Of pleasure only will to all dispense;
That Fount alone unlock, by no distress
Chok'd or turn'd inward; but still issue thence
Unconquer'd cheer, persistent loveliness.
As on the driving cloud the shiny bow,
That gracious thing, made up of tears and light,
Mid the wild rack, and rain that slants below,
Stands smiling forth unmov'd and freshly bright;
As though the spirits of all lovely flowers,
Inweaving each its wreath and dewy crown,
Or ere they sank to earth in vernal showers,
Had built a bridge to tempt the angels down.
Ev'n so, Eliza! on that face of thine,
On that benignant face, whose look alone
(The soul's translucence
Has power to soothe all
through her crystal shrine!)
anguish but thine own-
A beauty hovers still, and ne'er takes wing;
But with a silent charm compels the stern
And fost'ring Genius of the BITTER SPRING,
To shrink aback, and cower upon his urn.
Who then needs wonder if (no outlet found
In passion, spleen, or strife) the FOUNT OF PAIN,
O'erflowing, beats against its lovely mound,
And in wild flashes shoots from heart to brain?
Sleep, and the Dwarf with that unsteady gleam,
On his rais'd lip, that aped a critic smile,
Had passed: yet I, my sad thoughts to beguile,
Lay weaving on the tissue of my dream.
Till audibly at length I cried, as though
Thou hadst indeed been present to my eyes,
O sweet, sweet sufferer! if the case be so,
pray thee be less good, less sweet, less wise!
A FUNERAL SONG FOR THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE.
In its summer pride arrayed,
Low our Tree of Hope is laid!
Low it lies :-in evil hour,
Visiting the bridal bower,
Death hath levelled root and flower.
Windsor, in thy sacred shade,
(This the end of pomp and power!)
Have the rites of death been paid:
Windsor, in thy sacred shade
Is the Flower of Brunswick laid!
"Ye whose relics rest around,
Tenants of this funeral ground!
Know ye, Spirits, who is come,
By immitigable doom
Summoned to the untimely tomb?
Late with youth and splendor crown'd,
Late in beauty's vernal bloom,
Late with love and joyaunce blest;
Never more lamented guest
Was in Windsor laid to rest.
'Henry, thou of saintly worth,
Thou, to whom, thy Windsor gave
Nativity, and name, and grave;
Thou art in this hallowed earth
Cradled for the immortal birth.
Heavily upon his head
Ancestral crimes were visited.
He, in spirit like a child,
Meek of heart and undefiled,
Patiently his crown resigned,
And fixed on heaven his heavenly mind,
Blessing, while he kiss'd the rod,
His Redeemer and his God.
Now may he in realms of bliss
Greet a soul as pure as his.
'Passive as that humble spirit,
Lies his bold dethroner too;
A dreadful debt did he inherit
To his injured lineage due;
Ill-starred prince, whose martial merit
His own England long might rue!
Mournful was that Edward's fame,
Won in fields contested well,
While he sought his rightful claim:
Witness Aire's unhappy water,
Where the ruthless Clifford fell;
And when Wharfe ran red with slaughter,
On the day of Towcester's field,
Gathering, in its guilty flood,
The carnage and the ill-spilt blood,
That forty thousand lives could yield.
Cressy was to this but sport,
Poictiers but a pageant vain,
And the victory of Spain
Seem'd a strife for pastime meant,
And the work of Agincourt
Only like a tournament;
Half the blood which there was spent
Had sufficed again to gain
Anjou and ill-yielded Maine,
Normandy and Aquitaine;
And Our Lady's ancient towers,
Maugre all the Valois' powers,
Had a second time been ours.
A gentle daughter of thy line,
Edward, lays her dust with thine.
Thou, Elizabeth, art here;
Thou to whom all griefs were known;
Who wert placed upon the bier
In happier hour than on the throne.
Fatal daughter, fatal mother!
Father, uncle, sons, and brother,
Mourn'd in blood her elevation;
Raised to that ill-omen'd station,
Woodville, in the realms of bliss,
To thine offspring thou mayst say,
Early death is happiness;
And favour'd in their lot are they
Who are not left to learn below
That length of life is length of woe.
Lightly let this ground be press'd-
A broken heart is here at rest.
'But thou, Seymour, with a greeting,
Such as sisters use at meeting,
Wilt hail her in the seats above,
Joy, and Sympathy, and Love,
Like in loveliness were ye,
By a like lamented doom
Hurried to an early tomb!
While together, spirits blest,
Here your earthly relics rest,
Fellow angels shall ye be
In the angelic company.
'Henry, too, hath here his part;
At the gentle Seymour's side,
With his best-beloved bride,
Cold and quiet, here are laid
The ashes of that fiery heart.
