But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam;
And here, where buzzing nations choked the ways,
And roar'd or murmur'd like a mountain stream

Dashing or winding as its torrent strays;

Here, where the Roman million's blame or praise

Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd,

My voice sounds much and fall the stars' faint rays On the arena void-seats crush'd — walls bow'd And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud.

A ruin

yet what ruin! from its mass

Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been rear'd;

Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass,

And marvel where the spoil could have appear'd.
Hath it indeed been plunder'd, or but clear'd?
Alas! developed, opens the decay,

When the colossal fabric's form is near'd:

It will not bear the brightness of the day,

-

Which streams too much on all years, man, have reft away.

But when the rising moon begins to climb

Its topmost arch, and gently pauses there;

When the stars twinkle through the loops of time,

And the low night-breeze waves along the air

The garland-forest, which the gray walls wear,

Like laurels on the bald first Cæsar's head;

When the light shines serene but doth not glare,

Then in this magic circle raise the dead:

Heroes have trod this spot — 't is on their dust ye tread.

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While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand;

When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;

And when Rome falls - the World." From our own land

Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty wall

In Saxon times, which we are wont to call

Ancient; and these three mortal things are still

1 From "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," Canto IV.

On their foundations, and unalter'd all ;

Rome and her Ruin past Redemption's skill,

The World, the same wide den — of thieves, or what ye will.

Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime —

Shrine of all saints and temple of all gods,

From Jove to Jesus — spared and blest by time;
Looking tranquillity, while falls or nods

Arch, empire, each thing round thee, and man plods
His way through thorns to ashes — glorious dome !
Shalt thou not last? Time's scythe and tyrants' rods
Shiver upon thee · sanctuary and home

Of art and piety - Pantheon ! - pride of Rome !

ADDRESS TO THE OCEAN.1

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrades,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar :
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel

What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean - roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ;
Man marks the earth with ruin his control
Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.

His steps are not upon thy paths,

thy fields

Are not a spoil for him, thou dost arise

And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields

For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,

1 From "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," Canto IV.

Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray, And howling, to his gods, where haply lies. His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to earth :- there let him lay.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war, -
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee —
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?
Thy waters wash'd them power while they were free,
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts : — not so thou; -

Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play — Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,
Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime

Dark-heaving; - boundless, endless, and sublime -
The image of Eternity - the throne

The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
I wanton'd with thy breakers - they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea

Made them a terror

't was a pleasing fear,

For I was as it were a child of thee,

And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane —

FIRST LOVE.1

as I do here.

'Tis sweet to hear,

At midnight on the blue and moonlit deep,
The song and oar of Adria's gondolier,

By distance mellow'd, o'er the waters sweep;
'Tis sweet to see the evening star appear;

'Tis sweet to listen as the night-winds creep From leaf to leaf; 't is sweet to view on high The rainbow, based on ocean, span the sky.

'T is sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark
Bay deep-mouth'd welcome as we draw near home;
'T is sweet to know there is an eye will mark

Our coming, and look brighter when we come;
'Tis sweet to be awaken'd by the lark,

Or lull'd by falling waters; sweet the hum
Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds,
The lisp of children, and their earliest words.

Sweet is the vintage, when the showering grapes
In Bacchanal profusion reel to earth,
Purple and gushing: sweet are our escapes
From civic revelry to rural mirth;
Sweet to the miser are his glittering heaps;
Sweet to the father is his first-born's birth;
Sweet is revenge - especially to women,
Pillage to soldiers, prize-money to seamen.

Sweet is a legacy, and passing sweet

The unexpected death of some old lady,
Or gentleman of seventy years complete,
Who 've made "us youth "wait too

1 From "Don Juan," Canto I.

- too long already,

For an estate, or cash, or country seat,

Still breaking, but with stamina so steady,
That all the Israelites are fit to mob its
Next owner for their double-damn'd post-obits.

'Tis sweet to win, no matter how, one's laurels,
By blood or ink; 't is sweet to put an end
To strife; 't is sometimes sweet to have our quarrels,
Particularly with a tiresome friend:

Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in barrels ;

Dear is the helpless creature we defend
Against the world; and dear the schoolboy spot
We ne'er forget, though there we are forgot.

But sweeter still than this, than these, than all,
Is first and passionate love it stands alone,

Like Adam's recollection of his fall;

The tree of knowledge has been pluck'd — all 's known And life yields nothing further to recall

Worthy of this ambrosial sin, so shown,

No doubt in fable, as the unforgiven

Fire which Prometheus filch'd for us from heaven.

DONNA JULIA'S LETTER.1

"They tell me 't is decided; you depart:

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'T is wise 't is well, but not the less a pain ; I have no further claim on your young heart, Mine is the victim, and would be again:

To love too much has been the only art

I used; I write in haste, and if a stain

Be on this sheet, 't is not what it appears;

My eyeballs burn and throb, but have no tears.

I loved, I love you; for this love have lost

State, station, heaven, mankind's, my own esteem;

And yet cannot regret what it hath cost,

So dear is still the memory of that dream;

1 From "Don Juan," Canto I.