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Written by Robert Seymour Bridges | Create an image from this poem

From The Testament of Beauty

 'Twas at that hour of beauty when the setting sun
squandereth his cloudy bed with rosy hues, to flood
his lov'd works as in turn he biddeth them Good-night;
and all the towers and temples and mansions of men
face him in bright farewell, ere they creep from their pomp
naked beneath the darkness;- while to mortal eyes
'tis given, ifso they close not of fatigue, nor strain
at lamplit tasks-'tis given, as for a royal boon
to beggarly outcasts in homeless vigil, to watch
where uncurtain's behind the great windows of space
Heav'n's jewel'd company circleth unapproachably-
'Twas at sunset that I, fleeing to hide my soul
in refuge of beauty from a mortal distress,
walk'd alone with the Muse in her garden of thought,
discoursing at liberty with the mazy dreams
that came wavering pertinaciously about me; as when
the small bats, issued from their hangings, flitter o'erhead
thru' the summer twilight, with thin cries to and fro
hunting in muffled flight atween the stars and flowers.
Then fell I in strange delusion, illusion strange to tell;
for as a man who lyeth fast asleep in his bed
may dream he waketh, and that he walketh upright
pursuing some endeavour in full conscience-so 'twas
with me; but contrawise; for being in truth awake
methought I slept and dreamt; and in thatt dream methought
I was telling a dream; nor telling was I as one
who, truly awaked from a true sleep, thinketh to tell
his dream to a friend, but for his scant remembrances
findeth no token of speech-it was not so with me;
for my tale was my dream and my dream the telling,
and I remember wondring the while I told it
how I told it so tellingly. And yet now 'twould seem
that Reason inveighed me with her old orderings;
as once when she took thought to adjust theology,
peopling the inane that vex'd her between God and man
with a hierarchy of angels; like those asteroids
wherewith she later fill'd the gap 'twixt Jove and Mars.
Verily by Beauty it is that we come as WISDOM,
yet not by Reason at Beauty; and now with many words
pleasing myself betimes I am fearing lest in the end
I play the tedious orator who maundereth on
for lack of heart to make an end of his nothings.
Wherefor as when a runner who hath run his round
handeth his staff away, and is glad of his rest,
here break I off, knowing the goal was not for me
the while I ran on telling of what cannot be told.

