POEMS BY VARIOUS AUTHORS.
DIRGE OF ALARIC, THE VISIGOTH,
Who stormed and spoiled the city of Rome, and was afterward buried in the channel of the river Busentius, the water of which had been diverted from its course that the body might be interred.
WHEN I am dead, no pageant train
Shall waste their sorrows at my bier,
Nor worthless pomp of homage vain
Stain it with hypocritic tear;
For I will die as I did live,
Nor take the boon I cannot give.
Ye shall not raise a marble bust
Upon the spot where I repose;
Ye shall not fawn before my dust,
In hollow circumstance of woes;
Nor sculptured clay, with lying breath,
Insult the clay that moulds beneath.
Ye shall not pile, with servile toil,
Your monuments upon my breast,
Nor yet within the common soil
Lay down the wreck of power to rest;
Where man can boast that he has trod
On him that was "the scourge of God."
But ye the mountain-stream shall turn,
And lay its secret channel bare,
And hollow, for your sovereign's urn,
A resting-place forever there:
Then bid its everlasting springs
Flow back upon the king of kings;
And never be the secret said,
Until the deep give up his dead.
My gold and silver ye shall fling
Back to the clods that gave them birth;
The captured crowns of many a king,
The ransom of a conquer'd earth:
For, e'en though dead, will I control
The trophies of the capitol.
But when beneath the mountain-tide
Ye've laid your monarch down to rot,
Ye shall not rear upon its side
Pillar or mound to mark the spot;
For long enough the world has shook
Beneath the terrors of my look;
And now that I have run my race,
The astonish'd realms shall rest a space.
My course was like a river deep,
And from the northern hills I burst,
Across the world in wrath to sweep,
And where I went the spot was cursed,
Nor blade of grass again was seen
Where ALARIC and his hosts had been.
See how their haughty barriers fail
Beneath the terrors of the Goth,
Their iron-breasted legions quail
Before my ruthless sabaoth,
And low the queen of empires kneels,
And grovels at my chariot-wheels.
Not for myself did I ascend
In judgment my triumphal car; "Twas GoD alone on high did send
The avenging Scythian to the war,
To shake abroad, with iron hand,
The appointed scourge of his command.
With iron hand that scourge I rear'd
O'er guilty king and guilty realm;
Destruction was the ship I steer'd,
And vengeance sat upon the helm,
When, launch'd in fury on the flood,
I plough'd my ways through seas of blood, And, in the stream their hearts had spilt, Wash'd out the long arrears of guilt.
Across the everlasting Alp
I pour'd the torrent of my powers, And feeble Cæsars shriek'd for help
In vain within their seven-hill'd towers,
I quench'd in blood the brightest gem
That glitter'd in their diadem,
And struck a darker, deeper dye
In the purple of their majesty;
And bade my northern banners shine
Upon the conquer'd Palatine.
My course is run, my errand done;
I go to Him from whence I came;
But never yet shall set the sun
Of glory that adorns my name;
And Roman hearts shall long be sick,
When men shall think of ALARIC.
My course is run, my errand done—
But darker ministers of fate,
Impatient, round the eternal throne,
And in the caves of vengeance wait;
And soon mankind shall blench away
Before the name of ATTILA.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, LL. D.
SURE, to the mansions of the blest
When infant innocence ascends, Some angel, brighter than the rest, The spotless spirit's flight attends. On wings of ecstasy they rise,
Beyond where worlds material roll; Till some fair sister of the skies Receives the unpolluted soul.
That inextinguishable beam,
With dust united at our birth, Sheds a more dim, discolour'd gleam The more it lingers upon earth. Closed in this dark abode of clay,
The stream of glory faintly burns:Not unobserved, the lucid ray
To its own native fount returns.
But when the LORD of mortal breath
Decrees his bounty to resume, And points the silent shaft of death
Which speeds an infant to the tomb
No passion fierce, nor low desire,
Has quench'd the radiance of the flame; Back to its Gon the living fire
Reverts, unclouded as it came.
Fond mourner! be that solace thine!
Let hope her healing charm impart, And soothe, with melodies divine,
The anguish of a mother's heart. O, think! the darlings of thy love, Divested of this earthly clod, Amid unnumber'd saints above,
Bask in the bosom of their Gon.
Of their short pilgrimage on earth
Still tender images remain :
Still, still they bless thee for their birth,
Still filial gratitude retain.
Each anxious care, each rending sigh,
That wrung for them the parent's breast,
Dwells on remembrance in the sky,
Amid the raptures of the blest.
O'er thee, with looks of love, they bend;
For thee the LORD of life implore;
And oft from sainted bliss descend,
Thy wounded quiet to restore.
Oft, in the stillness of the night,
They smooth the pillow of thy bed;
Oft. till the morn's returning light,
Still watchful hover o'er thy head.
Hark! in such strains as saints employ, They whisper to thy bosom peace; Calm the perturbed heart to joy,
And bid the streaming sorrow cease. Then dry, henceforth, the bitter tear:
Their part and thine inverted see:Thou wert their guardian angel here,
They guardian angels now to thee.
