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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 ■ f / / r
 
 THREE DAYS AT KILLARNEY; 
 
 WITH 
 
 OTHER POEMS. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, AND 
 
 GREEN. 
 
 1828.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY SAMUEL MANNING AND CO. 
 LONDON-HOUSE YAUD, ST. PAUl's.
 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 A FEW words will convey all that appears 
 necessary to be observed relative to the following 
 Poems. 
 
 Three days spent at Killarney in the summer 
 of 1827, gave rise to the Poem so called in this 
 Volume : in which a separate Canto is allotted 
 to the employments of each day. The scenery 
 and the incidents are delineated correctly as they 
 occurred ; the legends and the superstitions are 
 those of the place and country ; and the sketches 
 of national and individual character are given 
 with studious fidelity. 
 
 To the Earl of Kenmare the most grateful 
 acknowledgments are due from every tourist, for 
 the facilities which his admirable regulations afford 
 
 A 2 
 
 821781
 
 l^' PREFACE. 
 
 to the visitors of Killarney : and the Author feels 
 himself under great obligation for the politene'ss 
 which he experienced, and the valuable informa- 
 tion respecting the scenery and phenomena of 
 the Shannon, which he received, during the stag- 
 hunt, from the Knight of Glynn. 
 
 Though ' Cambuscan' is but a fragment, yet the 
 time will not perhaps be thought totally misap- 
 plied, which has been occupied in an endeavour 
 to render the public more familiar with a tale 
 admired by Spencer and by Milton. The friendly 
 niterest with which Lord Churchill perused 
 this attempt in manuscript, is one of the innu- 
 merable kindnesses conferred by him upon the 
 Author, during a period of four and twenty years. 
 
 With regard to the ' Elias Hydrochous ;' nothing 
 beyond a hint from the title has been borrowed 
 from the Milton manuscript, preserved in the 
 library of Trinity College, Cambridge ; and 
 called by Bishop Mansel, the Palladium of the 
 College. 
 
 Oierion, 
 
 \eiir Minlliii)'.
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 PAGE, 
 
 KILLARNEY :— 
 
 Day 1st. ..... 1 
 
 Day 2nd. ..... 29 
 
 Day 3rd. ..... 59 
 
 CAMBUSCAN ; or, The Squire's Tale: modernised 
 
 from Chaucer .... 93 
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS ; a Sached Drama . . 125
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 FIRST DAY.
 
 KILLARNEY 
 
 DAY FIRST. 
 
 Where Erin ramparts out the western deep 
 With Kerry's mountain realm and rocky shore. 
 Dismay and solitude their vigil keep, 
 'Mid darkness, hurricane, and thunder's roar. 
 In vision round them throng the days of yore. 
 Departed saints and heroes they behold. 
 And shudder at traditionary lore. 
 By unimaginable heralds told. 
 Who deeds of other years and other worlds unfold. 
 
 B
 
 KILLARNEY, 
 
 II. 
 
 Such the stem mood of thunder and of night, 
 Where Brandon Hill frowns awful on Tralee, 
 Or Kerry Head uprears his cloudy height, 
 And in defiance breasts the raging sea. 
 But atmospheres serene have charms for me. 
 And daylight sparkling on the Emerald Isle, 
 Where Nature in her bounty wantons free. 
 Till all Elysium springing at her smile. 
 O'er cliff, o'er mead, o'er dell the lengthened march 
 beguile. 
 
 III. 
 
 Awake, young pilgrim, mark, how paints the daM'n 
 With varied hues Killarney's fairy reign. 
 Where castellated rock and abbey ed lawn. 
 And island groves adorn the liquid plain ; 
 While margining the triple lake's domain, 
 Far as the southward gazer can descry. 
 Forests and towering steeps in far-drawn train 
 Mingle their vastness with the clouds on high, 
 Like steps by which the soul ascends into the sky.
 
 KILLARNEV. 
 
 IV. 
 
 What shade, what coolness, in the embowering' wood. 
 
 Around Bellevue, beneath the templed brow 
 
 Of Aghadoe ; where ages long hath stood 
 
 The round -towei-'s mystery («). Mark the ruddy 
 
 glow 
 
 Of youth and age, in never ending flow. 
 That to the eventful contest wend their way. 
 Where fate, and judges of the field, must shew 
 If England or Hibernia win the day : 
 Sure prelude to carouse, to song, debate and fray. 
 
 They start, they fly, they comeC*) — the course is 
 
 done : 
 The chorus of wild triumph rides the air 
 In uproar : the Milesian steed hath won ; 
 And even the loser hath a heart to share 
 That universal joy ; — but, O, beware 
 The witchery of the turf — the mirth it brings 
 Is harbinger to ruin and despair, 
 Bears off estate and fame on harpy wings. 
 And like an adder bites, and like a scorpion stings. 
 
 B 2
 
 4 KILLARNEY. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Escaped from such Cluirybdis, by the bridge 
 Of Scarvagh-Killin speed we to the stream 
 Of Lein, while gathering storms from Toomies' ridge 
 Roll downward (murky as the night-mare's dream) 
 With here and there a brief and doubtful gleam. 
 Even so unlooked-for sorrows oft deface 
 The morn of youth, and dim its orient beam ; 
 For not on earth hath man his resting-place ; 
 Where wanderers are we all, and all must run the race. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Through time and death's dominion, to the close 
 Of nature, when the trumpet calls to doom. 
 But much awry our speculation goes 
 If present need we miss : the tempest's womb 
 Is bursting on the mountains, and the gloom 
 Dissolves in smoking deluges around, 
 That heaven and earth in one vast night entomb : 
 And cleft of rock, or cavern under ground. 
 Must be our shelter now, if shelter may be found.
 
 KILLARNEY, 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Thus halting, look to where Macarthy More, 
 With arm unconquerable, upheld his reign. 
 And welcoming the battle's fierce uproar. 
 Stood like a lonely island of the main. 
 Whose adamantine boundaries disdain 
 The billow and the blast. For never quailed 
 The heart of Erin ; never shall a train 
 Of gallant sons be wanting, robed or mailed, 
 To grace her in repose, or guard her if assailed. 
 
 IX. 
 
 O, my loved Erin ! couldst tliou brook the curb 
 Of order and of law, how blest wert thou : 
 For then should no intestine broil disturb 
 Thy peace ; nor vain repining cloud thy brow. 
 Theirs the reproach and guilt who better know. 
 Yet false alarums ring to party rage ; 
 And bid thee with unhallowed ardour glow. 
 Sully with deeds of blood thine history's page. 
 And for imagined wrongs eternal warfare wage.
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 X. 
 
 The sun returns ; hiiste on, my friend ; beliokl. 
 Where yawns Dunlow's abyss the crags between. 
 Well may the bosom heave, the blood run cold. 
 And the knee tremble. 'Mid this gulf hath been 
 The hand, the visitation of the Unseen, 
 In majesty of horror : — list ! — no sound ; 
 Look up — no life, no vestiges of green. 
 Solitude, desolation all around. 
 And cloud-capt peaks that gird the unihthomable 
 profound. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Yet terror call it not, but stern delight. 
 To gaze upon such chaos : while the mind 
 Apart from her inthralling clay takes flight. 
 In adoration soaring unconfined. 
 What error theirs, to happiness how blind. 
 Who measure all by sense, reserve no room 
 Within the heart for thought of loftier kind. 
 But slumber in forgetfulness and gloom. 
 Till bursts u])on their heads the thunder-peal of doom.
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XII. 
 
 A wilderness like this, the Tishbite seer 
 Explored in Horeb, when Jehovah sent. 
 Before his mercy-seat, the dread career 
 Of whirlwind, that the rocks and mountains rent. 
 Then quivered earth, then blazed the firmament : 
 But wind, nor fire, nor earthquake was the shrine 
 That veiled the glory of the Omnipotent. 
 For, hai'k ! the still small voice, mysterious si^n 
 Of God within the breast, and colloquy divine. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Genius of Contemplation ! not in scorn 
 Do we adventure, nor with breath profane. 
 To pour a soul into the mellow horn. 
 And wake the marvels of thy lonely reign. 
 A voice, we know not whence, repeats the strain ; 
 A thousand tongues, invisible, reply 
 In mimic note again, and yet again ; 
 Till faint in distance the sweet echoes die. 
 Like reascending choirs of angels to the sky.
 
 8 
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XIV 
 
 They are but sounds ; yet not in vain we lend 
 To sounds so worthy paradise an ear : 
 We catch their inspiration, and ascend 
 In fantasy's immeasurable career. 
 Beyond the lunar ball and starry sphere. 
 To where the cherubim and seraphim 
 Hold jubilee throughout the eternal year. 
 In choral ecstasies of praise to Him 
 Before whose sight the heavens and all their hosts are 
 dim. 
 
 XV. 
 
 O might it be for ever thus ! — too soon 
 The bond of sense corporeal checks our flight 
 And drags us down, to climb, in blaze of noon. 
 The vast abrupt of wonder and affright, 
 By lake, by stream, or buried under height 
 Of rocks that nod, impending to their fall. 
 Unmingled good is not for mortal wight : 
 Toil, pain, vicissitude, must come to all 
 Who on terrestrial orb, poor feeble emmets crawl.
 
 KILI^\RNEV. 9 
 
 XVI. 
 
 And is there not a cause ? — Think how began 
 The world's first pilgrimage of youth and joy. 
 When frailty-free arose imperial man, 
 God's image, heir of peace without alloy. 
 Alas ! that sin should enter, and annoy 
 The bliss of Eden, troubling the serene. 
 With hopes that cheat, and pleasures that destroy. 
 Sithence hard task for dicipline hath been. 
 From transitory toys the unwilling soul to wean. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Clambering aloft, we bound, we walk, we cree}). 
 Mile after mile, from rocky stair to stair ; 
 Till now advancing toward the topmost steq). 
 And elevate beyond the reach of care. 
 Heaven's vestibule we tread. Yet signs there are 
 Even here of habitation : smoke-wi*eaths blue. 
 Beneath yon rock denote some uncouth lair ; 
 Perchance of one who wealth and grandeur knew. 
 Yet voluntary thence to holy rest withdrew.
 
 10 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Ah, no ! a sorceress here (so rumour tells) 
 Whose alchemies the bearded grain transmute. 
 In limbec and retort concocts the spells. 
 That travesty the human to the brute : 
 Yet such the gust of interdicted fruit. 
 That though her victims dwindle and wax pale. 
 Day after day, her threshold they salute. 
 To quaff her mountain-dew's («) insidious bale. 
 Whereof, who deeply drinks, the draught shall sorely 
 wail. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 For think not this the pearly moisture cool. 
 Ambrosial, dropping from the wheels of morn : 
 It is a wicked dew, that will befool 
 And send thee ibrth, of strength and reason shorn, 
 A ch:>lt, an ape, the laughing-stock of scorn ! 
 Be not enamoured of contempt and blame. 
 Pluck not the rose that bears so sharp a thorn ; 
 Touch not — or if thou hast, thy grasp reclaim. 
 Nor thus for poison truck, health, competence and fame.
 
 KILLARNF.Y. 11 
 
 XX. 
 
 She comes — in semblance of a withered crone. 
 Goblet in hand. " Tired stranger, drink," she cries ; 
 " Unhappy he, who on himself alone, 
 " Oblivious of elixir's aid, relies :" 
 But heed her not ; be temperate, and be wise ; 
 Yet courteous in thy wisdom, lightly taste : 
 A sparing use exhilarates, fortifies. 
 And dancing in the veins, repairs the waste 
 Of stumble, stride, and leap, strained sinew, heat 
 and haste. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 At length, upon the summit ridge we stand. 
 Whence vision sti'ains to search the depth below : 
 Before, behind us, and on either hand, 
 Are valley, tarn and cliff — the torrent's flow — 
 And mountains over-arched with pluvial bow. 
 These are the temple : here, to swell the song 
 Of Nature, thunders roar and tempests blow. 
 Till from mortality's self-blinded throng 
 The summoned spirit soar, and heaven- ward sail along.
 
 12 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 " Good is it to be here ;" the Apostle cried. 
 Who on the mount Messiah's glory saw : 
 And ffood it were that we too should abide 
 Sequestered thus, if in religious awe, 
 We could from guilt as from the world withdraw. 
 No duty shunned, no sacrifice unpaid 
 To social good, to Gospel, or to Law. 
 But flowers of amaranth spring not in the shade. 
 And Faith, Hope, Charity, are but a vain parade 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 In him, whose sour abstraction to the cell 
 Of malcontent misanthropy retires. 
 Forgetting and forgotten, there to dwell, 
 Cumbering the ground. Far other thought inspires 
 High heaven, far other holocaust desires ; 
 And the prime record of Redemption's plan 
 Gave oracle what service he requires : 
 For thus in Bethlehem fields the hymn began — 
 Glory to God on high, good-will and peace to man !"
 
 KILLARNf:Y. 13 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Descend we to the world again — a fall, 
 Precipitate ; save here and there between, 
 A marshy ledge, besprent with rushes tall. 
 Gave change of peril. Fi-equent might be seen 
 The myrtle of the bog, whose foliage green 
 Steams on the grasp a cloud of fragrance rare : 
 So virtue when opprest hath ever been 
 In sight of heaven, the more approved and fair ; 
 A balsam beyond. price, a pearl above compare. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Our boat was ready on the wild lake's shore, 
 Manned with a courteous and a gallant crew : 
 Young Leary, skilful at the feathering oar. 
 And Darby Connor, trowsered spruce in blue ; 
 The heart into the sinews Roberts threw. 
 And Tehan stoutly tugged the boat along. 
 Though on his forehead time some furrows drew. 
 Cheered with the bugle, repartee and song. 
 Together all they pulled, a lengthened stroke and 
 strong.
 
 14 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Safely we steered with Fleming at the helm : 
 Foul shame it were, had Fleming past unsung, 
 The pride, the phcenix of Killarney's realm, 
 Cool, temperate, watchful ; on whose lips, though 
 
 young. 
 Authority, and mingled kindness, hung. 
 Connal our minstrel was, a peerless guide, 
 Though law's rough saddle once his withers wrung 
 For hasty speech : — can ever good betide. 
 When passion and poteen in reason's room preside ? 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 What amplitude of mountains circling round. 
 How sleeps the lake beneath yon rocky wall ! 
 Speak not ; nor breathe — let no unhallowed sound 
 The consecrated solitude appal : 
 For what though every where and over all 
 Omnific presence rule, unheard, unseen P — 
 A sterner voice and a diviner call. 
 In crag and wilderness hath ever been ; 
 Rebuking the gay stir of vanities terrene.
 
 KILLARNEY. 15 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Condensed around the upland of the Boar, (<0 
 The vapours blacken; and the winds pipe loud : 
 And shagged with storm, 'mid elemental roar. 
 The mountain, like a giant in his shroud. 
 Scowls through the veil of darkness and of cloud. 
 Poor mortal! wilt thou dream of pomp and power — 
 Has glory charms ? are earth and ashes proud P 
 Look round thee, shrink from the wide-wasting 
 shower ; 
 And own thyself at most, the pageant of an hour. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Along the current, that meandering steals 
 Into the lake of Lein, we wound our way 
 Through grim defile, to where the eagle wheels 
 Round the rock-cradled mansion of his sway. 
 Or sun-ward culminates. In elfin play 
 The many-throated echoes there repeat. 
 From east and west, from high and low, the lay ; 
 Swell in advance, or languish in retreat : 
 Sweet beyond art, beyond imagination sweet.
 
 16 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 But if a hold adventurer j>rovoke 
 The paterero's thunderbolt of sound. 
 It flames — it blasts; — recoiling from the stroke. 
 Earth reels — the aerial ridge, the chasm profound. 
 Long peal of dread artillery rebound. 
 Turk calls on Mangerton ; and o'er the height 
 Of Cromagloun the battle-roar flies round. 
 Recedes, returns, redoubles left and right, 
 And all things are confusion, uproar, and affright. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Scared by the deafening turbulence, we fled ; 
 The demons of the wild, with mop and moe. 
 And hideous hubbub, scoffing at our dread. 
 And hanging on our rear. At length the foe. 
 Relenting into silence, let us go ; 
 Nor dragged us backward to their goblin den. 
 In that deep world of wonder and of woe ; 
 Where once immured in cavern or in fen, 
 We nevermore had known sun, moon, or fiiceofmen.
 
 KTLLARNEY. 17 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Beneath the bridge, and by the pleasant coast 
 Of Dinas isle, the rapids bore us down ; 
 The while our navigators made their boast 
 Of Boatman's-Hall, and fair Killarney town ; 
 And how, amid the pendent groves that crown 
 Turk's northern side, the giants dwelt of old ; 
 And how strange misadventure foiled the clown, 
 Who rashly dived to that subaqueous hold, 
 Where snarls the spectre hound to guard the crocks 
 of gold. 
 
 XXXIIT. 
 
 But now, without dimension, without form, 
 A dark confusion overspread the day ; 
 Conglomeration huge of cloud and storm, 
 That on us pounced, like leopard on his prey, 
 And like a debtor dunned we scoured away. 
 Yet, sudden though the flurry, fierce its power, 
 The timely refuge of a sheltered bay 
 Glena bestowed ; where in umbrageous bower 
 Securely we contemned the pelting of the shower. ' 
 
 c
 
 18 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 Looking to where Lough Lein's thick-clustering isles 
 In labyrinth of loveliness are spread. 
 We little dreamed of fortune's wanton wiles, 
 Or diadem impending o'er our head. 
 Such the career of life : so are we led. 
 Unknowing wherefore, when, or whither bound. 
 On what new errand, what new clime to tread. 
 In truth and virtue certainty is found ; 
 All mention of it else were but an empty sound. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Among our company was one, whose name 
 Maternal marked him of a lineage rare. 
 Erst in lerna, of toparchal fame. 
 Whose antique appellation to declare 
 Orthography and verse at variance are ; 
 Though once (unless tradition fable be) 
 They conquered from Killarney to Kenmare : 
 Whence vests in him, from that high pedigree. 
 Of six-and-thirty isles, tlie principality.
 
 KILLARNEY. 1 9 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 But what avail us arable or down. 
 Till on them drop the fatness of the shower ? 
 Or toil and talent, till occasion crown 
 Their energies, and fortune grant the dower ? 
 The ascendant must be waited, and the hour. 
 Ere astrolabe detect the favouring sign ; 
 And even of genealogy and power. 
 What deem we, till their bounties waim and shine ? 
 Mere pearls within the shell, mere diamonds in the 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Such thought revolving, thus the prince began. 
 Strangers of England ! whose far-searching mind 
 Hath sent you to survey the modes of man. 
 What passions prompt him, and what sanctions bind 
 In these rude wilds — reception shall ye find. 
 Such as the wanderer and the guest may crave : 
 For we avouch, and ever have opined. 
 That honour is the birth-right of the brave. 
 And gifts distinguish best the sovereign from the slave ! 
 
 ^5' 
 
 c 2
 
 20 KILLARNEY, 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Ye both are welcome, and ye both employ 
 Alike our care : yet let not age think blame. 
 If youth (for youth has longer to enjoy) 
 Be chosen to taste our bounty, and proclaim 
 To the four winds our hospitable fame. 
 An isle of yonder archipelago 
 His sceptre shall receive, and bear his name : 
 That we and all our ancestors may show 
 How well to win allies, and grace desert we know. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 He added not : and as his words had end. 
 The brightening aether gave auspicious sign ; 
 And the young chief-elect prepared to bend 
 His cares on royalty, and how to shine 
 The founder of a long imperial line. 
 Straight we embarked ; while the subsiding breeze. 
 The emerging sun, the temperature benign. 
 Foreboded quiet rule, unbroken ease; 
 Invaders none without, within no rapparees.
 
 KILLARNEY. 21 
 
 XL. 
 
 The destined appanage (like modest worth) 
 Was little known; untilled as yet and bare, 
 Save where the red-stemmed arbutus hung forth. 
 Fruitage and flower at once, adorning fair 
 Each limestone crevice. How shall art compare 
 Her fading hues to that perennial green ! 
 As well might vice and ignorance hope to share 
 With wisdom in the happiness serene. 
 That converse holds in heaven, and looks to things 
 unseen. 
 
 XLI, 
 
 Anon we landed ; and the unconscious isle 
 Received its future lord, and took his name 
 With ceremonial given and mingled stile 
 Of Erse and Latian tongue, as well became 
 Killarney's lettered sept, and classic fame. 
 Then was libation made : and three times thi'ee. 
 The cheers of loyalty and loud acclame. 
 Taught lake and mountain to repeat with glee. 
 Prosperity and peace to that new dynasty !
 
