The backswoodsman : a poem
3 ?- ^ t -, Ss< •C^~ ( , ^ 6 f POEMS. POEMS B Y THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS BOSTON: TICKNOR AND FIELDS M DCCC LIV. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by T. W. PARSONS, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Stereotyped by HOBART & BOBBINS, NEW ENGLAND TYPE AND STEREOTYPE IOCNDRT, BOSTON. TO JOHN 0. WARREN, M. D., EMERITUS PROFESSOR OP ANATOMY AND SURGE BY IN THE UNIVERSITY AT CAMBRIDGE, ETC. ETC. ETC. £jjese |3oems arc EnscriueD, IN TOKEN OP SINCERE LOVE AND REGARD, AND OP GRATITUDE FOR HIS CONSTANT FRIENDSHIP. MAY 1, 1854. M205193 CONTEXTS. LETTERS. PREFACE TO THE LETTERS, 1 ! EPISTLE TO SAMUEL ROGERS, LONDON 13 EPISTLE TO CHARLES KEMBLE, LONDON, i!3 EPISTLE TO EDWARD MOXON, PUBLISHER, LONDON, 81 EPISTLE TO WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR, FLORENCE, 38 MISCELLANEOUS. ON A BUST OF DANTE, 47 PARAPHRASE OF A PASSAGE IN DANTE, GO A PAGE OF CONCHOLOGY, 65 THE INTELLECTUAL REPUBLIC, 67 THE PEOPLE OF THE DEEP, Cl THRENODIA, ox THE DEATH OF PRESIDENT HARRISON, 66 To A "MAGDALEN," A PAINTING BY GUIDO, C7 LIVORXO, 60 THE GROOMSMAN TO iiis MISTRESS, 7-"> CAMPANILE Di PISA, 77 SAINT VALENTINE'S DAY, 80 A SARATOGA ECLOGUE, 82 VESPERS ON THE SHORE OF TIIE MEDITERRANEAN, 89 LOUISA'S GRAVE, 92 VIII A STORY OF THE CARNIVAL, 94 ADDRESS, WRITTEN FOR THE OPENING OF THE BOSTON THEATRE, .... 107 A SONG FOR SEPTEMBER, 112 PROEM TO MANZONI'S " CINQUE MAGGIO," 114 MANZONI'S ODE ON THE DEATH OF NAPOLEON, 118 HUDSON RIVER, 126 THE FEUD OF THE FLUTE-PLAYERS, 131 GHETTO Di ROMA, 138 THE SHADOW OF THE OBELISK, 148 UPON A LADY, SINGING, 151 To A LADY, WITH A HEAD OF POPE Pius NINTH, 152 STANZAS, 154 To A LADY, WITH A HEAD OF DIANA, 156 STEUART'S BURIAL, 158 EPITAPH UPON DAVID STEUART ROBERTSON, 160 To A LADY, IN RETURN FOR A BOOK OF MICHEL ANGELO'S SONNETS, . 161 SLEEP, 163 SONNET, BY BUONAGIUNTA DA LUCCA, 165 BIRTH-PLACE OF ROBERT BURNS, 166 SORRENTO, 168 ON THE DEATH OF DANIEL WEBSTER, 170 DREAMS, 174 To JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, IN RETURN FOR A TALBOTYPE OF VENICE, . 176 SAINT PERAY, 179 FRANCESCA DA RIMINI, 182 FIFTH OF NOVEMBER (GuY FAWKES' DAY), 184 ON SOME VERSES OF METASTASIO, 186 L E T T E K S. PREFACE TO THE LETTERS. TEN years and more ! — it seems a weary time Since first these fancies took their shape of rhyme ; And some who praised, and many more that read The trifling lines, are written with the dead : Why, then, recall them ? Mentor says 't is best, Or some dear friend may, after I 'm at rest ; Or, fearful thought ! should Bavius find them out, And clap 'em in that volume he 's about, So my boy-verses might confront my age, And cry " Thus did'st thou ! " from his tell-tale page ! What was their drift ? — A whim, without a plan, To feign myself a wandering Englishman : To imagine how he felt, and what he thought ; How we had felt, perchance, if English taught : Had we at Harrow or at Eton learned That fine freemasonry that is not earned By bookish toil in colleges at home, Nor all the schools from Gottingen to Rome : Something fastidious, — call it, if you will, Insular pride, — but something genial still ; Something satirical, — yet common sense, — That sees through pedantry, puts down pretence, Knows its own nonsense, and forgiveth yours, Calls folly by its name — and yet endures : 12 Good-humored wisdom, that can read the lie Of the false world, nor be enraged thereby, But keep its temper and its truth unmoved, Though boobies triumph, and the quack 's approved. But even ourselves may come to this at last And rest content, not proud, with what is past ; Our world shall grow a less distracting scene, And life, less busy, wear a gentler mien ; Then, too, perchance, in countries yet unclaimed (If such there be), by rivers yet unnamed, Where the brooks fall to the Pacific's rest, And the sun rises in what was the West, To many a spirit full of zeal and young, Whose mother speech is ours and Shakspeare's tongue, Such as to us — a consecrated stream — Isis hath been, our little Charles may seem ! In Harvard's names, that now so humbly sound, St. John's and Pembroke may by them be found, And what old England is to you and me, Such may New England to Nebraska be ! EPISTLE TO SAMUEL ROGERS, LONDON. NESTOR of Britain's lyre ! — 't is Byron's phrase — Or Midas ! (nay, I mean you no dispraise) Midas ! I say, since, whether you indite Poems or prose, or — " payable at sight," With bards and bankers equally enrolled, Whate'eryou touch turns wondrously to gold; May these rude lines, however lamely wrought, Bring back the pilgrim to your kindly thought ; Thine was the last of many a parting word "Which my sad ear, on leaving England, heard ; Now just, it seems, arrived this side the sea, My first epistle I address to thee. Some value, sure, a thousand leagues may lend To verse as dull as mild Reviews commend ; Distance and Time are marvellous magicians, Distance gives fame — and sometimes five editions ; So common toys, by Canton's turners made, Are marked " five pounds " in