Blush with the big and purple drops Of triumph's voice had ceased to swell; That mark'd each warrior's bloodless face, But years have thrown their veil between, And alter'd is that lonely scene; And dreadful emblems of thy might, Stern Dissolution! meet my sight: The eyeless socket, dark and dull, The hideous grinning of the skull, Are sights which Memory disowns, Thou melancholy Vale of Bones! TO FANCY. BRIGHT angel of heavenliest birth! There's a charm where thy footsteps have been. We feel thy soft sunshine in youth, While our joys like young blossoms are new; For oh thou art sweeter than Truth, And fairer and lovelier too! The exile, who mourneth alone, Is glad in the glow of thy smile, Tho' far from the land of his own, In the ocean's most desolate isle: And the captive, who piues in his chain, Sees the banners of glory unroll'd, As he dreams of his own native plain, And the forms of the heroes of old. In the earliest ray of the morn, In the last rosy splendor of even, On the murmuring zephyrs of heaven: If I pore on the sheen of the moon, If I search the bright stars, thou art there! Thou art in the rapturons eye Of the bard, when his visions rush o'er him; And like the fresh iris on high Are the wonders that sparkle before him. Those transports that brook not control; Like the day-star that heralds the sun, But ah! when the day is begun, Thou art gone like the star of the morning! Like a beam in the winter of years, When the joys of existence are cold, Thine image can dry up our tears, And brighten the eyes of the old! Tho' dreary and dark be the night BOYHOOD. "Ah, happy years! once more who would not be a boy? Childe Harold. BOYHOOD's blest hours! when yet unfledged and cal low, We prove those joys we never can retain, In riper years with fond regret we hallow, Like some sweet scene we never see again. For youth-whate'er may be its petty woes, Yes! when, in grim alliance, grief and time Each object that we meet the more endears For by the welcome, tho' embittering power And ye, whom blighted hopes or passion's heat Have taught the pangs that care-worn hearts en dure, Ye will not deem the vernal rose so sweet! Ye will not call the driven snow so pure! "DID NOT THY ROSEATE LIPS OUT VIE." "Ulla si juris tibi pejerati Pona, Barine, nocuisset unquam; Crederem."-HORACE. DID not thy roseate lips outvie The richness of its deep perfume Were not the pearls it fans more clear Thy foot more airy than the deer, When startled from his lonely dell * Ulloa says that the blossom of the West-Indian anana is of Thou seem'st, when our young hopes are dawning; so elegant a crimson as even to dazzle the eye, and that the fragrancy of the fruit discovers the plant, though concealed from sight. See ULLOA's Voyages, vol. i., p. 72. "Non indecoro pulvere sordidos."-HORACE. Were not thy bosom's stainless whiteness, Were not thine eye a star might grace Had not thy locks the golden glow That robes the gay and early east, Thus falling in luxuriant flow Around thy fair but faithless breast: I might have deem'd that thou wert she Upon the feathery leaves that float, Borne thro' the boundless waste of air, Wherever chance might drive along. But she was wrinkled-thou art fair: And she was old-but thou art young. Her years were as the sands that strew The fretted ocean-beach; but thouTriumphant in that eye of blue, Beneath thy smoothly-marble brow; Exulting in thy form thus moulded, By nature's tenderest touch design'd; Proud of the fetters thou hast folded Around this fond deluded mind Deceivest still with practised look, Alas! I feel thy deep control, E'en now when I would break thy chain : But while I seek to gain thy soul, Ah! say-hast thou a soul to gain? HUNTSMAN'S SONG. "Who the melodies of morn can tell ?"