IN SIX LEAVES FROM THE SIBYL’S BOOK.

I - NAPOLEON AT ISOLA BELLA.

In the Isola Bella, upon the Lago Maggiore, where the richest vegetation of the tropics grows in the vicinity of the Alps, there is a lofty laurel-tree (the bay), tall as the tallest oak, on which, a few days before the battle of Marengo, Napoleon carved the word “BATTAGLIA.”  The bark has fallen away from the inscription, most of the letters are gone, and the few left are nearly effaced.

I.

O fairy island of a fairy sea,
Wherein Calypso might have spell’d the Greek,
Or Flora piled her fragrant treasury,
Cull’d from each shore her Zephyr’s wings could seek. ­
From rocks, where aloes blow.

Tier upon tier, Hesperian fruits arise;
The hanging bowers of this soft Babylon;
An India mellows in the Lombard skies,
And changelings, stolen from the Lybian sun,
Smile to yon Alps of snow.

II.

Amid this gentlest dream-land of the wave,
Arrested, stood the wondrous Corsican;
As if one glimpse the better angel gave
Of the bright garden-life vouschafed to man
Ere blood defiled the world.

He stood ­that grand Sesostris of the North ­
While paused the car to which were harness’d kings;
And in the airs, that lovingly sigh’d forth
The balms of Araby, his eagle-wings
Their sullen thunder furl’d.

III.

And o’er the marble hush of those large brows,
Dread with the awe of the Olympian nod,
A giant laurel spread its breathless boughs,
The prophet-tree of the dark Pythian god,
Shadowing the doom of thrones!

What, in such hour of rest and scene of joy,
Stirs in the cells of that unfathom’d brain? 
Comes back one memory of the musing boy,
Lone gazing o’er the yet unmeasured main,
Whose waifs are human bones?

IV.

To those deep eyes doth one soft dream return? 
Soft with the bloom of youth’s unrifled spring,
When Hope first fills from founts divine the urn,
And rapt Ambition, on the angel’s wing,
Floats first through golden air?

Or doth that smile recall the midnight street,
When thine own star the solemn ray denied,
And to a stage-mime, for obscure retreat
From hungry Want, the destined Cæsar sigh’d? ­
Still Fate, as then, asks prayer.

V.

Under that prophet tree, thou standest now;
Inscribe thy wish upon the mystic rind;
Hath the warm human heart no tender vow
Link’d with sweet household names? ­no hope enshrined
Where thoughts are priests of Peace.

Or, if dire Hannibal thy model be,
Dread lest, like him, thou bear the thunder home! 
Perchance ev’n now a Scipio dawns for thee,
Thou doomest Carthage while thou smitest Rome ­
Write, write “Let carnage cease!”

VI.

Whispers from heaven have strife itself inform’d; ­
“Peace” was our dauntless Falkland’s latest sigh,
Navarre’s frank Henry fed the forts he storm’d. 
Wild Xerxes wept the Hosts he doom’d to die! 
Ev’n War pays dues to Love!

Note how harmoniously the art of Man
Blends with the Beautiful of Nature! see
How the true Laurel of the Delian
Shelters the Grace! ­Apollo’s peaceful tree
Blunts ev’n the bolt of Jove.

VII.

Write on the sacred bark such votive prayer,
As the mild Power may grant in coming years,
Some word to make thy memory gentle there; ­
More than renown, kind thought for men endears
A Hero to Mankind.

Slow moved the mighty hand ­a tremour shook
The leaves, and hoarse winds groan’d along the wood;
The Pythian tree the damning sentence took,
And to the sun the battle-word of blood
Glared from the gashing rind.

VIII.

So thou hast writ the word, and sign’d thy doom: 
Farewell, and pass upon thy gory way,
The direful skein the pausing Fates resume! 
Let not the Elysian grove thy steps delay
From thy Promethean goal.

The fatal tree the abhorrent word retain’d,
Till the last Battle on its bloody strand
Flung what were nobler had no life remain’d, ­
The crownless front and the disarmed hand
And the’ foil’d Titan Soul;

IX.

Now, year by year, the warrior’s iron mark
Crumbles away from the majestic tree,
The indignant life-sap ebbing from the bark
Where the grim death-word to Humanity
Profaned the Lord of Day.

High o’er the pomp of blooms, as greenly still,
Aspires that tree ­the Archetype of Fame,
The stem rejects all chronicle of ill;
The bark shrinks back ­the tree survives the same ­
The record rots away.

BAVENO, Oc, 1845.

II - MAZARIN - FAREWELL TO THE BEAUTIFUL, WITHOUT.

