Classic Poem

On Fancy's wing when favoured poets rise,
Burst from the earth, and soar amid the skies,
Attending spirits through the realms of light
Nerve their strong wings, and guide their daring flight;
A thousand zephyrs fan the favouring airs,
Venus her doves and pearly chariot shares:
But when a feebler bard essays to fly,
No friendly goddess wafts him through the sky.
Born of the earth, along the earth he creeps,
Knows his own sphere, and shuns the azure deeps.
'Tis thus, alas! with humbly-breathing lay,
Down the dim vales I wend my lowly way.
In vain the timid throbbings of my breast
Prompt me to rise and flutter with the rest.
What dewy Dryad of the greenwood shade,
What sportive sylph, in rainbow hues arrayed,
What shepherd-queen of pastoral vale or hill,
Nymph of the fount, or Naiad of the rill,
Would from their grottos heed my trembling sighs,
Tune my rude harp, and lift me to the skies?
What classic Muse would deign to deck the page
That tells of blood-stained crimes, and war's barbaric rage?
One, one alone, omnipotent and fair,
Bends her sweet brow, and listens to my prayer.
That power benign, beneath whose shadowing wings
Bursts the bright germ of all created things;
Who, grasping gently the revolving poles,
Turns the green earth, and gilds it as it rolls;
To whom the barbarous feuds of Shah or Khan
Merge in the wise economy of man;
And to whose heart the insect is as dear
As the bright planet glistening in its sphere.
Yes! wondrous Nature, on thy name I call,
Queen of this glorious world, and parent of us all!

Of all the lovely lands tOnature dear,
And to the Sun—“The Painter of the Year”—
One favoured spot appears more blest than all
Its rival wonders o'er this earthly ball;
'Tis where C ABUL her flowery meads expand,
The pride and boast of all the Asian land.
Who has not felt his boyish bosom beat,
When Fancy half revealed this bright retreat?—
When young Imagination, lingering o'er
The magic page of Oriental lore,
The gorgeous scenes by Inatulla made,
And all the thousand tales of Scheherzade,
Dreamed of some dazzling region far away,
Lit by the earliest beams of opening day;
Where all the earth was strewed with gem-like flowers,
And flower-like gems illumed the crystal bowers.
This is the land—'twas here our fancy strayed,
Here are the valleys where in dreams we played,
When Bagdad rivalled Rome's imperial name,
And Cæsar dwindled in Alraschid's fame;
When, in the wonders Sinbad brought to light,
Thy name, Columbus, faded from our sight;
And when more bright than golden Istamboul,
Spread the delicious gardens of Cabul.

Though now we view the land with calmer glance,
Still 'tis the land of beauty and romance:
A mingled maze of sunshine and of snows,
Rocks for the pine, and valleys for the rose.
Thunder in its torrents, music in its rills,
Lambs on its plains, and lions on its hills;
A neutral land, where every flower is known
That loves the torrid or the temperate zone.
Where Indian palm trees spread their feathery hands
Above the tender flowers of chillier lands!
Here every clime presents its fragrant store,
Here every flower recalls some distant shore;
From simple plants that love the western ray,
To white and yellow roses of Cathay.

Oh! words are weak, description is but mean,
To paint the glories of this brilliant scene.
Here the cool groves rich mulberry fruits adorn,
Pale as the moon, or purple as the morn;
Here giant planes with fan-like branches rise
And shield the cistus from the burning skies;
Here the pomegranate spreads its scarlet flowers,
And tapering dates enrich the palm-tree bowers;
The silvery plantain rises on our view,
The same as when in Eden's bowers it grew;
The guava hangs its claret-coloured fruit,
While the narcissus nestles at its foot!
Its blushing fruits the wild pistachio yields,
And the tall tamarisk towers among the fields.

'Twere vain to tell of all the countless flowers
That o'er this land indulgent Nature showers:
The fragrant thyme—the Prophet rose's bloom—
The jessamine's breath—the violet's perfume.
The tulip here in matchless beauty glows,
And steals a fragrance from its neighbouring rose.
The humble poppy here the sight deceives,
And waves “the tulip of a hundred leaves”
The simple daisy—lovelier, dearer far
Than Ghuzni's plums or figs of Candahar—
Sports in the meads, and climbs each mossy cliff,
Among the purple vines of Istalif.
Through every vale, where'er we chance to roam,
Crowd the sweet sights that glad our eyes at home.
The pink-white blossoms of the apple there
Mix with the pearly clusters of the pear.
The cherry hangs its coral balls on high,
And the soft peach swells tempting to the eye.
The magpie chatters in the golden vales,
Where sings the “Bulbul of a thousand tales,”
Whose silvery notes can imitate the strain
Of every bird in Nature's wide domain!
Oh! if 'twere true, as Eastern fables tell,
That 'mid these groves the first-arch rebel fell,
When the lost seraph, hurled from on high,
Flashed like a burning star along the flaming sky!
Recovering slowly from his dreadful trance,
And casting round his wonder-waking glance,
He must have thought—so fair each vale and hill—
His fall a dream, and Heaven around him still!

