gentle ones, that death can come
And claim his heritage. They cannot see
The presence of the phantom in their home.
They know not what the mystery can be
That chains the tongue, and bends the strongest knee.
But this they feel, that one they lov'd alone,
Their latest parent, friend, and sheltering tree,
Is fading; and they hear each sigh and groan,
And marvel what it bodes, and feel they are undone.

171

They hear the sound of soften'd tongues; they hear
Low steps upon the stair; and, oh, they see
Their parents' fading eyes, and drop a tear
Upon her snowy forehead! (Can it be
That death should be so wild a mystery?)
Then come the nodding plumes, the hearse, the pall,
The church, the grave, the dust!—Death's tracery
Of gloom and dark oblivion! and they call
In vain upon the dead, who hear them not at all.

And they shall weep at night—she is not there!
And they shall pray for her—she cannot come!
The gentle one that comb'd their golden hair,
And sung them into sleep, and watch'd their home,
Hath gone away, and fills the dreary tomb.
Gone, gone is she— gone, gone for evermore,
The spirit of their hope, and all is gloom!
Gone, gone away to heaven's serenest shore,
And they must stay behind amid the tempest's roar.

The orphan's lot, it is a bitter thing!
To feel no parent's blessing on their head:
No father's look, no mother's sheltering wing!
To live alone, and be with silence wed;
To have no hopes that spring not from the dead!
A hearth deserted it is theirs to bear;
With them few joys or sympathies are wed;
Their deepest feelings fall upon the air,
Alike their gladdest laughter or their deepest care.

172

Their loveliness must pass unheeded by;
Alone, neglected, sorrowful they go—
Unlov'd, uncared for, lost in misery.
Each face that gazeth, seems a bitter foe;
Each raised hand seems clench'd as for a blow.
O, they are young misanthropes, and do fear
The very sun that shines on all below—
Excess of kindness doth but bring a tear,
So much of strife and hate do linger with them here.

There is a wood where Nature loves to dwell;
Here Spring comes meekly tripping on a pace,
With sweetest flowers for garlands, and doth swell
Her trumpet tones of peace. Here glows the face
Of summer, bright like gold or evening's trace.
And, here comes Winter with rich tracery,
Of frosts and ice works. Here all season's race
Melodiously, and all things here are free,
And evermore array'd in love and harmony.

Here comes the morning sun, and scatters wide
From out his burning dome, bright sheets of fire,
Rousing the lazy birds to songs of pride,
That in thanksgiving up to heaven aspire.
Here doth the poet woo his well-lov'd lyre,
And seek the Muse with rapturous ecstacy.
(Alas—the sparklings of his funeral pyre!)
Here roams the love-lorn maiden far and free,
And here the patriot dreams of truth and liberty.

173

Here is a brook that sweetly winds along,
Clear from its mountain cave, and sings alway
Under its banks and flowers a gentle song;
Where the bright fishes hold their summer play,
And sport, and leap, and swim the livelong day.
And there's an ancient castle, where the owl
Doth build, and where the ivy wreathes his way;
And where the winter storms and tempests howl;
And where departed ghosts go wandering in their pall.

From these white crumbling stones you may espy
Long leagues of stately trees involv'd, yet clear,
That wind along before the wondering eye.
The sweetest sounds of music fill the ear,
The brightest hues incense the atmosphere.
Sometimes a towering crag starts forth, and now
Groups of black pine lend sad variety;
Rich, sunny mists, are haloes o'er the brow
Of the proud oaks, and mingle with each spreading bough.

Here well I deem the Druids might have dwelt,
And worshipp'd God amid the solemn green.
This moss might be the carpet where they knelt;
These rocks their chosen altar; this fair scene
Their church—these sounds their organ might have been.
Echo had listen'd to the sound of prayer,
The solemn looks of supplication seen.
Heaven been their roof'd cathedral, and the air
The garment and the veil that cloth'd them everywhere.

174

Here might the fair Diana, in her glee,
Have hunted, chasing far the royal deer;
Here might her naked nymphs have wanton'd free,
In crystal brooks, without a dread or fear—
No wandering hunter had beheld them here.
Love might have dwelt in constant hope; the tongue
Of strife and envy could not change its cheer—
O, to reside these quiet shades among,
With woman for my heart, and nature for my song!

To see the hoar frosts on the mossy ground,
Sparkling, 'mid diamond hues; to see the skies
With morn irradiate; to hear the sound
Of the first birds above the silence rise,
And gaze on heaven as with a prophet's eyes:
To see the little lambkins skip and play
'Mid flowers all rich attir'd; and, pure and wise,
Feel deep within the heart each sunny ray—
O, in what perfect bliss each year might pass away!

To feel voluptuous morn beneath the shade,
Of sovereign oaks: to feel at evening
Incense, and light, and splendour through each glade,
Whilst gay enraptur'd birds do proudly sing,
And hymnings from a thousand bosoms ring:—
To lie upon the wild flowers, and behold
Impurpled skies, and clouds upon the wing
Of burning fire—and view the waves of gold
And the rejoicing sun, bright, glorious, as of old!

175

And then, at night, to gaze upon the sky,
And wreath strange ditties on the solemn lyre,
To those bright visitants that dwell on high;
To call these stars blest spirits, heaven their sire,
Saints, friends, companions, empires, worlds of fire,
Spheres, myriad-peopled, things of mystic light,
That guard the eternal void; the abysm'd empire
That circles to the throne; beings of might;
Conquerors of darkness' realm, and watchmen of the night!

To gaze upon the moon and call her queen,
And make the clouds her garments, and the deep
Of heaven her pleasure-grounds. To mount screne
Into her sacred palaces, and sleep
On incens'd couches, where bright spirits keep
Their vigils 'mid Elysian bowers of bliss;
Soaring and soaring where none sigh or weep,
But sweetly dwell in perfect happiness,
Where guile and sin of man can never, never press.

Dreaming of visionary worlds afar,
Where blight, and death, and woe, can never come;
Where there is neither strife, nor flaw, nor jar;
Where evil thoughts and passions never roam;
Where nought but love and quiet have their home.
Fancying of beauteous shapes that wander there,
Unspotted and unstain'd as ocean's foam;
Men brave and bold, and women pure and fair,
'Neath blue unclouded heavens that circle everywhere.

176

Lands, where the tiger has no claw, and where
The lion and the lamb do join in play;
And where the fawn lies sleeping with the bear;
Where all things hold perpetual holiday;
Where fear, suspense, despair can find no way;
Where all men dwelling as in earliest time,
Still, in their pride, feel heaven's serenest ray;
And all things tell us of that glorious prime,
When man convers'd with God in eloquence sublime.

Such were these woods, (and such the language meet
They did converse) in which these children lay;
Such were the trees, the birds, the wild flowers sweet,
The streams that wander'd through each lonely way;
The dreams, thoughts, feelings, and the fancy's play,
That now are known where these young cherubs died;
Then silence linger'd there with all things gay;
And freshest breezes through these leaves did glide;
And peace and meditation wander'd side by side.

Alas, the summer winds make harmony
'Mid their green leaves; the sunbeams, from the sky,
May seek their hidden depths, and wanton free
Among their topmost branches—they shall die!
The golden-tinged snake, the butterfly,
The rainbow-colour'd bird shall pass away;
And those bright bowers, that now all idly lie,
Be eat to skeletons—the beetle's pray;
And where young flowerets bloom'd, the winter winds shall play.

177

Here came these lovely babes, and laid them down
Upon the moss, and wept their griefs aloud.
Sometimes, with wild-flowers, did they shape a crown;
Sometimes, they emblem'd with dead leaves, their shroud.
The fawns that bounded through the solitude
Deem'd they were woodland deities, and knelt
Before them; and the wild beasts, fierce and rude,
Disturb'd them not, but with them meekly dwelt
In peace; all nature join'd, and with their sorrows felt.

And so these babes did wander up and down,
And hand in hand, did look upon the sky,
Seeming two cherubs that the heavens might own,
Endow'd with heavenly sense and harmony!
Cold was each peached cheek and azure eye;
Forlorn were they, and sad, and desolate;
And, oft with mournful voices, they would cry,
Lamenting the misfortunes of their fate,
As on the cruel cliffs and gnarled trees they sate.

Then, tir'd with grief, each face would ape a smile,
And they would pluck the berries in the shade,
And, seeking nests of birds, their time beguile;
And they would mock the throstle in the glade,
And sing his songs. Elate, and undismay'd,
They sought each wood-walk wild, and where the light
Shone chequering through, they clasp'd their hands for aid;
And, straining their sweet eyes, they deem'd the bright
Pure aspect of their parents did rejoice their sight.

178

Eve came at last, and the gnat left the gloom,
And stung their pretty cheeks; the owl came out—
The owl and bat, like exiles from the tomb,
And through the eddying shadows flew about.
Each solemn cloud march'd slowly on its rout,
The trees grew dimmer, and their cheeks more pale,
And, lifting their young voices, each did shout
To the insensate echoes; on the gale
They fancied hideous shapes that might their sleep assail.

And, when they slept, you might have deem'd them come
From heaven—bright cherubim, from halls on high
Sent down in earthly solitudes to roam.
O, like to cherubim, these babes did lie,
Twin'd and embrac'd in saintly harmony!
Their breath did mingle, and their sunny hair
Lay interwreath'd like sunbeams: o'er each eye
The silken fringes spread; and pure, and fair,
In sweet embalm'd caresses, lay this gentle pair.

At length they died! No mother's gentle eye
Beheld them, and no father kiss'd their brow.
The winds breath'd o'er them sad and mournfully;
The waters groan'd, and dirges on each bough
Were heard, and midnight murmur'd faint and low.
The beetles from the grass crept out; each star
Shone dimly; meteors wander'd to and fro.
The mountains shook, as with an inward war,
When those dear children left the world's tempestuous jar.

179

And at their graves, no virgins clad in white
Attended, and no minstrelsy was heard;
But they were gather'd to eternal night
By the dear love of—what? a helpless bird!
Who sung their dirges, and each corpse interr'd;
Gathering the sweetest leaves of all the wood,
And shrouding them of its own sweet accord—
So that they slept in holiest solitude,
Where nature was their tomb, and no one might intrude.

And they slept well. The fairest wild-flowers grew
Above them, and the greenest leaves were there.
The nightingale, at midnight, sung most true
Their epitaphs unto the mourning air.
The moon and stars gaz'd down with stedfast care,
The deep blue caves of heaven did register
Their dying voices. O'er this saintly pair
Imagination's dearest dew-drops were
Let fall, and Memory did with them her hopes inter.

