The anchor dropp'd; it lay along the deep,
Like a huge lion in the sun asleep,
While round it swarm'd the proas' flitting chain,
Like summer bees that hum around his mane.
The white man landed !-need the rest be told?
The New World stretch'd its dusk hand to the
Old;
Each was to each a marvel, and the tie
Of wonder warm'd to better sympathy.
Kind was the welcome of the sun-born sires,
And kinder still their daughters' gentler fires.
Their union grew; the children of the storm
Found beauty link'd with many a dusky form;
While these in turn admired the paler glow,
Which seem'd so white in climes that knew no
The chase, the race, the liberty to roam, The soil where every cottage show'd a home; The sea-spread net, the lightly-launch'd canoe, Which stemm'd the studded archipelago, O'er whose blue bosom rose the starry isles; The healthy slumber, earn'd by sportive toils; The palm, the loftiest dryad of the woods, Within whose bosom infant Bacchus broods, While eagles scarce build higher than the crest Which shadows o'er the vineyard in her breast; The cava feast, the yam, the cocoa's root, Which bears at once the cup, and milk, and fruit; [yields The bread-tree, which, without the ploughshare, The unreap'd harvest of unfurrow'd fields, And bakes its unadulterated loaves Without a furnace in unpurchased groves, And flings off famine from its fertile breast, A priceless market for the gathering guest ;These, with the luxuries of seas and woods, The airy joys of social solitudes,
Tamed each rude wanderer to the sympathies Of those who were more happy, if less wise, Did more than Europe's discipline had done, And civilized Civilization's son.
Of these, and there was many a willing pair,
Neuha and Torquil were not the least fair:
Both children of the isles, though distant far;
Both born beneath a sea presiding star;
Both nourish'd amidst nature's native scenes,
Loved to the last, whatever intervenes
Petween us and our childhood's sympathy,
Which still reverts to what first caught the eye.
He who first met the Highland's swelling blue
Will love each peak that shows a kindred hue,
Hail in each crag a friend's familiar face,
And clasp the mountain in his mind's embrace.
Long have I roam'd through lands which are
not mine,
Adored the Alp and loved the Apennine,
Revered Parnassus, and beheld the steep
e's Ida and Olympus crown the deep: t'twas not all long ages' lore, nor all Their nature held me in their thrilling thrall;
The infant rapture still survived the boy,
And Loch-na-gar with Ida look'd o'er Troy,*
Mix'd Celtic memories with the Phrygian
mount,
And Highland linns with Castalie's clear fount.
Forgive me, Homer's universal shade!
Forgive me, Phoebus! that my fancy stray'd;
The north and nature taught me to adore
Your scenes sublime, from those beloved before.
XIII.
The love which maketh all things fond and fair,
The youth which makes one rainbow of the air,
The dangers past, that make even man enjoy
The pause in which he ceases to destroy.
The mutual beauty, which the sternest feel
Strike to their hearts like lightning to the steel,
United the half savage and the whole,
The maid and boy in one absorbing soul.
No more the thundering memory of the fight
Wrapp'd his wean'd bosom in its dark delight;
No more the irksome restlessness of rest
Disturb'd him like the eagle in her nest,
Whose wetted beak and far-pervading eye
Darts for a victim over all the sky :
His heart was tamed to that voluptuous state,
At once Elysian and effeminate,
Which leaves no laurels o'er the hero's urn ;-
These wither when for aught save blood they
burn;
Yet when their ashes in their nook are laid,
Doth not the myrtle leave as sweet a shade?
Had Cæsar known but Cleopatra's kiss,
Rome had been free, the world had not been his.
And what have Cæsar's deeds and Cæsar's fame
Done for the earth? We feel them in our shame :
The gory sanction of his glory stains
The rust which tyrants cherish on our chains.
Though Glory, Nature, Reason, Freedom, bid
Roused millions do what single Brutus did-
Sweep these mere mock-birds of the despot's
song
[so long,-
From the tall bough where they have perch'd
Still are we hawk'd at by such mousing owls,
And take for falcons those ignoble fowls,
When but a word of freedom would dispel
These bugbears, as their terrors show too well.
