he tears of light.
Ope, then, mine eyes, your double sluice,
And practise so your noblest use;
For others, too, can see or sleep,
But only human eyes can weep."
The Bermuda Emigrants has some happy lines, as the following:--
"He hangs in shade the orange bright,
Like golden lamps in a green night."
Or this, which doubtless suggested a couplet in Moore's _Canadian Boat
Song_:--
"And all the way, to guide the chime,
With falling oars they kept the time."
His facetious and burlesque poetry was much admired in his day; but a
great portion of it referred to persons and events no longer of general
interest. The satire on Holland is an exception. There is nothing in
its way superior to it in our language. Many of his best pieces were
originally written in Latin, and afterwards translated by himself. There
is a splendid Ode to Cromwell--a worthy companion of Milton's glorious
sonnet--which is not generally known, and which we transfer entire to our
pages. Its simple dignity and the melodious flow of its versification
commend themselves more to our feelings than its eulogy of war. It is
energetic and impassioned, and probably affords a better idea of the
author, as an actor in the stirring drama of his time, than the "soft
Lydian airs" of the poems that we have quoted.
AN HORATIAN ODE UPON CROMWELL'S RETURN FROM IRELAND.
The forward youth that would appear
Must now forsake his Muses dear;
Nor in the shadows sing
His numbers languishing.
'T is time to leave the books in dust,
And oil the unused armor's rust;
Removing from the wall
The corslet of the hall.
So restless Cromwell could not cease
In the inglorious arts of peace,
But through adventurous war
Urged his active star.
And, like the three-forked lightning, first
Breaking the clouds wherein it nurst,
Did thorough his own side
His fiery way divide.
For 't is all one to courage high,
The emulous, or enemy;
And with such to enclose
Is more than to oppose.
Then burning through the air he went,
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