 22 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 The investiture, in record duly penned. 
 That night the donoi''s coronal must grace ; 
 And each a twig of arbutus must bend. 
 And on his brow the verdant chaplet place. 
 In reverence and memorial. Erin's race 
 With fanciful fond pastime thus recal. 
 Of domination past each fleeting trace. 
 That in secluded walk, or crowded hall. 
 May soothe their solitude, or glad their carnival. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 A lofty race they are, of kindred soul 
 To the hot sun ; yet listening in delight. 
 And homage, to persuasion's mild control : 
 But he who thwarts them, or invades their right. 
 Had better beard a lion in his might. 
 Strong as the bison, agile as the roe. 
 Prompt in the gibe, and prompter in the fight; 
 To benefit a friend, or quell a foe. 
 Through pain, toil, peril, fire, and water will they go.
 
 KILLARNEY. 23 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 The day declines : a lengthening dusk is thrown 
 Along the lake, on castle, rock, and glade. 
 Saddening the hue of Rabbit Island brown. 
 And Inisfallen's wilderness of shade; 
 And where the truant imp, the frolic blade. 
 Whom 'Paddy Blake' the men of Kerry call. 
 Lurks by the tower of Ross in ambuscade. 
 Mocks instrument of speech, song, laughter, brawl. 
 Gives audience day and night, and challenges from all 
 
 XLV. 
 
 Accepts ; and, after grave deliberate pause. 
 Each inarticulate or articulate sound 
 Rehearses, note by note, or clause by clause ; 
 And laughs to hear philosophy profound 
 The causes of his merriment expound. 
 Yet is he but an atom of the chain. 
 In which the circling elements ai-e bound 
 By Him whose fiat framed, whose hands sustain 
 Earth and the firmament, and multitudinous main.
 
 24 KILLARWEY. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 Our voyage done, awhile upon the strand 
 In meditation mark we the serene 
 Of soft religious twilight, mantling land 
 And water, the gray cliff, the forest green. 
 In melancholy and gloom, till all between 
 Be mingled with the horizon towering high. 
 Save (where the lake's dark windings intervene) 
 In rude inverted grandeur we espy 
 The solemn mountain- wall reflected to the sky. 
 
 XL VII. 
 
 Meantime, in majesty from pole to pole 
 Progressing, the magnificence of night 
 Illumines one by one, and bids to roll 
 From orient to the west, the infinite 
 Of stellar fires. So, when all earth's delight 
 Is darkened and withdrawn. Faith lends her wing. 
 New worlds, new paradises bless the sight, 
 And angel hierarchies are heard to singr. 
 Where lamps in emblem burn Ijefore the Eternal King.
 
 KILLARNEY. 25 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 Nor angels only ; every orb a voice 
 Re-echoes : ocean, air, and the dry ground. 
 The sun and moon,, the day and night rejoice ; 
 Wind, storm, and time, and seasons in their round 
 Fulfil his bidding, and his praise resound. 
 And if, beneath the shadow of death, where pine 
 Sorrow and sin, if thus, even there, be found 
 A glimpse, an image of the bliss divine ; 
 If through mortality's thick cloud such radiance shine. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 What then shall be the glory when the alloy 
 Of sense and appetite, of guilt and fear. 
 At once dissolving into life and joy. 
 Lets in the vision of the empyreal sphere. 
 The blaze of heaven's irrevoluble year ? 
 Such on the banks of Jordan was the flight 
 Of fiery steeds and chariot, the career 
 Of whirlwind bearing from Elisha's sight 
 His master, to the throne of inexpressive light.
 
 26 KILLARNEY. 
 
 Perchance we murmur at our scanty dole 
 Of knowledge, and would foreign climes explore ; 
 Invade the frozen desert of the pole. 
 Or breath the fragrance of Arabia's shore; 
 Or search the sculptured mountains of Ellore ; 
 On Himalaya tempt the secret hall 
 Of Typlion, and the death-winged thundei''s roar. 
 With summer fly round this terraqueous ball. 
 And keep each month alike the sun's bright festival. 
 
 LI. 
 
 But nobler were it, from Jove's moons to view 
 His huge circumference filling all the sky. 
 The darkling flight of Uranus pursue. 
 And if above such height ascending high. 
 Some exiled planet undiscovered lie. 
 On that strange watch-tower to sit specular. 
 Or on the comet ride infinity. 
 And wandering o'er creation, see from far 
 The glorious orb of day diminished to a star.
 
 KILLARNEY. 27 
 
 LII. 
 
 Even this were little — to the just is given 
 A loftier range, a kingdom more sublime ; 
 The inviolable sanctuary of heaven. 
 Where never doubt, nor ignorance, nor crime. 
 Where never sorrow or dismay can climb. 
 Transfigured into light, they leave below 
 The narrow boundaries of space and time. 
 And up the everlasting mountains go. 
 Where bliss unutterable, nor pause, nor end shall 
 know. 
 
 / 
 
 / 
 
 END OF DAY FIRST.
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 DAY SECOND.
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 DAY SECOND. 
 
 I. 
 
 Fitly the patriarch sought the inspiring- power 
 Of meditation at the close of day ; 
 And mystery hath marked it for the hour 
 Of sacrifice, wherein to watch and pray. 
 Then angel visitation made assay 
 Of Abraham's faith and hospitable rite, 
 Then rested the Creator to survey 
 The six days' work maturing in his sight, 
 The illuminated, formed, and peopled infinite.
 
 32 KILLARNFA'. 
 
 II. 
 
 Even the guy worldling feels the touch of awe, 
 While in repose the winds and waters lie. 
 While day, and all day's vanities withdraw. 
 And as the twilight muffles earth and sky. 
 Colour and form, and sound and motion die : 
 For in that gloom and stillness is the sign 
 Of adoration, mute, yet heard on high. 
 Praise universal to the Power divine. 
 Creation bending low before Jehovah's shrine. 
 
 Til. 
 
 But what of time or place ? It is the fire 
 Within the heart, lights up tlie jubilee 
 Of fiiith and hope. The prophet could retire 
 Each day, undaunted by the king's decree. 
 From care, from Babylon, from emjiire free. 
 With foes and danger compassed round, even then. 
 Though death was in the act, he bent the knee, 
 Indifterent to the praise or blame of men. 
 The l)urning fiery furnace, or the lion's den.
 
 KILLARNEY. 33 
 
 IV. 
 
 When sail the constellations and the moon 
 Along the depth of midnight atmosphere, 
 Or when the full resplendency of noon 
 Oppresses vision. Him acknowledge there. 
 Who light and dark distributes, month and year 
 On him alone in heaven and earth rely. 
 Him without change, and without end revere, 
 Enthroned above all domination high. 
 Unknown, yet ever felt ; unseen, yet ever nigh. 
 
 Nor less we find a language in the morn, 
 A monitor in the return of day. 
 An emblem in the joy to be new born 
 From darkness to the sun's all-cheering ray, 
 In every sight and sound a call to pay 
 The matin orison. Let heart and head. 
 Let hand and voice that oracle obey : 
 Give every thought to heaven ; and from the bed 
 Of indolence arise, as rising from the dead. 
 
 D
 
 34 KILLARNEY. 
 
 VI. 
 
 This clone, beneath the sylvan colonnade. 
 That eastward skirts the lake, we wind along ; 
 Screened by an avenue of chequered shade. 
 Green as the groves of oriental song. 
 Where Caliphs wander, or where Genii throng 
 The bowers of Paradise. How bright a gleam 
 Incessant flickers the dusk leaves among : 
 So Heaven accords an interposing beam 
 Of mercy and of truth to life's lugubrious dream. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Fair stream of Flesk ! but mutable as fair, 
 Dependent on the chances of an hour ; 
 This moment mild, translucent, debonair. 
 The next, impatient of the storm and sliowei'. 
 All foam and fury, turbulence and power. 
 How dost thou picture forth our joy and woe. 
 Virtues that bless, and passions that devour; 
 Till comes the last and liberating throe. 
 And round about the streets the pomps of mourn- 
 ing go !
 
 KILLARNEY. 35 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Welcome the close peninsular recess, 
 Whose groves and thickets from the heat invite ; 
 Whose cool, whose dew, whose quietude, we l)less. 
 Impervious to the sun's meridian height. 
 Each thickening shade increasing the delight. 
 Sour ringlets there beti*ay the fairy hand. 
 The foot-print and the gambol of each sprite. 
 That greets the moon by water or by land. 
 Dances on lawn, or skims the furrows of the strand. 
 
 IX. 
 
 But hush — ^and either name them not at all, 
 (For best they love a reverence taciturn). 
 Or "neighbours" them, or " the good people" call: 
 For once provoked, they quick retort the spurn ; 
 Spavin thy cattle, or thy corn-ricks burn ; 
 For thee in pale sublunar foray prowl. 
 And toss thee on the tempest of the churn. 
 Hang thee like bacon-flitch in smoke to howl, 
 Or roast thee like a crab, and plunge in gossip's bowl. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 KILLARNEY. 
 
 They love in cavern or in mine to dwell, 
 They love upon the hurricane to ride ; 
 Or vv^ander fog-borne over moor and fell, 
 Or from the beetling promontory glide. 
 To look for shipwrecks on the heaving tide. 
 Lay, legend, cry of Banshee, they prolong, 
 Peopling with echoes every mountain side ; 
 And breathe the spells of poetry and song, 
 In melodies that mourn and die the clouds among. 
 
 XI. 
 
 But longer in such reverie to rove 
 Befits not, near the consecrated pile. 
 That chastening with religious awe the grove. 
 To penitence and mourning gave asyle 
 In ages past from misery and from guile. 
 A symbol of hereafter, of repose 
 Where sorrow cannot wound, nor sin defile : 
 Forgiven and forgotten all our foes ; 
 The trial past, and joy unspeakable the close.
 
 KILLARNEY. 37 
 
 XII. 
 
 Thy towers, forsaken Mucruss ! to the poor 
 Were once of hospitable aid the sign. 
 And, daily crowding through yon ample door 
 In serried files, came pilgrims to the shrine. 
 But time at leisure now may undermine 
 The ])illar, and deface the mouldering wall. 
 And every pinnacle with ivy twine : 
 The burial rite alone remains of all 
 That once was crosier, chant, high-mass and festival. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Anjd who can blame the peasant if he mourn 
 Even yet in fond remembrance of the past ; 
 If even in death he cling to the sojourn 
 Of all his ancestors, or wish at last 
 His own remains beside them may be cast ? 
 And if he think the virtue of such grave 
 May shorten jiurgatory's fiery fast. 
 Pity his error, and its pardon crave 
 From Him who reigns above. Omnipotent to save !
 
 38 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Look through the portal — nave and choir, and tomh. 
 Stained with the damp, and strewn with many a 
 
 bone. 
 And wrapt at every step in denser gloom. 
 To silence and to solitude bemoan 
 Their fallen estate : one narrow arch alone. 
 At utmost distance, marks with feeble ray. 
 The sanctuary's recess, and chiselled stone. 
 So through the dun obscure of life we stray. 
 Yet welcome at the end a gleam of heavenly day. 
 
 XV. 
 
 What groans of dole and penance once dismayed 
 Yon cloister, buried from the sun and air. 
 Beneath the central yew-tree's giant shade! 
 Here hath the guilt-o'erburdened solitaire 
 Mused, till remorse was deepened to despair : 
 Here saints have fought their agonizing fight. 
 With anguish and temptation, doubt and care. 
 Till in the beatific trance of light 
 The world and the world's woe evanished from their 
 sight.
 
 KILLARNEY. 39 
 
 XVI. 
 
 The grass grows rankly, and the saplings wave 
 O'er hall and dormitory, porch and cell ; 
 Each passage is a den, each aisle a cave : 
 But who shall tempt the vaults, or dare to tell 
 What inmates there of unknown horror dwell ? 
 How sighs the breeze, how languishes the day ; 
 What tenderness, what pain in the farewel 
 To these dismantled gates and turrets gray. 
 Once dedicate to heaven, still reverend in decay. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 But hence we must — it yet remains to scale 
 
 The mountain, ere obstruction intervene 
 
 Of haze or tempest ; gradual fiom the vale 
 
 We mount, and gradual fades the smooth moist 
 
 green 
 To rough, adust, and barren. So between 
 Ambition's early toil and late success 
 No path is to be found of peace serene : 
 The more our eminence, the comfort less. 
 Till the whole world at length be one drear wilderness.
 
 40 
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 What change upon the hills ! unclouded now. 
 On the pure bosom of the sky reclined ; 
 Now in a moment round each furrowed brow 
 With what a chain invisible they bind 
 The vapours borne beside them on the wind ; 
 Then cast the mantle off, then closer draw. 
 Above, below, before them, and behind. 
 Till all be turbulence, and winter's flaw. 
 Such as on Appenine the Punic chieftain saw. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 And owned the ruin of the Alps outdone. 
 Yet still the darkness fluctuates : and again 
 Like a vast curtain rises, while the sun. 
 Looking abroad in victory, pours amain 
 The deluge of his beams o'er lake and plain. 
 So when the tempter prompts, and passions fell 
 Make war on duty, frenzy clouds the brain. 
 Till the bright Sun of righteousness dispel 
 The foul distemperature, and all again be well.
 
 KILLARNEY. 41 
 
 XX. 
 
 Up Mangerton we go : from prospect wide 
 To wider, and from pure to purer air. 
 The horizon opening- as the hills subside. 
 And distance softening down the rude and bare. 
 As hope and memory picture all things fair. 
 Buoyed up with expectation and with glee. 
 We take no thought of labour or of care. 
 The spirits lighter, and the limbs more free. 
 And half the burden dropped of gross mortality. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Nor pause we, till the crater's edge we gain. 
 The goblet named of Lucifer ; a mound 
 Of curving precipice, wherein the drain 
 From cloud and fountain feeds the pool profound 
 That mantles in the midst. Here let the sound 
 Of bugle to blithe echo wind the call : 
 And, hark ! the repercussive heights around. 
 Harmonious in contention, answer all ; 
 And long vibrations ring through their aerial hall.
 
 42 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 One effort more, and highest of the high, 
 Near the rude cairn, we breathe empyreal air : 
 Above, the deep cerulean of the sky. 
 Beneath, a boundless cirque of prospect fair ; 
 Turk, and the Reeks, and Iveragh's ridges bare. 
 Lakes, rivers, meadows, woods, and mountains blue, 
 Bantry and Castlemaine, and wild Kenmare ; 
 Till on til' horizon, outline, site, and hue. 
 Together blending, fade in dusk and doubt from view. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Pausing at every step, along the ridge 
 That over-hangs the concave on we stray. 
 Till now the rugged rampart like a bridge 
 Bestrides vacuity, and leads the way 
 Where right and left, astounded we survey 
 The vast abruption. Reconnoitring slow 
 Lest the steep verge thy careless feet betray. 
 Behold the horse's glen ; approach the brow. 
 Recoil not, shrink not from the foiuful de]jth below,
 
 KILLARNEY. 43 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 But brace each nerve and cast a downward eye, 
 Where'mid the chasm, ingulfed in waste and gloom. 
 Far, far beneath, the dismal waters lie. 
 And all around them, rock and heath and broom 
 Usurp dominion, leaving scanty room 
 Between the tarn and crag for one soft green 
 Of pasturage in the shattered wreck of doom 
 And deluge, where the ravages are seen 
 Of vengeance yet ; where peace and hope have never 
 been. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Look ; but for safety to the heather cling : 
 
 Forbear discourse, and let no lighter tone 
 
 Of melody invoke the mountain king, 
 
 (f) But one deep supplicating sigh alone 
 
 Be breathed; — he hears, — he answers, — the h)W 
 
 groan 
 Of wild re-murmured sorrow awes the dell : 
 Again, more faint, the melancholy moan 
 Is heard of loneliness and fear to tell ; 
 And fainter yet again scarce whispers the larewel.
 
 44 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Tt is a sadness like the dying beam 
 Of day, the knell when passing spirits go ; 
 The strangely-blent vagaries of a dream. 
 Where present, past and future, friend and foe. 
 The near, the distant, hurry to and fro. 
 Mingling in shapes that earth can never yield. 
 Vicissitude and voyage, weal and woe: 
 Brief images of things from knowledge sealed 
 Of mortals, yet in part and shadow thus revealed. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Even here, in devastation and dismay. 
 The love of lucre, strong as death, detains 
 A thrifty hermitess, who day by day 
 From cream's rich unctuousness the serum drains. 
 And prints ambi'osial butter, on the plains 
 Beside Kingsale, or Cork's famed city sold. 
 The seasons and their change, the winds and rains. 
 The moisture and the drought, the heat and cold. 
 And solitude like death, all ])lease in hope of gold.
 
 KILLARNEY. 45 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Behold her walking on the water's brink. 
 To where her kine seek herbage in the glen : 
 The roots her food, the mountain-dew her drink, 
 The caverned rock her magazine and den. 
 And little her desire for help of men, 
 Herself can work the churn, and scour the pail. 
 The docile herd herself can milk and pen ; 
 And all her thoughts are handicraft and sale. 
 Till winter's tyranny dislodge her to the vale. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Day wears apace ; no longer here sojourn : 
 The circuit of the cratei^'s rim complete. 
 And to the stony entrance back return. 
 Whence borne on indefatigable feet 
 A world of youthful parasites, with sweet 
 Cajolery paged us down the mountain side. 
 But when their candied flattery failed to meet 
 The silver guerdon, changing note they cried, 
 " Bad luck to you ; and shame such stinginess betide."
 
 46 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Down to the bay umbrageous of Dundalk 
 Repair we, where the boat and banquet wait ; 
 There, carelessly diffused in sylvan walk. 
 Share we provision with our crew, and prate 
 Of peace and politics, of war and state ; 
 Wealthy and high-born cavalcaders see. 
 Yet count our own of all the happiest fate : 
 For what to us are fortune and degree I* 
 No poet so entranced, no king so great as we ! 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 But converse must have end — the sun declines. 
 And ancient saws instruct us to take note 
 Of profit by his presence when he shines. 
 Thus warned, we quit refection for the boat. 
 Push off, and joy to be again afloat ; 
 While, like the men of Athens, we pursue 
 Whate'er is found of novel and remote, 
 The conscious spirit straining to the view 
 Of worlds invisible, where all things shall be new.
 
 KILLARNEY. 47 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Athwart the Middle-Lake our course we shape. 
 By many a wooded creek and lonely bay. 
 And rock strange-hollowed, and strange-cloven cape, 
 That gently meet us, gently slide away. 
 Like dreams departing at the break of day ; 
 The while from our associates fable old 
 We glean of earthly and unearthly fray. 
 Mines where imprisoned goblins dig for gold. 
 And spells that never must to mortal ears be told. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 Alas! that cold oblivion should inurn 
 Too oft the glory with the mortal frame. 
 And scarce an echo from the grave return 
 Of all the toil, the triumph and acclame. 
 And ancientry and power, and deeds of fame. 
 Each cave, each headland as we glide along, 
 Of hero, or of saint records the name. 
 And all around us the memorials throng 
 Of conquest, monarchy, and war, and poet's song,
 
 48 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 What pomp of verdure from each height descends. 
 Grove falling under grove, from steep to steep. 
 Till the thick foliage with the water blends. 
 Circling the shore in one continuous sweep. 
 And sinks into the bosom of the deep. 
 There mingling with the faint reflected gleam 
 Of clouds, that on the calm of evening sleep. 
 So down into the grave we from the dream 
 Of earth descend, to meet eternal glory's beam. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 At length appears the outlet, to a span 
 Contracting suddenly the waters wide. 
 Where works pontifical, of modest plan. 
 From island to peninsular-woodland stride. 
 Beneath whose solitary arch we glide. 
 And issuing on the Lake of Lein, behold 
 The vapours settling on the mountain side. 
 All change of figure and of hue unfold ; 
 Fanes, cities, palaces of adamant and gold.
 
 KILLARNEY. 49 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 North-westerly our course : while on the left 
 Glena's wild nemorosities repeat 
 Each bugle note ; till where of shade bereft, 
 The double peaks of Toomies' tower, they meet. 
 They mix with kindred resonances sweet. 
 Retiring- to the realms of upper air. 
 And lessening die. — Not so the strains that greet 
 The soul heaven -mounting from the den of care, 
 The conscience without guile, the heart that burns in 
 prayer. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Sequestered loveliness I how stretch around 
 The sylvan undulations far and wide. 
 With what magnificence of shade profound. 
 What prodigality of pomp and pride, 
 O'er lawn and up the pi-ecipice they glide : 
 And far above, in majesty austere. 
 What altitudes of rock the cloud divide. 
 Challenge the tempest, and delight to hear 
 The thunder and the wind in baffled rage career.
 
