O
righteous
Heaven!
Warner - World's Best Literature - v06 - Cal to Chr
"And if thou know'est to deal in direful fight
the doom of brand and blade to Moorish host,
Know also thou to deal of life the light
to one who ne'er deserved her life be lost;
But an thou wouldst mine inno'cence thus requite,
place me for aye on sad exilèd coast,
in Scythian sleet, on seething Libyan shore,
with life-long tears to linger evermore.
"Place me where beasts with fiercest rage abound,-
Lyons and Tygers,-there, ah! let me find
if in their hearts of flint be pity found,
denied to me by heart of humankind.
There with intrinsic love and will so fond
for him whose love is death, there will I tend
these tender pledges whom thou see'st; and so
shall the sad mother cool her burning woe. '
"Inclin'ed to pardon her the King benign,
moved by this sad lament to melting mood;
but the rude People and Fate's dure design
(that willed it thus) refused the pardon sued:
They draw their swords of steely temper fine,
They who proclaim as just such deed of blood:
Against a ladye, caitiff, felon wights!
how showed ye here, brute beasts or noble Knights? -
"Thus on Polyxena, that beauteous maid,
last solace of her mother's age and care,
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when doom'd to die by fierce Achilles' shade,
the cruel Pyrrhus hasted brand to bare:
But she (a patient lamb by death waylaid)
with the calm glances which serene the air,
casts on her mother, mad with grief, her eyes
and silent waits that awesome sacrifice.
"Thus dealt with fair Ignèz the murth'erous crew,
in th' alabastrine neck that did sustain
the charms whereby could Love the love subdue
of him, who crown'd her after death his Queen;
bathing their blades; the flow'ers of snowy hue,
which often water'ed by her eyne had been,
are blood-dyed; and they burn with blinding hate,
reckless of tortures stor'd for them by Fate.
"Well mightest shorn of rays, O Sun! appear
to fiends like these on day so dark and dire;
as when Thyestes ate the meats that were
his seed, whom Atreus slew to spite their sire.
And you, O hollow Valleys! doomed to hear
her latest cry from stiffening lips expire-
her Pedro's name,- did catch that mournful sound,
whose echoes bore it far and far around!
"E'en as Daisy sheen, that hath been shorn
in time untimely, floret fresh and fair,
and by untender hand of maiden torn
to deck the chaplet for her wreathèd hair;
gone is its odor and its colours mourn;
So pale and faded lay that Ladye there;
dried are the roses of her cheek, and fled
the white live color, with her dear life dead.
"Mondego's daughter-Nymphs the death obscure
wept many a year, with wails of woe exceeding;
and for long mem'ry changed to fountain pure
the floods of grief their eyes were ever feeding:
The name they gave it, which doth still endure,
revived Ignéz, whose murthered love lies bleeding,
see yon fresh fountain flowing 'mid the flowers,
tears are its waters, and its name 'Amores! '¹
"Time ran not long, ere Pedro saw the day
of vengeance dawn for wounds that ever bled;
The famous Fonte-dos-Amores, near Coimbra.
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who, when he took in hand the kingly sway,
eke took the murth'erers who his rage had fled:
Them a most cruel Pedro did betray;
for both, if human life the foemen dread,
made concert savage and dure pact, unjust as
Lepidus made with Anthony' and Augustus. "
Co
THE CANZON OF LIFE
OME here! my confidential Secretary
Of the complaints in which my days are rife,
Paper, whereon I gar my griefs o'erflow.
Tell we, we twain, Unreasons which in life
Deal me inexorable, contrary
I
―
Destinies surd to prayer and tearful woe.
Dash we some water-drops on muchel lowe,
Fire we with outcries storm of rage so rare
That shall be strange to mortal memory.
Such misery tell we
To God and Man, and eke, in fine, to air,
Whereto so many times did I confide
My tale and vainly told as I now tell;
But e'en as error was my birthtide-lot,
That this be one of many doubt I not.
And as to hit the butt so far I fail
E'en if I sinnèd her cease they to chide:
Within mine only Refuge will I 'bide
To speak and faultless sin with free intent.
Sad he so scanty mercies must content!
II
Long I've unlearnt me that complaint of dole
Brings cure of dolours; but a wight in pain
To greet is forced an the grief be great.
I will outgreet; but weak my voice and vain
To express the sorrows which oppress my soul;
For nor with greeting shall my dole abate.
Who then shall grant me, to relieve my weight
Of sorrow, flowing tears and infinite sighs
Equal those miseries my Sprite o'erpower?
But who at any hour,
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Can measure miseries with his tears or cries?
I'll tell, in fine, the love for me design'd
By wrath and woe and all their sovenance;
For other dole hath qualities harder, sterner.
Draw near and hear me each despairing Learner!
And fly the many fed on Esperance
Or wights who fancy Hope will prove her kind;
For Love and Fortune willed, with single mind,
To leave them hopeful, so they comprehend
What measure of unweal in hand they hend.
III
When fro' man's primal grave, the mother's womb,
New eyes on earth I oped, my hapless star
To mar my Fortunes 'gan his will enforce;
And freedom (Free-will given me) to debar:
I learnt a thousand times it was my doom
To know the Better and to work the Worse:
Then with conforming tormentize to curse
My course of coming years, when cast I round
A boyish eye-glance with a gentle zest,
It was my Star's behest
A Boy born blind should deal me life-long wound.
Infantine tear-drops wellèd out the deep
With vague enamoured longings, nameless pine:
My wailing accents fro' my cradle-stound
Already sounded me love-sighing sound.
Thus age and destiny had like design:
For when, peraunter, rocking me to sleep
They sung me Love-songs wherein lovers weep,
Attonce by Nature's will asleep I fell,
So Melancholy witcht me with her spell!
IV
My nurse some Feral was; Fate nilled approve
By any Woman such a name be tane
Who gave me breast; nor seemed it suitable.
Thus was I suckled that my lips indrain
E'en fro' my childhood venom-draught of Love,
Whereof in later years I drained my fill,
Till by long custom failed the draught to kill.
