"TRUTH AND VIRTUE, HOLY FLOWERS, WHOSE VERDURE REACHETH HEAVEN."-ROBERT SOUTHEY. The triumph, and the vanity, Which man seemed made but to obey, * Written after the abdication of the Emperor Napoleon I. in 1815. FOR WORTHIER FEELINGS SHOULD BE THINE."-SOUTHEY. "POVERTY IS A HOLLOW-EYED FRIEND, THE CHILD OF WEALTH AND POWER."-ROBERT SOUTHEY. "MY THOUGHTS ARE WITH THE DEAD: WITH THEM I LIVE IN LONG-PAST YEARS."-ROBERT SOUTHEY. TWILIGHT AND MOONLIGHT, DIMLY MINGLING, GAVE NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 193 The Desolator desolate ! The Victor overthrown! A suppliant for his own! That with such change can calmly cope? Then haste thee to thy sullen Isle,* "(BOOKS) MY NEVER FAILING FRIENDS ARE THEY, WITH WHOM I CONVERSE NIGHT AND DAY."-SOUTHEY. *St. Helena, in the Atlantic, where Napoleon was confined, and where he died, May 5, 1821. "FREEDOM HALLOWS WITH HER TREAD THE SILENT CITIES OF THE DEAD."-LORD BYRON. * Dionysius I., after ruling at Syracuse with tyrannical sway, was constrained to resign his sceptre, and retire to Corinth, where he gained a livelihood as a schoolmaster. + Timour, the great Tartar chief, having defeated and taken prisoner, at the battle of Angora, the Turkish emir, Bajazet I. (July 28, 1402), imprisoned him in an iron cage until his death, nine months afterwards, at Antioch, in Pisidia. So runs the story. ↑ Nebuchadnezzar (or Nabu-kudari-utsur), the most famous of the kings of Babylon, died about 561 B.C. (See Daniel iii.) § According to the ancient legend, the Titan hero, Prometheus, son of Capetus, stole fire from heaven, and taught its use to the sons of men. At this the gods were so enraged that they caused him to be bound to a rock, where a vulture constantly preyed upon his liver. This story-whose esoteric meaning cannot here be developed-suggested to the Greek dramatist Eschylus his finest tragedy. It is also the subject of a poetic drama by Mrs. E. B. Browning, and of the "Prometheus Unbound," of Shelley. A WORD'S ENOUGH TO RAISE MANKIND TO KILL."-BYRON. "ALAS! THE BREAST THAT INLY BLEEDS HATH NOUGHT TO DREAD FROM OUTWARD BLOW."-BYRON. NO WORDS SUFFICE THE SECRET SOUL TO SHOW, NIGHT BEFORE THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 195 He in his fall preserved his pride, And, if a mortal, had as proudly died. [GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON, born 1788, died 1824, at Missolonghi, in Greece, whither he had gone to assist the Greeks in their struggle for independence. He has been called, and not inaptly, the Poet of Passion. A misanthropical colouring pervades all his works, which reflect, moreover, in a singular degree, the peculiarities of his own temperament—the faults as well as merits of his own character. He is himself the great sublime he draws. No poet, however, has surpassed him in the force, vigour, and graphic truth with which he has depicted certain moods of nature, and if there mingles in his poems much that is base and mean, there is also much that is lofty and even sublime. His principal works are "Bride of Abydos," "Giaour," "Lara," "Corsair," "Siege of Corinth," "Parisina,” "Childe Harold;" the wild, irregular, but wonderful serio-comic poem of "Don Juan;" the tragedies of "Sardanapalus," "The Two Foscari," and "Marino Faliero;" and the lyric dramas of "Heaven and Earth," "Cain," and "Manfred." His minor poems are very numerous.] "SUCH HATH IT BEEN, SHALL BE, BENEATH THE SUN, THE MANY STILL MUST LABOUR FOR THE ONE."-BYRON. "DREAMS IN THEIR DEVELOPMENT HAVE BREATH, AND TEARS, AND TORTURES, AND THE TOUCH OF JOY."-BYRON. NIGHT BEFORE THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. HERE was a sound of revelry by night, And Belgium's capital had gathered then Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell ! Did ye not hear it? No; 'twas but the wind, FOR TRUTH DENIES ALL ELOQUENCE TO WOE."-BYRON. "SHE WAS A FORM OF LIFE AND LIGHT, THAT, SEEN, BECAME A PART OF SIGHT; "-(BYRON) "OH, TOO CONVINCING, DANGEROUSLY DEAR, 196 NIGHT BEFORE THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. But, hark! that heavy sound breaks in once more, And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before! Within a windowed niche of that high hall Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro, Or whispering, with white lips-"The foe! they come ! they come !" IN WOMAN'S EYE THE UNANSWERABLE TEAR!"-BYRON. "AND ROSE, WHERE'ER I TURNED MINE EYE, THE MORNING-STAR OF MEMORY."-BYRON. |