Upon our side, we who were strong in love! Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!-Oh! times, In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways Of custom, law, and statute, took at once The attraction of a country in romance! When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights, When most intent on making of herself A prime Enchantress-to assist the work, Which then was going forward in her name! Not favoured spots alone, but the whole earth, The beauty wore of promise, that which sets (As at some moment might not be unfelt Among the bowers of paradise itself) The budding rose above the rose full blown. What temper at the prospect did not wake To happiness unthought of? The inert Were roused, and lively natures rapt away! They who had fed their childhood upon dreams, The playfellows of fancy, who had made All powers of swiftness, subtilty, and strength Their ministers, who in lordly wise had stirred Among the grandest objects of the sense, And dealt with whatsoever they found there As if they had within some lurking right To wield it;—they, too, who, of gentle mood, Had watched all gentle motions, and to these Had fitted their own thoughts, schemers more mild, And in the region of their peaceful selves ;- Now was it that both found, the meek and lofty Did both find, helpers to their heart's desire, And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish; Were called upon to exercise their skill, Not in Utopia, subterranean fields, Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where! But in the very world, which is the world Of all of us, the place where in the end We find our happiness, or not at all!
O terror! what hath she perceived?—O joy! What doth she look on?-whom doth she behold? Her Hero slain upon the beach of Troy? His vital presence? his corporeal mould? It is if sense deceive her not 'tis He! And a God leads him, winged Mercury!
Mild Hermes spake and touched her with his wand
But thou, though capable of sternest deed, Wert kind as resolute, and good as brave; And he, whose power restores thee, hath decreed Thou should'st elude the malice of the grave: Redundant are thy locks, thy lips as fair
As when their breath enriched Thessalian air.
No Spectre greets me,-no vain Shadow this ; Come, blooming Hero, place thee by my side!
That calms all fear; "Such grace hath crowned Give, on this well known couch, one nuptial kiss
SERENE, and fitted to embrace, Where'er he turned, a swan-like grace Of haughtiness without pretence, And to unfold a still magnificence, Was princely Dion, in the power And beauty of his happier hour. And what pure homage then did wait On Dion's virtues, while the lunar beam Of Plato's genius, from its lofty sphere, Fell round him in the grove of Academe, Softening their inbred dignity austere That he, not too elate
With self-sufficing solitude, But with majestic lowliness endued, Might in the universal bosom reign, And from affectionate observance gain Help, under every change of adverse fate.
Five thousand warriors-O the rapturous day! Each crowned with flowers, and armed with spear and shield,
Or ruder weapon which their course might yield, To Syracuse advance in bright array. Who leads them on?-The anxious people see Long-exiled Dion marching at their head, He also crowned with flowers of Sicily, And in a white, far-beaming, corslet clad! Pure transport undisturbed by doubt or fear The gazers feel; and, rushing to the plain, Salute those strangers as a holy train Or blest procession (to the Immortals dear) That brought their precious liberty again. Lo! when the gates are entered, on each hand, Down the long street, rich goblets filled with wine In seemly order stand,
On tables set, as if for rites divine ;— And, as the great Deliverer marches by,
He looks on festal ground with fruits bestrown; And flowers are on his person thrown
In boundless prodigality;
Nor doth the general voice abstain from prayer, Invoking Dion's tutelary care,
As if a very Deity he were !
Mourn, and lament for him whose spirit dreads Your once sweet memory, studious walks and shades!
For him who to divinity aspired,
Not on the breath of popular applause,
But through dependence on the sacred laws Framed in the schools where Wisdom dwelt retired, Intent to trace the ideal path of right
(More fair than heaven's broad causeway paved with stars)
Which Dion learned to measure with sublime
But He hath overleaped the eternal bars;
And, following guides whose craft holds no consent With aught that breathes the ethereal element, Hath stained the robes of civil power with blood, Unjustly shed, though for the public good. Whence doubts that came too late, and wishes vain, Hollow excuses, and triumphant pain;
And oft his cogitations sink as low
As, through the abysses of a joyless heart, The heaviest plummet of despair can go― But whence that sudden check? that fearful start! He hears an uncouth sound- Anon his lifted eyes
Saw, at a long-drawn gallery's dusky bound, A Shape of more than mortal size And hideous aspect, stalking round and round! A woman's garb the Phantom wore, And fiercely swept the marble floor,- Like Auster whirling to and fro,
His force on Caspian foam to try; Or Boreas when he scours the snow That skins the plains of Thessaly, Or when aloft on Mænalus he stops His flight, 'mid eddying pine-tree tops!