For not the Muse herself can tell of Goddes love;
which cometh to the child from the Mother's embrace,
an Idea spacious as the starry firmament's
inescapable infinity of radiant gaze,
that fadeth only as it outpasseth mortal sight:
and this direct contact is 't with eternities,
this springtide miracle of the soul's nativity
that oft hath set philosophers adrift in dream;
which thing Christ taught, when he set up a little child
to teach his first Apostles and to accuse their pride,
saying, 'Unless ye shall receive it as a child,
ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.'
So thru'out all his young mental apprenticehood
the child of very simplicity, and in the grace
and beauteous attitude of infantine wonder,
is apt to absorb Ideas in primal purity,
and by the assimilation of thatt immortal food
may build immortal life; but ever with the growth
of understanding, as the sensible images
are more and more corrupt, troubled by questioning thought,
or with vainglory alloy'd, 'tis like enought the boy
in prospect of his manhood wil hav cast to th' winds
his Baptism with his Babyhood; nor might he escape
the fall of Ev'ryman, did not a second call
of nature's Love await him to confirm his Faith
or to revoke him if he is whollylapsed therefrom.
And so mighty is this second vision, which cometh
in puberty of body and adolescence of mind
that, forgetting his Mother, he calleth it 'first Love';
for it mocketh at suasion or stubbornness of heart,
as the oceantide of the omnipotent Pleasur of God,
flushing all avenues of life, and unawares
by thousandfold approach forestalling its full flood
with divination of the secret contacts of Love,--
of faintest ecstasies aslumber in Nature's calm,
like thought in a closed book, where some poet long since
sang his throbbing passion to immortal sleep-with coy
tenderness delicat as the shifting hues
that sanctify the silent dawn with wonder-gleams,
whose evanescence is the seal of their glory,
consumed in self-becoming of eternity;
til every moment as it flyeth, cryeth 'Seize!
Seize me ere I die! I am the Life of Life.'
'Tis thus by near approach to an eternal presence
man's heart with divine furor kindled and possess'd
falleth in blind surrender; and finding therewithal
in fullest devotion the full reconcilement
betwixt his animal and spiritual desires,
such welcome hour of bliss standeth for certain pledge
of happiness perdurable: and coud he sustain
this great enthusiasm, then the unbounded promise
would keep fulfilment; since the marriage of true minds
is thatt once fabled garden, amidst of which was set
the single Tree that bore such med'cinable fruit
that if man ate thereof he should liv for ever.
Friendship is in loving rather than in being lov'd,
which is its mutual benediction and recompense;
and tho' this be, and tho' love is from lovers learn'd,
it springeth none the less from the old essence of self.
No friendless man ('twas well said) can be truly himself;
what a man looketh for in his friend and findeth,
and loving self best, loveth better than himself,
is his own better self, his live lovable idea,
flowering by expansion in the loves of his life.
And in the nobility of our earthly friendships
we hav al grades of attainment, and the best may claim
perfection of kind; and so, since ther be many bonds
other than breed (friendships of lesser motiv, found
even in the brutes) and since our politick is based
on actual association of living men, 'twil come
that the spiritual idea of Friendship, the huge
vastidity of its essence, is fritter'd away
in observation of the usual habits of men;
as happ'd with the great moralist, where his book saith
that ther can be no friendship betwixt God and man
because of their unlimited disparity.
From this dilemma of pagan thought, this poison of faith,
Man-soul made glad escape in the worship of Christ;
for his humanity is God's Personality,
and communion with him is the life of the soul.
Of which living ideas (when in the struggle of thought
harden'd by language they became symbols of faith)
Reason builded her maze, wherefrom none should escape,
wandering intent to map and learn her tortuous clews,
chanting their clerkly creed to the high-echoing stones
of their hand-fashion'd temple: but the Wind of heav'n
bloweth where it listeth, and Christ yet walketh the earth,
and talketh still as with those two disciples once 
on the road to Emmaus-where they walk and are sad;
whose vision of him then was his victory over death,
thatt resurrection which all his lovers should share,
who in loving him had learn'd the Ethick of happiness;
whereby they too should come where he was ascended
to reign over men's hearts in the Kingdom of God.
Our happiest earthly comradeships hold a foretaste
of the feast of salvation and by thatt virtue in them
provoke desire beyond them to out-reach and surmount
their humanity in some superhumanity
and ultimat perfection: which, howe'ever 'tis found
or strangeley imagin'd, answereth to the need of each
and pulleth him instinctivly as to a final cause.
Thus unto all who hav found their high ideal in Christ,
Christ is to them the essence discern'd or undeiscern'd
of all their human friendships; and each lover of him
and of his beauty must be as a bud on the Vine
and hav participation in him; for Goddes love
is unescapable as nature's environment,
which if a man ignore or think to thrust it off
he is the ill-natured fool that runneth blindly on death.
This Individualism is man's true Socialism.
This is the rife Idea whose spiritual beauty
multiplieth in communion to transcendant might.
This is thatt excelent way whereon if we wil walk
all things shall be added unto us-thatt Love which inspired
the wayward Visionary in his doctrinal ode
to the three christian Graces, the Church's first hymn
and only deathless athanasian creed,--the which
'except a man believe he cannot be saved.'
This is the endearing bond whereby Christ's company
yet holdeth together on the truth of his promise
that he spake of his grat pity and trust in man's love,
'Lo, I am with you always ev'n to the end of the world.'
Truly the Soul returneth the body's loving
where it hath won it...and God so loveth the world...
and in the fellowship of the friendship of Christ
God is seen as the very self-essence of love,
Creator and mover of all as activ Lover of all,
self-express'd in not-self, mind and body, mother and child,
'twixt lover and loved, God and man: but ONE ETERNAL
in the love of Beauty and in the selfhood of Love.