“I was walking, some days after, in the new apartments of his palace.  I recognized the approach of the cardinal (Mazaria) by the sound of his slippered feet, which he dragged one after the other, as a man enfeebled by a mortal malady.  I concealed myself behind the tapestry, and I heard him say, ‘Il faut quitter tout cela!’ (’I must leave all that!’) He stopped at every step, for he was very feeble, and casting his eyes on each object that attracted him, he sighed forth, as from the bottom of his heart, ’II faut quitter tout cela!  What pains have I taken to acquire these things!  Can I abandon them without regret?  I shall never see them more where I am about to go!’” &c. ­Mémoires INEDITS DE LOUIS HENRI, COMTE DE BRIENNE, Barriere’s Edition, vol. ii. .

  Serene the Marble Images
    Gleam’d down, in lengthen’d rows;
  Their life, like the Uranides,
    A glory and repose.

  Glow’d forth the costly canvas spoil
    From many a gorgeous frame;
  One race will starve the living toil,
    The next will gild the name.

  That stately silence silvering through,
    The steadfast tapers shone
  Upon the Painter’s pomp of hue,
    The Sculptor’s solemn stone.

  Saved from the deluge-storm of Time,
    Within that ark, survey
  Whate’er of elder Art sublime
    Survives a world’s decay!

  There creeps a foot, there sighs a breath,
    Along the quiet floor;
  An old man leaves his bed of death
    To count his treasures o’er.

  Behold the dying mortal glide
    Amidst the eternal Art;
  It were a sight to stir with pride
    Some pining Painter’s heart!

  It were a sight that might beguile
    Sad Genius from the Hour,
  To see the life of Genius smile
    Upon the death of Power.

  The ghost-like master of that hall
    Is king-like in the land;
  And France’s proudest heads could fall
    Beneath that spectre hand.

  Veil’d in the Roman purple, preys
    The canker-worm within;
  And more than Bourbon’s sceptre sways
    The crook of Mazarin.

  Italian, yet more dear to thee
    Than sceptre, or than crook,
  The Art in which thine Italy
    Still charm’d thy glazing look!

  So feebly, and with wistful eyes,
    He crawls along the floor;
  A dying man, who, ere he dies,
    Would count his treasures o’er.

  And, from the landscape’s soft repose,
    Smiled thy calm soul, Lorraine;
  And, from the deeps of Raphael, rose
    Celestial Love again.

  In pomp, which his own pomp recalls,
    The haggard owner sees
  Thy cloth of gold and banquet halls,
    Thou stately Veronese!

  While, cold as if they scorn’d to hail
    Creations not their own,
  The Gods of Greece stand marble-pale
    Around the Thunderer’s throne.

  There, Hebe brims the urn of gold;
    There, Hermes treads the skies;
  There, ever in the Serpent’s fold,
    Laocoon deathless dies.

  There, startled from her mountain rest,
    Young Dian turns to draw
  The arrowy death that waits the breast
    Her slumber fail’d to awe.

  There, earth subdued by dauntless deeds,
    And life’s large labours done,
  Stands, sad as Worth with mortal meeds,
    Alcmena’s mournful son.

  They gaze upon the fading form
    With mute immortal eyes; ­
  Here, clay that waits the hungry worm;
    There, children of the skies.

  Then slowly as he totter’d by,
    The old Man, unresign’d,
  Sigh’d forth:  “Alas! and must I die,
    And leave such life behind?

  “The Beautiful, from which I part,
    Alone defies decay!”
  Still, while he sigh’d, the eternal Art
    Smiled down upon the clay.

  And as he waved the feeble hand,
    And crawl’d unto the porch,
  He saw the Silent Genius stand
    With the extinguish’d torch!

  The world without, for ever yours,
    Ye stern remorseless Three;
  What, from that changeful world, secures
    Calm Immortality?

  Nay, soon or late decays, alas! 
    Or canvass, stone, or scroll;
  From all material forms must pass
    To forms afresh, the soul.

  ’Tis but in that which doth create,
    Duration can be sought;
  A worm can waste the canvass; ­Fate
    Ne’er swept from Time, a Thought.

  Lives Phidias in his works alone? ­
    His Jove returns to air: 
  But wake one godlike shape from stone,
    And Phidian thought is there!

  Blot out the Iliad from the earth,
    Still Homer’s thought would fire
  Each deed that boasts sublimer worth,
    And each diviner lyre.

  Like light, connecting star to star,
    Doth Thought transmitted run; ­
  Rays that to earth the nearest are,
    Have longest left the sun.

The Parcae. ­Leaf the Third.

III - ANDRE CHENIER - FAREWELL TO THE BEAUTIFUL, WITHIN.