Rapt in the fond forgetfulness of life,
Neuha, the South Sea girl, was all a wife,
With no distracting world to call her off
From love; with no society to scoff
At the new transient flame; no babbling crowd
Of coxcombry in admiration loud,
When very young, about eight years of age, after an attack of the scarlet fever at Aberdeen, I was removed by medical advice into the Highlands. Here I passed occasionally some summers, and from this period I date my love of mountainous countries. I can never forget the effect, a few years afterwards in England, of the only thing I had long seen, even in miniature, of a mountain, in the Malvern Hills. After I returned to Cheltenham, I used to watch them every afternoon at sunset with a sensation which I cannot describe. This was boyish enough; but I was then only thirteen years of age, and it was in the holidays.
Or with adulterous whisper to alloy
Her duty, and her glory, and her joy:
With faith and feelings naked as her form,
She stood and stands a rainbow in a storm,
Changing its hues with bright variety,
But still expanding lovelier o'er the sky,
Howe'er its arch may swell, its colours move,
The cloud-compelling harbinger of love.
Here, in this grotto of the wave-worn shore,
They pass'd the tropics' red meridian o'er;
Nor long the hours-they never paused o'er
time,
Unbroken by the clock's funereal chime,
Which deals the daily pittance of our span,
And points and mocks with iron laugh at man.
What deem'd they of the future or the past?
The present, like a tyrant, held them fast :
Their hour-glass was the sea-sand, and the tide,
Like her smooth billow, saw their moments
glide;
Their clock the sun, in his unbounded tow'r;
They reckon'd not, whose day was but an hour;
The nightingale, their only vesper-bell,
Sung sweetly to the rose the day's farewell ;*
The broad sun set, but not with lingering sweep,
As in the north he mellows o'er the deep;
But fiery, full, and fierce, as if he left
The world for ever, earth of light bereft,
Dissolve this clog and clod of clay before
Its hour, and merge our soul in the great shore.
Strip off this fond and false identity!—
Who thinks of self when gazing on the sky?
And who, though gazing lower, ever thought,
In the young moments ere the heart is taught
Time's lesson, of man's baseness or his own?
All nature is his realm, and love his throne.
Neuha arose, and Torquil: twilight's hour
Came sad and softly to their rocky bower,
Which, kindling by degrees its dewy spars,
Echoed their dim light to the mustering stars.
Slowly the pair, partaking nature's calm,
Sought out their cottage, built beneath the palm
Now smiling and now silent, as the scene;
Lovely as Love-the spirit !—when serene.
The Ocean scarce spoke louder with his swell.
Than breathes his mimic murmurer in the shell, *
As, far divided from his parent deep,
The sea-born infant cries, and will not sleep,
Raising his little plaint in vain, to rave
For the broad bosom of his nursing wave:
The woods droop'd darkly, as inclined to rest.
The tropic bird wheel'd rockward to his nest,
| And the blue sky spread round them like a lake
Of peace, where Piety her thirst might slake.
Plunged with red forehead down along the wave, But through the palm and plantain, bark, a
As dives a hero headlong to his grave.
Then rose they, looking first along the skies,
And then for light into each other's eyes,
Wondering that summer show'd so brief a sun,
And asking if indeed the day were done.
And let not this seem strange: the devotee
Lives not in earth, but in his ecstasy;
Around him days and worlds are headless
driven,
His soul is gone before his dust to heaven.
Is love less potent? No-his path is trod,
Alike uplifted gloriously to God;
Or link'd to all we know of heaven below,
The other better self, whose joy or woe
Is more than ours; the all-absorbing flame
Which, kindled by another, grows the same,
Wrapt in one blaze; the pure, yet funeral pile.
Where gentle hearts, like Brahmins, sit and
smile.
How often we forget all time, when lone,
Admiring Nature's universal throne,
Her woods, her wilds, her waters, the intense
Reply of hers to our intelligence!
[waves
Live not the stars and mountains? Are the
Without a spirit? Are the dropping caves
Without a feeling in their silent tears?
No, no ;-they woo and clasp us to their spheres,
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Not such as would have been a lover's choice
In such an hour, to break the air so still;
No dying night-breeze, harping o'er the hill,
Striking the strings of nature, rock and tree,
Those best and earliest lyres of harmony,
With Echo for their chorus; nor the alarm
Of the loud war-whoop to dispel the charm;
Nor the soliloquy of the hermit owl,
Exhaling all his solitary soul,
The dim, though large-eyed winged anchorite,
Who peals his dreary pæan o'er the night;-
But a loud, long, and naval whistle, shrill
As ever started through a sea-bird's bill;
And then a pause, and then a hoarse, Hill!
Torquil, my boy! what cheer? Ho! brother
ho!'
