Poems | Page 6

hath rescued for the sky;?Ye whose proud hearts disown the ways of heaven!?Attend, be humble! for its power is nigh?Israel! a cradle shall redeem thy worth--?A Cradle yet shall save the widespread earth!"
Dublin University Magazine, 1839
ENVY AND AVARICE.
_("L'Avarice et l'Envie.")_
[LE CONSERVATEUR LIIT��RAIRE, 1820.]
Envy and Avarice, one summer day,
Sauntering abroad?In quest of the abode?Of some poor wretch or fool who lived that way--?You--or myself, perhaps--I cannot say--?Along the road, scarce heeding where it tended,?Their way in sullen, sulky silence wended;
For, though twin sisters, these two charming creatures,?Rivals in hideousness of form and features,?Wasted no love between them as they went.
Pale Avarice,?With gloating eyes,?And back and shoulders almost double bent,?Was hugging close that fatal box
For which she's ever on the watch?Some glance to catch?Suspiciously directed to its locks;?And Envy, too, no doubt with silent winking
At her green, greedy orbs, no single minute?Withdrawn from it, was hard a-thinking
Of all the shining dollars in it.
The only words that Avarice could utter,?Her constant doom, in a low, frightened mutter,
"There's not enough, enough, yet in my store!"?While Envy, as she scanned the glittering sight,?Groaned as she gnashed her yellow teeth with spite,
"She's more than me, more, still forever more!"
Thus, each in her own fashion, as they wandered,?Upon the coffer's precious contents pondered,
When suddenly, to their surprise,?The God Desire stood before their eyes.?Desire, that courteous deity who grants?All wishes, prayers, and wants;?Said he to the two sisters: "Beauteous ladies,?As I'm a gentleman, my task and trade is
To be the slave of your behest--?Choose therefore at your own sweet will and pleasure,?Honors or treasure!
Or in one word, whatever you'd like best.?But, let us understand each other--she?Who speaks the first, her prayer shall certainly
Receive--the other, the same boon redoubled!"
Imagine how our amiable pair,?At this proposal, all so frank and fair,
Were mutually troubled!?Misers and enviers, of our human race,?Say, what would you have done in such a case??Each of the sisters murmured, sad and low
"What boots it, oh, Desire, to me to have?Crowns, treasures, all the goods that heart can crave,?Or power divine bestow,?Since still another must have always more?"
So each, lest she should speak before?The other, hesitating slow and long?Till the god lost all patience, held her tongue.
He was enraged, in such a way,?To be kept waiting there all day,?With two such beauties in the public road;
Scarce able to be civil even,?He wished them both--well, not in heaven.
Envy at last the silence broke,
And smiling, with malignant sneer,?Upon her sister dear,?Who stood in expectation by,?Ever implacable and cruel, spoke
"I would be blinded of one eye!"
American Keepsake
ODES.--1818-28.
KING LOUIS XVII.
_("En ce temps-l�� du ciel les portes.")_
[Bk. I. v., December, 1822.]
The golden gates were opened wide that day,?All through the unveiled heaven there seemed to play?Out of the Holiest of Holy, light;?And the elect beheld, crowd immortal,?A young soul, led up by young angels bright,?Stand in the starry portal.
A fair child fleeing from the world's fierce hate,?In his blue eye the shade of sorrow sate,?His golden hair hung all dishevelled down,?On wasted cheeks that told a mournful story,?And angels twined him with the innocent's crown,?The martyr's palm of glory.
The virgin souls that to the Lamb are near,?Called through the clouds with voices heavenly clear,?God hath prepared a glory for thy brow,?Rest in his arms, and all ye hosts that sing?His praises ever on untired string,?Chant, for a mortal comes among ye now;?Do homage--"'Tis a king."
And the pale shadow saith to God in heaven:?"I am an orphan and no king at all;?I was a weary prisoner yestereven,?My father's murderers fed my soul with gall.?Not me, O Lord, the regal name beseems.?Last night I fell asleep in dungeon drear,?But then I saw my mother in my dreams,?Say, shall I find her here?"
The angels said: "Thy Saviour bids thee come,?Out of an impure world He calls thee home,?From the mad earth, where horrid murder waves?Over the broken cross her impure wings,?And regicides go down among the graves,?Scenting the blood of kings."
He cries: "Then have I finished my long life??Are all its evils over, all its strife,?And will no cruel jailer evermore?Wake me to pain, this blissful vision o'er??Is it no dream that nothing else remains?Of all my torments but this answered cry,?And have I had, O God, amid my chains,?The happiness to die?
"For none can tell what cause I had to pine,?What pangs, what miseries, each day were mine;?And when I wept there was no mother near?To soothe my cries, and smile away my tear.?Poor victim of a punishment unending,?Torn like a sapling from its mother earth,?So young, I could not tell what crime impending?Had stained me from my birth.
"Yet far off in dim memory it seems,?With all its horror mingled happy dreams,?Strange cries of glory rocked my sleeping head,?And a glad people watched beside my bed.?One day into mysterious darkness thrown,?I saw the promise of my future close;?I was a little child, left all alone,?Alas!