So, but from toil less sign of profit reaping, The sullen Spectre to her purpose bowed, Sweeping-vehemently sweeping- No pause admitted, no design avowed! "Avaunt, inexplicable Guest!-avaunt," Exclaimed the Chieftain-"let me rather see The coronal that coiling vipers make; The torch that flames with many a lurid flake, And the long train of doleful pageantry Which they behold, whom vengeful Furies haunt; Who, while they struggle from the scourge to flee, Move where the blasted soil is not unworn, And, in their anguish, bear what other minds have
But Shapes that come not at an earthly call, Will not depart when mortal voices bid; Lords of the visionary eye whose lid,
Once raised, remains aghast, and will not fall! Ye Gods, thought He, that servile Implement Obeys a mystical intent!
Your Minister would brush away
The spots that to my soul adhere; But should she labour night and day, They will not, cannot disappear; Whence angry perturbations,—and that look Which no Philosophy can brook!
Ill-fated Chief! there are whose hopes are built Upon the ruins of thy glorious name; Who, through the portal of one moment's guilt, Pursue thee with their deadly aim!
O matchless perfidy! portentous lust Of monstrous crime !—that horror-striking blade, Drawn in defiance of the Gods, hath laid The noble Syracusan low in dust! Shudder'd the walls-the marble city wept- And sylvan places heaved a pensive sigh; But in calm peace the appointed Victim slept, As he had fallen in magnanimity; Of spirit too capacious to require
That Destiny her course should change; too just To his own native greatness to desire That wretched boon, days lengthened by mistrust. So were the hopeless troubles, that involved The soul of Dion, instantly dissolved. Released from life and cares of princely state, He left this moral grafted on his Fate; "Him only pleasure leads, and peace attends, Him, only him, the shield of Jove defends, Whose means are fair and spotless as his ends.'
Mockery-or model roughly hewn, And left as if by earthquake strewn, Or from the Flood escaped: Altars for Druid service fit; (But where no fire was ever lit, Unless the glow-worm to the skies Thence offer nightly sacrifice) Wrinkled Egyptian monument; Green moss-grown tower; or hoary tent; Tents of a camp that never shall be raised- On which four thousand years have gazed!
Ye plough-shares sparkling on the slopes! Ye snow-white lambs that trip Imprisoned 'mid the formal props Of restless ownership!
Ye trees, that may to-morrow fall To feed the insatiate Prodigal ! Lawns, houses, chattels, groves, and fields, All that the fertile valley shields; Wages of folly-baits of crime, Of life's uneasy game the stake, Playthings that keep the eyes awake Of drowsy, dotard Time ;-
O care! O guilt!--O vales and plains, Here, 'mid his own unvexed domains, A Genius dwells, that can subdue At once all memory of You,- Most potent when mists veil the sky, Mists that distort and magnify; While the coar parse rushes, to the sweeping tre Sigh forth their ancient melodies!
List to those shriller notes !—that march Perchance was on the blast, When, through this Height's inverted arch. Rome's earliest legion passed! -They saw, adventurously impelled, And older eyes than theirs beheld, This block-and yon, whose church-like fr Gives to this savage Pass its name. Aspiring Road! that lov'st to hide Thy daring in a vapoury bourn, Not seldom may the hour return When thou shalt be my guide: And I (as all men may find cause, When life is at a weary pause, And they have panted up the hill Of duty with reluctant will)
Be thankful, even though tired and faint, For the rich bounties of constraint ; Whence oft invigorating transports flos That choice lacked courage to bestow!
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