CORNELL
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
THE MR. AND MRS. WILLIAM
F. E. GURLEY BOOK FUND





THE
PLEASURES OF
POESYPLEASPRES OF POESY.
A POEM
i N T WO C A NTOS,
BY
AUTHOR OF “JOB A LYRICAL DRAMA, AND OTHER POEMS.”
Siedon le Muse su le tombe, e quando
II Tempo con sue fredde ali vi spazza
I marmi e l’ossa, quelle Dee fan lieti
Di lor canto i deserti, e l’armonia
Vince di mille e mille anni il silenzio.”
HontJon :
EDWIN YATES, 2, RED LION STREET, HOLBORN.
MDCCCXLVLLondon :—Printed by W. H. Wilson,
8, Bedford-street, Bedford-row.DEDICATION.
TO
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, ESQ.,
POET LAUREATE,
THESE CANTOS ARE INSCRIBED,
WITH EVERY FEELING
OF VENERATION FOR HIS CHARACTER,
AND ESTEEM FOR HIS WRITINGS.PREFACE.
In committing this poem to the press, it
was the purpose of the writer, to have made
a few prefatory remarks, respecting the cir-
cumstances attending its composition, but,
the following extract from a letter, addressed
to him by a distinguished living Author—to
whom he submitted the manuscript—will
sufficiently explain his silence, on the subject.
" You have achieved a great deal, under the
circumstances of your position. But I wouldVlll
PREFACE.
earnestly impress upon you, that this is no
question as between you and the public. If
you lay any printed production before them,
they have a right to judge of you, and will
judge of you, as one who enters the Jist
voluntarily, for general challenge and combat:
whose training elsewhere has nothing to do
with the struggle on which he ventures. This
is a time in which a vast quantity of verse
is written—some of it, of a remarkable
order, &c.”
The writer has availed himself of manyPREFACE.
IX
pencilled notes—and objections, written on
the margin of the manuscript, by the in-
dividual in question, erasing many lines
altogether—and substituting others in their
places, and here tenders his best thanks to
this kind friend, for his very valuable as-
sistance, and advice.
H. W. H.
24th November, 1845.




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THE
PLEASURES OF POESY.
ERRATA.
Page 57, line 8, for “ Palmrvrean”—read—Palmyrean.
“	— line 10, for “ Mygdonias’”—read—
and for “ haste”—read—
“	— line 11, for “ Tamanisk”—rend—'Tamarisk.
Page 58, line 8, for “ smiles for even”—read—
ever.
Page 74, line 13, for “ Earth and pain”—read—Earth in
pain.
vv nere an wtmom was anarchy and shade—
Start at thy fiat into glorious birth
And make an eden of the smiling earth !
A paradise wherein the glowing soul
Enraptur’d strays unfetter’d by control,—
BTHE
PLEASURES OF POESY.
CANTO I.
Creative power sublime, that doth invest
With thy loved attributes the ravish’d breast,
Symmetral forms in living light array’d,
Where all whilom was anarchy and shade—
Start at thy fiat into glorious birth
And make an eden of the smiling earth !
A paradise wherein the glowing soul
Enraptur’d strays unfetter’d by control,—
B14
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
Etherial Goddess hail! that dost inspire
The breasts of mortals with supernal fire.
Long ere the muses on Parnassus’ mount,
In conclave sate above its sacred fount,
Or Helicon by awful feet was trod,
As sacred to Castalia’s minstrel god,
Thy power was felt, and o’er the infant world
Thy heaven tinged radiant standard stood unfurled.
The mystic empyrean arch’d afar,
Begemm’d with midnight’s every orb and star,
In luminous profusion—charm’d the eye
Of the Chaldean with its Poesy !THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
1
And while men slept each primal shepherd sage
In reverie scanned heaven’s eternal page,
Peopling the planets far from earth’s alloy
With visionary habitants of joy !
Whence Inspiration shall thine airs descend
Whose breathings with our aspirations blend ?
From heaven they stream, and every age and clime
The powers confess that soothe the heart of time.
When in primeval forests lawless man,
Ere cities rose—or arts their course began,
Dwelt neighbouring to the shaggy monarch’s lair
Tradition wove her woof of fancy there;
And in the blinding sun, and silent moon16
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
By torrid day, or night’s star peopled noon,
The wondering aborigine descried
That nameless power his spirit deified!
Some prison’d phantom in the groaning oak,
When riven by the crashing thunder-stroke;
His soul oft imaged by its ruin freed,
Thence superstition framed her daedal creed,
Whence the broad Ganges’ fructifying streams,
The Hindoo worthy idol-worship deems,
And thence, perchance, each pyramid of Nile,
Gigantic, frowns a thrice colossal Pile !
Thy Druid groves, 0 Britain ! thence beheld
The human victim bleed in days of eld !
When o’er the drooping head his hands were boundTHE PLEASURES OP POESY.
17
And thro’ his midriff thrill’d the gory wound.
•-W
Typhon and Isis, in Egyptian lands,
And bloody Moloch, of the Syrian bands,
With ghastly Odin’s Scandinavian rites
Whose horrid orgies hell alone delights,
And homicidal Juggernaut whose car
Rolls on thro’ blood beneath the Indian star;
Scenes which alone pourtray the hideous power
Of superstition in her darkest hour,
Contrast the angel form that dwells with thee,
Her namesake most unlike—sweet Poesy !
When Rome’s first founder mark’d the omen’s flight18
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
From her imperial and palatial height,
Whence the eternal city proudly rose
The worlds sole mistress—spite of foreign foes ;
What power dared thus her regal rule decide
But thine to wizard Poesy allied ?
The vultures soaring to the deep blue sky
On mighty pinions with sun-gazing eye,
Pourtray’d the altitude of future power
When vanquished kingdoms were her daily dower
So superstition deems—and why disarm
Historic truth of its poetic charm ?
The Roman feign’d from old Anchises’ lineTHE PLEASURES OF POESY.
19
His nation spring—and Venus queen divine,
Sweet self-imposed delusion !—we admire
Weakness that could the pleasing cheat inspire.
Thus love invests, with each divinest grace
“ That form of beauty, and that angel face !”
Wherein perchance, less gifted eyes perceive,
The lineaments of but a mortal Eve !
The Sorcerer Love brings latent charms to light
And veils defects, for ever from our sight !
Each grace he heightens with a painter’s power,
And adds a tint to Flora’s lovliest flower,
Affection’s weakness ! whence the bosom draws
A higher bliss than Fame’s divine applause,
Creating the perfection it believes,20
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
Break not the spell that sinlessly deceives;
Ideal source of pure and harmless joy
’Twere crime the fond illusion to destroy,
A fancy-braided iris formed by thee
Thou sun of human life—Sweet Poesy.