VI-198
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Then an Ideal semblance struck my glance
Of that fere Human deckt with charms in foyson,
Sweet with the suavest poyson,
Who nourisht me with paps of Esperance;
Till later saw mine eyes the original,
Which of my wildest, maddest appetite
Makes sinful error sovran and superb.
Meseems as human form it came disturb,
But scintillating Spirit's divinest light.
So graceful gait, such port imperial
Were hers, unweal vainglory'd self to weal
When in her sight, whose lively sheen and shade
Exceeded aught and all things Nature made.
V
What new unkindly kind of human pain
Had Love not only doled for me to dree
But eke on me was wholly execute?
Implacable harshness cooling fervency
Of Love-Desire (thought's very might and main)
Drave me far distant fro' my settled suit,
Vext and self-shamed to sight its own pursuit.
Hence sombre shades phantastick born and bred
Of trifles promising rashest Esperance;
While boons of happy chance
Were likewise feignèd and enfigurèd.
But her despisal wrought me such dismay
That made my Fancy phrenesy-ward incline,
Turning to disconcert the guiling lure.
Here mine 'twas to divine, and hold for sure,
That all was truest Truth I could divine;
And straightway all I said in shame to unsay;
To see whatso I saw in còntrayr way;
In fine, just Reasons seek for jealousy
Yet were the Unreasons eather far to see.
VI
I know not how she knew that fared she stealing
With Eyën-rays mine inner man which flew
Her-ward with subtlest passage through the eyne
Little by little all fro' me she drew,
E'en as from rain-wet canopy, exhaling
The subtle humours, sucks the hot sunshine.
The pure transparent geste and mien, in fine,
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Wherefore inadequate were and lacking sense
"Beauteous" and "Belle" were words withouten weight;
The soft, compassionate
Eye-glance that held the spirit in suspense:
Such were the magick herbs the Heavens all-wise
Drave me a draught to drain, and for long years
To other Being my shape and form transmew'd;
And this transforming with such joy I view'd
That e'en my sorrows snared I with its snares;
And, like the doomèd man, I veiled mine eyes
To hide an evil crescive in such guise;
Like one caressèd and on flattery fed
Of Love, for whom his being was born and bred.
VII
Then who mine absent Life hath power to paint
Wi' discontent of all I bore in view;
That Bide, so far from where she had her Bide,
Speaking, which even what I spake unknew,
Wending, withal unseeing where I went,
And sighing weetless for what cause I sigh'd?
Then, as those torments last endurance tried,
That dreadful dolour which from Tartarus's waves
Shot up on earth and racketh more than all,
Wherefrom shall oft befall
It turn to gentle yearning rage that raves?
Then with repine-ful fury fever-high
Wishing yet wishing not for Love's surceàse;
Shifting to other side for vengeance,
Desires deprived of their esperance,
What now could ever change such ills as these?
Then the fond yearnings for the things gone by,
Pure torment sweet in bitter faculty,
Which from these fiery furies could distill
Sweet tears of Love with pine the soul to thrill?
VIII
For what excuses lone with self I sought,
When my suave Love forfended me to find
Fault in the Thing beloved and so lovèd?
Such were the feigned cures that forged my mind
In fear of torments that for ever taught
Life to support itself by snares approvèd.
Thus through a goodly part of Life I rovèd,
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Wherein if ever joyed I aught content
Short-lived, immodest, flaw-full, without heed,
'Twas nothing save the seed
That bare me bitter tortures long unspent.
This course continuous dooming to distress,
These wandering steps that strayed o'er every road
So wrought, they quencht for me the flamy thirst
I suffered grow in Sprite, in Soul I nurst
With Thoughts enamoured for my daily food,
Whereby was fed my Nature's tenderness:
And this by habit's long and asperous stress,
Which might of mortals never mote resist,
Was turned to pleasure-taste of being triste.
IX
Thus fared I Life with other interchanging;
I no, but Destiny showing fere unlove;
Yet even thus for other ne'er I'd change.
Me from my dear-loved patrial nide she drove
Over the broad and boisterous Ocean ranging,
Where Life so often saw her èxtreme range.
Now tempting rages rare and missiles strange
Of Mart, she willèd that my eyes should see
And hands should touch, the bitter fruit he dight:
That on this Shield they sight
In painted semblance fire of enemy,
Then ferforth driven, vagrant, peregrine,
Seeing strange nations, customs, tongues, costumes;
Various heavens, qualities different,
Only to follow, passing-diligent
Thee, giglet Fortune! whose fierce will consumes
Man's age upbuilding aye before his eyne
A Hope with semblance of the diamond's shine:
But, when it falleth out of hand we know,
'Twas fragile glass that showed so glorious show.
X
Failed me the ruth of man, and I descried
Friends to unfriendly changèd and contràyr,
In my first peril; and I lacked ground,
Whelmed by the second, where my feet could fare;
Air for my breathing was my lot denied,
[round.
Time failed me, in fine, and failed me Life's dull
What darkling secret, mystery profound
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This birth to Life, while Life is doomed withhold
Whate'er the world contain for Life to use!
Yet never Life to lose
Though 'twas already lost times manifold!
In brief my Fortune could no horror make,
Ne certain danger ne ancipitous case
(Injustice dealt by men, whom wild-confused
Misrule, that rights of olden days abused,
O'er neighbour-men upraised to power and place! )
I bore not, lashed to the sturdy stake,
Of my long suffering, which my heart would break
With importuning persecuting harms
Dasht to a thousand bits by forceful arms.
XI
Number I not so numerous ills as He
Who, 'scaped the wuthering wind and furious flood,
In happy harbour tells his travel-tale;
Yet now, e'en now, my Fortune's wavering mood
To so much misery obligeth me
That e'en to pace one forward pace I quail:
No more shirk I what evils may assail;
No more to falsing welfare I pretend;
For human cunning naught can gar me gain.
In fine on sovran Strain
Of Providence divine I now depend:
This thought, this prospect 'tis at times I greet
My sole consoler for dead hopes and fears.
