The barrier Rhine hath flashed, through battle-smoke,
On men who gaze heart-smitten by the view, 10
As if all Germany had felt the shock!
—Fly, wretched Gauls! ere they the charge renew
Who have seen—themselves now casting off the yoke—
The unconquerable Stream his course pursue.
1816.
SIEGE OF VIENNA RAISED BY JOHN SOBIESKI, FEBRUARY 1816
OH, for a kindling touch from that pure flame
Which ministered, erewhile, to a sacrifice
Of gratitude, beneath Italian skies,
In words like these: ‘Up, Voice of song! proclaim
‘Thy saintly rapture with celestial aim:
‘For lo! the Imperial City stands released
‘From bondage threatened by the embattled East,
‘And Christendom respires; from guilt and shame
‘Redeemed, from miserable fear set free
‘By one day’s feat, one mighty victory. 10
‘—Chant the Deliverer’s praise in every tongue!
‘The cross shall spread, the crescent hath waxed dim;
‘He conquering, as in joyful Heaven is sung,
‘HE CONQUERING THROUGH GOD, AND GOD BY HIM.’
OCCASIONED BY THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO
(THE LAST SIX LINES INTENDED FOR AN INSCRIPTION.)
FEBRUARY 1816
INTREPID sons of Albion! not by you
Is life despised; ah no, the spacious earth
Ne’er saw a race who held, by right of birth,
So many objects to which love is due:
Ye slight not life—to God and Nature true;
But death, becoming death, is dearer far,
When duty bids you bleed in open war:
Hence hath your prowess quelled that impious crew.
Heroes!—for instant sacrifice prepared;
Yet filled with ardour and on triumph bent 10
‘Mid direst shocks of mortal accident—
To you who fell, and you whom slaughter spared
To guard the fallen, and consummate the event,
Your Country rears this sacred Monument!
OCCASIONED BY THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO FEBRUARY 1816.
THE Bard—whose soul is meek as dawning day,
Yet trained to judgments righteously severe,
Fervid, yet conversant with holy fear,
As recognising one Almighty sway:
He—whose experienced eye can pierce the array
Of past events; to whom, in vision clear,
The aspiring heads of future things appear,
Like mountain-tops whose mists have rolled away—
Assoiled from all encumbrance of our time,
He only, if such breathe, in strains devout 10
Shall comprehend this victory sublime;
Shall worthily rehearse the hideous rout,
The triumph hail, which from their peaceful clime
Angels might welcome with a choral shout!
EMPERORS AND KINGS, HOW OFT HAVE TEMPLES RUNG
EMPERORS and Kings, how oft have temples rung
With impious thanksgiving, the Almighty’s scorn!
How oft above their altars have been hung
Trophies that led the good and wise to mourn
Triumphant wrong, battle of battle born,
And sorrow that to fruitless sorrow clung!
Now, from Heaven-sanctioned victory, Peace is sprung;
In this firm hour Salvation lifts her horn.
Glory to arms! But, conscious that the nerve
Of popular reason, long mistrusted, freed 10
Your thrones, ye Powers, from duty fear to swerve!
Be just, be grateful; nor, the oppressor’s creed
Reviving, heavier chastisement deserve
Than ever forced unpitied hearts to bleed.
1816.
FEELINGS OF A FRENCH ROYALIST, ON THE DISINTERMENT OF THE REMAINS OF THE DUKE D’ENGHIEN
DEAR Reliques! from a pit of vilest mould
Uprisen—to lodge among ancestral kings;
And to inflict shame’s salutary stings
On the remorseless hearts of men grown old
In a blind worship; men perversely bold
Even to this hour,—yet, some shall now forsake
Their monstrous Idol if the dead e’er spake,
To warn the living; if truth were ever told
By aught redeemed out of the hollow grave:
O murdered Prince! meek, loyal, pious, brave! 10
The power of retribution once was given:
But ‘tis a rueful thought that willow bands
So often tie the thunder-wielding hands
Of Justice sent to earth from highest Heaven!
1816.
TRANSLATION OF PART OF THE FIRST BOOK OF THE AENEID; TO THE EDITORS OF THE PHILOLOGICAL MUSEUM
BUT Cytherea, studious to invent
Arts yet untried, upon new counsels bent,
Resolves that Cupid, changed in form and face
To young Ascanius, should assume his place;
Present the maddening gifts, and kindle heat
Of passion at the bosom’s inmost seat.
She dreads the treacherous house, the double tongue;
She burns, she frets—by Juno’s rancour stung;
The calm of night is powerless to remove
These cares, and thus she speaks to winged Love: 10
“O son, my strength, my power! who dost despise
(What, save thyself, none dares through earth and skies)
The giant-quelling bolts of Jove, I flee,
O son, a suppliant to thy deity!
What perils meet Aeneas in his course,
How Juno’s hate with unrelenting force
Pursues thy brother—this to thee is known;
And oft-times hast thou made my griefs thine own.
