Long-exiled Dion marching at their head,
He also crowned with flowers of Sicily,
And in a white, far-beaming, corselet clad!
Pure transport undisturbed by doubt or
fear
The gazers feel; and rushing to the plain,
Salute those strangers as a holy train
Or blest procession (to the immortals dear)
That brought their precious liberty again.
Lo! when the gates are entered, on each
hand,
Down the long street, rieh goblets filled with wine
In seemly order stand,
On tables set, as if for rites divine ;-
And, as the great deliverer marches by,
He looks on festal ground with fruits
bestrown;
And flowers are on his person thrown
In boundless prodigality;
Nor doth the general voice abstain from
prayer,
Invoking Dion's tutelary care,
As if a very Deity he were !
Mourn, hills and groves of Attica! and
Ilissus, bending o'er thy classic urn! Mourn, and lament for him whose spirit dreads
Your once-sweet memory, studious walks and shades!
For him who to divinity aspired,
Not on the breath of popular applause,
But through dependence on the sacred laws
Framed in the schools where wisdom dwelt
retired,
Intent to trace the ideal path of right
(More fair than heaven's broad causeway
paved with stars)
Which Dion learned to measure with delight;
But he hath overleaped the eternal bars; And, following guides whose craft holds
With_aught that breathes the ethereal element,
Hath stained the robes of civil power with blood,
Unjustly shed, though for the public good. Whence doubts that came too late, and wishes vain,
Hollow excuses, and triumphant pain;
And oft his cogitations sink as low
As, through the abysses of a joyless heart,
The heaviest plummet of despair can go;
But whence that sudden check? that fear-
ful start!
He hears an uncouth sound
Anon his lifted eyes
Saw at a long-drawn gallery's dusky bound
A shape of more than mortal size
And hideous aspect, stalking round and
round;
A woman's garb that phantom wore,
And fiercely swept the marble floor,—
Like Auster whirling to and fro,
His force on Caspian foam to try;
Or Boreas when he scours the snow
That skins the plains of Thessaly,
Or when aloft on Mænalus he stops
His flight, 'mid eddying pine-tree tops!
So, but from toil less sign of profit reaping The sullen spectre to her purpose bowed,
Sweeping-vehemently sweepingNo pause admitted, no design avowed? "Avaunt, inexplicable guest !—avaunt!" Exclaimed the chieftain-"Let me rather
The coronal that coiling vipers make ; The torch that flames with many a lurid flake,
And the long train of doleful pageantry Which they behold, whom vengeful furies haunt:
Who, while they struggle from the scourge to flee,
Move where the blasted soil is not unworn, And, in their anguish, bear what other minds have borne!"
But shapes that come not at an earthly call,
Will not depart when mortal voices bid;
Lords of the visionary eye whose lid
Once raised, remains aghast and will not
fall!
Ye gods, thought he, that servile implement
Obeys a mystical intent!
Your minister would brush away
The spots that to my soul adhere;
But should she labour night and day,
They will not, cannot disappear; [look
Whence angry perturbations,—and that
Which no philosophy can brook!
Ill-fated chief; there are whose hopes are built
Upon the ruins of thy glorious name; Who, through the portal of one moment's guilt,
Pursue thee with their deadly aim!
O matchless perfidy ! portentous lust
Of monstrous crime !-that horror-striking
blade,
Drawn in defiance of the gods, hath laid
The noble Syracusan low in dust!
Shudder the walls-the marble city wept-
And sylvan places heaved a pensive sigh;
But in calm peace the appointed victim
slept,
As he had fallen in magnanimity;
Of spirit too capacious to require
That destiny her course should change; too
just
To his own native greatness to desire
That wretched boon, days lengthened by
mistrust.
So were the hopeless troubles, that involved The soul of Dion, instantly dissolved. Released from life and cares of princely state,
He left this moral grafted on his fateHim only pleasure leads, and peace attends,
Him, only him, the shield of Jove defends, Whose means are fair and spotless as his ends."
A PEN-to register; a key
That winds through secret wards;
Are well assigned to memory
By allegoric bards.
As aptly, also, might be given
A pencil to her hand;
That, softening objects, sometimes even
Outstrips the heart's demand;
That smooths foregone distress, the lines
Of lingering care subdues,
Long-vanished happiness refines,
And clothes in brighter hues :
Yet, like a tool of fancy, works
Those spectres to dilate
That startle conscience, as she lurks
Within her lonely seat.
Oh, that our lives, which flee so fast,
That not an image of the past
In purity were such,
Should fear that pencil's touch!
Retirement then might hourly look
Upon a soothing scene,
Age steal to his allotted nook,
Contented and serene;
With heart as calm as lakes that sleep,
In frosty moonlight glistening;
Or mountain rivers, where they creep
Along a channel smooth and deep,
To their own far-off murmurs listening.
STERN daughter of the voice of God!