If ever land were made to be the seat
Of happy homes, and pleasure's calm retreat,
'Twere surely this. Here Peace should have its birth,
High on the topmost regions of the Earth,
Far, far removed from tumult and from strife,
And all the crimson crimes of human life.
These mountain Tempes—smiling, verdant, gay—
Shining like emeralds o'er the Himalay,
Should not, in faintest echoes, even repeat
The murderous din that thunders at their feet.
But ah! how different the truth has been:
This sunny land is discord's favourite scene,
Made, both by foreign and domestic crime,
One field of ruin since the birth of Time.
When native treachery ceased but for an hour,
Then surely came the scourge of foreign power;
And all the ills that crowd the conqueror's train,
From Alexander down to Tamarlane,
Whose fitting titles, on their flags unfurled,
Like Jehansoz', were “burners of the world”
Those vulgar victors, whose ill-omened names
The dotard Fame, with babbling tongue, proclaims;
Whose conquests form, in every clime and age,
The blood-red rubric of the historic page;
Whose fatal path, the trampled nations o'er,
On the world's map is traced in lines of gore.
Like to those insects of a summer hour
Which float with gaudy wing from flower to flower,
And leave (as oft the startled swain perceives)
A shower of blood upon the rifled leaves.
Pity that fairest lands should have their charms,
But as attractions for the conqueror's arms;
When War's dread vulture wings its screaming flight
O'er the doomed earth, which shudders at the sight,
No hideous desert tempts its blood-shot eye,
No useless waste allures it from the sky;
But should it chance to view a smiling scene,
Where the blithe bee floats humming o'er the green,
Where flocks and herds repose beneath the trees,
And the rich harvest bends before the breeze,
Then, then, alas! he checks his fatal wing,
And, like the bolt of Heaven's avenging King,
With frightful ruin burns along the air,
And of a garden makes a desert there.
Like to that wonder of a thousand dyes,
The famed Chameleon Bird of eastern skies,
Which high in air wings wildly to and fro,
Save when a tempting vineyard smiles below,
Then, only then, his soaring pinion fails,
And down he falls amid the purple vales.
But while we brand these regal robbers' lust,
Let the indignant muse at least be just;
Let one be singled from the gory crowd,
Of whom his sect and nation may be proud
Yes, Baber, yes, to thee the praise is due,
Praise that, alas! is merited by few,
Who, having power to injure and destroy,
Feel, in restoring, more ecstatic joy.
Oft have I thought, when wandering fancy ran
To that small marble mosque of Shah Jehan,
Which lifts its polished dome unto the sky
In that sweet garden where your ashes lie,
Of all your simple tastes, in quiet hours,
For hills, and trees, and fountains, and sweet flowers,—
Your love of nature, gently gilding all
Those stains which even on souls like thine may fall.
For ah! how few upon this earth are found,
Who, like the Huma, never touch the ground!

But to return to this distracted land—
These snow-clad mountains, which so proudly stand,
And to whose peaks the privilege is given
To turn aside the clouds and winds of heaven,
Were powerless all to save these smiling vales
From man's attacks and war's destructive gales.
Alas! that England should conclude the page
That bears the spoilers' names of every age
A rumour spreads—it flies from mouth to mouth—
“The Russian Eagle flieth to the south;
With daring wing he wanders wild and free
From the cold Baltic to the Indian Sea”
When lo! forgetful of her fame and might,
England, forsooth, must stop the Eagle's flight.
With hurried pace her veteran legions rush
Up the steep summits of the Hindoo Cush,
To raise a shout, and threaten from afar
The imperial bird of conquest and the Czar?
Must England ever play this selfish game?
Must England's fears obscure even England's fame?
Must England's policy in every land,
So coldly great, so miserably grand,
Like Bamean's monstrous deity be known,—
Vast, yet deformed—a god, and yet a stone?
What though her banners floated for an hour
From the high top of Balla Hissar's tower;
What though her bullets scared the peaceful bee
From the red blossoms of the argwhan tree;
What though her arms in dreadful vengeance rang
Through the fair city where Ferdusi sang,
And every dome, and every glistening spire,
Fell in the flames of her avenging fire;
What though she bore, as trophies of its doom,
Those gates of sandal-wood from Mahmoud's tomb,
Perhaps once more in Indian groves to shine,
The dazzling portals of some idol's shrine;—
Do these repay the blood and treasure lost?
Do these restore to life her slaughtered host,
Whose shroudless corses—that Soojah might rule—
Glut the fierce vultures of the Khoord Cabul.

Oh, may we learn experience from the past,
And peace and love possess the world at last.
Instead of frowning forts, let altars rise,
To bless the nations under distant skies;
O'er towering hills and vales of purple moss,
Let peaceful armies bear the saving cross!
And let those fleets that made the whole world weep,
With useful arts go bounding o'er the deep,
To every clime and every ocean isle,
Like to those fragrant navies of the Nile,
Which bear the bee and its ambrosial store,
A blessing and a joy to every peaceful shore.