Dreams of eternal honours to his name;
Of endless glory and perennial bays.
He idly reasons of eternity,
As of the train of ages,—when, alas!
Ten thousand thousand of his centuries
Are, in comparison, a little point
Too trivial for account.-Oh, it is strange,
'Tis passing strange, to mark his fallacies;
Behold him proudly view some pompous pile
Whose high dome swells to emulate the skies,
And smile, and say, My name shall live with this
Till Time shall be no more; while at his feet,
Yea, at his very feet, the crumbling dust
Of the fallen fabric of the other day
Preaches the solemn lesson.-He should know
That time must conquer; that the loudest blast
That ever fill'd Renown's obstreperous trump
Fades in the lapse of ages, and expires.
Who lies inhumed in the terrific gloom
Of the gigantic pyramid? or who
Rear'd its huge walls? Oblivion laughs and
The prey is mine. They sleep, and never more
Their names shall strike upon the ear of man,
Their memory burst its fetters.
THE mind that broods o'er guilty woes,
Is like the scorpion girt by fire;
In circle narrowing as it glows,
The flames around their captive close,
Till inly searched by thousand throes.
And maddening in her ire,
One sad and sole relief she knows,
The sting she nourished for her foes,
Whose venom never yet was vain,
Gives but one pang, and cures all pain,
And darts into her desperate brain :
So do the dark in soul expire,
Or live like Scorpion girt by fire;
So writhes the mind Remorse hath riven,
Unfit for earth, undoomed for heaven,
Darkness above, despair beneath,
Around it flame, within it death.
BETWEEN two worlds life hovers like a star,
'Twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge;
How little do we know that which we are!
How less what we may be! the eternal surge
Of time and tide rolls on, and bears afar
Our bubbles; as the old burst, new emerge,
Lashed from the foam of ages, while the graves
Of empires heave but like some passing waves.
HARK! heard you not those hoofs of dreadful note?
Sounds not the clang of conflict on the heath?
Saw ye not whom the reeking sabre smote;
Nor saved your brethren ere they sank beneath
Tyrants and tyrants' slaves?—the fires of death,
The bale-fires flash on high;-from rock to rock
Each volley tells that thousands cease to breathe;
Death rides upon the sulphury Siroc,
Red Battle stamps his foot, and nations feel the shock
Lo! where the giant on the mountain stands,
His blood-red tresses deepening in the sun,
With death-shot glowing in his fiery hands,
And eye that scorcheth all it glares upon.
Restless it rolls, now fixed, and now anon
Flashing afar-and at his iron feet
Destruction cowers to mark what deeds are done; For on this morn three potent nations meet, To shed before his shrine the blood he deems most sweet.
MORAL REFLECTIONS ON A HUMAN SKULL.
Look on its broken arch, its ruin'd wall,
Its chambers desolate, and portals foul:
Yes, this was once Ambition's airy hall,
The dome of Thought, the palace of the Soul :*
Behold through each lack-lustre, eyeless hole,
The gay recess of Wisdom and of Wit,
And Passion's host, that never brook'd control:
Can all, saint, sage, or sophist ever writ,
People this lonely tower, this tenement refit?
To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er, or rarely been;
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean;
This is not solitude; 'tis but to hold
Converse with nature's charms, and see her stores unroll'd.
But 'midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,
And roam along the world's tir'd denizen,
With none who bless us, none whom we can bless; Minions of splendour shrinking from distress! None that with kindred consciousness endued, If we were not, would seem to smile the less Of all that flatter'd, follow'd, sought, and sued: This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!
THE crowd are gone, the revellers at rest :-
The courteous host, and all-approving guest,
Again to that accustomed couch must creep,
Where joy subsides, and sorrow sighs to sleep;
And man, o'er-laboured with his being's strife,
Shrinks to that sweet forgetfulness of life.
There lie love's feverish hope, and cunning's guile,
Hate's working brain, and lulled ambition's wile;
O'er each vain eye oblivion's pinions wave,
And quenched existence crouches in a grave:—
What better name may slumber's bed become?
Night's sepulchre, the universal home,
Where weakness, strength, vice, virtue, sunk supine,
Alike in naked helplessness recline;
Glad for a while to heave unconscious breath,
Yet wake to wrestle with the dread of death,
And shun, though day but dawn on ills increas'd,
That sleep, the loveliest, since it dreams the least.
THERE is a voice of magic power
To charm the old, delight the young→→→
In lordly hall, in rustic bower,
In every clime, in every tongue,
Howe'er its sweet vibration rung,
In whispers low, in poet's lays,
There lives not one who has not hung
Enraptured on the voice of praise.
The timid child, at that soft voice,
Lifts, for a moment's space, the eye;
It bids the fluttering heart rejoice,
And stays the step prepared to fly:
'Tis pleasure breathes that short, quick sigh, And flushes o'er that rosy face;
Whilst shame and infant modesty
Shrink back with hesitating grace.
The hero, when a people's voice
Proclaims their darling victor near,
Feels he not then his soul rejoice,
Their shouts of love, of praise to hear?
Yes! fame to generous minds is dear ;-
It pierces to their inmost core ;
He weeps, who never shed a tear: He trembles, who ne'er shook before!
The poet, too-ah! well I deem
Small is the need the tale to tell-
Who knows not that his thought, his dream
On thee at noon, at midnight dwell?
Who knows not that thy magic spell
Can charm his every care away?
In memory cheer his gloomy cell;
In hope can lend a deathless ray?
'Tis sweet to watch affection's eye;
To mark the tear with love replete ;
To feel the softly-breathing sigh
When friendship's lips the tones repeat;
But, oh! a thousand times more sweet,
The praise of those we love to hear!
Like balmy showers in summer heat,
It falls upon the greedy ear.
The lover lulls his rankling wound
By dwelling on his fair one's name ;
The mother listens for the sound
Of her young warrior's growing fame.
Thy voice can soothe the mourning dame,
Of her soul's wedded partner riven,
Who cherishes the hallowed flame,
Parted on earth, to meet in heaven!
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