ON THE BEING OF A GOD. "There is a God" all nature cries: Thy name great Nature's sire divine Rejecting godheads at whose shrine Yon countless worlds in boundless space, Their mighty orbs as curious trace, But, Thou, too, madest that floweret gay The hand that fired the lamps of day, Painted the velvet lawn. "As falls a sparrow to the ground, By the same law those globes wheel round, In one eternal system bound One order to fulfil. LORD BROUGHAM. SEVILLE. "Awake, ye Sons of Spain! awake! advance! I wandered 'mid the motley crowds Defiled her ancient Halls. And I thought of the glorious days gone by, I asked where the glory had vanished now, I wandered 'mid the motley throng, In the boasted Marvel's walls; And I thought of the time when the turban'd hosts And I spake, does no trace save this remain I wandered 'mid the lazy crowds, In the boasted Marvel's walls, With minds as dull as the smoke they drew And I said, are those gallant spirits gone I turned from amid the lounging crowds And I wandered the only living thing And a voice as I pass'd came o'er my soul Thou musest now 'mid the best of Spain, THE CONVICT. The glory of evening was spread through the west, While the joy that precedes the calm season of rest, "And must we then part from a dwelling so fair," And, with a deep sadness, I turned to repair The thick-ribbed walls that o'er-shadow the gate, I pause, and at length through the glimmering grate His black matted head on his shoulder is bent, But my fancy has pierced to his heart, and pourtrays His bones are consumed and his life-blood is dried With wishes the past to undo; And his crime, through the pains that o'erwhelm him descried, Still blackens and grows on the view. When from the dark synod, or blood-reeking field, To his chamber the monarch is led; All soothers of sense their soft virtue shall yield, But if grief self-consumed in oblivion would doze, In the comfortless vault of disease. When his fetters at night have so pressed on his limbs, If while a half-slumber his memory bedims, While the gaol mastiff howls at the dull clanking chain, A thousand sharp punctures of cold sweating pain, But now he half raises his deep sunken eye, And asks me for why I am here. "Poor victim! no idle intruder has stood With o'erweening complaisance our state to compare, But one whose first wish is the wish to be good, Is come as a brother thy sorrows to share. "At thy name, though Compassion her nature resign, Though in virtue's proud mouth thy report be a stain, My care, if the arm of the mighty were mine, Should place thee where yet thou might'st blossom again." WORDSWORTH. |