HARK! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds, | |
| A long low distant murmur of dread sound, | |
| Such as arises when a nation bleeds | |
| With some deep and immedicable wound; | |
| Through storm and darkness yawns the rending ground, | 5 |
| The gulf is thick with phantoms, but the chief | |
| Seems royal still, though with her head discrown’d, | |
| And pale, but lovely, with maternal grief | |
| She clasps a babe, to whom her breast yields no relief. | |
| |
| Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou? | 10 |
| Fond hope of many nations, art thou dead? | |
| Could not the grave forget thee, and lay low | |
| Some less majestic, less beloved head? | |
| In the sad midnight, while thy heart still bled, | |
| The mother of a moment, o’er thy boy, | 15 |
| Death hush’d that pang for ever: with thee fled | |
| The present happiness and promised joy | |
| Which fill’d the imperial isles so full it seem’d to cloy. | |
| |
| Peasants bring forth in safety.—Can it be, | |
| O thou that wert so happy, so adored! | 20 |
| Those who weep not for kings shall weep for thee, | |
| And Freedom’s heart, grown heavy, cease to hoard, | |
| Her many griefs for ONE; for she had pour’d | |
| Her orisons for thee, and o’er thy head | |
| Beheld her Iris.—Thou, too, lonely lord, | 25 |
| And desolate consort—vainly wert thou wed! | |
| The husband of a year! the father of the dead! | |
| |
| Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made; | |
| Thy bridal’s fruit is ashes: in the dust | |
| The fair-hair’d Daughter of the Isles is laid, | 30 |
| The love of millions! How we did entrust | |
| Futurity to her! and, though it must | |
| Darken above our bones, yet fondly deem’d | |
| Our children should obey her child, and bless’d | |
| Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seem’d | 35 |
| Like star to shepherds’ eyes:—’twas but a meteor beam’d. | |
| |
| Woe unto us, not her; for she sleeps well: | |
| The fickle reek of popular breath, the tongue | |
| Of hollow counsel, the false oracle, | |
| Which from the birth of monarchy hath rung | 40 |
| Its knell in princely ears, till the o’erstung | |
| Nations have arm’d in madness, the strange fate | |
| Which tumbles mightiest sovereigns, and hath flung | |
| Against their blind omnipotence a weight | |
| Within the opposing scale, which crushes soon or late,— | 45 |
| |
| These might have been her destiny; but no, | |
| Our hearts deny it: and so young, so fair, | |
| Good without effort, great without a foe; | |
| But now a bride and mother—and now there! | |
| How many ties did that stern moment tear! | 50 |
| From thy Sire’s to his humblest subject’s breast | |
| Is link’d the electric chain of that despair, | |
| Whose shock was as an earthquake’s, and opprest | |
| The land which loved thee, so that none could love thee best. | |
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