THE world is full of Poetry-the air
Is living with its spirit; and the waves
Dance to the music of its melodies,
And sparkle in its brightness. Earth is veiled
And mantled with its beauty; and the walls,
That close the universe with crystal in,
Are eloquent with voices, that proclaim
The unseen glories of immensity,
In harmonies, too perfect, and too high,
For aught but beings of celestial mould,
And speak to man in one eternal hymn-
Unfading beauty, and unyielding power.
The year leads round the seasons, in a choir
For ever charming, and for ever new;
Blending the grand, the beautiful, the gay,
The mournful, and the tender, in one strain,
Which steals into the heart, like sounds, that rise
Far off, in moonlight evenings, on the shore
Of the wide ocean resting after storms;
Or tones, that wind around the vaulted roof,
And pointed arches, and retiring aisles
Of some old, lonely minster, where the hand,
Skilful, and moved with passionate love of art,
Plays o'er the higher keys, and bears aloft
The peal of bursting thunder, and then calls
By mellow touches, from the softer tubes,
Voices of melting tenderness, that blend
With pure and gentle musings, till the soul,
Commingling with the melody, is borne,
Rapt, and dissolved in ecstacy, to Heaven.
'Tis not the chime and flow of words, that move
In measured file, and metrical array;
'Tis not the union of returning sounds,
Nor all the pleasing artifice of rhyme,
And quantity, and accent, that can give
This all-pervading spirit to the ear,
Or blend it with the movings of the soul.
'Tis a mysterious feeling, which combines
Man with the world around him, in a chain
Woven of flowers, and dipped in sweetness, till
He tastes the high communion of his thoughts,
With all existences, in earth and heaven,
That meet him in the charm of grace and power.
'Tis not the noisy babbler, who displays,
In studied phrase, and ornate epithet,
And rounded period, poor and vapid thoughts,
Which peep from out the cumbrous ornaments
That overload their littleness. Its words
Are few, but deep and solemn; and they break
Fresh from the fount of feeling, and are full
Of all that passion, which, on Carmel, fired
The holy prophet, when his lips were coals,
His language winged with terror, as when bolts
Leap from the brooding tempest, armed with wrath,
Commissioned to affright us, and destroy.
THIS spacious mausoleum holds
Proud dust in many a worshipped shrine ; Yon massive golden urn enfolds
The Founder of our line.
In gloomy grandeur, here are laid
The gods our regal race have made.
Yes, here are sleeping, side by side,
The gods Assyrian queens have borne :
Warriors by madmen deified,
And tyrants overthrown.
Why, since my sires are all divine,
Am I, their son, denied a shrine ?
I have unto my people been
A father, brother, and a friend! Go to the Western Islandmen
Go eastward to mine empire's end;
If there be one hath wrong of me,
Him, fourfold recompense shall see.
I loved the glittering javelin not—
I did not love war's bloody suit ;
I left the field where nations fought,
To listen to the lute;
I passed the prancing war-horse by,
To gaze at beauty's melting eye.
I never crush'd Assyria's sons
To build Colossal temples high;
I bade the sire his little ones
Watch with a parent's eye.
Throughout the land no vassal strives
With a hard lord, nor wears his gyves.
I bade my subjects plant the vine
Throughout the realms my sceptre sways;
I bade them quaff the generous wine,
And feast away their days.
Sardanapalus thence hath lost
His golden shrine and holocaust.
For had I made the rivers dance
With waves of blood from prostrate foes; And couched a warrior's murdering lance, And broke my land's repose;
Then had my glory walked abroad
And I had been enshrined a god.
What else but wide-spread carnage made
The founder of our line a god?
A man, whose dark ambition bade
Earth be a crimson sod;
A bloody hunter, yet behold!
His shrine is of thrice beaten gold.
And she, the queen of Belus' son,
Who built this sanctuary high,
And planned it-proud presuming one!
With roof-tree laid against the sky;
Because she loved war,-when she died
Wide realms her queenship deified.
But I, because my regal day
Hath been arrayed in pleasure's dress; Because I courted music's lay
And beauty's dear caress; Because I women loved, and wine, Am thence to be denied a shrine.
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