ODE TO SUPERSTITION1 I. 1. HENCE, to the realms of Night, dire demon, hence! Clot his shaggy mane with gore, With flashing fury bid his eye-balls shine; Thy touch, thy deadening touch has steel'd the breast, Whence, through her April-shower, soft Pity smiled; When, with a frown that froze the peopled earth,3 And, brooding, gave her shapeless shadows birth, Ha! what withering phantoms glare! As blows the blast with many a sudden swell, At each dead pause, what shrill-toned voices yell! The sheeted spectre, rising from the tomb, Points to the murderer's stab, and shudders by; In every grove is felt a heavier gloom, That veils its genius from the vulgar eye: The spirit of the water rides the storm, And, through the mist, reveals the terrors of his form. I. 3. O'er solid seas, where Winter reigns, Each potent spell thou badest him know. Smit by the scorchings of the noontide beam. Blooming in her bridal vest: She hurls the torch! she fans the fire! To die is to be blest: She clasps her lord to part no more, The Sisters sail in dusky state,3 1 Written in early youth. 2 The sacrifice of Iphigenia. 3 Lucretius, I. 63. 4 The funeral rite of the Hindoos. While the lone shepherd, near the shipless main,' Sees o'er her hills advance the long-drawn funeral train. II. 1. Thou spakest, and lo! a new creation glow'd. And at its base the trembling nations bow'd. Grasp'd the globe with iron hand. spheres ; The indignant pyramid sublimely towers, And braves the efforts of a host of years. Sweet Music breathes her soul into the wind; And bright-eyed Painting stamps the image of the mind. II. 2. Round their rude ark old Egypt's sorcerers rise! But ah! what myriads claim the bended knee!' II. 3. On yon hoar summit, mildly bright® High o'er the world, the white-robed Magi gaze 5 The Fates of the Northern Mythology. See Mallet's An- I. 131. tiquities. 9 Æn. VI. 46, etc. The Sibyl speaks, the dream is o'er, Breathing a prophetic flame. The cavern frowns; its hundred mouths unclose! And in the thunder's voice, the fate of empire flows! III. 1. Mona, thy Druid-rites awake the dead! Rites thy brown oaks would never dare Rites that have chain'd old Ocean on his bed. Thy magic bids the imperial eagle fly,' III. 2. Lo, steel-clad War his gorgeous standard rears! In cloister'd solitude she sits and sighs, Lord of each pang the nerves can feel, Pure as the mountain-snows: She smiles! and where is now the cloud 1 See Tacitus, l. xiv, c. 29. 2 This remarkable event happened at the siege and sack of Jerusalem, in the last year of the eleventh century. Matth. Paris, p. 34. Her touch unlocks the day-spring from above, And lo! it visits man with beams of light and love, VERSES WRITTEN TO BE SPOKEN BY MRS. SIDDONS.' YES, 't is the pulse of life! my fears were vain I wake, I breathe, and am myself again. Still in this nether world; no seraph yet! Nor walks my spirit, when the sun is set, With troubled step to haunt the fatal board, Where I died last-by poison or the sword; Blanching each honest cheek with deeds of night Done here so oft by dim and doubtful light. -To drop all metaphor, that little bell Call'd back reality, and broke the spell. No heroine claims your tears with tragic tone; A very woman-scarce restrains her own! Can she, with fiction, charm the cheated mind, When to be grateful is the part assign'd? Ah no! she scorns the trappings of her Art; No theme but truth, no prompter but the heart! But, Ladies, say, must I alone unmask? Is here no other actress? let me ask. Believe me, those, who best the heart dissect, Know every Woman studies stage-effect. She moulds her manners to the part she fills, As Instinct teaches, or as Humor wills; And, as the grave or gay her talent calls, Acts in the drama till the curtain falls. First, how her little breast with triumph swe.ls When the red coral rings its golden bells! To play in pantomime is then the rage, Along the carpet's many-color'd stage; Or lisp her merry thoughts with loud endeavor, Now here, now there-in noise and mischief ever A school-girl next, she curls her hair in papers And mimics father's gout, and mother's vapors ; Discards her doll, bribes Betty for romances; Playful at church, and serious when she dances; Tramples alike on customs and on toes, And whispers all she hears to all she knows; Terror of caps, and wigs, and sober notions! A romp! that longest of perpetual motions! -Till tamed and tortured into foreign graces, She sports her lovely face at public places; And with blue, laughing eyes, behind her fan, First acts her part with that great actor, MAN. Too soon a flirt, approach her and she flies! Frowns when pursued, and, when entreated, sighs! Plays with unhappy men as cats with mice; Till fading beauty hints the late advice. Her prudence dictates what her pride disdain'd, And now she sues to slaves herself had chain'd! Then comes that good old character, a Wife, With all the dear distracting cares of life; A thousand cards a day at doors to leave, And, in return, a thousand cards receive; Rouge high, play deep, to lead the ton aspire, With nightly blaze set Portland-place on fire; Snatch half a glimpse at Concert, Opera, Ball, A meteor, traced by none, though seen by all; 1 After a Tragedy, performed for her benefit, at the Theatre Royal in Drury-lane, April 27, 1795. And, when her shatter'd nerves forbid to roam, In very spleen-rehearse the girls at home. Last, the grey Dowager, in ancient flounces, With snuff and spectacles the age denounces; Boasts