Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series
Page 7
And Nature smiles in renovated bloom!
THE GRAVE OF A SUICIDE.
HARK! how the gale, in mournful notes and stern,
Sighs thro’ yon grove of aged oaks, that wave
(While down these solitary walks I turn)
Their mingled branches o’er yon lonely grave!
Poor soul! the dawning of thy life was dim;
Frown’d the dark clouds upon thy natal day;
Soon rose thy cup of sorrow to the brim,
And hope itself but shed a doubtful ray.
That hope had fled, and all within was gloom;
That hope had fled — thy woe to frenzy grew;
For thou, wed to misery from the womb —
Scarce one bright scene thy night of darkness knew!
Oft when the moonbeam on the cold bank sleeps,
Where ‘neath the dewy turf thy form is laid,
In silent woe thy wretched mother weeps,
By this lone tomb, and by this oak-tree’s shade.
“Oh! softly tread: in death he slumbers here;
‘Tis here,” she cries, “within this narrow cell!” —
The bitter sob, the wildly-starting tear,
The quivering lip, proclaim the rest too well!
ON THE DEATH OF LORD BYRON.
“Unus tanta dedit? — dédit et majora daturus
Ni celeri letho corriperetur, erat.”
DON MANUEL DE SOUZA COUTINO’S
Epitaph on Camoens.
THE hero and the bard is gone!
His bright career on earth is done,
Where with a comet’s blaze he shone.
He died — where vengeance arms the brave,
Where buried freedom quits her grave,
In regions of the eastern wave.
Yet not before his ardent lay
Had bid them chase all fear away,
And taught their trumps a bolder bray.
Thro’ him their ancient valour glows,
And, stung by thraldom’s scathing woes,
They rise again, as once they rose.
As once in conscious glory bold,
To war their sounding cars they roll’d,
Uncrush’d, untrampled, uncontroll’d!
Each drop that gushes from their side,
Will serve to swell the crimson tide,
That soon shall whelm the Moslem’s pride!
At last upon their lords they turn,
At last the shame of bondage learn,
At last they feel their fetters burn!
Oh! how the heart expands to see
An injured people all agree
To burst those fetters and be free!
Each far-famed mount that cleaves the skies,
Each plain where buried glory lies,
All, all exclaim—” Awake! arise!”
Who would not feel their wrongs? and who
Departed freedom would not rue,
With all her trophies in his view?
To see imperial Athens reign,
And, towering o’er the vassal main,
Rise in embattled strength again —
To see rough Sparta train once more
Her infants’ ears for battle’s roar,
Stern, dreadful, chainless, as before —
Was Byron’s hope — was Byron’s aim:
With ready heart and hand he came;
But perish’d in that path of fame!
THE WALK AT MIDNIGHT.
“Tremulo sub lumine.” — Virgil.
SOFT, shadowy moonbeam! by thy light
Sleeps the wide meer serenely pale:
How various are the sounds of night,
Borne on the scarcely-rising gale!
The swell of distant brook is heard,
Whose far-off waters faintly roll;
And piping of the shrill small bird,
Arrested by the wand’ring owl.
Come hither! let us thread with care
The maze of this green path, which binds
The beauties of the broad parterre,
And thro’ yon fragrant alley winds.
Or on this old bench will we sit,
Round which the clust’ring woodbine wreathes,
While birds of night around us flit;
And thro’ each lavish wood-walk breathes,
Unto my ravish’d senses, brought
From yon thick-woven odorous bowers,
The still rich breeze, with incense fraught
Of glowing fruits and spangled flowers.
The whispering leaves, the gushing stream,
Where trembles the uncertain moon,
Suit more the poet’s pensive dream,
Than all the jarring notes of noon.
Then, to the thickly-crowded mart
The eager sons of interest press;
Then, shine the tinsel works of art —
Now, all is Nature’s loneliness!
Then, wealth aloft in state displays
The glittering of her gilded cars;
Now, dimly stream the mingled rays
Of yon far-twinkling, silver stars.
Yon church, whose cold gray spire appears
In the black outline of the trees,
Conceals the object of my tears,
Whose form in dreams my spirit sees.
There in the chilling bed of earth
The chancel’s letter’d stone above —
There sleepeth she who gave me birth,
Who taught my lips the hymn of love!
Yon mossy stems of ancient oak,
So widely crown’d with sombre shade,
Those ne’er have heard the woodman’s stroke
Their solemn, secret depths invade.
How oft the grassy way I’ve trod
That winds their knotty boles between,
And gather’d from the blooming sod
The flowers that flourish’d there unseen!
Rise! let us trace that path once more,
While o’er our track the cold beams shine;
Down this low shingly vale, and o’er
Yon rude, rough bridge of prostrate pine.
MITHRIDATES PRESENTING BERENICE WITH THE CUP OF POISON.
