Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

So Virtue blooms, brought forth amid the storm
Of chill adversity; in some lone walk of life
She rears her head,

Obscure and unobserved,

While every bleaching breeze that on her blows,
Chastens her spotless purity of breast,

And hardens her to bear
Serene the ills of life.

SONNET.

What art thou, Mighty One! and where thy seat?
Thou broodest on the calm that cheers the lands,
And thou dost bear within thine awful hands
The rolling thunders and the lightnings fleet;
Stern on thy dark-wrought car of cloud and wind,
Thou guid'st the northern storm at night's dead noon,
Or, on the red wing of the fierce monsoon,
Disturb'st the sleeping giant of the Ind.
In the drear silence of the polar span

Dost thou repose? or in the solitude

Of sultry tracts, where the lone caravan

Hears nightly howl the tiger's hungry brood? Vain thought! the confines of his throne to trace Who glows through all the fields of boundless space.

BRITAIN A THOUSAND YEARS HENCE.

Where now is Britain?- Where her laurelled names,
Her palaces and halls? Dashed in the dust.

Some second Vandal hath reduced her pride,
And with one big recoil hath thrown her back
To primitive barbarity. Again,

Through her depopulated vales, the scream

Of bloody superstition hollow rings,

And the scared native to the tempest howls
The yell of deprecation. O'er her marts,
Her crowded ports, broods Silence; and the cry
Of the low curlew, and the pensive dash
Of distant billows, breaks alone the void.

Even as the savage sits upon the stone

That marks where stood her capitols, and hears
The bittern booming in the weeds, he shrinks
From the dismaying solitude

[ocr errors]

- Her bards

Sing in a language that hath perished;

And their wild harps, suspended o'er their graves,
Sigh to the desert winds a dying strain.

Meanwhile the arts, in second infancy,

Rise in some distant clime, and then perchance
Some bold adventurer, filled with golden dreams,
Steering his bark through trackless solitudes,
Where, to his wandering thoughts, no daring prow
Hath ever ploughed before espies the cliffs
Of fallen Albion.- To the land unknown
He journeys joyful; and perhaps descries
Some vestige of her ancient stateliness;
Then he, with vain conjecture, fills his mind
Of the unheard-of race, which had arrived

At science in that solitary nook,

Far from the civil world: and sagely sighs
And moralises on the state of man.

THE CHRISTIAD.

(Concluding stanzas, written shortly before his death.)

Thus far have I pursued my solemn theme,
With self-rewarding toil; thus far have sung

Of godlike deeds, far loftier than beseem

The lyric which I in early days have strung; And now my spirits faint, and I have hung The shell, that solaced me in saddest hour,

On the dark cypress; and the strings which rung With Jesus' praise, their harpings now are o'er, Or, when the breeze comes by, moan, and are heard no

more.

And must the harp of Judah sleep again?

Shall I no more reanimate the lay?

Oh! Thou who visitest the sons of men,.

Thou who dost listen when the humble pray,
VOL. XXIV.-16

One little space prolong my mournful day; One little lapse suspend thy last decree!

I am a youthful traveler in the way,

And this slight boon would consecrate to thee, Ere I with Death shake hands, and smile that I am free.

τα

HITE, JOSEPH BLANCO, an English clergyman and poet; born at Seville, Spain, July 11, 1775; died at Liverpool, England, May 20, 1841. He edited in England, in the interests of Spanish independence, a monthly journal, El Español (1810-1814); also Las Variedades (1822-1825); and the London Review (1829). He evolved from a Catholic priest through the Church of England into a Unitarian minister. Some of his publications are: Letters from Spain, by Leucadio Doblado (1822); Practical and Internal Evidence Against Catholicism (1825); The Poor Man's Preservative against Popery (1825); Second Travels of an Irish Gentleman in Search of a Religion (2 vols. 1833). Coleridge pronounced his Night and Death the finest sonnet in the English language.

SONNET ON NIGHT.

Mysterious Night! when our first parent knew
Thee from report divine, and heard thy name.
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,

This glorious canopy of light and blue?
Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew,

Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
Hesperus with the host of heaven came:

And lo! Creation widened in man's view!

[graphic][merged small]
« ElőzőTovább »