Such is the chance of life! Each gallant thane,
Prince, peer, and noble, follow in your train;—
They praise your loveliness, and in your ear
They whisper pleasing things, but insincere;
Thus, as the moths enamoured of the light,
Ye seek these realms of revelry each night.
But as ye travel thither, did ye know
What wretches walk the streets through which you go.
Sisters, whose gewgaws glitter in the glare
Of your great lustre, all expectant there,
Watching the passing crowd with avid eye,
Till one their love, or lust, or shame may buy;
Or, with commingling jealousy and rage,
They mark the progress of your equipage;
And their deceitful life essays the while
To mask their woe beneath a sickly smile!
G.W.M. REYNOLDS.
("O Dieu, si vous avez la France.")
[VII., August, 1832.]
O God! if France be still thy guardian care,
Oh! spare these mercenary combats, spare!
The thrones that now are reared but to be broke;
The rights we render, and anon revoke;
The muddy stream of laws, ideas, needs,
Flooding our social life as it proceeds;
Opposing tribunes, even when seeming one—
Soft, yielding plaster put in place of stone;
Wave chasing wave in endless ebb and flow;
War, darker still and deeper in its woe;
One party fall’n, successor scarce preludes,
Than, straight, new views their furious feuds;
The great man’s pressure on the poor for gold,
Rumors uncertain, conflicts, crimes untold;
Dark systems hatched in secret and in fear,
Telling of hate and strife to every ear,
That even to midnight sleep no peace is given,
For murd’rous cannon through our streets are
driven.
J.S. MACRAE.
("Canaris! nous t’avons oublie.")
[VIII., October, 1832.]
O Canaris! O Canaris! the poet’s song
Has blameful left untold thy deeds too long!
But when the tragic actor’s part is done,
When clamor ceases, and the fights are won,
When heroes realize what Fate decreed,
When chieftains mark no more which thousands bleed;
When they have shone, as clouded or as bright,
As fitful meteor in the heaven at night,
And when the sycophant no more proclaims
To gaping crowds the glory of their names,—
’Tis then the mem’ries of warriors die,
And fall—alas!—into obscurity,
Until the poet, in whose verse alone
Exists a world—can make their actions known,
And in eternal epic measures, show
They are not yet forgotten here below.
And yet by us neglected! glory gloomed,
Thy name seems sealed apart, entombed,
Although our shouts to pigmies rise—no
cries
To mark thy presence echo to the skies;
Farewell to Grecian heroes—silent is the
lute,
And sets your sun without one Memnon bruit?
