APPENDIX

POMPEII.

A POEM WHICH OBTAINED THE CHANCELLOR'S MEDAL AT THE CAMBRIDGE COMMENCEMENT

1819.

JULY,

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OH! land to Memory and to Freedom dear, Heedless, like him, the impending stroke await, Land of the melting lyre and conquering spear, And sport and wanton on the brink of fore. Land of the vine-clad hill, the fragrant grove, What 'vails it that where yonder heights aspire, Of arts and arms, of Genius and of Love,

With ashes piled, and scathed with rills of fire, Hear, fairest Italy. Though now no more Gigantic phantoms dimly seem to glide, * The glittering eagles awe the Atlantic shore, In misty files, along the mountain's side, Nor at thy feet the gorgeous Orient flings To view with threatening scowl your fated lands, The blood-bought treasures of her tawny Kings, And toward your city point their shadowy hands? Though vanished all that formed thine old renown, In vain celestial omens prompted fear, The laurel garland, and the jewelled crown, And nature's signal spoke the ruin near. The avenging poniard, the victorious sword, In vain through many a night ye viewed from far Which reared thine empire, or thy rights restored, The meteor flag of elemental war Yet still the constant Muses haunt thy shore, Unroll its blazing folds from yonder height, And love to linger where they dwelt of yore. In fearful sign of earth's intestine fight. If e'er of old they deigned, with favouring smile, In vain Vesuvius groaned with wrath supprest, To tread the sea-girt shores of Albion's isle, And muttered thunder in his burning breast. To smooth with classic arts our rugged tongue, Long since the Eagle from that flaming peak And warm with classic glow the British song, Hath soared with screams a safer nest to seek. Oh! bid them snatch their silent harps which wave Awed by the infernal beacon's fitful glare, On the lone oak that shades thy Maro's grave, The howling fox hath left his wonted lair; And sweep with magic hand the slumbering strings, Nor dares the browsing goat in venturous leap To fire the poet.-For thy clime he sings, To spring, as erst, from dizzy steep to steep.Thy scenes of gay delight and wild despair, Man only mocks the peril. Man alone Thy varied forms of awful and of fair.

Defies the sulphurous flame, the warning groan. How rich that climate's sweets, how wild its While instinct, humbler guardian, wakes and saves, storms,

Proud reason sleeps, nor knows the doom it braves. What charms array it, and what rage deforms, But see the opening theatre invites Well have they mouldering walls, Pompeii

, known, The fated myriads to its gay delights. Decked in those charms, and by that rage o'er- In, in, they swarm, tumultuous as the roar thrown.

Of foaming breakers on a rocky shore. Sad City, gayly dawned thy latest day,

The enraptured throng in breathless transport views And poured its radiance on a scene as gay. The gorgeous temple of the Tragic Muse. T'ke leaves scarce rustled in the sighing breeze; There, while her wand in shadowy pomp arrays In azure dimples curled the sparkling seas, Ideal scenes, and forms of other days, And as the golden tide of light they quaffed, Fair as the hopes of youth, a radiant band, Campania's

sunny meads and vineyards laughed, The sister arts around her footstool stand, While gleamed each lichened oak and giant pine To deck their Queen, and lend a milder grace On the far sides of swarthy Apennine.

To the stern beauty of that awful face.
Then mirth and music through Pompeii rung; Far, far, around the ravished eye surveys
Then verdant wreaths on all her portals hung; The sculptured forms of Gods and heroes blaze.
Her sons with solemn rite and jocund lay,

Above the echoing roofs the peal prolong
Hailed the glad splendours of that festal day. Of lofty converse, or melodious song,
With fillets bound the hoary priests advance, While, as the tones of passion sink or swell,
And rosy virgins braid the choral dance.

Admiring thousands own the moral spell,
The rugged warrior here unbends awhile

Melt with the melting strains of fancied wo, His iron front, and deigns a transient smile; With terror sicken, or with transport glow. There, frantic with delight, the ruddy boy

Oh! for a voice like that which pealed of old Scarce treads on earth, and bounds and laughs with Through Salem's cedar courts and shrines of gold, joy.

And in wild accents round the trembling dome From every crowded altar perfumes rise

Proclaimed the havoc of avenging Rome; In billowy clouds of fragrance to the skies. While every palmy arch and sculptured tower The milk-white monarch of the herd they lead, Shook with the footsteps of the parting power. With gilded horns, at yonder shrine to bleed; Such voice might check your tears, which idly streati And while the victim crops the broidered plain, For the vain phantoms of the poet's dream. And frisks and gambols towards the destined fane, They little deem that like himself they stray To death, unconscious, o'er a flowery way;

Dio Cassius relates that figures of gigantic size appeared for some time previous to the destruction of Pom

peil, on the summits of Vesuvius. This appearance was "See Eustace's description of the Tomb of Virgil, on probably occasioned by the fantasti: forns which the Neapolitan coast.

smoke from heter eft

...

