網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

He sense had filed-Exhausted by the storm,
A fatal trance hung o'er her pallid form;
Her closing eye a trembling lustre fired;
'Twas life's last spark-it flutter'd and expired!

The father strew'd his white hairs in the wind,
Call'd on his child-nor linger'd long behind:
And Florio lived to see the willow wave,
With many an evening whisper, o'er their grave.
Yes, Florio lived-and, still of each possess'd,
The father cherish'd and the maid caress'd!

For ever would the fond enthusiast rove With Julia's spirit through the shadowy grove; Gaze with delight on every scene she plann'd, Kiss every floweret planted by her hand. Ah! still he traced her steps along the glade, When hazy hues and glimmering lights betray'd Half viewless forms; still listen'd as the breeze Heaved its deep sobs among the aged trees; And at each pause her melting accents caught, In sweet delirium of romantic thought! Dear was the grot that shunn'd the blaze of day; She gave its spars to shoot a trembling ray. The spring, that bubbled from its inmost cell, Murmur'd of Julia's virtues as it fell; And o'er the dripping moss, the fretted stone, In Florio's ear breathed language not its own, Her charm around th' enchantress Memory threw, A charm that soothes the mind, and sweetens too! But is her magic only felt below?

If thy blest nature now unites above
An angel's pity with a brother's love,
Still o'er my life preserve thy mild control,
Correct my views, and elevate my soul;
Grant me thy peace and purity of mind,
Devout, yet cheerful, active, yet resign'd;
Grant me, like thee, whose heart knew no disguise
Whose blameless wishes never aim'd to rise,
To meet the changes time and chance present,
With modest dignity and calm content.
When thy last breath, ere nature sunk to rest,
Thy meek submission to thy God express'd;
When thy last look, ere thought and feeling fled,
A mingled gleam of hope and triumph shed;
What to thy soul its glad assurance gave,
Its hope in death, its triumph o'er the grave?
The sweet remembrance of unblemish'd youth,
The still inspiring voice of innocence and truth!

Hail, Memory, hail! in thy exhaustless mine
From age to age unnumber'd treasures shine!
Thought and her shadowy brood thy call obey,
And place and time are subject to thy sway!
Thy pleasures most we feel when most alone;
The only pleasures we can call our own.
Lighter than air, hope's summer visions die,
If but a fleeting cloud obscure the sky;
If but a beam of sober reason play,
Lo, fancy's fairy frost-work melts away!
But can the wiles of art, the grasp of power,

Say, through what brighter realms she bids it flow: Snatch the rich relics of a well spent hour?

To what pure beings, in a nobler sphere,
She yields delight but faintly imaged here:
All that till now their rapt researches knew;
Not call'd in slow succession to review,
But, as a landscape meets the eye of day,
At once presented to their glad survey!

Each scene of bliss reveal'd, since chaos fled,
And dawning light its dazzling glories spread;
Each chain of wonders that sublimely glow'd,
Since first creation's choral anthem flow'd;
Each ready flight, at mercy's call divine,
To distant worlds that undiscover'd shine;
Full on her tablet flings its living rays,
And all, combined, with blest effulgence blaze.
There thy bright train, immortal friendship, soar;
No more to part, to mingle tears no more!
And, as the softening hand of time endears
The joys and sorrows of our infant years,
So there the soul, released from human strife,
Smiles at the little cares and ills of life;

Its lights and shades, its sunshine and its showers;
As at a dream that charm'd her vacant hours!
Oft may the spirits of the dead descend
To watch the silent slumbers of a friend
To hover round his evening walk unseen,
And hold sweet converse on the dusky green;
To hail the spot where first their friendship grew,
And heaven and nature open'd to their view!
Oft, when he trims his cheerful hearth, and sees
A smiling circle emulous to please;
There may these gentle guests delight to dwell,
And bless the scene they loved in life so well!

O thou! with whom my heart was wont to share
From reason's dawn each pleasure and each care;
With whom, alas! I fondly hoped to know
The humble walks of happiness below;

These, when the trembling spirit wings her flight Pour round her path a stream of living light; And gild those pure and perfect realms of rest, Where virtue triumphs, and her sons are blest!

