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Alexowitz Read Poem

Thus said the young Alexowitz, by Danube's sweeping side,
A hundred chiefs their vassals rule, in pomp and power, and pride;
While I, whose lordly sires bore sway, o'er wide Croatia's ban,
Now stand within their roofless halls a lone and landless man.

But think not I am come to mourn o'er hopes that flew away,
Like morning stars at dawning bright, but vanished with the day,
I come but on their threshold to whet my father's sword,
If fiefs and friends are mine no more, of that I still am lord:
I come to twine old memories with the hope of future days,
And link the phantom of their fame, with that which I will raise;
And if my cloak is scanty, and the winter wind is cold,
I'll think of how it howls in thee, my lost ancestral hold.

The Baron rides in coat of mail, the Churchman robed in fur,
And this must watch through vigils pale, and that the war-horse spur;
And what have they that I have not?

high place and proud degree,
As high as their's, nor all forgot, once more my name may be.

I'll rear it by the banks of Rhine, in joyous Allemayne,
I'll rear it in thy gorgeous court, oh double-sceptred Spain;
For like the wind that wanders where it lists, a voice within,
Cries come with me, as bold as free, nor doubt while others win.

Approach To Venice On A November Day Read Poem

Clear shines the sun, but yet the cloud is grey,
And the fresh breeze comes scented with the spray
Of the wild billow, that with thundering fall,
Broke its huge mass 'gainst Malamocco's wall;
Then bade its rider, ever fierce and free,
To Winter bear the homage of the sea.

On Styria's peaks his gathering storms repose,
And shroud the giant on his couch of snows,
Ere yet descending through the howling air
He bends the pine, and strips the poplar bare,
Ere the tall cypress, 'mid the naked scene,
'Gainst the white tower shall rise with deeper green,
And the broad oxen, from the swelling Po,
To their warm stalls, and sheltering village go;
While houseless beggars in the biting cold
Sit numbed to sleep, and dream of feasts and gold.

By empty villas and by mouldering vines
Gleams the pale ray, that warms not though it shines;
Yet these but late their clustering grapes have shed,
To glad the living,—those are of the dead:
These still shall wake with Nature wakening,
And tint the landscape with the hues of spring.

They come no more, no more shall beauty's hand
Strike the soft harp, in halls Palladio plann'd,
No more, last refuge of despairing pride,
Luxurious pomp a people's fall shall hide.

But vaulted roofs with hollow sound reply,
When Brenta's breezes sweep careering by,
And bear the leaves in gathering heaps to rest
At gates which hailed a monarch once their guest.

Alike the eagle's wide-spread lineage bind
The hosts he sought, the realm he left behind;
And for the subjects of his sires, o'er them
The sword must hang, to guard the diadem
That crowns another—vanished race and fame,
Fit guest of Venice now, the Valois' name.

I saw a pilgrim on a jutting stone
High on the Alps, which, ages long agone,
The thoughtful traveller from Lombardy
Has marked when mountain shadows gather nigh,
And they who come up on the other side
Alike its marble ridges have descried,
And spring to welcome what with fond regret
They leave, who mid-way in the path have met.

Exile he seemed, as one whom hard-eyed fate
Had shut, stern portress, from his palace gate,
And bade the spider, unmolested there
Weave the grey web, that none should turn to tear;
But an old Jew, with contemplative smile
Watch the congenial insect's cunning wile,
Smile in those stately halls that this should be,
Where once he cringed, no lowlier knave than he,
In the long pageant of departed years,
Pomp, power, ambition, all that life endears
To the bond-servants of its gilded chain,
The proud, the great, the glorious, and the vain.

There had he come betimes, and waited long,
With hate untired, as rivers ever strong,
But humble guise, as if his life had been
Made but to serve the lordly Nazarene,
And there with staff and garb of sable hue,
Oft had he sat when gayer souls withdrew,
And fed on bitter thoughts that use had nursed,
Till second nature had become the first;
And there till Lido's waste, and briny wave
Shall mark him still an outcast, and his grave
In the dead grass and barren sand be made,
Where shrine is none, nor prayer was ever prayed,
Save of his worn and stern and weary race,
Above their last, and desolate dwelling place;
Still shall he sit, as seasons glide away,
O'er the proud pile, contemptuous of decay,
And his vile count of usance mutter o'er,
A serpent coiling on the untrodden floor,
Last of the living links, that men may see
'Twixt what was there, and what remains to be;
Ere from the lonely rooms and shattered wall
Rent by his hand the very frescos fall,
And sordid ruin, with a drear repose,
Broods o'er that scene of long-forgotten woes,
Whose name so glorious once, the peasant scarcely knows.

