Saw, at a long-drawn gallery's dusky bound, And hideous aspect, stalking round and round! His force on Caspian foam to try; IV. So, but from toil less sign of profit reaping, The torch that flames with many a lurid flake, t; Which they behold, whom vengeful Furies haunt And, in their anguish, bear what other minds have borne!" V. But Shapes that come not at an earthly call, Once raised, remains aghast, and will not fall! Your Minister would brush away The spots that to my soul adhere; But should she labour night and day, They will not, cannot disappear; Whence angry perturbations,—and that look Which no Philosophy can brook! VI. Ill-fated Chief! there are whose hopes are built O matchless perfidy! portentous lust Of monstrous crime !—that horror-striking blade, Drawn in defiance of the Gods, hath laid The noble Syracusan low in dust! Shudder'd the walls-the marble city wept And sylvan places heaved a pensive sigh ; But in calm peace the appointed Victim slept, Of spirit too capacious to require That Destiny her course should change; too just That wretched boon, days lengthened by mistrust. 1816. XXIV. A FACT, AND AN IMAGINATION; OR, CANUTE AND ALFRED, ON THE SEA-SHORE. THE Danish Conqueror, on his royal chair, Deserves the name (this truth the billows preach) Whose everlasting laws, sea, earth, and heaven obey.” This just reproof the prosperous Dane Drew, from the influx of the main, For some whose rugged northern mouths would strain At oriental flattery ; And Canute (truth more worthy to be known) From that time forth did for his brows disown The ostentatious symbol of a crown; Now hear what one of elder days, Rich theme of England's fondest praise, Her darling Alfred, might have spoken ; To cheer the remnant of his host When he was driven from coast to coast, Distressed and harassed, but with mind unbroken : My faithful followers, lo! the tide is spent ; That rose, and steadily advanced to fill The shores and channels, working Nature's will Among the mazy streams that backward went, And in the sluggish pools where ships are pent: And now, his task performed, the flood stands still, At the green base of many an inland hill, In placid beauty and sublime content! Such the repose that sage and hero find; Such measured rest the sedulous and good Of humbler name; whose souls do, like the flood Of Ocean, press right on; or gently wind, Neither to be diverted nor withstood, Until they reach the bounds by Heaven assigned." |