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Might bid those terrors rise, those sorrows flow; Yet ere, dire Fiend, thy lingering tortures cease, For other perils, and for nearer wo. (cloud | And all be hushed in sill sepulchral peace,

The hour is come. Even now the sulphurous Those caves shall wilder, darker deeds behold Involves the city in its funeral shroud,

Than e'er the voice of song or fable told, And far along Campania's azure sky

Whate'er dismay may prompt, or madness dare, Expands its dark and boundless canopy. [height, Feasts of the grave, and banquets of despair.The Sun, though throned on heaven's meridian Hide, hide the scene; and o'er the blasting sight Burns red and rayless through that sickly night. Fling the dark veil of ages and of night. Each bosom felt at once the shuddering thrill, Go, seek Pompeii now:-with pensive tread At once the music stopped. The song was still. Roam through the silent city of the dead. None in that cloud's portentous shade might trace Explore each spot, where still, in ruin grand, I'he fearsul changes of another's face.

Her shapeless piles and tottering columns stand, But through that horrid stillness each could hear Where the pale ivy's clasping wreaths o'ershade His neighbour's throbbing heart beat high with fear. The rained temple's moss-clad colonnade,

A moment's pause succeeds. Then wildly rise Or violets on the hearth's cold marble wave, Griet's sobbing plaints and terror's frantic cries. And muse in silence on a people's grave. The gaies recoil; and towards the narrow pass Fear not.-No sign of death thine eyes shall I wild confusion rolls the living mass.

scare, Death-when thy shadowy sceptre waves away No, all is beauty, verdure, fragrance there. From his sad couch the prisoner of decay,

A gentle slope includes the fatal ground 'Though friendship view the close with glistening eye, With odorous shrubs and tufted myriles crowned ; And love's fond lips imbibe the parting sigh, Beneath, o'ergrown with grass, or wreathed with By torture racked, by kindness soothed in vain,

flowers, The soul still clings io being and to pain.

Lie tombs and temples, columns, baths, and towers. But when have wilder terrors clothed thy brow, As if, in mockery, Nature seems to dress Or keener torments edged thy dart than now, In all her charms the beauteous wilderness, When with thy regal horrors vainly strove And bids her gayest flowereis twine and bloom The law of Nature and the power of Love? In sweet profusion o'er a city's tomb. On mothers, babes in vain for mercy call,

With roses here she decks the unirodden path, Beneath the feet of brothers, brothers fall.

With lilies fringes there the stately bath; Behold the dying wretch in vain upraise

The acanthus'* spreading foliage here she weaves Towards yonder well-known face the accusing gaze; Round the gay capital which inocks its leaves; See trampled to the earth the expiring niaid There hangs ihe sides of every mouldering room Clings round her lover's feet, and shrjeks for aid. With tapestry from her own fantastic loom, Vain is the imploring glance, the frenzied cry; Wallflowers and weeds, whose glowing hues supply All, all is fear;—to succour is to die.

With simple grace the purple's Tyrian dye. Saw ye how wild, how red, how broad a light The ruined city sleeps in fragrant shade, Burst on the darkness of that mid-day night, Like the pale corpse of some Athenian maid, As fierce Vesuvius scattered o'er the vale

Whose marble arms, cold brows, and snowy neck Her drilied flames and sheets of burning hail, The fairest flowers of fairest climates deck, Shook hell's wan lightnings from his blazing cone, Meet types of her whose form their wreaths array, And gilded heaven with meteors not its own? Of radiant beauty, and of swift decay.

The morn all blushing rose; but sought in vain Advance, and wander on through crumbling halls, The snowy villas and the flowery plain,

Through prostrate gates and ivied pedestals, The purpled hills with marshalled vineyards gay, Arches, whose echoes now no chariots rouse, The domes that sparkled in the sunny ray. Tombs, on whose summits goats undaunted browse. Where art or nature late hath deck'd the scene Sce where yon ruined wall on earth reclines, With blazing marble or with spangled green, Through weeds and moss the half-seen painting There, streaked by many a fiery torrent's bed,

shines, A boundless waste of hoary ashes spread.

Still vivid midst the dewy cowslips glows, Along that dreary waste where lately rung Or blends its colours with the blushing rose. The festal lay which smiling virgins sung,

Thou lovely, ghastly scene of fair decay,
Where rapture echoed from the warbling lute, In beauty awful, and midst horrors gay,
And the gay dance resounded, all is mute. Renown more wide, more bright shallgild thy name,
Mute!-Is it Fancy shapes that wailing sound Than thy wild charms or fearful doom could claim.
Which faintly murmurs from the blasted ground, Immortal spirits, in whose deathless song
Or live there still, who, breathing in the tomb, Latium and Athens yet their reign prolong,
Curse the dark refuge which delays their doom, And from their thrones of fame and empire hurled,
In massive vaults, on which the incumbent plain Still sway the sceptre of the mental world,
And ruined city heap their weight in vain? You in whose breasts the flames of Pindus beamed,

Oh! who may sing that hour of mortal strife, Whose copious lips with rich persuasion streamed,
When Nature calls on Death, yet clings to life? Whose minds unravelled nature's mystic plan,
Who paint the wretch that draws sepulchral breath, Or traced the mazy labyrinth of man:
A living prisoner in the house of Death?