Written by Thomas Campbell | Create an image from this poem

Love And Madness

 Hark ! from the battlements of yonder tower
The solemn bell has tolled the midnight hour !
Roused from drear visions of distempered sleep,
Poor Broderick wakes—in solitude to weep !

"Cease, Memory; cease (the friendless mourner cried)
To probe the bosom too severely tried !
Oh ! ever cease, my pensive thoughts, to stray
Through tie bright fields of Fortune's better day,
When youthful Hope, the music of the mind,
Tuned all its charms, and Errington was kind !

Yet, can I cease, while glows this trembling frame,
In sighs to speak thy melancholy name !
I hear thy spirit wail in every storm !
In midniglit shades I view thy passing form !
Pale as in that sad hour when doomed to feel !
Deep in thy perjured heart, the bloody steel !

Demons of Vengeance ! ye, at whose command
I grasped the sword with more than woman's hand
Say ye, did Pity's trembling voice control,
Or horror damp the purpose of my soul ? 
No ! my wild heart sat smiling o'er the plan,
'Till Hate fulfilled what baffled love began !

Yes ; let the clay-cold breast that never knew 
One tender pang to generous nature true,
Half-mingling pity with the gall of scorn,
Condemn this heart, that bled in love forlorn !

And ye, proud fair, whose soul no gladness warms,
Save Rapture's homage to your conscious charms !
Delighted idols of a gaudy train,
Ill can your blunter feelings guess the pain,
When the fond, faithful heart, inspired to prove
Friendship refined, the calm delight of Love,
Feels all its tender strings with anguish torn,
And bleeds at perjured Pride's inhuman scorn.

Say, then, did pitying Heaven condemn the deed,
When Vengeance bade thee, faithless lover! bleed ?
Long had I watched thy dark foreboding brow,
What time thy bosom scorned its dearest vow !
Sad, though I wept the friend, the lover changed,
Still thy cold look was scornful and estranged,
Till from thy pity, love, and shelter thrown,
I wandered hopeless, friendless, and alone !

Oh ! righteous Heaven ! 't was then my tortured soul
First gave to wrath unlimited control !
Adieu the silent look ! the streaming eye !
The murmured plaint ! the deep heart-heaving sigh !
Long-slumbering Vengeance wakes to better deeds ;
He shrieks, he falls, the perjured lover bleeds !
Now the last laugh of agony is o'er,
And pale in blood he sleeps, to wake no more !

'T is done ! the flame of hate no longer burns :
Nature relents, but, ah! too late returns!
Why does my soul this gush of fondness feel ?
Trembling and faint, I drop the guilty steel !
Cold on my heart the hand of terror lies,
And shades of horror close my languid eyes !

Oh ! 't was a deed of Murder's deepest grain !
Could Broderick's soul so true to wrath remain ?
A friend long true, a once fond lover fell ?
Where Love was fostered could not Pity dwell ?

Unhappy youth ! while you pale cresscent glows
To watch on silent Nature's deep repose,
Thy sleepless spirit, breathing from the tomb ,
Foretells my fate, and summons me to come !
Once more I see thy sheeted spectre stand ,
Roll the dim eye, and wave the paly hand !

Soon may this fluttering spark of vital flame
Forsake its languid melancholy frame !
Soon may these eyes their trembling lustre close,
Welcome the dreamless night of long repose !
Soon may this woe-worn spirit seek the bourne
Where, lulled to slumber, Grief forgets to mourn !"
Written by Mahmoud Darwish | Create an image from this poem

Under Siege

 Here on the slopes of hills, facing the dusk and the cannon of time 
Close to the gardens of broken shadows, 
We do what prisoners do, 
And what the jobless do: 
We cultivate hope. 