Yet once he knew it, or his fathers knew,
When Genoa's banner at Chiozza flew,
In joy of triumph or extreme of ill,
Honoured and loved, and sought, and trusted still;
And deem not fancy wayward, that she wrought
Thus for that stranger with creative thought
A lofty race and heritage, and stood
Dreaming such dreams, by Brenta's falling flood.

From his yet sleeping form, and forehead pale,
Spoke the high air, that want could ne'er assail,
And through the gloomy shadows of distress
Yet broader beamed the lights of nobleness;
There dimly stretched his native plains, before
Rose misty peaks, with forests covered o'er,
And scanty terraces on mountains high,
And thin spread hamlets, and a colder sky;
And he to German cities, far away
Fared wearily, or farther still than they,
And this of his own Italy, had been his latest day.

I gazed until it seemed my wandering thought
His sleeping vision's self-illusion caught;
And then we stood together, in the pile
Which he had left, a short—a bitter while:
Nor yet the glories of his ancient race,
Torn from their old hereditary place,
Had left cold shadows on the naked walls
To chase each other through deserted halls.

Thoughts of his youth, they came there back again,
And his heart drank them, as the earth the rain.

There was that true and strange epitome
Of human life, and all that man can be,
Where to the present's ever-changing moods
Speaks the old past, with fixed similitudes;
There Titian's hand a warrior Doge portrayed,
And there some idler of the summer shade;
There bent a maiden, with a glad surprise
O'er gems, but foil to pleasure's beaming eyes;
And there her merchant sire, who trafficked far
With wary thrift, to Balkh, or Istakhar;
Her with bright tresses Giorgione drew,
As when love saw, and kindled at the view,
And bore her fame of beauty far away,
Past Este's towers, and Montefeltro's sway;
Him Tintoretto's rapid hand designed,
And fixed each passing thought that floated in his mind.

The subtle priest that watched the late accord
Of conclave's votes, and started up their lord,
And bade avaunt dissembled age and pain,
And grasped the crozier, like a charger's rein;
The smooth-tongued envoy, ready still to lie,
Sharp as his sword and cold, with piercing eye,
And they who raised, and they who threw away
Fortune and fame, with folly's vain display,
Alike in that wild trance were imaged there;
But they are past, and know no earthly care:
And all of their old splendour that remains
Surrounds their dust, in time-defying fanes.

The porphyry pillar, and the sable stone,
Sure test of gold—that 'twere of virtues known,
And marble monuments, and faint perfume
Of burning censers, and the gorgeous gloom
That broods in silence, o'er each sacred place,
As present were the angel of their race,—
These vanish not, though all beside is fled;
But their last son must know another bed
In life and death, and lay in humbler guise his head.

Oh visions bright, of unforgotten hours,
Bright, and yet wan, as grief's declining flowers,
Wherewith o'er sepulchres she wreaths her head,
And calls, how vainly! on the lost and dead!
Thus did my fancy fill that pilgrim's brain
With ye, and feign the airy past again,
And call up phantoms of ancestral fame,
And power, and love, and give them all a name,
Albeit fleeting, as Autumnal gleams.

Ye wild waves dashing 'gainst the low-mouthed streams,
That pour their floods far over the lagoons
With turbid tide, in winter's watery moons;
Ye winds that wailing through the city go,
And fill no sails, and bear no banner now,
But waft the sea's corroding salt, to fade
Some glorious fresco, in its lone arcade;
Ye tapering towers, far scattered, whence the bell
Sounds through the air, with melancholy swell;
Ye shades, companions of the breeze, that float
With a strange power, o'er isle, and quay, and boat,
Now distant, and now nearer, and suffuse
The landscape ever with chamelion hues;
So let me look on ye, and dream once more,
And summon back the tales, and songs of yore
From Arquà's poet vale, to Venice' farthest shore.

