strength

PART I (excerpt)
...
Where barbarous hordes on Scythian mountains roam,
Truth, Mercy, Freedom, yet shall find a home;
Where'er degraded Nature bleeds and pines,
From Guinea's coast to Sibir's dreary mines,
Truth shall pervade the unfathomed darkness there,
And light the dreadful features of despair.
Hark! the stern captive spurns his heavy load,
And asks the image back that Heaven bestowed.
Fierce in his eye the fire of valour burns,
And, as the slave departs, the man returns.

[Dedicated to George Raffalovich]


In the Years of the Primal Course, in the dawn of terrestrial
birth,
Man mastered the mammoth and horse, and Man was the
Lord of the Earth.

He made him an hollow skin from the heart of an holy tree,
He compassed the earth therien, and Man was the Lord of
the Sea.

He controlled the vigour of steam, he harnessed the light-
ning for hire;
He drove the celestial team, and man was the Lord of the
Fire.

The good Dame Mercy with Dame Charyte
My body buryed full ryght humbly
In a fayre temple of olde antyquyte,
Where was for me a dyryge devoutely
And with many a masse full ryght solempnely;
And over my grave, to be in memory,
Remembraunce made this lytell epytaphy:

"O erthe, on erthe it is a wonders cace
That thou arte blynde and wyll not the knowe.
Though upon erthe thou hast thy dwellynge-place,
Yet erthe at laste must nedes the overthrowe.

When Music, heav'nly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung,
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
Throng'd around her magic cell,
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possest beyond the Muse's painting;
By turns they felt the glowing mind
Disturb'd, delighted, rais'd, refin'd:
Till once, 'tis said, when all were fir'd,
Fill'd with fury, rapt, inspir'd,
From the supporting myrtles round
They snatch'd her instruments of sound;
And as they oft had heard apart

An Ode for Music

When Music, heavenly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung,
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
Thronged around her magic cell,
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possest beyond the Muse's painting:
By turns they felt the glowing mind
Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined;
Till once, 'tis said, when all were fired,
Filled with fury, rapt, inspired,
From the supporting myrtles round
They snatched her instruments of sound,
And, as they oft had heard apart

Ere on my bed my limbs I lay,
It hath not been my use to pray
With moving lips or bended knees ;
But silently, by slow degrees,
My spirit I to Love compose,
In humble trust mine eye-lids close,
With reverential resignation,
No wish conceived, no thought exprest,
Only a sense of supplication ;
A sense o'er all my soul imprest
That I am weak, yet not unblest,
Since in me, round me, every where
Eternal Strength and Wisdom are.

But yester-night I prayed aloud
In anguish and in agony,

I saw, as in a dream sublime,
The balance in the hand of Time.
O'er East and West its beam impended;
And day, with all its hours of light,
Was slowly sinking out of sight,
While, opposite, the scale of night
Silently with the stars ascended.

Like the astrologers of eld,
In that bright vision I beheld
Greater and deeper mysteries.
I saw, with its celestial keys,
Its chords of air, its frets of fire,
The Samian's great Aeolian lyre,
Rising through all its sevenfold bars,

I sat before my glass one day,
And conjured up a vision bare,
Unlike the aspects glad and gay,
That erst were found reflected there -
The vision of a woman, wild
With more than womanly despair.
Her hair stood back on either side
A face bereft of loveliness.
It had no envy now to hide
What once no man on earth could guess.
It formed the thorny aureole
Of hard, unsanctified distress.

Her lips were open - not a sound
Came though the parted lines of red,

ON IDA'S mount the gods were met,
A sportive, jolly, noisy set,
Resolving nectar bowls to quaff,
To revel, riot, sing and laugh;
For gods will frolic now and then,
And err like earth-born sons of men.
From early dawn till setting day
The jocund hours had roll'd away,
When midst the group Apollo rose
This serious question to propose,
Who should succeed upon the throne­
When Jupiter their king was gone?

MARS first his best excuses made,
War his delight and ancient trade;

If I live to be old, for I find I go down,
Let this be my fate: In a country town
May I have a warm house, with a stone at the gate,
And a cleanly young girl to rub my bald pate.
May I govern my passion with an absolute sway,
And grow wiser and better as my strength wears away,
Without gout or stone, by a gentle decay.

Near a shady grove, and a murmuring brook,
With the ocean at distance, whereupon I may look,
With a spacious plain without hedge or stile,