DESTRUCTION OF THE BASTILE.
HEARD'ST thou yon universal cry,
And dost thou linger still on Gallia's shore?
Go, Tyranny! beneath some barbarous sky
Thy terrors lost, and ruin'd power deplore!
What tho' through many a groaning age
Was felt thy keen suspicious rage,
Yet Freedom rous'd by fierce Disdain
Has wildly broke thy triple chain,
And like the storm which earth's deep entrails hide, At length has burst its way and spread the ruins wide.
In sighs their sickly breath was spent; each gleam Of Hope had ceas'd the long long day to cheer; Or if delusive, in some flitting dream,
gave them to their friends and children dearAwak'd by lordly Insult's sound
To all the doubled horrors round,
Oft shrunk they from Oppression's band While anguish rais'd the desperate hand For silent death; or lost the mind's control, Thro' every burning vein would tides of Frenzy roll.
But cease, ye pitying bosoms, cease to bleed!
Such scenes no more demand the tear humane;
I see, I see! glad Liberty succeed
With every patriot virtue in her train !
And mark yon peasant's raptured eyes;
Secure he views his harvests rise;
No fetter vile the mind shall know,
And Eloquence shall fearless glow.
Yes! Liberty the soul of Life shall reign, Shall throb in every pulse, shall flow thro' every vein!
Shall France alone a Despot spurn?
Shall she alone, O Freedom, boast thy care?
Lo, round thy standard Belgia's heroes burn,
Tho' Power's blood-stain'd streamers fire the air,
And wider yet thy influence spread,
Nor e'er recline thy weary head,
Till every land from pole to pole
Shall boast one independent soul !
And still, as erst, let favor'd Britain be
First ever of the first and freest of the free!
TO A BEAUTIFUL SPRING IN A VILLAGE.
ONCE more, sweet Stream! with slow foot wandering
I bless thy milky waters cold and clear.
Escaped the flashing of the noontide hours,
With one fresh garland of Pierian flowers
(Ere from thy zephyr-haunted brink I turn)
My languid hand shall wreath thy mossy urn.
For not through pathless grove with murmur rude
Thou soothest the sad wood-nymph, Solitude;
Nor thine unseen in cavern depths to well,
The hermit-fountain of some dripping cell!
Pride of the Vale! thy useful streams supply
The scattered cots and peaceful hamlet nigh.
The elfin tribe around thy friendly banks
With infant uproar and soul-soothing pranks,
Released from school, their little hearts at rest,
Launch paper navies on thy waveless breast.
The rustic here at eve with pensive look
Whistling lorn ditties leans upon his crook,
Or starting pauses with hope-mingled dread
To list the much-loved maid's accustomed tread:
She, vainly mindful of her dame's command,
Loiters, the long-filled pitcher in her hand.
Unboastful Stream! thy fount with pebbled falls The faded form of past delight recalls,
What time the morning sun of Hope arose,
And all was joy; save when another's woes
A transient gloom upon my soul imprest,
Like passing clouds impictured on thy breast.
Life's current then ran sparkling to the noon,
Or silvery stole beneath the pensive Moon:
Ah! now it works rude brakes and thorns among,
Or o'er the rough rock bursts and foams along!
LINES ON A FRIEND
WHO DIED OF A FRENZY FEVER INDUCED BY
CALUMNIOUS REPORTS.
EDMUND! thy grave with aching eye I scan,
And inly groan for Heaven's poor outcast-Man!
'Tis tempest all or gloom: in early youth
If gifted with the Ithuriel lance of Truth
We force to start amid her feigned caress
Vice, siren-hag! in native ugliness;
A Brother's fate will haply rouse the tear,
And on we go in heaviness and fear!
But if our fond hearts call to Pleasure's bower
Some pigmy Folly in a careless hour, [ground,
The faithless guest shall stamp the enchanted
And mingled forms of Misery rise around:
Heart-fretting Fear, with pallid look aghast,
That courts the future woe to hide the past;
Remorse, the poisoned arrow in his side,
And loud lewd Mirth, to Anguish close allied:
Till Frenzy, fierce-eyed child of moping pain,
Darts her hot lightning-flash athwart the brain.
Rest, injur'd shade! Shall Slander squatting near
Spit her cold venom in a dead Man's ear?
'Twas thine to feel the sympathetic glow
In Merit's joy, and Poverty's meek woe;
Thine all, that cheer the moment as it flies,
The zoneless Cares, and smiling Courtesies.
Nursed in thy heart the firmer Virtues grew,
And in thy heart they withered! Such chill dew
Wan Indolence on each young blossom shed;
And Vanity her filmy net-work spread,
With eye that rolled around in asking gaze,
And tongue that trafficked in the trade of praise.
Thy follies such! the hard world marked them well!
Were they more wise, the proud who never fell?
Rest, injured shade! the poor man's grateful prayer
On heaven-ward wing thy wounded soul shall bear.
As oft at twilight gloom thy grave I pass,
And sit me down upon its recent grass,
With introverted eye I contemplate
Similitude of soul, perhaps of-fate;
To me hath Heaven with bounteous hand assigned
Energic Reason and a shaping mind,
The daring ken of Truth, the Patriot's part,
And Pity's sigh, that breathes the gentle heart.
Sloth-jaundiced all! and from my graspless hand
Drop Friendship's precious pearls, like hour-glass
sand.
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