*** 
A country preparing for dawn. We grow less intelligent 
For we closely watch the hour of victory: 
No night in our night lit up by the shelling 
Our enemies are watchful and light the light for us 
In the darkness of cellars. 

*** 
Here there is no "I". 
Here Adam remembers the dust of his clay. 

*** 
On the verge of death, he says: 
I have no trace left to lose:
Free I am so close to my liberty. My future lies in my own hand. 
Soon I shall penetrate my life, 
I shall be born free and parentless, 
And as my name I shall choose azure letters... 

*** 
You who stand in the doorway, come in, 
Drink Arabic coffee with us 
And you will sense that you are men like us 
You who stand in the doorways of houses 
Come out of our morningtimes, 
We shall feel reassured to be 
Men like you! 

*** 
When the planes disappear, the white, white doves 
Fly off and wash the cheeks of heaven 
With unbound wings taking radiance back again, taking possession 
Of the ether and of play. Higher, higher still, the white, white doves 
Fly off. Ah, if only the sky 
Were real [a man passing between two bombs said to me]. 

*** 
Cypresses behind the soldiers, minarets protecting 
The sky from collapse. Behind the hedge of steel 
Soldiers piss—under the watchful eye of a tank— 
And the autumnal day ends its golden wandering in 
A street as wide as a church after Sunday mass... 

*** 
[To a killer] If you had contemplated the victim’s face 
And thought it through, you would have remembered your mother in the 
Gas chamber, you would have been freed from the reason for the rifle 
And you would have changed your mind: this is not the way 
to find one’s identity again. 

*** 
The siege is a waiting period 
Waiting on the tilted ladder in the middle of the storm. 

*** 
Alone, we are alone as far down as the sediment 
Were it not for the visits of the rainbows. 

*** 
We have brothers behind this expanse. 
Excellent brothers. They love us. They watch us and weep. 
Then, in secret, they tell each other: 
"Ah! if this siege had been declared..." They do not finish their sentence: 
"Don’t abandon us, don’t leave us." 

*** 
Our losses: between two and eight martyrs each day. 
And ten wounded. 
And twenty homes. 
And fifty olive trees... 
Added to this the structural flaw that 
Will arrive at the poem, the play, and the unfinished canvas. 

*** 
A woman told the cloud: cover my beloved 
For my clothing is drenched with his blood. 

*** 
If you are not rain, my love 
Be tree 
Sated with fertility, be tree 
If you are not tree, my love 
Be stone 
Saturated with humidity, be stone 
If you are not stone, my love 
Be moon 
In the dream of the beloved woman, be moon 
[So spoke a woman 
to her son at his funeral] 

*** 
Oh watchmen! Are you not weary 
Of lying in wait for the light in our salt 
And of the incandescence of the rose in our wound 
Are you not weary, oh watchmen? 

*** 

A little of this absolute and blue infinity 
Would be enough 
To lighten the burden of these times 
And to cleanse the mire of this place. 

*** 
It is up to the soul to come down from its mount 
And on its silken feet walk 
By my side, hand in hand, like two longtime 
Friends who share the ancient bread 
And the antique glass of wine 
May we walk this road together 
And then our days will take different directions: 
I, beyond nature, which in turn 
Will choose to squat on a high-up rock. 

*** 
On my rubble the shadow grows green, 
And the wolf is dozing on the skin of my goat 
He dreams as I do, as the angel does 
That life is here...not over there. 

*** 
In the state of siege, time becomes space 
Transfixed in its eternity 
In the state of siege, space becomes time 
That has missed its yesterday and its tomorrow. 

*** 
The martyr encircles me every time I live a new day 
And questions me: Where were you? Take every word 
You have given me back to the dictionaries 
And relieve the sleepers from the echo’s buzz. 

