Though fixed on him, his children's suppliant eyes Or evening suns illume, with purple smile,
Implore the aid avenging fate denies;
Though, with the giant-snake in fruitless strife,
Heaves every muscle with convulsive life,
And in each limb Existence writhes, enrolled
'Mid the dread circles of the venomed fold;
Yet the strong spirit lives-and not a cry
Shall own the might of Nature's agony!
That furrowed brow unconquered soul reveals,
That patient eye to angry Heaven appeals,
That struggling bosom concentrates its breath,
Ner yields one moan to torture or to death!(4)
Sublimest triumph of intrepid Art!
With speechless horror to congeal the heart,
To freeze each pulse, and dart through every vein
Cold thrills of fear, keen sympathies of pain;
Yet teach the spirit how its lofty power
May brave the pangs of fate's severest hour.
Turn from such conflicts, and enraptured gaze
On scenes where Painting all her skill displays:
Landscapes, by colouring drest in richer dyes,
More mellowed sunshine, more unclouded skies;
Or dreams of bliss, to dying Martyrs given,
Descending Seraphs robed in beams of heaven.
Oh! sovereign Masters of the Pencil's might,
Its depth of shadow, and its blaze of light,
Ye, whose bold thought, disdaining every bound,
Explored the worlds above, below, around,
Children of Italy! who stand alone,
And unapproached, 'midst regions all your own;
What scenes, what beings blest your favoured
sight,
Severely grand, unutterally bright!
Triumphant spirits! your exulting eye
Could meet the noontide of eternity,
And gaze untired, undaunted, uncontrolled
On all that Fancy trembles to behold.
Bright on your view such forms their splendour
shed,
As burst on Prophet-bards in ages fled:
The Parian altar, and the pillared aisle,
Then as the full, or softened radiance falls,
On Angel-groups that hover o'er the walls,
Well may those Temples, where your hand has
shed
Light o'er the tomb, existence round the dead,
Seem like some world, so perfect and so fair,
That nought of earth should find admittance there.
Some sphere, where Beings, to mankind unknown,
Dwell in the brightness of their pomp, alone!
Hence, ye vain fictions, fancy's erring theme,
Gods of illusion! phantoms of a dream! -
Frail, powerless idols of departed time,
Fables of song, delusive, though sublime!
To loftier tasks has Roman Art assigned
Her matchless pencil, and her mighty mind!
From brighter streams her vast ideas flowed,
With purer fire her ardent spirit glowed.
To her 't was given in fancy to explore
The land of miracles, the holiest shore;
That realm where first the light of life was sent,
The loved, the punished, of th' Omnipotent!
O'er Judah's hills her thoughts inspired would
stray,
Through Jordan's valleys trace their lonely way,
By Siloa's brook, or Almotana's(5) deep,
Chained in dead silence, and unbroken sleep;
Scenes whose cleft rocks, and blasted deserts, tell
Where passed th' Eternal, where his anger fell!
Where oft his voice the words of fate revealed,
Swelled in the whirlwind, in the thunder pealed,
Or heard by prophets in some palmy vale,
Breathed 'still small' whispers on the midnight
gale.
There dwelt her spirit-there her hand portrayed,
'Mid the lone wilderness or cedar-shade,
Ethereal forms, with awful missions fraught,
Or Patriarch-seers, absorbed in sacred thought,
Bards, in high converse with the world of rest,
Forms that to trace, no hand but yours might dare, Saints of the earth, and spirits of the blest.
Darkly sublime, or exquisitely fair,
These o'er the walls your magic skill arrayed,
Glow in rich sunshine, gleam through melting
shade,
Float in light grace, in awful greatness tower,
And breathe and move, the records of your power.
Inspired of Heaven! what heightened pomp ye cast,
O'er all the deathless trophies of the past!
Round many a marble fane and classic dome,
Asserting still the majesty of Rome;
Round many a work that bids the world believe
What Grecian Art could image and achieve;
Again, creative minds, your visions throw
Life's chastened warmth, and Beauty's mellowest
glow,
But chief to Him, the Conqueror of the grave,
Who lived to guide us, and who died to save;
Him, at whose glance the powers of evil fled,
And soul returned to animate the dead;
Whom the waves owned-and sunk beneath his
eye,
Awed by one accent of Divinity;
To Him she gave her meditative hours,
Hallowed her thoughts, and sanctified her powers.
