Amid a sapphire field of light;
O’er mountain-summits, thunder-riven,
That rear eternal snows to heaven;
O’er rocks, in wild confusion hurled,
And woods, coeval with the world.
Her eye shall thence the course explore
Of every river wandering wide,
From tardy Lena’s frozen shore
To vast La Plata’s sea-like tide.
Where Oby’s barrier-billows freeze,
And Dwina’s waves in snow-chains rest:
Where the rough blast from Arctic seas
Congeals on Volga’s ice-cold breast:
Where Rhine impels his confluent springs
Tumultuous down the Rhætian steep:
Where Danube’s world of waters brings
Its tribute to the Euxine deep:
Where Seine, beneath Lutetian towers,
Leads humbly his polluted stream,
Recalling still the blood-red hours
Of frantic freedom’s transient dream:
Where crowns sweet Loire his fertile soil:
Where Rhone’s impetuous eddies boil:
Where Garonne’s pastoral waves advance,
Responsive to the song and dance,
When the full vintage calls from toil
The youths and maids of southern France:
Where horned Po’s once-raging flood
Now moves with slackened force along,
By hermit-isle and magic wood,
The theme of old chivalric song:
Where yellow Tiber’s turbid tide
In mystic murmurings seems to breathe
Of ancient Rome’s imperial pride,
That passed away, as blasts divide
November’s vapory wreath:
Where proud Tajo’s golden river
Rolls through fruitful realms afar:
Where romantic Guadalquiver
Wakes the thought of Moorish war:
Where Penëus, smoothly-flowing,
Or Mæander’s winding shore,
Charm the pensive wanderer, glowing
With the love of Grecian lore:
Where Alphëus, wildly-falling,
Dashes far the sparkling spray;
In the eternal sound recalling
Lost Arcadia’s heaven-taught lay;
Following dark, in strong commotion,
Through the night of central caves,
Deep beneath the unmingling ocean,
Arethusa’s flying waves:
Where Tigris runs, in rapid maze:
Where swift Euphrates brightly strays;
To whose lone wave the night-breeze sings
A song of half-forgotten days
And old Assyrian kings:
Where, Gangà’s fertile course beside,
The Hindu roves, alone to mourn,
And gaze on heaven’s resplendent pride,
And watch for Veeshnu’s tenth return;
When fraud shall cease, and tyrant power
Torment no more, to ruin hurled,
And peace and love their blessings shower,
O’er all the renovated world:
Where Nile’s mysterious sources sleep:
Where Niger sinks, in sands unknown:
Where Gambia hears, at midnight deep,
Afflicted ghosts for vengeance groan:
Where Mississippi’s giant-stream
Through savage realms impetuous pours:
Where proud Potomac’s cataracts gleam,
Or vast Saint Lawrence darkly roars:
Where Amazon her pomp unfolds
Beneath the equinoctial ray,
And through her drear savannahs holds
Her long immeasurable way:
Where’er in youthful strength they flow,
Or seek old ocean’s wide embrace,
Her eagle-glance the muse shall throw,
And all their pride and power retrace:
Yet, wheresoe’er, from copious urn,
Their bursting torrents flash and shine,
Her eye shall not a stream discern
To vie, oh sacred Thames! with thine.
Along thy course no pine-clad steep,
No alpine summits, proudly tower:
No woods, impenetrably deep,
O’er thy pure mirror darkly lower:
The orange-grove, the myrtle-bower,
The vine, in rich luxuriance spread;
The charms Italian meadows shower;
The sweets Arabian vallies shed;
The roaring cataract, wild and white;
The lotos-flower, of azure light;
The fields, where ceaseless summer smiles;
The bloom, that decks the Ægëan isles;
The hills, that touch the empyreal plain,
Olympian Jove’s sublime domain;
To other streams all these resign
Still none, oh Thames! shall vie with thine.
For what avails the myrtle-bower,
Where beauty rests at noon-tide hour;
The orange-grove, whose blooms exhale
Rich perfume on the ambient gale;
And all the charms in bright array,
Which happier climes than thine display ?
Ah! what avails, that heaven has rolled
A silver stream o’er sands of gold,
And decked the plain, and reared the grove,
Fit dwelling for primeval love;
If man defile the beauteous scene,
And stain with blood the smiling green;
If man’s worst passions there arise,
To counteract the favoring skies;
If rapine there, and murder reign,
And human tigers prowl for gain,
And tyrants foul, and trembling slaves,
Pollute their shores, and curse their waves ?
Far other charms than these possess,
Oh Thames! thy verdant margin bless:
Where peace, with freedom hand-in-hand,
Walks forth along the sparkling strand,
And cheerful toil, and glowing health,
Proclaim a patriot nation’s wealth.
The blood-stained scourge no tyrants wield:
No groaning slaves invert the field:
But willing labor’s careful train
Crowns all thy banks with waving grain,
With beauty decks thy sylvan shades,
With livelier green invests thy glades,
And grace, and bloom, and plenty, pours
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 p
atriot’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 mi
nstrelsy;
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,
Complete Works of Thomas Love Peacock Page 128