Thus on the soil the patriot's knee should bend, Our fathers live; they guard in glory still The grass-grown bastions of the fortressed hill; Still ring the echoes of the trampled gorge, With God and Freedom! England and Saint George. Mocks the sharp night-dews and the blistering sun! Point to the summits where the brave have bled, Yet, when their leader bade his lines advance, Bore Ever Ready, faithful to the last, Then, if so fierce the insatiate patriot's flame, And save his tears, which yet may fall upon Some fabled field, some fancied Washington! IV. But once again, from their Eolian cave, Then rose the Drama; -and the world admired Her varied page with deeper thought inspired; Bound to no clime, for Passion's throb is one In Greenland's twilight or in India's sun; Born for no age,- for all the thoughts that roll In the dark vortex of the stormy soul, Unchained in song, no freezing years can tame; God gave them birth, and man is still the same. So full on life her magic mirror shone, Her sister Arts paid tribute to her throne; One reared her temple, one her canvass warmed, And Music thrilled, while Eloquence informed. The weary rustic left his stinted task For smiles and tears, the dagger and the mask; O'er sense and thought she threw her golden chain, Thus lives Medea, in our tamer age, As when her buskin pressed the Grecian stage; Circling and spreading through the gilded halls, Thus shall he live whose more than mortal name No earthly Pharos, but a heavenly star; V. Though round the Muse the robe of song is thrown, Think not the poet lives in verse alone. Long ere the chisel of the sculptor taught On every leaf its own celestial hue; In fable's dress the breath of genius poured, And warmed the shapes that later times adored. Untaught by Science how to forge the keys, That loose the gates of Nature's mysteries; Unschooled by Faith, who, with her angel tread, Leads through the labyrinth with a single thread, His fancy, hovering round her guarded tower, Rained through its bars like Danae's golden shower. He spoke; the sea-nymph answered from her cave: He called; the naiad left her mountain wave: He dreamed of beauty; lo, amidst his dream, Narcissus mirrored in the breathless stream; And night's chaste empress, in her bridal play, Laughed through the foliage where Endymion lay; And ocean dimpled, as the languid swell Kissed the red lip of Cytherea's shell: Of power, - Bellona swept the crimson field, And blue-eyed Pallas shook her Gorgon shield; O'er the hushed waves their mightier monarch drove, And Ida trembled to the tread of Jove! So every grace, that plastic language knows, The rough-hewn words to simplest thoughts confined, |