500

Ten thousand men lie low; And still their dirge

At his least breath. The good and brave were gone

To exile or the tomb. Their country's life was done!

PERICLES AND ASPASIA.

THIS was the ruler of the land,
When Athens was the land of fame;
This was the light that led the band

When each was like a living flame:
The centre of earth's noblest ring

Of more than men, the more than king!

Yet, not by fetter, nor by spear,

His sovereignty was held or won; Fear'd-but alone as freemen fear;

Loved-but as freemen love alone! He waved the sceptre o'er his kind, By Nature's first great title-mind! Resistless words were on his tongue;

Then eloquence first flash'd below! Full arm'd to life the portent sprung, Minerva, from the thunderer's brow! And his the sole, the sacred hand, That shook her ægis o'er the land! And thron'd immortal, by his side,

A woman sits, with eye sublime,Aspasia, all his spirit's bride;

But if their solemn love were crime,Pity the beauty and the sage,Their crime was in their darken'd age. He perish'd-but his wreath was wonHe perish'd on his height of fame! Then sank the cloud on Athens' sun;

Yet still she conquer'd in his name. Fill'd with his soul, she could not dieHer conquest was posterity!

LINES WRITTEN AT SPITHEAD.

HARK to the knell!
It comes to the swell

Of the stormy ocean wave; 'Tis no earthly sound,

But a toll profound

From the mariner's deep sea grave.

When the billows dash,
And the signals flash,

And the thunder is on the gale; And the ocean is white

In its own wild light,

Deadly, and dismal, and pale.

Is sung by the surge,

When the stormy night-winds blow.

Sleep, warriors! sleep

On your pillow deep

In peace! for no mortal care,

No art can deceive,

No anguish can heave

The heart that once slumbers there.

LEONIDAS.

SHOUT for the mighty men

Who died along this shore,Who died within this mountain glen! For never nobler chieftain's head Was laid on valour's crimson bed, Nor ever prouder gore Sprang forth, than theirs who won the day Upon thy strand, Thermopylæ!

Shout for the mighty men,

Who on the Persian tents,

Like lions from their midnight den,
Bounding on the slumbering deer,
Rush'd-a storm of sword and spear-

Like the roused elements,
Let loose from an immortal hand,
To chasten or to crush a land'
But there are none to hear;

Greece is a hopeless slave.
Leonidas! no hand is near
To lift thy fiery falchion now:
No warrior makes the warrior's vow

Upon thy sea-wash'd grave.

The voice that should be raised by men,
Must now be given by wave and glen.

And it is given!-the surge

The tree-the rock-the sand-
On Freedom's kneeling spirit urge,
In sounds that speak but to the free,
The memory of thine and thee!

The vision of thy band
Still gleams within the glorious dell,
Where their gore hallow'd, as it fell'

And is thy grandeur done?

Mother of men like these! Has not thy outcry gone Where Justice has an ear to hear! Be holy! God shall guide thy spear; Till in thy crimson'd seas Are plunged the chain and scimitar, Greece shall be a new-born star !

THE DEATH OF LEONIDAS.

It was the wild midnight,

A storm was on the sky; The lightning gave its light, And the thunder echoed by.

(Boon for which fate doth compensate for evil) The eye to look into futurity,

And read the hopes of nations. He became
A prophet, and earth's destinies foretold;
And saw how Freedom with earthquake convul-
sion

He proved the hollowness of the clay Idol,
The Power to which they slavishly had knelt;
That the innate divinity of Kings
Should emanate from kingly minds alone:
That one alone should arbitrate on earth,*
Even as the One in heaven: the elect of Fate,

men

Would then remember him as the Day-Star
That heralded its dawn. Thus he endured
Life, to prove that he triumphed o'er despair.
A monument of Stoic pride;-a mind
The universe could not move from its base.
But the Will, though indomitable, wears
Away this mortal fragment, hastening
To join its kindred elements. Nothing now
Drew him from self: his rocky walls closed round
him,

The burning sun-the sky-the lurid waves-
Time-life-light-space-one blank monotony!
He watched his heart corrode away beneath
His sleepless spirit's edge; he sate and counted
His life-sands, as they slowly moved away!
And then, perchance, despair,-for hope was
dead,-

Ate like the iron in his soul. He was
A thing of nerves, and nakedly alive
To each base insect's sing, which now was felt
By Mind, whose self-restraint was a sharp chain
That goaded it to madness.

