On thy sweet meads and willowy shores.
The plain, where herds unnumbered rove,
The laurelled path, the beechen grove,
The lonely oak’s expansive pride,
The spire, through distant trees descried,
The cot, with woodbine wreathed around,
The field, with waving corn embrowned,
The fall, that turns the frequent mill,
The seat, that crowns the woodland hill,
The sculptured arch, the regal dome,
The fisher’s willow-mantled home,
The classic temple, flower-entwined,
In quick succession charm the mind,
Till, where thy widening current glides
To mingle with the turbid tides,
Thy spacious breast displays unfurled
The ensigns of the assembled world.
Throned in Augusta’s ample port,
Imperial commerce holds her court,
And Britain’s power sublimes:
To her the breath of every breeze
Conveys the wealth of subject seas,
And tributary climes.
Adventurous courage guides the helm
From every port of every realm:
Through gales that rage, and waves that whelm,
Unnumbered vessels ride:
Till all their various ensigns fly,
Beneath Britannia’s milder sky,
Where roves, oh Thames! the patriot’s eye
O’er thy refulgent tide.
The treasures of the earth are thine:
For thee Golcondian diamonds shine:
For thee, amid the dreary mine,
The patient sufferers toil:
Thy sailors roam, a dauntless host,
From northern seas to India’s coast,
And bear the richest stores they boast
To bless their native soil.
O’er states and empires, near and far,
While rolls the fiery surge of war,
Thy country’s wealth and power increase,
Thy vales and cities smile in peace:
And still, before thy gentle gales,
The laden bark of commerce sails;
And down thy flood, in youthful pride,
Those mighty vessels sternly glide,
Destined, amid the tempest’s rattle,
To hurl the thunder-bolt of battle,
To guard, in danger’s hottest hour,
Britannia’s old prescriptive power,
And through winds, floods, and fire, maintain
Her native empire of the main.
The mystic nymph, whose ken sublime
Reads the dark tales of eldest time,
Scarce, through the mist of years, descries
Augusta’s infant glory rise.
A race, from all the world estranged,
Wild as the uncultured plains they ranged,
Here raised of yore their dwellings rude,
Beside the forest-solitude.
For then, as old traditions tell,
Where science now and splendor dwell,
Along the stream’s wild margin spread
A lofty forest’s mazes dread.
None dared, with step profane, impress
Those labyrinths of loneliness,
Where dismal trees, of giant-size,
Entwined their tortuous boughs on high,
Nor hailed the cheerful morn’s uprise,
Nor glowed beneath the evening sky.
The dire religion of the scene
The rustic’s trembling mind alarmed
For oft, the parting boughs between,
’Twas said, a dreadful form was seen,
Of horrid eye, and threatening mien,
With lightning-brand and thunder armed.
Not there, in sunshine-chequered shade,
The sylvan nymphs and genii strayed;
But horror reigned, and darkness drear,
And silence, and mysterious fear:
And superstitious rites were done,
Those haunted glens and dells among,
That never felt the genial sun,
Nor heard the wild bird’s vernal song:
To gods malign the incense-pyre
Was kindled with unearthly fire,
And human blood had oft bedewed
Their ghastly altars, dark and rude.
There feebly fell, at noon-tide bright,
A dim, discolored, dismal light,
Such as a lamp’s pale glimmerings shed
Amid the mansions of the dead.
The Druid’s self, who dared to lead
The rites barbaric gods decreed,
Beneath the gloom half-trembling stood;
As if he almost feared to mark,
In all his awful terrors dark,
The mighty monarch of the wood.
The Roman came: the blast of war
Re-echoed wide o’er hill and dell:
Beneath the storm, that blazed afar,
The noblest chiefs of Albion fell.
The Druids shunned its rage awhile
In sylvan Mona’s haunted isle,
Till on their groves of ancient oak
The hostile fires of ruin broke,
And circles rude of shapeless stone,
With lichens grey and moss o’ergrown,
Alone remained to point the scene,
Where erst Andraste’s rites had been.
When to the dust their pride was driven
When waste and bare their haunts appeared;
No more the oracles of heaven,
By gods beloved, by men revered,
No refuge left but death or flight,
They rushed, unbidden, to the tomb,
Or veiled their heads in caves of night,
And forests of congenial gloom.
There stalked, in murky darkness wide,
Revenge, despair, and outraged pride:
Funereal songs, and ghastly cries,
Rose to their dire divinities.
Oft, in their feverish dreams, again
Their groves and temples graced the plain;
And stern Andraste’s fiery form
Called from its caves the slumbering storm,
And whelmed, with thunder-rolling hand,
The flying Roman’s impious band.