181

CORONATION OF HENRY VIII. JUNE 24, 1506.

Far upon the throne,
Gloriously he shone,
In purple robes of gold.”
—Old Ballad.

O, what a glorious morn! From out his hall
The sun walks forth, and fills the heavens with flames.
See, how the blushing clouds await his call,
And roll their golden chariots! Mighty Thames
Shouts, from his silver depths, rejoicing names,
And welcomes the glad echoes. From each street
The gathering hum is heard of lords and dames,
Preparing for the show and festal treat;
And banners float afar in many a purple sheet.

Lo, high in air the glittering domes appear!
Tower, spire, and battlement are clad in light;
The windows seem on fire; the houses hear
The sounds of gratulation! Proud and bright,
Westminster towers aloft in giant might;
And sable-brow'd St. Paul's is shook with pride,
Above his marble tombs of lord and knight.
In every street of London, far and wide,
The mighty impulse spreads, the coming splendours glide.

182

Hark, hark! the silver clarions shake the air,
With clear-resounding music, that beats low
The struggling breezes! Hark, the loud drums tear
The idle silence! Louder, louder now,
The trumpet-tones re-echo o'er the brow
Of the huge towns, and the bells gladly ring
In jubilee, to beating hearts below;
And, through the streets, young, beauteous damsels sing,
And waft the mazy dance on pleasure's joyous wing.

Bright human faces from each window shine;
And there are blooming cheeks, and burning eyes,
And long, delicious locks that hang divine
Down many a lovely neck. Yea, even the wise
And brave bow down to pleasure: tears and sighs
Are none; for, how shall sorrow linger here,
Where each poor house with golden tapestries
Is clad to hide the dust?—Where, bright and clear,
Women walk rich attir'd, and music fills the ear!

Why under cloth of gold, and in the hall
Of beauty, and beneath the clustering gem,
The ostrich plume, silk robe, and purple pall,
Helm, banner, and the clustering diadem,
Shall sorrow come? It was not made for them!
This day it was not. Yet, alas, and woe,
Too oft it roots beneath the proudest name,
And to the proudest palace-dome will go,
When, from the shepherd's hut, 'tis banish'd as a foe!

183

He comes—King Henry comes! Ope wide the way,—
Let in his blazing chariot! Louder still
Sound the loud clarion, let the trumpets play!
Let every heart feel his monarchic will!
He comes, he comes, and over vale and hill
Thames shouts aloud in triumph, and doth shake
His streaming flags, and roars to every rill
He hath! His forests and his ancient mountains quake,
And mighty London heaves as if its heart would break!

He comes, he comes! Oh! many a beaming brow
Shines bright, and many a bosom heaveth high!
And there is many a manly heart beats now
For him, the youthful king! Slow-winding by,
The glad procession glideth solemnly.
The banners float afar; the rich robes shine
Unto the sun, and dazzle the blue sky:
Sure Bacchus hath come down and walks divine,
And this proud pageant greets the royal god of wine!

Lo, knightly men with casque, and waving plume,
And rattling armour, tread the trembling street!
The pointed spear—the glittering sword illume
The dense approach; and, hark, the charger's feet
Clatter, as they the flinty pavement beat,
Like to a conquering foe. Snorting they come,
And dash their manes amid the sultry heat,
And neigh, as if in triumph was their home,
And thunder through the streets 'mid clouds of dust and foam!

184

But who is he, the proudest of them all?
Is he a god of ancient time come down,
To earthly battles from his heavenly hall?
Is that a mortal face? or doth he own
Immortal lineage—an immortal crown?
Clear beam his azure eyes, bright is his hair,
Low-waving in thick curls; and all the town
Rejoice at his approach; the breezes bear
Loud welcome; acclamations shake the startled air!

Rich purple robes adorn'd his manly form;
And blazing gems were crowded on his breast:
Brave was his stature, such as in the storm
Of Grecian conquests strove! Upon his crest
Wav'd the white plume, and golden armour prest
His sinewy limbs. Full conscious of the weight
He bore, his noble charger shook the dust
With his proud gambols and unsteady gait,
And wav'd his streaming mane to royal Henry's state.

Now comes the pageant nearer, nearer still!
Throw wide the gate, throw wide the ponderous gate!
And now Westminster opens to its fill,
And knights and heroes view their fathers' state,
And kneel beneath the bannerets that date
Of conquest and of fame!—the shreds that told,
In their dim splendour, of the lofty height
Of their brave sires, and all the deeds of old,
Which English hearts shall aye beat proudly to behold

185

The ponderous arches tremble as they go;
The marble tombstones shake; each tatter'd pall
Vibrates; the gloom becomes a sudden glow.
That sepulchre now seems a monarch's hall,
Lit up to some rejoicing festival.
His father's grave is night—O, could he see,
How would he o'er this rich procession call—
Tear down the gold, and stop the maniac glee;
How would the miser mourn this prodigality!

But he, with all his crimes, is silent now;
He cannot grasp the bars of gold, nor press
The glittering ingots to his wither'd breast:
Death holds the shivering monarch by the tress,
And folds the shatter'd corpse in his caress.
His palace is the clay; 'tis pictur'd o'er
With hideous things that clasp in tenderness
Unto his lips and eyes. Firm 'neath that floor
The miserable king is bound for evermore.

Ladies and knights are seated. Many a plume
Is dancing; many a bosom heaving high.
Bright eyes and lovely faces now illume
The silence. Lo, the solemn priests move by
In stately show, and their white garments lie
Along the ground. Ah, little did he know
In that glad hour, the lord of Canterbury,
That, as he placed the crown on Henry's brow,
His father's fathers' shrines and sacred towers were tumbling low.

186

Ah, little did he know, that he who sat
Beside him, on the golden-shining throne,
Would soon become the object of his hate,
And drag the pillars of his temples down!
That murder and brute sacrilege would own
That monarch's breast, and loveliness droop low
Beneath his satyr feet, and lose its crown.
That blood, red blood, should stain his reeking brow,
And spot the snow-white altars with an impious glow!

But, O, the time was come—and heaven was glad
To shake this proud religion, that so long
Usurp'd all wealth, and in its pride was mad:
Insanely triumphing through blood and wrong.
Once, in its pure religion, it was strong;
Once, it was mild and gentle in its sway,
Just in its precepts:—but, alas, too long
The clouds of night had gather'd o'er its day,
And all its might and strength were withered away.

They had profaned the Saviour, whom they sought;
Shatter'd the crucifix, and spurn'd his blood!
The miracles with which his rule was brought,
They brutaliz'd with fraud: mistook the good
For evil, and made earth a solitude
For wolves and tigers, and the thirst of gain.
The sweat of agony they mock'd. The brood
Of deep distress, the burning tears, the pain,
The ignominious death, had all been borne in vain!

187

And they had rear'd majestic towers, and won
Ivory and gold, and gems, and treasures rare
From man; and roll'd in crimes, erstwhile unknown,
In quiet bowers, and solitudes most fair.
Mammon became their god, their only care.
The ancient paths forsook, they now became
Mere worldly engines, ruling everywhere
With swords and superstition. The true name
Of Christ they knew not now, nor to his altars came.

In dungeons they held orgies, and with chains
Bound their opposers; and with eager sight
Hunted for blood, and agonizing pains,
The mountain grass they stain'd with sanguine fight;
They stain'd the crystal dew-drops of the night,
And rear'd up temples from the fatten'd gore.
Error, and wrong, and darkness 'stead of light,
And truth and gentleness rul'd evermore:
No marvel, then, their way was shatter'd, and was o'er!

So now, the earthquake shook each abbey-stone;
Red lightning sear'd each mouldering battlement.
The glory of their ancient reign was gone;
The tyranny that held their towers, and rent
Their strength, and bore their majesty, was bent
To nought. And now they crown'd this headstrong king,
Whom the Avenger chose for his, and sent
To purify their dross, that he might ring
The tresses of their pride, and tear their fiery wing.

188

O, Time, how is it, that thy headlong sway
Can change the curled child into the man,
Whose crimes disturb the sun's serenest ray?
That he who chas'd among the flowers, and ran
Among the morning dews, must feel the ban
Of Cain, and all his freshest feelings lose?
That all those pure delights and joys that can
Bless infancy, must change to bitter woes,
And all our sweetest blisses turn to painful throes?

Alas, that the same youth who, in the bower
Of love and hope, had twin'd with beauty's tresses,
Feeling all holiest dreams, and passions shower
Into his heart, and mix with love's caresses:
Whose soul was full of deepest tendernesses:
That he to whom the streamlets gave delight,
To whom the mountains were his chiefest blisses;
Whose glory was the star-bespangled night,
And to whose spirit came all shapes of power and might;

That he whose heart was as a fountain clear,
Gushing all impulses, and pure, and fair;
Should afterward bow down to endless fear,
And be a den for madness and despair:
That every grief shall clutch him by the hair;
That foul ambition shall possess that brain
Where fancy and imagination are
The palm; that like the surges of the main,
Sorrow shall bear him down, and lash him into pain.

189

Would ye have deem'd that he whom we have sung—
The hero and the demi-god—that he,
Whose matchless strength and majesty, the young,
Struck men, should sink to abject tyranny,
Murder, and savage guile? That he should be
The burthen of foul lust? That loveliness
Should die beneath his feet, and liberty
Be but a coward name, and every tress
Be torn from her fair brow in cruel wantonness?

Yet, Henry, there shall greet thee on thy bed
Of state, and hail thee in thy marble-hall,
The ghostly phantoms of thy murder'd dead!
Anna Boleyn shall meet thee in her pall;
Fair Howard to thy restless dreams shall call,
And wither thee with smiles, and twine again
Caresses that to rottenness shall fall:
Surrey, and saintly More, in ghastly train,
Shall shriek from out their tombs, and agonize thy brain!

Bold, headstrong, and presumptuous though thou wert,
Horror would yet affright thee in thy bower,
And nightmare cling unto thy beating heart.
Where'er thy footsteps went spectres would lower
Around thee, and distrub thy every hour.
Even, whilst we live, remorse shall hunt us aye;
And move at midnight on each ancient tower;
And mingle with the moon's divinest ray;
And shoot into our souls, like fire, by night and day!

190

Hail, sister towers! Long may ye nobly stand!
Long may our English kings, upon your floor
Of marble, take their crown and hold command!
That long and proud procession now is o'er;
They all are dead and sunk for evermore,
Who held that day high joy and jubilee:
Time hath swept o'er them with a mighty roar;
Time hath destroy'd their merriment and glee;
But ye are yet the same, as stately and as free!