Burlington Arcade ; So may the farness of Manhattan give At least a fortnight for my rhymes to live ; The long, salt seasoning of the Atlantic brine Spins out the death-pangs of the weakest line. And, 0, remember, venerable SAM ! I rove not now by Thamis or the Cam ; Hesperia's muse is but a lagging bird, By whose low flight small rivalry is stirred ; On ostrich wings her dull career is driven, — Half tied to earth, half hopping up to heaven, — For seldom here has genius found in art Spontaneous utterance for a flowing heart, Or sought by night, in forest or in glen, The tongue of angels for the thoughts of men ; No willows planted by a poet's hand Grace wild Weehawken, like the Twick'nham strand ; If chance a laurel spring by Hudson's bank, It scarce grows beautiful, but only rank ; For why ? Apollo's few and feeble scholars Ply their dry tasks for dinners or for dollars ! But plume now — plume thy Fancy's willing pinion, Behold me here in JONATHAN'S dominion ; Snug in the shelter of that savory hell, That marble Malebolge — " HOLT'S hotel; " Where, forced by crowds from each genteeler house, I take, at one ! some canvas-back and grouse ; With boors from Buflalo in " velvet vests," Sit the most silent of the ravenous guests ; Watch their huge hunger with a wondering eye, Remember you and Holland House, and sigh. Perchance you marvel at my long delay Amid the pigs and liveries of Broadway ; > Yet have I strayed (it 's over, to my joy !) Far as the savage tribes of Illinois ; Scarce had I trod the threshold of the land, When strong disgust, too potent to withstand, Drove me, distracted with commercial cant, And tap-room statesmen's never-ending rant, To seek beyond the Alleghany's range Some race whose earth was not one vast exchange ; Some sacred scene where Nature was not made The drudge and slattern of usurping Trade. Swift on the wings of water and of fire I dashed through forests, to my heart's desire ; From fog and snow to flowers and sunshine went, Surveyed the swamps — and hastened back content; For, spite of pigs, the truth must be confessed, Vile as this town is — 't is the country's best ! Here, at the least, our mother-tongue is spoken ; Here all the bell-strings are not always broken ; Here English looks and English manners bear, At times, the Briton back to Berkeley-square. Here, too, my friend, some gentle spirits dwell, Who deign to know me — even in Holt's hotel. They grossly err this thrifty race who call A youthful nation ; — " youthful ? " — riot at all ! What though some trace of the barbarian state Betrays at times the newness of their date ? What though their dwellings rose but yesterday ? The mind, the nature of the land, is gray. Old Europe holds not in its oldest nook A race less^juvenile in thought and look ; There seems no childhood here, no child-like joy ; Since first I landed I 've not seen a boy ; For all the children in their aspect wear The lines of business and corrosive care ; 16 Each babe, as soon as babyhood is past, Is a grown man, and withers just as fast. 0, my dear England ! best of lands ! God bless you ! Though taxes, bishops, fogs and beer, oppress you, Still, as of old, a jocund little isle, Still once a year, at least, allowed a smile ; When, spite of virtue, cakes and ale abound, And laughter rings, and glasses clink around : Nor quite extinct is that robust old race (Autumn's last roses blooming on their face), Whom, spite of silver hairs and trembling knees, At Christmas-time a pantomime can please. Ere yet my glance anatomized aright The insect race that fluttered in my sight, Oft as the mote-like myriads of Broadway I scanned, their trim and bearing to survey, Almost at each third passenger I saw, Scarce could my lip repress a rising "pshaw ! " And oft this line was running in my brain, " Was ever nation like Sienna's vain ! " Surely, quoth I, could emptiness and froth, And the poor pride of superfinest cloth, Make more ridiculous a thing than these Pert, whiskered, insolent Manhattanese ? But soon I found how poor a patriot I, — 'T was mine own countrymen I saw go by ! 0, altered race ! with hair upon your chins, Spaniards in strut and Frenchmen in your grins ; The " snob " and shop-keeper but ill concealed By boots of Paris, bright and brazen-heeled, 17 '1 ' lo up of coxcomb, pugilist and sot, — Arc ye true Englishmen ? I know ye not! • With what fierce air, how lion-like a swell, They pace the pavement of the grand hotel ; On each new guest with regal stare look down, Or " strike him dead with a victorious frown " ! These are the fools whom I for natives took, Ere I could read their nation in their look ; Now wiser grown, I recognize each ass For a true bit of Birmingham's own brass. Some are third cousins of the penny press, Skilful a piquant paragraph to dress ; Some in their veins a dash patrician boast, — Them Stiiltz has banished from their native coast ; There stalks a lecturer, bearing in his mien More glories than he bought at Aberdeen ; These are tragedians, — wandering stars, — and those Manchester men — deep-read in calicos! Ye reverend gods, who guard the household flame ! Lares, Penates, — whatsoe'er your name, — What dire subversion of your sway divine Lets loose all cockneydom to tempt the brine ? Why from the counter and the club-room so Flock the spruce trader and the Bond-street beau ? Why should the lordling and the Marquis come ? And many a snug possessor of a plum, Quitting his burrow on the 'Ampstead road, With wife and trunks be flying all abroad ? Is it in rivers and in rocks to find Some new sensation for a barren mind ? 