BY
 
 IJBflAfty
 
 ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND 
 
 LESSER POEMS. 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT BURTON RODNEY 
 
 U. S. N. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 1870.
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by 
 ROBERT BURTON RODNEY, 
 
 In the Clerk s Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
 Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
 
 BY HIS REMOTE SON, 
 TO 
 
 WILLIAM RODNEY OF RODNEY-STOKE, 
 
 IN THE COUNTY OF SOMERSET, ENGLAND. 
 DIED Jl NE 10, 1669, AND BURIED IN HUNTSPILL CHURCH THAT SHIRE. 
 
 A POET; 
 
 HIS MOTHER COUSIN-GERMAN TO EDWARD VI; 
 HIS FAMILY ANCIENT AND MANORIAL: ITS NORMAN 
 
 NAME, 
 
 SPOKEN WITH PRAISE AND TRUST BY KINGS AND PRESIDENTS; 
 AND IDENTIFIED WITH 
 
 ENGLISH ULOKY AND AMERICAN LIBERTY.
 
 FROM out a vault a flowering vine 
 Escaled the minster buttress old : 
 
 Its crest was where the noonbeams shine ; 
 Its roots within the buried mould ; 
 
 And from the hand-like sprays were thrown 
 
 Its blossoms on the tablet stone. 
 
 So, cherished sire, whose name I write, 
 Thy humble muse revives in me : 
 
 Tis nurtured in another light 
 Of letters, grace and liberty; 
 
 But flowers which thy spirit gave, 
 
 Shall strew thy unforgotten grave !
 
 .CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Alboin and Rosamond . . . . . .11 
 
 Rural Leisure ........ 48 
 
 Odes. (Nos. I to 11) 61 
 
 The Blockade-Runner 77 
 
 A Seaside Dream . . . . . .81 
 The Iceberg 9 2
 
 NOTE. 
 
 THE story of Alboin and Rosamond is tersely narrated 
 by Edward Gibbon, in that Twenty Years Task so worthy 
 of his infinite learning and Corinthian majesty of mind. 
 
 The Poem at times traces the text, as a railroad the 
 windings of river. Comparison will show where the writer 
 strikes off into borders of incident, description, philosophy 
 and morality : designing that these many stanzas, like the 
 successive arches of a Campania aqueduct, bring the waters 
 of truth from the far mountains of history. 
 
 R.
 
 ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 WALKING Ravenna s streets one day, 
 A quaint cathedral, old and dim ; 
 
 With open doors beside the way, 
 Allured me with its vesper hymn. 
 
 Few lingered in the nave ; and I 
 Knew not the language of the rite ; 
 
 So crossing to a legend nigh, 
 I read it by the failing light: 
 
 A brazen-lettered slab of lead 
 Did some red cardinal inhume ; 
 
 A marble angel s wings outspread 
 Deepened the shadow on the tomb : 
 
 While shrines ranged bright and tablets cold 
 Within the aisles columnar march ; 
 
 And victory-gilded banners old 
 
 Drooped from the frescoed transept arch.
 
 I ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 But humbler grave I now espied : 
 
 A sunken sepulchre beyond, 
 Which bore upon its mouldering side 
 
 The simple carving " Rosamond." 
 
 
 
 Soon the grey verger drawing near, 
 With all dismissed, observed me then ; 
 
 And while we twain sat lonely here, 
 He told the history I pen. 
 
 ALBOIN the Lombard s prince and heir, 
 
 The Gepidse s in battle slew: 
 Loud to his sire men declare 
 
 The Feast of Victory his due. 
 
 The monarch spake "Our law must stand 
 No prince sits at his father s board, 
 
 Till he from foreign, royal hand, 
 
 Receives his armor, spear and sword ! 
 
 Alboin in reverence bowed : he chose 
 Forty companions ; and his way 
 
 Took to the stronghold of his foes 
 The palace of the Gepidse.
 
 ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 Their king with hospitable rite, 
 
 Met the destroyer of his son, 
 Who at the banquet chanced that night 
 
 To sit where sat the fallen one. 
 
 In Turisund sad longing wakes ; 
 
 That hoary host can but repine 
 " How dear that seat the stranger takes ; 
 
 How hateful is this guest of mine !" 
 
 Flushed Cunimund, his living heir, 
 With filial and fraternal fire : 
 
 Fierce his quick sarcasm scorched the air, 
 Fiercer a Lombard was replier : 
 
 All thundered up from o erthrown seats, 
 With raging crests and weapons blaze; 
 
 But lo ! what voice their names repeats, 
 What spell the dreadful typhoon stays? 
 
 "Observe the truce let honor reign 
 Although our hearts with torture bleed : 
 
 Bring me the armor of my slain ; 
 
 Give it the stranger twas his meed !" 
 
 Invested as he had aspired, 
 
 Alboin was told to part in peace ;
 
 |. ALB O IN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 While aged Turisund retired, 
 
 To wait in death his grief s surcease. 
 
 Thou wert Barbarian, history saith ; 
 
 But O with virtue, scorn of crimes, 
 With lowlier meekness, loftier faith, 
 
 To shame the thrones of polished times 
 
 Now the departing guest to view, 
 
 Looked Rosamond from out her bower : 
 
 The child of Cunimund he knew ; 
 And earth had cause to wail the hour. 
 
 His straggling spears toward home advance ; 
 
 But Alboin execrates his lot : 
 Lovelorn at one unhappy glance, 
 
 Lo, all his honors are forgot ; 
 
 And with them, his affianced bride 
 Then waiting in St. Denis nave : 
 
 Thus quickly he that troth denied, 
 The House of Clovis slowly gave. 
 
 He nears his town on mountain shelf: 
 How swift his drama s changes wing !
 
 ALB O IN AND ROSAMOND. 15 
 
 His father s dead; and he himself 
 Exalted on a shield, a king. 
 
 The Franks and Visigoths attend, 
 
 Italia gratulation lifts, 
 Byzantines hides and jewels send ; 
 
 Disguising tribute under gifts : 
 
 But slave of impulse passion-mad, 
 He loathes, he tramples on his good ; 
 
 All sleepless till at last he had 
 
 The royal maid by missive wooed. 
 
 On silk, with purple ink and lac, 
 
 A captive Greek prepares the strain ; 
 
 A noble bears it brings it back 
 
 "fis spit upon, tis wrenched in twain ! 
 
 Stung with contempt, his wrath aglow, 
 He leads and hurls his gathered hordes : 
 
 The Gepidoe repulse their foe, 
 
 By succor from the Grecian swords. 
 
 O erwhelmed with failure, war s fatigues, 
 Bleeding with loss, his kingdom torn ;
 
 Z 6 ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 Across a hundred ravaged leagues, 
 He hears her silvery laugh of scorn. 
 
 REVENGE ! thou whirlwind of the soul ; 
 
 Was thy arouser e er devised, 
 Of steadier fervor, less control, 
 
 Intenser force, than love despised ? 
 
 Scorn of one s talents, conduct, lot, 
 Or birth, may fortitude o ercome ; 
 
 But separate proffered self! the shot, 
 Through tenfold meekness, pierces home. 
 
 He only can withstand the smart, 
 
 Who unto God refers his lot : 
 Divine decrees control the heart, 
 
 And make it either love or not. 
 
 The man of prayer s complaint upwells 
 Beneath that stroke, of strokes the worst ; 
 
 "Turn my lost battle, Lord, or else 
 Give me the peace I had at first !" 
 
 And even here it shall be proved 
 The sanctified, afflictive hour,
 
 ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 Was better boon than she beloved, 
 With all the graces for her dower. 
 
 The spikenard vase, when broken, spread 
 A heavenly fragrance all around ; 
 
 But noxious things, when crushed, will shed 
 Their secret poison on the ground : 
 
 So the proud hearts disdain to yield, 
 Recoil on God who smote them low, 
 
 Brave the thick bosses of His shield ; 
 Fail or succeed to greater woe. 
 
 With brain in baleful scheming deft, 
 Alboin each last resource debates ; 
 
 He looks around : allies are left ; 
 And the Avars he supplicates. 
 
 In haughty apathy they heard: 
 
 Why should thy quarrel ours be made? 
 
 Till by his abjectness bestirred, 
 
 They name the recompense of aid : 
 
 " Tithe us thy nation s cattle now; 
 
 And, be the Gepidce subdued, 
 Then all their lands to us allow, 
 
 With half the spoils and multitude !"
 
 1 8 ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 Again the ecstasy of wrath 
 
 Comes on ; and prompts compliance meek : 
 "All that the Chagan names, he hath ; 
 
 And all thy avarice can seek !" 
 
 His eyes, far set on vengeance, spurn 
 The care war s overture demands ; 
 
 As fowler aiming at the erne, 
 
 Heeds not the pitfalls where he stands. 
 
 Avars from pasture, hut and hunt, 
 The whipcrack their war-signal own ; 
 
 The thunderous horde, with fraying front, 
 Invades the Gepidae alone : 
 
 While Alboin his career deflects, 
 And elsewhere enters with his few; 
 
 Whom reigning Cunimund selects 
 The first in detail to pursue. 
 
 The Caesar, angered at a slight, 
 
 Sends no more succors from the East : 
 
 Vain Gepidse no aid invite ; 
 
 And that of puerile Greeks the least. 
 
 Shall we trust Fortune ? death or bars 
 O erwhelm the confident and strong:
 
 ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 The sword trust? it in duels, wars, 
 Absolves and legalizes wrong : 
 
 Whom shall we trust? whate er our force, 
 Whate er our weakness, Prayer maintain : 
 
 Alas ! tis empty woe s resource 
 Fullness neglects that potent strain. 
 
 Stanch Cunimund and host are lost ; 
 
 And chaliced, for two centuries gaze, 
 His skull aflame with golden cost, 
 
 Grims wassail nights and festal days. 
 
 The bold and bad succeed ; and why? 
 Faith is so precious in God s view, 
 
 Their recklessness He shames us by ; 
 Rewards their counterfeit as true. 
 
 Why wail, O heart, those freaks of Fate 
 So many maxims have defined ; 
 
 New coynesses of Chance relate, 
 Call man uncertain, Fortune blind ? 
 