Asmodeus Redivivus Read Poem

"Credite me vobis folium recitare Sibyllæ.

"
What, shall nought e'er be sacred, nought evade
The prying imp that pierces every shade,
That new Asmodeus, to whose subtle sight
Walls turn transparent—doors let through the light?

From north to south, from Paris to Whitehall,
He still must know it, let what will befal.

To rule the world, what unborn measures wait,
Hid in cabals of fashion or of state;
Whose will was wrong, whose wife has gone astray,
Who wrote the last new novel, or the play,
Or who should tremble did he but disclose
What late—but silence, for the realm's repose.

And thus with hint, and menace, and surmise,
And bold assertion round the circle flies;
And holds patrician follies out to view,
Till burn the many, eager to pursue,
And snatch the garb, and think 'twill fit them too.

Time was, e'er yet this universal rage
And thirst for knowledge lit the kindling age;
When ways were rough, and with the waning light,
The careful driver put up for the night,
Nor reached his goal, thus antient legends say,
Till twice he'd worshipped on the seventh day.

Thus now, with many a rest and pause between,
Winds his slow way, the Italian vetturin;
Thus now, alas! provoking many an oath,
The German schelm smokes on, and rivals both.

Then honest Marvel, once a quarter, down
To country voters sent the news from town,
And e'en quick rumour waited patient yet
For confirmation in next month's Gazette.

Now see thine honours, proud Olympia fail,
Not Phoebus' self could grapple with the mail.

Far flies the dust, the rapid road recedes,
Glow the hot wheels, and foam the panting steeds,
Levell'd alike the valley and the ridge,
And wondering Menai flows beneath his bridge;
And still as mountain, strait, and vale are crossed,
Expecting myriads cry, "the post, the post!"
Each light-heeled Mercury owns the warning note,
Throws down his cards, and buttons up his coat;
And hastes with news each longing door to greet,
From bank to market, and from street to street;
The shaggy pony hears the accustomed sound,
And pricks its ears, and neighing paws the ground,
And back with willing amble turns to bear
To hall or house the universal care.

Unconscious beast! the hay-rick's baser meed
Nerves all thy strength, and quickens all thy speed,
Thy frolic fellows, or thy whynnying foal,
And the long, glad, reiterated roll.

Oh, couldst thou know what hopes and fears depend
On that blest instant, when thy task shall end;
How at thy charge's magic spell shall glow,
Each varying passion, each emotion flow;
Well might'st thou deem thou serv'dst the sacred nine,
And all the pride of Pegasus be thine.

But see, fair science wider spreads her beam,
McAdam's self must sighing yield to steam,
And flying Fame shall time and space devour,
Born on the wings of "forty miles an hour.

"
Now fright with war each northern isle and bay,
Where Pentland rolls round stormy Ronaldsay;
Now, of the barn ere yet the blaze be spent,
Bid Connaught rise and nobly follow Kent.

Almighty press! without thy fostering hand
Nor states, nor statesmen, now must dare to stand;
Traitors to thee, see priest-rid Charles o'erthrown,
And William dispossessed of half his own.

Ruled by thy dictates, creatures of thy sway,
The implicit world must wonder and obey.

Alike thy power, o'er least and greatest things,
Now puffs a novel, now deposes kings.

Thus lolls some eastern potentate at ease,
In high kiosk, that woos the mountain breeze,
Around him pages, minstrels, hangmen, wait,
And dancing girls, and ministers of state;
And now to this a careless look he turns,
Some pasha's bowstrung, or some city burns;
Now puffs his pipe, and nods on t'other side,
Through their gay maze voluptuous Almes glide,
And smiles, or gory heads, or feasts, or sighs,
Wait the least glance of those despotic eyes.

Where now his head shall hapless Curio hide,
Where find a refuge, through the world so wide?

Quick from the wrath impending, let him haste
To Syria's suns, or lone Australia's waste:—
What Curio! wherefore?

not ten hours ago,
'Twas who but he! then whence this sudden blow?

