BY THE REV. W. L. BOWLES.
POMP of Egypt's elder day,
Shade of the mighty passed away,
(Whose giant works still frown sublime
Mid the twilight shades of Time,)
Fanes, of sculpture vast and rude,
That strew the sandy solitude,
Lo! before our startled eyes,
As at a wizard's wand, ye rise,
Glimmering larger through the gloom!
While on the secrets of the tomb,
Rapt in other times, we gaze,
The Mother-Queen of ancient days,
Her mystic symbol in her hand,
Great Iris, seems herself to stand.
From mazy vaults, high-arched and dim,
Hark! heard ye not Osiris' hymn?
And saw ye not in order dread
The long procession of the dead ?
Forms that the night of years concealed,
As by a flash, are here revealed;
Chiefs who sang the victor song,-
Sceptred Kings, a shadowy throng,-
From slumber of three thousand years
Each, as in light and life, appears,
Stern as of yore! Yes, vision vast,
Three thousand years have silent passed,
Suns of Empire risen and set
(Whose story Time can ne'er forget,)
Time, in the morning of her pride,
Immense, along the Nile's green side,
The City of the Sun appeared,
And her gigantic image reared.
As Memnon, like a trembling string
When the Sun, with rising ray
Streaked the lonely desert grey,
Sent forth its magic murmuring,
That just was heard, then died away;
So passed, oh! Thebes! thy morning pride !
Thy glory was the sound that died !
Dark city of the desolate,
Once thou wert rich, and proud, and great!
This busy-peopled isle was then
A waste, or roamed by savage men
Whose gay descendants now appear
To mark thy wreck of glory here.
Phantom of that city old,
Whose mystic spoils I now behold,
A kingdom's sepulchre, oh say,
Shall Albion's own illustrious day,
Thus darkly close? Her power, her fame
Thus pass away, a shade, a name?-
The Mausoleum murmured as I spoke ;
A spectre seemed to rise, like towering smoke;
It answered not, but pointed as it fled
To the black carcase of the sightless dead.
Once more I heard the sounds of earthly strife,
And the streets ringing to the stir of life.
I saw a falling leaf soon strew
The soil to which it owed its birth:
I saw a bright star falling too
But never reach the quiet earth.
Such is the lowly portion blest,
Such is ambition's foiled endeavour;
The falling leaf is soon at rest,
While stars that fall, fall on for ever!
HELVELLYN! blue Helvellyn! Hill of hills!
Giant amongst the giants! Lift thy head
Broad in the sun-light! no loose vapour dims
Thy barren grandeur; but, with front severe,
Calm, proud, and unabashed, thou look'st upon
The heights around the lake and meadows green,
Whereon the herded cattle, tiny things,
Like flowers upon the sunny landscape lie;
Behind thee cometh quick the evening pale,
Whilst in the west an amphitheatre
Of crags (such as the Deluge might have washed
In vain,) against the golden face of heaven
Turns its dark shoulder, and insults the day.
With no imposing air, no needless state,
Thou risest, blue Helvellyn;-no strange point
Lends thee distinction, no fantastic shape
Marks thee a thing whereon the mind must rest;
But in thine own broad height, peerless and vast,
Leviathan of mountains! thou art seen
Fairly ascending, amidst crags and hills
The mightiest one, -associate of the sky!
I see thee again, from these bleak sullen moors,
Boundless and bare, -long, dreary, wintry wastes,
Where the red waters lie stagnant, amidst
Black rocks, and treacherous moss, and rushes white
With age, or withered by the bitter blast ;-
Thou lookest out on thy huge limbs that lie
Sleeping far, far beneath; and on the plains
Below, and heaven which scarcely o'er thy head
Lifts its blue arch; and on the driven clouds
That loiter round thee, or impetuous burst
About thy summit with their stormy showers.
There, in thy lonely state, thou livest on
Through days, and years, and ages, -still the same Unshaken, undecaying:- not alone
A thing material haply, for within
Thy heart a secret spirit may now abide;
The same that fills thy veins in spring with green,
And hangs around thee long the summer thyme;
And when the winds of Autumn moan away
Solemn and sad, from thy supremest brow
Poureth the white stream bright and beautiful.
The winds! are they thy music? (who shall say
Thou hearest not!) - Thy echoes, which restore
The rolling thunder fainting fast away,
From death to a second life seem now, methinks,
Not mere percussions of the common air,
But imitations high of mightier sense-
Of some communicable soul that speaks
From the most inward earth, abroad to men
And mountains, bird and beast, and air and Heaven.
CALM is the tenor of my way,
Not hurried on with furious haste,
Nor raised aloft in proud display:
Pure too the tribute of my urn,
With constant flow, not idle waste,
Offering to him who sends the rain,
By serving man, the best return.
A course like mine thy trials o'er
Those living waters will attain,
Which he who drinks shall thirst no more.
BENEATH the chancel's hallowed stone,
Exposed to every rustic tread,
To few, save rustic mourners, known,
My brother, is thy lowly bed.
Few words, upon thy rough stone graven,
Thy name-thy birth-thy youth declare-
Thy innocence thy hopes of heaven,
In simplest phrase recorded there.
No 'scutcheons shine, no banners wave,
In mockery o'er my brother's grave!
The place is silent.-Rarely sound
Is heard those ancient walls around,
Nor mirthful voice of friends that meet
Discoursing in the public street;
Nor hum of business dull and loud,
Nor murmur of the passing crowd,
Nor soldier's drum, nor trumpet's swell,
From neigbouring fort or citadel;
No sound of human toil or strife
In death's lone dwelling speaks of life,
Or breaks the silence still and deep
Where thou, beneath thy burial stone,
Art laid in that unstartled sleep
The living eye hath never known.
The lonely sexton's footstep falls
In dismal echoes on the walls,
As, slowly pacing through the aisle,
He sweeps the unholy dust away,
And cobwebs, which must not defile
Those windows on the sabbath-day;
And, passing through the central nave,
Treads lightly on my brother's grave.
But when the sweet-toned sabbath-chime,
Pouring its music on the breeze,
Proclaims the well known holy time
Of prayer, and thanks, and bended knees ;
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