OH! Berenice, lorn and lost,
This wretched soul with shame is bleeding:
Oh! Berenice, I am tost
By griefs, like wave to wave succeeding.
Fall’n Pontus! all her fame is gone,
And dim the splendour of her glory;
Low in the west her evening sun,
And dark the lustre of her story.
Dead is the wreath that round her brow
The glowing hands of Honour braided:
What change of fate can wait her now,
Her sceptre spoil’d, her throne degraded?
And wilt thou, wilt thou basely go,
My love, thy life, thy country shaming,
In all the agonies of woe,
‘Mid madd’ning shouts, and standards flaming?
And wilt thou, wilt thou basely go,
Proud Rome’s triumphal car adorning?
Hark! hark! I hear thee answer “No!”
The proffer’d life of thraldom scorning.
Lone, crownless, destitute, and poor,
My heart with bitter pain is burning;
So thick a cloud of night hangs o’er,
My daylight into darkness turning.
Yet though my spirit, bow’d with ill,
Small hope from future fortune borrows;
One glorious thought shall cheer me still,
That thou art free from abject sorrows —
Art free for ever from the strife
Of slavery’s pangs and tearful anguish;
For life is death, and death is life,
To those whose limbs in fetters languish.
Fill high the bowl! the draught is thine!
The Romans! — now thou need’st not heed them!
‘Tis nobler than t
he noblest wine —
It gives thee back to fame and freedom!
The scalding tears my cheek bedew;
My life, my love, my all — we sever!
One last embrace, one long adieu,
And then farewell — farewell for ever!
THE BARD’S FAREWELL.
“The king, sensible that nothing kept alive the ideas of military valour and of ancient glory so much as the traditional poetry of the people — which, assisted by the power of music and the jollity of festivals, made deep impression on the minds of the youth — gathered together all the Welsh bards, and, from a barbarous though not absurd policy, ordered them to be put to death.” — HUME.
SNOWDON! thy cliffs shall hear no more
This deep-toned harp again;
But banner-cry and battle-roar
Shall form a fiercer strain!
O’er thy sweet chords, my magic lyre!
What future hand shall stray?
What brain shall feel thy master’s fire,
Or frame his matchless lay?
Well might the crafty Edward fear:
Should I but touch thy chord,
Its slightest sound would couch the spear,
And bare the indignant sword!
Full well he knew the wizard-spell
That dwelt upon thy string;
And trembled, when he heard thy swell
Thro’ Snowdon’s caverns ring!
These eyes shall sleep in death’s dull night,
This hand all nerveless lie,
Ere once again yon orb of light
Break o’er the clear blue sky!
And thou, by Hell’s own furies nurst,
Unfurl thy banner’s pride!
But know that, living, thee I cursed;
And, cursing thee, I died!
EPIGRAM.
MEDEA’S herbs her magic gave —
They taught her how to kill or save:
No foreign aid couldst thou devise,
For in thyself thy magic lies.
ON BEING ASKED FOR A SIMILE TO ILLUSTRATE THE ADVANTAGE OF KEEPING THE PASSIONS SUBSERVIENT TO REASON.
As the sharp, pungent taste is the glory of mustard,
But, if heighten’d, would trouble your touchy papillae;
As a few laurel-leaves add a relish to custard,
But, if many, would fight with your stomach and kill ye: ——
So the passions, if freed from the precincts of reason,
Have noxious effects — but if duly confined, sir,
Are useful, no doubt — this each writer agrees on:
So I’ve dish’d up a simile just to your mind, sir.
EPIGRAM ON A MUSICIAN WHOSE HARP-STRINGS WERE CRACKED FROM WANT OF USING.
“WHY dost thou not string thine old harp?” says a friend:
“Thy complaints,” replied Dolce, “I think never end;
I’ve reason enough to remember the thing,
For you always are harping upon the old string.”
THE OLD CHIEFTAIN.
“And said I, that my limbs were old!” — SCOTT.
RAISE, raise the song of the hundred shells!
Though my hair is gray and my limbs are cold;
Yet in my bosom proudly dwells
The memory of the days of old;
When my voice was high, and my arm was strong,
And the foeman before my stroke would bow,
And I could have raised the sounding song
As loudly as I hear ye now.
For when I have chanted the bold song of death,
Not a page would have stay’d in the hall,
Not a lance in the rest, not a sword in the sheath,
Not a shield on the dim gray wall.
And who might resist the united powers
Of battle and music that day,
When, all martiall’d in arms on the heaven-kissing towers,
Stood the chieftains in peerless array?
When our enemy sunk from our eyes as the snow
Which falls down the stream in the dell,
When each word that I spake was the death of a foe,
And each note of my harp was his knell?
So raise ye the song of the hundred shells;
Though my hair is gray and my limbs are cold,
Yet in my bosom proudly dwells
The memory of the days of old!
APOLLONIUS RHODIUS’S COMPLAINT.