JOSHUA COMMANDING THE SUN AND MOON TO STAND STILL.
THE day rose clear on Gibeon. Her high towers
Flash'd the red sunbeams gloriously back,
And the wind-driven banners, and the steel
Of her ten thousand spears caught dazzlingly
The sun, and on the fortresses of rock
Play'd a soft glow, that as a mockery seem'd
To the stern men who girded by its light.
Beth-Horon in the distance slept, and breath
Was pleasant in the vale of Ajalon,
Where armed heels trod carelessly the sweet,
Wild spices, and the trees of gum were shook
By the rude armour on their branches hung.
Suddenly in the camp, without the walls,
Rose a deep murmur, and the men of war
Gather'd around their kings, and "JOSHUA!
From Gilgal, JOSHUA!" was whisper'd low,
As with a secret fear, and then, at once,
With the abruptness of a dream, he stood
Upon the rock before them. Calmly then
Raised he his helm, and with his temples bare,
And hands uplifted to the sky, he pray'd:
"God of this people hear! and let the sun
Stand upon Gibeon, still; and let the moon
Rest in the vale of Ajalon!" He ceased:
And, lo! the moon sits motionless, and earth
Stands on her axis indolent. The sun
Pours the unmoving column of his rays
In undiminish'd heat; the hours stand still;
The shade hath stopp'd upon the dial's face;
The clouds and vapours, that at night are wont
To gather and enshroud the lower earth,
Are struggling with strange rays, breaking them
Scattering the misty phalanx like a wand,
Glancing o'er mountain-tops, and shining down
In broken masses on the astonish'd plains.
The fever'd cattle group in wondering herds;
The weary birds go to their leafy nests,
But find no darkness there, and wander forth
On feeble, fluttering wing, to find a rest;
The parch'd, baked earth, undamp'd by usual dews,
Has gaped and crack'd, and heat, dry, midday heat,
Comes like a drunkard's breath upon the heart.
On with thy armies, JOSHUA! The LORD
Gop of Sabaoth is the avenger now!
His voice is in the thunder, and his wrath
Poureth the beams of the retarded sun,
With the keen strength of arrows, on their sight.
The unwearied sun rides in the zenith sky;
Nature, obedient to her Maker's voice,
Stops in full course all her mysterious wheels.
On! till avenging swords have drunk the blood
Of all JEHOVAH's enemies, and till
Thy banners in returning triumph wave;
Then yonder orb shall set mid golden clouds,
And, while a dewy rain falls soft on earth,
Show in the heavens the glorious bow of GoD,
Shining, the rainbow-banner of the skies.
* For many years editor of "The Daily Advertiser," of Albany, New York. He died in 1839, at the age of thirty-six years.
On boatman! wind that horn again!
For never did the joyous air
Upon its lambent bosom bear
So wild, so soft, so sweet a strain.
What though thy notes are sad and lone,
By every simple boatman blown;
Yet could I list from eve to morn,
Delighted, to the simple horn.
How oft, in boyhood's cloudless day,
I've stroll'd by wild Ohio's stream,
Marking his silvery billows play,
Bright with the sun's declining beam,
While some lone boatman from the deck,
Musing on coming storms and wreck,
Pour'd his soft numbers to that tide
Where all his hopes, his fortunes ride,
As if to woo the fickle wave
From wreck and storm his boat to save.
Delighted nature drank the sound,
Enchanted echo bore it round
In whispers soft, and softer still,
From hill to plain, from plain to hill;
And even the reckless, frolic boy,
Elate with hope, and wild with joy,
Who gamboll'd by the river's side,
And sported with the fretting tide,
Feels something now pervade his breast,
Chain his light step, cut short his jest,
Bends o'er the flood his eager ear,
To catch the sounds far off and dear;
Drinks the sweet draught, but knows not why
The tear of rapture fills the eye.
And can he, now to manhood grown,
Tell why those notes, simple and lone,
As on the ravish'd ear they fell,
Bound every sense in magic spell?
There is a tide of feeling given
To all on earth-its fountain, heaven!
Beginning with the downy flower,
Just oped in Flora's vernal bower,
Rising creation's orders through,
With bolder murmur, brighter hue.
That tide is sympathy! Its ebb and flow
Give life its gleam of joy, its shades of woe.
Music, the master-spirit that can move,
Can charm from beauty's eye the bitter tear,
And lift from sorrow's heart its load of care;
Can cheer the sinking sailor on the wave,
And bid the soldier on, nor heed the grave;
Inspire the fainting pilgrim on his road,
And elevate his heart and soul to God.
Then, boatman, wind that horn again!
Though much of sorrow mark its strain,
Yet are its notes to sorrow dear.
What though they wake fond memory's tear!
Tears are memory's sacred feast,
And rapture oft her chosen guest.
Major-General WILLIAM O. BUTLER, of Kentucky, is the author of many graceful vers de societé. The piece here quoted is one of his most popular effusions.
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