Chapter I: Front Matter (1)

POEMS

By Victor Hugo

1888

[Transcription note: One poem uses an a with a macron over it, this has been rendered as ä, which is not used in this text for any other purpose.]

CONTENTS.

Memoir of Victor Marie Hugo

EARLY POEMS.

Moses on the Nile--_Dublin University Magazine_
Envy and Avarice--_American Keepsake_

ODES.--1818-28.

King Louis XVII--_Dublin University Magazine_
The Feast of Freedom--_"Father Prout" (F.S. Mahony)_
Genius--_Mrs. Torre Hulme_
The Girl of Otaheite--_Clement Scott_
Nero's Incendiary Song--_H.J. Williams_
Regret--_Fraser's Magazine_
The Morning of Life
Beloved Name--_Caroline Bowles (Mrs. Southey)_
The Portrait of a Child--_Dublin University Magazine_

BALLADES.--1823-28.

The Grandmother--_"Father Prout" (F.S. Mahony)_
The Giant in Glee--_Foreign Quart. Rev. (adapted)_
The Cymbaleer's Bride--_"Father Prout" (F.S. Mahony)_
Battle of the Norsemen and the Gaels
Madelaine
The Fay and the Peri--_Asiatic Journal_

LES ORIENTALES.--1829

The Scourge of Heaven--_I.N. Fazakerley_
Pirates' Song
The Turkish Captive--_W.D., Tait's Edisiburgh Mag._
Moonlight on the Bosphorus--_John L. O'Sullivan_
The Veil--_"Father Prout" (F.S. Mahony)_
The Favorite Sultana
The Pasha and the Dervish
The Lost Battle--_W.D., Bentley's Miscel_., 1839
The Greek Boy
Zara, the Bather--_John L. O'Sullivan_
Expectation--_John L. O'Sullivan _
The Lover's Wish--_V., Eton Observer_
The Sacking of the City--_John L. O'Sullivan_
Noormahal the Fair
The Djinns--_John L. O'Sullivan_
The Obdurate Beauty--_John L. O'Sullivan_
Don Rodrigo
Cornflowers--_H.L. Williams_
Mazeppa--_H.L. Williams_
The Danube in Wrath--_Fraser's Magazine_
Old Ocean--_R.C. Ellwood_
My Napoleon--_H.L. Williams_

LES FEUILLES D'AUTOMNE.--1831.

The Patience of the People--_G.W.M. Reynolds_
Dictated before the Rhone Glacier--_Author of "Critical Essays"_
The Poet's Love for Liveliness--_Fraser's Magazine_
Infantile Influence--_Henry Highton, M.A._
The Watching Angel--_Foreign Quarterly Review_
Sunset--_Toru Dutt_
The Universal Prayer--_Henry Highton, M.A._
The Universal Prayer--_C., Tait's Magazine_

LES CHANTS DU CRÉPUSCULE.--1849.

Prelude to "The Songs of Twilight"--_G.W.M. Reynolds_
The Land of Fable--_G.W.M. Rrynolds_
The Three Glorious Days--_Elizabeth Collins_
Tribute to the Vanquished--_Fraser's Magazine_
Angel or Demon--_Fraser's Magazine_
The Eruption of Vesuvius--_Fraser's Magazine_
Marriage and Feasts--_G.W.M. Reynolds_
The Morrow of Grandeur--_Fraser's Magazine_
The Eaglet Mourned--_Fraser's Magazine_
Invocation--_G.W.M. Reynolds_
Outside the Ball-room--_G.W.M. Reynolds_
Prayer for France--_J.S. Macrae_
To Canaris, the Greek Patriot--_G.W.M. Reynolds_
Poland--_G.W.M. Reynolds_
Insult not the Fallen--_W.C.K. Wilde_
Morning--_W.M. Hardinge_
Song of Love--_Toru Dutt_
Sweet Charmer--_H.B. Farnie_
More Strong than Time--_A. Lang_
Roses and Butterflies--_W.C. Westbrook_
A Simile--_Fanny Kemble-Butler_
The Poet to his Wife

LES VOIX INTÉRIEURES.--1840.

The Blinded Bourbons--_Fraser's Magazine_
To Albert Dürer--_Mrs. Newton Crosland_
To his Muse--_Fraser's Magazine_
The Cow--_Toru Dutt_
Mothers--_Dublin University Magazine_
To some Birds Flown away--_Mrs. Newton Crosland_
My Thoughts of Ye--_Dublin University Magazine_
The Beacon in the Storm
Love's Treacherous Pool
The Rose and the Grave--_A. Lang_

LES RAYONS ET LES OMBRES.--1840.

Holyrood Palace--_Fraser's Magazine_
The Humble Home--_Author of "Critical Essays"_
The Eighteenth Century--_Author of "Critical Essays"_
Still be a Child--_Dublin University Magazine_
The Pool and the Soul--_R.F. Hodgson_
Ye Mariners who Spread your Sails--_Author of "Critical Essays"_
On a Flemish Window-Pane--_Fraser's Magazine_
The Preceptor--_E.E. Frewer_
Gastibelza--_H.L. Williams_
Guitar Song--_Evelyn Jerrold_
Come when I Sleep--_Wm. W. Tomlinson_
Early Love Revisited--_Author of "Critical Essays"_
Sweet Memory of Love--_Author of "Critical Essays"_
The Marble Faun--_William Young_
A Love for Winged Things
Baby's Seaside Grave

LES CHÂTIMENTS.--1853.

Indignation!
Imperial Revels--_H.L.W._
Poor Little Children
Apostrophe to Nature
Napoleon "The Little"
Fact or Fable--_H.L.W._
A Lament--_Edwin Arnold, C.S.I._
No Assassination
The Despatch of the Doom
The Seaman's Song
The Retreat from Moscow--_Toru Dutt_
The Ocean's Song--_Toru Dutt_
The Trumpets of the Mind--_Toru Dutt_
After the Coup d'État--_Toru Dutt_
Patria
The Universal Republic

LES CONTEMPLATIONS.--1830-56.

The Vale to You, to Me the Heights--_H.L.W_
Childhood--_Nelson R. Tyerman_
Satire on the Earth
How Butterflies are Born--_A. Lang_
Have You Nothing to Say for Yourself?--_C.H. Kenny_
Inscription for a Crucifix
Death, in Life
The Dying Child to its Mother--_Bp. Alexander_
Epitaph--_Nelson R. Tyerman_
St. John--_Nelson R. Tyerman_
The Poet's Simple Faith--_Prof. E. Dowden_
I am Content

LA LÉGENDE DES SIÈCLES.