When forth from primal earth in angel form
God fashioned man with deathless vigour warm,
The breath of deity his soul inspired,
And all the God-head his pure bosom fired,
While ev’ry sense, with dreamful pleasaunce rife,
Convey’d the poesy of Eden life
Through heart and brain, with an immortal thrillTHE PLEASURES OF POESY.
21
Of conscious Joy, unsnared by demon 111!
And still the charm in lesser force remains,
Though paradise has fled sublunar plains,
Though lost to earth are Eden’s angel bowers
Yet bears the wilderness some gentle flowers,
Of its far-scatter’d wreath—whose petals rare
Tell of a nobler soil though wafted there !
Thus man forgets not in his soul’s eclipse,
The breath of Deity is on his lips !
But casts a sadden’d retrospective gaze
Of pious awe on those evanish’d days,
Yet vain the look ! his spirit turns to thee,
Prophetic Hope ! the future’s poesy !22
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
When Newton’s eager telescopic eye
Explored the realms of circumambient sky,
And Herschell mark’d each satellite and star,
Quietly shining to the earth afar,
Cleaving the blue on Science’ daring wing,
Their raptures flow’d from the Aonian spring !
Whose lucent starry Hippocrene I wis,
O’erflow’d their souls with calm quiescent bliss,
Which feign’d the constellated arch of night,
Heaven’s threshold paved with worlds of solar light
And blinding suns whose beams from seraph gaze,
Enwrap the Deity in all their blaze !
Pervading Genii of the bounteous earthTHE PLEASURES OF POESY.
23
Whose viewless forms bespeak a heavenly birth,
Etherial essences—whose natures seem
Wrought of some brightly evanescent dream,
When sunset-clouds adown the sapphire west
Attend the Day-God to his regal rest ;
Would wanton fancy fain your forms pourtray
Guiding the coursers of departing day,
Or waving from the skies your vesper wand
To summon dreamy night o’er sea and land.
Night ! of the thousand jewell’d orbs that gem
Heaven’s own tiara—thy rich diadem,
Whether o’er arctic wastes each Boreal star
Glitters like diamonded pendant spar,24
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
Through the thin nitrous atmosphere, and shows
A wilderness of perdurable snows,
Or Hella’s classic skies their rays suffuse
Which the pale summer lightning nightly strews,
Or where the pine-clad Apennines look o’er
Etrurian sepulchres—the graves of yore,
Thy star-inwoven canopy is spread
O’er peaks that none save angel feet may tread—
Thy beauty is enternized—and thy smile
Mellows the frown of Time’s dismantled pile,
E’en as years vanquish grief, and wreave for thee
Bewailing heart, their speechless Poesy !
And when returning morn in orient skiesTHE PLEASURES OF POESY.
25
Her silver robe inwrought with changeful dyes.,
Displays,while Phoebus o’er the rippled deep
Awakes its tenants from their cavern’d sleep,
Or on the granite mountain’s trackless height
Displays a laughing beam of solar light,
And gilds the tassell’d birch, while pale and dim
Recede the host of starry cherubim,
Till only Venus of the brilliant choir
The last to wane, displays her paly fire!
Creation syllables her varied praise,
Earth—ocean—air in smiles,—the groves in lays
Of wild birds’ gushing throats—whose woodland flow
The lark’s high anthem emulates below !
Through nature—universal—boundless—free
c26
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
Pervadeth omnipresent Poesy!
The meditative man in vale and wood
Woos the sequestered maid coy Solitude,
Or where the wind-flower blooms—or where is met
The heaven-reflecting azure violet,
Or where the wooded aster-flowers arise,
Or by the pool on which the lotus lies,
Its broad leaves o’er the lucent crystal spread
Wrhile glittering fins glance o’er the silver bed.
Or where the moonbeams gild the tranquil bay
Whose azure depths the imaged hills display!
By Como’s lake—or Spezia’s fatal wave,
A toy—a plaything—but alas ! a grave. (1)THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
27
Or where the tottering avalanche delays
Its thundering sweep a few unwarning days !
From all—from each, his musings fondly wrest
Hyblsean sweets—and hive them in his breast.
Through primal forests of the pathless west
Where suns arise and set on Huron’s breast,
Or Oregon’s—and by the rocky heights,
Where catamount and panther prowl at nights,
Or where the beaver by Missouri’s wave,
His city rears with instinct nature gave,
Or where the bison roams—or bounding deer
Starts at the fatal rifle glancing near,
The red man wanders,—hopeful in his creed28
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
That when his heart shall cease to beat and bleed
The happy hunting grounds beyond the grave
Shall bless—and prairies and Savannah’s wave !
Son of the wild interminable shades
In feather’d panoply—and beaded braids,
The universal glory shines on thee,
And makes a paradise of Poesy !
0 ! thrice unenvied the ascetic mind
That fain would curb the hopes of humankind,
That would convert Life’s wilderness of years
Into a desert where no flower appears,
And on the bleak and barren rock prepare
A cheerless homestead for Creation’s heir” !THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
29
Life !—one long penance, hard, and thankless still
The toil of Sisyphus up Time’s worse hill!
That fain would circumscribe the world beyond,
And fetter e’en the future with its bond!
And tell the drooping votary of care —
Here’s all your hope, no Heaven awaits you there S
0 ! what a creed is this !—the famine blight
That wasteth empires in their hour of might,
Hath mercy in its mission, when compared
To that—such for his fellow hath prepared !
Better the hope that may deceive, than live
Without the light its meteor fires may give,
The heaven the dotage of their souls has made
May fade at length to an Utopian shade,30
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
And death dissolve the scene, uncheer’d by thee,
And thy sublimer Eden—Poesy !
The hardy sons of Erin’s glorious isle
Where Nature wears her ever brightening smile,
Where lake and mountain charm the raptured eye
Dilatiug with th’ expanse of peak and sky;
From cabin roofs the spiral smoke ascends
Till the blue vapour far in ether blends !
There studded islands on the lake’s calm breast
Repose like stars in their cerulean rest!
0 Peace ! 0 Beauty !—like her heaven appears
The passions of her children, smiles and tears !
The simple fervour of their mutter’d prayerTHE PLEASURES OF POESY.
31
Ascends to Heaven and finds a record there !
The sacred rosary—the priestly cell
Hath each its pious charm—or solemn spell,
Delusion !—Superstition !—bigots whine
l et worship Mammon as a God divine,
A God whose mean idolatry, with thee
Is ne’er array’d—religion’s Poesy !