Still do ye stand; and as I gaze, in pride,
Upon your carved towers, I see the sky
Look on ye, and with you its stars divide!
The moon, like an enchantress, bends her eye
Above ye; heaven's sweetest isles around you lie.
Thames rolleth his loud dirge, solemn and clear,
And from his secret caverns murmurs nigh;
And mighty London roareth in your ear,
With voices that disturb the midnight hemisphere.

Since that glad day, far other deeds have come
Within your walls. The mighty dead have laid
Their sacred bones within your charnell'd home.
Shakespeare and Milton long have sought your shade,
And other bards, immortally array'd
With bays undying. Heroes, side by side,
Rest 'neath your marbles;—they whose prowess bade
Europe be hush'd;—and did the world divide;
And, in the battle strife, at length all nobly died!

191

Victorious kings, beneath your banners rest;
Patriots, with mighty hearts, are laid with you.
Men eloquent, and pure, and wise, have prest
Your sepulchres, and sunk the weary brow.
Who, who can walk your solemn shades, and know
Your lofty deeds, and not feel glad and proud?
Feel in his soul a patriotic glow,
When ancient times come to him from their shroud,
And like a trumpet tone, shout to his heart aloud?

Say, are not Gaul's far fields and vineyards red
With conquests, waving on these banners high?
Shout not these walls of the triumphant dead,
Where haughty Spain and spicy India lie?
Each tomb and 'scutcheon tell of victory!
Gazing upon these walls, methinks I hear
The trumpet's clang and the loud charger's neigh:
The cannon's thunder swells upon mine ear,
Knights brave, and strong in arms, start, sounding from the bier!

Long may these arched stones majestic stand!
Long may these sister towers ascend the air,
And be the glory of this falling land!
The moons and stars of ages yet shall share
With them, and shine above them, pure and fair!
Our youth shall wander in the carved shade,
And feel their hearts beat high, and hope to dare
The exalted acts that have these brows array'd:
And in their dreams call up these sculptures to their aid.

193

CARDINAL WOLSEY.

Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition;
By that sin fell the angels. How can man, then,
The image of his Maker hope to win by't?
Love thyself last; cherish those hearts that hate thee;
Corruption wins not more than honesty.
O, Cromwell, Cromwell,
Had I but serv'd my God with half the zeal
I served my king, he would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies.
—Cardinal Wolsey's Speech.

------ Nay, then, farewell!
I have touch'd the highest point of all my greatness;
And from that full meridian of my glory,
I haste now to my setting: I shall fall
Like a bright exhalation in the evening,
And no man see me more.
—Shakspeare.—Henry VIII.

What is ambition? 'Tis to stretch the hand
And catch a star, and span the rainbow's rim.
What is ambition? 'Tis to hold command
O'er hopes impalpable and shadows dim;
To bind the wings of flying seraphim!
It is the schoolboy's strife, the warrior's game;
This makes the soldier lose his life or limb;
This lifts the rebel to a lofty aim;
This makes the hero burn with patriotic flame.

194

Ambition is a meteor in the sky;
A bubble floating on an idle stream;
A cloud—an ignus fatuus that doth fly
In sluggish fens; the phantom of a dream;
A mountain mist; a vain and senseless theme.
Yet like the bursting rocket, it is bright,
And scatters stars of lightning, and doth gleam
Intensely in the midnight. 'Tis a light
One moment seen, then vanish'd into night.

Is it not so, ye great and mighty dead?
Cæsar and Alexander, is't not so?
Can ye not tell from out your charnel-bed,
That it is nought but hate, and fear, and woe—
That when attain'd, it was your strongest foe!
Its prey is fallen empires, and the blood
Of scatter'd armies; and too well ye know
That rapine, famine, slaughter, are its brood;
That like a fiend from hell, it fills each solitude.

It dwells in ruin'd cities, by the throne
Of murder'd kings. The dim and drooping eye
Confess its sway; and Eden heard it groan
Among the groves, and fields, and bowers, on high.
It drove the fallen angels from the sky.
And, oh, what meets it, that the purple pall,
The robe of state, the sceptre, and the crown,
The marble pillar, and the tap'stried hall
Attend it—it is rotten, foul, and hollow all!

195

Say, doth the inspired bard need ought beside
Than fame's sweet line, and praise from ladies' eyes?
He will not with a king his lauds divide;
Nor struggle with the victor for his prize:
His wealth is drawn from the empurpled skies;
The stars are his; his heaven's serene domain;
Nature for him tunes all her minstrelsies,
And gives him all her treasures for his gain;
Earth, air, and fire are his, and the rich-peopled main.

What, though the fever'd eye, and burning brain,
The wilder'd dream, and passion's constant fire;—
What, though he's circled round with hate and pain,
That twine, like serpents, round his struggling lyre;—
What, though his life is but a funeral pyre,
On which he sits and feels the smouldering flame;—
Is he not born of an immortal sire,
Who doth bequeath the heritage of fame—
Things richer than gold—hope and a glorious name?

Are not the flowers that in strange forests grow;
Gems on the ocean sands; the mountain height;
The fire of evening; the swift river's flow,
By castled walls; the splendours of the night;
Thunder and tempest, and the ocean's might,—
The poet's? Bow not all things to his power?
His soul shall it not soar in realms of light;
And, like a palace, in the sunlight tower,
And o'er the world hold sway, its treasures for his dower?

196

His pen is dipp'd in sunbeams of all hues,
As numerous as the rainbow. He can go,
Even like a prophet, onward, and diffuse
The light of eloquence o'er every woe.
Within his spirit is a constant glow
Of hope and passion; 'round his hallow'd head
Streams of effulgent lustre ever flow;
And, when he resteth on his midnight-bed,
Visions and glorious dreams are with his slumbers wed!

Age cannot touch his forehead! He is young
Amid grey hairs; through all his life a child.
Pure and benevolent, his praise is sung
By fame; he is by all high things beguil'd.
Even, like a desert pard, his soul is wild;
Open to every impulse; glad and free;
He hath most light where he the least hath toil'd;
Gathering his hymns from truth and liberty,
Mingling with mountain heights, and with the tempest's glee.

For, in lone woods and lovely bowers, he is
Hearing the ring-doves' murmur'd minstrelsies
At evening, in the depth of perfect bliss;
Or he will watch the eagle in the skies;
Or the strong red deer o'er the mountains rise,
Tossing his hairy horns in joy and pride;
Or, with a soul considerate and wise,
Gaze on the lonely stars; or, upward glide
Among the lovely shapes that on the moonbeams ride.

197

O, call not this ambition! 'Tis the love
Of all things beautiful, and just, and fair!
As streamlets from their mountain-grottoes rove,
From crystal caves, and caverns rich and rare,
So, from the poet's soul, the stream runs clear
Because the source is pure. He can't withhold
The impulse; the full force he cannot bear:
This gave the mighty hymns and songs of old;
This made the earlier bards to be so strong and bold.

Well had it been for Wolsey, had he ne'er
Forsook the simple path: well had it been
If he had chosen what was good and fair;
And left each stormy and tempestuous scene
Of mad ambition. He had ne'er, I ween,
Been scoff'd at by his king. The fever'd brow,
The eager vigils, and the searchings keen;
The toil, the labour, and the strife to know,
Had ne'er been his—such things do from ambition flow.

The ambitious man must watch whilst others sleep;
His soul is a volcano, and burns aye
With burning fire that, from the abysm deep,
Breaks out, and casts to heaven its lurid ray!
Or, like the sea, it owns the tempests' sway,
And writhes, and heaves, and wrestles with the storm,
And, in the sweat of pain, throws out its spray.
Ambition seems a huge and giant form,
Struggling with some vast snake that doth around it worm.

198

The ambitious man winds tortuously along,
And fears the open sunlight. He doth go
'Mid things of guile, and sublety, and wrong;
And, like a thief, deems every man his foe:
His paths are compass'd round with fear and woe.
A child's a king to him, for childhood's free;
A naked savage doth more wisely know
The pulses of his own proud heart, than he:
He hath no house, nor home, nor love, nor liberty!

And, when he hath attain'd the mountain height;
And topp'd the avalanche, and walk'd afar
The king of men; and made him strong and bright,
High, stedfast, fair, and radiant as a star—
Still he's the slave of his own bosom's jar;
A thing deform'd, a pigmy after all!
Through pools of blood trails his triumphant car,
And ghosts and fleshless phantoms round him call,
And skeletons do rattle in his marble hall!

Better for thee, proud Wolsey, had thy youth
Pass'd like a shepherd boy's! Better for thee,
If on the desert moors, in robe uncouth,
Herding the silly sheep, and wandering free
'Mid craggy hills, it had been thine to be!
Music had linger'd in thy morning dream,
Thy footsteps had been wing'd with liberty;
Winds, woods, and streams had been thy chosen theme,
And o'er thy closed eyes, shed many a glorious gleam.

199

The heath-bells would have shap'd a couch for thee,
Of beauty and of fragrance—soft and fair
As beds of down. The hill-bee, wandering free,
Had sent the music dim, and deep, and clear;
Richer than choral trumpets. Through thy hair
The sweet south winds had flutter'd: thou could'st view
The kingly wild-deer in his dewy lair;
The eagle ting'd with evening's fading hue;
And night with all its stars—and visions ever new!

But as it was—the monarch of thy king—
The enslaver of the nations, and the chain
Around religion's feet!—who, who shall sing
Thy honours? Who uplift the chosen strain?
Who shall essay, a tyrant's—despot's reign?
“Woe, woe to the enslaver!” shall be heard,
“Woe, woe,” in sounds as of the angry main!
And earth shall hear the loud appalling word,
And toss it back in menace, like a thing abhorr'd!

“He came,” the voice shall say, “with mighty power
“Of good and right, he turn'd it into wrong.
“He stood upon the earth as doth a tower,
“The shades and glooms of darkest night among;
“No beauty stream'd the solitudes along!
“He came, a mighty shape, with mighty sway,
“Rob'd in religion's sanctity, and strong;
“From prayer, and crucifixion, and the ray
“Of truth, he spurn'd them all, and scatter'd them away.”

200

The blood of martyrdom had fallen in vain;
The agony of prayer had swell'd for nought;
Idly had heav'd the bursting heart and brain;
In vain were miracles sublimely wrought;
In vain of old, the true religion sought!
The pangs of Christ were mock'd to scorn; for now
Wolsey walk'd forth, and at his footstool brought
Great crowds of worshippers, and on his brow
Bore shining gold, and dwelt in marble halls, I trow!

