Some pious Thebans, when the storm was past, Upclosed the sepulchre with cunning skill, And nature, aiding their devotion, cast Over its entrance a concealing rill;
Then thy third darkness came, and thou didst sleep Twenty-three centuries in silence deep.
But he from whom nor pyramids nor sphynx Can hide its secrecies, Belzoni came;
From the tomb's mouth unloosed the granite links, Gave thee again to light, and life, and fame, And brought thee from the sands and desarts forth, To charm the pallid children of the North!
Thou art in London, which, when thou wert new, Was what Thebes is, a wilderness and waste, Where savage beasts more savage men pursue; A scene by nature cursed,—by man disgraced. Now 'tis the world's metropolis!—The high Queen of arms, learning, arts, and luxury!
Here, where I hold my hand, 'tis strange to think What other hands, perchance, preceded mine; Others have also stood beside thy brink,
And vainly conned the moralizing line!
Kings, sages, chiefs, that touched this stone, like me, Where are ye now?-Where all must shortly be.
All is mutation;-he within this stone
Was once the greatest monarch of the hour. His bones are dust-his very name unknown !— Go, learn from him the vanity of power; Seek not the frame's corruption to controul, But build a lasting mansion for thy soul.
New Monthly Magazine.
THOU desolate and dying year! Emblem of transitory man, Whose wearisome and wild career, Like thine, is bounded to a span; It seems but as a little day
Since nature smiled upon thy birth, And spring came forth in fair array, To dance upon the joyous earth.
Sad alteration !-Now how lone,
How verdureless is nature's breast; Where ruin makes his empire known, In autumn's yellow vesture drest: The sprightly bird, whose carol sweet Broke on the breath of early day- The summer flowers she loved to greet- The bird the flowers-oh where are they?
Thou desolate and dying year!
Yet lovely in thy lifelessness, As beauty stretched upon the bier
In death's clay-cold and dark caress;
There's loveliness in thy decay,
Which breathes, which lingers round thee still,
Like memory's mild and cheering ray
Beaming upon the night of ill.
Yet yet the radiance is not gone
Which shed a richness o'er the scene,
Which smiled upon the golden dawn When skies were brilliant and serene-
Oh! still a melancholy smile
Gleams upon nature's aspect fair, To charm the eye a little while,
Ere ruin spreads his mantle there!
Thou desolate and dying year!
Since Time entwined thy vernal wreath, How often love hath shed the tear, And knelt beside the bed of death: How many hearts, that lightly sprung When joy was blooming but to die, Their finest chords by death unstrung, Have yielded life's expiring sigh.
And pillowed low beneath the clay, Have ceased to melt-to breathe to burn, The proud, the gentle, and the gay, Gathered unto the mouldering urn! Whilst freshly flowed the frequent tear For love bereft-affection fled- For all that were our blessings here, The loved the lost-the sainted dead!
Thou desolate and dying year! The musing spirit finds in thee Lessons impressive and severe
Of deep and stern morality !— Thou teachest how the germ of youth, Which blooms in being's dawning day,— Planted by Nature-reared by Truth— Withers like thee in dark decay.
Promise of youth! Fair as the form
Of heaven's benign and golden bow, Thy smiling arch begirds the storm,
And sheds a light on every woe: Hope wakes for thee, and to her tongue, A tone of melody is given,
As if her magic voice were strung
With the empyreal fire from heaven;
And love, which never can expire,
Whose origin is from on high,
Throws o'er thy morn a ray of fire From the pure fountains of the sky- That ray which glows and brightens still Unchanged eternal, and divine- Where seraphs own its holy thrill, And bow before its gleaming shrine.
Thou desolate and dying year,
Prophetic of our final fall!
Thy buds are gone,-thy leaves are sere,— Thy beauties shrouded in the pall; And all the garniture that shed A brilliancy upon thy prime, Hath, like a morning vision, fled To the expanded grave of Time.
Time! Time! In thy triumphal flight How all life's phantoms fleet away!— The smile of Hope-and young Delight— Fame's meteor beam-and Fancy's ray; They fade and on thy heaving tide, Rolling its stormy waves afar,
Are borne the wrecks of human pride, The broken wrecks of Fortune's war.
There, in disorder dark and wild, Are seen the fabrics once so high, Which mortal vanity had piled
As emblems of Eternity!
And deemed the stately domes, whose forms Frowned in their majesty sublime,
Would stand unshaken by the storms
That gathered round the brow of Time.
Thou desolate and dying year!
Earth's brightest pleasures fade like thine;
Like evening shadows disappear,
And leave the spirit to repine.
The stream of life, that used to pour Its fresh and sparkling waters on- While Fate stood watching on the shore And numbered all the moments gone-
Where hath the morning splendour flown Which danced upon that crystal stream? Where are the joys to childhood known, When life is an enchanted dream? Enveloped in the starless night
Which destiny hath overspread_ Enrolled upon that trackless flight,
Where the dark wing of Time had sped.
Oh! thus hath life its even tide Of sorrow, loneliness, and grief; And thus, divested of its pride, It withers like the yellow leaf! Oh! such is life's autumnal bower, When plundered of its summer bloom! And such is life's autumnal hour,
Which heralds man unto the tomb.
BY WILLIAM BECKFORD, ESQ.
HARK! Heard ye not that deep, appalling sound? Tremble! for lo! the vexed affrighted ground Heaves strong in dread convulsion,-streams of fire Burst from the 'vengeful sky-a voice of ire Proclaims, 'Ye guilty wait your final doom: No more the silent refuge of the tomb
Shall screen your crimes, your frailties.' Conscience reigns,- Earth needs no other sceptre ;-what remains Beyond her fated limits, dare not tell ;- Eternal Justice! Judgment! Heaven! Hell! Britton's Fonthill Abbey.
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