Dwelt in thy dwellings, call thee Happiness.
Ah! why, uninjured and unprofited,
Should multitudes against their brethren rush?
Why sow they guilt, still reaping misery?
Lenient of care, thy songs, O Peace! are sweet,
As after showers the perfumed gale of eve,
That flings the cool drops on a feverous cheek;
And gay thy grassy altar piled with fruits.
But boasts the shrine of demon War one charm,
Save that with many an orgie strange and foul,
Dancing around with interwoven arms,
The maniac Suicide and giant Murder
Exult in their fierce union! I am sad,
And know not why the simple peasants crowd
Beneath the Chieftains' standard!"
To her the tutelary Spirit said:
"When luxury and lust's exhausted stores
No more can rouse the appetites of kings;
When the low flattery of their reptile lords
Falls flat and heavy on the accustomed ear;
When eunuchs sing, and fools buffoonery make,
And dancers writhe their harlot-limbs in vain ;
Then War and all its dread vicissitudes
Pleasingly agitate their stagnant hearts;
Its hopes, its fears, its victories, its defeats,
Insipid royalty's keen condiment !
Therefore uninjured and unprofited,
(Victims at once and executioners)
The congregated husbandmen lay waste
The vineyard and the harvest. As along
The Bothnic coast, or southward of the Line,
Though hushed the winds and cloudless the high
Yet if Leviathan, weary of ease,
In sports unwieldy toss his island-bulk,
Ocean behind him billows, and before
A storm of waves breaks foamy on the strand.
And hence, for times and seasons bloody and dark,
Short Peace shall skin the wounds of causeless
War,
And War, his strained sinews knit anew,
Still violate the unfinished works of Peace.
But yonder look! for more demands thy view!"
He said and straightway from the opposite Isle
A vapour sailed, as when a cloud, exhaled
From Egypt's fields that steam hot pestilence,
Travels the sky for many a trackless league,
Till o'er some death-doomed land, distant in vain,
It broods incumbent. Forthwith from the plain,
Facing the Isle, a brighter cloud arose,
And steered its course which way the vapour went.
The Maiden paused, musing what this might
But long time passed not, ere that brighter cloud
Returned more bright; along the plain it swept;
And soon from forth its bursting sides emerged
A dazzling form, broad-bosomed, bold of eye,
And wild her hair, save where with laurels bound.
Not more majestic stood the healing God,
When from his bow the arrow sped that slew
Huge Python. Shriek'd Ambition's giant throng,
And with them hissed the locust-fiends that crawled
And glittered in Corruption's slimy track.
Great was their wrath, for short they knew their
And such commotion made they, and uproar,
As when the mad tornado bellows through
The guilty islands of the western main,
What time departing from their native shores,
Eboe, or * Koromantyn's plain of palms,
* The Slaves in the West-Indies consider death as a passport to their native country. This sentiment is thus expressed in the introduction to a Greek Prize-Ode on the Slave-Trade, of which the thoughts are better than the lan guage in which they are conveyed.
*Ω σκότου πύλας, Θάνατε, προλείπων
Ἐς γένος σπεύδοις ὑποζευχθὲν ̓́Ατα
Οὐ ξενισθήσῃ γενύων σπαραγμοῖς,
Οὐδ ̓ ὀλολυγμῳ,
Αλλὰ καὶ κύκλοισι χοροιτύποισι,
Κ' ἀσμάτων χαρᾷ· φοβερὸς μὲν ἐσσὶ,
̓Αλλ ὁμῶς Ελευθερία συνοικεῖς,
Στυγνὲ Τύραννε!
Δασκίοις ἐπὶ πτερύγεσσι σῇσι
̓Α! θαλάσσιον καθορῶντες οἶδμα
Αἰθεροπλάγκτοις ὑπὸ ποσσ ̓ ἀνεῖσι
Πατρίδ' ἐπ' αἷαν.
The infuriate spirits of the murdered make
Fierce merriment, and vengeance ask of Heaven.
Warmed with new influence, the unwholesome plain
Sent up its foulest fogs to meet the morn:
The Sun that rose on Freedom, rose in blood!
"Maiden beloved, and Delegate of Heaven! (To her the tutelary Spirit said,)
Soon shall the morning struggle into day,
The stormy morning into cloudless noon.
Much hast thou seen, nor all canst understand-
But this be thy best omen-Save thy Country!"
Thus saying, from the answering Maid he passed,
And with him disappeared the heavenly Vision!
Glory to Thee, Father of Earth and Heaven! All conscious presence of the Universe!
Ἔνθα μὴν Ἐρασταὶ Ἐρωμενῇσιν
̓Αμφὶ πηγῇσιν κιτρίνων ὑπ ̓ ἄλσων,
Οσσ ̓ ὑπὸ βροτοῖς ἔπαθον βροτοὶ, τὰ
Δεινὰ λέγοντι.
Leaving the gates of darkness, O Death! hasten thou to a race yoked with misery! Thou wilt not be received with lacerations of cheeks, nor with funeral ululation-but with circling dances and the joy of songs. Thou art terrible indeed, yet thou dwellest with Liberty, stern Genius! Borne on thy dark pinions over the swelling of Ocean, they return to their native country. There, by the side of fountains, beneath citron-groves, the lovers tell to their beloved what horrors, being men, they had endured from men.
Nature's vast ever-acting energy!
In will, in deed, impulse of All to All!
Whether thy Love with unrefracted ray
Beam on the Prophet's purged eye, or if
Diseasing realms the enthusiast, wild of thought,
Scatter new frenzies on the infected throng,
Thou both inspiring and predooming both,
Fit instruments and best, of perfect end:
Glory to Thee, Father of Earth and Heaven!
And first a landscape rose
More wild and waste and desolate than where The white bear, drifting on a field of ice, Howls to her sundered cubs with piteous rage And savage agony.
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