From a remoter station For the high prize lost on Philippi's shore: EPODE I. B Hear ye the march as of the Earth-born Forms See Of crags and thunder-clouds? ye the banners blazoned to the day, Inwrought with emblems of barbaric pride? Dissonant threats kill Silence far away, The serene Heaven which wraps our Eden wide With iron light is dyed, The Anarchs of the North lead forth their legions Like Chaos o'er creation, uncreating ; An hundred tribes nourished on strange relig ions And lawless slaveries, - down the aërial regions Of the white Alps, desolating, Famished wolves that bide no waiting, Blotting the glowing footsteps of old glory, Trampling our columned cities into dust, Their dull and savage lust On Beauty's corse to sickness satiating — They come! The fields they tread look black and hoary With fire-from their red feet the streams run gory! EPODE II. B Great Spirit, deepest Love! Which rulest and dost move All things which live and are, within the Italian shore; Who spreadest heaven around it, Whose woods, rocks, waves, surround it; Who sittest in thy star, o'er Ocean's western floor, Spirit of beauty! at whose soft command The sunbeams and the showers distil its foison From the Earth's bosom chill; O bid those beams be each a blinding brand Of lightning! bid those showers be dews of poison Bid the Earth's plenty kill! Bid thy bright Heaven above, Whilst light and darkness bound it, To make it ours and thine! Or, with thine harmonizing ardours fill And frowns and fears from Thee, Than Celtic wolves from the Ausonian shep Whatever, Spirit, from thy starry shrine Thou yieldest or withholdest, Oh, let be A An Allegory I. PORTAL as of shadowy adamant Stands yawning on the highway of the life Which we all tread, a cavern huge and gaunt; Around it rages an unceasing strife Of shadows, like the restless clouds that haunt The gap of some cleft mountain, lifted high Into the whirlwinds of the upper sky. And many pass II. it by with careless tread, Not knowing that a shadowy . Tracks every traveller even to where the dead Wait peacefully for their companion new; But others, by more curious humour led, And they learn little there, except to know That shadows follow them where'er they go. Live within the sense they quicken. Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, Are heaped for the beloved's bed; |