Written by
Mary Darby Robinson |
Deep in th' abyss where frantic horror bides,
In thickest mists of vapours fell,
Where wily Serpents hissing glare
And the dark Demon of Revenge resides,
At midnight's murky hour
Thy origin began:
Rapacious MALICE was thy sire;
Thy Dam the sullen witch, Despair;
Thy Nurse, insatiate Ire.
The FATES conspir'd their ills to twine,
About thy heart's infected shrine;
They gave thee each disastrous spell,
Each desolating pow'r,
To blast the fairest hopes of man.
Soon as thy fatal birth was known,
From her unhallow'd throne
With ghastly smile pale Hecate sprung;
Thy hideous form the Sorc'ress press'd
With kindred fondness to her breast;
Her haggard eye
Short forth a ray of transient joy,
Whilst thro' th' infernal shades exulting clamours rung.
Above thy fellow fiends thy tyrant hand
Grasp'd with resistless force supreme command:
The dread terrific crowd
Before thy iron sceptre bow'd.
Now, seated in thy ebon cave,
Around thy throne relentless furies rave:
A wreath of ever-wounding thorn
Thy scowling brows encompass round,
Thy heart by knawing Vultures torn,
Thy meagre limbs with deathless scorpions bound.
Thy black associates, torpid IGNORANCE,
And pining JEALOUSYwith eye askance,
With savage rapture execute thy will,
And strew the paths of life with every torturing ill
Nor can the sainted dead escape thy rage;
Thy vengeance haunts the silent grave,
Thy taunts insult the ashes of the brave;
While proud AMBITION weeps thy rancour to assuage.
The laurels round the POET's bust,
Twin'd by the liberal hand of Taste,
By thy malignant grasp defac'd,
Fade to their native dust:
Thy ever-watchful eye no labour tires,
Beneath thy venom'd touch the angel TRUTH expires.
When in thy petrifying car
Thy scaly dragons waft thy form,
Then, swifter, deadlier far
Than the keen lightning's lance,
That wings its way across the yelling storm,
Thy barbed shafts fly whizzing round,
While every with'ring glance
Inflicts a cureless wound.
Thy giant arm with pond'rous blow
Hurls genius from her glorious height,
Bends the fair front of Virtue low,
And meanly pilfers every pure delight.
Thy hollow voice the sense appalls,
Thy vigilance the mind enthralls;
Rest hast thou none,by night, by day,
Thy jealous ardour seeks for prey
Nought can restrain thy swift career;
Thy smile derides the suff'rer's wrongs;
Thy tongue the sland'rers tale prolongs;
Thy thirst imbibes the victim's tear;
Thy breast recoils from friendship's flame;
Sick'ning thou hear'st the trump of Fame;
Worth gives to thee, the direst pang;
The Lover's rapture wounds thy heart,
The proudest efforts of prolific art
Shrink from thy poisonous fang.
In vain the Sculptor's lab'ring hand
Calls fine proportion from the Parian stone;
In vain the Minstrel's chords command
The soft vibrations of seraphic tone;
For swift thy violating arm
Tears from perfection ev'ry charm;
Nor rosy YOUTH, nor BEAUTY's smiles
Thy unrelenting rage beguiles,
Thy breath contaminates the fairest name,
And binds the guiltless brow with ever-blist'ring shame.
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Written by
Mary Darby Robinson |
"Fate snatch'd him early to the pitying sky.
"
- POPE.
IF WORTH, too early to the grave consign'd,
Can claim the pitying tear, or touch the mind ?
If manly sentiments unstain'd by art,
Could waken FRIENDSHIP, or delight the heart ?
Ill-fated youth ! to THEE the MUSE shall pay
The last sad tribute of a mournful lay;
On thy lone grave shall MAY'S soft dews be shed,
And fairest flowrets blossom o'er thy head;
The drooping lily, and the snow-drop pale,
Mingling their fragrant leaves, shall there recline,
While CHERUBS hov'ring on th' ethereal gale,
Shall chaunt a requiem o'er the hallow'd shrine.
And if Reflection's piercing eye should scan
The trivial frailties of imperfect MAN;
If in thy generous heart those passions dwelt,
Which all should own, and all that live have felt;
Yet was thy polish'd mind so pure, so brave,
The young admir'd thee, and the old forgave.
And when stern FATE, with ruthless rancour, press'd
Thy withering graces to her flinty breast;
Bright JUSTICE darted from her bless'd abode,
And bore thy VIRTUES to the throne of GOD;
While cold OBLIVION stealing o'er thy mind,
Each youthful folly to the grave consign'd.