 50 KILLA.RNEY. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Landing, we plunge into the ascending glade 
 That clambers to the torrent's angry leap, 
 Surnamed of old ' O'Sullivan's Cascade/ 
 It roars, it sparkles : cautiously we creep 
 To where, half bending o'er the giddy steep. 
 We gaze upon the never-ceasing flow 
 That shakes the forest ; headlong to the deep 
 Precipitated from the bosky brow : 
 All shade and gloom above, all flash and foam below. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 But now the winds and waters utter moan 
 Presageful of commotion : downward bend 
 The labouring clouds ; the promontories groan ; 
 Low murmurs from each glen and cave ascend 
 Responsive ; the far-spreading vapours blend 
 In shapelessness of dusk, cloud, water, shore. 
 Lost in the haze promiscuous without end ; 
 And time is to be gone, ere danger more 
 Environ our retreat, ere with a deepening roar
 
 KILLARNEY. 51 
 
 XL. 
 
 The tempest and confusion worse confound 
 The lurid gloom. In loftier ridges swell 
 The billows ; and with long continuous sound 
 The surges wild and wilder whirlwinds tell. 
 With what a gust they in commotion mell. 
 Faint gleams amid the darkness show the spray 
 In eddies borne along the tumult fell : 
 Extinct is the last lingering spark of day. 
 And the moon hides her face in sorrow and dismay. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 O for the vision of the sceptred sage 
 That never comes but with a guardian power 
 Amid the wreck of elemental rage. 
 Amid tornadoes when they blackest lour, 
 Amid the waves just opening to devour. 
 Whate'er the changes or the chances be. 
 The dread or danger, gracious is the hour 
 And omen, his meteorous light to see 
 On tower of Aghadoe, or Inisfallen's lee. 
 
 E 2
 
 52 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 Joy — joy! — behold the venerable form. 
 The sainted king uplift his placid brow ; 
 From vulgar sight enshrouded in the storm. 
 Or seeming as the waves that dash below. 
 The gifted eye alone hath power to know 
 What sovereign, in what guise delights to roam ; 
 What hope, what comfort from his presence flow : 
 For when, emerging from his watery home. 
 He reins the courser white that prances o'er the foam. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 The billows and the winds forbear to roar. 
 Or roar unheeded, impotent to hann. 
 A mighty potentate was he of yore. 
 And knew full well oppression to disarm 
 By law, and equity, and virtue's charm : 
 Where due, he lavished bounty and renown. 
 But from his palace drove the flatterer swann 
 That bask in smiles and wither at a frown. 
 And fawn, and lie, and think all glory in a crown.
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 53 
 
 One clay, amid the banquet and the hall, 
 He rose, and vented wild prophetic strain, 
 Borne on a cloud forsook the festival. 
 And plunged into the bosom of the main. 
 Yet privilege was given him to regain 
 At will these upper regions, there anew 
 To spread the blessings of his ancient reign, 
 And bid high fortune wait upon the few. 
 Who in the needful hour such apparition view. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 Even now the gale before him sinks, while chide 
 The surges with less tumult on the shore ; 
 And safely by the Prison-Isle we glide. 
 Or where on Cherry-Reef the billows roar : 
 And now again the treasury we explore 
 Of record, rumour, elves, and magic wand. 
 And Erin's rich traditionary store. 
 Time thus beguiled, all unawares to land 
 We come, and grounding boat, leap out upon the 
 strand.
 
 54 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XL VI. 
 
 Beneath the battlements of Ross our bark 
 We leave, and ruminating home return. 
 Kindling with more than a Promethean spark. 
 Thoughts like Sidonian Cynosure, that burn 
 Amid th' obscurity of life's sojourn ; 
 How war, and trumpet, and the minstrel's chime. 
 Must all lie mute in monumental urn^ 
 And how beyond the grave we soar sublime 
 Into the Paradise of heaven's empyreal clime. 
 
 XL VII. 
 
 How yearns ethereal essence to transcend 
 The limits of mortality and clay ; 
 What rapture in the half-belief we lend 
 To tales of wizard eld, and phantom gray, 
 The Runic rhyme, the legendary lay : 
 What bliss in dreams emancipate to glide 
 Through present, past and future ; to survey 
 The secrets buried under ocean's tide. 
 Or to new labyrinth of worlds o'er chaos ride.
 
 KILLARNEY. 55 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 Yet be not long a loiterer in the maze 
 
 Where sleep deludes, or fiction : the supreme 
 
 In joy is on the majesty to gaze 
 
 Of truth, and from the world's delirious dream 
 
 Awake into the pure authentic beam 
 
 Of fiiith; and onward press (as strength is given), 
 
 Thought gradual following thought, theme following 
 
 theme. 
 And cast away th' intoxicating leaven 
 Of crude philosophy for manna sent from heaven. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 There is a sanctuary (howe'er unknown 
 To the world's worshipper) from doubt and care ; 
 There is a palm of triumph, and a crown 
 That may be won by violence of prayer : 
 And meditation, like the mystic stair 
 In Bethel, upward leads from earth below. 
 To where immortal choirs the praise declare 
 Of Him at whose right hand the rivers flow 
 Of peace and joy that fill the Everlasting Now.
 
 56 KILLARNEY. 
 
 L. 
 
 No more chervibic visitants descend. 
 As once at Mahanaim, or the hill 
 Of Dothan, in corporeal shape to tend 
 The patriarch and the prophet, or fulfil 
 On cities, hosts, and realms th' Almighty will; 
 Yet still repenting sinners they behold 
 With joy, and guard through tribulation still 
 The white-robed multitude, the sacred fold. 
 Of whom th' Apocalyspe by eldei-'s voice hath told. 
 
 LI. 
 
 And though the dread Triune for ever dwell 
 Beyond creation, beyond depth and height. 
 Beyond all knowledge, inaccessible. 
 Pavilioned in the majesty and light 
 Of his own beams ; yet from that temple bright 
 His mercy looks, illumining the wise. 
 And piloting the watchful, till from night 
 And death they to th' eternal morning rise. 
 From earth's discordant din to angel harmonies.
 
 KILLARNEY. 57 
 
 LII. 
 
 There, kindling into ecstasy, the soul 
 Shall from perfection to perfection soar. 
 And years and centuries by millions roll. 
 While saints, sublimed to seraphim, adore 
 (As knowledge widens) ever more and more : 
 And still the triumphings that never end 
 Are but beginning on that blissful shore 
 Where glory and delight in union blend. 
 And in perpetual flight above all heavens ascend. 
 
 END OF DAY SECOND.
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 DAY THIRD.
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 DAY THIRD. 
 
 Blow, tempest — thunder, roll ; ye suit the gloom 
 And if ye startle luxury from sleep, 
 Ye but awake him to remember doom. 
 Ye but forewarn him (lest oblivion creep 
 Upon his vigil) to repent and weep. 
 Dull world, bestir thee ; kneel at mercy's shrine. 
 Ere retribution the dread harvest reap. 
 And answer none vouchsafe to prayer of thine. 
 Save the wrath fulminant, and chastisement divine.
 
 62 KILLARNEY. 
 
 II. 
 
 How turbulent the night's capricious change 
 From calm to storm, from darkness to the beam 
 Of moon illmuining the wonderous range 
 Of mountain, rock, and wood : what lightnings 
 
 gleam, 
 What clouds and meteors on th' horizon stream. 
 What whistling of the winds, what pelting shower. 
 Forbidding sleep, or vexing sleep with dream 
 Of din, turmoil and peril, and the hour 
 When hags come forth to ban, and monsters to devour. 
 
 III. 
 
 Arise, and into the fresh morn repair ; 
 Fresh morn how fragrant after such unrest, 
 
 . Though little we espy of augury fair 
 Amid the storms that from each mountain crest 
 Roll downward to the valley, and invest 
 With equal haze the cliff and dingle green, 
 Long-Range, and Purple-Mount, and Eagle's-Nest, 
 Whose rugged fronts more terrible are seen, 
 
 And strike a deeper dread through clouds tliat inter- 
 vene.
 
 KILLARNEY. 63 
 
 IV. 
 
 The stags that browze the forest, in bravado 
 Their antlers lock, half anger and half play ; 
 Nor dream how soon, aroused by ambuscado 
 Of hound, of huntsman, and of gentles gay, 
 They must o'erswim the flood, or stand at bay 
 So merciful is heaven (though few receive 
 Aright what reason and sound doctrine say), 
 Each creature thus in ignorance to leave 
 Of casualty to come, lest premature they grieve. 
 
 V. 
 
 What gained the king of Israel, when he went 
 To learn at Endor (by unlawful art 
 Of wizard and familiar) war's event ? 
 What balm could the prophetic voice impart 
 For wounded conscience, and a broken heart P 
 Enough the present : who would live again 
 His past of being ? why invoke the dart 
 Of future ill, anticipate the chain. 
 Or woo, before the time, captivity and pain P
 
 64 KILLARNEY. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Then be not like the monarch ; but repose 
 On heaven thy care, with not a wish to view 
 The future — look but to the final close ; 
 And day by day, and night by night renew 
 The services of adoration due. 
 Leave others the diviner's art to try ; 
 But thou thine even, onward course pursue. 
 In boisterous or serene, in moist or dry. 
 As moves the sun alike through bright or cloudy sky. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Our moralizing done, return we home. 
 Where ceaselessly bells ring and customers call ; 
 Such banquet is in Gorham's ample dome. 
 Of race and stag-hunt such the festival. 
 The wanderer who had hoped in lonely hall 
 To loiter, and in lonely peace explore 
 The rocks and islands, groves and valleys all ; 
 Hears with affright the stentorophonic roar 
 Of landlord, waiter, guest, augmenting ever more
 
 KILLARNEY. 65 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The many-throated harmonies of morn, 
 
 Each urban and suburban ear that greet, 
 
 The thunder of the wheels, the mail-guard's horn, 
 
 Steeds, donkies, coaches, tempesting the street. 
 
 Rattle of cudgels, tramp of countless feet. 
 
 Hoofed, brogued, or bare: carts rumbling o'er the 
 
 stones. 
 Curs, children, pigs, the hurly to complete. 
 And jaunting-cars that dislocate the bones. 
 And sallow mendicants, that mingle gibes with moans. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Pipes, hurdy-gurdies, trumpets, drums, astound 
 The crowds that every where confusedly run. 
 While swarm into the town from all around. 
 Jockey and Greek, and reeling ripe for fun 
 Or fight, tall lads whose shouts the welkin stun ; 
 Till the grave magistrate steps in between. 
 Whose voice, whose frown, whose Mittimus they 
 
 shun : 
 For why ? the constables are near him seen. 
 And files of armed police in uniform of green.
 
 66 KILLARNEY. 
 
 X. 
 
 Kind genius of the desert ! interpose. 
 And lead us car-borne to thy bower on high. 
 Where rock and solitude may round us close. 
 And meditation to the world may die. 
 Caparison the horse, and let us fly, 
 Unheeding wind or rain : nor madly stay 
 Where strife preludes to challenge, and each eye 
 Glares like a comet, boding feud and fray : 
 Push on into the storm — ^the storm less wild than they. 
 
 XI. 
 
 As by St. Withold from the bosom driven 
 The night-mare and her ninefold brood retire. 
 And ecstasies unknown before are given. 
 New strength we feel, new faculties acquire. 
 All life and bliss and intellectual fire ; 
 So, as we sally forth, the shout, the song, 
 The yelp, the buz, the dissonance expire ; 
 And the companions sole that round us throng 
 Are thoughts that more to Paradise than earth belong.
 
 KILLARNEY. 67 
 
 XII. 
 
 If silence thus be melody, and ease 
 Be luxury, disincarcerated to rove, 
 And listen to the rustling leaves, the breeze 
 That soothes, the birds that vocalize the grove. 
 The Flesk, that murmurs like the widowed dove ; 
 Think what the triumph and the jubilee 
 Of souls dismissed from earth to heaven above. 
 For ever happy and for ever free 
 Expatiating, and heirs of immortality. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The darkness and the gloominess behold 
 Of morn upon the mountains, where the shade 
 Of clouds along the dusky regions rolled. 
 Half hiding, and revealing half, hath made 
 A wilderness of night on copse and glade. 
 And all the frowning dreariness around ; 
 Where sight is baffled and the heart afraid 
 To look on that obscurity profound. 
 Or enterprize approach to that forbidden ground. 
 
 F 2
 
 t»« KILLARNEY. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Such darkness veiled th' Avenger who destroyed 
 The vaunted armies of th' Assyrian king ; 
 Such darkness brooded o'er the formless void 
 Ere yet the overshadowing Spirit his wing 
 Outspread, ere yet the light began to spring ; 
 Such darkness hung o'er man ; till love divine 
 The victory from the grave, from death the sting- 
 Despoiled, and bade on Calvary the sign 
 Of mastery o'er the world and that old Serpent shine. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Along the lake, and up the giddy side 
 Of Turk, in depth dimensionless extend 
 The woodlands, towering high and spreading wide 
 In one unbroken verdure without end. 
 Mantle the slope, the precipice ascend ' 
 
 Above the clouds that in mid aether sail. 
 And though ten thousand charms of beauty blend 
 With that stern grandeur, yet the cheek turns pale. 
 And as we gaze, the pulse throbs quick, the spirits 
 quail.
 
 KILLARNEY. 69 
 
 XVI. 
 
 But who are they that mustering up the storm 
 Engarrison the gorge of yon defile. 
 And on the pendant hills encampment form. 
 Prohibiting access ? What shall beguile 
 Their fury, or what covert grant asyle ? 
 With widening front their legions they outspread. 
 With murkier horror gloom on gloom they pile. 
 Cast night before, brew tempest overhead, 
 And mingle heaven and earth in darkness and in dread. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Glena and all his giant neighbours fade. 
 Enveloped one by one in vapour fovil 
 Till total overwhelmed : then wrapt in shade 
 Rush down the fiends : the clouds in volumes roll, 
 Vancouriers to the thundei''s distant growl. 
 From rock and heath the showers in smoke rebound, 
 The cataracts dash, the frighted forests howl ; 
 The horse, bewildered and aghast, turns round. 
 The driver and his fare sit helpless and half-drowned.
 
 70 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Rough music this of elemental war. 
 Now feigning intermission, now again 
 Redoubled, calling echo from afar 
 To summon all the magazines of rain. 
 Sleet, hail, and hurricane, that spout amain 
 Storm after stonn, each heavier than the last. 
 Shaking the hills, and deluging the plain 
 In aggravated chaos : earth aghast 
 Groans in Egyptian dark, and shrinks beneath the 
 blast. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Still toward Kenmare we toil, to where the road 
 Hewn through the rock in canopy of proof 
 And gallery grotto-like, might seem th' abode 
 Of hospitable fairy ; while aloof 
 Stand gust and shower, to let the weary hoof 
 Of steed or man rest quiet underground. 
 We entered : and beneath that vaulted roof 
 Ensconced a goodly company we found ; 
 And salutation frank of courtesy went round.
 
 KILLARNEY. 7 1 
 
 XX. 
 
 What zest, what solace in the covert given 
 By Oberon here or Archimago's wand. 
 That throuo-h the craff such corridor hath riven 
 So soothe our toil. Ah ! let the heart expand 
 To see how marshalled by th' Omnific hand. 
 The hopes that elevate, the fears that quell. 
 In order due of alternation stand : 
 Pain, lest our pride wax wanton, and rebel ; 
 And comfort, lest the heart o'ercharged to bursting 
 swell. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Not long we tarry here : our course is bent 
 To where the crags of Eagle's-Nest denote 
 A rendezvous ; the car is homeward sent ; 
 Ourselves, enveloped close in cloak or coat, 
 (Like tortoise in its shell) expect the boat ; 
 While tempest after tempest sweeping fast 
 Swells with Typhoean roar his angry throat. 
 In fissured rock we harbour from the blast ; 
 Should wintei"'s self assail, he must relent at last.
 
 72 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Thus perdu couched, we mark the straggling throng 
 Car-mounted or equestrian, the gay world 
 Of Kerry, troop storm-buffeted along. 
 Their high top-gallants to the gale unfurled. 
 Quaint caps awry, quaint chevelures uncurled, 
 Maugre the o'ernight's industry to fold 
 The ringlet, round and round in paper twirled. 
 Alas ! the draggled victims to behold ; 
 How shrinking from the wet, how shivering with the 
 cold ! 
 
 xxiir. 
 
 But this and more, will under name of sport 
 And hunting of the roe, be gladly borne ; 
 Like rout, assembly, etiquette of court. 
 Which, but for pomp and name, were woe forlorn. 
 The sluggard hath arisen at early morn, . 
 The slattern pranked herself in trim attire. 
 The dainty dame of tax-cart thought no scorn. 
 The tippler left his can, the bard his lyre, 
 Such philter hath the chase, such j)uissance hath desire.
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 73 
 
 No need there is of courser here ; and few 
 O'er precipice and bog, through briar and brake. 
 The track of huntsman or of hound pursue ; 
 But far along the road procession make, 
 Or on the water side their station take, 
 Or wiser still (if weather smile serene) 
 Launch on the tranquil bosom of the Lake, 
 Whence every where rock, mountain, wood, and 
 green. 
 Dog, sportsman, militaire, and beaux and belles are seen. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 The storms abate, the boat arrives ; the hour 
 Is nig-h; the shouts from cliff to cliff resound. 
 See the scared eagle from his eyry tower 
 Aloft, on wide-spread pinions circling round. 
 Bidding the desert to his scream resound. 
 While angrily he chides the clamorous train 
 That violate his solitude profound, 
 INIarring with idle luxury, tumult vain, 
 The kingly contemplations of his ancient reign.
 
 74 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 O restlessness of man, that cannot leave 
 In peace the field, the river, and the wood ! 
 O vacancy of thought, that must deceive 
 Life's tedium with false images of good ! 
 Were the true source of blessing understood. 
 Such darkness would be lost in radiance bright 
 From Tabor mountain or from Jordan's flood ; 
 Celestial visions would illume the night. 
 Thoughts redolent of heaven attend returning light. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 List ! — hear we not the cry of hound and horn 
 Amid the glens, upon the mountain's breast. 
 Heart-stirring as the feathered choirs of morn 
 When thrush and lark the prize of song contest. 
 And sweet as evening's lullabies of rest ? 
 The sentimentalist may word it well. 
 The Stoic or the Cynic frown or jest ; 
 But in that harmony there is a spell 
 To countermine the wise, and reason's self to quell.
 
 KILLARNEY. 75 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 How the wild music undulates along- 
 Yon rocky channel ; now remote, now near ! 
 What expectation silences the throng-. 
 Listening the peal that fainter or more clear 
 At length with swelling chorus fills our ear ! 
 The heart beats audible : the doubling call 
 Bids each in ambush wait th' approaching deer : 
 Some line the copse, some in the herbage crawl. 
 Some crouch in boat ; all eye, all ear, impatience all. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 He comes ! — he comes ! — be ready with the boat 
 The very crisis of your fate is nigh : 
 Let him but plunge ; then seize him while afloat, 
 And with loud shouts proclaim the victory ! 
 Shame — shame, — we showed ourselves too soon 
 
 his eye 
 Hath marked us ; and he seeks a distant shore. 
 Of rage and mutual blame then rose the cry ; 
 And (much I fear me) even our cockswain swore. 
 Who never after did, nor ever did before.
 
 76 
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 The game hath taken soil, and lost to view 
 Securely stems the wave ; nor will a hound. 
 Till thrown into the stream, the chase renew. 
 Too late revive they there, too late have found 
 Cold puzzling scent, aud vainly quest around 
 The further shore. In safety's jubilee 
 The quarry, far ahead, hath come to ground. 
 Swallows the plain, and scales the steep with glee. 
 Once more the denizen of Turk and liberty ! 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 But, hark ! a second cry denotes the pack 
 Divided, and I'oretels a second chance. 
 He comes ! — the dogs close hanging on his track : 
 The lolling tongue, dun hide, and slow advance 
 Betray his toil : observe with wary glance 
 His plunge ; surround him, grasp his antlered brow. 
 And let the past mishap our joy enhance. 
 Exultingly we wave white banner now, 
 And high in air our arbutus- wreathed bonnets throw.
 
 KILLARNEY, 77 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Resign him to the huntsman, and admire 
 
 His huge dimensions, and his branching head : 
 
 He seems the forest's venerable sire. 
 
 Or monarch who their armies long had led. 
 
 Though at his utmost need, the recreants fled. 
 
 Now finds he life and empire but a span. 
 
 While hood-winked he reclines, fast bound, half 
 
 dead. 
 And yielding to the mighty power of man. 
 Patient awaits his death, as patient as he can. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 Yet nothing fear : thou art a captive king. 
 And of a king the treatment shall be thine : 
 Not long the bandages shall round thee cling. 
 Nor shalt thou long in doubt and durance pine. 
 Heave not, nor look so piteously : resign 
 Awhile to bonds and fate : a prospect fair, 
 A brighter destiny shall quickly shine. 
 And to thy native woods thou shalt repair. 
 To range the mountain free, free as the mountain air.
 