 Tis God elects our flush to mar, 
 Or to despair joy s sequel bring;
 
 20 ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 That He may teach us what we are, 
 And prove Himself the only King ! 
 
 To Rosamond went the conqueror ; 
 
 But not in pride, nor armor-clad : 
 His step was lowlier than before, 
 
 His garment mean, his aspect sad. 
 
 He pleaded war the sole device 
 
 Of rulers then ; twas equal chanced 
 
 Her father might have triumphed twice, 
 Her nation and not his advanced : 
 
 What oped the rivalry of blood 
 Was it not love? and if despair 
 
 Changed it to rage, he flung the good 
 All at her feet himself was there ! 
 
 The royal orphan helpless stood 
 Her thoughts, anxieties she kept ; 
 
 Yielded the hand her master sued ; 
 But with averted gesture wept : 
 
 And while the grass of peace resmoothed 
 The hillocks of the fatal field
 
 ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 Her captive countrymen she soothed, 
 Their needs abated, wounding healed. 
 
 Oft forests heard her hymn, her sob, 
 Alone there save her grandsire s shade: 
 
 It calmed resentment s burning throb. 
 It made a chancel of the glade : 
 
 Yet in her form of radiant dust, 
 A will awaited time s employ, 
 
 Like sulphur neath the planet s crust, 
 Reserved to shatter and destroy. 
 
 The Chagan gained his bloody due ; 
 
 For Transylvania his became, 
 Moldavia and Wallachia too, 
 
 And eastern Hungary ; but the fame 
 
 Fell to Alboin : him minstrels chose ; 
 
 His valor, largess, skill recall : 
 In many tongues his songs arose, 
 
 Till Charlemagne sought and re-wrote all. 
 
 EMBOSSED around the ancient vase, 
 Are scenes and heroes of its day :
 
 22 ALB O IN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 When wrought, in quivering fire s enchase, 
 They flecked the incandescent clay. 
 
 Soon cold and garlanded it lured 
 Amid a villa s marble bloom ; 
 
 And then two thousand years endured 
 The breathless darkness of a tomb. 
 
 Moderns its tracery behold ; 
 
 But present cares diverting call ; 
 And lone and sombre, gathering mould, 
 
 It decks a transatlantic hall : 
 
 Till pensive child strays idly past : 
 Its marvels strike, its histories chain ; 
 
 To him, as when in furnace cast, 
 Those scenes and heroes glow again. 
 
 A virtue quits that object dumb ; 
 
 He feels its emulative thrill ; 
 That earth a power has become, 
 
 Though to another earthy still. 
 
 So stands the Story of the Cross : 
 To worldly eye unmeaning, cold ; 
 
 But in the child its truths engross, 
 Inspires the saving faith of old.
 
 ALB IN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 Its simplest deed of love s more fair 
 Than glory spread by minstrel bribed ; 
 
 And the Redeemer s household Prayer, 
 Than all the songs that kings transcribed. 
 
 Sunlight contains all colors : so 
 
 With Faith, all graces mingle here : 
 
 Sorrow alone their hues can show 
 The only prism her crystal tear. 
 
 2 3 
 
 A BROKEN fount is mundane joy ; 
 
 And whoso drinks shall thirst again 
 Soon, soon the zests of triumph cloy ; 
 
 And appetite revives its pain : 
 
 The heart inquires if all be got 
 Of its imagined merit s due ; 
 
 While each enhancement of the lot, 
 Enhances that vain merit too. 
 
 But real cares made Alboin brood : 
 Profusion lasts and treasures fail : 
 
 Of Southern wealth and lassitude, 
 He hears with eagerness the tale.
 
 I ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 In the still depth the dolphin floats, 
 Distending soft each gilded fin ; 
 
 Nor the o erbalanced sailor notes 
 Poising the deathful javelin : 
 
 So fair Italia in her plain, 
 
 Thought not the restless Lombard s quest ; 
 Till kneeling on her Alpine chain, 
 
 He drove the arrow to her breast. 
 
 As lion from the rustling nook 
 
 Steps out ; and silent pausing stands ; 
 
 The browsing flocks a moment look 
 Then fly the devastated lands ; 
 
 So from- the vineyards empty fled 
 Esquire and gentle, tamed by ease ; 
 
 While some unto the islets sped, 
 And built the City of the Seas. 
 
 Throw wide the terraced pomp, where fruit 
 And lilies mock the sick one s eye ; 
 
 Parks where, while noble archers shoot, 
 The needy can but look and die ! 
 
 The smoke shall roll a denser black, 
 
 From paintings rich with rainbows spoil ;
 
 ALBO1N AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 And paneled ceilings crisper crack, 
 With chiseled wreaths and glazing oil. 
 
 Unlock, unlock each haughty door ; 
 
 And pride s adorned arcanums show ( 
 They never opened to the poor; 
 
 And God shall ope them to the foe. 
 
 High at your feasts His sad ones put, 
 
 Nor deem the stranger to intrude ; 
 For penury has a hallowing foot 
 Exclude it and you Christ exclude. 
 
 The Voice that moved the prophet s pen, 
 Still speaks to luxury and sin : 
 
 Show mercy now, O happy men, 
 Before your mourning shall begin ! 
 
 Ah those benignant hearts are each, 
 
 Forever rare, forever new ; 
 Like amber on the pebbled beach ; 
 
 And as the tears of rapture few. 
 
 Alboin that kingdom s map unrolled 
 Effaced all titles, wrote again ; 
 
 And LOMBARDY is still enscrolled, 
 
 Through every century, conquest, reign. 
 
 2 5
 
 26 ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 WHEN the advanced and newly-crowned 
 Survey their suitors, false and true ; 
 
 Satan surpasses all around 
 
 In skill to flatter, lead and sue. 
 
 With humble men his bands abate : 
 He can endure the loss of those ; 
 
 But with the great he rises great, 
 And all his massing cohorts throws. 
 
 From weak ones, some deputed elf 
 May the nefarious purpose gain ; 
 
 But to the strong he goes himself 
 And few have heard his voice in vain : 
 
 " Devote to me your splendid trust 
 Your beauty, titles, wealth, applause; 
 
 Or if believe the Lord you must, 
 At least be idle in His cause !" 
 
 " Go serve Him !" wily Pharaoh cries 
 "But leave your cattle journeying far ! 
 
 Nor thinks the dupe, as he complies, 
 The heart is where the treasures are. 
 
 He feels the mastering power of sin ; 
 And often strives to break the spell ;
 
 ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 And then as oft falls back within 
 The magnet gravity of hell : 
 
 Till in his mind, the Evil wraith 
 Shuts off each light still holy there ; 
 
 Withers the listless hand of faith 
 Perpetual seals the lips of prayer. 
 
 O ye, with starry talents dight, 
 
 Whose passions rage in generous war ; 
 
 Harness those mettled steeds of might, 
 And bind them to Religion s car: 
 
 Serve God with all you are and own 
 Happy to pledge such, chances vast ; 
 
 Before the rainbow-circled Throne, 
 Rejoice that you have crowns to cast ! 
 
 Hail heaven-devoted spirit ! would 
 That we had more, our world to bless ; 
 
 To force the pathway, high and good, 
 Through whole defeat and half success : 
 
 Let lower minds exult, despond, 
 
 Or bide content with present deeds; 
 
 That clearer vision, set beyond, 
 Alone to full achievement leads. 
 
 27
 
 28 ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 Relieved on classic marble wide, 
 Legions parade the trophied ore, 
 
 Centurions look from side to side ; 
 But laureled Csesar straight before. 
 
 A MANY-HOURED Autumn chase 
 
 Had swept through rustling vineyards home 
 For gaily dead to zeal and grace, 
 
 The king his sportive miles must roam. 
 
 He drew his foamy bit to note 
 
 The quarry, boar and wildfowl spoil ; 
 
 And flung aside his leathern coat, 
 With many a forest struggle s soil. 
 
 The grateful bath and linened ewer 
 Prepared for evening feast and ease ; 
 
 And moated lines entrenched secure 
 That villa of a Veronese : 
 
 While the far owner mayhap gives 
 
 Less thought to exile, want and pain, 
 
 When hearing that a monarch lives 
 Where she can never walk again.
 
 ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 So children of a noble stem 
 
 View with odd principle of pride, 
 
 E en a disease, if proving them 
 To be by common blood allied. 
 
 Then larder, river, vault and vat 
 Sent to the banquet all they may : 
 
 Along the oak the huntsmen sat ; 
 
 Their chief s eburnean chair midway. 
 
 Medals with emperors brows embossed, 
 Lay round his neck in golden rest ; 
 
 A glittering sash of garnets crossed 
 The tufted ermine of his breast : 
 
 To clothe his massive head aloft, 
 
 Two foxes gave their pricking scalps ; 
 
 And on the floor his shoon were soft 
 In wolf skins of the higher Alps. 
 
 From his blue eye an instant sailed, 
 As twere a squadron armed for fight; 
 
 And then, as pensive thought prevailed, 
 It mellowed to poetic light. 
 
 No branching sconces darted fire 
 
 Along the walls, with wearying glare ; 
 
 29
 
 , ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 Nor central candelabra s pyre 
 
 Swung flashing in the withered air : 
 
 But from the ceiling to his chin, 
 
 Cherubs let down a lamplet s chain 
 
 Twelve burners lapped the oil within 
 
 Twelve shells of bright, translucent stain. 
 
 So sweetly darkened is the hall, 
 Its baffled splendors fitful glim, 
 
 Like bandits sparry cave, when all 
 Save each surrounding face is dim. 
 
 With rising riot, a fiend steeped 
 
 Dormant in wine a century tunned ; 
 
 To Alboin s mouth, from prison leaped, 
 And cried " The skull of Cunimund !" 
 
 They brought the trophy set in gold, 
 The gems seen far before it came ; 
 
 And in its sutured channel rolled 
 Nectars of strange, provincial name : 
 
 The conqueror poured with every brand ; 
 
 And passed the cup for each to sip ; 
 Each first quaff mounting in his hand, 
 
 The last returning to his lip :
 
 ALB IN AND ROSAAIOND. 
 
 Till with the long excess aglow, 
 
 He seized the bowl with altered voice 
 
 " This to the queen, that I may know 
 She with her sire and us rejoice !" 
 