Cain--_Dublin University Magazine_
Boaz Asleep--_Bp. Alexander_
Song of the German Lanzknecht--_H.L.W._
King Canute--_R. Garnett_
King Canute--_Dublin University Magazine_
The Boy-King's Prayer--_Dublin University Magazine_
Eviradnus--_Mrs. Newton Crosland_
The Soudan, the Sphinxes, the Cup, the Lamp--_Bp. Alexander_
A Queen Five Summers Old--_Bp. Alexander_
Sea Adventurers' Song
The Swiss Mercenaries--_Bp. Alexander_
The Cup on the Battle-Field--_Toru Dutt_
How Good are the Poor--_Bp. Alexander_

LA VOIX DE GUERNESEY.

Mentana--_Edwin Arnold, C.S.I._

LES CHANSONS DES RUES ET DES BOIS.

Love of the Woodland
Shooting Stars

L'ANNÉE TERRIBLE.

To Little Jeanne--_Marwaod Tucker_
To a Sick Child during the Siege of Paris--_Lucy H. Hooper_
The Carrier Pigeon
Toys and Tragedy
Mourning--_Marwood Tucker_
The Lesson of the Patriot Dead--_H.L.W._
The Boy on the Barricade--_H.L.W._
To His Orphan Grandchildren--_Marwood Tucker_
To the Cannon "Victor Hugo"

L'ART D'ÊTRE GRANDPÈRE.

The Children of the Poor--_Dublin University Magazine_
The Epic of the Lion--_Edwin Arnold, C.S.I._

LES QUATRE VENTS DE L'ESPRIT.

On Hearing the Princess Royal Sing--_Nelson R. Tyerman_
My Happiest Dream
An Old-Time Lay
Jersey
Then, most, I Smile
The Exile's Desire
The Refugee's Haven

VARIOUS PIECES.

To the Napoleon Column--_Author of "Critical Essays"_
Charity--_Dublin University Magazine_
Sweet Sister--_Mrs. B. Somers_
The Pity of the Angels
The Sower--_Toru Dutt_
Oh, Why not be Happy?--_Leopold Wray_
Freedom and the World
Serenade--_Henry F. Chorley_
An Autumnal Simile
To Cruel Ocean
Esmeralda in Prison
Lover's Song--_Ernest Oswald Coe_
A Fleeting Glimpse of a Village--_Fraser's Magazine_
Lord Rochester's Song
The Beggar's Quatrain--_H.L.C., London Society_
The Quiet Rural Church
A Storm Simile

DRAMATIC PIECES.

The Father's Curse--_Fredk. L. Slous_
Paternal Love--_Fanny Kemble-Butler_
The Degenerate Gallants--_Lord F. Leveson Gower_
The Old and the Young Bridegroom--_Charles Sherry_
The Spanish Lady's Love--_C. Moir_
The Lover's Sacrifice--_Lord F. Leveson Gower_
The Old Man's Love--_C. Moir_
The Roll of the De Silva Race--_Lord F. Leveson Gower_
The Lover's Colloquy--_Lord F. Leveson Gower_
Cromwell and the Crown--_Leitch Ritchie_
Milton's Appeal to Cromwell
First Love--_Fanny Kemble-Butler_
The First Black Flag--_Democratic Review_
The Son in Old Age--_Foreign Quarterly Review_
The Emperor's Return--_Athenaum_

Victor in Poesy, Victor in Romance,
Cloud-weaver of phantasmal hopes and fears,
French of the French, and Lord of human tears;
Child-lover; Bard whose fame-lit laurels glance
Darkening the wreaths of all that would advance,
Beyond our strait, their claim to be thy peers;
Weird Titan by thy winter weight of years
As yet unbroken, Stormy voice of France!

TENNYSON.

MEMOIR OF VICTOR MARIE HUGO.

Towards the close of the First French Revolution, Joseph Leopold Sigisbert Hugo, son of a joiner at Nancy, and an officer risen from the ranks in the Republican army, married Sophie Trébuchet, daughter of a Nantes fitter-out of privateers, a Vendean royalist and devotee.

Victor Marie Hugo, their second son, was born on the 26th of February, 1802, at Besançon, France. Though a weakling, he was carried, with his boy-brothers, in the train of their father through the south of France, in pursuit of Fra Diavolo, the Italian brigand, and finally into Spain.

Colonel Hugo had become General, and there, besides being governor over three provinces, was Lord High Steward at King Joseph's court, where his eldest son Abel was installed as page. The other two were educated for similar posts among hostile young Spaniards under stern priestly tutors in the Nobles' College at Madrid, a palace become a monastery. Upon the English advance to free Spain of the invaders, the general and Abel remained at bay, whilst the mother and children hastened to Paris.

Again, in a house once a convent, Victor and his brother Eugène were taught by priests until, by the accident of their roof sheltering a comrade of their father's, a change of tutor was afforded them. This was General Lahorie, a man of superior education, main supporter of Malet in his daring plot to take the government into the Republicans' hands during the absence of Napoleon I. in Russia. Lahorie read old French and Latin with Victor till the police scented him out and led him to execution, October, 1812.

School claimed the young Hugos after this tragical episode, where they were oddities among the humdrum tradesmen's sons. Victor, thoughtful and taciturn, rhymed profusely in tragedies, "printing" in his books, "Châteaubriand or nothing!" and engaging his more animated brother to flourish the Cid's sword and roar the tyrant's speeches.

In 1814, both suffered a sympathetic anxiety as their father held out at Thionville against the Allies, finally repulsing them by a sortie. This was pure loyalty to the fallen Bonaparte, for Hugo had lost his all in Spain, his very savings having been sunk in real estate, through King Joseph's insistence on his adherents investing to prove they had "come to stay."

The Bourbons enthroned anew, General Hugo received, less for his neutrality than thanks to his wife's piety and loyalty, confirmation of his title and rank, and, moreover, a fieldmarshalship. Abel was accepted as a page, too, but there was no money awarded the ex-Bonapartist--money being what the Eaglet at Reichstadt most required for an attempt at his father's throne--and the poor officer was left in seclusion to write consolingly about his campaigns and "Defences of Fortified Towns."

Decidedly the pen had superseded the sword, for Victor and Eugène were scribbling away in ephemeral political sheets as apprenticeship to founding a periodical of their own.

Victor's poetry became remarkable in _La Muse Française_ and _Le Conservateur Littéraire_, the odes being permeated with Legitimist and anti-revolutionary sentiments delightful to the taste of Madam Hugo, member as she was of the courtly Order of the Royal Lily.

In 1817, the French Academy honorably mentioned Victor's "Odes on the Advantages of Study," with a misgiving that some elder hand was masked under the line ascribing "scant fifteen years" to the author. At the Toulouse Floral Games he won prizes two years successively. His critical judgment was sound as well, for he had divined the powers of Lamartine.

His "Odes," collected in a volume, gave his ever-active mother her opportunity at Court. Louis XVIII. granted the boy-poet a pension of 1,500 francs.

