Then say what secret melody was hidden
In Memnon's statue, which at sunrise played? Perhaps thou wert a priest—if so, my struggles Are vain, for priestcraft never owns its juggles.
Perchance that very hand, now pinioned flat,
Has hob-a-nobbed with Pharaoh, glass to glass;
Or dropped a halfpenny in Homer's hat,
Or doffed thine own to let Queen Dido pass;
Or held, by Solomon's own invitation,
A torch at the great temple's dedication.
I need not ask thee if that hand, when armed,
Has any Roman soldier mauled and knuckled,
For thou wert dead, and buried, and embalmed,
Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled;
Antiquity appears to have begun
Long after thy primeval race was run.
Thou couldst develop, if that withered tongue
Might tell us what those sightless orbs have seen,
How the world looked when it was fresh and young,
And the great deluge still had left it green;
Or was it then so old, that history's pages
Contained no record of its early ages.
Still silent! incommunicative elf!
Art sworn to secrecy? then keep thy vows; But prithee tell us something of thyself, Reveal the secrets of thy prison-house;
Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumbered, What hast thou seen? what strange adventures numbered?
Since first thy form was in this box extended, We have, above ground, seen some strange mutations;
The Roman empire has begun and ended;
New worlds have risen; we have lost old nations, And countless kings have into dust been humbled, Whilst not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled.
Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head,
When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses,
Marched armies o'er thy tomb with thundering
tread,
O'erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis,
And shook the pyramids with fear and wonder,
When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder?
If the tomb's secrets may not be confessed,
The nature of thy private life unfold;
A heart has throbbed beneath that leathern breast,
And tears adown that dusky cheek have rolled.
Have children climbed those knees, and kissed that
face?
What was thy name and station, age and race?
Statue of flesh, immortal of the dead!
Imperishable type of evanescence,
Posthumous man, who quitt'st thy narrow bed,
And standest undecayed within our presence: Thou wilt hear nothing till the judgment morning, When the great trump shall thrill thee with its warning.
Why should this worthless tegument endure,
If its undying guest be lost for ever?
Oh, let us keep the soul embalmed and pure
In living virtue, that, when both must sever,
Although corruption may our frame consume,
The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom!
THANATOPSIS.—(W. C. Bryant.)
To him who in the love of nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile,
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart-
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To nature's teachings, while from all around-
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air,-
Comes a still voice :-Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix for ever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone-nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings,
The powerful of the earth-the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,-the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between ;
The venerable woods-rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and poured round
all,
Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste,-
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce;
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings,-yet-the dead are there:
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep-the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest: and what if thou withdraw
Unheeded by the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favourite phantom: yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come,
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glides away, the sons of men,
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron, and maid,
And the sweet babe, and the grey-headed man,-
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side
By those who in their turn shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan that moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
ODE TO THE ALMIGHTY.
(Translated from G. R. Derzhavin.)
O Thou Eternal One; whose presence bright
All space doth occupy-all motion guide,
Unchanged through Time's all-devastating flight,
Thou only God! There is no god beside.
Being above all beings! Mighty One!
Whom none can comprehend and none explore, Who fill'st existence with Thyself alone,
Embracing all-supporting-ruling o’er—
Being whom we call God, and know no more.
In its sublime research, philosophy
May measure out the ocean deep-may count The sands or the sun's rays; but God! for Thee There is no weight nor measure; none can mount Up to Thy mysteries. Reason's brightest spark, Though kindled by Thy light, in vain would try To trace Thy councils, infinite and dark;
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