Page images
PDF
EPUB

No words suffice the secret soul to show,
For Truth denies all eloquence to Woe.
On Conrad's stricken soul exhaustion press'd,
And stupor almost lull'd it into rest;

So feeble now-his mother's softness crept
To those wild eyes, which like an infant's wept :
It was the very weakness of his brain,

Which thus confess'd without relieving pain.
None saw his trickling tears-perchance if seen,
That useless flood of grief had never been:
Nor long they flow'd-he dried them to depart,
In helpless-hopeless-brokenness of heart:
The sun goes forth-but Conrad's day is dim ;
And the night cometh-ne'er to pass from him.
There is no darkness like the cloud of mind,
On Grief's vain eye-the blindest of the blind!
Which may not-dare not see-but turns aside
To blackest shade-nor will endure a guide!

XXIII.

His heart was form'd for softness-warp'd to wrong;
Betray'd too early, and beguiled too long;
Each feeling pure-as falls the dropping dew
Within the grot; like that had harden'd too;
Less clear, perchance, its earthly trials pass'd,
But sunk, and chill'd, and petrified at last.
Yet tempests wear, and lightning cleaves the rock;
If such his heart, so shatter'd it the shock.
There grew one flower beneath its rugged brow,
Though dark the shade-it shelter'd-saved till now.
The thunder came-that bolt hath blasted both,
The Granite's firmness, and the Lily's growth:
The gentle plant hath left no leaf to tell
Its tale, but shrunk and wither'd where it fell ;
And of its cold protector, blacken round
But shiver'd fragments on the barren ground!

XXIV.

"Tis morn-to venture on his lonely hour

Few dare; though now Anselmo sought his tower.
He was not there-nor seeu along the shore;
Ere night, alarm'd, their isle is traversed o'er:
Another morn-another bids them seek,
And shout his name till echo waxeth weak;
Mount-grotto-cavern-valley search'd in vain,
They find on shore a sea-boat's broken chain;
Their hope revives-they follow o'er the main.
"Tis idle all-moons roll on moons away,

And Conrad comes not-came not since that day:
Nor trace, nor tidings of his doom declare

Where lives his grief, or perish'd his despair!

Long mourn'd his band whom none could mourn beside; And fair the monument they gave his bride :

For him they raise not the recording stone-
His death yet dubious, deeds too widely known;
He left a Corsair's name to other times,

Link'd with one virtue, and a thousand crimes.

WINDSOR POETICS.

Lines composed on the occasion of his Royal Highness the Prince Regent being seen standing between the coffins of Henry VIII. and Charles I., in the royal vault at Windsor.

FAMED for contemptuous breach of sacred ties,
By headless Charles see heartless Henry lies;
Between them stands another sceptred thing-
It moves, it reigns-in all but name, a king:
Charles to his people, Henry to his wife,
---In him the double tyrant starts to life:
Justice and death have mix'd their dust in vain,
Each royal vampire wakes to life again.

Ah, what can tombs avail !-since these disgorge
The blood and dust of both-to mould a Georgs

POEMS ON NAPOLEON.

ODE TO NAPOLEON.

"Expende Annibalem :-quot libras in duce summo
Invenies?"-JUNENAL, Sat. x.

"The Emperor Nepos was acknowledged by the Senate, by the Italians, and by the Provincials of Gaul; his moral virtues and military talents were loudly celebrated; and those who derived any private benefit from his government announced in prophetic strains the restoration of public felicity.

[ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors]

By this shameful abdication, he protracted his life a few years, in a very ambiguous state, between an emperor and an exile, till."-GIBBON'S Decline and Fall, vol. vi. p. 290.

"TIS done-but yesterday a King!
And arm'd with Kings to strive-
And now thou art a nameless thing;
So abject-yet alive!

Is this the man of thousand thrones,
Who strew'd our carth with hostile bones,
And can he thus survive?

Since he, miscall'd the Morning Star,

Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far.

Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind
Who bow'd so low the knee?
By gazing on thyself grown blind,
Thou taught'st the rest to see.

With might unquestion'd-power to save,--
Thine only gift hath been the grave,
To those that worshipp'd thee;
Nor till thy fall could mortals guess
Ambition's less than littleness!

Thanks for that lesson-it will teach
To after warriors more,

Than high Philosophy can preach,
And vainly preach'd before.
That spell upon the minds of men
Breaks never to unite again,
That led them to adore

Those Pagod things of sabre sway,
With fronts of brass, aud feet of clay.

The triumph, and the vanity,
The rapture of the strife*-
The earthquake voice of Victory,
To thee the breath of life;

The sword, the sceptre, and that sway
Which man seem'd made but to obey,
Wherewith renown was rife

All quell'd!-Dark Spirit! what must be
The madness of thy memory!

The Desolator desolate !

The Victor overthrown!
The arbiter of other's fate
A suppliant for his own!
Is it some yet imperial hope,

That with such change can calmly cope?
Or dread of death alone?

To die a prince-or live a slave-
Thy choice is most ignobly brave!

He who of old would rend the oak,+
Dream'd not of the rebound;

Chain'd by the trunk he vainly broke-
Alone how look'd he round?

Thou, in the sternness of thy strength,
An equal deed hast done at length,
And darker fate hast found:

He fell, the forest prowler's prey;
But thou must eat thy heart away!

The Roman, when his burning heart
Was slaked with blood of Rome,
Threw down the dagger-dared depart,
In savage grandeur, home-

He dared depart in utter scorn
Of men that such a yoke had borne,
Yet left him such a doom!

His only glory was that hour

Of self-upheld abandon'd power.

The Spaniard, § when the lust of sway
Had lost its quickening spell,
Cast crowns for rosaries away,
An empire for a cell;

A strict accountant of his beads,

A subtle disputant on creeds,
His dotage trifled well:

Yet better had he neither known

A bigot's shrine, nor despot's throne.

"Certaminis gadia"-the expression of Attila in his harangue to his army, previous to the battle of Consal, given in Cassiodorus.

+ Milo Crotoniensis, caught in the tree he had split.

1 Sylla.

Charles V. Byron forgets to tell us how he consoled himself with good eating.

But thou-from thy reluctant hand
The thunderbolt is wrung-

Too late thou leav'st the high command
To which thy weakness clung;
All Evil Spirit as thou art,
It is enough to grieve the heart
To see thine own unstrung;

To think that God's fair world hath been
The footstool of a thing so mean !

And Earth hath spilt her blood for him,
Who thus can hoard his own!

And Monarchs bow'd the trembling limb,
And thank'd him for a throne!
Fair Freedom! may we hold thee dear,
When thus thy mightiest foes their fear
In humblest guise have shown.
Oh! ne'er may tyrant leave behind
A brighter name to lure mankind !

Thine evil deeds are writ in gore,
Nor written thus in vain-

Thy triumphs tell of fame no more,
Or deepen every stain :

If thou hadst died as honour dies,
Some new Napoleon might arise,
To shame the world again-
But who would soar the solar height,
To set in such a starless night?

Weigh'd in the balance, hero dust
Is vile as vulgar clay;

Thy scales, Mortality! are just

To all that pass away:

But yet methought the living great

Some higher sparks should animate,

To dazzle and dismay;

Nor deem'd Contempt could thus make mirth Of these the Conquerors of the earth.

And she, proud Austria's mournful flower,

Thy still imperial bride;

How bears her breast the torturing hour?

Still clings she to thy side?

Must she, too, bend,-must she, too, share, Thy late repentance, long despair,

Thou throneless Homicide?

If still she loves thee, hoard that gem;

"Tis worth thy vanish'd diadem!

Then haste thee to thy sullen Isle,
And gaze upon the sea;

That element may meet thy smile-
It ne'er was ruled by thee!

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »