And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes Of famine fed upon all entrails- men Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh; And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand And they were enemies: they met beside Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things For an unholy usage; they raked up, And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath Blew for a little life, and made a flame Which was a mockery; then they lifted up Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld Famine had written Fiend. The world was void, And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropp'd The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave, Diodati, July, 1816. (1) ["Darkness" is a grand and gloomy sketch of the supposed consequences of the final extinction of the Sun and the heavenly bodies; executed, undoubtedly, with great and fearful force, but with something of German exaggeration, and a fantastical solution of incidents. The very conception is terrible above all conception of known calamity, and is too oppressive to the imagination to be contemplated with pleasure, even in the faint reflection of poetry. - JEFFREY.] 1 CHURCHILL'S GRAVE; A FACT LITERALLY RENDERED. I STOOD beside the grave of him who blazed The Gardener of that ground, why it might be And I had not the digging of this grave." (1) [On the sheet containing the original draught of these lines, Lord Byron has written :-"The following poem (as most that I have endea voured to write) is founded on a fact; and this detail is an attempt at a serious imitation of the style of a great poet-its beauties and its defects: I say, the style; for the thoughts I claim as my own. In this, if there be any thing ridiculous, let it be attributed to me, at least as much as to Mr. Wordsworth; of whom there can exist few greater admirers than myself. I have blended what I would deem to be the beauties as well as defects of his style; and it ought to be remembered, that, in such things, whether there be praise or dispraise, there is always what is called a compliment, however unintentional."- El For Earth is but a tombstone, did essay Thus spoke he, "I believe the man of whom And therefore travellers step from out their way Your honour pleases," then most pleased I I see ye, ye profane ones! all the while, In which there was Obscurity and Fame, (1) [Originally Diodati, 1816. -" then most pleased, I shook (1) [The Grave of Churchill might have called from Lord Byron a deeper commemoration; for, though they generally differed in character and genius, there was a resemblance between their history and character. The satire of Churchill flowed with a more profuse, though not a more embittered, stream; while, on the other hand, he cannot be compared to Lord Byron in point of tenderness or imagination. But both these poets PROMETHEUS. I. TITAN! to whose immortal eyes Were not as things that gods despise ; II. Titan! to thee the strife was given The ruling principle of Hate, held themselves above the opinion of the world, and both were followed by the fame and popularity which they seemed to despise. The writings of both exhibit an inborn, though sometimes ill-regulated, generosity of mind, and a spirit of proud independence, frequently pushed to extremes. Both carried their hatred of hypocrisy beyond the verge of prudence, and indulged their vein of satire to the borders of licentiousness. Both died in the flower of their age in a foreign land. — SIR WALTER SCOTT.] |