ALNWICK CASTLE. His square-turned joints, and strength of limb, In camps a leader sage. Home of the Percy's high-born race, Home of their beautiful and brave, Alike their birth and burial place, Their cradle and their grave ! Still sternly o'er the castle gate Their house's Lion stands in state, As in his proud departed hours ; And warriors frown in stone on high, And feudal banners “ flout the sky” Above his princely towers. Well was he armed from head to heel, A gentle hill its side inclines, Lovely in England's fadeless green, Through this romantic scene While summer's wind blew soft and low, A thousand years ago. Behind him rode two gallant squires I wandered through the lofty halls Trod by the Percys of old fame, And traced upon the chapel walls Each high, heroic name, From him who once his standard set Where now, o'er mosque and minaret, Glitter the Sultan's crescent moons, To him who, when a younger son, Fought for King George at Lexington, A major of dragoons. Four men-at-arms came at their backs, That last half-stanza, it has dashed From my warm lip the sparkling cup; The light that o'er my eyebeam flashed, The power that bore my spirit up Above this bank-note world, is gone; And Alnwick's but a market town, And this, alas ! its market day, And beasts and borderers throng the way ; Oxen and bleating lambs in lots, Northumbrian boors and plaided Scots Men in the coal and cattle line ; From Teviot's bard and hero land, From royal Berwick's beach of sand, From Wooller, Morpeth, Hexham, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. These are not the romantic times So dazzling to the dreaming boy ; Of Bailie Jarvie, not Rob Roy ; 'Tis what “Our President," Monroe, SIR WALTER SCOTT. Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will : Dear God ! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still ! WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Has called “the era of good feeling ;” And leave off cattle-stealing : The Douglas in red herrings ; Of Rothschild or the Barings. NUREMBERG. In the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadow-lands Rise the blue Franconian mountains, Nuremberg, the ancient, stands. Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of art and soug, Memories haunt thy pointed gables like the rooks that round them throng : The age of bargaining, said Burke, Is England's friend and fast ally ; And on the Cross and altar-stone, And Christendom looks tamely on, And hears the Christian maiden shriek, And sees the Christian father die ; And not a sabre-blow is given For Greece and fame, for faith and heaven, By Europe's craven chivalry. Memories of the Middle Ages, when the em perors rough and bolù Had their dwellings in thy castle, time-defying, centuries old ; And thy brave and thrifty burghers boasted, in their uncouth rhyme, That their great, imperial city stretched its hand to every cline, In the court-yard of the castle, bound with many an iron band, Stands the mighty linden planted by Queen Cunigunde's hand; You 'll ask if yet the Percy lives In the armed pomp of feudal state. The present representatives of Hotspur and his “gentle Kate,” Are some half-dozen serving-men In the drab coat of William Penn; A chambermaid, whose lip and eye, And cheek, and brown hair, bright and curling, Spoke nature's aristocracy; And one, half groom, half seneschal, Who bowed me through court, bower, and hall, From donjon keep to turret wall, For ten-and-sixpence sterling. FITZ-GREENE HALLBCK. On the square, the oriel window, where in old heroic days Sat the poet Melchior, singing Kaiser Maximil. ian's praise. Everywhere I see around me rise the wondrous world of art ; Fountains wrought with richest sculpture stand ing in the common mart; SONNET COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE, LONDON, 1802. Earth has not anything to show more fair ; Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty : This city now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky, All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendor valley, rock, or hill; In the church of sainted Sebald sleeps enshrined his holy dust, And in bronze the Twelve Apostles guard from age to age their trust : In the church of sainted Lawrence stands a pix of sculpture rare, Like the foamy sheaf of fountains, rising through the painted air. far away, HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. TIere, when art was still religion, with a simple Vanished is the ancient splendor, and before my reverent heart, dreamy eye Lived and labored Albrecht Dürer, the Evan- Wave these mingling shapes and figures, like a gelist of Art; faded tapestry. Tience in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with Not thy Councils, not thy Kaisers, win for thee busy hand, the world's regard, Like an emigrant he wandered, seeking for the But thy painter, Albrecht Dürer, and Hans Sachs, Better Land. thy cobbler-bard. Emigravit is the inscription