The Poetical Works of Ebenezer Elliott :: :: University of Virginia Library

Through realms of ice my journey lay, beneath
The wafture of two pinions black and vast,
That shook o'er boundless snows the dust of death,
While overhead, thick starless Midnight cast
Gloom on sad forms, that ever onward pass'd.
But whither pass'd they? O Eternity,
Thou answerest not! Yet still thy sable wings—
Silently, silently, how silently!—
Are sweeping worlds away, with all their Kings.
And still I wander'd with forgotten things,
In pilgrimage with Death, an age-long day,
A year of anxious ages—so methought—
Till rose a living world in morning grey,
And light seem'd born of darkness—light which brought
Before my soul the coasts of land remote.
“Hail, holy light, offspring of Heav'n, first-born,
Or of the eternal, coeternal beam!”
Through worlds of darkness led, and travel-worn,

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Again I felt thy glowing, brightening gleam;
Again I greeted thine “ethereal stream,”
And bless'd the fountain whence thy glories flow.

II.

I waked not then, methought, but wander'd slow,
Where dwell the great, whom death hath freed from pain.
Trembling, I gazed on Hampden's thoughtful brow,
While Strafford smiled upon me in disdain,
And turn'd away from Hutchison and Vane.
There some whom criminals disdain'd; and all
Who, battling for the right, had nobly died;
And some whom justest men deem'd criminal,
Wond'ring, I saw—the flatter'd, the belied!
And Muir and Saville, walking side by side!
They wept—e'en Strafford melted, when I told
Of Britain's woes—of toil that earn'd not bread,
And hands that found not work; but Fairfax scowl'd,
While Cromwell laugh'd, and Russell's cheek grew red,
When, pale, I spake of Satraps bread-tax-fed.
Lo! as I ceased, from earth a Stranger came,
With hurried step—a presence heavenly fair!
Yet grief, and anger, pride, contempt, and shame
Were strangely mingled in his troubled stare!
And thus he spoke, with timid haughty air,

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To Russell, Fairfax, in tones low but sweet:—
“I, too, am noble. England's magnates rank
Me with themselves; and when, beneath their feet
Fate's low-born despot, hope-deserted, sank;
When torrid noon his sweat of horror drank,
I join'd his name for ever with my own!”

III.

Him then to answer, one who sate alone,
Like a maim'd lion, mateless in his lair,
Rose from his savage couch of barren stone.
His kingly features wither'd by despair,
And heart-worn till the tortured nerve was bare:
With looks that seem'd to scorn e'en scorn of less
Than demigods, the Army-Scatterer came—
An awful shadow of the mightiness
That once was his; the gloom, but not the flame
Of waning storms, when winds and seas grow tame.
The stranger, shrinking from the warrior's eye,
On his own hands his beauteous visage bow'd,
Sobbing; but soon he raised it mournfully,
And met th' accusing look, and on the crowd
Smiled, while the stern accuser spake aloud.

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IV.

“Yet, Lordling, though ‘but yesterday a King,
Throneless, I died,’ yet nations sobb'd my knell!
And still I live, and reign, no nameless thing!
I fell, 'tis true—I failed; and thou canst tell
That any wretch alive may say I fell,
Of worth convicted, and the glorious sin
That wreck'd the angels, now I owe and pay,
To wealth and power's pretended Jacobin,
Scorn for thy glory, laughter for the lay
That won the flatteries of an abject day.
When Meanness taught her helots to be proud,
Because the breaker of their bonds was gone,
Didst thou too join, magnanimous and loud,
The yell of millions o'er the prostrate one?
What cat out-mew'd the Cat of Helicon?
Yes, thou didst soothe my sorrows with an ode,
When stunn'd I lay beneath Destruction's wing,
And realms embattled o'er their conqueror rode.
Yes, when a world combined with fate to fling
A cruel sunshine on each vulgar King;
When fall'n, deserted, blasted, and alone,
Silent he press'd his bed of burning stone,

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What caitiff aim'd at his sublime despair,
Th' immortal shaft that pierced Prometheus there?
Cat, and not vulture! couldst not thou refrain,
The laureate vile of viler things to be?
When ‘Timour's Captive's’ cage was rock and main,
What was ‘proud Austria's mournful flower’ to thee,
Thou soulless torturer of Captivity?
And what to thee, mean Homager of Thrones,
The sleepless pang that stung him till he died?
Tortured, he perish'd—but who heard his groans?
Chain'd through the soul, the ‘throneless homicide’
Mantled his agony in stoic pride.
While souls guilt-clotted watch'd, with others' eyes,
And from afar, with others' feet repair'd
To count and weigh, and quaff his agonies—
Like Phidian marble he endured, and dared
The Universe to shake what Fate had spared.
How fare the lands he loved, and fought to save?
O Hun and Goth! your new-born hope is gone!
Thou, Italy, art Glory's spacious grave,
Through which the stream of my renown flows on—
Like thine Euphrates, ruin'd Babylon!
What gain'd my gaolers by my wrongs and fall?
Laws praised in hell—not Draco's laws, but worse;
A mournful page, which history writes in gall;
A table without food—an empty purse;
A name, become a by-word and a curse,
O'er every sea, to warn all nations, borne!”

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V.

Was it the brightening gleam of heavenly morn,
Beneath the shadow of his godlike brow?
Or, did a tear of grief, and rage, and scorn,
Down his sad cheek of pride and trouble flow?
He felt upon his cheek th' indignant glow,
But shed no tear, not e'en a burning tear.
The fire of sorrow in his bosom pent,
He gazed on Milton, with an eye severe,
On tranquil Pym a look of sternness bent,
Then, smiling on the humbled stranger, went
To laugh with Cæsar tasking Hannibal.

If it be objected to these lines that the great bard is dead, so, I answer, is also the great warrior; and he who has honest and useful thoughts to express of either, or both of them, should do his duty Briton-like.