It was the windfall for which the youth had been waiting to enable him to gratify his first love. In his childhood, his father and one M. Foucher, head of a War Office Department, had jokingly betrothed a son of the one to a daughter of the other. Abel had loftier views than alliance with a civil servant's child; Eugène was in love elsewhere; but Victor had fallen enamored with Adèle Foucher. It is true, when poverty beclouded the Hugos, the Fouchers had shrunk into their mantle of dignity, and the girl had been strictly forbidden to correspond with her child-sweetheart.

He, finding letters barred out, wrote a love story ("Hans of Iceland") in two weeks, where were recited his hopes, fears, and constancy, and this book she could read.

It pleased the public no less, and its sale, together with that of the "Odes" and a West Indian romance, "Buck Jargal," together with a royal pension, emboldened the poet to renew his love-suit. To refuse the recipient of court funds was not possible to a public functionary. M. Foucher consented to the betrothal in the summer of 1821.

So encloistered had Mdlle. Adèle been, her reading "Hans" the exceptional intrusion, that she only learnt on meeting her affianced that he was mourning his mother. In October, 1822, they were wed, the bride nineteen, the bridegroom but one year the elder. The dinner was marred by the sinister disaster of Eugène Hugo going mad. (He died in an asylum five years later.) The author terminated his wedding year with the "Ode to Louis XVIII.," read to a society after the President of the Academy had introduced him as "the most promising of our young lyrists."

In spite of new poems revealing a Napoleonic bias, Victor was invited to see Charles X. consecrated at Rheims, 29th of May, 1825, and was entered on the roll of the Legion of Honor repaying the favors with the verses expected. But though a son was born to him he was not restored to Conservatism; with his mother's death all that had vanished. His tragedy of "Cromwell" broke lances upon Royalists and upholders of the still reigning style of tragedy. The second collection of "Odes" preluding it, showed the spirit of the son of Napoleon's general, rather than of the Bourbonist field-marshal. On the occasion, too, of the Duke of Tarento being announced at the Austrian Ambassador's ball, February, 1827, as plain "Marshal Macdonald," Victor became the mouthpiece of indignant Bonapartists in his "Ode to the Napoleon Column" in the Place Vendôme.

His "Orientales," though written in a Parisian suburb by one who had not travelled, appealed for Grecian liberty, and depicted sultans and pashas as tyrants, many a line being deemed applicable to personages nearer the Seine than Stamboul.

"Cromwell" was not actable, and "Amy Robsart," in collaboration with his brother-in-law, Foucher, miserably failed, notwithstanding a finale "superior to Scott's 'Kenilworth.'" In one twelvemonth, there was this failure to record, the death of his father from apoplexy at his eldest son's marriage, and the birth of a second son to Victor towards the close.

Still imprudent, the young father again irritated the court with satire in "Marion Delorme" and "Hernani," two plays immediately suppressed by the Censure, all the more active as the Revolution of July, 1830, was surely seething up to the edge of the crater.

(At this juncture, the poet Châteaubriand, fading star to our rising sun, yielded up to him formally "his place at the poets' table.")

In the summer of 1831, a civil ceremony was performed over the insurgents killed in the previous year, and Hugo was constituted poet-laureate of the Revolution by having his hymn sung in the Pantheon over the biers.

Under Louis Philippe, "Marion Delorme" could be played, but livelier attention was turned to "Nôtre Dame de Paris," the historical romance in which Hugo vied with Sir Walter. It was to have been followed by others, but the publisher unfortunately secured a contract to monopolize all the new novelist's prose fictions for a term of years, and the author revenged himself by publishing poems and plays alone. Hence "Nôtre Dame" long stood unique: it was translated in all languages, and plays and operas were founded on it. Heine professed to see in the prominence of the hunchback a personal appeal of the author, who was slightly deformed by one shoulder being a trifle higher than the other; this malicious suggestion reposed also on the fact that the _quasi_-hero of "Le Roi s'Amuse" (1832, a tragedy suppressed after one representation, for its reflections on royalty), was also a contorted piece of humanity. This play was followed by "Lucrezia Borgia," "Marie Tudor," and "Angelo," written in a singular poetic prose. Spite of bald translations, their action was sufficiently dramatic to make them successes, and even still enduring on our stage. They have all been arranged as operas, whilst Hugo himself, to oblige the father of Louise Bertin, a magazine publisher of note, wrote "Esmeralda" for her music in 1835.

Thus, at 1837, when he was promoted to an officership in the Legion of Honor, it was acknowledged his due as a laborious worker in all fields of literature, however contestable the merits and tendencies of his essays.

In 1839, the Academy, having rejected him several times, elected him among the Forty Immortals. In the previous year had been successfully acted "Ruy Blas," for which play he had gone to Spanish sources; with and after the then imperative Rhine tour, came an unendurable "trilogy," the "Burgraves," played one long, long night in 1843. A real tragedy was to mark that year: his daughter Léopoldine being drowned in the Seine with her husband, who would not save himself when he found that her death-grasp on the sinking boat was not to be loosed.

For distraction, Hugo plunged into politics. A peer in 1845, he sat between Marshal Soult and Pontécoulant, the regicide-judge of Louis XVI. His maiden speech bore upon artistic copyright; but he rapidly became a power in much graver matters.

As fate would have it, his speech on the Bonapartes induced King Louis Philippe to allow Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte to return, and, there being no gratitude in politics, the emancipated outlaw rose as a rival candidate for the Presidency, for which Hugo had nominated himself in his newspaper the _Evènement_. The story of the _Coup d'État_ is well known; for the Republican's side, read Hugo's own "History of a Crime." Hugo, proscribed, betook himself to Brussels, London, and the Channel Islands, waiting to "return with right when the usurper should be expelled."

Meanwhile, he satirized the Third Napoleon and his congeners with ceaseless shafts, the principal being the famous "Napoleon the Little," based on the analogical reasoning that as the earth has moons, the lion the jackal, man himself his simian double, a minor Napoleon was inevitable as a standard of estimation, the grain by which a pyramid is measured. These flings were collected in "Les Châtiments," a volume preceded by "Les Contemplations" (mostly written in the '40's), and followed by "Les Chansons des Rues et des Bois."

The baffled publisher's close-time having expired, or, at least, his heirs being satisfied, three novels appeared, long heralded: in 1862, "Les Misérables" (Ye Wretched), wherein the author figures as Marius and his father as the Bonapartist officer: in 1866, "Les Travailleurs de la Mer" (Toilers of the Sea), its scene among the Channel Islands; and, in 1868, "L'Homme Qui Rit" (The Man who Grins), unfortunately laid in a fanciful England evolved from recondite reading through foreign spectacles. Whilst writing the final chapters, Hugo's wife died; and, as he had refused the Amnesty, he could only escort her remains to the Belgian frontier, August, 1868. All this while, in his Paris daily newspaper, _Le Rappei_ (adorned with cuts of a Revolutionary drummer beating "to arms!"), he and his sons and son-in-law's family were reiterating blows at the throne. When it came down in 1870, and the Republic was proclaimed, Hugo hastened to Paris.

