Poems | Page 3

shivered in the thunder-stroke.
And lo! in
full-grown strength, an empire stands
Of leagued and rival states, the
wonder of the lands.
XVI.
Oh, Greece! thy flourishing cities were a spoil
Unto each other; thy
hard hand oppressed
And crushed the helpless; thou didst make thy
soil
Drunk with the blood of those that loved thee best;
And thou
didst drive, from thy unnatural breast,
Thy just and brave to die in
distant climes;
Earth shuddered at thy deeds, and sighed for rest

From thine abominations; after times,
That yet shall read thy tale, will
tremble at thy crimes.
XVII.
Yet there was that within thee which has saved
Thy glory, and
redeemed thy blotted name;
The story of thy better deeds, engraved

On fame's unmouldering pillar, puts to shame
Our chiller virtue; the
high art to tame
The whirlwind of the passions was thine own;
And
the pure ray, that from thy bosom came,
Far over many a land and
age has shone,
And mingles with the light that beams from God's own

throne;
XVIII.
And Rome--thy sterner, younger sister, she
Who awed the world with
her imperial frown--
Rome drew the spirit of her race from thee,--

The rival of thy shame and thy renown.
Yet her degenerate children
sold the crown
Of earth's wide kingdoms to a line of slaves;
Guilt
reigned, and we with guilt, and plagues came down,
Till the north
broke its floodgates, and the waves
Whelmed the degraded race, and
weltered o'er their graves.
XIX.
Vainly that ray of brightness from above,
That shone around the
Galilean lake,
The light of hope, the leading star of love,
Struggled,
the darkness of that day to break;
Even its own faithless guardians
strove to slake,
In fogs of earth, the pure immortal flame;
And
priestly hands, for Jesus' blessed sake,
Were red with blood, and
charity became,
In that stern war of forms, a mockery and a name.
XX.
They triumphed, and less bloody rites were kept
Within the quiet of
the convent cell:
The well-fed inmates pattered prayer, and slept,

And sinned, and liked their easy penance well.
Where pleasant was
the spot for men to dwell,
Amid its fair broad lands the abbey lay,

Sheltering dark orgies that were shame to tell,
And cowled and
barefoot beggars swarmed the way,
All in their convent weeds, of
black, and white, and gray.
XXI.
Oh, sweetly the returning muses' strain
Swelled over that famed
stream, whose gentle tide
In their bright lap the Etrurian vales detain,


Sweet, as when winter storms have ceased to chide,
And all the
new-leaved woods, resounding wide,
Send out wild hymns upon the
scented air.
Lo! to the smiling Arno's classic side
The emulous
nations of the west repair,
And kindle their quenched urns, and drink
fresh spirit there.
XXII.
Still, Heaven deferred the hour ordained to rend
From saintly
rottenness the sacred stole;
And cowl and worshipped shrine could
still defend
The wretch with felon stains upon his soul;
And crimes
were set to sale, and hard his dole
Who could not bribe a passage to
the skies;
And vice, beneath the mitre's kind control,
Sinned gaily
on, and grew to giant size,
Shielded by priestly power, and watched
by priestly eyes.
XXIII.
At last the earthquake came--the shock, that hurled
To dust, in many
fragments dashed and strown,
The throne, whose roots were in
another world,
And whose far-stretching shadow awed our own.

From many a proud monastic pile, o'erthrown,
Fear-struck, the
hooded inmates rushed and fled;
The web, that for a thousand years
had grown
O'er prostrate Europe, in that day of dread
Crumbled and
fell, as fire dissolves the flaxen thread.
XXIV.
The spirit of that day is still awake,
And spreads himself, and shall
not sleep again;
But through the idle mesh of power shall break

Like billows o'er the Asian monarch's chain;
Till men are filled with
him, and feel how vain,
Instead of the pure heart and innocent hands,

Are all the proud and pompous modes to gain
The smile of
heaven;--till a new age expands
Its white and holy wings above the
peaceful lands.

XXV.
For look again on the past years;--behold,
How like the nightmare's
dreams have flown away
Horrible forms of worship, that, of old,

Held, o'er the shuddering realms, unquestioned sway:
See crimes, that
feared not once the eye of day,
Rooted from men, without a name or
place:
See nations blotted out from earth, to pay
The forfeit of deep
guilt;--with glad embrace
The fair disburdened lands welcome a
nobler race.
XXVI.
Thus error's monstrous shapes from earth are driven;
They fade, they
fly--but truth survives their flight;
Earth has no shades to quench that
beam of heaven;
Each ray that shone, in early time, to light
The
faltering footsteps in the path of right,
Each gleam of clearer
brightness shed to aid
In man's maturer day his bolder sight,
All
blended, like the rainbow's radiant braid,
Pour yet, and still shall pour,
the blaze that cannot fade.
XXVII.
Late, from this western shore, that morning chased
The deep and
ancient night, that threw its shroud
O'er the green land of groves, the
beautiful waste,
Nurse of full streams, and lifter-up of proud

Sky-mingling mountains that o'erlook the cloud.
Erewhile, where yon
gay spires their brightness rear,
Trees waved, and the brown hunter's
shouts were loud
Amid