WITH cutting taunt they bade me lay
My high-strung harp aside,
As if I dare not soar away
On Fancy’s plume of pride!
Oh! while there’s image in my brain
And vigour in my hand,
The first shall frame the soul-fraught strain.
The last these chords command!
‘Tis true, I own, the starting tear
Had swell’d into mine eye,
When she, whose hand the plant should rear,
Could bid it fade and die:
But, deaf to cavil, spite, and scorn,
I still must wake the lyre;
And still, on Fancy’s pinions borne,
To Helicon aspire. —
And all the ardent lays I pour,
Another realm shall claim;
My name shall live — a foreign shore
Shall consecrate my name.
My country’s scorn I will not brook,
But she shall rue it long;
And Rhodes shall bless the hour she took
The exiled child of song.
THE FALL OF JERUSALEM.
JERUSALEM! Jerusalem!
Thou art low! thou mighty one,
How is the brilliance of thy diadem,
How is the lustre of thy throne
Rent from thee, and thy sun of fame
Darken’d by the shadowy pinion
Of the Roman bird, whose sway
All the tribes of earth obey,
Crouching ‘neath his dread dominion,
And the terrors of his name!
How is thy royal seat — whereon
Sat in days of yore
Lowly Jesse’s godlike son,
And the strength of Solomon,
In those rich and happy times
When the ships from Tarshish bore
Incense, and from Ophir’s land,
With silken sail and cedar oar,
Wafting to Judea’s strand
All the wealth of foreign climes —
How is thy royal seat o’erthrown!
Gone is all thy majesty:
Salem! Salem! city of kings,
Thou sittest desolate and lone,
Where once the glory of the Most High
Dwelt visibly enshrined between the wings
Of Cherubims, within whose bright embrace
The golden mercy-seat remain’d:
Land of Jehovah! view that sacred place
Abandon’d and profaned!
Wail! fallen Salem! Wail:
Mohammed’s votaries pollute thy fane;
The dark division of thine holy veil
Is rent in twain!
Thrice hath Sion’s crowned rock
Seen thy temple’s marble state,
Awfully, serenely great,
Towering on his sainted brow,
Rear its pinnacles of snow:
Thrice, with desolating shock,
Down to earth hath seen it driv’n
From his heights, which reach to heav’n!
Wail, fallen Salem! Wail:
Though not one stone above another
There was left to tell the tale
Of the greatness of thy story,
Yet the long lapse of ages cannot smother
The blaze of thine abounding glory;
Which thro’ the mist of rolling years,
O’er history’s darken’d page appears,
Like the morning star, whose gleam
Gazeth thro’ the waste of night,
What time old
Ocean’s purple stream
In his cold surge hath deeply laved
Its ardent front of dewy light.
Oh! who shall e’er forget thy bands, which braved
The terrors of the desert’s barren reign,
And that strong arm which broke the chain
Wherein ye foully lay enslaved,
Or that sublime Theocracy which paved
Your way thro’ ocean’s vast domain,
And on, far on to Canaan’s emerald plain
Led the Israelitish crowd
With a pillar and a cloud?
Signs on earth and signs on high
Prophesied thy destiny;
A trumpet’s voice above thee rung,
A starry sabre o’er thee hung;
Visions of fiery armies, redly flashing
In the many-colour’d glare
Of the setting orb of day;
And flaming chariots, fiercely dashing,
Swept along the peopled air,
In magnificent array:
The temple doors, on brazen hinges crashing,
Burst open with appalling sound,
A wondrous radiance streaming round!
“Our blood be on our heads!” ye said:
Such your awless imprecations:
Full bitterly at length ‘twas paid
Upon your captive nation!
Arms of adverse legions bound thee,
Plague and pestilence stood round thee;
Seven weary suns had brighten’d Syria’s sky,
Yet still was heard th’ unceasing cry —
“From south, north, east, and west, a voice,
Woe unto thy sons and daughters!
Woe to Salem! thou art lost!”
A sound divine
Came from the sainted, secret, inmost shrine:
“Let us go hence!” — and then a noise —
The thunders of the parting Deity,
Like the rush of countless waters,
Like the murmur of a host!
Though now each glorious hope be blighted,
Yet an hour shall come, when ye,
Though scatter’d like the chaff, shall be
Beneath one standard once again united;
When your wandering race shall own,
Prostrate at the dazzling throne
Of your high Almighty Lord,
The wonders of His searchless word,
Th’ unfading splendours of His Son!
LAMENTATION OF THE PERUVIANS.
THE foes of the East have come down on our shore,
And the state and the strength of Peru are no more:
Oh! cursed, doubly cursed, was that desolate hour,
When they spread o’er our land in the pride of their power!
Lament for the Inca, the son of the Sun; —
Ataliba’s fallen — Peru is undone!
Pizarro! Pizarro! though conquest may wing