2 18 From kindred manners, doctrines, men and sects, To learn a lesson of their own defects ? Or with rapt eye on cataracts to look ? No, their sole passion is — to spawn a book. Hence this poor land so scribbled o'er has been, 'T is like a window in some country inn, Where every dolt has chronicled his folly, His fit of head-ache or of melancholy ; ' With memorandums of his mutton oft, And how his bed was hard, his butter soft ; How some John Tomson, on a rainy day, Found naught to eat — but very much to pay, And how said Tomson wished himself away. Oft at your board, at that refined repast Where London's lions break their morning fast, To " nights and suppers of the gods " preferring Green tea and temperance, with a toast and herring ; Oft have you said, perchance in jesting mood, You too might venture o'er the foamy flood ; Might take the whim, some sweet September day, When scarce a cat in Portland-place will stay ; When all the town, beyond the reach of duns, Is out of town, with horses, dogs and guns ; To shut your books, and take your annual rest In the green bosom of the woody west : Where, by some river, with an Indian name, Your living ears might antedate your fame ; En " Thebes " or " Troy " your living eyes admire Your plaster bust with laurel and with lyre ; See your sweet self, biography and all, In Philadelphia blazoned on a wall ; 19 Or, cheaply printed for the southern trade, As far as Arkansas to be conveyed, Where Peck, the " Pindar of the Sucker State," May call you, in his classic way, "first rate." Charming ! to find in Geneseo's vale Some damsel sighing o'er GINEVRA'S tale ! To say the lines that pleased the Thames before By the wild music of Niagara's roar, And thus to " Memory's Pleasures " add one more. Yet, Nestor, pause ! quit not your home for this Imperfect picture of an author's bliss : Let Dickens tell you how this age of steam Reduces poesy to weight and ream, Retails cheap genius, brings the Muses down, And turns Parnassus to a trading town. Yes, the fine flashes of instinctive thought, In silver lines and golden periods wrought ; In some blest mood of happy Fancy struck From flinty Labor, by a touch of Luck ; The tender shoots that bourgeon from the brain, To live and blossom on the page again ; The pretty nurslings Meditation rears, Warmed at the hearth-stone of the heart for years, Soon as they touch this equalizing coast, Doff the gay " primer" and the folio-post ; Dressed in a suit of macerated rags, Cast off by Russia's beggarmen and hags, On huckster stalls the darling dreams must lie, Tempting the pence from every idler by. Ah, Nestor ! how 't would gall thee to behold Perchance all " Italy " for ninepence sold ! 20 How would'st them shame to recognize thyself To common crockery turned from Moxox's delph ; In mammoth quartos, decked with wooden cuts, Meanly displayed 'mid candies, cake and nuts ; Thumbed by coarse hands that paw before they choose, Whether a poem — or a pair of shoes ! 0 ! tell ANACREON, when he quits his groves To sip with you the Mocha that he loves, That where Ohio wears the hues of wine, From slaughtered tribes of Cincinnatian swine, Down by the water, near the " Pork Depot," Where drays and steamboats roar, spit, hiss and blow, Amid the vulgar sights that throng the strand, I saw disconsolate a PERI stand ! Hard by was ALCIPIIRON, — both pale, both lean, — While PAUL DE ROCK profanely sneaked between ; Around lay many an imp of modern song, Here "Lays of Rome," and here "Miss LUCY LONG." Lo ! from the wharf a rugged boatman comes, To pick a few cheap literary crumbs ; A greasy, poor, but free, enlightened man, A foe of kings, a plain republican : With sapient eye he views the lettered store, Spells the strange names, and scans the pictures o'er ; Nibbling a bit of this, a bit of that, His purchase made, he rams it in his hat ; Three-pence the freeman gave for one thin book, Three-pence, ANACREON, for thy " Lalla Eookh ! " Tell proud LOCIIIEL, when you encounter next, How oft his Highland temper would be vexed 21 To see that verse, whose labor made him lean, Stuck in the chinks of some low magazine ; Hid, like a Warsaw palace, built 'mid hovels, Amid ten chapters of ten nauseous novels ; Robbed of the little honor of a volume, Crammed in to fill some paper's final column ; And so perchance to have a tailor send His garments home in verse himself had penned ! Or, worst of all, his mangled odes peruse, Trimmed in the fashion of the Bowery muse ; For each smart editor is careful here To clip his matter to