“Andre Chenier, the original of whatever is truest to nature and genuine passion, in the modern poetry of France, died by the guillotine, July 27, 1794.  In ascending the scaffold, he cried, ‘To die so young!’ ’And there was something here!’ he added, striking his forehead, not in the fear of death, but the despair of genius!” ­See THIERS, vol. iv. .

  Within the prison’s dreary girth,
    The dismal night, before
  That morn on which the dungeon Earth
    Shall wall the soul no more,

  There stood serenest images
    Where doomed Genius lay,
  The ever young Uranides
    Around the Child of Clay.

  On blacken’d walls and rugged floors
    Shone cheerful, thro’ the night,
  The stars ­like beacons from the shores
    Of the still Infinite.

  From Ida to the Poet’s cell
    The Pain-beguilers stole;
  Apollo tuned his silver shell
    And Hebe brimm’d the bowl.

  To grace those walls he needed nought
    That tint or stone bestows;
  Creation kindled from his thought: 
    He call’d ­and gods arose.

  The visions Poets only know
    Upon the captive smiled,
  As bright within those walls of woe
    As on the sunlit child;

  He saw the nameless, glorious things
    Which youthful dreamers see,
  When Fancy first with murmurous wings
    O’ershadows bards to be;

  Those forms to life spiritual given
    By high creative hymn;
  From music born ­as from their heaven
    Are born the Seraphim.

  Forgetful of the coming day,
    Upon the dungeon floor
  He sate to count, poor child of clay,
    The wealth of genius o’er;

  To count the gems, as yet unwrought,
    But found beneath the soil;
  The bright discoveries claim’d by thought,
    As future crowns for toil.

  He sees The Work his breath should warm
    To life, from out the air: 
  The Shape of Love his soul should form,
    Then leave its birthright there!

  He sees the new Immortal rise
    From her melodious sea;
  The last descendant of the skies
    For man to bend the knee ­

  He sees himself within your shrine
    O hero gods of Fame! 
  And hears the praise that makes divine
    The human holy name.

  True to the hearts of men shall chime
    The song their lips repeat;
  When heroes chant the strain, sublime;
    When lovers breathe it, sweet.

  Lo, from the brief delusion given,
    He starts, as through the bars
  Gleams wan the dawn that scares from Heaven
    And Thought alike ­its stars.

  Hark to the busy tramp below! 
    The jar of iron doors! 
  The gaoler’s heavy footfall slow
    Along the funeral floors!

  The murmur of the crowd that round
    The human shambles throng;
  That muffled sullen thunder-sound ­
    The Death-cart grates along!

  “Alas, so soon! ­and must I die,”
    He groan’d forth unresign’d;
  “Flit like a cloud athwart the sky,
    And leave no wrack behind!

  “And yet my Genius speaks to me;
    The Pythian fires my brain;
  And tells me what my life should be;
    A Prophet ­and in vain!

  “O realm more wide, from clime to clime,
    Than ever Cæsar sway’d;
  O conquests in that world of time
    My grand desire survey’d!” ­

  Blood-red upon his loathing eyes
    Now glares the gaoler’s torch: 
  “Come forth, the day is in the skies,
    The Death-cart at the porch!”

  Pass on! ­to thee the Parcae give
    The fairest lot of all; ­
  In golden poet-dreams to live,
    And ere they fade ­to fall!

  The shrine that longest guards a Name
    Is oft an early tomb;
  The Poem most secure of fame
    Is ­some wrong’d poet’s doom!

The Parcae. ­Leaf the Fourth.

IV - MARY STUART AND HER MOURNER.

“Mary Stuart perished at the age of forty-four years and two months.  Her remains were taken from her weeping servants, and a green cloth, torn in haste from an old billiard table, was flung over her once beautiful form.  Thus it remained unwatched and unattended, except by a poor little lap-dog, which could not be induced to quit the body of its mistress.  This faithful little animal was found dead two days afterwards; and the circumstance made such an impression even on the hard-hearted minister of Elizabeth, that it was mentioned in the official despatches.”

MRS. JAMIESON’S Female Sovereigns ­Mary Queen of Scots.

The axe its bloody work had done;
The corpse neglected lay;
This peopled world could spare not one
To watch beside the clay.

The fairest work from Nature’s hand
That e’er on mortals shone,
A sunbeam stray’d from fairy land
To fade upon a throne; ­

  The Venus of the Tomb whose form
    Was destiny and death;
  The Siren’s voice that stirr’d a storm
    In each melodious breath; ­

  Such was, what now by fate is hurl’d
    To rot, unwept, away. 
  A star has vanish’d from the world;
    And none to miss the ray!

  Stern Knox, that loneliness forlorn
    A harsher truth might teach
  To royal pomps, than priestly scorn
    To royal sins can preach!