'Who hails?' cried Torquil, following with to The sound. 'Here's one,' was all the brief rep
But here the herald of the self-same mouth Came breathing o'er the aromatic south,
If the reader will apply to his ear the sea-shell * chimney-piece, he will be aware of what is alluded to text should appear obscure, he will find in Gebze the se idea, better expressed, in two lines. The poea I never but have heard the lines quoted by a more recorditer a
who seems to be of a different opinion from the Foter Quarterly Review, who qualified it, in his answer to the cit reviewer of his Juvenal, as trash of the worst and most description. It is to Mr Landor, the author of Ger, s s fied, and of some Latin poems, which vie with Nir Catullus in obscenity, that the immaculate Mr Southey wa dresses his declamation against impurity.
Not like a bed of violets' on the gale,
But such as wafts its cloud o'er grog or ale,
Bome from a short frail pipe, which yet had
Its gentle odours over either zone, [blown
And, puff'd where'er winds rise or waters roll,
Had wafted smoke from Portsmouth to the Pole,
Opposed its vapour as the lightning flash'd,
Asd reek'd, 'midst mountain billows, unabash'd,
To Eolus a constant sacrifice,
Through every change of all the varying skies.
And what was he who bore it ?—I may err,
But deem him sailor or philosopher.*
Sublime tobacco! which from east to west
Cheers the tar's labour or the Turkman's rest;
Which on the Moslem's ottoman divides
His hours, and rivals opium and his brides;
Magnificent in Stamboul, but less grand,
Though not less loved, in Wapping or the
Divine in hookas, glorious in a pipe, [Strand;
When tipp'd with amber, mellow, rich, and ripe;
Like other charmers, wooing the caress,
More dazzlingly when daring in full dress,
Yet thy true lovers more admire by far
Thy naked beauties-Give me a cigar!
His arms were all his own, our Europe's growth,
Which two worlds bless for civilizing both;
The musket swung behind his shoulders broad,
And somewhat stoop'd by his marine abode,
But brawny as the boar's; and hung beneath,
His cutlass droop'd, unconscious of a sheath,
Or lost or worn away; his pistols were
Link'd to his belt, a matrimonial pair-
(Let not this metaphor appear a scoff,
Though one miss'd fire, the other would go off);
These, with a bayonet, not so free from rust
As when the arm-chest held its brighter trust,
Completed his accoutrements, as Night
Survey'd him in his garb heteroclite.
What cheer, Ben Bunting?' cried (when in
Our new acquaintance) Torquil. Aught of
[new?'
Ey, ey!' quoth Ben, not new, but news enow;
A strange sail in the offing.'-'Sail! and how?
What! could you make her out? It cannot be;
I've seen no rag of canvas on the sea.'
'Belike,' said Ben, 'you might not from the bay,
But from the bluff-head, where I watch'd to-
I saw her in the doldrums; for the wind [day,
Through the approaching darkness of the wood Was light and baffling.'-'When the sun de
A human figure broke the solitude,
Fantastically, it may be, array'd,
A seaman in a savage masquerade;
Such as appears to rise out from the deep
When o'er the line the merry vessels sweep,
And the rough saturnalia of the tar
Flock o'er the deck, in Neptune's borrow'd car,
And, pleased, the god of ocean sees his name
Revive once more, though but in mimic game
Of his true sons, who riot in the breeze
Undreamt of in his native Cyclades.
[still Where lay she? had she anchor'd?'-' No, but She bore down on us, till the wind grew still.' 'Her flag?'-'I had no glass: but fore and aft, Egad! she seem'd a wicked-looking craft.' Arm'd?'-'I expect so ;-sent on the look-out: †'Tis time, belike, to put our helm about.' 'About? Whate'er may have us now in chase, We'll make no running fight, for that were base; We will die at our quarters, like true men. 'Ey, ey! for that 'tis all the same to Ben.' 'Does Christian know this?'-'Ay; he has piped
Still the old god delights, from out the main,
To snatch some glimpses of his ancient reign.
Our sailor's jacket, though in ragged trim,
His constant pipe, which never yet burn'd dim,
His foremast air, and somewhat rolling gait,
Like his dear vessel, spoke his former state;
Est then a sort of kerchief round his head,
Not over tightly bound, or nicely spread;
And 'stead of trousers (ah! too early torn!
For even the mildest woods will have their thorn)
A curious sort of somewhat scanty mat
Now served for inexpressibles and hat;
His naked feet and neck, and sunburnt face,
Ferchance might suit alike with either race.