O'er the bright scenes sublime repose she threw,
As all around the Godhead's presence knew,
And robed the Holy One's benignant mien
In beaming mercy, majesty serene.
Oh! mark, where Raphael's pure and perfect
line
And when the morn's bright beams and mantling Portrays that form ineffably divine !(6)
Pour the rich lustre of Ausonian skies,
Where with transcendant skill his hand has sned
Diffusive sunbeams round the Saviour's head;
Each heaven-illumined lineament imbued
With all the fulness of beatitude,
And traced the sainted group, whose mortal sight
Sinks overpowered by that excess of light!
Gaze on that scene, and own the might of Art,
By truth inspired to elevate the heart!
To bid the soul exultingly possess,
Of all her powers a heightened consciousness,
And strong in hope, anticipate the day,
The last of life, the first of freedom's ray;
To realize, in some unclouded sphere,
Those pictured glories feebly imaged here!
Dim, cold reflections from her native sky,
Faint effluence of "the Day-spring from on high!"
Note 1, page 106, col. 2.
The Belvidere Torso, the favourite study of Michael Angelo, and of many other distinguished
Note 2, page 106, col. 2.
Note 3, page 106, col. 2.
"Le Torso d'Hercule paroît un des derniers ouvrages parfaits que l'art ait produit en Grèce, Grèce fut réduite en province Romaine, l'histoire avant la perte de sa liberté. Car après que la
ne fait mention d'aucun artiste célèbre de cette nation, jusqu'aux temps du Triumvirat Romain." Winckelmann, ibid. tom. ii. p. 250. Note 4, page 107, col. 1.
"It is not, in the same manner, in the agonized limbs, or in the convulsed muscles of the Laocoon, that the secret grace of its composition resides; it is in the majestic air of the head, which has not yielded to suffering, and in the deep serenity of the forehead, which seems to be still superior to all its afflictions, and significant of a mind that can not be subdued."--Allison's Essays, vol. ii. p. 400.
"Laocoon nous offre le spectacle de la nature humaine dans la plus grande douleur dont elle de rassembler contre elle toute la force de l'esprit. soit susceptible, sous l'image d'homme qui tâche Tandis que l'excès de la souffrance enfle les muscles, et tire violemment les nerfs, le courage so montre sur le front gonflé: la poitrine s'éleve avec peine par la nécessité de la respiration, qui est également contrainte par le silence que la force de l'âme impose à la douleur qu'elle voudroit étouffer. Son air est plaintif, et non criard. ✶ ✶✶✶ Winckelmann, ibid. tom. ii. p. 214. Note 5, page 107, col. 2.
"Quoique cette statue d'Hercule ait été maltraitée et mutilée d'une manière étrange, se trouvant sans tête, sans bras, et sans jambes, elle est cependant encore un chef-d'œuvre aux yeux des connoisseurs; et ceux qui savent percer dans les mystères de l'art, se la représentent dans toute sa beauté. L'artiste, en voulant représenter Hercule, a formé un corps idéal au-dessus de la nature. *** Cet Hercule paroît donc ici tel qu'il dut être, lorsque, purifié par le feu des foiblesses de l'huma- the Dead Sea. nité, il obtint l'immortalité, et prit place auprès nes dieux. Il est représenté sans aucun besoin de nourriture et de réparation de forces. Les veines y sont toutes invisibles."-Winckelmann, Histoire de l'Art chez les Anciens, tom. ii. p. 218.
Almotana. The name given by the Arabs to
Note 6, page 107, col. 2.
The Transfiguration, thought to be so perfect a specimen of art, that, in honour of Raphael, it was carried before his body to the grave.
Tales and Historic Scenes.
THE events with which the following tale is interwoven are related in the "Historia de las Guerras Civiles de Granada." They occurred in the reign of Abo Abdeli or Abdali, the last Moorish king of that city, called by the Spaniards El Rey Chico. The conquest of Granada, by Ferdinand and Isabella, is said, by some historians, to have been greatly facilitated by the Abencerrages, whose defection was the result of the repeated injuries they had received from the king at the instigation of the Zegris. One of the most beautiful halls of the Alhambra is pointed out as the scene where so many of the former celebrated tribe were massacred; and it still retains their name, being called the "Sala de los Abencerrages." Many of the most interesting old Spanish ballads relate to the events of this chivalrous and romantic period.
