Page:Landon in Literary Gazette 1823.pdf/77

76 Literary Gazette, 28th June 1823, Page 412

To this account it affords us a melancholy consolation to add a beautiful tribute of talent not unworthy of, and breathing a tone of poetic feeling which will gratefully embalm his memory.

It was a harp just fit to pour Its music to the wind and wave,— He had a right to tell their fame Who stood himself amid the brave.

The first time that I read his strain There was a tempest on the sky, And sulphurous clouds, and thunder crash, Were like dark ships and battle-cry.

I had forgot my woman's fears, In thinking on my country's fame, Till almost I could dream I saw Her colours float o'er blood and flame.

Died the high song as dies the voice Of the proud trumpet on the wind; And died the tempest too, and left A gentle twilight hour behind.

Then paused I o'er some sad wild notes, Sweet as the spring bird's lay withal. Telling of hopes and feelings past, Like stars that darkened in their fall.

Hopes perishing from too much light, "Exhausted by their own excess," Affections trusted, till they turned, Like Marah's wave, to bitterness.

And is this, then, the curse that clings To minstrel hope, to minstrel feeling? Is this the cloud that destiny Flings o'er the spirit's high revealing?