The triumph and the vanity,
The rapture of the strife-
The earthquake voice of Victory,
To thee the breath of life;
The sword, the sceptre, and that sway
Which man seem'd made but to obey,
Wherewith renown was rife-
All quell'd-Dark Spirit! what must be
The madness of thy memory!
The Desolator desolate!
The victor overthrown!
The Arbiter of others' fate
A suppliant for his own!
Is it some yet imperial hope,
That with such change can calmly cope?
Or dread of death alone?
To die a prince-or live a slave-
Thy choice is most ignobly brave!
He who of old would rend the oak,t
Dream'd not of the rebound;
Chain'd by the trunk he vainly broke--
Alone-how look'd he round?
Thou, in the sternness of thy strength.
An equal deed hast done at length,
And darker fate hast found:
He fell the forest prowlers' prey;
But thou must eat thy heart away!
The Romant when his burning heart
Was slaked with blood of Rome,
Threw down the dagger-dared depart,
In savage grandeur, home,―
He dared depart in utter scorn
Of men that such a yoke had borne,
Yet left him such a doom!
His only glory was that hour
Of self-upheld abandon'd power.
The Spaniard, when the lust of sway
Had lost its quickening spell,
Cast crowns for rosaries away,
An empire for a cell;
A strict accountant of his beads,
A subtle disputant on creeds,
His dotage trifled well;§
Yet better had he neither known
A bigot's shrine, nor despot's throne.
But thou-from thy reluctant hand
The thunderbolt is wrung-
"Certaminis gaudia,"-the expression of Attila in his harangue to his army previous to the battle of Chalons given in Cassiodorus.-B.
Charles V., Emperor of Germany
Too late thou leav'st the high command
To which thy weakness clung;
All Evil Spirit as thou art,
It is enough to grieve the heart
To see thine own unstrung;
To think that God's fair world hath been
The footstool of a thing so mean!
And Earth hath spilt her blood for him,
Who thus can hoard his own!
And Monarchs bow'd the trembling limb,
And thank'd him for a throne!
Fair Freedon! we may hold thee dear,
When thus thy mightiest foes their fear
In humblest guise have shown.
Oh! ne'er may tyrant leave behind
A brighter name to lure mankind!
Thine evil deeds are writ in gore,
Nor written thus in vain-
Thy triumphs tell of fame no more,
Or deepen every stain:
If thou hadst died as honour dies,
Some new Napoleon might arise,
To shame the world again-
But who would soar the solar height,
To set in such a starless night?
Weighed in the balance, hero dust
Is vile as vulgar clay;
Thy scales, Mortality! are just
To all that pass away:
But yet methought the living great
Some higher sparks should animate,
To dazzle and dismay :
Nor deem'd Contempt could thus make mirth
Of these the Conquerors of the earth.
And she, proud Austria's mournful flower,"
Thy still imperial bride;
How bears her breast the torturing hour?
Still clings she to thy side?
Must she too bend, must she too share
Thy late repentance, long despair,
Thou throneless Homicide?
If still she loves thee, hoard that gem;
"Tis worth thy vanish'd diadem!
Then haste thee to thy sullen Isle,t
And gaze upon the sea;
That element may meet thy smile-
It ne'er was ruled by thee!
Or trace with thine all idle hand,
In loitering mood upon the sand,
That Earth is now as free!
+ The island of Elba, in the Mediterranean
That Corinth's pedagogue* hath now
Transferred his by-word to thy brow.
Thou Timour! in his captive's caget
What thoughts will there be thine,
While brooding in thy prison'd rage
But one-" The world was mine!"
Unless, like he of Babylon,
All sense is with thy sceptre gone,
Life will not long confine
That spirit pour'd so widely forth-
So long obey'd-so little worth!
Or, like the thief of fire from heaven,
Wilt thou withstand the shock?
And share with him, the unforgiven,
His vulture and his rock!
Foredoom'd by God-by man accurst,
And that last act, though not thy worst,
The very fiends arch mock;
He in his fall preserved his pride,
And if a mortal, had as proudly died!
There was a day-there was an hour,
While earth was Gaul's-Gaul thine-
When that immeasurable power
Unsated to resign
Had been an act of purer fame,
Than gathers round Marengo's name,
And gilded thy decline,
Through the long twilight of all time,
Despite some passing clouds of crime.
But thou forsooth must be a king,
And don the purple vest,-
As if that foolish robe could wring
Remembrance from thy breast.
Where is that faded garment? where
The gewgaws thou wert fond to wear,
The star-the string-the crest?
Vain froward child of empire! say,
Are all thy playthings snatch'd away
Where may the wearied eye repose,
When gazing on the Great;
Where neither guilty glory glows,
Nor despicable state?
Yes-one-the first-the last-the best-
The Cincinnatus of the West,
Whom envy dared not hate,
Bequeath'd the name of Washington,
To make man blush there was but One!
Dionysius the Younger, of Syracuse.
The cage of Bajazet, by order of Tamerlane.-A.
Prometheus.-B.
HERE once engaged the stranger's view
Young Friendship's record simply traced;
Few were her words,-but yet, though few,
Resentment's hand the line defaced.
Deeply she cut--but not erased,
The characters were still so plain,
That Friendship once return'd, and gazed,--
Till Memory hail'd the words again.
Repentance placed them as before;
Forgiveness join'd her gentle name;
So fair the inscription seem'd, once more
That Friendship thought it still the same.
Thus might the record now have been;
But, ah, in spite of Hope's endeavour,
Or Friendship's tears, Pride rush'd between,
And blotted out the line for ever!
EPITAPH ON JOHN ADAMS, OF SOUTHWELL,
A CARRIER, WHO DIED OF DRUNKENNESS.
JOHN ADAMS lies here, of the parish of Southwell,
A Carrier who carried his can to his mouth well;
He carried so much, and he carried so fast,
He could carry no more--so was carried at last;
For, the liquor he drank, being too much for one,
He could not carry off,-so he's now carri-on.
Some years ago, when at Harrow, a friend of the author engraved on a particu. ar spot the names of both, with a few additional words, as a memorial. Afterward, on receiving some real or imagined injury, the author distroyed the frail Record before he left Harrow. On revisiting the place in 1807, he wrote under it these atanzas.--F
FAREWELL! IF EVER FONDEST PRAYER
FAREWELL! if ever fondest prayer
For other's weal avail'd on high,
Mine will not all be lost in air,
But waft thy name beyond the sky.
Twere vain to speak, to weep, to sigh:
Oh! more than tears of blood can tell,
When wrung from guilt's expiring eye,
Are in that word-Farewell!-Farewell!
These lips are mute, these eyes are dry;
But in my breast and in my brain,
Awake the pangs that pass not by,
The thought that ne'er shall sleep again.
My soul nor deigns nor dares complain,
Though grief and passion there rebel:
I only know we loved in vain-
I only feel-Farewell!-Farewell!
BRIGHT BE THE PLACE OF THY SOUL
BRIGHT be the place of thy soul!
No lovelier spirit than thine
E'er burst from its mortal control,
In the orbs of the blessed to shine,
On earth thou wert all but divine,
As thy soul shall immortally be;
And our sorrow may cease to repine,
When we know that thy God is with thee
Light be the turf of thy tomb!
May its verdure like emeralds be:
There should not be the shadow of gloom
In aught that reminds us of thee.
Young Flowers and an evergreen tree
May spring from the spot of thy rest:
But nor cypress nor yew let us see;
For why should we mourn for the blest?
WHEN WE TWO PARTED.
WHEN we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy check and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.
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