 78 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 Meantime regatta-like in gallant show 
 Of boats with cabin or with awning gay. 
 We glide along the straits in lengthened row. 
 Or crescent-wise expand in opening bay. 
 Above them all, conspicuous in array 
 Of sumptuous gala, like a conqueroi-'s car, 
 A stately barge divides the liquid way. 
 Where sits the lovely Countess, from afar 
 Diffusing light and joy like some benignant star. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 I name her not (tiiough worthy to be sung 
 By bard of olden time as Faery Queen 
 Hight Gloriana), though her crown be hung 
 On high, entwined with palms of deathless green. 
 The seraph path she walks, but walks unseen ; 
 Nor dare I desecrate with earthly fame 
 One so in virtue shrined and faith serene : 
 Nor am I fitting to record the name 
 Which want and sorrow bless, and angels shall proclaim.
 
 KILLARNEY. 79 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Glena ! let all thy fastnesses expand 
 On the freed j^risoner refuge to bestow. 
 He starts — he springs into the flood — for land 
 He makes, and is once more a king ! see now 
 With what a grandeur, what a grace his brow 
 He shakes, and rides upon the wave. Yet more 
 Elate he touches ground, bursts through the row 
 Of nets that, casual left, obstruct the shore. 
 Bounds to the wood and thinks of trouble past no 
 more. 
 
 xxxvn. 
 
 Scarce with such joy the Gallic monarch fled. 
 Escaping from the durance vile of Spain, 
 Bestrode the Turkish courser, felt his head 
 Encircled with the regal crown again, - 
 
 And to Bayona sped in huge disdain. 
 Long rankled that immedicable wound 
 Of outraged majesty : through years of pain 
 Imperial Charles by sad experience found 
 What policy it were, had equity set bound
 
 !^0 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XXXVTII. 
 
 To lust of empire. Tyranny and pride 
 That grapple all, set all upon a cast ; 
 And giant power that earth and heaven defied. 
 Struggles, like shipwrecked seamen on a mast, 
 For life, not victory ; and sinks at last. 
 But Lazarus at the gate enjoys within 
 The peace that, after brief probation past, 
 Shall progress of immortal joy begin. 
 While through eternity resound the groans of sin. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Our day's disport is done : but wouldest thou hear 
 Th' halloo of other worlds, far different hour 
 Thou must await, to fast in station drear 
 Of lonely beach, and watch the cloudy power 
 That builds the mist into a signal-tower 
 For things invisible. There let the spell 
 Of high-wrought fantasy thy thought imbower 
 Within that interlunar dark where dwell 
 The wonders which no tongue hath leave or power to 
 tell.
 
 KILLARNFA'. 81 
 
 XL. 
 
 Sad privilege (and therefore given to few) 
 To pry upon the secrets of the dead: 
 Bethink thee, lest the heavy price thou rue : 
 To live, a spectacle of woe and dread. 
 No peace by day, no rest upon thy bed. 
 To roam, deserted as the stricken roe. 
 On the rough flint to lay thy houseless head. 
 And every balm of youth and hope forego. 
 Each sight a sight of pain, each sound a sound of wo(! 
 
 XIJ. 
 
 How fearful 'tis to walk the haunted plain 
 When twilight glooms, or dews of midnight fall. 
 When wild-fire lures to death the fated swain, 
 When corpse-lights glimmer in the witches' hall, 
 And revels not of earth the moon appal : 
 When paws th' infernal charger in the glen, 
 And fairies to the passing meteors call, 
 Or strange communion hold in wizard tlen 
 With many a giant shade that once were kings of men. 
 
 a
 
 82 KILLAUNF.Y. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 See from the mountain or the cloud rush down 
 The formidable Hunter of the deep. 
 His name, his race, his errand all unknown. 
 Wind, flood, and thunder with less fury sweep 
 Than his pale courser plunges o'er the steep ; 
 Prostrates the forest, shakes the wilds around. 
 Fire-snorting takes, with mane erect, the leap ; 
 Flies o'er the lake at one impetuous bound. 
 Then vanishes in air, or sinks into the ground. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 Intrepid watchers have beheld the sight 
 (Some say) near Ivrelagh's Franciscan pile. 
 Or where St. Finian reared the abbeyed height 
 Of sanctuary upon the sacred isle. 
 Ere rapine and INIaolduin dared defile 
 The votive ground, find mad with thirst of gold 
 Profane the cemetery's last asyle. 
 Even yet, such chronicle, by beldam told. 
 Hath power to thrill with dread the boldest of the bold.
 
 KILLARNEY. 83 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 But now what acclamations from our trance 
 Awake vis to the business of the day : 
 For, as the rosy-fingered hours advance. 
 Impatient appetite is heard to say, 
 " A time for all things — why the feast delay ?" 
 In wide promiscuous navy we forsake, 
 Glena, thy solemn amplitude of bay. 
 And o'er the roughening and cloud-darkened lake 
 Right eagerly our course to rest and dinner take. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 In universal boat-race we return 
 
 To Inisfallen's steep but verdant side : 
 
 The rowers toil, they strain, they pant, they burn. 
 
 "Well pulled, my sons," th' exulting cockswain 
 
 cried ; 
 " Hurra !" the sturdy mariners replied. 
 " Drag her along," vociferates he ; and all 
 With a thrice-double zeal their vigour tried. 
 Severe the toil : but sweet in Boatman's-Hall 
 To change the tug of oars for ease and festival. 
 
 (i 2
 
 84 KILLARNEY. 
 
 XL VI. 
 
 Hail ! Inisfallen, hail ! enchanted ground, 
 In all th' excess of loveliness arrayed, 
 Amid the majesty of nature round ; 
 Hei"e open lawn, there close- retiring shade, 
 Inextricable maze of copse and glade. 
 The tufted eminence, the flowery dell. 
 The music by the murmuring waters made. 
 The rock, the grotto — vain attempt to tell 
 The numberless delights that in this Eden dwell. 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 But not this hour could contemplation find 
 Fit leisure here to meditate and pray ; 
 So thick the beach, the mead, the grove, are lined 
 With groups that saunter in confusion gay 
 Awhile of mutual quizzing and display. 
 Then on the grass or trunk of tree recline. 
 Soothed by the wind and water's roundelay. 
 And carve the baked meats, and pour out the wine 
 In honour of the day, but more of beauty's shrine.
 
 KILLARNEY. 85 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 See lady bright with pearly crescent mooned, 
 Gipsy and clown with not a hat to show. 
 Slim youths, bewhiskered or bepantalooned. 
 And brawny boatmen on the beach below. 
 Age, manhood, and the vermeil-tinctured glow 
 Of youth, all bandying shout and repartee. 
 Not one mute tongue, not one o'erclouded brow ; 
 While pleased the stranger and the tourist see 
 The isle abandoned all to frolic and to glee. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 Some watch the rippling wave upon the shore. 
 Some walk the wildly-vai'ied circuit round. 
 And each traditionary nook explore. 
 And the dim cave that hath memorial found. 
 For honour and confiding love renowned. 
 Now into figure glide the festive throng. 
 And dance begin : say not they touch the ground ; 
 For beauty floats in air, and skims along. 
 Charming and charmed, on wings of melody and song.
 
 80 
 
 KILLARNEY. 
 
 Time was, the pomp conventual here arose 
 Of transept, clerestory, nave and quire. 
 That from the world gave refuge and repose 
 To youthful acolyte, and hoary sire. 
 The lordly abbot and cord-girded friar. 
 Who once confession heard, awarded doom. 
 Or of devotion fanned the living fire. 
 They were ; but are not : in sepulchral gloom 
 They sleep, and memory's self lies buried in their tomb. 
 
 LI. 
 
 Here then one moment let me rescue still 
 From merriment that leaves no trace behind ; 
 And 'mid the fractured relics rove at will 
 Of cell and cloister ; wisdom there to find. 
 Where weeds and ivy rustle to the wind. 
 And not a pinnacle remains to fall 
 Of niche or tomb that saint or hero shrined. 
 Arch, gateway, tower and porch are mouldered all. 
 Briars, nettles, mole-hills hide the consecrated wall.
 
 KiLLARNEY. 87 
 
 LII. 
 
 Where now of noon, of vespers, or of prime. 
 No chant is heard, no ceremonial seen. 
 No preacher but the grave. Relentless time. 
 Heavy thy tread, thy hand hath heavy been. 
 That scarce a bare foundation prints the green. 
 O death, all-eloquent (though slow is man 
 To hear thee), give us warning not to lean 
 On the bruised reed of earth, but while we can. 
 With faith and virtue fill of life the narrow span. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 Wise, for a moment, was the Persian king. 
 Once weeping in ambition's mad career ; 
 For awful truth can to the proudest bring 
 At times conviction sudden and severe. 
 Even now her monitory voice is here. 
 While to the distant sound of mirth and play 
 I listen with a melancholy ear. 
 A little while, and all the young and gay 
 Shall sleep with the departed, mute and cold as they.
 
 tS8 KlLLAllNEY. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 Wealth, power, ambition, every hope and joy. 
 Are but a dream, a toy of j)ainted air, 
 The full-blown bubble of a playful boy : 
 And if thou canst, philosophy, declare 
 What more than this thy schemes and systems are. 
 But yet in Gilead may be found a stem 
 That drops a balm for ever rich and rare ; 
 There is a priceless pearl, there is a gem 
 That through eternity outshines the diadem. 
 
 LV. 
 
 Who would repine with such reward in view. 
 Or mourn the tenure frail of all below ? 
 Or vent the rueful plaint, how brief, how few, 
 How empty, all the pleasures we can know P 
 Press onward, and look upward : let the glow 
 Of faith and hope be quickened into flame, 
 And charity be liberal to bestow. 
 Meantime, resume the world ; where shouts proclaim 
 On embarkation bent, peer, knight, esquire and dame.
 
 KILLARNEY. 89 
 
 LVI. 
 
 From Inisfallen to the tower of Ross 
 (Where Ludlow and Muskerry fought of yore) 
 The waning twilight warns and guides across 
 Our slow-returning squadrons to the shore. 
 While dirge-like gales the close of day deplore. 
 Soft glides the boat along : the waters foam 
 And sparkle to the dashing of the oar. 
 We land, we look a long farewel, and roam 
 With oft-reverted eye in pensive musing home. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 Like the fond melancholy when we view 
 The floweret fade, or leaf in autumn fall. 
 Such the regret of parting and adieu. 
 Though hope, though pleasure, or though duty call. 
 The lot of time and chance is drawn by all. 
 And virtue's hope in heaven hath ever been ; 
 Yet scarce even virtue from this earthly ball 
 Can every thought, and all affection wean. 
 Till age and death instil the final drop serene.
 
 90 KILLARNEY. 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 In the last voyage, to the last abode. 
 When pass the pure in heart from care and pain. 
 From sorrow and from sin, life's weary load. 
 To mingle hallelujahs with the strain 
 Of seer and patriarch in th' empyreal fane, 
 Even then they pause, and ere they mount on high. 
 One look to the forsaken body deign; 
 While disinthraird from every earthly tie. 
 Impassive to decay and never more to die. 
 
 LIX. 
 
 New life commencing, they have thrown aside 
 The garment of mortality and woe : 
 And everlasting portals open wide 
 To welcome and imparadise them. Lo ! 
 Ascending and ascending up they go. 
 And leave the dwindling universe behind. 
 Man's universal debt in one brief throe 
 Was cancell'd ; and their spirits are enshrin'd 
 In beatific vision of th' Eternal Mind.
 
 KILLARNEY. 91 
 
 LX. 
 
 Dazzled and overpowered, with eye and ear 
 Yet uninitiate, they at first behold 
 Obscurely, and with doubtful organ hear 
 Their title in the Book of Life enroll'd ; 
 Till gradually the realms of bliss unfold. 
 And the third heaven be vocal to the train 
 Of seraphim, that palm and crown of gold 
 Presenting, hail them to th^ ethereal plain. 
 In joy unutterable world without end to reign. 
 
 LXI. 
 
 I 
 
 What radiance flashes on their opening eye 
 What strains of transport fill their opening ear ! 
 See the Celestial City blaze on high. 
 And ringing through the universal sphere 
 The shout of archangelic voices hear. 
 Thousands of thousands, number without bound. 
 Wake the triumphant song of heaven's own year. 
 And in mysterious hamiony around 
 Ten thousand times ten thousand angel harps resound.
 
 92 KlLLARiNEY. 
 
 LXII. 
 
 Before them in augmenting glory's beam 
 Th' unfathomable azure melts away ; 
 While onward to the sanctuary supreme 
 Careering through th' infinitude of day. 
 They pour their souls into th' hierarchal lay 
 That circles evennore the mountain bright 
 Where sits whom saint nor angel can survey, 
 Too high, too glorious for created sight. 
 Throned unapproachable in mystery of light.
 
 CAMBUSCAN
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 FROM CHAUCER. 
 
 In Sarra (so tradition tells) of yore 
 Cambuscan the Tartarian sceptre bore. 
 And oft with battle and the bolts of war 
 Like hurricane assailed the Russian Tsar, 
 Till, spent with slaughter, on each others' breast 
 The long-contending empires sunk to rest. 
 From Palestine to China none was found 
 Like him for kingly attributes renowned : 
 Though Pagan born, he loved each pious rite. 
 And walked the best he could by reason's light :
 
 96 CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 (The best he could ; for howsoe'er we boast. 
 Reason is but a glimmering- lamp at most). 
 Wealthy he was, and wise, benign and just. 
 Firm to his word, and faithful to his trust ; 
 Of hardihood and warlike skill approved. 
 And courage as the centre unremoved ; 
 In arts, and arms, and manly beauty's prime. 
 The wonder of his people and his time ; 
 While well-deserved prosperity his throne 
 In fame upheld superior and alone. 
 
 Two sons he had by Elfeta his wife : 
 His elder born and heir hight Algarsife ; 
 And Camballo the younger prince's name ; 
 Each worthy of the sire from whom they came. 
 
 His youngest offspring was a daughter fair, 
 Called Canace ; whose stature, shape, and air, 
 And beauty to describe, my skill were vain ; 
 Nor dare I enterprise so high a strain. 
 To celebrate her praises would require 
 A tongue of harmony and muse of fire ; 
 And such her loveliness as rightly sung 
 Would renovate the old, and madden all the young.
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 97 
 
 Cambuscan now had twenty winters worn 
 The diadem, when on the festive morn 
 Of his nativity, from year to year 
 With pageants solemnized and royal cheer. 
 The heralds in procession took their way 
 Through Sarra to proclaim the welcome day. 
 
 Northward from Equinoctial Line the sun 
 Began through Aries his career to run. 
 And while he paced that hot and choleric sign. 
 The temperature so lusty and benign. 
 The tender verdure, and the solar fire. 
 Awaked on every spray the feathered quire 
 To chant the melodies of young desire. 
 That to the balmy gales their transport told. 
 Delivered from the sword of winter's cold. 
 
 Cambuscan in his palace sat full high. 
 Enrobed and crowned in royal majesty. 
 And his imperial feast all pomp excelled 
 Within the habitable globe beheld. 
 Of which should I describe the full array. 
 The tale would occupy a summer's day. 
 
 H
 
 98 CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 With sewers and seneschals to crowd my rhime, 
 And swans, and hernshaws, were but waste of time : 
 Strange flesh (if legendary bards say true) 
 Is dainty there, which here we die to view. 
 The marshals and the service of the hall. 
 No mortal numbers can recount them all : 
 And (not in efforts vain my strength to waste) 
 I pass them by, and to my purpose haste. 
 
 The third course done, in his imperial state 
 The monarch ^midst his lords and ladies sat. 
 While all the pillars and the roof rebound 
 With thundering gongs, and the loud trumpets' sound, 
 A martial minstrelsy and merry din ; 
 When at the portal suddenly came in 
 A youthful warrior on a steed of brass. 
 And in his hand a mirror broad of glass. 
 Upon his thumb a golden ring he wore. 
 And swinging by his side a naked falchion bore ; 
 And up he rideth to the high state board. 
 While no man at the banquet spake a word 
 For wonder of this knight; whom to behold 
 Full busily they gaze, both young and old.
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 99 
 
 His beaver up, disclosed a visage fair. 
 Gorgeous his arms, majestic was his air. 
 While king and queen, and dames, and courtiers all 
 Salutes he by their order in the hall. 
 With reverence and observance so complete 
 As well in aspect as in utterance meet. 
 That Gawain, if returned from fairy ground. 
 With all his ancient courtesy renowned. 
 Could neither alter nor amend a word : 
 And after this, before the high state board. 
 With learned eloquence and grave regard. 
 And manly voice his message he declared, 
 And gesture such as grace and reason teach. 
 When speech with action, action suits with speech. 
 I cannot parle like that redoubted knight. 
 My genius is rebuked nor dares so high a flight ; 
 But this in common phrase was his intent. 
 If I remember right my argument. 
 
 The king whom Araby and Ind obey. 
 My lord and liege, on this illustrious day 
 Saluteth you, as best he can and may, 
 And sendeth you, in honour of your feast, 
 By me who thus attend on your behest, 
 
 H 2
 
 100 CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 This steed of brass, that easily can run 
 Without delay or harm, 'twixt sun and sun, 
 (That is to say, in four and twenty hours) 
 Where'er you please, in sunshine or in showers. 
 Serene and swift his rider to convey 
 Whither your heart's desire directs the way ; 
 Or would you dart into the loftier air 
 With full security through foul or fair. 
 Where the sun-climbing eagle loves to soar. 
 The faithful voyager will ever more 
 The very coui'se prescribed unerring keep, 
 Though on his back you take repose and sleep ; 
 And ever up and down, and to and fro. 
 Obsequious to your pleasure will he go. 
 Full many a constellation, many a sign. 
 Of potent influence and aspect benign. 
 The mighty master waited, ere he won 
 His moment, and this prodigy was done. 
 
 By looking on this mirror may be known 
 Whate'er adversity betides your crown ; 
 In shadow it reveals your friend or foe. 
 Your empire's welfare or your empire's woe :
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 101 
 
 And, more than this ; whenever lady bright 
 
 Hath deigned a tender thought of prince or knight. 
 
 If he prove false, it sets in open view 
 
 His fraud, his treason, and his mistress new. 
 
 Wear in your purse this ring, or on your hand. 
 And in a moment shall you understand 
 The languages of all the fowls that fly, 
 And how to make them suitable reply ; 
 And every med'cinable herb shall know 
 That heal the deadliest wounds, and where they grow. 
 
 Though adamantine arms oppose your might. 
 This trusty- sword through plate and mail will smite ; 
 And for its lightest touch all aid is vain. 
 No styptics staunch the blood, no balms allay the pain. 
 Till with the flat you stroke the sufferer's wound ; 
 Then shall it close, and he again be sound : 
 Full well its use will vouch what I have told. 
 Nor ever fail, while you retain your hold. 
 
 This falchion hath Arabia's monarch sent. 
 The pledge to Tartary of good intent ; '
 
 102 CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 While with the virtuous ring and mirror rare 
 Your daughter Canace he greeteth fair. 
 
 His message done, behold the youthful knight 
 Ride out of hall, and from his courser light. 
 His courser, flashing radiance like the sun, 
 Stands in the court (his airy travel done) : 
 The knight, unarm'd in an apartment fair. 
 Is summoned thence the royal feast to share. 
 The mirror and the sword of trenchant blade, 
 With pomp and long procession are conveyed, 
 And reverence as beseems their magic power. 
 And safely lodged in the high treasury tower ; 
 And the mysterious ring is borne in state 
 To Canace, at table where she sat. 
 But, sooth to say, the brazen courser stands 
 As bolted to the earth by unseen hands. 
 And engine, pulley, windlace, vainly boast 
 To wrench the stubborn wonder from his post. 
 For why ? they understand not yet the skill : 
 And in the court perforce they leave him still. 
 Until the knight the talisman unfold 
 To stir him, as hereafter shall be told.
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 103 
 
 Great is the multitude, that to and fro 
 About this steed in speculation go : 
 For in dimensions large, high, broad, and long. 
 And well proportioned to be swift and strong, 
 Majestical it stood, and quick of eye, 
 And the renowned Frontino might outvie, 
 Apulian breed, or horse of Lombardy. 
 From head to tail, in each proportion kenned. 
 Nor art nor nature could his shape transcend. 
 
 But much they wondered how it came to pass 
 
 That motion should reside in horse of brass. 
 
 To most it seemed by fairy fingers wrought, 
 
 Yet every gazer had his several thought : 
 
 So many men, so many notions rise. 
 
 And each one in his own conceit is wise. 
 
 They murmured like a swarm of bees, and long 
 
 Recited acts of legendary song. 
 
