flesh; Died, and their bones were tombless as their | Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld Each other's aspects-saw, and shriek'd, and diedEven of their mutual hideousness they died, Unknowing who he was upon whose brow Famine had written Fiend. The world was void, The meagre by the meagre were devoured, But with a piteous and perpetual moan For an unholy usage; they raked up, The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath Blew for a little life, and made a flame Which was a mockery; then they lifted up The populous and the powerful was a lump, Seasonless,herbless,treeless, manless,lifeless, A lump of death-a chaos of hard clay. The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still, And nothing stirred within their silent depths; Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea, And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropp'd They slept on the abyss without a surgeThe waves were dead; the tides were in their grave, The moon their mistress had expired before; The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air, And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need | Of aid from them--She was the universe. PROMETHEUS. TITAN! to whose immortal eyes Which speaks but in its loneliness, And then is jealous lest the sky Should have a listener, nor will sigh Until its voice is echoless. Titan! to thee the strife was given Between the suffering and the will, And the inexorable Heaven, Which for its pleasure doth create Was thine and thou hast borne it well. And in thy Silence was his Sentence, Thy godlike crime was to be kind, To render with thy precepts less The sum of human wretchedness, And strengthen Man with his own mind; But baffled as thou wert from high, Still in thy patient energy, In the endurance, and repulse Of thine impenetrable Spirit, Which Earth and Heaven could not con vulse, A mighty lesson we inherit: Thou art a symbol and a sign To Mortals of their fate and force; Like thee, Man is in part divine, A troubled stream from a pure source; And Man in portions can foresee His own funereal destiny; His wretchedness, and his resistance, And his sad unallied existence: To which his Spirit may oppose Itself— an equal to all woes, And a firm will, and a deep sense, Which even in torture can descry Its own concentred recompense, Triumphant where it dares defy, And making Death a Victory. CHURCHILL'S GRAVE, A FACT LITERALLY RENDERED. I STOOD beside the grave of him who Were it not that all life must end in one, blazed The comet of a season, and I saw The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed With not the less of sorrow and of awe On that neglected turf and quiet stone, With name no clearer than the names unknown Which lay unread around it; and I ask'd TheGardener of that ground, why it might be That for this plant strangers his memory task'd Through the thick deaths of half a century; And thus he answered “Well, I do not know Why frequent travellers turn to pilgrimsso; I know not what of honour and of light Of which we are but dreamers; as he caught As 'twere the twilight of a former Sun, Thus spoke he: "I believe the man of whom You wot, who lies in this selected tomb, Was a most famous writer in his day, And therefore travellers step from out their way To pay him honour,- and myself whate'er Your honour pleases," then most pleased I shook From out my pocket's avaricious nook Some certain coins of silver, which as 'twere Perforce I gave this man, though I could spare So much but inconveniently;—Ye smile, You are the fools, not I-for I did dwell With a deep thought, and with a soften'd eye, On that Old Sexton's natural homily, MONODY ON THE DEATH OF THE RIGHT HON. R. B. SHERIDAN. SPOKEN AT DRURY-LANE THEATRE. WHEN the last sunshine of expiring day | A holy concord—and a bright regret, In summer's twilight weeps itself away, A glorious sympathy with suns that set? Who hath not felt the softness of the hour 'Tis not harsh sorrow-but a tenderer woe, Sink on the heart, as dew along the flower? With a pure feeling which absorbs and awes While Nature makes that melancholy pause, Her breathing-moment on the bridge where Time Of light and darkness forms an arch sublime; Who hath not shared that calm so still and deep, The voiceless thought which would not speak but weep, Nameless, but dear to gentle hearts below, Felt without bitterness but full and clear, A sweet dejection-a