A thousand quivers round him rained "Joy to thy banner, bold Sir Knight! The forest cleared, he winds his horn,-- His gallant Squires come pricking in.— "T is dusk of day; — in Eden's towers The sound that from the stream ascends. It comes in murmurs up the stairs, "Sleep sweetly, babe!" 't was heard to say; "But if the goblet break or fall, Farewell thy vantage in the fray! Farewell the luck of Eden-hall!" Though years on years have taken flight, Good-fortune's still the Musgrave's thrall; Hail to his vantage in the fight! All hail the LUCK OF EDEN-HALL! Literary Souvenir. DEATH ON THE PALE HORSE. Mostrommi Pombra d'una breve notte Aminta. Atto I. Sc. 1. DEATH rode; -the moon-deserted stars on high, As if their little lamps not long could glow; And air had been a chaos dark and blighted, By some superior fire, nor died with themSurviving all its sisters, but was left Sole grace of Night's dishonoured diadem! At every bound, that giant courser cleft And, as of all her solid heart bereft, The earth's dark surface seemed a boundless roof, Crowning vacuity;-for every tread Of that gigantic steed did ring aloof With overpowering echo, deep and dread— His mane, like plumes upon a pall-clad bier, Flowed on the murky air; from either eye Flashed a red radiance in his stern career, The only light that bade the darkness fly, Save the mild beams, whose bright and argent source, Was the unconquered star that would not die. He wore no ruling curb, that pallid Horse Swayed by the guiding thong-what need of reins Upon a trackless and unbounded course? And never eagle swept the ærial plains, Or dolphin dashed along the yielding wave, Or tiger leaped to prey, 'mid hunger's pains, So swiftly as that steed his pathway clave Through every barrier, o'er the dying land, To make Death lord of Earth-and earth one grave. Death! the gaunt rider at whose mute command And for all infinite destruction yearning, He waved the weapon, and thence drew the seed And streamed a meteor in Death's hand, to kill The living, and the life of this creation, And Earth's appalling destiny fulfil. With that broad flame, in its red coruscation, The human silence, by the darkness nursed, Arose convulsively, and wailings dire:- Of wave and forest, that inflamed abyss Ingulphed the dwellers, with encircling swoop; And all forms human that survived till this. A pale, emaciate, and despairing troop When all beside hath sunk, tumultuous flock For yet a breath of life;-but vainly triedFor still the fires arose with ten-fold shock. Servant and lord were there-but Power had died; And Beauty moved not, where she once was chief, — No tone commanding left the lips of Pride ; But ever, ever did Despair and Grief And many rushed, in strange, disordered bands, Till on the peak, which, barren all and black, Still towered aloft, did one pale lover lie, Left with the loved one he would not forsake. She seemed to view him with a spirit's eye, The earth lay tombed in fire-but still above, A token of some future glory seeming, Amid the present's fiery desolation; As when the elements with storms are teeming, And winter o'er the land holds tyrant station, Some branch of green proclaims a new-born spring, Will robe the young earth in its decoration. Death, on his pallid Horse, rode triumphing Fit rider for such steed-through flaming space; From the high star's pre-eminence of place, And when that courser, and his grim bestrider And a perennial morning dawned afar, Aperient dews descended, as baptising A new creation with their crystal rain; The thronging clouds which did therein remainThe gloomy pilgrims of the morning air Dissolved in lustre, till the eye in vain Had looked to heaven, to view the bright star there ;— Was heaven: sweet sounds, and visions fair, And beings lovelier than the loveliest sky, And spirits, which once wore the clay of earth, Rose to a second, and diviner birth— And quaffed of life, at life's undying springs. Literary Magnet. |