But human weakness when its eyne alight
Upon the things that fleet, and can but sight
The sadding Memories of the long-past years;
What bread such times I break, what drink I drain,
Are bitter tear-floods I can ne'er refrain,
Save by upbuilding castles based on air,
Phantastick painture fair and false as fair.
XII
For an it possible were that Time and Tide
Could bend them backward and, like Memory, view
The faded footprints of Life's earlier day;
And, web of olden story weaving new,
In sweetest error could my footsteps guide
'Mid bloom of flowers where wont my youth to stray;
Then would the memories of the long sad way
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Deal me a larger store of Life-content;
Viewing fair converse and glad company,
Where this and other key
She had for opening hearts to new intent;-
The fields, the frequent stroll, the lovely show,
The view, the snow, the rose, the formosure,
The soft and gracious mien so gravely gay,
The singular friendship casting clean away
All villein longings, earthly and impure,
As one whose Other I can never see;-
Ah, vain, vain memories! whither lead ye me
With this weak heart that still must toil and tire
To tame (as tame it should) your vain Desire?
-
L'ENVOI
No more, Canzon! no more; for I could prate
Sans compt a thousand years; and if befall
Blame to thine over-large and long-drawn strain
We ne'er shall see (assure who blames) contain
An Ocean's water packt in vase so small,
Nor sing I delicate lines in softest tone
For gust of praise; my song to man makes known
Pure Truth wherewith mine own Experience teems;
Would God they were the stuff that builds our dreams!
ADIEU TO COIMBRA
SWEE
WEET lucent waters of Mondego-stream,
Of my Remembrance restful jouïssance,
Where far-fet, lingering, traitorous Esperance
Long whiles misled me in a blinding Dream:
Fro' you I part, yea, still I'll ne'er misdeem
That long-drawn Memories which your charms enhance
Forbid me changing and, in every chance,
E'en as I farther speed I nearer seem.
Well may my Fortunes hale this instrument
Of Soul o'er new strange regions wide and side,
Offered to winds and watery element:
But hence my Spirit, by you 'companied,
Borne on the nimble wings that Reverie lent,
Flies home and bathes her, Waters! in your tide.
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THOMAS CAMPBELL
(1777-1844)
HE life of Thomas Campbell, though in large measure fortu
nate, was uneventful. It was not marked with such brill-
iant successes as followed the career of Scott; nor was
fame purchased at the price of so much suffering and error as were
paid for their laurels by Byron, Shelley, and Burns; but his star
shone with a clear and steady ray, from the youthful hours that saw
his first triumph until near life's close. The world's gifts- the poet's
fame, and the public honors and rewards that witnessed to it-were
given with a generous hand; and until the
death of a cherished wife and the loss of
his two children-sons, loved with a love
beyond the common love of fathers-broke
the charm, Campbell might almost have
been taken as a type of the happy man of
letters.
Thomas Campbell was born in Glasgow,
July 27th, 1777. His family connection was
large and respectable, and the branch to
which he belonged had been settled for
many years in Argyleshire, where they
were called the Campbells of Kirnan, from
an estate on which the poet's grandfather
resided and where he died. His third son,
Alexander, the father of the poet, was at one time the head of a
firm in Glasgow, doing a profitable business with Falmouth in
Virginia; but in common with almost all merchants engaged in the
American trade, he was ruined by the War of the Revolution. At
the age of sixty-five he found himself a poor man, involved in a
costly suit in chancery, which was finally decided against him, and
with a wife and nine children dependent upon him. All that he had
to live on, at the time his son Thomas was born, was the little that
remained to him of his small property when the debts were paid,
and some small yearly sums from two provident societies of which
he was a member. The poet was fortunate in his parents: both of
them were people of high character, warmly devoted to their child-
ren, whose education was their chief care,-their idea of education
including the training of the heart and the manners as well as the
THOMAS CAMPBELL
mind.
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THOMAS CAMPBELL
When eight years old Thomas was sent to the grammar school at
Glasgow, where he began the study of Latin and Greek.
"I was so
early devoted to poetry," he writes, "that at ten years old, when our
master, David Allison, interpreted to us the first Eclogue of Virgil,
I was literally thrilled with its beauty. In my thirteenth year I
went to the University of Glasgow, and put on the red gown. The
joy of the occasion made me unable to eat my breakfast. Whether
it was presentiment or the mere castle-building of my vanity, I had
even then a day-dream that I should one day be Lord Rector of the
university. "
As a boy, Campbell gained a considerable familiarity with the
Latin and Greek poets usually read in college, and was always more
inclined to pride himself on his knowledge of Greek poetry than on
his own reputation in the art. His college life was passed in times
of great political excitement. Revolution was in the air, and all
youthful spirits were aflame with enthusiasm for the cause of liberty
and with generous sympathy for oppressed people, particularly the
Poles and the Greeks. Campbell was caught by the sacred fire which
later was to touch the lips of Byron and Shelley; and in his earliest
published poem his interest in Poland, which never died out from his
heart, found its first expression. This poem, 'The Pleasures of Hope,'
a work whose title was thenceforth to be inseparably associated with
its author's name, was published in 1799, when Campbell was exactly
twenty-one years and nine months old. It at once placed him high
in public favor, though it met with the usual difficulty experienced
by a first poem by an unknown writer, in finding a publisher. The
copyright was finally bought by Mundell for sixty pounds, to be paid
partly in money and partly in books. Three years after the publi-
cation, a London publisher valued it as worth an annuity of two
hundred pounds for life; and Mundell, disregarding his legal rights,
behaved with so much liberality that from the sale of the first seven
editions Campbell received no less than nine hundred pounds.
