The chief replied: "That post shall be my care, Nor that alone, but all the works of war.
How would the sons of Troy, in arms renown'd,
And Troy's proud dames, whose garments sweep the ground,
Attaint the lustre of my former name,
Should Hector basely quit the field of fame!
My early youth was bred to martial pains,
My soul impels me to the embattled plains;
Let me be foremost to defend the throne,
And guard my father's glories, and my own.
"Yet come it will, the day decreed by fates;
(How my heart trembles while my tongue relates!)
The day when thou, imperial Troy! must bend,
And see thy warriors fall, thy glories end.
And yet no dire presage so wounds my mind,
My mother's death, the ruin of my kind,
Not Priam's hoary hairs defiled with gore,
Not all my brothers gasping on the shore;
As thine, Andromache! thy griefs I dread;
I see thee, trembling, weeping, captive led!
In Argive looms our battles to design,
And woes of which so large a part was thine!
To bear the victor's hard commands, or bring
The weight of waters from Hyperia's spring.
There, while you groan beneath the load of life,
They cry, Behold the mighty Hector's wife!
Some haughty Greek, who lives thy tears to see,
Embitters all thy woes by naming me.
The thoughts of glory past, and present shame,
A thousand griefs shall waken at the name;
May I lay cold before that dreadful day,
Prest with a load of monumental clay!
Thy Hector, wrapt in everlasting sleep,
Shall neither hear thee sigh nor see thee weep."
Thus having spoke, the illustrious chief of Troy,
Stretch'd his fond arms to clasp his lovely boy.
The babe clung crying to his nurse's breast,
Scared at the dazzling helm, and nodding crest.
With secret pleasure each fond parent smiled,
And Hector hasten'd to relieve his child;
The glittering terrors from his brows unbound,
And placed the beaming helmet on the ground;
Then kiss'd the child, and lifting high in air,
Thus to the gods preferr'd a father's prayer.
"O Thou, whose glory fills the ethereal throne,
And all ye deathless powers! protect my son!
Grant him, like me, to purchase just renown,
To guard the Trojans, to defend the crown,
Against his country's foes the war to wage,
And rise the Hector of the future age!
So when, triumphant from successful toils,
Of heroes slain he bears the reeking spoils,
Whole hosts may hail him with deserved acclaim,
And say, 'This chief transcends his father's fame;'
While pleased amidst the general shouts of Troy,
His mother's conscious heart o'erflows with joy.'
He spoke, and fondly gazing on her charms,
Restored the pleasing burden to her arms;
Soft on her fragrant breast the babe she laid,
Hush'd to repose, and with a smile survey'd,
The troubled pleasure soon chastised by fear,
She mingled with a smile a tender tear.
The soften'd chief with kind compassion view'd,
And dry'd the falling drops, and thus pursued.
"Andromache! my soul's far better part,
Why with untimely sorrows heaves thy heart?
No hostile hand can antedate my doom,
Till fate condemns me to the silent tomb.
Fix'd is the term to all the race of earth,
And such the hard condition of our birth;
No force can then resist, no flight can save;
All sink alike, the fearful and the brave.
No more-but hasten to thy tasks at home,
There guide the spindle and direct the loom.
Me glory summons to the martial scene;
The field of combat is the sphere for men.
Where heroes war, the foremost place I claim,
The first in danger, as the first in fame."
Thus having said, the glorious chief resumes
His towery helmet, black with shading plumes;
His princess parts with a prophetic sigh,
Unwilling parts, and oft reverts her eye,
That stream'd at every look: then moving slow,
Sought her own palace and indulged her woe.
There, while her tears deplored the godlike man,
Through all her train the soft infection ran;
The pious maids their mingled sorrows shed,
And mourn'd the living Hector as the dead.
THE PLAY PLACE OF EARLY DAYS.
Be it a weakness, it deserves some praise,
We love the play-place of our early days;
The scene is touching, and the heart is stone,
That feels not at that sight, and feels at none.
