Lines on Sympathy

Lines on Sympathy

Bright as the beam that shone on the young earth,

Fresh and exulting from her recent birth,
Purer than purest wave of ocean, flows
From pity's eye the tear for other's woes.

The wandering Indian, Nature's untaught child,

Nurs'd in the bosom of the trackless wild,
Where fiercest tempests howl along the sky,
Owns the soft power of heaven-sent sympathy!
In utmost lands, on ocean's wildest shore,
Far as the mountains rise and billows roar,
The pang at other's pain, the secret start,
Proclaims her empire o'er the rudest heart.

Unchang'd by time, thy glory shall surpass

The warrior's trophy and the column'd brass;
Match'd with thy might how vain his vaunted fame!
His laurels wither, and his toast how tame!
And when the little that he was or did,
At last in dim forgetfulness is hid,
While other conquerors still (and other deeds
Of fame miscall'd, as age to age succeeds.)
Pass on, and others fight, toil, bleed, to raise
Their little meed of infamy or praise,
Thy triumphs yet shall shine when time hath laid
Warriors and princes in congenial shade,
Unfading and recorded, fair and bright,
At Heaven's high gate, and character in light!

Soother of grief, they seraph voice we own,

In every clime, on every shore made known;
Though dangers hover round, though sorrows blight,
And angry fate induce a darker night,
There, sweetly shining forth, thy radiant form
Shall chase the darkness and forbid the storm!

Oh! who could bear, by angry tempests tost,

And thrown, a wreck, upon some desert coast,
In hopeless solitude, by dull decay,
Unheard, unseen, to linger life away?
Better to find, when high the tempest raves,
The seaman's tomb, beneath the wandering waves.

When he,* the foe of Jove, by Ister's plains,

Was bound on high in adamantine chains,
Fix'd in firm fetters to his lonely rock,
He bore the fury of the tempest's shock;
Chill fell the showers of heaven upon his head,
And on his bloom the scorching sun-beam fed;
Oft from his brow, the star-bespangled night
Veil'd the fierce splendour of the blaze of light;
But never came the balmy gift of sleep,
His wearied eyes eternal vigils keep;
Beneath the noon-tide ray and wintry storm
Fades his bright aspect and his godlike form:
Yet even he was cheer'd by pity's sigh,
And e'en his woes were sooth'd by sympathy!
The sea-born Nereids, from their coral caves,
Came from afar, along the ocean waves,
They dar'd commiserate the foe of heaven,
And share the griefs of him, the unforgiven.

*Prometheus.

Unattributed

1:21, p. 84

1827.08.03

From Liverpool Mercury