Lyra Heroica Part 16

Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart: Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, So didst thou travel on life's common way, In cheerful G.o.dliness; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on itself did lay.

_Wordsworth._

LI

TO DUTY

Stern Daughter of the Voice of G.o.d!

O Duty! if that name thou love Who art a light to guide, a rod To check the erring, and reprove; Thou, who art victory and law When empty terrors overawe; From vain temptations dost set free; And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity!

There are who ask not if thine eye Be on them; who, in love and truth, Where no misgiving is, rely Upon the genial sense of youth: Glad Hearts! without reproach or blot; Who do thy work, and know it not: May joy be theirs while life shall last!

And Thou, if they should totter, teach them to stand fast!

Serene will be our days and bright, And happy will our nature be, When love is an unerring light, And joy its own security.

And they a blissful course may hold Even now, who, not unwisely bold, Live in the spirit of this creed; Yet find that other strength, according to their need.

I, loving freedom, and untried; No sport of every random gust, Yet being to myself a guide, Too blindly have reposed my trust: And oft, when in my heart was heard Thy timely mandate, I deferred The task, in smoother walks to stray; But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may.

Through no disturbance of my soul Or strong compunction in me wrought, I supplicate for thy control; But in the quietness of thought: Me this unchartered freedom tires; I feel the weight of chance-desires: My hopes no more must change their name, I long for a repose that ever is the same.

Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear The G.o.dhead's most benignant grace; Nor know we anything so fair As is the smile upon thy face: Flowers laugh before thee on their beds And fragrance in thy footing treads; Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong.

To humbler functions, awful Power!

I call thee: I myself commend Unto thy guidance from this hour; O let my weakness have an end!

Give unto me, made lowly wise, The spirit of self-sacrifice; The confidence of reason give; And in the light of truth thy Bondman let me live!

_Wordsworth._

LII

TWO VICTORIES

I said, when evil men are strong, No life is good, no pleasure long, A weak and cowardly untruth!

Our Clifford was a happy Youth, And thankful through a weary time That brought him up to manhood's prime.

Again, he wanders forth at will, And tends a flock from hill to hill: His garb is humble; ne'er was seen Such garb with such a n.o.ble mien; Among the shepherd grooms no mate Hath he, a Child of strength and state!

Yet lacks not friends for simple glee, Nor yet for higher sympathy.

To his side the fallow-deer Came, and rested without fear; The eagle, lord of land and sea, Stooped down to pay him fealty; And both the undying fish that swim Through Bowscale-Tarn did wait on him; The pair were servants of his eye In their immortality; And glancing, gleaming, dark or bright, Moved to and fro, for his delight.

He knew the rocks which Angels haunt Upon the mountains visitant; He hath kenned them taking wing: And into caves where Faeries sing He hath entered; and been told By Voices how men lived of old.

Among the heavens his eye can see The face of thing that is to be; And, if that men report him right, His tongue could whisper words of might.

Now another day is come, Fitter hope, and n.o.bler doom; He hath thrown aside his crook, And hath buried deep his book; Armour rusting in his halls On the blood of Clifford calls: 'Quell the Scot!' exclaims the Lance; 'Bear me to the heart of France,'

Is the longing of the s.h.i.+eld; Tell thy name, thou trembling field; Field of death, where'er thou be, Groan thou with our victory!

Happy day, and mighty hour, When our Shepherd in his power, Mailed and horsed, with lance and sword, To his ancestors restored Like a reappearing Star, Like a glory from afar, First shall head the flock of war!

_Wordsworth._

LIII

IN MEMORIAM

NELSON: PITT: FOX

To mute and to material things New life revolving summer brings; The genial call dead Nature hears, And in her glory reappears.

But O my Country's wintry state What second spring shall renovate?

What powerful call shall bid arise The buried warlike and the wise; The mind that thought for Britain's weal, The hand that grasped the victor steel?

The vernal sun new life bestows Even on the meanest flower that blows; But vainly, vainly may he s.h.i.+ne, Where glory weeps o'er NELSON's shrine; And vainly pierce the solemn gloom, That shrouds, O PITT, thy hallowed tomb!

Deep graved in every British heart, O never let those names depart!

Say to your sons,--Lo, here his grave, Who victor died on Gadite wave; To him, as to the burning levin, Short, bright, resistless course was given.

