DESCRIPTION OF A SCULPTURE ON
THE TEMPLE OF MARS.
UPON the eastern pediment stood out
A fierce relief, where the tumultuous stone
Was nobly touched into a fit device
For the' immortal homicide within: it show'd
His coming on the earth; the God had burst
The gates of Janus, that fell shattering back
Behind him, from the wall the rearing steeds
Sprung forth, and with their stony hoofs the air
Insulted. Them Bellona urged, abroad
Her snaky locks from her bare wrinkled brow
Went scattering; forward the' haggard charioteer
Lean'd, following to the coursers' reeking flanks
The furrowing scourge with all herself, and hung
Over their backs, half fury and half joy,
As though to listen to their bruising hoofs
That trampled the thick massacre. Erect
Behind, with shield drawn in and forward spear,
The coned helm finely shaped to the' arching brow,
The god stood up within the car, that seem'd
To rush whenever the fleet wind swept by.
His brow was glory, and his arm was power,
And a smooth immortality of youth,
Like freshness from Elysium newly left,
The' embalming of celestial airs inhaled,
Touch'd with a beauty to be shudder'd at
His massy shape, a lightninglike fierce grace,
That makes itself admired while it destroys.
THE VISION OF THE ANGEL OF
DESTRUCTION.
GRANDEURS there are to which the gates of heaven
Set wide their burning portals: midnight feels
Cherubic splendours ranging her dun gloom,
The tempests are ennobled by the state
Of high seraphic motion.
I, Merlin, have beheld! It stood in light,
It spake in sounds for earth's gross winds too pure.
Between the midnight and the morn 'twas here
I lay, I know not if I slept or woke,
Yet mine eyes saw. Long, long this heart had yearn'd,
Mid those rich passings and majestic shows,
For shape distinct and palpable clear sound.
It burst at length, yea, front to front it stood,
The' Immortal Presence. I clench'd up the dust
In the' agony and rapture of my fear,
And my soul wept with terror and deep joy.
It stood upon the winds, an angel plumed
And mail'd and crown'd; his plumes cast forth a tinge
Like blood on the' air around: his arms, in shape
Ethereal panoply complete, in hue
The moonlight on the dark Llanberi's lake,
A bright blue rippling glitter, for the crown,
Palm leaves of orient light his brow enwreath'd,
That bloom'd in fair divinity of wrath,
And beautiful relentlessness austere.
Knowledge was in my heart and on my lips;
I felt him, who he was.— Archangel! hail,
Destroyer! art not thou God's Delegate,
To break the glassy glories of this world?
The gem-knosp'd diadem, the ivory ball,
Sceptre and sword, imperial mantle broad,
The Lord of Nations, Thundershaft of War
Are glorious on the pale submissive earth:
Thou comest, and lo! for throne, for sword, for
Bare ashes and thin dust.
The rich-tower'd cities smoulder'st to pale heaps
Of lazy moss stones, and aye after thee
Hoots Desolation like a dank-wing'd owl
Upon the marble palaces of kings.
Thou wert, when old Assyrian Nineveh
Sank to a pool of waters, waste and foul;
Thou, when the Median's brow the massy tiar
Let fall, and when the Grecian's brazen throne
Sever'd and split to the four winds, and now
Consummatest thy work of wreck and scorn,
Even on Rome's Cæsars, making the earth sick
Of its own hollowness. Archangel! hail,
Vicegerent of destruction, cupbearer,
That pour'st the bitter liquor of Heaven's wrath,
A lamentable homage pay I thee,
And sue thee tell if Britain's days are full,
Her lips for thy sad beverage ripe?'
THE PALACE OF DISEASE.
DEEP in a desert vale, a palace frowns
Sublimely mournful: to the eye it seems
The mansion of Despair, or ancient Night.
The Graces of the Seasons never knew
To shed their bounty here, or, smiling, bless,
With hospitable foot, its bleak domain
Uncultivated. Nor the various robe
Of flushing Spring, with purple gay, invests
Its blighted plains; nor Summer's radiant hand
Profusive scatters o'er its baleful fields
The rich abundance of her glorious days;
And golden Autumn here forgets to reign.
Here only hemlock, and whatever weeds
Medea gather'd, or Canidia brew'd,
Wet with Avernus' waves, or Pontus yields,
Or Colchos, or Thessalia, taint the winds,
And choke the ground unhallow'd. But the soil
Refuses to embrace the kindly seeds
Of healing vegetation, sage, and rue,
Dittany, and amello, blooming still
In Virgil's rural page. The bitter yew, [arms,
The churchyard's shade! and cypress' wither'd
In formidable ranks surround its courts
With umbrage dun; administering a roof
To birds of ominous portent; the bat,
The raven boding death, the screaming owl
Of heavy wing; while serpents, rustling, hiss;
And croaking toads the odious concert aid.
The peevish east, the rheumy south, the north Pregnant with storms are all the winds that blow: While, distant far the pure Etesian gales,
And western breezes fan the spicy beds
Of Araby the bless'd, or shake their balm
O'er fair Britannia's plains, and wake her flowers.
Eternal damps, and deadly humours, drawn
In poisonous exhalations from the deep,
Conglomerated into solid night,
And darkness, almost to be felt, forbid
The sun, with cheerful beams, to purge the air,
But roll their suffocating horrors round
Incessant, banishing the blooming train
Of Health and Joy for ever from the dome.
In sad magnificence the palace rears
Its mouldering columns; from thy quarries, Nile,
Of sable marble, and Egyptian mines
Nor Corinthian pillars, gay
With foliaged capitals and figured frize,
Nor feminine Ionique, nor, though grave,
The fluted Doric, and the Tuscan plain,
In just proportions rise: but Gothic, rude,
Irreconciled in ruinous design:
Save in the centre, in relievo high,
And swelling emblematically bold,
In gold the apple rose, whose mortal taste Brought Death into the world, and all our woe*.' Malignantly delighted, dire Disease
Surveys the glittering pest, and grimly smiles
With hellish glee. Beneath totters her throne
Of jarring elements; earth, water, fire;
Where hot and cold and moist and dry maintain
Unnatural war. Shapeless her frightful form
(A chaos of distemper'd limbs in one),
Huge as Megæra, cruel as the grave;
Her eyes, two comets; and her breath, a storm. * Milton's Paradise Lost, book i.
|