by the honourable Julia Augusta Maynard.
Originally published in Ainsworth's Magazine: A Miscellany of Romance (Chapman and Hall) vol.2 #4 (1847).
Hark! from those solemn bells distinct arise
Th' unheeded chimes! Another hour, then, dies!
A drop, a mark, within th' appointed span
Is lost to earth, to virtue, and to man!
The midnight hour in mystic silence reigns,
And the sad wind in hollow moan complains.
Pale o'er the soul the memories of the past
Live in each beam, and tremble on each blast.
How in such scenes delusive splendours die!
How bared to view each cold reality!
The wealth of nations, and the pomp of pride,
By time's rude hand alike are cast aside.
Lo! Greece so mighty when her sons were free,
Sons! whose blood flow'd upon Thermopylæ!
Spirits! that urged their charging valour on
To slay the Persian host at Marathon,
To chain th' insensate boaster to the car,
Where vict'ry shouting placed her radiant star.
Mark fallen Rome, her columns scathed and bent,
Each glory fled that lit her firmament!
E'en as the thunder-cloud expended lies,
Its flame extinct, along the watery skies,
Th' immortal city in her gloom appears—
Her fires extinguish'd in a flood of tears.
Whilst pond'ring o'er such wrecks, such wrecks as these,
How feel we then earth's utter vanities!
How in the urn of memory repose
The cherish'd ashes of each faded rose,
Each flower we cull'd when life was doubly sweet,
When fresh'ning hopes grew blooming at our feet!
The smiling vista to our eyes appear'd
By every thought of tenderness endear'd.
Yet why repine? so brief th' uncertain space
That fate hath doom'd us in th' appointed race—
On joys thus transient why expend our breath?
One gulf we're nearing, and that gulf is—death!