Besides this material testimony to its success, scores of anecdotes
show the favor with which it was received by the poets and writers
of the time. The greatest and noblest of them all, Walter Scott,
was most generous in his welcome. He gave a dinner in Campbell's
honor, and introduced him to his friends with a bumper to the author
of The Pleasures of Hope. '
It seemed the natural thing for a young man so successfully
launched in the literary coteries of Edinburgh and Glasgow to pur-
sue his advantage in the larger literary world of London. But
Campbell judged himself with humorous severity. "At present," he
writes in a letter, "I am a raw Scotch lad, and in a company of
wits and geniuses would make but a dull figure with my northern
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THOMAS CAMPBELL
3161
brogue and my 'braw Scotch boos. ' » The eyes of many of the
young men of the time were turned toward Germany, where Goethe
and Schiller, Lessing and Wieland, were creating the golden age of
their country's literature; and Campbell, full of youthful hope and
enthusiasm, and with a little money in his pocket, determined to
visit the Continent before settling down to work in London. In 1800
he set out for Ratisbon, which he reached three days before the
French entered it with their army. His stay there was crowded with
picturesque and tragic incidents, described in his letters to friends at
home-"in prose," as his biographer justly says, "which even his best
poetry hardly surpasses. " From the roof of the Scotch Benedictine
Convent of St. James, where Campbell was often hospitably enter-
tained while in Ratisbon, he saw the battle of Hohenlinden, on
which he wrote the poem once familiar to every schoolboy. Wearied
with the bloody sights of war, he left Ratisbon and the next year
returned to England. While living at Altona he wrote no less than
fourteen of his minor poems, but few of these escaped the severity
of his final judgment when he came to collect his verses for publica-
tion. Among these few the best were The Exile of Erin' and the
noble ode Ye Mariners of England,' the poem by which alone, per-
haps, his name deserves to live; though The Battle of the Baltic '
in its original form The Battle of Copenhagen'-unfortunately not
the one best known-is well worthy of a place beside it.
«<
On his return from the Continent, Campbell found himself
received in the warmest manner, not only in the literary world but
in circles reckoned socially higher. His poetry hit the taste of all
the classes that go to make up the general reading public; his harp
had many strings, and it rang true to all the notes of patriotism,
humanity, love, and feeling. "His happie
"His happiest moments at this period,"
says his biographer, seem to have been passed with Mrs. Siddons,
the Kembles, and his friend Telford, the distinguished engineer, for
whom he afterward named his eldest son. " Lord Minto, on his return
from Vienna, became much interested in Campbell and insisted on
his taking up his quarters for the season in his town-house in
Hanover Square. When the season was over Lord Minto went back
to Scotland, taking the poet with him as traveling companion. At
Castle Minto, Campbell found among other visitors Walter Scott, and
it was while there that 'Lochiel's Warning' was composed and
'Hohenlinden' revised, and both poems prepared for the press.
In 1803 Campbell married his cousin, Matilda Sinclair. The mar-
riage was a happy one; Washington Irving speaks of the lady's per-
sonal beauty, and says that her mental qualities were equally
matched with it. "She was, in fact," he adds, "a more suitable
wife for a poet than poets' wives are apt to be; and for once a son
of song had married a reality and not a poetical fiction. ”
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3162
THOMAS CAMPBELL
For seventeen years he supported himself and his family by what
was for the most part task-work, not always well paid, and made
more onerous by the poor state of his health. In 1801 Campbell's
father died, an old man of ninety-one, and with him ceased the
small benevolent-society pensions that, with what Thomas and the
eldest son living in America could contribute, had hitherto kept
the parents in decent comfort. But soon after Thomas's marriage and
the birth of his first child, the American brother failed, so that the
pious duty of supporting the aged mother now came upon the poet
alone. He accepted the addition to his burden as manfully as was to
be expected of so generous a nature, but there is no doubt that he
was in great poverty for a few years. Although often despondent,
and with good reason, his natural cheerfulness and his good sense
always came to the rescue, and in his lowest estate he retained the
respect and the affection of his many friends.
In 1805 Campbell received a pension of £200, which netted him,
when fees and expenses were deducted, £168 a year. Half of this
sum he reserved for himself and the remainder he divided between
his mother and his two sisters. In 1809 he published 'Gertrude of
Wyoming,' which had been completed the year before. It was hailed
with delight in Edinburgh and with no less favor in London, and
came to a second edition in the spring of 1810. But like most of
Campbell's more pretentious poetry, it has failed to keep its place in
the world's favor. The scene of the poem is laid in an impossible
Pennsylvania where the bison and the beaver, the crocodile, the
condor, and the flamingo, live in happy neighborhood in groves of
magnolia and olive; while the red Indian launches his pirogue upon
the Michigan to hunt the bison, while blissful shepherd swains trip
with maidens to the timbrel, and blue-eyed Germans change their
swords to pruning-hooks, Andalusians dance the saraband, poor Cale-
donians drown their homesick cares in transatlantic whisky, and
Englishmen plant fair Freedom's tree! The story is as unreal as the
landscape, and it is told in a style more labored and artificial by far
than that of Pope, to whom indeed the younger poet was often
injudiciously compared. Yet it is to be noted that Campbell's prose
style was as direct and unaffected as could be wished, while in his
two best lyrical poems, Ye Mariners of England,' and the first cast
of The Battle of the Baltic,' he shows a vividness of conception and
a power of striking out expression at white heat in which no one of
his contemporaries excelled him.
Campbell was deservedly a great favorite in society, and the story
of his life at this time is largely the record of his meeting with dis-
tinguished people. The Princess of Wales freely welcomed him to
her court; he had corresponded with Madame de Staël, and when
she came to England he visited her often and at her request read
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THOMAS CAMPBELL
3163
her his lectures on poetry; he saw much of Mrs. Siddons, and when
in Paris in 1814, visited the Louvre in her company to see the
statues and pictures of which Napoleon had plundered Italy.
In 1826 Campbell was made Lord Rector of Glasgow University,
and in 1828 he was re-elected unanimously. During this second term
his wife died, and in 1829 the unprecedented honor of an election for
a third term was bestowed upon him, although he had to dispute it
with no less a rival than Sir Walter Scott. "When he went to Glas-
gow to be inaugurated as Lord Rector," says his biographer, "on
reaching the college green he found the boys pelting each other with
snowballs. He rushed into the mêlée and flung about his snowballs
right and left with great dexterity, much to the delight of the boys
but to the great scandal of the professors. He was proud of the
piece of plate given him by the Glasgow lads, but of the honor con-
ferred by his college title he was less sensible. He hated the sound
of Doctor Campbell, and said to an acquaintance that no friend of
his would ever call him so. "
The establishment through his direct agency of the University of
London was Campbell's most important public work. Later his life
was almost wholly engrossed for a time by his interest in the cause
of Poland-a cause indeed that from his youth had lain near his
heart. But as he grew older and his health declined he became
more and more restless, and finally in 1843 took up his residence at
Boulogne. His parents, his brothers and sisters, his wife, his two
children, so tenderly loved, were all gone. But he still corresponded
with his friends, and to the last his talk was cheerful and pleasant.
