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| GOD of the glorious Lyre! | |
| Whose notes of old on lofty Pindus rang, | |
| While Jove’s exulting quire | |
| Caught the glad echoes and responsive sang— | |
| Come! bless the service and the shrine, | 5 |
| We consecrate to thee and thine. | |
| |
| Fierce from the frozen north, | |
| When havoc led his legions forth, | |
| O’er Learning’s sunny groves the dark destroyer spread: | |
| In dust the sacred statue slept, | 10 |
| Fair Science round her altars wept, | |
| And Wisdom cowl’d his head. | |
| |
| At length, Olympian Lord of morn, | |
| The raven veil of night was torn, | |
| When, through golden clouds descending, | 15 |
| Thou didst hold thy radiant flight, | |
| O’er nature’s lovely pageant bending, | |
| Till Avon roll’d, all-sparkling, to thy sight! | |
| |
| There, on its bank, beneath the Mulberry’s shade, | |
| Wrapp’d in young dreams, a wild-eyed Minstrel stray’d. | 20 |
| Lighting there and lingering long, | |
| Thou didst teach the Bard his song; | |
| Thy fingers strung his sleeping shell, | |
| And round his brows a garland curl’d; | |
| On his lips thy spirit fell, | 25 |
| And bade him wake and warm the world! | |
| |
| Then Shakspeare rose! | |
| Across the trembling strings | |
| His daring hand he flings, | |
| And lo! a new creation glows! | 30 |
| There, clustering round, submissive to his will, | |
| Fate’s vassal train his high commands fulfil. | |
| |
| Madness, with his frightful scream, | |
| Vengeance, leaning on his lance, | |
| Avarice, with his blade and beam, | 35 |
| Hatred, blasting with a glance; | |
| Remorse, that weeps, and Rage, that roars, | |
| And Jealousy, that dotes, but dooms, and murders, yet adores. | |
| |
| Mirth, his face with sunbeams lit, | |
| Waking laughter’s merry swell, | 40 |
| Arm in arm with fresh-eyed Wit, | |
| That waves his tingling lash, while Folly shakes his bell. | |
| |
| Despair, that haunts the gurgling stream, | |
| Kiss’d by the virgin moon’s cold beam, | |
| Where some lost maid wild chaplets wreathes, | 45 |
| And, swan-like, there her own dirge breathes, | |
| Then, broken-hearted, sinks to rest, | |
| Beneath the bubbling wave, that shrouds her maniac breast. | |
| |
| Young Love, with eye of tender gloom, | |
| Now drooping o’er the hallow’d tomb, | 50 |
| Where his plighted victims lie, | |
| Where they met, but met to die: | |
| And now, when crimson buds are sleeping, | |
| Through the dewy arbor peeping, | |
| Where beauty’s child, the frowning world forgot, | 55 |
| To youth’s devoted tale is listening, | |
| Rapture on her dark lash glistening, | |
| While fairies leave their cowslip cells and guard the happy spot. | |
| |
| Thus rise the phantom throng, | |
| Obedient to their Master’s song, | 60 |
| And lead in willing chain the wondering soul along. | |
| For other worlds war’s Great One sigh’d in vain,— | |
| O’er other worlds see Shakspeare rove and reign! | |
| The rapt Magician of his own wild lay, | |
| Earth and her tribes his mystic wand obey. | 65 |
| Old ocean trembles, thunder cracks the skies, | |
| Air teems with shapes, and tell-tale spectres rise: | |
| Night’s paltering hags their fearful orgies keep, | |
| And faithless guilt unseals the lip of sleep: | |
| Time yields his trophies up, and death restores | 70 |
| The moulder’d victims of his voiceless shores. | |
| The fireside legend, and the faded page, | |
| The crime that cursed, the deed that bless’d an age, | |
| All, all come forth—the good to charm and cheer, | |
| To scourge bold Vice, and start the generous tear; | 75 |
| With pictured Folly gazing fools to shame, | |
| And guide young Glory’s foot along the path of fame. | |
| |
| Lo! hand in hand, | |
| Hell’s juggling sisters stand, | |
| To greet their victim from the fight;— | 80 |
| Group’d on the blasted heath, | |
| They tempt him to the work of death, | |
| Then melt in air and mock his wondering sight. | |
| In midnight’s hallow’d hour, | |
| He seeks the fatal tower, | 85 |
| Where the lone raven, perch’d on high, | |
| Pours to the sullen gale | |
| Her hoarse prophetic wail, | |
| And croaks the dreadful moment nigh. | |
| See, by the phantom dagger led, | 90 |
| Pale, guilty thing, | |
| Slowly he steals with silent tread, | |
| And grasps his coward steel to smite his sleeping king. | |
| Hark! ’t is the signal bell, | |
| Struck by that bold and unsex’d one, | 95 |
| Whose milk is gall, whose heart is stone; | |
| His ear hath caught the knell— | |
