Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

But redder yet that light shall glow,
On Linden's hills of stained snow,
And bloodier yet the torrent flow
Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

"Tis morn, but scarce yon level sun
Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun,
Where furious Frank, and fiery Hun,
Shout in their sulph'rous canopy.

The combat deepens. On, ye brave,
Who rush to glory, or the grave!
Wave, Munich! all thy banners wave!
And charge with all thy chivalry!

Few, few, shall part where many meet!
The snow shall be their winding sheet,
And every turf beneath their feet
Shall be a soldier's sepulchre.

ON A BLACK MARBLE BOWL THAT BELONGED TO BURNS.

WITH roses crown the sable bowl,
Sweet soother of the wearied soul,
And let the grape abound;

Shed in the 'midst a sprig of bay,
Strew ivy leaves, and myrtle spray,

Let wit and wine flow round.

Braine.

Pour the luxuriant purple stream,
And let each radient goblet beam,
Bright with its brilliant lot;

The bard shall now remembered be,
With rapture hail'd his memory,
Nor the loved maid forgot.

To animate our joys below,

To raise the bosom's blissful glow,
Do thou thy spells apply,

Loved goddess of the tuneful art!
Who twinest round the festive heart,
The bands of melody.

Nor be thou absent, dimpled Mirth!
From thee the frolic Joys had birth,
Then bring them in thy train;

And far away drive pallid Spleen,
With Envy still united seen,

Gay, social Pleasure's bane!

And ye, fell fiends, wan Grief, and Care! With haggard, reckless, gaunt Despair! To howling wilds retire:

No ills shall here our bliss annoy;

No voice, but that of mirth and joy
Resound to rapture's lyre.

Why heaves my breast th' unbidden sigh? Why, to compassion's pensive eye, Spontaneous starts the tear?

Remembrance tells, yon fatal Bowl
The Bard's immortal spirit stole,
And doom'd the untimely bier.

No more the swains of "Bonny Doon" Shall throng to hear his voice attune Its "rural minstrelsy;

With native humour, feeling, fraught, Descriptive truth, energic thought, And heav'n-taught harmony.

Dire Bowl! to grace thy victim dead, Be thy dark sides with cypress spread, Mix'd with the laurel wreath;

While I thy draught Circean shun,

Nor by the chalice be undone,

That stopp'd his tuneful breath,

May thy dark form, in honour due,
Assume a deeper, deadlier hue,
And weeping dews distil;
Genius-Misfortune-sacred pair!
Low in the dust, fall'n in thy snare,
One grave united fill.

To fancy's eye, bedimm'd with tears,
What habitant of heaven appears
In purest white arrayed;

With brow sedate, but not severe,
And air persuasive, hov'ring near,
My just resolve to aid?

Temp'rance whose lip of crimson hue
No ruddy drops of wine bedew,
Of sweetly placid mien;

Whose even pulse no riot knows,

Whose breast with no wild fervour glows,
A sainted maid serene.

And hark! her voice of mildest tone!
"Oh shun the maid of loosen'd zone,
Leave Pleasure, follow me!

The muse shall then propitious here
Thy prayer, and whisper in thy ear
Pure strains of melody.

"Young Health and Peace, my offspring fair, Shall to thy humble roof repair,

With lips exhaling balm;

Shed their kind influence o'er thy mind,

Prompt the firm déed, the thought refined,
The troubled bosom calm.

Though Pleasure, nymph of artful wile
Present the bowl with syren smile,
Abstain for deep beneath,

Though Joys upon the surface swim,

And laughing Loves sport round the brim,
Lurk dire disease and death."

WRITTEN IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

Rogers.

WHOE'ER thou art, approach, and, with a sigh,
Mark where the small remains of Greatness lie.*.
There sleeps the dust of Him for ever gone;
How near the scene where late his glory shone!
And, tho' no more ascends the voice of prayer,
Tho' the last footsteps cease to linger there,
Still, like an awful dream that comes again,
Alas, at best, as transient and as vain,
Still do I see (while thro' the vaults of night
The funeral-song once more proclaims the rite)
The moving pomp along the shadowy isle,
That, like a darkness, filled the solemn pile;
The illustrious line, that in long order led,
Of those, that loved him living, mourned him dead;
Of those the few, that for their country stood
Round him who dared be singularly good;

All, of all ranks, that claimed him for their own;
And nothing wanting-but himself alone!

Oh say,
of him now rests there but a name;
Wont, as he was, to breathe ethereal flame?
Friend of the absent, guardian of the dead!
Who but would here their sacred sorrows shed?
(Such as he shed on NELSON's closing grave;
How soon to claim the sympathy he gave!)

In him, resentful of another's wrong,
The dumb were eloquent, the feeble strong.

After the Funeral of the Right Hon. CHARLES JAMES Fox on
Friday, October 10, 1806.

« AnteriorContinuar »