In June, 1844, he died, and in July he was buried in Westminster
Abbey in Poets' Corner. About his grave stood Milman, the Duke of
Argyle, the head of his clan,-Sir Robert Peel, Brougham, Lock-
hart, Macaulay, D'Israeli, Horace Smith, Croly and Thackeray, with
many others, and when the words "Dust to dust" were pronounced,
Colonel Szyrma, a distinguished Pole, scattered over the coffin a
handful of earth from the grave of Kosciuszko at Cracow.
## p. 3164 (#134) ###########################################
3164
THOMAS CAMPBELL
HOPE
From the Pleasures of Hope'
T SUMMER eve, when Heaven's ethereal bow
A Spans with bright arch the glittering hills below,
Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye,
Whose sunbright summit mingles with the sky?
Why do those cliffs of shadowy tint appear
More sweet than all the landscape smiling near?
'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain in its azure hue.
Thus with delight we linger to survey
The promised joys of life's unmeasured way;
Thus, from afar, each dim-discovered scene
More pleasing seems than all the past hath been,
And every form that Fancy can repair
From dark oblivion glows divinely there.
What potent spirit guides the raptured eye
To pierce the shades of dim futurity?
Can Wisdom lend, with all her heavenly power,
The pledge of Joy's anticipated hour?
Ah no! she darkly sees the fate of man
Her dim horizon bounded to a span;
Or if she hold an image to the view,
'Tis Nature pictured too severely true.
With thee, sweet Hope, resides the heavenly light
That pours remotest rapture on the sight;
Thine is the charm of life's bewildered way,
That calls each slumbering passion into play.
Waked by thy touch, I see the sister band,
On tiptoe watching, start at thy command,
And fly where'er thy mandate bids them steer,
To Pleasure's path or Glory's bright career.
Where is the troubled heart consigned to share
Tumultuous toils or solitary care,
Unblest by visionary thoughts that stray.
To count the joys of Fortune's better day?
Lo! nature, life, and liberty relume
The dim-eyed tenant of the dungeon gloom;
A long-lost friend, or hapless child restored,
Smiles at his blazing hearth and social board;
Warm from his heart the tears of rapture flow,
And virtue triumphs o'er remembered woe.
Chide not his peace, proud Reason; nor destroy
The shadowy forms of uncreated joy,
.
## p. 3165 (#135) ###########################################
THOMAS CAMPBELL
3165
That urge the lingering tide of life, and pour
Spontaneous slumber on his midnight hour.
Hark! the wild maniac sings, to chide the gale
That wafts so slow her lover's distant sail;
She, sad spectatress, on the wintry shore,
Watched the rude surge his shroudless corse that bore,
Knew the pale form, and shrieking in amaze,
Clasped her cold hands, and fixed her maddening gaze;
Poor widowed wretch! 'Twas there she wept in vain,
Till Memory fled her agonizing brain:-
But Mercy gave, to charm the sense of woe,
Ideal peace, that truth could ne'er bestow;
Warm on her heart the joys of Fancy beam,
And aimless Hope delights her darkest dream.
Oft when yon moon has climbed the midnight sky,
And the lone sea-bird wakes its wildest cry,
Piled on the steep, her blazing fagots burn
To hail the bark that never can return;
And still she waits, but scarce forbears to weep
That constant love can linger on the deep.
THE FALL OF POLAND
From the Pleasures of Hope'
O
SACRED Truth! thy triumph ceased a while,
And Hope, thy sister, ceased with thee to smile,
When leagued Oppression poured to Northern wars
Her whiskered pandoors and her fierce hussars,
Waved her dread standard to the breeze of morn,
Pealed her loud drum, and twanged her trumpet horn;
Tumultuous horror brooded o'er her van,
Presaging wrath to Poland-and to man!
Warsaw's last champion from her height surveyed,
Wide o'er the fields, a waste of ruin laid-
O Heaven! he cried,- my bleeding country save!
Is there no hand on high to shield the brave?
Yet, though destruction sweep those lovely plains,
Rise, fellow-men! our country yet remains.
By that dread name, we wave the sword on high,
And swear for her to live! with her to die!
He said, and on the rampart-heights arrayed
His trusty warriors, few but undismayed;
Firm-paced and slow, a horrid front they form,
Still as the breeze, but dreadful as the storm;
## p. 3166 (#136) ###########################################
3166
THOMAS CAMPBELL
Low murmuring sounds along their banners fly,
Revenge, or death-the watchword and reply;
Then pealed the notes, omnipotent to charm,
And the loud tocsin tolled their last alarm!
In vain, alas! in vain, ye gallant few!
From rank to rank your volleyed thunder flew;
Oh, bloodiest picture in the book of Time,
Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime;
Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe,
Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her woe!
Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear,
Closed her bright eye and curbed her high career;
Hope for a season bade the world farewell,
And Freedom shrieked, as Kosciusko fell!
The sun went down, nor ceased the carnage there;
Tumultuous Murder shook the midnight air—
On Prague's proud arch the fires of ruin glow,
His blood-dyed waters murmuring far below;
The storm prevails, the rampart yields a way,
Bursts the wild cry of horror and dismay!
Hark, as the smoldering piles with thunder fall,
A thousand shrieks for hopeless mercy call!
Earth shook-red meteors flashed along the sky,
And conscious Nature shuddered at the cry!
O righteous Heaven! ere Freedom found a grave,
Why slept the sword, omnipotent to save?
