The Macedonian's natal hour!
Now here, now there, he takes his stand,
The stablished earth his footsteps jar;
Goads to the fight his vassal band,
While ebbs or flows, at his command,
The torrent of the war!
Could the bard, whose powers sublime
Scaled the heights of epic glory,
And rendered in immortal rhyme

Of Rome's disgrace the blushing storyWhere, formed of treason and of woes, Pharsalia's gory genius rose

Might he again

Renew the strain

That once his truant muse had charmed,
Each foreign tone
Unwaked had lain;
And patriot Spain

And Spain alone

The Spaniard's patriot heart had warmed!

*

Then had the chords proclaimed no more
His deeds, his death, renowned of yore;
Who, when each lingering hope was slain,
And Freedom fought with Fate in vain,
Lone in the city, and reft of all,
While Usurpation stormed the wall,
The tyrant's entrance scorned to see-
But died, with dying Liberty.

Those chords had raised the local strain;
That bard a filial flight had ta'en;
Forgot all else: The ancient past,
Thick in Oblivion's mists o'ercast,
Or past and present both combined
Within the graspings of his mind;
In what now is, viewed what hath been;
The dead within the living seen:
Owned transmigration's strange control,
In Spaniards owned the Cato soul;
And wailed in tones of martial grief
The valiant band and hero chief,
Who shared in Saragossa's doom,
And made their Utica their tomb!
Bright be the amaranth of their fame!
May Palafox a Lucan claim!

That bard no more had filled his rhymes
With Cæsar's greatness, Cæsar's crimes:
Another Cæsar waked the string,
Alike usurper, traitor, king.
Another Cæsar? rashly said!
Forgive the falsehood, mighty shade!
Mongst Julius' treasons, still we know
The faithful friend, the generous foe;
And even enmity† could see
Some virtues of humanity.
But thou! by what accursed name
Shall we denote thy features here?
In records of infernal fame

Where shall we find thy black compeer?
Thou, whose perfidious might of mind
Nor pity moves nor faith can bind,

Whose friends, whose followers vainly crave
That trust which should reward the brave;
Whose foes, mid tenfold war's alarms,
Dread more thy treachery than thine arms:
The Ishmaelite, mid deserts bred,
Who robs at last whom first he fed,
The midnight murderer of the guest
With whom he shared the morning's feast-
This Arab wretch; compared with thee,
Is honor and humanity!

And shall that proud, that ancient land,
In treasure rich, in pageant grand,
Land of romance, where sprang of old
Adventures strange, and champions bold,
Of holy faith, and gallant fight,

And bannered hall, and armored knight,
And tournament, and minstrelsy,
The native land of chivalry!-
Shall all these "blushing honors" bloom
For Corsica's detested son?
These ancient worthies own his sway—
The upstart fiend of yesterday?
Oh, for the kingly sword and shield

That once the victor monarch sped,
What time from Pavia's trophied field
The royal Frank was captive led!
May Charles's laurels, gained for you,
Ne'er, Spaniards, on your brows expire;
Nor the degenerate sons subdue

The conqu'rors of their nobler sire! None higher mid the zodiac line

Of sovereigns and of saints you claim,
Than fair Castilia's star could shine,

And brighten down the sky of fame.
Wise, magnanimous, refined,
Accomplished friend of human kind,
Who first the Genoese sail unfurled-
The mighty mother of an infant world,
Illustrious Isabel !-shall thine,
Thy children, kneel at Gallia's shrine?
No! rise, thou venerated shade,

In Heaven's own armor bright arrayed,
Like Pallas to her Grecian band;
Nerve every heart and every hand;
Pervious or not to mortal sight,
Still guard thy gallant offspring's right,
Display thine ægis from afar,
And lend a thunderbolt to war!

God of battles! from thy throne,

God of vengeance, aid their cause:
Make it, conqu❜ring One, thine own!

"Tis faith, and liberty, and laws.
"Tis for these they pour their blood-
The cause of man, the cause of God!
Not now avenge, All-righteous Power,
Peruvia's red and ruined hour:
Nor mangled Montezuma's head,
Nor Guatamozin's burning bed,
Nor give the guiltless up to fate
For Cortés' crimes, Pizarro's hate!
Thou, who beholdst, enthroned afar,
Beyond the vision of the keenest star,
Far through creation's ample round,
The universe's utmost bound;

Where war in other shape appears,
The destined plague of other spheres,
Other Napoleons arise

To stain the earth and cloud the skies; And other realms in martial ranks succeed, Fight like Iberians, like Iberians bleed.