He did not rule his king, when rule he might;
He did not teach the people, when the rod
Was in his hand; and therefore it was right
That that same king should hold him at his nod—
The king he worshipp'd rather than his God!
And that the people should behold his woes
With exultation—and his neck be trod
Beneath their feet; and all men be his foes;
And his proud spirit bend beneath repentant throes!

There is a mighty truth in history,
That they who highest climb, shall fall most low.
The ghost of Alexander, from on high,
Shrieks of the poison cup:—and Cæsar's brow
Is moist with bitter sorrow! Frow the prow
Of Cleopatra's bark, shouts Antony!
And great Napoleon on his rock doth bow
Like a chain'd eagle in its agony,
And o'er the ocean waves doth like a madman cry!

201

And Wolsey's purple robes are cast aside;
The crosier is all batter'd in the mire:
And he who sat in majesty and pride,
Doth like a banish'd slave at length expire!
O, thanks for ever, to the lofty lyre,
That hath the past and future in its chord!
There is a moral in its fadeless fire;
And inspiration tells in every word
Of eloquence far more than ear hath ever heard!

Thanks to the spell that bears the soul afar
Into the past, and opes the gates of time;
Shining o'er death itself, a heavenly star!
There yet are notes seraphic and sublime;
Still hath the earth loud hymnings for its prime.
A music murmurs from Dodona's grove,
Fraught with response of oracles, and dim
With dreams prophetic. Lambent glories move
As in the ancient worlds, of hope, and joy, and love.

The lyre!—the lyre!—sing ye aloud its praise!
It shook the ancient heavens' with conquering song,
And mingled with the sun's descending rays:
It wander'd the old fields and groves among,
And like a mighty river revell'd strong!
Great Homer bore it sceptred in his hand;
With burning Sappho it career'd along;
Pure Virgil caught the spell, and held command;
And mighty Shakspeare shook its fires o'er every land!

202

The hearts of monarchs bend beneath its sway:
It dwells o'er human secrets, and can view
The inmost struggles that are hid from day.
It lendeth to the soul another hue
Of fancy, and of hope, that can imbue
With dreams immortal, mortal ecstacy.
All things from this, receive an impulse new—
And, walks it not upon the circling sky,
Mingling with moons and stars, time and eternity?

Stern are its admonitions and severe!
Then, Brougham, sitting on thy place of state,
This truth the lyre shall thunder in thy ear:—
“Beware, lest thou be tumbled from thy height,
“Beware—Beware—the avenger lies in wait!
“Outrage and wrong have aye attended thee;
“And wild ambition girds thee round with hate;
“Beware, beware, of Wolsey's misery;
“Lest Phaeton's, Ixion's doom, thy dreadful doom shall be.”

No more!—We will not stay with such as he,
Wolsey is dead, his restless pulse is still;
With worms, and clods, and stones, he bows his head.
He hath no vassals now to list his will;
He cannot now of flattery take fill.
He rolls about with every circling year,
With stars and meteors—forest, grove, and hill.
Hate cannot touch him, nor the fang of fear,—
His skeleton is dust—he hath no dwelling here.

203

THE SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTERIES. REIGN OF HENRY VIII.

“The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherits shall dissolve,
And, like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a wreck behind.”
—Shakspeare.

In splendour and in majesty they stood,
Where silent dells receive the morning ray,
And echo mates with peace and solitude:—
They stood, in glory, where sweet waters play
In concord, sweetly mingling in their way,
And kiss the drooping flowers that meet their wave.
Majestic and sublime, they met the day;
Huge monuments, whose mighty names shall brave
Oblivion's dull decay—the silence of the grave.

Their bells were heard at evening, swelling clear,
By pilgrims wandering o'er the heath-clad hill:
Sweet contemplation ever lingered near,
And, 'mid these quiet places, took her fill:
And pensively reclining, by the rill
That wash'd their walls, and gurgled sweetly by,
The poet wreath'd his curious ditties, till
The silence was enamour'd, and the eye
Of Nature stream'd with tears to hear his melody.

204

O Tintern, Tintern, beauteous in decay!
Magnificent, with robes dishevelled!
Still dost thou proudly hold thy ancient sway!
Still dost thou bear erect thy haughty head,
Though all thy former might and power are dead!
Thy arches, richly carv'd, serenely stand;
Thy tombstones all below our feet lie spread;
Still, like a conqueror, dost thou stretch thy hand;
Though wounded at thy heart, still dost thou hold command!

Bareheaded let us go among thine aisles,
And ponder o'er the wreck of human clay.
Sacred to meditation are these piles
To men who love to think, or bend to pray;
Here dwelt a mighty race—gone is their day!
Here saintly worship did ascend on high;
And holy saints, at midnight, watch'd the ray
Of heaven's pure realms, and gaz'd in ecstacy
On the pure worlds that stretch along the sleeping sky!

Why should we doubt that in this solitude
Of woods, and trees, and brooks, and gentleness,
Full many a holy patriarch lov'd to brood;
Learning to commune with his heart, and bless
The God who gave him hope and happiness.
The birds would sing to him, the sylvan Wye
Murmur within his dreams joy's deep excess;
These lovely woods send forth their melody,
As the winds shook their leaves, to love and ecstacy.

205

At noon, the golden sun would shed his light,
Through painted windows, o'er each arch and tomb;
At noon, the fleeced clouds of gold and white
Floated serene above him. There was room
For thought in midnight's melancholy gloom;
Or, when the silver stars came out and threw
Their glory on these towers, and did illume
The bosom of sweet Wye with crystal hue,
These priests of God were touch'd with feelings strange and new.

Oh, let us hope the best, and let us deem
That these delightful landscapes had a charm
That mingled with each impulse, thought, and dream;
That these green trees and solemn shades did warm
His adoration, and kept off each charm
Of worldly aims. Religion is the love
Of God; and Nature ever can disarm
The sense of sensual things. The feelings move
Upward to heavenly hopes, to Him who is above!

Hundreds of years, O Tintern, hath the blast
Of ages swept thy forehead, and gone down
Along thy naked ribs. Lone and aghast,
For ages hast thou stood, in pomp alone,
Even like a stricken giant, who doth groan,
Chain'd on a solitary cliff. The time
Is o'er of thy past splendour; but the tone
Of greatness, as a garment, tells thy prime;
Perchance thy fallen state is ev'n the most sublime.

206

For now thy roof it is the circling sky,
Begemm'd with all its lustres. The bright sun
Can gaze upon thee; in thy bosom lie
These woods; and all their impulses may run
Into thy dreams. The winds will never shun
Thy solitudes, but woo thee from afar;
And O, when dull and languid day is done,
Thou shalt behold each bright and lovely star,
And the entrancing moon shall hail thee from her car.

Yet Tintern, Tinern! thou art not the same
As when thy walls first met the wandering eye!
Yet, proud as ever in the rolls of fame
Thou art, as when stol'd monks went idly by,
Or mailed bishops, full of chivalry,
Sought the ensanguined field! (O, can it be?)
But change hath come upon thee. We espy
The wild-ash, the young oak, and willow-tree,
The briar, and the ivy, fix their roots to thee.

Life feeds on death; and the sweet wild-flower grows
On human dust: and the rich-waving green
Is fatten'd on corruption's inward throes.
Where the loud organ sounded far, I ween,
Where chanted vespers sanctified the scene,
Now shrieks the night-bird to his absent mate:
And ancient monks, who in these walls have been,
Methinks do, ghost-like, roam on each lone height,
Where desolation gnaws this pomp and royal state.

207

The grass is a green carpet for our feet,
Where priests knelt down upon the marble stone;
The sun, at evening, showers a purple sheet
Through skeleton arches, whose huge pomp is gone.
I stand 'mid these rich solitudes, alone,
And see the solitary yew-tree bend
His midnight tresses, that are idly thrown,
Even like a warrior's plume along, and lend
A tale that tells us plain all mortal things shall end.

Glory is gone from Tintern's wrinkled brow;
The limbs that bore its strength are broken down;
Its battlements are ever crumbling low;
A gem is gone from its imperial crown!
Yet will we not lament, but rather own
A grateful feeling, and a memory
Of blessed thoughts, that years will ne'er disown.
Still doth it wield a spell that lifts us high:
We tread on hallow'd ground—on fallen majesty.

Glory is gone from Tintern! Lamentation
Breathes from its ivy boughs for glory gone!
'Twas sanctified by an applauding nation,
When rear'd; loud joy was heard to see its throne
O'erturned. Majestic, now, it stands alone,
Solemn and stately. It is shelter'd round
By loving nature from the tempest's tone;
(Who, as a mother, doth her child surround)
And sweetest music swells within its hallow'd bound.

208

Sweet cottages among the trees stand out,
Snow-white, and send their circling smoke on high;
You hear the shepherd-boy in distance shout—
The ploughman's song—the milkmaid's evening cry;
You hear the skylark warbling in the sky.
Tintern is fading—but the woods are green
With summer, and the harvests proudly lie
In gold, and gladness animates each scene:
And love, hope, joy are here, where they have ever been!

Proudly, ye ancient abbeys, did ye stand
Among our fields and groves; and still we see
Your ancient towers far-spreading o'er the land!
Tintern is fading; Fountain's majesty
Is past; and Rievaulx never more will be
The mighty thing it was. Melrose hath lost
A gem; and Furness groans beside the sea;
Guisborough's huge arch is crumbling, and the blast
Revels around its stones—its mighty sway is past!

Yet Fountain's still is lovely. In a dell
It lies, where a sweet river wends its way
Through Studley's fair domain. One tower doth swell
Afar into the heavens, and meets the ray
Of evening on its brow. The moonbeams play
Along its tombs; and, circled all around
With giant trees, it proudly meets the day.
The loveliest green—the loveliest streams surround
This mighty pile, and nature sends each sweetest sound.

209

Thron'd far away in mountain solitude,
Stands stately Rievaulx, link'd unto the past,
Enthron'd it is 'mid many a beauteous wood,
And shading trees protect it from the blast:
Northward the healthy mountains hold it fast,
And send their shattering tempests o'er its head;
Yet lovely landscapes and fair valleys cast
A fragrance and a beauty. It is wed
With Nature—Nature twines green laurels for its dead.

Melrose is not unsung. The mighty bard
Of Caledonia strung for this his lyre.
He, sitting lonely on the grassy sward,
Caught from its ruins inspiration's fire,
And struck, seraphic, his enraptur'd lyre.
He lieth near it, in the solemn tomb,
And where a bard may rest. And, like a sire,
Lamenting o'er his child, this abbey's gloom
To Dryburgh calls aloud, lamenting o'er his doom!

