P46] 
[Aug. 1, 
ORIGINAL POETRY. 
[We have this month the pleasure to submit to our Readers the Cambridge Prize 
Poem, adjudged to Mr. J. H. Bright, 
of St. John’s College ; and in our next we 
purpose to give place to that of Oxford. It happens. that in this year both Univer- 
sities chose the same subject, “‘ PALMYRA,” so that the genius of both is brought 
into comparison. We intend to continue 
this practice invariably, and to give 
place, as regular articles, to these annual productions of all our national seats of 
learning. | 
PALMYRA; 
A Poem which obtained the Chancellor's Medak at 
the Cambridge Commencement, Jul 1822. 
By JOHN HENRY BRIGHT, 
Of St. John’s College. 
Movemur, nescio quo pacto, ipsis locis, In qui- 
bus eorum, quos admiramur, adsunt vestigia. 
'T'IME, like a mighty river, deep and strong, 
In sullen silence rolls his tide along ; 
And all that now upborne upon the wave 
Ride swiftly on—the monarch and the slave, 
Shall sink at last beneath the whelming stream, 
And all that once was life become a dream! 
Go—look on Greece ! her glories long have fled, 
Her ancient spirit slumbers with the dead ; 
Deaf to the cail of freedom and of fame, 
Her sons are Greeks in nothing but the name ! 
On Tiber’s banks, beneath their native sky, 
The sad remains of Roman greatness lie ; 
No longer'‘there the list’ning crowds admire 
The swelling tones of Virgil’s epic lyre, 
Nor conq’ring Cesar holds resistless Sway 
Q’er realms extended to the rising day. 
Yetstill to these shall fancy fondly turin, 
Still bid the laurel bloom on Maro’s urn; 
From Brutus’ dagger sweep the gath’ring rust, 
And call his spirit from its aged dust! 
What, tho’ each busy scene has ceas’d to live, 
It has the charms poetic numbers give; 
And ever fresh, as ages roll along, 
Revives and brightens in the lightof song. 
Atsummer-eve, when ev’ry sound is still, 
And day-light fades upon the western hill, 
And o’er the blue unfathomable way 
Heaven’s starry host in cloudless beauty stray; 
What holy joys enamour’d fancy feels 
As all the past upon the inem’ry steals! 
How soft the tints, how pensive, how sublime, 
Each image borrows from the touch of Time ! 
Such winning grace the beauteous image wears, 
Seen through the twilight of a thousand years. 
Then welcome thou, the subject of my song, 
Since to the past such heavenly charms belong ; 
Won by thy scenes, from all that now appears 
My Muse shall turn, and dream of other years, 
Turn from the sad realities of fate, 
The past revive, the present uncreate, 
And.from thy modern learn thine ancient state, 
What boundless charms thy lovely features grace, 
O thou, the mother of the human race, 
Majestic Asia! to the straining eye 
Ten thousand prospects far extended lie ; 
Thine ample plains with varied beauty please, 
Once the bright seats of opulence and ease ; 
Thy mountain-heights with striking grandeur rise, 
Veil'd in dark clouds, or lost inamber skies, 
While bursting floods from thund’ring caverns pour 
Their foaming tides, with loud and angry roar; 
Then, lost in distance, lave the sunny plains 
Where beauty smiles, and peaceful pleasure reigns. 
Full in the centre, tow’ring thro’ the storm, 
See cloudy Taurus lift his rugged form, 
Monarch of mountains! Nature’s awful throne, 
Where grandeur frowns in terrors all his own ; 
Deep-rooted there, unnumber’d cedars throw 
Their giant shadows on the plains below ; 
There, loudly gushing from the mountain’s side, 
Euphrates rolls his dark and rapid tide, 
Then far beneath glides silently away, 
Through groves of palm and champaigns ever gay. 
But as these scenes of sunny calm delight 
Recede at length, and vanish from the sight, 
What barren solitudes of scorching sand 
Deform and desolate the fainting land! 