 He filled it to the topmost line, 
 
 While all sat round in full-eyed hush ; 
 
 But hark ! the gurgling of the wine 
 Is like the life-blood s throttling gush ; 
 
 And as he swung it to the groom, 
 It spilt with many a plash and stain ; 
 
 And a thin smoke arose, as from 
 A mangled soldier instant slain. 
 
 The stripling trembles, as with lips 
 
 In superstitious fright apart ; 
 Away he bears it, as it drips, 
 
 And hands the queen a broken heart : 
 
 For with a wail which faintings break, 
 She sees the mournful token come; 
 
 And hears the message Alboin spake ; 
 And dips her lips with horror numb. 
 
 Submissive words go softly back 
 
 With that dread chalice to the hall ; 
 
 3 1
 
 2 ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 But now a storm is fringing black; 
 
 And darker drops than tears must fall : 
 
 For she could many a wrong relate, 
 
 Unexpiated by renown ; 
 And sufferance brave had changed to hate- 
 
 Unsoothed by a divided crown : 
 
 And this his closing stroke of shame ! 
 
 But soon along the terraced path, 
 Her favorite guard, Helmichis, came 
 
 Summoned to serve her fatal wrath. 
 
 The whispered crime wakes no alarms ; 
 
 No oath of reticence occurs; 
 Held firmly by those matchless charms, 
 
 His mind is the reflex of hers : 
 
 But the war king to meet alone ! 
 It forces death-damp to the brow : 
 
 One only is his equal known, 
 
 Whose aid they dare petition now : 
 
 So, through her minion sent to sue, 
 
 She stalwart Peredeus tried ; 
 But the camp s champion, grimly true, 
 
 Her every plea and bribe denied.
 
 33 
 
 ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 A thought was left amid her train 
 Was one with him an amour led : 
 
 That night, a night of gloom and rain, 
 She chose whose humbler place instead : 
 
 The guilty truth Helmichis made 
 
 The warrior know, when noon was high : 
 " Fulfill her mandate, or betrayed, 
 
 At sunset thou art led to die !" 
 
 So, self-devoted, naught can shock 
 
 No sacrifice dismay her more : 
 As one would kneeling at the block, 
 
 Strip the last priceless gem he wore. 
 
 The traitor guardsmen, at a wheel 
 
 In secret by each other turned ; 
 Whetted anew their heavy steel ; 
 
 And loitered till her plan they learned. 
 
 THE eve was coming on ; and glad 
 Upon a tranquil couch to fall ; 
 
 His brow with vanished transport sad, 
 The husband sought her lonely hall. 
 3
 
 34 
 
 ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 She brushed his glossy, flaxen crown ; 
 
 Peered in his swimming eyes of blue ; 
 Moistened his burning cheeks ; and down 
 
 His mane-like beard, her comb she drew: 
 
 And from her pearly fan evolved, 
 
 The zephyrs waved his forehead s tress ; 
 
 Her silk, imbued with flowers resolved, 
 Shook fragrance round each fond caress. 
 
 The drowsy monarch thus ensnared, 
 
 Forgot the fever of the day ; 
 Forgot his orgied insult dared ; 
 
 And brokenly she heard him say 
 
 "Beside the rugged life I led, 
 
 How sweetly paid my toils have been : 
 
 How bright my captured cities spread, 
 When I remember thee, O queen ! 
 
 " I sometimes dread the chance of war 
 Will reave me of these valleys green ; 
 
 But I ll range wide to conquer more 
 For thee, loved Rosamond, O queen !" 
 
 No more can this her bent restrain, 
 Than iron, white with flames below ;
 
 ALBOIN AXD ROSAMOND. 35 
 
 Cooled by a passing gust of rain, 
 Can fail resume its deathly glow. 
 
 Preparing for the fell assault, 
 
 No sound, no sign, her presence gave : 
 Like the miasma of a vault, 
 
 She floated o er the matted pave : 
 
 Till every artifice bethought, 
 
 Defence, escape or aid to foil ; 
 The tall and splendid door she sought 
 
 Its golden hinges dripped with oil. 
 
 Shrunk half their size, her lurking imps 
 Cross on furred feet the darkened scene; 
 
 The mirrors catch their creeping glimpse ; 
 They pass the purple couch s screen : 
 
 King, warrior, reveler there he lay 
 Flung back like one in battle slain ; 
 
 And steeped in crimson light a ray 
 Bursting through shrouded oriel pane. 
 
 Thus far they moved ; but Helmichis 
 Convulsive faltered, turned to speed : 
 
 "Stay! slay!" she gasped with cobra hiss 
 "Or 1 arouse him ; and ye bleed !"
 
 36 ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 They struck like madmen : hand at hilt, 
 He rose as one no terrors quell ; 
 
 His sword is fastened by her guilt ; 
 And struggling it to draw, he fell. 
 
 A consul s lofty altar-tomb 
 
 Far in the park its sculptures hid ; 
 
 And there in torchless dark they come 
 To lift and close the echoing lid : 
 
 Within, the red of crime prevailed; 
 
 Without, the green of moss and fern ; 
 A soaring eagle, arrow-paled, 
 
 Marbled forever on the urn. 
 
 NATIONS affairs must yet proceed 
 Be councils scattered, rulers slain ; 
 
 The steeds of power resistless speed, 
 Be hand or not upon their rein. 
 
 Majestic post exalted trust ! 
 To guide the coursers as they fly : 
 
 Surely the task well quitted must 
 Gain brightest recompense on high.
 
 ALRO1N AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 37 
 
 O thoughtless is the choice they cast, 
 
 Who crowd, uncalled, that sphere of care 
 
 Seize without God those duties vast, 
 His grace alone can teach them bear ! 
 
 Twelve days held Rosamond the sway 
 Her throne upraised in tumult wild : 
 
 Around its base her Gepidne ; 
 Upon its stair her princess-child. 
 
 Till closing in, like air so dense, 
 
 Dispelled by bursting magazine ; 
 The rallying chiefs the siege commence : 
 
 " Hurl from the barriers this queen !" 
 
 But now the happy Po so nigh, 
 
 Looks o er his margin tendering aid ; 
 
 Holding to Rosamond, fain to fly, 
 Barges for former princes made : 
 
 Then in the breezy gloom she sails, 
 
 With coffered spoils and guardsmen tried ; 
 
 East till the second morn unveils 
 The Adrian estuary wide. 
 
 The air grows strangely fresh, and lulls 
 The throbbing nerves ; the mirrors show
 
 38 ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 The offing of blue mist the gulls 
 Skimming across like shells of snow ; 
 
 The headlands dim in distant parts, 
 With here and there a sail to fleck ; 
 
 The pilots, scattering with their charts, 
 Bright instruments upon the deck. 
 
 Her own vexillum, furled before, 
 
 Floats on the tall stem-planted spear ; 
 
 And cheering crew, with mast and oar, 
 Now southward for Ravenna steer : 
 
 Stronghold of Greco-Roman hope, 
 
 While Cimbrian hoofs swept far the lands; 
 
 And Tiber s bride was forced to ope 
 Her forum to the spoiler s hands. 
 
 Behind its marshes, forts and sea, 
 Young Honorius slept in down ; 
 
 When chastely gentle, e en as he, 
 His brother wore the Eastern crown. 
 
 Here Stilicho his armor kept ; 
 
 Here Belisarius victor came ; 
 And Narses from a harem stept, 
 
 To change obscurity to fame.
 
 ALBOIN A.VD ROSAMOND. 
 
 Ravenna slowly glides to view 
 
 Beyond its barring lines and mole : 
 
 The queen perplexed and fearful too, 
 Scans from the prow her only goal : 
 
 Like bubble blown by Titan child, 
 A soaring dome presides o er all ; 
 
 The vapors of the gulf and wild, 
 Condensing on its mighty ball : 
 
 And smaller, but of equal craft, 
 
 Loom at its side a beauteous twain 
 
 On many a white pilastered shaft, 
 A golden angel at each vane. 
 
 From marts replete with myriad wares ; 
 
 Shipping and wheels and hammer-blows; 
 From baths and camps and endless squares ; 
 
 The city s sea-like murmur rose. 
 
 On the canal s defended quay, 
 
 Her barges grate ; the gates divide, 
 
 Ope up the long perspective way, 
 With palaces on either side. 
 
 On a triumphal arch s crest, 
 
 A warrior drove with whirlwind speed 
 
 39
 
 > ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 Six giant horses pranced abreast ; 
 But struck in bronze was every steed. 
 
 Winged o er a lofty pillar s frieze, 
 A pausing god his footstep set ; 
 
 And at the founts the sundown breeze 
 Blew rainbow showers from every jet. 
 
 For new frivolity or home, 
 
 Leaving ten thousand marble seats ; 
 And streaming from the hippodrome, 
 
 The gaudy peoples choked the streets : 
 
 Where Christians came from other climes, 
 There to admire, lavish, dwell ; 
 
 Where glory glossed the prince s crimes; 
 And flowers hid the mouth of hell. 
 
 They sought the Baal of the world, 
 Were zealous but for him alone : 
 
 Vainly was priestly incense curled 
 The prayer addressed, the organ blown : 
 
 With them a dead belief sufficed ; 
 
 They sighed not for the heavenly rest ; 
 They dreaded the reproach of Christ 
 
 Nor watched His coming with the blest.
 
 ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 O patient Clod ! to sit controlled, 
 While to rebellion mortal lends 
 
 Thy very gifts of skill and gold, 
 
 Of health and leisure, youth and friends. 
 
 With brilliant dress what woes began 
 How is the scorpion, not the dove, 
 
 That beauty given to soften man ; 
 And win his heart to faithful love ! 
 
 His lustful eye God s wrath invites ; 
 
 But say, shall she by whom he s thralled, 
 W T hose needless elegance incites 
 
 O say, shall she be guiltless called ? 
 
 Then tremble vernant fair one, lest 
 Your glance become a poisoned barb ; 
 
 And clothe a Savior-loving breast, 
 In sober hues and simple garb : 
 
 For as the summer evening s gust 
 Smites the vile fume of earth away; 
 
 The lightnings of His vengeance just, 
 Shall close the world s long, sultry day !
 
