To the Old Pagan Religion
Olympian gods! How can I let ye go
And pin my faith to this new Christian creed?
Can I resign the deities I know
For him who on a cross for man did bleed?
How in my weakness can my hopes depend
On one lone God, though mighty be his pow’r?
Why can Jove’s host no more assistance lend,
To soothe my pain, and cheer my troubled hour?
Are there no Dryads on these wooded mounts
O’er which I oft in desolation roam?
Are there no Naiads in these crystal founts?
Nor Nereids upon the Ocean foam?
Fast spreads the new; the older faith declines.
The name of Christ resounds upon the air.
But my wrack’d soul in solitude repines
And gives the Gods their last-receivèd pray’r.
On the Ruin of Rome
Low dost thou lie, O Rome, neath the foot of the Teuton
Slaves are thy men, and bent to the will of thy conqueror:
Wither hath gone, great city, the race that gave law to all nations,
Subdu’d the east and the west, and made them bow down to thy consuls.
Knew not defeat, but gave it to all who attack’d thee?
Dead! and replac’d by these wretches who cower in confusion
Dead! They who gave us this empire to guard and to live in
Rome, thou didst fall from thy pow’r with the proud race that made thee,
And we, base Italians, enjoy’d what we could not have builded.
To Pan
Seated in a woodland glen
By a shallow reedy stream
Once I fell a-musing, when
I was lull’d into a dream.
From the brook a shape arose
Half a man and half a goat.
Hoofs it had instead of toes
And a beard adorn’d its throat
On a set of rustic reeds
Sweetly play’d this hybrid man
Naught car’d I for earthly needs,
For I knew that this was Pan
Nymphs & Satyrs gather’d ‘round
To enjoy the lively sound.
All to soon I woke in pain
And return’d to haunts of men.
But in rural vales I’d fain
Live and hear Pan’s pipes again.
On the Vanity of Human Ambition
Apollo, chasing Daphne, gain’d his prize
But lo! she turn’d to wood before his eyes.
More modern swains at golden prizes aim,
And ever strive some worldly thing to claim.
Yet ’tis the same as in Apollo’s case,
For, once attain’d, the purest gold seems base.
All that men seek ‘s unworthy of the quest,
Yet seek they will, and never pause for rest.
True bliss, methinks, a man can only find
In virtuous life, & cultivated mind.
On Receiving a Picture of Swans
With pensive grace the melancholy Swan
Mourns o’er the tomb of luckless Phaëton;
On grassy banks the weeping poplars wave,
And guard with tender care the wat’ry grave.
Would that I might, should I too proudly claim
An Heav’nly parent, or a Godlike fame,
When flown too high, and dash’d to depths below,
Receive such tribute as a Cygnus’ woe!
The faithful bird, that dumbly floats along,
Sighs all the deeper for his want of song.
Unda; or, The Bride of the Sea
Respectfully Dedicated with Permission to MAURICE WINTER MOE, Esq.
A Dull, Dark, Drear, Dactylic Delirium in Sixteen Silly, Senseless, Sickly Stanzas
“Ego, canus, lunam cano.”
— Maevius Bavianus.
Black loom the crags of the uplands behind me;
Dark are the sands of the far-stretching shore.
Dim are the pathways and rocks that remind me
Sadly of years in the lost nevermore.
Soft laps the ocean on wave-polish’d boulder;
Sweet is the sound and familiar to me.
Here, with her head gently bent to my shoulder,
Walk’d I with Unda, the Bride of the Sea.
Bright was the morn of my youth when I met her,
Sweet as the breeze that blew in o’er the brine.
Swift was I captur’d in Love’s strongest fetter,
Glad to be hers, and she glad to be mine.
Never a question ask’d I where she wander’d,
Never a question ask’d she of my birth:
Happy as children, we thought not nor ponder’d,
Glad with the bounty of ocean and earth.
Once when the moonlight play’d soft ‘mid the billows,
High on the cliff o’er the waters we stood,
Bound was her hair with a garland of willows,
Pluck’d by the fount in the bird-haunted wood.
Strangely she gaz’d on the surges beneath her,
Charm’d by the sound or entranc’d by the light.
Then did the waves a wild aspect bequeath her,
Stern as the ocean and weird as the night.
Coldly she left me, astonish’d and weeping,
Standing alone ‘mid the regions she bless’d:
Down, ever downward, half gliding, half creeping,
Stole the sweet Unda in oceanward quest.
Calm grew the sea, and tumultuous beating
Turn’d to a ripple, as Unda the fair
Trod the wet sands in affectionate greeting,
Beckon’d to me, and no longer was there!
Long did I pace by the banks where she vanish’d:
High climb’d the moon, and descended again.
Grey broke the dawn till the sad night was banish’d,
Still ach’d my soul with its infinite pain.
