Yes-the proud heart will ever Prompt the false tongue's reply; An omnipresent Providence Still madly he'll deny. But see the unbeliever
Sinking in death's decay;
And hear the cry of penitence !
He never learnt to pray.
8. THE DREAM OF DARKNESS.
I HAD a dream; and yet, methought, It was not all a dream:
'Mid darkness brooding wide, I sought, But found no cheering beam.
At first there was one flickering ray, Which shot athwart the gloom, Like ghastly smile on rotting clay, Within the cold, damp tomb.
Long hours I strove, with painful gasp, To catch one breath of light; But at my throat a demon's grasp Seemed laid with deadly might.
That glimmer fled, I cursed my birth; I cursed the sun that gave;
For darkness pressed, like trodden earth, Upon a live man's grave.
Cold on my limbs, as on the dead, A clammy mold there came;
Foul slimy worms crawled there and fed― They gnawed my wasting frame.
A fire-fly once came flitting by ; A moment-it was gone:
I saw (and prayed that I might die) A sister's skeleton.
RICHARD BACON, JR.-THOMAS HOOD.
That was the last! Like guilty men, To black perdition hurled, No ray of hope was left me then- For darkness was the world.
9. I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER.
I REMEMBER, I remember,
The house where I was born; The little window where the sun Came peeping in at morn: He never came a wink too soon, Nor brought too long a day; But now, I often wish the night Had borne my breath away ! I remember, I remember,
The roses-red and white; The violets and the lily-cups, Those flowers made of light! The lilacs where the robin built, And where my brother set The laburnum on his birth-day,- The tree is living yet!
I remember, I remember,
Where I was used to swing; And thought the air must rush as fresh To swallows on the wing.
My spirit flew in feathers then,
That is so heavy now,
And summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow!
I remember, I remember,
The fir-trees dark and high; I used to think their slender tops Were close against the sky :
It was a childish ignorance,
But now 'tis little joy
To know I'm further off from heaven
Than when I was a boy.
GOLD! gold gold! gold! Bright and yellow, hard and cold, Molten, graven, hammered and rolled; Heavy to get and light to hold; Hoarded, bartered, bought and sold, Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled: Spurned by the young, but hugged by the old, To the very verge of the church-yard mold; Price of many a crime untold! Gold! gold! gold! gold!
Good or bad a thousand-fold!
How widely its agencies vary,
To save-to ruin-to curse-to bless
As even its minted coins express;
Now stamped with the image of Good Queen Bess, And now of a Bloody Mary!
HONOR, thou blood-stained god! at whose red altar Sit war and homicide, oh, to what madness Will insult drive thy votaries! By heaven!
In the world's range there does not breathe a man Whose brutal nature I more strove to soothe, With long forbearance, kindness, courtesy, Than his who fell by me. But he disgraced me, Stained me: oh, death and shame! the world looked on, And saw this sinewy savage strike me down; Rain blows upon me, drag me to and fro, On the base earth, like carrion. Desperation, In every fibre of my frame, cried vengeance! I left the room, which he had quitted: chance- Curse on the chance !-while boiling with my wrongs, Thrust me against him, darkling, in the street: I stabbed him to the heart; and my oppressor
Rolled lifeless at my foot.
E'en at the moment when I gave the blow, Butchered a fellow-creature in the dark,
I had all good men's love. But my disgrace, And my opponent's death, thus linked with it, Demanded notice of the magistracy.
They summoned me, as friend would summon friend, To acts of import and communication.
We met; and 'twas resolved, to stifle rumor, To put me on my trial. No accuser,
No evidence appeared to urge it on:
'Twas meant to clear my fame. How clear it then? How cover it? you say. Why, by a lie;
Guilt's offspring and its guard. I taught this breast, Which truth once made her throne, to forge a lie ; This tongue to utter it; rounded a tale,
Smooth as a seraph's song from Satan's mouth; So well compacted, that the o'erthronged court Disturbed cool justice in her judgment-seat, By shouting "innocence !" ere I had finished. The court enlarged me; and the giddy rabble Bore me in triumph home. Ay! look upon me. I know thy sight aches at me.
I ask no consolation.
Hurt honor, in an evil, curséd hour,
Drove me to murder-lying: 'twould again. My honesty, sweet peace of mind, all, all Are bartered for a name. I will maintain it. Should slander whisper o'er my sepulchre, And my soul's agency survive in death, I could embody it with heaven's lightning, And the hot shaft of my insulted spirit Should strike the blaster of my memory Dead, in the church-yard.
Would fain look cheery in my house's gloom; And, like a gay and sturdy evergreen,
Smiles in the midst of blast and desolation, Where all around him withers.
Perish this frail and fickle frame,—this clay, That, in its dross-like compound, doth contain
The mind's pure ore and essence! Oh! that mind— That mind of man! that god-like spring of action! That source whence learning, virtue, honor, flow! Which lifts us to the stars; which carries us O'er the swoln waters of the angry deep,
As swallows skim the air!-Thou fame's sole fountain, That doth transmit a fair and spotless name,
When the vile trunk is rotten.
Oh, give me but to live in after age,
Remember'd and unsullied!-Heaven and earth! Let my pure flame of honor shine in story, When I am cold in death, and the slow fire,
That wears my vitals now, will no more move me, Than 'twould a corse within a monument!
We were not many-we who stood Before the iron sleet that day- Yet many a gallant spirit would Give half his years if he but could Have been with us at Monterey.
Now here, now there, the shot, it hailed In deadly drifts of fiery spray, Yet not a single soldier quailed
When wounded comrades round them wailed
Their dying shout at Monterey.
And on-still on our column kept
Through walls of flame its withering way; Where fell the dead, the living stept, Still charging on the guns that swept The slippery streets of Monterey.
The foe himself recoiled aghast,
When, striking where he strongest lay, We swooped his flanking batteries past, And braving full their murderous blast, Stormed home the towers of Monterey. Our banners on those turrets wave, And there our evening bugles play;
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