his reader's ear ; And oft, more room to make for better men, Bids " BLAKE and mighty NELSON " fall again. So patriotic managers are wont To strike out all that might free ears affront ; And, heedless how their change the measure mars, In British plays lug in their " stripes and stars.' " Good Heavens ! " methinks I hear my Samuel cry, " With what a low, derogatory eye You view the beautiful, primeval shore Where first-born forests guard the torrent's roar ! What ! is there nothing in that lovely land, Mid all that 's fair, and excellent, and grand, Nothing more worthy of a poet's pen Than sots and rogues and bastard Englishmen?" Patience, philosopher ! as yet I dwell In the dull echoes of a tavern-bell ; My inspiration is not born of rocks, Nor meads, nor mountains white with snowy flocks ; 22 'T is not Niagara thrills me — but the noise Of drays and ferry-boats and bawling boys ; And scarce the day one quiet hour affords To fit my fancies with harmonious words ; Yet oft at evening, when the moon is up, When trees on dew — and men on slumber sup, Along the gas-lit rampart of the bay, In rhymeful mood, as undisturbed I stray, Awhile my present " whereabout " I lose, And on my loved ones, o'er the water, muse. Sometimes lulled ocean heaves an orient sigh, Which brings our terrace and its roses nigh ; While each JMian murmur of the sea Seems whispering fragrantly of home and thee ; But something soon dispels the pleasing dream, The fire-fly's flash, the night-hawk's whistling scream, Or katydid, complaining in the dark, Or other sound unheard in Regent's Park. For wheresoe'er by night or noon I tread, Thought guides me still, like Ariadne's thread, Through shops and crowds and placard-pasted walls, Till on my brain Sleep's filmy finger falls, And cuts the filament, with gentle knife, That leads me through this labyrinth of life. I feel it now, — the power of the dull god ; — The verse imperfect halts : Samuel, I nod : 'T is late, — o'er Caurus hangs the northern car ! My page is out — and so is your cigar. EPISTLE TO CHARLES KEMBLE, LONDON. GOOD Cassio, Charles, Mercutio, Benedick (Of all your names I scarce know which to pick), Be not alarmed; this comes not from a dun, Nor any scheming, transatlantic BUNN, Tempting with golden hopes your waning years, Like " certain stars shot madly from their spheres," Like MATTHEWS or old DOWTON, to expose The shank all shrunken from its youthful hose; So boldly read, howe'er it make you sigh, — Nor manager nor creditor am I. Not long ago, conversing at the Club Which Londoners with " GARRICK'S " title dub, We both confessed, and each with equal grief, That poor Melpomene was past relief; So many symptoms of her dotage shows This nineteenth century of steam and prose. Nor in herself, said you, entirely lies The incurable complaint whereof she dies ; T is not alone that play-wrights are too poor For gods, or men, or columns, to endure ; * Nor that all players in a mould are cast, Every new Roscius aping still the last ; * By tho word " columns?," HORACE (though BEXTLEY knew it not) evi dently meant tho columns of the Roman newspapers. 24 Nor yet that taste's too delicate excess Demands perfection and despises less ; But mere indifference, that worst disease, From bard and actor takes all power to please. How strive to please ? when all their friends that were To empty benches empty sounds prefer ; And seek, like bees attracted by a gong, The fairy-land of tip-toe and of song ; "Whether a voice of more than earthly strain Be newly sent by Danube or the Seine, Or some aerial, thistle-downy thing Float from La Scala oh a zephyr's wing. Say, might a SIDDONS, conjured from the tomb, Again the scene of her renown illume, Could her high art (ay, even at half price) The crowd from " La Sonnambula " entice ? No ; dance and song, the Drama's deadly plagues, RUBINI'S notes, and ELLSLER'S heavenly legs, Would nightly still bring amateurs in flocks, To watch the " bravos " of the royal box. While thus, between our walnuts and our wine, We mourned with sighs your mistress's decline, You half indulged the fond imagination, That what seemed death was but her emigration. Perhaps, quoth you, — and 't was a bold " perhaps," — Ere many years of exile shall elapse, The wandering maid may find in foreign lands More loving hearts and hospitable hands. Perchance her feet, with furry buskins graced, May shuddering walk the cold Canadian waste, And rest contented \vitli a bleak repose In limbless climes of never-thawing snows. Yes, in those woods that gird the northern lakes, Pathless, as yet, and wild with shaggy brakes, Or in the rank savannas of the south, Or sea-like prairies near Missouri's mouth, Fate may conduct her to some sacred spot, Where to resume her sceptre and to — squat. Some happier settlement and simpler race, Where, though her worship lack its ancient grace, New days may dawn, like those of royal BESS, And every state its Avon shall possess ; Where, though in marshes resonant with frogs, And rudely housed in temples built of logs, The nymph, regenerate in her classic robe, May see revived the " Fortune" and the " Globe." Delightful dream ! delightful as untrue ; Poor DRAMA ! this was no domain for you. Here never shall return that early time When the fresh heart can vulgar life sublime, And all the prose of our existence change By magic power to something rich and strange Not here, among this bargain-making tribe, Whose tricks the Muse would sicken to describe, Shall the dull genius of a barren age Bring an " all-hallow'n summer " of the Stage. Beyond that cape which mortals christen Cod, Where drifted sand-heaps choke the scanty sod, Round the steep shore a crooked city clings, Sworn foe to queens, it seems, as well as kings. 