It chanced, amid that forest’s shade,
That frowned where now Augusta towers,
A Roman youth bewildered strayed,
While swiftly fell the evening hours.
Around his glance inquiring ran:
No trace was there of living man:
Forms indistinct before him flew:
The darkening horror darker grew:
Till night, in death-like stillness felt,
Around those dreary mazes dwelt.
Sudden, a blaze of lurid blue,
That flashed the matted foliage through,
Illumed, as with Tartarean day,
The knotted trunks and branches grey.
Sensations, wild and undefined,
Rushed on the Roman warrior’s mind:
But deeper wonder filled his soul,
When on the dead still air around,
Like symphony from magic ground,
Mysterious music stole:
Such strains as flow, when spirits keep,
Around the tombs where wizards sleep,
Beneath the cypress foliage deep,
The rites of dark solemnity;
And hands unearthly wildly sweep
The chords of elfin melody.
The strains were sad: their changeful swell,
And plaintive cadence, seemed to tell
Of blighted joys, of hopes o’erthrown,
Of mental peace for ever flown,
Of dearest friends, by death laid low,
And tears, and unavailing woe.
Yet something of a sterner thrill
With those sad strains consorted ill,
As if revenge had dared intrude
On hopeless sorrow’s darkest mood.
Guided by those sulphureous rays,
The Roman pierced the forest maze;
Till, through the opening woodland reign,
Appeared an oak-encircled plain,
Where giant boughs expanded high
Their storm-repelling canopy,
And, central in the sacred round,
Andraste’s moss-grown altar frowned.
The mystic flame of lurid blue
There shed a dubious, mournful light,
And half-revealed to human view
The secret majesty of night.
An ancient man, in dark attire,
Stood by the solitary fire:
The varying flame his form displayed,
Half-tinged with light, half-veiled in shade.
His grey hair, gemmed with midnight dew,
Streamed down his robes of sable hue:
His cheeks were sunk: his beard was white:
But his large eyes were fiery-bright,
And seemed through flitting shades to range,
With wild expression, stern and strange.
There, where no wind was heard to sigh,
Nor wandering streamlet murmured by,
While every voice of nature slept,
The harp’s symphonious strings he swept:
Such thrilling tones might scarcely be
The touch of mortal minstrelsy;
Now rolling loud, and deep, and dread,
As if the sound would wake the dead,
Now soft, as if, with tender close,
To bid the parted soul repose.
The Roman youth with wonder gazed
On those dark eyes to heaven upraised,
Where struggling passions wildly shone,
With fearful lustre, not their own.
Awhile irresolute he stood:
At length he left the sheltering wood,
And moved towards the central flame:
But, ere his lips the speech could frame,
— “And who art thou ? “ — the Druid cried,
While flashed his burning eye-balls wide, —
“Whose steps unhallowed boldly press
This sacred grove’s profound recess ?
Ha! by my injured country’s doom!
I know the hated arms of Rome.
Through this dark forest’s pathless way
Andraste’s self thy steps has led,
To perish on her altars grey,
A grateful offering to the dead.
Oh goddess stern! one victim more
To thee his vital blood shall pour,
And shades of heroes, hovering nigh,
Shall joy to see a Roman die!
With that dread plant that none may name,
I feed the insatiate fire of fate:
Roman! with this tremendous flame
Thy head to hell I consecrate!” —
And, snatching swift a blazing brand,
He dashed it in the Roman’s face,
And seized him with a giant’s hand,
And dragged him to the altar’s base,
Though worn by time and adverse fate,
Yet strength unnaturally great
He gathered then from deadly hate
And superstitious zeal:
A dire religion’s stern behest
Alone his phrensied soul possessed;
Already o’er his victim’s breast
Hung the descending steel.
The scene, the form, the act, combined,
A moment on the Roman’s mind
An enervating influence poured:
But to himself again restored,
Upspringing light, he grasped his foe,
And checked the meditated blow,
And on the Druid’s breast repelled
The steel his own wild fury held.
The vital stream flowed fast away,
And stained Andraste’s altars grey.
More ghastly pale his features dire
Gleamed in that blue funereal fire:
The death-mists from his brow distilled:
But still his eyes strange lustre filled,
That seemed to pierce the secret springs
Of unimaginable things.
No longer, with malignant glare,
Revenge unsated glistened there,
And deadly rage, and stern despair:
All trace of evil passions fled,
He seemed to commune with the dead,
And draw from them, without alloy,
The raptures of prophetic joy.
A sudden breeze his temples fanned:
His harp, untouched by human hand,
Sent forth a sound, a thrilling sound,
That rang through all the mystic round
The incense-flame rose broad and bright,
In one wide stream of meteor-light.