Where yellow Tiber winds his devious way
Past mouldering fanes—and ruins old and gray,
Her Coliseum there doth Rome uprear,
There the Pantheon’s marble gods appear !
Relics of noblest art—and nobler hands
That make the sculptured grace of distant lands,32
THE PLEASURES OF POESY,
And add a tinge of I leaven, unknown before
To mortal lineaments from Gods of yore !
Apollo—feminine in mien and mould,
And Dian’s brow that marble makes not bold !
Minerva’s pleading beauty—and the grace
Of Maia’s winged son descending space !
Ideal Deities !—o’er whom is cast
A poesy that clothed the ages past,
And charms the present—with its spell divine
And summons pilgrims to then* vacant shrine !
Eternal Time ! thine is the magic stole
O
Oblivion wove, where Lethe’s waters roll,THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
33
Whose ceasless stream thy constant ages swell
And years forgotten in its current dwell! ;
The Arno of the dead o’er-hung with glooms
Death Apennines o’er Fates Etruscan tombs!
Thine is the mystic veil whose folds embrace
Each form of Eld—and mellow Ruin’s trace,
Until decay repels the gaze no more
But with a halo crowns each bust of yore !
Thine the impervious gloom that from our sight
Hides meteoric fame in endless night,
As darkling clouds obscure the silver bow
4
Of classic Bian on the mountain’s brow !
Till past, again her beams refulgent pour
Unlike her crescent it may shine no more,34
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
Tradition only from some dateless age
Records its being on her simple page,
But with her alchemy constraineth thee,
To pry for light in Chaos—Poesy !
Where fair Sorrento overlooks the wave,
Whose sloping valley its bright kisses crave,
By mountain-crescent render'd half sublime,
And hills the dusky olive loves to climb,
There lemon boughs their yellow load display,
The golden orange shines in bright array !
Spires—villas—and monastic fanes appear
Through thickening foliage of the genial year,
White cottages th at vie with polar snowTHE PLEASURES OF POESY.
35
A picturesque simplicity bestow,
As by the margin of the murmuring sea
They listen to its waves’ monotony !
There ’neath a firmament intensely blue
Which dyes the bay with its cerulean hue,
On pranks with stars at midnight’s hour sublime,
The mirror’d wave, and spheres of every time !
The Jeusit hath found a calm retreat,
Bright heaven his canopy—fair earth his seat,
A spot whose holiness might well dismay
His crafty bigot soul that shuns the day,
A spot that Tasso loved—whose sunlike soul
Emitted rays, that spurns all clouds’ control,
A sacred and a glorious dwelling, meet36
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
For Milton’s tread—or Petrarch’s hermit feet!
Vaucluse, thy solitude is sacred now,
The varied green upon each waving bough
Claims kindred with the laurels that enwreath
Th’ eternal radiance of the brow beneath,
The brow of Petrarch !—There beside thy stream
The poet-lover would retire to dream
Of Laura—near Apollo’s sacred bower,
And fill with love the rosy twilight hour !
Or in the cooling grotto wdiere the sheen
Of day’s refulgent God hath never been,
Near Bacchus’ shady grove, lay stretch’d supine
To list the music of the waves that shineTHE PLEASURES OF POESY.
37
Along the rocky shore in rapid flow,
And muse on love—or dream of Cicero !
And there the poet sighed to pass his days
Removed from envy—and unsought by praise,
The sigh—the muses to Apollo bore—
The poet slept, and life and love were o’er ! (2)
Behold' St. Bernard on its Alpine height,
Whose dogs of mercy have restored to light
The form supine—whose livid frosty brow
Lies yonder in its winding-sheet of snow;
While pious monks ascend the wintry cliff
And chafe each frigid limb inert and stiff,
Till warmth returning glows through every vein
D38
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
And conscious life awakes the drowsy brain.,
Samaritan employ ! there deeds are rife
That shame the apathy of social life !
There solitude beholds thy heaven-born fire
Fraternal love, monastic breasts inspire,
Humiliating thought ! that men below
That bliss transcending all may seldom know,—
The music of the heart that mouldeth thee—
The Poesy of Christ’s humanity !
When Caesar’s awful ghost to Brutus came [flame,
Whose cheek nor blanch’d—nor quail’d whose heart of
To point the plain whose subsequential dye
Resolved the words “ we meet at Philippi!”THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
39
No horror did the Homan’s soul sustain
Nor blench before the spectre of the slain !
Albeit his—of regicidal blades
Had sped the phantom’s passage to the shades.,
Prophetic warning !—Further it forbore
They met at Philippi—and part no more !
The mystic sibyl who to Tar quin’s throne
The sacred volumes bore of seer unknown,
There met the cold neglect—and chilling scorn
That mark plebeian hearts, though regal born !
The vestal prophetess dismiss’d and spurn’d
Again, and yet again, the pages burned,
Still—Still returning with the scrolls of Fate40
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
Her tomes appear’d before tbe palace gate,
Until within its proud imperial hall
Che tyrant paid for few—the cost of all!
“ Mark well their auguries !” she cried and then
Astrsea like, exhaled to Heaven agen.
Or turn to Numa best of Roman Kings,
Who feign’d acquaintance with supernal things,
And at Egeria’s bidding raised the fanes
Of templed Gods, ’mid groves and smiling plains !
Or Curtins helmed, with spear and glancing plume
Who in the forum sought a living tomb !
Or fallen Caius in the dungeon cave
Whose fearful presence awed the Cumbrian slaveTHE PLEASURES OF POESY.
41
That should have slain him ! But whose weapon fell
Uuflesh’d upon the threshold of the cell !
Then superstition’s arm the exile freed.
And found a bark for his unhappy need!
But when the silent moon her yellow smile
From Afric’s skies, o’er many a crumbling pile
Diffused around fallen Carthage’ lowly bed,
The mausoleum of her slaughter’d dead,
He ’mid the desolation scatter’d round
A mighty parallel of ruin found !
Dismounted Deities, whose fanes upheld
Their pedestall’d Divinities of Eld,
Lay stretch’d supinely with the Gods they shrined,42
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
And bleaching bones of brutes and humankind.
The mossy stones of hut and regal hall—
With their dead owners shared an empire’s fall!
What flame ascends from Egypt’s fatal strand
To Heaven’s blue vault ?~What pile dismays the land?
’Tis Pompey’s funeral pyre !—Alas for man
Is this thy goal ambition ?—this thy span ?
Even Csesar wept!—for Nature ever pleads
In hearts where Ate chokes not mercy’s seeds.
