Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol III, No 13, 1851. Various

Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol III, No 13, 1851 - Various


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crowded ports,

      Where rising masts an endless prospect yield,

      With labor burn, and echo to the shouts

      Of hurried sailor, as he hearty waves

      His last adieu, and, loosening every sheet,

      Resigns the spreading vessel to the wind.

      Bold, firm, and graceful, are thy generous youth

      By hardship sinew'd, and by danger fir'd,

      Scattering the nations where they go; and first,

      Or in the listed plain, or stormy seas.

      Mild are thy glories too, as o'er the plans

      Of thriving peace thy thoughtful sires preside;

      In genius, and substantial learning, high;

      For every virtue, every worth, renown'd;

      Sincere, plain-hearted, hospitable, kind;

      Yet like the mustering thunder when provok'd,

      The dread of tyrants, and the sole resource

      Of those that under grim oppression groan.

      Thy sons of glory many! Alfred thine,

      In whom the splendor of heroic war

      And more heroic peace, when govern'd well,

      Combine; whose hallow'd name the virtues saint,

      And his own muses love – the best of kings.

      With him thy Edwards and thy Henrys shine,

      Names dear to fame, the first who deep impress'd

      On haughty Gaul the terror of thy arms,

      That awes her genius still. In statesmen thou,

      And patriots, fertile. Thine a steady More,

      Who, with a generous though mistaken zeal,

      Withstood a brutal tyrant's useful rage,

      Like Cato firm, like Aristides just,

      Like rigid Cincinnatus nobly poor —

      A dauntless soul erect, who smil'd on death.

      Frugal and wise, a Walsingham is thine;

      A Drake, who made thee mistress of the deep,

      And bore thy name in thunder round the world.

      Then flam'd thy spirit high; but who can speak

      The numerous worthies of the maiden-reign?

      In Raleigh mark their every glory mix'd;

      Raleigh, the scourge of Spain; whose breast with all

      The sage, the patriot, and the hero burn'd.

      Nor sunk his vigor when a coward reign

      The warrior fetter'd, and at last resign'd,

      To glut the vengeance of a vanquish'd foe.

      Then, active still and unrestrain'd, his mind

      Explor'd the vast extent of ages past,

      And with his prison-hours enrich'd the world;

      Yet found no times, in all the long research,

      So glorious, or so base, as those he prov'd,

      In which he conquer'd, and in which he bled.

      Nor can the muse the gallant Sidney pass,

      The plume of war! with early laurels crown'd,

      The lover's myrtle, and the poet's bay.

      A Hampden too is thine, illustrious land,

      Wise, strenuous, firm, of unsubmitting soul,

      Who stemm'd the torrent of a downward age

      To slavery prone, and bade thee rise again,

      In all thy native pomp of freedom bold.

      Bright, at his call, thy age of men effulg'd;

      Of men on whom late time a kindling eye

      Shall turn, and tyrants tremble while they read.

      Bring every sweetest flower, and let me strew

      The grave where Russell lies; whose temper'd blood,

      With calmest cheerfulness for thee resign'd,

      Stain'd the sad annals of a giddy reign —

      Aiming at lawless power, though meanly sunk

      In loose inglorious luxury. With him

      His friend, the British Cassius, fearless bled;

      Of high determin'd spirit, roughly brave,

      By ancient learning to the enlighten'd love

      Of ancient freedom warm'd. Fair thy renown

      In awful sages and in noble bards

      Soon as the light of dawning science spread

      Her orient ray, and wak'd the muses' song.

      Thine is a Bacon, hapless in his choice;

      Unfit to stand the civil storm of state,

      And through the smooth barbarity of courts,

      With firm but pliant virtue, forward still

      To urge his course. Him for the studious shade

      Kind Nature form'd, deep, comprehensive, clear,

      Exact, and elegant; in one rich soul,

      Plato, the Stagyrite, and Tully join'd.

      The great deliverer he! who from the gloom

      Of cloister'd monks, and jargon-teaching schools,

      Led forth the true philosophy, there long

      Held in the magic chain of words and forms,

      And definitions void: he led her forth,

      Daughter of heaven! that slow-ascending still,

      Investigating sure the chain of things,

      With radiant finger points to heaven again.

      The generous Ashley thine, the friend of man;

      Who scann'd his nature with a brother's eye,

      His weakness prompt to shade, to raise his aim,

      To touch the finer movements of the mind,

      And with the moral beauty charm the heart

      Why need I name thy Boyle, whose pious search,

      Amid the dark recesses of his works,

      The great Creator sought? And why thy Locke,

      Who made the whole internal world his own?

      Let Newton, pure intelligence, whom God

      To mortals lent, to trace his boundless works

      From laws sublimely simple, speak thy fame

      In all philosophy. For lofty sense,

      Creative fancy, and inspection keen

      Through the deep windings of the human heart,

      Is not wild Shakspeare thine and Nature's boast?

      Is not each great, each amiable muse

      Of classic ages, in thy Milton met?

      A genius universal as his theme,

      Astonishing as chaos, as the bloom

      Of blowing Eden fair, as heaven sublime.

      Nor shall my verse that elder bard forget,

      The gentle Spenser, fancy's pleasing son,

      Who, like a copious river, pour'd his song

      O'er all the mazes of enchanted ground;

      Nor thee, his ancient master, laughing sage,

      Chaucer, whose native manners painting verse,

      Well moraliz'd, shines through the Gothic


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