O Phœnix, all-too-happy bird, Who enviless thy fame has heard? Thou, thine own mother, from the pyre-- Spices mix'd with flickering fire-- Sweetly didst thy breath suspire; Then rose again, and thy age gone In a swift resurrection-- Gone! by wondrous mystic skill Wearing a richer plumage still, Youth renew'd from feet to bill,-- Thou didst not linger in thine age, Nor a slow weary struggle wage, With changing cures and long delay Searching for life in every way. No; but a quick fate self-choosing, All hindering self-ruth refusing, Thou didst raise thy funeral pyre, Thou didst hovering i' the fire, From amidst the perfum'd flame Spring up, immortal as thy fame. Thou didst lift thy comely head, Ev'ry moulting feather shed; Thou didst raise thy radiant breast Blazing to the blazing West. O Phœnix, thou'rt an awful bird; Who enviless thy fame has heard? Climbing to thy funeral pyre, Climbing self-martyr'd to the fire, Sweetly there to bear thine ire; Fetching down from the great sun To pilèd nest of cinnamon Rays intense; then upward winging, Sudden from thine ashes springing; Victorious by this quaint mewing, Life strangely out of death renewing; Now i' the red fire consuming, Next at the sun thine eyes reluming. Alas, how different is the fate In this our later age, ingrate, Of her, my mother-college, lying All desolate and slowly dying; Lifting but a feeble wing, Though once, as Phœnix of the fire, Springing immortal from its pyre; When Apollo and the Graces Reign'd where Ruin now defaces, Gave her, when she shone in splendour, Orator, sage, and poet tender; Gave her sons, noble and good, Better than the bluest blood: O how chang'd, since those days olden Such as in the ages golden, I behold her, smitten, lorn, And by every Fury torn, Hanging in uncertain strife As it were 'twixt death and life; Doubting whether e'en she shall Have so much as funeral; Her corpse laid in some quiet bay, Where the sea-waves softly play; Willing they should take her bones-- Her time-stain'd, rent, and shatter'd stones; If only thus but once again Rebuilded, she might yet attain To something of her old renown By such resurrection, And, phœnix-like, herself out-do In her best days when she was new. O ye sons, your mother own In her desolation; Own her, though in aging years She shows few and thin gray hairs, Where once,--ah--in brave times of old-- Flash'd her proud locks with sheen of gold. Ah, Peter nam'd, thou art denied, Thus is thy name verified. 'Tis a spectacle for tears; 'Tis a spectacle for fears; 'Tis a spectacle for wonder; 'Tis a crime deserves the thunder, That from base to gold-touch'd ceiling Day by day her halls are reeling;