THE HIGHER PANTHEISM. THE sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plainsAre not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns? Is not the Vision He? tho' He be not that which He seems? Earth, these solid stars, this weight of body and limb, Dark is the world to thee: thyself art the reason why; Glory about thee, without thee; and thou fulfillest thy doom Making Him broken gleams, and a stifled splendour and gloom. Speak to Him thou for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet — Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet. God is law, say the wise; O Soul, and let us rejoice, Law is God, say some: no God at all, says the fool; For all we have power to see is a straight staff bent in a pool; And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of man cannot see; But if we could see and hear, this Vision were it not He? WHILE about the shore of Mona those Neronian legionaries Mad and maddening all that heard her in her fierce volubility, 'They that scorn the tribes and call us Britain's barbarous populaces, Blacken round the Roman carrion, make the carcase a skeleton, Lo their colony half-defended! lo their colony, Cámulodáne! 'Hear it, Gods! the Gods have heard it, O Icenian, O Coritanian ! Phantom sound of blows descending, moan of an enemy massacred, Phantom wail of women and children, multitudinous agonies. Bloodily flow'd the Tamesa rolling phantom bodies of horses and men; Then a phantom colony smoulder'd on the refluent estuary; Lastly yonder yester-even, suddenly giddily tottering There was one who watch'd and told me - down their statue of Victory fell. Shall we teach it a Roman lesson? shall we care to be pitiful? 'Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant! While I roved about the forest, long and bitterly meditating, There I heard them in the darkness, at the mystical ceremony, Loosely robed in flying raiment, sang the terrible prophetesses, "Fear not, isle of blowing woodland, isle of silvery parapets! Tho' the Roman eagle shadow thee, tho' the gathering enemy narrow thee, Thine the North and thine the South and thine the battle-thunder of God," So they chanted in the darkness, and there cometh a victory now. 'Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant! Me the wife of rich Prasútagus, me the lover of liberty, Me they seized and me they tortured, me they lash'd and humiliated, See they sit, they hide their faces, miserable in ignominy! There they ruled, and thence they wasted all the flourishing territory, Like the leaf in a roaring whirlwind, like the smoke in a hurricane whirl'd. they dwell no more. Burst the gates, and burn the palaces, break the works of the statuary, Chop the breasts from off the mother, dash the brains of the little one out, So the Queen Boädicéa, standing loftily charioted, Madly dash'd the darts together, writhing barbarous lineäments, Clash the darts and on the buckler beat with rapid unanimous hand, Ran the land with Roman slaughter, multitudinous agonies. IN QUANTITY. ON TRANSLATIONS OF HOMER. Hexameters and Pentameters. THESE lame hexameters the strong-wing'd music of Homer! MILTON. O MIGHTY-MOUTH'D inventor of har- O skill'd to sing of Time or Eternity, Milton, a name to resound for ages; Tower, as the deep-domed empyrëan Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean, woods Whisper in odorous heights of even. Hendecasyllabics. O YOU chorus of indolent reviewers, Lest I fall unawares before the people, All that chorus of indolent reviewers. tumble, So fantastical is the dainty metre. Wherefore slight me not wholly, nor believe me Too presumptuous, indolent reviewers. ment As some rare little rose, a piece of inmost Horticultural art, or half coquette-like Maiden, not to be greeted unbenignly. SPECIMEN OF A TRANSLATION OF THE ILIAD IN BLANK VERSE. So Hector spake; the Trojans roar'd applause; Then loosed their sweating horses from the yoke, And each beside his chariot bound his own; And oxen from the city, and goodly sheep In haste they drove, and honey-hearted wine And bread from out the houses brought, and heap'd Their firewood, and the winds from off the plain Roll'd the rich vapour far into the heaven. And these all night upon the bridge1 of war Sat glorying; many a fire before them blazed: As when in heaven the stars about the moon Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid, And every height comes out, and jutting peak And valley, and the immeasurable heavens Break open to their highest, and all the stars Shine, and the Shepherd gladdens in his heart: So many a fire between the ships and stream Of Xanthus blazed before the towers of Troy, A thousand on the plain; and close by each Sat fifty in the blaze of burning fire; And eating hoary grain and pulse the steeds, Fixt by their cars, waited the golden dawn. Iliad VIII. 542-561. 1 Or, ridge. |