And Furness, too, is sung—sung in loud strain,
By one whose harp was once a joy to me;
Harp, sweet as is an angel's to the brain
Of dying saint. Alas, it cannot be
Again! and, O, it is an agony
To look on cloudless youth and rapture gone!
On joys that, as the wavelets of the sea,
Fall never more to rise; and, with a tone,
Mournful, as if the grave itself did heave a groan!

210

But thou, majestic arch of Guisborough,
That, like a weary giant, standest proud;
Or an enchantress weeping o'er her woe,
And calling on dead spirits from their shroud!
Thou never hast been sung; no hymnings loud
Have e'er saluted thee; thou art my own—
The lady of my lay, with life endow'd.
Yea, as with human voice, thou callest down,
That Poetry may robe thee with her fadeless crown!

Bright is thy dwelling-place; wood, crag, and hill
Environ thee, and thou art lord, and king,
And ruler over them; they own thy will.
The moonbeams are thy garments; wild birds sing
Within thy bowers, and fill with murmuring
The trees that bloom where once thy pillars stood.
The mildest breezes shake their dewy wing
Through thy dim shades; and lonely pilgrims brood
Over the grassy turf, where sleep the just and good.

O, when I was a glad and happy boy,
Without a care, without a fear or woe,
'Twas my delight, my nearest, dearest joy,
To gaze on thee, and up thy pathways go,
Gazing from thy proud turrets to and fro!
To see the woods around, that idly lay
Shrouded in misty sunlight; and to know
That now I stood where monks were wont to pray,
Hundreds of years ago, who now were in the clay!

211

O, often have I climb'd thy broken stair,
And lov'd to hear the tempest moan and sigh;
And fancied spirits wander'd in the air,
Sent down as guardian angels from the sky;
Or deem'd that shrouded monks were stalking by,
Or helmed knights, all clad in shining mail;
And as I gazed about with timid eye,
Seen lovely shapes upon the evening gale,
Or fairies, silken-hair'd, along the moonbeams sail.

Fallen are ye all, and desolation's maw
Enfolds ye!—Time, the conqueror, holds ye now
In galling chains, and will not let you go!
White are the tresses on your wrinkled brow,
And weak those tottering limbs that bend so low:—
And wild-flowers deck your temples; and the nest
Of the sweet wild-bird lies, where death, I trow,
With life is mingled on your moulder'd breast—
Like you, at last, to crumble into placid rest.

Yea, that huge faith is shatter'd that held sway
On kings and nations. The enormous chain
Is broken. Rome, that in the ancient day,
Conquer'd with arms and arts, arose again;
And despotism enthrall'd the aching brain:
Yea, basest superstition held her still.
She that was great in all things, did ordain
Rites wild as Zoroasters, and with will
Tyrannic, held her state, and took her ample fill.

212

Her fill of groans, and treasures, and of blood,
And madness, and despair!—She, from on high,
In pomp and splendour, did serenely brood,
And, 'mid the inquisition's glooms did lie,
Feeding on lust, and death, and tyranny.
The silent places heard her dreadful feet,
And holy men in solitude did sigh;
'Mid craggs and mountain-caves, she took her seat,
And rul'd in winter tempest, and in summer heat.

Old men, and little children on their knees,
Were murder'd; and the bitter groan was heard
In places sacred to the murmuring breeze,
The sound of streams, the warble of the bird.
They heeded not the supplicating word;
The voice of prayer and praise past heedless by;
Yea, men like fiends, of form and face abhorr'd,
Held horrid orgies, and made revelry
Amid the bleeding corpses that lay weltering nigh.

The eagles' shriek with shriek of ravish'd maid,
Sounded, and the wolf howl'd in company:
Heaven heard them call to it aloud for aid,
When holy priests were dying. There was glee
Among the mountain spirits; every tree
Was shook as with a blast, and every river
Stain'd with red blood, roll'd down into the sea;
Whilst ocean wept, as he would weep for ever,
O'er woes and griefs that bound him in their wild endeavour.

213

In their proud abbeys, where, in solitude,
The philosophic mind might think and pray;
Here, where the saint had choice and holy food,
Did sensual lusts and wills hold constant sway.
Beset with luxuries, they spent each day
In indolence; and, drunk with wine, sunk down
At night, where fat and swoll'n like hogs, they lay,
Preferring earthly for the heavenly crown,
And earthly court and pleasure for a heavenly throne.

The mind was held in thraldom, and the book
Of God denounc'd; and to the scorching fire
The holiest saints to martyrdom they took.
Europe they made a desert; and for hire
Of Kings, they conquer'd freedom; nor did tire—
But, blood-hound like, kept scent unto the last.
They eat up all our wealth, and to the mire,
Like dogs, drove down our freemen:—but the blast
Hath swept among their columns, and their sway is past!

The faith of Christ was pure, and mild, and good;
Simple in precept; gentle and refin'd;
Calm, holy, just, to humbleness subdued.
The old creeds, shook like chaff before the wind,—
Gave way before its triumph. It was twin'd
With man's sublimest feelings; and in time,
Hallow'd by Christ's own blood, did learn to find
Its way to monarchs' courts; and, soar'd sublime
In native strength and power, o'er every world and clime.

214

This, too, they stopp'd upon its march, and bound
Its progress. When beneath the open sky
Christ worshipp'd, and the thousands did surround;
This Christ, the Jews despis'd. Their constant cry
Was wealth and power, and kingly monarchy!
And this the Popish creed at length had made;
They did rear gorgeous temples for the eye;
Chang'd priests to kings, and o'er the nations sway'd
With cannon, sword, and spear, and men in arms array'd!

With mummeries outrageous, every shrine
Was then polluted: with the mimicry
Of sound, they worshipp'd Christ, who was divine.
With absurd miracles, their priests did try
To mock at human reason, and defy
The intellect of man. They did create
A hideous and a strange mythology
Of many gods; and gave unhallow'd state
To goddesses unknown, with whom their creed did mate.

Still must imaginative poetry
Love to recline beneath each ancient wall;
And strive to fancy 'mid their tracery
Of visions high and pure. I hear the call
Of the clear bells upon dim evening fall;
I hear the vesper hymn; I see the train
Of beauteous nuns;—I see the drooping pall;
I hear amid these trees the choral strain;
And sounds are in my soul, as of the distant main!

215

The gentle Usk is murmuring at my feet;
The old Beacon mountains swell into the sky,
Cover'd with mists as with a winding sheet.
'Tis morn, and glittering dews around me lie;
Green woods, rich pastures, meet the enraptur'd eye,
And happy human sounds are in mine ear!—
How gladly might the poet live and die,
Passing a pure and holy hermit here,
Nor know of worldly strife, sigh, agony, and tear!

It is the Sabbath day, and Brecon's towers
Send sound of silver bells, the call to prayer.
There is a quiet 'mong the woodland bowers;
There is a quiet in the silent air;
There is a holy stillness everywhere
That seems to whisper of the Sabbath day!
O, long may truth and pure religion bear
Over these happy isles their righteous sway;
And palsied be the hand that would withdraw their ray.

The temples of the sun amid the sand
Of Egypt crumble low. Each giant dome
Of old mythology hath lost command:
The Jewish creed is left without a home;
Its wretched worshippers unpitied roam.
The Druid shrines are rent and shattered;
The Papal sovereignty hath found a tomb—
But the pure truth of Christ shall rear its head,
Thron'd on the rock of time—with the Eternal wed!

216

God lives upon the clouds, and on a throne
Where thunder and the lightning cannot go.
The cataract he binds; the storms kneel down
Before him; and the roaring earthquakes know
His presence. All things that are here below
Acknowledge him—trees—birds—the grass, the flowers!
The mountain-rivers from his footstool flow;
And he controuls the stars among their bowers;
And guides the count of time, and legislates its hours!

Then let us never fear that he will bear
The infidel to desecreate his shrine.
O, never shall the reeking Atheist dare
Tread in the courts of God, which are divine.
Truth, justice, heaven, religion all combine
To guard the sacred altar; and the dead
Would start from out their graves in saintly line,
And wield their flaming swords above their head,
To drive away the fiends that stain'd their charnel-bed.

Live on, live on, ye holy priests of God,
Teachers and benefactors of your race!
The grass is fresh upon the sacred sod
Of those who died as martyrs to efface
The sins of ages, and their fatal trace.
Cranmers and Latimers are still with you:
Ye are the pillars of the land, the grave
Of evil times; and on your churches' brow
The halo still remains that Christ left here below.

217

LADY JANE GREY.

“Thus liv'd, thus died she. Never more on her
Shall sorrow light or shame. She was not made
Through weary years the inner weight to bear,
Which colder hearts endure till they are laid
In the damp earth. Her years and pleasures were
Brief, but delightful; and she sleeps well!”
—Don Juan.

“She made no sign of outward woe,
But wish'd that she had angels' wings;
To see that golden, golden, golden
Sight of heavenly things.”
—Old Ballad.

“O mourn, mourn, mourn fair ladies,
Jane, the flower of England's dead.
—Old Ballad.

A perfect gentlewoman and a queen;
A queen by nature was the Lady Jane:
Her form was beautiful, her soul serene,
And grace and gentleness did make her train.
O'er all the virtues did she hold her reign,
And dwelt in peace, and love, and tenderness:
Yea, all that teachers tell and poets feign
Of innocence, and truth, and loveliness,
Did guard this gentle lady in their pure caress.

218

She in her moonlit bowers had learnt to brood
O'er the rich wisdom of the ancient time.
The bards came to her in her solitude,
And sung of heroes, and the deeds sublime
Of demi-gods, when man was in his prime.
Leaning her ivory brow upon her hand,
She lov'd to let her vivid fancy climb
To the blue climes where science held command;
When Greece, in palmy pride, tower'd far o'er every land.

When Sappho sung entranc'd—(a nightingale—
In love with loveliness!) When Homer sung,
The blind old bard—unto the evening gale.
When Pindar's lays, like thunder, roll'd along;
When Orpheus charm'd the insensate stones with song!—
O, changed times, where shall we wander now?
Where shall we hear the strains that echoed strong
Like midnight sounds? Where's the seraphic glow
That kindled o'er the earth, and lit the poet's brow?