Him now the generous Dido by soft chains
Of bland entreaty at her court detains; 20
Junonian hospitalities prepare
Such apt occasion that I dread a snare.
Hence, ere some hostile God can intervene,
Would I, by previous wiles, inflame the queen
With passion for Aeneas, such strong love
That at my beck, mine only, she shall move.
Hear, and assist;—the father’s mandate calls
His young Ascanius to the Tyrian walls;
He comes, my dear delight,—and costliest things
Preserved from fire and flood for presents brings. 30
Him will I take, and in close covert keep,
‘Mid groves Idalian, lulled to gentle sleep,
Or on Cythera’s far-sequestered steep,
That he may neither know what hope is mine,
Nor by his presence traverse the design.
Do thou, but for a single night’s brief space,
Dissemble; be that boy in form and face!
And when enraptured Dido shall receive
Thee to her arms, and kisses interweave
With many a fond embrace, while joy runs high, 40
And goblets crown the proud festivity,
Instil thy subtle poison, and inspire,
At every touch, an unsuspected fire.”
Love, at the word, before his mother’s sight
Puts off his wings, and walks, with proud delight,
Like young Iulus; but the gentlest dews
Of slumber Venus sheds, to circumfuse
The true Ascanius steeped in placid rest;
Then wafts him, cherished on her careful breast,
Through upper air to an Idalian glade, 50
Where he on soft ‘amaracus’ is laid,
With breathing flowers embraced, and fragrant shade.
But Cupid, following cheerily his guide
Achates, with the gifts to Carthage hied;
And, as the hall he entered, there, between
&n
bsp; The sharers of her golden couch, was seen
Reclined in festal pomp the Tyrian queen.
The Trojans, too (Aeneas at their head),
On conches lie, with purple overspread:
Meantime in canisters is heaped the bread, 60
Pellucid water for the hands is borne,
And napkins of smooth texture, finely shorn.
Within are fifty handmaids, who prepare,
As they in order stand, the dainty fare;
And fume the household deities with store
Of odorous incense; while a hundred more
Matched with an equal number of like age,
But each of manly sex, a docile page,
Marshal the banquet, giving with due grace
To cup or viand its appointed place. 70
The Tyrians rushing in, an eager band,
Their painted couches seek, obedient to command.
They look with wonder on the gifts—they gaze
Upon Iulus, dazzled with the rays
That from his ardent countenance are flung,
And charmed to hear his simulating tongue;
Nor pass unpraised the robe and veil divine,
Round which the yellow flowers and wandering foliage twine.
But chiefly Dido, to the coming ill
Devoted, strives in vain her vast desires to fill; 80
She views the gifts; upon the child then turns
Insatiable looks, and gazing burns.
To ease a father’s cheated love he hung
Upon Aeneas, and around him clung;
Then seeks the queen; with her his arts he tries;
She fastens on the boy enamoured eyes,
Clasps in her arms, nor weens (O lot unblest!)
How great a God, incumbent o’er her breast,
Would fill it with his spirit. He, to please
His Acidalian mother, by degrees 90
Blots out Sichaeus, studious to remove
The dead, by influx of a living love,
By stealthy entrance of a perilous guest.
Troubling a heart that had been long at rest.
Now when the viands were withdrawn, and ceased
The first division of the splendid feast,
While round a vacant board the chiefs recline,
Huge goblets are brought forth; they crown the wine;
Voices of gladness roll the walls around;
Those gladsome voices from the courts rebound; 100
From gilded rafters many a blazing light
Depends, and torches overcome the night.
The minutes fly—till, at the queen’s command,
A bowl of state is offered to her hand:
Then she, as Belus wont, and all the line
From Belus, filled it to the brim with wine;
Silence ensued. “O Jupiter, whose care
Is hospitable dealing, grant my prayer!
Productive day be this of lasting joy
To Tyrians, and these exiles driven from Troy; 110
A day to future generations dear!
Let Bacchus, donor of soul-quick’ning cheer,
Be present; kindly Juno, be thou near!
And, Tyrians, may your choicest favours wait
Upon this hour, the bond to celebrate!”
She spake and shed an offering on the board;
Then sipped the bowl whence she the wine had poured
And gave to Bitias, urging the prompt lord;
He raised the bowl, and took a long deep draught;
Then every chief in turn the beverage quaffed. 120
Graced with redundant hair, Iopas sings
The lore of Atlas, to resounding strings,
The labours of the Sun, the lunar wanderings;
When human kind, and brute; what natural powers
Engender lightning, whence are falling showers.
He haunts Arcturus,—that fraternal twain
The glittering Bears,—the Pleiads fraught with rain;
—Why suns in winter, shunning heaven’s steep heights
Post seaward,—what impedes the tardy nights.
The learned song from Tyrian hearers draws 130
Loud shouts,—the Trojans echo the applause.
