Have borne them nearer: and the nearer sight,
Advantaged more, contemplates them aright.
Their lofty summits crested high they shew,
With mingled sleet, and long-incumbent snow.
The rest is ice. Far hence, where, most severe,
Bleak winter well-nigh saddens all the year,
Their infant growth began. He bade arise
Their uncouth forms, portentous in our eyes.
Oft as dissolved by transient suns, the snow
Left the tall cliff to join the flood below;
He caught, and curdled with a freezing blast
The current, ere it reach'd the boundless waste.
By slow degrees uprose the wondrous pile,
And long successive ages roll'd the while,
Till, ceaseless in its growth, it claim'd to stand
Tall as its rival mountains on the land.
Thus stood, and unremovable by skill
Or force of man, had stood the structure still,
But that, though firmly fix'd, supplanted yet
By pressure of its own enormous weight,
It left the shelving beach-and with a sound
That shook the bellowing waves and rocks around,
Self-launch'd, and swiftly, to the briny wave,
As if instinct with strong desire to lave,
Down went the ponderous mass. So bards of old
How Delos swam. the Agean deep have told.
But not of ice was Delos. Delos bore
Herb, fruit, and flower. She, crown'd with laurel, wore,
Even under wintry skies, a summer smile;
And Delos was Apollo's favourite isle.
But, horrid wanderers of the deep, to you
He deems Cimmerian darkness only due.
Your hated birth he deign'd not to survey,
But, scornful, turn'd his glorious eyes away.
Hence! Seek your home, nor longer rashly dare
The darts of Phoebus, and a softer air;
Lest ye regret, too late, your native coast,
In no congenial gulf for ever lost!
OBSCUREST night involved the sky,
The Atlantic billows roar'd,
* This was Cowper's last original poem. It is founded on an anecdote related in
When such a destined wretch as I,
Wash'd headlong from on board,
Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,
His floating home for ever left.
No braver chief could Albion boast
Than he with whom he went,
Nor ever ship left Albion's coast
With warmer wishes sent.
He loved them both, but both in vain ;
Nor him beheld, nor her again.
Not long beneath the whelming brine Expert to swim, he lay ;
Nor soon he felt his strength decline, Or courage die away;
But waged with death a lasting strife,
Supported by despair of life.
He shouted; nor his friends had fail'd
To check the vessel's course,
But so the furious blast prevail'd,
That pitiless perforce
They left their outcast mate behind,
And scudded still before the wind.
Some succour yet they could afford;
And, such as storms allow,
The cask, the coop, the floated cord,
Delay'd not to bestow:
But he, they knew, nor ship nor shore,
Whate'er they gave, should visit more.
Nor, cruel as it seem'd, could he
Their haste himself condemn,
Aware that flight, in such a sea,
Alone could rescue them;
Yet bitter felt it still to die
Deserted, and his friends so nigh.
He long survives, who lives an hour
In ocean, self-upheld:
And so long he, with unspent power,
His destiny repell'd;
And ever, as the minutes flew,
Entreated help, or cried-" Adieu !”
At length, his transient respite past,
His comrades, who before
Had heard his voice in every blast,
Could catch the sound no more:
For then, by toil subdued, he drank
The stifling wave, and then he sank.
No poet wept him; but the page
Of narrative sincere,
That tells his name, his worth, his age,
Is wet with Anson's tear:
And tears by bards or heroes shed
Alike immortalise the dead.
I therefore purpose not, or dream,
Descanting on his fate,
To give the melancholy theme
A more enduring date:
But misery still delights to trace
Its semblance in another's case.
No voice divine the storm allay'd,
No light propitious shone,
When, snatch'd from all effectual aid,
We perish'd, each alone:
But I beneath a rougher sea,
And whelm'd in deeper gulfs than be.
TRANSLATION OF PSALM CXXXVII.
To Babylon's proud waters brought,
In bondage where we lay,
With tears on Sion's Hill we thought,
And sighed our hours away;
Neglected on the willows hung
Our useless harps, while every tongue
Bewailed the fatal day.
Then did the base insulting foe
Some joyous notes demand,
Such as in Sion used to flow
From Judah's happy band:
Alas! what joyous notes have we,
Our country spoiled, no longer free,
And in a foreign land?
O Solyma! if e'er thy praise
Be silent in my song,
Rude and unpleasing be the lays,
And artless be my tongue!
Thy name my fancy still employs;
To thee, great fountain of my joys,
My sweetest airs belong.
Remember, Lord! that hostile sound,
When Edom's children cried,
"Razed be her turrets to the ground,
And humbled be her pride!"
Remember, Lord! and let the foe
The terrors of thy vengeance know,
Thy vengeance they defied!
Thou too, great Babylon, shalt fall
A victim to our God;
Thy monstrous crimes already call
For heaven's chastising rod.
Happy who shall thy little ones
Relentless dash against the stones,
And spread their limbs abroad.
TRANSLATION OF GREEK VERSES.
THE SPARTAN MOTHER, BY JULIANUS.
A SPARTAN, his companion slain,
Alone from battle fled;
His mother kindling with disdain
That she had borne him, struck him dead; For courage, and not birth alone,
In Sparta, testifies a son!
ON THE SAME, BY PALLADAS.*
A SPARTAN 'scaping from the fight,
His mother met him in his flight,
Upheld a falchion to his breast,
And thus the fugitive addressed:
"Thou canst but live to blot with shame
Indelible thy mother's name,
While every breath that thou shalt draw
Offends against thy country's law;
But, if thou perish by this hand,
Myself indeed throughout the land,
To my dishonour, shall be known
The mother still of such a son;
But Sparta will be safe and free,
And that shall serve to comfort me."
My name my country-what are they to thee?
What, whether base or proud my pedigree?
Perhaps I far surpassed all other men--
Perhaps I fell below them all-what then?
Suffice it, stranger! that thou seest a tomb-
Thou know'st its use-it hides-no matter whom.
TAKE to thy bosom, gentle earth, a swain
With much hard labour in thy service worn!
*He lived in the fifth century.
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