Bend, glorious spirits, from your blissful bowers,
Pale as the corpse which loads the funeral pile, And broidered couches of unfading flowers,
With face convulsed that writhes a ghastly smile, While round your locks ihe Elysian garlands blow,
Behold him speechless move with hurried pace, With sweeter odours, and with brighter glow,
Incessant, round his dungeon's caverned space, Once more, immorial shades, atoning Fame
Now shrink in terror, and now groan in pain, Repairs the honours of each glorions name.
Gnaw his white lips and strike his burning brain, Behold Pompei's opening vaults restore
Till Fear o'erstrained in stupor dies away,

The long-lost treasures of your ancient lore, And Madness wrests her victim from dismay. The vestal radiance of poeiic fire, His arms sink down; his wild and stony eye The stately buskin and the tuneful lyre, Glares without sight on blackest vacancy. He feels not, sees not: wrapped in senseless trance His soul is still and listless as his glance.

* The capital of the Corinthian pillar is carved, as is One cheerless blank, one rayless mist is there,

well known, in imitation of the acanthus. Mons. de

Chateaubriand, as I have found since this poem was Thoughts, senses, passions, live not with despair.

The wand of eloquence, whose magic sway Now shall thy deathless memory live entwinod The sceptres and the swords of earth obey, With all that conquers, rules, or charms the And every mighty spell, whose strong control

mind, Could nerve or melt, could fire or soo! he the soul. Each lofty thought of Poet or of Sage,

And thou, sad city, raise thy drooping head, Each grace of Virgil's lyre or Tully's page. And share the honours of the glorious dead. Like theirs whose Genius consecrates thy tomb, Had Fare reprieved thee till the frozen North Thy fame shall snatch from time a greener bloom Poured in wild swarms its hoarded millions forth, Shall spread where'er the Muse has rear'd her Till blazing cities marked where Albion trod,

throne, Or Europe quaked beneath the scourge of God,* And live renowned in accents yet unknown; No lasting wreath had graced thy funeral pall, Earth's utmost bounds shall join the glad acclaim, No fame redeemed the horrors of thy fall. And distant Camus bless Pompeii's name.

THE BATTLE OF IV RY.

[Knight's QUARTERLY MAGAZINE, 1824.]

[IIENRY the Fourth, on his accession to the French crown, was opposed by a large part of his subjects, under

the Duke of Mayenne, with the assistance of Spain and Savoy. In March, 1590, he gained a decisive victory over that party at Ivry. Before the battle, he addressed his troops, “My children, if you lose sight of your colours, rally to my white plume-you will always find it in the path to honour and glory." His conduct wag answerable to his promise. Nothing could resist bis impetuous valour, and the leaguers underwent a total and bloody defeat. In the midst of the rout, Henry followed, crying, “Save the French!" and his clemency added & number of the enemies to his own army.

Aikir's Biographical Dictionary ]

Now glory tu the Lord of Hosts, from whom all glories are!
And glory to our Sovereign Liege, King Henry of Navarre !
Now let ihere be the merry sound of music and the dance,
Through thy cornfields green, and sunny vines, oh pleasant land of France
And thou, Rochelle, our own Rochelle, proud city of the waters,
Again let rapture light the eyes of all thy mourning daughters.
As thou wert constant in our ills, be joyous in our joy,
For cold, and stiff, and still are they who wrought thy walls annoy.
Hurrah! hurrah! a single field hath turned the chance of war;
Hurrah! hurrah. for Ivry and King Henry of Navarre.

Oh! how our hearts were beating, when at the dawn of day,
We saw the army of the League drawn out in long array;
With all its priesi-led citizens, and all its rebel peers,
And Appenzel's stout infantry, and Egmont's Flemish spears.
There rode the brood of false Lorraine, the curses of our land!
And dark Mayenne was in the midst, a truncheon in his hand ;
And, as we looked on them, we thought of Seine's empurpled food,
And good Coligni's hoary hair all dabbled with his blood;
And we cried unto the living God, who rules the fate of war,
To fight for his own holy name and Henry of Navarre.

The king is come to marshal us, in all his armour drest,
And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his gallant crest:
He looked upon his people, and a tear was in his eye;
He looked upon the traiiors, and his glance was stern and high.
Right graciously he smiled on us, as rolled from wing to wing,
Down all our line, in deafening shout, “God save our lord, the King.'
“And if my standard-bearer fall, as fall full well he may-
For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray-
Press where ye see my white plume shine, amidst the ranks of war,
And be your oriflamme, to-day, the helmet of Navarre."

Hurrah! the foes are moving! Hark to the mingled din
Of fife, and steed, and trump, and drum, and roaring culverin!
The fiery Duke is pricking fast across Saint Andre's

plain,
With all the hireling chivalry of Guelders and Almayne.
Now by the lips of ihose ye love, fair gentlemen of France,
Charge for the golden lilies now, upon them with the lance!
A thousand spurs are striking deep, a thousand spears in rest,
A thousand knights are pressing close behind the snow-white crest;
And in they burst, and on they rushed, while, like a guiding star,
Amidst the thickest carnage blazed the helmet of Navarre.

• The well-known name of Attila