—But, lengthening out the night with converse new,
Large draughts of love unhappy Dido drew;
Of Priam asked, of Hector—o’er and o’er—
What arms the son of bright Aurora wore;—
What steeds the car of Diomed could boast;
Among the leaders of the Grecian host.
How looked Achilles, their dread paramount—
“But nay—the fatal wiles, O guest, recount,
Retrace the Grecian cunning from its source, 140
Your own grief and your friends?—your wandering course;
For now, till this seventh summer have ye ranged
The sea, or trod the earth, to peace estranged.”
1816.
A FACT, AND AN IMAGINATION
OR, CANUTE AND ALFRED, ON THE SEASHORE
THE Danish Conqueror, on his royal chair,
Mustering a face of haughty sovereignty,
To aid a covert purpose, cried—”O ye
Approaching Waters of the deep, that share
With this green isle my fortunes, come not where
Your Master’s throne is set.”—Deaf was the Sea;
Her waves rolled on, respecting his decree
Less than they heed a breath of wanton air.
—Then Canute, rising from the invaded throne,
Said to his servile Courtiers,—”Poor the reach, 10
The undisguised extent, of mortal sway!
He only is a King, and he alone
Deserves the name (this truth the billows preach)
Whose everlasting laws, sea, earth, and heaven, obey.”
This just reproof the prosperous Dane
Drew, from the influx of the main,
For some whose rugged northern mouths would strain
At oriental flattery;
And Canute (fact more worthy to be known)
From that time forth did for his brows disown 20
The ostentatious symbol of a crown;
Esteeming earthly royalty
Contemptible as vain.
Now hear what one of elder days,
Rich theme of England’s fondest praise,
Her darling Alfred, ‘might’ have spoken;
To cheer the remnant of his host
When he was driven from coast to coast,
Distressed and harassed, but with mind unbroken:
“My faithful followers, lo! the tide is spent 30
That rose, and steadily advanced to fill
The shores and channels, working Nature’s will
Among the mazy streams that backward went,
And in the sluggish pools where ships are pent:
And now, his task performed, the flood stands still,
At the green base of many an inland hill,
In placid beauty and sublime content!
Such the repose that sage and hero find;
Such measured rest the sedulous and good
Of humbler name; whose souls do, like the flood 40
Of Ocean, press right on; or gently wind,
Neither to be diverted nor withstood,
Until they reach the bounds by Heaven assigned.”
1816.
TO DORA
“‘A little onward lend thy guiding hand
To these dark steps, a little further on!’“
—What trick of memory to ‘my’ voice hath brought
This mournful iteration? For though Time,
The Conqueror, crowns the Conquered, on this brow
Planting his favourite silver diadem,
Nor he, nor minister of his—intent
To run before him—hath enrolled me yet,
Though not unmenaced, among those who lean
Upon a livin
g staff, with borrowed sight. 10
—O my own Dora, my beloved child!
Should that day come—but hark! the birds salute
The cheerful dawn, brightening for me the east;
For me, thy natural leader, once again
Impatient to conduct thee, not as erst
A tottering infant, with compliant stoop
From flower to flower supported; but to curb
Thy nymph-like step swift-bounding o’er the lawn,
Along the loose rocks, or the slippery verge
Of foaming torrents.—From thy orisons 20
Come forth; and, while the morning air is yet
Transparent as the soul of innocent youth,
Let me, thy happy guide, now point thy way,
And now precede thee, winding to and fro,
Till we by perseverance gain the top
Of some smooth ridge, whose brink precipitous
Kindles intense desire for powers withheld
From this corporeal frame; whereon who stands,
Is seized with strong incitement to push forth
His arms, as swimmers use, and plunge—dread thought, 30
For pastime plunge—into the “abrupt abyss,”—
Where ravens spread their plumy vans, at ease!
And yet more gladly thee would I conduct
Through woods and spacious forests,—to behold
There, how the Original of human art,
Heaven-prompted Nature, measures and erects
Her temples, fearless for the stately work,
Though waves, to every breeze, its high-arched roof,
And storms the pillars rock. But we such schools
Of reverential awe will chiefly seek 40
In the still summer noon, while beams of light,
Reposing here, and in the aisles beyond
Traceably gliding through the dusk, recall
To mind the living presences of nuns;
A gentle, pensive, white-robed sisterhood,
Whose saintly radiance mitigates the gloom
Of those terrestrial fabrics, where they serve,
To Christ, the Sun of righteousness, espoused.
Now also shall the page of classic lore,
To these glad eyes from bondage freed, again 50
Lie open; and the book of Holy Writ,
Again unfolded, passage clear shall yield
To heights more glorious still, and into shades
More awful, where, advancing hand in hand,
We may be taught, O Darling of my care!
To calm the affections, elevate the soul,
And consecrate our lives to truth and love.
1816.
Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth Page 260
