Guilty and frail, how shalt thou stand
Before thy sov'reign Lord?
Can troubled and polluted springs
A hallow'd stream afford?
Determin'd are the days that fly
Successive o'er thy head;
The number'd hour is on the wing
That lays thee with the dead.
Great God! afflict not in thy wrath
The short allotted span
That bounds the few and weary days
Of pilgrimage to man.
All nature dies, and lives again :
The flow'r that paints the field,
The trees that crown the mountain's brow,
And boughs and blossoms yield,
Resign the honours of their form
At winter's stormy blast,
And leave the naked leafless plain
A desolated waste.
Yet soon reviving plants and flow'rs
Anew shall deck the plain:
The woods shall hear the voice of Spring, And flourish green again.
But man forsakes this earthly scene,
Ah! never to return:
Shall any foll'wing spring revive
The ashes of the urn?
The mighty flood that rolls along
Its torrents to the main,
Can ne'er recal its waters lost
From that abyss again.
So days, and years, and ages past,
Descending down to night,
Can henceforth never more return
Back to the gates of light;
And man, when laid in lonesome grave,
Shall sleep in death's dark gloom,
Until th' eternal morning wake
The slumbers of the tomb.
O may the grave become to me
The bed of peaceful rest,
Whence I shall gladly rise at length,
And mingle with the blest!
Cheer'd by this hope, with patient mind,
I'll wait Heav'n's high decree,
Till the appointed period come,
When death shall set me free.
Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out Upon the brook that brawls along this wood: To the which place a poor sequester'd stag, That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt, Did come to languish: and, indeed, my lord, The wretched animal heav'd forth such groans, That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat Almost to bursting; and the big round tears Cours'd one another down his innocent nose In piteous chase: and thus the hairy fool, Much marked of the melancholy Jaques, Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook, Augmenting it with tears.
Roll on, ye stars, exult in youthful prime, Mark with bright curves the printless steps of time; Near and more near your beamy cars approach, And lessening orbs on lessening orbs encroach. Flowers of the sky! ye too to age must yield, Frail as your silken sisters of the field!
Star after star from heaven's bright arch shall rush,
Suns sink on suns, and systems systems crush,
Headlong, extinct, to one dark centre fall,
And death, and night, and chaos mingle all!
Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm,
Immortal nature lifts her changeful form;
Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame,
And soars and shines another and the same.
What constitutes a state ?
Not high-rais'd battlement and labour'd mound, Thick wall, or moated gate:
Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crow'd : Not bays and broad-arm'd ports,
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride: Not starr'd and spangled courts,
Where low-bred baseness wafts perfume to pride: No-men, high-minded men,
With powers as far above dull brutes endu'd, In forest, brake, or den,
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude: Men, who their duties know,
But know their rights: and, knowing, dare maintain,
Prevent the long-aim'd blow,
And crush the tyrant, while they rend the chain. These constitute a state:
And sovereign law, that state's collected will, O'er thrones and globes elate,
Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill.
STATESMEN. (Fox and Pitt)
With more than mortal powers endowed, How high they soared above the crowd!
Theirs was no common party race,
Jostling by dark intrigue for place;
Like fabled gods, their mighty war
Shook realms and nations in its jar;
Beneath each banner proud to stand,
Looked up the noblest of the land,
Till through the British world were known
The names of Pitt and Fox alone.
Spells of such force no wizard grave
E'er framed in dark Thessalian cave,
Though his could drain the ocean dry,
And force the planets from the sky.
These spells are spent, and spent with these,
The wine of life is on the lees.
Genius, and taste, and talent gone,
For ever tombed beneath the stone,
Where, taming thought to human pride !-
The mighty chiefs sleep side by side.
Drop upon Fox's grave the tear,
"Twill trickle to his rival's bier;
O'er Pitt's the mournful requiem sound,
And Fox's shall the notes rebound.
The solemn echo seems to cry,-
"Here let their discord with them die;
Speak not for those a separate doom,
Whom fate made brothers in the tomb,
But search the land of living men,
Where wilt thou find their like again ?"
STATION. (Exalted)
What is station high?
'Tis a proud mendicant; it boasts, and begs;
It begs an alms of homage from the throng,
And oft the throng denies its charity.
Monarchs, and ministers, are awful names;
Whoever wear them, challenge our devoir.
Religion, public order, both exact
External homage, and a supple knee,
To beings pompously set up, to serve
The meanest slave; all more is merit's due;
Her sacred and inviolable right,
Nor ever paid the monarch, but the man.
Our hearts ne'er bow but to superior worth;
Nor ever fail of their allegiance there.
Fools indeed drop the man in their account,
And vote the mantle into majesty.
STORM. (An Approaching One)
The day is lowering-stilly black
Sleeps the grim wave, while heaven's rack,
Dispers'd and wild, 'twixt earth and sky
Hangs like a shatter'd canopy !.
On earth 'twas yet all calm around,
A pulseless silence, dread, profound,
More awful than the tempest's sound.
The diver steer'd for Ormus' bowers,
And moor'd his skiff till calmer hours;
The sea-birds, with portentous screech,
Flew fast to land;-upon the beach
The pilot oft had paus'd, with glance
Turn'd upward to that wild expanse;
And all was boding, drear and dark
As her own soul, when Hinda's bark
Went slowly from the Persian shore-
No music timed her parting oar,
Nor friends upon the lessening strand
Linger'd, to wave the unseen hand,
Or speak the farewell, heard no more;-
But lone, unheeded, from the bay
The vessel takes its mournful way,
Like some ill-destin'd bark that steers
In silence through the Gate of Tears.
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