POEMS ON RODRIGO CALDERON.

The reader is referred to the Hist. and Crit. Essay generally, for all that concerns the history of Rodrigo Calderon, and the Poet's relations to him. See particularly sections 123-126.

TO RODRIGO CALDERON.

WRITTEN BEFORE HIS FALL.

Stay thy speed, thou puny River,
Break thy vain ambition's dream :
Would'st thou be the Guadalquivir,
Or the lordly Ocean stream?

Fond one, thou wilt end in sorrow;
Swelling pride must shrink in shame :
Nought will rest of thee to-morrow,
Save the warning of thy name.

Poorly born in barren mountain,

Creeping where thou couldst not go,
Wouldst thou now forget the fountain,
Where thy weakness learnt to flow?

What shall be thy glory's waning,
When this noisy hour is past;
When thy chafing and complaining

Have complain'd and chafed their last?

When has night in slumbers bound thee? When does morn thy peace restore, While the world is smiling round thee, Murmuring still with fretful roar?

'Tis the very mood of madness,
Where thy course each barrier stays,
Vex'd and moaning loud in sadness
On the rocks thou canst not raise.

Wouldst thou seal thy own death-warrant ?
Warning speaks in every wave:
Thou art rushing fast, poor torrent,
From thy cradle to thy grave.

Fate the funeral shroud is weaving: Wouldst thou court her hand to slay?

Ah! for woe! thy self-deceiving

Will but pass with life away.

ON THE DEATH OF RODRIGO CALDERON.

Seal up the shrouding cere-cloths :-he is gone :
His restless soul hath pass'd its mortal bourn :
Light be his sleep, no more to watch the turn
Of Fortune's tide, beneath the cold gray stone.
Hapless, yet happy! For not all undone

He dies, though judgment grant no funeral urn:
Him, whom his pitying country deigns to mourn,
Time cannot all destroy, nor Fame disown.
The flattering World, most false when seeming fair,
For four long lustres smiled to see him great,
And kept behind her smiles her killing sword:
Then from the palace to the scaffold-stair

How rush'd he like a meteor! Mighty Fate, What trumpet speaks like thy mute warning word!

ON THE DEATH OF RODRIGO CALDERON.

Well might thy funeral hearse be deck'd and piled
With woods of price, with balmy odours rife,
Bright Phenix, in thy death, if not in life,
Escaped from snares, that once thy feet beguiled.
Die, die in peace, consoled with Mercy mild:

Mount, since, instead of flames, the vengeful knife
Hath purged thy dross,-from agony and strife,

To tread in courts no more by sin defiled:
A phenix in thy state on earth; but ne'er

Thy phenix-state allured admiring eyes
So numberless, as those that weep for thee:
Nor mortal Fame could give thee wings so fair,

As those that waft thee from thy bier to rise,
Plumed with glad Hope, to Faith's strong victory.

ON RODRIGO CALDERON.

The fatal sword, that bade thee die,
So glorious made thy dying name,
'Twere meet the loudest trump of Fame
Thy stedfast end should glorify:
But if she cannot worthily

Adorn a tale beyond her power,

The terror of that torturing hour May well demand of mighty Death, To tell how thy victorious faith

Approved thee more than conqueror.