The heavens are yet the same! And every star
Is bright, that then gave gladness to the eye!
The stormy sea still wages constant war,
And scatters his rich treasures lavishly.
Are there not lovely flowers in woods that be?
Are there not glorious mountains still the same,
That stand aloft, and brave eternity?
And is there not the passion still of fame,
The hope of constant memory, and a glorious name?

219

She was a young philosopher, and fair
And beautiful. Her soul, enlarged, refin'd
With every art, she fear'd wild fashion's glare,
And did to solitude her yearnings bind;
She was by far too gentle, pure, and kind,
For the rude world; and thus she bent her soul,
And tun'd the chords—the music of her mind,
To sweet philosophy's serene control;
Dreading the world's rude storms—ambition's fatal thrall!

She was a flower that fears the flare of day,
And hides itself beneath a mossy stone;
She was a star that shrouds its piercing ray
Behind a cloud, and shines and lives alone.
Love bound her soon with its entrancing tone;
And, leaving courts and flattery's foul wile,
She sought domestic peace, and made a throne
Within her husband's heart; her children's smile
Did greet her in her bower—her silence did beguile.

O, would that they had never come to her,
Nor tempted her to leave her pleasant home;
She had gone down unto the sepulchre,
A sainted wife, where care had never come.
Science and art to her were as a dome
Of heavenly thought, and love around her dwelt.
But, as it was, she found an early tomb;
The flowers all wither'd round her where she knelt;
And, like a hunted deer, this lovely creature felt.

220

She trusted in a people false and foul,
Wrung with ingratitude, whose voices came
Like thunder to her praise. Beneath the cowl
Of false allegiance they roar'd her name,
And knelt to her, and hail'd her rising fame.
But they are changeful as the changeful sea,
And, like the sea, their power we cannot tame;
And thus they scorn'd this gentle maid—to be
The creature of their hate—the mock of infamy!

Lovely and lofty maid! O, knights of old
Had come to thee, and for thy beauty died!
But England then had changed;—the hearts were cold
That once for truth and faith fell side by side.
The chivalry, that erstwhile dwelt in pride
Beside the sounding sea—in forests dim,
By caves and hoary rocks, were scatter'd wide;
Or, England, thou hadst risen with phalanx grim,
In triumph borne her forth, with march and choral hymn.

I do not hate the mob nor liberty;
But this I say from out my solitude,
That I would rather in oblivion die
Than that with them my mind should be subdued.
False, changeful, angry, fickle is their mood;
Wafted by every breath, they shout and roar
Like famish'd tigers in a desert wood:
They pant for change—change—change for evermore—
Change that o'erturns themselves, and eats the nation's core.

221

A people roused to vanquish tyranny,
Like you, O, glorious Swiss, is brave and great.
High is the meed of godlike liberty,
Its steps are free—it holds monarchic state.
Cities rise up beneath its feet; its height
Is that of pyramids; it rules all time;
The slave becomes a god; and, soon or late,
The chain is rent, the nations soar sublime,
And, by their mountain-crags, regain their ancient prime.

But, when I see them grovelling in the mire,
Listening to traitors, (fools, whose brains delight
In treason's maggot brood;) in whom the fire
Of every glorious deed hath sunk to night;
Who mock at deeds heroic, and do slight
Our nation's blood-stain'd wars with rebel guile;
And turn our noblest monuments to spite;
Then do their sneers and curses stir my bile,
And I am wroth in love for thee, our glorious isle.

Oh, nought can touch thy garments, Liberty,
Thy foot-print is on the untrodden way;
Walking in mountain-pomp, serene and high,
Thy tresses wave upon the summer ray.
Thy palaces are in eternal day!
Yea, thou art of a proud and saintly name—
A light and glory over human clay;
And ne'er will mingle thy triumphant fame
With ought of meaner dust—with ought of wrong or shame!

222

Hark! there is noise upon the city street,
Moving of feet, and, hark, the solemn bell
Tolls heavily, as through a winding-sheet!
Alas, alas, it is Earl Dudley's knell!
And, from her turret window, she knows well
Her lord is gone—she sees his sever'd head!
And, oh! if, in that hour, her heart could tell
Its weight of adoration for the dead,
Almost new life would warm her husband's charnel-bed!

Another scene—and, lo, the jailors come,
And call that lovely lady from the floor.
The thousands swarm to see her to the tomb,
And greet her murder with triumphant roar,
Who, erstwhile, at her feet allegiance swore.
The block is cloth'd with velvet; all around
The glittering spears stand forth, as if they bore
A part; and neighing chargers madly bound,
But she, our lady stands, and hears no mortal sound!

She stands entranced, like a holy saint,
With drooping brow and hair dishevelled;
Angels are near, and wash each earthly taint,
And bear her dreams unto the martyr'd dead!
She sees her lord to whom her soul was wed!
She sees the open field of heaven!—the light
Of heaven is in her heart; and, richly spread
Around her, stand pure shapes, saintly and bright!—
No more—the blow is struck—heaven bursts before her sight!

223

There were no white-robed nymphs to bear away
This gentle lady to the silent tomb;
There was no husband near her buried clay,
To drop a tear into the charnel-gloom;
No tender friend did miss her from her room;
No child wept loud at midnight, for the love
That sooth'd its slumbers. She hath met her doom
A wither'd flower in winter; and alone;
And to her murder'd lord hath desolately gone.

We must lament for her, though now her clay
Is seen not, living but in memory!
O, had she liv'd, she might have spread the ray
Of love and hope o'er human misery!
All things had blossom'd 'neath her gentle eye.
She was so good that we must ever weep,
As o'er a vanish'd star, that she should die;
As if a dream were stolen from our sleep;
As if a lovely rainbow sunk into the deep!

Beauty hath faded from each bower and hall,
From field, hill, valley, and from sounding shore!
There is a voice of wailing that doth call
In woe and lamentation evermore,
For youth, and love, and beauty, bath'd in gore!
But, O, the sweetest flowers shall deck her grave,
And warmest breezes from the west waft o'er
Her marble tomb! No storm shall ever rave
Around her; and sweet grass shall o'er her tombstone wave.

224

Yes, she is dead, and we are left to mourn
That one, so much an angel, should decay;
That, gaunt and fleshless, in the charnell'd urn,
That fair and lovely shape is dust and clay;
That innocence and truth are past away.
And we must mourn that o'er that snowy brow,
The grave-worm steals, and mocks its lustrous ray;
And that those silken tresses linger now
Among the matted clods;—vanish'd their golden glow!

Yet shall she dwell in heaven, when thou, vile queen,
Art burnt in roaring flames! O she shall be
Robed in white garments, with a crown, I ween,
When thou art rotting in eternity!
Better for her to die than live like thee;
Better to die in youth than live in hate,
Scoff'd—scorn'd—despis'd, the mock of infamy!
She lives on high, in pomp and queenly state,
Whilst thou with fiends and demons in deep hell dost mate.

O, 'twas a dreadful time! Young maidens came,
Procession-like, in saintly show, and died.
The burning fires, that quench'd their house and name,
Could shake them not; they perish'd, side by side,
And sunk away in the eternal tide,
Unspotted and unstain'd! The surges flew
Around them; and the roaring fires did glide
Along their limbs, yet chang'd they not the hue
Of these young martyrs' cheeks: heaven kept them brave and true.

225

Ruffians did dance for joy around the fires
That burnt them; and there came a maniac rout
Of priests, who gloated at the funeral pyres,
And hail'd each shriek and groan with horrid shout!
Then, aged men, like dogs, were hunted out,
And saint-like perish'd. Holy Cranmer died
Heroic, and the slaves who throng'd about
Did almost weep to see it. Yea, in pride
And exultation deep, his soul to heaven did glide!

These times are over now! The sun looks down
On other scenes. There is no triumph now
O'er agony: and they do wear a crown
Who died, and glory circles on their brow!
These flame, that roar'd in Smithfield, left below
A glorious light that never shall decay.
A phœnix left the dust, and did endow
The air with inspiration. A new day
Hath blossom'd; Truth, and Hope, and Piety hold sway.

Thy foe, sweet lady, died in misery!
That Mary, whom we hate, did not away
'Mid scorn and execration. Thou didst die
Even like a flower beneath the summer ray,
In incens'd beauty; and didst take thy way,
Even like its fragrance, up into the sky.
Thy name it is embalm'd in many a lay;
And, oh, we weep to think of thee, and sigh,
And, with lamenting loud, bewail thy memory!

227

SHAKSPEARE. REIGN OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.

“Wings have we,—and, as far as we can go,
We may find pleasure: wilderness and wood,
Blank ocean, and mere sky supply that mood,
Which, with the lofty, sanctifies the low:
Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good.
Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness will grow.
There do I find a never-failing source
Of personal themes, and such as I love best;
Matter, wherein right voluble I am:
Two will I mention, dearer than the rest;
The gentle lady married to the Moor,
And heavenly Una with her milk-white lamb.”
—Wordsworth.

“Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new.”
—Johnson.

One of those giant minds, who, from the mass
Of millions, soar aloft and spurn control;
Who, like a mountain, doth serenely pass
Beyond his fellows, whilst the thunders roll,
Unheeded, o'er his head, and the storms call,
Like maniacs, to its echos! He was one
Born to ascend superior over all!
A monument of greatness, and—alone!
An intellectual monarch, with the mind his throne!

228

He, like a rainbow bas'd upon a hill,
And spanning the green vallies in its stride,
Scatter'd all gorgeous hues with profuse will,
And, with the sun, did sovrantie divide.
He was a beacon-light, and shone in pride
To distant people. He did tower ōn high,
Even as some monarch's palace, that doth hide
Its blazing front within the evening sky,
And gathers the rich hues that o'er the cloud-groves fly.

His youth was spent in peace and solitude
Beneath the oak-tree boughs. At early morn
He wander'd forth into the shaded wood,
And saw the dew-drops on the grass unshorn;
And, like a merry huntsman, blew his horn
Among the silver echos; whilst the deer
Swept by him, to his caves, in royal scorn;
And every bird did warble loud and clear;
Whilst winds and waters came and murmur'd in his ear!

At noon he laid him down beneath the trees,
And, shelter'd 'neath their shadow from the sun,
Felt in his hair the flutter of the breeze,
And brooded on deep thoughts from silence won.
Yea, resting on the grass, and all alone,
Sweet vision fill'd his slumbers, and he heard
Language angelic, and a heavenly tone,
That, like the hymnings of a midnight bird,
Told him of glorious hopes that should not be deferr'd.