O Duty! if that name thou love,
Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring, and reprove;
Thou who art victory and law
When empty terrors overawe;
From vain temptations dost set free;
And calm'st the weary strife of frail
humanity!
There are who ask not if thine eye
Be on them; who, in love and truth,
Where no misgiving is, rely
Upon the genial sense of youth;
Glad hearts! without reproach or blot;
Who do thy work, and know it not :
Long may the kindly impulse last!
But thou, if they should totter, teach them to stand fast!
Serene will be our days and bright,
And happy will our nature be,
When love is an unerring light,
And joy its own security.
And they a blissful course may hold
Even now, who, not unwisely bold,
Live in the spirit of this creed ;
Yet find that other strength, according to their need.
Poems Referring to the Period of Old Age.
THE OLD CUMBERLAND BEGGAR.
The class of beggars, to which the old man here described belongs, will probably soon be extinct It consisted of poor, and, mostly, old and infirm persons, who confined themselves to a stated round in their neighbourhood, and had certain fixed days, on which, at different houses, they regularly received alms, sometimes in money, but mostly in provisions.
I SAW an aged beggar in my walk;
And he was seated, by the highway side,
On a low structure of rude masonry
Built at the foot of a huge hill, that they
Who lead their horses down the steep rough road
May thence remount at ease. The aged man
Had placed his staff across the broad smooth stone
That overlays the pile; and, from a bag
All white with flour, the dole of village dames,
He drew his scraps and fragments, one by one;
And scanned them with a fixed and serious look
Of idle computation. In the sun,
Upon the second step of that small pile,
Surrounded by those wild unpeopled hills,
He sat, and ate his food in solitude:
And ever, scattered from his palsied hand,
That, still attempting to prevent the waste,
Was baffled still, the crumbs in little showers
Fell on the ground; and the small mountain birds,
Not venturing yet to peck their destined meal,
Approached within the length of half his staff.
Him from my childhood have I known; and then
He was so old, he seems not older now;
He travels on, a solitary man,
So helpless in appearance, that for him
The sauntering horseman-traveller does not throw
With careless hand his alms upon the ground,
But stops, that he may safely lodge the coin
Within the old man's hat; nor quits him so,
But still, when he has given his horse the rein,
Watches the aged beggar with a look
Sidelong-and half-reverted. She who tends
The toll-gate, when in summer at her door
She turns her wheel, if on the road she sees
The aged beggar coming, quits her work,
And lifts the latch for him that he may pass.
The post boy, when his rattling wheels o'ertake
The aged beggar in the woody lane,
Shouts to him from behind; and, if thus warned
The old man does not change his course, the boy
Turns with less noisy wheels to the road-side,
And passes gently by-without a curse
Upon his lips, or anger at his heart.
He travels on, a solitary man ;
age has no companion. On the ground
His eyes are turned, and, as he moves along,
They move along the ground; and, evermore,
Instead of common and habitual sight
Of fields with rural works, of hill and dale,
And the blue sky, one little span of earth
Is all his prospect. Thus, from day to day,
Bow-bent, his eyes for ever on the ground,
He plies his weary journey; seeing still,
And seldom knowing that he sees, some straw,
Some scattered leaf, or marks which, in one track,
The nails of cart or chariot-wheel have left
Impressed on the white road,-in the same line,
At distance still the same. Poor traveller!
His staff trails with him; scarcely do his feet
Disturb the summer dust; he is so still
In look and motion, that the cottage curs,
Ere he have passed the door, will turn away,
Weary of barking at him. Boys and girls,
The vacant and the busy, maids and youths,
And urchins newly breeched-all pass him by:
Him even the slow-paced waggon leaves behind.
But deem not this man useless.-Statesmen ! ye
Who are so restless in your wisdom, ye
Who have a broom still ready in your hands
To rid the world of nuisances; ye proud,
Heart-swoln, while in your pride ye contemplate
Your talents, power, and wisdom, deem him not
A burthen of the earth! "Tis nature's law
That none, the meanest of created things,
Of forms created the most vile and brute,
The dullest or most noxious, should exist
Divorced from good-a spirit and pulse of good,
A life and soul, to every mode of being
Inseparably linked. While thus he creeps
From door to door, the villagers in him
Behold a record which together binds
Past deeds and offices of charity,
Else unremembered, and so keeps alive
The kindly mood in hearts which lapse of years,
And that half-wisdom half-experience gives,
Make slow to feel, and by sure steps resign
To selfishness and cold oblivious cares.
Among the farms and solitary huts,
Hamlets and thinly-scattered villages,
Where'er the aged beggar takes his rounds,
The mild necessity of use compels
To acts of love; and habit does the work
Of reason; yet prepares that after-joy
Which reason cherishes. And thus the soul,
By that sweet taste of pleasure unpursued,
Doth find itself insensibly disposed
To virtue and true goodness. Some there are,
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