Classic Poem

PART II.

I.

 King of the past, proud sitter by the grave
 Where nations slumber; pale Antiquity!
 What thousand shapes obey thy sceptre's wave!
 Chieftains, with all their hosts like clouds, rush by;
 Sages whose thrones are bright in yonder sky;
 Genius with all her sons, whose thoughts were wings;
 Beauty, whose glance bade empires live and die;
 Wild hearts that drank of passion's fiery springs,
All from their shadowy world thy mighty sceptre brings.

II.

 Prince, warrior, priest—the crown, the helm, the hood,
 Ev'n on this spot, rose, sway'd, and sank away.
 Above that golden gate! Napoleon stood—
 The curse and omen of our evil day;
 Gathering, like thunderclouds, his last array,
 That went to battle, ne'er to come again;
 Their Xerxes shed no tear! they went to slay;
 Vengeance awoke at last, and they were slain!
And now—above it waves the Lily's exiled vane!

III.

 There stands his Arch of victory, but there
 Its idol stands no more.—His day is done!
 Close by the pile sits Austria's cuirassier,
 Busy and gazing groups are on it strown,
 A wain is at its foot, as if for one
 Who on that crowded scaffold came to die;
 And the quick murmurings there, the engine's groan,
 Short, deep, give semblance of a dying cry:
France, on that scaffold ends thy gloomy sovereignty.

IV.

 For, thence must stoop the glorious Grecian steeds
 That his fierce hand had yoked to Victory's wheel.
 Now following where a newer conqueror leads,
 To thy blue waters, Venice, bends their heel!
 Trophies! how oft has steel thus shiver'd steel,
 Since first their wanderings fix'd the doom of war!
 But lives not in those fiery fronts a spell?
 Were not those orb'd eyes moulded, when the air
Of midnight shook and glowed with the red comet's glare?

V.

 Ye stars! bright legions that, before all time,
 Camped on yon plain of sapphire, what shall tell
 Your burning myriads, but the eye of H IM
 Who bade through heaven your golden chariots wheel?
 Yet who earthborn can see your hosts, nor feel
 Immortal impulses—Eternity?
 What wonder if the o'erwrought soul should reel
 With its own weight of thought, and the wild eye
See fate within your tracks of sleepless glory lie?

VI.

 For ye behold the Mightiest ! From that steep
 What ages have worshipp'd round your K ING !
 Ye heard his trumpet sounded o'er Earth's sleep;
 Ye heard the morning angels o'er it sing;
 Upon that orb, above me quivering,
 Gazed Adam from his bower in paradise.
 The wanderers of the Deluge saw it spring
 Above the buried world, and hail'd its rise,
Lighting their lonely track with Faith's celestial dyes.

VII.

 On C ALVARY shot down that purple eye,
 When, but the soldier and the sacrifice
 All were departed.—Mount of Agony!
 But Time's broad pinion, ere the giant dies,
 Shall cloud your dome.—Ye fruitage of the skies,
 Your vineyard shall be shaken!—From your urn,
 Censers of Heaven! no more shall glory rise,
 Your incense to the T HRONE !—The heavens shall burn
For all your pomps are dust, and shall to dust return.

VIII.

 Yet, look ye living intellects.—The trine
 Of waning planets speaks it not decay?
 Does Schedir's staff of diamond wave no sign?
 Monarch of midnight, Sirius, shoots thy ray
 Undimm'd, when thrones sublunar pass away?
 Dreams!—yet if e'er was graved in vigil wan
 Your spell on gem or imaged alchemy,
 The sign when empire's hour-glass downwards ran,
'Twas on that arch, graved on that brazen talisman.

IX.

 Greece! thou wast still a country,—Memory bleeds
 To think how early died that glorious name!
 Yet still 't was glorious, while the matchless Steeds
 Stood on thy Isthmus gate.—The Roman came,
 Red from the fight, his eagle's wing of flame
 Waving o'er idol shields, and wolf-crests tall;
 Then widow'd Corinth groan'd, in all her shame,
 To see the Lictors mount the pedestal.
Then Greece was doom'd to fall; a deadly, final fall.

X.

 The glass ran down! The immortal Steeds again
 Must set to rise, like empire's fatal star;
 Rome, the world's vanquisher, seem'd vanquished then.
 The unhelm'd Roman beat his breast afar,
 The spoilers march'd in pomp of eastern war.
 There loured from elephants the turban'd brow,
 There archers gleam'd on camel and on car,
 And there, in gold and gem's barbaric glow,
Triumph'd the purpled Greek—the King of Kings below.