  No victims now that lip can make! 
    That hand how powerless now! 
  O God! and what a King ­but take
    A bauble from the brow?

  The world is full of life and love;
    The world methinks might spare
  From millions, one to watch above
    The dust of monarchs there.

  And not one human eye! ­yet lo
    What stirs the funeral pall? 
  What sound ­it is not human woe ­
    Wails moaning through the hall?

  Close by the form mankind desert
    One thing a vigil keeps;
  More near and near to that still heart
    It wistful, wondering creeps.

  It gazes on those glazed eyes,
    It hearkens for a breath ­
  It does not know that kindness dies,
    And love departs from death.

  It fawns as fondly as before
    Upon that icy hand. 
  And hears from lips, that speak no more,
    The voice that can command.

  To that poor fool, alone on earth,
    No matter what had been
  The pomp, the fall, the guilt, the worth,
    The Dead was still a Queen.

  With eyes that horror could not scare,
    It watch’d the senseless clay: ­
  Crouch’d on the breast of Death, and there
    Moan’d its fond life away.

  And when the bolts discordant clash’d,
    And human steps drew nigh,
  The human pity shrunk abash’d
    Before that faithful eye;

  It seem’d to gaze with such rebuke
    On those who could forsake;
  Then turn’d to watch once more the look,
    And strive the sleep to wake.

  They raised the pall ­they touch’d the dead,
    A cry, and both were still’d, ­
  Alike the soul that Hate had sped,
    The life that Love had kill’d.

  Semiramis of England, hail! 
    Thy crime secures thy sway: 
  But when thine eyes shall scan the tale
    Those hireling scribes convey;

  When thou shalt read, with late remorse,
    How one poor slave was found
  Beside thy butcher’d rival’s corse,
    The headless and discrown’d;

  Shall not thy soul foretell thine own
    Unloved, expiring hour,
  When those who kneel around the throne
    Shall fly the falling tower;

  When thy great heart shall silent break,
    When thy sad eyes shall strain
  Through vacant space, one thing to seek
    One thing that loved ­in vain?

  Though round thy parting pangs of pride
    Shall priest and noble crowd;
  More worth the grief, that mourn’d beside
    Thy victim’s gory shroud!

The Parcae. ­Leaf the Fifth.

V - THE LAST DAYS OF ELIZABETH.

“Her delight is to sit in the dark, and sometimes, with shedding tears, to bewail Essex.” ­Contemporaneous Correspondence.

“She refused all consolation; few words she uttered, and they were all expressive of some hidden grief which she cared not to reveal.  But sighs and groans were the chief vent which she gave to her despondency, and which, though they discovered her sorrows, were never able to ease or assuage them.  Ten days and nights she lay upon the carpet leaning on cushions which her maids brought her,” &c. ­HUME.

I.

Rise from thy bloody grave,
Thou soft Medusa of the Fated Line
Whose evil beauty look’d to death the brave; ­
Discrowned Queen, around whose passionate shame
Terror and Grief the palest flowers entwine,
That ever veil’d the ruins of a Name
With the sweet parasites of song divine! ­
Arise, sad Ghost, arise,
And if Revenge outlive the Tomb,
Behold the Doomer brought to doom! 
Lo, where thy mighty Murderess lies,
The sleepless couch ­the sunless room, ­
Through the darkness darkly seen
Rests the shadow of a Queen;
Ever on the lawns below
Flit the shadows to and fro,
Quick at dawn, and slow at noon,
Halving midnight with the moon: 
In the palace, still and dun,
Rests that shadow on the floor;
All the changes of the sun
Move that shadow nevermore.

  II.

  Yet oft she turns from face to face,
    A keen and wistful gaze,
  As if the memory seeks to trace
  The sign of some lost dwelling-place
    Beloved in happier days; ­
      Ah, what the clue supplies
    In the cold vigil of a hireling’s eyes? 
  Ah, sad in childless age to weep alone,
    Look round and find no grief reflect our own! ­
  O Soul, thou speedest to thy rest away,
    But not upon the pinions of the dove;
  When death draws nigh, how miserable they
    Who have outlived all love! 
  As on the solemn verge of Night
    Lingers a weary Moon,
  Thou wanest last of every glorious light
    That bathed with splendour thy majestic noon: ­
  The stately stars that clustering o’er the isle
    Lull’d into glittering rest the subject sea; ­
  Gone the great Masters of Italian wile,
    False to the world beside, but true to thee! ­
  Burleigh, the subtlest builder of thy fame, ­
    The serpent craft of winding Walsingham; ­
    They who exalted yet before thee bow’d: 
  And that more dazzling chivalry ­the Band
  That made thy Court a Faery Land,
  In which thou wert enshrined to reign alone ­
  The Gloriana of the Diamond Throne; ­
    All gone, ­and left thee sad amidst the cloud.