| ’T is done! ’t is done! | |
| Behold him from the chamber rushing, | |
| Where his dead monarch’s blood is gushing! | 100 |
| Look where he trembling stands, | |
| Sad gazing there, | |
| Life’s smoking crimson on his hands, | |
| And in his felon heart the worm of wild despair. | |
| |
| Mark the sceptred traitor slumbering! | 105 |
| There flit the slaves of conscience round, | |
| With boding tongue foul murders numbering; | |
| Sleep’s leaden portals catch the sound. | |
| In his dream of blood for mercy quaking, | |
| At his own dull scream behold him waking! | 110 |
| Soon that dream to fate shall turn, | |
| For him the living furies burn; | |
| For him the vulture sits on yonder misty peak, | |
| And chides the lagging night, and whets her hungry beak. | |
| Hark! the trumpet’s warning breath | 115 |
| Echoes round the vale of death. | |
| Unhorsed, unhelmed, disdaining shield, | |
| The panting tyrant scours the field. | |
| Vengeance! he meets thy dooming blade! | |
| The scourge of earth, the scorn of heaven, | 120 |
| He falls! unwept and unforgiven, | |
| And all his guilty glories fade. | |
| Like a crush’d reptile in the dust he lies, | |
| And Hate’s last lightning quivers from his eyes! | |
| |
| Behold yon crownless king— | 125 |
| Yon white-lock’d, weeping sire:— | |
| Where heaven’s unpillar’d chambers ring, | |
| And burst their streams of flood and fire! | |
| He gave them all—the daughters of his love;— | |
| That recreant pair!—they drive him forth to rove; | 130 |
| In such a night of wo, | |
| The cubless regent of the wood | |
| Forgets to bathe her fangs in blood, | |
| And caverns with her foe! | |
| Yet one was ever kind,— | 135 |
| Why lingers she behind? | |
| O pity!—view him by her dead form kneeling, | |
| Even in wild frenzy holy nature feeling. | |
| His aching eyeballs strain | |
| To see those curtain’d orbs unfold, | 140 |
| That beauteous bosom heave again,— | |
| But all is dark and cold. | |
| In agony the father shakes; | |
| Grief’s choking note | |
| Swells in his throat, | 145 |
| Each wither’d heart-string tugs and breaks! | |
| Round her pale neck his dying arms he wreathes, | |
| And on her marble lips his last, his death-kiss breathes. | |
| |
| Down! trembling wing—shall insect weakness keep | |
| The sun-defying eagle’s sweep? | 150 |
| A mortal strike celestial strings, | |
| And feebly echo what a seraph sings? | |
| Who now shall grace the glowing throne, | |
| Where, all unrivall’d, all alone, | |
| Bold Shakspeare sat, and look’d creation through, | 155 |
| The Minstrel Monarch of the worlds he drew? | |
| That throne is cold—that lyre in death unstrung, | |
| On whose proud note delighted Wonder hung. | |
| Yet old Oblivion, as in wrath he sweeps, | |
| One spot shall spare—the grave where Shakspeare sleeps. | 160 |
| Rulers and ruled in common gloom may lie, | |
| But Nature’s laureate bards shall never die. | |
| Art’s chisell’d boast, and Glory’s trophied shore, | |
| Must live in numbers, or can live no more. | |
| While sculptured Jove some nameless waste may claim, | 165 |
| Still rolls th’ Olympic car in Pindar’s fame: | |
| Troy’s doubtful walls, in ashes past away, | |
| Yet frown on Greece in Homer’s deathless lay: | |
| Rome, slowly sinking in her crumbling fanes, | |
| Stands all immortal in her Maro’s strains:— | 170 |
| So, too, yon giant empress of the isles, | |
| On whose broad sway the sun for ever smiles, | |
| To Time’s unsparing rage one day must bend, | |
| And all her triumphs in her Shakspeare end! | |
| |
| O Thou! to whose creative power | 175 |
| We dedicate the festal hour, | |
| While Grace and Goodness round the altar stand, | |
| Learning’s anointed train, and Beauty’s rose-lipp’d band— | |
| Realms yet unborn, in accents now unknown, | |
| Thy song shall learn, and bless it for their own. | 180 |
| Deep in the West, as Independence roves, | |
| His banners planting round the land he loves, | |
| Where nature sleeps in Eden’s infant grace, | |
| In time’s full hour shall spring a glorious race:— | |
| Thy name, thy verse, thy language shall they bear, | 185 |
| And deck for thee the vaulted temple there. | |
| Our Roman-hearted fathers broke | |
| Thy parent empire’s galling yoke, | |
| But thou, harmonious ruler of the mind, | |
| Around their sons a gentler chain shalt bind;— | 190 |
| In thee shall Albion’s sceptre wave once more, | |
| And what her monarch lost her monarch-bard restore. | |
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