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ADDRESSED TO THE

LINES

REV. J. T. BECHER, ON HIS
ADVISING THE AUTHOR TO MIX MORE WITH
SOCIETY.

DEAR Becher, you tell me to mix with mankind;
I cannot deny such a precept is wise;
But retirement accords with the tone of my mind:
I will not descend to a world I despise.
Did the senate or camp my exertions require,
Ambition might prompt me at once to go forth;
When infancy's years of probation expire,
Perchance I may strive to distinguish my birth.
The fire in the cavern of Etna conceal'd,

Still mantles unseen in its secret recess :
At length in a volume terrific reveal'd,

No torrent can quench it, no bonds can repress.

Oh! thus the desire in my bosom for fame,

Bids me live but to hope for posterity's praise. Could I soar with the phoenix on pinions of flame, With him I would wish to expire in the blaze.

For the life of a Fox, of a Chatham the death,

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Deceit is a stranger as yet to my soul:
I still am unpractised to varnish the truth:

What censure, what danger, what woe would I Then why should I live in a hateful control? brave!

Why waste upon folly the days of my youth?

Occasional Ppieces.

FROM 1807 TO 1816.

ON REVISITING HARROW.
HERE once engaged the stranger's view
Young Friendship's record simply traced;
Few were her words, but yet, though few,
Resentment's hand the line defaced.
Deeply she cut-but not erased,

The characters were still so plain,
That friendship once return'd, and gazed-
Till Memory hail'd the words again.
Repentance placed them as before,

Forgiveness join'd her gentle name;
So fair the inscription seem'd once more,
That Friendship thought it still the same.
Thus might the record now have been;

But, ah! in spite of Hope's endeavour,
Or Friendship's tears, Pride rush'd between,
And blotted out the line for ever.

EPITAPH ON JOHN ADAMS OF SOUTH-
WELL,

A CARRIER, WHO DIED OF DRUNKENNESS.
JOHN ADAMS lies here, of the parish of Southwell,
A Carrier who carried his can to his mouth well:
He carried so much, and he carried so fast,
He could carry no more-so was carried at last;

For the liquor he drank, being too much for one,
He could not carry off,-so he's now carri-on.

VERSES FOUND IN A SUMMER-HOUSE
AT HALES-OWEN.

WHEN Dryden's fool,1 "unknowing what he
sought,"

His hours in whistling spent, "for want of thought,"
This guiltless oaf his vacancy of sense
Supplied, and amply too, by innocence.

Did modern swains, possessed of Cymon's powers,
In Cymon's manner waste their leisure hours,
Th' offended guests would not, with blushing, see
These fair green walks disgraced by infamy.
Severe the fate of modern fools, alas!
When vice and folly mark them as they pass,
Like noxious reptiles o'er the whiten'd wall,
The filth they leave still points out where they
crawl.

STANZAS FOR MUSIC.

I SPEAK not, I trace not, I breathe not thy name; There is grief in the sound, there is guilt in the fame:

(1) See Dryden's "Cymon and Iphigenia."

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INTENDED TO HAVE BEEN SPOKEN AT THE

CALEDONIAN MEETING, 1814.

WHO hath not glow'd above the page where fame
Hath fix'd high Caledon's unconquer'd name;
The mountain land which spurn'd the Roman chain,
And baffled back the fiery-crested Dane;
Whose bright claymore and hardihood of hand
No foe could tame-no tyrant could command!
That race is gone-but still their children breathe,
And glory crowns them with redoubled wreath:
O'er Gael and Saxon mingling banners shine,
And, England! add their stubborn strength
thine.

to

The blood which flow'd with Wallace flows as free,
But now 'tis only shed for fame and thee!
Oh! pass not by the northern veteran's claim,
But give support—the world hath given him fame!

The humbler ranks, the lowly brave, who bled,
While cheerly following where the mighty led-
Who sleep beneath the undistinguished sod,
Where happier comrades in their triumph trod,
To us bequeath-'tis all their fate allows-
The sireless offspring and the lonely spouse:
She on high Albyn's dusky hills may raise
The tearful eye in melancholy gaze;
Or view, while shadowy auguries disclose,
The Highland seer's anticipated woes,
The bleeding phantom of each martial form,
Dim in the cloud, or darkling in the storm;
While sad she chants the solitary song,
The soft lament for him who tarries long-
For him, whose distant relics vainly crave
The cronach's wild requiem to the brave!

| 'Tis heaven-not man-must charm away the woe,
Which bursts when nature's feelings newly flow,
Yet tenderness and time may rob the tear
Of half its bitterness, for one so dear;
A nation's gratitude perchance may spread
A thornless pillow for the widow's head;
May lighten well her heart's maternal care,
And wean from penury the soldier's heir.

