Thomas Campbell

“ And soon these limbs to kindred dust return!
But not, my child, with life's precarious fire,
The immortal ties of Nature shall expire;
These shall resist the triumph of decay,
When time is o'er, and worlds have pass'd away;
Cold in the dust this perish'd heart may lie,
But that which warm'd it once shall never die!
That spark unburied in its mortal frame,
With living light, eternal, and the same,
Shall beam on Joy's interminable years,
Unveil'd by darkness — unassuag'd by tears!
"Yet, on the barren shore and stormy deep,
One tedious watch is Conrad doom'd to weep ”

“ But the day-star attracted his eyes sad devotion,
For it rose on his own native isle of the ocean,
Where once in the flower of his youthful emotion,
He sung the bold anthem of Erin go Bragh
O sad is my fate! said the heart-broken stranger,
The wild deer and wolf to a covert can flee;
But I have no refuge from famine and danger,
A home and a country remain not for me ”

“ Why slept the sword, omnipotent to save,
Where was thine arm, O Vengeance, where thy rod,
That smote the foes of Zion and of God?
That crushed proud Ammon, when his iron car
Was yoked in wrath, and thundered from afar?
Where was the storm that slumbered till the host
Of blood stained Pharaoh left their trembling coast,
Tiren bade the deep in wild commotion flow
And heaved on ocean on their march below?
⁠Departed spirits of the Mighty dead,
Ye that at Marrthon and Leucra bled,
Friends of the world, restore your swords to man
Fight in his sacred cause, and lead the van ”

“ SPANISH PATRIOT’S SONG.
How rings each sparkling Spanish brand,
There’s music in its rattle;
And gay, as for a saraband,
We gird us for the battle.
Follow, follow!
To the glorious revelry,
When the sabres bristle,
And the death-shots whistle.
Of rights for which our swords outspring,
Shall Angoulême bereave us?
We’ve plucked a bird of nobler wing—
The eagle could not brave us.
Follow, follow!
Shake the Spanish blade, and sing—
France shall ne’er enslave us:
Tyrants shall not brave us.
Shall yonder rag, the Bourbon’s flag,
White emblem of his liver,
For Spain the proud be Freedom’s shroud? ”

“ And friend no more than human friendship just.
Oh! by that retrospect of happiness,
And by the hopes of an immortal trust,
God shall assuage thy pangs--when I am laid in dust!
Go, Henry, go not back, when I depart,
The scene thy bursting tears too deep will move,
Where my dear father took thee to his heart,
And Gertrude thought it ecstacy to rove
With thee, as with an angel, through the grove
Of peace, imagining her lot was cast
In heaven; for ours was not like earthly love.
And must this parting be our very last!
No! I shall love thee still, when death itself is past.-- ”

“ Who will protect thee, helpless Ellenore?
Shall secret scenes thy filial sorrows hide,
Scorn'd by the world, to factious guilt allied?
Ah! no; methinks the generous and the good
Will woo thee from the shades of solitude!
O'er friendless grief compassion shall awake,
And smile on innocence, for Mercy's sake!"
Inspiring thought of rapture yet to be,
The tears of Love were hopeless, but for thee!
If in that frame no deathless spirit dwell,
If that faint murmur be the last farewell,
If Fate unite the faithful but to part,
Why is their memory sacred to the heart? ”

“ Strength in his arm, and lightning in his eye ;
Scoured with wild feet his sun illumined zone,
The spear, the lion, and the woods, his own !
Or led the combat, bold without a plan,
An artless savage, but a fearless man !
The plunderer came !—alas ! no glory smiles
For Congo's chief, on yonder Indian Isles ;
Forever fallen ! no son of Nature now,
With Freedom chartered on his manly I brow !
Faint, bleeding, bound, he weeps the night away,
And when the sea-wind wafts the dewless daiy,
Starts, with a bursting heart ; for evermore
To curse the sun that lights their guilty shore ! ”

“ An inmate in the home of Albert smiled,
Or blest his noonday walk--she was his only child.
The rose of England bloom'd on Gertrude's cheek--
What though these shades had seen her birth, her sire
A Briton's independence taught to seek
Far western worlds; and there his household fire
The light of social love did long inspire,
And many a halcyon day he lived to see
Unbroken but by one misfortune dire,
When fate had reft his mutual heart--but she
Was gone--and Gertrude climb'd a widow'd father's knee. ”

“ You believe that the word itself ought to be our rule, and not any human explication of it; so do we. You believe that no man has a right to judge, to exclude, or reject his professing Christian brother, except in so far as he stands condemned or rejected by the express letter of the law; so do we. You believe that the great fundamental law of unity and love ought not to be violated to make way for exalting human opinions to an equality with express revelation, by making them articles of faith and terms of communion ”

“ O’er mountain, tower, and town,
Or mirrored in the ocean vast,
A thousand fathoms down!
As fresh in yon horizon dark,
As young thy beauties seem,
As when the eagle from the ark
First sported in thy beam
For, faithful to its sacred page,
Heaven still rebuilds thy span,
Nor lets the type grow pale with age
That first spoke peace to man.
[116]
THE LAST MAN.
All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom,
The Sun himself must die,
Before this mortal shall assume
Its Immortality!
I saw a vision in my sleep,
That gave my spirit strength to sweep
Adown the gulph of Time! ”

“ With meteor-standard to the winds unfurled,
Looks from his throne of clouds o'er half the world !
Now far he sweeps, where scarce a summer smiles,
On Behring's rocks, or Greenland's naked isles:
Cold on his midnight watch the breezes blow,
From wastes that slumber in eternal snow ;
And waft, across the waves' tumultuous roar,
The wolf's long howl from Oonalaska's shore.
Poor child of danger, nursling of the storm,
Sad are the woes that wreck thy manly form !
Rocks, waves, and winds, the shattered bark delay ;
Thy heart is sad, thy home is far away. ”

“ Land of my father's love, my mother's birth!
The home of kindred I have never seen!
We know not other--oceans are between:
Yet say, far friendly hearts! from whence we came,
Of us does oft remembrance intervene?
My mother sure--my sire a thought may claim;--
But Gertrude is to you an unregarded name.
And yet, loved England! when thy name I trace
In many a pilgrim's tale and poet's song,
How can I choose but wish for one embrace
Of them, the dear unknown, to whom belong
My mother's looks; perhaps her likeness strong? ”

“ But if there should be none to aid you, Poles,
Ye’ll but to prouder pitch wind up your souls,
Above example, pity, praise or blame,
To sow and reap a boundless field of Fame.
Ask aid no more from Nations that forget
Your championship—old Europe’s mighty debt.
Though Poland (Lazarus-like) has burst the gloom,
She rises not a beggar from the tomb:
In Fortune’s frown, on Danger’s giddiest brink,
Despair and Poland’s name must never link.
All ills have bounds—plague, whirlwind, fire, and flood:
E’en power can spill but bounded sums of blood. ”

“ Heav'n, Earth, and Ocean, blazing all around!
The moon is up — the watch-tower dimly burns—
And down the vale his sober step returns;
But pauses oft, as winding rocks convey
The still sweet fall of Music far away;
And oft he lingers from his home awhile
To watch the dying notes! — and start, and smile!
Let Winter come! let polar spirits sweep
The dark'ning world and tempest-troubled deep!
Though boundless snows the wither'd heath deform,
And the dim sun scarce wanders through the storm,
Yet shall the smile of social love repay
With mental light, the melancholy day! ”