Thus he stood,
Watching the setting sun that threw on him
Its glory, unsubstantial as the fame
That settled on his name! He watched, and felt
That Blessing follow not his track, nor went
Before him; yet was it decreed his path,
The life of his necessity by fate,
By the inscrutable Destiny that marks
The rise and fall of empire; in whose faith
He acted, glorying to be its slave.
He rose-a hurricane-a moral storm-
Shaking the fixed foundation of the world.
Kings fearing him descended from their thrones,
Or driven, or by ascendant mind compelled;
Whom he crushed not, because he could not stoop
To their unworthiness, the petty art

That wove the meshes of their strength allied, Then, when Convulsion swept even him away.

Yet o'er his devastating course GooD shone:
And truths, forgot 'midst buried ages, rose
Again to light and memory. Kings felt
Their weakness manifold in the Titan's fall;
The insecurity of Tyranny,

When such as he succumbed. Hero of evil,
Yet harbinger of good was that wild name:
A tyrant,―he yet taught the oppressed their
strength;

Nations enslaved awakened to his call,
And, foiled awhile, yet treasured in their hearts
Inestimable memories of deeds

They dared, and did: to be remembered then,
When Fate and Time unroll the Future's page,
Emblazoned by their heaven-stamped liberties.*

"His gigantic success and double fall taught absolute princes their weakness, and injured nations their strength: such men as he are the avengers of great

The Code, the other, hallowing his name With an enduring Glory to Time's end.†

And then his battle fields arose before him: Those thunderbolts that marked each nation's fall, Until astounded armies cast their arms To earth without a stroke. Even thus he stood Immovable 'midst triumph or reverse, Till Fortune blinded his all-seeing eyes With her too dazzling glories. He became A god unto himself, while Flattery Echoed the falsehood back to him. He deemed The elements subjected to his will; That Polar snows would, like the waves, subside At voice of sovereign command.

Then rose

Deathless Borodino before his eye,
Where single handed Russia dared the fight,
And fell, back reeling, looking to the skies
For refuge; that the Gates of Snow should open
To hide themselves behind them. But behold
Blazing from far their glorious sacrifice,
Sublime atonement of a nation's sins,
The abandoned Capitol, a reddening hell
Of demon light amidst the Polar snows!
Ocean of flame, whose roaring billows drowned
The shouts of rage-the curses of despair!§
Altar, and beacon fire of Hope-the Cross,
Speaking from high-"In this thou overcom'st!"
Then came the mad retreat-the whirldwind

snows

evils, and harbingers of good: even now we have seen only the beginning of the end."-Life of Napoleon.

"My destiny is not yet accomplished: the picture as yet exists only in outline. There must be one code, one court of appeal, and one coinage for all Europe. The states of Europe must be melted into one nation, and Paris must be its capital."—Life of Napoleon. Fomily Library.

+"I shall go down to posterity,' said he, with a just pride, with my code in my hand.' It was the first uniform system of law which the French monarchy had ever possessed; and being drawn up with consummate skill and wisdom, under the Emperor's personal superintendence, at this day it forins not only the Code of France, but of a great portion of Europe also."-Ibid.

"At the capitulation of Ulm, thirty thousand men laid down their arms without striking a stroke, and twenty-seven generals surrendered their swords."

Napoleon stood on a rising eminence: the expression

of his countenance was that of "indifference, or rather, it had no expression-it was impassive."-Communication from a General Officer present.

"Moscow was one vast ocean of flame, which emitted a roaring sound like the breakers in a tempest -it was a visible Hell. Napoleon persisted in remain ing in the Kremlin until it was enveloped, when to ride through the flames was a matter of danger and

difficulty."-Count Dumas' Memoirs.

The Cross supposed to be seen in the sky by Con stantine previous to the decisive victory which gained him the Western empire-ev Torto veika. The cir cumstance is recorded by contemporary historians.

