On Zama, Cannæ, Waterloo, made rich
By human hearts forever pierced in vain!
But Persecution hath a wider range,
An ampler spoil than these; lo! from the roll
Of Record starts the pallid student up
And cries" Thou prince of justice and of peace!
"Wolves ravin in thy fold, and mercy shrieks
"In vain for succour while the guiltless die!
"Familiar and inquisitor and doom!
'Apostle, prophet, martyr-child and eld!
"Freedom and shackles and the axe upraised
"Red with the life of Hampden, Sydney, More!
Tyrants and parricides and length of years,
"Ismaël, Aurung-Zêbe and Tamerlane!
"Oh, the soul sickens o'er the scroll of fame,
"The just man's wrongs, the widow's sightless tears,
"The orphan's helpless woes, the tyrant's power,
"The pride of Mammon, and the painted brow
"Of hypocrites exulting o'er their prey.
"God of the guiltless! in Peru's dark mines
"Her kings dig gold for murderers! and see
"Assassins goading to the Oregon
"The ancient sovereigns of our plundered realm!"
But there shall come an hour when truth shall st
Upon the mountain and declare to earth
Her seraph oracles; when love shall thrill
Each bosom wedded to the world's wide joy,
And image in the fountain of the soul
The universal bliss; when faith shall roam
On lovelier meads and hills with glory clothed,
O'er whose bright summits rainbows rest in heaver
And over the charmed universe of thought
Pour its pure radiance from the shrine of God.
Then, cries the vision of the banished saint,
In deep Gehenna's darkest depth again
Shall writhe in adamantine manacles
THE SPIRIT OF DESTRUCTION, and no more
Vainly appeal pale famine's hollow eye,
Or broken voice of burning pestilence,
Or unheard groans of battle raging on.
But dove-eyed peace shall float on snowy wings
O'er nations banded in each other's love,
And the free souls of Heaven's blest children flow
In light and love o'er earth and rest in God!
Εν ελπίσι χρη τους σοφους ἔχειν βίου·
Ανθρωπος 'ατυχῶν σώζεται υπό της ελπίδος.-Menander.
WHY wake ye, memories of devoted hours?
Delirious dreamers, sleep forever now !
Through the cold tempest, that around me lowers,
Glance not heaven's glory on my darkened brow!
Hushed hearts, that quail o'er still despair's last vow,
Breathe awful music 'neath a stranger's touch,
And minds, that rocky as their fortunes grow,
Like mountain torrents gush when tasked too much— They bear long years, but dare not feel their burden such.
Though shook by every gale, yet, rooted, deep,
Youth's hapless love lives through all power of change!
Too pure to shrink, too proud to wail or weep,
It fills all things with memories vast and strange;
Where'er the rainbow bends or sunbeams range,
Or lightning flames or thunder heralds God,
In ruined castle or romantic grange,
It gathers flowers to clothe its native sod,
And o'er the birthplace hangs where young hearts rushed abroad.
Mid all that can man's lion heart illume,
Mid all his boundless hopes, ambitions, fears,
One image steals o'er all its glow and gloom,
Troubling the fountain of forbidden tears,
And fading not, though borne far down the sea of years
The worn mind clings to this-this beautifies
The temple it must ruin; all things sink
Into one passion;-life of earth and skies
Becomes a frenzied ecstacy to drink
The poison-cup, from which we vainly shrink,
The deep cup brimmed with deathless destinies !
Hurled on by agony, which cannot think,
We search vast ocean and world-studded skies
For one sweet home to rest from griet that never dies.
Again and yet again, my earliest love—
Ellen! thou fabled Clara of my song!
My lonely heart, unchanged, is doomed to prove
A sleepless watcher o'er thy nameless wrong—
An unseen visitant, who roams along
Thy desert way, and loves to trace thy tread,
Though downward tending where Oppression strong
No more can bow thy wildly throbbing head,
Nor gore thy bosom fair among the sceptered dead!
Pale, chilled, and passionless, thine image steals,
With wrought brow, hollow cheek, and faded eyes,
O'er me when most the quickened spirit feels,
The soundless hour of midnight phantasies;
Then pallid Memory on dark wings flies,
Like birds to Tinian's isle from ocean's storm,
To thee and love, romance and May-night skies,
And for an hour it slumbers 'neath the charm,
That, as an angel garb, hath ever wrapt thy form.
Then, in communion with eternal days,
I clothe my soul in sanctities, and yearn
For that restoring hour when scorn or praise
Shall mock no more the heart that cannot learn
To quench the shrine where love's first odours burn;
When courteous speech shall sanction spotted crime,
And tyrants from their sacrifices turn
No more exulting, but, beyond all time,
True hearts, long sundered, clasp in glory's realms sublime.
We feast on hope as 't were our vital food
And linger o'er it with a vain delight ;
We banquet on the air when tempests brood,
And breathe the rose when at its heart is blight!
Misguided, hopeless pilgrims of the night,
Grasping at shadows in an unknown land,
Victims of visions, gathering wrong from right,
With foes behind us and on either hand,
And led by danger on where giant fiends command.
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