and fond, ress; prayer all wrath disarming! When first thou camest, gentle, shy, But thought that love with thee had reach'd its bound. At length thou camest; thou, the last and least; Nick-named "the Emperor," by thy laughing brothers, Because a haughty spirit swell'd thy breast, Mingling with every playful infant wile And oh! most like a regal child wert thou! Haunting my walks, while summer-day was Fair shoulders - curling lip and dauntless dying; Nor leaving in thy turn: but pleased to glide Thro' the dark room where I was sadly lying, Or by the couch of pain, a sitter meek, brow Fit for the world's strife, not for Poet's dreaming: And proud the lifting of thy stately head, Watch the dim eye, and kiss the feverish cheek. And the firm bearing of thy conscious tread. Different from both! Yet each succeeding claim, Summer is gone: and autumn's soberer hues I, that all other love had been forswearing, Forthwith admitted, equal and the same; Nor injured either, by this love's comparing; Nor stole a fraction for the newer call, But in the mother's heart found room for all! The Child of Earth. Fainter her slow step falls from day to day, Death's hand is heavy on her darkening brow; Yet doth she fondly cling to earth, and say, "I am content to die, but, oh! not now! Not while the blossoms of the joyous spring Make the warm air such luxury to breathe; Not while the birds such lays of gladness sing; Not while bright flowers around my footsteps wreathe. Spare me, great God! lift up my drooping brow; but, oh! not now!" I am content to die, The bleak wind whistles: snow-showers, far and near, Drift without echo to the whitening ground: Autumn hath passed away, and, cold and drear, Winter stalks on with frozen mantle bound: Yet still that prayer ascends. "Oh! laughingly My little brothers round the warm hearth crowd, Our home-fire blazes broad, and bright, and high, And the roof rings with voices light and loud: Spare me awhile! raise up my drooping brow! I am content to die, but, oh! not now!" Rogers. Samuel Rogers ward 1762 in London geboren, wo sein Vater als Bankier lebte, erhielt eine sehr sorgfältige Bildung, machte grössere Reisen und trat dann in das väterliche Geschäft ein, seinen fortwährenden Aufenthalt in London, nur dann und wann durch einen Ausflug nach dem Festlande unterbrechend. Nach einigen Angaben starb er bereits 1832, nach Anderen, und dies scheint das Richtigere zu sein, lebt er noch in sehr hohem Alter. Er gab heraus: Ode on Superstition and other Poems. London 1786. The pleasures of Memory, London 1792; Epistle to a Friend, London 1798; The vision of Columbus; Jacqueline; Human Life, London 1819; Poems, London 1815; Italy, London 1822, 5. Aufl. London 1830; Poems, London 1834, 2 Bde; u. A. m. Sehr treffend characterisirt Sharon Turner ihn als Dichter in folgenden Zeilen: Calm, elegant, correct, with finish'd touch, The hour we met; and, when Aurora rose, Well I remember how the golden sun Served, and, at parting, flung his oar away, He had just left that place Of old renown, once in the Adrian sea, The chase, the slaughter, and the festal mirth Shattered, uprooted from its native rock, He is now at rest, And praise and blame fall on his ear alike, Grey, nor did aught recall the youth that swam None more than I, thy gratitude would build On slight foundations: and, if in thy life. They in thy train ah little did they think, When round the Ark the birds As round we went, that they so soon should sit Thou art gone; wheel'd, of tempest When all was still in the destroying hour No trace of man! no vestige of its power! War and the Great in war let others sing, Havoc and spoil, and tears and triumphing; The morning-march that flashes to the sun, The feast of vultures when the day is done; And the strange tale of many slain for one! I sing a Man amidst his sufferings here, Who watch'd and serv'd in humbleness and fear; Gentle to others, to himself severe . . . . .. Still unsubdued by Danger's varying form, Columbus. Say who first pass'd the portals of the West, Her awful face; and Nature's self reposed; cried He spoke, and, at his call, a mighty Wind, From the bright East. Tides duly ebb'd and flow'd; Stars rose and set; and new horizons glow'd; Yet who but He undaunted could explore |