 2 ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 Now far along the thronging road, 
 
 Her charioteers slacked down the strings 
 
 At Caesar s gate; where then abode 
 Longinus, exarch, peer of kings. 
 
 The wary ruler all had heard ; 
 
 And curious now to see his guest, 
 Impatiently that eve deferred ; 
 
 But twas his morning s first behest : 
 
 And soon the prayerless morning shone ; 
 
 The sparkling court drew out array, 
 The aureate halls were open thrown ; 
 
 And flowered crimson spread her way. 
 
 The outlines of that wondrous face 
 Anew in guileless mould were cast : 
 
 Of her ill deeds as free from trace 
 As ocean of the tempests past. 
 
 While she advanced through light and shade, 
 Her eye of varying color seemed : 
 
 As grey, as sea blue, brown, it played ; 
 And then an agate hazel gleamed. 
 
 In white, with golden sash and hem, 
 Her temples cool with forest flower ;
 
 ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND. 43 
 
 A mazarine train and over them 
 The candid confidence of power. 
 
 " Hail famous queen ! enjoy thoti long, 
 While nations war, Ravenna s peace 
 
 Siege-proof and splendor-built ; with triremes 
 
 strong, 
 And arms of Asia, Thrace and Greece !" 
 
 Then flashed her smile the light that rays 
 From whirling wheels of chariot cars : 
 
 Her blush the deepening hue that plays 
 Athwart the twinkling disc of Mars : 
 
 And her weird eye, with lustre filled, 
 
 O er Longinus potential roved ; 
 For ere he spake his blood was thrilled ; 
 
 And ere he ceased the exarch loved. 
 
 Soon from the palace depths her spell 
 
 Upbreathes to sway the counciled throne ; 
 
 Her features in new frescoes dwell, 
 Are in remoulded bronzes shown. 
 
 An emperor made Ravenna grand ; 
 
 But were Honorius reigning then, 
 His passive soul had burst command ; 
 
 And he had loved like other men !
 
 44 
 
 ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 DEATH hovers always near to love ; 
 
 And every curse seeks ambush there : 
 As gaudiest Bengal arbors prove 
 
 The fever s, cobra s, tiger s lair. 
 
 Let man deny himself; for our 
 Exemplar self-denying came ; 
 
 Nor, mad to gain lost Eden s bower, 
 Rush on the angel s sword of flame. 
 
 While sensual Peredeus sips 
 
 Each courtly joy with reckless zest ; 
 Above a fountain s marble lips, 
 
 Helmichis droops a scowling crest. 
 
 She marked his jealous wrath ; forecast 
 Peril from tool grown useless now ; 
 
 Hindrance to hopes new opening vast, 
 Like seas to the explorer s prow. 
 
 Oft brought she when from baths he stept, 
 
 Urns of reviving nectar full ; 
 And, fanned with smiles, suspicion slept, 
 
 As one whom wings of vampyre lull. 
 
 So once when drinking gaily here, 
 His ears in dreadful tocsin sang
 
 ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 45 
 
 His breath closed short the truth flashed 
 
 clear 
 Despair o erruled his mortal pang: 
 
 Dying, he hurled her to the wall 
 
 He tore apart her tight-set teeth ; 
 And down her gasping throat made all 
 
 The chalice s remainder seethe : 
 
 Death swelled her veins ; she sped her track 
 Stifled with horrors of the tomb 
 
 Her guilty brow with poison black, 
 
 She reached the crowded presence-room. 
 
 The exarch started from his throne, 
 
 Swept down the lictored steps of pride, 
 
 Dashed through the breathless hall alone ; 
 And in his frantic arms she died. 
 
 SHIPPKD for Byzantium all her spoils, 
 Her princess-child, her guards and he, 
 
 The Lombard victim of her toils ; 
 Sailed down the Adriatic sea.
 
 46 ALBOIN AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 Round Grecian capes their canvas swells ; 
 
 They thread vEgean isles and foam, 
 They pass the swarming Dardanelles ; 
 
 And kneel neath St. Sophia s dome. 
 
 The heiress-girl in convent died ; 
 
 And Peredeus, Samson-thewed, 
 With the arena s champions vied, 
 
 Till prince and court with terror viewed. 
 
 They blinded him lest hap perchance 
 He d rise and seize on power supreme; 
 
 And pricked by servile, Syrian lance, 
 He dug the channel of a stream. 
 
 Cast out in age, with earning lyre, 
 He sang to those of legends fond, 
 
 That tale of battle, love and ire 
 Of Alboin and of Rosamond. 
 
 THE tale another s theme became 
 Once more by modest minstrel tried ; 
 
 And still the hearers are the same, 
 Though centuries and seas divide :
 
 ALfiOLV AND ROSAMOND. 
 
 The proud course on with careless brow ; 
 
 And Christians, still, them homage give ; 
 Few, few the searching voice allow 
 
 " Is the world holier that I live?" 
 
 Some curse the rising sun ; and try 
 To take the world to night agen ; 
 
 Or see with a complacent eye, 
 The inequalities of men. 
 
 Haste on, O God, the great Release 
 Of all earth s hopes the only sure; 
 
 For all its wars the only peace ; 
 For all its woes the only cure : 
 
 Give saints the land whose light they court- 
 Their perfect praise will sooner soar : 
 
 Cut the vain lives of bad men short 
 They ll have the less to answer for. 
 
 Haste on, O God, the great Redress 
 Let Satan in the pit be hurled ; 
 
 And cast into Thy streaming press, 
 The mighty vintage of the world ! 
 
 FINIS 
 
 A. AND R. 
 
 47
 
 RURAL LEISURE. 
 
 A SYLVAN dame with face of tan, 
 Hails me, the travel-tarnished man ; 
 
 And I shall be her guest. 
 A larger log is on her fire ; 
 And on the bed when I retire, 
 
 Fresh linen from her chest. 
 
 Enlivening are her artless words ; 
 Diversions all her place affords, 
 
 She urges me receive : 
 The horse, the gun, the boat I choose : 
 These shall my holidays amuse 
 
 My morning, noon and eve. 
 
 Dear friend I m thirsting and you fill 
 From dairy can and orchard still, 
 Your calices of wood : 
 
 (48)
 
 RURAL LEISURE. 
 
 49 
 
 Dear friend I m hungering and you take 
 Your pantry s sauce, your barrel s cake, 
 And finest of your brood. 
 
 But other fare I mean and need : 
 In dovecote homes what can exceed 
 
 The joy of tranquil men ? 
 Hope, wisdom, rest my spirit teach 
 To look to God alone for each ; 
 
 And I grow cheerful then. 
 
 O with my Savior s love and thine, 
 Why should I for another s pine, 
 
 In these unthankful bask ? 
 Another s love I toil to gain ; 
 But these come like the summer s rain 
 
 Acceptance only ask ! 
 
 MY sprightly bay, with zest and pride, 
 I daily haste to groom and ride: 
 Flushing with ardor from his grain, 
 He longs for sunshine, road and rein. 
 He s for my summer pastime lent ; 
 And with my corn and blades content : 
 4
 
 RURAL LEISURE. 
 
 Willing to traverse far for these, 
 And speed where er I guide or please : 
 The morning jaunt, the sportful chase, 
 Umbrageous lane or country race. 
 
 At daybreak on the road he serves, 
 In easy amble round its curves ; 
 Meeting while yet the sky is dark, 
 The teamster with his load of bark 
 Or staves or wood a compact heap 
 Brought far to be disposed of cheap. 
 The man (who walks) looks hard at me ; 
 And would not know me could he see ; 
 Yet still he eyes intently ; but 
 Down goes his wheel in sunken rut. 
 
 And now we have a scene of trouble : 
 The oxen strain with vigor double, 
 The single horse that heads the team, 
 Tugs and exerts till in a steam. 
 But no ! the cumbrous burden bides ; 
 And as to aggravate besides, 
 Come jug and dinner from the top, 
 Breaking and wasting as they drop : 
 He plies his shoulder, tears his clothes ; 
 And falls back in a storm of oaths.
 
 RURAL LEISURE. 
 
 At once I offer all I can 
 My horse to pacify the man : 
 Spare collar, swingle-tree and chains, 
 He gratefully adjusts with pains ; 
 Then pushes with his utmost strength, 
 While I dispense the lash s length : 
 The vexing forewheel now we start ; 
 And with momentum we impart, 
 The hinder safely follows slow ; 
 Then, freeing horse, I mount and go. 
 
 Meanwhile the objects of the land 
 Come into view on every hand ; 
 Extinguished is the farmer s light 
 That made his window beacon night. 
 With sun-forerunning tints subdued, 
 The sky is silently imbued ; 
 While tree and house and chimney trace 
 Their profiled outlines on its base ; 
 And countless plants exhale anew 
 The subtle fragrancies of dew. 
 
 An osprey s nest for many a year, 
 Has been familiar landmark here ; 
 Held high from scrutiny and harm 
 In an old poplar s withered arm. 
 
 5 1
 
 RURAL LEISURE. 
 
 The bird arouses while I gaze, 
 His wing in spiral, flight essays ; 
 Circling at lofty poise he floats, 
 And on the atlased township gloats ; 
 Then plunges to his roofless house, 
 And nestles by his watching spouse. 
 
 The carpets of the household loom 
 Adorn the wayside tenant s room ; 
 And through his doorway and his vine, 
 I see his furniture of pine ; 
 His gun, with dingy tube and breech, 
 Swung up above his urchins reach : 
 The mantel shelving trimly looks, 
 Laden with fan and clock and books ; 
 While his poor wife rubs up with care, 
 The lately sullied breakfast ware. 
 
 And in the corner is the bed, 
 With laceless pillows at its head ; 
 And gay with quilt composed perhaps 
 Of half an age s treasured scraps. 
 The trundle that on casters rolls, 
 Receives at night the little souls ; 
 While overhead the rumbling feet 
 Betray the larger boys retreat :
 
 RURAL LEISURE. 53 
 
 That narrow roof of lowly comb 
 Shields, after all, a cherished home. 
 