His poems, written during the War and Siege, collected under the title of "L'Année Terrible" (The Terrible Year, 1870-71), betray the long-tried exile, "almost alone in his gloom," after the death of his son Charles and his child. Fleeing to Brussels after the Commune, he nevertheless was so aggressive in sheltering and aiding its fugitives, that he was banished the kingdom, lest there should be a renewal of an assault on his house by the mob, supposed by his adherents to be, not "the honest Belgians," but the refugee Bonapartists and Royalists, who had not cared to fight for France in France endangered. Resting in Luxemburg, he prepared "L'Année Terrible" for the press, and thence returned to Paris, vainly to plead with President Thiers for the captured Communists' lives, and vainly, too, proposing himself for election to the new House.

In 1872, his novel of "'93" pleased the general public here, mainly by the adventures of three charming little children during the prevalence of an internecine war. These phases of a bounteously paternal mood reappeared in "L'Art d'être Grandpère," published in 1877, when he had become a life-senator.

"Hernani" was in the regular "stock" of the Théâtre Français, "Rigoletto" (Le Roi s'Amuse) always at the Italian opera-house, while the same subject, under the title of "The Fool's Revenge," held, as it still holds, a high position on the Anglo-American stage. Finally, the poetic romance of "Torquemada," for over thirty years promised, came forth in 1882, to prove that the wizard-wand had not lost its cunning.

After dolor, fêtes were come: on one birthday they crown his bust in the chief theatre; on another, all notable Paris parades under his window, where he sits with his grandchildren at his knee, in the shadow of the Triumphal Arch of Napoleon's Star. It is given to few men thus to see their own apotheosis.

Whilst he was dying, in May, 1885, Paris was but the first mourner for all France; and the magnificent funeral pageant which conducted the pauper's coffin, antithetically enshrining the remains considered worthy of the highest possible reverence and honors, from the Champs Elysées to the Pantheon, was the more memorable from all that was foremost in French art and letters having marched in the train, and laid a leaf or flower in the tomb of the protégé of Châteaubriand, the brother-in-arms of Dumas, the inspirer of Mars, Dorval, Le-maître, Rachel, and Bernhardt, and, above all, the Nemesis of the Third Empire.

EARLY POEMS.

MOSES ON THE NILE.

_("Mes soeurs, l'onde est plus fraiche.")_

[TO THE FLORAL GAMES, Toulouse, Feb. 10, 1820.]

"Sisters! the wave is freshest in the ray
Of the young morning; the reapers are asleep;
The river bank is lonely: come away!
The early murmurs of old Memphis creep
Faint on my ear; and here unseen we stray,--
Deep in the covert of the grove withdrawn,
Save by the dewy eye-glance of the dawn.

"Within my father's palace, fair to see,
Shine all the Arts, but oh! this river side,
Pranked with gay flowers, is dearer far to me
Than gold and porphyry vases bright and wide;
How glad in heaven the song-bird carols free!
Sweeter these zephyrs float than all the showers
Of costly odors in our royal bowers.

"The sky is pure, the sparkling stream is clear:
Unloose your zones, my maidens! and fling down
To float awhile upon these bushes near
Your blue transparent robes: take off my crown,
And take away my jealous veil; for here
To-day we shall be joyous while we lave
Our limbs amid the murmur of the wave.

"Hasten; but through the fleecy mists of morn,
What do I see? Look ye along the stream!
Nay, timid maidens--we must not return!
Coursing along the current, it would seem
An ancient palm-tree to the deep sea borne,
That from the distant wilderness proceeds,
Downwards, to view our wondrous Pyramids.

"But stay! if I may surely trust mine eye,--
It is the bark of Hermes, or the shell
Of Iris, wafted gently to the sighs
Of the light breeze along the rippling swell;
But no: it is a skiff where sweetly lies
An infant slumbering, and his peaceful rest
Looks as if pillowed on his mother's breast.

"He sleeps--oh, see! his little floating bed
Swims on the mighty river's fickle flow,
A white dove's nest; and there at hazard led
By the faint winds, and wandering to and fro,
The cot comes down; beneath his quiet head
The gulfs are moving, and each threatening wave
Appears to rock the child upon a grave.

"He wakes--ah, maids of Memphis! haste, oh, haste!
He cries! alas!--What mother could confide
Her offspring to the wild and watery waste?
He stretches out his arms, the rippling tide
Murmurs around him, where all rudely placed,
He rests but with a few frail reeds beneath,
Between such helpless innocence and death.

"Oh! take him up! Perchance he is of those
Dark sons of Israel whom my sire proscribes;
Ah! cruel was the mandate that arose
Against most guiltless of the stranger tribes!
Poor child! my heart is yearning for his woes,
I would I were his mother; but I'll give
If not his birth, at least the claim to live."

Thus Iphis spoke; the royal hope and pride
Of a great monarch; while her damsels nigh,
Wandered along the Nile's meandering side;
And these diminished beauties, standing by
The trembling mother; watching with eyes wide
Their graceful mistress, admired her as stood,
More lovely than the genius of the flood!

The waters broken by her delicate feet
Receive the eager wader, as alone
By gentlest pity led, she strives to meet
The wakened babe; and, see, the prize is won!
She holds the weeping burden with a sweet
And virgin glow of pride upon her brow,
That knew no flush save modesty's till now.

Opening with cautious hands the reedy couch,
She brought the rescued infant slowly out
Beyond the humid sands; at her approach
Her curious maidens hurried round about
To kiss the new-born brow with gentlest touch;
Greeting the child with smiles, and bending nigh
Their faces o'er his large, astonished eye!

Haste thou who, from afar, in doubt and fear,
Dost watch, with straining eyes, the fated boy--
The loved of heaven! come like a stranger near,
And clasp young Moses with maternal joy;
Nor fear the speechless transport and the tear
Will e'er betray thy fond and hidden claim,
For Iphis knows not yet a mother's name!

With a glad heart, and a triumphal face,
The princess to the haughty Pharaoh led
The humble infant of a hated race,
Bathed with the bitter tears a parent shed;
While loudly pealing round the holy place
Of Heaven's white Throne, the voice of angel choirs
Intoned the theme of their undying lyres!

"No longer mourn thy pilgrimage below--
O Jacob! let thy tears no longer swell
The torrent of the Egyptian river: Lo!
Soon on the Jordan's banks thy tents shall dwell;
And Goshen shall behold thy people go
Despite the power of Egypt's law and brand,
From their sad thrall to Canaan's promised land.