Not with his tyrannic spirit
Shall our Charlotte's soul inherit;
No, by Fisher's hoary head,
By More, the learned and the good,
By Katharine's wrongs, and Boleyn's
blood,
By the life so basely shed
Of the pride of Norfolk's line,
By the axe so often red,
By the fire with martyrs fed,
Hateful Henry, not with thee
May her happy spirit be!
"And here lies one, whose tragic name
A reverential thought may claim;
The murder'd monarch, whom the grave,
Revealing its long secret, gave
Again to sight, that we might spy
His comely face, and waking eye;
There, thrice fifty years, it lay,
Exempt from natural decay,
Unclosed and bright, as if to say,
A plague, of bloodier, baser birth
Than that beneath whose rage he bled,
Was loose upon our guilty earth ;-
Such awful warning from the dead
Was given by that portentous eye-
Then it closed eternally.
'Ye, whose relics rest around,
Tenants of this funeral ground;
Even in your immortal spheres,
What fresh yearnings will ye feel
When this earthly guest appears!
Us she leaves in grief and tears;
But to you will she reveal
Tidings of old England's weal;
Of a righteous war pursued
Long, through evil and through good,
With unshaken fortitude;
Of peace, in battle twice achiev'd;
Of her fiercest foe subdued,
And Europe from the yoke relieved,
Upon that Brabantine plain.
Such the proud, the virtuous story,
Such the great, the endless glory,
Of her father's splendid reign,
He, who wore the sable mail,
Might, at this heroic tale,
Wish himself on earth again.
'One who reverently, for thee,
Raised the strain of bridal verse,
Flower of Brunswick! mournfully
Lays a garland on thy hearse.'
'AN EVENING WALK IN BENGAL,'
By the Late BISHOP HEBER.
Our task is done! on Gunga's breast
The sun is sinking down to rest;
And, moored beneath the tamarind
bough,
Our bark has found its harbour now,
With furled sail, and painted side,
Behold the tiny frigate ride.
Upon her deck, 'mid charcoal gleams,
The Moslems' savoury supper steams,
While all apart, beneath the wood,
The Hindoo cooks his simpler food.
'Come walk with me the jungle through;
If yonder hunter told us true,
Far off, in desert dank and rude,
The tyger holds his solitude;
Nor (taught by recent harm to shun
The thunders of the English gun,)
A dreadful guest but rarely seen,
Returns to scare the village green.
Come boldly on! no venom'd snake
Can shelter in so cool a brake.
Child of the sun! he loves to lie
'Mid Nature's embers, parched and dry,
Where o'er some tower in ruin laid,
The peepul spreads its haunted shade;
Or round a tomb his scales to wreathe,
Fit warder in the gate of death!
Come on! Yet pause! behold us now
Beneath the bamboo's arched bough,
Where, gemming oft that sacred gloom,
Glows the geranium's scarlet bloom,
And winds our path through many a
bower
Of fragrant tree and giant flower;
The ceiba's crimson pomp display'd
O'er the broad plantain's humbler
shade,
And dusk anana's prickly blade ;
While o'er the brake, so wild and fair,
The betel waves his crest in air.
With pendent train and rushing wings,
Aloft the gorgeous peacock springs;
And he, the bird of hundred dyes,
Whose plumes the dames of Ava prize,
So rich a shade, so green a sod,
Our English fairies never trod;
Yet who in Indian bow'r has stood,
But thought on England's "good green
wood ?"
And bless'd, beneath the palmy shade,
Her hazel and her hawthorn glade,
And breath'd a prayer, (how oft in
vain!)
To gaze upon her oaks again?
A truce to thought! the jackall's ery Resounds like sylvan revelry;
And through the trees, yon failing ray Will scantly serve to guide our way.
A shrub whose deep scarlet flowers very much resemble the geranium, and thence called the Indian geranium,
Yet mark! as fade the upper skies,
Each thicket opes ten thousand eyes.
Before, beside us, and above,
The fire-fly lights his lamp of love,
Retreating, chasing, sinking, soaring,
The darkness of the copse exploring;
While to this cooler air confest,
The broad Dhatura bares her breast,,
Of fragrant scent and virgin white,
A pearl around the locks of night!
Still as we pass, in softened hum,
Along the breezy alleys come
The village song, the horn, the drum.
Still as we pass, from bush and briar,
The shrill cigala strikes his lyre;
And, what is she, whose liquid strain
Thrills through yon copse of sugar-cane?
I know that soul-entrancing swell? It is it must be-Philomel!
'Enough, enough, the rustling trees, Announce a shower upon the breeze,The flashes of the summer sky Assume a deeper, ruddier dye; Yon lamp that trembles on the stream, From forth our cabin sheds its beam; And we must early sleep, to find Betimes the morning's healthy wind. But oh with thankful hearts confess Ev'n here there may be happiness?" And He, the bounteous Sire, has given His peace on earth-his hope of heaven !"
|