All the wide world have I search’d for my darling,
Scour’d the far deserts and sail’d distant seas.
Once on the wave while the tempest was snarling,
Flash’d a fair face that brought quiet and ease.
Ever in restlessness onward I stumble,
Seeking and pining, scarce heeding my way.
Now have I stray’d where the wide waters rumble,
Back to the scene of the lost yesterday.
Lo! the red moon from the ocean’s low hazes
Rises in ominous grandeur to view.
Strange is its face as my tortur’d eye gazes
O’er the vast reaches of sparkle and blue.
Straight from the moon to the shore where I’m sighing
Grows a bright bridge, made of wavelets and beams.
Frail may it be, yet how simple the trying;
Wand’ring from earth to the orb of sweet dreams.
What is yon face in the moonlight appearing;
Have I at last found the maiden that fled?
Out on the beam-bridge my footsteps are nearing
Her whose sweet beckoning hastens my tread.
Currents surround me, and drowsily swaying,
Far on the moon-path I seek the sweet face.
Eagerly hasting, half panting, half praying,
Forward I reach for the vision of grace.
Murmuring waters about me are closing,
Soft the sweet vision advances to me:
Done are my trials; my heart is reposing
Safe with my Unda, the Bride of the Sea.
Epilogue
As the rash fool, a prey of Unda’s art,
Drown thro’ the passion of his fever’d heart,
So are our youth, inflam’d by tempters fair,
Bereft of reason and the manly air.
How sad the sight of Strephon’s virile grace
Turn’d to confusion at his Chloë’s face,
And
e’er Pelides, dear to Grecian eyes,
Sulking for loss of his thrice-cherish’d prize.
Brothers, attend! If cares too sharply vex,
Gain rest by shunning the destructive sex!
An American to Mother England
England! My England! Can the surging sea
That lies between us tear my heart from thee?
Can distant birth and distant dwelling drain
Th’ ancestral blood that warms the loyal vein?
Isle of my Fathers! hear the filial song
Of him whose sources but to thee belong!
World-conquering Mother! by thy mighty hand
Was carv’d from savage wilds my native land:
Thy matchless sons the firm foundation laid;
Thy matchless arts the nascent nation made:
By thy just laws the young republic grew,
And thro’ thy greatness, kindred greatness knew:
What man that springs from thy untainted line
But sees Columbia’s virtues all as thine?
Whilst nameless multitudes upon our shore
From the dim corners of creation pour,
Whilst mongrel slaves crawl hither to partake
Of Saxon liberty they could not make,
From such an alien crew in grief I turn,
And for the mother’s voice of Britain burn.
England! Can aught remove the cherish’d chain
That binds my spirit to thy blest domain?
Can Revolution’s bitter precepts sway
The soul that must the ties of race obey?
Create a new Columbia if ye will;
The flesh that forms me is Britannic still!
Hail! oaken shades, and meads of dewy green,
So oft in sleep, yet ne’er in waking seen.
Peal out, ye ancient chimes, from vine-clad tow’r
Where pray’d my fathers in a vanish’d hour:
What countless years of rev’rence can ye claim
From bygone worshippers that bore my name!
Their forms are crumbling in the vaults around,
Whilst I, across the sea, but dream the sound.
Return, Sweet Vision! Let me glimpse again
The stone-built abbey, rising o’er the plain;
The neighb’ring village with its sun-show’r’d square;
The shaded mill-stream, and the forest fair,
The hedge-lin’d lane, that leads to rustic cot
Where sweet contentment is the peasant’s lot;
The mystic grove, by Druid wraiths possess’d,
The flow’ring fields, with fairy-castles blest:
And the old manor-house, sedate and dark,
Set in the shadows of the wooded park.
Can this be dreaming? Must my eyelids close
That I may catch the fragrance of the rose?
Is it in fancy that the midnight vale
Thrills with the warblings of the nightingale?
A golden moon bewitching radiance yields,
And England’s fairies trip o’er England’s fields.
England! Old England! in my love for thee
No dream is mine, but blessed memory;
Such haunting images and hidden fires
Course with the bounding blood of British sires:
From British bodies, minds, and souls I come,
And from them draw the vision of their home.
Awake, Columbia! scorn the vulgar age
That bids thee slight thy lordly heritage.
Let not the wide Atlantic’s wildest wave
Burst the blest bonds that fav’ring Nature gave:
Connecting surges ‘twixt the nations run,
Our Saxon souls dissolving into one!
Lines on Gen. Robert Edward Lee
Born Jan. 19, 1807
“Si veris magna paratur
Fama bonis, et si successu nuda remoto
Inspicitur virtus, quicquid laudamus in ullo
Majorum, fortuna fuit.”
— Lucan.