O, if thy purer spirit deigns to know
Each thought that passes in this vale of woe,
Accept the incense of a tender tear,
By PITY wafted on a sigh sincere.
And if the weeping MUSE a wreath could give
To grace thy tomb, and bid thy VIRTUES live;
THEN Wealth should blush the gilded mask to wear,
And Avarice shrink the victim of Despair.
While GENIUS bending o'er thy sable bier,
Should mourn her darling SON with many a tear,
While in her pensive form the world should view
The ONLY PARENT that thy SORROWS knew.
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Written by
William Butler Yeats |
I
Under the Great Comedian's tomb the crowd.
A bundle of tempestuous cloud is blown
About the sky; where that is clear of cloud
Brightness remains; a brighter star shoots down;
What shudders run through all that animal blood?
What is this sacrifice? Can someone there
Recall the Cretan barb that pierced a star?
Rich foliage that the starlight glittered through,
A frenzied crowd, and where the branches sprang
A beautiful seated boy; a sacred bow;
A woman, and an arrow on a string;
A pierced boy, image of a star laid low.
That woman, the Great Mother imaging,
Cut out his heart.
Some master of design
Stamped boy and tree upon Sicilian coin.
An age is the reversal of an age:
When strangers murdered Emmet, Fitzgerald, Tone,
We lived like men that watch a painted stage.
What matter for the scene, the scene once gone:
It had not touched our lives.
But popular rage,
Hysterica passio dragged this quarry down.
None shared our guilt; nor did we play a part
Upon a painted stage when we devoured his heart.
Come, fix upon me that accusing eye.
I thirst for accusation.
All that was sung.
All that was said in Ireland is a lie
Bred out of the c-ontagion of the throng,
Saving the rhyme rats hear before they die.
Leave nothing but the nothingS that belong
To this bare soul, let all men judge that can
Whether it be an animal or a man.
II
The rest I pass, one sentence I unsay.
Had de Valera eaten parnell's heart
No loose-lipped demagogue had won the day.
No civil rancour torn the land apart.
Had Cosgrave eaten parnell's heart, the land's
Imagination had been satisfied,
Or lacking that, government in such hands.
O'Higgins its sole statesman had not died.
Had even O'Duffy - but I name no more -
Their school a crowd, his master solitude;
Through Jonathan Swift's clark grove he passed, and there
plucked bitter wisdom that enriched his blood.
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Written by
Salvatore Quasimodo |
There is still the wind that I remember
firing the manes of horses, racing,
slanting, across the plains,
the wind that stains and scours the sandstone,
and the heart of gloomy columns, telamons,
overthrown in the grass.
Spirit of the ancients, grey
with rancour, return on the wind,
breathe in that feather-light moss
that covers those giants, hurled down by heaven.
How alone in the space that’s still yours!
And greater, your pain, if you hear, once more,
the sound that moves, far off, towards the sea,
where Hesperus streaks the sky with morning:
the jew’s-harp vibrates
in the waggoner’s mouth
as he climbs the hill of moonlight, slow,
in the murmur of Saracen olive trees.
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Written by
Thomas Moore |
Fairest! put on a while
These pinions of light I bring thee,
And o'er thy own green isle
In fancy let me wing thee.
Never did Ariel's plume,
At golden sunset, hover
O'er scenes so full of bloom
As I shall waft thee over.
Fields, where the Spring delays
And fearlessly meets the ardour
Of the warm Summer's gaze,
With only her tears to guard her;
Rocks, through myrtle boughs
In grace majestic frowning,
Like some bold warrior's brows
That Love hath just been crowning.
Islets, so freshly fair,
That never hath bird come nigh them,
But, from his course through air,
He hath been won down by them; --
Types, sweet maid, of thee,
Whose look, whose blush inviting,
Never did Love yet see
From heaven, without alighting.
Lakes, where the pearl lies hid,
And caves, where the gem is sleeping,
Bright as the tears thy lid
Lets fall in lonely weepin.
Glens, where Ocean comes,
To 'scape the wild wind's rancour;
And harbours, worthiest homes
Where Freedom's fleet can anchor.
Then, if, while scenes so grand,
So beautiful, shine before thee,
Pride for thy own dear land
Should haply be stealing o'er thee,
Oh, let grief come first,
O'er pride itself victorious --
Thinking how man hath curst
What Heaven hath made so glorious.
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