When this sad tale smote his unwilling ear,
And in thy temple—Goddess—bade appear
Thy offering Nemesis !—Didst thou—Declare
Avenge his wrongs ? or murder stoop to spare ?THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
43
Such pictured spells comprise from age to age—-
The poesy of the historic page ! (3)
As Jove descended in a golden shower
To visit Danse in her secret tower,
The golden rays of Poesy divine
From throned Apollo and the sphered Nine
Our spirits interpenetrate—while teems
The heart’s horizon with pervading beams
Of glory, such as chaos saw of Eld
When her black glooms Jehovah’s voice expell’d !
Wherever placed by chance or gloomy fate,
In bigot’s dungeon—or the cells of hate,
A flower—an insect—or a struggling beam44
THE PLEASURES OF POESY,
Of solar night, that faintly dares to gleam
Through some kind crevice on the inner gloom,
Breathes of the world its fellow rays illume !
And kindles with revivifying sheen
A twilight radiance, else where night had been.
This Martin fonnd immured in Chepstow’s cell,
And noble Trenck this sunny truth could tell,
And Bonnivard submerged beneath the wave
Of Leman’s lake in Chillon’s dungeon cave,
*)
Through years—long years, of anguish and despair
Till hope grew pain, and thought unutter’d prayer
To heaven against his tyrants,—and to thee
The despot’s terror—hunted Liberty !THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
45
Savoy !—thy ducal coronet is stain'd
Like his of Este,—and thy glories chain'd
To low contempt—and scorn's remote deca)r
Because of those—the victims of your sway!
Oh ! what a thrill the captive's heart awoke
When yielded Chillon to the victor's stroke,,
And freedom to his glowing sight reveal'd [ceal'd ■
Alp—lake—and Heaven's deep blue, too long con-
Thus Charney near his tesselated cell (4)
First marked the tender plant he loved so well,
And nursed its gradual growth, till summer hours
Of silken petals formed its varied flowers !
Companion of his solitude, that made46
THE PLEASURES OP POESY.
A bright parterre where whilom all was shade !
Withdrawn from men his gaoler’s stolid face
Alone met his—0 ! sad and mournful case,,
Until this welcome boon by Flora given
His spirit charmed, and fixed its gaze on heaven !
That gladden’d leaves, and flowers with sunny sheen,
And fed with lucid dew its changing green !
A tree of knowledge to his musing mind,
Whose nature taught him more than all his kind !
And bade at least the captive’s soul be free
To rove the Tempe vale of Poesy !
As Arethusa from her couch of snows (5)
In the Acroceraunian hills arose,THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
47
And saunter'd till the rolling wave she view'd
While God Alpheus fleet as light pursued !
Until its azure crystal whelmed the twain
Beneath the surface of the Dorian main,
E'en thus the poet's lightning thought pursues
The flying charms of the unwilling muse,
Till like the conquer'd nymph of Elina's rills
Whose lucent flow its mountain source distils,
Companionship of soul her wTill accords
And power imparts to song's impassion'd words !
And moulds the images his soul has wrought
To symmetry, in the clear light of thought !
And from the hues his rainbow-mind conceives,
An iris of abiding beauty weaves !48
THE PLEASURES OP POESY.
With loveliest dyes the heavenly vision streams,
Form’d by the snn of thought’s creative beams !
♦
Art,—Painting—Sculpture—all that canvass owns
Praxitelean shapes in Parian stones,
Mosaics—frescoes—and the burning gems
That flash from earth’s imperial diadems,
Are redolent of poesy—and breathe
Blooms amaranthine of the muses’ wreath !
Quicksands, and Shoals, in Life’s false sea to mark
The muse provides Truth’s intellectual spark,
And guides the fancy, and its force restrains,
Nor yields to passion the untended reins,THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
49
A careful Mentor—as Minerva wise,
As Pallas arm’d—and like her, of the skies !
Arm’d with the panoply of Heaven and Truth
She points the glorious goal of age and youth.
Thus Edystone, its grateful gleam afar
Sheds o’er the main the seaman’s beacon star,
To warn the rover of the stormy deep
Of sunken reefs its lashing billows steep,
Save when of calm the halcyon wings are seen
O’er Oceans purple depths—and its translucent green.
When parch’d Sahara camel-mounted man
Exploring —forms the sultry caravan,
E50
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
There in the sand the lion’s trail appears,
And his far roar awakens pallid fears,
There night beholds the desert fires arise
Like Israel’s pillar to the lurid skies !
The shaggy monarch of the wild to scare,
And send him cowering to his rocky lair,
While like simoom—the hunted antelope
From his pursuer springs—as if with hope !
The tall giraffe speeds on in mortal pangs
His lion-rider clings with gory fangs !
Yet even thus, amid the pale alarm,
From danger’s self is born a latent charm,
A varied terror—a poetic dread,
To nature sacred, and the scene they tread!THE PLEASURES OP POESY.
51
When to the far horizon of his birth
The brightest—or the saddest spot on earth,
In after hours, man turns his weary gaze,
And counts the sun of retrospective days,
Still in the waste of unreturning years
Oases spring, and many a flower appears !
Thus ’mid the cloudy fields of darkling night
Stars, set like gems show more divinely bright
From th’ encircling blackness,—and display
A glory lost amid the glare of day !
Affection lingers, and the soul delays
’Mid scenes that sunn’dthe heart in former days,
And o’er it still a mirror’d rapture throws,
That mellows with its light existing woes,52
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
A spell whose Poesy, like Lethe steeps
The breast in calm delight, while sorrow sleeps
When on the vestibule of regal sway
The monarch stands ’mid royalty’s display,
Last of a scepter’d line—from whom shall spr
The dim expectant future’s unborn King !
And through the vista of departed time
Beholdeth in its shadowy niche sublime,
Each crown’d ancestral phantom of his race
In marble sleep supine, no morn may chase.
From the gray mausoleums, where they rest
Their forms lethean on Oblivion’s breast,THE PLEASURES OP POESY.
53
A voice streams forth—from each recess of Time,
And mingles with the coronation chime,
E’en from their crumbling urns—and cries--'“ Beware !
The tyrants wreath is woven by Despair !”
Twas fancy syllabled from buried dust
The deprecation of despotic lust !
The poesy of restless thought, that dwells
Magician of imagination’s spells !
Medea’s alchymy—whose fabled powers
Enriches arid wastes with fruits and flowers,
Or clothes bare winter with the charms of spring,
Or painted summer’s iris blossoming !
Usurps in fiction—honours which belong54
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
Alone to thee creative source of song !
Transmuter of base passions to the ore
Of love, that leaves the breast no longer poor !
