And ever with each pause, that lonely light
Flares hot and scathing on his aching sight.
Alas! no more by golden palaces,
By star-lit founts and Dryad-haunted trees,
Shall Fancy waft her Votary's willing soul.
But on he journey'd through a rugged plain,
Lur'd by the glory of the distant goal,
And in that midnight solitude, though pain
And fever wore his heart-and he could feel
O'er his dim eye the dull film darkly steal,
Yet did he shrink not-though the lip grew pale
And the frame feeble-though the sight might fail
And the lone Night his sad companion be;
Yet on exulting soul !-thy path is clear,
On-on for England and for Liberty!
Yes! though the fierceness of that fiery time
Might sear the holiest spirit into crime,
Though the stern thought of ages, where the drear
And starless Night of bondage dwelt in fear,
Where all her gloomiest spirits were combin'd
To cramp the powers, and check the march of mind,
The grinding priest, the noble's linked thrall,
And the one despot darkening over all ;-
Tho' the harsh memory of such days might well
Sour the stern souls of men who made their path
Thro' blood to freedom;-and the jealous wrath
Of those who girt with snares and foemen feel
They hold their hard-won treasure by the steel
A breath will waken-victory scarce can quell,
And virtue, turn'd to passion, serves to swell,
So that the storms of justice blindly break
And leave the guilty while they wreck the weak :---
Yet were there men and minds in those wild years
More worthy than the Roman's vaunted name
Of the heart's homage due to freedom's fame,
And the sweet tribute of that People's tears,
Who but for their rude worth were crouching now
With Slavery's Cain-like brand upon each brow!
And thou of whom I sing, whose name hath been
Polluted by the Schoolman's bigot breath,
The dull wise fool-the oracle of boys,
Decking lean nothings with the pomp of noise-
Thou who hast twin'd thy laurels ever-green
With those which mingled with wild flowerets bloom
Round sweetest Shakspeare's fairy-haunted tomb
Thine are the holier honors yet to twine
Proud wreaths with Hampden for thy country's shrine.
To thy lone cell-celestial Liberty
Came as a Spirit, and reveal'd to thee
Her seen, and felt, and full divinity!
Call'd with the light from Chaos—round her fee
She saw the dim clouds of long ages march
Shrouding all else the column and the throne,
The blasted laurels and the broken arch;-
Rolling from earth to heaven, and sweeping there
The very Gods from their Olympian seat,
Changing and crumbling in one common scathe
The shrines made hallow'd by a hollow faith,
Without one trace along the empty air;—
But Empires fell-Religions past away,
As life renew'd sprung kindling from decay—
But her nor time-nor chance-nor fate could mar-
But left all bright and glorious as a star.
There—thro' the gloomy records of gone years
The unvarying tale of terrors and of tears—
Thro' wastes of danger, darkness, and distress,
Glow'd the still beauty of her holiness—
Ev'n as the Pillar thro' the desert shone,
Leading the faint, and weak, and weary on,-
Bright thro' the cloud, and calm amid the blast,
To that blest Canaan-which shall come at last!
Thus with the year
Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever during dark
Surround me.
PARADISE LOST, Book VII. line 25.
Though fall'n on evil days,
In darkness, and with dangers compass'd round,
And solitude, yet not alone, while thou
Visit'st my slumbers nightly, or when morn
PARADISE LOST, Book III. line 40.
DAY had arisen in the autumn heaven
Clearly and coldly bright-the yellow leaves
Strew'd the sear earth, or fitfully were driven
Before the wild path of the scattering air.
The swallow from the hospitable eaves
Flew forth exulting on his rapid way,
And thro' the sadness of the waning year
Sung out like Hope-but ev'n as gathering Care
Stern winter comes to mar that matin lay.
Amid the grove the laurel's lonely tree,
Hallow'd by old tradition, still is seen
Dight in the lustre of its deathless green
A smile on Nature's cheek ;-meet type, I ween,
Of that high fame which grows immortally
Thro' time which changes, and thro' storms which sear,
Bright'ning thro' gloom, and freshening o'er decay.
There sate an old man by that living tree
Which bloom'd his humble dwelling-place beside—
The last dim rose which wont to blossom o'er
The threshold, had that morning droop'd and died,
Nipp'd by the withering air; the neighbouring door
Swung on its hinge-within you well might hear
The clock's low murmur bickering on the ear-
And thro' the narrow opening you might see
The sand which rested on the uneven floor,
The dark-oak board-the morn's untasted fare,
The scatter'd volumes, and the antique chair
Which-worn and homely-brought a rest at last
Sweet after all life's struggles with the past.
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