For thee, who mindful of the unhonoured dead, Dost in these lines their artless tale relate, If, 'chance, by lonely Contemplation led, Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate;
Haply some hoary-headed swain may say— "Oft have we seen him, at the peep of dawn, Brushing, with hasty steps, the dews away, To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.
There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech,
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook that bubbles by.
Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Muttering his wayward fancies, he would rove; Now drooping, woful, wan, like one forlorn,
Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love!
One morn I missed him on the accustomed hill, Along the heath, and near his favourite tree: Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he:
The next-with dirges due, in sad array,
Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne :
Approach, and read-for thou canst read-the lay, Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."
V.-NAPOLEON'S LAST REQUEST.
АH! bury me deep in the boundless sea, Let my heart have a limitless grave, For my spirit in life was as fierce and free As the course of the tempest wave;
And as far from the reach of mortal control Were the depths of my fathomless mind, And the ebbs and the flows of my single soul Were tides to the rest of mankind.
Then my briny pall shall engirdle the world, As in life did the voice of my fame,
And each mutinous billow that skyward curls Shall to fancy re-echo my name :-
That name shall be storied in record sublime, In the uttermost corners of earth;
And renowned till the wreck of expiring time, Be the glorified land of my birth.
Yes, bury my heart in the boundless sea,- It would burst from a narrower tomb; Should less than an ocean my sepulchre be, Or if wrapped in less horrible gloom.
VI.-HYMN IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI. (COLERIDGE.)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, one of the most profound of English thinkers, was born in Devonshire in 1772. He died in 1834.
HAST thou a charm to stay the morning star In his steep course? So long he seems to pause On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc!
The Arvé and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form! Risest from forth the silent sea of pines, How silently! Around thee and above Deep is the air, and dark, substantial, black, An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it As with a wedge! But when I look again, It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, Thy habitation from eternity!
O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee, Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,
Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer I worshipped the Invisible alone.
Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody
So sweet, we know not we are listening to it,
Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought, Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy, Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfused, Into the mighty vision passing-there,
As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven! Awake, my soul! not only passive praise Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears, Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake, Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake! Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my Hymn.
Thou first and chief, sole sovran of the Vale! Oh, struggling with the darkness all the night, And visited all night by troops of stars,
Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink: Companion of the morning star at dawn, Thyself Earth's rosy star, and of the dawn Co-herald: wake, oh wake, and utter praise! Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth? Who filled thy countenance with rosy light? Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?
And you, ye five wild torrents, fiercely glad! Who called you forth from night and utter death, From dark and icy caverns called you forth, Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, For ever shattered and the same for ever? Who gave you your invulnerable life,
Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, Unceasing thunder and eternal foam?
And who commanded (and the silence came), "Here let the billows stiffen and have rest?"
Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow Adown enormous ravines slope amain- Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge! Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!
Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun Clothe you with rainbows? Who with living flowers Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?—
God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!
God! sing, ye meadow streams, with gladsome voice! Ye pine groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!
Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost! Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest! Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm! Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds! Ye signs and wonders of the element!
Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!
Once more, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks, Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene, Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast-- Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou That as I raise my head, a while bowed low In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears, Solemnly seemest like a vapoury cloud
To rise before me-Rise, oh, ever rise!
Rise like a cloud of incense from the Earth! Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills, Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven, Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky, And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.
VII.-TO THE COMET OF 1811.
STRANGER of heaven! I bid thee hail! Shred from the pall of glory riven,
That flashest in celestial gale,
Broad pennon of the King of Heaven!
Art thou the flag of woe and death, From angel's ensign-staff unfurled?
Art thou the standard of his wrath, Waved o'er a sordid, sinful world?
No; from that pure, pellucid beam, That erst o'er plains of Bethlehem shone,' No latent evil we can deem,
Bright herald of the eternal throne!
Whate'er portends thy front of fire, Thy streaming locks so lovely pale- Or peace to man, or judgments dire, Stranger of heaven, I bid thee hail!
Where hast thou roamed these thousand years? Why sought these polar paths again, From wilderness of glowing spheres, To fling thy vesture o'er the wain?
And when thou scal'st the Milky Way, And vanishest from human view, A thousand worlds shall hail thy ray Through wilds of yon empyreal blue! Oh, on thy rapid prow to glide!
To sail the boundless skies with thee, And plough the twinkling stars aside, Like foam-bells on a tranquil sea!
To brush the embers from the sun, The icicles from off the pole; Then far to other systems run,
Where other moons and planets roll?
Stranger of heaven! oh, let thine eye Smile on a rapt enthusiast's dream; Eccentric as thy course on high, And airy as thine ambient beam!
And long, long may thy silver ray Our northern arch at eve adorn;
Then, wheeling to the east away,
Light the grey portals of the morn!
This was by some considered the same comet which appeared at the birth of Christ.
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