Volume Iii Part 7 (1/2)
The garlands wither on your brow; Then boast no more your mighty deeds; Upon Death's purple altar now, See where the victor victim bleeds: Your heads must come To the cold tomb; Only the actions of the just Smell sweet, and blossom in their dust.
JAMES s.h.i.+RLEY.
OZYMANDIAS OF EGYPT.
I met a traveler from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those pa.s.sions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal these words appear: ”My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away.
PERCY BYSSHE Sh.e.l.lEY.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THOMAS CAMPBELL.]
LOCHIEL'S WARNING.
WIZARD--LOCHIEL.
WIZARD.
Lochiel, Lochiel! beware of the day When the lowlands shall meet thee in battle array!
For a field of the dead rushes red on my sight, And the clans of Culloden are scattered in fight.
They rally, they bleed, for their kingdom and crown; Woe, woe to the riders that trample them down!
Proud c.u.mberland prances, insulting the slain, And their hoof-beaten bosoms are trod to the plain.
But hark! through the fast-flas.h.i.+ng lightning of war, What steed to the desert flies frantic and far?
'Tis thine, oh Glenullin! whose bride shall await, Like a love-lighted watch fire, all night at the gate.
A steed comes at morning: no rider is there; But its bridle is red with the sign of despair.
Weep, Albin! to death and captivity led!
Oh weep, but thy tears cannot number the dead: For a merciless sword on Culloden shall wave, Culloden! that reeks with the blood of the brave.
LOCHIEL.
Go, preach to the coward, thou death-telling seer; Or, if gory Culloden so dreadful appear, Draw, dotard, around thy old wavering sight This mantle, to cover the phantoms of fright.
WIZARD.
Ha! laugh'st thou, Lochiel, my vision to scorn?
Proud bird of the mountain, thy plume shall be torn!
Say, rushed the bold eagle exultingly forth, From his home, in the dark rolling clouds of the north?
Lo! the death-shot of foemen outspeeding, he rode Companionless, bearing destruction abroad; But down let him stoop from his havoc on high!
Ah! home let him speed,--for the spoiler is nigh.
Why flames the far summit? Why shoot to the blast Those embers, like stars from the firmament cast?
'Tis the fire shower of ruin, all dreadfully driven From his eyrie, that beacons the darkness of heaven.
Oh, crested Lochiel! the peerless in might, Whose banners arise on the battlements' height, Heaven's fire is around thee, to blast and to burn; Return to thy dwelling! all lonely return!