Poems, second period | Page 2

hosts--
Ne'er on their like looked the wild water!--Well

May man the monster name "Invincible."
O'er shuddering waves she
gathers to thy coasts!
The horror that she spreads can claim

Just
title to her haughty name.
The trembling Neptune quails
Under the

silent 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