*** 
The martyr enlightens me: beyond the expanse 
I did not look 
For the virgins of immortality for I love life 
On earth, amid fig trees and pines, 
But I cannot reach it, and then, too, I took aim at it 
With my last possession: the blood in the body of azure. 

*** 
The martyr warned me: Do not believe their ululations 
Believe my father when, weeping, he looks at my photograph 
How did we trade roles, my son, how did you precede me. 
I first, I the first one! 

*** 
The martyr encircles me: my place and my crude furniture are all that I have changed. 
I put a gazelle on my bed, 
And a crescent of moon on my finger 
To appease my sorrow. 

*** 
The siege will last in order to convince us we must choose an enslavement that does no harm, in fullest liberty! 

*** 
Resisting means assuring oneself of the heart’s health, 
The health of the testicles and of your tenacious disease: 
The disease of hope. 

*** 
And in what remains of the dawn, I walk toward my exterior 
And in what remains of the night, I hear the sound of footsteps inside me. 

*** 
Greetings to the one who shares with me an attention to 
The drunkenness of light, the light of the butterfly, in the 
Blackness of this tunnel! 

*** 
Greetings to the one who shares my glass with me 
In the denseness of a night outflanking the two spaces: 
Greetings to my apparition. 

*** 
My friends are always preparing a farewell feast for me, 
A soothing grave in the shade of oak trees 
A marble epitaph of time 
And always I anticipate them at the funeral: 
Who then has died...who? 

*** 
Writing is a puppy biting nothingness 
Writing wounds without a trace of blood. 

*** 
Our cups of coffee. Birds green trees 
In the blue shade, the sun gambols from one wall 
To another like a gazelle 
The water in the clouds has the unlimited shape of what is left to us 
Of the sky. And other things of suspended memories 
Reveal that this morning is powerful and splendid, 
And that we are the guests of eternity.
Written by James Joyce | Create an image from this poem

The Ballad of Persse OReilly

 Have you heard of one Humpty Dumpty
How he fell with a roll and a rumble
And curled up like Lord Olofa Crumple
By the butt of the Magazine Wall,
 (Chorus) Of the Magazine Wall,
 Hump, helmet and all?

He was one time our King of the Castle
Now he's kicked about like a rotten old parsnip.
And from Green street he'll be sent by order of His Worship
To the penal jail of Mountjoy
 (Chorus) To the jail of Mountjoy!
 Jail him and joy.

He was fafafather of all schemes for to bother us
Slow coaches and immaculate contraceptives for the populace,
Mare's milk for the sick, seven dry Sundays a week,
Openair love and religion's reform,
 (Chorus) And religious reform,
 Hideous in form.

Arrah, why, says you, couldn't he manage it?
I'll go bail, my fine dairyman darling,
Like the bumping bull of the Cassidys
All your butter is in your horns.
 (Chorus) His butter is in his horns.
 Butter his horns!

(Repeat) Hurrah there, Hosty, frosty Hosty, change that shirt
 on ye,
Rhyme the rann, the king of all ranns!


Balbaccio, balbuccio!

We had chaw chaw chops, chairs, chewing gum, the chicken-pox
 and china chambers
Universally provided by this soffsoaping salesman.
Small wonder He'll Cheat E'erawan our local lads nicknamed him.
When Chimpden first took the floor
 (Chorus) With his bucketshop store
 Down Bargainweg, Lower.

So snug he was in his hotel premises sumptuous
But soon we'll bonfire all his trash, tricks and trumpery
And 'tis short till sheriff Clancy'll be winding up his unlimited
 company
With the bailiff's bom at the door,
 (Chorus) Bimbam at the door.
 Then he'll bum no more.

Sweet bad luck on the waves washed to our island
The hooker of that hammerfast viking
And Gall's curse on the day when Eblana bay
Saw his black and tan man-o'-war.
 (Chorus) Saw his man-o'-war
 On the harbour bar.