To the fair orb of day with homage due,
In worship bent the Incas of Peru,
In temples dedicate to solar power.
Whose vestals graced the consecrated bower,
Their persons holy to his sacred shrine,
Whose rays irradiate the jewelled mine;
From birth immured till Sol’s releasing ray,
Awoke to nuptial bliss their bridal day.
Who deem’d that Phoebus only deign’d to cheer,
With his globe-mantling sheen their hemisphereTHE PLEASURES OF POESY.
T* pr
oo
Until in savage sacrilegious bands
The paynim sons of Yalpor (6) spoil’d their lands.
When fail’d Camac to scatter and subdue, (7)
The devastators of his fair Peru !
In vain Cucipatas (8) their rites preferred,
Their prayers some unpropitious planet heard.
Vainly Amautas (9) proffer’d counsel sage,
Unchecked remained the victor’s horrid rage,
Changing the Raymi (10) to a feast of tears,
Devotion’s bliss to palpitating fears !
When each curacci and cacique to save
His country fail’d, she totter’d to her grave !
Seem’d Viracocha’s (11) prophesy fulfill’d,
And Cuzco (12) trembled as her life distil I’d,56
PHE PLEASURES OF POESY.
As when the Amaruc(13) with venom’d fang.,
His victim slays with slowly lingering pang !
The tutelary planet—aid forbore,
Nor scourg’d the spoiler from their weeping shore I
Not thus the bard invokes the gracious muse,
Whose lucent smiles his spirit circumfuse,
Irradiant with bliss ! Her double charm,
That soothes the breast, its hostile fears disarm,
Sweet as the perfum’d sigh of Umbria’s vales,
His tranced soul her balmy breath inhales !
Thus Alba on her green and sunny shore
Marmoreal freshness breathes, and smiles the more
Thus fair Preneste, her aerial browTHE PLEASURES OF POESY.
Bathes in the sheen Italian skies allow !
0 ! but for her, LiiVs sad and sullen tide,
Would wander amid ruins ! Hate and pride
Their characters repellant on the soul,
Would trace like Egypt's hieroglyphic scroll,
Whose obelisks retain the midnight lore
Of buried time, which ages have forbore !
As from c< Palmryrean solitudes” (14) the flow
Of broad Euphrates ’neath the tropics’ glow
Mygdonias’ fertile regions haste to lave,
And where the tamanisk, and mulberry wave
By wild Aran, (15) along her winding banks
Fringed with the tamarix in dusky ranks;58
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
Beyond—an undulating wilderness
Of marles—and gypsum, shrubs in the distress
Of parch’d sterility. The desert queen
Of rivers sparkling laughs her shores between !
Though not Zenobia bends her haughty brow
Upon the wave, that leaps as brightly now
As when her circlet glitter’d in the stream,
That smiles for even in its silent dream !
Thus Poesy's eternal river flows
Through Life’s more barren desert—and bestows
Exotic blooms—where’er her waters glide,
END OF CANTO I.THE
PLEASURES OF POESY.
CANTO II.
0 ! for a spark of Homer’s epic fire
Whose Sun-ward—eagle-pinion scorns to tire !
But now the seat of thundrous Jove explores,
Now sweeps in sounding flight the Grecian shores !
Whose wizard arts disclose to mortal ken
Gods met in conclave on the fates of men,
While radiant Hebe crowns the purpling bowl
With beaded nectar, grateful to the soul,60
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
Who in Scamander’s direful conflict shows
How red the strife when Gods contend as foes;
And in white Nestor’s patriarchal age
Unites Mars’ hero with Minerva’s sage !
Or with Andromache—upon the plain.
Weeps o’er the body of her Hector slain,
Which stern Achilles gave to Priam’s tears,
Moved by the regal suppliant’s grief and years
t
Priam who rais’d tbe sad sepulchral fane,
O’er him the dearest of the Trojan slain.
Alas l for those blind orbs whose inner light,
Lies quench’d in Time’s impermeable night,
No more with Hecuba’s their crystals flow,THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
61
Nor bends tbe muse—Apollo’s silver bow !
Nor with Ulysses, cleaves the foamy wave,
Whose sunny peers Calypso’s Eden lave !
Now in the dark sarcophagus of Time,
The heart lies pulseless, that once throbb’d sublime,
But Death—who claim’d the Muses’ epic son,
Forbade Oblivion sere the wreath he won !
Awake, Thalia ! on a golden ray
Of heaven descend ! Awake, Urania !
And aid the notes which celebrate the joy
Of your own bright creations ! which destroy
The chaos of existence—and bestow
A golden dawn, whose blended raptures glow
F62
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
On the bright stream of being, and beget
Elysian hours—our lifers poetic debt!
Like morn, descend the fleck’d cerulean slope
Of Heaven—and linger—handmaids of bright hop
And with the chaplet of Life’s earthly flowers
Inweave the blossoms of Olympian bowers !
Awake the music of that sphery clime
Of which ye are the minstrels ! pom’ the chime
Of seraphs on our senses—and inspire
The wastes ye visit, with your Memnon lyre !
0 ! make on earth your blest Egerian cell—
Commune with spirits, but with mortals dwell—
Create a new Castalia, that shall flow
Like your own Helicon’s ! and make belowTHE PLEASURES OP POESY.
63
A fresher life for which the spirit pines,
Each desert spot, luxuriant as the vines
Of fair Calabrians vallies—which festoon
Their arms in tendrill’d wreaths, beneath the moon !
Muses ! descend the heavenly height sublime,
And strew with laureat blooms the winds of Time !
Engarland earth’s cold temples with the wreath
Whose radiance veils the darkling brow beneath.
Speak with the voice her deepest echo fills,
Like rattling thunder wild Albano’s hills,
Arouse the world supine, that hath too long
Ignobly slept—with circumfusing song !64
THE PLEASURES OP POESY.
Where olive clouds o’er each Italian vale,
Like isles along the azure ether sail.
O’er Simplon’s arch—above thy fanes Milan.
And where art triumph’s in her Vatican !
Or sculptured Florence, in whose Phidian hall,
Minerva pleads, and Venus smiles on all!
There prodigal as Nature’s lavish hand,
Apollo favours the redundant land !
Athenian—Theban sages, felt your smile,
And liglit’ning glance when sons of Britain’s isle,
In painted nudity the hollow shore
Of Ocean roam’d, and heard his wintry roar !
Then the Ionian iEgean mainTHE PLEASURES OF POESY.
65
Bore Neptune’s tribute from his billowy reign
Of ocean airs ! From Cycladean isles
And Adrian waves, that rise in purple smiles
To Grecian states—where glorious Freedom fired
Each patriot bosom—and the muse inspired,
While by Eurota’s side the Spartan stood,
And own’d Lycurgus’ laws as just and good !