LONELY and still are now thy marble halls,
Thou fair Alhambra! there the feast is o'er;
And with the murmur of thy fountain-falls,
Blend the wild notes of minstrelsy no more.
Hushed are the voices, that, in years gone by,
Have mourned, exulted, menaced, through thy
Within thy pillared courts the grass waves high,
And all uncultured bloom thy fairy bowers.
Unheeded there the flowering myrtle blows,
Through tall arcades unmarked the sunbeam
smiles,
And many a tint of softened brilliance throws
O'er fretted walls, and shining peristyles.
And well might Fancy deem thy fabrics lone,
So vast, so silent, and so wildly fair,
Some charmed abode of beings all unknown,
Powerful and viewless, children of the air.
For there no footstep treads th' enchanted ground,
There not a sound the deep repose pervades,
Save winds and founts diffusing freshness round,
Through the light domes and graceful colɔn-
nades.
Far other tones have swelled those courts along,
In days romance yet fondly loves to trace;
The clash of arms, the voice of choral song,
The revels, combats, of a vanished race.
And yet awhile, at Fancy's potent call,
Shall rise that race, the chivalrous, the bold!
Peopling once more each fair, forsaken hall,
With stately forms, the knights and chiefs of old.
-The sun declines-upon Nevada's height
There dwells a mellow flush of rosy light;
Each soaring pinnacle of mountain snow
Smiles in the richness of that parting glow,
And Darro's wave reflects each passing dye
That melts and mingles in th' empurpled sky.
Fragrance, exhaled from rose and citron bower,
Blends with the dewy freshness of the hour:
Hushed are the winds, and Nature seems to sleep
In light and stillness; wood, and tower, and steep,
Are dyed with tints of glory, only given
To the rich evening of a southern heaven;
Tints of the sun, whose bright farewell is fraught
With all that art hath dreamt, but never caught.
-Yes, Nature sleeps; but not with her at rest
The fiery passions of the human breast.
Hark! from th' Alhambra's towers what stormy
sound,
Each moment deepening, wildly swells around!
Those are no tumults of a festal throng,
Not the light zambra,(1) nor the choral song:
The combat rages-'t is the shout of war,
'Tis the loud clash of shield and scymetar.
Within the hall of Lions,(2) where the rays
Of eve, yet lingering, on the fountain blaze;
There, girt and guarded by his Zegri bands,
And stern in wrath, the Moorish monarch stands,
There the strife centres-swords around him wave
There bleed the fallen, there contend the brave,
While echoing domes return the battle-cry,
"Revenge and freedom! let the tyrant die!"
And onward rushing, and prevailing still,
Court, hall, and tower the fierce avengers
But first and bravest of that gallant train, Where foes are mightiest, charging ne'er in vain ;
In nis red hand the sabre glancing bright,
His dark eye flashing with a fiercer light,
Ardent, untired, scarce conscious that he bleeds,
His Aben-Zurrahs(3) there young Hamet leads;
While swells his voice that wild acclaim on high,
'Revenge and freedom! let the tyrant die!"
Yes, trace the footsteps of the warrior's wrath,
By helm and corselet shattered in his path;
And by the thickest harvest of the slain,
And by the marble's deepest crimson stain:
Search through the scrried fight, where loudest
From triumph, anguish, or despair arise;
And brightest where the shivering falchions glare,
And where the ground is reddest-he is there.
Yes, that young man, amidst the Zegri host,
Hath well avenged a sire, a brother, lost.
They perished-not as heroes should have died,
On the red field in victory's hour of pride,
In all the glow and sunshine of their fame,
And proudly smiling as the death-pang came:
Oh! had they thus expired, a warrior's tear
Had flowed, almost in triumph, o'er their bier.
For thus alone the brave should weep for those,
Who brightly pass in glory to repose.
-Not such their fate-a tyrant's stern command
Doomed them to fall by some ignoble hand,
As, with the flower of all their high-born race,
Summoned Abdallah's royal feast to grace,
Fearless in heart, no dream of danger nigh,
They sought the banquet's gilded hall—to die.