Where was thine arm, O Vengeance! where thy rod,
That smote the foes of Zion and of God;
That crushed proud Ammon, when his iron car
Was yoked in wrath, and thundered from afar?
Where was the storm that slumbered till the host
Of blood-stained Pharaoh left their trembling coast;
Then bade the deep in wild commotion flow,
And heaved an ocean on their march below?
Departed spirits of the mighty dead!
Ye that at Marathon and Leuctra bled!
Friends of the world! restore your swords to man,
Fight in his sacred cause, and lead the van;
Yet for Sarmatia's tears of blood atone,
And make her arm puissant as your own;
Oh! once again to Freedom's cause return
The patriot Tell, the Bruce of Bannockburn!
## p. 3167 (#137) ###########################################
THOMAS CAMPBELL
3167
THE SLAVE
From the Pleasures of Hope'
ND say, supernal Powers! who deeply scan
Α
Heaven's dark decrees, unfathomed yet by man,
When shall the world call down, to cleanse her
shame,
That embryo spirit, yet without a name,
That friend of Nature, whose avenging hands
Shall burst the Libyan's adamantine bands?
Who, sternly marking on his native soil
The blood, the tears, the anguish and the toil,
Shall bid each righteous heart exult to see
Peace to the slave, and vengeance on the free!
Yet, yet, degraded men! th' expected day
That breaks your bitter cup is far away;
Trade, wealth, and fashion ask you still to bleed,
And holy men give Scripture for the deed;
Scourged and debased, no Briton stoops to save
A wretch, a coward-yes, because a slave!
Eternal Nature! when thy giant hand
Had heaved the floods and fixed the trembling land,
When life sprang startling at thy plastic call,
Endless thy forms, and man the lord of all:-
Say, was that lordly form inspired by thee,
To wear eternal chains and bow the knee?
Was man ordained the slave of man to toil,
Yoked with the brutes, and fettered to the soil,
Weighed in a tyrant's balance with his gold?
No! Nature stamped us in a heavenly mold!
She bade no wretch his thankless labor urge,
Nor, trembling, take the pittance and the scourge;
No homeless Libyan, on the stormy deep,
To call upon his country's name and weep!
Lo! once in triumph, on his boundless plain,
The quivered chief of Congo loved to reign;
With fires proportioned to his native sky,
Strength in his arm, and lightning in his eye;
Scoured with wild feet his sun-illumined zone,
The spear, the lion, and the woods, his own:
Or led the combat, bold without a plan,
An artless savage, but a fearless man.
-
-
## p. 3168 (#138) ###########################################
3168
THOMAS CAMPBELL
The plunderer came; -alas! no glory smiles
For Congo's chief, on yonder Indian isles;
Forever fallen! no son of nature now,
With Freedom chartered on his manly brow.
Faint, bleeding, bound, he weeps the night away,
And when the sea-wind wafts the dewless day,
Starts, with a bursting heart, for evermore
To curse the sun that lights their guilty shore!
The shrill horn blew; at that alarum knell
His guardian angel took a last farewell.
That funeral dirge to darkness hath resigned
The fiery grandeur of a generous mind.
Poor fettered man! I hear thee breathing low
Unhallowed vows to Guilt, the child of Woe:
Friendless thy heart; and canst thou harbor there
A wish but death—a passion but despair?
The widowed Indian, when her lord expires,
Mounts the dread pile, and braves the funeral fires.
So falls the heart at Thraldom's bitter sigh;
So Virtue dies, the spouse of Liberty!
DEATH AND A FUTURE LIFE
From the Pleasures of Hope'
UN
NFADING Hope! when life's last embers burn,
When soul to soul, and dust to dust return!
Heaven to thy charge resigns the awful hour.
Oh, then thy kingdom comes! Immortal Power!
What though each spark of earth-born rapture fly
The quivering lip, pale cheek, and closing eye,—
Bright to the soul thy seraph hands convey
The morning dream of life's eternal day—
Then, then the triumph and the trance begin,
And all the phoenix spirit burns within!
Oh deep-enchanting prelude to repose,
The dawn of bliss, the twilight of our woes!
Yet half I hear the panting spirit sigh,
It is a dread and awful thing to die!
Mysterious worlds, untraveled by the sun!
Where Time's far-wandering tide has never run,-
From your unfathomed shades and viewless spheres,
A warning comes, unheard by other ears.
-
## p. 3169 (#139) ###########################################
THOMAS CAMPBELL
3169
'Tis Heaven's commanding trumpet, long and loud,
Like Sinai's thunder, pealing from the cloud!
While Nature hears, with terror-mingled trust,
The shock that hurls her fabric to the dust;
And like the trembling Hebrew, when he trod
The roaring waves, and called upon his God,
With mortal terrors clouds immortal bliss,
And shrieks, and hovers o'er the dark abyss!
Daughter of Faith, awake, arise, illume
The dread unknown, the chaos of the tomb;
Melt and dispel, ye spectre doubts, that roll
Cimmerian darkness o'er the parting soul!
Fly, like the moon-eyed herald of Dismay,
Chased on his night-steed by the star of day!
The strife is o'er-the pangs of Nature close,
And life's last rapture triumphs o'er her woes.
Hark! as the spirit eyes, with eagle gaze,
The noon of Heaven undazzled by the blaze,
On heavenly winds that waft her to the sky
Float the sweet tones of star-born melody;
Wild as that hallowed anthem sent to hail
Bethlehem's shepherds in the lonely vale,
When Jordan hushed his waves, and midnight still
Watched on the holy towers of Zion hill.
Soul of the just! companion of the dead!
Where is thy home, and whither art thou fled?
Back to its heavenly source thy being goes,
Swift as the comet wheels to whence he rose;
Doomed on his airy path a while to burn,
And doomed like thee to travel and return.
Hark! from the world's exploding centre driven,
With sounds that shook the firmament of Heaven,
Careers the fiery giant, fast and far,
On bickering wheels and adamantine car;
From planet whirled to planet more remote,
He visits realms beyond the reach of thought;
But wheeling homeward, when his course is run,
Curbs the red yoke, and mingles with the sun:
So hath the traveler of earth unfurled
Her trembling wings, emerging from the world;
And o'er the path by mortal never trod,
Sprung to her source, the bosom of her God!