 And Hippogrif, and Pegasus, and Troy, 
 
 Which ambushed Greeks in wooden horse annoy. 
 
 Mine heart (quoth one) is ever held in dread 
 By cares from subtle circumspection bred.
 
 104 CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 No doubt embattled legions are within, 
 Conspiring our metropolis to win. 
 Preposterous thought ! (another whispered low) 
 'Tis some mechanic toy or jugglei-'s show, 
 Or fashioned underneath in caves of hell, 
 Domdaniel called, where fiends and wizards dwell. 
 So deem the vulgar of each engine w rought 
 With sapience that eludes their prying thought ; 
 And what their ignorance cannot comprehend, 
 Their spite interprets to the baser end. 
 
 Then spake they of the mirroi-'s magic power. 
 That was borne up into the master tower : 
 If such phantasmas on its face were seen, 
 'Twas surely not of earth, nor wrought by hands 
 terrene. 
 
 Yet some believed by composition nice 
 Of angles, and of optical device, 
 It might be well and naturally done. 
 And that in Rome was such another one. 
 Of art, and algebra, and learned men. 
 And Aristotle, much they reasoned then ;
 
 CAftlBUSCAN. 105 
 
 And how Alhazen and Vitelli wrote 
 Of specula, perspectives, and what not ? 
 As they who study their dark volumes wot. 
 
 Then talk they of the falchion that could drive 
 Through plate and mail, and stoutest metal rive. 
 Of Telephus, Achilles, and the steel 
 That could in turn inflict a wound, and heal : 
 And how to temper sword and spear they show ; 
 Craft which I know not, nor desire to know. 
 
 But for the ring of Canace, they thought 
 Never such miracle to light was brought ; 
 Thouo-h some had heard of mickle wonder done 
 By Moses and the wise king Solomon. 
 
 Nathless, said some, it was a cunning pass 
 From flint and steel and ashes to make glass ; 
 Yet glass is nothing like flint, ashes, sand ; 
 But hard things easy are to such as understand. 
 
 In doubt and queries thus their brains they tire. 
 So men the source and mystery require 
 Of wind, and heaven's thought-executing fire.
 
 106 CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 And g'ossamer, and mist, and ocean's tide. 
 And all things, till their causes be descried.. 
 
 Long- time they argue, nor desist from brawl 
 Till king and courtiers leave the festive hall. 
 
 The sun had sunk from his meridian tower. 
 The Lion with his Aldrian ruled the hour. 
 When from his board the Tartar monarch rose : 
 The jocund minstrelsy before him goes. 
 Till in the presence-hall he sits on high. 
 And round him instruments and voices vie 
 In lofty lay, and heaven of melody. 
 
 The progeny of Venus now advance 
 With measure smooth and airy grace to dance : 
 For through the constellations rides their queen 
 And looks upon them with an eye serene. 
 
 The noble king is seated on his throne ; 
 The champion peregrine hath homage done. 
 And to the music's sound in lightsome glee 
 Adown the dance is gone with Canace.
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 107 
 
 The revels that ensue are hard to show : 
 Love and love's service should the poet knovv^, 
 And as the birds be blithe, and fresh as May, 
 Ere he describe a festival so gay. 
 
 Who can recite each brisk fantastic dance. 
 Each nymph-like shape, and lovely countenance. 
 Glances and amorous wiles and quaint disguise. 
 Elusive of the jealous lovei-'s eyes ? 
 No man but Lancelot ; and he is dead : 
 So let them i*evel, and no more be said. 
 Till change of luxury to the banquet call, 
 I leave them in their stately carnival. 
 
 Amid their merriment the steward's care 
 Sends in the blood-red wine and spicery rare. 
 The servitors take post in every room. 
 The beverage and cates anon are come ; 
 They eat and drink, and then in solemn show 
 (As bids religion) to the temple go : 
 There vows, and service, and oblation pay, 
 Then palace-ward return, and sup by day.
 
 108 CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 What need I Homei-'s savoury Muse unsphere 
 To sing their cookery and delicious cheer ? 
 Untold we guess that in a kingly feast 
 Is plenty, to the greatest and the least ; 
 And pageantry, as monarchs may beseem. 
 And dainties more than hungry poets dream. 
 
 From supper with his peers Cambuscan bold 
 Goes forth, the brazen courser to behold. 
 But never was such wondering sure as then. 
 Save when the horse of Sinon ambushed men. 
 And in amazement stood the Trojans all 
 While climbed the fatal engine o'er their wall. 
 At length the king. " Infonn me, gentle knight. 
 The virtue of this charger and the might. 
 And how to give him life, and bid him fly 
 Through unknown deserts, or th' ethereal sky." 
 
 "Sire," said the knight (and lightly touched the rein. 
 And instantly the courser pranced amain), 
 " Touch but a sjaring (for such the hidden spell), 
 Which to your ear in secret I will tell ; 
 
 And name to him the pilgrimage designed : 
 Aloft he starts, and distances the wind.
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 109 
 
 " Your journey ended, issue fresh command, 
 And to another spring apply your hand. 
 And down he will descend and do your will. 
 And, where you list, inflexible stand still : 
 Nor all the world, though all the world should strive, 
 Can either lure him from his post or drive. 
 Or would you have him vanish hence anon. 
 Touch but another spring and he is gone 
 Into unworldly regions from your sight, 
 And will return again by day or night. 
 When with such cabalistic words you call 
 As I shall teach, his presence to your hall." 
 
 When thus Cambuscan from the stranger knight 
 Had learned the manner and the form aright. 
 Triumphant to the palace he returns. 
 And with astonishment and rapture burns. 
 The bridle to the treasury tower with care 
 Is borne, and lodged among his jewels rare : 
 The horse is vanished from the haunts of man ; 
 But whither gone, or how, declare who can : 
 Let speculators, if they list explore ; 
 For gone he is, and I reveal no more.
 
 no CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 But leave the Tartar nobles with their king 
 In revelry, till day began to spring. 
 
 Slumber, digestion's nurse, came then apace. 
 And kissed with gaping mouth each ruby face : 
 The drowsy charm convinced them in a trice 
 All day and half the night might well suffice 
 To keep their rouse ; and warned them for their good 
 That sleep asserts domain o'er flesh and blood. 
 Yawning they give him thanks, and for the best 
 His doctrine hold, and reel away to rest. 
 
 What night-mare dreams ensued, concerns not me. 
 Most part were staggering-ripe with jollity ; 
 And heavy floundered down, and rose not soon. 
 Snoring in lubbard lethargy till noon. 
 
 Cambuscan's self had long held wassail gay. 
 Yet yielded not to wine's ignoble sway : 
 Nor Algarsife nor Camballo resigned 
 To brute intemperance the manly mind ; 
 But when the herald-star of morning rose. 
 Betook them cool and lightsome to repose.
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 1 1 1 
 
 Fair Canace had (with her father's leave) 
 From banquet drawn to rest soon after eve. 
 Shunning the nightly surfeit, morning pains, 
 Of fevered pulse and fume-bewildered brains. 
 She slept ; but such her fulness of content. 
 That even in sleep her colour came and went. 
 The ring, the glass, were present to her thought. 
 And peradventure elfin fancy brought 
 The blooming knight of Araby to view. 
 Amorous, and by the mirror witnessed true. 
 From aery-light first slumber she awoke. 
 And to her prime attendant matron spoke. 
 And said it was her pleasure to arise. 
 
 The wrinkled crone, who deemed herself more wise 
 (As beldames use) than all the world beside, 
 With undesired remonstrance thus replied. 
 " Madam, the morn is young, the world at rest ; 
 A little slumber more were surely best." 
 
 " Not so," quoth Canace : "my sleep is fled ; 
 The breezy morn is balm, the sky is red. 
 And health and pleasure bid me walk or run 
 Where yonder forest brightens in the sun."
 
 112 CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 The much-reluctant dame goes forth to vent 
 In simulated zeal her discontent. 
 From room to room explores the lofty halls, 
 . And " what ? no watch, no duty ?" loudly calls. 
 " Arise, for shame, your princess takes the air." 
 They hear, and to her presence-room repair. 
 Fresh, smiling, bright, and ruddy as the sun 
 When orient through the vernal sky to run. 
 See Canace advance in light array 
 For coolness fit, or speed, or mirthful play. 
 And with her virgin bevy o'er the lawn 
 And woodlands bound, exulting in the dawn. 
 
 The sun with ample orb of crimson sheen 
 Scattered the mist and gemmed the dewy green ; 
 The season mild, the finnamental blue, 
 The park, rock, stream, the mountain's distant view,, 
 All art, all nature, prodigal inspired 
 Joy more than heart had imaged or desired. 
 But chief delight was in the thrilling song 
 From glade and thicket of the plumy throng : 
 For well the gifted princess could descry 
 Their speech and argument ol" melody.
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 113 
 
 Not long did Canace transported rove. 
 Hearkening th' harmonious converse of the grove. 
 When from a plantain, blasted, dry, and bare, 
 A falcon shrieked in accents of despair. 
 So long, so shrill, that the disastrous sound . 
 Awaked each echo of the forest round. 
 And wounded so with beak and wings her side, 
 That all the ground beneath with blood was dyed. 
 Her plaint so rueful, and so loud her moan, 
 ^ That savage beast, or hardest heart of stone, 
 Hya?na, tyger, pard, or lion bold. 
 Had wept (if weep they could) her sorrow to behold. 
 
 For never bard or painter could describe 
 A lovelier model of the falcon tribe. 
 Short legs, large feet, broad shoulders, and thighs long; 
 Round head, long neck, beak thick and short and 
 
 strong ; 
 Her feet were yellow, and her pounces black, 
 Sable her head, and spotted was her back : 
 In colour, shape, and spirit passing rare, 
 Perfection's self, she baffled all compare.
 
 1 14 CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 But Canace, dissolved in pity, hies 
 Up to the tree, and each enticement tries 
 To lure (if hope of remedy might be) 
 The well-nigh fainting mourner from the tree ; 
 And holds her lap abi'oad, or ere she call, 
 To catch her, and arrest the giddy fall ; 
 And thus in language of the falcon kind 
 Gives utterance to her sympathizing mind. 
 
 "Fair bird, if lawful to disclose thy pain. 
 The cause and origin of woe explain : 
 For never yet such tempest of distress 
 I saw, so seeming desperate of redress ; 
 And needs that anguish beyond thought must be. 
 Whose very spectacle is death to see. 
 For mercy's sake, whatever pangs annoy. 
 Desist, nor thus that tender frame destroy ; 
 And kill me not with sorrow for thy sake. 
 But listen, and descend, and comfort take : 
 For, as T am the daughter of a king. 
 Relief no less than soothing will I bring. 
 If labour, skill, or any power of mine 
 May alter and assuage the fates malign ; 
 Thrice happy, if composing every smart
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 115 
 
 Of wound or bruise, I coukl as soon impart 
 The balm of consolation to thine heart." 
 
 This heard, the falcon screaming from the tree, 
 Fell senseless in the lap of Canace : 
 And lying long as one entranced or dead. 
 At length revived, and slowly raised her head ; 
 And with full many a tear and many a sigh 
 Unfolded thus her wayward destiny. 
 
 " Compassion evermore and virtue find 
 Their native dwelling in the noble mind. 
 Those tears, my gentle Canace, I know 
 From sweet and undissembling pity flow : 
 And therefore, though the sorrows I endure 
 Be past the reach of solace or of cure, 
 Yet while thy soft suggestions I attend, 
 Methinks a kindred spirit calls me friend ; 
 And howsoe'er uncouth, nor worth thine ear, 
 Yet freely flows my tale from heart sincere. 
 
 "Though with my feathered sisters of the sky 
 Through cloud and tempest now condemned to fly, 
 
 I 2
 
 116 CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 Though chambered in the rock of marble gray, 
 And instinct-driven to rend my quivering prey, 
 Yet pity once I knew, nor would have harmed 
 The smallest living thing in air or earth that swaiTned 
 For human birth was mine, and human frame. 
 Till in perfidious love destruction came. 
 
 " By misery driven from his parental home 
 In life's eventful pilgrimage to roam. 
 My sire had heard the Russian ice-wind blow, 
 And felt the summers of Serendib glow ; 
 Had hailed the palaces of orient morn. 
 And seen departing suns the western main adorn. 
 The manners and the laws of every clime 
 He marked, and chronicles of hoary time, 
 And in the search of wisdom hoped to find 
 Repose and medicine for his wounded mind ; 
 Till, pilgrimage and toil and danger past. 
 In Persia's meads he found repose at last ; 
 There guarded, reared and blest my tender age 
 With fond endearment and monition sage. 
 And strove my ripening intellect to store 
 With truth and fortitude, and virtue's lore.
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 117 
 
 Of regions far remote, and days of old. 
 And wonders in the height and depth he told. 
 Of nature's fabric and all-perfect scheme. 
 And boundless goodness of the Cause supreme. 
 
 " But when my fifteenth year began to shed 
 Its inauspicious influence o'er my head, 
 A neighbouring youth, Faradatha his name. 
 Enkindled in my breast affection's flame ; 
 Equal our age, alike our tempers seemed. 
 And each on each a mutual passion beamed. 
 His strength and courage, countenance and mind, 
 Whate'er ennobles or adorns mankind. 
 Were all, save virtue, noble and complete ; 
 And virtue's self he knew to counterfeit 
 In goodliest semblance, though represt within 
 Corruption lurked, and woe-engendering sin. 
 He sighed, he kneeled, remorseless to deceive. 
 Vowed spotless truth, and won me to believe. 
 Next heaven and my dear father, I relied 
 On him, my future spouse, companion, guide ; 
 His image was in every thought and care. 
 The morning orison and evening prayer. 
 And oft, by sadly-pleasing fear distrest, 
 Anxious I questioned my self-doubting breast.
 
 118 
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 What recompence could answer or repay 
 His faithful fondness and protecting sway. 
 Vain dream, vain happiness, reverse how fell. 
 How doubly keen from one beloved so well. 
 
 " Twelve moons, twelve blissful moons, the dear 
 deceit — 
 (Ah ! why the vanished happiness repeat ?) 
 Twelve fleeting moons so well the traitor feigned, 
 A free confession with my heart he gained : 
 Till in vain-glorious confidence secure 
 That love would all forgive and all endure, 
 Darkly and by degrees he did unroll 
 The complicated baseness of his soul ; 
 And languishing complained of love too coy, 
 And talked of stolen hours enhancing joy : 
 Now on my hand with eager glances hung, 
 Now to the melting lute insidious sung 
 Of honour needing not the legal chain. 
 And pity justly due to amorous pain. 
 What folly were to waste the precious time. 
 How wise to crown with bliss our beauty's prime.
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 119 
 
 *• Amazed, and doubtful if I heard aright. 
 My bosom throbbed with anger and affright ; 
 Yet hood-vvink'd long and wavering was my fear, 
 Slow to suspect, and loth to seem austere : 
 My partial wishes still with reason strove. 
 And indignation more than half was love. 
 He, prompt with blandishment and specious wile 
 To say, unsay, and thousand ways beguile. 
 Long time with indefatigable art 
 Essayed each weaker entrance to my heart : 
 But when his countless artifices vain 
 Served only to confirm my just disdain. 
 And steel insulted tenderness to abjure 
 With sad and solemn vows his love impure. 
 He groaned, he trembled, gazed with frantic air. 
 And wept and smote his breast and tore his hair, 
 Then fled, and everlasting absence swore ; 
 And false Farad atha was seen no more. 
 
 " But as he went sky loured, and nature frowned 
 Earth groaned, and winds re-murmured doleful sound. 
 The woodlands reeled, by hurricanes betost. 
 The day was sicklied o'er, the sun was lost.
 
 120 
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 Black clouds of thunder roared, and sudden glare 
 
 Of lightning flashed athwart the troubled air. 
 
 And sailing on the gloom a grisly form 
 
 Was seen to guide with outstretched hand the stonn. 
 
 His aspect hideous, his dimensions vast. 
 
 His eyeballs fire, his voice the northern blast ; 
 
 Above my head he waved a gleaming brand. 
 
 And issued thus his merciless command. 
 
 " ' Fond Rezia ! shall Faradatha descend 
 A frustrate suppliant at thy feet to bend ? 
 Thy groveling baseness shall the marriage rite 
 With his monarchal destinies unite P 
 Him, by his pride and fierce ambition known. 
 Long since the rebel Genii hailed their own ; 
 And gave him privilege of magic Iskill 
 To change his blooming loveliness at will 
 For giant-sinewed strength, and heart of stone. 
 And iron flesh, and adamantine bone. 
 Thus nerved, invincible he flies to war. 
 And mocks the steed, the falchion, and the car ; 
 Victory where'er he turns salutes him lord. 
 And empires rise or ])eribh at his word ;
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 121 
 
 Till satiate with renown and kingly power 
 
 He seek repose in Savendrooga's bower. 
 
 Where lurks (O why am I constrained to tell i') 
 
 The secret of his stars, the master spell. 
 
 On which (how dense, futurity, thy gloom, 
 
 How dark thy menace !) hangs our champion's doom. 
 
 He loves thee, Rezia, but his fates ordain 
 
 That never shall he wear the nuptial chain ; 
 
 For they who with our freeborn host combine 
 
 Must laugh to scorn laws human and divine. 
 
 Consent, and yield to his protecting arms 
 
 In unrestrained love thy willing charms ; 
 
 Else — but I see expostulation vain 
 
 With that coy virtue and obdured disdain. 
 
 Go then — and exiled by a vengeful change 
 
 From peace and hope, the wilds of aether range ; 
 
 Till with the tongue of birds thou canst disclose 
 
 To human ear the story of thy woes. 
 
 Till falls Faradatha, by mortal wight 
 
 Encountered, slain, on Savendrooga's height ; 
 
 And one of woman born shall hand to hand 
 
 Domdaniel's legioned soceries withstand.'
 
 122 CAMBUSCAN. 
 
 " He threatened ; and ere yet his words liad end, 
 I felt convulsion strang-e my bosom rend. 
 Through vein and artery ran the wicked spell, 
 Filled me with cruelty and hunger fell, 
 Einbruted all my shape, and upward drove 
 Beneath heaven's chilling canopy to rove. 
 And outcast of mankind effuse my moan 
 To the rude wind and the deaf mountain stone. 
 Nine moons have marked the dismal lapse of time 
 Since first I winged the bleak ethereal clime. 
 Yet helpless still I wander, and bewail 
 My* childless sire and happy native dale : 
 Nor guardian ministers their aid im})art, 
 Nor death vouchsafes to heal the broken heart." 
 
 The falcon ceased, and all the virgin train 
 With tears of pity answered her again. 
 But the kind princess, tutored by her ring, 
 Sought every balm, and anodyne of spring. 
 Till having herbs of sovereign virtue found 
 To staunch and mollify each rankling wound. 
 Back to the palace eagerly she bore 
 The bleeding bird and salutarv store:
 
 CAMBUSCAN. 123 
 
 Then bade an ample aviary prepare, 
 
 And nursed the sufferer with a sister's care, 
 
 And ceaseless toiled (compassion gave her skill) 
 
 To soften and beguile the sense of ill. 
 
 Fair Canace ! thy name and praise shall live : 
 
 Blest they who pity win, thrice-double blest who give. 
 
 And now my spirit (or I much misdeem) 
 Dilates and soars with my majestic theme ; 
 And henceforth statelier process will I hold 
 To sing adventure, tourney, battle bold. 
 And wonders such as never yet were told.
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 ^ ^HCvtXf J9rama.
 
 DRAMATIS PERSONiE. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 Ahab, King of Israel. 
 
 Abdias, Governor of the household. 
 
 Chorus, of faUhful Israelites. 
 
 Priests of Baal. 
 
 People. 
 
 Messenger, Servant of Elias. 
 
 Scene. — At the foot of Mount Carmel, near the brook 
 
 Kishon.
 
 ELTAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 How slow is time, how wearisome the way, 
 When hope deferred lies heavy at the heart. 
 But see our journey's end ; the tufted brake 
 Of juniper, and yonder lofty rock 
 That overshadowing- throws his pendulous bulk 
 O'er Kishon's nigh-exhausted stream. Is this 
 Th' appointed station, Abdias ? art thou sure. 
 And sure that he will come ? Again repeat 
 The tidings : for my soul unsatisfied 
 Craves still assurance more.
 
