Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine – Volume 55, No. 341, March, 1844

    J. S.

A ROMAN IDYL

Oh! blame not, friend, with scoff unfeeling,
The gentle tale of grief and wrong,
Which, all the pain of life revealing,
Yet teaches peace by thoughtful song.

The landscape round us wide expanded
As ere was heard the name of Rome;
And Rome, though fallen, our souls commanded,
In this her empire's earliest home.

Her brightness beam'd on each far mountain,
Her life made green the grass we trode,
Her memory haunted still the fountain,
And spread her shadows o'er the sod.

Her ruins told their tale of glory,
Decreed to that eternal sky;
And through that ancient grove, her story
With sibyl whisper seem'd to sigh.

The pile her wealthiest mourner builded,
In glimpse we caught through ilex gloom—
Metella's Tower, by sunshine gilded,
That beams alike on feast or tomb.

And on this plain, not yet benighted,
'Mid awful ages mouldering there,
Young hands in new-bloom flowers delighted,
Young eyes look'd bright in sunniest air.

Till we, Viterbo's wine-cup quaffing,
Which fairer lips refused to grace,
Could win by jest those lips to laughing,
And veil'd in folly wisdom's face.

But say, my friend, thou sage mysterious,
What Nymph, what Muse disown'd the strain
Which bade our heedless mirth be serious,
And woke our ears to nobler pain?

That region grave of plain and highland,
With Rome's grey ruin strewn around,
Is not a soft Calypso's island,
Nor fades at Truth's evoking sound.

High thoughts in words of quiet beauty
Accord with visions grand as these,
And song's imperishable duty
Has holier aims than but to please.

By word and image deeply wedded,
By cadence apt and varied rhyme,
To rouse the soul in sloth imbedded,
And tune its powers to life sublime.

By loftier shows of man's large being
Than man's dim actual hour displays,
To clear our eyes for purer seeing,
And nerve the flagging spirit's gaze.

By strains of bold heroic pleasure,
And action strong as thought conceives,
By many a doom-resounding measure
That best our selfish woes relieves;

By these to stir, by these to brighten,
By these to lift the soul from earth,
The Poet dares our joys to frighten,
And thrills the dirge of lazy mirth.

Ye Ruins, dust of empires vanish'd,
Ye mountains, clad with countless years,
From your great presence ne'er be banish'd
Sad songs that live in earnest ears:

Sad songs, the music of all sorrow,
Profound and calm as night's blue deep:
Accurst the dreams of any morrow
When man will feel he cannot weep.

    J. S.

GOETHE

Alas! on earth his marvels done,
The noble German bosom lies,
His fatherland's Athenian son,
Amid the sage must largely rise!

Amid the sage the generous race
Of soaring thought and steadfast glow,
He breathes no more who gave a grace
To all our daily lot below.

He gave to man's encumber'd hours
The tuneful joys of truth serene,