If an end is e'er designed The dire destroyers of mankind, Oh, be some seraphim assigned To breathe it to the patriot mind. What Brutus bright in arms arrayed, What Corde bares the righteous blade! Or, if the vengeance, not our own, Be sacred to thine arm alone, When shall be signed the blest release And wearied worlds refreshed with peace! Oh, could the muse but dare to rise Far o'er these low and clouded skies, Above the threefold heavens to soar, And in thy very sight implore!— In vain......while angels veil them there, While Faith half fears to lift her prayer, The glance profane shall Fancy dare? Yet there around, a fearful band, Thy ministers of vengeance stand: Lo, at thy bidding stalks the storm; The lightning takes a local form; The floods erect their hydra head; The pestilence forsakes his bed; Intolerable light appears to wait, And far-off darkness stands in awful state!

For thee, O Time!

If still thou speedst thy march of crime
'Gainst all that's beauteous or sublime,
Still provest thyself the sworn ally
And author of mortality-

Infuriate Earth, too long supine,
Whilst demon-like thou lovedst to ride,
Ending every work beside,

Shall live to see the end of thine-
Her great revenge shall see!

By prayer shall move th' Almighty power
To antedate that final hour
When the Archangel firm shall stand
Upon the ocean and the land-
His crown a radiant rainbow sphere,
His echoes seven-fold thunders near-
The last dread fiat to proclaim:
Shall swear by His tremendous name,
Who formed the earth, the heavens and sea,
TIME shall no longer be!

TO ROBERT SOUTHEY.
WRITTEN IN 1812.

O THOU, whom we have known so long, so well,
Thou who didst hymn the Maid of Arc, and framed
Of Thalaba the wild and wondrous song;
And in thy later tale of Times of Old,
Remindest us of our own patriarch fathers,
The Madocs of their age, who planted here
The cross of Christ—and liberty—and peace!
Minstrel of other climes, of higher hopes,
And holier inspirations, who hast ne'er

From her high birth debased the goddess Muse,
To grovel in the dirt of earthly things;
But learned to mingle with her human tones
Some breathings of the harmonies of heaven!
Joyful to meet thee yet again, we hail

Thy last, thy loftiest lay; nor chief we thank thee
For every form of beauty, every light
Bestowed by brilliancy, and every grace
That fancy could invent and taste dispose.
Or that creating, consummating power,
Pervading fervor, and mysterious finish,
That something occult, indefinable,

By mortals genius named; the parent sun
Whence all those rays proceed; the constant fount
To feed those streams of mind; th' informing soul
Whose influence all are conscious of, but none
Could e'er describe; whose fine and subtle nature
Seems like th' aerial forms, which legends say
Greeted the gifted eye of saint or seer,
Yet ever mocked the fond inquirer's aim
To scan their essence!

Such alone, we greet not.

Since genius oft (so oft, the tale is trite)
Employs its golden art to varnish vice,
And bleach depravity, till it shall wear
The whiteness of the robes of Innocence;
And Fancy's self forsakes her truest trade,
The lapidary for the scavenger;

And Taste, regardful of but half her province,
Self-sentenced to a partial blindness, turns
Her notice from the semblance of perfection,
To fix its hoodwinked gaze on faults alone-
And like the owl, sees only in the night,
Not like the eagle, soars to meet the day.
Oblivion to all such!-For thee, we joy
Thou hast not misapplied the gifts of God,
Nor yielded up thy powers, illustrious captives,
To grace the triumph of licentious Wit.

Once more a female is thy chosen theme;
And Kailyal lives a lesson to the sex,
How more than woman's loveliness may blend
With all of woman's worth; with chastened love,
Magnanimous exertion, patient piety,

And pure intelligence. Lo! from thy wand
Even faith, and hope, and charity, receive
Something more filial and more feminine.

Proud praise enough were this; yet is there more:
That neath thy splendid Indian canopy,
By fairy fingers woven, of gorgeous threads,
And gold and precious stones, thou hast enwrapped
Stupendous themes that Truth divine revealed,
And answering Reason owned: naught more sub-
Beauteous, or useful, e'er was charactered [lime,
On Hermes' mystic pillars-Egypt's boast,
And more, Pythagoras' lesson, when the maze
Of hieroglyphic meaning awed the world!