 128 ELTAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 My lord and king, 
 At tliy commiind I traversed hill and dale 
 Of Israel's realm, if haply from the blast 
 And three years' drought a pittance had escaped 
 Of forage that might save the royal steeds 
 Of pageantry and war : but long the search, 
 And frustrate all ; day after day the sun 
 Cloudless arose, and fired the sky, and parched 
 The gaping earth ; each watercourse was dry. 
 Each breeze the breath of furnace ; and the soil 
 Loose as the sandy wilderness, upflew 
 In clouds before the wind. O'erspent, and full 
 Of rumination sad, at length I came 
 Where now we tread : when 'thwart the twilight 
 
 dusk 
 Of day-dawn, in corporeal form revealed. 
 The prophet sought so oft, from realm to realm 
 With fruitless search, so long on earth unseen, 
 Slowly approached me, nor could I mistake 
 That majesty of countenance and form 
 Surpassing human : and the very voice 
 And utterance of Elias in mine ears
 
 ELIAS HYDROCIIOUS, 129 
 
 Resounded, while with brief and solemn speech 
 
 He thus began. " Haste, Abdias, to thy king. 
 
 And certify whom thou hast seen, and add. 
 
 In presence visible Elias comes. 
 
 To give him meeting here." With prostrate awe 
 
 I fell, and thus returned. " Command not so. 
 
 Nor bid me with such dangerous embassy 
 
 Possess the royal ear. When I am gone, 
 
 The spirit shall sequester thee fiir hence, 
 
 I know not whither ; and my sovereign's ire. 
 
 When coming at my call he finds thee not. 
 
 Shall doom me to the death." The prophet heard. 
 
 And thus replied. " As liveth He, the Lord 
 
 Of Hosts, by whom, and before whom I stand. 
 
 Assuredly to Ahab, here, this day 
 
 Will I appear." Emboldened thus, I rose. 
 
 And came (not uninfonned of thine approach) 
 
 To utter his behest : for on the way 
 
 Already rumour to mine ears had borne 
 
 Thy pilgrimage to Carmel, with the priests 
 
 Of Baalim, and mighty concourse called 
 
 From every tribe, to celebrate the rite 
 
 Sidonian, and from heathen gods implore 
 
 Refreshing rain, K
 
 130 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 It looks like truth : and yet 
 I scarce believe for joy. He is the last 
 Of those rebellious, who defiance hurled 
 To Astaroth, and mocked my radiant queen 
 Even at her altars : therefore have they fallen 
 Beneath the sword ; and he, the chief, the worst. 
 The sole survivor, shall at length be mine. 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 Yet think : he is the prophet of the Lord, 
 Of Him whose stern denunciation binds 
 The clouds in iron, shuts the treasure-house 
 Of rain and dew, and three long years hath sent 
 A famine o'er the land : and wilt thou more 
 Incense the dread Chastiser i* 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Am I son 
 Of Omri, before whom the knee was bowed 
 In Gabathon, and am I Israel's king ?
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 131 
 
 And am I to be baffled thus, and braved 
 And bearded by a frantic slave ? Hovi^ oft 
 In grove or temple, festival or fast. 
 Hath he rebuked me like a bondman, taxed 
 My worship with idolatry, laid curse 
 On my possessions, poisoned my repose 
 With threats of judgment. 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 His indeed the tongue. 
 But whose the bidding ? the mysterious trance 
 Was on him, and he heard the voice divine, 
 And visions of Jehovah sanctified 
 His fiery lips, and sent him to reprove 
 Israel's apostasy. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Sent or unsent, 
 This day he dies : the congregated prime 
 Of all my people, all that to the sun. 
 The moon and stars bum incense, shall behold 
 His blood (a welcome expiation) flow, 
 
 K 2
 
 132 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Peace-ofterino- to the violated fame 
 Of all my gods. 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 But where the shrine is reared 
 For that dire sacrifice, chained thunderbolts 
 In fury shall descend, or earth beneath 
 Open to her foundations, and entomb 
 The murderous pomp. Posterity shall shrink 
 From the detested region, whose convulsed 
 And blackened solitudes shall utter sound 
 Of woe in sinful ears, and chronicle 
 The wrath supreme. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Peace ; and speak never more. 
 Rather than so : the world and all its wealth 
 Would I resign, so I had nothing heard 
 Of all that was divulged on Sinai's mount 
 In fire and thunder. What is fame to me. 
 Or power, or empire, but an empty dream.
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 133 
 
 The mockery of a bliss I may not taste. 
 
 If saws and ordinances are to curb 
 
 My royalties ; if when desire and hope 
 
 And birth-right and dominion loudest call 
 
 To plunge amid the warm voluptuous flood 
 
 Of pomp and luxury ; if then the laws 
 
 And lore traditional of Amram's son 
 
 Rush upon memory, peopling all the brain 
 
 With prodigies and threatenings that might drive 
 
 The soul from seat of reason ? And if e'er 
 
 My better hopes have triumphed, and I know 
 
 And feel myself a king, and taste the sweets 
 
 Of monarchy, thy bodings come to rouse 
 
 The sleeping anguish ? How hast thou presumed, 
 
 Slave as thou art, to dally with the cares 
 
 Of my most inward soul, the bosom terror 
 
 Intolerable, that cankers my high fortune. 
 
 And palsies empire ? Better be a worm 
 
 Than Israel's king, and scorned as I am scorned 
 
 By this Elias. Long ago the sword 
 
 Of majesty had smitten to the dust 
 
 The upbraiding traitor, feared I not the wrath 
 
 Of Him who plunged Abiram and his peers 
 
 Alive into the abyss. That dreadful arm
 
 134 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Again may thunder, and at once exile me 
 From all the joys of sense, from all I prize 
 Or covet, to the pestilent profound 
 Of darkness and corruption. 'Tis a thought 
 May not be dwelt upon ; nor may I waste 
 The moments in vain musing, when so much 
 Is to be done — haste, Abdias, and convoke 
 The people ; bid them wait in readiness 
 Our great solemnity ; then hither call 
 To present divination and consult 
 The priests of BaaL 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 To consult with them 
 Is adding ill to ill. They smile and lure 
 With honeyed blandishment, but never knew 
 What truth or virtue mean. O rather turn 
 Where better guides approach : the chosen few 
 Of all thy counsellors, who never swerved 
 From the pure law of Horeb, never bowed 
 The knee to Remphan, nor profaned the faith ' 
 Of Abraham and of Moses, hither bend 
 Their reverend steps.
 
 ELIAS IIYDROCHOUS. 135 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 No more of this : begone. 
 And do as I commanded. Who are ye 
 That break my privacy ? The king demands 
 To know your pleasure ; wherefore ye intrude 
 Uncalled, importunate, unwelcome ; fraught 
 With admonition and predicted ill ? 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Gray hairs have privilege : and when the storms 
 Roar in their madness, welcome any hand 
 That can to safety steer. Thy kingdom mourns 
 Beneath the yoke and penalty of sin. 
 And sin must be repented of, ere grace 
 Or mercy can find way. Let public prayer 
 And penitence for public guilt atone. 
 That we may be forgiven, and once again 
 Behold and bless the life-imparting shower. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 This then is all ; and ye have fondly dreamed 
 The monarchy of Israel slept supine
 
 136 EIIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Regardless of his realm : but I had done 
 The deed, ere ye had ripened into thought. 
 The fast hath been proclaimed : already comes 
 From Jezreel hither all my state, the priests 
 Of Baal, and the prophets of the groves. 
 And crowds processional by herald's trump 
 From Dan to Bethel called. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 O never, never 
 Can lips or rites like these acceptance find. 
 Or safety : wherefore come they but to breathe 
 Their orisons before the senseless block 
 And molten image ? God of Abraham, hear ; 
 Have pity on thy people, and withdraw 
 The scourge of our impiety. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 'Tis well 
 And wisely spoken ; go then, and invoke 
 His tenderness, who three successive years 
 Hath interdicted heaven, and changed to flame 
 Its liquid treasures ; such his benison.
 
 ELL\S IIYDKOCHOUS. 137 
 
 And such his mercy past, and such the pledge 
 Of mercy yet to come. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 We render thanks 
 Even for the punishment of guilt, and bless 
 The fatherly corrections that drive back 
 The wanderer to his God. Not undeserved 
 Nor unforeseen the sharp infliction fell : 
 Long time the stroke hung over us, long time 
 Elias warned. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Accursed be the name. 
 It haunts me in the palace, at the altar. 
 My solitude embitters, and appals 
 My slumber. The remembrance of that day 
 Is a full nest of scorpions, when my queen 
 Had newly slain the prophets, and sublime 
 At banquet sat we throned, amid the pomp 
 Of nobles, warriors, priests of Teraphim, 
 Exulting o'er the dead : magnificence 
 And joy unbounded reigned ; when suddenly
 
 138 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 In at the portal, like a spectre came 
 
 The seer of Thoschab : haggard were his eyes 
 
 That measured us in anger ; vengeance loured 
 
 On his demoniac brow : the mirth was dumb. 
 
 The music ended, and our quivering knees 
 
 Against each other smote, as with a voice 
 
 That curdled up our blood, he thus began. 
 
 " Blasphemers, murderers, revel in your deeds, 
 
 Heap sin on sin, but know that ye are marked 
 
 For judgment ; know that barrenness and drought 
 
 Are hasting to consume you. Till the tongue 
 
 That now denounces vengeance change its note 
 
 To gentle intercession, and implore 
 
 Remission of the doom, no rain shall bless 
 
 The day, nor ever dew by night descend." 
 
 He ceased, and vanished. From that fatal hour 
 
 The clouds have been dried up, and earth beneath 
 
 Languishing withers. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 When the nations reel 
 Drunk with idolatry, drunk with the blood 
 Of innocence, then issue j)lague and sword.
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 139 
 
 Famine and fire ; and children's children rue 
 Their sacrilegious fathers. 
 
 Arab. 
 
 Insolent ! 
 Be mute \vhen I command thee ; and no more 
 Assay before the footstool to abase me. 
 Of whom the patriarchs worshipped. I despair 
 Pardon from him whose stern ambassadors 
 To me speak never good. Time was, perchance. 
 When seasonable instruction might have trained 
 My spirit to the legal ordinance. 
 And taught me to confide in oracle. 
 By Urim given and Thummim : but that time 
 Long since is past : long since liave I resigned 
 To pleasure, and irrevocably chosen 
 The gay devotion of Ethbaal's realm. 
 That beckons me to sprightlier ceremonies. 
 Each sense alluring, and each wish fulfilling. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Refulgent sun, declare 
 
 The fountain of thy glory, and the Power
 
 140 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 That g-ives thee to career in light and joy 
 
 From the pavilions of the morn 
 
 To where the crimson Occident 
 
 O'erhangs th' immeasurable sea. 
 
 Mazaroth, ye that bind 
 
 In mystic orb of constellated fires 
 
 The seasons and their change, 
 
 And all ye stellar guardians of the night, 
 
 Ye lamps that burn along the road to heaven. 
 
 Resound your Makei-'s praise : 
 
 And ye, the thousand times ten thousand. 
 
 That ministrant around the thunderous throne 
 
 In adoration bow. 
 
 Proclaim, for ye were present, and beheld 
 
 How from the womb of chaos and of night 
 
 Innumerable worlds arose 
 
 Obedient to Jehovah's call : 
 
 And ye beheld when at his look of doom 
 
 The doors and fountains of the deep 
 
 Were broken up, and desolation rode 
 
 Upon the boundless ocean that devoured 
 
 Earth and the generations of mankind, 
 
 Can deities of wood and stone 
 
 To th' unholy prayer and vow
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 141 
 
 Give audience or reply ? 
 
 The chiselled block derides 
 
 Its own besotted worshipper. 
 
 Who for the hewn similitude 
 
 Of monster, brute and fiend. 
 
 And loathly shapes and fantasies 
 
 Of superstition's brain. 
 
 Forsakes the Holy One of Israel, 
 
 Whose arm at Baal-zephon sepulchred 
 
 Proud Egypt in the deep. 
 
 And smiting Jordan's flood. 
 
 Dry-shod led his people through. 
 
 While from his presence in affright 
 
 The hills and mountains fled. 
 
 He dashed the walls of Jericho to dust. 
 
 And barbed with hail the clouds, 
 
 And bade their archery at Beth-lioron quell 
 
 The puissance of confederate kings. 
 
 And held the sun suspense 
 
 On Gibeon, and the moon in Ajalon, 
 
 And swelled the horned might of Kishon's flood 
 
 To whelm the steeds and cars of Sisera. 
 
 Deluded sinners ! turn. 
 
 Renounce your idols, and repent
 
 142 ELIAS IIYDROCHOUS. 
 
 While mercy may be found. 
 
 Lest inextinguishable fire 
 
 Consume you, and your memory leave 
 
 Detestable to latest age, 
 
 Like the salt pillar in that blasted plain, 
 
 Where stood Gomorrah, still beheld 
 
 A monumental woe. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Provoke me not too far, lest I forget 
 
 Your utter veorthlessness, how far beneath 
 
 The scope of my revenge ; beware the sword 
 
 Which indignation hath already half 
 
 Unsheathed to smite you. Ah ! why reels the frame 
 
 Of nature, what unwonted shadowing veils 
 
 The cheerful dawn ? 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 I hear a rushing sound 
 Of whirlwind, and the mountains disappear. 
 In eddying smoke involved ; and 'mid the gloom 
 I see — or is it all illusion ? No ;
 
 ELTAS HYDROCHOUS. 143 
 
 'Tis he : his very self. Hail, long- withheld. 
 And sought with tears, our lost Elias ! hail. 
 Interpreter of heaven ! 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Stern destiny 
 Hath borne him in the chariot of the winds. 
 And clad him with invulnerable arms : 
 The supernatural visiting confounds 
 And vanquishes : I tremble, and my limbs 
 Sink under me. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 Rise, Ahab, king of Israel, 
 And look upon me : He who brought me hither 
 Is passed by, and leaves thee to converse 
 As man with man. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Take courage, prince, and hold 
 The eventful colloquy : for on his brow 
 (Though mournful and austere) compassion dwells.
 
 144 ELI AS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Stand back ; and meddle not with things too high 
 For thee ; but carry thy vain babble hence 
 To where 'tis needed. Be it mine to face 
 The sudden foe. And art thou found, O thou 
 That troublest Israel ? 
 
 Eli AS. 
 
 Say not I am he 
 That troubleth Israel : their own sins, and thine 
 And of thy fathei-'s house, when ye forsook 
 The Lord your God, and followed Baalim, 
 Drew down the devastation. Mine were words 
 Of prophecy and message more than prayer. 
 But whatsoe'er they were, I did but speak 
 By prompture of the Spirit : his the voice 
 That barred the ethereal citadels, and shut 
 The windows of the rain. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 What pastime then 
 To thee and to thy God : the rivers dry.
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 145 
 
 The harvest parched, the vintages on fire, 
 The cry of orphans and the widow's groan : 
 Thyself in vaporous tabernacle veiled. 
 To range unseen at pleasure, and peruse 
 Our miseries, and bemock our lengthened woe. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 Bear witness, earth and heaven, if ever prince 
 
 In clemency his servants so forbore. 
 
 If ever father so unwilling smote 
 
 His disobedient children, as the Lord 
 
 Hath smitten Israel. Forty years he gave 
 
 His guardian presence in the wilderness. 
 
 Poured down the food of angels on your host, 
 
 Sent often his empyreal messengers 
 
 On embassies of love, and warned you oft 
 
 By judge and seer ; yet Him have ye renounced 
 
 For idols and for fiends. O had ye fallen 
 
 Into the hands of man, and had the wrath 
 
 Of God been sudden as the choleric heat 
 
 Of sublunary princes, long ago 
 
 All Israel in the sepulchre had slept. 
 
 Silence and night their covering, and the worm
 
 146 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Their winding sheet : or had Jehovah dealt 
 Strictly with your desert, a thousand years 
 Of sickness, famine, pestilence, and war. 
 Your cities sacked, your mountain garrisons 
 Scaled like a vulture's nest, your fields despoiled. 
 Your young men slain, your elders captive led, 
 Your infants dashed on stones, or perishing 
 Abortive in the womb, had not atoned 
 The vast offence : for all our history 
 Is lust, oppression, devil-sacrifice, 
 Age after age, from the rebellious routs 
 In Marah and Rephidim, to that day 
 Of blasphemy, when thy remorseless queen, 
 Ethbaal's blood-delighting daughter, slew 
 The prophets of the Lord. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 No : swallow down 
 That false and foul reproach again ; for well 
 Thou knowest, all perished not. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 Wherefore not all ? 
 Was that thy mercy ? Was it the relenting
 
 ELTAS HYDROCHOUS. 147 
 
 Of Ahab and of Jezebel, that saved 
 
 A remnant from the sword P Not one ye spared 
 
 Of all that could be found ; and had ye known 
 
 Their place of refuge, and the pious hand 
 
 That rescued them, the rest had perished too. 
 
 And with them their preserver : but his name 
 
 Is registered for a reward on high, 
 
 And known to God alone. Well have ye taught 
 
 Lessons of slaughter, and the people well 
 
 Have profited : like eagles from afar 
 
 They stoop upon the quarry, more athirst 
 
 For blood the more they gorge ; and day by day 
 
 From city drive to city, scarce in rocks 
 
 Secure, in forest, mountain, cave, or den. 
 
 The witnesses of Truth. How few are left 
 
 That still hold fast obedience, and adore 
 
 The Lord Most High ! 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Yet those elect, their God 
 Abandons to their fate : no manna falls 
 Around their dwelling, nor the luscious quail 
 
 L 2
 
 148 ELI AS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Upon their habitation, as of old 
 Amid the wilderness : no water-brook 
 For them uprises, nor the rain and dew 
 In sign of favour plenteousness impart. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 Are quails and manna, water-brook and rain, 
 All, or the best of all he can bestow ? 
 There is a sustenance, there is a gift 
 That savours not of earth, nor harbours taint 
 Of earth's corruption, but can smooth the brow 
 Of penury and pain, and light up smiles 
 Upon the cheek of death : there is a hope 
 Outsoars mortality ; there is a faith 
 Lays hold on bliss celestial. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Specious hypocrite. 
 Easy for thee to fable and to vaunt 
 Of hope and faith, exempted as thou art 
 From suffering : thii'st and hunger reach not thee. 
 For whom 2)rotecting Providence hath spread 
 A table in the desert : thou canst look
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 149 
 
 Sei'Qne on Israel's woe, while thine the smooth 
 And pleasant office, to prescribe content, 
 And dictate how salubrious are the sti'ipes 
 That touch not thee. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 And is it nothing then 
 That I am torn from my paternal fields. 
 From family and home, in banishment 
 Houseless to wander ? Nothing then to live 
 A thing forbidden, pining in the lair 
 Of savage beast, remote from man, cut off 
 From social intercourse ? Or wouidst thou change 
 For dreariment like this thy regal pomp 
 And luxury, leave thy soft voluptuous couch 
 To pillow thee on rocks, thy sumptuous board 
 To diet with the ravens, or thy domes 
 With cedar lined, and painted with vermillion. 
 For savage solitudes and antres wild ? 
 Earth and earth's comforts, what are they to me 
 Who scarce partake man's nature, nor may tread 
 The common paths of death ? But not for this 
 I came, not idly to hold argument
 
 150 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 With guilt that will not learn : but to display 
 In action, and proof palpable, the power 
 Of heaven's omnific Sire. Immediate call 
 The multitude that waits thee from each tribe 
 Of Israel, and to present issue bring 
 The strife of God with idols : let this day 
 Determine which the God that answer gives 
 By sign miraculous : and if not to me 
 Such answer be vouchsafed, then let me die. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Ha ! is it so ? and under the fair show 
 
 Of bold defiance lurks no fraudful snare? 
 
 Is there no secret peril, is no charm 
 
 Inwoven with thy life ? and if I take 
 
 The forfeiture, shall no blood-vestured plague. 
 
 No afterbirth of ill the deed avenge ? 
 
 Klias. 
 
 Are then thy gods so feeble, that a spell 
 Can baffle them ? Not so the Holy One 
 Omnipotent, before whose judgment-seat 
 And in whose hand once more I make ap])eal.
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 151 
 
 If miracle attest me not this day 
 Ambassador of God, be instant death 
 My lot ; nor Sidon's realm, nor Israel's tribes, 
 Nor thou nor thine shall ever rue the doom. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Moth and Beelphegor, rejoicing hear ! 
 
 I did but wish ; and fortune hath fulfilled 
 
 My utmost heart's desire : and see the priests 
 
 Of Baalim, by Abdias led, advance 
 
 Already : Abdias, measure back thy steps. 
 
 And bid expectant Israel to this place 
 
 Assemble straight. Ye prophets of the groves. 
 
 Behold your enemy, so long pursued 
 
 Through many a realm, while issued not a voice 
 
 From all our oracles to guide the search. 
 
 Or whisper hope ; behold him hither brought 
 
 Before our face, and given to our revenge. 
 
 Priest. 
 
 Magnific day ': 
 
 Fraught with conquest and with glory. 
 
 And tributary victims paid
 
 152 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 To Hivite images and shrines. 
 
