Him shining on a gorgeous throne
My muse beheld—nor struck one tone
While fortune's wheel its circles flies.
He falls, gets up—then prostrate lies;
While thousand voices rend the air,
Her voice amongst them none can hear.
Exempt from every servile praise,
For outrage base she forms no lays;
But now, when such a beam had fled,
She quickly rears her drooping head,
And round his urn, with heaving sigh,
She weaves a song that may not die.
From Alpine heights to Egypt's shrine,
From Mansanares to the Rhine,
His thunderbolts unerring flew
Close to his vivid lightning's hue,
From Scylla to the Tanais roars,
From Asia's bounds to Adria's shores.
Was this true glory? undefiled?
Posterity, just, unbeguiled,
The arduous sentence must proclaim,
Whilst we before our Maker's name
Must bow—who wished in him to shine
An impress vast of hands divine.
He felt the stormy, trepid joy
Of great designs—without alloy;
The anxious heart—its feverish pains—
That eager burn—to seize the reins
That guide to power's airy height.
He grasped them, and with hardy might He gained the proud reward—which seemed
To all a folly e'en t' have dreamed.
All things he tried: bright glory's sweet
Increased by frightful danger's heat, Fair vict'ry's smiles, and sadd'ning flight,
The sunny throne, and exile's night:
Twice prostrate in the dust he lay,
And twice he blazed in glory's day.
His name was heard: submissive turned
Two ages—that with fury burned—
And, trembling, stood before his seat,
In expectation of their fate:
He bade them hush with lordly frown,
And as their umpire sat him down.
He disappeared: his shortened days
He closed, far from the busy gaze
Of men—a mark for envy's dart,
For purest piety of heart,
For hate, that can no act approve,
And for indomitable love.
As o'er the shipwrecked sailor's head
The wave rolls up, with terror dread,
That wave, from whose bleak top before
He searched, in vain, for distant shore;
Soon that soul the sick'ning weight
Of mem'ry felt, and brooding sat.
How oft be undertook to paint
Himself to future days—when faint
Upon the eternal pages sunk
His hand, and in himself he shrunk.
How oft, upon the silent close
Of some dull, tedious days, he rose,
And bending down his lightning eyes—
His hand thrust in his bosom lies—
He stood: and gloomy mem'ry's roll
Of days gone by attacked his soul!
He thought upon the tented field,
The sounding plain with bayonets steeled,
The splendor of his marshalled brave,
The chargers rolling in a wave,
The throbbing breast, the quick command,
And prompt obedience of his band.
Perhaps with torturing cares opprest,
His wearied spirit found no rest,
And he despaired: but quick was given
An aiding hand from piteous heaven,
To lift him up—from this dark sphere,
And place him in more genial air.
And through hope's smiling, flow'ry way
To guide him to the fields of day;
To those rewards that far transcend
The hope that vast desires lend:
Where gulfed in darkness sinks each ray
Of glory that has passed away.
O faith immortal! beauteous! kind!
Turn'd to triumphs o'er the mind!
Write this one too—rejoice! be glad!
For never yet a prouder head,
Or one on loftier deeds intent,
To Calv'ry's infamy has bent!
Off from his ashes do thou guard
All malice black—each venomed word
The God who overthrows—and when
To pity moved—rears up again—
Who scatters terror to the poles!
The God who, when he wills, consoles;
That God has placed himself beside
The desert couch—on which he died.
Translated from Le Mousquetaire.
Sketch of Père Hyacinthe.
The discourses of Père Hyacinthe, in the church of Notre Dame, have been numerously attended, and the sacred eloquence of the orator has furnished subjects for the strangest criticisms that have appeared in what has been called, in the nineteenth century, the profane world.
It is not my intention to give you a portrait of Père Hyacinthe. It has already been drawn by a master hand. I wish merely to sketch the features, the figure, and the personalities of this great saver of souls.
The preacher, who now attracts to Notre Dame the thinking minds of Paris, is in stature above the middle size; his head is closely shaven, like all those of the order of barefooted Carmelites. It is well known that the disciples of St. Teresa wear but a circlet of hair. It is their earthly crown. His form is too large for the size of his head; his face is monkish; his forehead recalls to mind that of St. Augustine; his eyes have rather the expression of seeking truth than of imparting it; but the mouth opens freely to let fall the word of God upon his hearers; the chin, without being aristocratic, is not wanting in a certain nobility that redeems his appearance, which at first sight is ordinary.
On the whole, Père Hyacinthe carries one's thoughts back to those monks of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, who, regardless of personal safety, fearlessly crossed the thresholds of palaces to make the dignitaries of earth listen to the teachings of charity, love, and of liberty. This preacher has been accused of voluntarily laying aside spiritual subjects to descend to the things of earth. This reproach is unjust.