"The King of Plagues, the Chosen of Sinai,
Is he that, o'er the rushing waters driven,
A vigorous hand hath rescued for the sky;
Ye whose proud hearts disown the ways of heaven!
Attend, be humble! for its power is nigh
Israel! a cradle shall redeem thy worth--
A Cradle yet shall save the widespread earth!"

_Dublin University Magazine, 1839_

ENVY AND AVARICE.

_("L'Avarice et l'Envie.")_

[LE CONSERVATEUR LITÉRAIRE, 1820.]

Envy and Avarice, one summer day,
Sauntering abroad
In quest of the abode
Of some poor wretch or fool who lived that way--
You--or myself, perhaps--I cannot say--
Along the road, scarce heeding where it tended,
Their way in sullen, sulky silence wended;

For, though twin sisters, these two charming creatures,
Rivals in hideousness of form and features,
Wasted no love between them as they went.
Pale Avarice,
With gloating eyes,
And back and shoulders almost double bent,
Was hugging close that fatal box
For which she's ever on the watch
Some glance to catch
Suspiciously directed to its locks;
And Envy, too, no doubt with silent winking
At her green, greedy orbs, no single minute
Withdrawn from it, was hard a-thinking
Of all the shining dollars in it.

The only words that Avarice could utter,
Her constant doom, in a low, frightened mutter,
"There's not enough, enough, yet in my store!"
While Envy, as she scanned the glittering sight,
Groaned as she gnashed her yellow teeth with spite,
"She's more than me, more, still forever more!"

Thus, each in her own fashion, as they wandered,
Upon the coffer's precious contents pondered,
When suddenly, to their surprise,
The God Desire stood before their eyes.
Desire, that courteous deity who grants
All wishes, prayers, and wants;
Said he to the two sisters: "Beauteous ladies,
As I'm a gentleman, my task and trade is
To be the slave of your behest--
Choose therefore at your own sweet will and pleasure,
Honors or treasure!
Or in one word, whatever you'd like best.
But, let us understand each other--she
Who speaks the first, her prayer shall certainly
Receive--the other, the same boon _redoubled!_"

Imagine how our amiable pair,
At this proposal, all so frank and fair,
Were mutually troubled!
Misers and enviers, of our human race,
Say, what would you have done in such a case?
Each of the sisters murmured, sad and low
"What boots it, oh, Desire, to me to have
Crowns, treasures, all the goods that heart can crave,
Or power divine bestow,
Since still another must have always more?"

So each, lest she should speak before
The other, hesitating slow and long
Till the god lost all patience, held her tongue.
He was enraged, in such a way,
To be kept waiting there all day,
With two such beauties in the public road;
Scarce able to be civil even,
He wished them both--well, not in heaven.

Envy at last the silence broke,
And smiling, with malignant sneer,
Upon her sister dear,
Who stood in expectation by,
Ever implacable and cruel, spoke
"I would be blinded of _one_ eye!"

_American Keepsake_

ODES.--1818-28.

KING LOUIS XVII.

_("En ce temps-là du ciel les portes.")_

[Bk. I. v., December, 1822.]

The golden gates were opened wide that day,
All through the unveiled heaven there seemed to play
Out of the Holiest of Holy, light;
And the elect beheld, crowd immortal,
A young soul, led up by young angels bright,
Stand in the starry portal.

A fair child fleeing from the world's fierce hate,
In his blue eye the shade of sorrow sate,
His golden hair hung all dishevelled down,
On wasted cheeks that told a mournful story,
And angels twined him with the innocent's crown,
The martyr's palm of glory.

The virgin souls that to the Lamb are near,
Called through the clouds with voices heavenly clear,
God hath prepared a glory for thy brow,
Rest in his arms, and all ye hosts that sing
His praises ever on untired string,
Chant, for a mortal comes among ye now;
Do homage--"'Tis a king."

And the pale shadow saith to God in heaven:
"I am an orphan and no king at all;
I was a weary prisoner yestereven,
My father's murderers fed my soul with gall.
Not me, O Lord, the regal name beseems.
Last night I fell asleep in dungeon drear,
But then I saw my mother in my dreams,
Say, shall I find her here?"

The angels said: "Thy Saviour bids thee come,
Out of an impure world He calls thee home,
From the mad earth, where horrid murder waves
Over the broken cross her impure wings,
And regicides go down among the graves,
Scenting the blood of kings."

He cries: "Then have I finished my long life?
Are all its evils over, all its strife,
And will no cruel jailer evermore
Wake me to pain, this blissful vision o'er?
Is it no dream that nothing else remains
Of all my torments but this answered cry,
And have I had, O God, amid my chains,
The happiness to die?

"For none can tell what cause I had to pine,
What pangs, what miseries, each day were mine;
And when I wept there was no mother near
To soothe my cries, and smile away my tear.
Poor victim of a punishment unending,
Torn like a sapling from its mother earth,
So young, I could not tell what crime impending
Had stained me from my birth.

"Yet far off in dim memory it seems,
With all its horror mingled happy dreams,
Strange cries of glory rocked my sleeping head,
And a glad people watched beside my bed.
One day into mysterious darkness thrown,
I saw the promise of my future close;
I was a little child, left all alone,
Alas! and I had foes.

"They cast me living in a dreary tomb,
Never mine eyes saw sunlight pierce the gloom,
Only ye, brother angels, used to sweep
Down from your heaven, and visit me in sleep.
'Neath blood-red hands my young life withered there.
Dear Lord, the bad are miserable all,
Be not Thou deaf, like them, unto my prayer,
It is for them I call."

The angels sang: "See heaven's high arch unfold,
Come, we will crown thee with the stars above,
Will give thee cherub-wings of blue and gold,
And thou shalt learn our ministry of love,
Shalt rock the cradle where some mother's tears
Are dropping o'er her restless little one,
Or, with thy luminous breath, in distant spheres,
Shalt kindle some cold sun."

Ceased the full choir, all heaven was hushed to hear,
Bowed the fair face, still wet with many a tear,
In depths of space, the rolling worlds were stayed,
Whilst the Eternal in the infinite said:

"O king, I kept thee far from human state,
Who hadst a dungeon only for thy throne,
O son, rejoice, and bless thy bitter fate,
The slavery of kings thou hast not known,
What if thy wasted arms are bleeding yet,
And wounded with the fetter's cruel trace,
No earthly diadem has ever set
A stain upon thy face.

"Child, life and hope were with thee at thy birth,
But life soon bowed thy tender form to earth,
And hope forsook thee in thy hour of need.
Come, for thy Saviour had His pains divine;
Come, for His brow was crowned with thorns like thine,
His sceptre was a reed."

_Dublin University Magazine._

THE FEAST OF FREEDOM.

_("Lorsqu'à l'antique Olympe immolant l'evangile.")_

[Bk. II. v., 1823.]

[There was in Rome one antique usage as follows: On the eve of the
execution day, the sufferers were given a public banquet--at the prison
gate--known as the "Free Festival."--CHATEAUBRIAND'S "Martyrs."]