 Ye Cemarim, arouse 
 
 Your instruments of music, and exalt 
 
 Baal-berith's peerless power. 
 
 And the name unparagoned, 
 
 Belth-samaim, queen of heaven. 
 
 Let canticle and hymn 
 
 O'er high-place and o'er grove resound. 
 
 O'er valley, plain and mountain. 
 
 Far-borne by secret magic of the winds 
 
 To Beth-Dagon's distant pile ; 
 
 Where the mighty habitant 
 
 Hearing shall applaud your joy. 
 
 Ijet the furnace glow 
 
 With seven-fold fury to consume 
 
 The base reviler of om- rites : 
 
 Storm and tempest sweep 
 
 His viewless ashes through mid air, 
 
 And with careering blast 
 
 Disperse them to the corners of the world. 
 
 Lest reposing they pollute 
 
 The region where they fall.
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 153 
 
 O Thou that sittest on the cherubim, 
 
 Awhile have pity and forbear : 
 
 Lest, if thou walk abroad in anger. 
 
 The pillars of the firmament 
 
 Astonished tremble, and before thy throne 
 
 Heaven and earth in terror fly, 
 
 And never more be found. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Thy prayers are imprecations : but rail on, 
 
 Unheeded ; never sound was on thy tongue 
 
 But uttered ill-portending speech. Rejoice 
 
 Ye prophets yet again : for had we seized 
 
 By violence of arms, or lured by fraud 
 
 Our foe into the snare, a doubt had risen 
 
 If safely we might trench upon a life 
 
 By Him protected, who at will withholds 
 
 The dew, the clouds and rain : but self-betrayed. 
 
 Self-brought, he comes ; abandoned of his God, 
 
 And open to assault : himself hath sworn. 
 
 That if no prodigy this day proclaim 
 
 His embassy divine, heaven never more
 
 154 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Will arm in his defence. The cause shall straight 
 Be tried in Israel's sight : already called, 
 They are at hand, and soon shall drag him forth 
 To the blasphemer's death. 
 
 Priest. 
 
 But why delay 
 Our vengeance ; and what cause is to be tried 
 In Israel's sight, and how ? 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Have I not said ? 
 The cause of Baal and Jehovah • here. 
 In open day, before the assembled tribes. 
 To prove by invocation which the power 
 That will miraculous answer give. 
 
 Alas! 
 
 Priest. 
 
 What means the king ? 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 What should I mean, but joy 
 And victory ? hast thou not a heart to share
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 155 
 
 The triumph, thankless that thou art ? what mean 
 Those wildered looks of dread ? 
 
 Priest. 
 
 A fearful sound 
 Is in mine ears, calamity and ruin 
 Glaring with horrid speculation, swim 
 Before my sight ; I shiver, and the pangs 
 Of death are on me. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 What hath changed thee thus ? 
 What madness or what demon thus hath bound thee 
 In trance of idle fear ? 
 
 Priest. 
 
 Say not, O king ! 
 An idle fear. I knew not he had come. 
 Self brought : it cannot be, he would have rushed 
 Thus wantonly on fate, but that he bears 
 A charmed life, a spell yet undivulged. 
 Which nothing may resist.
 
 156 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Abhorred slave ! 
 Ill fares the monarchy that lends an ear 
 To falsehood such as thine. I loathe the wretch 
 Who, constant to no purpose, yields and stoops 
 Like a wind-shaken reed. What aid hath he. 
 Save from his God ? And that by solemn oath 
 He hath renounced. Are all your multitudes 
 Affrighted at the sight of one ? 
 
 Priest. 
 
 His power 
 We know not what nor whence : but such it is 
 That when his angry imprecations roll. 
 The countless elemental host attend 
 And execute his will. A thousand fears 
 Environ me, and with mysterious dread 
 I shudder, and my brain turns round. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Are all 
 Alike conspired, and are the worshippers
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 157 
 
 Of Him who spake in Horeb with the priests 
 Of Baal leagued in union, each to each 
 Echoing one universal shriek and groan 
 Of presages funereal ? Come the worst 
 That can be thought upon, and let the foe 
 In ease and safety set at nought my power : 
 What then ? it were a rank indignity 
 Unwonted and unfit for kings to bear ; 
 But there the bodement ends : his rescued life 
 Imports no peril. 
 
 Priest. 
 
 Not to thee, O King ! 
 Fenced as thou art with the divinity 
 That prospers Omri's lineage : but to us 
 Bethink thee what must follow, if the throngs 
 Of Israel once misconstrue or mislike 
 Our worship and tradition. In the heart 
 Of the gross populace we must be all 
 Or nothing : either we are held as gods, 
 Or they to us impute, from us exact 
 Of all their trespass and of all their suffering 
 A bloody expiation.
 
 158 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Be it so : 
 Shall I for that, for them, or thee remit 
 One atom of my will ? If earth or heaven 
 Forego their wonted courses to defend 
 Our adversary, thou and thine have called 
 The peril on your heads : and let it come. 
 Thou hast provoked, and must abide it. Oft 
 Hast thou with vaunt and legendary tale 
 From better thought seduced me to confide 
 In Syrian gods and Baal's boundless sway : 
 These hast thou set before me as the sole 
 Protectors of my realm ; these now be thine. 
 
 Priest. 
 
 We fable not, O king ; our godheads then 
 As now were mighty ; but dissolved in bliss 
 They note not every chance. At such an hour. 
 While Baal sleeps, Jehovah issues forth. 
 Dispeopling empires.
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 159 
 
 Elias. 
 
 Cease your arguings, vain 
 Deceivers, and deceived, self-blinded, self- 
 Undone : for when discourse of reason weaves 
 The web of sin, when pandering to damnation 
 Ye plead the cause of fiends, Jehovah hears. 
 Records, and dooms, and on the impenitent 
 Rains tempest, fire, perdition infinite. 
 Unquenchable : then lust and murder howl". 
 Then blasphemies obscene convert to groans 
 That respite never know. Enough : thy will 
 Hath been obeyed : the congregation comes, 
 O King ; and inspiration visitant 
 Awakes my parable. Ah, sinful nation ! 
 Ah, people laden with iniquity I 
 Why halt ye thus between the severing ways 
 Of life and death ? For if the Lord be God 
 Him worship, and Him only : but if Baal, 
 Then follow him. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Yet unassur'd, they press 
 With eyeballs on the strain to nearer view ;
 
 160 ELIAS HYDROCnOUS. 
 
 Then back, as from a fearful apparition. 
 
 Recoiling, gaze in consternation, shame, 
 
 And tongueless wonder. Such the pause ere winds 
 
 Mix in tumultuary uproar, and rend 
 
 The cedars and the rocks of Lebanon. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 Four hundred priests and fifty in the groves 
 Of Baal, and around his altars bow, 
 I, even I alone, am to be found 
 A prophet of the Lord ; none else dare own 
 A name so fatal : single here I stand 
 Against a host. The sheep and oxen know 
 Their owner ; and the turtle and the crane. 
 The stork and swallow keep the appointed times 
 And seasons of their coming : man alone 
 (Though prime of all the creatures) will not hear 
 The bidding of his Maker. Hither bring 
 Two bullocks : one let these idolatrous 
 Slay and divide : and pile it upon wood. 
 And put no fire beneath : myself will slay 
 And lay on wood the victim that remains. 
 But without fire. Then call ye on the name
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 161 
 
 Of all your gods, and I will invocate 
 The Lord ; and he that answereth by fire, 
 Let him be God. 
 
 . People. . 
 
 'Tis just ; and spoken well. 
 
 Priest. 
 
 Again before thy feet we fall : O change 
 Thy purposes, great king ! nor cast us down 
 Into the deluge dark and turbulent 
 Of peril. Think, ere yet it be too late 
 For hope and mercy. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Think me not a leaf 
 To shake with every wind. The word is past 
 Irrevocable : shall I be forsworn. 
 And start aside from compact in the view 
 Of Israel, and in presence of the sun P 
 The wide world perish rather ! Answer not 
 
 M
 
 162 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 But by obedience ; or the brazen hoof 
 
 Of power shall trample you into your graves. 
 
 Priest. 
 
 O lost — for ever lost — 
 
 Miserable they who trust 
 
 In princes ; miserable they 
 
 Who for a monarch's smile renounce 
 
 The service of their God. 
 
 Whither can we turn. 
 
 Or whither can we fly ? 
 
 Eveiy way lost — the vengeance and the curse 
 
 We called for, fall on our own heads. 
 
 And ruin drags us to the dire abysme 
 
 Whence no return. 
 
 Ye vales, and mountain groves, no more 
 
 Shall we behold you : farewel to the pomp 
 
 And revelry of sacrificial feast ; 
 
 Farewel to the light. 
 
 And to the pleasureable day. 
 
 While into bottomless despair 
 
 Unpitied we descend. 
 
 O that we were the womi
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 163 
 
 And reptile crawling' in the dust — 
 
 O that we could melt 
 
 To nothing — that we never had been born. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 The victims are at hand. Ye first essay 
 The rites, for ye are many ; and prepare 
 Your holocaust, and to the fuel bring- 
 No mortal fire ; but supplicate your Gods, 
 If peradventure from the cavern's gult; 
 Or pregnant cloud, or sun, or errant star, 
 Or furnaces of over-arching heaven. 
 Swift conflagration answer to your call. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Now on th' enchanter priesthood (sure though late). 
 Falls retribution : circummur'd and watched 
 By Israel's tribes, they taste the bitterness 
 Of death already, while from side to side 
 *rhey glance, as meditating flight. How heave 
 Their bosoms in dismay : with downcast looks. 
 With sunken eyes, with trembling lips and hands, 
 
 M 2
 
 164 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Reluctantly around their altar go 
 The lamentable throng : small heart have they 
 To chant the song of idols, or to clang 
 With timbrel and with dance. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 Their earthly life 
 Is forfeit : what hereafter may befal 
 The spirits from their fleshy tenement 
 Dismissed to judgment, that in solemn awe 
 Forbear we to define ; th' account that sums 
 Their trespasses, must never be unroll'd. 
 Till in the last sin-offering earth, and sea. 
 And huge circumference of the skies consume. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 O altar rent in twain ! 
 
 O ashes of the sacrifice 
 
 Poured out abroad, what time the royal hand 
 
 Withered in act to seize 
 
 The prophet who at Bethel's shrine proclaimed 
 
 Woe to idolatry !
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHQUS. 165 
 
 Voice or utterance need ye none 
 
 To record the wrath supreme 
 
 Incumbent on each high-place, fane, and grove 
 
 Where heathen incantation scares the sun 
 
 With mingled rites of lust and blood. 
 
 The giant Anakim were driven 
 
 From Hebron and their vaunted towers 
 
 That nestled in the rock, 
 
 The gory Canaanites were slain 
 
 From Merom's waters east to Mizpeh's vale ; 
 
 Their steeds were maimed, their chariots burnt with 
 
 fire. 
 Their populous cities heard 
 No tread of human feet ; the lion walked 
 Along the grass-grown streets. 
 And bitterns screamed beside the stagnant pool. 
 Such peace have they who bow 
 To idols, and forsake the Living Lord : 
 Could they under mountains hide. 
 Or in the central earth their impious throngs. 
 Even there would he o'ertake them in the deep, 
 And turn the sheltering darkness into day. 
 Or if their impious pride 
 With brief prosperity permissive crowned.
 
 166 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Above the stars of God aspire 
 
 Into the palaces of heaven ; 
 
 Suddenly, ere speech 
 
 Or thought can mark, they fall 
 
 To helpless ruin, hopeless woe ; 
 
 Their pomp, magnificence, and power 
 
 Vanished like the morning dew. 
 
 And not a place or name behind. 
 
 But the progress of the just 
 
 In ever-during blessedness serene. 
 
 Measures with inexhausted strength 
 
 The drear and barren wild. 
 
 Careless of the burning sand. 
 
 Unconscious of the stifling blast ; 
 
 So full their hearts of hopes 
 
 So fixed on immortality their gaze. 
 
 When tempest and when danger swell. 
 
 Deep calling deep, the winds and waves. 
 
 The seas and skies contending, 
 
 Till rocks are rooted from their base. 
 
 And mountains hurled to the profound 
 
 Of ocean, still they smile 
 
 At the vain turmoil of the storm. 
 
 And o'er the cloud-assaulting billows walk
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 In unappalled peace ; 
 
 Till on eagle-wings they mount 
 
 Into interminable joy, 
 
 And in their flesh see God. 
 
 ' Ahab. 
 
 Of this no more. It is not now a time, 
 I am not now at leisure, nor at ease. 
 To hear or to reprove thee, while the hours 
 Drag thus in long delay. The ritual pomp 
 Is all complete, and punctual in each shape 
 Of ceremony and sanctimonious charm 
 Which antique usage bids. Why linger then 
 The voices that vaticinate, the powers 
 That oft in temple, or iipbowering grove, 
 By fall of waters, or in craggy cleft. 
 
 Gave signal and response ? 
 
 Elias. 
 
 It is because 
 They have been summoned to the combating 
 Of open day, and hunted from the dens 
 
 167
 
 168 
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Where enginry and secret avennes. 
 
 Practised along the vaulting or the walls 
 
 Or pavement of the dusky shrine, gave form 
 
 And semblance to false wonders. Such thy Gods ; 
 
 So motionless, and impotent, and dumb. 
 
 Till human fraud abet them. Sentinelled 
 
 By guards like these, O how defenceless stands 
 
 The city which on Shemei-'s purchased hill 
 
 Thy father Omri year by year adorned 
 
 In envy, to outparagon the praise 
 
 Of Salem's templed bulwarks ! but unblest 
 
 He builded in unrighteousness his towers. 
 
 Nor called o'er his metropolis the Name 
 
 Of Jacob's God : hence, like the mellow hangings 
 
 Of palm and vine, her unprotected wealth 
 
 Serves but to lure the plunderer. Think betimes. 
 
 And Him invoke whose omnipresent arm 
 
 Can strengthen thine endangered gates with bolt 
 
 And bar impregnable : bid Israel cast 
 
 Aside their idols, and in penitence 
 
 Adoring, mourn : contrition is the pledge 
 
 Of iii-ace and covenant with auxiliar heaven.
 
 ELI AS HYDROCHOUS. 169 
 
 Priest. 
 
 Hoarse with our agonizing cries, and faint 
 
 With toil, our strength suffices scarce to leap 
 
 Upon thine altars, Baal, or conjure 
 
 Thy succour : hear us, king of ether ! hear 
 
 Thy suppliants tottering on the precipice 
 
 Of death : for see, how the regardless sun 
 
 Is stooping from his noontide tower, and half. 
 
 And more than half our respite from the sword 
 
 Is past and gone. Thou hearest not : O yet 
 
 Gird on the sword, brandish the spear, and hurl 
 
 Thy fire-shafts on our offerings ! 
 
 Elias. 
 
 Cry aloud. 
 He is a God, and wherefore answers not ? 
 Is he consulting, or in hot pursuit 
 Of routed foes, or to a distant land 
 On journey bound ? or peradventure, worn 
 With warlike feats, he slumbers ; nor awakes. 
 Till started from oblivion by the din 
 Of ceaseless clamour.
 
 170 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Franticly they vent 
 Their inarticulate woe : see how they slash 
 Tlieir naked arms, till streams the gushing blood 
 O'er knife and lancet. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 By a thread they hang 
 Between two worlds, from succour and from hope 
 Shut out beyond redemption, scarce alive. 
 Ruin before, behind, on every side. 
 Above them God, beneath them hell. Aloud 
 They cry to Baal, to the graven stock 
 That cannot help, nor hear. There was an hour 
 For mercy, but they spurned away the boon ; 
 And neither Israel's tribes, nor Israel's king. 
 Nor aU the hosts and princedoms of the world 
 Can save them now. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 And have I lived to hear 
 Contempt and arrogance like this ? But know.
 
 ELTAS HYDROCHOUS. 171 
 
 There yet is power in Israel to control 
 Thy bloody will. Ye prophets of the groves. 
 Give to the wind your fears : for by my queen. 
 My dignities and life I swear, that end 
 The strife as end it may, whate'er betide, 
 Whate'er befal, though earth be shaken, skiesr 
 Be opened, and blue cataracts of fire 
 Rush down, yet my supremacy shall walk 
 Around you, and forbid th' approach of harm. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 'Tis deeply sworn : and since the kingly oath 
 Is past that so it shall be, ye are safe. 
 If earth-born prowess with Omnipotence 
 Can vie, or dust and ashes cope with heaven. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 How feeble in such strife habergeon, spear, 
 Purple and domination, hosts and realms. 
 Time witnesses, and we have heard of yore 
 From our forefathers. Jericho and Ai, 
 Midian and Amalek, and Bashan's king. 
 And Kirjath-Arba, and from Halak mount
 
 172 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 To Baal-Gad in Lebanon's rich vale. 
 
 And Debir's brood, and Razor's fire-doomed towers. 
 
 Defied the armies of the Living Lord, 
 
 But from the presence of Jehovah fled 
 
 As hornets from the blast. 
 
 Priest. 
 
 Divinities 
 Of Zidon and of Tyre, awake and see. 
 Hear and avenge ! By all our service past. 
 Our genuflections, sacrifices, vows. 
 Our self-gashed nakedness, and streaming gore. 
 Hear from your bosky summits, greenwood haunts. 
 Rocky clefts and pebbled rills ! 
 Remphan and Asarach, give ear 
 In this our utmost need ! 
 Chemos and Anamelech, 
 Behold us, and defend ! 
 Is there still no voice, no sign. 
 No speech nor answer, though the day 
 Lower and lower yet 
 From its meridian height descend P 
 Career not thus, impatient sun.
 
 ELI AS HYDROCHOUS. 17 
 
 Nor with thy swift-declining beams 
 
 Mock at our misery. 
 
 Check his fatal speed. 
 
 Queen of the firmament ! 
 
 And drive him backward to his orient halls. 
 
 Or chain him motionless in mid-way heaven. 
 
 Unheeding he rides oh. 
 
 Not a vision, not a sound. 
 
 Not a chance is left. 
 
 Not a hope remains ; 
 
 WhUe the westward orb 
 
 Inexorable goes down. 
 
 O for a moment to recal 
 
 That parting radiance : still it sinks. 
 
 It disappears — the rest is death. 
 
 And the dreadful judgment-day, 
 
 Th' eternal and insufferable doom. 
 
 Whose very thought is hell. 
 
 A thousand long-forgotten deeds of sin. 
 
 Too late remembered, now before our sight. 
 
 In legioned horror glare. 
 
 And all around us flock the throngs 
 
 Innumerable, of murdered innocents 
 
 To Moloch sacrificed by fire 
 
 o
 
 174 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 In that detested vale. 
 
 Fall on us, hills and mountains, 
 
 Hide us from Jehovah's eye. 
 
 The bottomless profound 
 
 To devour us opens wide. 
 
 And blazes, thunders, groans. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 Weep ; for ye have full cause : no power is mine 
 
 {Whate'er my inward will) to let you go; 
 
 So rank is your offence, so long inured 
 
 To falsehood, so obdurate to blaspheme. 
 
 Ye cannot call it ignorance ; for ye knew 
 
 The law ere ye forsook it, the decree 
 
 Inflexible, that nothing may redeem 
 
 Idolaters from death : it is no time 
 
 To dally, Avhen rebellion against God 
 
 Infects our confines ; mercy is in league 
 
 With justice then to stay the plague, and close 
 
 The mouths that open only to persuade 
 
 Impiety and lust. I was not sent 
 
 To change the Law's pre-ordinance, or mix 
 
 Mine own short-sighted pity witli behest
 
 ELTAS HYDROCHOUS. 175 
 
 Of sovereign power : and therefore, though with feet 
 
 Reluctant, though in grief I come, constrained 
 
 By embassy and office to convict 
 
 And yield you up idolaters, to abide 
 
 Th' appointed doom. 'Tis now the solemn hour 
 
 Of evening sacrifice, the hour divine 
 
 Wherein Jehovah day by day made pause 
 
 In his creation, and with blessing sealed 
 
 The perfect work: O hour so lovely once 
 
 In holier years, when Isaac's heritage 
 
 Walked yet with God, and earth resembled heaven, 
 
 How hast thou long been lonely and forgotten. 
 
 Thy vows how silent, and thy services 
 
 How slighted and profaned ! Each idol shrine 
 
 A thousand hands adorn : but how defaced. 
 
 How moss-clad, violated, broken down. 
 
 The altar of the Lord ! To you I turn. 
 
 Assembled multitudes. Twelve stones collect. 
 
 According to the number of the tribes 
 
 Of Jacob, whom the Lord in Peniel named 
 
 Israel, redoubted prince ; and build anew 
 
 God's altar, and around it make a trench 
 
 Ample and deep.
 