229

Full many a gorgeous evening, when the sky
Was rob'd in purple splendour, like a queen—
An eastern queen, when all her court are nigh:—
And when the waves, like heaps of gold, were seen,
And the red sun illumin'd every scene;
Then did the poet wander, and recal
Luxuriant dreams that in his soul had been;
Deeming that unknown spiritual tongues did call
Aloud, that he would come into their golden hall!

And oh, at night, when o'er the fields of blue,
The cold enchantress moon climbs on her way,
Clothing with lustrous halos, and rich hue
Of crystal light, the woods that met her ray;
And, when the stars in sportiveness did pay
Homage to glittering waves, and, each a bride,
Embosom'd in the mountain-springs, did lay;
Still did the bard, entranc'd in soul, divide
His visions with the night, and bent his knees in pride.

'Twas thus, in his unbridled youth, he won
Those mighty fires that fill'd the world with flame:
Freedom walk'd with him; he was chosen son
To Nature; Nature gave him house and name;
And Nature clad him with her choicest fame.
The caves, the woods, the mountain-tops, the sea
Sent thoughts and feelings nought could ever tame;
And what high halls and festal revelry
Could never bring, O, Shakspeare, Nature brought to thee!

230

In the wide woods was passion all unfurl'd;
And in the wild-deer's track; away, away,
Over the heath and crags, where far lie hurl'd
The drifted snows and storms!—where, in the ray
Of the keen sun, the eagle bends his way;
And where the gorcock shrieks aloud; and where
The lonely heron seeks each solemn bay—
The mighty poet wander'd proudly there,
And sung entrancing hymns unto the listening air!

By sides of lovely lakes, where the white moon
Beholds her image in the crystal wave,
And every ancient mountain glideth down,
So that they may their barren foreheads lave:—
By shores enchanted, and romantic cave,
And in far nooks, his splendid visions came;
And now he is the conqueror of the grave!
And every land knows Shakspeare's lofty name,
And bows in humble awe before his giant fame!

There is a freshness in the misty morn;
Colours of every kind are on the dew;
The leaves are fluttering, as if freshly born,
And the far hills take on an azure hue.
Nature with wondrous feelings can imbue
All living things. The grass is bright and green;
The birds are trilling sweet; and, ever new,
The voices of the woods refresh the scene;
Such was sweet Shakspeare's joy, his books, his life, I ween!

231

His soul was as a prism that did reflect
All lights and gorgeous hues. A cataract,
That, when the summer rays its mists affect,
Glitters with rainbow lustre. He could act
King, patriot, lover, friend: o'er every fact
Imagination's halo's spread around,
And did his lovely vagaries enact;
His mighty soul was able to surround
All things with living light: all things his greatness own'd.

Thus did the sweet Ophelia win her tears;
Thus Desdemona mingled with his dream;
Thus did old Lear lament his shatter'd years,
And Hamlet give the germs of lofty theme.
Shakspeare, at last, seem'd in his soul supreme—
Winning from solitude, aims, thoughts sublime—
Fancy's, Imagination's, Passion's gleam
And those transcendent lays that, to all time,
Shall fill the world with Shakspeare's, England's prime.

Vast are ambition's toils. We climb and climb,
Higher and higher, over rock and stone,
And idly waste the freshness of our prime
In yearnings wild—in helplessness—alone!
Midnight beholds us weep, and pine, and moan;
And, when at length we gain the mountain height,
Nought is around us but the tempest's tone,
The eagle's scream, black heath, and barren blight;
And nought of joy or gladness animates the sight.

232

The friendship of their kind they scorn:—the ray
Of love is taken from them! On, and on,
They blindly wander through each desert way,
Beholding not the glory of the sun;
Undazzl'd by the gorgeous hues that run
Along the groves. But Shakspeare's beating heart,
Unlike the kind, was good, and easy won;
No selfish cares, no idle woes opprest
His high majestic spirit—it was aye at rest.

He won the untrod heights without a strife;
The cloud-surrounded mountains were his home:
Yea, in most daring dreams he spent his life,
And, like an eagle, from his azure dome
Reclining towards its eyry, nor will roam
Again—so Shakspeare took his place by right;
He struggled not, nor battled, but did come
To his huge fame by his own single might,
And no one dared to walk within his burning light.

Sole, vast, and undivided was his reign:
He was the lion, that doth hunt away
All meaner foes from his remote domain.
Two suns could not exist, for Shakspeare's ray
Illumin'd all. He was the open day,
Where every thought and feeling might arise.
Yet, though as ocean strong, his soul could play,
Even like a lamb that round its mother tries
Its gambols. Thus he made us strong, and glad, and wise!

233

Pure, innocent, and like a child, he spent
His life—and who can like the poet feel?
The summer suns of vanish'd seasons sent
The spirit of their splendour, and did steal
Around him with their blessings, to reveal
The azure depths of heaven. There was a tongue
In every silent flower; a balm to heal
His wearied soul, in every bird that sung;
And music fill'd the streams that wandered along.

The mid-day of his prime, alas, was lost
In crowded courts, and in the marble-hall!
He was a bark—a beauteous vessel, tost
On angry seas, and girt, as with a wall.
But, in his latter age, he heard the call
Of Avon's leafy woods and waters clear;
The visions of his youth he did recal,
And heard his native streams, and dropt a tear
To think that Avon's flowers must bloom but on his bier.

'Mid the dear scenes that he had lov'd, he died!—
Beneath the shadow of the ancient woods,
And where the murmurous waves of Avon glide—
The sweetest swan of all its solitudes!
The nightingale, that in the moonlight broods,
Sung loud his requiem to the listening sky;
The clouds of midnight put on mourning hoods;
The sweetest morning dews above him lie;
The gentlest winds of heaven, like weeping lovers, sigh.

234

And, nightly, when the earth is hush'd in sleep,
The lovely spirits that had felt his spell
Crowd to his grave, and there their vigils keep,
Loving beside their ancient lord to dwell.
Fairies, and gentle sylphs, and naiads swell
The incense of his praise! And well, I deem,
Spirits from heaven do ever ring his knell,
And watch him on the moon's serenest beam;
Warming his senseless clay as with a poet's dream.

Sing ye a dirge for him! Ye poets, come,
And cast your laurels at his sacred feet!
Ye mountains send your echos to his tomb!
Ye clouds come down and be his winding-sheet!
Ye cliffs, that 'mid the tempests have your seat,
Proclaim his name! And thou, eternal sea,
As thy loud waves in stormy thunder beat,
Sing him who lov'd thee, sing with hymnings free!
Nature come forth and shout: he gave his life to thee!

His fame outlives the monument of stone,
The tower, the pyramid, the brazen pile;
He hath his seat as on a monarch's throne;
He dwelleth highest in this glorious isle;
Richer than all the treasures of the Nile
Was he; than Babel he doth stand more high;
O'er all the earthly kingdoms he doth smile;
He rules the vales, the waters, and the sky;
His power, his sway, doth stretch even to eternity!

235

Yea, his gigantic soul doth mock at time—
Eternal with the mountains and the sea!
He soars aloft, majestic and sublime,
In fadeless strength, unconquerable and free.
Fix'd like a star, he shineth visibly
In midnight's crown. The high and mighty dead
Of ages, mighty bard, give way to thee;
And thou mayst proudly raise thy sacred head
When they and all they did are with oblivion wed.

237

CONCLUDING ADDRESS.

TO MARGARET W---.

Seraph of Heaven! too gentle to be human,
Veiling beneath that radiant form of woman,
All that is insupportable in thee,
Of light, and love, and immortality!
Sweet benediction in the eternal curse!
Veil'd glory in this lampless universe!
Thou moon beyond the clouds! Thou living form
Among the dead! Thou star above the storm!
Thou wonder, and thou beauty, and thou terror!
Thou harmony of nature's art! Thou mirror
In whom, as in the splendour of the sun,
All shapes look glorious which thou gazest on.

------ A star
Which moves not in the moving heavens alone;
A smile amid dark frowns. A gentle tone
Amid rude voices. A beloved light;
A solitude; a refuge; a delight.
A lute, which those whom love has taught to play,
Make music on, to soothe the roughest day,
And lull fond grief asleep. A buried treasure.
A cradle of young thoughts of wingless pleasure.
A violet-shrouded grave of woe. I measure
The world of fancies, seeking one like thee,
And find—alas! mine own infirmity.

—Shelley's Epipsychidion.

“So sweet, that the very senses ache at her.”
—Othello.

“Not in those lands where I have late been straying,”
Have I beheld a creature like to thee;
A countenance so much of peace betraying;
So much of gentleness and charity;
Such natural human sweetness, such humility.

238

O, there is good and beauty everywhere!
Bright eyes and lovely faces throng the earth.
This world is peopled with the pure and fair!
Stars are there in the south and in the north:
But no one equals thee in loveliness and worth.

Such dear and dazzling eyes, within whose orb
Untrodden worlds repose, of thought and bliss;
Passions that brighten, feelings that absorb,
And spiritual depths of love and tenderness,
That with a glance can chain, and with a glance can bless.

Rich golden hair, that like the sunbeams lie
Along thy neck, and on thy bosom's white;
Curling like sunny wreaths upon the sky,
Wav'd by the breezes, motions of delight;
Or, like the golden harvest in the summer bright.

And thou hast silken eyebrows, lightly spread
Upon thy snowy chin, and cheeks most fair,
Matching the richest colours ever wed
With nature; or, when morn and eve compare;
As if a rose-leaf red should with the snow-wreath pair.

Motions are thine, glad as the mountain breeze;
Free as the Antelope that bounds in pride;
Joyous as dalliance of the leafy trees.
And thou dost wear a majesty beside,
That might with any queen her sovrantie divide.

239

And, 'neath the snowy mirror of thy brow,
Sleep thoughts, and mind, and sweet philosophy;
Not crabb'd and harsh, but as the river's flow;
Calm and refin'd, and full of harmony;
Scatter'd like lovely tints upon the evening sky!

Hence do I swear, that in no other land
Lives one to match with thee—so pure and fair—
With loveliness and wisdom on thy hand,
And innocence, that spreads her gentle care,
And clothes thee in her robes, and decks thy golden hair.

O say, did earthly parents send us here
This blessed shape? Or came she from on high
Among those quiet isles that blossom clear
In untouch'd calmness? Came she from the sky
Among those golden gleams that from morn's portals fly?

Or is she from the caverns of the sea—
The grots of gems, and pearls, and gold below
The snowy foam, and the green waters free—
Sitting, with lovely shapes, beneath the flow
Of the clear mountain springs that through these hollows go?

Or herded she with some sweet fairy queen,
In halls and palaces beneath the flowers?—
Beneath the fertile vales and rings of green,
And wandering with her, through enchanted bowers,
To sip from magic cup, and wile the summer hours?