transparent tear Unmix'd with worldly grief or selfish stain, Shed without shame-and secret without pain. Even as the tenderness that hour instils When Summer's day declines along the hills, So feels the fulness of our heart and eyes When all of Genius which can perish dies. A mighty Spirit is eclipsed-a Power Hath pass'd from day to darkness-to whose hour Of light no likeness is bequeath'd-no name, The enduring produce of immortal Mind; These sparkling segments of that circling Of human feelings the unbounded lord; Till vanquish'd senates trembled as they praised. And here, oh! here, where yet all young and warm The gay creations of his spirit charm, Home to our hearts the truth from which they spring; These wondrous beings of his Fancy, wrought To fulness by the fiat of his thought, But should there be to whom the fatal blight Of failing Wisdom yields a base delight, Men who exult when minds of heavenly tone Jar in the music which was born their own, Still let them pause-Ah! little do they know That what to them seem'd Vice might be but Woe. Hard is his fate on whom the public gaze Is fix'd for ever to detract or praise; Repose denies her requiem to his name, And Folly loves the martyrdom of Fame. The secret enemy whose sleepless eye If the high Spirit must forget to soar, To find in Hope but the renew'd caress, Bear hearts electric-charged with fire from Black with the rude collision, inly torn, nurst Thoughts which have turn'd to thunderscorch and burst. But far from us and from our mimic scene Such things should be—if such have ever been; Ours be the gentler wish, the kinder task, To give the tribute Glory need not ask, To mourn the vanish'd beam- and add our mite Of praise in payment of a long delight. Ye Orators! whom yet our council yield, Mourn for the veteran Hero of your field! The worthy rival of the wondrous Three! Whose words were sparks of Immortality! Ye Bards! to whom the Drama's Muse is dear, He was your Master - emulate him here! Ye men of wit and social eloquence! He was your Brother-bear his ashes hence! While Powers of Mind almost of boundless range, Complete in kind-as various in their change, While Eloquence_Wit-Poesy__and Mirth, That humbler Harmonist of care on Earth, Survive within our souls—while lives our sense Of pride in Merit's proud pre-eminence, Long shall we seek his likeness-long in vain, And turn to all of him which may remain, Sighing that Nature form'd but one such man, And broke the die-in moulding Sheridan! HEBREW MELODIES. I. SHE walks in beauty, like the night Meet in her aspect and her eyes: One shade the more, one ray the less, Or softly lightens o'er her face; And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, The eye the same, except in tears—--- It must be so: 'tis not for self That we so tremble on the brink; And striving to o'erleap the gulph, Yet cling to Being's severing link. Oh! in that future let us think To hold each heart the heart that shares, With them the immortal waters drink, And soul in soul grow deathless theirs! IV. THE wild Gazelle on Judah's hills A step as fleet, an eye more bright, The cedars wave on Lebanon, More blest each palm that shades those plains Than Israel's scatter'd race; In solitary grace: It cannot quit its place of birth, But we must wander witheringly, Our own may never lie: V. On! weep for those that wept by Babel's stream, Whose shrines are desolate, whose land a dream: Weep for the harp of Judah's broken shell; Mourn where their God hath dwelt the Godless dwell! Away; we know that tears are vain, Will this unteach us to complain? That death nor heeds nor hears distress: Ox Jordan's banks the Arabs' camels stray, ders sleep: There where thy finger scorch'd the tablet stone! There where thy shadow to thy people Thy glory shrouded in its garb of fire: Oh! in the lightning let thy glance appear! VII. JEPHTHA'S DAUGHTER. SINCE Our country, our God- Oh, my Sire! And the voice of my mourning is o'er, And of this, oh, my Father! be sure- Though the virgins of Salem lament, When this blood of thy giving hath gush'd, IX. My Soul is ark.-Oh! quickly string Its melting murmurs o'er mine ear. That sound shall charm it forth again; But bid the strain be wild and deep, And ached in sleepless silence long; X. I SAW thee weep-the big bright tear I saw thee smile-the sapphire's blaze That fill'd that glance of thine. As clouds from yonder sun receive Their own pure joy impart; |