 Three wagons bring a picnic troop, 
 Each with its closely-seated group ; 
 Going in all their country pomp, 
 To gather berries, climb and romp. 
 There glisten collar, coat and belt, 
 The ribboned hats of straw and felt, 
 The manto, parasol and hood, 
 White-napkined stores of dainty food ; 
 And on before them jubilant, 
 The guiding negroes dance and chant. 
 
 Then by the neighboring coast again, 
 I mark the fishers draw their seine ; 
 Drag up the shore the struggling mass, 
 And then the prizes sort and class : 
 At leisure view and value each, 
 Casting the tiny round the beach. 
 Poor innocents ! they writhe and die 
 Sand in the scale and in the eye; 
 While with their sullen oxen brown, 
 The vending carters seek the town.
 
 54 
 
 RURAL LEISURE. 
 
 WHEN from the ships so long immuring, 
 
 I flee and scent the forest dews ; 
 Upon my arm my gun securing, 
 
 I lonely saunter, idly muse. 
 I think again of fancies airy, 
 
 Of states of life for which I ve yearned; 
 While from my lips involuntary, 
 
 Come the old woodland rhymes I ve learned. 
 
 Here is a bridge whose warping sleepers 
 
 The hasty chopper flung across ; 
 And near it unsupported creepers 
 
 Gushing their blossoms on the moss. 
 No more in reverie delaying, 
 
 My falcon-hunting course I take ; 
 And whistling back my dog from straying, 
 
 Press on through undergrowth and brake. 
 
 IN the dank recess of the dell, 
 The centred rills their waters swell ; 
 Then threading on through aider gate, 
 The basin daily renovate : 
 Their happy purling broke alone 
 By the crow s distant monotone.
 
 A URA L LEIS URE. 
 
 Here crowd the shrubs of dampness fond, 
 
 And floating dock leaves pave the pond ; 
 
 The jay and redbird build the nest, 
 
 As sure no peril will molest ; 
 
 For quite too low for tearing squall, 
 
 Too dull to tempt the rustic s call, 
 
 Too hidden for migrating duck 
 
 His swarm to halt its herbs to pluck ; 
 
 This lakelet through the summers will 
 
 Abide unvisited and still. 
 
 But when the pirate falcon made 
 His haunt of this secluded glade, 
 Alarm the warbling tenants took, 
 And fled the devastated nook. 
 On an elm s shaggy bough halfway, 
 He wove his fagots, grass and clay : 
 His ambuscade the foliage wreath, 
 His castle-moat the pool beneath ; 
 While up the moisture-dripping stock, 
 Abattis vines their thorns enlock: 
 Secure the proud marauder seems, 
 And peals elate his taunting screams. 
 
 In truth he is a princely bird ! 
 A nimbler wing was never stirred, 
 
 55
 
 5 6 RURAL LEISURE. 
 
 Acuter eye ne er searched the plain, 
 Nor sharper talon pierced the brain : 
 With dark-blue plumage, speckled breast, 
 Long caudal quills and flattened crest, 
 A spur-won knight of bravest port, 
 At old king Eagle s forest court. 
 Not high gyrating ere he stoop, 
 He meditates the fatal swoop, 
 While his bale shadow gins to warn 
 And chicks fly under house or barn ; 
 But skimming low he smites his food 
 From out some unsuspecting brood, 
 Ere lazy cock can sound alarm, 
 Or gunning boy prevent the harm. 
 The remnant scatter ; and the bird 
 Feasts in the grass, unseen, unheard, 
 Till drips from off his rounded beak 
 The last blood-drop his rage can eke : 
 Then hieing to his guarded nest, 
 Enjoys the rapined meal digest ; 
 And on the eggs all rough and blotch, 
 While speeds his mate, keeps warmth and 
 watch. 
 
 The months depart ; and winter beats 
 Into the old abandoned seats :
 
 RURAL LEISURE. 
 
 The falcon-barons all have flown, 
 Chasing the flocks to milder zone. 
 They riot ; and with heavy wing, 
 Their northern castles seek in spring. 
 
 My lanneret is bleeding now ! 
 Shot down from off his lofty bough ; 
 But ere he yields to pain and dies, 
 Throws wide his iris and defies. 
 Poor bird ! we thy fell skill condemn ; 
 But laud the same when seen in men : 
 The diadem by havoc won, 
 With glory cinctures sire and son. 
 
 57 
 
 FOR new pastime I m ready: 
 
 Let my yacht be the boon ; 
 Have the gale mild and steady, 
 
 And the time afternoon. 
 As glad as the springbok 
 
 On his broad desert ground, 
 Casting off from the ringblock 
 
 I course the blue sound.
 
 58 RURAL LEISURE. 
 
 As onward she verges 
 
 What harmony now ! 
 For the music of surges 
 
 Is under the prow : 
 And buoyant, delicious, 
 
 The snowy clouds are ; 
 And the storm unpropitious 
 
 Is absent and far. 
 
 The food-seeking plover 
 
 Darts by as I go ; 
 The ospray pair hover, 
 
 The trout frisks below ; 
 The headlands sand-bleaching, 
 
 Recede on the lee ; 
 For swiftly I m reaching 
 
 The inlet and sea. 
 
 We come on like the arrow ! 
 I dextrously steer : 
 
 Here tis shallow, there narrow- 
 Hurrah ! and we re clear. 
 
 Now the sea wind romantic 
 Strains tenser my sail ; 
 
 And laves the Atlantic 
 My dipping gunwale.
 
 RURAL LEISURE. 
 
 Belling me paraded 
 
 The corn-harvests stand ; 
 And bosky and faded 
 
 The marshes expand ; 
 While the cape s yellow margin 
 
 Is seen o er the spume ; 
 And before me enlarging, 
 
 The merchantmen loom. 
 
 Some outwardly bearing, 
 * Taut, tidy and strong ; 
 Some scathed with the wearing 
 
 Of voyages long ; 
 And o er the way watered, 
 
 The figureheads weep, 
 For the drowned and the slaughtered, 
 
 With the spray of the deep. 
 
 The eye of Henlopen 
 
 Two leagues to fhe north, 
 Day-closed, now is open, 
 
 And radiates forth : 
 Sad shades gain existence 
 
 The ocean to rim ; 
 And the ships of the distance 
 
 In vapor are dim. 
 
 59
 
 60 RURAL LEISURE. 
 
 But still in sport venial 
 
 My flight I maintain : 
 The eve is so genial, 
 
 And morrows bring rain. 
 As the amateur skater 
 
 Will gambol on steel, 
 The young navigator 
 
 Delights on his keel. 
 
 Now out peeps the starlet, 
 
 The crescent half shines, 
 The sunset s last scarlet 
 
 Is streaking the pines. 
 Wearing round and retracing, 
 
 I the miles slower run ; 
 For the gale fresh and bracing, 
 
 Has gone down with the sun. 
 
 And when the sail slacking, 
 
 Is furled and- fast ; 
 Performed all its tacking, 
 
 And home is at last ; 
 Then for banquet and slipper, 
 
 For hearth and for glee ; 
 And dreams of my clipper, 
 
 The sound and the sea !
 
 ODES. 
 
 ODE i. 
 
 COULD I a noble epic pen, 
 
 Well fit to win the world s applause, 
 To you I would submit it, then 
 
 If need be, to the furnace jaws. 
 
 I would not mourn my fruitless pains, 
 If only you had read each word ; 
 
 Nor deem composed for naught the strains, 
 If only you approving heard ! 
 
 ODE 2. 
 
 FAIR songstress ! soon you will have read 
 A stranger s lines ; who sought this scene 
 
 Upon a conquering army s tread : 
 Of lowly rank and homely mien. 
 
 He joys in psalmody of old, 
 Admires its dulcet rendering ; 
 
 (61)
 
 62 ODES. 
 
 And to the capable is bold, 
 As now, in homage tendering. 
 
 4 
 
 Your home and virtues, race and lot, 
 Are all unknown your very name : 
 
 With him, howe er, it matters not 
 
 You have his love and prayers the same. 
 
 No hope is his to enter free 
 
 Your presence bland, and call you friend : 
 So undesirable is he, 
 
 Know him, your interest will end. 
 
 But this he trusts your choral arts 
 From holy motives all proceed ; 
 
 The chants you warble be your heart s, 
 And that you sing God s praise indeed. 
 
 Your face, your grace, your voice, are dower 
 Well worthy gratitude : O then 
 
 Adore that God who gave you power 
 To charm with these the souls of men !
 
 ODES. 
 
 ODE 3. 
 
 STROLLING I noticed an abandoned gun, 
 Its breech and trunnions bedded in the loam : 
 The sod was sprouting o er that grisly ton 
 Corroding in the elements ; its chamber erst 
 Death harbored in, and whence he burst, 
 Like Coliseum lion, now the insect s home : 
 The sparrow sought a building-site to win ; 
 And, chirping round the muzzle, peeped within. 
 
 I had indifferent passed the object by 
 But in the circle of its silent mouth, 
 A flower fastened my discursive eye ! 
 Pleasing it was; and all the more so there, 
 Without the rivalry of a parterre : 
 No gardener s sprinkle cherished it from drouth; 
 It drew its blue from mould and moisture scant; 
 For God will nurse and keep as well as plant. 
 
 It seemed, I thought, a shadowy type of her 
 Who is to me this castle s only lure : 
 In calm seclusion blooming, as it were, 
 Within the jaws of war ; her gentle grace
 
 64 ODES. 
 
 The more observable in such a place : 
 But peace assures : at its afflatus pure 
 A thousand reconciled extremes abound ; 
 And the lambs frisk upon the battery s mound. 
 
 Yet, as the flower I could not pluck, nor 
 
 long 
 
 Delay to contemplate, so tis with thee ! 
 My interest is passive, howe er strong : 
 For I ve renounced society s delights ; 
 But thee to me a heavenly tie unites, 
 More durable than earth s affinity: 
 My twin believer ! Christ by both adored 
 Co-heir of hope my sister in the Lord ! 
 
 - ODE 4- 
 
 DARE custom primly bar, 
 
 Because a wife you are, 
 My eulogy? at censorship I smile: 
 
 Lady ! I m ravished quite ; 
 
 But mine s a guileless sight, 
 In roaming round this harmful world the while.
 
