And sophistry's gay glittering bubble bursts,
As at the spousals of the Nereid's son,
When that false Florimel, by her prototype
Displayed in rivalry, with all her charms
Dissolved away.
Nor can the halls of heaven
Give to the human soul such kindred joy,
As hovering o'er its earthly haunts it feels,
When with the breeze it wantons round the brow
Of one beloved on earth; or when at night
In dreams it comes, and brings with it the days
And joys that are no more. Or when, perchance
With power permitted to alleviate ill
And fit the sufferer for the coming woe,
Some strange presage the Spirit breathes, and fills
The breast with ominous fear, and disciplines
For sorrow, pours into the afflicted heart
The balm of resignation, and inspires
With heavenly hope. Even as a child delights
To visit day by day the favourite plant
His hand has sown, to mark its gradual growth,
And watch all-anxious for the promised flower;
Thus to the blessed spirit, in innocence
And pure affections, like a little child,
Sweet will it be to hover o'er the friends
Beloved; then sweetest, if, as Duty prompts,
With earthly care we in their breasts have sown
The seeds of truth and virtue, holy flowers,
Whose odour reacheth heaven.
When my sick heart
(Sick with hope long delayed, than which no care
Presses the crushed heart heavier;) from itself
Seeks the best comfort, often have I deemed
That thou didst witness every inmost thought,
Seward! my dear dead friend! for not in vain,
O early summoned on thy heavenly course!
Was thy brief sojourn here: me didst thou leave
With strengthened step to follow the right path
Till we shall meet again. Meantime I soothe
The deep regret of nature, with belief,
O Edmund! that thine eye's celestial ken
Pervades me now, marking with no mean joy
The movements of the heart that loved thee well!
Such feelings nature prompts, and hence your rites,
Domestic gods! arose. When for his son
With ceaseless grief Syrophanes bewailed,
Mourning his age left childless, and his wealth
Heapt for an alien, he with fixed eye
Still on the imaged marble of the dead
Dwelt, pampering sorrow. Thither from his wrath,
A safe asylum, fled the offending slave,
And garlanded the statue, and implored
His young lost lord to save: remembrance then
Softened the father, and he loved to see
The votive wreath renewed, and the rich smoke
Curl from the costly censer slow and sweet.
From Egypt soon the sorrow-soothing rites
Divulging spread; before your idol forms
By every hearth the blinded pagan knelt,
Pouring his prayers to these, and offering there
Vain sacrifice or impious, and sometimes
With human blood your sanctuary defiled:
Till the first Brutus, tyrant-conquering chief,
Arose; he first the impious rites put down;
He fitliest, who for freedom lived and died,
The friend of human kind. Then did your feasts
Frequent recur and blameless; and when came
The solemn festival, whose happiest rites
Emblemed equality, the holiest truth!
Crowned with gay garlands were your statues seen,
To you the fragrant censer smoked, to you
The rich libation flowed: vain sacrifice!
For nor the poppy wreath nor fruits nor wine
Ye ask, Penates! nor the altar cleansed
With many a mystic form; ye ask the heart
Made pure, and by domestic peace and love,
Hallowed to you.
Hearken your hymn of praise,
Penates! to your shrines I come for rest,
There only to be found. Often at eve,
Amid my wanderings I have seen far off
The lonely light that spake of comfort there;
It told my heart of many a joy of home,
And my poor heart was sad. When I have gazed
From some high eminence on goodly vales
And cots and villages embowered below,
The thought would rise that all to me was strange
Amid the scene so fair, nor one small spot
Where my tired mind might rest and call it home.
