DEATH OF THE BISHOP OF ELY.
Written in the Author's 17th year.
My lids with grief were tumid yet, And still my sullied cheek was wet With briny dews, profusely shed
For venerable Winton dead:
When Fame, whose tales of saddest sound,
Alas! are ever truest found,
The news through all our cities spread
Of yet another mitred head
By ruthless fate to death consign'd,
Ely, the honour of his kind!
At once, a storm of passion heav'd
My boiling bosom, much I griev'd,
But more I rag'd at ev'ry breath
Devoting Death himself to death.
With less revenge did Naso teem,
When hated Ibis was his theme;
With less, Archilochus, denied
The lovely Greek, his promis'd bride.
But lo! while thus I execrate, Incens'd the minister of fate, Wondrous accents, soft, yet clear, Wafted on the gale I hear.
"Ah, much deluded! lay aside
Thy threats, and anger misapplied!
Art not afraid with sounds like these,
T'offend, where thou canst not appease
Death is not (wherefore dream'st thou thus ?) The son of Night and Erebus :
Nor was of fell Erynnis born
On gulfs, where Chaos rules forlorn ·
But, sent from God, his presence leaves,
To gather home his ripen'd sheaves,
To call encumber'd souls away
From fleshly bonds to boundless day,
(As when the winged hours excite,
And summon forth the morning-light)
And each to convoy to her place
Before th' Eternal Father's face.
But not the wicked-them, severe
Yet just, from all their pleasures here
He hurries to the realms below,
Terrifick realms of penal wo!
Myself no sooner heard his call,
Than 'scaping through my prison-wall,
I bade adieu to bolts and bars,
And soar'd, with angels, to the stars,
Like him of old, to whom 'twas giv'n
To mount, on fiery wheels, to Heav'n
Bootes' wagon, slow with cold,
Appall'd me not; nor to behold
The sword, that vast Orion draws,
Or ev'n the Scorpion's horrid claws,
Beyond the sun's bright orb I fly,
And, far beneath my feet, descry
Night's dread goddess, seen with awe,
Whom her winged dragons draw.
Thus, ever wond'ring at my speed,
Augmented still as I proceed,
I pass the planetary sphere,
The Milky Way-and now appear
Heav'n's crystal battlements, her doo;
Of massy pearl, and em'rald floor.
But here I cease. For never can
The tongue of once a mortal man
In suitable description trace
The pleasures of that happy place;
Suffice it, that those joys divine
Are all, and all for ever, mine!"
NATURE UNIMPAIRED BY TIME.
Ан, how the human mind wearies herself With her own wand'rings, and, involv'd in gloom Impenetrable, speculates amiss!
Measuring, in her folly, things divine
By human; laws inscrib'd on adamant
By laws of man's device, and counsels fix'd
For ever, by the hours, that pass and die.
How!-shall the face of nature then be plough'd
Into deep wrinkles, and shall years at last
On the great Parent fix a sterile curse?
Shall even she confess old age, and halt,
And, palsy-smitten, shake her starry brows?
Shall foul Antiquity with rust and drought,
And Famine, vex the radiant worlds above?
Shall Time's unsated maw crave and ingulf
The very Heav'ns, that regulate his flight?
And was the Sire of all able to fence
His works, and to uphold the circling worlds,
But, through improvident and heedless haste,
Let slip th' occasion ?-so then-all is lost-
And in some future evil hour, yon arch
Shall crumble, and come thund'ring down, the poles
Jar in collision, the Olympian king
Fall with his throne, and Pallas, holding forth
The terrours of the Gorgon shield in vain,
Shall rush to the abyss, like Vulcan hurl'd
Down into Lemnos, through the gate of Heav'n
Thou also, with precipitated wheels,
Phoebus thy own son's fall shalt imitate,
With hideous ruin shalt impress the deep
Suddenly, and the flood shall reek, and hiss
At the extinction of the lamp of day.
Then too shall Hæmus, cloven to his base,
Be shatter'd, and the huge Ceraunian hills,
Once weapons of Tartarean Dis, immers'd
In Erebus, shall fill himself with fear.
No. The Almighty Father surer laid His deep foundations, and providing well For the event of all, the scales of Fate Suspended, in just equipoise, and bade His universal works, from age to age, One tenour hold, perpetual, undisturb'd
Hence the prime mover wheels itself about
Continual, day by day, and with it bears
In social measure swift the heav'ns around.
Not tardier now is Satan than of old,
Nor radiant less the burning casque of Mars,
Phoebus, his vigour unimpair'd, still shows
Th' effulgence of his youth, nor needs the god
A downward course, that he may warm the vales;
But, ever rich in influence, runs his road,
Sign after sign, through all the heav'nly zone.
Beautiful, as at first, ascends the star
From odorif'rous Ind, whose office is
To gather home betimes th' ethereal flock,
To pour them o'er the skies again at eve,
And to discriminate the night and day.
Still Cynthia's changeful horn waxes, and wanes,
Alternate, and with arms extended still
She welcomes to her breast her brother's beams,
Nor have the elements deserted yet
Their functions; thunder, with as loud a stroke
As erst, smites through the rocks, and scatters them
The east still howls, still the relentless north
Invades the shudd'ring Scythian, still he breathes
The winter, and still rolls the storms along.
The king of ocean, with his wonted force,
Beats on Pelorus, o'er the deep is heard
The hoarse alarm of Triton's sounding shell,
Nor swim the monsters of the Ægean sea
In shallows, or beneath diminish'd waves,
Theu too, thy ancient vegetative pow'r
Enjoy'st, O Earth! Narcissus still is sweet,
And Phoebus! still thy favourite, and still
Thy fav'rite Cytherea! both retain
Their beauty, nor the mountains, ore-enrich'd
For punishment of man, with purer gold
Teem'd ever, or with brighter gems the Deep
Thus, in unbroken series, all proceeds; And shall, till wide involving either pole, And the immensity of yonder heav'n, The final flames of destiny absorb
ne world consum'd in one enormous pyre !
|