Page images
PDF
EPUB

I'd mount where golden harps proclaim
Emmanuel's dying love,
And gladly hail th' eternal rest
Of that pure realm above.

CCCXVIII. WOLFE, 1791—1823.

THE BURIAL OF SIR J. MOORE.

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.
We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning;
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast,

Not in sheet nor in shroud we bound him;
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;

But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought as we hollowed his narrow bed,

And smoothed down his lonely pillow,

That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,
And we far away on the billow!

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him,-
But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.
But half our heavy task was done,

When the clock struck the hour for retiring;
And we heard the distant and random gun
That the foe was sullenly firing.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory;

We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone-
But we left him alone with his glory.

CCCXIX. H. HART MILMAN, 1791

1 PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA.

On the margin of the flood.

With lifted rod the prophet stood;
And the summoned east wind blew,
And aside it sternly threw

The gathered waves that took their stand,
Like crystal rocks, on either hand,
Or walls of sea-green marble piled
Round some irregular city wild.

Then the light of morning lay
On the wonder-paved way,
Where the treasures of the deep
In their caves of coral sleep.
The profound abysses, where
Was never sound from upper air,
Rang with Israel's chanted words,
King of kings and Lord of lords!

Then with bow and banner glancing,
On exulting Egypt came,
With her chosen horsemen prancing,
And her cars on wheels of flame,
In a rich and boastful ring
All around her furious king.
With a quick and sudden swell
Prone the liquid ramparts fell;
Over horse, and over car,
Over every man of war,
Over Pharoah's crown of gold,
The loud thundering billows rolled.
As the level waters spread,

Down they sank, they sank like lead,
Down without a cry or groan,
And the morning sun that shone
On myriads of bright-armed men,
Its meridian radiance then

Cast on a wide sea, heaving as of yore,
Against a silent, solitary shore.

2. SIMON THE JEW TO TITUS.

Peace, John of Galilee! and I will answer
This purple-mantled captain of the Gentiles;
But in far other tone than he is wont

To hear about his silken couch of feasting
Amid his pamper'd parasites.—I speak to thee,
Titus, as warrior should accost a warrior.

The world, thou boastest, is Rome's slave; the sun
Rises and sets upon no realm but yours;
Ye plant your giant foot in either ocean,
And vaunt that all which ye o'erstride is Rome's.
But think ye, that because the common earth
Surfeits your pride with homage, that our land,
Our separate, peculiar, sacred land,

Portion'd and seal'd unto us by the God

Who made the round world and the crystal heavens―
A wond'rous land, where Nature's common course
Is strange and out of use, so oft the Lord
Invades it with miraculous intervention—

Think ye this land shall be an heathen heritage,
An high place for your Moloch? Haughty Gentile!
E'en now ye walk on ruin and on prodigy.
The air ye breathe is heavy and o'ercharged
With your dark gathering doom; and if our earth
Do yet in its disdain endure the footing

Of your arm'd legions, 'tis because it labours
With silent throes of expectation, waiting

The signal of your scattering. Lo! the mountains
Bend o'er you with their huge and lowering shadows,
Ready to rush and overwhelm : the winds
Do listen panting for the tardy presence
Of Him that shall avenge. And there is scorn,
Yea, there is laughter in our fathers' tombs,
To think that heathen conqueror doth aspire
To lord it over God's Jerusalem!

Yea, in hell's deep and desolate abode,

Where dwell the perish'd kings, the chief of earth,
They, whose idolatrous warfare erst assail'd
The Holy City and the chosen people;

They wait for thee, the associate of their hopes
And fatal fall, to join their ruin'd conclave.

He whom the Red Sea 'whelmed with all his host,
Pharoah, th' Egyptian; and the kings of Canaan ;
The Philistine, the Dagon worshipper;

Moab, and Edom, and fierce Amalek;

And he of Babylon, whose multitudes,

E'en on the hills where gleam your myriad spears,
In one brief night th' invisible angel swept
With the dark noiseless shadow of his wing,
And morn beheld the fierce and riotous camp
One cold, and mute, and tombless cemetery,
Sennacherib all, all are risen, are moved;
Yea, they take up the taunting song of welcome
To him, who like themselves hath madly warr'd
'Gainst Zion's walls, and miserably fallen
Before th' avenging God of Israel!

CCCXX. JEREMIAH HOLME WIFFEN,

1792-1836.

LINES ON A CUCKOO.

Hail to thee, shouting Cuckoo! in my youth Thou wert long time the Ariel of my hope, The marvel of a summer! it did soothe To listen to thee on some sunny slope, Where the high oaks forbade an ampler scope Than of the blue skies upward, and to sit Canopied in the gladdening horoscope, Which thou, my planet, flung-a pleasant fit, Long time my hours endeared, my kindling fancy smit. And thus I love thee still-thy monotone, The selfsame transport flashes through my frame, And when thy voice, sweet sybil, all is flown My eager ear, I cannot choose but blame.

If

0 may the world these feelings never tame!
age o'er me her silver tresses spread,

I still would call thee by a lover's name,

And deem the spirit of delight unfled,

Nor bear, though gray without, a heart to nature dead! CCCXXI. SHELLEY, 1792-1822.

1. THE ATHEIST.

I was an infant when my mother went

To see an atheist burned. She took me there:

The dark-robed priests were met around the pile ;
The multitude was gazing silently;

And, as the culprit passed with dauntless mien,
Tempered disdain in his unaltering eye,

Mixed with a quiet smile, shone calmly forth:
The thirsty fire crept round his manly limbs ;
His resolute eyes were scorched to blindness soon;
His death-pang rent my heart! th' insensate muh
Uttered a cry of triumph, and I wept.

Weep not, child," cried my mother, "for that man Has said there is no God."

2. DEATH AND SLEEP.

How wonderful is Death, Death and his brother Sleep! One, pale as yonder waning moon, With lips of lurid hue;

The other, rosy as the morn When throned on Ocean's wave It blushes o'er the world, Yet both so passing wonderful!

Hath then the gloomy Power, Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres, Seized on her sinless soul?

Must then that peerless form, Which love and admiration cannot view

Without a beating heart, those azure veins,
Which steal like streams along a field of snow,

That lovely outline, which is fair

As breathing marble, perish?
Must putrefaction's breath

Leave nothing of this heavenly sight
But loathsomeness and ruin?

Spare nothing but a gloomy theme,

On which the lightest heart might moralize?
Or is it only a sweet slumber

Stealing o'er sensation,

Which the breath of roseate morning

Chaseth into darkness?

Will Ianthe wake again,

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »