The palace of fantasy

“And last we did direct your utmost gaze
To yonder golden fires that blaze on high,
Filling the mind with wonder and amaze;
Her boldest pinion vain attempts to fly,
Or threshold reach, its glories to descry;
She cannot stretch so far, her vision dim
Sees but the outskirts of immensity.
The fulness of His glory dwells with Him;
We but the shadow scan—how great to earth’s pilgrim!

CCVII.

“But vain the search, if scarce no higher aim
Than curious wonder, or mere idle gaze;
Employ our reason, that hath loftier claim,
No less than our immortal nature raise
To Him the giver,—all adoring praise
His matchless works, in glory infinite!
Vast in an atom as yon starry blaze;
So great the pow’r display’d to mortal sight—
So skilful in design, past searching out His might!

CCVIII.

“For knowledge vain it is, and reason’s pow’rs,
If man’s chief end it doth not teach enforce,
And bid him turn from earth to heav’nly bowers,
The soul’s implanted wish and purest source;
But downward dragg’d by sin’s debasing choice,
His noble spirit vain essays to rise,
Till heav’nly guidance leads to holier course,
And cause him mount once more his native skies,
For which he ardent pants, for which he inward sighs.

CCIX.

“For oh! how vast is one immortal soul,
Its end, capacity, duration great:
Compared, how small creation’s mighty whole,
Earth, with its glorious canopy of state,
That last must wane and meet its doomed fate;
But man’s immortal spirit ever lives,
For him, new clothed, eternal garments wait,
Fresh amaranthine bloom, and bliss derives,
His being, powers, renewed, godlike Creator gives.

CCX.

“Such destiny, co-eval with the skies,
Is man’s, whose thought most like to angel’s soars,
With mind endued pre-eminent, that tries
To cast its slough, and try its latent pow’rs,
A new existence found ’neath blissful bowers;
So shines the chrysalis, with golden wing
Escaped to sip on nectar-dropping flow’rs.
If, when life’s trammels burst, new life doth spring,
Embrace, hold fast the Truth, seek mercy’s offering.

CCXI.

“For why should creature man not strive for good,
And evil fly, to gain eternal joy;
Climb Pisgah’s height, where Hebrew prophet stood,
And gaze the ‘promised land,’ where no alloy,
But pleasures manifold for e’er employ
Those who have cross’d by faith dark Jordan’s stream;
There sin doth ever flee, nor care annoy,
In that unsullied state, whose light doth beam,
A holy radiance shed—‘Redeeming love’ the theme.

CCXII.

“And all that pleasant is through earth dispread,
How chequer’d all things with its opposite;
The azure sky with clouds soon overspread,
Zephyr the storm, heat cold, and day the night,
And summer’s glow by burly winter’s might;
So human joy and sorrow mingled flow,
Else earth would bind us with too much delight,
And thus enchain the soul to things below.
Oh! blessed, holy cross, that doth our folly show.

CCXIII.

“What love and pity for our fallen state—
Almighty arms extended, us to save!
Who of ourselves could not release our fate,
But unredeemed sink hopeless to the grave.
Thrice blessed gift that proffered mercy gave
In that vicarious sacrifice of love!
Whom scorn and cruel death did righteous brave,
All for our good, who did but rebels prove.
Oh! love of heav’nly God, such clemency to move!

CCXIV.

“But list! we must break off, a well-known tread
Comes softly hither, sent by my good lord,
That bids me linger not, but quickly sped,
Nor longer discourse can for you afford,
Though willingly I would, be ye assured,
On works of highest God for you relate,
So that some truths my feeble speech record.
Dan Fantasy holds audience, and doth wait
Anon my presence, whilst Sir Page attends ye straight.”

CCXV.

With that Sir Page, with courtier-like address,
Eftsoons his message to the bard made known;
Then ’gan adroitly marshal lead the press
To where the stately pile ’mid cedars frown,
That brought them to the entrance hall we’ve shown;
When here the poet waved the crowd adieu,
And onward passed, from their lost sight soon flown,
When he, Sir varlet Page, attention drew
To ante-room, to doff their borrowed garments new.

CCXVI.

And as he did disrobe from their attire,
Each to resume his own habiliment,
A roguish chuckle, with an elfish leer,
Upon his pliant features came and went,
Show’d mischief lurked, but was suppress’d instant;
And then anon obsequious seen to stand,
And bowed his head, and low like courtier bent;
With graceful stride then led the motley band,
Where Herald mounted rode in outer court at hand.

CCXVII.

Who, thus instructed, led to postern gate
The rabble rout, for so they push’d and strove;
So in this world, each jostling crowds his mate
To push him by, and strive before him move;
So urged the crowd, more like to herd or drove,
While he Sir Herald’s charger paw’d the ground,
Impatient check’d his fiery speed to prove;
Sir Gallant’s bearing awed the throng around,
When high he held his horn, as if prepared to sound.

CCXVIII.

One shrill loud blast the noisy rabble stay’d,
That far resounded through the spacious court,
And with less tumult silenced them afraid,
And caused their egress make with grave deport;
For rude disorder was forbid resort,
Nor could admittance to that palace gain,
But disobeyed sore punishment it brought.
This he, Sir Herald, hinted to restrain
Their rude unseemly din, from which they did refrain.

CCXIX.

The lofty entrance-porch they straightway reach,
Through whose wide gate the multitude outpour;
The world before them spread, o’er which to search
For happiness, perchance for them in store,
An “Ignis Fatuus” proved in days of yore;
If pleasure be their aim, or sordid gain,
Such do their seekers cheat for evermore;
While others, virtuous knowledge to attain
Far wiser, deem all else as profitless and vain.

CCXX.

Some charm’d by Art, others by Science led,
And Nature some her secret wonders trace;
Fresh beauties found thus lavishly dispread,
So far surpassing art in bounteous grace;
Some thoughtful seek the darling Muse embrace,
While, Cincinnatus like, some wield the plough;
Or laws bestow, Lycurgus of their race;
Soft pleasure seek, or love for mammon show;
Or sluggish, sottish live, like swine in filthy slough.

CCXXI.

Their several ways dispersed, and noisy sound
Of rabble route, that silence scared to hear,
Which glades and woods affrighted heard around,
Unusual uproar and loud discord near,
Whereat went bounding forth the startled deer,
Whose forests have resumed their silent reign,
With here and there a note of wild bird clear,
Mellifluous heard with sad and mournful plain;
While all reposed as if nought living did remain.

CCXXII.

The slow descending sun hath shed his beam
With slanting ray, that fall on turret bright,
And shone on oriel stained with golden gleam;
Its porphyry pillars blazed with dazzling light,
Like fair enchantment to beholder’s sight,
A palace spied of some dark wizard king;
But now the shadows dim of coming night
’Gan hover round, its gloomy folds to fling
O’er every living wight and every living thing.

CCXXIII.

Its ling’ring shadows scarce had waned their last
When sudden brilliance struck beholder’s sight,
As through that long saloon its lustre cast,
And show’d eftsoons a court was held that night,
In which Dan Fantasy took much delight,
And more, that child of earth should roam his ground,
And pleasures manifold that there invite.
This known, Sir Herald, pausing, gazed around,
Then blew once more his horn, for other folk to sound.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

ON VIEWING THE TESSELLATED PAVEMENT

LATELY DISCOVERED ON THE SITE OF THE LATE FRENCH PROTESTANT CHURCH, THREADNEEDLE STREET.

We gaze upon yon relic of past time
As on a glorious vision fair displayed,
That passes in review, held up sublime,
The pageantry of other years arrayed!
A thousand generations leap to life;
The startling millions that now slumber on,
They seem to wake again to busy strife
As fancy gazes on yon ancient stone!
The Roman, clad in panoply of steel,
And senators of once imperial Rome,
Here might have traversed; here been seen to kneel
The cowled monk, as ’neath some shrine or dome;
Or Norman, famed for deeds of chivalry,
Saxon and Briton on thy surface stood;
And borderer brave, intent on revelry,
Or maiden seen in glow of youthful blood,
Yet tim’rous as the fawn, with lightsome tread,
Fresh as the rose-blush, and as fragrant too,
With flutt’ring hope, to meet her lover led
On wings of love, to speak his passion true.
Or yonder antique masonry restored
Might to some Roman bath have led the way,
Where pontiff, cardinal, or patrician lord,
Here could resort at close of summer’s day!
All is conjecture what thou once hath been;
Thy annals lost amid the lapse of time;
Yet thou in thine own garniture art seen,
Fresh as in ages past, when swell’d the curfew’s chime.

ON THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ROYAL EXCHANGE BY FIRE,

On the Night of January 10, 1838.

“A heap of dust alone remains of thee.”

Yon belfry clock, that struck the hour, has ceased its wonted chime,
While points [B] the hand the fatal hour that closed its note of time:
The fatal hour, when lurid flame the noble fabric razed,
And threw a glare o’er heav’n’s high vault, as fierce it upward blazed.

What fearful desolation reigns where yon piazza rose,
Nor busy tread of merchants more awakes its deep repose;
Some weeping Marius there might sit and mourn thy fallen stone,
Where ruin marks, with silence dread, thy corridors o’erthrown!

Thou proud Exchange, alas, art fall’n; thy statues, rais’d to kings—
Thy Tudors, Stuarts, Brunswick’s line, are dust, becrumbled things!
A heap of marble relics now, where late, in proud array,
They graced thy famed quadrangle, crowned in regal vesture’s sway!

Thy founder’s [C] statue rears its head amid the scatter’d heap,
And had the marble life, it might amid the ruin weep;
While undisturb’d still stands erect the Second Charles [D] alone,
Who, where yon centre pillar rests, first laid thy structure’s stone.

Thy well-worn pavement echoes not with hasty footsteps’ tread
Of merchants met, of ev’ry clime, by eager traffic led;
Deserted now thy crowded walks, by Frank, Gaul, Turk, and Jew,
And Muscovite, and Hollander, and Indian’s swarthy hue!

Th’ accustom’d bell gives tongue no more from out its iron throat,
To summon groups of barterers, with loud and stunning note,
To hasten from the Babel scene ere massy gates they close,
And leave anon the echoing roof to stillness and repose.

Farewell, thou once fam’d edifice! whose grandeur now is flown;
We mourn thy drear deserted walls, thy sceptred kings o’erthrown;
Thy mournful dirge was chimed [E] by thee, upon that fatal night,
When thou, a burning, blazing pile, fell on the sick’ning sight!

LINES,

ON HEARING OF AN INFANT, DURING WEANING, BEING FOUND IN ITS NURSERY SLEEPING ON ITS MOTHER’S PICTURE.

O! that I could sweet speech, or utterance, give
To lips of thine, dear infant—words to live;
To tell of all that throbbed thy gentle heart,
Whose tender grief no language can impart:
How heard to call in vain, “Sweet mother, dear!”
In melting tones that told she was not near;
Her accents came not, with its soothing voice
To glad thy spirit, and thine ear rejoice,
And dissipate the sadness on that face,
Or kiss that cheek, and give the fond embrace.
Methinks I see thee, on thy nursery-floor,
Pleased with each toy and plaything as before,
Yet ever and anon a tear would stray,
Her form remembered, in its childish play;
Baulked in its hopes, with sad half-pouting look,
That spoke of sorrow young, and hard to brook,
Whose inward thought and lisping tongue would say,
“Why, mother dear, ah! why art thou away?”
Then for a time, with glistening tears still wet,
Renew glad sports, maternal smiles forget;
Ah! yes I see thee, lovely sleeping boy,
Tired with the pastime of each headless toy,
With circling arms, of dimpled roundness seen,
As though thou didst on her dear bosom lean,
Thy mother’s “Semblance” in the nursery found,
Clasping it closely in affection round.
Imaged in sleep (for childhood hath its dream),
Perchance of her, was had a passing gleam,
Or felt caresses of a parent’s love,
Nestling in arms of fondness, like the dove,
And on those lips sweet kisses soft imprest,
Whose smiles beguiled thee, and whose love carest;
These floated gently, vision’s dream of flowers,
That came to vanish with awakening hours,
While absence caused fresh poignant grief renew,
The loss deep felt, ah! felt, dear child, by you;
Sleep on, loved innocent, why wake to grieve,
When thou such balmy comfort dost receive?
Why could we wish those curtained lids unclose,
Disturb thy slumber, happy in repose,
Its little cares now hushed, again recall,
And hear the sobbing babe, “Sweet mother” call:
Ah! yes, though sound, those dreaming spells must break,
The oblivious sleep dissolved, for thy dear sake,
That schooled to learn each chequered ill to bear,
In crosses, trials, taught thy part to share;
Thus early brought to suffer, and to know
How transient all things that delight below;
Weaned from love’s fondlings, torn from their embrace,
Affections warm, thus blighted, doomed to trace;
’Twas his, whose sentient nature, taught to prove,
How dear the memory of a mother’s love.
The “Bard of Olney,” severed from those ties,
Deplored and wept amid a life of sighs,
A darker shade than falls to every lot,
His spirit clouded, and was ne’er forgot;
The world delusive proved, from hence might rise
Hopes brighter fixed, joy, love, that never dies.

THOUGHTS ON SOLITARINESS.

“Eagles fly alone, and they are but sheep which always herd together.”—Sidney.

Lone watchings of the night,
When stars attract with beaming;
’Tis loneliness alone that gives delight,
The poet’s hour of dreaming.

Why doth the eagle soar,
With lone and wandering wing?
Ah! loves he not his silent flight the more,
Far borne from living thing?

To stand upon the shore,
And list the sounding flood,—
Is there aught music like the ocean’s roar
To child of solitude?

Who, roaming, heeds the cry
Of bittern’s piercing note;
With cadence of the stormy petrel nigh,
Now heard far off remote?

Is not the awful shade
Of dark, receding grove,
To him endeared, its leaf embow’ring glade,
Seclusion’s haunts to rove?

Why doth the enchantress pour
Mellifluous note alone?
Loves Philomel the midnight brake the more,
Plaintive, unseen, to moan.

So to the tender heart
Of maiden touched with love.
Doth covert shade of twilight eve impart—
Its secret solace prove.

Is’t not to recluse sweet,
’Mid sheltering cave reclined,
Listening in solitude to waves that beat—
To musing dreams resigned.

Is grandeur heard in sound?
Hath harmony its power?
Give me expressive silence, when ’tis found,
Nature’s own hush’d, still hour.

Sweet chord must strive in vain,
Its diapason teach;
It cannot swell like that Æolian strain
The mind’s deep tone to reach.

He who hath waked the lyre,
Can tell its potent spell;
Within is found an all-consuming fire,
That mute gaze lone may tell.

Yet he is least alone—
The child of poesy;
Who peoples ideal beings, all his own—
Creatures of fantasy,

That at his bidding come,
Like beckoned shadows dim;
Sylphs of the brain, that with Titania roam—
Fancy’s all sprighting whim:

Those shadowy tribes of mind
To call from their retreat;
Sweet parlance hold, then scatter to the wind,
Back to their airy seat.

Like melancholy Jacques,
To nurse the tender thought,
Doth fly to woods embrowned, man’s haunts forsakes,
For scenes of quiet sought,

As by some classic stream,
In idless mood reclined,
Deep moralize, or lost in fairy dream
Of meditative mind;

Or yet more thoughtful theme,
The sacred page explore;
Its holy words, as sang by Babel’s stream—
Song of the exile’s shore.

Or climb the lofty tower,
Like Plato, hoary seer;
The Chaldean sage of that star-twinkling hour,
And maze-revolving sphere.

When the cold spectral night
Gleams on the column’s stone,
As Luna pale Endymion’s locks doth light,
Kissing his forehead lone,

Be mine with silence found,
When, through the gloom o’erstealing,
Is traced the lingering, pensive nymph profound,
Her shadowy form revealing.

THE WRECK.[F]

“All lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost!”—Tempest.

Weep for her loss, in pity weep,
That down engulfed beneath the deep
The fated vessel sunk, with all on board;
Three score and ten, save one, to tell
The horror of their dying knell,
That mingled ’bove the surge, when loud it roared.

Weep for their fate, if tears may show
A grief too great for tears to flow;
And words are vain, looks, sighs, but faint express;
Their dread dismay, by tempest borne,
When hope and human help were gone,
One overwhelming flood of deep distress.

Weep for the mother’s, children’s doom,
Gone down to one unfathomed tomb;
Brave hearts that late embarked from India’s shore,
’Neath joyous hope’s bright banner furled:
How changed!—To depths of ocean hurled,
The traceless wave hath swept,—they are no more!

Weep for their death; no arm to save
Beneath the hurrying, moaning wave;
Almost in sight of their loved haven lost,
On coast of France, by storm-wind driven,
The vessel struck on rock—hath riven,
Dispersed in fragments, o’er the foam-wave tost.

Weep for the fated ship, ah! weep!—
Proud name—o’ermastered by the deep,
That late through peril’s seas careered her way,
“Home bound:”—yet wherefore weep?—poor souls!
O’er them the mighty billow rolls!—
Their sufferings past;—their God their only stay.

THE WAILING SPIRIT OF THE “ROUND-DOWN CLIFF.”[G]

“That was a dark and low’ring day,
That sealed my fate ere set of sun;
My tow’ring grandeur’s passed away,
The triumph of combustion won:
Sad triumph! I the victim made,
To supersede pickaxe and spade;
I doleful, do remember well,
My spirit shrieks the deed to tell,
The blasting power within me pent,
That boded evil, dread intent,
When ‘engineers’ my entrails tore,
Like ‘Guy Faux,’ laid the train in store,
That was to rend my heart in twain,
And hurl me to the surging main;
’Twas so my glory, quenched in night,
Cast down, to mourn my dismal plight:
I could recount my pride of power,
Now swallowed up in one short hour,
My noble site, and swelling form,
That rose above the ocean’s storm,
And drew majestic eagle’s flight,
To rear his eyrie far from sight;
And Phœbus, bright from rosy bed,
His rising glories on me shed,
Or, as he dipt his burning wheel,
His rays my form did oft reveal,
Delight of each fond gazing eye,
When thus beheld at evening sky;
My sombre hue in morning gray,
In mist my head enwrapped all day,
In cloudy darkness hid from view,
With terror clad a wild-bird flew,
Loud notes heard shrill upon the blast,
As hast’ning on the storm-wind past;
Thus veil’d in nature’s awful mood,
Beloved ’mid years of solitude,
Thro’ ages borne unscathed from harm,
That gave my cliff’s bold front its charm;
Those who the ‘picturesque’ admire,
Must burn like me with jealous fire,
To mark the bulwarks of our coast
Appear, like me, a shattered ghost,
And white-cliff’d Albion doomed to be
A level coast, view’d from the sea,
Shorn of its ancient majesty:
O! heed your sad dejected sprite,
Who just discerns by feeble light,
Majestic in its strength close by,
Th’ adjacent rock, that mounts the sky,
For old renown made famous still,
By one famed bard, immortal ‘Will:’
Make level heights! whate’er you please!
For ‘Dover line’ demolish trees!
But spare my country’s sacred boast,
Dear ‘Shakspere’s Cliff,’ our pride of coast!
For list! ’tis my departed knell,
‘Disturb not yon hoar crag—Farewell!’”

ON READING WORDSWORTH’S BEAUTIFUL LINES ON GRACE DARLING.

Thanks, gifted bard, to thee best thanks are due,
For graceful lay, in melody attuned,
Like thine own gurgling springs, harmonious flow;
The subject, too, that interests ev’ry heart,
That lists, or can appreciate thy song;
So touching, simple, every flowing word;
A narrative of courage, sweetly told,
Exploit of one, a fair Northumbrian maid;
Made doubly deathless, too, by verse of thine:
Poet excursive, of sweet Ambleside,
Whose philosophic mind, in pensive mood,
Surveys with nice discernment nature’s sweets,
Each herb, upspringing seen, o’erhung with dew,
Or lowly daisy, in sequestered nook,
That meets the cherished glance of thy fond gaze,
When morn thy steps hath led o’er dewy mead,
As the keen air blows fresh upon thy cheek:
There’s not a sound escapes thy tuneful ear,
As hum of insect, or the minstrel lark,
That swells her highest note to hail the dawn;
But every feeling in accordance found,
With wide luxuriant nature, bounteous spread,
Leads thee to moralize, and ponder deep:
O! sight, ennobling to humanity!
And if exalted, ’tis exalted here,
To see the good man in the vale of years,
And that a poet, too, of well-earned fame,
(On whom the laureateship has been bestowed,)
In virtue’s fond pursuit pre-eminent,
Stealing his way, like autumn’s closing eve,
That gilds th’ horizon, ere it sinks to rest:
With youthful freshness of his mental powers,
In vigour intellectual, still poured forth;
Delight to give, and admiration claim,
From those who love the hallowed feast of mind,
And have a taste for pure ambrosial food;
Whose muse hath gait sedate, and grovels not
In low pursuit—but soars on loftier wing,
Her pinion silvered, as with virtue bright;
Whene’er a theme, a fitting theme invites,
To lure, as late it hath, thy master chord,
Attuned to her, the wreck’s life-saving child,
The skiff-toss’d maiden, of the “Light-House” known,
For prowess sanctified by approving Heav’n.

THE EMIGRANTS.

“Downward they move, a melancholy band,
Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand.”—Goldsmith.

Borne o’er the bosom of the trackless main,
Far from the shore they loved, and left with pain;
Compell’d, by hard necessity, to rove,
And quit those scenes of early bliss and love,
That close endeared them to their humble shed:
But those endearments now, alas! are fled:
The straw-thatched roof, whose curling smoke was seen;
The shady lane, and oft-frequented green,
Where many a gambol drew the village throng
At eve, when old and young their sports prolong;
Graceful ’bove trees the ancient spire uprose,
In calm seclusion, emblem of repose;
The purling brook, that turned the cotter’s mill;
The dark-robed wood, and softly swelling hill,
From whence low bleatings murmured thro’ the vale,
And rustic’s joy came o’er the passing gale.
Such mem’ry pictured in her loveliest dress;
How keen their anguish, words but faint express,
As wafted hence their sorrowing tears they flow,
Their trials real, and unfeigned their woe;
Lone wand’ring exiles, doomed in grief to part,
And leave their country with an aching heart,
To far Australia, or Van Diemen’s shore,
A num’rous band, those regions wild explore;
Or wide dispersed, Canadia’s woods they range,
The lonely settlers of the forest strange.
Before their gaze the swelling distance shows
Mountains o’ermantled in eternal snows;
Far as the eye can stretch huge forests rise,
Or dreary moors, or plains of other skies;
A rugged soil, that claims enduring toil,
That oft the labourer doth resist and foil.
The Emigrants thus feel the curse renewed,
Ere yields the stubborn earth, by toil subdued;
Perchance their little group of children round
Join in the task—young tillers of the ground;
A world before them spread,—a houseless band.
Such are the wanderers of a foreign land.
And should their enterprise succeed, how blest
The prospect “home-bound,” to return and rest;
Spend the sweet close of their remaining days,
Their setting sun descend in peaceful rays,
Once more revisit their own happier clime,
With feelings stronger felt by lapse of time;
Review the spot they sorrowing left behind,
When misery drove them outcasts to the wind:
The same delightful scenes engage the eye,
Their only wish is there at last to die;
The same engaging charms allure them still,
The sloping meadows and the rippling rill;
The cheerful woodland pipe of joyous swain,
The swinging sign-post and the stile remain,
That they so often climbed, when ruddy youth,
Happy and heedless of life’s sober truth,
Enjoyed the present through the live-long day,
Nor gave a thought to-morrow in their play;
Such lovely scenes their influence sweet o’ercast,
Their wand’rings softened, and their hardships past,
Whose fondest wish, their chequered troubles o’er,
To Albion’s shore return, nor migrate more.

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