 ODES. 65 
 
 As ranged o er valley great 
 
 With many a hedged estate, 
 The pilgrim s orb claims each, the nonce, its own; 
 
 Esthetic none the less 
 
 Than if I did possess, 
 I prize all excellencies seen or known. 
 
 For human beauty true, 
 
 And nature s splendors too, 
 Are adumbrations of my God above ; 
 
 His witnessmgs, though dim, 
 
 That glory may to Him 
 Ascend from those who e er admire or love. 
 
 Men might not sink so low, 
 
 Did woman alway show 
 That folly her incensement would ensure ; 
 
 Nor license so entice, 
 
 Were the penalty of vice 
 Exclusion from the beauteous and the pure. 
 
 I know naught of your past, 
 
 Save that you must have cast 
 A radiance sweeter still could such one sec; 
 
 And soon I leave this spot, 
 
 To mark your future not ; 
 The present picture shall my memory s be. 
 5
 
 66 ODES. 
 
 But, lady, I ll allow 
 
 One cause I laud you, now : 
 
 You image her whose hand I long to sue ! 
 Unnumbered leagues away 
 She is with me on the day 
 
 When I my courted vision have of you ! 
 
 ODE 5. 
 
 As long as earth supplies her ores, 
 Cast them, O artisan, in bells ! 
 
 And, mason, while the rock is yours, 
 Erect the tower where rapture dwells ; 
 
 And through its mullioned windows pours 
 Far floating peals and chants and knells ! 
 
 It was an abbey s chimes so deep, 
 
 Rolling on Neustria s blast ; 
 That broke her conquering William s sleep, 
 
 His dying and his last ; 
 And mid their wild melodious sweep, 
 
 His warlike spirit passed. 
 
 On what events before and since, 
 In various lands the bell has rung !
 
 ODES. 67 
 
 And there have been the great the prince, 
 Remembered but through bells they hung : 
 
 A Schiller, as memoirs evince, 
 
 Remembered by The Bell he sung. 
 
 But precious were those tones to me 
 
 Which drew you from your father s hall : 
 
 My weekly glimpse of you, fair E , 
 
 Depended on their Sabbath call ; 
 
 As sad I hovered you to see 
 Along the church s ivied wall ! 
 
 ODE 6. 
 
 FROM social conversation flown 
 To nurse a morbid grief alone, 
 I thought, from love and hope exempt, 
 Nothing remained return to tempt ; 
 But some whom I at times have met, 
 Make me reflect if not regret ; 
 Cause me to think my course is not 
 (As deemed) a God-appointed lot; 
 And neath the moving glance of those, 
 Question the banishment I chose.
 
 68 ODES. 
 
 And you are one ! but how or why? 
 Perhaps concernment in your eye 
 I read ; or felt myself and mood 
 By intuition understood ; 
 And grateful for such kindness shown, 
 The freer did your merit own ; 
 Or by some sympathy divined 
 The touch of a superior mind : 
 Howe er it be, the tale no less 
 Of admiration I confess. 
 
 Your classic face is cherished now, 
 Revered as is a royal brow : 
 A mould too noble, unknown maid, 
 From my delighted mind to fade ; 
 A cast unmarred by passion rash, 
 Frivolity s debasing flash, 
 Deception s artifice; for truth 
 Seems to enhance your brilliant youth : 
 Your countenance my criterion stays, 
 By which all others to condemn or praise. 
 
 But why should I your presence dare, 
 For transitory rapture there? 
 Soon you depart and I am more 
 Unblest, unhappy than before.
 
 ODES. 
 
 Parting my patience so transcends, 
 I have to shun the joys it ends ; 
 And tread my sombre path of loss, 
 Accepting exile as my cross. 
 Some brighter destiny is thine : 
 Then follow it I follow mine ! 
 
 69 
 
 ODE 7. 
 
 A UKAUTY on a frosty morn 
 Strolled outward for a walk ; 
 
 Met a poor, shivering lad forlorn ; 
 And deigned with him to talk. 
 
 The boy looked up her sympathy 
 Had all his pain beguiled : 
 
 "Am I not cold? you ask "said he- 
 " I was, until you smiled !"
 
 7 o 
 
 ODES. 
 
 ODE 8. 
 
 UPON the ocean I would live and die ; 
 
 I would not part with it for beauty s hand : 
 There freedom rides health-teeming gales ; and I 
 
 Leave gloom and idleness upon the land. 
 The vastness satisfies my restless soul ; 
 
 With many scenes my heart and thoughts 
 
 expand ; 
 
 With God so near no creature need condole ; 
 And human idols cease their fell control. 
 
 Soon I m to hide behind its mist and mile; 
 
 In the manned cutter off again to shove : 
 Adventure in some foreign realm or isle, 
 
 May dim to soberness the tints of love. 
 But as the mighty plays of time unfold ; 
 
 And death and change and angels, good and 
 
 vile, 
 
 Fight o er the world, I yearn still to behold 
 Joy s chaplet lustrous round your tress of gold.
 
 ODES. 1 1 
 
 Affecting presence ! that of naiad, elf, 
 
 Or king, I fancy aweless ; this almost divine ; 
 
 For having no infirmities yourself, 
 
 How can you feel a charity for mine? 
 
 I ve met unflinchingly death s chilly stare; 
 But falter under yours without design : 
 
 Distrust of what my destiny may bear, 
 
 Comes on to prompt my proneness to despair. 
 
 Indifference the wily suitor feigns ; 
 
 At ease he sets your apprehensive eye ; 
 He shows whate er the flame his breast con 
 tains 
 
 Only as much as he can profit by. 
 Spite woman s vaunted shrewdness and what not, 
 
 She rarely foils the worldly courtier s pains. 
 I know all this ; but who slacks to a trot 
 His rein, when folly s steeple-chase is hot? 
 
 It may not pleasure you or yours to make 
 Disclosure thus, and choose so warm a tone ; 
 
 But for relief I must my offering take, 
 And lay it down at your ideal throne. 
 
 Proud girl ! you shall know all, for candor s sake: 
 I cannot be at peace my worship still unknown:
 
 j 2 ODES. 
 
 At every hazard, every risk, I ll prate ; 
 And dare all odds for loveliness so great. 
 
 At various place the comely and refined 
 
 Gave me their welcome ; but my heart as now 
 
 Owned you its primal impulse your high mind, 
 Your peerless form and etiolated brow. 
 
 Think me not recreant, inconstant too, 
 Accepting solace absence would allow ; 
 
 That chancing your faint semblances to view, 
 
 I caught at them as imagery of you. 
 
 In sighs upon the faded little day 
 
 In which twas mine to know you, ends my ode 
 But that shall be to me when far away, 
 
 Of all my memories dearest episode : 
 Your picture in my mind the treasured one, 
 
 With that grand hill befitting your abode ; 
 And its flecked valley spread in cloudless sun, 
 Meet scene for eyes like yours to rest upon !
 
 ODES. 
 
 73 
 
 ODE 9. 
 
 WHEN passing near an ancient tree, 
 
 I sometimes quit the way, 
 To claim what blessing there may be 
 
 Thereon my hand to lay. 
 
 And when the shoremen draw the net, 
 And ply the string and knife ; 
 
 I love to buy some struggling pet, 
 And fling it back to life. 
 
 I love to stroke the roadside beast, 
 
 Whose orbs inquire why : 
 Would that he were from toil released ; 
 
 Would that he were as I. 
 
 O would that all despised, oppressed, 
 
 All ignorant and poor, 
 Become the equals of the best ; 
 
 And enter heaven s door:
 
 74 
 
 ODES. 
 
 Equals in lore and virtue meet 
 To walk with the refined ; 
 
 Equals, not in their own conceit, 
 But gesture, heart and mind. 
 
 In this lost world of ours, then, 
 Let each that good devise : 
 
 The lover of his fellow-men 
 Delights to help them rise. 
 
 He sullen caste must needful call; 
 
 But needful evil tis : 
 He would not to vile levels fall ; 
 
 But lift them thence to his. 
 
 O Freedom ! in thy zenith beam 
 
 My soul forever feasts ; 
 And musing on thy higher theme 
 
 I ve left the trees and beasts. 
 
 The beauty of the Godhead lurks 
 
 In these, however dim ; 
 And pleasure in His humbler works, 
 
 Is pleasure found in Him.
 
 ODES. 75 
 
 ODE 10. 
 
 You smile on me ! perhaps if I should ask 
 To be made known to you, decorum s doors would 
 
 ope; 
 
 And at your side I d be the chatting friend : 
 Looking aloof with a complacent pity, 
 At those with lots or intellects so mean and low 
 And so debased, they be perforce denied 
 Your blest society for aye. Then were I struck 
 With want or woe or death, I d have a claim 
 Upon your thoughts and sympathy ; and mid your 
 
 pleasures, 
 
 The heart and time might come to speak of me. 
 But I ll forego all this surrender all 
 For the delicious dream of thinking you immortal ! 
 Still let your hazel eye, replete with mysteries, 
 Shoot its far glance at mine ; your o erheard voice 
 Move me as would a monarch s; and the walks, 
 Where you have been in flower-encircled hat 
 And garb of white with sea-blue hem, be, by 
 Your loitering there, forever hallowed ; and your 
 
 presence 
 
 To me as awful as a lonely forest nook 
 Illumined by the summer moon at midnight !
 
 76 ODES. 
 
 ODE ii. 
 
 THERE is a gallery of portraits rare 
 Within my memory, to which I oft repair 
 In lone reflection. 
 
 These are the etchings of the perfect few 
 Whom I have met ; who from my spirit drew 
 Praise or affection. 
 
 Within that gallery there is a niche, 
 Which tracery of you shall soon enrich ; 
 Sweet, latest Recollection !
 
 THE BLOCKADE-RUNNER. 
 
 THE morning fog is clearing now: 
 "A sail upon the starboard bow !" 
 The eagled youths who idling pass, 
 Consult the quartermaster s glass ; 
 Up springs the officer-of-the-deck ; 
 The message boy speeds at his beck, 
 To where the Captain in the stem 
 Awaits such merry news to learn. 
 The gunboat to the point is brought, 
 The aiding sails are sheeted taut, 
 The red-mouthed funnels windward set, 
 The firemen at the furnace sweat ; 
 Roundly the quickened paddle spins ; 
 And with a cheer the chase begins. 
 