Where from? roars Poolbeg. Cookingha'pence, he bawls
 Donnez-moi scampitle, wick an wipin'fampiny
Fingal Mac Oscar Onesine Bargearse Boniface
Thok's min gammelhole Norveegickers moniker
Og as ay are at gammelhore Norveegickers cod.
 (Chorus) A Norwegian camel old cod.
 He is, begod.


Lift it, Hosty, lift it, ye devil, ye! up with the rann,
 the rhyming rann!

It was during some fresh water garden pumping
Or, according to the Nursing Mirror, while admiring the monkeys
That our heavyweight heathen Humpharey
Made bold a maid to woo
 (Chorus) Woohoo, what'll she doo!
 The general lost her maidenloo!

He ought to blush for himself, the old hayheaded philosopher,
For to go and shove himself that way on top of her.
Begob, he's the crux of the catalogue
Of our antediluvial zoo,
 (Chorus) Messrs Billing and Coo.
 Noah's larks, good as noo.

He was joulting by Wellinton's monument
Our rotorious hippopopotamuns
When some bugger let down the backtrap of the omnibus
And he caught his death of fusiliers,
 (Chorus) With his rent in his rears.
 Give him six years.

'Tis sore pity for his innocent poor children
But look out for his missus legitimate!
When that frew gets a grip of old Earwicker
Won't there be earwigs on the green?
 (Chorus) Big earwigs on the green,
 The largest ever you seen.

 Suffoclose! Shikespower! Seudodanto! Anonymoses!

Then we'll have a free trade Gael's band and mass meeting
For to sod him the brave son of Scandiknavery.
And we'll bury him down in Oxmanstown
Along with the devil and the Danes,
 (Chorus) With the deaf and dumb Danes,
 And all their remains.

And not all the king's men nor his horses
Will resurrect his corpus
For there's no true spell in Connacht or hell
 (bis) That's able to raise a Cain.
Written by Philip Freneau | Create an image from this poem

On the Universality and Other Attributes of the God of Nature

 ALL that we see, about, abroad,
What is it all, but nature's God?
In meaner works discovered here
No less than in the starry sphere.

In seas, on earth, this God is seen;
All that exist, upon Him lean;
He lives in all, and never strayed
A moment from the works He made:

His system fixed on general laws
Bespeaks a wise creating cause;
Impartially He rules mankind
And all that on this globe we find.

Unchanged in all that seems to change,
Unbounded space is His great range;
To one vast purpose always true,
No time, with Him, is old or new.

In all the attributes divine
Unlimited perfectings shine;
In these enwrapt, in these complete,
All virtues in that centre meet.

This power doth all powers transcend,
To all intelligence a friend,
Exists, the greatest and the best
Throughout all the worlds, to make them blest.

All that He did He first approved,
He all things into being loved;
O'er all He made He still presides,
For them in life, or death provides.


Written by Philip Larkin | Create an image from this poem

To My Wife

 Choice of you shuts up that peacock-fan
The future was, in which temptingly spread
All that elaborative nature can.
Matchless potential! but unlimited
Only so long as I elected nothing;
Simply to choose stopped all ways up but one,
And sent the tease-birds from the bushes flapping.
No future now. I and you now, alone.

So for your face I have exchanged all faces,
For your few properties bargained the brisk
Baggage, the mask-and-magic-man's regalia.
Now you become my boredom and my failure,
Another way of suffering, a risk,
A heavier-than-air hypostasis.
Written by John Berryman | Create an image from this poem

Dream Song 125: Bards freezing naked up to the neck in water

 Bards freezing, naked, up to the neck in water,
wholly in dark, time limited, different from
initiations now:
the class in writing, clothed & dry & light,
unlimited time, till Poetry takes some,
nobody reads them though,

no trumpets, no solemn instauration, no change;
no commissions, ladies high in soulful praise
(pal) none,
costumes as usual, turtleneck sweaters, loafers,
in & among the busy Many who brays
art is if anything fun.

