The clouds and sunbeams, o'er his eye
That once their shades and glory threw
Have left in yonder silent sky
No vestige where they flew.
The annals of the human race,
Their ruins, since the world began,
Of him afford no other trace
Than this,-THERE LIVED A MAN!
THERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods;
There is a rapture on the lonely shore;
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ;
Man marks the earth with ruin-his control
Stops with the shore;-upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.
His steps are not upon thy paths, thy fields
Are not a spoil for him,-thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him, shivering, in thy playful spray, And howling, to his gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth:-there let him lay.
The armaments which thunder-strike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,—
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;
These are thy toys, and as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.
Thy shores are empires, changed in all save theeAssyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts:-not so thou, Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play— Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure browSuch as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.
Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,
Calm or convuls'd-in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving;-boundless, endless, and sublime—
The image of Eternity—the throne
Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.
And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sport was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
I wanton'd with thy breakers-they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror-'twas a pleasing fear
For I was as it were a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane—as I do here.
XXVI. THE FIELD OF WATERLOO,
THERE was a sound of revelry by night:
And Belgium's capital had gather'd then
Her Beauty and her Chivalry; and bright
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men,
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage bell-
But hush! hark! A deep sound strikes like a rising knell !
Did ye not hear it ?-No: 'twas but the wind,
Or the car rattling o'er the stony street!
On with the dance! let joy be unconfin'd!
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet—
But hark! that heavy sound breaks in once more,
As if the clouds its echo would repeat;
And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!
Arm! arm! it is—it is—the cannon's opening roar!
Within a window'd niche of that high hall
Sat Brunswick's fated chieftain: he did hear
That sound the first amidst the festival,
And caught its tone with Death's prophetic ear;
And when they smil'd because he deem'd it near,
His heart more truly knew that peal too well ·
Which stretch'd his father on a bloody bier,
And rous'd the vengeance blood alone could quell:
He rush'd into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell!
Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,
And cheeks all pale, which, but an hour ago,
Blush'd at the praise of their own loveliness;
And there were sudden partings, such as press
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs
Which ne'er might be repeated:
Who could guess
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes,
Since upon night so sweet, such awful morn could rise?
And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed,
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war:
And the deep thunder, peal on peal, afar;
And near,
the beat of the alarming drum,
Rous'd up the soldier ere the morning star:
While throng'd the citizens, with terror dumb,
Or whispering with white lips-" The foe! they come ! they
And wild and high the "Cameron's gathering" rose !
(The war-note of Lochiel, which Albin's hills
Have heard and heard too, have her Saxon foes!)
How, in the noon of night, that pibroch thrills,
Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills
Their mountain pipe, so fill the mountaineers
With the fierce native daring, which instils
The stirring memory of a thousand years:
And Evan's, Donald's fame, rings in each clansman's ears!
And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves,
Dewy with nature's tear-drops, as they pass,
Grieving if aught inanimate e'er grieves-
Over the unreturning brave—alas!
Ere evening, to be trodden, like the grass—
Which now beneath them, but above shall grow
In its next verdure; when this fiery mass
Of living valour, rolling on the foe,
And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low!
Last noon beheld them full of lusty life;
Last eve, in beauty's circle proudly gay;
The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife,—
The morn, the marshalling in arms,—the day,
Battle's magnificently-stern array!
The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent,
The earth is cover'd thick with other clay,
Which her own clay shall cover-heap'd and pent; Rider and horse,-friend, foe,-in one red burial blent!
XXVII. ON THE PLAIN OF MARATHON.
WHERE'ER we tread, 'tis haunted, holy ground!
No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould !
But one vast realm of wonder spreads around,
And all the Muse's tales seem truly told,
Till the sense aches with gazing to behold
The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon:
Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold,
Defies the power which crush'd thy temples gone :
Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon.
The sun-the soil-but not the slave the same-
Unchanged in all, except its foreign lord,
Preserves alike its bounds and boundless fame:
The battle-field-where Persia's victim-horde
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