how the Sires of this degenerate Isle Knelt for a look, and duell'd for a smile. The scourge and ridicule of Goth and Vandal, Her tea she sweetens, as she sips, with scandal; With modern Belles eternal warfare wages, Like her own birds that clamor from their cages; And shuffles round to bear her tale to all, Like some old Ruin, " nodding to its fall!” Thus Woman makes her entrance and her exit; Not least an actress, when she least suspects it. Yet Nature oft peeps out and mars the plot, Each lesson lost, each poor pretence forgot; Full oft, with energy that scorns control, At once lights up the features of the soul; Unlocks each thought chain'd down by coward Art, And to full day the latent passions start! FROM EURIPIDES. THERE is a streamlet issuing from a rock. The village-girls, singing wild madrigals, Dip their white vestments in its waters clear, And hang them to the sun. There first I saw her Her dark and eloquent eyes, mild, full of fire, "T was heaven to look upon; and her sweet voice As tunable as harp of many strings, At once spoke joy and sadness to my soul! Dear is that valley to the murmuring bees; CAPTIVITY. CAGED in old woods, whose reverend echoes wake THE Sailor sighs as sinks his native shore, Ah! now each dear, domestic scene he knew, Recall'd and cherish'd in a foreign clime, Charms with the magic of a moonlight view; Its colors mellow'd, not impair'd, by time. True as the needle, homeward points his heart, Through all the horrors of the stormy main; This, the last wish that would with life depart, To see the smile of her he loves again. When Morn first faintly draws her silver line, Or Eve's grey cloud descends to drink the wave When sea and sky in midnight-darkness join, Still, still he views the parting look she gave. Her gentle spirit, lightly hovering o'er, Carved is her name in many a spicy grove, But lo, at last he comes with crowded sail! -Tis she, 't is she herself! she waves her hand! Soon is the anchor cast, the canvas furl'd; Soon through the whitening surge he springs to land, And clasps the maid he singled from the world. TO AN OLD OAK. Immota manet; multosque nepotes, Multa virum volvens durando sæcula, vincit. Virg. ROUND thee, alas, no shadows move! There once the steel-clad knight reclined, Then Culture came, and days serene; Father of many a forest deep, Wont in the night of woods to dwell, Thy singed top and branches bare TO TWO SISTERS.1 WELL may you sit within, and, fond of grief, Oh she was great in mind, though young in years! Changed is that lovely countenance, which shed Those lips so pure, that moved but to persuade 1 On the death of a younger sister. Yet has she fled the life of bliss below, And now in joy she dwells, in glory moves! ON A TEAR. OH! that the Chemist's magic art Sweet drop of pure and pearly light! Benign restorer of the soul! The sage's and the poet's theme, That very law which moulds a tear, And bids it trickle from its source, That law preserves the earth a sphere, And guides the planets in their course. TO A VOICE THAT HAD BEEN LOST. Vane, quid affectas faciem mihi ponere, pictor? Et, si vis similem pingere, pinge sonum. Ausonius. ONCE more, Enchantress of the soul, Once more we hail thy soft control. -Yet whither, whither didst thou fly? To what bright region of the sky? Say, in what distant star to dwell? (Of other worlds thou seem'st to tell) Or trembling, fluttering here below, Resolved and unresolved to go, In secret didst thou still impart Thy raptures to the pure in heart? Perhaps to many a desert shore, Thee, in his rage, the Tempest bore; Thy broken murmurs swept along, 'Mid Echoes yet untuned by song; Arrested in the realms of Frost, Far happier thou! 't was thine to soar, Yet round her couch indulgent Fancy drew She moved her lips to bless thee, and expired. To thee, how changed! comes as she ever came, Nor less, less oft, as on that day, appears, And nursed thy infant years with many a strain For ever lovely in the light of Youth! FROM A GREEK EPIGRAM. WHILE on the cliff with calm delight she kneels, TO THE FRAGMENT OF A STATUE OF HERCULES, AND dost thou still, thou mass of breathing stone, What though the Spirits of the North, that swept ΤΟ AH! little thought she, when, with wild delight, That in her veins a secret horror slept, That her light footsteps should be heard no more, 1 Mrs. Sheridan's. 2 In the gardens of the Vatican, where it was placed by Julius II. it was long the favorite study of those great men to whom we owe the revival of the arts, Michael Angelo, Raphael, and the Carracci. 3 Once in the possession of Praxiteles, if we may believe an ancient epigram on the Guidian Venus.-Analecta Vet. Poetarum, III. 200. 4 On the death of her sister. WRITTEN IN A SICK CHAMBER. THE BOY OF EGREMOND.' "SAY, what remains when Hope is fled?" At Embsay rung the matin-bell, There now the matin-bell is rung; 1 In the twelfth century William Fitz-Duncan laid waste the valleys of Craven with fire and sword; and was afterwards established there by his uncle, David, King of Scotland. He was the last of the race; his son, commonly called the Boy of Egremond, dying before him in the manner here related; when a Priory was removed from Embsay to Bolton, that it might be as near as possible to the place where the accident happened. That place is still known by the name of the Strid; and the mother's answer, as given in the first stanza, is to this day often repeated in Wharfedale.-See Whitaker's Hist. of Craven. |