Even these, without intent of theirs,
Report of comfortless despairs,
Of many a deep and cureless pang,
And confidence deceived.
To thee, in this aerial cleft,
As to a common centre, tend
All sufferers that no more rely
On mortal succor,-all who sigh
And pine, of human hope bereft,
Nor wish for earthly friend.
And hence, O Virgin Mother mild!
Though plenteous flowers around thee blow,
Not only from the dreary strife
Of Winter, but the storms of life,
Thee have thy Votaries aptly styled,
OUR LADY OF THE SNOW.
Even for the Man who stops not here,
But down the irriguous valley hies,
Thy very name, O Lady! flings
O'er blooming fields and gushing springs
A tender sense of shadowy fear,
And chastening sympathies!
Nor falls that intermingling shade
To summer-gladsomeness unkind:
It chastens only to requite
With gleams of fresher, purer light;
While, o'er the flower-enamelled glade,
More sweetly breathes the wind.
But on a tempting downward way,
A verdant path, before us lies;
Clear shines the glorious sun above;
Then give free course to joy and love,
Deeming the evil of the day
Sufficient for the wise.
WHERE towers are crushed, and unforbidden weeds
O'er mutilated arches shed their seeds:
And temples, doomed to milder change, unfold
A new magnificence that vies with old;
Firm in its pristine majesty hath stood
A votive Column, spared by fire and flood:-
And, though the passions of man's fretful race
Have never ceased to eddy round its base,
Not injured more by touch of meddling hands
Than a lone obelisk, 'mid Nubian sands,
Or aught in Syrian deserts left to save
From death the memory of the good and brave.
Historic figures round the shaft embossed
Ascend, with lineaments in air not lost:
Still as he turns, the charmed spectator sees
Group winding after group, with dream-like eas
Triumphs in sun-bright gratitude displayed,
Or softly stealing into modest shade.
-So, pleased with purple clusters to entwine
Some lofty elm-tree, mounts the daring vine;
The woodbine so, with spiral grace, and breathes
Wide-spreading odors from her flowery wreaths.
Borne by the Muse from rills in shepherds' ears
Murmuring but one smooth story for all years,
I gladly commune with the mind and heart
Of him who thus survives by classic art,
His actions witness, venerate his mien,
And study Trajan as by Pliny seen;
Behold how fought the Chief whose conquering sword
Stretched far as earth might own a single lord,
In the delight of moral prudence schooled,
How feelingly at home the sovereign ruled;
Best of the good,—in pagan faith allied
To more than Man, by virtue deified.
Memorial Pillar! 'mid the wrecks of Time
Preserve thy charge with confidence sublime,-
The exultations, pomps, and cares of Rome,
Whence half the breathing world received its doom;
Things that recoil from language; that, if show
By apter pencil, from the light had flown.
A Pontiff, Trajan here the Gods implores,
There greets an Embassy from Indian shores;
Lo! he harangues his cohorts,-there the storm
Of battle meets him in authentic form!
Unharnessed, naked troops of Moorish horse
Sweep to the charge; more high, the Dacian force,
To hoof and finger mailed;-yet, high or low,
None bleed, and none lie prostrate but the foe';
In every Roman, through all turns of fate,
Is Roman dignity inviolate;
Spirit in him pre-eminent, who guides,
Supports, adorns, and over all presides;
Distinguished only by inherent state
From honored Instruments that round him wait:
Rise as
he may, his grandeur scorns the test
Of outward symbol, nor will deign to rest
On aught by which another is depressed.
-Alas! that One thus disciplined could toil
To enslave whole nations on their native soil;
So emulous of Macedonian fame,
That, when his age was measured with his aim,
He drooped, 'mid else unclouded victories,
And turned his eagles back with deep-drawn sighs.
O weakness of the Great! O folly of the wise!
Where now the haughty Empire that was spread
With such fond hope? her very speech is dead;
Yet glorious Art the power of Time defies,
And Trajan still, through various enterprise,
Mounts, in this fine illusion, toward the skies:
THE sun is couched, the sea-fowl gone to rest,
And the wild storm hath somewhere found a nest;
Air slumbers, wave with wave no longer strives,
Only a heaving of the deep survives,
A telltale motion! soon will it be laid,
And by the tide alone the water swayed.
Stealthy withdrawings, interminglings mild
Of light with shade in beauty reconciled,-
Such is the prospect far as sight can range,
The soothing recompense, the welcome change.
Where now the ships that drove before the blast,
Threatened by angry breakers as they passed,
And by a train of flying clouds bemocked,
Or, in the hollow surge, at anchor rocked
As on a bed of death? Some lodge in peace,
Saved by His care who bade the tempest cease;
And some, too heedless of past danger, court
Fresh gales to waft them to the far-off port;
But near, or hanging sea and sky between,
Not one of all those wingèd powers is seen,
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