Volume I Part 44 (1/2)

[105] These are his descriptions of ”The Drunkard,” ”The Glutton,” and ”The Good and Wicked Pastor.”

A CLAGIONN.

THE SKULL.

As I sat by the grave, at the brink of its cave Lo! a featureless skull on the ground; The symbol I clasp, and detain in my grasp, While I turn it around and around.

Without beauty or grace, or a glance to express Of the bystander nigh, a thought; Its jaw and its mouth are tenantless both, Nor pa.s.ses emotion its throat.

No glow on its face, no ringlets to grace Its brow, and no ear for my song; Hush'd the caves of its breath, and the finger of death The raised features hath flatten'd along.

The eyes' wonted beam, and the eyelids' quick gleam-- The intelligent sight, are no more; But the worms of the soil, as they wriggle and coil, Come hither their dwellings to bore.

No lineament here is left to declare If monarch or chief art thou; Alexander the Brave, as the portionless slave That on dunghill expires, is as low.

Thou delver of death, in my ear let thy breath Who tenants my hand, unfold; That my voice may not die without a reply, Though the ear it addresses is cold.

Say, wert thou a May,[106] of beauty a ray, And flatter'd thine eye with a smile?

Thy meshes didst set, like the links of a net, The hearts of the youth to wile?

Alas every charm that a bosom could warm Is changed to the grain of disgust!

Oh, fie on the spoiler for daring to soil her Gracefulness all in the dust!

Say, wise in the law, did the people with awe Acknowledge thy rule o'er them-- A magistrate true, to all dealing their due, And just to redress or condemn?

Or was righteousness sold for handfuls of gold In the scales of thy partial decree; While the poor were unheard when their suit they preferr'd, And appeal'd their distresses to thee?

Say, once in thine hour, was thy medicine of power To extinguish the fever of ail?

And seem'd, as the pride of thy leech-craft e'en tried O'er omnipotent death to prevail?

Alas, that thine aid should have ever betray'd Thy hope when the need was thine own; What salve or annealing sufficed for thy healing When the hours of thy portion were flown?

Or--wert thou a hero, a leader to glory, While armies thy truncheon obey'd; To victory cheering, as thy foemen careering In flight, left their mountains of dead?

Was thy valiancy laid, or unhilted thy blade, When came onwards in battle array The sepulchre-swarms, ensheathed in their arms, To sack and to rifle their prey?

How they joy in their spoil, as thy body the while Besieging, the reptile is vain, And her beetle-mate blind hums his gladness to find His defence in the lodge of thy brain!

Some dig where the sheen of the ivory has been, Some, the organ where music repair'd; In rabble and rout they come in and come out At the gashes their fangs have bared.

Do I hold in my hand a whole lords.h.i.+p of land, Represented by nakedness, here?

Perhaps not unkind to the helpless thy mind, Nor all unimparted thy gear; Perhaps stern of brow to thy tenantry thou!

To leanness their countenances grew-- 'Gainst their crave for respite, when thy clamour for right Required, to a moment, its due; While the frown of thy pride to the aged denied To cover their head from the chill, And humbly they stand, with their bonnet in hand, As cold blows the blast of the hill.

Thy serfs may look on, unheeding thy frown, Thy rents and thy mailings unpaid; All praise to the stroke their bondage that broke!

While but claims their obeisance the dead.

Or a head do I clutch, whose devices were such, That death must have lent them his sting-- So daring they were, so reckless of fear, As heaven had wanted a king?

Did the tongue of the lie, while it couch'd like a spy In the haunt of thy venomous jaws, Its slander display, as poisons its prey The devilish snake in the gra.s.s?