No fresh’ning breeze revives the lifeless air, 
No living waters sweetly murmur there, 
Dry fevers kindle pestilential fires,— 
All nature droops, and wither’d life expires! 
But deep embosom’d in that sandy plain, 
Like distant isles emerging from the main, 
A radiant spot, with loveliest beauty crown’d, 
— 
Once bloom’d in contrast with the scenes around, 
By Nature’s lavish hand profusely grac’d, 
The blessed Eden of the joyless waste. 
On ev’ry side luxuriant palm-trees grew, 
And hence its name the rising cily drew, 
And tho’ their loveliness be pass’d away, 
The name still lives, and triumphs o’er decay. 
Two shelt’ring hills precipitously swell 
On either hand, ana form a narrow dell: 
Thence to the east. with undulating bend, 
Wide and more wide their spreading armsextend, —« 
Then sink at last with slow retiring sweep, 
Like distant head-lands sloping to the deep. 
Outstretch’d within upon the silent plains 
Lies the sad wreck of Tadmor’s last remains, 
Outliving still, through each succeeding age, 
The tempest’s fury, and the bigot’s rage. 
He wants no written record whosurveys 
But one short hour this scene of other days. 
These mould’ring piles, thatsink in slow decay, 
In stronger characters the tale convey, 
Than e’er were trac’d by man’s divinest art,— 
These speak in simple language to the heart. 
Far to the south what scenes of ruin lie, 
What sad confusion opens on the eye! 
There shatter’d columns swell, a giant train, 
Line after line, along the crowded plain, 
The loosen’d arch, the roofless colonnade, 
Where mid-day crowds imbib’d the cooling shade. 
’Tis sweet at eve to climb some rocky steep, 
Around whose base the peaceful billows sleep, 
And view asummer’s sun sink down to rest, 
Behind the mountains of the gorgeous west, 
One maze of dazzling glory; while below 
The ocean-wayes with irembting radiance glow. 
But sweeter far, at evening’s solemn hour, 
From the dun battlements of yon rude tow’r, 
To see his parting splendors sadly blaze 
Around this grave of long-forgotten days. 
Mark hose right beams! how mournfully they 
shine 
Through the still courts of yon deserted shrine, 
The sun’s proud temple once, whose aged piles 
Still fondly catch his first and latest smiles * . 
Here Desolation cease—thy task is done— 
Palmyra yields—thy triumph is begun. 
O’er prostrate sculpture raise thy giant throne, 
Build here at length an empire all thine own. 
Swept by the might of thy destroying arm, 
Her noblest work is reft of every charm, 
Save that alone whose transitory gleam 
Gilds the soft scenes of Fancy’s pictur’d dream. 
At her command, from dark oblivion’s gloom 
Past scenes return, and brighter shapes assume ; 
Things that have ceas’d to be she moulds anew, 
And pours her own creation on the view; 
In rapid train her fleeting visions rise, 
As lights that gleam in Hyperborean skics, 
F’enas she dwells on this deserted fane, 
Its pomp revives, its glories live again ; 
The victim bleeds, the golden altars blaze, 
Symphonious voices swell the note of praise; 
Hark! what loud tumult rends the echoing skies? 
** Awake—awake, lead up the sacrifice ; 
The hour is come—the dim nocturnal fires 
Are fading in the bluelo, night expires ! 
The morning star, with pale and dewy ray, 
Proclaims the triumph of the King of Day. 
Awake—awake—ye slumb’ring crowds; arise, 
Come forth, and join the pomp of sacrifice.” 
And lo, he comes! triumphant in his might, 
One blazing orb of.unexhausted light. 
Tenthousand glories all around him wait, 
His ever-flaming ministers of state; 
Ten thousand nations hail him with delight, 
Bath’d in the golden tide of ever-flowing light. 
Hark! as he rises o’er the middle way, 
Thron’d in the fulness of unclouded day, 
What sounds of joy, what echoing clamours rise, 
Peal after peal, and rattle in the skies! 
‘* Give way, ye crowds—unbar the gates of brass— 
Give way, ¥e crowds, and let the triumph pass.” 
So 
