Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HALLOWED SCENES, by GEORGE PAULIN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HALLOWED SCENES, by                    
First Line: They rise before me, robed in many hues
Last Line: Start from their hollow'd bed -- the thistle-tufted urn.
Subject(s): Pilgrimages & Pilgrims; War


THEY rise before me, robed in many hues, --
Distant and dim with years, or brightly near --
The mouldering records of a bygone year,
When Greece own'd heroes, Helicon a muse --
The high blue hills that cleft the Grecian heaven,
When sunn'd with glory's beam, and cleave it still, --
The eternal City, with its splendours riven
By conquering Time from its own palace-hill --
And later hallow'd (not less true to fame),
Helvetia's mountain-land of liberty.
The island heights that despots quake to name,
Guarded by valour and the rolling sea;
And, holier far, the plains by angels trod,
What time a lowly wanderer, faint and poor,
Walk'd o'er the Syrian sands -- the incarnate God
Who paved with burning suns heaven's palace floor,
And toil'd with humble men by Galilee's lone shore! --

They rise before me, bursting through the veil
Of bygone years; and many a scene beside,
Of its own land the glory and the pride,
Hallow'd for ages by the poet's tale.
I see a million swords flash back the sun
From high Oeta's base, and Malia's shore;
I hear the Persian shout, "The pass is won!"
I see their glittering myriads downward pour:
Thermopylae! thy own Three Hundred stand
Before me as they stood when round their lord
They vowed to die, or save their fatherland
With Freedom's keen and consecrated sword.
There stood -- there fell Leonidas, and round
(With twice ten thousand foes) his little band; --
Their fall hath sanctified that gory ground,
Their fall hath hallow'd all that wondrous land,
And still the Egean hymns their dirge by Malia's strand.

Gray Marathon! the pilgrim turns to thee,
Flashes Athena's banner on his sight,
And all the glittering splendour of the fight --
The plume, the shield, the sword, the prostrate tree,
Rolls on the Mede's interminable host,
Stand firm and stern and mute the patriot few:
See yonder hero, Athens' proudest boast,
With joyous look the moving myriads view:
The war-peal bursts -- the dawning light of heaven
Blends the wild strife of freeman and of slave;
And see, before the avenging banner driven,
To shun the sword the Persian seeks the wave
To fetter freedom in her loved retreat;
In pride of power the despot left his throne,
He chain'd the floods that lash'd his worshipp'd feet,
But found Miltiades and Marathon, --
And bent his haughty crest a present God to own.

Clime of the ancient but undying glory!
Birth-place of freedom, valour, love, and song!
Fain would the pilgrim, lingering, dwell among
Your haunted heights and vision'd vales of story;
Fain would he linger by Cithaeron's steep,
And kneel upon the shores of Salamis;
Wander a while where Leuctra's heroes sleep,
And muse o'er Sparta's tomb where adders hiss;
Stand mournfully where old Athenae stood,
And fair Ilyssus roll'd its flower kiss'd-stream,
And Plato walked in triumph's noblest mood,
Amid the youthful blooms of Academe:
For time that steals from beauty, power, and fame,
Adds to the charm that wins the poet's eye --
To each loved scene whose old familiar name
Link'd with the soul's bright youth, can only die
With poesy divine and high philosophy.

On fancy's bark the pilgrim quits the land
Of freedom's birth, and skims the Ionian tide. --
Before him, in its old heroic pride,
He sees the city of the Caesars stand;
And there the stern dictator, -- on his brow
The majesty of empire and its care; --
Content and poor, he guides his humble plough,
And toils for bread his little ones may share.
There sits the stern tyrannicide, whose doom
(His country's laws from tyrant scorn to save)
Consign'd his valorous offspring to the tomb,
Himself with blighted heart to wish the grave.
There Cato stands, and flings his honest frown
On Rome's degenerate wealth, and shakes the soul
That quails before the splendours of a crown;
While Tully points to Greece and glory's goal,
And o'er the tyrant's head bids Roman thunders roll.

Another clime! -- the pilgrim knows it well --
Oft has his soul with Alpine thunders been,
And oft the bursting avalanches seen
Roll stormy music o'er the land of Tell.
See where the keen-eyed archer stands amid
His bold compatriots on the mountain's brow;
His eye pursues the eagle's flight, till hid
Beyond the clouded peaks of Alpine snow;
Then with his little band he bends his knee,
And vows to heaven, upon that hoary height,
That the wild hills that nursed its plume, should be
Unchain'd and tameless as the eagle's flight.
And how he kept his vow, the Switzer boy
Sings to his comrade's pipe upon the fell,
Tending their flock in freedom and in joy;
And to the stranger points with bosom's swell,
Where stood the humble cot of glorious William Tell.

The rush of waves -- the voice of many floods --
Old ocean's music, meets the pilgrim's ear;
Grim frowning rocks their giant heights uprear
Around Britannia's hills, and streams, and woods:
Bewilder'd is his eye; for who can count
Those fanes in sunshine and in shade that lie,
Studding each down, and dell, and hoary mount,
Beneath the blue of Albion's cloudy sky! --
The dim cathedral's high and solemn pile,
Whence float to heaven old England's songs of praise,
Whence peal'd the ancestral worship of our isle,
Tuned to the organ's swell of other days;
The ivied church, where England's noble poor
Mingle their prayers on day of holy rest,
That he who bade their mountains stand secure,
And fix'd their isle a gem on ocean's breast,
Should bid their fathers' fanes and fatherland be blest.

And Scotia! gleaming o'er thy lowland sod,
And up thy highland heights amid the heather,
Fanes where thy Sabbath-honouring children gather
To pay their vows to Scotia's covenant God.
They pour the reverence of the simple heart
In solemn melody and humble prayer;
And with their dearest blood would sooner part,
Than see the altar-spoiler enter there!
And Scotia's emigrant when far away
Amid the forest stillness of the West,
Oft from the banks of Tweed or Highland Tay,
Lists the loved tones steal o'er the ocean's breast!
They lead him back to childhood's happy home, --
The village church beside the old yew-tree,
The silent Sabbath, when he loved to roam
In fields, to hear the hum of heather bee
Float in the hallow'd air from brake and flowery lea.

They lead him back to where, in days of yore,
The austere sires of Scotland's freedom stood
Banded to save the Bibles which they bore, --
Their heritage of hope, from men of blood.
The trembling boy -- the parent, grey with years
And bent with toil -- the widow poor and old,
Driven houseless forth by persecuting spears,
To shiver on the bleak and wintry wold.
Their blood hath nursed a tree that will not die, --
That braved the blast, and still the blast shall brave; --
And Scotland will not own the ungenerous eye,
That beams not proudly o'er her martyr's grave.
And haply, too, they lead him back to where
The Southern plume lay low on Bannockburn;
He sees the Bruce his Carrick falchion bare;
And patriot chiefs, where'er his eye may turn,
Start from their hollow'd bed -- the thistle-tufted urn.





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