Could Music's potent charm, as some believed, Have warmth to animate the slumbering dead, And "lap them in Elysium," second only To that which shall await in other worlds, How would the native sons of ancient India Unclose on thee that wondering, dubious eye, Where admiration wars with incredulity! Sons of the morning! first-born of creation! What would they think of thee-thee, one of us,

Sprung from a later race, on whom the ends
Of this our world have come, that thou shouldst pen
What Varanasi's* venerable towers
In all their pride and plenitude of power,
Ere Conquest spread her bloody banner o'er them,
Or Ruin trod upon their hallowed walls,
Could ne'er excel, though stored with ethic wisdom,
And epic minstrelsy, and sacred lore!
For there, Philosophy's Gantamit first

Taught man to measure mind; there Valmic hymn'd
The conqu'ring arms of heaven-descended Rama;
And Calidasa and Vyasa there,

At different periods, but with powers the same,
The Sanscrit song prolonged-of Nature's works,
Of human woes, and sacred Chrishna's ways.
That it should e'er be thine, of Europe born,
To sing of Asia! that Hindostan's palms
Should bloom on Albion's hills, and Brama's Vedas
Meet unconverted eyes, yet unprofaned!
And those same brows the classic Thames had bath'd
Be laved by holy Ganges! while the lotus,
Fig-tree, and cusa, of its healing banks,
Should, with their derva's vegetable rubies,
Be painted to the life!....Not truer touches,
On plane-tree arch above, or roseate carpet,
Spread out beneath, were ever yet employed
When their own vale of Cashmere was the subject,
Sketched by its own Abdallah!

He, too,
, of thine own land, who long since found
A refuge in his final sanctuary,
From regal bigotry-could thy voice reach him,
His awful shade might greet thee as a brother
In sentiment and song; that epic genius,
From whom the sight of outward things was taken
By Heaven in mercy-that the orb of vision
Might totally turn inward-there concentred
On objects else perhaps invisible,
Requiring and exhausting all its rays;
Who (like Tiresias, of prophetic fame)
Talked with Futurity!-that patriot poet,
Poet of paradise, whose daring eye

Explored "the living throne, the sapphire blaze,”
"But blasted with excess of light," retired,
And left to thee to compass other heavens
And other scenes of being!-

Bard beloved
Of all who virtue love-revered by all
That genius reverence-SOUTHEY! if thou art
"Gentle as bard beseems," and if thy life
Be lovely as thy lay, thou wilt not scorn
This rustic wreath; albeit 't was entwined
Beyond the western waters, where I sit
And bid the winds that wait upon their surges,
Bear it across them to thine island-home.
Thou wilt not scorn the simple leaves, though culled
From that traduced, insulted spot of earth,
Of which thy contumelious brethren oft
Frame fables, full as monstrous in their kind
As e'er Munchausen knew-with all his falsehood,
Guiltless of all his wit! Not such art thou—
Surely thou art not, if, as Rumor tells,
Thyself in the high hour of hopeful youth

Had cherished nightly visions of delight,
And day-dreams of desire, that lured thee on
To see these sister states, and painted to thee
Our frowning mountains and our laughing vales,
The countless beauties of our varied lakes,
The dim recesses of our endless woods,
Fit haunt for sylvan deities; and whispered
How sweet it were in such deep solitude,
Where human foot ne'er trod, to raise thy hut,
To talk to Nature, but to think of man.
Then thou, perchance, like Scotia's darling son,
Hadst sung our Pennsylvanian villages,
Our bold Oneidas, and our tender Gertrudes,
And sung, like him, thy listeners into tears.
Such were thy early musings: other thoughts,
And happier, doubtless, have concurred to fix thee
On Britain's venerated shore; yet still
Must that young thought be tenderly remembered,
Even as romantic minds are sometimes said
To cherish their first love-not that 'twas wisest,
But that 't was earliest.......If that morning dream
Still lingers to thy noon of life, remember,
And for its own dear sake, when thou shalt hear
(As oft, alas! thou wilt) those gossip tales,
By lazy Ignorance or inventive Spleen,
Related of the vast, the varied country,
We proudly call our own-oh! then refute them
By the just consciousness that still this land
Has turned no adder's ear toward thy Muse
That charms so wisely; that whene'er her tones,
Mellowed by distance, o'er the waters come,
They meet a band of listeners-those who hear
With breath-suspending eagerness, and feel
With feverish interest. Be this their praise,
And sure they'll need no other! Such there are,
Who, from the centre of an honest heart,
Bless thee for ministering to the purest pleasure
That man, whilst breathing earthly atmosphere,
In this minority of being, knows-

That of contemplating immortal verse,
In fit communion with immortal Truth!