26 On three steep hills it soars, as Rome on seven, To claim a near relationship with heaven. Fit home for saints ! the very name it bears A kind of sacred origin declares ; Borrowed, I find, by hunting records o'er, From one BOTOLFO, canonized of yore,^ Whom bards have left nor epitaph nor verse on, Though in his day, sans doubt, a decent person : This town, in olden times of stake and flame, A famous nest of Puritans became ; Sad, rigid souls, who hated as they ought The carnal arms wherewith the devil fought ; Dancing and dicing, music, and whate'er Spreads for humanity the pleasing snare. Stage-plays, especially, their hearts abhorred, Holding the muses hateful to the LORD, Save when old STERNHOLD and his brother bard Oped their hoarse throats, and strained an anthem hard. From that angelic race of perfect men (Sure, seraphs never trod the world till then !) Descends the race to whom the sway is given Of the world's morals by confiding Heaven. These of each virtue know the market price, And shrewdly count the cost of every vice ; So, to their prudent adage faithful still, Are honest more from policy than will, As if with Heaven a bargain they had made To practise goodness — and to be well paid. They too, devoutly as their fathers did, Sin, sack and sugar, equally forbid ; *The name of Boston, in Lincolnshire, is said to be derived from St. BOTOLPH — quasi BOTOLPH'S town. 27 Holding each hour unpardonably spent Which on the ledger leaves no monument ; While oft they read, with small, but pious wit, The inscription o'er the play-house portals writ, In a bad sense — " The entrance to the Pit." Once these Botolphians, when their boards you trod, Received you almost as a demi-god ; Rushed to the teeming rows in frantic swarms, And rained applauses, not in showers, but storms. But should you now their fickle welcome ask, Faint shouts would greet the veteran of the mask ; And, ah ! what anguish would it be to search For your old play-house in a bastard church ! To find the dome wherein your hour you strutted Altered and maimed, and circumcised and gutted ; Become in truth, all metaphor to drop, A mongrel thing — half chapel and half shop ! Long had the augur and the priest foretold The sad reverse they doomed it to behold; Long had the school-boy, as he passed it by, And maiden, viewed it with presaging eye ; Oft had the wealthy deacon with a frown Glared on the pile he longed to batter down, And reckoned oft, with sanctimonious air, What rents 't would fetch, if purified with prayer ; * * At the opening of the"Tremont Temple," in Boston (1843), the new proprietors chanted what they called a " Puriflcation Hymn," of which we give one stanza : 11 Satan has here held empire long — A blighting curse, a cruel reign : By mimic scenes, and mirth and song, Alluring souls to endless pain." 28 While through the green-room whispered rumors went, That heaven and earth were on its ruin bent. Too just a fear ! The vision long foreseen Has come at last ; behold the fallen queen ! The queen of passion, stript of all her pride, Discrowned, indignant from her temple glide. With draggling robe, slip-shod, her buskin loose, She flies a sordid people's cold abuse ; Summons her sister, who forbears to smile, And leaves to rats the desecrated pile, • Which dogs and nags already had begun, Unless by blows and hunger driven, to shun : For well-bred curs and steeds genteel contemn A stage which Taste had sunk too low for them ; Whereon the town had seen, without remorse, A herd of bisons ! and a hairless hi&se ! Behind the two chief mourners of the band A sad procession follows, hand in hand ; Heroes un-heroed, most unknightly knights, Wand-broken fairies, disenchanted sprites ; Dukes no more ducal, even on the bill, Milk-livered murderers too ill-fed to kill ; Mild-looking demons that a babe might daunt, Witches and ghosts most naturally gaunt ; Lovers made pale by keener pangs than love's, Unspangled princesses with greasy gloves ; Wits very witless — grave comedians mute, And silent sons of violin and flute. After these down-looked leaders of the show, Who creep, like Trajan's Dacians, wan and slow, 29 Comes a long train of underlings that bear Imperial robes that kings no more may wear; With truncheons, helmets, thunderbolts and casks Of snow and lightning — bucklers, foils and masks. As toward the steep of Capitolian Jovo When chiefs