Our supreme foe in time may much remit
His anger; and perhaps, thus far removed,
Not mind us not offending, satisfied
With what is punished; whence these raging fires
Will slacken, if his breath stir not their flames.
Our purer essence then will overcome
Their noxious vapour; or, inured, not feel;
Or, changed at length, and to the place conformed
In temper and in nature, will receive
Familiar the fierce heat, and void of pain;
This horror will grow mild, this darkness light;
Besides what hope the never-ending flight
Of future days may bring, what chance, what change
Worth waiting; since our present lot appears
For happy though but ill, for ill not worst,
If we procure not to ourselves more woe."
Thus Belial, with words clothed in reason's garb, Counselled ignoble ease, and peaceful sloth.
SECTION IV.-MISCELLANEOUS.
THERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods;
There is a rapture on the lonely shore;
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.
Roll on, thou deep and dark-blue Ocean-roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin-his control Stops with the shore;-upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own; When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown!
His steps are not upon thy paths,―thy fields
Are not a spoil for him,—thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray,
And howling to his gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth :-there let him lay.
The armaments which thunder-strike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war-
These are thy toys; and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.
Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee-
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?
Thy waters washed them power while they were free,
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts:—not so thou;—
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play,
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow:
Such as Creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now!
Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,
Calm or convulsed, in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving-boundless, endless, and sublime,
The image of Eternity,-the throne
Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone!
II. THE PASSIONS.
(COLLINS.)
William Collins, one of the most ill-fated of poets, was born in Chichester in 1721, and died in 1759. His odes and eclogues are highly prized. That on The Passions is one of the finest in the language.
WHEN Music, heavenly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung,
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
Thronged around her magic cell,
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possessed beyond the Muse's painting.
By turns, they felt the glowing mind
Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined:
Till once, 'tis said, when all were fired,
Filled with fury, rapt, inspired,
From the supporting myrtles round
They snatched her instruments of sound;
And, as they oft had heard apart
Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
Each-for Madness ruled the hour-
Would prove his own expressive power.
First, Fear, his hand, its skill to try,
Amid the chords bewildered laid;
And back recoiled, he knew not why,
Even at the sound himself had made.
Next, Anger rushed, his eyes on fire,
In lightnings owned his secret stings:
In one rude clash he struck the lyre,
And swept, with hurried hands, the strings.
With woful measures, wan Despair—
Low sullen sounds!-his grief beguiled;
A solemn, strange, and mingled air;
'Twas sad by fits-by starts 'twas wild.
But thou, O Hope! with eyes so fair,
What was thy delighted measure!
Still it whispered promised pleasure,
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail.
Still would her touch the strain prolong;
And, from the rocks, the woods, the vale,
She called on Echo still through all her song.
And, where her sweetest theme she chose,
A soft responsive voice was heard at every close;
And Hope, enchanted, smiled, and waved her golden hair.
And longer had she sung-but, with a frown,
Revenge impatient rose.
He threw his blood-stained sword in thunder down;
And, with a withering look,
The war-denouncing trumpet took,
And blew a blast, so loud and dread,
Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe;
And, ever and anon, he beat
The doubling drum, with furious heat.
And though, sometimes, each dreary pause between,
Dejected Pity, at his side,
Her soul-subduing voice applied,
Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien;
While each strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his head.
Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fixed;
Sad proof of thy distressful state !
Of differing themes the veering song was mixed:
And, now, it courted Love; now, raving, called on Hate.
With eyes upraised, as one inspired,
Pale Melancholy sat retired;
And from her wild sequestered seat,
In notes by distance made more sweet,
Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul:
And, dashing soft, from rocks around,
Bubbling runnels joined the sound.
Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole; Or o'er some haunted streams, with fond delayRound a holy calm diffusing,
Love of peace and lonely musing
In hollow murmurs died away.
But, oh, how altered was its sprightlier tone!
When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue,
Her bow across her shoulders flung,
Her buskins gemmed with morning dew,
Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung
The hunter's call, to Faun and Dryad known.
The oak-crowned sisters, and their chaste-eyed queen,
Satyrs, and silvan boys, were seen,
Peeping from forth their alleys green;
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