Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843

The outrage rude Otanes view'd, and fury fired his breast—
And to the winds the chieftain cast his monarch's high behest.
He gave the word, that angry lord—"War, war unto the death!"
Then many a scimitar flash'd forth impatient from its sheath.

VIII

Through Samos wide, from side to side, the carnage is begun,
And ne'er a mother there is seen, but mourns a slaughter'd son;
From side to side, through Samos wide, Otanes hurls his prey,
Few, few, are left in that fair isle, their monarch to obey!

IX

The new-made monarch sits in state in his loved ancestral bow'rs,
And he bids his minstrel strike the lyre, and he crowns his head with flow'rs;
But still a cloud is on his brow—where is the promised smile?
And yet he sits a sceptred king—in his own dear native isle.

X

Oh! Samos dear, my native land! I tread thy courts again—
But where are they, thy gallant sons? I gaze upon the slain—
"A dreary kingdom mine, I ween," the mournful monarch said,
"Where are my subjects good and true? I reign but o'er the dead!

XI

"Ah! woe is me—I would that I had ne'er to Susa gone,
To ask that fatal boon of thee, Hystaspes' generous son.
Oh, deadly fight! oh, woeful sight! to greet a monarch's eyes!
All desolate—my native land, reft of her children, lies!"

XII

Thus mourn'd the chief—and no relief his regal state could bring.
O'er such a drear unpeopled waste, oh! who would be a king?
And still, when desolate a land, and her sons all swept away,
"The waste domain of Syloson," 'tis call'd unto this day!

LOVE AND DEATH

O strong as the Eagle,
O mild as the Dove!
How like, and how unlike,
O Death and O Love!

Knitting Earth to the Heaven,
The Near to the Far—
With the step on the dust,
And the eyes on the star!

Interweaving, commingling,
    Both rays from God's light!
Now in sun, now in shadow,
Ye shift to the sight!

Ever changing the sceptres
Ye bear—as in play;
Now Love as Death rules us,
Now Death has Love's sway!

Why wails so the New-born?
Love gave it the breath.
The soul sees Love's brother—
Life enters on Death!

Why that smile the wan lips
Of the dead man above?
The soul sees Death changing
Its shape into Love.

So confused and so blending
Each twin with its brother,
The frown of one melts
In the smile of the other.

Love warms where Death withers,
Death blights where Love blooms;
Death sits by our cradles,
Love stands by our tombs!

    Edward Lytton Bulwer.
    Nov. 9, 1843.

THE BRIDGE OVER THE THUR

FROM THE GERMAN.—GUSTAV SCHWAB

Spurning the loud Thur's headlong march,
Who hath stretcht the stony arch?
That the wayfarer blesses his path!
That the storming river wastes his wrath!

Was it a puissant prince, in quelling
This watery vassal, oft rebelling?—
Or earthly Mars, the bar o'erleaping,
That wrong'd his war of its onward sweeping?