Oh, lives there, Heaven, beneath thy dread expanse,
One hopeless, dark idolater of Chance,
VI-199
## p. 3170 (#140) ###########################################
3170
THOMAS CAMPBELL
Content to feed, with pleasures unrefined,
The lukewarm passions of a lowly mind,
Who, moldering earthward, reft of every trust,
In joyless union wedded to the dust,
Could all his parting energy dismiss,
And call this barren world sufficient bliss?
There live, alas! of heaven-directed mien,
Of cultured soul, and sapient eye serene,
Who hail thee, Man! the pilgrim of a day,
Spouse of the worm, and brother of the clay;
Frail as the leaf in Autumn's yellow bower,
Dust in the wind, or dew upon the flower;
A friendless slave, a child without a sire,
Whose mortal life and momentary fire
Light to the grave his chance-created form,
As ocean-wrecks illuminate the storm;
And when the guns' tremendous flash is o'er,
To-night and silence sink for evermore!
Are these the pompous tidings ye proclaim,
Lights of the world, and demigods of Fame ?
Is this your triumph—this your proud applause,
Children of Truth, and champions of her cause?
For this hath Science searched, on weary wing,
By shore and sea, each mute and living thing?
Launched with Iberia's pilot from the steep,
To worlds unknown, and isles beyond the deep?
Or round the cope her living chariot driven,
And wheeled in triumph through the signs of Heaven?
O star-eyed Science, hast thou wandered there,
To waft us home the message of despair?
Then bind the palm, thy sage's brow to suit,
Of blasted leaf and death-distilling fruit.
Ah me! the laureled wreath that Murder rears,
Blood-nursed, and watered by the widow's tears,
Seems not so foul, so tainted, and so dread,
As waves the nightshade round the skeptic's head.
What is the bigot's torch, the tyrant's chain?
I smile on death, if Heavenward Hope remain!
But if the warring winds of Nature's strife
Be all the faithless charter of my life;
If Chance awaked, inexorable power,
This frail and feverish being of an hour;
Doomed o'er the world's precarious scene to sweep,
Swift as the tempest travels on the deep;
## p. 3171 (#141) ###########################################
THOMAS CAMPBELL
3171
To know Delight but by her parting smile,
And toil, and wish, and weep a little while;
Then melt, ye elements, that formed in vain
This troubled pulse and visionary brain!
Fade, ye wild flowers, memorials of my doom,
And sink, ye stars, that light me to the tomb!
Truth, ever lovely,- since the world began,
The foe of tyrants, and the friend of man,-
How can thy words from balmy slumber start
Reposing Virtue, pillowed on the heart!
Yet if thy voice the note of thunder rolled,
And that were true which Nature never told,
Let Wisdom smile not on her conquered field:
No rapture dawns, no treasure is revealed.
Oh! let her read, nor loudly, nor elate,
The doom that bars us from a better fate;
But, sad as angels for the good man's sin,
Weep to record, and blush to give it in!
LOCHIEL'S WARNING
WIZARD
-
OCHIEL, Lochiel! beware of the day
L
When the Lowlands shall meet thee in battle array!
For a field of the dead rushes red on my sight,
And the clans of Culloden are scattered in fight.
They rally, they bleed, for their kingdom and crown;
Woe, woe to the riders that trample them down!
Proud Cumberland prances, insulting the slain,
And their hoof-beaten bosoms are trod to the plain.
But hark! through the fast-flashing lightning of war,
What steed to the desert flies frantic and far?
'Tis thine, O Glenullin! whose bride shall await,
Like a love-lighted watch-fire, all night at the gate.
A steed comes at morning; no rider is there;
But its bridle is red with the sign of despair.
Weep, Albin! to death and captivity led!
Oh weep! but thy tears cannot number the dead:
For a merciless sword on Culloden shall wave,
Culloden! that reeks with the blood of the brave.
LOCHIEL
Go, preach to the coward, thou death-telling seer!
Or, if gory Culloden so dreadful appear,
## p. 3172 (#142) ###########################################
3172
THOMAS CAMPBELL
Draw, dotard, around thy old wavering sight
This mantle, to cover the phantoms of fright.
WIZARD
Ha! laugh'st thou, Lochiel, my vision to scorn?
Proud bird of the mountain, thy plume shall be torn!
Say, rushed the bold eagle exultingly forth,
From his home in the dark rolling clouds of the north?
Lo! the death-shot of foemen outspeeding, he rode
Companionless, bearing destruction abroad;
But down let him stoop from his havoc on high!
Ah! home let him speed,- for the spoiler is nigh.
Why flames the far summit? Why shoot to the blast
Those embers, like stars from the firmament cast?
'Tis the fire-shower of ruin, all dreadfully driven
From his eyrie, that beacons the darkness of heaven.
O crested Lochiel! the peerless in might,
Whose banners arise on the battlements' height,
Heaven's fire is around thee, to blast and to burn;
Return to thy dwelling! all lonely return!
For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood,
And a wild mother scream o'er her famishing brood.
LOCHIEL
False Wizard, avaunt! I have marshaled my clan;
Their swords are a thousand, their bosoms are one!
They are true to the last of their blood and their breath,
And like reapers descend to the harvest of death.
Then welcome be Cumberland's steed to the shock!
Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the rock!
But woe to his kindred, and woe to his cause,
When Albin her claymore indignantly draws;
When her bonneted chieftains to victory crowd,
Clanronald the dauntless, and Moray the proud,
All plaided and plumed in their tartan array
―
WIZARD
Lochiel, Lochiel! beware of the day;
For, dark and despairing, my sight I may seal,
But man cannot cover what God would reveal;
'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before.
I tell thee, Culloden's dread echoes shall ring
With the bloodhounds that bark for thy fugitive king.
## p. 3173 (#143) ###########################################
THOMAS CAMPBELL
3173
Lo! anointed by Heaven with the vials of wrath,
Behold, where he flies on his desolate path!
