J. R. Wilkinson

“ The dread arena—fateful and most cruel ground,
Where many a brave life went out on thy red soil
Against sword and shield, or in the dread lion’s toil.
All Rome was there—the proud, the poor and great,
Her chivalry and beauty, the Emperor in state.
And the expectant throng await with bated breath
The tragedy’s beginning, the revelry of death!
Hark! hark! that blood-curdling, thund’rous, awful roar,
As opens wide the den’s concealing iron door!
A majestic lion leaps forth with one great bound
Into the arena, with roar that shakes the ground. ”

“ We parted, and we ne’er have met
Since then, long years ago;
But still I dream, and dream of thee—
Sad thoughts will backward flow.
Since then I’ve wandered far and wide
O’er earth and stormy sea,
And mingled in the world’s deep strife,
But still I think of thee.
The human heart I trust no more;
Sweet smile or voice’s tone
Are but an echo on the shore
Of dreams that long have flown.
Thus it is with many a one
In the world’s hurry and strife:
Deserted and ever alone,
They end a weary life. ”

“ Perpetuate her fadeless fame!
{21}
THE SEA AND THE SOUL.
Oh, the sea! the sea! how it stirs my soul,
As its bright bounding billows onward roll;
Unfettered they toss their crests on high,
As if to assault the far vaulted sky.
Oh, the sea! the sea! when it murmurs sweet,
And its silver waves fall down at my feet;
And it flashes and ripples in sunny smiles,
Far away by a thousand happy isles.
Oh, the sea! the sea! when the wild winds roar,
And its thunderous waves rush on the shore;
And the dread tempest sweeps the storm-torn sky,
And the world is drown’d in its madden’d cry. ”

“ Let Erin’s hurrah through the storm fiercely break;
Gallant souls, whose courage even death cannot shake.
Art still calm, Britain’s sons, proudly waiting the shock?
Aye, calm and cool, though the earth doth tremble and rock;
Though rent your firm squares, and thinned your red lines,
Ye are dauntless still; on your grim faces shines
An unconquerable light, flashing everywhere,
Firm as the abiding hills, shaken not by despair.
Steady now, fearless hearts! See, the foe proudly comes,
Rolling on in huge masses where thunder the guns
That leap from the very earth in maddening roar. ”

“ Ah! who are they, these that survive the bloody strife?
What fate awaits them in the struggle life for life?{186}
’Tis Julian, the Roman, that slew the forest king,
And the brave Athenian, of whom all Rome doth ring.
They turn and face each other, these men of perfect mould,
And all eyes are tearful with sympathy untold.
But ’tis over now, and sweeps a lurid flame
Over each stern and lofty brow; and again
Their Roman swords are lifted up, and they engage—
The champions rouse to dreadful battle’s ruthless rage.
How the thrusts and strokes fast crash on shield and helm! ”

“ With remorseful tears, and vague dread of the unknown,
Clasping the hand of Eve, they faced the world alone!
Wast thou moved to pity, O remorseless Time?
For ne’er was scene more pitiful or more sublime.
Oh, momentous, measureless, sad, and direful fall!
A covert sin, an act, that sorely smote us all,
Making man’s feverish life a battle all the way,
From earliest morn unto his latest day;
Beset by every evil, no rest is given—
A lost and ruined soul, with scarce a hope of heaven!
But the world was peopled, and from every plain
Rose cities grand that gained an envious fame ”

“ The heroic gladiator advances to his fate.
The forest king awaits him with a fiery eye,
And again is repeated that most awful cry;
And with a malignant, prodigious leap and bound
He hurls his deadly charge, but the foe is not found:
For the brave gladiator springs lightly aside,
And on his speaking face beams confidence and pride;
And again he avoids the lion’s ruthless might,
And like streaming lightning flashes in the light{184}
His Roman sword, that stills that savage roar,
And the dread forest king sinks lifeless to the floor;
And the gladiator bows ’mid thunders of applause. ”

“ And hurl thee writhing down the glaring vaults of hell,
That man might walk redeemed, with head erect, and dwell
In plenteousness when capital’s divided well.
But I’ll arise and smite thy grinning, dev’lish face;
Aye, I’ll fight thee unto death’s grim, ghastly gate,
And, though I perish by thy cruel fangs and fate,
’Twere best to fight a hero’s fight for liberty and place!
Malignant foe!
Thou shalt at last be put to ignominious flight,
For life is but a span, an echo on the shore,
Where burdens are laid down and sorrow is no more. ”

“ Thou, too, shalt die, and dread annihilation meet!
The soul shall happier be when thy ruin ’s complete.
Listen, then, thou scourge! “And the angel which I saw
Stand upon the sea, and upon the earth, lifted up his hand{208}
And sware by Him that liveth for ever and ever
That time should be no longer.” Never, no, never,
In the night of eternity shall thy face be seen;
Thou shalt not break in to mar existence more serene.
In the deeps of outer darkness shall be thy doom,
In the desolate voids of black, eternal gloom. ”

“ Rode down on the French centre, sabreing them there.
Broken and dispirited, they waver in despair.
Incessantly our cavalry charge on the foe,
Flashing and flaming in the lurid sunset’s glow;
Piercing and dismembering the French everywhere,
While the infantry press forward the laurels to share.
With the bayonet the foe they sweep from their path,
A Nemesis of fate in o’erpowering wrath.
The Prussian guns play on their right flank and their rear;
The British bayonet in front; while a panic of fear
Spreads through their wavering ranks, and the hopeless cry
Of “Sauve qui peut!” ”