Is the Bank broken, that the man's proscribed,
Found out a rogue, conspirator, or bribed?

None of all these—what was it?

quickly tell;
Then you've not read this morning's article.

'Tis thought the Commons must impeach, if not,
They'll swear that all are black with the same blot,
Senates and ministers denounce alike,
And all at once with deadly vengeance strike.

Yet things like these are not quite new, you'll say,
E'en old Sir Robert kept such troops in pay;
And fought with flying Posts, and Gazetteers,
True Briton, Courants, more than twenty years;
And though such rats may seem scarce worth the banning,
They've clawed at wits, from Bolingbroke to Canning.

Yes, here our sires read politics—confest:
But we've high life and low life—all the rest.

How Julia holds Lord Henry's heart in thrall,
How sprung dire discord from his Grace's ball,
And mobs and courts, and fights, and blushing brides,
And city feasts, and Lord knows what besides.

Far from the town, where late she reign'd supreme,
A hapless maid with tears augments the stream,
The woodland stream, that careless murmurs on,
Nor heeds the sorrows of so sad a swan;
Light breathe the zephyrs round its fringing tree,
Where bells the buck, and hums the roving bee,
And the sweet sky above so calm and clear,
And earth around in summer's brightest cheer,
And birds that sing by starts from out the brake,
And fishes leap along the silver lake,
And song of mowers in the new-cut hay,
And glad bells faintly sounding far away,
And green leaves blending down the varied glade,
Might wake to rapture—not this hapless maid.

Alas! what spleen her tortur'd breast invades?

Like Myrrha pent within the cruel shades.

For her, ye Dryads, all your sports give o'er,
E'en that sad nymph could never hate ye more,
Nor Daphne now, a laurel's form that rears,
Nor Po's pale virgins with their amber tears,
Nor sad Clorinda, with her lover's dart
Fix'd in that green stem, once, Ah yet, her heart,
Could e'er to bard impart such thoughts of woe,
'Mid the green woods, as Delia's breast must know.

Then, blest Court Journal, as in knightly day,
Some fair forsaken pin'd her life away,
Swift flew her moments, number'd as she sunk,
Pale grew the leech, and inward smiled the monk,
And thought—God speed St.

Francis and his shrine,
Her towers and manors are already mine;
Till from far shores her ransomed lover came,
And woke to bliss the just-expiring dame;
Thus can thy pages' magic mirror chase
Clouds from her heart, and dulness from her face,
Each long-loved scene to fancy's eye restore,
And change to London's streets the willowed shore.

See Summer's lion crouches in his lair,
And mellow Autumn waves his golden hair,
Still noon burns fierce, but evening gathers grey,
And red the leaf upon the beechen spray,
And morning frosts with pearls bedeck the mead,
When careful grooms first try the hunter's speed.

From glaring pavement, and from dusty street,
Fly the gay throng, September's joys to greet,
And lone Penates of the town must mourn
For six long months ere their loved lords return.

But shall his Grace in dull oblivion pine,
Till his great name grows cobwebbed as his wine?

Or captive hearts forget bright beauty's queen,
Lost and unhonoured in the sylvan scene?

No, Fame's quick minion heard his mistress call:
Nor more he hovers o'er the park or ball;
No more to operas he attends the fair,
Or wanders round deserted Grosvenor-square;
He seeks the shades, but onward as he flew,
He met Silenus and his merry crew,
Satyrs and Fauns, that cheered the chase along,
And Dryads, trilling sweet their woodland song:
Then thus the spirit—
—Hold, good bard, I pray,
I hear the horn—'twill do another day,
This song of yours, and what the spirit said,
The post comes in, and news is to be read,
So hush your lyre, and take the chaplet from your head.

Milan
, Dec.

1, 1830.

Enter Monks: From The Same Read Poem

Last night our Abbot blessed his saint
As he knelt before his tomb,
And tapers from the altar quaint,
Looked out o'er the cloister's gloom;
And every frere, with forehead bare,
And bent, his beads must tell,
And all the while, through the dusky aisle,
Echoed the sullen bell;
And good St.

