The Festal Hour

When are the lessons givenThat shake the startled earth? When wakes the foeWhile the friend sleeps? When falls the traitor’s blow?When are proud sceptres riven,High hopes o’erthrown?--It is when lands rejoice,When cities blaze and lift th’ exulting voice,And wave their banners to the kindling heaven!

Fear ye the festal hour!When mirth o’erflows, then tremble!--’Twas a nightOf gorgeous revel, wreaths, and dance, and light,When through the regal bowerThe trumpet peal’d ere yet the song was done,And there were shrieks in golden Babylon,And trampling armies, ruthless in their power.

The marble shrines were crown’d:Young voices, through the blue Athenian sky,And Dorian reeds, made summer-melody,And censers waved around;And lyres were strung and bright libations pour’d!When through the streets flash’d out the avenging sword,Fearless and free, the sword with myrtles bound!

Through Rome a triumph pass’d.Rich in her Sun-god’s mantling beams went byThat long array of glorious pageantry,With shout and trumpet-blast.An empire’s gems their starry splendour shedO’er the proud march; a king in chains was led;A stately victor, crown’d and robed, came last.

And many a Dryad’s bowerHad lent the laurels which, in waving play,Stirr’d the warm air, and glisten’d round his wayAs a quick-flashing shower.--O’er his own porch, meantime, the cypress hung,Through his fair halls a cry of anguish rung--Woe for the dead!--the father’s broken flower!

A sound of lyre and song,In the still night, went floating o’er the Nile,Whose waves, by many an old mysterious pile,Swept with that voice along;And lamps were shining o’er the red wine’s foamWhere a chief revell’d in a monarch’s dome,And fresh rose-garlands deck’d a glittering throng.

’Twas Antony that badeThe joyous chords ring out! But strains aroseOf wilder omen at the banquet’s close!Sounds, by no mortal made,Shook Alexandria through her streets that night,And pass’d--and with another sunset’s light,The kingly Roman on his bier was laid.

Bright midst its vineyards layThe fair Campanian city, with its towersAnd temples gleaming through dark olive-bowers,Clear in the golden day;Joy was around it as the glowing sky,And crowds had fill’d its halls of revelry,And all the sunny air was music’s way.

A cloud came o’er the faceOf Italy’s rich heaven!--its crystal blueWas changed, and deepen’d to a wrathful hueOf night, o’ershadowing spaceAs with the wings of death!--in all his powerVesuvius woke, and hurl’d the burning shower,And who could tell the buried city’s place?

Such things have been of yore,In the gay regions where the citrons blow,And purple summers all their sleepy glowOn the grape-clusters pour;And where the palms to spicy winds are waving,Along clear seas of melting sapphire, laving,As with a flow of light, their southern shore.

Turn we to other climes!--Far in the Druid isle a feast was spread,Midst the rock-altars of the warrior dead;And ancient battle-rhymesWere chanted to the harp; and yellow meadWent flowing round, and tales of martial deedAnd lofty songs of Britain’s elder time;--

But ere the giant-faneCast its broad shadows on the robe of even,Hush’d were the bards, and in the face of heaven,O’er that old burial-plain,Flash’d the keen Saxon dagger!--blood was streamingWhere late the mead-cup to the sun was gleaming,And Britain’s hearths were heap’d that night in vain--

For they return’d no more!They that went forth at morn, with reckless heart,In that fierce banquet’s mirth to bear their part:And on the rushy floor,And the bright spears and bucklers of the walls,The high wood-fires were blazing in their halls;But not for them--they slept--their feast was o’er!

Fear ye the festal hour!Ay, tremble when the cup of joy o’erflows!Tame down the swelling heart! The bridal rose,And the rich myrtle’s flower,Have veil’d the sword! Red wines have sparkled fastFrom venom’d goblets, and soft breezes pass’dWith fatal perfume through the revel’s bower.

Twine the young glowing wreath!But pour not all your spirit in the song,Which through the sky’s deep azure floats alongLike summer’s quickening breath!The ground is hollow in the path of mirth:Oh! far too daring seems the joy of earth,So darkly press’d and girdled in by death!

The sword of Harmodius.

Paulus Æmilius, one of whose sons died a few days before, andanother shortly after, his triumph on the conquest of Macedon, whenPerseus, king of that country, was led in chains.