He who of old would rend the oak
Dream'd not of the rebound; Chain'd by the trunk he vainly broke, Alone-how look'd he round?Thou, in the sternness of thy strength An equal deed hast done at length, And darker fate hast found: He fell, the forest-prowlers' prey; But thou must eat thy heart away!
The Roman, when his burning heart
Was slaked with blood of Rome,
Threw down the dagger-dared depart,
In savage grandeur, home.
He dared depart, in utter scorn
Of men that such a yoke had borne,
Yet left him such a doom!
His only glory was that hour
Of self-upheld abandon'd power.
The Spaniard,3 when the lust of sway
Had lost its quickening spell,
Cast crowns for rosaries away,
An empire for a cell;
A strict accountant of his beads,
A subtle disputant on creeds,
His dotage trifled well:
Yet better had he neither known
A bigot's shrine, nor despot's throne.
1 Milo.
2 Sylla.
3 Charles V.
But thou-from thy reluctant hand
The thunderbolt is wrung
Too late thou leavest the high command To which thy weakness clung;
All evil spirit as thou art,
It is enough to grieve the heart,
To see thine own unstrung;
To think that God's fair world hath been The footstool of a thing so mean;
And earth hath spilt her blood for him, Who thus can hoard his own!
And monarchs bow'd the trembling limb,
And thank'd him for a throne!
Fair freedom! we may hold thee dear,
When thus thy mightiest foes their fear
In humblest guise have shown.
Oh! ne'er may tyrant leave behind
A brighter name to lure mankind!
Thine evil deeds are writ in gore,
Nor written thus in vain-
Thy triumphs tell of fame no more,
Or deepen every stain.
If thou hadst died as honour dies,
Some new Napoleon might arise,
To shame the world again-
But who would soar the solar height,
To set in such a starless night?
Weigh'd in the balance, hero dust
Is vile as vulgar clay;
Thy scales, mortality! are just
To all that pass away;
But yet, methought, the living great
Some higher sparks should animate,
To dazzle and dismay;
Nor deem'd contempt could thus make mirth
Of these, the conquerors of the earth.
And she, proud Austria's mournful flower,
Thy still imperial bride;
How bears her breast the torturing hour?
Still clings she to thy side?
Must she too bend, must she too share
Thy late repentance, long despair,
Thou throneless homicide?
If still she loves thee, hoard that gem,
'T is worth thy vanish'd diadem!
Then haste thee to thy sullen isle,
And gaze upon the sea;
That element may meet thy smile,
It ne'er was ruled by thee!
Or trace with thine all idle hand,
In loitering mood, upon the sand,
That earth is now as free!
That Corinth's pedagogue hath now
Transferr'd his by-word to thy brow.
Thou, Timour! in his captive's cage'
What thoughts will there be thine,
1 The cage of Bajazet, by order of Tamerlane.
While brooding in thy prison'd rage?
But one-« The world was mine:>>>
Unless, like he of Babylon,
All sense is with thy sceptre gone,
Life will not long confine
That spirit pour'd so widely forth-
So long obey'd-so little worth!
Or like the thief of fire from heaven,'
Wilt thou withstand the shock?
And share with him, the unforgiven,
His vulture and his rock?
Foredoom'd by God-by man accurst,
And that last act, though not thy worst,
The very fiend's arch mock;2
He in his fall preserved his pride,
And, if a mortal, had as proudly died!
DEATH OF THE RIGHT HON. R. B. SHERIDAN.
SPOKEN AT DRURY-LANE THEATRE.
WHEN the last sunshine of expiring day
In summer's twilight weeps
Who hath not felt the softness of the hour
Sink on the heart, as dew along the flower?
2 The fiend's arch mock-
To lip a wanton, and suppose her chaste.»
With a pure feeling which absorbs and awes
While Nature makes that melancholy pause,
Her breathing moment on the bridge where Time
Of light and darkness forms an arch sublime,
Who hath not shared that calm so still and deep,
The voiceless thought which would not speak but weep,
A holy concord and a bright regret,
A glorious sympathy with suns that set?
"T is not harsh sorrow-but a tenderer woe,
Nameless, but dear to gentle hearts below,
Felt without bitterness-but full and clear,
A sweet dejection-a transparent tear,
Unmix'd with worldly grief or selfish stain,
Shed without shame-and secret without pain.
Even as the tenderness that hour instils
When summer's day declines along the hills,
So feels the fulness of our heart and eyes
When all of genius which can perish dies.
A mighty spirit is eclipsed-a power
Hath pass'd from day to darkness-to whose hour
Of light no likeness is bequeath'd-no name,
Focus at once of all the
rays of fame!
The flash of wit-the bright intelligence,
The beam of song-the blaze of cloquence,
Set with their sun-but still have left behind
The enduring produce of immortal Mind;
Fruits of a genial morn, and glorious noon,
A deathless part of him who died too soon.
But small that portion of the wondrous whole,
These sparkling segments of that circling soul,
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