-BEATTIE. OH! what is so sweet as a morning in spring, When the gale is all freshness, and larks, on the wing, In clear liquid carols their gratitude sing? I rove o'er the hill as it sparkles with dew, And boldly I bound o'er the mountainous scene, Like the roe which I hunt thro' the woodlands so green, Or the torrent which leaps from the height to the plain. The life of the hunter is chainless and gay, As the wing of the falcon that wins him his prey; No song is so glad as his blithe roundelay. His eyes in soft arbors the Moslem may close, rose, To scent his bright harem and lull his repose: Th' Italian may vaunt of his sweet harmony, And mingle soft sounds of voluptuons glee; But the lark's airy music is sweeter to me. LAND of bright eye and lofty brow! In clustering maze or circling wreath, In bower untrod by foot of man, Of blossoms, ever young and new; Thine honors from thee one and all, He would have wail'd, he would have wept, That thy proud spirit should have bow'd To Alexander, doubly proud. Oh, Iran! Iran! had he known The downfall of his mighty throne, Or had he seen that fatal night, When the young king of Macedon In madness led his veterans on, And Thais held the funeral light, Around that noble pile which rose Irradiant with the pomp of gold, In high Persepolis of old, Encompass'd with its frenzied foes: He would have groan'd, he would have spread The dust upon his laurell'd head, To view the setting of that star, Which beam'd so gorgeously and far Of Belus, and Caïster's plain, And Sardis, and the glittering sands Where down th' Euphrates, swift and strong, Xenophon says that every shrub in these wilds had an aromatic odor. + Rennel on Herodotus. The cavern in the ridge of Himmalah, whence the Ganges seems to derive its original springs, has been moulded, by the mind of Hindoo superstition, into the head of a cow. And where the Syrian gates divide Near where old Hyssus, rolling from the strand, The Euxine, falsely named, which whelms To high Sinope's distant realms, Whence cynics rail'd at human pride. EGYPT. "Egypt's palmy groves, Her grots, and sepulchres of kings." MOORE'S Lalla Rookh. THE sombre pencil of the dim-gray dawn Draws a faint sketch of Egypt to mine eye, As yet uncolor'd by the brilliant morn, And her gay orb careering up the sky. And see at last he comes in radiant pride, The flowery region brightens in his smile, Each fragrant field and aromatic vale. But the first glitter of his rising beam Falls on the broad-based pyramids sublime, As proud to show us with his earliest gleam Those vast and hoary enemics of Time. E'en History's self, whose certain scrutiny Few eras in the list of Time beguile, Pauses, and scans them with astonish'd eye, As unfamiliar with their aged pile. Awful, august, magnificent, they tower Amid the waste of shifting sands around; The lapse of year and month and day and hour, Alike unfelt, perform th' unwearied round. How often hath yon day-god's burning light, Gilded at morn, and purpled them at even !t THE DRUID'S PROPHECIES.‡ MONA! with flame thine oaks are streaming, Those sacred oaks we rear'd on high: Lo! Mona, lo! the swords are gleaming Adown thine hills confusedly. Hark! Mona, hark! the chargers' neighing! * See Xenophon's "Expeditio Cyri." + See Savary's letters. "Stabat pro littore diversa acies, densa armis virisque, intercursantibus feminis in modum Furiarum, quæ veste ferali, crinibus dejectis, faces præferebant. Druidæque circum, preces diras, sublatis ad cœlum manibus, fundentes," etc.-TACIT., Annal., xiv., c. 30. ** At the siege of Jerusalem. + The five good emperors: Nerva, Trajan, Adrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius, or Antoninus the Philosopher. Perhaps the best commentary on the life and virtues of the last is his own volume of " Meditations." "Debiles pedibus, et eos, qui ambulare non possent, in gigantum modum, ita ut a genibus de pannis et linteis quasi dracones digererentur; eosdemque sagittis confecit."-EL. LAMPRID. in Vita Comm. Such were the laudable amusements of Commodus ! §§ He was first poisoned; but the operation not fully answering the wishes of his beloved, he was afterward strangled by a robust Exulting in his conquests gloriousAh! glorious to his country's fall! But thou shalt see the Romans flying, But lo! what dreadful visions o'er me Thy hapless monarchs fall together, Like leaves in winter's stormy ire; Some by the sword, and some shall wither By lightning's flame and fever's fire.t They come! they leave their frozen regions, Woe, woe to Rome! though tall and ample The grandeur of her temples down! She sinks to dust; and who shall pity Her dark despair and hopeless groans? There is a wailing in her city Her babes are dash'd against the stones! Then, Mona! then, though wan and blighted LINES. § THE eye must catch the point that shows Thus do some minds unmark'd appear Occasion-circumstance-give birth To charms that else unheeded lie, And call the latent virtues forth To break upon the wond'ring eye. E'en he your censure has enroll'd So rashly with the cold and dull, Waits but occasion to unfold An ardor and a force of soul. Go then, impetuous youth, deny ern World but those conquests, however glorious, were conducive to the ruin of the Roman Empire.