• II-bles, the father of Locke's and other philosophy, an inveterate smoker,-even to pipes beyond computa This rough but jovial ceremony, used in crossing the line, teen so often and so well described that it need not be e than alluded to.
To quarters. They are furbishing the stands
Of arms; and we have got some guns to bear,
And scaled them. You are wanted.'-' That's
but fair;
And if it were not, mine is not the soul
To leave my comrades helpless on the shoal.
My Neuha ha! and must my fate pursue
Not me alone, but one so sweet and true?
But whatsoe'er betide, ah, Neuha! now
Unman me not; the hour will not allow
A tear; I'm thine whatever intervenes !
'Right,' quoth Ben; that will do for the
marines.' *
That will do for the marines, but the sailors won't believe it.' is an old saying; and one of the few fragments of former jealousies which still survive (in jest only) between these gallant services.
THE fight was o'er; the flashing through the
gloom,
Which robes the cannon as he wings a tomb,
Had ceased; and sulphury vapours upwards
Had left the earth, and but polluted heaven:
The rattling roar which rung in every volley
Had left the echoes to their melancholy;
No more they shriek'd their horror, boom for
boom;
[doom;
The strife was done, the vanquish'd had their
The mutineers were crush'd, dispersed, or ta'en,
Or lived to deem the happiest were the slain.
Few, few escaped, and these were hunted o'er
The isle they loved beyond their native shore.
No further home was theirs, it seem'd, on earth,
Once renegades to that which gave them birth;
Track'd like wild beasts, like them they sought
the wild,
As to a mother's bosom flies the child;
But vainly wolves and lions seek their den,
And still more vainly men escape from men.
Beneath a rock whose jutting base protrudes
Far over ocean in its fiercest moods,
When scaling his enormous crag the wave
Is hurl'd down headlong like the foremost brave,
And falls back on the foaming crowd behind,
Which fight beneath the banners of the wind,
But now at rest, a little remnant drew
Together, bleeding, thirsty, faint, and few;
But still their weapons in their hands, and still
With something of the pride of former will,
As men not all unused to meditate,
And strive much more than wonder at their fate.
Their present lot was what they had foreseen,
And dared as what was likely to have been;
Yet still the lingering hope, which deem'd their
Not pardon'd, but unsought for or forgot, [lot
Or trusted that, if sought, their distant caves
Might still be miss'd amidst the world of waves,
Had wean'd their thoughts in part from what
they saw
And felt, the vengeance of their country's law.
Their sea-green isle, their guilt-won paradise,
No more could shield their virtue or their vice:
Their better feelings, if such were, were thrown
Back on themselves,-their sins remain'd alone.
Proscribed even in their second country, they
Were lost; in vain the world before them lay;
All outlets seem'd secured. Their new allies
Had fought and bled in mutual sacrifice;
But what avail'd the club and spear, and arm
Of Hercules, against the sulphury charm,
The magic of the thunder, which destroy'd
|Dug, like a spreading pestilence, the grave
No less of human bravery than the brave!
Their own scant numbers acted all the few
Against the many oft will dare and do;
But though the choice seems native to die free,
Even Greece can boast but one Thermopylaæ,
Till now, when she has forged her broken cham
Back to a sword, and dies and lives again!
Beside the jutting rock the few appear'd,
Like the last remnant of the red-deer's herd;
Their eyes were feverish, and their aspect worn.
But still the hunter's blood was on their horn,
A little stream came tumbling from the height,
And straggling into ocean as it might,
Its bounding crystal frolick'd in the ray,
And gush'd from cliff to crag with saltless spray.
Close on the wild, wide ocean, yet as pure
And fresh as innocence, and more secure,
Its silver torrent glitter'd o'er the deep,
As the shy chamois' eye o'erlooks the steep,
While far below the vast and sullen swell
Of ocean's Alpine azure rose and fell.
To this young spring they rush'd, -all feelings
first
Absorb'd in passion's and in nature's thirst,-
Drank as they do who drink their last, and threw
Their arms aside to revel in its dew;
Cool'd their scorch'd throats, and wash'd the
gory stains
[chains.
From wounds whose only bandage might be
Then, when their drought was quench'd, lockt
As wondering how so many still were found
Alive and fetterless :-but silent all,
Each sought his fellow's eyes, as if to call
On him for language which his lips denied,
As though their voices with their cause had died
Stern, and aloof a little from the rest,
Stood Christian, with his arms across his chest
The ruddy, reckless, dauntless hue once sprea
Along his cheek was livid now as lead;
His light brown locks, so graceful in their flow,
Now rose like startled vipers o'er his brow.
