Hadst advanced to higher fame Still thy much ennobled name, Nor in Charon's skiff explored The Tartarean gulf abhorr'd.
But resentful Proserpine, Jealous of thy skill divine, Snapping short thy vital thread, Thee too number'd with the dead.
Wise and good! untroubled be The green turf that covers thee! Thence, in gay profusion, grow All the sweetest flowers that blow !
Pluto's consort bid thee rest! Eacus pronounce thee blest! To her home thy shade consign! Make Elysium ever thine!
ON THE DEATH OF THE BISHOP OF ELY.
My lids with grief were tumid yet, And still my sullied cheek was wet With briny dews, profusely shed For venerable Winton dead:
When fame, whose tales of saddest sound,
Alas! are ever truest found.
The news through all our cities spread Of yet another mitred head
By ruthless fate to death consign'd, Ely, the honour of his kind!
At once a storm of passion heaved My boiling bosom, much I grieved; But more I raged, at every breath Devoting Death himself to death. With less revenge did Naso teem When hated Ibis was his theme; With less Archilochus denied The lovely Greek his promised bride. But lo! while thus I execrate Incensed the minister of fate, Wondrous accents, soft, yet clear, Wafted on the gale I hear.
“Ah, much deluded! lay aside Thy threats and anger misapplied! Art not afraid with sounds like these To offend, where thou canst not appease? Death is not (wherefore dreamst thou thus ?) The son of Night and Erebus:
Nor was of fell Erynnis born
On gulfs where Chaos rules forlorn ; But, sent from God, his presence leaves, To gather home his ripen'd sheaves, To call encumber'd souls away From fleshly bonds to boundless day, (As when the winged hours excite, And summon forth the morning light,) And each to convoy to her place Before the Eternal Father's face.
But not the wicked-them, severe
Yet just, from all their pleasures here He hurries to the realms below, Terrific realms of penal woe! Myself no sooner heard his call, Than, 'scaping through my prison wall, I bade adieu to bolts and bars,
And soar'd, with angels, to the stars, Like him of old, to whom 'twas given To mount on fiery wheels to heaven. Boötes' waggon, slow with cold, Appall'd me not; nor to behold The sword that vast Orion draws, Or e'en the Scorpion's horrid claws. Beyond the sun's bright orb I fly, And far beneath my feet descry Night's dread goddess, seen with awe, Whom her winged dragons draw. Thus, ever wondering at my speed, Augmented still as I proceed, I pass the planetary sphere,
The milky way-and now appear Heaven's crystal battlements, her door
Of massy pearl, and emerald floor.
But here I cease.
The tongue of once a mortal man In suitable description trace The pleasures of that happy place; Suffice it, that those joys divine Are all, and all for ever, mine!”
NATURE UNIMPAIRED BY TIME.
Aн, how the human mind wearies herself With her own wanderings, and, involved in gloom Impenetrable, speculates amiss!
Measuring in her folly things divine
By human; laws inscribed on adamant
By laws of man's device; and counsels fix'd For ever, by the hours that pass and die.
How?-shall the face of nature then be plough'd Into deep wrinkles, and shall years at last On the great parent fix a sterile curse? Shall even she confess old age, and halt, And, palsy-smitten, shake her starry brows? Shall foul antiquity with rust, and drought, And famine, vex the radiant worlds above? Shall Time's unsated maw crave and ingulf The very heavens, that regulate his flight? And was the sire of all able to fence
His works, and to uphold the circling worlds, But, through improvident and heedless haste Let slip the occasion ?-so then-all is lost- And in some future evil hour, yon arch
Shall crumble, and come thundering down, the poles Jar in collision, the Olympian king,
Fall with his throne, and Pallas, holding forth
The terrors of the Gorgon shield in vain,
Shall rush to the abyss, like Vulcan hurl'd
Down into Lemnos, through the gate of heaven. Thou also, with precipitated wheels, Phoebus! thy own son's fall shalt imitate, With hideous ruin shalt impress the deep Suddenly, and the flood shall reek, and hiss, At the extinction of the lamp of day. Then too shall Hamus, cloven to his base, Be shatter d, and the huge Ceraunian hills, Once weapons of Tartarean Dis, immersed In Erebus, shall fill himself with fear.
No. The Almighty Father surer laid His deep foundations, and providing well For the event of all, the scales of fate Suspended in just equipoise, and bade His universal works, from age to age, One tenour hold, perpetual, undisturb’d. Hence the prime mover wheels itself about Continual, day by day, and with it bears, In social measure swift, the heavens around. Not tardier now is Saturn than of old,
Nor radiant less the burning casque of Mars. Phoebus, his vigour unimpair'd, still shows The effulgence of his youth, nor needs the god A downward course, that he may warm the vales; But, ever rich in influence, runs his road, Sign after sign, through all the heavenly zone. Beautiful, as at first, ascends the star From odoriferous Ind, whose office is To gather home betimes the ethereal flock, Το pour them o'er the skies again at eve,
« PreviousContinue » |