Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (130 page)

The Bard

Pindaric Ode

Thomas Gray (1716–1771)

 
‘RUIN seize thee, ruthless King!
 
Confusion on thy banners wait!
Tho’ fann’d by Conquest’s crimson wing
 
They mock the air with idle state.
Helm, nor hauberk’s twisted mail
  
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Nor e’en thy virtues, tyrant, shall avail
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
From Cambria’s curse, from Cambria’s tears!’
 
— Such were the sounds that o’er the crested pride
 
Of the first Edward scatter’d wild dismay,
  
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As down the steep of Snowdon’s shaggy side
 
He wound with toilsome march his long array: —
Stout Glo’ster stood aghast in speechless trance;
‘To arms!’ cried Mortimer, and couch’d his quivering lance.

 
On a rock, whose haughty brow
  
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Frowns o’er old Conway’s foaming flood,
 
Robed in the sable garb of woe
With haggard eyes the Poet stood;
(Loose his beard and hoary hair
Stream’d like a meteor to the troubled air)
  
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And with a master’s hand and prophet’s fire
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre:
 
‘Hark, how each giant-oak and desert-cave
Sighs to the torrent’s awful voice beneath!
O’er thee, O King! their hundred arms they wave
  
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Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe;
Vocal no more, since Cambria’s fatal day,
To high-born Hoel’s harp, or soft Llewellyn’s lay.

 
‘Cold is Cadwallo’s tongue,
 
That hush’d the stormy main:
  
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Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed:
 
Mountains, ye mourn in vain
 
Modred, whose magic song
Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topt head.
 
On dreary Arvon’s shore they lie
  
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Smear’d with gore and ghastly pale:
Far, far aloof the affrighted ravens sail;
 
The famish’d eagle screams, and passes by.
Dear lost companions of my tuneful art,
 
Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes,
  
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Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart,
 
Ye died amidst your dying country’s cries —
No more I weep; They do not sleep;
 
On yonder cliffs, a griesly band,
I see them sit; They linger yet,
  
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Avengers of their native land:
With me in dreadful harmony they join,
And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line.

Weave the warp and weave the woof
 
The winding sheet of Edward’s race:
  
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Give ample room and verge enough
 
The characters of hell to trace.
Mark the year, and mark the night,
When Severn shall re-echo with affright
The shrieks of death thro’ Berkley’s roof that ring,
  
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Shrieks of an agonizing king!
 
She-wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs
That tear’st the bowels of thy mangled mate,
 
From thee be born, who o’er thy country hangs
The scourge of Heaven! What terrors round him wait
  
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Amazement in his van, with Flight combined,
And Sorrow’s faded form, and Solitude behind.

‘Mighty victor, mighty lord,
 
Low on his funeral couch he lies!
No pitying heart, no eye, afford
  
65
 
A tear to grace his obsequies.
Is the sable warrior fled?
Thy son is gone. He rests among the dead.
The swarm that in thy noon-tide beam were born?
 
— Gone to salute the rising morn.
  
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Fair laughs the Morn, and soft the zephyr blows,
 
While proudly riding o’er the azure realm
In gallant trim the gilded Vessel goes:
 
Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm:
Regardless of the sweeping Whirlwind’s sway,
  
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That hush’d in grim repose expects his evening prey.

 
‘Fill high the sparkling bowl,
The rich repast prepare;
 
Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast:
Close by the regal chair
  
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Fell Thirst and Famine scowl
 
A baleful smile upon their baffled guest.
Heard ye the din of battle bray,
 
Lance to lance, and horse to horse?
 
Long years of havock urge their destined course,
  
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And thro’ the kindred squadrons mow their way.
 
Ye towers of Julius, London’s lasting shame,
With many a foul and midnight murder fed,
 
Revere his Consort’s faith, his Father’s fame,
And spare the meek usurper’s holy head!
  
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Above, below, the rose of snow,
 
Twined with her blushing foe, we spread:
The bristled boar in infant-gore
 
Wallows beneath the thorny shade.
Now, brothers, bending o’er the accurséd loom,
  
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Stamp we our vengeance deep, and ratify his doom.

‘Edward, lo! to sudden fate
 
(Weave we the woof; The thread is spun;)
Half of thy heart we consecrate.
 
(The web is wove; The work is done.)
  
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— Stay, oh stay! nor thus forlorn
Leave me unbless’d, unpitied, here to mourn:
In yon bright track that fires the western skies
They melt, they vanish from my eyes.
But O! what solemn scenes on Snowdon’s height
  
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Descending slow their glittering skirts unroll?
Visions of glory, spare my aching sight,
Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul!
No more our long-lost Arthur we bewail: —
All hail, ye genuine kings! Britannia’s issue, hail!
  