 The stranger marks afar the scheme ; 
 And likewise crowds his sail and steam : 
 The bree/e is faint ; but canvas spread 
 May drive the ship a knot ahead. 
 
 (77)
 
 THE BLOCKADE-RUNNER. 
 
 The double stacks begrime and choke ; 
 Disgorging streams of gloomy smoke, 
 Which rising in the sultry air, 
 Form ebon clouds that dally there : 
 And plainly to the most unskilled 
 Appears the vessel s British build : 
 Long, low and narrow, wheels aside, 
 Brig-rigged, and made upon the Clyde ; 
 The fore-peak housed, a taffrail staff 
 For flags which elsewhere climb the gaff; 
 The masts and chimneys raking back ; 
 The hull daubed grey instead of black: 
 To run unseen at dawn and eve, 
 Or by that Federal hue deceive. 
 
 And gradual as the noontide wanes, 
 The active cruiser toils and gains ; 
 For hours along the sunny deeps 
 She quivers on with willing leaps ; 
 While o er the stubborn shafts supreme, 
 Dances the glittering walking-beam ; 
 As tossing high its burnished cups, 
 From which each joint its oiling sups ; 
 And faithful plying, void of noise, 
 It oscillates on graceful poise. 
 The sails they wet, the ballast shift, 
 To trim for steady flight more swift ;
 
 79 
 
 And hoisted from the lower hold, 
 Tierces of pork are nimbly rolled, 
 Torn from its crashing staves and tires, 
 Hurled sputtering in the furnace fires. 
 Man after man no longer copes 
 With that fierce heat, drawn up by ropes, 
 And stretched on deck but half alive, 
 Water is dashed, them to revive : 
 All are exhausted by the blaze : 
 Seamen must come and work relays. 
 
 " Stand by your forward rifled gun 
 Blank cartridge first, but only one !" 
 With puff and flame the roar rings out, 
 Nor puts the fugitive about : 
 Then earnest fire ball after ball 
 Wide of the mark or short are all ; 
 But still the space is narrowing down : 
 " We ll have him yet !" shouts Captain Town. 
 
 But now a scene surmised before ; - 
 The stranger heaves his cargo o er: 
 His iron hull is laden deep 
 With stores he finds he cannot keep. 
 Off float the boxes and the bales; 
 But even this expedient fails :
 
 8o THE BLOCKADE-RUNNER. 
 
 The lightened ship has much o erthrown, 
 And still she cannot hold her own : 
 Straight onward, as though not to choose 
 To right or left an inch to lose, 
 While the sea after spuming churns, 
 A furlong more the cruiser earns. 
 The sailors cast their gloating eyes 
 Upon the drifting merchandise ; 
 Then follow fagot, plank and bar, 
 Tossed out the chaser s wheels to mar: 
 Meanwhile the breezes freshening come : 
 The hunted rogue has hope therefrom. 
 
 He scans his foe s light-drafted bulk, 
 And her extended breadth of hulk, 
 The broad wheel-houses, that retard 
 Advancing when headwinds are hard ; 
 While his own ship, so sharp, he knows 
 Can readier pierce as gales oppose. 
 Adroitly acting on the thought, 
 His steamer to the wind is brought ; 
 . The foiled pursuer does the same ; 
 But slowly loses on her game, 
 Which driving through in maddest force, 
 Successful strains his altered course : 
 In the gale s teeth his flight he shapes; 
 And with an oath the prize escapes !
 
 A SEASIDE DREAM. 
 
 TWAS hours before the sundown boat 
 Would at that Tropic landing float ; 
 And in a netted hammock flung, 
 I waited, sleeping as it swung ; 
 The vision to my memory clung. 
 
 IN my bright villa on the peak, 
 
 A task is mine : 
 It is for thornless ease to seek, 
 
 Lifelong recline. 
 
 My father drove laborious prow 
 
 Through China Sea ; 
 With fortune came and made me vow 
 
 I d idle be. 
 
 6 (81)
 
 82 A SEASIDE DREAM. 
 
 He placed me on this hazy cliff 
 
 And decked my home ; 
 Then stepped in his argosy s skiff, 
 
 Again to roam. 
 
 AAvay I marked him fleetly wear 
 
 Towards far Mysore : 
 They told me soon a typhoon there 
 
 A convoy tore ; 
 
 Yet I gainst care and courier shut 
 
 My heart and tower : 
 My father s dubious fate gave but 
 
 A gloomy hour. 
 
 EYES to my summer moon are raised 
 
 Beyond the seas : 
 Gazing on her as I have gazed 
 
 From grottoed ease. 
 
 We hear she has a God, and just ; 
 
 But cold and far : 
 They who have naught but Him to trust, 
 
 Most wretched are.
 
 A SEASIDE DREAM. 83 
 
 The arm of flesh is warm and strong : 
 
 What can be nigher? 
 It shall redress my every wrong, 
 
 Win each desire. 
 
 With it my friend my heart s elate, 
 
 Unvexed and free : 
 It shall console, in every strait 
 
 Deliver me. 
 
 The un con verted s eye they say 
 
 Hard, glassy is : 
 Not so the Christian s; there s a ray 
 
 Of grief in his. 
 
 Methinks I love him when he s bowed 
 
 In chastenings low : 
 Though I am proud I hate the proud, 
 
 I scorn their show : 
 
 And though they chant their rituals sweet, 
 
 Commune and pray ; 
 They shall be ashes neath his feet 
 
 At Vengeance-Day. 
 
 I ve walked to where immersed in sand 
 On beaches far,
 
 84 A SEASIDE DREAM. 
 
 The bilging wrecks bird-haunted stand, 
 With listed spar : 
 
 On them the water-shadows lone 
 
 At noontide play ; 
 But men to sail and men to own, 
 
 Are gone for aye. 
 
 What cares vain beauty that they lie 
 
 On whimbreled shores ? 
 She flames in halls pretension high, 
 
 While man adores : 
 
 And what to me their woe and loss ? 
 
 My purse is sure : 
 Their transient gains may flit across ; 
 
 But mine endure. 
 
 While rifts of dust the splendor tame 
 
 Of tapestry hem, 
 In high-lipped vase the nectars flame 
 
 Like molten gem. 
 
 For as the years embrowned the frieze 
 
 And dimmed the gold, 
 The lustre refuged here in these 
 
 My liquors old :
 
 A SEASIDE DREAM. 
 
 And so it is the happy sum 
 
 Of all I do : 
 My joys no sooner fade than come 
 
 In shape anew. 
 
 With filmy orb I lounge and note 
 
 The wings of gulls ; 
 The pennons which in distance float, 
 
 And all that lulls. 
 
 O let the sweat of valleys grieve 
 
 The man of toil ; 
 My life shall flow as calm as eve, 
 
 As perfumed oil ; 
 
 As free as the sun-glistening horse 
 
 The pampas roves ; 
 As smooth as crested chariots course 
 
 Through palace groves. 
 
 ONE morning when I silent lay 
 
 In oriel height ; 
 Palled were the heavens in leaden grey 
 
 With base of light:
 
 86 A SEASIDE DREAM. 
 
 And there in sudden, bold define, 
 
 What scene occurs 
 A forest ! like the jagged line 
 
 Of northern firs. 
 
 The horizon whereon it rose 
 
 Is crowded black ; 
 The mass approaches, larger grows, 
 
 In forward track. 
 
 An aqueous murmur, gently loud, 
 
 Its movements cause : 
 A dome is cloven in the cloud ; 
 
 The objects pause : 
 
 Then by that slanting glow I saw 
 
 The vision plain : 
 Ships of all time, from ocean s maw, 
 
 Here sailed again ! 
 
 Each class by many a plan and style 
 
 And age, estranged ; 
 Drawn up as though in curve and file, 
 
 By admiral ranged. 
 
 There Cathay, Tyre and Denmark ply 
 Their ancient oars ;
 
 / SEASIDE DREAM. \ 
 
 And Britain s liners bristle high 
 Their cannoned floors : 
 
 The galleon, trader, craft of steam, 
 
 Malay malign ; 
 And yachts of princes all their gleam 
 
 Consumed with brine. 
 
 By spell the rotten beams in place 
 
 Are held as one ; 
 As wires mount in study-case 
 
 The skeleton. 
 
 Clusters on hull and tattered sail 
 
 Convervoid green ; 
 W r hile down the masts of many trail 
 
 Vines submarine. 
 
 The strengthening sun the heaven clears 
 
 To wondrous day : 
 A sunlight lacking, it appears, 
 
 A prismy ray. 
 
 Detached and vivid come o erhead 
 
 New Glooms opake; 
 Then in a voice remote and dread, 
 
 The Wind-god spake :
 
 88 A SEASIDE DREAM. 
 
 "Storms, show thy prey !" each sep rate 
 Shade 
 
 Its own collects : 
 The phantom Tempests here parade 
 
 Their phantom wrecks : 
 
 And while their clammy, briny smells 
 
 About diffuse ; 
 The host, melodious with its bells, 
 
 The god reviews. 
 
 Grandly at unseen signal beck, 
 
 Manoeuvre all ; 
 The thirsty birds a nimbus peck 
 
 And showers fall : 
 
 Refreshed the ghostly messmen ope 
 
 The wonted song, 
 The sailors notes at chain and rope 
 
 Slow, wild and long. 
 
 They sing in turn ; but when they meet 
 
 In hap commune, 
 Combined their chorus shakes the fleet 
 
 A storm of tune.
 
 A SEASIDE DREAM. 
 
 Their flags the navies flaunt and dip, 
 
 In passing speed : 
 I quickly see my father s ship, 
 
 Her name I read. 
 
 The crew on reedy quarter keep 
 
 A circling pace ; 
 While I with ten-fold vision peep 
 
 In each man s face : 
 
 He is not there ! but that escape 
 
 Can scarce console : 
 Death he has met in other shape 
 
 Than blast or shoal. 
 
 Soon on my olden flowers and calm 
 
 Dilates my eye ; 
 Upon my castled cliff I am, 
 
 In oriel high ; 
 
 Above me bends his countenance 
 
 With joyful tears: 
 Unscathed it by shipwreck chance, 
 
 But etched by years. 
 