Nicholas heard his prayer,
And gave a dispensation,
In case his winter's meagre fare
Required emendation.

A miracle! a miracle!
The holy father cried,
When he stood again within his cell,
And the almoner at his side.

For golden flasks of Cyprus wine
In the water jugs were stored,
And venison sent a steam divine
From off the fasting board.

And since that time, both eve and prime,
Right hard doth our Abbot pray,
'Fore a goodly haunch, to keep him staunch,
While his monks are far away.

And though, perchance, the mazy dance
Suits not with shaven frere,
If right I read yon gentle glance,
He'll not be useless there.

Gondolier's Song: In An Unfinished Mask Read Poem

From Venice, while the moonlight falls
Brightest o'er her porphyry halls,
Gilding with unearthly ray,
Dome and column, worn and grey,
Till, as in a fairy dream,
Prouder, statelier, they seem
In the hour of their decay,
Than when from the Adrian shore,
First the breeze their banner bore,
Bless'd by mothers, many a one,
'Gainst the fiery Ottoman:
We are coming, never fear
Knew the joyous Gondolier.

Ne'er, where dance and song united,
Ne'er, where beauty's lamp was lighted,
Was he absent, hail our bark!
Ne'er the Lion of St.

Mark
Flew on the Illyrian blast,
To his triumphs half so fast
As we've come o'er land and sea
To join in your festivity.

Pescara Read Poem

Haste! mother, haste! smoke blackens the blue sky,
Pescara comes, oh, whither shall we fly?

I see his band beyond those olive trees,
I hear his trumpets braying in the breeze;
There are none here beside but you and I—
Haste! mother, haste! oh, whither shall we fly!
Fear not, my daughter, 'tis our land to save
From foreign tyrants, that his banners wave;
To chase the French, that o'er our counties ride,
And sweep their lilies from our river's side:
They'll harm you not, and once you lov'd a lance,
And the gay greeting of a soldier's glance.

Yes, but that lance ne'er rode in Spanish ranks,
'Tis all alike, while o'er our valley pranks
Frenchman or Spaniard, and our native lords
Whet for a stranger's vassalage their swords.

I'll to the mountain, his guerilla's there,
Let these avengers follow, if they dare.

The Tricolor Read Poem

The devil he marshalled his legions gay,
That he hoped would rule the world,
He dressed them all in bright array,
And then his flag unfurled.

First came the blue,—'tis they who rack
Sir Robert's trimming brain,
And conjure all those visions back
He ne'er shall grasp again.

The white, they in their livery dress,
Each ministry when new,
Till curious folks begin to guess
Some spots will soon show through.

The red,—a gallant sight to see,
With trumpet, fife, and drum,
Bearing the standard martially,
In serried squadrons come.

That flag has waved in every gale,
And threatened every shore;
But an English cheek shall ne'er turn pale
At the Frenchman's tricolor.

Paris
, Dec.

20

Where thy fane, time-riven Read Poem

"Why, then, you may leave a casement of the great chamber window open, and the moon may shine in at the casement.

"
-Midsummer Night's Dream
Where thy fane, time-riven,
Crowns the marble hill,
And sailing up the heaven,
Thy crescent decks it still;
Though the Asian timbrel,
And the bounding foot,
And song, and Lesbian cymbal,
That hailed thee once, be mute;
A stranger of old days dreaming,
Alone at midnight hour,
When mystic stars are gleaming,
Diana, hails thy power.

What though the mighty mother
Of all the gods denied
To thee the gift another
Had, and in virgin pride
Bade thee spurn the myrtle,
Chaste, and cold, and true,
(Oh, in his nest the turtle
Wreaths cypress branches too).

Yet the shining river,
And the waving tree,
Fresh and fair for ever,
Oh, gave she not to thee?

Still amid the wild wood
Let thy horn rebound,
As in dreaming childhood
I've heard its silver sound,
Stealing far and faintly,
O'er wakened wold and wave,
While echo answered quaintly,
From out her star-lit cave.

Poems by Sir John Hanmer

Margaret Hanmer (c. 1362 – c. 1420), sometimes known by her Welsh name of Marred ferch Dafydd, was the wife of Owain Glyndŵr.

Poems