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‘Girt with many a baron bold
Sublime their starry fronts they rear;
And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old
In bearded majesty, appear.
In the midst a form divine!
  
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Her eye proclaims her of the Briton-Line:
Her lion-port, her awe-commanding face
Attemper’d sweet to virgin-grace.
What strings symphonious tremble in the air,
 
What strains of vocal transport round her play?
  
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Hear from the grave, great Taliessin, hear;
 
They breathe a soul to animate thy clay.
Bright Rapture calls, and soaring as she sings,
Waves in the eye of Heaven her many-coloured wings.

‘The verse adorn again
  
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Fierce War, and faithful Love,
And Truth severe, by fairy Fiction drest.
 
In buskin’d measures move
Pale Grief, and pleasing Pain,
With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast.
  
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A voice as of the cherub-choir
 
Gales from blooming Eden bear,
 
And distant warblings lessen on my ear
That lost in long futurity expire.
Fond impious man, think’st thou yon sanguine cloud
  
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Raised by thy breath, has quench’d the orb of day?
To-morrow he repairs the golden flood
 
And warms the nations with redoubled ray.
Enough for me: with joy I see
 
The different doom our fates assign:
  
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Be thine Despair and sceptred Care,
 
To triumph and to die are mine.’
 
— He spoke, and headlong from the mountain’s height
Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endless night.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Ode on the Pleasure Arising from Vicissitude

Thomas Gray (1716–1771)

NOW the golden Morn aloft
 
Waves her dew-bespangled wing,
With vermeil cheek and whisper soft
 
She woos the tardy Spring:
Till April starts, and calls around
  
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The sleeping fragrance from the ground,
And lightly o’er the living scene
Scatters his freshest, tenderest green.

New-born flocks, in rustic dance,
 
Frisking ply their feeble feet;
  
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Forgetful of their wintry trance
 
The birds his presence greet:
But chief, the sky-lark warbles high
His trembling thrilling ecstasy;
And lessening from the dazzled sight,
  
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Melts into air and liquid light.

Yesterday the sullen year
 
Saw the snowy whirlwind fly;
Mute was the music of the air,
 
The herd stood drooping by;
  
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Their raptures now that wildly flow
No yesterday nor morrow know;
’Tis Man alone that joy descries
With forward and reverted eyes.

Smiles on past Misfortune’s brow
  
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Soft Reflection’s hand can trace,
And o’er the cheek of Sorrow throw
 
A melancholy grace;
While Hope prolongs our happier hour,
Or deepest shades, that dimly lour
  
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And blacken round our weary way,
Gilds with a gleam of distant day.

Still, where rosy Pleasure leads,
 
See a kindred Grief pursue;
Behind the steps that Misery treads
  
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Approaching Comfort view:
The hues of bliss more brightly glow
Chastised by sabler tints of woe,
And blended form, with artful strife,
The strength and harmony of life.
  
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See the wretch that long has tost
 
On the thorny bed of pain,
At length repair his vigour lost
 
And breathe and walk again:
The meanest floweret of the vale,
  
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The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening Paradise.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

On a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes

Thomas Gray (1716–1771)

‘TWAS on a lofty vase’s side,
Where China’s gayest art had dyed
The azure flowers that blow,
Demurest of the tabby kind
The pensive Selima, reclined,
  
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Gazed on the lake below.

Her conscious tail her joy declared:
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,
Her coat that with the tortoise vies,
  
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Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes —
She saw, and purr’d applause.

Still had she gazed, but ‘midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
The Genii of the stream:
  
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Their scaly armour’s Tyrian hue
Through richest purple, to the view
Betray’d a golden gleam.

The hapless Nymph with wonder saw:
A whisker first, and then a claw
  
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With many an ardent wish
She stretch’d, in vain, to reach the prize —
What female heart can gold despise?
What Cat’s averse to fish?

Presumptuous maid! with looks intent
  
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Again she stretch’d, again she bent,
Nor knew the gulf between —
Malignant Fate sat by and smiled —
The slippery verge her feet beguiled;
She tumbled headlong in!
  
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Eight times emerging from the flood
She mew’d to every watery God
Some speedy aid to send: —
No Dolphin came, no Nereid stirr’d.
Nor cruel Tom nor Susan heard —
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A favourite has no friend!

From hence, ye Beauties! undeceived
Know one false step is ne’er retrieved,
And be with caution bold:
Not all that tempts your wandering eyes
  
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And heedless hearts, is lawful prize,
Nor all that glisters, gold!

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order