Poems, 1799 | Page 8

FLATTERY, fawning low,?Fell at his feet, and worshipped the new God.?Titus [3] was here, the Conqueror of the Jews,?He the Delight of human-kind misnamed;?C?sars and Soldans, Emperors and Kings,?Here they were all, all who for glory fought,?Here in the COURT OF GLORY, reaping now?The meed they merited.
As gazing round?The Virgin mark'd the miserable train,?A deep and hollow voice from one went forth;?"Thou who art come to view our punishment,?Maiden of Orleans! hither turn thine eyes,?For I am he whose bloody victories?Thy power hath rendered vain. Lo! I am here,?The hero conqueror of Azincour,?HENRY OF ENGLAND!--wretched that I am,?I might have reigned in happiness and peace,?My coffers full, my subjects undisturb'd,?And PLENTY and PROSPERITY had loved?To dwell amongst them: but mine eye beheld?The realm of France, by faction tempest-torn,?And therefore I did think that it would fall?An easy prey. I persecuted those?Who taught new doctrines, tho' they taught the truth:?And when I heard of thousands by the sword?Cut off, or blasted by the pestilence,?I calmly counted up my proper gains,?And sent new herds to slaughter. Temperate?Myself, no blood that mutinied, no vice?Tainting my private life, I sent abroad?MURDER and RAPE; and therefore am I doom'd,?Like these imperial Sufferers, crown'd with fire,?Here to remain, till Man's awaken'd eye?Shall see the genuine blackness of our deeds,?And warn'd by them, till the whole human race,?Equalling in bliss the aggregate we caus'd?Of wretchedness, shall form ONE BROTHERHOOD,?ONE UNIVERSAL FAMILY OF LOVE."
[Footnote 1: In the former edition I had substituted 'cable' instead of 'camel'. The alteration would not be worth noticing were it not for the circumstance which occasioned it. 'Facilius elephas per foramen acus', is among the Hebrew adages collected by Drusius; the same metaphor is found in two other Jewish proverbs, and this appears to determine the signification of [Greek (transliterated): chamaelos]. Matt. 19. 24.]
[Footnote 2: The same idea, and almost the same words are in an old play by John Ford. The passage is a very fine one:
Ay, you are wretched, miserably wretched,?Almost condemn'd alive! There is a place,?(List daughter!) in a black and hollow vault,?Where day is never seen; there shines no sun,?But flaming horror of consuming fires;?A lightless sulphur, choak'd with smoaky foggs?Of an infected darkness. In this place?Dwell many thousand thousand sundry sorts?Of never-dying deaths; there damned souls?Roar without pity, there are gluttons fed?With toads and adders; there is burning oil?Pour'd down the drunkard's throat, 'the usurer?Is forced to sup whole draughts of molten gold';?There is the murderer for ever stabb'd,?Yet can he never die; there lies the wanton?On racks of burning steel, whilst in his soul?He feels the torment of his raging lust.
''Tis Pity she's a Whore.'
I wrote this passage when very young, and the idea, trite as it is, was new to me. It occurs I believe in most descriptions of hell, and perhaps owes its origin to the fate of Crassus.
After this picture of horrors, the reader may perhaps be pleased with one more pleasantly fanciful:
O call me home again dear Chief! and put me?To yoking foxes, milking of he-goats,?Pounding of water in a mortar, laving?The sea dry with a nutshell, gathering all?The leaves are fallen this autumn--making ropes of sand,?Catching the winds together in a net,?Mustering of ants, and numbering atoms, all?That Hell and you thought exquisite torments, rather?Than stay me here a thought more. I would sooner?Keep fleas within a circle, and be accomptant?A thousand year which of 'em, and how far?Outleap'd the other, than endure a minute?Such as I have within.
B. JONSON. 'The Devil is an Ass.']
[Footnote 3: During the siege of Jerusalem, "the Roman commander, 'with a generous clemency, that inseparable attendant on true heroism, 'laboured incessantly, and to the very last moment, to preserve the place. With this view, he again and again intreated the tyrants to surrender and save their lives. With the same view also, after carrying the second wall the siege was intermitted four days: to rouse their fears, 'prisoners, to the number of five hundred, or more were crucified daily before the walls; till space', Josephus says, 'was wanting for the crosses, and crosses for the captives'."
From the Hampton Lectures of RALPH CHURTON.
If any of my readers should enquire why Titus Vespasian, the Delight of Mankind, is placed in such a situation,--I answer, for "HIS GENEROUS CLEMENCY, THAT INSEPARABLE ATTENDANT ON TRUE HEROISM!]
THE VISION of THE MAID OF ORLEANS.
THE THIRD BOOK.
The Maiden, musing on the Warrior's words,?Turn'd from the Hall of Glory. Now they reach'd?A cavern, at whose mouth a Genius stood,?In front a beardless youth, whose smiling eye?Beam'd promise, but behind, withered and old,?And all unlovely. Underneath his feet?Lay records trampled, and the laurel wreath?Now rent and faded: in his hand he held?An hour-glass, and as fall the restless sands,?So pass the lives of men. By him they past?Along the darksome cave, and reach'd a stream,?Still rolling