ODE TO SUPERSTITION.t

I. 1.

HENCE, to the realms of night, dire demon, hence!
Thy chain of adamant can bind
That little world, the human mind,
And sink its noblest powers to impotence.
Wake the lion's loudest roar,

Clot his shaggy mane with gore,

With flashing fury bid his eyeballs shine;
Meek is his savage, sullen soul, to thine!
Thy touch, thy deadening touch has steel'd the
breast,

Whence, through her April shower, soft pity smiled;

Has closed the heart each godlike virtue bless'd, To all the silent pleadings of his child.‡ At thy command he plants the dagger deep, At thy command exults, though nature bids him weep!

[blocks in formation]

Rocking on the billowy air,

Ha! what withering phantoms glare! As blows the blast with many a sudden swell, At each dead pause, what shrill-toned voices yell! The sheeted spectre, rising from the tomb, Points to the murderer's stab, and shudders by; In every grove is felt a heavier gloom, That veils its genius from the vulgar eye: The spirit of the water rides the storm, And, through the mist, reveals the terrors of his form.

I. 3.

O'er solid seas, where winter reigns,
And holds each mountain wave in chains,
The fur-clad savage, ere he guides his deer
By glistering starlight through the snow,
Breathes softly in her wondering ear

Each petent spell thou badest him know.
By thee inspired, on India's sands,
Full in the sun the Brahmin stands ;
And, while the panting tigress hies
To quench her fever in the stream,
His spirit laughs in agonies,

Smit by the scorchings of the noontide beam.
Mark who mounts the sacred pyre,*

Blooming in her bridal vest :

She hurls the torch! she fans the fire!
To die is to be blest:

She clasps her lord to part no more,
And, sighing, sinks! but sinks to soar.
O'ershadowing Scotia's desert coast,

The sisters sail in dusky state,†
And, wrapt in clouds, in tempests tost,
Weave the airy web of fate;

While the lone shepherd, near the shipless main,t Sees o'er her hills advance the long-drawn funeral train.

II. 1.

Thou spakest, and lo! a new creation glow'd.
Each unhewn mass of living stone
Was clad in horrors not its own,
And at its base the trembling nations bow'd.
Giant Error, darkly grand,
Grasp'd the globe with iron hand.
Circled with seats of bliss, the lord of light
Saw prostrate worlds adore his golden height.
The statue, waking with immortal powers,§
Springs from its parent earth, and shakes the
spheres:

Th' indignant pyramid sublimely towers,
And braves the efforts of a host of years.
Sweet music breathes her soul into the wind;
And bright-eyed painting stamps the image of the
mind.

II. 2.

Round their rude ark old Egypt's sorcerers rise!
A timbrell'd anthem swells the gale,
And bids the god of thunders hail ;
With lowings loud the captive god replies.

The funeral rite of the Hindoos.

The fates of the northern mythology. See Mallet's

Antiquities.

An allusion to the second-sight.

§ See that fine description of the sudden animation of the Palladium, in the second book of the Æneid.

The bull, Apis.

Clouds of incense woo thy smile,

Scaly monarch of the Nile!*

But ah! what myriads claim the bended knee!
Go, count the busy drops that swell the sea.
Proud land! what eye can trace thy mystic lore
Lock'd up in characters as dark as night?
What eye those long, long labyrinths dare ex-
plore,§

To which the parted soul oft wings her flight;
Again to visit her cold cell of clay,
Charm'd with perennial sweets, and smiling st
decay.

II. 3.

On yon hoar summit, mildly bright|||
With purple ether's liquid light,

High o'er the world, the white-robed magi gaze
On dazzling bursts of heavenly fire;
Start at each blue, portentous blaze,
Each flame that flits with adverse spire.
But say, what sounds my ear invade
From Delphi's venerable shade?
The temple rocks, the laurel waves!
"The god! the god!" the sibyl cries.¶
Her figure swells, she foams, she raves!
Her figure swells to more than mortal size :
Streams of rapture roll along,

Silver notes ascend the skies:
Wake, echo, wake and catch the song,

O catch it, ere it dies !

The sibyl speaks, the dream is o'er,
The holy harpings charm no more.
In vain she checks the god's control;
His madding spirit fills her frame,
And moulds the features of her soul,

Breathing a prophetic flame.

The cavern frowns! its hundred mouths uncluse. And in the thunder's voice, the fate of empire flows!

III. 1.

Mona, thy Druid rites awake the dead!