Then Plato’s spirit burst upon the time,
And reign’d Philosophy supreme, sublime !
Then donn’d the tragic muse her sable shroud,
And Cato mix’d with the applauding crowd—
Nemean Pindar gain’d the lyric wreath,
And Virgil pierc’d thy glooms Hadean Death !
Then Ovid lov’d—and Horace charm’d the age,66	THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
And Livy pencilled the historic page,
Then Tacitus eternized deeds of fame,
And chronicled his own—a deathless name !
Then Tully’s accents bade the forum glow,
And truth grew eloquent—in Cicero !
[decay,
The scene how changed—Rome—Greece—have found
And Britain owns in turn the muse’s swTay—
Her sages wises than the Samian sire,
Her Milton's harp transcending Homer’s lyre—
The bard etherial borne on seraph-wings,
Beyond Philosophy’s imaginings !	[billed
And Shakspeare’s muse—whose ample soul com-
The microscopic, and colossal mind !THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
67
And dreamy Spenser, who, the lonely wood
With Una strays in faery solitude !
With hundred names that lay a several claim
To poets* bays—but none of rival fame !
Hail, intellectual sheen ! The spirit’s breath,
Eternal halo of the brow of death,
That shineth on all ages, and appears
The undeparting glory of their years,
And mantles with its splendour, from the clime
Of blue Crotona—and the isles sublime
That prop degraded Venice ! and the height,
Whence Rome palatial, urged her eagles* flight.
The waves of Time’s interminable deep,
a68
THE PLEASURES OP POESY.
Which in its cresting glory onward sweep,
And from remotest ages bear the sheen
Of mind’s pure radiance, and its trophies green !
Which, like the oozy weeds from ocean cast,
We snatch—as treasures of the cavern’d past.
Thought, like the diver of the Indian main,
Bears many a pearl from Truth’s obscure domain
To grace the priceless coronet of mind,
Wherein its peerless gems are richly shrined !
And Poesy collects the fairest flowers
Of Thought’s parterre, to deck her floral bowers !
Where the loved muse in summer beauty drest,
Decoys the bard to dream on Nature’s breast.THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
69
Thrice happy scenes—the dreamland of our youth,
Where all is hope, and innocence, and truth—
Where Fancy makes of every sunny dell
A haunted Tempe—where she loves to dwell!
And pluck the petals, whence the droning bee,
As on Hymettus, draws his nectar*d fee !
While odorous airs from every floweret’s breast
Exhale—and Nature breathes of love and rest !
The field of strife—when freemen nobly bare
In Freedom’s sacred cause, the brands they wear,
Is hallowed by the muse—whose tears are blent
With the red earth that forms their monument !
Bear witness Marathon—Thermopylae,70
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
Whose names are watch-words, dear to liberty—
Where stream’d Life’s crimson over Grecian graves,
Like the volcanic glow on Baise’s waves *
Of red Vesuvius—when its lurid light
Gleams on the bay amid the crimson night!
The bay whose shores uphold the ruin’d fane
Of Cytherea by the Tyrrhene main,
Whose coast the sons of ancient Rome admired,
And to its viny solitudes retired,
While mix’d promiscuous—villas—baths—and fanes
Where brooding desolation now remains !
And Korner who a bastard despot’s sway
Repelling perish’d in the noble fray,THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
71
Whose blood distilling raised no purple flower
Like young Adonis' wound by Paphian power;
But in the glow of Freedom's ruddy morn
Those drops are rays—and quiver with the scorn
Of tyrants aud their myrmidons, whose bones
Shall be to Freedom's feet—as are the stones
That form the steps of temples—to the tread
Of those that enter o'er each prostrate head
The shrine of Liberty !—that rises still
Above the altar on her sacred hill!
The “ lyre and sword"—their garland wreaths display
Of sereless laurel and perennial bay,
The hero's trophy with the bard's appears
And one is wet with blood—and one with tears !72
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
I'paminondas—Lacedemon—Lo !
Your names are verdant with the grateful flow
Of Freedom’s tears—that keep the laurels green
Of Rome’s Rienzi—and the chaplet sheen
Of her Leonidas,—and his—the son
Columbia rear’d for her in Washington !
A halo sanctifies the patriots’ brow
Above the saint’s !—In that he hath a vow
With Nemesis against his country’s foes,
That the avenger may recoil her woes
On the oppressor—and o’erwhelmed display
The tyrant’s phalanx in its steel array,
When on the tented, and embattled plain
Ilis followers’ life-drops flow like April rain,THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
73
A glorious shower of sanguinary dew
Baptizing freemen—from whose hearts it grew!
The highland fastnesses—whence Wallace led
His tartann’d patriots forth to glory’s bed,
And hills of Switzerland—wdiere Tell’s Lucerne
Is fed with crystal from its secret urn !
\
And Hofer’s mountains of the green Tyrol
Are scenes, that Freedom, and the muse extol!
To stand upon a battle’s site when years
Have mellow’d grief—and stay’d the widow’s tears,
And know the strife caused by the godless lust
Of tyrants, who are then resolved to dust
Q74	THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
Degraded by past being—is to feel
t
The groans of Earth on her Ixion wheel,
For her slain children !—but to find they fell
For Freedom- 'is to hear the fiarum bell
That summons others to the glorious deed
By which the world shall from its gyves be freed !
O’er scenes of wanton slaughter mourns the muse
Where tyrants feast with blood their hellish crews,
As did Napoleon for the lust of sway
When death and ruin marked the butcher’s way.
Till fortuue failed him ’neath the northern star
And sunk in flames the city of the Czar !
Confusion—death to tyrants—Earth and painTHE PLEASURES OF POESY.
75
Of travail groaneth with this seed of Cain
And may not be delivered—but the hour
Approaeheth which hath freedom for its dower S
Siberian solitudes—the sad retreat
Of princely exiles—captives at the feet
Of Russian despotism—by the will
Of her proud Autocrat—whose hearts distil
The poison-drops of anguish, shout a tale
From the bleak confines of their icy jail,
And from the steppes of Russia’s bleak domain,
What tyrants dare who hold the power and chain!
And ravish’d Poland’s perdurable tears- -
Of whose dark wrongs no Nemesis appears,76
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
The muse has branded with indignant scorn
The tyrant horde, of which such ills are born !
The bardArion (1) dark Colonna’s wave
Escaping—sung the death-dirge of the brave
Who perished on its bosom—by the steep
Where brooding silence sits when tempests sleep,
In numbers musical, as is the flow
Of sunset waves—when summer winds are low !
