"Tis this that ever wakes my strain,
And oft, too oft, implores again
The few who may endure my lay,
To follow me so far away.
Stranger-wilt thou follow now,

And sit with me on Acro-Corinth's brow?

AVE MARIA.

AVE MARIA! blessed be the hour!

The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft Have felt that moment in its fullest power

Sink o'er the earth so beautiful and soft, While swung the deep bell in the distant tower, Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft, And not a breath crept through the rosy air, And yet the forest leaves seem stirred with prayer.

Ave Maria! 'tis the hour of prayer!

Ave Maria! 'tis the hour of love!

Ave Maria! may our spirits dare

Look up to thine and to thy Son's above!

Ave Maria! oh that face so fair!

Those downcast eyes beneath the almighty dove —

What though 'tis but a pictured image strike—

That painting is no idol, 'tis too like.

WRITTEN AFTER SWIMMING FROM

SESTOS TO ABYDOS.

Ir in the month of dark December,
Leander, who was nightly wont

(What maid will not the tale remember?)
To cross thy stream, broad Hellespont;

If, when the wintry tempest roared,
He sped to Hero, nothing loth,
And thus of old thy current poured,
Fair Venus! how I pity both!

For me, degenerate modern wretch,
Though in the genial month of May,
My dripping limbs I faintly stretch,
And think I've done a feat to-day

But since he crossed the rapid tide,
According to the doubtful story,

To woo,-and-Lord knows what beside,
And swam for Love, as I for Glory;

"T were hard to say who fared the best:

Sad mortals! thus the Gods still plague you!

He lost his labor, I my jest:

For he was drowned, and I've the ague.

STANZAS.

"HEU QUANTO MINUS EST CUM RELIQUIS VERSARI QUAM TUI MEMINISSE."

AND thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;

And form so soft, and charms so rare,
Too soon returned to Earth!

Though Earth received them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carlessness or mirth,

There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.

I will not ask where thou liest low,
Nor gaze upon the spot;

There flowers or weeds at will may grow,

So I behold them not:

It is enough for me to prove

That what I loved and long must love
Like common earth can rot;

To me there needs no stone to tell
'Tis Nothing that I loved so well.

Yet did I love thee to the last

As fervently as thou,

Who didst not change through all the past,
And canst not alter now.

The love where Death has set his seal,
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,

Nor falsehood disavow:

And, what were worse, thou canst not see Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.

The better days of life were ours;
The worst can be but mine:

The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,
Shall never more be thine.

The silence of that dreamless sleep

I envy now too much to weep,

Nor need I to repine

That all those charms have passed away; I might have watched through long decay.

The flower in ripened bloom unmatched
Must fall the earliest prey;
Though by no hand untimely snatched,
The leaves must drop away;

And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it plucked to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear,
To trace the change to foul from fair.

I know not if I could have borne
To see thy beauties fade;

The night that followed such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade;

The day without a cloud hath past,
And thou wert lovely to the last;
Extinguished, not decayed;

As stars that shoot along the sky
Shine brightest as they fall from high.

As once I wept, if I could weep,
My tears might well be shed,
To think I was not near to keep
One vigil o'er thy bed;

To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,
Uphold thy drooping head;
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again

Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain,
Than thus remember thee!

The all of thine that cannot die
Through dark and dread Eternity,

Returns again to me.

And more thy buried love endears
Than aught, except its living years.