Poems eBook

Denis Florence MacCarthy
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 119 pages of information about Poems.

Poems eBook

Denis Florence MacCarthy
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 119 pages of information about Poems.

I. 2.

When, with a frown that froze the peopled earth, [Footnote 3]
  Thou dartedst thy huge head from high,
  Night wav’d her banners o’er the sky,
And, brooding, gave her shapeless shadows birth. 
  Rocking on the billowy air,
  Ha! what withering phantoms glare! 
As blows the blast with many a sudden swell,
At each dead pause, what shrill-ton’d voices yell! 
  The sheeted spectre, rising from the tomb,
  Points at the murderer’s stab, and shudders by;
  In every grove is felt a heavier gloom,
  That veils its genius from the vulgar eye: 
  The spirit of the water rides the storm,
And, thro’ the mist, reveals the terrors of his form.

I. 3.

  O’er solid seas, where Winter reigns,
  And holds each mountain-wave in chains,
The fur-clad savage, ere he guides his deer [Footnote 4]
  By glistering star-light thro’ the snow,
  Breathes softly in her wondering ear
  Each potent spell thou bad’st him know. 
  By thee inspir’d, on India’s sands, [Footnote 5]
  Full in the sun the Bramin stands;
  And, while the panting tigress hies
  To quench her fever in the stream,
  His spirit laughs in agonies, [Footnote 6]
Smit by the scorchings of the noontide beam. 
  Mark who mounts the sacred pyre,
  Blooming in her bridal vest: 
She hurls the torch! she fans the fire! 
       To die is to be blest:  [Footnote 7]
  She clasps her lord to part no more,
  And, sighing, sinks! but sinks to soar. 
  O’ershadowing Scotia’s desert coast,
  The Sisters sail in dusky state, [Footnote 8]
  And, wrapt in clouds, in tempests tost,
    Weave the airy web of fate;
    While the lone shepherd, near the shipless main, [Footnote 9]
Sees o’er her hills advance the long-drawn funeral train,

II. 1.

  Thou spak’st, and lo! a new creation glow’d. 
       Each unhewn mass of living stone
       Was clad in horrors not its own,
  And at its base the trembling nations bow’d. 
       Giant Error, darkly grand,
       Grasp’d the globe with iron hand. 
  Circled with seats of bliss, the Lord of Light
  Saw prostrate worlds adore his golden height. 
  The statue, waking with immortal powers, [Footnote 10]
  Springs from its parent earth, and shakes the spheres;
  The indignant pyramid sublimely towers,
  And braves the efforts of a host of years. 
  Sweet Music breathes her soul into the wind;
And bright-ey’d Painting stamps the image of the mind.

II. 2.

  Round their rude ark old Egypt’s sorcerers rise! 
       A timbrell’d anthem swells the gale,
       And bids the God of Thunders hail; [Footnote 11]
  With lowings loud the captive God replies. 
       Clouds of incense woo thy smile,
       Scaly monarch of the Nile! [Footnote 12]
  But ah! what myriads claim the bended knee? [Footnote 13]

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Poems from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.