網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

LINES

Written in the Middle of a Night in February 1807, during the whole of which Night blew a tremendous Hurricane.

W

RAPT in the dusky gloom of night
Triumphant rides upon the blast

The Genius of the Storm;

*

Trembles the wretch with wild affright,
Within whose breast with guilt aghast
Conflicting horrors swarm!

Ill fated they, from Albion torn,
Who bound to some far distant shore
Are lash'd by ocean's wave;
I hear methinks the shriek forlorn
Of him who, while mad billows roar,
Sinks to his wat❜ry grave!

Father of heaven! whose outstretch'd arm
And might even thundering storms obey,
These ancient walls + defend;

While whirlwinds make with dire alarm
On prouder domes their boisterous way,
O'er these thy power extend!

* Shakspeare, King Lear.

+ Within which the author was living.

H. P.

IRREGULAR ODE.

ON THE DEATH OF THE EMPRESS CATHARINE II. OF RUSSIA.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike th' inevitable hour;

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

GRAY.

HARK to that pæan song, whose choral lay
Sounds the glad march of FREEDOM's smiling train;
With what sweet cadence does it die away,

And now, how wild and warlike ring!

List, Russia, to its notes so sweet

Winding amid each green retreat,

That now, in more than mortal strain,

From Tenglio's chill and storm-rock'd clime afar,

From the bleak regions of the polar star,

To where Circassia's beauties lave

Amid the Caspian's mimic wave,

From Warsaw's ruin'd towers and gory plain,
To Oonolasca's ever cheerless reign,

O'er many a frowning cliff and hill sublime,
Through many a cold inhospitable clime,

Symphonious float on echo's viewless wing.

[blocks in formation]

I know her mien; I know her zoneless breast;
The wreathed tresses of her golden hair,
I know her rainbow-tinted gay cymar,
Her blooming crown and azure vest;

I know the laurel-wreath that binds her brow,'
Shadowing with mellow tints her beamy face:
How rich the lustre of its glow!

How pure its grace.

Lur'd from the mountain's snow-clad breast,
The eagle seeks Wolkansky's jocund shade,
And hails thy blest return, angelic maid,
And claps his sable wings, and plumes his ruffled crest;
The rose that droop'd beneath ambition's ray,
Rears her pale bloom, and courts thy genial gale;
The woodbine wild, that shunn'd its garish day,

Opes at thy blythe approach, and scents its native vale :
All nature seems thy influence mild to share,

And Virtue leaves her haunts, and quaffs thy balmy air.

Fall'n is ambition; and her tottering fanes
Gleam in the sunshine of departing day;

And flattery's voice, and flattery's soothing strains,
Float on the night's dull ear, and melt away.
Soon as her drear approach was known,

Swart Satan left his ebon throne;

And, as in all her vices drest,

Her pale and haggard form he prest,

In parent's pride elate,

A few faint rays of unknown joy

Came flashing from his piercing eye,

And, for awhile, eclipsed its beams of deadly hate.

Then, while th' infernal regions rung,
Her nurse wan Hecate * upsprung,
And left her rocking bed of stone;
And with a fitful, gloomy start,

In vice's agonizing smart,

Clasp❜d to her breast the child she singled for her own.

She lives no more!

Distain'd with gore,

Beneath yon stone her paly corse is laid;

While each poor soul that passes by,

Victim of lawless tyranny,

Calls on her loathed name, and imprecates her shade.

The hoary pilgrim slow, with faltering tread
Pauses in yon portentous gloom,

And, as he lists her awful doom,

Rears his clasp'd hands, and shakes his silver head. "Is this the dust an empire once could sway, "That once stalk'd proudly o'er fair Russia's land; "A queen, who said, World, hear me, and obey+;' "Who slaughter'd millions with remorseless hand?— "How fallen, fallen, from her high estate:'"Due homage paid her in the realms of fate!

* Milton thus accents the word Hecate in the following marginal distich.

"Wherein thou rid'st with Hecate,
"And favour our close jocondrie,"

Vide Newton's Ed. vol. iv. p. 102.

↑ “Who said'st the distant poles shall hear me, and obey."

Dryden's Ode on St. Cecilia's Day,

DRYDEN.

"There, enthron'd amidst her peers,
"Relentless fiends around her wait,

"And, as they weave the woof of fate,
"Pour on man's destin'd head each tort'ring ill—
"Prone to fulfil their own, to anticipate her will.
"What savage rapture glances in their eye
"At each rife-scene of untried misery!
"Yes, their's the care-corrosive smart
"That vibrates to affliction's heart,

"And wakes in every nerve the pang of keen despair. "Is this the queen at whose command,

"Starting like bloodhounds from the slip, "With speed that would the winds outstrip, Rapine and war stalk'd o'er Podolia's land? "Yes, 'tis the same: but, now, no more "Shall stern captivity protect the door, "Where virtue*, suff'ring in her country's cause, "Her rightful freedom supplicates in vain ; "No more shall patriot worth complain, "As when, of erst, in each long pause, "The gaunt, grim spectre of insatiate power, "Strode through the chilly vaults, and hail'd the murky hour."

"The knell + of death, with stern control,
"No more shall harrow up her soul,
"Nor stun her tranced ear;
"But, shades of still uncoffin'd dead,'
"Shall dance around her rocky bed,
"And riot o'er her bier."

General Kosciusko.

+ It is said, that for many years preceding her death, Catherine could not hear any funeral knell, nor be witness to any funeral procession, without evincing the greatest horror. Wherefore, those rites had been lately performed at midnight.

« 上一頁繼續 »