The wall on which we tried our graving skill,
The very name we carv'd subsisting still;
The bench on which we sat while deep employed,
Though mangled, hack'd, and hew'd, not yet destroy'd;
The little ones, unbutton'd, glowing hot,
Playing our games, and on the very spot;
As happy as we once, to kneel and draw
The chalky ring, and knuckle down at taw;
To pitch the ball into the grounded hat,
Or drive it devious with a dext'rous pat;
The pleasing spectacle at once excites
Such recollection of our own delights,
That, viewing it, we seem almost t' obtain
Our innocent sweet simple years again.
It's no' in titles nor in rank,
It's no' in wealth, like Lon'on bank,
To purchase peace and rest:
It's no' in makin' muckle mair,
It's no' in books, it's no' in lear',
To make us truly blest:
If happiness ha'e not her seat
And centre in the breast,
We may be wise, or rich, or great,
But never can be blest;
Nae treasures or pleasures
Could make us happy lang;
The heart aye's the part aye
That mak's us right or wrang.
Then let us cheerfu' acquiesce,
Nor make our scanty pleasures less
By pining at our state;
And, even should misfortunes come,
I, here wha sit, ha'e met wi' some,
An's thankfu' for them yet.
They gi'e the wit of age to youth,
They let us ken oursel';
They make us see the naked truth,
The real guid and ill.
Though losses and crosses
Be lessons right severe,
There's wit there, ye'll get there,
Ye'll find nae other where.
How beautiful is Night!
A dewy freshness fills the silent air;
No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain,
Breaks the serene of heaven:
In full-orb'd glory yonder moon divine
Rolls through the dark-blue depths.
Beneath her steady ray
The desert circle spreads,
Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky.
How beautiful is Night!
TELL me, on what holy ground,
May Domestic Peace be found?
Halcyon daughter of the skies,
Far on fearful wings she flies,
From the pomp of sceptered state,
From the rebel's noisy hate.
In a cottaged vale she dwells,
Listening to the sabbath bells!
Still around her steps are seen
Spotless Honour's meeker mien,
Love, the sire of pleasing fears,
Sorrow smiling through her tears;
And, conscious of the past employ,
Memory, bosom-spring of joy.
THE DIVINE ORIGIN OF MAN.
THE poet Campbell says, "Children have so recently come out of the hands of their Creator, that they have not had time to lose the impress of their divine origin.”
OUR birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But, trailing clouds of glory, do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.
AND canst thou, mother, for a moment think,
That we, thy children, when old age shall shed
Its blanching honours on thy weary head,
Could from our best of duties ever shrink?
Sooner the sun from his bright sphere shall sink,
Than we ungrateful leave thee in that day,
To pine in solitude thy life away,
Or shun thee tottering on the grave's cold brink.
Banish the thought!-where'er our steps may roam,
O'er smiling plains, or wastes without a tree,
Still will fond memory point our hearts to thee,
And paint the pleasures of thy peaceful home;
While duty bids us all thy griefs assuage,
And smooth the pillow of thy sinking age.
"THE leading idea in this magnificent description of the war-horse, a description which has never been equalled, is, that the majesty, energy, strength, impatience for the battle, and spirit of this noble animal, are proofs of the wisdom and power of the Great Creator, and may be appealed to as illustrating His perfections." - Barnes' Notes on the book of Job, with a New Translation.
HAST thou given the horse his strengh?
Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?
Dost thou make him to leap as the locust?
How terrible is the glory of his nostrils!
He paweth in the valley; he exulteth in his strength;
He goeth forth into the midst of arms.
He laugheth at fear, and is nothing daunted;
And he turneth not back from the sword.
Upon him rattleth the quiver;
The glittering spear and the lance.
In his fierceness and rage he devoureth the ground,
And will no longer stand still when the trumpet sounds.
When the trumpet sounds, he saith, "Aha!"
And from afar he snuffeth the battle
The war-cry of the princes, and the battle-shout.
|