  III.

  To their great sires, to whom thy youth was known,
    Who from thy smile, as laurels from the sun
  Drank the immortal greenness of renown,
    Succeeds the cold lip-homage scantly won
  From the new race whose hearts already bear
  The Wise-man’s offerings to th’ unworthy Heir. 
    Watching the glass in which the sands run low, ­
      Hovers keen Cecil with his falcon eyes,
    And musing Bacon bends his marble brow. ­
    But deem not fondly there
  To weep the fate or pour th’ averting prayer
    Attend those solemn spies! 
    Lo, at the Regal Gate
  The impatient couriers wait;
    To speed from hour to hour the nice account
  That registers the grudged unpitied sighs
  Vexing the friendless void, before
  The Stuart’s step shall reeling mount
  Tudor’s steep throne, red with his Mother’s gore!

  IV.

      O piteous mockery of all pomp thou art,
    Poor Child of Clay, worn out with toil and years! 
      As, layer by layer, the granite of the heart
    Dissolving, melteth to the weakest tears
    That ever Village Maiden shed above
  The grave that robb’d her quiet world of love.

    Ten days and nights upon that floor
      Those weary limbs have lain;
    And every hour has added more
      Of heaviness to pain. 
    As gazing into dismal air
    She sees the headless phantom there,
    The victim round whose image twined
    The last wild love of womankind;
  That lightning flash’d from stormy hearts,
    Which now reveals the deeps of Heaven,
  And now remorseless, earthward darts,
      Rives, and expires on what its stroke hath riven!

  ’Twere sad to see from those stern eyes
    Th’ unheeded anguish feebly flow;
  And hear the broken word that dies
    In moanings faint and low; ­
  But sadder still to mark the while,
  The vacant stare ­the marble smile,
    And think, that goal of glory won. 
      How slight a shade between
    The idiot moping in the sun
      And England’s giant Queen!

  V.

  Call back the joyous Past! 
    Lo, England white-robed for a holyday! 
  While, choral to the clarion’s kingly blast,
    Shout peals on shout along the Virgin’s way,
  As through the swarming streets rolls on the long array. 
    Mary is dead! ­Look from your fire-won homes,
    Exulting Martyrs! ­on the mount shall rest
  Truth’s ark at last! th’ avenging Lutheran comes
    And clasps THE BOOK ye died for to her breast!
  With her, the flower of all the Land,
    The high-born gallants ride,
  And ever nearest of the band,
  With watchful eye and ready hand,
    Young Dudley’s form of pride!
  Ah, ev’n in that exulting hour,
  Love half allures the soul from Power, ­
  To that dread brow in bending down
  Throbs up, beneath the manlike crown,
      The woman’s heart wild beating,
  While steals the whisper’d worship, paid
  Not to the Monarch, but the Maid,
      Through tromps and stormy greeting.

  VI.

  Call back the gorgeous Past! 
  The lists are set, the trumpets sound,
    Still as the stars, when to the breeze
    Sway the proud crests of stately trees,
  Bright eyes, from tier on tier around,
  Look down, where on its famous ground
      Murmurs and moves the bristling life
        Of antique Chivalry! 
  “Forward!" ­the signal word is given ­
  Like cloud on cloud by tempest driven;
  Steel lightens, and arm’d thunders close! 
  How plumes descend in flakes of snows;
  How the ground reels, as reels a sea,
  Beneath the inebriate rapture-strife
        Of jocund Chivalry! 
  Who is the Victor of the Day? 
  Thou of the delicate form and golden hair
  And Manhood glorious in its midst of May; ­
  Thou who, upon thy shield of argent, bearest
  The bold device, “The Loftiest is the Fairest!”
      As bending low thy stainless crest,
      “The Vestal throned by the West”
      Accords the old Provencal crown
      Which blends her own with thy renown; ­
    Arcadian Sidney ­Nursling of the Muse,
  Flower of divine Romance, whose bloom was fed
    By daintiest Hélicon’s most silver dews,
  Alas! how soon thy lovely leaves were shed ­
  Thee lost, no more were Grace and Force united,
    Grace but some flaunting Buckingham unmann’d,
  And Force but crush’d what Freedom vainly righted ­
    Behind, lo Cromwell looms, and dusks the land
    With the swart shadow of his giant hand.

  VII.

