Evolution of Expression Volume I Part 9

THE OCEAN.

I.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely sh.o.r.e; There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not man the less, but nature more, From these our interviews in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

II.

Roll on, thou deep and dark-blue ocean--roll!

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin--his control Stops with the sh.o.r.e;--upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When for a moment like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

III.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, And monarchs tremble in their capitals; The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Their clay creator the vain t.i.tle take Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war,-- These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

IV.

Thy sh.o.r.es are empires, changed in all save thee-- a.s.syria, Greece, Rome, Carthage,--what are they?

Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their sh.o.r.es obey The stranger, slave or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts;--not so thou, Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves' play- Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow-- Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

V.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Gla.s.ses itself in tempests; in all time, Calm or convulsed--in breeze, or gale, or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark-heaving;--boundless, endless, and sublime-- The image of Eternity--the throne Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee: thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

VI.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sport was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy I wantoned with thy breakers--they to me Were a delight; and if thy freshening sea Made them a terror, 'twas a pleasing fear; For I was, as it were, a child of thee, And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane--as I do here.

LORD BYRON.

SPARTACUS TO THE GLADIATORS AT CAPUA.

1. Ye call me chief; and ye do well to call him chief who for twelve long years has met upon the arena every shape of man or beast the broad Empire of Rome could furnish, and who never yet lowered his arm. If there be one among you who can say that ever, in public fight or private brawl, my actions did belie my tongue, let him stand forth and say it. If there be three of all your company dare face me on the b.l.o.o.d.y sand, let them come on.

2. And yet I was not always thus,--a hired butcher, a savage chief of still more savage men. My ancestors came from old Sparta, and settled among the vine-clad rocks and citron groves of Syrasella.

My early life ran quiet as the brooks by which I sported; and when, at noon, I gathered the sheep beneath the shade, and played upon the shepherd's flute, there was a friend, the son of a neighbor, to join me in the pastime. We led our flocks to the same pasture, and partook together our rustic meal.

3. One evening, after the sheep were folded, and we were all seated beneath the myrtle which shaded our cottage, my grandsire, an old man, was telling of Marathon and Leuctra; and how, in ancient times, a little band of Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, had withstood a whole army. I did not then know what war was; but my cheeks burned, I know not why, and I clasped the knees of that venerable man, until my mother, parting the hair from off my forehead, kissed my throbbing temples, and bade me go to rest, and think no more of those old tales and savage wars.

4. That very night the Romans landed on our coast. I saw the breast that had nourished me trampled by the hoof of the war horse--the bleeding body of my father flung amidst the blazing rafters of our dwelling! Today I killed a man in the arena; and, when I broke his helmet-clasps, behold! he was my friend! He knew me, smiled faintly, gasped, and died;--the same sweet smile upon his lips that I had marked, when, in adventurous boyhood, we scaled the lofty cliff to pluck the first ripe grapes, and bear them home in childish triumph!

5. I told the praetor that the dead man had been my friend, generous and brave; and I begged that I might bear away the body, to burn it on a funeral pile, and mourn over its ashes. Ay! upon my knees, amid the dust and blood of the arena, I begged that poor boon, while all the a.s.sembled maids and matrons, and the holy virgins they call vestals, and the rabble, shouted in derision, deeming it rare sport, forsooth, to see Rome's fiercest gladiator turn pale and tremble at sight of that piece of bleeding clay! And the praetor drew back as if I were pollution, and sternly said, "Let the carrion rot! There are no n.o.ble men but Romans."

6. And so, fellow gladiators, must you, and so must I, die like dogs! O Rome! Rome! thou hast been a tender nurse to me. Ay! thou hast given to that poor, gentle, timid shepherd lad, who never knew a harsher tone than a flute-note, muscles of iron and a heart of flint; taught him to drive the sword through plaited mail and links of rugged bra.s.s, and warm it in the marrow of his foe;--to gaze into the glaring eyeb.a.l.l.s of the fierce Numidian lion, even as a boy upon a laughing girl! And he shall pay thee back, until the yellow Tiber is red as frothing wine, and in its deepest ooze thy life-blood lies curdled!

7. Ye stand here now like giants, as ye are! The strength of bra.s.s is in your toughened sinews; but to-morrow some Roman Adonis, breathing sweet perfume from his curly locks, shall with his lily fingers pat your red brawn, and bet his sesterces upon your blood.

Hark! hear ye yon lion roaring in his den? 'Tis three days since he has tasted flesh; but to-morrow he shall break his fast upon yours,--and a dainty meal for him ye will be!

8. If ye are beasts, then stand here like fat oxen, waiting for the butcher's knife! If ye are men, follow me! Strike down yon guard, gain the mountain pa.s.ses, and then do b.l.o.o.d.y word, as did your sires at old Thermopylae! Is Sparta dead? Is the old Grecian spirit frozen in your veins, that you do crouch and cower like a belabored hound beneath his master's lash? O comrades! warriors!

Thracians! if we must fight, let us fight for ourselves! If we must slaughter, let us slaughter our oppressors! If we must die, let it be under the clear sky, by the bright waters, in n.o.ble, honorable battle.

REV. ELIJAH KELLOGG.

TELL TO HIS NATIVE MOUNTAINS.

I.

Ye crags and peaks, I'm with you once again!

I hold to you the hands you first beheld, To show they still are free. Methinks I hear A spirit in your echoes answer me, And bid your tenant welcome home again!

II.

O sacred forms, how proud you look!

How high you lift your heads into the sky!

How huge you are! how mighty and how free!

How do you look, for all your bared brows, More gorgeously majestical than kings Whose loaded coronets exhaust the mine.

III.

Ye are the things that tower, that shine; whose smile Makes glad--whose frown is terrible; whose forms, Robed or unrobed, do all the impress wear Of awe divine; whose subject never kneels In mockery, because it is your boast To keep him free!

IV.

Ye guards of liberty, I'm with you once again! I call to you With all my voice! I hold my hands to you To show they still are free. I rush to you As though I could embrace you!

V.

The hour Will soon be here. Oh, when will Liberty Once more be here? Scaling yonder peak, I saw an eagle wheeling near its brow, O'er the abyss his broad-expanded wings Lay calm and motionless upon the air As if he floated there without their aid, By the sole act of his unlorded will, That buoyed him proudly up.

VI.

Instinctively I bent my bow; yet kept he rounding still His airy circle, as in the delight Of measuring the ample range beneath And round about; absorbed, he heeded not The death that threatened him. I could not shoot.

'Twas liberty. I turned my bow aside, And let him soar away.

JAMES SHERIDAN KNOWLES.

BATTLE HYMN.

I.

Father of earth and heaven! I call thy name!

Round me the smoke and shout of battle roll; My eyes are dazzled with the rustling flame; Father, sustain an untried soldier's soul!

Or life or death, whatever be the goal That crowns or closes round this struggling hour, Thou knowest, if ever from my spirit stole One deeper prayer,'twas that no cloud might lower On my young fame! Oh, hear, G.o.d of eternal power!

II.

G.o.d! thou art merciful--the wintry storm, The cloud that pours the thunder from its womb, But show the sterner grandeur of thy form; The lightnings glancing through the midnight gloom, To Faith's raised eye as calm, as lovely come, As splendors of the autumnal evening star, As roses shaken by the breeze's plume, When like cool incense comes the dewy air, And on the golden wave the sunset burns afar.