I say the subject was given as of old,
prescribed the technical treatment, tests really tests
were set by the masters & graded.
I say the paralyzed fear lest one's not one
is back with us forever, worsts & bests
spring for the public, faded.
Written by Anne Kingsmill Finch | Create an image from this poem

t of the Fifth Scene in the Second Act of Athalia

 Enter, as in the Temple of Jerusalem,
ATHALIA, MATHAN, ABNER

[Mathan]
WHY, to our Wonder, in this Place is seen, 
Thus discompos'd, and alter'd, Juda's Queen? 
May we demand, what Terrors seize your Breast, 
Or, why your Steps are to this House addrest, 
Where your unguarded Person stands expos'd 
To secret Foes, within its Walls inclos'd? 
Can it be thought that you remit that Hate? 


[Athalia]
No more! but Both observe what I relate: 
Not, that I mean (recalling Times of Blood) 
To make you Judges of the Paths I trod, 
When to the empty'd Throne I boldly rose, 
Treating all Intercepters as my Foes. 
'Twas Heav'ns Decree, that I should thus succeed, 
Whose following Favour justifies the Deed, 
Extending my unlimited Command 
From Sea to Sea o'er the obedient Land: 
Whilst your Jerusalem all Peace enjoys, 
Nor now the' encroaching Philistine destroys, 
Nor wandring Arab his Pavilion spreads, 
Near Jordan's Banks, nor wastes his flow'ry Meads. 
The great Assyrian, Terror of your Kings, 
Who bought his Friendship with their holiest Things, 
Yields that a Sister, of his pow'rful Race, 
Should sway these Realms, and dignify the Place. 
Nor need we add the late insulting Foe, 
The furious Jehu does this Sceptre know, 
And sinks beneath the Load of conscious Fears, 
When in Samaria he my Actions hears. 
Distrest by Foes, which I've against him rais'd, 
He sees me unmolested, fix'd, and pleas'd; 
At least, till now thus glorious was my State; 
But something's threatned from relaxing Fate, 
And the last Night, which should have brought me Rest, 
Has all these great Ideas dispossest. 
A Dream, a Vision, an apparent View 
Of what, methinks, does still my Steps pursue, 
Hangs on my pensive Heart, and bears it down 
More than the weight of an objected Crown, 
My Mother (be the Name with Rev'rence spoke!) 
Ere chearful Day thro' horrid Shades had broke, 
Approach'd my Bed, magnificent her Dress, 
Her Shape, her Air did Jesabel confess: 
Nor seem'd her Face to have refus'd that Art, 
Which, in despight of Age, does Youth impart, 
And which she practis'd, scorning to decay, 
Or to be vanquish'd ev'n in Nature's way. 
Thus all array'd, in such defying Pride 
As when th' injurious Conqu'ror she descry'd, 
And did in height of Pow'r for ill-got Pow'r deride. 
To me she spake, these Accents to me came: 
"Thou worthy Daughter of my soaring Fame, 
"Tho' with a more transcendent Spirit fill'd, 
"Tho' struggling Pow'rs attempt thy Life to shield, 
"The Hebrew's God (Oh, tremble at the sound!) 
"Shall Thee and Them, and all their Rights confound. 
A pitying Groan concludes, no Word of Aid. 
My Arms I thought to throw about the Shade 
Of that lov'd Parent, but my troubled Sight 
No more directed them to aim aright, 
Nor ought presented, but a heap of Bones, 
For which fierce Dogs contended on the Stones, 
With Flakes of mangled Flesh, that quiv'ring still 
Proclaim'd the Freshness of the suffer'd Ill; 
Distain'd with Blood the Pavement, and the Wall, 
Appear'd as in that memorable Fall– 


[Abner]
Oh! just avenging Heaven!– [aside. 

[Mathan]
Sure, Dreams like these are for Prevention given.

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry