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Yet comfort still one selfish thought imparts,
We lose the portrait, but preserve our hearts.
What can his vaulted gallery now disclose?
A garden with all flowers-except the rose ;-
A fount that only wants its living stream;
And night, with every star, save Dian's beam.
Lost to our eyes the present forms shall be,
That turn from tracing them to dream of thee;
And more on that recall'd resemblance pause,
Than all he shall not force on our applause.
Long may thy yet meridian lustre shine,
With all that Virtue asks of Homage thine:
The symmetry of youth-the grace of mien-
The eye that gladdens--and the brow serene;
The glossy darkness of that clustering hair,
Which shades, yet shows that forehead more than fair!
Each glance that wins us, and the life that throws
A spell which will not let our looks repose,
But turn to gaze again, and find anew
Some charm that well rewards another view.
These are not lessen'd, these are still as bright,
Albeit too dazzling for a dotard's sight;

And these must wait till every charm is gone
To please the paltry heart that pleases none,
That dull cold sensualist, whose sickly eye
In envious dimness pass'd thy portrait by;
Who rack'd his little spirit to combine
Its hate of Freedom's loveliness, and thine.

TO BELSHAZZAR, 1.

July, 1814.

BELSHAZZAR! from the banquet turn,
Nor in thy sensual fullness fall:
Behold! while yet before thee burn
The graven words, the glowing wall.
Many a despot men miscall,

Crown'd and anointed from on high;
But thou, the weakest, worst of all-
Is it not written, thou must die?
2.

Go! dash the roses from thy brow

Gray hairs but poorly wreathe with them; Youth's garlands misbecome thee now,

More than thy very diadem,

Where thou hast tarnish'd every gem:-
Then throw the worthless bauble by,
Which, worn by thee, ev'n slaves contemn>
And learn like better men to die.
3.

Oh! early in the balance weigh'd,
And ever light of word and worth,
Whose soul expired ere youth decay',
And left thee but a mass of earth.
To see thee moves a scorner's mirth:
But tears in Hope's averted eye
Lament that even thou hadst birth-
Unfit to govern, live, or die.

HEBREW MELODIES.

IN the valley of waters we wept o'er the day
When the host of the stranger made Salem his prey;
And our heads on our bosoms all droopingly lay,
And our hearts were so full of the land far away.
The song they demanded in vain-it lay still

n our souls as the wind that hath died on the hili,

They called for the harp, but our blood they shall spill,
Ere our right hand shall teach them one tone of their skill
All stringlessly hung on the willow's sad tree,
As dead as her dead leaf those mute harps must be;
Our hands may be fetter'd, our tears still are free,
For our God and our glory, and Sion! for thee.
October, 1814.

THEY say that Hope is happiness,

But genuine Love must prize the past;
And Memory wakes the thoughts that bless-
They rose the first, they set the last.

And all that Memory loves the most
Was once our only hope to be;
And all that hope adored and lost
Hath melted into memory.

Alas! it is delusion all,

The future cheats us from afar, Nor can we be what we recall,

Nor dare we think on what we are. October, 1814

LINES INTENDED FOR THE OPENING OF “TJE
SIEGE OF CORINTH."

In the year since Jesus died for men,
Eighteen hundred years and ten,

We were a gallant company,

Riding o'er land, and sailing o'er sea.
Oh! but we went merrily!

We forded the river and clomb the high hill,
Never our steeds for a day stood still;
Whether we lay in the cave or the shed,
Our sleep fell soft on the hardest bed;
Whether we couch'd in our rough capote,
On the rougher plank of our gliding boat,
Or stretch'd on the beach, or our saddles spread
As a pillow beneath the resting head,
Fresh we woke upon the morrow:

All our thoughts and words had scope,
We had health, and we had hope,
Toil and travel, but no sorrow.
We were of all tongues and creeds;-
Some were those who counted beads,
Some of mosque, and some of church,
And some, or I mis-say, of neither;

Yet through the wide world might ye search,
Nor find a motlier crew nor blither.

But some are dead, and some are gone,
And some are scatter'd and alone,
And some are rebels on the hills*

That look along Epirus' valleys,
Where freedom still at moments rallies,
And pays in blood oppression's ills;
And some are in a far country,
And some all restlessly at home;
But never more, oh! never we
Shall meet to revel and to roam.

But those bardy days flew cheerily,
And when they now fall drearily,
My thoughts, like swallows, skim the main,
And bear my spirit back again

Over the earth, and through the air,

A wild bird, and a wanderer.

The last tidings recently heard of Dervish (one of the Arvanuts who tal lowed me) state hun to be in revolt upon the mountains, at the head of soun of the bands common in that country in times of trouble.

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What is this death?-a quiet of the heart?
The whole of that of which we are a part?
For life is but a vision-what I see
Of all which lives alone is life to me,
And being so-the absent are the dead,
Who haunt us from tranquillity, and spread
A dreary shroud around us, and invest
With sad remembrancers our hours of rest.

