Genius of England! wherefore to the earth
Is thy plumed helm, thy peerless sceptre cast?
Thy courts of late with minstrelsy and mirth
Rang jubilant, and dazzling pageants past;
Kings, heroes, martial triumphs, nuptial rites--

Now, like a cypress, shiver'd by the blast,
Or mountain-cedar, which the lightning smites,
In dust and darkness sinks thy head declined,
Thy tresses streaming wild on ocean's reckless wind.

Art thou not glorious?--In that night of storms,
When He, in Power's supremacy elate,
Gaul's fierce Usurper! fulminating fate,
The Goth's barbaric tyranny restored,
And science, art, and all life's fairer forms,
Sunk to the dark dominion of the sword:
Didst thou not, champion of insulted man!
Confront this stern Destroyer in his pride?

Thrice, and above, blest, my soul's half, art thou,
In thy both last and better vow;
Could'st leave the city, for exchange, to see
The country's sweet simplicity;
And it to know and practise, with intent
To grow the sooner innocent;
By studying to know virtue, and to aim
More at her nature than her name;
The last is but the least; the first doth tell
Ways less to live, than to live well:
And both are known to thee, who now canst live
Led by thy conscience, to give
Justice to soon-pleased nature, and to show
Wisdom and she together go,
And keep one centre; This with that conspires
To teach man to confine desires,
And know that riches have their proper stint
In the contented mind, not mint;
And canst instruct that those who have the itch
Of cravin...

Ah, that Time could touch a form
That could show what Homer’s age
Bred to be a hero’s wage.
‘Were not all her life but storm,
Would not painters paint a form
Of such noble lines’ I said,
‘Such a delicate high head,
All that sternness amid charm,
All that sweetness amid strength?’
Ah, but peace that comes at length,
Came when Time had touched her form.

ADVERTISEMENT.


That no readers of the following work may entertain expectations respecting it which it would ill satisfy, it is necessary to acquaint them, that the author has not had the presumption even to attempt a full, historical narration of the fall of the Peruvian empire. To describe that important event with accuracy, and to display with clearness and force the various causes which combined to produce it, would require all the energy of genius, and the most glowing colours of imagination. Conscious of her utter inability to execute such a design, she has only aimed at a simple detail of some few incidents that make a part of that romantic story; where the unparalleled sufferings of an innocent and amiable people, form the most affecting subjects of true pathos, while their climate, totally unlike our own, furnish...

Beautiful cloud! with folds so soft and fair,
Swimming in the pure quiet air!
Thy fleeces bathed in sunlight, while below
Thy shadow o'er the vale moves slow;
Where, midst their labour, pause the reaper train
As cool it comes along the grain.
Beautiful cloud! I would I were with thee
In thy calm way o'er land and sea:
To rest on thy unrolling skirts, and look
On Earth as on an open book;
On streams that tie her realms with silver bands,
And the long ways that seem her lands;
And hear her humming cities, and the sound
Of the great ocean breaking round.
Ay, I would sail upon thy air-borne car
To blooming regions distant far,
To where the sun of Andalusia shines
On his own olive-groves and vines,
Or the soft lights of Italy's bright sky
In smiles u...

Above, below, in sky and sod,
In leaf and spar, in star and man,
Well might the wise Athenian scan
The geometric signs of God,
The measured order of His plan.

And India's mystics sang aright
Of the One Life pervading all,
One Being's tidal rise and fall
In soul and form, in sound and sight,
Eternal outflow and recall.

God is: and man in guilt and fear
The central fact of Nature owns;
Kneels, trembling, by his altar-stones,
And darkly dreams the ghastly smear
Of blood appeases and atones.

Guilt shapes the Terror: deep within
The human heart the secret lies
Of all the hideous deities;
And, painted on a ground of sin,
The fabled gods of torment rise!

And what is He? The ripe grain nods,
The sweet dews fall, the swe...

Though many suns have risen and set
Since thou, blithe May, wert born,
And Bards, who hailed thee, may forget
Thy gift, thy beauty scorn;
There are who to a birthday strain
Confine not harp and voice,
But evermore throughout thy reign
Are grateful and rejoice!