“ And was it here the fallen angels found their hell?
See! see! the molten tides that sink, and rise, and swell,
And the volcanic bursts that leap frightfully away,
Lighting up the far phantom voids intense as day.
O Time! let’s flee away from this maddening sight,
And by more mildly lighted planets take our flight.
Gliding swift onward over soundless, unknown seas,
What stupendous voids the mind in its terror sees!
O shoreless, frightful, endless, vast infinitude!
And by dread amaze unspeakable pursued;
We flit by the way where ’tis neither night nor day,
Amid a deep eternal silence ”

“ The roar resounded through the hills,
And when the dense smoke rolled away,
Revealed was the foe’s torn, bloody ranks,
Where hundreds of their brave dead lay.
Another volley is instantly poured
On Montcalm’s now shattered line;
Then with a cheer that waked the hills,
And a grand rush that was sublime,
They fell upon their struggling foes
With the bayonet’s deadly play,
And swept the French from that gory field
In ruined, disorderly array.
“They run! they run!” shouts an aide-de-camp.
“Who run?” brave Wolfe quick cried. ”

“ In the arena packed and pent,
The speculative gambler’s bower,
Where stocks are fiercely bought and sold,
And men are ruined in an hour:
Hark! the frenzied, madden’d shout,
Exultant or despairing cry;
Triumphant ones go proudly forth,
Or, ruined, creep away to die.
A few there are that win the way
Through battle’s fierce and fiery flame;
Their dauntless and intrepid souls
Win up the dazzling heights of fame.
A few that dwell in palaces,
Afar removed from toil and strife,
There idly dream the years away
That bound their vain, luxurious life. ”

“ And cleave the outer realms of space, beyond the shore
Of noble Jupiter. Out fearlessly! away!
Trusting a power that sleepeth not night nor day.
Now receding from the greatest, let’s seek the strangest
Of the planets on a line remote, where rangest
In untold splendor in an orbit round the sun
Of amazing distance, luminous, stately Saturn.
But we tremble, and we shrink with an awesome dread,
At the yawning distance underneath and o’erhead!
Right and left forever the soul may madly soar,
Seeking for a limit till lost for evermore!{199}
Look up! ”

“ Of rage, despair, smote the shuddering hills,
With’ring the verdure all amain,
And rolled in nameless horror along
The lines of that ensanguined plain.
Nearer and nearer swooped the celestial
Legions in majesty and might,
Until, all ruined and beaten down,
The demon foe were put to flight,
And Satan seized and bound with a chain,
And hurled blaspheming back once more
Down the accursed, eternal void of
Damnation’s frenzied awful shore!
Closed and sealed was that deadly maw
Of desolation and of doom,
That man might escape the horror of an
Everlasting suffering and gloom. ”

“ Converging to the gates of India in columns vast they come
To the martial blare of trumpets and roll of fife and drum,
The half a million horse—the van—in wild clangor clears the way
For three thousand frowning guns in formidable array,
With vast masses of infantry—six millions of the foe,
To deliver a vast attack, an irresistible blow;
To sweep Albion from the Ind, and the German power to break;
To win the Orient, even the world to dominate{277}
For the passes of the Himalayas on and on they sweep,
Making the very earth to vibrate beneath their marching feet. ”

“ Blessing e’en the hands that mangled and seared to the very bone.
Aye, without a murmur, those steadfast souls bore the pain,
Exhorting all to look to God, that they should meet again
Where the cruel torture and life’s dread sufferings are o’er,
Meet Manitou in endless life, where sorrow comes no more.
And thus perished those martyred, heroic, devoted souls
For the cause of Christ; and as long as the grim ages roll
Shall their immortal deeds and imperishable fame be sung,
Till the last trump to waken the dead through all space be rung. ”

“ We are roused by thee to a nobler strife,
And again the foe we assail.
And if thou art true and point us the way,
We face all opposing powers;
Though the fight be grievous and sorely long,
The vict’ry will surely be ours.
THE JESUIT.
Consecrated to a lonely life of celibacy,
Seeing only a vain delusion and a fallacy
In terrestrial unions—man’s uncertainty of bliss,
Suspended in the balance o’er an infinite abyss—
Appalled by sin and its delusive elements everywhere:
The cry of a lost world—an intonation of despair
Rising up from the depths of impenetrability ”

“ And the horrible din all about them rolls.
On the far left the Prussians are pounding away,
But the brave French fight sternly and hold them at bay.
All along our grand lines the French batter in vain,
Though the dead strew the hills and encumber the plain.
Dark masses of Guards climb the slope of the hill,
Stately columns coming on with confidence still;
Their guns cease fire as above the ridge they now show,
Tipped with the gleam of the sunset’s red glow.
Then began that cheer those who heard never could forget—
From those famed Belgian hills doth it echo yet. ”

“ Let us retrace our steps along the phantom shore
Of the dead centuries, two thousand years or more,
And look upon a nation whose fame will never cease—
A learned and noble people—grand, heroic Greece.
A freedom-loving nation never could be slaves,
And many desperately fought fields are pent with graves
To freedom. Attest Marathon and Thermopylæ,
Where millions rushed to conflict on that fatal day
When Leonidas with his three hundred Spartans fell
In an immortal struggle in the jaws of hell. ”