Amid the dangers of the dreadful hour
The poet-seaman felt the muse’s power,
When Albert perish’d, and the blinding light
Of Heaven, the steersman’s eyeballs struck with night!
The bard survived to weave his magic strainTHE PLEASURES OF POESY.
77
And die the victim of the stormy main !
Or turn to him whose sacred temples round
The Scottish muse the mystic holly bound,
Who sang of love and Scotland’s bonny braes
Where classic Ayr in river-beauty strays
Who breath’d in song the patriot ardour stern
Of Edward’s foe “ The Bruce of Bannockburn !”
The Psyche forms of loveliness and truth
That haunt our age—were once the dreams of youth
Which like young Love we worshipp’d, with the flame
Of aspiration—or some holier name !
By which we ken with Galileo’s eye78
THE PLEASURES OF POESY*
A space ail worlds—too beautiful to die,
And may we hope - to suffer !—far remote
Where Speculation steers her idle boat,
Where all is darkly-bright—obscurely clear,
Like mam’s own destiny—with hope and fear,
Or th’ oracular responses given
At Delphi’s shrine—ms will of Fate, and Heav
0 ! what were Love shorn of the rosy hue
Of poesy, with which he doth imbue
His fair creations ?—which receive its dye
As violets drink the azure of the sky,
Or the cliamelion which (as poets feign)
Of nearest hue receives the kindred stain.THE PLEASURES OP POESY.
79
There is a passion none but poets feel
Whose breasts receive the impress of its seal,
A Pantheism of divinest birth
That with the grand and beautiful of Earth—-
Peak—mountain—ocean—forest—and the bright
And starry universe, connects the light
Of the souks love,—and blends it with the beam
Of universal Spirit—which doth stream
With unextinguish’d glory—and we see
In thousand objects—Love—the Deity !
Ye glorious masters of the art divine
That mimics nature in its rainbow shrine
Giorgione—Rubens—and the hallow’d name80
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
Of Titian wedded to remotest fame !
With Rosa—Rembrandt—and the name that ding
Bright hues of beauty on thought's angel wings,
Heaven's own Raffaelle ! Coreiggio—and Lorraine
Caracci—Poussin—when shall Time again
Restore your peers ?—Domenichino when
Shall such a galaxy appear agen
In Art's fair drmanent ?—the sister bright
Of poesy and vested iu her light!
Again Murillo when shall pencil trace
Thy forms of beauty—holiness—and grace ?
When modern art a rival glory crown
With that Apelles gave—the world’s renown !THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
81
Illustrative of poesy, and thought,
The limner's art hath magically wrought
Conceptions dim—Elysian shapes of light—
And Psychean beauty—genius-born and bright,
To ken most palpable—And marble forms
Beneath the sculptor's hand (whose genius warms
The adamant to mimic life)—appear
As Venus now descended from her sphere,
Now as Apollo of the silver bow
And golden lyre,—who on the world below
Pours the hot beams of Phoebus !—wakening
Lush blossoms into beauty—when the spring
Dies in the lap of Summer—whose bright hours
Are laden with the scent of painted flowers—82
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
As bees are with their honey,—and the air
Is fanned with little pinions every where
Of butterfly and bee—while fiery green
By reedy brook the dragon-fly is seen !
Apollo—throned high above the nine
Whom bards invoke, and hail as the Divine;
Patron of poesy and art.—Alas !
That thou shouldst fall and from thy grandeur pass—
Fair Greece !—How much we owe thee, and the light
Of thy mythology !—Minerva bright
Fair wisdonfls Goddess helmed ! And Mercury
Whose flight encompasseth the earth and sea
As Messenger of Jove !—who shakes the worldTHE PLEASURES OF POESY.
83
With storms and thunder on its axle whirled.
Thy chisel Phidias creative sway
O’er marble held—and in the face of day
Stone seemed to breathe ! —Praxiteles beside
Won an immortal name. And since the tide
Of Time hath brought its changes, and long years
Have pass’d and Lo ! Canova’s name appears,
And Angelo’s—who bade of Israel’s seer
The awful mien, the rev’rend form appear!
And Architecture lends its sacred aid
To Poesy—where solemn fanes invade
The clasping air—and holy temples look84
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
Toward the stars—as on a shining book
Of hieroglyphics constellated—bright
With mysteries unread by aught—save night!
And gloomy arches—and long fretted aisles
Where echo sleeps—as ’mongst the ruined piles
Of Balbec and Palmyra—and the halls
Of crumbling palaces—where forms and falls
The damp of their decay ! and mouldering towers
That mark the lapse of ages as of hours !
Old Egypt’s Mem non—and her Sphynxes wear
The charm poetic—mystery—and bear
Our spirits, to the era of their date
Obscurely buried in the night of Fate !THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
85
Imagination, pictures scenes—to which
The vales of Thessaly—reputed rich
In beauty, and enchantment—are no more
Than smiling prospects—to the primal store
Of Eden glories, ere the shade of death
Stole on their living bloom—with simoom breath !
And poesy creates—and re-creates
A world within us—subject unto fates
That rule our will—through which light fancy wings,
And dove-like oft amid her wanderings
Rests in some pleasant spot—where sunny skies
Of thought—create the soul a paradise !
A paradise of peace, that overpays
H86
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
With its calm Joy, the turmoil of our days,
And nights of sleepless vigil—when the soul
Yields up its faculties to the control
Of heavenly musings—and despising earth
Pants for the clime of its etherial birth !
Bleak Serna’s sons—of the Slavonian race
Confess the muse—and wear with simple grace
Her fairy mantle—garlanding the hours
In their wild dance with bright poetic flowers,
Or woo the Vila (2) in some blest retreat—
For Persian Houri, and the faithful meet.
There ^neath a common homestead, sire, and sonTHE PLEASURES OF POESYo
87
In social love unite, and dwell as one
Through generations,—and the tresses bright
Of infancy, are blent with age^s white—
And patriarchal locks ! —from sun to sun
And age to age—and may till time is done.
There open stands the hospitable gate
To strangers ever,—shaming pomp and state,
Whose sculptured portals, frown the wanderer thence,
As if wealth gloried in its impotence
Of love fraternal!—and to scorn the weak
Were lifers religion of the proud and sleek.
A brighter gush of splendour than pervades88
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
Alhambra’s pictured halls—and colonades
Of fretted glory—o’er the world of thought
By poesy is flung. The muse hath brought
From every clime its treasures, neath the cope
Of heaven, that canopies like smiling hope
The living, and the dead !—Her treasures are
The flowers of Earth—the diamonded star
That gems the crest of night, —the rolling streams
That erst laved mighty cities —which like dreams
Have left an indistinct chaotic trace
Of what they were, their being—and their place.