Still as a statue, with his lips comprest
To stifle even the breath within his breast,
Fast by the rock, all menacing, but mute,
He stood; and, save a slight beat of his foot.
Which deepen'd now and then the sandy dirt
Beneath his heel, his form seem'd turn'd to fir
Archidamus, king of Sparta, and son of AgestaS he saw a machine invented for the casting of stones and #t exclaimed that it was the grave of valour. The semin has been told of some knights on the first application of
The warrior ere his strength could be employ'd? powder; but the original anecdote is in Plutarch
Some paces further Torquil lean'd his head
Against a bank, and spoke not, but he bled,-
Not mortally-his worst wound was within;
His brow was pale, his blue eyes sunken in,
And blood-drops, sprinkled o'er his yellow hair,
Show'd that his faintness came not from
despair,
But nature's ebb. Beside him was another,
Rough as a bear, but willing as a brother,-
Ben Bunting, who essay'd to wash, and wipe,
And bind his wound-then calmly lit his pipe,
A trophy which survived a hundred fights,
A beacon which had cheer'd ten thousand
nights.
The fourth and last of this deserted group Walk'd up and down-at times would stand, then stoop
To pick a pebble up-then let drop-
Then hurry as in haste-then quickly stop-
Then cast his eyes on his companions-then
Half whistle half a tune, and pause again-
And then his former movements would redouble,
With something between carelessness and
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Seized his hand wistfully, but did not press, And shrunk as fearful of his own caress; Inquired into his state; and when he heard The wound was slighter than he deem'd or fear'd,
A moment's brightness pass'd along his brow,
As much as such a moment would allow.
'Yes,' he exclaim'd, 'we're taken in the toil,
But not a coward or a common spoil;
Dearly they've bought us--dearly still may
buy,-
And I must fall; but have you strength to fly?
'Twould be some comfort still could you survive;
Our dwindled band is now too few to strive.
Oh! for a sole canoe! though but a shell,
To bear you hence to where a hope may dwell!
For me, my lot is what I sought; to be,
In life or death, the fearless and the free.'
Even as he spoke, around the promontory,
Which nodded o'er the billows high and hoary,
A dark speck dotted ocean on it flew
Like to the shadow of a roused sea-mew;
Onward it came-and, lo! a second follow'd-
Now seen-now hid-where ocean's vale was
hollow'd;
And near, and nearer, till their dusky crew
Presented well-known aspects to the view,
Till on the surf their skimming paddles play,
Buoyant as wings, and flitting through the
spray ;-
Dash'd downwards in the thundering foam beNow perching on the wave's high curl, and now low,
And die at once than wrestle with despair,
Which flings it broad and boiling sheet on sheet,
Exclaim'd ·G-d damn!'—those syllables in- And slings its high flakes, shiver'd into sleet;
Nucleus of England's native eloquence,
As the Turk's Allah!' or the Roman's more
Pagan Proh Jupiter!' was wont of yore
To give their first impressions such a vent,
by way of echo to embarrassment.
ick was embarrass'd-never hero more,
And as he knew not what to say, he swore :
Nor swore in vain; the long congenial sound
Revived Ben Bunting from his pipe profound;
He drew it from his mouth, and look'd full wise,
rat merely added to the oath his eyes;
Thus rendering the imperfect phrase complete,
A peroration I need not repeat.
But floating still through surf and swell, drew nigh
[sky. The barks, like small birds through a lowering Their art seem'd nature--such the skill to sweep The wave of these born playmates of the deep.
And who the first that, springing on the strand,
With dark but brilliant skin, and dewy eye
Leap'd like a nereid from her shell to land,
Shining with love, and hope, and constancy?
Neuha-the fond, the faithful, the adored-
Her heart on Torquil's like a torrent pour'd:
And smiled, and wept, and near, and nearer
clasp'd,
As if to be assured 'twas him she grasp'd;
Shudder'd to see his yet warm wound, and then,
To find it trivial, smiled and wept again.
She was a warrior's daughter, and could bear
Such sights, and feel, and mourn, but not
despair.
Her lover lived,-nor foes nor fears could blight
That full-blown moment in its all delight:
Joy trickled in her tears, joy fill'd the sob
That rock'd her heart till almost heard to throb;
And paradise was breathing in the sigl
Of nature's child in nature's ecstasy.
|