There is a magic in that little word;
It is a mystic circle that surrounds
Comforts and virtues never known beyond
The hallowed limit. Often has my heart
Ached for that quiet haven!-havened now,
I think of those in this world's wilderness
Who wander on and find no home of rest
Till to the grave they go! them poverty,
Hollow-eyed fiend, the child of wealth and power,
Bad offspring of worse parents, aye afflicts,
Cankering with her foul mildews the chilled heart-
Them want with scorpion scourge drives to the den
Of guilt them slaughter for the price of death
Throws to her raven brood. Oh, not on them,
God of eternal justice! not on them
Then only shall be happiness on earth
When man shall feel your sacred power, and love
Your tranquil joys; then shall the city stand
A huge void sepulchre, and rising fair
Amid the ruins of the palace pile
The olive grow; there shall the tree of peace
Strike its roots deep and flourish. This the state
Shall bless the race redeemed of man, when wealth
And power, and all their hideous progeny
Shall sink annihilate, and all mankind
Live in the equal brotherhood of love.
Heart-calming hope, and sure! for hitherward
Tend all the tumults of the troubled world,
Its woes, its wisdom, and its wickedness
Alike: so He hath willed whose will is just.
Meantime, all hoping and expecting all
In patient faith, to you, domestic gods!
I come, studious of other lore than song,
Of my past years the solace and support:
Yet shall my heart remember the past years
With honest pride, trusting that not in vain
Lives the pure song of liberty and truth.
Scene-the Promontory of Leucadia.
THIS is the spot:-"Tis here tradition says
That hopeless love from this high towering rock
Leaps headlong to oblivion or to death.
Oh, 'tis a giddy height! my dizzy head
Swims at the precipice-'tis death to fall!
Lie still, thou coward heart! this is no time
To shake with thy strong throbs the frame convulsed.
To die, to be at rest,-oh, pleasant thought!
Perchance to leap and live; the soul all still,
And the wild tempest of the passions husht
In one deep calm; the heart, no more diseased
By the quick ague fits of hope and fear,
Quietly cold;
Presiding powers, look down!
In vain to you I poured my earnest prayers,
In vain I sung your praises: chiefly thou,
Venus, ungrateful goddess, whom my lyre
Hymned with such full devotion! Lesbian groves,
Witness how often, at the languid hour
Of summer twilight, to the melting song
Ye gave your choral echoes. Grecian maids,
Who hear with downcast look and flushing cheek
That lay of love, bear witness! and ye youths,
Who hang enraptured on the empassioned strain,
Gazing with eloquent eye, even till the heart
Sinks in the deep delirium! and ye, too,
Ages unborn, bear witness ye, how hard
Her fate who hymn'd the votive hymn in vain!
Ungrateful goddess! I have hung my lute
In yonder holy pile: my hand no more
Shall wake the melodies that failed to move
The heart of Phaon-yet when rumour tells
How from Leucadia Sappho hurled her down
A self-devoted victim,-he may melt
Too late in pity, obstinate to love.
O haunt his midnight dreams, black Nemesis!
Whom, self-conceiving in the inmost depths
Of chaos, blackest night long-labouring bore,
When the stern destinies, her elder brood,
And shapeless death, from that more monstrous birth
Leapt shuddering? haunt his slumbers, Nemesis !
Scorch with the fires of Phlegethon his heart,
Till helpless, hopeless, heaven-abandoned wretch,
He, too, shall seek beneath the unfathomed deep
To hide him from thy fury.
Far distant glitters as the sun-beams smile
And gaily wanton o'er its heaving breast!
Phoebus shines forth, nor wears one cloud to mourn
His votary's sorrows. God of day, shine on;-
By men despised, forsaken by the Gods,
O pleasant Lesbos! in thy secret streams
Delighted have I plunged, from the hot sun
Screened by the o'er-arching grove's delightful shade,
And pillowed on the waters! Now the waves
Shall chill me to repose.
Tremendous height!
Scarce to the brink will these rebellious limbs
Support me. Hark! how the rude deep below
Roars round the rugged base, as if it called
Its long-reluctant victim! I will come.
One leap, and all is over! The deep rest
Of death, or tranquil apathy's dead calm,
Welcome alike to me. Away, vain fears!
Phaon is cold, and why should Sappho live?
Phaon is cold, or with some fairer one—
Thought worse than death!
[She throws herself from the precipice.
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