Whate’er is born of beauty—grandeur—dark
Mysterious doubt—awakes the latent spark
Of Poesy. The wreath that Flora twinesTHE PLEASURES OP POESY.
89
To deck the brows of Summer—who combines
The gems of her domain, of thousand hues
(With which, its scenes reduntant nature strews)
Into one coronal—outshining far
The crowns of mightiest monarchs—as the star
Of Eve, excels the glow-worm's hedge-row light
When day has melted in the shades of night!
And glorious empires—whose palatial fanes
Apollo gilds—and Dian from the plains
Of azure space ; where in each crowded mart
Eternal commerce sits-—and sees depart
Her sons—earth's farthest confines to explore
And win the treasures of each distant shore!90
THE PLEASURES OF POESY,
And buried cities—that have found a grave
Beneath the solid and volcanic wave,
Through silent centuries ! — where voice, nor sound
Hath broke for ages, on the blank, profound,
And utter quietude,—where loneliness
Is death’s own solitude—and earth’s distress !
Such is Pompeii by the awful doom
That made her the sarcophagus—and tomb
Of her own children, when the fiery surge
In molten billows did its fury urge,
With Herculaneum in like ruin spread,
One catacomb—and city of the dead.
Fair Poesy—thy urn doth overflowTHE PLEASURES OF POESY.
91
Like plenty’s lavish horn—on all below,
In thousand gushing streams of varied bliss
From angel spheres—that make the joy of this !
The diapaso n of thy vocal breath—
Combines each tone, awake from silence’ death
Of Nature’s sphery music—which around
Breathes universal harmony of sound !
From mountain-thunders—to each wanton breeze
The hamadryads woo ’neath coolnig trees
In the green tangled forest,—whether spread
On Latmos’ side Endymion’s sylvan bed,
On earth less classic—where no fabled Fan
Pours reedy music—which the zephys fan
To Echo’s hidden grot—who wafteth thence92
THE PLEASURES OP POESY.
Those babbling melodies, that lull the sense
In dreams elysian.—Not Peneus' shores
In fabling ages (whence Tradition pours
Her mytbologic streams) when Tempers shades
Seduced the gods—to haunt her favour'd glades
Preferred to Heaven !—beheld a brighter scene,
Or more divine, though graced by beauty's queen,
And fauns, and laughing hours—than on the soul
Beneath fair Poesy's divine control,
As on the mirror of a glassy stream
Bursts,—with the glory of a heavenly dream
On angel slumbers ! wakening young delight
With pleasure's pinion^ to the hallow'd sight!THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
93
The poet’s soul Narcissus’ doom might dread
Which through etherial nature worshipped,
Beholds the images itself creates,
And gazes—with the love that idolates
The objects it surveys—and thus exhales
To mingle with each fairy shape, that sails
Before his vision,—such as Shakspeare’s eye—
Or Milton’s kenn’d—or Dantes dared descry !
Your volant flight, ye muses take again
To heaven—the empire of your rightful reign,
And there survey—and thence preside above
Each intellectual scene of Joy and Love !
Each heart inspire—and animate with bliss94
THE PLEASURES OF POESY.
The votive pilgrims of a world like this 1
From the far heights of your supernal seat—
With thoughts etherial, mortal cares defeat,
The lucid fountain of that classic hill—
Distil in starry showers, whose light shall fill
The mortal vallies of our thirsty earth,
That thence may rise —those gems of floral birth
Which bloom in Heaven—but deign at times appear
As bright oases in our desert sphere,
And speak of life, to the enchanted sense,
And love—and beauty’s dear omnipotence !
THE END.NOTES TO CANTO I.
(1)	“A Toy—a plaything—but alas ! a grave. ”
Percy Bysshe Shelley—was drowned in the bay of
Spezia, on the 8th of August, 1822.
(2)	“The poet slept—and life, and love, were o’er”
Petrarch died at his retreat at Vaucluse, on the
Morning of the 18tli of July, 1374.
(3)	“ The Poesy of the historic page.”
I have selected these remarkable scenes from Roman
History—not only because they are some of the most
striking—but as being the most familiar.
(4)	“ Thus Charney near his tesselated cell”—
Vide—a beautiful work of fiction—Entitled “ Pic-
ciola,” translated from the French of X. B. Saintine•
(5)	“ As Arethusa from her couch of snows”—
Vide—Shelley’s “ Arethusa.”
(6)	“ The Paynim sons of Yalpor.”
Sons of thunder—for so the Spaniards were called by
the Peruvians—because of the fire-arms used by them.
(7)	“ Pacha-Camac”
The Peruvians acknowledged a superior deity, a
creative power, which they called Pacha-Camac.—
Letters of a Peruvian Princess.
(8)	“ Cucipatas.”
Priests of the Sun. Ibid.96
NOTES.
(9)	“ Amautas”
Indian philosophers. Ibid.
(10)	“ The Raymi”
The principal festival of the sun: the Inca and the
priests adore it on their knees. Ibid.
(11)	Viracocha’s prophesy.”
An Inca who had predicted the destruction of the
empire by the Spaniards. Letters
(12)	“Cuzco trembled”
The capital of Peru. Letters of a Peruvian Princess.
(13)	“The Amaruc”—
The adder of South America. Letters
(14)	“ Palmyrean Solitudes”
So called by Pliny.
(15)	“Wild Aran”—the forest of Aran.
NOTES TO CANTO II.
(1) “ The Bard Arion.”
Falconer Author of “ The Shipwreck.”
(2) “The Vila.”
Anldeal conception of singular beauty—synonomous
—or nearly so—with the fairies, of English literature.
Printed by W. H. Wilson, 8, Bedford-street, Bedford-row.ADVERTISEMENT.
Also by the same Author,— Cloth—Gilt-edges, Price 2s. 0d.
JOB:
A LYRICAL DRAMA,
AND OTHER POEMS.
SECOND EDITION*
“Job has great daring and power, Mr. Haynes, aims at being,
a Goethe, or Byron at least.—Athenaeum, March 22nd, 1845.”
“ Mr. Haynes, has been inspired by what we own is a very in-
spiring book,—Professor Nichol’s “ Phenomona of the solar
system”—this teaches him to place—Hades the scene of his
drama, in the craters of the moon, where Satan devises the trials
of Job’s faith; the author is very young, and his bold attempt
is not without promise.”—Tait’s Magazine, May, 1845.
EDWIN YATES, 2, RED LION STREET, HOLBORN.


	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
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