TO BELSHAZZAR. BELSHAZZAR! from the banquet turn, Nor in thy sensual fulness fall; Behold! while yet before thee burn

The graven words, the glowing wall. Many a despot men miscall

Crown'd and anointed from on high; But thou, the weakest, worst of allIs it not written, thou must die?

Go! dash the roses from thy brow

Grey hairs but poorly wreath with them: Youth's garlands misbecome thee now,

More than thy very diadem, Where thou hast tarnish'd every gem :Then throw the worthless bauble by, Which, worn by thee, ev'n slaves contemn; And learn like better men to die!

Oh! early in the balance weigh'd,
And ever light of word and worth,
Whose soul expired ere youth decay'd,
And left thee but a mass of earth.
To see thee moves the scorner's mirth:
But tears in Hope's averted eye
Lament that ever thou hadst birth-
Unfit to govern, live, or die.

A FRAGMENT.

COULD I remount the river of my years,

To the first fountain of our smiles and tears,
I would not trace again the stream of hours
Between their outworn banks of wither'd flowers,
But bid it flow as now-until it glides
Into the number of the nameless tides.

What is this Death ?-a quiet of the heart? The whole of that of which we are a part? For life is but a vision-what I see Of all that lives alone is life to me; And being so-the absent are the dead, Who haunt us from tranquillity, and spread A dreary shroud around us, and invest With sad remembrances our hours of rest.

The absent are the dead-for they are cold, And ne'er can be what once we did behoid; And they are changed, and cheerless,—or if yet The unforgotten do not all forget,

Since thus divided-equal must it be
If the deep barrier be of earth, or sea;
It may be both-but one day end it must,
In the dark union of insensate dust.

The under-carth inhabitants-are they
But mingled millions decomposed to clay?
The ashes of a thousand ages spread
Wherever man has trodden or shall tread?
Or do they in their silent cities dwell
Each in his incommunicative cell?

Or have they their own language? and a sense
Of breathless being ?-darken'd and intense
As midnight in her solitude ?-O Earth!

Where are the past ?-and wherefore had they birth ?

The dead are thine inheritors-and we
But bubbles on thy surface; and the key
Of thy profundity is in the grave,
The ebon portal of thy peopled cave,
Where I would walk in spirit, and behold
Our elements resolved to things untold,
And fathom-hidden wonders, and explore
The essence of great bosoms now no more.

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He quits his mule, and mounts his horse, And through the streets directs his course; Through the street of Zacatin

To the Alhambra spurring in

Woe is me, Alhama!

When the Alhambra's walls he gain'd,
On the moment he ordain'd
That the trumpet straight should sound
With the silver clarion round.

Woe is me, Alhama!

And when the hollow drums of war
Beat the loud alarm afar,
That the Moors of town and plain
Might answer to the martial strain.
Woe is me, Alhama!

Then the Moors, by this aware
That bloody Mars recall'd them there,
One by one, and two by two,
To a mighty squadron grew.

Woe is me, Alhama!

Out then spake an aged Moor
In these words the King before,
"Wherefore call on us, O King?
What may mean this gathering?

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Woe is me, Alhama!

"Friends! ye have, alas! to know
Of a most disastrous blow;

That the Christians, stern and bold,
Have obtain❜d Alhama's hold."
Woe is me, Alhama!

Out then spake old Alfaqui,
With his beard so white to see:
"Good King! thou art justly served,
Good King! this thou hast deserved.
Woe is me, Alhama!

"By thee were slain, in evil hour,
The Abencerrage, Granada's flower;
And strangers were received by thee
Of Cordova the Chivalry.

Woe is me, Alhama!

“And for this, O King! is sent
On thee a double chastisement:
Thee and thine, thy crown and realm,
One last wreck shall overwhelm.

Woe is me, Alhama!

"He who holds no laws in awe,
He must perish by the law;
And Granada must be won,
And thyself with her undone."

Woe is me, Alhama!

Fire flashed from out the old Moor's eyes,
The monarch's wrath began to rise,
Because he answered, and because
He spake exceeding well of laws.

Woe is me, Alhama!

"There is no law to say such things
As may disgust the ear of kings:
Thus, snorting with his choler, said
The Moorish King, and doom'd him dead.
Woe is me, Alhama!

Moor Alfaqui! Moor Alfaqui!
Though thy beard so hoary be,
The King hath sent to have thee seized,
For Alhama's loss displeased.

Woe is me, Alhama!

And to fix thy head upon
High Alhambra's loftiest stone;
That this for thee should be the law,
And others tremble when they saw.
Woe is me, Alhama

"Cavalier, and man of worth,
Let these words of mine go forth!
Let the Moorish Monarch know,
That to him I nothing owe.

Woe is me, Alhama!
"But on my soul Alhama weighs,
And on my inmost spirit preys;
And if the King his land hath lost,
Yet others may have lost the most.
Woe is me, Alhama

"Sires have lost their children, wives
Their lords, and valiant men their lives;
One what best his love might claim
Hath lost, another wealth, or faine.
Woe is me, Alhama!

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STANZAS FOR MUSIC.

THEY say that hope is happiness;
But genuine love must prize the past,
And Memory wakes the thoughts that bless;
They rose the first-they set the last;

And all that Memory loves the most
Was once our only Hope to be,
And all that Hope adored and lost
Hath melted into Memory.

Alas! it is delusion all:
The future cheats us from afar,
Nor can we be what we recall,
Nor dare we think on what we are.

TO THOMAS MOORE.

My boat is on the shore,

And my bark is on the sea;
But, before I go, Tom Moore,
Here's a double health to thee!
Here's a sigh to those who love me,
And a smile to those who hate;
And, whatever sky's above me,
Here's a heart for every fate.
Though the ocean roar around me,
Yet it still shall bear me on;
Though a desert should surround me,
It hath springs that may be won.

Were't the last drop in the well,
As I gasped upon the brink,
Ere my fainting spirit fell,

'Tis to thee that I would drink.

With that water, as this wine,
The libation I would pour
Should be-Peace with thine and mine,
And a health to thee, Tom Moore.

ODE ON VENICE. 1818. I.

OH Venice! Venice! when thy marble walls
Are level with the waters, there shall be

A cry of nations o'er thy sunken halls,
A loud lament along the sweeping sea!
If I, a northern wanderer, weep for thee,
What should thy sons do?-anything but weep:
And yet they only murmur in their sleep.
In contrast with their fathers-as the slime,
The dull green ooze of the receding deep,
Is with the dashing of the spring-tide foam
That drives the sailor shipless to his home,
Are they to those that were; and thus they creep,
Crouching and crab-like, through their sapping

streets.

Oh! agony-that centuries should reap
No mellower harvest! Thirteen hundred years
Of wealth and glory turn'd to dust and tears,
And every monument the stranger meets,
Church, palace, pillar, as a mourner greets;
And even the Lion all subdued appears,
And the harsh sound of the barbarian drum,
With dull and daily dissonance, repeats
The echo of thy tyrant's voice along
The soft waves, once all musical to song,

That heaved beneath the moonlight with the throng

Of gondolas-and to the busy hum

Of cheerful creatures, whose most sinful deeds
Were but the overbeating of the heart,
And flow of too much happiness, which needs
The aid of age to turn its course apart
From the luxuriant and voluptuous flood
Of sweet sensations, battling with the blood.
But these are better than the gloomy errors,
The weeds of nations in their last decay,
When Vice walks forth with her unsoften'd terrors,
And Mirth is madness, and but smiles to slay;
And hope is nothing but a false delay,
The sick man's lightning half an hour ere death,
When Faintness, the last mortal birth of Pain,

And apathy of limb, the dull beginning

Of the cold staggering race which Death is winning,

Steals vein by vein and pulse by pulse away;
Yet so relieving the o'er-tortured clay,
To him appears renewal of his breath,

And freedom the mere numbness of his chain;
And then he talks of life, and how again
He feels his spirit soaring-albeit weak,
And of the fresher air, which he would seek:
And as he whispers knows not that he gasps,
That his thin finger feels not what it clasps,
And so the film comes o'er him, and the dizzy
Chamber swims round and round, and shadows
busy,

At which he vainly catches, flit and gleam,
Till the last rattle chokes the strangled scream,
And all is ice and blackness-and the earth
That which it was the moment ere our birth.

