Where sounds each anthem, but the human tongue, Oh yes! in future days our Western lyres, Haste happy times, when through these wide domains -Phi Beta Kappa Poem, 1812. This poem, written at eighteen, certainly gave promise that Everett's name might stand high on the list of American poets. This promise was never fulfilled. He wrote little verse; though one poem, Alaric the Visigoth, makes good his claim to rank among the poets in our English tongue. The poem is founded upon a passage in an old chronicle, which reads: "Towards the close of this year, 410, while engaged in the siege of Cosentia, Alaric was seized with an illness which proved fatal after a very short duration. He was buried, with his treasures, in the bed of the river Busentinus, which was diverted from its channel for that purpose, and all the prisoners who were engaged in the work were put to death, in order that the place of his sepulchre might remain unknown." ALARIC THE VISIGOTH. When I am dead, no pageant train Ye shall not raise a marble bust In hollow circumstance of woes; Ye shall not pile with servile toil, Lay down the wreck of power to rest, Where man can boast that he has trod On him that was "The Scourge of God." But ye the mountain stream shall turn, My gold and silver ye shall fling Back to the clods that gave them birth— The captured crowns of many a king, But when beneath the mountain tide Ye've laid your monarch down to rot, BURIAL OF ALARIC. And hollow, for your sovereign's urn, "But ye the mountain stream shall turn And lay its secret channel hare, Ye shall not rear upon its side Pillar or mound to mark the spot: For long enough the earth has shook Beneath the terrors of my look ; And now that I have run my race, The astonished realms shall rest a space. My course was like a river deep, And from the Northern hills I burst, Across the world in wrath to sweep; And where I went the spot was curst: See how their haughty barriers fail Not for myself did I ascend In judgment my triumphal car; With iron hand that scourge I reared And Vengeance sat upon the helm. Across the everlasting Alp I poured the torrent of my powers, And feeble Cæsars shrieked for help In vain within their seven-hilled towers. I quenched in blood the brightest gem That glittered in their diadem; |