Delicious odor! music sweet,
Too sweet to pass away!
Oh for a deathless song to meet
The soul's desire, a lay
That, when a thousand year are told,
Should praise thee, genial Power!
Through summer heat, autumnal cold,
And winter's dreariest hour.

Earth, sea, thy presence feel, nor less,
If yon ethereal blue
With its soft smile the truth express,
The heavens have felt it too.
The inmost heart of man if glad
Partakes a livelier cheer;
And eye that cannot but be sad<...

    Mood of youth,
    Mood of youth,
Eagle-like must seek the blue,
Dauntlessly its course pursue,
All the mountain-heights must view.
    Blood of youth,
    Blood of youth,
Steam-like puts full-speed to sea,
E'en though storm and ice there be,
Makes its way and romps in glee.
    Dream of youth,
    Dream of youth,
Rogue-like stealing sets its snare
In the maiden's morning-prayer;
All the springtime, fragrant, glowing,
In its airy waves is flowing.
    Joy of youth,
    Joy of youth,
Waterfall-like foams in truth,
Laughing, rainbow-gifts forth flashing,
Even while to death 't is dashing.
    Joy of youth,
    Dream of youth,
    Blood of youth,
    Mood of youth,
Clothe the world with colors golden,
Singing ...

The sunlight glitters keen and bright,
Where, miles away,
Lies stretching to my dazzled sight
A luminous belt, a misty light,
Beyond the dark pine bluffs and wastes of sandy gray.

The tremulous shadow of the Sea!
Against its ground
Of silvery light, rock, hill, and tree,
Still as a picture, clear and free,
With varying outline mark the coast for miles around.

On, on, we tread with loose-flung rein
Our seaward way,
Through dark-green fields and blossoming grain,
Where the wild brier-rose skirts the lane,
And bends above our heads the flowering locust spray.

Ha! like a kind hand on my brow
Comes this fresh breeze,
Cooling its dull and feverish glow,
While through my being seems to flow
The breath of a new life, the healing of the...

The sun-browned girl, whose limbs recline
When noon her languid hand has laid
Hot on the green flakes of the pine,
Beneath its narrow disk of shade;

As, through the flickering noontide glare,
She gazes on the rainbow chain
Of arches, lifting once in air
The rivers of the Roman's plain; -

Say, does her wandering eye recall
The mountain-current's icy wave, -
Or for the dead one tear let fall,
Whose founts are broken by their grave?

From stone to stone the ivy weaves
Her braided tracery's winding veil,
And lacing stalks and tangled leaves
Nod heavy in the drowsy gale.

And lightly floats the pendent vine,
That swings beneath her slender bow,
Arch answering arch, - whose rounded line
Seems mirrored in the wreath below.

Deep in the jungle vast and dim,
That knew not a white man's feet,
I smelt the odour of sun-warmed fur,
Musky, savage, and sweet.

Far it was from the huts of men
And the grass where Sambur feed;
I threw a stone at a Kadapu tree
That bled as a man might bleed.

Scent of fur and colour of blood: -
And the long dead instincts rose,
I followed the lure of my season's mate, -
And flew, bare-fanged, at my foes.

*        *        *

Pale days: and a league of laws
Made by the whims of men.
Would I were back with my furry cubs
In the dusk of a jungle den.

Great and omnipotent that Power must be,
That wings the whirlwind and directs the storm,
That, by a strong convulsion, severed thee,
And wrought this wondrous chasm in thy form.

Man is a dweller, where, in some past day,
Thy rock-ribbed frame majestically rose;
The river rushes on its new-made way,
And all is life where all was once repose.

Pleased, as I gazed upon thy lofty brow
Where Nature seems her loveliest robes to wear,
I felt that Pride at such a scene must bow,
And own its insignificancy there.

Oh Thou, to whom directing worlds is play,
Thy condescension without bounds must be,
If man, the frail ephemera of a day,
Be graciously regarded still by Thee.

Here, as I ponder on Thy mighty deeds,
And marvel at Thy bounteousness t...

