Withal, it was mine ancient friend’s, the Trap,
As lo, he dire spoke, “and had I been there,
Where southward down the Capelands bear,
Had I not quenched with my good cap,
O’er-topped his crest, that Milner man,
Whose swell of head to the Imperial plan
“Such havoc worked, that toiling Day
Nor patient Night, tho’ joining chore,
Retrieves the base that rose before;
But as sad Fates their grim plots lay,
Nor scorn no aid from scheming Breath,
Shall, waning, sink t’ward leveling Death.”
At this—as from its curb had once more broke
The Will—my safer self—tho’ cowed and pent
Within their witching grip, I roused and bent
The tongue to hot retort, and spoke:
“Who’re you, that spurs so fierce the instant Right,
Who’ld wage conclusions with the patient Light?”
Then more calm—for within his look
There sate a gleam, that still, clear gaze,
By which dim Destiny all opposite weighs,
Nay, her least owing brings to book—
I faltered forth: “What? him they’ve frilled a lord?
You’ld from your great good heart have spared a cord?”
“Knit closer up this raveled night?
Or bee’st thou then?”—Here fell again, past pen to tell,
On tongue and will that gruesome spell,
Tho’ heart and brain seemed steeped in light;
As in voice, whose vast no star-deep girds,
’Rose grim, I thought, that eerie Thirds;’
Now halting, meek, no more. O, futile trope!
To suit to trick of verbal range
What boundless garbs past millioned change,
Yet here, in humble guise of him, the Rope,
Spoke valiant out, tho’ slept each sense-watch there,
Unvoicing very thunder by compare:
“And had I been where across the sea,
Confederate, girt, with bulwark tides,
Fair Albion, on proud leave, divides,
With Ocean’s state, his empery;
On his white bastion fearless stands,
While lift with light the beaconed hands;
But out of mark, unstatured, sinks,
All tribute once, now scarce a heed,
Some trick, at best, sad memories breed,
When the large well, whence Honor drinks,
He fierce pollutes, the loath cup drains,
Inglorious pledged to siren gains;
When the large glow, which constant shone,
Now winnows Night no never more,
Blasphemes its trust, the spacious charge it missioned bore,
And all his anchored pride be overthrown,
While up from heaving seas comes brooding cast,
To moan of threnody, his vanished past.
Ah! had I been there, ere hawks could trail,
Could, hounding, snatch at brooding Peace;
Ere her wild brother’s bugle shook the seas:
Had I not ta’en a reef in Joseph’s sail—
The Crest and Swell, which false at source,
Pluck whelm and blast to path their course;