victorious through the rabble strove, With all their conquests in their trophies told, And every battle marked with plundered gold, — When the whole glory of the war rolled by, And gaping Rome seemed all one mighfy eye, — Behind the living captives came the dead, Poor noseless gods, and some without a head, With pictures, ivory images and plumes, And priceless tapestry from palace looms; Even such, although Night's alchemy no more The crinkling tinsel turns to precious ore, Appears the pomp of this discarded race, As heaped with spoil they quit their ancient place, Bearing their Lares with them as they go — Two dusty statues, and a bust or so — With mail which once a Harry Fifth had on, Triumphal cars with all the triumph gone ; Goblets of tin mixed up with Yorick's bones, Bags made of togas — barrows formed of thrones Whereon the majesty of Denmark sat ; Othello's handkerchief in Wolsey's hat! Swords hacked at Bosworth, fasces, guns and spears, Rusted with blood before, and now with tears. Enough of this : kind prompter, touch the bell ! Children of mirth and midnight, fare ye well ! 30 The vision melts away, — the motley crowd Is veiled by Prospero in a passing cloud ; Like his dissolving pageantry they fade, The vapory stuff whereof our dreams are made ; No more malignant winter to beguile, Nor start the maiden's tear, the judge's smile ; Save when some annalist, like me, recalls The ancient fame of those degraded walls ; Or till an age less hateful to the Muse To their old shape restore the " anxious pews " EPISTLE TO EDWARD MOXON, PUBLISHER, LONDON. THE fiery bark that brought your missives o'er Brought the sad news that MURRAY was no more. From Staten Island, where I chanced to stray, I marked the monster puffing up the bay, And guessed (already have I learned to guess), From her black look, she told of some distress. Tidings of gloom her sable pennon spoke, And the long train of her funereal smoke ; And soon the bulletins revealed the grief: " JOHN MURRAY 's dead ! of booksellers the chief! " In all the dread events that Rumor sends, By flood and flame, to earth's remotest ends ; War, famine, wreck, and all the varying fates Of rising cottons, or of falling states ; Revolts at home, and troubles o'er the seas, Among the Chartists, Aflghans, and Chinese ; In all the recent millions that have gone To the dark realm, and still are hastening on, That one small tradesman should have joined the throqg Seems a mean theme to babble of in song. Yet, such is Fame ! and such the power of books, To make small names as deathless as the Duke's : Yes, the same volume that recordeth you, Ye mighty chiefs ! embalms the printer's too ; 32 And wheresoe'er the poet's fame hath flown, There, too, the poet's publisher is known ; So shall our friend enjoy, to endless ages, An immortality — of title-pages. Methinks I see the Scotsman's canny ghost Near his old threshold, at his ancient post ; Watching with eager, melancholy face, The pensive customers that throng the place ; With anxious eye selecting from the throng Each who has dabbled in this trick of song, And offering, as of yore, for something nice In way of epitaph, the market price. And now his bones the sculptured slab lie under, What generous bard will give him one, I wonder ? For all the golden promises he made ; For all the golden guineas that he paid ; For all the fame his counter could afford The reverend pamphleteer and author-lord ; For all the pleasant stories he retailed ; And all the turtle, when the stories failed ; For all the praises, all the punch he spent, What grateful hand will deck his monument ? CAMPBELL 's too proud the compliment to grant ; SOUTHEY — for grave and weighty reasons — can't Should MOORE attempt it, he 'd be sure to cram John's many virtues in an epigram : ROGERS' blank verse so very blank has grown, 'T would scarce be legible on Parian stone : WORDSWORTH would mar it by inscribing on it A little sermon — what he calls a sonnet. * Dead. Alas ! for all the guineas that he paid, And all the immortalities he made, For all his venison, all his right old wine, Will none contribute one elegiac line ? In truth, I 'm sad, although I seem to laugh, To think that John should need an epitaph. The greatest blows bring not the truest tear, These minor losses touch the heart more near ; As fewer drops gush over from the eyes When heroes fall than when your valet dies ; They, of another, an immortal race, Ne'er seemed on earth well suited with their place, And, though they yield their transitory breath, We know their being but begins with death : WThen common men — when one like Murray, thus Is plucked by Death — 't is taking one of us ; And more in his we feel our own decay Than if a WELLINGTON were snatched away. 'T is not lost genius we lament the most, No ; but the man, the old companion lost : WTho 'd not give more to bring back GILBERT GURNEY, Or SMITH, or MATTHEWS, from his nether journey, Than all your MILTONS or your BACONS dead, Or all the BONAPARTES that ever bled ? So, were the blue rotundity of heaven By some muck-running, outlawed comet riven, Should any orb — say yonder blazing Mars — Be blotted from the muster-roll of stars, HERSCHEL might groan, or Royal Airy* sigh, But what would London care ? — or you, or I ? * Doctor Airy, Astronomer Royal. 