 The sun upon the ocean quaffs 
 His vesper wine ; 
 
 89
 
 9 o 
 
 A SEASIDE DREAM. 
 
 And, sure of future glory, laughs 
 At his decline ; 
 
 But rarer pageantry illumes 
 
 Our garden cove ; 
 In pomp centennial bursts and blooms 
 
 The aloe grove. 
 
 Now, in our hour of strength and pride, 
 
 We ll wisdom learn ; 
 And land from off this dancing tide 
 
 Before it turn : 
 
 We ll give our hearts and treasures up 
 
 To Lord of all ; 
 If need be share His earthly cup 
 
 Of shame and gall. 
 
 We ll seek despairing ones to save, 
 
 To help and soothe ; 
 
 Make their crushed lives more sweetly 
 brave, 
 
 Their deathbeds smooth.
 
 A SEASIDE DREAM. 
 
 Long as our busy day protracts, 
 
 His Word we ll spread : 
 He will accept our faithful acts, 
 
 As He has said. 
 
 Here we ve no song; but hope for what 
 
 Shall ne er be dumb : 
 Here no continuing city but 
 
 Seek one to come. 
 
 MY dream within a dream, is past: 
 The cutter waits for me at last ; 
 The straggling crew resume their ash ; 
 Impel with oft-recurring plash. 
 Poor children of the sea, how due 
 What good I work commence with you !
 
 THE ICEBERG. 
 
 THERE S in a region of my studied map, 
 
 The Giant s home whom I from fancy draw : 
 
 His mother Greenland reared him in her lap 
 Patient mid polar night and cold and thaw: 
 Rewarded when his wondrous strength she saw. 
 
 Aurora pleased him : he revered her ; and 
 Absorbed the glory of her splendid eye : 
 
 She brushed his temples with her treacherous 
 
 hand, 
 
 Sent him adown the inviting ocean nigh 
 Like human Power to loom, dissolve and die. 
 
 UNCHARTED Teneriffe stupendous isle 
 Unclaimed, ungarrisoned a wandering Alp 
 Detached and venturous an Iceberg lone 
 Drifts on the ocean ! Heaped grotesque, 
 (92)
 
 THE ICEBERG. 
 
 93 
 
 As by the fancy of a god at play, the crags 
 Teem with romance s emblems. Frost exhausts 
 His potent cunning; and the irised pomp, 
 Flamed in wild breadth upon the glassy steeps, 
 Is as though sunset gifted mantle here 
 Nature heart-set to image out a King. 
 
 Frigates far beyond 
 
 The horizon below, the peak o erlooks; 
 And, probing to unfathomed night, the draught 
 Explores the terrors of the nether waste, 
 Whose currents bear against the surface tides, 
 The bulk colossal that leagues coolness round. 
 While bubbly nebulas interior halls 
 And cells, are charged with hyperborean air ; 
 Where fairies or sprites embryo might dwell 
 In the eternal purity of cold : 
 So, held by flesh, the soul of heavenly breath 
 Awaits departure ; as dissolving fast, 
 These wander up and on the sunshine burst, 
 Fringing a rim of effervescent sea. 
 
 A bark becalmed is near. A hundred eyes 
 Are peering o er the nettings ; glancing up 
 The mighty altitude from where upon the wave, 
 Swallowing its brine, the caverns monster- 
 mouthed,
 
 94 
 
 THE ICEBERG. 
 
 Fanged bright with icicles, yawn in mysteried 
 
 depth 
 
 To silvery ridges and the summit s crown 
 Of scintillating pinnacles that pierce 
 The sky with fragile fingers : Sol o er all 
 Flooding his glory. Everything is still 
 In the grand presence ; vanity s suppressed 
 By grave emotion wonder, awe and dread. 
 
 Water is gushing devious down the Berg, 
 As river down the cheek of distant mount. 
 A boulder vast and black is bedded near 
 The tranquil brim, and soon to fall therein 
 Landmark and marvel to a future land ; 
 But on a lower ledge a form of life ! 
 An Arctic bear stalks circumscribed and opes 
 Despairing roar. 
 
 The mass turns slow ; and silently displays 
 A sight of horror vestiges of some 
 Colliding ship impinged upon the ice : 
 A torn-out stem with garniture of wreck ; 
 Bowsprit and martingal, figurehead of gold., 
 Headrails and headstays, cutwater and bitts, 
 Breast-hooks and capstan brassed and anchor red ; 
 Conspicuous all. Twas some such tale as this :
 
 THE ICEBERG. 
 
 95 
 
 The busy engines of a steamer kept 
 Through misty midnight a metallic hum. 
 The drowsy watch no peril dreamed ; below 
 Lay the returning from the foreign tour. 
 Frothing in wake a mile of white abode 
 But the hid moon to sparkle. On the track before 
 Moves unperceived the Berg. In the hushed air 
 Are ghoulish whisperings, as though the deeps 
 Hist to each other wistful for their prey. 
 
 As the war courser, roweled to the bone 
 On the repelling line of leveled steel, 
 Recoils upon his haunch with cloven throat, 
 Amid the shower of his own life -gore ; 
 So this arrested traverser is checked 
 By the ice-rock, mid the descent 
 Of splinters myriad ; and quickly feels 
 The exultant ocean s inward-darted grasp 
 Cqld in her vitals. Crowded sleepers roused, 
 In frantic panic seek unplanned escape ; 
 Through cabin floor the pressing seas suffuse 
 The carpet cespitous ; through portals surged, 
 They seize and buoy aloft the trinketry - 
 They drink the splendors of that long saloon 
 They gnash against the ceiling. Then the plunge ! 
 Above the bulwarks mount the boarding streams,
 
 96 THE ICEBERG. 
 
 As wolves across a rent stockade or as 
 
 The eager legions of besieging war, 
 
 Wheeled to the storming shock, tumultuous sweep 
 
 The escaladed rampart ; and as o er 
 
 The roaring rout, yet planted in its midst, 
 
 The doubtful standard holds precarious root 
 
 So sways the royalmast to flaunt once more 
 
 Its pennant ere above the diving truck, 
 
 And crushed or davit-foul or swamping boats, 
 
 The maelstrom spins, the thousand relics rise ; 
 
 And struggling men in darkness clutch them round. 
 
 And morning came, as mornings often come 
 After our nights of woe serene as e er, 
 And innocently radiant as unaware 
 Of what transpired meanwhile. The ortive sun 
 Inducts afresh the miracle of a day ; 
 In confidence appears, in hope to touch 
 Anew his petted ship of yester-eve. 
 He sees her not ; yet climbing, wider range 
 O erlooks ; and, more surprised, a wider still : 
 Then settling on the Berg he seems to say, 
 As the Almighty to the guilty Cain, 
 "Where is thy brother?" Now there came a 
 
 cloud 
 An interposing cloud athwart the disc ;
 
 THE ICEBERG. 
 
 97 
 
 And on the pile the shadow fell, while all about 
 Was luminous : it was as though God frowned 
 On the Destroyer and abhorred its work ; 
 For as where er a man may wander, sky 
 Keeps e er above him ; even so tis vain, 
 In the sphered world s inclusion, to elude 
 Or move out from beneath His overwatching. 
 
 A child repines for its providing sire ; 
 A wife drops tears upon a miniature ; 
 A mother watches, with hand-shaded eyes, 
 Some one s return ; and all the little whirl 
 The wonted whirl of hopes, alarms, despairs, 
 Transiently noises the overdue, the foundered, 
 
 lost. 
 
 While the cold Iceberg 
 Stalks o er the sea in silence : as the proud of 
 
 earth 
 
 The throned, the famous, and the beauteous too, 
 Course on impenetrably iced in self 
 Thoughtless, regardless of the wrecks they cause. 
 But One said long ago, that like as wax 
 At fire wasteth, so let such as these, 
 Ungodly, perish by a present God ; 
 A nil thou O Berg ! when yonder sun 
 Exchanges temperate ray for torrid flame,
 
 98 THE ICEBERG. 
 
 Then thou in lower latitude shalt melt ! 
 
 Even now thy groan 
 
 Of verging dissolution rumbles forth 
 
 As some sapped rib or glacial shield falls in ; 
 
 And, like a battery s voice, shoots startling boom ! 
 
 The bark becalmed, from which the hundred 
 
 eyes 
 
 Peered marveling up, now scents reviving breeze : 
 Her agitated jib distends, contracts, 
 Like a fawn s snuffing nostril. Seamen trim 
 To favorable angle every yard ; 
 And watch each indication of the air. 
 Lo, what a crash of glittering ice behind ! 
 Is the Berg toppling? no : its crown is reft : 
 The lofty diadem that frosting floods 
 Shot with prismatic beauty, and encast 
 On this their champion s brow, is shivered off- 
 Its gemmary debris hailstoning the deep ; 
 And to a chaos of commingled dyes 
 Shatters the mirrored shimmering below. 
 
 And softly as ourselves and past events 
 Recede each other from on Chronos sea ; 
 Mark soon the level distance rolling out, 
 Like mazarine velvet from imperial loom,
 
 THE ICEBERG. 
 
 Between the hieing ship and solemn Berg ! 
 But mile to mile near doubled score extends, 
 Ere to the glass-trained eye the Ice-king all 
 Descends in ocean : and above the tip 
 The skyline closes objectless and lone. 
 
 99 
 
 FINIS.
 
 HYMN. 
 
 (FROM THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER.) 
 
 SOVEREIGN RULER of the skies, 
 Ever gracious, ever wise ; 
 All our times are in Thy hand : 
 All events at Thy command. 
 
 He that formed us in the womb, 
 He shall guide us to the tomb : 
 All our ways shall ever be 
 Ordered by His wise decree. 
 
 Times of sickness, times of health, 
 Blighting want and cheerful wealth ; 
 All our pleasures, all our pains, 
 Come and end as God ordains. 
 
 May we always see Thy hand, 
 Still to Thee surrendered stand, 
 Know that Thou art God alone ; 
 We and ours are all Thy own ! 
 (100)
 
 UCSB UBRAR*