Where'er his country's foes were found Was heard the fated thunder's sound, Till burst the bolt on yonder sh.o.r.e, Rolled, blazed, destroyed,--and was no more.

Nor mourn ye less his perished worth, Who bade the conqueror go forth, And launched that thunderbolt of war On Egypt, Hafnia, Trafalgar; Who, born to guide such high emprise, For Britain's weal was early wise; Alas! to whom the Almighty gave, For Britain's sins, an early grave!

His worth, who in his mightiest hour A bauble held the pride of power, Spurned at the sordid l.u.s.t of pelf, And served his Albion for herself; Who, when the frantic crowd amain Strained at subjection's bursting rein, O'er their wild mood full conquest gained, The pride he would not crush restrained, Showed their fierce zeal a worthier cause, And brought the freeman's arm to aid the freeman's laws.

Hadst thou but lived, though stripped of power, A watchman on the lonely tower, Thy thrilling trump had roused the land, When fraud or danger were at hand; By thee, as by the beacon-light, Our pilots had kept course aright; As some proud column, though alone, Thy strength had propped the tottering throne Now is the stately column broke, The beacon-light is quenched in smoke, The trumpet's silver sound is still, The warder silent on the hill!

O think, how to his latest day, When death, just hovering, claimed his prey, With Palinure's unaltered mood Firm at his dangerous post he stood; Each call for needful rest repelled, With dying hand the rudder held, Till in his fall with fateful sway, The steerage of the realm gave way!

Then, while on Britain's thousand plains One unpolluted church remains, Whose peaceful bells ne'er sent around The b.l.o.o.d.y tocsin's maddening sound, But still, upon the hallowed day, Convoke the swains to praise and pray; While faith and civil peace are dear, Grace this cold marble with a tear,-- He, who preserved them, PITT, lies here!

Nor yet suppress the generous sigh, Because his rival slumbers nigh; Nor be thy _requiescat_ dumb, Lest it be said o'er FOX's tomb.

For talents mourn, untimely lost, When best employed, and wanted most; Mourn genius high, and lore profound, And wit that loved to play, not wound; And all the reasoning powers divine, To penetrate, resolve, combine; And feelings keen, and fancy's glow,-- They sleep with him who sleeps below: And, if thou mourn'st they could not save From error him who owns this grave, Be every harsher thought suppressed, And sacred be the last long rest.

_Here_, where the end of earthly things Lays heroes, patriots, bards, and kings; Where stiff the hand, and still the tongue, Of those who fought, and spoke, and sung; _Here_, where the fretted aisles prolong The distant notes of holy song, As if some angel spoke agen, 'All peace on earth, good-will to men'; If ever from an English heart O, _here_ let prejudice depart, And, partial feeling cast aside, Record, that FOX a Briton died!

When Europe crouched to France's yoke, And Austria bent, and Prussia broke, And the firm Russian's purpose brave Was bartered by a timorous slave, Even then dishonour's peace he spurned, The sullied olive-branch returned, Stood for his country's glory fast, And nailed her colours to the mast!

Heaven, to reward his firmness, gave A portion in this honoured grave, And ne'er held marble in its trust Of two such wondrous men the dust.

With more than mortal powers endowed, How high they soared above the crowd!

Theirs was no common party race, Jostling by dark intrigue for place; Like fabled G.o.ds, their mighty war Shook realms and nations in its jar; Beneath each banner proud to stand, Looked up the n.o.blest of the land, Till through the British world were known The names of PITT and FOX alone.

Spells of such force no wizard grave E'er framed in dark Thessalian cave, Though his could drain the ocean dry, And force the planets from the sky.

These spells are spent, and, spent with these The wine of life is on the lees.

Genius, and taste, and talent gone, For ever tombed beneath the stone, Where--taming thought to human pride!-- The mighty chiefs sleep side by side.

Drop upon FOX's grave the tear, 'Twill trickle to his rival's bier; O'er PITT's the mournful requiem sound, And FOX's shall the notes rebound.

The solemn echo seems to cry,-- 'Here let their discord with them die.

Speak not for those a separate doom Whom fate made Brothers in the tomb; But search the land of living men, Where wilt thou find their like agen?'

_Scott._