TO YE KINGS.

When the Christians were doomed to the lions of old
By the priest and the praetor, combined to uphold
An idolatrous cause,
Forth they came while the vast Colosseum throughout
Gathered thousands looked on, and they fell 'mid the shout
Of "the People's" applause.

On the eve of that day of their evenings the last!
At the gates of their dungeon a gorgeous repast,
Rich, unstinted, unpriced,
That the doomed might (forsooth) gather strength ere they bled,
With an ignorant pity the jailers would spread
For the martyrs of Christ.

Oh, 'twas strange for a pupil of Paul to recline
On voluptuous couch, while Falernian wine
Fill'd his cup to the brim!
Dulcet music of Greece, Asiatic repose,
Spicy fragrance of Araby, Italian rose,
All united for him!

Every luxury known through the earth's wide expanse,
In profusion procured was put forth to enhance
The repast that they gave;
And no Sybarite, nursed in the lap of delight,
Such a banquet ere tasted as welcomed that night
The elect of the grave.

And the lion, meantime, shook his ponderous chain,
Loud and fierce howled the tiger, impatient to stain
The bloodthirsty arena;
Whilst the women of Rome, who applauded those deeds
And who hailed the forthcoming enjoyment, must needs
Shame the restless hyena.

They who figured as guests on that ultimate eve,
In their turn on the morrow were destined to give
To the lions their food;
For, behold, in the guise of a slave at that board,
Where his victims enjoyed all that life can afford,
Death administering stood.

Such, O monarchs of earth! was your banquet of power,
But the tocsin has burst on your festival hour--
'Tis your knell that it rings!
To the popular tiger a prey is decreed,
And the maw of Republican hunger will feed
On _a banquet of Kings!_

"FATHER PROUT" (FRANK MAHONY)

GENIUS.

(DEDICATED TO CHATEAUBRIAND.)

[Bk. IV. vi., July, 1822.]

Woe unto him! the child of this sad earth,
Who, in a troubled world, unjust and blind,
Bears Genius--treasure of celestial birth,
Within his solitary soul enshrined.
Woe unto him! for Envy's pangs impure,
Like the undying vultures', will be driven
Into his noble heart, that must endure
Pangs for each triumph; and, still unforgiven,
Suffer Prometheus' doom, who ravished fire from Heaven.

Still though his destiny on earth may be
Grief and injustice; who would not endure
With joyful calm, each proffered agony;
Could he the prize of Genius thus ensure?
What mortal feeling kindled in his soul
That clear celestial flame, so pure and high,
O'er which nor time nor death can have control,
Would in inglorious pleasures basely fly
From sufferings whose reward is Immortality?
No! though the clamors of the envious crowd
Pursue the son of Genius, he will rise

From the dull clod, borne by an effort proud
Beyond the reach of vulgar enmities.
'Tis thus the eagle, with his pinions spread,
Reposing o'er the tempest, from that height
Sees the clouds reel and roll above our head,
While he, rejoicing in his tranquil flight,
More upward soars sublime in heaven's eternal light.

MRS. TORRE HULME

THE GIRL OF OTAHEITE.

_("O! dis-moi, tu veux fuir?")_

[Bk. IV, vii., Jan. 31, 1821.]

Forget? Can I forget the scented breath
Of breezes, sighing of thee, in mine ear;
The strange awaking from a dream of death,
The sudden thrill to find thee coming near?
Our huts were desolate, and far away
I heard thee calling me throughout the day,
No one had seen thee pass,
Trembling I came. Alas!
Can I forget?

Once I was beautiful; my maiden charms
Died with the grief that from my bosom fell.
Ah! weary traveller! rest in my loving arms!
Let there be no regrets and no farewell!
Here of thy mother sweet, where waters flow,
Here of thy fatherland we whispered low;
Here, music, praise, and prayer
Filled the glad summer air.
Can I forget?

Forget? My dear old home must I forget?
And wander forth and hear my people weep,
Far from the woods where, when the sun has set,
Fearless but weary to thy arms I creep;
Far from lush flow'rets and the palm-tree's moan
I could not live. Here let me rest alone!
Go! I must follow nigh,
With thee I'm doomed to die,
Never forget!

CLEMENT SCOTT

NERO'S INCENDIARY SONG.

_("Amis! ennui nous tue.")_

[Bk. IV. xv., March, 1825.]

Aweary unto death, my friends, a mood by wise abhorred,
Come to the novel feast I spread, thrice-consul, Nero, lord,
The Caesar, master of the world, and eke of harmony,
Who plays the harp of many strings, a chief of minstrelsy.

My joyful call should instantly bring all who love me most,--
For ne'er were seen such arch delights from Greek or Roman host;
Nor at the free, control-less jousts, where, spite of cynic vaunts,
Austere but lenient Seneca no "Ercles" bumper daunts;

Nor where upon the Tiber floats Aglae in galley gay,
'Neath Asian tent of brilliant stripes, in gorgeous array;
Nor when to lutes and tambourines the wealthy prefect flings
A score of slaves, their fetters wreathed, to feed grim, greedy
things.

I vow to show ye Rome aflame, the whole town in a mass;
Upon this tower we'll take our stand to watch the 'wildered pass;
How paltry fights of men and beasts! here be my combatants,--
The Seven Hills my circus form, and fiends shall lead the dance.

This is more meet for him who rules to drive away his stress--
He, being god, should lightnings hurl and make a wilderness--
But, haste! for night is darkling--soon, the festival it brings;
Already see the hydra show its tongues and sombre wings,

And mark upon a shrinking prey the rush of kindling breaths;
They tap and sap the threatened walls, and bear uncounted deaths;
And 'neath caresses scorching hot the palaces decay--
Oh, that I, too, could thus caress, and burn, and blight, and slay!

Hark to the hubbub! scent the fumes! Are those real men or ghosts?
The stillness spreads of Death abroad--down come the temple posts,
Their molten bronze is coursing fast and joins with silver waves
To leap with hiss of thousand snakes where Tiber writhes and raves.

All's lost! in jasper, marble, gold, the statues totter--crash!
Spite of the names divine engraved, they are but dust and ash.
The victor-scourge sweeps swollen on, whilst north winds sound the horn
To goad the flies of fire yet beyond the flight forlorn.

Proud capital! farewell for e'er! these flames nought can subdue--
The Aqueduct of Sylla gleams, a bridge o'er hellish brew.
'Tis Nero's whim! how good to see Rome brought the lowest down;
Yet, Queen of all the earth, give thanks for such a splendrous crown!

When I was young, the Sybils pledged eternal rule to thee;
That Time himself would lay his bones before thy unbent knee.
Ha! ha! how brief indeed the space ere this "immortal star"
Shall be consumed in its own glow, and vanished--oh, how far!