Rites thy brown oaks would never dare
E'en whisper to the idle air;

Rites that have chain'd old ocean on his bed.
Shiver'd by thy piercing glance,

Pointless falls the hero's lance.

Thy magic bids th' imperial eagle fly,*
And blasts the laureate wreath of victory.
Hark! the bard's soul inspires the vocal string?
At every pause dread silence hovers o'er:
While murky night sails round on raven wing,
Deepening the tempest's howl, the torrent's

roar;

Chased by the morn from Snowdon's awful brow, Where late she sate and scowl'd on the black wave below.

The crocodile.

+ According to an ancient proverb, it was less difficult in Egypt to find a god than a man.

The hieroglyphics

§ The catacombs

"The Persians," says Herodotus, "have no temples altars, or statues. They sacrifice on the tops of the high est mountains." I. 131

¶ Æn. VI. 46, etc.

**See Tacitus. 1. xiv. c. 29.

III. 2.

Lo, steel-clad war his gorgeous standard rears!
The red cross squadrons madly rage,*
And mow through infancy and age;
Then kiss the sacred dust and melt in tears.
Veiling from the eye of day,
Penance dreams her life away;
In cloister'd solitude she sits and sighs,
While from each shrine still, small responses rise.
Hear, with what heartfelt beat, the midnight bell
Swings its slow summons through the hollow
pile!

Can she, with fiction, charm the cheated mind
When to be grateful is the part assign'd?
Ah no! she scorns the trappings of her art;
No theme but truth, no prompter but the heart
But, ladies, say, must I alone unmask?
Is here no other actress? let me ask.
Believe me, those, who best the heart dissect,
Know every woman studies stage effect.
She moulds her manners to the part she fills,
As instinct teaches, or as humour wills;
And as the grave or gay her talent calls,
Acts in the drama till the curtain falls.
First, how her little breast with triumph swells
When the red coral rings its golden bells!
To play in pantomime is then the rage,

The weak, wan votarist leaves her twilight cell,
To walk, with taper dim, the winding aisle ;
With choral chantings vainly to aspire,
Beyond this nether sphere, on rapture's wing of fire. Along the carpet's many-colour'd stage;

III. 3.

Lord of each pang the nerves can feel,
Hence with the rack and reeking wheel.
Faith lifts the soul above this little ball!
While gleams of glory open round,
And circling choirs of angels call,
Canst thou, with all thy terrors crown'd,
Hope to obscure that latent spark,
Destined to shine when suns are dark?
Thy triumphs cease! through every land,
Hark! truth proclaims, thy triumphs cease!
Her heavenly form, with glowing hand,
Benignly points to piety and peace.
Flush'd with youch, her looks impart
Each fine feeling as it flows;
Her voice the echo of a heart

Pure as the mountain snows:
Celestial transports round her play
And softly, sweetly die away.

She smiles! and where is now the cloud
That blacken'd o'er thy baleful reign?
Grim darkness furls his leaden shroud,
Shrinking from her glance in vain.
Her touch unlocks the day-spring from above,
And lo! it visits man with beams of light and love.

VERSES

WRITTEN TO BE SPOKEN BY MRS. SIDDONS.+

YES, 'tis the pulse of life! my fears were vain;
I wake, I breathe, and am myself again.
Still in this nether world; no seraph yet!
Nor walks my spirit, when the sun is set,
With troubled step to haunt the fatal board,
Where I died last-by poison or the sword;
Banching each honest cheek with deeds of night,
Done here so oft by dim and doubtful light.

-To drop all metaphor, that little bell
Call'd back reality, and broke the spell.
No heroine claims your tears with tragic tone;
A very woman-scarce restrains her own!

This remarkable event happened at the siege and fack of Jerusalem, in the last year of the eleventh century. Matth. Paris, p. 34.

Or lisp her merry thoughts with loud endeavour,
Now here, now there-in noise and mischief ever

A school-girl next, she curls her hair in papers,
And mimics father's gout, and mother's vapours;
Discards her doll, bribes Betty for romances;
Playful at church, and serious when she dances;
Tramples alike on customs and on toes,
And whispers all she hears to all she knows;
Terror of caps, and wigs, and sober notions!
A romp! that longest of perpetual motions!
-Till tamed and tortured into foreign graces,
She sports her lovely face at public places;
And with blue, laughing eyes, behind her fan,
First acts her part with that great actor, man.