on the tombstone Thus, 0 Nuremberg, a wanderer from a region where he lies, Dead he is not — but departed — for the artist As he paced thy streets and court-yaruls, sang in never dies : thought his careless lay ; Fairer seems the ancient city, and the sunshine Gathering from the pavement's crevice, as a seems more fair floweret of the soil, That he once has trod its pavement, that he once The nobility of labor, — the long pedigree of toil. has breathed its air. Through these streets so broad and stately, these obscure and dismal lanes, Walked of yore the Mastersingers, chanting rude ITALY. poetic strains ; From remote and sunless suburbs came they to O ITALY, how beautiful thou art ! the friendly guild, Yet I could weep, — for thou art lying, alas ! Building nests in Fame's great temple, as in Low in the dust; and they who come admire spouts the swallows build. thee As we admire the beautiful in death. As the weaver plied the shuttle, wove he too the Thine was a dangerous gift, the gift of beauty. mystic rhyme, Would thou hadst less, or wert as once thou wast, And the smith his iron measures hammered to Inspiring awe in those who now enslave thee ! the anvil's chime, But why despair ? Twice hast thou lived already, Twice shone among the nations of the world, Thanking God, whose boundless wisdom makes As the sun shines among the lesser lights the flowers of poesy bloom Of heaven; and shalt again. The hour shall In the forge's dust and cinders, in the tissues of come, the loom. When they who think to bind the ethereal spirit, Who, like the eagle cowering o'er his prey, Here Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poet, laureate of Watch with quick eye, and strike and strike again the gentle craft, If but a sinew vibrate, shall confess Wisest of the Twelve Wise Masters, in huge Their wisdom folly. folios sang and laughed. FROM "ITALY." SAMUEL ROGERS. FROM "ITALY. But his house is now an alehouse, with a nicely sanded floor, VENICE. And a garland in the window, and his face above the door, THERE is a glorious City in the Sea. Painted by some humble artist, as in Adam The Sea is in the broad, the narrow streets, Puschman's song, Ebbing and flowing ; and the salt sea-weed As the old man gray and dovelike, with his Clings to the marble of her palaces. great beard white and long. No track of men, no footsteps to and fro, Lead to hor gates. The path lies o'er the Sea, And at night the swart mechanic comes to drown Invisible ; and from the land we went, his cark and care, As to a Aoating City, — steering in, Quaffing ale from pewter tankards, in the mas- And gliding up her streets as in a dream, ter's antique chair. So smoothly, silently, — by many a doma FROM " ITALY. came SAMUEL ROGERS. Mosque-like, and many a stately portico, ROME. I am in Rome ! Oft as the morning ray The fronts of some, though Time haul shattered Visits these eyes, waking at once I cry, them, Whence this excess of joy? What has befallen Still glowing with the richest hues of art, me ? As though the wealth within them had run o'er. And from within a thrilling voice replies, Thou art in Rome ! A thousand busy thoughts A few in fear, Rush on my mind, a thousand images ; Thou art in Rome ! the City that so long The lowliest village (what but here and thero Had to make sure the ground they stood upon, A reed-roofed cabin by a river-side ?) Rose, like an exhalation, from the deep, Grew into everything; and, ycar by year, A vast Metropolis, with glittering spires, Patiently, fearlessly working her way With theatres, basilicas adorned ; O'er brook and field, o'er continent and sea, A scene of light anıl glory, a dominion, Not like the merchant with his merchandise, That has endured the longest among men. Or traveller with staff and scrip exploring, But hand to hand and foot to foot through liosts, And whence the talisman by which she rose Through nations numberless in battle array, Towering? 'T' was found there in the barren sea. Each behind each, each, when the other fell, Want led to Enterprise ; and, far or near, Up and in arms, at length subclued them all. Who met not the Venetian ? - now in Cairo; Ere yet the Califa came, listening to hear Its bells approaching from the Red Sea coast; Now on the Euxine, on the Sea of Azoph, In converse with the Persian, with the Russ, COLISEUM BY MOONLIGHT. The Tartar; on his lowly deck receiving FROM "MANFRED," ACT III. SC. 4. Pearls from the gulf of Ormus, gems from Bagdad, Eyes brighter yet, that shed the light of love The stars are forth, the moon above the tops From Georgia, from Circassia. Wandering round, of the snow-shining mountains. - Beautiful ! When in the rich bazaar he saw, displayed, I linger yet with Nature, for the night Treasures from unknown climes, away he went, Hath been to me a more familiar face And, travelling slowly upward, drew erelong Than that of man; and in her starry shade From the well-head supplying all below; Of dim and solitary loveliness Making