If this be genius, though its bitter springs
Glowed like the morn beneath Aurora's wings,
Seek not the source whose sullen bosom feeds
But fruitless flowers, and dark, envenomed weeds.
But, if so bright the dear illusion seems,
Thou wouldst be partner of thy poet's dreams,
And hang in rapture on his bloodless charms,
Or die, like Raphael, in his angel arms;
Go, and enjoy thy blessed lot,-to share
In Cowper's gloom, or Chatterton's despair!
Not such were they, whom, wandering o'er the waves,
I looked to meet, but only found their graves;
If friendship's smile, the better part of fame,
Should lend my song the only wreath I claim,
Whose voice would greet me with a sweeter tone,
Whose living hand more kindly press my own,
Than theirs, could Memory, as her silent tread
Prints the pale flowers that blossom o'er the dead,
Those breathless lips, now closed in peace, restore,
Or wake those pulses hushed to beat no more?
Thou calm, chaste scholar! I can see thee now,
The first young laurels on thy pallid brow,
O'er thy slight figure floating lightly down
In graceful folds the academic gown,
On thy curled lip the classic lines, that taught
How nice the mind that sculptured them with thought,
And triumph glistening in the clear blue eye,
Too bright to live,-but O, too fair to die!
And thou, dear friend, whom Science still deplores,
And love still mourns, on ocean-severed shores,
Though the bleak forest twice has bowed with snow,
Since thou wast laid its budding leaves below,
Thine image mingles with my closing strain,
As when we wandered by the turbid Seine,
Both blest with hopes, which revelled, bright and free,
On all we longed, or all we dreamed to be;
To thee the amaranth and the cypress fell,-
And I was spared to breathe this last farewell!
But lived there one in unremembered days,
Or lives there still, who spurns the poet's bays,
Whose fingers, dewy from Castalia's springs,
Rest on the lyre, yet scorn to touch the strings?
Who shakes the senate with the silver tone
The groves of Pindus might have sighed to own?
Have such e'er been? Remember Canning's name!
Do such still live? Let "Alaric's Dirge" proclaim!
Immortal Art! where'er the rounded sky Bends o'er the cradle where thy children lie, Their home is earth, their herald every tongue Whose accents echo to the voice that sung. One leap of Ocean scatters on the sand The quarried bulwarks of the loosening land; One thrill of earth dissolves a century's toil Strewed like the leaves that vanish in the soil; One hill o'erflows, and cities sink below, Their marbles splintering in the lava's glow; But one sweet tone, scarce whispered to the air, From shore to shore the blasts of ages bear; One humble name, which oft, perchance, has borne The tyrant's mockery and the courtier's scorn, Towers o'er the dust of earth's forgotten graves, As once, emerging through the waste of waves, The rocky Titan, round whose shattered spear Coiled the last whirlpool of the drowning sphere!
The Pilgrim's Vision.
IN the hour of twilight shadows
The Pilgrim sire looked out;
He thought of the "bloudy Salvages
That lurked all round about,
Of Wituwamet's pictured knife
And Pecksuot's whooping shout;
For the baby's limbs were feeble,
Though his father's arms were stout.
His home was a freezing cabin,
Too bare for the hungry rat,
Its roof was thatched with ragged grass,
And bald enough of that;
The hole that served for casement
Was glazed with an ancient hat;
And the ice was gently thawing
From the log whereon he sat.
Along the dreary landscape
His eyes went to and fro,
The trees all clad in icicles,
The streams that did not flow;
A sudden thought flashed o'er him,
A dream of long ago,—
He smote his leathern jerkin,
And murmured, "Even so!"
"Come hither, God-be-Glorified,
And sit upon my knee,
Behold the dream unfolding,
Whereof I spake to thee
By the winter's hearth in Leyden
And on the stormy sea;
True is the dream's beginning, -
So may its ending be!
"I saw in the naked forest
Our scattered remnant cast,
A screen of shivering branches
Between them and the blast;
The snow was falling round them,
The dying fell as fast;
I looked to see them perish,
When lo, the vision passed.
"Again mine eyes were opened ;-
The feeble had waxed strong,
The babes had grown to sturdy men,
The remnant was a throng;
By shadowed lake and winding stream,
And all the shores along,
The howling demons quaked to hear
The Christian's godly song.
"They slept,—the village fathers,—
By river, lake, and shore,
When far adown the steep of Time
The vision rose once more;
I saw along the winter snow
A spectral column pour,
And high above their broken ranks
A tattered flag they bore.
"Their Leader rode before them,
Of bearing calm and high,
The light of Heaven's own kindling
Throned in his awful eye;
These were a Nation's champions
Her dread appeal to try;
God for the right! I faltered,
And lo, the train passed by.
"Once more ;-the strife is ended,
The solemn issue tried,
The Lord of Hosts, His mighty arm
Has helped our Israel's side;
Gray stone and grassy hillock
Tell where our martyrs died,
But peaceful smiles the harvest,
And stainless flows the tide.
"A crash,-as when some swollen cloud.
Cracks o'er the tangled trees!
With side to side, and spar to spar,
Whose smoking decks are these?
I know Saint George's blood-red cross,
Thou Mistress of the Seas,—
But what is she, whose streaming bars
Roll out before the breeze?
"Ah, well her iron ribs are knit,
Whose thunders strive to quell
The bellowing throats, the blazing lips,
That pealed the Armada's knell !
The mist was cleared,—a wreath of stars
Rose o'er the crimsoned swell,
And, wavering from its haughty peak,
The cross of England fell!
"O trembling Faith! though dark the morn,
A heavenly torch is thine;
While feebler races melt away,
And paler orbs decline,
Still shall the fiery pillar's ray,
Along thy pathway shine,
To light the chosen tribe that sought
This Western Palestine !
"I see the living tide roll on ;
It crowns with flaming towers
The icy capes of Labrador,
The Spaniard's 'land of flowers!'
It streams beyond the splintered ridge
That parts the Northern showers;
From eastern rock to sunset wave
The Continent is ours!"
He ceased, the grim old soldier-saint,-
Then softly bent to cheer
The pilgrim-child, whose wasting face
Was meekly turned to hear;
And drew his toil-worn sleeve across,
To brush the manly tear
From cheeks that never changed in woe,
And never blanched in fear.
The weary pilgrim slumbers,
His resting-piace unknown;
His hands were crossed, his lids were closed, The dust was o'er him strown;
The drifting soil, the mouldering leaf,
Along the sod were blown ;
His mound has melted into earth,
His memory lives alone.
So let it live unfading,
The memory of the dead,
Long as the pale anemone
Springs where their tears were shed,
Or, raining in the summer's wind
In flakes of burning red,
The wild rose sprinkles with its leaves
The turf where once they bled!
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