The absent are the dead-for they are cold,
And ne'er can be what once we did behold;
And they are changed, and cheerless,-or if yet
The unforgotten do not all forget,
Since thus divided-equal must it be
If the deep barrier be of earth, or sea;
It may be both-but one day end it must
In the dark union of insensate dust.

The under-earth inhabitants-are they
But mingled millions decomposed to clay?
The ashes of a thousand ages spread
Wherever man has trodden or shall tread?
Or do they in their silent cities dwell
Each in his incommunicative cell?

Or have they their own language? and a sense
Of breathless being? darken'd and intense
As midnight in her solitude?-Oh Earth!

Where are the past ?-and wherefore had they birth?
The dead are thy inheritors-and we
But bubbles on thy surface; and the key
Of thy profundity is in the grave,
The ebon portal of thy peopled cave,
Where I would walk in spirit, and behold
Our elements resolved to things untold,
And fathom hidden wonders, and explore
The essence of great bosoms now no more.

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A strange doom is thy father's son's, and past Recalling, as it lies beyond redress; Reversed for him our grandsire's fate of yore,-He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore.

111.

If my inheritance of storms hath been
In other elements, and on the rocks
Of perils, overlook'd or unforeseen,

I have sustain'd my share of worldly shocks,
The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen
My errors with defensive paradox;

I have been cunning in mine overthrow, The careful pilot of my proper woe.

IV.

Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward. My whole life was a contest since the day That gave me being, gave me that which marr'd The gift,-a fate, or will, that walk'd astray; And I at times have found the struggle hard, And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay But now I fain would for a time survive, If but to see what next can well arrive.

V.

Kingdoms and empires in my little day I have outlived, and yet I am not old; And when I look on this the petty spray Of my own years of trouble, which have roll'd Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away: Something I know not what-does still uphold A spirit of slight patience;-not in vain, Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain.

VI.

Perhaps the workings of defiance stir
Within me, or perhaps a cold despair,
Brought on when ills habitually recur,-
Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air,

(For even to this may change of soul refer,
And with light armour we may learn to bear,)
Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not
The chief companion of a calmer lot.

VII.

I feel almost at times as I have felt

In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks Which do remember me of where I dwelt Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books, Come as of yore upon me, and can melt My heart with recognition of their looks; And even at moments I could think I see Some living thing to love-but none like thee.

VIII.

Here are the Alpine landscapes which create
A fund for contemplation;-to admire
Is a brief feeling of a trivial date;

But something worthier do such scenes insure
Here to be lonely is not desolate,

For much I view which I could most desire, And, above all, a lake I can behold Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old.

IX.

Oh that thou wert but with ine!-but I grow
The fool of my own wishes, and forget
The solitude which I have vaunted so
Has lost its praise in this but one regret;

Admiral Byron was remarkable for never making a voyage without a tempest. He was known to the sailors by the facetious name of "Fo weather Jack."

"But though it were tempest-tost, Still his bark could not be lost."

He returned safely from the wreck of the Wager, (in Anson's voyage,) aut subsequently circumnavigated the world, many years after as commander of a similar expedition.

There may be others which I less may show ;I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet

I feel an ebb in my philosophy,

And the tide rising in my alter'd eye.

X.

I did remind thee of our own dear lake,* By the old hall which may be mine no more. Leman's is fair; but think not I forsake The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore: Sad havoc Time must with my memory make Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before; Though, like all things which I have loved, they are Resign'd for ever, or divided far.

XI.

The world is all before me; I but ask

Of Nature that with which she will comply-
It is but in her summer's sun to bask,
To mingle with the quiet of her sky,
To see her gentle face without a mask,
And never gaze on it with apathy.

She was my early friend, and now shall be My sister-till I look again on thee.

XII.

I can reduce all feelings but this one: And that I would not;-for at length I see Such scenes as those wherein my life begun, The earliest-even the only paths for meHad I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun, I had been better than I now can be; The passions which have torn me would have slept; I had not suffer'd, and thou hadst not wept.

XIII.

With false ambition what had I to do? Little with love, and least of all with fame; And yet they came unsought, and with me grew, And made me all which they can make-a name. Yet this was not the end I did pursue; Surely I once beheld a nobler aim. But all is over-I am one the more To baffled millions which have gone before.

XIV.

And for the future, this world's future may From me demand but little of my care; I have outlived myself by many a day; Having survived so many things that were; My years have been no slumber, but the prey Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share Of life which might have fill'd a century, Before its fourth in time had pass'd me by.

XV.

And for the remnant which may be to come I am content; and for the past I feel Not thankless,-for within the crowded sum Of struggles, happiness at times would steal, And for the present I would not benumb My feelings farther.-Nor shall I conceal That with all this I still can look around And worship Nature with a thought profound.

XVI.

For thee, my own sweet sister, in thy heart I know myself secure, as thou in mine; We were and are-I am, even as thou artBeings who ne'er each other can resign; It is the same, together or apart. From life's commencement to its slow decline We are entwined-let death come slow or fast, The tie which bound the first endures the last! October, 1816.

The lake of Newstead Abbey.

