Over a mouldering heir-loom its companion,
An oaken chest half eaten by the worm
But richly carved by Anthony of Trent,
With scripture stories from the life of Christ.
A chest that came from Venice, and had held
The ducal robes of some old ancestor
That by the way it may be true or false← But dont forget the picture, and you will not When you have heard the tale they told me there :
She was an only child her name Ginevra,
The joy, the pride of an indulgent father
And in her fifteenth year became a bride |
Marrying an only son, Francesco Doria,
Her playmate from her birth and her first love.
Just as she looks there in her bridal dress |
She was all gentleness, all gaiety
Her pranks the favorite theme of every tongue.]
But now the day was come, the day, the hour, |
Now frowning, smiling for the hundredth time,]
The nurse, that ancient lady preach'd decorum ;
And in the lustre of her youth, she gave
Her hand, with her heart in it, to Francesco.
Great was the joy; but at the nuptial feast
When all sate down, the bride herself was wanting
Nor was she to be found Her father cried
""Tis but to make a trial of our love! }
And fill'd his glass to all+but his hand shook
And soon from guest to guest the panic spread.
"Twas but that instant she had left Francesco,
Laughing and looking back, and flying still,
Her ivory tooth imprinted on his finger;
But now, alas!(she was not to be found;/
Nor from that hour could anything be guess'a
But that she was not
Francesco flew to Venice,faud embarking |
Flung it away in battle with the Turk
Donati lived and long might you have seen
An old man wanderinglas in quest of something,
Something he could not find he knew not what.
When he was gone, the house remained awhile\
Silent and tenantless then went to strangers. |
Full fifty years were past, and all forgotter,
When on an idle day a day of search,
'Mid the old lumber on the gallery,}
That mouldering chest was noticed; and 'twas said
By one as young, as thoughtless as Ginevra,
"Why not remove it from its lurking place?"
'Twas done as soon as said: \but on the way
It burst, it fell; and lo! a skeleton,
With here and there a pearl, an emerald stone,
A golden clasp,\clasping a shred of gold
All else had perish'd save a wedding ring,
And a small seal her mother's legacy,{
There had she found a grave 11
Within that chest had she conceal'd herself
Fluttering with joy, the happiest of the happy;
When a spring lock, that lay in ambush there,
Fastened her down for ever ||
THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.
NOT a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried ; ——
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot,
O'er the grave where our hero/we buried.
We buried him darkly, at dead of night,-
The sods with our bayonets turning
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.
No useless coffin Jenclosed his breast,
Nor in sheet nor in shroud/we bound him; But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, With his martial cloak around him.
Few, and short) were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word in sorrow,
But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.
We thought, as we hollow'd his narrow bed,
And smooth'd down his lonely pillow,
That the foe and the stranger would tread o’er his head, And we far away on the billow.
Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him,
But nothing he'll reck, if they'll let him sleep on.
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.
But half of our heavy task was done,
When the clock toll'd the hour for retiring, And we heard the distant and random gun, ➖➖➖ That the foe was sullenly firing.
Slowly and sadly we laid him down,
From the field of his fame) fresh and gory;
We carved not a line, we raised not a stone,
But we left him alone in his glory.
PARRHASIUS, a painter of Athens, amongst those Olynthian captives Philip of Macedon brought home to sell, bought one very old man; and, when he had him at his house, put him to death with extreme torture and torment, the better, by his example, to express the pains and passions of his Prometheus, whom he was then about to paint.
THE golden light into the painter's roora
Streamed richly, and the hidden colors stole
From the dark pictures radiantly forth,
And, in the soft and dewy atmosphere,
Like forms and landscapes magical, they lay.
The walls were hung with armor, and about,
In the dim corners stood the sculptured forms
Of Cytheris, and Dian, and stern Jove,
And from the casement soberly away
Fell the grotesque, long shadows, full and true,
And, like a veil of filmy mellowness,
The lint-specks floated in the twilight air.
Parrhasius stood, gazing forgetfully
Upon his canvass. There Prometheus lay,
Chained to the cold rocks of Mount Caucasus,
The vulture at his vitals, and the links
Of the lame Lemnian festering in his flesh;
And, as the painter's mind felt through the dim,
Rapt mystery, and pluck'd the shadows wild
Forth with its reaching fancy, and with form
And color clad them, his fine, earnest eye
Flashed with a passionate fire, and the quick curl
Of his thin nostril, and his quivering lip
Were like the winged god's, breathing from his flight.
DRING me the captive now!
My hand feels skilful, and the shadows lift
From my waked spirit airily and swift:
And I could paint the bow
Upon the bended heavens, around me play
Colors of such divinity to-day.
Ha! bind him on his back!
Look! as Prometheus in my picture here
or he faints! stand with the cordial near!
Now bend him to the rack!
Press down the poisoned links into his flesh!
And tear agape that healing wound afresh!
So let him writhe! How long
Will he live thus? Quick, my good pencil now;
What a fine agony works upon his brow!
Ha! grey-haired, and so strong!
How fearfully he stifles that short moan!
Gods! if I could but paint a dying groan!
Pity thee! So I do!
I pity the dumb victim at the altar;
But does the robed priest for his pity falter?
I'd rack thee, though I knew
A thousand lives were perishing in thine:
What were ten thousand to a fame like mine?
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