Is this your triumph, this your proud applause, Children of Truth and champions of her cause? For this hath Science searched, on weary wing, By shore and sea, each mute and living thing? Launched with Iberia's pilot from the steep, To worlds unknown and isles beyond the deep? Or round the cope her living chariot driven, And wheeled in triumph through the signs of heaven? O! star-eyed Science, hast thou wandered there To waft us home the message of despair? Then bind the palm, thy sage's brow to suit, Of blasted leaf and death-distilling fruit!
Ah me! the laureled leaf that Murder rears, Blood nursed, and watered by the widow's tears, Seems not so foul, so tainted, and so dread, As waves the night-shade round the skeptic's head. What is the bigot's torch, the tyrant's chain? I smile on death, if heavenward HOPE remain ! But if the warring winds of Nature's strife Be all the faithless charter of my life, If Chance awaked, inexorable power, This frail and feverish being of an hour, Doomed o'er the world's precarious scene to sweep, Swift as the tempest travels on the deep, To know Delight but by her parting smile, And toil, and wish, and weep, a little while; Then melt, ye elements, that formed in vain This troubled pulse and visionary brain! Fade, ye wild flowers, memorials of my doom! And sink, ye stars, that light me to the tomb!
Truth, ever lovely, since the world began, The foe of tyrants, and the friend of man, How can thy words from balmy slumber start Reposing Virtue pillowed on the heart! Yet, if thy voice the note of thunder rolled, And that were true which Nature never told, Let Wisdom smile not on her conquered field, No rapture dawns, no treasure is revealed! O! let her read, nor loudly, nor elate, The doom that bars us from a better fate; But, sad as angels for the good man's sin, Weep to record, and blush to give it in!
LXXVIII. MODULATION IN SPEAKING.
'Tis not enough the voice be sound and clear; 'Tis modulation that must charm the ear.
When desperate heroines grieve with tedious moan And whine their sorrows in a see-saw tone, The same soft sounds of unimpassioned woes Can only make the yawning hearers doze. The voice all modes of passion can express, That marks the proper word with proper stress. But none emphatic can that actor call, Who lays an equal emphasis on all.
Some o'er the tongue the labored measures roll, Slow and deliberate as the parting toll:
Point every step, mark every pause so strong, Their words, like stage processions, stalk along. All affectation but creates disgust,
And e'en in speaking we may seem too just, In vain for them the pleasing measure flows, Whose recitation runs it all to prose; . Repeating what the poet sets not down, The verb disjoining from its friendly noun, While pause, and break, and repetition, join To make a discord in each tuneful line.
Some placid natures fill the allotted scene With lifeless drone, insipid, and serene; While others thunder every couplet o'er, And almost crack your ears with rant and roar. More nature oft and finer strokes are shown In the low whisper, than tempestuous tone; And Hamlet's hollow voice and fixed amaze More powerful terror to the mind conveys, Than he who, swollen with big, impetuous rage, Bullies the bulky phantom cff the stage.
He who in earnest studies o'er his part Will find true nature cling about his heart. The modes of grief are not included all In the white handkerchief and mournful drawl; A single look more marks the internal woe Than all the windings of the lengthened O ! Up to the face the quick sensation flies, And darts its meaning from the speaking eyes: Love, transport, madness, anger, scorn, despair, And all the passions, all the soul, is there.
LXXIX. RODERICK DHU'S VINDICATION.
OF THE PREDATORY HABITS OF HIS CLAN.
SAXON, from yonder mountain high, I marked thee send delighted eye, Far to the south and cast, where lay, Extended in succession gay, Deep waving fields and pastures green, With gentle slopes and groves between : These fertile plains, that softened vale, Were once the birthright of the Gael; The stranger came with iron hand, And from our fathers reft the land. Where dwell we now?
-See, rudely swell Crag over crag, and fell o'er fell. Ask we this savage hill we tread For fattened steer or household bread? Ask we for food these shingles dry? And well the mountain might reply, — 66 To you, as to your sires of yore, Belong the target and clay-more! I give you shelter in my breast, Your own good blades must win the rest.” Pent in this fortress of the north, Thinkst thou we will not sally forth To spoil the spoiler as we may, And from the robber rend the prey ? Ay, by my soul ! - While on yon plain The Saxon rears one shock of grain, While, of ten thousand herds, there strays But one along yon river's maze, The Gael, of plain and river heir, Shall, with strong hand, redeem his share.
"SAY, who art thou, with more than mortal air, Endowed by Heaven with gifts and graces rare, Whom restless, winged feet for ever onward bear?”
"I am Occasion - known to few, at best;
And since one foot upon a wheel I rest,
Constant my movements are
they cannot be repressed.
And man, who sees them waved, is dazzled by the sight
"My thick and flowing locks before me thrown
nor face nor breast is shown, That thus, as I approach, my coming be not known.
"Behind my head no single lock of hair
Invites the hand that fain would grasp it there; But he who lets me pass to seize me may despair."
Whom, then, so close behind thee do I see? ".
“Her name is Penitence; and Heaven's decree
Hath made all those her prey who profit not by me."
WHY thus longing, thus for ever sighing, For the far off, unattained, and dim, While the beautiful, all round thee lying, Offers up its low perpetual hymn? Wouldst thou listen to its gentle teaching, All thy restless yearnings it would still; Leaf and flower and laden bee are preaching, Thine own sphere, though humble, first to fill. Poor, indeed, thou must be, if around thee
Thou no ray of light and joy canst throw; If no silken cord of love hath bound thee To some little world through weal and woe; If no dear eyes thy fond love can brighten, No fond voices answer to thine own; If no brother's sorrow thou canst lighten, By daily sympathy and gentle tone.
Not by deeds that win the crowd's applauses, Not by works that give thee world-renown, Not by martyrdom, or vaunted crosses,
Canst thou win and wear the immortal crown.
Daily struggling, though unloved and lonely, Every day a rich reward will give; Thou wilt find, by hearty striving only, And truly loving, thou canst truly live.
Dost thou revel in the rosy morning,
When all nature hails the lord of light, And his smile, the mountain tops adorning, Robes yon fragrant fields in radiance bright? Other hands may grasp the field and forest, Proud proprietors in pomp may shine; But with fervent love if thou adorest,
Thou art wealthier, all the world is thine!
Yet, if through earth's wide domains thou rovest, Sighing that they are not thine alone,
Not those fair fields, but thyself thou lovest, And their beauty and thy worth are gone.
Nature wears the colors of the spirit ; Sweetly to her worshiper she sings; All the glow, the grace she does inherit, Round her trusting child she fondly flings!
LXXXII. ALEXANDER AND DIOGENES.
When Alexander the Great asked Diogenes, the Cynic philosopher, if he could oblige him in any way, the latter replied, "Yes; you can stand out of my sunshine."
SLOWLY the monarch turned aside:
But when his glance of youthful pride Rested the warriors gray
Who bore his lance and shield that day, And the long line of spears that came
Through the far groves like waves of flame, - Then Alexander's pulse beat high,
More darkly flashed his shifting eye,
And visions of the battle-plain Came bursting on his soul again.
Quick turned Diogenes* away Right gladly from that long array, As if their presence were a blight Of pain and sickness to his sight; And slowly folding o'er his breast The fragments of his tattered vest, As was his wont, unasked, unsought, Gave to the winds his muttered thought,
*Pronounced Di-oj'e-nēs.
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