Whilst martial echoes o’er the wave resound,
And Europe’s gore incarnadines the ground;
Today no foreign hero we bemoan,
But count the glowing virtues of our own!
Illustrious LEE! around whose honour’d name
Entwines a patriot’s and a Christian’s fame;
With whose just praise admiring nations ring,
And whom repenting foes contritely sing!
When first our land fraternal fury bore,
And Sumter’s guns alarm’d the anxious shore;
When Faction’s reign ancestral rights o’erthrew,
And sunder’d States a mutual hatred knew;
Then clash’d contending chiefs of kindred line,
In flesh to suffer and in fame to shine.
But o’er them all, majestic in his might,
Rose LEE, unrivall’d, to sublimest height:
With torturing choice defy’d opposing Fate,
And shunn’d Temptation for his native State!
Thus Washington his monarch’s rule o’erturn’d
When young Columbia with rebellion burn’d.
And what in Washington the world reveres,
In LEE with equal magnitude appears.
Our nation’s Father, crown’d with vict’ry’s bays,
Enjoys a loving land’s eternal praise:
Let, then, our hearts with equal rev’rence greet
His proud successor, rising o’er defeat!
Around his greatness pour disheartening woes,
But still he tow’rs above his conqu’ring foes.
Silence! ye jackal herd that vainly blame
Th’ unspotted leader by a traitor’s name:
If such was LEE, let blushing Justice mourn,
And trait’rous Liberty endure our scorn!
As Philopoemen once sublimely strove,
And earn’d declining Hellas’ thankful love;
So follow’d LEE the purest patriot’s part,
And wak’d the worship of the grateful heart:
The South her soul in body’d form discerns;
The North from LEE a nobler freedom learns!
Attend! ye sons of Albion’s ancient race,
Whate’er your country, and whate’er your place:
LEE’S valiant deeds, tho’ dear to Southern song,
To all our Saxon strain as well belong.
Courage like his the parent Island won,
And led an Empire past the setting sun;
To realms unknown our laws and language bore;
Rais’d England’s banner on the desert shore;
Crush’d the proud rival, and subdu’d the sea
For ages past, and aeons yet to be!
From Scotia’s hilly bounds the paean rolls,
And Afric’s distant Cape great LEE extols;
The sainted soul and manly mien combine
To grace Britannia’s and Virginia’s line!
As dullards now in thoughtless fervour prate
Of shameful peace, and sing th’ unmanly State;
As churls their piping reprobations shriek,
And damn the heroes that protect the weak;
Let LEE’S brave shade the timid throng accost,
And give them back the manhood they have lost!
What kindlier spirit, breathing from on high,
Can teach us how to live and how to die?
The Rose of England
At morn the rosebud greets the sun
And sheds the evening dew,
Expanding ere the day is done,
In bloom of radiant hue;
And when the sun his rest hath found,
Rose-petals strow the garden round!
Thus that blest Isle that owns the Rose
From mist and darkness came,
A million glories to disclose,
And spread BRITANNIA’S name;
And ere Life’s Sun shal
l leave the blue,
ENGLAND shall reign the whole world thro’!
The Poe-et’s Nightmare
A Fable
Luxus tumultus semper causa est.
Lucullus Languish, student of the skies,
And connoisseur of rarebits and mince pies,
A bard by choice, a grocer’s clerk by trade,
(Grown pessimist thro’ honours long delay’d),
A secret yearning bore, that he might shine
In breathing numbers, and in song divine.
Each day his fountain pen was wont to drop
An ode or dirge or two about the shop,
Yet naught could strike the chord within his heart
That throbb’d for poesy, and cry’d for art.
Each eve he sought his bashful Muse to wake
With overdoses of ice-cream and cake;
But thou’ th’ ambitious youth a dreamer grew,
Th’ Aonian Nymph declin’d to come to view.
Sometimes at dusk he scour’d the heav’ns afar,
Searching for raptures in the evening star;
One night he strove to catch a tale untold
In crystal deeps — but only caught a cold.
So pin’d Lucullus with his lofty woe,
Till one drear day he bought a set of Poe:
Charm’d with the cheerful horrors there display’d,
He vow’d with gloom to woo the Heav’nly Maid.
Of Auber’s tarn and Yaanek’s slope he dreams,
And weaves an hundred Ravens in his schemes.
Not far from our young hero’s peaceful home
Lies the fair grove wherein he loves to roam.
Tho’ but a stunted copse in vacant lot,
He dubs it Tempe, and adores the spot;
When shallow puddles dot the wooded plain,
And brim o’er muddy banks with muddy rain,
He calls them limpid lakes or poison pools
(Depending on which bard his fancy rules).
’Tis here he comes with Heliconian fire
Delphi Complete Works of H. P. Lovecraft (Illustrated) Page 210