I look abroad among thy works-the sky,
Vast, distant, glorious with its world of suns-
Life-giving earth, and ever-moving main,
And speaking winds-and ask if these are thee!
The stars that twinkle on, the eternal hills,
The restless tide's outgoing and return,
The omnipresent and deep-breathing air-
Though hailed as gods of old, and only less,
Are not the Power I seek; are thine, not thee!
I ask thee from the past: if, in the years,
Since first intelligence could search its source,
Or in some former unremembered being,
(If such, perchance, were mine), did they behold
And next interrogate Futurity,

[thee?

So fondly tenanted with better things
Than e'er experience owned-but both are mute;
And Past and Future, vocal on all else,

So full of memories and phantasies,

Are deaf and speechless here! Fatigued, I turn
From all vain parley with the elements,
[ward
And close mine eyes, and bid the thought turn in-
From each material thing its anxious guest,
If, in the stillness of the waiting soul,
He may vouchsafe himself Spirit to spirit!
O Thou, at once most dreaded and desired,
Pavilioned still in darkness, wilt thou hide thee?
What though the rash request be fraught with fate,
Nor human eye may look on thine and live?
Welcome the penalty! let that come now,
Which soon or late must come.
Who would not dare to die?

For light like this

Peace, my proud aim,

And hush the wish that knows not what it asks.
Await His will, who hath appointed this,
With every other trial. Be that will
Done now, as ever. For thy curious search,
And unprepared solicitude to gaze

On Him-the Unrevealed-learn hence, instead,
To temper highest hope with humbleness.
Pass thy novitiate in these outer courts,
Till rent the veil, no longer separating
The Holiest of all-as erst, disclosing
A brighter dispensation; whose results
Ineffable, interminable, tend

Even to the perfecting thyself-thy kind-
Till meet for that sublime beatitude,
By the firm promise of a voice from heaven
Pledged to the pure in heart!

ANOTHER "CASTLE IN THE AIR."

"TO ME, like Phidias, were it given

To form from clay the man sublime,
And, like Prometheus, steal from heaven
The animating spark divine!"
Thus once in rhapsody you cried:

As for complexion, form, and air,
No matter what, if thought preside,

And fire and feeling mantle there. Deep on the tablets of his mind

Be learning, science, taste, imprest;
Let piety a refuge find

Within the foldings of his breast.
Let him have suffered much-since we,
Alas! are early doomed to know,
All human virtue we can see

Is only perfected through wo.
Purer the ensuing breeze we find

When whirlwinds first the skies deform; And hardier grows the mountain Kind Bleaching beneath the wintry storm. But, above all, may Heaven impart That talent which completes the wholeThe finest and the rarest artTo analyze a woman's soul. Woman-that happy, wretched being,

Of causeless smile, of nameless sigh, So oft whose joys unbidden spring,

So oft who weeps, she knows not why!

Her piteous griefs, her joys so gay,
All that afflicts and all that cheers;
All her erratic fancy's play,

Her fluttering hopes, her trembling fears.
With passions chastened, not subdued,
Let dull inaction stupid reign;
Be his the ardor of the good,

Their loftier thought and nobler aim.
Firm as the towering bird of Jove,
The mightiest shocks of life to bear;
Yet gentle as the captive dove,
In social suffering to share.

If such there be, to such alone

Would I thy worth, beloved, resign; Secure, each bliss that time hath known Would consummate a lot like thine.

But if this gilded human scheme

Be but the pageant of the brain,

Of such slight "stuff" as forms our "dream," Which, waking, we must seek in vain.

Each gift of nature and of art

Still lives within thyself enshrined;
Thine are the blossoms of the heart,
And thine the scions of the mind!

And if the matchless wreath shall blend
With foliage other than its own,
Or, destined not its sweets to lend,
Shall flourish for thyself alone-
Still cultivate the plants with care;
From weeds, from thorns, oh keep them free,
Till, ripened for a purer air,

They bloom in immortality!

AMERICAN SCENERY.

FROM A POEM ON THE DEATH OF CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN.

THOUGH Nature, with unsparing hand, Has scattered round thy favored land Those gifts that prompt the aspiring aim, And fan the latent spark to flame : Such awful shade of blackening woods, Such roaring voice of giant floods, Cliffs, which the dizzied eagles flee, Such cataracts, tumbling to the sea, That in this lone and wild retreat A Collins might have fixed his seat, Called Horror from the mountain's brow, Or Danger from the depths belowAnd then, for those of milder mood, Heedless of forest, rock, or flood, Gay fields, bedecked with golden grain, Rich orchards, bending to the plain, Where Sydney's fairy pen had failed, Which Mantuan Maro's muse had hailedYet, midst this luxury of scene, These varied charms, this graceful mien, Canst thou no hearts, no voices, raise, Those charms to feel, those charms to praise!