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But left long wrecks behind, and now again,

Borne in our old unchanged career, we move;
Thou tendest wildly onwards to the main,
And I-to loving one I should not love.
6.

The current I behold will sweep beneath

Her native walls, and murmur at her feet;
Her eyes will look on thee, when she shall breathe
The twilight air, unharm'd by summer's heat.
7.

She will look on thee,-I have look'd on thee,
Full of that thought; and, from that moment, ne'es
Thy waters could I dream of, name, or see,
Without the inseparable sigh for her!

1 The Countess Guiccioli

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His offspring, who expired in other days

o make thy sire's sway by a kingdom less,This is to be a monarch, and repress

Envy into unutterable praise.

Dismiss thy guard, and trust thee to such traits, For who would lift a hand, except to bless? Were it not easy, sire? and is 't not sweet 'o make thyself beloved? and to be Omnipotent by mercy's means? for thus

Thy sovereignty would grow but more complete; despot thon, and yet thy people free, And by the heart, not hand, enslaving us.

August, 1819.

FRANCESCA OF RIMINI.

TRANSLATION FROM THE INFERNO OF DANTE,
CANTO FIFTH.

THE land where I was born sits by the seas,
Upon that shore to which the Po descends,
With all his followers, in search of peace.
Love, which the gentle heart soon apprehends,
Seized him for the fair person which was ta'en
From me, and me even yet the mode offends.
Love, who to none beloved to love again

Remits, seized me with wish to please, so strong, That, as thou seest, yet, yet it doth remain. Love to one death conducted us along,

3 R

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But Caina waits for him our life who ended:" These were the accents utter'd by her tongue.Since first I listen'd to these souls offended,

I bow'd my visage and so kept it till

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then

What think'st thou ?" said the bard; when
unbended,

And recommenced: "Alas! unto such ili

How many sweet thoughts, what strange ecstacies Led these their evil fortune to fulfil !" And then I turn'd unto their side my eyes, And said, "Francesca, thy sad destinies Have made me sorrow till the tears arise. But tell me, in the season of sweet sighs, By what and how thy love to passion rose, So as his dim desires to recognize? Then she to me: "The greatest of all woes recall to mind

Is to remind us of

our happy days S this

In misery, and that thy teacher knows. But if to learn our passion's first root preys Upon thy spirit with such sympathy,

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TO HER WHO BEST CAN UNDERSTAND THEM

Be it so we part for ever!
Let the past as nothing be;-
Had I only loved thee, never
Hadst thou been thus dear to me.
Had I loved and thus been slighted,
That I better could have borne ;-
Love is quell'd, when unrequited,
By the rising pulse of scorn.

Pride may cool what passion heated,
Time will tame the wayward will;
But the heart in friendship cheated
Throbs with woe's most maddening thrill.

Had I loved, I now might hate thee,
In the hatred solace seek,
Might exult to execrate thee,

And, in words, my vengeance wreak.

In some of the editions, it is "diro," in others "faro;"-an essential di ference between "saying" and "doing." which I know not how to decide Ask Foscolo. The d-d editions drive me mad

But there is a silent sorrow,

Which can find no vent in speech, Which disdains relief to borrow

From the heights that song can reach.

Like a clankless chain enthralling,

Like the sleepless dreams that mock,Like the frigid ice-drops falling

From the surf-surrounded rock.

Such the cold and sickening feeling
Thou hast caused this heart to know,
Stabb'd the deeper by concealing

From the world its bitter woe.

Once it fondly, proudly, deemed thee
All that fancy's self could paint,
Once it honour'd and esteem'd thee,
As its idol and its saint!

More than woman thou wast to me;
Not as man I look'd on thee;-
Why like woman then undo me!

Why "heap man's worst curse on me."
Wast thou but a fiend, assuming

Friendship's smile, and woman's art,
And in borrow'd beauty blooming,
Trifling with a trusted heart!

By that eye which once could glisten
With opposing glance to me;
By that ear which once could listen
To each tale I told to thee:-

By that lip, its smile bestowing,

Which could soften sorrow's gush ;By that cheek, once brightly glowing With pure friendship's well-feigned blush; By all those false charms united,

Thou hast wrought thy wanton will,
And, without compunction, blighted
What "thou wouldst not kindly kill."
Yet I curse thee not in sadness,

Still, I feel how dear thou wert;
Oh! I could not-e'en in madness-
Doom thee to thy just desert!
Live! and when my life is over,
Should thine own be lengthen'd long,
Thou may'st then, too late, discover
By thy feelings, all my wrong.

When thy beauties all are faded,

When thy flatterers fawn no more,-
Ere the solemn shroud hath shaded
Some regardless reptile's store,-
Ere that hour, false syren, hear me!
Thou may'st feel what I do now,
While my spirit, hovering near thee,
Whispers friendship's broken vow.
But 'tis useless to upbraid thee

With thy past or present state;
What thou wast, my fancy made thee,
What thou art, I know too late.

TO THE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON.

1.

You have ask'd for a verse:-the request In a rhymer 't were strange to deny; But my Hippocrene was but my breast,

And my feelings (its fountain) are dry.

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