And divine Art, that fast to memory clung, XXVII. COMPOSED AT RYDAL ON MAY MORNING, 1838. IF with old love of you, dear Hills! I share To sit and muse, fanned by its dewy air Amid the sunny, shadowy Coliseum ; Heard them, unchecked by aught of saddening hue, For victories there won by flower-crowned Spring, Chant in full choir their innocent Te Deum. XXVIII. THE PILLAR OF TRAJAN. WHERE towers are crushed, and unforbidden weeds A votive Column, spared by fire and flood:- Or softly stealing into modest shade. So, pleased with purple clusters to entwine Some lofty elm-tree, mounts the daring vine; The woodbine so, with spiral grace, and breathes Wide-spreading odors from her flowery wreaths. Borne by the Muse from rills in shepherds' ears Murmuring but one smooth story for all years, I gladly commune with the mind and heart Of him who thus survives by classic art, And study Trajan as by Pliny seen; Behold how fought the Chief whose conquering sword Stretched far as earth might own a single lord; Memorial Pillar! 'mid the wrecks of Time Preserve thy charge with confidence sublime, The exultations, pomps, and cares of Rome, Whence half the breathing world received its doom: Things that recoil from language; that, if shown By apter pencil, from the light had flown. A Pontiff, Trajan here the Gods implores, There greets an Embassy from Indian shores; Lo! he harangues his cohorts, - there the storin Spirit in him preeminent, who guides, From honored Instruments that round him wait; Rise as he may, his grandeur scorns the test - Alas! that One thus disciplined could toil To enslave whole nations on their native soil; So emulous of Macedonian fame, That, when his age was measured with his aim, Where now the haughty Empire that was spread With such fond hope? her very speech is dead : Yet glorious Art the power of Time defies, And Trajan still, through various enterprise, Mounts, in this fine illusion, toward the skies: Still are we present with the imperial Chief, Nor cease to gaze upon the bold Relief, Till Rome, to silent marble unconfined, Becomes with all her years a vision of the Mind THE EGYPTIAN MAID: OR, THE ROMANCE OF THE WATER-LILY. [For the names and persons in the following poem, see the "History of the Renowned Prince Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table"; for the rest, the Author is answerable; only it may be proper to add, that the Lotus, with the bust of the Goddess appearing to rise out of the full-blown flower, was suggested by the beautiful work of ancient art once included among the Townley Marbles, and now in the British Museum.] WHILE Merlin paced the Cornish sands, Of a bright Ship that seemed to hang in air; And took from men her name, THE WATER LILY. Soft was the wind, that landward blew ; And, as the Moon, o'er some dark hill ascendant, Grows from a little edge of light To a full orb, this Pinnace bright |