Poems, second period | Page 2

and majestic forms;?The doom of worlds in those dark sails;--?Near and more near they sweep! and slumber all the storms!
Before thee, the array,?Blest island, empress of the sea!?The sea-born squadrons threaten thee,?And thy great heart, Britannia!?Woe to thy people, of their freedom proud--?She rests, a thunder heavy in its cloud!?Who, to thy hand the orb and sceptre gave,?That thou should'st be the sovereign of the nations? To tyrant kings thou wert thyself the slave,?Till freedom dug from law its deep foundations;?The mighty Chart the citizens made kings,
And kings to citizens sublimely bowed!?And thou thyself, upon thy realm of water,?Hast thou not rendered millions up to slaughter,?When thy ships brought upon their sailing wings
The sceptre--and the shroud??What should'st thou thank?--Blush, earth, to hear and feel What should'st thou thank?--Thy genius and thy steel!?Behold the hidden and the giant fires!?Behold thy glory trembling to its fall!?Thy coming doom the round earth shall appal,?And all the hearts of freemen beat for thee,?And all free souls their fate in thine foresee--?Theirs is thy glory's fall!
One look below the Almighty gave,?Where streamed the lion-flags of thy proud foe;?And near and wider yawned the horrent grave.?"And who," saith He, "shall lay mine England low--?The stem that blooms with hero-deeds--?The rock when man from wrong a refuge needs--?The stronghold where the tyrant comes in vain??Who shall bid England vanish from the main??Ne'er be this only Eden freedom knew,?Man's stout defence from power, to fate consigned."?God the Almighty blew,?And the Armada went to every wind!
THE GODS OF GREECE.
Ye in the age gone by,?Who ruled the world--a world how lovely then!--?And guided still the steps of happy men?In the light leading-strings of careless joy!?Ah, flourished then your service of delight!?How different, oh, how different, in the day?When thy sweet fanes with many a wreath were bright,?O Venus Amathusia!
Then, through a veil of dreams?Woven by song, truth's youthful beauty glowed,?And life's redundant and rejoicing streams?Gave to the soulless, soul--where'r they flowed?Man gifted nature with divinity?To lift and link her to the breast of love;?All things betrayed to the initiate eye?The track of gods above!
Where lifeless--fixed afar,?A flaming ball to our dull sense is given,?Phoebus Apollo, in his golden car,?In silent glory swept the fields of heaven!?On yonder hill the Oread was adored,?In yonder tree the Dryad held her home;?And from her urn the gentle Naiad poured?The wavelet's silver foam.
Yon bay, chaste Daphne wreathed,?Yon stone was mournful Niobe's mute cell,?Low through yon sedges pastoral Syrinx breathed,?And through those groves wailed the sweet Philomel,?The tears of Ceres swelled in yonder rill--?Tears shed for Proserpine to Hades borne;?And, for her lost Adonis, yonder hill?Heard Cytherea mourn!--
Heaven's shapes were charmed unto?The mortal race of old Deucalion;?Pyrrha's fair daughter, humanly to woo,?Came down, in shepherd-guise, Latona's son?Between men, heroes, gods, harmonious then?Love wove sweet links and sympathies divine;?Blest Amathusia, heroes, gods, and men,?Equals before thy shrine!
Not to that culture gay,?Stern self-denial, or sharp penance wan!?Well might each heart be happy in that day--?For gods, the happy ones, were kin to man!?The beautiful alone the holy there!?No pleasure shamed the gods of that young race;?So that the chaste Camoenae favoring were,?And the subduing grace!
A palace every shrine;?Your sports heroic;--yours the crown?Of contests hallowed to a power divine,?As rushed the chariots thundering to renown.?Fair round the altar where the incense breathed,?Moved your melodious dance inspired; and fair?Above victorious brows, the garland wreathed?Sweet leaves round odorous hair!
The lively Thyrsus-swinger,?And the wild car the exulting panthers bore,?Announced the presence of the rapture-bringer--?Bounded the Satyr and blithe Faun before;?And Maenads, as the frenzy stung the soul,?Hymned in their maddening dance, the glorious wine-- As ever beckoned to the lusty bowl?The ruddy host divine!
Before the bed of death?No ghastly spectre stood--but from the porch?Of life, the lip--one kiss inhaled the breath,?And the mute graceful genius lowered a torch.?The judgment-balance of the realms below,?A judge, himself of mortal lineage, held;?The very furies at the Thracian's woe,?Were moved and music-spelled.
In the Elysian grove?The shades renewed the pleasures life held dear:?The faithful spouse rejoined remembered love,?And rushed along the meads the charioteer;?There Linus poured the old accustomed strain;?Admetus there Alcestis still could greet; his?Friend there once more Orestes could regain,?His arrows--Philoctetes!
More glorious than the meeds?That in their strife with labor nerved the brave,?To the great doer of renowned deeds?The Hebe and the heaven the Thunderer gave.?Before the rescued rescuer [10] of the dead,?Bowed down the silent and immortal host;?And the twain stars [11] their guiding lustre shed,?On the bark tempest-tossed!
Art thou, fair world, no more??Return, thou virgin-bloom on Nature's face;?Ah, only on the minstrel's magic shore,?Can we the footstep of sweet fable trace!?The meadows mourn for the old hallowing life;?Vainly we search the earth of gods bereft;?Where once the warm and living shapes were rife,?Shadows alone are left!
Cold, from the north, has gone?Over the flowers the blast that killed their May;?And, to enrich the