3 We vulgar folk might count it greater loss, Should some stray earthquake swallow Charing Cross. Henceforth no volume, save the Book of fate, Shall bear for him an interest small or great : 36 And if, in heaven, his literary soul "VYalk the pure pavement where the planets roll, Few old acquaintances- will greet him there, Amid the radiant light and balmy air ; Since few of all who wrote or sang for him Shall join the anthem of the seraphim. Yet there might Fancy, in a mood profane, Behold him listening each celestial strain, Catching the cadences that sweetly fall, Wondering if such would sell, below, at all, And calculating, as they say on earth, • How much those heavenly hymns would there be worth. Or, if in Proserpine's more sultry zone For his misdeeds the Publisher must moan, Though much good company about him stand, And many an author take him. by the hand, And swarms of novelists around him press, And many a bard return his warm caress ; Though there on all the sinners he shall gaze Who ever wrote, or planned, or acted plays ; On all the wits, from Anna's time to ours, Who strewed perdition's pleasant way with flowers ; On BURNS, consumed with more substantial fire Than ever love or whiskey could inspire ; On SHELLEY, bathing in a lake of lead, And BYRON, stretched upon a lava bed ; Little shall he, or they, or any there, For magazines or morning journals care ; Little shall there be whispered, or be thought, About the last new book, and what it brought ; Little of copyright and Yankee thieves, OE any wrong that Dickens' bosom grieves ; B7 But, side by sidr, iw lower and reviewed, Critic and criticized, must all be — stewed; Alas ! they groan — alas ! compared with this, Even BLACK WOOD'S drunken surgery was bliss. How less than little were the direst blows Dealt by brute GIFFORD on his baby foes ! How light, compared with hell's eternal pain, The small damnation was of Drury Lane ! Down ! down ! thou impious, dark Imagination, Forbear the foul, the blasphemous creation ! Whate'er John's doom, in whatsoever sphere, Wretched or blest, 't is not for us to hear. Not many such have dignified his trade, So boldly bargained and so nobly paid. 0, may his own Divine Paymaster prove A Judge all mercy in the realms above ! EPISTLE TO WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. ON the rough Bracco's top, at break of day, High o'er that gulf which bounds the Genoese, Since thou and I pursued our mountain way, Twenty Decembers have disrobed the trees. So many summers, in their gay return, Have found my pilgrimage still incomplete, Doomed as I seem, Ulyssee-like, to earn My little knowledge by much toil of feet. Charmed by the glowing earth and golden sky, In Arno's vale you made yourself a nest ; There perched in peace and bookish ease, while 1 Still wandered on — and here am in the West. And here, amid remembrances that throng Thicker than blossoms in the new-born June, Thine chiefly claims the token of a song That still, at least, my heart remains in tune. But never hope (with so refined a sense Of what is well conceived and ably wrought) To find my verse retain its old pretence To the smooth utterance of a pleasing thought. 39 For who can sing amid this roar of streets, This crash of engines and discordant mills ? Where even in Solitude's most lone retreats Some factory drowns the music of the rills ! True, Nature here hath donned her gala robe, Brest in all charms — soft, savage and sublime; Within one realm enfolding half the globe, Flowers of all soils, and fruits of every clime. But yet no bard, with consecrating touch, Hath made the scene a nobler mood inspife ; The sullen Puritan, the sensual Dutch, Proved but a barren fosterage for the lyre ! Imagine old (Enotria as she stood In Saturn's reign, before the stranger came ; Ere yet the stillness of the trackless wood Had heard the echoes of a Trojan's name. Young Latium then, as now Missouri's waste, Was dumb in story, soulless and unsung : Whatever deeds her savage annals graced Died soon, for want of some harmonious tongue. Up her dark streams the first explorers found Only one dim, interminable shade ; Cliffs with the growth of awful ages crowned, Amid whose gloom the wolf and wild-boar preyed. Afar, perchance, on some cloud-piercing height, Nigh the last limit of the eagle's road, Some stray Pelasgians had assumed a site To fix their proud, impregnable abode. 