--See GIBBON, vol. vi., chap. v., p. 203. * In allusion to the real or feigned victory obtained by Fingal over Caracul, or Caracalla.-See OSSIAN. Very few of the emperors after Severus escaped assassination. Macrinus, Heliogabalus, Alexander, Maximin Pupienus, Balbinus, Gordian, Philip, etc., were assassinated; Claudius died of a pestilential fever; and Carus was struck dead by lightning in his tent. § To one who entertained a light opinion of an eminent character, because too impatient to wait for its gradual development. Time, and the passing throng of things, Full well the mould of minds betray, And each a clearer prospect brings:Suspend thy judgment for a day. SWISS SONG. I LOVE St. Gothard's head of snows, I love Lucerne's transparent lake, And thou, Mont Blanc! thou mighty pile Of crags and ice and snow; The Gallic foes in wonder smile That we should love thee so! But we were nurst within thy breast, And taught to brave thy storms: Thy tutorage was well confest Against the Frank in arms The Frank who basely, proudly came THE EXPEDITION OF NADIR SHAH "Quoi vous allez combattre un roi, dont la puissance Et qui tient la fortune attachée à ses lois !" RACINE'S Alerandre, Squallent populatibus agri." CLAUDIAN. As the host of the locusts in numbers, in might glare Of standard and sabre that sparkle in air. Like the fiends of destruction they rush on their way, The vulture behind them is wild for his prey; And the spirits of death, and the demons of wrath, Wave the gloom of their wings o'er their desolate path. Earth trembles beneath them, the dauntless, the bold; Oh! weep for thy children, thou region of gold;* For thy thousands are bow'd to the dust of the plain, And all Delhi runs red with the blood of her slain. For thy glory is past, and thy splendor is dim, And the cup of thy sorrow is full to the brim; And where is the chief in thy realms to abide, The "Monarch of Nations," the strength of his pride? This invader required as a ransom for Mohammed Shah no less than thirty millions, and amassed in the rich city of Delhi the enor mous sum of two hundred and thirty-one millions sterling. Others, however, differ considerably in their account of this treasure. + Such pompous epithets the Oriental writers are accustomed to bestow on their monarchs; of which sufficient specimens may be seen in Sir William Jones's translation of the "History of Nadir Shah." We can scarcely read one page of this work without meeting with such sentences as these: "Le roi des rois ;"" Les étendards Like a thousand dark streams from the mountain | And headlong they go when the bugles blow, they throng, With the fife and the horn and the war - beating And sound from steep to steep: But lighter far, Like the motion of air On the smooth river's bed, Is the noiseless tread Of the foot of the Maid of Savoy! In Savoy's vales, with green array'd, 'Neath the odorous shade by the larches made, Like the cedars which rise On Lebanon's hill To the pure blue skies, Is the breath of the Maid of Savoy! In Savoy's groves full merrily sing A thousand songsters gay, When the breath of spring calls them forth on the wing, To sport in the sun's mild ray: But softer far, Like the holy soug Of angels in air, When they sweep along, Is the voice of the Maid of Savoy! IGNORANCE OF MODERN EGYPT. DAY's genial beams expand the flowers MIDNIGHT. 'Tis midnight o'er the dim mere's lonely bosom, Is shrouded in obscurity; the scream Of owl is silenced; and the rocks of granite qui subjuguent le monde;" "L'âme rayonnante de sa majesté :" Spreads its black mantle o'er the mountain's form; "Le rayonnant monarque du monde ;" "Sa maiesté conquérante du monde ;" etc. The land is as the Garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness."-Joel *The succeeding lines are a paraphrase of Ossian. |