XXVII. ON THE DEATH OF SHERIDAN.
WHEN the last sunshine of expiring day
In summer's twilight weeps itself away,
Who hath not felt the softness of the hour
Sink on the heart, as dew along the flower?
"T is not harsh sorrow - but a tenderer woe,
Nameless, but dear to gentle hearts below;
Felt without bitterness- but full and clear;
A sweet dejection—a transparent tear,
Unmixed with worldly grief or selfish stain,
Shed without shame, and secret without pain.
Even as the tenderness that hour instills
When summer's day declines along the hills,
So feels the fullness of our heart and eyes
When all of Genius which can perish dies!
Almighty spirit is eclipsed-a power
Hath passed from day to darkness to whose hour
Of light no likeness is bequeathed—no name,
Focus at once of all the rays of Fame!
The flash of Wit, the bright Intelligence,
The beam of Song, the blaze of Eloquence,
Set with their sun- - but still have left behind
The enduring produce of immortal Mind;
Fruits of a genial morn and glorious noon,
A deathless part of him who died too soon.
Ye orators! whom yet our councils yield,
Mourn for the veteran hero of your field!
The worthy rival of the wondrous Three,*
Whose words were sparks of immortality!
Ye bards! to whom the drama's muse is dear,
He was your master-emulate him here!
Ye men of wit and social eloquence!
He was your brother-bear his ashes hence!
While powers of mind almost of boundless range,
Complete in kind, as various in their change,-
While Eloquence, Wit, Poesy, and Mirth,
That humbler harmonist of care on earth,
Survive within our souls, - while lives our sense
Of pride in Merit's proud preeminence,
Long shall we seek his likeness-long in vain,
And turn to all of him which may remain,
Sighing that Nature formed but one such man,
And broke the die-in moulding Sheridan!
XXVIII. FAITH.
YE who think the truth ye sow
Lost beneath the winter snow,
Doubt not, Time's unerring law
Yet shall bring the genial thaw.
God in Nature ye can trust:
Is the God of Mind less just?
Read we not the mighty thought
Once by ancient sages taught?
Though it withered in the blight
Of the medieval night,
Now the harvest we behold;
See! it bears a thousand fold.
Workers on the barren soil,
Yours may seem a thankless toil;
Sick at heart with hope deferred,
Listen to the cheering word:
Now the faithful sower grieves;
⚫ Soon he 'll bind his golden sheaves.
If Great Wisdom have decreed
Man may labor, yet the seed
Never in this life shall grow,
Shall the sower cease to sow?
The fairest fruit may yet be born
On the resurrection morn!
In the spring of 1805, a young gentleman of talents, and of a most amiable disposition, perished by losing his way on the mountain Helvellyn. His remains were not discovered till three months afterwards, when they were found guarded by a faithful dog, his constant attendant during frequent solitary rambles through the wilds of Cumberland and Westmoreland.
I CLIMBED the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn,
Lakes and mountains beneath me gleamed misty and wide;
All was still, save by fits when the eagle was yelling,
And, starting around me, the echoes replied.
On the right, Striden-edge round the Red-tarn was bending,
And Catchedicam its left verge was defending,
One huge nameless rock in the front was ascending,
When I marked the sad spot where the wanderer had died.
Dark green was that spot 'mid the brown mountain heather,
Where the pilgrim of Nature lay stretched in decay,
Like the corpse of an outcast, abandoned to weather,
Till the mountain winds wasted the tenantless clay.
Nor yet quite deserted, though lonely extended,
For, faithful in death, his mute favorite attended,
The much-loved remains of her master defended,
And chased the hill-fox and the raven away.
How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber?
When the wind waved his garment, how oft didst thou start?
How many long days and long weeks didst thou number,
Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart?
And, O! was it meet, that no requiem read o'er him,
No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him,
And thou, little guardian, alone stretched before him-
Unhonored the pilgrim from life should depart?
When a prince to the fate of the peasant has yielded,
The tapestry waves dark round the dim-lighted hall;
With scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded,
And pages stand mute by the canopied pall:
Through the courts, at deep midnight, the torches are gleaming;
In the proudly-arched chapel the banners are beaming;
Far adown the long aisle sacred music is streaming,
Lamenting a chief of the people should fall.
But meeter for thee, gentle lover of nature,
To lay down thy head like the meek mountain lamb,
When 'wildered he drops from some cliff huge in stature,
And draws his last sob by the side of his dam.
And more stately thy couch, by this desert lake lying,
Thy obsequies sung by the gray plover flying,
With one faithful friend but to witness thy dying,
In the arms of Helvellyn and Catchedicam.
-THE STATUE OF THE BELVIDERE APOLLO.
HEARD ye the arrow hurtle in the sky?
Heard ye the dragon monster's deathful cry?
In settled majesty of calm disdain,
Proud of his might, yet scornful of the slain,
The heavenly archer stands *.
No perishable denizen of earth;
Youth blooms immortal in his beardless face,
A god in strength, with more than godlike grace;
All, all divine; no struggling muscle glows,
Through heaving vein no mantling life-blood flows;
But, animate with deity alone,
In deathless glory lives the breathing stone.
Bright kindling with a conqueror's stern delight,
His keen eye tracks the arrow's fateful flight;
Burns his indignant cheek with vengeful fire,
And his lip quivers with insulting ire:
Firm fixed his tread, yet light, as when on high
He walks the impalpable and pathless sky;
The rich luxuriance of his hair, confined
In graceful ringlets, wantons on the wind,
That lifts in sport his mantle's drooping fold,
Proud to display that form of faultless mould.
Mighty Ephesian!t with an eagle's flight
Thy proud soul mounted through the fields of light,
Viewed the bright conclave of heaven's blest abode,
And the cold marble leapt to life a god.
Contagious awe through breathless myriads ran,
And nations bowed before the work of man.
For mild he seemed, as in Elysian bowers,
Wasting in careless ease the joyous hours;
Haughty, as bards have sung, with princely sway
Curbing the fierce, flame-breathing steeds of day;
Beauteous as vision seen in dreamy sleep
By holy maid on Delphi's haunted steep,
'Mid the dim twilight of the laurel grove,
Too fair to worship, too divine to love.
XXXI. ADDRESS TO THE OCEAN.
ROLL on, thou deep and dark blue ocean - roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ;
Man marks the earth with ruin; his control
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
The Apollo is in the act of watching the arrow with which he slow the serpent Python.
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.
Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,
Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark heaving;-boundless, endless, and sublime — The image of eternity- the throne
Of the Invisible! even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.
And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
I wantoned with thy breakers; they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror, 't was a pleasing fear;
For I was, as it were, a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane as I do here.
XXXII. — THE STORY OF GINEVRA.
SHE was an only child, her name Ginevra,
The joy, the pride, of an indulgent father:
And in her fifteenth year became a bride,
Marrying an only son, Francesco Doria,
Her playmate from her birth, and her first love.
She was all gentleness, all gayety,
Her pranks the favorite theme of every tongue.
But now the day was come, the day, the hour;
Now frowning, smiling, for the hundredth time,
The nurse, that ancient lady, preached decorum ;
And, in the luster of her youth, she gave
Her hand, with her heart in it, to Francesco.
Great was the joy; but at the nuptial feast,
When all sat down, the bride herself was wanting;
Nor was she to be found! Her father cried,
""Tis but to make a trial of our love!"
And filled his glass to all; but his hand shook,
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