How lovely conflagrations look when night is utter dark!
The youth who fired Ephesus' fane falls low beneath my mark.
The pangs of people--when I sport, what matters?--See them whirl
About, as salamanders frisk and in the brazier curl.

Take from my brow this poor rose-crown--the flames have made it pine;
If blood rains on your festive gowns, wash off with Cretan wine!
I like not overmuch that red--good taste says "gild a crime?"
"To stifle shrieks by drinking-songs" is--thanks! a hint sublime!

I punish Rome, I am avenged; did she not offer prayers
Erst unto Jove, late unto Christ?--to e'en a Jew, she dares!
Now, in thy terror, own my right to rule above them all;
Alone I rest--except this pile, I leave no single hall.

Yet I destroy to build anew, and Rome shall fairer shine--
But out, my guards, and slay the dolts who thought me not divine.
The stiffnecks, haste! annihilate! make ruin all complete--
And, slaves, bring in fresh roses--what odor is more sweet?

H.L. WILLIAMS

REGRET.

_("Oui, le bonheur bien vite a passé.")_

[Bk. V. ii., February, 1821.]

Yes, Happiness hath left me soon behind!
Alas! we all pursue its steps! and when
We've sunk to rest within its arms entwined,
Like the Phoenician virgin, wake, and find
Ourselves alone again.

Then, through the distant future's boundless space,
We seek the lost companion of our days:
"Return, return!" we cry, and lo, apace
Pleasure appears! but not to fill the place
Of that we mourn always.

I, should unhallowed Pleasure woo me now,
Will to the wanton sorc'ress say, "Begone!
Respect the cypress on my mournful brow,
Lost Happiness hath left regret--but _thou_
Leavest remorse, alone."

Yet, haply lest I check the mounting fire,
O friends, that in your revelry appears!
With you I'll breathe the air which ye respire,
And, smiling, hide my melancholy lyre
When it is wet with tears.

Each in his secret heart perchance doth own
Some fond regret 'neath passing smiles concealed;--
Sufferers alike together and alone
Are we; with many a grief to others known,
How many unrevealed!

Alas! for natural tears and simple pains,
For tender recollections, cherished long,
For guileless griefs, which no compunction stains,
We blush; as if we wore these earthly chains
Only for sport and song!

Yes, my blest hours have fled without a trace:
In vain I strove their parting to delay;
Brightly they beamed, then left a cheerless space,
Like an o'erclouded smile, that in the face
Lightens, and fades away.

_Fraser's Magazine_

THE MORNING OF LIFE.

_("Le voile du matin.")_

[Bk. V. viii., April, 1822.]

The mist of the morning is torn by the peaks,
Old towers gleam white in the ray,
And already the glory so joyously seeks
The lark that's saluting the day.

Then smile away, man, at the heavens so fair,
Though, were you swept hence in the night,
From your dark, lonely tomb the owlets would stare
At the sun rising newly as bright.

But out of earth's trammels your soul would have flown
Where glitters Eternity's stream,
And you shall have waked 'midst pure glories unknown,
As sunshine disperses a dream.

BELOVED NAME.

_("Le parfum d'un lis.")_

[Bk. V. xiii.]

The lily's perfume pure, fame's crown of light,
The latest murmur of departing day,
Fond friendship's plaint, that melts at piteous sight,
The mystic farewell of each hour at flight,
The kiss which beauty grants with coy delay,--

The sevenfold scarf that parting storms bestow
As trophy to the proud, triumphant sun;
The thrilling accent of a voice we know,
The love-enthralled maiden's secret vow,
An infant's dream, ere life's first sands be run,--

The chant of distant choirs, the morning's sigh,
Which erst inspired the fabled Memnon's frame,--
The melodies that, hummed, so trembling die,--
The sweetest gems that 'mid thought's treasures lie,
Have naught of sweetness that can match HER NAME!

Low be its utterance, like a prayer divine,
Yet in each warbled song be heard the sound;
Be it the light in darksome fanes to shine,
The sacred word which at some hidden shrine,
The selfsame voice forever makes resound!

O friends! ere yet, in living strains of flame,
My muse, bewildered in her circlings wide,
With names the vaunting lips of pride proclaim,
Shall dare to blend the _one_, the purer name,
Which love a treasure in my breast doth hide,--

Must the wild lay my faithful harp can sing,
Be like the hymns which mortals, kneeling, hear;
To solemn harmonies attuned the string,
As, music show'ring from his viewless wing,
On heavenly airs some angel hovered near.

CAROLINE BOWLES (MRS. SOUTHEY)

THE PORTRAIT OF A CHILD.

_("Oui, ce front, ce sourire.")_

[Bk. V. xxii., November, 1825.]

That brow, that smile, that cheek so fair,
Beseem my child, who weeps and plays:
A heavenly spirit guards her ways,
From whom she stole that mixture rare.
Through all her features shining mild,
The poet sees an angel there,
The father sees a child.

And by their flame so pure and bright,
We see how lately those sweet eyes
Have wandered down from Paradise,
And still are lingering in its light.

All earthly things are but a shade
Through which she looks at things above,
And sees the holy Mother-maid,
Athwart her mother's glance of love.

She seems celestial songs to hear,
And virgin souls are whispering near.
Till by her radiant smile deceived,
I say, "Young angel, lately given,
When was thy martyrdom achieved?
And what name lost thou bear in heaven?"

_Dublin University Magazine_.

BALLADES.--1823-28.

THE GRANDMOTHER

_("Dors-tu? mère de notre mère.")_

[III., 1823.]

"To die--to sleep."--SHAKESPEARE.

Still asleep! We have been since the noon thus alone.
Oh, the hours we have ceased to number!
Wake, grandmother!--speechless say why thou art grown.
Then, thy lips are so cold!--the Madonna of stone
Is like thee in thy holy slumber.
We have watched thee in sleep, we have watched thee at prayer,
But what can now betide thee?
Like thy hours of repose all thy orisons were,
And thy lips would still murmur a blessing whene'er
Thy children stood beside thee.

Now thine eye is unclosed, and thy forehead is bent
O'er the hearth, where ashes smoulder;
And behold, the watch-lamp will be speedily spent.
Art thou vexed? have we done aught amiss? Oh, relent!
But--parent, thy hands grow colder!
Say, with ours wilt thou let us rekindle in thine
The glow that has departed?
Wilt thou sing us some song of the days of lang syne?
Wilt thou tell us some tale, from those volumes divine,
Of the brave and noble-hearted?

Of the dragon who, crouching in forest green glen,
Lies in wait for the unwary--
Of the maid who was freed by her knight from the den
Of the ogre, whose club was uplifted, but then
Turned aside by the wand of a fairy?
Wilt thou teach us spell-words that protect from all harm,
And thoughts of evil banish?
What goblins the sign of the cross may disarm?
What saint it is good to invoke? and what charm
Can make the demon vanish?

