Stood still and listened; and every particle So saying, God grew dark with utter wrath: And down among the damned the burning edge Impassable, between the good and bad, Condemns them: what could be done, as thou hast heard, Has been already done; all has been tried, Inviting still, and send his Only Son What lot! what choice! I sing not, cannot sing. Here, highest seraphs tremble on the lyre, And make a sudden pause! but thou hast seen. And here the bard a moment held his hand, As one who saw more of that horrid woe Than words could utter; and again resumed. Nor yet had vengeance done. The guilty Earth | Inanimate, debased, and stained by sin, The saints its burning saw; and thou mayst see. Among the imagery of wonders past; A groan returned, as down they sunk, and sunk, On spacious canvass, touched with living hues,-And ever sunk, among the utter dark! A groan returned! the righteous heard the groan; And now the wall of hell, the outer wall, First gateless then, closed round them; that which thou Hast seen, of fiery adamant, emblazed To Wrath, that hears, unmoved, the endless groan Nor ask if these shall ever be redeemed. They never shall: not God, but their own sin The Conflagration of the ancient earth, The essential particles remained, of which As thou, this morn, in passing hither, sawst. Gird, gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O thou O God, for ever and for ever stands : Thy fellows, crowned the Prince of endless peace. Thus sung they God, their Saviour; and them- Prepared complete to enter now with Christ, This done, the glorious Judge, turning to She comes, apparelled royally, in robes With countenance of love unspeakable, Thus said the Omnipotent, Incarnate God: Of perfect righteousness; fair as the sun; Thus the Messiah, with the hosts of bliss, Thus have I sung beyond thy first request, damned, And God's eternal government approved. GEORGE CROLY. occupied themselves with the later memorials of the empire which abound in Paris, and which form some of the most striking ornaments of that capital, he was engrossed by the scenes which had been distinguished in the revolutionary period and reign of terror,-the Temple, the Carmes, the site of the Bastille, the prison of the Abbaye, &c. With those impressions on his mind, on his return to England, he produced his first poem, entitled, Paris in 1815." It was successful, and was followed at intervals by other poems,"The Angel of the World," a tragedy on the subject of the Catilinarian Conspiracy,-" Gems from the Antique," &c. Dr. Croly is, thus, a writer of tragedy and comedy :-an almost universal Poet; a painter of rich and glowing romance: a daring interpre GEORGE CROLY was born in Ireland, towards Revolution; while the generality of the visiters the close of the last century. Being intended for the Church, he entered the Irish University, Trinity College, Dublin, at an early age,-obtained a scholarship, and successively proceeded to the degrees of A. B. and A. M. He was ordained by O'Beirne, Bishop of Meath-the friend of Edmund Burke-and put in charge of a parish in his diocese. His residence was favourable to the study of his profession: the village church stood on the borders of an immense lake, imbedded in mountains; and the solitude amid which the Poet thought and wrote, strengthened his mind, and prepared it to contest for eminence in the great world he was to enter. After remaining some years in this retirement, he visited London ;-it was at the animating period when England first embarked in the Spanish war. Sharing the general impulse of the time, and intending to see, inter of the darkest mystery of the Scriptures,-the person, the land whose sudden achievements re- Apocalypse of St. John; a skilful and searching stored almost her old days of romance, he applied critic; and an eloquent and accomplished preacher. himself vigorously to acquire the Spanish lan- His poems have not obtained a popularity adeguage. On the first announcement that the Elbe quate to their merit-perhaps because he maniwas open, he went to Germany. No moment fests but little sympathy with his kind. He is could have been more interesting to a British ob- grand and gorgeous, but rarely tender and affec server. The Continent had been a sealed book tionate; he builds a lofty and magnificent temple, since the short peace of Amiens. During the in- but it is too cold and stately to be a home for the terval the most singular changes had been wrought heart. In several of his minor productions, he is in every continental state. The three great capitals exceedingly vigorous and animated, and from of the Continent had been entered by the French his "Gems" may be selected some of the boldest armies. The population had been alternately and most striking compositions in the