Now in darkness and billows, he sweeps from my sight:
Rise, rise! ye wild tempests, and cover his flight!
'Tis finished. Their thunders are hushed on the moors:
Culloden is lost, and my country deplores.
But where is the iron-bound prisoner? where?
For the red eye of battle is shut in despair.
Say, mounts he the ocean wave, banished, forlorn,
Like a limb from his country cast bleeding and torn?
Ah no! for a darker departure is near;
The war-drum is muffled, and black is the bier;
His death-bell is tolling: O Mercy, dispel
Yon sight, that it freezes my spirit to tell!
Life flutters convulsed in his quivering limbs,
And his blood-streaming nostril in agony swims.
Accursed be the fagots that blaze at his feet,
Where his heart shall be thrown ere it ceases to beat,
With the smoke of its ashes to poison the gale-
LOCHIEL
Down, soothless insulter! I trust not the tale:
For never shall Albin a destiny meet
So black with dishonor, so foul with retreat.
Though my perishing ranks should be strewed in their gore,
Like ocean-weeds heaped on the surf-beaten shore,
Lochiel, untainted by flight or by chains,
While the kindling of life in his bosom remains,
Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low,
With his back to the field, and his feet to the foe!
And, leaving in battle no blot on his name,
Look proudly to Heaven from the death-bed of fame.
THE SOLDIER'S DREAM
Ο
UR bugles sang truce-for the night-cloud had lowered,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky;
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered,
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.
When reposing that night on my pallet of straw,
By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain,
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw,
And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again.
## p. 3174 (#144) ###########################################
3174
THOMAS CAMPBELL
Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array,
Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track:
'Twas Autumn,- and sunshine arose on the way
To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back.
I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft
In life's morning march, when my bosom was young;
I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft,
And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung.
Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore
From my home and my weeping friends never to part;
My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er,
And my wife sobbed aloud in her fullness of heart.
"Stay, stay with us,- rest; thou art weary and worn! "
And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay:-
But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.
A
LORD ULLIN'S DAUGHTER
CHIEFTAIN, to the Highlands bound,
Cries, "Boatman, do not tarry!
And I'll give thee a silver pound,
To row us o'er the ferry. "
-
"Now who be ye, would cross Lochgyle,
This dark and stormy water? »
"O, I'm the chief of Ulva's isle,
And this Lord Ullin's daughter.
"And fast before her father's men
Three days we've fled together;
For should he find us in the glen,
My blood would stain the heather.
"His horsemen hard behind us ride;
Should they our steps discover,
Then who will cheer my bonny bride
When they have slain her lover? "
Out spoke the hardy Highland wight,
"I'll go, my chief-I'm ready:-
It is not for your silver bright,
But for your winsome lady:
## p. 3175 (#145) ###########################################
THOMAS CAMPBELL
3175
"And by my word! the bonny bird
In danger shall not tarry;
So though the waves are raging white
I'll row you o'er the ferry. "
By this the storm grew loud apace,
The water-wraith was shrieking;
And in the scowl of heaven each face
Grew dark as they were speaking.
But still as wilder blew the wind,
And as the night grew drearer,
Adown the glen rode armèd men,
Their trampling sounded nearer.
"O haste thee, haste! " the lady cries,
"Though tempests round us gather,
I'll meet the raging of the skies,
But not an angry father. "
The boat has left a stormy land,
A stormy sea before her,
When, oh! too strong for human hand,
The tempest gathered o'er her.
And still they rowed amidst the roar
Of waters fast prevailing:
Lord Ullin reached that fatal shore;
His wrath was changed to wailing.
For sore dismayed, through storm and shade,
His child he did discover:
One lovely hand she stretched for aid,
And one was round her lover.
"Come back! come back! " he cried in grief,
"Across this stormy water:
And I'll forgive your Highland chief,
My daughter! -oh, my daughter! "
'Twas vain: the loud waves lashed the shore,
Return or aid preventing:-
The waters wild went o'er his child,
And he was left lamenting.
-
## p. 3176 (#146) ###########################################
3176
THOMAS CAMPBELL
THE EXILE OF ERIN
T
HERE came to the beach a poor Exile of Erin,
The dew on his thin robe was heavy and chill:
For his country he sighed, when at twilight repairing
To wander alone by the wind-beaten hill:
But the day-star attracted his eye's sad devotion,
For it rose o'er his own native isle of the ocean,
Where once, in the fire of his youthful emotion,
He sang the bold anthem of Erin go bragh.
Sad is my fate! said the heart-broken stranger;
The wild deer and wolf to a covert can flee,
But I have no refuge from famine and danger,
A home and a country remain not to me.
Never again, in the green sunny bowers
Where my forefathers lived, shall I spend the sweet hours,
Or cover my harp with the wild-woven flowers,
And strike to the numbers of Erin go bragh!
Erin, my country! though sad and forsaken,
In dreams I revisit thy sea-beaten shore;
But, alas! in a far foreign land I awaken,
And sigh for the friends who can meet me no more!
O cruel fate! wilt thou never replace me
In a mansion of peace, where no perils can chase me?
Never again shall my brothers embrace me?
They died to defend me, or live to deplore!
Where is my cabin door, fast by the wildwood?
Sisters and sire! did ye weep for its fall?
Where is the mother that looked on my childhood?
And where is the bosom-friend, dearer than all?
Oh! my sad heart! long abandoned by pleasure,
Why did it dote on a fast fading treasure ?
Tears, like the raindrop, may fall without measure,
But rapture and beauty they cannot recall.
Yet all its sad recollections suppressing,
One dying wish my lone bosom can draw;
Erin! an exile bequeaths thee his blessing!
Land of my forefathers! Erin go bragh!
Buried and cold, when my heart stills her motion,
Green be thy fields, sweetest isle of the ocean!
And thy harp-striking bards sing aloud with devotion-
Erin mavournin-Erin go bragh!
## p. 3177 (#147) ###########################################
THOMAS CAMPBELL
3177
YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND
E Mariners of England!
That guard our native seas;
Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze!