240

Or is she of the shape that vision views?—
Glories, in snow-white robes, with dazzling eyes,
That stand before the sleeper in bright hues,
With messages, sent downward from the skies
Of memory and love, and hope that ever flies?

Oh, no!—and why should fancy e'er compare
That lovely maid with ought but earthly state!
Sufficeth that of earth she is most fair;
That earthly worshippers upon her wait;
That all the human virtues with my Margaret mate!

Liken her to a star, or to a flower,
Perishing soon—to ought that's beautiful
On earth; but let not fancy ever shower
Its shapes unreal, with which the brain is full.
Liken her to herself!—From her the image cull!

She came to me a spirit, in the night
Of care and grief! She came, and she is gone!
She came, a vision beautiful and bright,
When I was wandering in my woe, alone—
'Tis past, and memory sits as on a shatter'd throne!

Crying aloud, from solitude, to thee,
As to a shiver'd idol!—A delight
That's vanish'd—a sweet joy no more to be!
Mourning for that which was serene and bright;
A beauteous vision past upon remorseless night!

241

I'll think of thee, beloved, when young morn
Wakes from his golden couch, and o'er the main
Wanders irradiate. When, all unshorn,
The peak'd mountains glitter in his train,
And the rich glittering dews shine brightly on his reign!

I'll think of thee at noon, when, hot and bright,
The sun shines forth, and, wandering far away
In lonely woods, I rest me from his light;
Hearing the hill-bee 'mid the wild-flowers stray,
Or the dim ocean sounding to each distant bay!

I'll think of thee at evening, when the day
Is past, and when rich bars of burning gold,
Like chariot-wheels, meet heaven's declining ray;
When the huge mountains, glorious to behold,
Stand radiant, and like the inspired hills of old!

I'll think of thee at night, when, o'er the sky,
The moon, like a lost lady, wanders forth!
When the loud nightingale makes minstrelsy;
And, marching forth, the streamers of the north
Veil the effulgent heavens, and startle the dim earth!—

And when the stars sleep quietly, and when
The clouds are pillow'd up, and every isle
Of heaven lies still to angels and to men;
And love and joy in hallow'd slumbers smile;
And lovers, in deep bliss, their earthly curse beguile!

242

I'll think of thee, sweet Margaret, when the spring
Comes forth in beauty, and the flowers are out;
And when the wild-birds in the forests sing;
And when the hills and fields with music shout;
And sylphs and fairies dance in many a mazy rout.

I'll think of thee in summer, when each bough
Murmurs deep love, and every bird is singing
Each to his mate, that in her nest sits low;
When hill, and field, and pleasant vale are ringing
With the loud hymns of joy and bliss around them winging.

I'll think of thee in autumn, and will find,
Among the golden woods, thy simile;
The drooping woodbines, gorgeously entwin'd—
The hare-bell—all bright things, I'll like to thee,
And, with enraptur'd names, commend them thus to be!

And, even in chilling winter, there is snow
That with thine innocent bosom may compare;
And radiant stars, upon the heaven's brow,
To match thine eyes; and splendours, rich and rare,
To shew thy radiant soul, and with thy fancy dare!

Yea, in my noble ecstacies thou art;
My sweetest visions do partake of thee;
Thou art a tenant of my brain and heart;
The creature of my soul's idolatry;
The messenger of love, and truth, and liberty!

243

If thou shouldst die, thou wouldst not die to me.
All beauteous things would chant thy elegy;
All fair and gentle shapes would sing of thee!
Sweet music would ascend into the sky,
And sorrow fill the earth that one so good should die!

The cypress-tree should emblem our deep grief;
The violet weep with dew-drops in the shade;
The drooping birch-tree keep us in belief
Of thy dear virtues; and, in every glade,
Trees, wild-flowers, mossy nooks, lament our lovely maid!

The plaining streams, to which thy walks were wed,
Floating in peacefulness and joy along,
Should hymn aloud of the beloved dead.
Thy cherish'd birds would weave a dirge and song,
And echo in the shade thy memory prolong.

I should imagine thee amid the mist—
The sunny mist of dreams; and see thy hair
Downfalling in rich threads, by south winds kiss'd,
And view in ecstasy thy forehead fair—
Thy innocent cheeks and eyes—thy shape beyond compare.

And I should list thy sphere-like voice ascend,
In melody melodious; and arise
To catch the strains celestial, and bend
Uupward into the heavens my rapturous eyes,
Gazing, as if some spirit warbled from the skies.

244

Or seek thee in each well-accustom'd place.
Shapes, fairer than Diana in her glee;
Beauty, beyond the sylph's or naiad's face,
In the deep woods would come and tell of thee,
And bear my sorrowing soul to rapturous ecstacy.

Margaret—beloved—thou can'st never die,
For thou art of my heart, and soul, and brain:
Deep fix'd within the roots of memory,
Thou never canst depart from me again,
But live in endless light with memory's saintly train.

Thou wert my theme by moonlight—when, alone,
I dwelt in sorrow and the bar of pain;
When ofttime the dim midnight heard me moan,
Thy presence took away the curse of Cain,
And, like an angel's hand, I felt it on my brain!

Yea, in my boyish youth, and when I sung
“The wandering bard,” thou wert my constant theme.
Thou wert the hope, the burthen of my song,
‘The glory and the splendour of my dream,
And still I strove to make thee holy and supreme!

'Twas thou that cloth'd me with poetic fire,
Upheld my song, supported every mood,
And struck the sluggish silence of my lyre;
Thy radiant shape enliven'd solitude,
Or walking on the hills, or in the silent wood.

245

And when of this, my great and glorious land,
I chose to sing, still did I cling to thee!
Thou didst inspire me; thou didst hold command;
Thou mad'st my harp that it was bold and free;
And thou didst bear it high to truth and liberty!

And still thou bear'st me onward!—They are o'er,
The strains that have upheld me!—they are gone!
Perchance I never may resound them more;
But thou shalt still remain my theme alone,
Thou still wilt linger near—my bright, my only one!

Hunted and persecuted I have been,
Upheld by none, amid my bitter woe;
But thou, celestial presence, o'er the scene
Of desolation wand'rst to and fro,
And thou didst drive away each wrong and every woe.

Scorning them all, I cling to none but thee!
Hating them all, who, in my time of need,
Left me to pine and strive in misery—
With grief, dependence, and their bitter breed—
Margaret, I lean to thee, even like a broken reed.

Could I be daunted, when an angel stood
Before me? Could I feel a doubt or care
Near one who was so excellent and good?
O thou, who art so pure, and kind, and fair,
Heaven clothe thee sweetly round; with thee its blessings share.

246

Eternal blessings, and great joy be thine!
In all thy doings, may heaven bless thee still!
May every virtue round thy dwelling shine,
And, roaming by deep vale or solemn hill,
Mayst thou of glorious thoughts and raptures take thy fill.

“Farewell—a word that hath been and must be!”
Farewell—my strain is over—I must go
Out to the world, and leave thy praise and thee!
Where cities stand in noisy pomp and woe,
Far from thy side, these feet must wander to and fro.

The songs of “England” cease, and I am done!
'Twas my delight to sing her lofty praise,
Even though unnoticed—heeded not—alone!
She was my theme, the darling of my lays,
And she hath been my solace and my sought-for bays.

And I have told the tyrant and the slave
That she's the chosen home of liberty!
That liberty is cradled on the wave,
And on the cliffs, and on the mountains free—
That despots cannot thrall us by their tyranny.

I have upheld the altar and the state,
Defended where defence was just and true;
Warning the people what will be their fate,
If the old deeds of wrong they do renew,
And with red-reeking blood, our fertile fields imbue!

247

Yea, I have shewn how England was a spot
Of rocks and cliffs surrounded by the sea.
A few barbarians held her, owning not
Religion, thought, nor arts, nor liberty,
Clothed all in savage garbs, in savage nature free.

That still proud valour rul'd in every breast,
And, from their snow-white cliffs, they scatter'd back
The rude invader, that disturb'd their rest;
Leaving upon the snowy foam the track
Of blood;—how of the brave and virtuous was no lack.

How Boadicea did avenge her dead!
How high Caractacus in haughty Rome
Would bow not to stern tyranny his head;
But bore himself as on his mountain home;
Disdaining for their wealth, to fill a traitor's tomb!

Of virtue, household truth, and piety,
Honour and noble deeds, I still have sung,
Striving to bear this fallen nation high!
And if they have a heart, it must be wrung—
But now my harp is still, and on the willows hung.

Oh, she is great, majestical, and free—
A noble theme!—Not in another land,
Oh England, have mine eyes seen ought like thee!
Not where the vineyard waves in sunny band—
Not where majestic rivers roll in proud command!

248

Rich are thy golden sunsets, Italy,
And blue thy moonlit heavens! Rich and bright,
O Greece, art thou, and memory clings to thee.
Egypt hath holy names, and dwells in light,
Beneath where towers and pyramids stand forth in might.

Over the Atlantic waves, in pomp and pride,
Great cities in their splendour meet the sky:
But, O, methinks, not in the nations wide,
Stands any land, so pure, and great, and high
As thou, the chosen seat of truth and liberty!

Greece, Egypt, Italy, are trod by slaves—
But freedom on thy mountains wanders free;
We sooner far would sink into our graves
Than bow the abject neck to tyranny—
Slaves ne'er shall tread thy soil—unchain'd thou aye shalt be!

My hymn is over; many a summer day
I now have sung:—in many a changeful mood
And changeful place I still have tun'd my lay!
Sometimes in cities; sometimes solitude,
Loving at every time, upon my theme to brood!

Thou, Margaret, only didst with this divide
My soul; and ye were rivals kind and fair.
I leant to each with almost equal pride,
Thinking and dreaming on ye everywhere—
Now ye are past away—I have no thought nor care!

249

Yet am I loth to part, and still would cling
To every line; and still new thoughts start forth;
And still your praise and beauty I would sing.
New inspirations as I write take birth,
And I am borne away to you from this dull earth.

Margaret, farewell! I still shall think of thee
In this sad world, and murmur still thy name.
Perchance, this book will make thee think of me,
As one who, like a cloud, before thee came—
Or like, perchance, a stain upon the heavens of fame.

Or, may I hope it, like a vanish'd strain;
A sweet Æolian murmur past away;
A music sent at midnight from the main;
A melody upon a summer day—
No more—'tis over now—no more have I to say!

JOHN WALKER ORD. October 10th, 1834.