2. Poland, Homer, and other Poems, is a little publication
on the antipodes of song, in which we discern a good deal of promise. Let those who doubt, read not merely " Poland " and " Homer," but the " Lament for Percy Bysshe Shelley :" it is really a fine poem; it opens thus grandly—
Is there no fading of thy central fire, Spirit of Nature ! when thou hear'st the string That from thy chosen and harmonious lyre Was wont the utmost melody to wring, Snap, with the load of its own murmuring ? Hast thou no desolate anthem, that may make Response to such a lost and broken thing ? Hast thou no echoes, faint and scarce awake?
No music meet for him who died for music's sake?
Go, call the winds from the tempestuous North—
Scourge up the rugged ocean from his sleep, And bid their fearful choristry fling forth The thunder-organ'd chant across the deep;
To mourn for him for whom I fain would weep,
Were not mine eyes weak traitors to my brain, That throbs bewildered by a weary heap Of dull unfledged thoughts of common strain, That drive my tears away, and vex me into pain Unprison'd tempest, and thou, unknown cry Of Ocean in his wrath, which none may hear Abroad within the ships and live! pent sigh, Which the great earth doth utter, when her ear Shrinks from some nameless whisper, hke a spear Startling her entrails! ye were heard aloud, Pouring your accents o'er the poet's bier,
When the great billows Whiten'd like a cloud Around the lifeless corpse,• and swathed it in their shroud !
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