the Imperial City of the East I learned the language of another world. Herself his tributary. I do remember me, that in my youtlı, When I was wandering, — upon such a night I stood within the Coliseum's wall, The trees which grew along the broken arches From India, from the region of the Sun, Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars Fragrant with spices, -- that a way was found, Shone through the rents of ruin ; from afar A channel opened, and the golden stream The watch-dog bayed beyond the Tiber; and Turned to enrich another. Then she felt More near, from out the Cæsars' palace came Her strength departing, and at last she fell, The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly, Fell in an instant, blotted out and razed ; Of distant sentinels the fitful song She who had stood yet longer than the longest Begun and died upon the gentle wind. Of the Four Kingdoms, -- who, as in an Ark, Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach Had floated down amid a thousand wrecks, Appeared to skirt the horizon, yet they stood Uninjured, from the Old World to the New Within a bowshot, — where the Cæsars dwelt, And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst SAMUEL ROGERS. A grove which springs through levelled battle ments, And twines its roots with the imperial hearths. Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth ;But the gladiators' bloody Circus stands, A noble wreck in ruinous perfection, While Cæsar's chambers and the Augustan halls Grovel on earth in indistinct decay. And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon All this, and cast a wide and tender light, Which softened down the hoar austerity Of rugged desolation, and filled up, As 't were anew, the gaps of centuries, Leaving that beautiful which still was so, And making that which was not, till the place Became religion, and the heart ran o'er With silent worship of the great of old ! The dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule Our spirits from their urns. his eyes I see before me the Gladiator lie; The arena swims around him, – he is gone, Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won. He heard it, but he heeded not, Were with his heart, and that was far away. He recked not of the life he lost nor prize, But where his rude hut by the Danube lay, There were his young barbarians all at play, There was their Dacian mother, - he, their sire, Butchered to make a Roman holiday ! All this rushed with his blood. - Shall he expire, And unavenged ? Arise, ye Goths, and glut your ire ! But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam, And here, where buzzing nations choked the ways, And roared or murmured likea mountain stream Dashing or winding as its torrent strays; Here, where the Roman millions' blame or praise Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd, My voice sounds much, — and fall the stars' LORD BYRON. THE COLISEUM. FROM "CHILDE HAROLD," CANTO IV. ARCHES on arches ! as it were that Rome, Collecting the chief trophies of her line, Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, Her Coliseum stands ; the moonbeams shine As 't were its natural torches, for divine Should be the light which streams here, to illume This long-explored, but still exhaustless, mine Of contemplation ; and the azure gloom Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume faint rays mass Hues wbich have words, and speak to ye of heaven, Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument, And shadows forth its glory. There is given Uuto the things of earth, which Time hath bent, A spirit's feeling, and where he hath leant His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power And magic in the ruined battlement, For which the palace of the present hour Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower. On the arena void, seats crushed, walls bowed, And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strange ly loud. A ruin, — yet what ruin ! from its mi Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been reared ; Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass, And marvel where the spoil could have appeared. Hath it indeed been plundered, or but cleared ! Alas ! developed, opens the decay, When the colossal fabric's form is neared ; It will not bear the brightness of the day, Which streams too much on all years, man, have reft away. But when the rising moon begins to climb Its topmost arch, and gently pauses there ; When the stars twinkle through the loops of time, And the low night-breeze waves along the air The garland-forest, which the gray walls wear, Like laurels on the bald first Cæsar's head; When the light shines serene, but doth not glare, – Then in this magic circle raise the dead ; Heroes have trod this spot, - 't is on their dust And here the buzz of eager nations ran, because Of worms, - on battle-plains or listed spot ? Both are but theatres where the chief actors rot. ye tread. |