Or unfold to our gaze thy most wonderful book,
So feared by hell and Satan;
At its hermits and martyrs in gold let us look,
At the virgins, and bishops with pastoral crook,
And the hymns and the prayers in Latin.
Oft with legends of angels, who watch o'er the young,
Thy voice was wont to gladden;
Have thy lips yet no language--no wisdom thy tongue?
Oh, see! the light wavers, and sinking, bath flung
On the wall forms that sadden.

Wake! awake! evil spirits perhaps may presume
To haunt thy holy dwelling;
Pale ghosts are, perhaps, stealing into the room--
Oh, would that the lamp were relit! with the gloom
These fearful thoughts dispelling.
Thou hast told us our parents lie sleeping beneath
The grass, in a churchyard lonely:
Now, thine eyes have no motion, thy mouth has no breath,
And thy limbs are all rigid! Oh, say, _Is this death_,
Or thy prayer or thy slumber only?

ENVOY.

Sad vigil they kept by that grandmother's chair,
Kind angels hovered o'er them--
And the dead-bell was tolled in the hamlet--and there,
On the following eve, knelt that innocent pair,
With the missal-book before them.

"FATHER PROUT" (FRANK S. MAHONY).

THE GIANT IN GLEE.

_("Ho, guerriers! je suis né dans le pays des Gaules.")_

[V., March 11, 1825.]

Ho, warriors! I was reared in the land of the Gauls;
O'er the Rhine my ancestors came bounding like balls
Of the snow at the Pole, where, a babe, I was bathed
Ere in bear and in walrus-skin I was enswathed.

Then my father was strong, whom the years lowly bow,--
A bison could wallow in the grooves of his brow.
He is weak, very old--he can scarcely uptear
A young pine-tree for staff since his legs cease to bear;

But here's to replace him!--I can toy with his axe;
As I sit on the hill my feet swing in the flax,
And my knee caps the boulders and troubles the trees.
How they shiver, yea, quake if I happen to sneeze!

I was still but a springald when, cleaving the Alps,
I brushed snowy periwigs off granitic scalps,
And my head, o'er the pinnacles, stopped the fleet clouds,
Where I captured the eagles and caged them by crowds.

There were tempests! I blew them back into their source!
And put out their lightnings! More than once in a course,
Through the ocean I went wading after the whale,
And stirred up the bottom as did never a gale.

Fond of rambling, I hunted the shark 'long the beach,
And no osprey in ether soared out of my reach;
And the bear that I pinched 'twixt my finger and thumb,
Like the lynx and the wolf, perished harmless and dumb.

But these pleasures of childhood have lost all their zest;
It is warfare and carnage that now I love best:
The sounds that I wish to awaken and hear
Are the cheers raised by courage, the shrieks due to fear;

When the riot of flames, ruin, smoke, steel and blood,
Announces an army rolls along as a flood,
Which I follow, to harry the clamorous ranks,
Sharp-goading the laggards and pressing the flanks,
Till, a thresher 'mid ripest of corn, up I stand
With an oak for a flail in my unflagging hand.

Rise the groans! rise the screams! on my feet fall vain tears
As the roar of my laughter redoubles their fears.
I am naked. At armor of steel I should joke--
True, I'm helmed--a brass pot you could draw with ten yoke.

I look for no ladder to invade the king's hall--
I stride o'er the ramparts, and down the walls fall,
Till choked are the ditches with the stones, dead and quick,
Whilst the flagstaff I use 'midst my teeth as a pick.

Oh, when cometh my turn to succumb like my prey,
May brave men my body snatch away from th' array
Of the crows--may they heap on the rocks till they loom
Like a mountain, befitting a colossus' tomb!

_Foreign Quarterly Review (adapted)_

THE CYMBALEER'S BRIDE.

_("Monseigneur le Duc de Bretagne.")_

[VI., October, 1825.]

My lord the Duke of Brittany
Has summoned his barons bold--
Their names make a fearful litany!
Among them you will not meet any
But men of giant mould.

Proud earls, who dwell in donjon keep,
And steel-clad knight and peer,
Whose forts are girt with a moat cut deep--
But none excel in soldiership
My own loved cymbaleer.

Clashing his cymbals, forth he went,
With a bold and gallant bearing;
Sure for a captain he was meant,
To judge his pride with courage blent,
And the cloth of gold he's wearing.

But in my soul since then I feel
A fear in secret creeping;
And to my patron saint I kneel,
That she may recommend his weal
To his guardian-angel's keeping.

I've begged our abbot Bernardine
His prayers not to relax;
And to procure him aid divine
I've burnt upon Saint Gilda's shrine
Three pounds of virgin wax.

Our Lady of Loretto knows
The pilgrimage I've vowed:
"To wear the scallop I propose,
If health and safety from the foes
My lover be allowed."

No letter (fond affection's gage!)
From him could I require,
The pain of absence to assuage--
A vassal-maid can have no page,
A liegeman has no squire.

This day will witness, with the duke's,
My cymbaleer's return:
Gladness and pride beam in my looks,
Delay my heart impatient brooks,
All meaner thoughts I spurn.

Back from the battlefield elate
His banner brings each peer;
Come, let us see, at the ancient gate,
The martial triumph pass in state--
With the princes my cymbaleer.

We'll have from the rampart walls a glance
Of the air his steed assumes;
His proud neck swells, his glad hoofs prance,
And on his head unceasing dance,
In a gorgeous tuft, red plumes!

Be quick, my sisters! dress in haste!
Come, see him bear the bell,
With laurels decked, with true love graced,
While in his bold hands, fitly placed,
The bounding cymbals swell!

Mark well the mantle that he'll wear,
Embroidered by his bride!
Admire his burnished helmet's glare,
O'ershadowed by the dark horsehair
That waves in jet folds wide!

The gypsy (spiteful wench!) foretold,
With a voice like a viper hissing.
(Though I had crossed her palm with gold),
That from the ranks a spirit bold
Would be to-day found missing.

But I have prayed so much, I trust
Her words may prove untrue;
Though in a tomb the hag accurst
Muttered: "Prepare thee for the worst!"
Whilst the lamp burnt ghastly blue.

My joy her spells shall not prevent.
Hark! I can hear the drums!
And ladies fair from silken tent
Peep forth, and every eye is bent
On the cavalcade that comes!

Pikemen, dividing on both flanks,
Open the pageantry;
Loud, as they tread, their armor clanks,
And silk-robed barons lead the ranks--
The pink of gallantry!

In scarfs of gold the priests admire;
The heralds on white steeds;
Armorial pride decks their attire,
Worn in remembrance of some sire
Famed for heroic deeds.

Feared by the Paynim's dark divan,
The Templars next advance;
Then the tall halberds of Lausanne,
Foremost to stand in battle van
Against the foes of France.