40 Pent in their airy dens, the builders reared Turrets — fanes — altars, fed with daily flame — But with their walls their memory disappeared : Their meanest implements outlive their name ! What race of giants piled yon rocks so high ? Who cut those hidden channels for the rills ? Drained the deep lake, and sucked the marshes dry, Or hollowed into sepulchres the hills ? These, in the time of Romulus, were old ; Even then, as now, conjecture could but err ; In prose or verse no chronicler hath told Whence the tribes came, and who their heroes were. Their tombs, their sculptures and their funeral urns, Which still are mocked by unimproving Art, Perplex the mind — till tired reflection turns To the great people dearer to the heart. Soon as they rose — the Capitolian lords — The land grew sacred and beloved of GOD ; Where'er they carried their triumphant swords Glory sprang forth and sanctified the sod. Nay, whether wandering by Provincial Rhone, Or British Tyne, we note the Caesar's tracks, Wondering how far, from their Tarpeian flown, The ambitious eagles bore the prastor's axe, Those toga'd Fathers, those equestrian kings, Are still our masters — still within us reign, Born though we may have been beyond the springs. Of Britain's floods — beyond the outer main. 41 For, while tlio imi~i.' of tlu-Ir language lasts, They shall nut pori>h like the painted men — Brirl'-livL-d in memory as the winter's blasts! — Who here once held the mountain and the glen. From them and theirs with cold regard we turn, The wreck of polished nations to survey, Nor care the savage attributes to learn Of souls that struggled with barbarian clay. With what emotion on a coin we trace Vespasian's brow, or Trajan's chastened smile, But view with heedless eye the murderous mace And checkered lance of Zealand's warrior-isle. Here, by the ploughman, as with daily tread He tracks the furrows of his fertile ground, Dark locks of hair, and thigh-bones of the dead, Spear-heads, and skulls, and arrows, oft are found. On such memorials unconcerned we gaze ; No trace returning of the glow divine, Wherewith, dear WALTER ! in our Eton days We eyed a fragment from the Palatine. It fired us then to trace upon the map The forum's line — proud empire's church-yard paths • Ay, or to finger but a marble scrap Or stucco piece from Diocletian's baths. Cellini's workmanship could nothing add, Nor any casket, rich with gems and gold, To the strange value every pebble had O'er which perhaps the Tiber's wave had rolled. 42 A like enchantment all thy land pervades, Mellows the sunshine — softens autumn's breeze — O'erhangs the mouldering town, and chestnut shades, And glows and sparkles in her storied seas. No such a spell the charmed adventurer guides Who seeks those ruins hid in Yucatan, Where through the tropic forest, silent, glides, By crumbled fane and idol, slow Copan. There, as the weedy pyramid he climbs, Or views, mid groves that rankly wave above, The work of nameless hands in unknown times, Much wakes his wonder — nothing stirs his love. Art's rude beginnings, wheresoever found, The same dull chord of feeling faintly strike ; The Druid's pillar, and the Indian mound, And Uxmal's monuments, are mute alike. Nor here, although the gorgeous year hath brought Crimson October's beautiful decay, Can all this loveliness inspire a thought Beyond the marvels of the fleeting day. For here the Present overpowers the Past ; No recollections to these woods belong (O'er which no minstrelsy its veil hath cast), To rouse our worship, or supply my song. But this will come ; the necromancer Age Shall round the wilderness his glory throw ; Hudson shall murmur through the poet's page, And in his numbers more superbly flow. 43 Enough — 't is more than midnight by the clock ; Manhattan dreams of dollars, all abed : With you, dear Walter, 't is the crow of cock, And o'er Fiesole the skies are red. Good-night ! yet stay — both longitudes to suit, Your own returning, and my absent light, Thus let me bid our mutual salute ; To you buon giorno — to myself good-night ! MISCELLANEOUS ON A BUST OF DANTE. SEE, from this counterfeit of him Whom Arno shall remember long, How stern of lineament, how grim, The father was of Tuscan song. There but the burning sense of wrong, Perpetual care and scorn, abide ; Small friendship for the lordly throng ; Distrust of all the world beside. Faithful if this wan image be, No dream his life was — but a fight ; Could any Beatrice see A lover in that anchorite ? To that cold Ghibeline's gloomy sight Who could have guessed the visions came Of Beauty, veiled with heavenly light, In circles of eternal flame ? The lips as Cumse's cavern close, The cheeks with fast and sorrow thin, The rigid front, almost morose, But for the patient hope within, Declare a life whose course hath been Unsullied still, though still severe, 48 Which, through the wavering days of sin, Kept itself icy-chaste and clear. Not wholly such his haggard look When wandering once, forlorn, he strayed, With no companion save his book, To Corvo's hushed monastic shade ; Where, as the Benedictine laid His palm upon the pilgrim guest, The single boon for which he prayed The convent's charity was rest.^ • Peace dwells not here — this rugged face Betrays no spirit of repose ; The sullen warrior sole we trace, The marble man of many woes. Such was his mien when first arose The thought of that strange tale divine, When hell he peopled with his foes, The scourge of many a guilty line. 