The Muses' friend (grey-eyed Aurora) yet
Held all the meadows in a cooling sweat,
The milk-white gossamers not upwards snow'd,
Nor was the sharp and useful-steering goad
Laid on the strong-neck'd ox; no gentle bud
The sun had dried; the cattle chew'd the cud
Low levell'd on the grass; no fly's quick sting
Enforc'd the stonehorse in a furious ring
To tear the passive earth, nor lash his tail
About his buttocks broad; the slimy snail
Might on the wainscot, by his many mazes,
Winding meanders and self-knitting traces,
Be follow'd where he stuck, his glittering slime
Not yet wip'd off. It was so early time,
The careful smith had in his sooty forge
Kindled no coal; nor did his hammers urge
His neighbours' patience: owls abroad did fly,
And day as then might pl...

I.

I saw how the patient Sun
    Hasted untiringly
The self-same old race to run;
    Never aspiringly
Seeking some other road
    Through the blue heaven
Than the one path which God
    Long since had given; -
        And I said; - "Patient Sun,
        Teach me my race to run,
        Even as thine is done,
            Steadfastly ever;
        Weakly, impatiently
            Wandering never!"


II.

I saw how the patient Earth
    Sat uncomplainingly,
While, in his boisterous mirth,
    Winter disdainingly
Mocked at her steadfast trust,
    That, from its icy chain,
Spring her imprisoned dust
    Soon would release again; -
        And I said; - "Patient Earth,
        Biding thy hour of dear...

"Hosanna Sanctus Deus Sabaoth
Superillustrans claritate tua
Felices ignes horum malahoth!"
Thus chanting saw I turn that substance bright
With fourfold lustre to its orb again,
Revolving; and the rest unto their dance
With it mov'd also; and like swiftest sparks,
In sudden distance from my sight were veil'd.

Me doubt possess'd, and "Speak," it whisper'd me,
"Speak, speak unto thy lady, that she quench
Thy thirst with drops of sweetness." Yet blank awe,
Which lords it o'er me, even at the sound
Of Beatrice's name, did bow me down
As one in slumber held. Not long that mood
Beatrice suffer'd: she, with such a smile,
As might have made one blest amid the flames,
Beaming upon me, thus her words began:
"Thou in thy thought art pond'ring (as I deem),
...

The frog half fearful jumps across the path,
And little mouse that leaves its hole at eve
Nimbles with timid dread beneath the swath;
My rustling steps awhile their joys deceive,
Till past,--and then the cricket sings more strong,
And grasshoppers in merry moods still wear
The short night weary with their fretting song.
Up from behind the molehill jumps the hare,
Cheat of his chosen bed, and from the bank
The yellowhammer flutters in short fears
From off its nest hid in the grasses rank,
And drops again when no more noise it hears.
Thus nature's human link and endless thrall,
Proud man, still seems the enemy of all.

THE TWILIGHT HOUR.

Slowly I dawn on the sleepless eye,
Like a dreaming thought of eternity;
But darkness hangs on my misty vest,
Like the shade of care on the sleeper's breast;
A light that is felt--but dimly seen,
Like hope that hangs life and death between;
And the weary watcher will sighing say,
"Lord, I thank thee! 'twill soon be day;"
The lingering night of pain is past,
Morning breaks in the east at last.

    Mortal!--thou mayst see in me
A type of feeble infancy,--
A dim, uncertain, struggling ray,
The promise of a future day!


THE MORNING HOUR.

    Like a maid on her bridal morn I rise,
With the smile on her lip and the tear in her eyes;
Whilst the breeze my crimson banner unfurls,
I wreathe my locks with the...

I.

Once more the Heavenly Power
Makes all things new,
And domes the red-plow’d hills
With loving blue;
The blackbirds have their wills,
The throstles too.



II.

Opens a door in heaven;
From skies of glass
A Jacob’s ladder falls
On greening grass,
And o’er the mountain-walls
Young angels pass.



III.

Before them fleets the shower,
And burst the buds,
And shine the level lands,
And flash the floods;
The stars are from their hands
Flung thro’ the woods,



IV.

The woods with living airs
How softly fann’d,
Light airs from where the deep,
All down the sand,
Is breathing in his sleep,
Heard by the land.



V.

O,...