  Call back the Kingly Past! 
    Where, bright and broadening to the main,
      Rolls on the scornful River, ­
    Stout hearts beat high on Tilbury’s plain, ­
      Our Marathon for ever! 
  No breeze above, but on the mast
  The pennon shook as with the blast. 
  Forth from the cloud the day-god strode;
  Flash’d back from steel, the splendour glow’d, ­
  Leapt the loud joy from Earth to Heaven,
  As through the ranks asunder riven,
      The Warrior-Woman rode! 
    Hark, thrilling through the armed Line
      The martial accents ring,
  “Though mine the Woman’s form ­yet mine,
      “The Heart of England’s King!"
      Woe to the Island and the Maid! 
      The Pope has preach’d the New Crusade,
      His sons have caught the fiery zeal;
      The Monks are merry in Castile;
        Bold Parma on the Main;
      And through the deep exulting sweep
        The Thunder-Steeds of Spain. ­
  What meteor rides the sulphurous gale? 
  The Flames have caught the giant sail! 
  Fierce Drake is grappling prow to prow;
  God and St. George for Victory now! 
  Death in the Battle and the Wind ­
  Carnage before and Storm behind ­
  Wild shrieks are heard above the hurtling roar
  By Orkney’s rugged strands, and Erin’s ruthless shore. 
      Joy to the Island and the Maid! 
      Pope Sextus wept the Last Crusade! 
    His sons consumed before his zeal, ­
    The Monks are woeful in Castile;
      Your Monument the Main,
    The glaive and gale record your tale,
     Ye Thunder-Steeds of Spain!

  VIII.

      Turn from the idle Past;
      Its lonely ghost thou art! 
    Yea, like a ghost, whom charms to earth detain
    (When, with the dawn, its kindred phantom train
      Glide into peaceful graves) ­to dust depart
    Thy shadowy pageants; and the day unblest,
    Seems some dire curse that keeps thee from thy rest. 
  Yet comfort, comfort to thy longing woe,
    Thou wistful watcher by the dreary portal;
  Now when most human, since most feeble, know,
    That in the Human struggles the Immortal.

  Flash’d from the steel of the descending shears,
    Oft sacred light illumes the parting soul;
  And our last glimpse along the woof of years,
    First reads the scheme that disinvolves the whole. 
  Yet, then, recall the Past! 
  Is reverence not the child of sympathy? 
  To feel for Greatness we must hear it sigh: 
  On mortal brows those halos longest last
  Which blend for one the rays that verge from all. 
  Few reign, few triumph; millions love and grieve: 
  Of grief and love let some high memory leave
  One mute appeal to life, upon the stone ­
  That tomb from Time shall votive rites receive
  When History doubts what ghost once fill’d a throne. 
  So, ­indistinct while back’d by sunlit skies ­
  But large and clear against the midnight pall,
  Thy human outline awes our human eyes. 
  Place, place, ye meaner royalties below,
  For Nature’s holiest ­Womanhood and Woe!

    Let not vain youth deride the age that still
  Loves as the young, ­loves on unto the last;
  Grandest the heart when grander than the will ­
  Bow we before the soul, which through the Past,
  Turns no vain glance towards fading heights of Pride,
  But strains its humbled tearful gaze to see,
  Love and Remorse ­near Immortality,
  And by the yawning Grave, stand side by side.

VI - CROMWELL’S DREAM.

The conception of this Ode originated in a popular tradition of Cromwell’s earlier days.  It is thus strikingly related by Mr. Forster, in his very valuable Life of Cromwell: ­“He laid himself down, too fatigued in hope for sleep, when suddenly the curtains of his bed were slowly withdrawn by a gigantic figure, which bore the aspect of a woman, and which, gazing at him silently for a while, told him that he should, before his death, be the greatest man in England.  He remembered when he told the story, and the recollection marked the current of his thoughts, that the figure had not made mention of the word King.”  Alteration has been made in the scene of the vision, and the age of Cromwell.

  I.

    The Moor spread wild and far,
  In the sharp whiteness of a wintry shroud;
    Midnight yet moonless; and the winds ice-bound: 
    And a grey dusk ­not darkness ­reign’d around,
    Save where the phantom of a sudden star
  Peer’d o’er some haggard precipice of cloud: ­
    Where on the wold, the triple pathway cross’d,
    A sturdy wanderer wearied, lone, and lost,
    Paused and gazed round; a dwarf’d but aged yew
    O’er the wan rime its gnome-like shadow threw;
    The spot invited, and by sleep oppress’d,
    Beneath the boughs he laid him down to rest. 
    A man of stalwart limbs and hardy frame,
    Meet for the ruder time when force was fame,
    Youthful in years ­the features yet betray
    Thoughts rarely mellow’d till the locks are grey: 
    Round the firm lips the lines of solemn wile
    Might warn the wise of danger in the smile;
    But the blunt aspect spoke more sternly still
    That craft of craft ­THE STUBBORN WILL: 
        That which, ­let what may betide ­
        Never halts nor swerves aside;
        From afar its victim viewing,
        Slow of speed, but sure-pursuing;
        Through maze, up mount, still hounding on its way,
        Till grimly couch’d beside the conquer’d prey!