Betrayed, unarmed, they fell-the fountain wave
Flowed crimson with the life-blood of the brave,
Till far the fearful tidings of their fate
Through the wide city rung from gate to gate,
And of that lineage each surviving son
Rushed to the scene where vengeance might be
For this young Hamet mingles in the strife,
Leader of battle, prodigal of life,
Urging his followers, till their foes, beset,
Stand faint and breathless, but undaunted yet.
Brave Aben-Zurrahs, on! one effort more,
Yours is the triumph, and the conflict o'er.
But lo! descending o'er the darkened hall,
The twilight shadows fast and deeply fall,
And o'er the scene of many a martial deed,
The Vega's(4) green expanse, his flying footsteps
He passed th' Alhambra's calm and lovely bowers,
Where slept the glistening leaves and folded flowers
In dew and starlight-there, from grot and cave
Gushed in wild music many a sparkling wave;
There, on each breeze, the breath of fragrance rose,
And all was freshness, beauty, and repose.
But thou, dark monarch; in thy bosom reign
Storms that, once roused, shall never sleep again.
Oh! vainly bright is Nature in the course
Of him who flies from terror or remorse!
A spell is round him which obscures her bloom,
And dims her skies with shadows of the tomb;
There smiles no Paradise on earth so fair,
But guilt will raise avenging phantoms there.
Abdallah heeds not though the light gale roves
Fraught with rich odour, stolen from orange groves,
Hears not the sound from wood and brook that rise,
Wild notes of Nature's vesper melodies;
Marks not, how lovely, on the mountain's head,
Moonlight and snow their mingling lustre spread;
But urges onward, till his weary band,
Worn with their toil, a moment's pause demand.
He stops, and turning, on Granada's fanes
In silence gazing, fixed awhile remains;
In stern, deep silence-o'er his feverish brow,
And burning cheek, pure breezes freshly blow,
But waft, in fitful murmurs, from afar,
Sounds, indistinctly fearful,-as of war.
What meteor bursts, with sudden blaze, on high,
O'er the blue clearness of the starry sky?
Awful it rises like some Genie-form,
Seen 'midst the redness of the desert storm,(5)
Magnificently dread-above, below,
Spreads the wild splendour of its deepening glow
Lo! from th' Alhambra's towers the vivid glare
Streams through the still transparence of the air ;
Avenging crowds have lit the mighty pyre,
Which feeds that waving pyramid of fire;
And dome and minaret, river, wood, and height,
From dim perspective start to ruddy light.
Oh Heaven! the anguish of Abdallah's soul,
The rage, though fruitless, yet beyond controul!
Yet must he cease to gaze, and raving fly
Nor yet the strife hath ceased-though scarce they For life-such life as makes it bliss to die! know,
On yon green height, the mosque, but half revealed Through that thick gloom, the brother from the foe; Through cypress-groves, a safe retreat may yield. Till the moon rises with her cloudless ray, The peaceful moon, and gives them light to slay. Where lurks Abdallah?—'midst his yielding train They seek the guilty monarch, but in vain; He lies not numbered with the valiant dead, His champions round him have not vainly bled; But when the twilight spread her shadowy veil, And his last warriors found each effort fail, In wild despair he fled-a trusted few, Kinired in crime are still in danger true;
Thither his steps are bent-yet oft he turns,
Watching that fearful beacon as it burns.
But paler grow the sinking flames at last,
Flickering they fade, their crimson light is past,
And spiry vapours, rising o'er the scene,
Mark where the terrors of their wrath have been.
And now his feet have reached that lonely file,
Where grief and terror may repose awhile;
Embowered it stands, 'midst wood and cliff on high,
Through the gray rocks a torrent sparkling nigh;
He hails the scene where every care should cease,
And all-except the heart he brings-is peace.
There is deep stillness in those halls of state,
Where the loud cries of conflict rung so late;
Stillness like that, when fierce the Kamsin's blast
Hath o'er the dwellings of the desert passed.(6)
Fearful the calm-nor voice, nor step, nor breath,
Disturbs that scene of beauty and of death:
Those vaulted roofs re-echo not a sound,
No sound of gladness his approach precedes,
No splendid pageant the procession leads;
Where'er he moves the silent streets along,
Broods a stern quiet o'er the sullen throng;
No voice is heard-but in each altered eye,
Once brightly beaming when his steps were nigh,
And in each look of those whose love hath fled
From all on earth to slumber with the dead,
Those, by his guilt made desolate, and thrown
Save the wild gush of waters-murmuring round, On the bleak wilderness of life alone,
In ceaseless melodies of plaintive tone,
Through chambers peopled by the dead alone.