language. broken down by military severity, and roused A few years since he published his first work to resistance by foreign extortion. Men and man-in prose, "Salathiel, a story of the Past, the Preners had changed: half a generation had gone sent, and the Future," founded on the legend of down into the grave;-all was now strange, and the "Wandering Jew." impressed with the character of the great convulsion. Dr. Croly has given some account of this aspect of things, in a lately published volume, entitled, the "Year of Liberation,"-formed from his recollections of the time. He resided chiefly in Hamburgh, the return of the French troops preventing all intercourse with the interior of Germany. Napoleon had flooded the Continent again with his conscripts, and all was confusion. In 1815, Paris was opened to the world. The lost army of France capitulated behind the Loire, and the conqueror of Waterloo replaced the old family of the French kings on the throne. The curiosity of the English led them to Paris in multitudes; and Dr. Croly remained there for some time. But his chief interest seems to have been excited by the localities and monuments of the But, as we have intimated, in subjects of this order, which are, indeed, analogous to his profession, Dr. Croly had not neglected the more direct studies of theology. He has produced several works on the chief matters of divinity; among the rest, a New Interpretation of the Apocalypse of St. John,-which has arrived at a third edition. In the year 1831, Lord Brougham, on taking the seals, gave him one of the livings in his gift as Chancellor. In 1835, Lord Lyndhurst, then Chancellor, gave him the rectory of St. Stephens, Walbrook, which involved the surrender of his former living. A few years previously he had received from his own University, what he probably felt as scarcely a less gratifying mark of recollec. tion, the unsolicited degree of LL. D. (751) POEMS. PERICLES AND ASPASIA. THIS was the ruler of the land, When Athens was the land of fame; This was the light that led the band When each was like a living flame: The centre of earth's noblest ring Of more than men, the more than king! Yet, not by fetter, nor by spear, His sovereignty was held or won; Fear'd-but alone as freemen fear; Loved-but as freemen love alone! He waved the sceptre o'er his kind, By Nature's first great title-mind! Resistless words were on his tongue; Then eloquence first flash'd below! Full arm'd to life the portent sprung, Minerva, from the thunderer's brow! And his the sole, the sacred hand, That shook her ægis o'er the land! And thron'd immortal, by his side, A woman sits, with eye sublime,Aspasia, all his spirit's bride; But if their solemn love were crime,Pity the beauty and the sage,— Their crime was in their darken'd age. He perish'd-but his wreath was wonHe perish'd on his height of fame! Then sank the cloud on Athens' sun; Yet still she conquer'd in his name. Fill'd with his soul, she could not dieHer conquest was posterity! LINES WRITTEN AT SPITHEAD. HARK to the knell! Of the stormy ocean wave; 'Tis no earthly sound, But a toll profound From the mariner's deep sea grave. When the billows dash, And the thunder is on the gale; And the ocean is white In its own wild light, Deadly, and dismal, and pale. Ten thousand men lie low; And still their dirge Is sung by the surge, When the stormy night-winds blow. Sleep, warriors! sleep On your pillow deep In peace! for no mortal care, No art can deceive, No anguish can heave The heart that once slumbers there. LEONIDAS. SHOUT for the mighty men Who died along this shore,Who died within this mountain glen! For never nobler chieftain's head Was laid on valour's crimson bed, Nor ever prouder gore Sprang forth, than theirs who won the day Upon thy strand, Thermopyla ! Shout for the mighty men, Who on the Persian tents, Like lions from their midnight den, Bounding on the slumbering deer, Rush'd-a storm of sword and spear Like the roused elements, Let loose from an immortal hand, To chasten or to crush a land! But there are none to hear; Greece is a hopeless slave. The voice that should be raised by men, And it is given !—the surge The tree-the rock-the sand- The vision of thy band And is thy grandeur done? Mother of men like these! Has not thy outcry gone Where Justice has an ear to hear! Be holy! God shall guide thy spear; Till in thy crimson'd seas Are plunged the chain and scimitar, Greece shall be a new-born star! When the lightning's blaze Smites the seaman's gaze, And the sea rolls in fire and in foam; And the surges' roar Shakes the rocky shore, We hear the sea-knell come. There 'neath the billow, The sand their pillow, THE DEATH OF LEONIDAS. Ir was the wild midnight, A storm was on the sky; The lightning gave its light, And the thunder echoed by. |