He knew what power illumed the blaze,
What spirit swept the strings along:
Full on the youth his kindling gaze
He fixed, and poured his soul in song.
Roman! life’s declining tide
From my bosom ebbs apace:
Vengeance have the gods denied
For the ruin of my race.
Triumph not: in night compressed,
Yet the northern tempests rest,
Doomed to burst, in fatal hour,
On the pride of Roman power.
Sweetly beams the morning ray:
Proudly falls the noon-tide glow:
See! beneath the closing day,
Storm-clouds darken, whirlwinds blow!
Sun-beams gild the tranquil shore:
Hark! the midnight breakers roar!
O’er the deep, by tempests torn,
Shrieks of shipwrecked souls are borne!
Queen of earth, imperial Rome
Rules, in boundless way confessed,
From the day-star’s orient dome
To the limits of the west.
Proudest work of mortal hands,
The Eternal City stands:
Bound in her all-circling sphere,
Monarchs kneel, and nations fear.
Hark! the stream of ages raves:
Gifted eyes its course behold:
Down its all-absorbing waves
Mightiest chiefs and kings are rolled.
Every work of human pride,
Sapped by that eternal tide,
Shall the raging current sweep
Tow’rds oblivion’s boundless deep.
Confident in wide control,
Rome beholds that torrent flow,
Heedless how the waters roll,
Wasting, mining, as they go.
That sure torrent saps at length
Walls of adamantine strength:
Down its eddies wild shall pass
Domes of marble, towers of brass.
As the sailor’s fragile bark,
Beaten by the adverse breeze,
Sinks afar, and leaves no mark
Of its passage o’er the seas;
So shall Rome’s colossal sway
In the lapse of time decay,
Leaving of her ancient fame
But the memorv of a name.
Vainly raged the storms of Gaul
Round dread Jove’s Tarpeian dome:
See in flames the fabric fall!
’Tis the funeral pyre of Rome!
Red-armed vengeance rushes forth
In the whirlwinds of the north:
From her hand the sceptre riven
To transalpine realms is given.
Darkness veils the stream of time,
As the wrecks of Rome dissolve:
Years of anarchy and crime
In barbaric night revolve.
From the rage of feudal strife
Peace and freedom spring to life,
Where the morning sun-beams smile
On
the sea-god’s favorite isle.
Hail! all hail! my native land!
Long thy course of glory keep:
Long thy sovereign sails expand
O’er the subjugated deep!
When of Rome’s unbounded reign
Dust and shade alone remain,
Thou thy head divine shalt raise,
Through interminable days.
Death-mists hover: voices rise:
I obey the summons dread:
On the stone my life-blood dyes
Sinks to rest my weary head.
Far from scenes of night and woe,
To eternal groves I go,
Where for me my brethren wait
By Andraste’s palace-gate.
THE GENIUS OF THE THAMES. PART II
Quidquid sol oriens, quidquid et occidens
Novit; cæruleis oceanus fretis
Quidquid vel veniens vel fugiens lavat,
Ætas Pegaseo conripiet gradu.
SENECA
OH Genius of that sacred urn,
Adored by all the Naiad train!
Once more my wandering steps return
To trace the precincts of thy reign:
Once more, amid my native plain,
I roam thy devious course along,
And in the oaken shade again
Awake to thee the votive song.
Dear stream! while far from thee I strayed,
The woods, that crown my natal glade,
Have mourned on all the winds of heaven
Their yellow faded foliage driven;
And winter, with tempestuous roar,
Descending on thy wasted shore,
Has seen thy turbid current flow
A deluge of dissolving snow.
But now, in spring’s more soft control,
Thy troubled waves subside,
And through a narrower channel roll
A brighter, gentler tide.
Emerging now in light serene,
The meadows spread their robes of green,
The weeping willow droops to lave
Its leafy tresses in the wave;
The poplar and the towering pine
Their hospitable shade combine;
And, flying like the flying day,
The silent river rolls away.
Not here, in dreadful grandeur piled,
The mountain’s pathless masses rise,
Where wandering fancy’s lonely child
Might meet the spirit of the skies:
Not here, from misty summits hoar,
Where shattered firs are rooted strong,
With headlong force and thundering roar
The bursting torrent foams along:
Sublime the charms such scenes contain:
For nature on her mountain reign
Delights the treasures to dispense
Of all her wild magnificence:
But thou art sweet, my native stream!
Thy waves in liquid lustre play,
And glitter in the morning beam,
And chime to rest the closing day:
While the vast mountain’s dizzy steep
Complete Works of Thomas Love Peacock Page 125