Sweeping around them merciless as man:
The stiffening hand, the pulseless heart and eye,
The frozen standard, and the palsied arm:
The unfrequent watch-fires rising like red sparks
Amidst the illimitable snows; the crowds
Of spectral myriads shuddering around them-
Frozen to statues; scathed by the red flames,
Or speared by howling savages, until
Winter, less merciless than they, threw o'er them
Her winding sheet of snows, deep burying
Armies whose presence vanished like a dream!
There fell the man who against nature warred,
Amid his councils Treachery took her seat,
Or openly raised her visor in the field:*
Fortune had left him-never to return.

Walk humbly in thy charitable path;
Nor deem that Star inferior, which sublime
In infinite distance little seems to thee.

II.

NAPOLEON, IN HIS FALL, TO CAIUS MARIUS.

He stood among

The wrecks of buried power-of what was:
And did contemplate them till his mind drew
The resolution that doth hope survive :
That hath no root to cling to save itself,
No hold-no subterfuge; but which is born,
Yea thrown up from the ashes of despair.

vealed.

His race was run-he vanished from the world,
Forgot like a departed thunderstorm.

The infinite spirit that had filled the earth
Evaporated in a barren isle,

Minghing with the Infinity around him.

The world heard when he died, and smiled, or sighed,

And then-forgot. Fame defied in life,
Giving his deeds and words to Time to live
Enduring through a future without end.
O let no more the idle moralist

Weigh in his petty scale the dust of heroes!†
But pause until his mind becomes so vast,
That he can weigh the immeasurable spirit
Fled from that dust for ever! then when reached
The eagle's height-the world beneath him laid,
Subjected to his swoop-the eagle's gaze
Daring the sun in its meridian power!
The fierce ascent-the giddy height when
proved-

The sleepless aspirations of a spirit
Conscious of fixing an immortal stamp
Upon its every thought-the feverish hope
Of infinite effort-and the stormy joy,
The whirlwind pulse of triumph, yet calm eye
Preserved, and coldest dignity of mien,
Conscious of millions watching from below
Heights they could never gain; when these are
proved,

Faint moralist! of calm and temperate pulse,
Then sit in judgment; then, in language vast
As thy magnificent conceptions, tell

Of thought and deeds eternal as thy words
Shall be recording them: but oh! till then,
Sink not the mighty to thy narrow span;
Prate not of passions thou hast never proved :

Like him, the noble Roman, who was found
Kingly reclining, midst the solitudes
Of Carthage' ruins-silent, motionless,
Looking himself the ruin he bestrode !-
Who chose the seat to suit his desolation;
To show how mind can triumph over ruin,
Subjecting fate and fortune to its sway.
So the slave found him: the pale, cringing slave.
Who was sent forth to count his agonies,
To pry into the secrets of his soul,
The inner man, when he pours forth to Nature
The passion which then bursts the bonds of pride
And finds a struggling language.

All alone,

Alone against the solitary sky
He sate-bareheaded, with the gathering storm
Around him in the distance! then, he turned
And gave the slave the answer:* rather say,
The warning Oracle that taught his foe
The fleeting reign of empire and of man.

III.

NAPOLEON AT AUSTERLITZ.

1.

THEY do not die-they do not die-
Souls of the brave and just!
Is 't not a coward's thought to say
Ye pass again to dust!

Ye live through every age-y' are given
To breathe in hearts of slaves
The patriot flame ye drew from heaven:
That sleeps not in your graves!
Your shapes blind Homer's eyes beheld,
His harp ye strung-his soul ye swelled.

2.

I tell thee, yet on Marathon

The shade of Theseus treads!t And the slave that walks Thermopyla The Spartan's spirit dreads.

Expende Annibalem! &c.-Juvenal. "What is this immortality 3-remembrance left in the memory of man. That idea elevates to great deeds. Better never to have lived, than to leave no trace of one's existence."-Bourienne's Life.

une mer fougeuse pour le seul plaisir d'exercer sa vigeur et de la jeter en dehors de lui. Son égoïsme le pousse au milieu des fatigues et des dangers, comme le votre vous enchaine à de patientes et loborieuses professions. Que son fatal example serve seulement à vous consoler de votre inoffensive nullité !"