Too soon a flirt, approach her and she flies!
Frowns when pursued, and, when entreated, sighs!
Plays with unhappy men as cats with mice;
Till fading beauty hints the late advice.
Her prudence dictates what her pride disdain'd,
And now she sues to slaves herself had chain'd!
Then comes that good old character, a wife,
With all the dear, distracting cares of life;
A thousand cards a day at doors to leave,
And, in return, a thousand cards receive;
Rouge high, play deep, to lead the ton aspire,
With nightly blaze set Portland-place on fire;
Snatch half a glimpse at concert, opera, ball,
A meteor, traced by none, though seen by all;
And, when her shatter'd nerves forbid to roam,
In very spleen-rehearse the girls at home.

Last, the gray dowager, in ancient flounces,
With snuff and spectacles the age denounces ;
Boasts how the sires of this degenerate isle
Knelt for a look, and duell'd for a smile.
The scourge and ridicule of Goth and Vandal,
Her tea she sweetens, as she sips, with scandal,
With modern belles eternal warfare wages,
Like her own birds that clamour from their cages;
And shuffles round to bear her tale to all,
Like some old ruin, "nodding to its fall!"

Thus woman makes her entrance and her exit;
Not least an actress, when she least suspects it.
Yet nature oft peeps out and mars the plot,
Each lesson lost, each poor pretence forgot;
Full oft, with energy that scorns control,
At once lights up the features of the soul;
Unlocks each thought chain'd down by coward art,
And to full day the latent passions start!

After a tragedy, performed for her benefit, at theAnd she, whose first, best wish is your applause Theatre Royal in Drury-lane, April 27, 1795

Herself exemplifies the truth she draws.

Born on the stage-through every shifting scene,
Obscure or bright, tempestuous or serene,
Still has your smile her trembling spirit fired!
And can she act, with thoughts like these inspired?
Thus from her mind all artifice she flings,
All skill, all practice, now unmeaning things!
To you, uncheck'd, each genuine feeling flows;
For all that life endears-to you she owes.

CAPTIVITY.

CAGED in old woods, whose reverend echoes wake
When the hern screams along the distant lake,
Her little heart oft flutters to be free,
Oft sighs to turn the unrelenting key.
In vain! the nurse that rusted relic wears,
Nor moved by gold-nor to be moved by tears;
And terraced walls their black reflection throw
On the green mantled moat that sleeps below.

ON

ASLEEP.

SLEEP on, and dream of heaven a while.
Though shut so close thy laughing eyes,
Thy rosy lips still wear a smile,
And move, and breathe delicious sighs!-

Ah, now soft blushes tinge ner cheeks,
And mantle o'er her neck of snow.
Ah, now she murmurs, now she speaks
What most I wish-and fear to know.

She starts, she trembles, and she weeps!
Her fair hands folded on her breast.
-And now, how like a saint she sleeps!
A scraph in the realms of rest!

Sleep on secure! Above control,
Thy thoughts belong to heaven and thee!
And may the secret of thy soul
Remain within its sanctuary!

ΤΟ

Go-you may call it madness, folly;
You shall not chase my gloom away.
There's such a charm in melancholy,
I would not, if I could, be gay.

O, if you knew the pensive pleasure
That fills my bosom when I sigh,
You would not rob me of a treasure
Monarchs are too poor to buy.

FROM EURIPIDES.

THERE is a streamlet issuing from a rock.
The village girls, singing wild madrigals,
Dip their white vestments in its waters clear,
And hang them to the sun.

her.

THE SAILOR.

THE sailor sighs as sinks his native shore,
As all its lessening turrets bluely fade;
He climbs the mast to feast his eye once more,
And busy fancy fondly lends her aid.

Ah! now each dear, domestic scene he knew
Recall'd and cherish'd in a foreign clime,
Charms with the magic of a moonlight view;
Its colours mellow'd, not impair'd, by time.
True as the needle, homeward points his heart,
Through all the horrors of the stormy main;
This, the last wish that would with life depart,
To see the smile of her he loves again.

When morn first faintly draws her silver line,
Or eve's gray cloud descends to drink the wave;
When sea and sky in midnight darkness join,
Still, still he views the parting look she gave.