  II.

    The loftiest fate will longest lie
      In unrevealing sleep;
    And yet unknown the destined race,
    Nor yet his Soul had walk’d with Grace;
    Still, on the seas of Time
    Drifted the ever-careless prime, ­
    But many a blast that o’er the sky
      All idly seems to sweep, ­
  Still while it speeds, may spread the seeds
      The toils of autumn reap: ­
  And we must blame the soil, and not the wind,
  If hurrying passion leave no golden grain behind.

  III.

    Seize ­seize ­seize!
  Bind him strong in the chain,
  On his heart, on his brain,
    Clasp the links of the evil Sleep! 
      Seize ­seize ­seize ­
  Ye fiends that dimly sweep
  Up from the Stygian deep,
  Where Death sits watchful by his brother’s side! 
    Ye pale Impalpables, that are
    Shadows of Truths afar,
  Appearing oft to warn, but ne’er to guide, ­
    Hover around the calm, disdainful Fates,
      Reveal the woof through which the spindle gleams: ­
    Open, ye Ebon gates! 
      Darken the moon ­O Dreams!

        Seize ­seize ­seize ­
    Bind him strong in the chain,
    On his heart, on his brain,
    Clasp the links of the evil Sleep!

    Awakes or dreams he still? 
      His eyes are open with a glassy stare,
  On the fix’d brow the large drops gather chill,
  And horror, like a wind, stirs through the lifted hair. 
    Before him stands the Thing of Dread ­
  A giant shadow motionless and pale! 
  As those dim Lemur-Vapours that exhale
    From the rank grasses rotting o’er the Dead,
  And startle midnight with the mocking show
  Of the still, shrouded bones that sleep below ­
    So the wan image which the Vision bore
    Was outlined from the air, no more
  Than served to make the loathing sense a bond
  Between the world of life, and grislier worlds beyond.

  IV.

    “Behold!” the Shadow said, and lo,
  Where the blank heath had spread, a smiling scene;
  Soft woodlands sloping from a village green,
    And, waving to blue Heaven, the happy cornfields glow: 
  A modest roof, with ivy cluster’d o’er,
  And Childhood’s busy mirth beside the door. 
  But, yonder, sunset sleeping on the sod,
    Bow Labour’s rustic sons in solemn prayer;
  And, self-made teacher of the truths of God,
    The Dreamer sees the Phantom-Cromwell there! 
    “Art thou content, of these the greatest Thou,”
    Murmur’d the Fiend, “the Master and the Priest?”
    A sullen anger knit the Dreamer’s brow,
    And from his scornful lips the words came slow,
    “The greatest of the hamlet, Demon, No!”
    Loud laugh’d the Fiend ­then trembled through the sky,
    Where haply angels watch’d, a warning sigh; ­
  And darkness swept the scene, and golden Quiet ceased.

  V.

  “Behold!” the Shadow said ­a hell-born ray
  Shoots through the Night, up-leaps the unholy Day,
  Spring from the earth the Dragon’s armed seed,
  The ghastly squadron wheels, and neighs the spectre-steed. 
  Unnatural sounded the sweet Mother-tongue,
  As loud from host to host the English war-cry rung;
    Kindred with kindred blent in slaughter show
    The dark phantasma of the Prophet-Woe! 
    A gay and glittering band! 
  Apollo’s lovelocks in the crest of Mars ­
  Light-hearted Valour, laughing scorn to scars ­
    A gay and glittering band,
  Unwitting of the scythe ­the lilies of the land! 
  Pale in the midst, that stately squadron boasts
    A princely form, a mournful brow;
    And still, where plumes are proudest, seen,
    With sparkling eye and dauntless mien,
  The young Achilles of the hosts. 
    On rolls the surging war ­and now
    Along the closing columns ring ­
  “Rupert” and “Charles” ­“The Lady of the Crown,"
  “Down with the Roundhead Rebels, down!”
    “St. George and England’s king.”

A stalwart and a sturdy band, ­
Whose souls of sullen zeal
Are made, by the Immortal Hand
Invulnerable steel! 
A kneeling host, ­a pause of prayer,
A single voice thrills through the air
“They come.  Up, Ironsides! 
For TRUTH and PEACE unsparing smite! 
Behold the accursed Amalekite!”
The Dreamer’s heart beat high and loud,
For, calmly through the carnage-cloud,
The scourge and servant of the Lord,
This hand the Bible ­that the sword ­
The Phantom-Cromwell rides!