 176 ELI AS IIYDROCHOUS. 
 
 People. 
 At thy command 'tis clone. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 The wood I range in order, and divide 
 The victim-steer, and on the wood dispose 
 His reeking limbs. Stand not aloof; advance, 
 Mark well, look narrowly, and record bear 
 No fire or spark is nigh. Next, to confirm 
 Your own eye-witness surer still, with speed 
 From Kishon water bring, and on the wood 
 And on the bullock pour ; the second time. 
 And yet the third time with insatiate drench 
 Flood the piled fuel. 
 
 People. 
 
 Thrice have we obeyed ; 
 And, lo ! the prodigal effusion streams 
 Redundant from the altar, and dilates 
 In spacious current.
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 177 
 
 Elias. 
 
 Yet remains to fill 
 
 The circling- trench. 
 
 People. 
 
 We fill, and it o'erflows. 
 And far and wide around the thirsty sand 
 Is gladdened with the moisture. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 What imports 
 
 > 
 
 The tedious ceremonial ? will it ne'er 
 Have end ? what means this studied circumstance, 
 This lingering preparation, that provokes 
 Disdain and laughter ? Will the waters blaze 
 At thy command, proud Tishbite ? But I thank 
 Thy vaunting folly that hath made impossible 
 The succour of confederate fraud, and stamped 
 My victory doubly sure. Haste, to the proof. 
 Impostor ; meet thy doom, embrace thy death, 
 
 N
 
 178 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Jacob, 
 Let it be known this day that thou art God 
 In Israel, and that I have done all this 
 According to thy will. Hear me, O Lord ! 
 Hear me, that all the people may adore 
 In penitence thy Name. 
 
 Priest. 
 
 O mercy — mercy — 
 
 People. 
 The Lord he is the God ! the Lord he is the God ! 
 
 Chorus, 
 
 Glory to God on high ! 
 Speech and sight confounding. 
 Fire from the Lord hath fallen. 
 And consumed the sacrifice :
 
 ELTAS HYDROCHOUS. 179 
 
 Prostrate sink the congregation 
 
 Nerveless and unmanned. 
 
 Merciful heaven, recal 
 
 My senses, that they wander not. 
 
 The wood, the stones, the dust. 
 
 Are vanished into clouds of smoke 
 
 That breathe a fragrancy divine ; 
 
 While the swift combustion 
 
 Hath drunk the waters of the trencli, and left 
 
 The broad capacious bottom singed and bare. 
 
 People. 
 The Lord he is the God ! the Lord he is the God ! 
 
 Elias. 
 
 Who then are these ? What wonder if the land 
 For your offence be barren, while the feet 
 Unhallowed and unblest of idol priests 
 Pollute the sacred region ? Plenty ne'er 
 Shall answer to your tillage, benison 
 Shall never crown your dwelling, till their blood 
 Make expiation. Seize them, bear them hence 
 To death ; let none escape. 
 
 n2
 
 180 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Priest. 
 
 O horror — horror — 
 Chain, torture, starve ; more miserable make us 
 Than want and leprosy ; trample us down 
 Like a vile bondsman or a bondsman's slave. 
 So we but live : or grant us a delay, 
 A little respite, for an hour, a moment ; 
 We ask no more : ye will not slay us yet. 
 While prostrate thus and fainting' lies the king. 
 Whose oath was pledged for our defence. O think 
 Of your allegiance, and deny him not. 
 Your own anointed sovereign, time to breathe. 
 And speak his will. 
 
 People. 
 
 We know not if he live 
 Or die ; and we ourselves may perish next. 
 If we delay : alive or dead, his power 
 Avails you not.
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Elias. 
 
 181 
 
 It is no question now 
 Of earthly potentate ; a mightier hand 
 Is working, and the King of kings hath fixed 
 Unchangeably your doom : I may not spare. 
 And therefore will not hear you. Men of Israel, 
 Yours is the ministry : but lest they fall 
 On consecrated ground, to Kishon's stream 
 Drag the devoted throng, and slay them there. 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 Bewildered and astounded I forget 
 My duty to the king, whose lengthened swoon 
 May stretch to dissolution. Chafe his brows. 
 And gently bend him forward : he respires : 
 I feel the pressure of his hand. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 O misery ! 
 Call me not back ; methought I had escaped
 
 182 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 To sleep and darkness : plunge me not again 
 Into the fiery deep. 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 Press not around 
 So closely ; give him air : he scarcely breathes. 
 And knows not what he utters. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Still no hope 
 Of pardon ? yet awhile forbear me — quench 
 Th' intolerable flame. 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 What means my lord — 
 What means the king of Israel P 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Let me sleep, 
 liet me sleep on for ever : wake me not 
 To pangs infernal.
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 183 
 
 Be not thus dismayed : 
 There is no cause : revive thee, and arise : 
 Look round, my sovereign. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Am I not ingulfed 
 In sulphurous seas of everlasting flame ? 
 The light that blinds me, is it not the blaze 
 Of conflagration ? and the winds I feel. 
 Are they not rolling fire ? Where is the fierce 
 Refulgent hierarch, that struck me down 
 To nethmost hell ? even yet demoniac screams 
 I hear, and see a thousand hideous things 
 That language has no name for. Near me stand, 
 Abdias, and nearer yet : thy presence cheers. 
 And will protect me. 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 Let the king recal 
 His scattered thoughts : no enemy is nigh : 
 And all may yet be well.
 
 184 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 How deep a gloom 
 Saddens the twilight ; what a silence awes 
 The listening world ! why am I thus alone ? 
 And ah ! — what sudden change of horror comes ? 
 Again I hear the fiendly yell, and groans, 
 Deep groans of death. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 The prophets of the groves. 
 And Baal's priests, are by the people hence 
 To slaughter borne ; and Kishon's channel flows 
 Impurpled with their blood. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Evil betide 
 The tongue that tells me so. And who hath dared 
 Such treason ? — Fool to ask — there is but one 
 Would so presume, so desperately defy 
 The majesty of kings. And art thou here, 
 O enemy of Israel ! Get thee gone 
 Into thy solitudes, thy rocks and dens,
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 185 
 
 And with thy woodland savages consort, 
 Fiercer thyself than they : hence, and beware : 
 Exult not — I shall find a time — 
 
 Elias. 
 
 At least 
 'Tis now no time to threaten or blaspheme. 
 When here, as erst on Sinai, walks the Lord 
 In more immediate presence ; whose approach. 
 Rocking earth's vast rotundity, unbars 
 With unimaginable touch the dark 
 Abode of clouds and dew. I hear the sound 
 Of an abundant rain : arise, retire. 
 And speedily with needful sustenance 
 Repair thy vigour, wasted with the fast 
 Of this eventful day. Myself the while 
 To Carmel's top in meditation go. 
 And wait the benediction. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 As he went. 
 His hair, his beard, and all his visage streamed 
 With unction of celestial light ; his feet
 
 186 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Disdained the ground ; and gliding through the air 
 He seemed an angel ministrant^ from earth 
 In glory re-ascending to the sky. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 He takes upon him state, and gives command 
 As though he were a king ; and (shame to speak) 
 I bear it ; for he has me in the toils. 
 And holds me captive : his the present hour : 
 The future may be mine. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 How hard for pride 
 To think submission ! Frowning he departs. 
 And in a hot distemperature : so looks 
 The famished lion, when by force repelled 
 From his new-grappled prey : heaven subjugate 
 The mutiny of his will, and soften down 
 That stubborn heart. 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 Unhappy is the land 
 Whose j)rophets prophesy deceit, whose priests
 
 ELI AS HYDROCHOUS. 187 
 
 False visions see, and dream delusive dreams. 
 Whose counsellors in idol fanes bow down. 
 Whose monarch swerves from virtue ; peril then. 
 And woe and pestilence are nigh : abroad 
 The venom flies, and far and wide the realm 
 Is tainted by example. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Wonderful 
 Is the mercy of Jehovah, 
 Waiting long, and sending oft, 
 Early and late, the monitors 
 Of penitence, the blest ambassadors 
 Of peace and pardon : full of wonder 
 Are all the works of God ! 
 Children's children shall proclaim 
 The history of this hour : 
 Sacred no less to memory than the voice 
 Of visitation and of woe. 
 When from Gilgal came 
 The chiding angel of the Lord 
 To Bochim ; and the people wept 
 At his rebuke, and sacrificed
 
 1^8 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Before the Lord with praise 
 
 And remorseful supplication. 
 
 In wrath remembering mercy. 
 
 The God of Israel hath withdrawn 
 
 The blast of his displeasure : yon expanse 
 
 Of lucid atmosphere shall gloom 
 
 With gathering vapours, while the clouds 
 
 Drop fatness down. 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 What power hath zeal ! with what a lion heart 
 
 Jehovah's servants work his will ! the rage 
 
 Of kings, the scorner's mockery, and th' uproar 
 
 Of anarchy and slaughter cannot shake 
 
 Their stedfast soul : the moon may hide her beams. 
 
 The mid-day sun grow pale, the morning stars 
 
 Like lightning fall from heaven ; but undismayed 
 
 Appeal they to the Mercy-seat on high. 
 
 And faithful as the sun their orb perform. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Their progress is from strength to strength. 
 From perfection to perfection.
 
 ELTAS HYDROCHOUS. 189 
 
 Mounting indefectible. 
 
 Such the perennial influences 
 
 That sanctify th' elect of God 
 
 With imbreathed incorruption ; 
 
 Such the consolatories 
 
 Which in the glass of contemplation seen, 
 
 Imparadise the soul. 
 
 From her poor tenement of clay 
 
 Aspiring on imperishable plume 
 
 To pass the hiarriers that disjoin 
 
 The feeble child of pain and sorrow. 
 
 With dim mortality eye-filmed o'er. 
 
 From the beatific vision 
 
 Of the inexpressive Sire. 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 Yet bartering (mindless of religion's bliss) 
 
 Our birth-right for the transitory gust 
 
 Of appetite, the Canaanitish gods 
 
 Have we enshrined and worshipped. Scarce three 
 
 years 
 In blight and drought and famine groaned away. 
 And scarce the heaven-enkindled sacrifice
 
 190 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Could discipline our wandering to draw back 
 From the high-ways of hell. But clemency. 
 Outrunning our contrition, to the fields 
 Gives harvest now : health in our palaces. 
 And peace and plenteousness within our walls. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 How terrible, O Lord ! 
 
 The tabernacles of thy power, when veiled 
 
 In dark severity thy countenance 
 
 Is hidden from created eye. 
 
 On the right-hand unapproached. 
 
 On the left invisible. 
 
 O Lord ! how excellent 
 
 The tabernacles of thy power. 
 
 When mercy lightens up the drear obscure. 
 
 Diffusing over earth and heaven 
 
 The sunshine of immeasurable peace. 
 
 How oft, when war and servitude 
 
 Had visited our sin, and left 
 
 Our joyous cities pale. 
 
 And solitary as the pelican 
 
 Or desert owl.
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 191 
 
 Have the legions of Jehovah 
 
 With emblazonry of light 
 
 Environed us, and given 
 
 To our scant battle and unpractised arms 
 
 Strefigth irresistible to blast 
 
 The pride of heathen kings. 
 
 For this the prophetess forsook 
 
 Her judgment-seat beneath the spreading palm 
 
 In Ephraim mount, and with Abinoam's son 
 
 Led their ten thousand to subdue 
 
 The numberless array and iron host 
 
 Of Jabin's tyrant realm : 
 
 For this the valiant sword 
 
 Of him from Abiezer smote, 
 
 When his three hundred scared the camp 
 
 Of Midian, and with rout and slaughter chased 
 
 Their myriads over Jordan, and o'erthrew 
 
 The remnant fifteen thousand that encamped 
 
 In Karkor with their death-doomed kinsfs, 
 
 Zebah and Zalmunna : 
 
 For this the matchless Nazarite 
 
 Pulled down the vault of Gaza's fane 
 
 Upon the heads of populace and peer. 
 
 Amid their idol revelry.
 
 192 
 
 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 With all their sculptured Gods, 
 
 That with himself a nation lay intombed. 
 
 O ! if obdurate still 
 
 In heathen groves we burn 
 
 Incense, and eat the offerings of the dead, 
 
 Was never guilt like ours. 
 
 Nor like ours shall be perdition. 
 
 God of our fathers ! shield us from the curse 
 
 Of unrepented sin : 
 
 Else — but wherefore strays 
 
 Adown my cheek th' involuntary sorrow ? 
 
 And wherefore weighs dejection 
 
 So heavy on my heart ? 
 
 Museful Melancholy 
 
 Hath led me to a vale of shadows 
 
 And fastnesses of death ; 
 
 Where enlabyrinthed I wander 
 
 In wild presageful woe. 
 
 In other spheres I roam. 
 
 And sounds of other ages hear — 
 
 Heavy tidings, doleful vision, 
 
 A slaughtered people, ravaged fields, 
 
 And cities wrapt in penal fire. 
 
 The dreadful implement of wrath.
 
 ELIAS IlYDROCligi'S. 193 
 
 The conqueror from Assyria comes : 
 And prince and people in captivity 
 And exiled bondage pine. 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 The king returns : impetuous and uneven 
 His g'ait ; and in the working of his brow 
 I read unquiet thought. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Why did 1 hope 
 For solace ? rest and ease are gone for ever. 
 What am I but a shadow of the king. 
 If thus defied I cannot stretch an arm 
 Against one rebel life ? my very breath 
 I draw in pain, till I have blood for blood. 
 Yet tell me, Abdias (for my troubled soul 
 But ill remembers), did he not predict 
 The near approach of rain :' 
 
 o
 
 194 ELLIS IIYDUOCHOUS. 
 
 Abdias. 
 
 Such was his word : 
 And well we know, from those heaven-tutored lips 
 No promise ever vain or frustrate fell. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 It cannot be. What power hath he to bind 
 Or loose the clouds ? My royalty and pride 
 Cry out amain, revenge ! and for revenge 
 I will envisage the most hideous shape 
 That danger can put on. But who is this. 
 What breathless messenger;, whose violent speed 
 Outstrips the wind ? 
 
 Messenger. 
 
 By me Elias greets 
 The sovereignty ol" Israel, and forewarns 
 Thy chariot and thine horsemen to prepare. 
 And with dispatchful haste to Jezreel ride, 
 Ere yet the rain-swollen torrents intercept 
 Thy progress.
 
 ELTAS IIYDROCHOUS. 195 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Who and what, and whence art thou. 
 And where thy sender ? where the pluvial haze. 
 The vaporous breezes, the meteorous signs 
 
 And harbingers of rain ? 
 
 Messengkr. 
 
 I am the son 
 Of that poor widow underneath whose roof 
 In Zarephath the man of God sojourned. 
 And day by day miraculously fed 
 Our penury : and when a sore disease 
 Had wasted me to death, his pity heard 
 My mother's frantic cries, and by his prayer 
 Recalled me from the grave : that life redeemed. 
 To him and to his service I devote. 
 In fond though Aveak requital. When he left 
 Thy presence, mighty prince, on me he called 
 To follow him ; and instant as the word, 
 I was caught up ; smooth sailing on the deeps 
 Of the thin atmosphere, aloft we went
 
 lyO' ELIAS IIY'DROCIIOUS. 
 
 To Cancel's top ; and at a cavern's mouth 
 Beneath the rugged brow the prophet paused. 
 And on a rock sat down, and o'er liis face 
 Folded his mantle, and reclined his head 
 In tongueiess ecstasy of meditation. 
 At length he bade me scale the craggy peak 
 'I'hat overhangs the cave, and look abroad 
 Upon the western waves ; abroad I looked. 
 But not a speck nor breath was in the skies. 
 The boundless ocean slept, th' horizon glowed 
 With tranquil red, and lethargy had lulled 
 Earth and the circumambient glimmering air. 
 Seven times again at his command I climbed. 
 And seaward looked : the seventh time I beheld 
 A small and misty cloud, like human hand. 
 Arising from the deep. The prophet then. 
 Bade me in chariot of the wind ride hither 
 And warn the king to Jezreel, ere the rain 
 Obstruct his way. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Adorable Supreme ! 
 Wliat thanks, what praise, what blessings can repay
 
 ELIAS IIYDROCIIOUS. 197 
 
 Thy boundless grace ! The Godhead comes : the 
 
 skies 
 Are black with clouds and wind. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 How darksome lours 
 The tempest ; mingling- heaven and earth : he comes. 
 With Avhirlwind armed and thunder : follow me, 
 Abdias, and let us hence ; with heavy heart 
 And heavy tidings to my queen I go. 
 Ere yet the volleyed lightning strike me dead. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 What means yon aiTowy flame 
 
 Air-kindled on the mountain's murky brow ? 
 
 Is it a star from heaven 
 
 Gliding down the craggy steep 
 
 In lengthening stream of fire ? 
 
 It comes upon me, and assumes 
 
 The stature, and the motion 
 
 And lineaments of Adam's sons : 
 
 Tt is himself, the wonderous seer.
 
 1^8 ELTAS IIYDROCflOUS. 
 
 Th' intelligencer divine ! 
 
 What hand upbears thee, wings thy speed. 
 
 And vestures thee in blaze 
 
 Of majesty and lustre that confound 
 
 My mortal vision ? 
 
 Come not in avenging glory, 
 
 Like the minister of wrath, 
 
 Who from Dan to Beersheba 
 
 His seventy thousand slew , 
 
 Till beside Araunah's floor 
 
 The voice of mercy stayed 
 
 His hand, already stretched abroad 
 
 To destroy Jerusalem, 
 
 Elias. 
 
 The Spirit of the Lord 
 
 Is on me, and I honour in the sight 
 
 Of Israel's heritage their hard-ruled king. 
 
 Space still is lent him, still he breathes, 
 
 Not yet irrevocably cast 
 
 To condemnation. 
 
 To Jezreel gates I run, 
 
 A living torch before the royal car.
 
 ELIAS HYDROCllOL'S. 199 
 
 To guide his wheels unerring- and secure, 
 Through perilous pass and rugged plain, 
 Up dizzy mount, and into dell profound, 
 Amid the dense tempestuous gloom 
 Of whirlwind and of midnight. 
 
 Chorus. 
 Dazzling and momentary as the flash 
 Of lightning east and west illumining 
 The storm-fraught clouds, or interlunar dark. 
 The prophet disappeared : the neighing steeds. 
 The shouting charioteers, and acclamation 
 Of the wild populace already speak 
 The sovereign's course begun. From Kishon's banks 
 The congregation flocking, ujjward gaze. 
 And passionately catch, and in the palm 
 Of every hand with glad astonishment 
 Shew each to each the first prelusive drops 
 Of long-wished rain. Slumbrous serenity 
 Hushes the welkin, and in moisture pure. 
 Soft-trickling as the dew on Gideon's fleece. 
 And seasonable and mild, all heaven distils — 
 Sweeter than honey, riclier than tlie "old
 
 200 ELIAS HYDROCHOUS. 
 
 Of Ophir. Faster now, and taster yet 
 The pattering- treasures fall : the whistling winds 
 Renew their battles, and amain 
 Roars the dread-bolted thunder. 
 What sable oceans roll. 
 Shrouding' Carmel's head ! 
 They burst : the firmamental floods 
 In deluges descending, from his sides 
 Rebounding smoke. Lord of eternity ! 
 Glory and honour, might, dominion, praise, 
 ■To Thee on earth be ever sung, 
 As in the immortal paradise 
 Where Thou reignest evermore. 
 Clouds and darkness rolled around thee, 
 Mercy and truth the habitation of thy throne. 
 The full-voiced Cherubim resound. 
 Day and night and without end, 
 Hallelujah ' hallelujah ! 
 
 riii; i:m>.
 
 NOTES. 
 
 (a) . — Page 3. 
 
 The round towers of Ireland have been described as watch-towers 
 (or beacons) as belfries, as places of penance, and as fire-temples ; 
 but as Mr. Rickman observes, in his admirable essay on Gothic 
 Architecture, " their particulcir service is very difficult to assign." 
 
 (/.).— Page 3. 
 
 Here occurs a slight (and the only) deviation from literal fact. 
 The result of the race was, as here stated : but we did not person- 
 ally wdtness it ; being engaged in the Gap of Dunlow. 
 
 (c).— Page 10. - 
 " Mountain-dew" — alias Whiskey. 
 
 (d).— Page 15. 
 " Upland of the Boar" — " Turk-Mountain" — from Tore, a Boar. 
 
 (/).-Page 43. 
 
 The solemn eflfect produced by the echo of one deep bugle-note, 
 13 finely appropriate to the savage grandeur of Glena-Copul, " The 
 
 Horse'j; Glen."
 
 w 
 
 ERRATUM. 
 Page 71, stanza 20, line 4, "So Soothe" should be " To soothe."
 
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