II.

There is no hope for nations!-Search the page
Of many thousand years-the daily scene,
The flow and ebb of each recurring age,

The everlasting to be which hath been,
Hath taught us nought, or little still we lean
On things that rot beneath our weight, and wear
Our strength away in wrestling with the air:
For 'tis our nature strikes us down: the beasts
Slaughter'd in hourly hecatombs for feasts
Are of as high an order-they must go

Even where their driver goads them, though to slaughter.

Ye men, who pour your blood for kings as water,
What have they given your children in return?
A heritage of servitude and woes,

A blindfold bondage, where your hire is blows.
What! do not yet the red-hot ploughshares burn,
O'er which you stumble in a false ordeal,
And deem this proof of loyalty the real;
Kissing the hand that guides you to your scars,
And glorying as you tread the glowing bars?
All that your sires have left you, all that Time
Bequeaths of free, and History of sublime,
Spring from a different theme! Ye see and read,
Admire and sigh, and then succumb and bleed!
Save the few spirits who, despite of all,
And worse than all, the sudden crimes engender'd
By the down-thundering of the prison-wall,
And thirst to swallow the sweet waters tender'd,
Gushing from Freedom's fountains, when the
crowd,

Madden'd with centuries of drought, are loud,
And trample on each other to obtain
The cup which brings oblivion of a chain
Heavy and sore, in which long yoked they plough'd
The sand,-or if there sprung the yellow grain,
'Twas not for them, their necks were too much
bow'd,

And their dead palates chew'd the cud of pain:
Yes! the few spirits,-who, despite of deeds
Which they ablor, confound not with the cause
Those momentary starts from Nature's laws,
Which, like the pestilence and earthquake, smite
But for a term, then pass, and leave the earth
With all her seasons to repair the blight
With a few summers, and again put forth

Cities and generations-fair, when freeFor, Tyranny, there blooms no bud for thee!

III.

Glory and Empire! once upon these towers
With Freedom-godlike Triad! how ye sate!
The league of the mightiest nations, in those hours
When Venice was an envy, might abate,
But did not quench her spirit; in her fate
All were enwrapp'd: the feasted monarchs knew
And loved their hostess, nor could learn to hate,
Although they humbled-with the kingly few
The many felt, for from all days and climes
She was the voyager's worship; even her crimes
Were of the softer order-born of Love,
She drank no blood, nor fatten'd on the dead,
But gladden'd where her harmless conquests spread;
For these restored the Cross, that from above
Hallow'd her sheltering banners, which incessant
Flew between earth and the unholy Crescent,
Which, if it waned and dwindled, Earth may thank
The city it has clothed in chains, which clank
Now, creaking in the ears of those who owe
The name of Freedom to her glorious struggles;
Yet she but shares with them a common woe,
And call'd the "kingdom" of a conquering foe,
But knows what all-and, most of all, we know-
With what set gilded terms a tyrant juggles!

IV.

The name of Commonwealth is past and gone
O'er the three fractions of the groaning globe;
Venice is crush'd, and Holland deigns to own
A sceptre, and endures the purple robe;
If the free Switzer yet bestrides alone
His chainless mountains, 'tis but for a time,
For tyranny of late is cunning grown,
And in its own good season tramples down
The sparkles of our ashes. One great clime,
Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean
Are kept apart and nursed in the devotion
Of Freedom, which their fathers fought for, and
Bequeath'd-a heritage of heart and hand,
And proud distinction from each other land,
Whose sons must bow them at a monarch's motion,
As if his senseless sceptre were a wand
Full of the magic of exploded science-
Still one great clime, in full and free defiance,
Yet rears her crest, unconquer'd and sublime,
Above the far Atlantic!-She has taught
Her Esau-brethren that the haughty flag,
The floating fence of Albion's feebler crag,
May strike to those whose red right hands have
bought

Rights cheaply earn'd with blood. Still, still for

ever,

Better, though each man's life-blood were a river,
That it should flow, and overflow, than creep
Through thousand lazy channels in our veins,
Damm'd like the dull canal with locks and chains,
And moving, as a sick man in his sleep,
Three paces, and then faltering :-better be
Where the extinguish'd Spartans still are free,
In their proud charnel of Thermopylæ,
Than stagnate in our marsh,-or o'er the deep
Fly, and one current to the ocean add,
One spirit to the souls our fathers had,
One freeman more, America, to thee!

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