    A lurid darkness swallows the array,
    One moment lost ­the darkness rolls away,
      And, o’er the slaughter done,
      Smiles, with his eyes of love, the setting Sun;
      Death makes our foe our brother;
        And, meekly, side by side,
        Sleep scowling Hate and sternly smiling Pride,
  On the kind breast of Earth, the quiet Mother! 
      Lo, where the victor sweeps along,
      The Gideon of the gory throng,
      Beneath his hoofs the harmless dead ­
      The aureole on his helmed head ­
      Before him steel-clad Victory bending,
      Around, from earth to heaven ascending
  The fiery incense of triumphant song. 
      So, as some orb, above a mighty stream
      Sway’d by its law, and sparkling in its beam, ­
      A power apart from that tempestuous tide,
  Calm and aloft, behold the Phantom-Conqueror ride!

    “Art thou content ­of these the greatest Thou,
  Hero and Patriot?” murmur’d then the Fiend. 
    The unsleeping Dreamer answer’d, “Tempter, nay,
      My soul stands breathless on the mountain’s brow
    And looks beyond!” Again swift darkness screen’d
      The solemn Chieftain and the fierce array,
    And armed Glory pass’d, like happier Peace, away.

  VI.

    He look’d again, and saw
  A chamber with funereal sables hung,
    Wherein there lay a ghastly, headless thing
      That once had been a king ­
  And by the corpse a living man, whose doom,
    Had both been left to Nature’s gradual law,
  Were riper for the garner-house of gloom.
  Rudely beside the gory clay were flung
    The Norman sceptre and the Saxon crown;
  So, after some imperial Tragedy
     August alike with sorrow and renown,
  We smile to see the gauds that moved our awe,
     Purple and orb, in dusty lumber lie, ­
  Alas, what thousands, on the stage of Time,
  Envied the baubles, and revered the Mine!

    Placed by the trunk ­with long and whitening hair
    By dark-red goûts besprent, the sever’d head
    Up to the Gazer’s musing eyes, the while,
    Look’d with its livid brow and stony smile. 
  On that sad scene, his gaze the Dreamer fed,
  Familiar both the Living and the Dead;
  Terror, and hate, and strife concluded there,
    Calm in his six-feet realm the monarch lay;
    And by the warning victim’s mangled clay
  The Phantom-Cromwell smiled, ­and bending down
  With shadowy fingers toy’d about the shadowy crown. 
    “Art thou content at last? ­a Greater thou
        Than one to whom the loftiest bent the knee. 
        First in thy fierce Republic of the Free,
        Avenger and Deliverer?”

                                “Fiend,” replied
      The Dreamer, “who shall palter with the tide? ­
      Deliverer! Pilots who the vessel save
      Leave not the helm while winds are on the wave. 
      THE FUTURE is the Haven of THE NOW!”
      “True,” quoth the Fiend ­Again the darkness spread,
      And night gave back to air the Doomsman and the Dead!

  VII.

        “See,” cried the Fiend; ­he views
      A lofty Senate stern with many a form
      Not unfamiliar to the earlier strife;
      Knit were the brows ­and passion flush’d the hues,
      And all were hush’d! ­that, hush which is in life
      As in the air, prophetic of a storm.

Uprose a shape with dark bright eye;
It spoke ­and at the word
The Dreamer breathed an angry sigh;
And starting ­clutch’d his sword;
An instinct bade him hate and fear
That unknown shape ­as if a foe were near ­
For, mighty in that mien of thoughtful youth,
Spoke Fraud’s most deadly foe ­a soul on fire with Truth;
A soul without one stain
Save England’s hallowing tears; ­the sad and starry Vane. 
There enter’d on that conclave high
A solitary Man! 
And rustling through the conclave high
A troubled murmur ran;
A moment more ­loud riot all ­
With pike and morion gleam’d the startled hall: 
And there, where, since the primal date
Of Freedom’s glorious morn,
The eternal People solemn sate,
The People’s Champion spat his ribald scorn! 
Dark moral to all ages! ­Blent in one
The broken fasces and the shatter’d throne;
The deed that damns immortally is done;
And FORCE, the Cain of Nations-reigns alone! 
The veil is rent ­the crafty soul lies bare! 
“Behold,” the Demon cried, “the Future Cromwell, there! 
Art thou content, on earth the Greatest thou,
APOSTATE AND USURPER?” ­From his rest
The Dreamer started with a heaving breast,
The better angels of the human heart
Not dumb to his, ­The Hell-Born laugh’d aloud,
And o’er the Evil Vision rush’d the cloud!