O'er the mosaic floors, with carnage red,
Breastplate and shield, and cloven helm are spread
In mingled fragments-glittering to the light
Of yon still moon, whose rays, yet softly bright,
Their streaming lustre tremulously shed,
And smile, in placid beauty, o'er the dead:
O'er features, where the fiery spirits trace,
E'en death itself is powerless to efface,
O'er those who, flushed with ardent youth, awoke,
When glowing morn in bloom and radiance broke,
Nor dreamt how near the dark and frozen sleep,
Which hears not Glory call, nor Anguish weep,
In the low silent house, the narrow spot,
Home of forgetfulness-and soon forgot.
But slowly fade the stars-the night is o'er-
Morn beams on those who hail her light no more;
Slumberers, who ne'er shall wake on earth again,
Mourners, who called the loved, the lost, in
vain.
Yet smiles the day-oh! not for mortal tear
Doth Nature deviate from her calm career,
Nor is the earth less laughing or less fair,
In youth's quick glance of scarce dissembled rage,
And the pale mien of calmly-mournful age,
May well be read a dark and fearful tale
Of thought that ill th' indignant heart can veil,
And passion, like the hushed volcano's power,
That waits in stillness its appointed hour.
No more the clarion, from Granada's walls
Heard o'er the Vega, to the tourney calls;
No more her graceful daughters, throned on high,
Bend o'er the lists the darkly radiant eye;
Silence and gloom her palaces o'erspread,
And song is hushed, and pageantry is fled.
Weep, fated city! o'er thy heroes weep-
Low in the dust the sons of glory sleep;
Furled are their banners in the lonely hall,
Their trophied shields hang mouldering on the
wall,
Wildly their chargers range the pastures o'er,
Their voice in battle shall be heard no more;
And they, who still thy tyrant's wrath survive,
Whom he hath wronged too deeply to forgive,
That race, of lineage high, of worth approved.
The chivalrous, the princely, the beloved;
Thine Aben-Zurrahs-they no more shall wield
Though breaking hearts her gladness may not In thy proud cause the conquering lance and
O'er the cold urn the beam of summer glows,
O'er fields of blood the zephyr freshly blows;
Bright shines the sun, though all be dark below,
And skies arch cloudless o'er a world of wo,
And flowers renewed in spring's green pathway
bloom,
Alike to grace the banquet and the tomb.
Within Granada's walls the funeral rite
Attends that day of loveliness and light;
And many a chief, with dirges and with tears,
Is gathered to the brave of other years:
And Hamet, as beneath the cypress-shade
His martyred brother and his sire are laid,
Feels every deep resolve, and burning thought
Of ampler vengeance, e'en to passion wrought;
Yet is the hour afar-and he must brood
O'er those dark dreams awhile in solitude.
Tumult and rage are hushed-another day
In still solemnity hath passed away,
In that deep slumber of exhausted wrath,
The calm that follows in the tempest's path.
And now Abdallah leaves yon peaceful fane,
His ravaged city traversing again.
Condemned to bid the cherished scenes farewell
Where the loved ashes of their fathers dwell,
And far o'er foreign plains, as exiles, roam,
Their land the desert, and the grave their hone.
Yet there is one shall see that race depart,
In deep, though silent, agony of heart;
One whose dark fate must be to mourn alone,
Unseen her sorrows, and their cause unknown,
And veil her heart, and teach her cheek to wear
That smile, in which the spirit hath no share;
Like the bright beams that shed their fruitles
glow
O'er the cold solitude of Alpine snow.
Soft, fresh, and silent, is the midnight hour,
And the young Zayda seeks her lonely bower;
That Zegri maid, within whose gentle mind
One name is deeply, secretly enshrined.
That name in vain stern Reason would efface,
Hamet! 'tis thine, thou foe to all her race-
And yet not hers in bitterness to prove
The sleepless pangs of unrequited love;
Pangs, which the rose of wasted youth consume
And make the heart of all delight the tomb,
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