Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/249

 1830-40.] WILLIAM ROSS WALLACE. 233 To the house? Ah! there they will knock at the doors, Or stalk, with a pale-mouthed muttering, Like ghosts through the lonesome corridors. O, Land away o'er the dark-blue sea ! The good God loves us too : The Year is with us as it is with thee — For he weareth every hue. It is from the darkness and the blight. That we love the bloom and we know the light. Gloomily strikes the coward Blast On the sad face of the Mere : To and fro are the dead leaves cast, To and fro : The Year is now but a dying Year — The poor old heir of an icy bier ! As he goes, we must go. THE GODS OF OLD.* Not realmless sit the ancient Gods Upon their mountain-thrones In that old glorious Grecian Heaven Of regal zones. A languor o'er their stately forms May lie, And a sorrow on their wide white brows, King-dwellers of the Sky ! But theirs is still that great imperial throng Of starry thoughts and firm but quiet wills, That murmured past the blind old King of Song, When staring round him on the Thun- derer's hills. They cannot fade, though other creeds Came burdened with their curse, And One's apotheosis was A darkened Universe. No tempest heralded His orient light ; No fiery portent walked the solemn night ; No conqueror's blood-red banner was un- furled ; No volcan shook its warning torch on high ; No earthquake tore the pulses of the world; No pale sun wandered through a swarthy sky; Only the conscious Spheres Amid the silence shed some joyous tears. And then, as rainbows come. He came With morning's rosy flame. The Stars looked from their palaces whose spires And windows caught afar the prophet- glow, And bade their choirs sing to the sweetest lyres "■ Peace and Good Will unto the Orb below." Jove shuddered and turned sick at heart, And from his white hands fell The scepter with a thunderous sound Before that miracle : Ah, sick at soul ! but they, the Bards — Song's calm Immortals — in the eclipse Thronged up and held the nectar cup To his pale lips. Then falling back, and taking lower thrones. That glistened round the heavenly zones. At first the minstrels lightly stirr'd Certain melodious strings, While the startled tempest-bearing bird Poised tremblingly his wings : But loftier soon their harps resounded. And louder yet their voices rolled Among the arches, and rebounded From all the roofs of gold. HYMN OF THE BAEDS. I. "Ye cannot leave your throned spheres Though Faith is o'er, ^d a mightier One than Jove appears On Earth's expectant shore," — I
 * Inscribed to John Bell Bouton.