"Go, tell him thou hast seen the exiled Marius sitting amidst the ruins of Carthage."-Plutarch's Life of Marius.

And hast thou stood by Ur's lake
When tempests o'er it sweep,
The shade of Tell from his misty cloud
Looks downward from the steep;
And, frowning points with angry eye
To Altorf's tower, and days gone by.

3.

Go-stand on Austerlitz: but not

In the garish eye of day;
The thin, cold Dead are only seen
By the pale Moon's watery ray!
But at the solemn hour of Night,

When the world in sleep is drowned, The rush of troops-of an army's throngTramps o'er that marshalled ground, While to lead again the shadowy brave, Napoleon comes from his sea-girt grave.

4.

O, then he stands as he stood in life,
His arms crossed o'er his breast;
With his eagle eye, and lip of pride,
And his foot half forward pressed;
A monument, by nature stamped,
Of resolution there!*

With a soul that felt all it could do,

And knew what it would dare ; While he looks unmoved, as he looked in life, When matched against the world in strife.

5.

Their drums are heard like the muffled note
Of winds when their strength is gone,
And proudly in air the banners float,
As the shadowy hosts move on!

A pale gleam from their helms is cast,
From battle blade and spear;

And faintly sheds on the sumless ranks
That darken in the rear ;

In front, the Chiefs in martial ring

Are crowding round their Phantom King!

6.

His arm is raised to the clouded sky
Where the Moon is struggling through;

A moment more-the mist flits by,
A light gleams from his lambent eye,
As she breaks forth full in view.-
Thus "the Sun of Austerlitz" broke out!
He points to the conscious throng,
While with joyous tread, and soundless shout,
The armies charge along!

And thus, when the world in sleep is drowned,

Napoleon walks on his hallowed ground.

THE LILY OF THE VALLEY. WHITE bud, that in meek beauty so dost lean Thy cloister'd cheek as pale as moonlight snow,

thon, the Athenian army thought they saw the apparition of Theseus completely armed, and bearing down before them upon the Barbarians.

The well-known attitude of Napoleon-in the court -the camp-and on the battle field.

Thou seem'st beneath thy huge, high leaf of green,
An Eremite beneath his mountain's brow.
White bud! thou 'rt emblem of a lovelier thing,
The broken spirit that its anguish bears
To silent shades, and there sits offering
To Heaven the holy fragrance of its tears.

THE ARTIST'S CHAMBER.

A SKETCH ON THE SPOT.

THE room was low and lone, but linger'd there,
In careless loveliness, the marks of mind;
The page of chivalry, superb and drear,
Beside a half-fill'd vase of wine reclined,
Told how romance and gaiety combined.
And there, like things of immortality,
Stood statues in their master's soul enshrined,
Venus with the sweet smile and heavenly eye,
And the sad solemn brow of lovely Niobe.

And scatter'd round, by wall and sofa, lay Emblems of thoughts that love from earth to spring.

Upon a portrait fell the evening ray,

Touching with splendour many an auburn ring That veil'd a brow of snow; and crinisoning The bending Spanish cheek with living rose; And there lay a guitar, whose silvery string Breathed to the wind; like beauty in repose; Sighing the lovely sounds that bade her blue eye close.

LORENZO DE' MEDICI.

THERE is a tradition, that when LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT was yet in his cradle, a wandering astrologer predicted his future renown.

INFANT-noble infant-sleep,
While this midnight heaven I sweep.
O'er thee burn a trine of stars,
Jove the sovereign, fire-eyed Marɛ,
Venus, with the diamond beam.
Babe, thou'lt wear the diadem,
Wield the victor sword, and win
Woman more than half divine.
On this pure and pencil'd brow
Latent bursts of lightning glow,
Haughty Venice shall be bow'd
When they rend the thunder cloud.
Eloquence is on thy lip,

Now, like roses when they dip

Their budding crimson in the dew;
But, when time shall change its huc,
Law, and truth, and liberty
On its paler pomp sl.all lie.