Her gentle spirit, lightly hovering o'er,
Attends his little bark from pole to pole;
And when the beating billows round him roar,
Whispers sweet hope to soothe his troubled soul.
Carved is her name in many a spicy grove,
In many a plantain forest, waving wide;
Where dusky youths in painted plumage rove,
And giant palms o'erarch the golden tide.
But lo, at last he comes with crowded sail!
Lo, o'er the cliff what eager figures bend!
And hark, what mingled murmurs swell the gale!
In each he hears the welcome of a friend

-"Tis she, 'tis she herself! she waves her hand!
Soon is the anchor cast, the canvass furl'd;

Soon through the whitening surge he springs tc land,

There first I saw And clasps the maid he singled from the world.

[blocks in formation]

There once the steel-clad knight reclined,
His sable plumage tempest toss'd;
And, as the death-bell smote the wind,
From towers long fled by human kind
His brow the hero cross'd!

Then culture came, and days serene;
And village sports, and garlands gay.
Full many a pathway cross'd the green;
And maids and shepherd youths were seen
To celebrate the May.

Father of many a forest deep,
Whence many a navy thunder fraught
Erst in thy acorn-cells asleep,
Soon destined o'er the world to sweep,
Opening new spheres of thought!
Wont in the night of woods to dwell,
The holy Druid saw thee rise;

And, planting there the guardian spell,
Sung forth, the dreadful pomp to swell
Of human sacrifice!

Thy singed top and branches bare
Now straggle in the evening sky;
And the wan moon wheels round to glare
On the long corse that shivers there
Of him who came to die!

TO TWO SISTERS.*

WELL may you sit within, and, fond of grief,
Look in each other's face, and melt in tears.
Well may you shun all counsel, all relief.
O, she was great in mind, though young in years!
Changed is that lovely countenance, which shed
Light when she spoke, and kindled sweet surprise,
As o'er her frame each warm emotion spread,
Play'd round her lips, and sparkled in her eyes.
Those lips so pure, that moved but to persuade,
Still to the last enliven'd and endear'd.
Those eyes at once her secret soul convey'd,
And ever beam'd delight when you appear'd.
Yet has she fled the life of bliss below,
That youthful hope in bright perspective drew?
False were the tints! false as the feverish glow
That o'er her burning cheek distemper threw !
And now in joy she dwells, in glory moves!
(Glory and joy reserved for you to share.)
Far, far more blest in blessing those she loves
Than they, alas! unconscious of her care.

Sweet drop of pure and pearly light!
In thee the rays of virtue shine;
More calmly clear, more mildly bright,
Than any gem that gilds the mine.
Benign restorer of the soul!
Who ever fly'st to bring relief,
When first we feel the rude control
Of love or pity, joy or grief.

The sage's and the poet's theme,
In every clime, in every age;
Thou charm'st in fancy's idle dream,
In reason's philosophic page.
That very law which moulds a tear,
And bids it trickle from its source,
That law preserves the earth a sphere,
And guides the planets in their course.

TO A VOICE THAT HAD BEEN LOST.1

Vane, quid affectas faciem mihi ponere, pictor?
Aeris et linguæ sum filia;

Et, si vis similem pingere, pinge sonum.-Ausoniu..

ONCE more, enchantress of the soul,
Once more we hail thy soft control.
-Yet whither, whither didst thou fly?
To what bright region of the sky?
Say, in what distant star to dwell?
(of other worlds thou seem'st to tell)
Or trembling, fluttering here below,
Resolved and unresolved to go,
In secret didst thou still impart
Thy raptures to the pure in heart?

Perhaps to many a desert shore,
Thee, in his rage, the tempest bore ;
Thy broken murmurs swept along,
'Mid echoes yet untuned by song;
Arrested in the realms of frost,
Or in the wilds of ether lost.

Far happier thou! 'twas thine to soa
Careering on the winged wind.
Thy triumphs who shall dare explore?
Suns and their systems left behind.
No tract of space, no distant star,
No shock of elements at war,
Did thee detain. Thy wing of fire
Bore thee amidst the cherub-choir;
And there a while to thee 'twas given
Once more that voice‡ beloved to join,
Which taught thee first a flight divine,
And nursed thy infant years with many a strain
from heaven!

[blocks in formation]
« 上一頁繼續 »