Yet, prophet-like, that lone one stood
With dauntless words and high,
That shook the sere leaves from the wood
As if a storm passed by,
Saying, We are twins in death, proud Sun! Thy face is cold, thy race is run,
'Tis Mercy bids thee go;
For thou ten thousand thousand years
Hast seen the tide of human tears,
That shall no longer flow.
What though beneath thee man put forth
His pomp, his pride, his skill;
And arts that made fire, flood, and earth,
The vassals of his will?-
Yet mourn I not thy parted sway,
Thou dim discrownèd king of day:
For all those trophied arts
And triumphs that beneath thee sprang,
Healed not a passion or a pang
Entailed on human hearts.
Go, let oblivion's curtain fall
Upon the stage of men,
Nor with thy rising beams recall
Life's tragedy again:
Its piteous pageants bring not back,
Nor waken flesh, upon the rack
Of pain anew to writhe;
Stretched in disease's shapes abhorred
Or mown in battle by the sword,
Like grass beneath the scythe.
Even I am weary in yon skies
To watch thy fading fire;
Test of all sumless agonies,
Behold not me expire.
My lips that speak thy dirge of death-
Their rounded gasp and gurgling breath
To see thou shalt not boast.
The eclipse of Nature spreads my pall,-
The majesty of darkness shall
Receive my parting ghost!
This spirit shall return to Him
Who gave its heavenly spark;
Yet think not, Sun, it shall be dim
When thou thyself art dark!
No! it shall live again, and shine
In bliss unknown to beams of thine,
By Him recalled to breath,
Who captive led captivity,
Who robbed the grave of victory,—
And took the sting from Death!
Go, Sun, while Mercy holds me up
On Nature's awful waste
To drink this last and bitter cup
Of grief that man shall taste-
Go, tell the night that hides thy face,
Thou saw'st the last of Adam's race,
On Earth's sepulchral clod,
The darkening universe defy
To quench his immortality,
Or shake his trust in God!
COMPOSED FOR A PUBLIC MEETING, HELD JUNE 1817. PRIDE of the British Stage,
A long and last adieu !
Whose image brought the heroic age
Revived to Fancy's view.
Like fields refreshed with dewy light
When the sun smiles his last,
Thy parting presence makes more bright
Our memory of the past;
And memory conjures feelings up
That wine or music need not swell,
As high we lift the festal cup
To Kemble-fare thee well!
Ilis was the spell o'er hearts
Which only Acting lends,-
The youngest of the sister Arts,
Where all their beauty blends:
For ill can Poetry express
Full many a tone of thought sublime;
And Painting, mute and motionless,
Steals but a glance of time.
But by the mighty actor brought,
Illusion's perfect triumphs come,—
Verse ceases to be airy thought,
And Sculpture to be dumb.
Time may again revive,
But ne'er eclipse the charm,
When Cato spoke in him alive,
Or Hotspur kindled warm.
What soul was not resigned entire
To the deep sorrows of the Moor,— What English heart was not on fire With him at Agincourt?
And yet a majesty possessed
His transport's most impetuous tone,
And to each passion of the breast
The Graces gave their zone.
High were the task—too high,
Ye conscious bosoms here!
In words to paint your memory
Of Kemble and of Lear;
But who forgets that white discrowned head,
Those bursts of Reason's half-extinguished glare;
Those tears upon Cordelia's bosom shed,
In doubt more touching than despair,
If 'twas reality he felt?
Had Shakspeare's self amidst you been,
Friends, he had seen you melt,
And triumphed to have seen!
And there was many an hour
Of blended kindred fame,
When Siddons's auxiliar power
And sister magic came.
Together at the Muse's side
The tragic paragons had grown—
They were the children of her pride,
The columns of her throne;
And undivided favour ran
From heart to heart in their applause,
Save for the gallantry of man
In lovelier woman's cause.
Fair as some classic dome,
Robust and richly graced,
Your Kemble's spirit was the home
Of genius and of taste;
Taste, like the silent dial's power,
That when supernal light is given,
Can measure inspiration's hour,
And tell its height in heaven.
At once ennobled and correct,
His mind surveyed the tragic page,
And what the actor could effect,
The scholar could presage.
These were his traits of worth:-
And must we lose them now!
And shall the scene no more show forth
His sternly-pleasing brow!
Alas, the moral brings a tear!—
'Tis all a transient hour below;
And we that would detain thee here,
Ourselves as fleetly go!
Yet shall our latest age
This parting scene review :Pride of the British Stage,
A long and last adieu!
WELL may sleep present us fictions
Since our waking moments teem
With such fanciful convictions
As make life itself a dream.-
Half our daylight faith's a fable;
Sleep disports with shadows too,
Seeming in their turn as stable
As the world we wake to view.
Ne'er by day did Reason's mint
Give my thoughts a clearer print
Of assured reality,
Than was left by Phantasy
Stamped and coloured on my sprite,
In a dream of yesternight.
In a bark, methought, lone steering,
I was cast on Ocean's strife;
This, 'twas whispered in my hearing,
Meant the sea of life.
Sad regrets from past existence
Came, like gales of chilling breath; Shadowed in the forward distance, Lay the land of Death.
Now seeming more, now less remote, On that dim-seen shore, methought,
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